Golden Age, January 13, 1926
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ST PETER’S KEYS
NEV
VORLO
BEGINNING
DIGEST OF THE
WORLD’S NEWS
THE SUCCESSORS
OF THE ARK
THE STRINGS
OF THE VIOLIN
S& a.copy '$ 100...a Sear
Canada and_BreignlCpiintries $ 150
VoL VII Bi-Weekly No. 165
January 13, 1926
OLD j WORLD ' DYING
a Joarjtal of faet Mope anivcourag®
Contents of the Golden Age
Labor and Economics
IkffiSST e* the World’s News .............. 239
Best Wage Conditions Ever Known ........... 236
Getting Their Help for Nothing ............. 239
Concrete Houses in a Day ....... ........ 239
Social and Educational
The First Baby Carriage Garage ........... 238
American People Too Athletic .............. 233
War Two Million Chilobsn Fait. , .......... 240
Ck.im» Training bt Bachbloks .............. 2’li
Bmbkm Training of Chilbben Axhud ......... .• 247
Finance—Commerce—Transportation
The SuccEssaas or m Ask . ...........' . « » 227
Political—Domestic and Foreign
Army All Beady to Fight Mobs ............. 238 । The White Way of the Aviators .............. 239 .American Cash Impresses Rome ............. 240
Egypt Becoming a New Country .............. 243
| . Results of the Damascus Slaughter ...
Paos and Cons about Western Canada ......
Scotland Turning to Socialism .............. 245
Agriculture and Husbandry
©maha the Premier Butter City ............ 2?7
Jewish Farmers Want Express Service ......
Faaicioua Dogs in Southern California ........... 244
! Double Bloomin* of Choke-Cherbies .......... .
' Home and Health
A Sutebxob Dma-BwA-raiNe Method ....
| Several Wk«m Wheat Recjees
. Religion and Philosophy
I This Sthnos o» the Violin .......... .... 247
• ■ Catholic Missions w China .........
I ' St. Petek’s Keys .......... ........ .. 250
■ - Tm-Masts® (Poem) . .
Studies in-“Tm Harb «sf Gob” . .. ......
Fsbllshcd every other Wednesday at IS Coneord Street, Brooklyn, N. T„ TL S. A., 6y WOODWORTH, HUDGINGS & MARTIN
Copartner* «nd Proprietor* Sddreat: it Cmeard Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., V.lki, CLAYTON J. WOODWORTH . . . Editor ROBERT J. MARTIN . BuslBSSB Huim WM. IT. HUDGINGS . . See’y sad Trent.
&Cnmi A Carx—?l.eo a Tea* Maka Rsmittaxcb* to THE QOLDBX A9B ,«N Grrsna: Eritfch ..... Rd CBavea Tesrac®, Laneeeter Gat®, London W. 3 Canadian.....«... 38-40 Irwin Avenue. Toronto, Ontario
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(Ac Golden Age
Volume VU
Brooklyn, N.Y., Wednesday, January 13,1928
Number Ml
The Successors of the Ark
THE evolutionists, in their desire to disown or discredit the Creator and thus to shine at His expense, never have much to say about the ark of the Deluge; and it is well for them that they do not, because the ark as constructed by Noah makes their claims of superior intelligence look very foolish.
Figured on the basis of 25 inches to the cubit the a.rk was 625 feet long, 104 feet wide and 62y2 feet deep. Its dimensions do not differ materially from those of a representative large vessel of today. E. H. Bigg, naval architect of the New York Shipbuilding Corp., declares that the ideal dimensions of a large and speedy vessel should be 585 feet long (only forty feet shorter than the ark) and 70 feet wide. The ark was not built for speed but for stability and comfort; hence its greater width. Moreover, it is significant that the newest boats show a general tendency to increase the width of the beam to approximate more nearly the ark’s proportions, The fishing boats on stormy Lake Erie are modeled after the proportions of the ark. They are able to go out and return when all other vessels have to be kept in port. One fishing company has six vessels of this type in use.
Some three thousand years ago the Hebrews had vessels of considerable size, used in transporting timbers for the temple. The Phoenicians, the first masters of the sea, •were connected with the Hebrews in their maritime enterprise and retained their prestige for hundreds of years. It is now more than twenty-five hundred years since they circumnavigated Africa. In the Metropolitan Museum of Arts are to be found ship models made for an Egyptian ruler who lived in the days of Solomon.
Carthage, Rome, Venice and Genoa each had their day as the shipmasters of the world. Genoa was the first to make vessels exclusively for merchant service. Norway, Holland, Britain and the United States have all been famed for their navigators.
Paddle wheels, operated by hand or by ox power, were used by Rome before the time of Christ. The first steam vessel to erose the Atlantic was the “Savannah”, built at New York, which made the trip from Savannah to Liverpool in the spring of 1819. The vessel was twenty-seven days enroute, and only a littl® over three days of the time under steam.
American Clippers and Schooners THE first American schooner was built at -*■ Gloucester, Mass., in 1745, and was so named because of the way in which she “schooned” or skipped over the waters as she descended from the ways when launched. These vessels soon became familiar sights in every part of the world. They were built with a square stern, fitted with two masts bearing a sloop sail on each, and a bowsprit with jib.
The first half of the nineteenth century saw the sailing vessels rise to the heights of their glory. The swiftest of these vessels were under the American flag. In 1854 the “Lightning”, under the U. S. flag, in five consecutive days made runs of 332 miles, 348, 300, 311 and 329. Her best day’s run on the trip was 412 miles. In the same year the “James Bains”, also under the U. S. flag, on a passage from Liverpool to Melbourne, made a day’s rim of 420 miles. These mileages are equal to those of steam vessels of the present day. In the year 1851 the “Flying Cloud”, on a trip from New York to San Francisco, around Cape Horn, averaged 227 miles per day for twenty-six days. The average speed of the slower passenger ships today is about 360 miles per day. In ten years after the first clipper ship was built the size of 2,400 tons was reached.
The foregoing were wooden vessels; and
drives to Betpenifon by the emergencies of the
World War an attempt was made to revive the glories of a day that is past by constructing a huge number of wooden ships. Accordingly America built 226 of these ships at a total cost of $300,000,000; but the day of the ship carpenter was past and, although the ordinary house carpenters that were pressed into the work did the best they could, the results were unsatisfactory. The outcome was that the government sold the entire 226 ships for $750,000, or one-fourth of one percent of their cost.
Not only did the government lose 99 % percent of their money on the vessels which were completed, but they had to pay $5,000 per hull for the removal of each wooden hull that was on the ways when the armistice was declared. The concern that bought the hulls sold them as they lay t® the owners of the yards, and hence was paid by both parties to the transaction.
Steel the Ideal Material far Ships
IN THE latter part of the nineteenth century wood began to go out of use as shipbuilding material, it having been found that an iron ship is lighter than a wooden one of the same size and that the iron has the advantage of being easily bent or cast into any required shape.
Steel is a still better material for ship construction than iron, and by 1890 had quite displaced the latter. Shipbuilding is the queen of the steel industry. In the one hull there is combined the framework of a sky scraper and a great hotel, while at the same time the whole exterior is sheathed in the same material; and a gigantic steel constructed power-plant drives the whole structure forward through the seas.
A striking example of the merits of steel construction was the salvage of the “Liberty Glow” during the World War. The ship struck a mine and broke in two, both parts floating ashore one and a quarter miles apart. The greater part of the cargo was salvaged; and after a few weeks the two parts of the vessel were drydocked and put together.
In the desperate days of the war an attempt was made to produce concrete boats, and seven ocean-going boats were made of that material; but they are now all out of service. Concrete is lacking in tensile strength, and cracks or ©rumbles easily. Blows that-come from heavy seas have little or no effect o» steel or wooden vessels, as the material will give ; but even the docking of concrete vessels required extreme care, as they were so easily broken. ;
The Smaller Ships Safer ’
TT IS probable that the generation which is -*■ now passing has seen the largest ships that will ever be built. Experience has shown that the largest vessels are not the safest. Indeed, the strength of a vessel’s hull decreases as its size increases. Moreover, the large vessels are unwieldy to handle, especially in getting in and out of harbors.
The two largest vessels afloat are the "Majestic” and the “Leviathan”, both designed and built in Germany, as was also the “Berengaria”, the third largest. The vessels are supposed to be sister ships, but the "Majestic” is actually six feet longer than the "Leviathan", which is an even 950 feet long. The breadth is 100 feet, the depth 102 feet, the draft 38 feet, the number of decks 9, the deck area 7% acres, the height of main deck above the water 75 feet, the passenger capacity 4100, the crew 1000, the speed 25 knots, the number of boilers 48, the horsepower 100,000 and the tonnage 56,000. The interior space of each of these vessels is equal to 400 eight-room houses. The famous “Great Eastern”, which made its maiden trip from Liverpool to New York in 1858, and was at on® time the most talked-of boat in the world, was 680 feet long, with a breadth of hull of 83 feet.
During the war the “Leviathan” was used to transport troops. After the war it was determined to recondition her and make her over into a first-class passenger ship. The Boston navy yard bid less than $6,000,000 for making the desired changes, but the contract was awarded to a private yard at a cost of over $9,000,000. More than twenty-five miles of copper tubing were used in the reconditioning, 250,000 pounds of it for the heater coils in the staterooms.
There is no more talk now of building additional Majesties, Leviathans, Berengarias, Aqui-tanias or Mauretanias. These great vessels do not pay, because of the enormous expense of operation and the impossibility of keeping the passenger list filled in the winter time. Henca the resort to winter cruises, to provide work foe them.
The Speed Limit About Reached
THE speed limit for ocean travel seems to have been about reached. The “Leviathan” and the “Mauretania” have held the record be, tween them for many years. The present record i Is by the “Mauretania” in 5 days 1 hour and 59 minutes from New York to Cherbourg.
■■ Every increase in speed of an ocean-going vessel involves a great increase in expense of operation. For every mile of increased speed
’ per hour there is a greatly increased fuel consumption. It is claimed that the new airplanecarrier of the navy will be able to make between thirty-three and thirty-four knots an hour, but a passenger boat of that speed would be so unprofitable as to be impossible.
The fastest boats of all are those designed by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone. As the speed of these boats increases, the hull is lifted out of the water by a system of planes which are not a part of the hull. At the top the planes are largest, the smallest being at the bottom. Boats built on this system have made speeds of seventy-seven miles an hour, or upwards. They are used only for sport
Great Changes Under Way
THE public is hardly aware of the fact that gas engines are now being installed in the majority of the new ships built, and that the smokestacks are carried only as ornaments, if they can be called such. Some ships are already appearing without them; and they are bound to go. In motor ships there are no furnaces, no boilers, no stokers, no trimmers; and the oil can be bunkered in spaces that would otherwise be wasted. This makes a great difference in the cargo capacity of the ship.
An equally drastic change is under wav in the domain of sailing vessels. As has pre iously been mentioned in these columns, Anton Flett-ner, Director of the Institute of Aero and Hydrodynamics at Amsterdam, has made use of his technical knowledge of the effect of wind currents on moving bodies, so as to convert the masts of old ships into towers into which the wind sweeps and propels the ship. These sailless sailing vessels are said to make even more complete use of the wind than the ordinary sailbig ship, and require only a fifth of the crew.
Another maritime improvement is the marvelous steering device foown among saflqrB as the "Metal Mike”. This gyropilot, once the head of the ship is set in a given direction by an an* rangement of compasses and gyroscopes, actual* ly steers the vessel better than a helmsman himself. The invention records the exact course followed by the ship.
Then there is the German stabilizing device which has proven so successful in the “Alberti Ballin”. These U-shaped tanks largely counteract the rolling of the vessel, and in connection with what are called the Foerster bulges have practically ended seasickness on the vessels thus fitted. The “Deutschland" is one of these.
There is also the submarine signal apparatus attached to each side of the ship below the water line, which enables the captain in a dense fog to tell of the proximity of another vessel, or even of an iceberg. Sound travels through the water more than four times as fast as it travels through the air. This device was used in the World War to locate submarines.
And finally there is the discovery that a six-bladed fan, fixed firmly to the rudder post behind a revolving propeller prevents the swirl of water, and makes it more like a solid block against which the propeller that revolves is more active. With the use of this device a sixth of the fuel can be saved and the ship driven ten percent faster.
It might be said that there is a general return to the old custom of pouring oil on troubled waters in the case of very heavy storms. It is a fact that the use of heavy vegetable or mineral oil has a remarkable effect in smoothing troubled seas and preventing them from breaking on board.
Improvements for Passengers
THE United States has ceased to be an immigrant receiving country. With this change in governmental policy has come a change in the design and operation of steamships. Once they were largely operated because of the income derived from steerage passengers. Now it is proposed to do away with all class distinctions, as on railroads and in hotels throughout America, and to let all passengers have the run of the ship. This is the only sen« sible way to do, and it is the custom on Amec* ican lines.
, With the passing of immigration there is a
Sdetermfned -.effort' on the part ©f stowaways to find their way into the country. Many do so, but many others are detected and sent back home. A police dog found twenty stowaways on one Austrian boat in the run between Trieste and Lisbon.
There lias been a softening by the United States of the severe restrictions formerly imposed upon third-class passengers. Only two years ago third-class passengers from Liverpool for New York were first examined on the dock at Liverpool. As they walked aboard their hail* was examined for vermin; on the first day out all women and children were compelled to bathe; every night at eight o’clock all women, married or unmarried, were ordered off the decks; when half way across and again on arrival at New York there were medical inspections in which women were forced to take down their hair and loosen their clothing, while the men had to strip stark naked. Persons arriving in the United States by third-class now are said to have the same courteous treatment that fig extended to Americans when they go aboard.
Screw Sillions Beneath the Waves
EFORE the World War it was estimated that ships and treasures of the value of jeven billions of dollars were strewn beneath the ©eeaii’s waves, a large part of them recoverable. 'With the end of the World War the amount was so stupendous that one division of the British Navy brought into port five hundred ships that had become casualties.
Among the treasures recovered by divers were five million dollars in gold from the White Star dominion liner “Laurentic”, which was sunk in 1917 off Fastnet light. The development of salvaging apparatus has been so rapid since the,war that it has even been proposed to try to raise the “Lusitania”; but it is unlikely that this will be done, on. account of. the enormous expense attached to the venture.
During the war the neutral country that suffered the heaviest losses was Norway. During the years of submarine warfare there were 829 Norwegian vessels sent to the bottom, with 1,162 Norwegian, sailors. Norway had no way to obtain redress for these great and terrible losses.
When the war was over and it became apparent that there were mor® ships in the world Shan could be operated at » grofit, there were at one time about a dozen mysterious disappearances of vessels. It was conjectured that some of these hit floating mines, which may be true; and in some other cases the owners probably put mines into them before they left port, so as to collect the insurance. At least that is the opinion of friends who are familiar with maritime matters.
Occasionally there have been real mysteries on the sea, as in the case of the “Marie Celeste”, found off the Azores in 1872, three months after leaving Europe, with all sails set, undamaged, in calm weather, and not a soul aboard. The table was set for dinner; there was still hot coffee in the pot; the captain’s wife had an unfinished waist in the sewing machine; the toys of the captain’s son were on the floor; in the forecastle was a game of playing cards distributed as though left but a moment before. What became of the captain, his family and the crew of ten men is unknown. Six years later the ship disappeared again, with its new crew; and nothing was ever heard from it.
Among sunken vessels which it is hoped to sometime recover is the floating palace of the Emperor Tiberius, which now lies at the bottom of Lake Nemi, seventeen miles from Rome, ft is known that the treasures on this vessel are worth millions of dollars. The plan is to drain the lake and recover the vessel itself along with its precious cargo.
The Dangers of the Sea
THE true deep-water sailor does not feel that A anything that can happen to him on land is a hardship. Nothing is too strange to happen at sea. Some two hundred vessels per year are destroyed by fire, and it is hard to think of anything worse than being out in a stormy sea on a ship that is. afire. It all sounds very well to talk or think about taking to the boats, but there ar® many cases where it is impossible to launch them. Most of these fires are due to spontaneous combustion in the coal bunkers.
In the northern seas many a, good ship has gone down because of icebergs, such as sent the “Titanic” to the bottom. In the southern seasB around Cape Horn, the waves are of such prodigious height that nothing in norther®, waters can be compared to them.-
Last year the four-masted iron full-rigged ■ ship "Garthwxay”, from Ghwgemouth, Scotland^ to Iquique, Chile, was compelled to turn back from Cape Horn; and in order to get to Chile had to sail around the world, to the south of Africa and Australia. On the one-way trip, which lasted 519 days, the ship was dismasted twice and had three captains; and when she finally reached Iquique, after a 21,000 mile voyage, the only members of her original crew still on the vessel were the steward, the carpenter, and nine cadets.
On a steamship the firemen are in constant danger from burning oil flying out on them if the vessel is an oil burner, or from the hot coals if the ship is a coal burner. No matter how rough the weather they must keep working, and constantly face the hot slice bars. Sailors on deck are frequently washed overboard or fall from aloft to the deck. The life of Boyd O’Neal, engineer on the steamship “New England”, was saved only because his shipmates sewed seventeen wounds in his abdomen with sail twine and heavy needles and then wrapped his body tightly with adhesive tape. He was injured by the bursting of a steam pipe.
The old-time ship’s rigger had one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. It was his duty to go aloft, in rigging known to be weak and defective, remove the damaged parts and replace them with sound material. He was a combined sailor, painter, carpenter, rope expert and trapeze performer; and if he made an error of judgment he often paid for it with his life.
The Perils Near Shore
NEAR the path of greatest ocean travel, at the entrance of the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel, lie the remains of what was once the island of Domea. This island has been swallowed up by the sea, and the place where it stood is a great bed of quicksand commonly called the Goodwin Sands. So dangerous are these sands that in a single night as many as thirteen large ships have been caught in them and swallowed up.
On account of the quicksands it has been found impossible to delimit the area, but the British government maintains four lightships on the outer edges of the sands area. These are kept in touch with each other and with the lifesaving stations by wireless. But in spite of all efforts many, many thousands of vessels have been swallowed up in these sands.
On the Pacific coast there Is an uncanny drift of the surface waters toward the mainland that has caused the loss of a hundred vessels in the last twenty years. The west coast of America is gradually sinking, even as the east coast is rising. In foggy or bad weather a ship may gradually drift nearer and nearer the land until it runs aground, when it is supposed that it is still safe out at sea.
New York City has one of the grandest harbors in the world, and yet it takes longer to train to be a Sandy Hook pilot than it does to be a physician or a lawyer. The apprentice period is seven years; and then come four years more of progressive rank for vessels of 18-foot draft, then 24-foot and then 28-foot. The pilot becomes so familiar with the soundings that in any kind of weather, day or night, he can see with his mind’s eye the topographical map of the harbor’s bottom, with all its hillocks, swales, cliffs and jutting rocks, and know just where to steer hig course.
The Destructive Teredo
EVERYTHING in nature has its enemies, bent upon its destruction. It seems strange that this should be true of an inanimate tiling like the shipping business, but nothing less can be claimed for the Teredo, or ship-worm, which has been one of the greatest foes of mariners in all ages.
The Teredo, which is related to the clam or mussel family, enters into the wood of a ship or dock through a hole no larger than a pin. Having once entered, its presence can be detected only by cutting the timber. It grows and grows on sewage and such other choice morsels as are to be found about the docks of great cities. It multiplies like the multiplication table, and in some waters attains a diameter of an inch and a length of as much as four feet. It eats tho whole interior out of timber, and often the only warning is the collapse of the timber.
Various methods have been taken to circumvent the Teredo. The Phoenicians coated their vessels with pitch, and the Norsemen charred theirs. The modern ship-builder sheathes the vessel with copper. The Hollanders protect their docks by driving them full of iron nails with huge heads. The modern method is to boil the dock timber in creosote until it absorbs twelve or fourteen pounds per cubic foot But after a few years the creosote leaches out, and the Teredo enjoys his feast as much as ever. Piles which are wholly unprotected sometimes last but a few months.
The Rule of the Sea
rOHE rule of the sea is that the saving of hu-•*- man life is the first consideration. When the “Volturno” burned in midocean in 1913, ten vessels raced to her assistance from every point of the compass; and although the seas were angry and the wind was blowing a gale they managed to save 521 of the 657 persons that were aboard. On that occasion the captain of the “Volturno” stuck to his post and faced the intense heat of the burning vessel until, when his turn came to be rescued, he was no longer able to see. The Lascar firemen came up from the boiler room because it was impossible for human beings to stand the heat, so they said; but the British sailors went down in their stead and stayed to the end. Of such stuff ar© the British made.
The pathos of it is that sometimes every possible effort is made to reach a sinking ship, but time and the seas make all efforts vain. When the "Titanic” went down, aid was coming to her from every point within a circle of hundreds of miles; but none of the vessels arrived in time. When the Japanese steamer “Raifuku Maru” went down in the same waters last spring both the “Tuscania” and the “Homeric” were rushing toward her, and were near enough to see the boat go down and the crew drown; but they bad not the time to do anything. The “Raifuku Maru” was a strictly modern ship, with electric lights and wireless. The last word from the sinking vessel was the quaint radio message in broken English, “N ow very danger.” In a few minutes all was over. Thirty-eight men sank with the ship. ■
Safety Depends on Personnel
THE safety of all the persons on a vessel depends upon the kind of men who have the vessel in hand. If the men are well trained in their duties, and if all speak the same tongue, the task of keeping afloat or of knowing what to do in an emergency is much simplified. When the British steamer “Egypt” was rammed off the coast of France, she had a European crew of 86 and a non-European crew of 208. It was twenty minutes before the vessel sank; and in that time, if all the crew had been Europeans and properly drilled, not a Mie need have been lost.
In order to keep expenses of operation down it is the custom of ship owners to employ a considerable number of Asiatics. This is even true of American vessels; and when these Asiatics are from the Philippines and are American citizens there is no legal way of barring their employment.
As the British and the American people object to crews which have many Asiatics or Africans, so the Asiatics themselves, on boats in their own waters, want only Asiatics, from the captain down. Chinese sailors a few years ago won a strike against the then prevailing system of hiring mixed crews through a laborcontracting agency which charged a commission of about one-third the wages made on the job.
American ships carrying U. S. mail are required by law to be manned by at least forty-five percent American citizens; sixty-five percent of the deck crew must be men with at least three years’ experience on deck; seventy-five percent of the crew in each department of the ship must be able to© understand the language of the officers.
Under the British Navigation Act no person may be engaged as a deck or engineer officer in any British ship who is not a British subject and fully conversant with the English language; nor may any person be engaged as a seaman who does not possess a working knowledge of the English language sufficient for him to understand any orders that may be given to him in the performance of his duty. Boarding-house labor agents are forbidden to hire seamen for duty on either British or American vessels.
Wages and Working Conditions
IT IS not so long ago .since sailors were virtually prisoners on board the vessels on which they sailed, but conditions are gradually improving. The Sailors’ Unions have succeeded in bringing about better wages for themselves, shorter hours, better food, larger quarters, proper treatment, right to quit vessels in port, freedom from attachment of wages and clothing, and many other desiderata.
For several reasons, including the higher rates of wages paid to seamen, vessels operating under the United States flag have a hard time to make a profit. But for some strange reason, although many believe it would be the only way for America to maintain a merchant marine, American labor has always opposed the payment of part of their wages by the government. They say that any form of subsidy is the granting of a special privilege to some men to fill their pockets at the expense of others, through the forms of law. They seem to overlook the fact that other governments do this right along.
On the maiden voyage of the “Aquitania” the Cunard Company permitted two hundred of their clerks to sail as stewards, but on the vessel’s return to Southampton the clerks were glad to get back to their desks. They found the hours long and the stories about large tips exaggerated. The United States Controller of the Treasury limits the tips of embassy attaches to $5 for cabin and dining-room stewards for the voyage.
Shipping Contact with Government
TN THE nature of things ocean-going vessels A come in contact with the governments wherever they go. When a shipmaster arrives with his cargo in the United States he may come in contact with as many as six departments of the federal government and ten governmental bureaus. It is hoped to correct this situation by having a new' department of the government, a Department of Marine, headed by a Secretary of Marine, which will have jurisdiction over everything of this nature.
One important branch of the Treasury Department is what is known as the United States Coast Guard, which is a combination of the United States Revenue Cutter Service and the United States Life-Saving Service. Its duties are to prevent smuggling, to lend aid to vessels in distress, to locate and destroy derelicts, to supply medical assistance to fishermen, and to maintain an international iee patrol in the North Atlantic.
One life-saver in the employ of the government is accredited with having saved over 500 lives during his several terms of service. Just now the Coast Guard is busy with the “Rum Fleet”. While the Coast Guard is required to relieve only such distress as occurs on navigable waters, yet it is the firm policy of the Guard never. to ignore a call of Buffering humanity anywhere. The U. S. Marine Hospitals maintain a wireless service which gives advice to vessels anywhere within reach as to how to treat cases reported to them.
From 1795 to 1830 inclusive, ninety percent of America’s overseas traffic was carried in America’s own ships. By the outbreak of the Civil War it had dropped t© sixty-six percent. The ivar finished the job, and from 1900 to 1914 the percentage carried was only one-tenth what it had been a hundred years before.
There have been many efforts to revive the United States merchant marine, but it does not revive. Government operation of vessels does not seem to be a success anywhere. The thing has been tried out faithfully by Canada, Australia and the United States; and the result in each case has been the same—-dismal failure.
U.S. Merchant Marine
OUR readers are aware that we never had bright hopes for the United States merchant marine. This is not because American ships and American sailors are not the equal of any in the world, but because Americans will not ship their goods in American ships, and both British and American public opinion do everything humanly possible to belittle and destroy the enterprise. It is true that the U. S. vessels were made during the peak of war inflation. Some of them were not made well. All of them cost more than they should. More of them were made than could be used. They depreciate rapidly.
Idle tonnage in the United States alone costs the taxpayers over $7,300,000 a year for upkeep. The effort on the part of the Shipping Board to maintain and operate 387 ships, which represent only one-third of the tonnage under its control, resulted in a loss during the last fiscal year of $36,739,000. The world’s idle ocean tonnage in 1925 was about half what it was in 1922. Only about one-third of American, exports and imports are now carried in United States vessels, but all British goods are carried in British ships and all French goods in French ships.
The Great Lakes are very proud of the part which they play in the carriage of goods. It is pointed out that the Great Lakes in 1914 had one-half of the entire steam tonnage of the country, and that if it were left to the railroads to transport all the goods which go by lake
steamers it would be physically impossible for Board had on its payroll four thousand pe*« them to manage the task. They do not have cars sons, at salaries totaling eight million dollars enough or tracks enough to care for the business.
Items About the Shipping Board ‘
WE DO not attempt to say why the operation of a merchant marine by the United States government is so unprofitable, or why both Canada and Australia in the same years had the same kind of record; but we give a few items which are of more or less interest to our readers:
Shortly before the war, when Mr. Morse was a convict at Atlanta prison, he bought from the government for $175,000 a shi;z built with public money. This ship he arranged to sell to a foreign country. She was sunk, and the United States Shipping Board awarded Mr. Morse $400,000 damages for the loss of his ship-—more than twice what he had paid the government for it a short time before. Reported by Universal Service in 1920.
The Shipping Board has been a rapidly changing body. No one seems to be able or to care to stay in it any length of time. It seems to have been taken for granted that nobody could make anything of the fleet. In Britain everything possible is done to help the merchant marine; in the United States exactly the reverse is true. Some have compared the whole Board to a turnstile, so rapidly have men passed into and out of its most important positions.
In 1920, when the public first began to know something of what had been done to them during the war, the magazine Reconstruction called attention to the $12 per day paid to common labor in the shipyards, with one and one-half to two and one-half hours pay for every hour of overtime.
For heating-tongs which cost sixty cents the contractors charged ninety cents plus their profit. For backing-out punches which cost ninety cents they charged $2.24 and added their profit. In one small yard they put 400 dummies on the payroll every week, and in one single week the number jumped up to 526. Ships built by this method cost $320 to $400 per ton to build as against $75 per ton in less patriotic times.
The patriots of the country rushed into the shipyards with such reckless resolve to participate in the tapioca that in the fall of 1920 the
i. a year, engaged in an attempt to straighten ouf -the tangle of building accounts of the Emar* gency Fleet Corporation.
The High Cost of Patriotism
THE patriots were not all engaged in building the ships. Some were engaged in operating them. On this point Philip Manson, president of the Pacific and Manson Steamship Company, said:
There was turned over to American shipping interest^-free of all costs to them, a fleet of over 1,500 vessel^ including some of the finest passenger ships afloat. Not only have American shipping interests had the free use of this fleet of ships which has cost the American people over four billions of dollars, but the shipping interests to which these ships were turned over for operation received in addition from the government hundreds of millions of dollars in cash to cover alleged losses in the operation of these ships, notwithstanding that during much of the period during which they have had these ships, high freight rates prevailed and large profits should easily have been earned.
Nevertheless, the high cost of building American ships and of keeping them in repair has been a fatal handicap. The initial cost of building in the United States is twenty-five to thirty-three percent higher than abroad. Also, the cost of repairing a vessel in the United States is proportionately higher, and on account of the existing law which imposes a tax of fifty percent on the cost of all repairs in foreign ports, the American shipowner cannot take advantage , of the lower costs abroad. Some of the war-time vessels were very inferior and the repair bills were heavy; but most of the vessels now in the service are the equal of any afloat.
In the year 1923 competition on the high seas was so keen that American privately-owned vessels were driven into the coastal trade. In that year Captain Dollar, an American shipowner, pointed out that England measures ships to the advantage of shipowners, while the United States does the reverse. He mentioned two sister ships, one registered under the British flag and the other American. The American vessel pays $500 more than its British ; sister every time it passes through our own Panama Canal. Early in 1923 the U. S. Shipping Board was losing four million dollars a month in the operation of its vessels. ?
History of the Past Two.Years
IN 1924 the Shipping Board sold the steamship “City of Los Angeles” for $100,000. This was after the Board had spent $4,677,001 on the vessel. The Los Angeles Steamship Company was-the only bidder. Apparently they did not lose much on their purchase; for the Board had already lost all there was to lose.
In the early part of 1924 the Board boasted that its gross profits on the first trip of the "Leviathan” were $379,000, but it forgot to mention that the invested capital was $20,000,000, and that the interest charges on this amount, together with depreciation, repairs, insurance, advertising and overhead expenses would eat the profit all up.
In 1924 American business men were urged to use United States vessels; but United States Senator Ransdell of Louisiana brought to light the fact that secret agreements exist between a score of American trunk lines and foreign steamship companies by which the roads agree to give these foreign ships free dock facilities, ■ell them coal at lower cost, than to Americans, and assist in securing reductions for these foreign companies in city, county and harbor taxes. At the very time that the patriotic railroad managers of the country were receiving funds from the United States Treasury they were utilizing their resources to prevent the government’s shipping program from becoming a success.
The North Atlantic Steamship Conference, representing the twenty-five principal lines plying between the two hemispheres, is one of the most powerful organizations in the world. This Conference fixes the rates for freight and passenger service between the two continents.
The Hog Island shipyard, which cost the government more than $66,000,000 and whose name is thoroughly descriptive of what was done to the American people daring the shipbuilding orgy, is said to be for sale. .The finish of the American Merchant Marine and the successful outcome of British propaganda to put American shippers again wholly in their power, is proba* bly not far off.
As to Shipping Elsewhere
GERMAN tonnage before the war was 5,038,’ 000. After the war it was only about 400,000 tons, mostly in small vessels; but by tho close of 1924 Germany bad 2,856,000 tons, and even in 1923 Hamburg had regained its old position as the greatest shipping center on the European continent. At that time the Hamburg-American line had-regained thirty percent of. its pre-war tonnage. Antwerp and Rotterdam each handle nearly as much tonnage as Hamburg.
The British shipyards are feeling more and more the great- strain of the situation created by the war. Work which was greatly needed in Britain has gone to Dutch and Belgian yards, with not much of it to go anywhere; for there; is little need for new ships and little money with which to build them. Only ten vessels of over 15,000 tons were launched during 1924. All of these were built in Great Britain and Ireland.
The world has now 338 steamers and motorships of 10,000 tons each and upwards. Of these, 198 fly the British flag. Britain continues to rule the sea. The following is a comparison of the tonnages of the principal maritime countries :
1.92-5
Difference
British Empire
81,304,000
20,294,000
1,210,000
United States
11,605,000
1,837,000
9,768,000
Japan
3.741,000
1,642,000
2,099,000
Francs
3,262,000
1,918,000
1,344,000
Germany
2,993,000
5,098,000
2,105,000
Italy .
3,894,000
1,428,000
1,466,000
N'orw.y '
1,555,000-
1,923,000
'632,000
Denmark
1,008,000
?68,000.
-.240,000
Prediction of Tides and Currents
THE New York Times contains a very interesting story of the tide-and-eurrent-predict-ing machine at Washington, which does the work of sixty trained computers in predicting for years ahead tides and currents in all the principal ports of the world. It takes about three hours to set the oranka and dials in position to make the calculations for & port, and about seven hours more to foretell the tidal variations of a single port for one year. This is the only machine of the kind in the world. More than half the ocean wrecks in the past have been due to inadequate information of the kind which the machine furai«he« with accuracy
Digest of the World’s News
[Radiocast, with other Items, from Watchtower WBBR on a wave length of 272.6 meters by the Editor.!
Best Wage Conditions Ever Known
THE National Industrial Conference Board declares in effect that present wage conditions in the United States are the best ever known because, due to the increased production, the average wages now will produce more in the way of comforts and enjoyment for the wage earner than at any previous time. Incidentally the report shows that although wage levels in the automobile industry are more than double what they were in 1914, yet the average price of automobiles is now twenty-nine percent lower than at that time.
Getting Their Help for Nothing
THE Industrial Commission of Oregon has discovered that some of the candy makers and proprietors of certain beauty parlors have been getting their help for nothing. The plan was to operate what were styled vocational colleges. Girls were taught candy making, but got nothing for the candy they made, and the same with beauty parlor work. But ie proprietors did not forget to take pay for the candy and the beauty parlor work; and in addition they actually charged the girls fees for the education imparted to them.
The First Baby Carriage Garage
THE first baby carriage garage has been opened in New York City. Every family in the big apartment house at Tenth Avenue and Twenty-Seventh street may now have its own private compartment in the garage where the family carriage may be kept; and as there are forty-three families in the house, some of them with twelve children apiece, the baby carriage is quite an important article of furniture.
Why It Costs to Live in New York
ONE of the reasons why it costs to live in New
York is because it costs as much to get potatoes from Jersey City to the consumer in New York as it does to get the potatoes from Michigan to Jersey City. Almost everything Bold in New York is carried across the Hudson on floats. Some days twenty percent of the cars remain in Jersey City because there is not room for them on the piers where they are to be unloaded, and the entrances to the piers are so crowded that sometimes a truckman has to remain in line six hours before he can get on the pier and get his load. As a matter of course, the consumer has to pay for all these delays and for the food that is spoiled by reason of them.
Mike Genna’s Police Payroll
TVTike Genna, Chicago gangster, was killed in a gun battle. He left behind him his payroll book from which it appeared that he had on his payroll at salaries from $10 up to $800 a month some 250 of Chicago’s police, state’s attorney employes, detectives and other Chicago residents upon whom the people of Chicago depend for the safety of their lives and property. Probably this partly accounts for Chicago’s murder-a-day record.
Elected a Dead Man to Office
IN NEW JERSEY a man who died nearly three weeks before election day was nevertheless elected to the assembly by almost seventy votes. He is not the only dead man slated for a high position. Jesus of Nazareth, though forever dead as a man, is God’s choice for the future ruler of the world, as its spiritual ruler, and is even now taking its affairs into his hands.
Army AU Ready to Fight Mobs
DISPATCHES from Washington state that the government’s chemical warfare service has published a book giving instructions how gas warfare may be effectively made against mobs, even when the mobs contain women and children. Gas devices have been perfected for the protection of lone policemen against gangs of men. The weapon in the latter case is a gas billy. The object of these inventions is to temporarily incapacitate rather than to kill.
A City Where Nobody Works .
IN THE state of Washington last year there were 40,000 accidents which resulted in an average of sixteen days of idleness to the work* er involved. This represents about 2,500 workers in the one state permanently idle; and taken collectively, this would represent a city of 10,« 000 to 12,000 persons in which not one of the inhabitants does a stroke of work during the year. Surely it would seem that this large percentage of accidents should be reduced.
No Increase in Stock Exchange Seats
NEW YORK has been having phenomenal
sales of stocks this past year. The sales have been so large and so frequent that the value of stock exchange seats has risen to nearly $150,000. An effort was made to increase the membership from 1100 to 1125 but was defeated on a vote of 648 to 268. Those who are in wish to remain in and to keep the outs permanently out.
New York State Building a Great Reservoir
NEW YORK state is building in the foothills of the Adirondacks a great reservoir which when completed will be as large as Lake George. It will cost nine million dollars. It requires the removing of eleven thousand acres of forests, twenty-four cemeteries, sixty-eight miles of highway, seven miles of railway, and an amusement park. The object of the reservoir is to prevent the frequent flooding of portions of Troy, Albany and other Hudson river points.
The Empire State
THE reason why New York is called the empire state is that it contains within itself all that would be necessary to make an empire. In the matter of canned goods it brings to the table corn, peas, tomatoes, pumpkins, beans, succotash, beets, oysters, peaches, berries, apples, rhubarb, pears, plums, milk and sauerkraut. In variety of canned products it excels, and the qualities are all that could be desired.
Where New York Exeels
NEW YORK CITY excels along many lines.
It produces sixty percent of all the clothing in the United States, sixty-seven percent of the millinery and seventy-five percent of the furs. Half of all the music of the country is printed here. Printing and publishing is one of the important industries of the city.
Omaha the Premier Butter City
IT COMES as a surprise to be told that more butter is made in Omaha than in any other city of the world. We would have supposed that that honor would be reserved for Elgin or Milwaukee, but Omaha claims the prize and ought to know. Just at present Nebraska is also aiming to occupy top position in the egg industry.
Last year the state produced 50,000,000 dozen ©1 eggs besides shipping 2,011 carloads of poaltfti to market.
Florida Building Many Hotels
TpLORIDA is caring for thousands of he* ■*■ Northern guests by the greatest era of hot®! building ever known in history. Out of 151 hotels built in the United States in the month ' of October seventy-six were built in Florid®. At that rate half of the new buildings going up in the United States are in Florida, and ih&t may not be far wide of th© mark.
Women Monopolize the Barbers :
AT FORT BENNING, Georgia, where five
hundred military officers are in training, it > seems that the women so fully monopolized the : barber shops that the officers-to-be could not ; get their, hair cut in military fashion until * rule had been adopted that women must get , their hair cut before 9.30 in the morning or take ‘ their chances along with the men.
140 Snakes in Two Hours
FROM Colorado comes the story of a woman ;
who, attacked by rattlesnakes, killed 140 of ; them in a two-hour battle and emerged victor in the conflict without being bitten even once. Photographs taken by ranchers who visited the scene verify the truth of the story. The snakes attacked the woman as she dismounted from her horse to open a gate. Her three-year-old child witnessed the battle from her place on the horse’s back.
Singular Explosion of a Meteor
THE Hysham, Montana, Echo, of October 22, 1925, reports that' on Saturday evening, October 17, about five o’clock, a meteor to the west of Hysham exploded, leaving behind it the word “Jew” plainly written in the sky. The Echo declares that hundreds of people witnessed tha strange sight and reported seeing the word. Attention is also being called to the falling from the sky of several meteors which seem to have been carefully made of charcoal iron, and indicate the possibility that seme other planet ig trying to communicate with us. The New York Times carries this latter story in the form of ft letter from an English subscriber.
Perth Amboy’s Sunday Law
PERTH AMBOY, N. J., still has on its statute books a law made in colonial days which forbids anybody in the city to go out walking on Sunday except on the way to and from church. But if you go to Perth Amboy on Sunday you find automobiles chasing up and down the streets as they do everywhere, and the usual number of stores, movie shows and other attractions in full blast. A recent check-up gave the police of Perth Amboy a total of several thousand violators of a law made in a day when it was positively dangerous to smile or whistle on Sunday. Now even the policemen smile.
Governor Pinchot on Prohibition
Govebnob Pinchot, of Pennsylvania, in an address in Chicago, made the statement that "of sixty-one permittees in the Philadelphia district, each authorized to withdraw over 1,000 gallons of especially denatured alcohol each month, some as much as 15,000 gallons monthly, and altogether to withdraw 2,671,000 gallons a year, fifty-three were cited from one to three times for violations of law during the last twenty-six months, but of the sixty-one only fifteen have as yet been put out of business".
American People Too Athletic
THE Journal of the American Medical Association declares that the American people are shortening their lives by going in too strenuously for athletics. From the colleges it has spread to the high schools and even to the girls’ schools. Tired business men who should rest wear themselves out by unusual exertions at golf or tennis. Motoring instead of a relaxation has become a marathon for speed and distance.
Doctor McEachern Lectures the Surgeons ..
AT THE session of the American College of T . .
Physicians and Surgeons in Philadelphia 18 110 answer.
recently Doctor McEachern declared that "there are 30,000 untrained men in America who resort to the division of fees”, that they have operated on the dying, on the incurable and on emergency cases, so that the cases might be kept from leaving the hospital; that in some cases patients have been transported a hundred miles because surgeons refused to treat them unless the money was forthcoming, and that in some instances patients have Been turned away after being bled of every penny they possessed. Doctor McEachern wants the surgeons to clean house, to refuse to split fees with anybody and, most of all, to refuse to perform operations that are unnecea-sary or useless.
Footprints Seven Feet Long
THE San Francisco Examiner reports that in the southern part of Alameda County, California, three footprints have, been discovered each seven feet in length, outlining an enormous human foot in exact detail, impressed in what is now solid rock. The Examiner reminds its readers of the Indian traditions of beings who once lived in California and who were as tall as the trees. In our judgment these great beings were the giants that lived before the Flood, the combined offspring of the angels that kept not their first estate and the daughters of men; and we have not the least doubt that they existed, as frequent reports in our columns have shown.
Dog Turns in a Fire Alarm
A N INTELLIGENT Airedale dog, caught in a cottage that was ablaze, at Garden City, L. I., leaped on a table, upset the telephone and barked into it until the attention of the operator was attracted, and an investigation disclosed that the house was afire. The dog perished in the flames.
Birds Instinctively Locate Bermuda
A HUNDRED birds, blown 500 miles out to sea, landed in the rigging of a Greek vessel bound toward New York and remained there two days; but while still far out of sight of land, and at the point most favorable for their journey, they took wing and left for Bermuda. The question is, How did they know where the Bermudas were? The answer which merely says,
Our Sun a Variable Star
OWING to the fact that our sun is a variable star, and that for some unknown reason the last three years have been a period of low activity with decreased radiation, the impression grows among meteorologists and botanists that the next year or two will be unusually cold. It is even predicted by some that 1926 will ba a year without a summer. Let us hope not.
Doctor Cadman Has Some Truth
GOLDEN AGE
. A New Railway Record
IN ANSWER to a question, “If the doctrine A NEW record for high speed on railways
of the immortality of the soul is a Bible was made during the 1925 annual conven-
doctrine, why is it not clearly and positively stated somewhere in the Bible?” Doctor Cadman, president of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, stated truthfully, “It is not a Bible doctrine.” Those who believe in the eternal torture theory would do well to think about this for a while. This ancient heresy has not a leg to stand upon and is gradually dying.
Dean Inge Goes Back on Hell Fire
Dean Inge of the Church of England has gon® back on Hell Fire. He now comeg forward and gravely asserts what Bible Students have been proclaiming for fifty years; namely, that the fires of hell cannot be taken literally. He adds that not everybody will go to heaven. The Dean is making progress. ‘ In another generation he will be ready for the truth; namely, that the dead are dead and that their hope for the future lies wholly in a resurrection from the dead, the very hope that Christ’s death on Calvary provided for them.
Silly Ideas About the Soul
AN ILLINOIS professor is accredited with the observation that girl babies show signs of possessing a soul at eighteen months, while boy babies have none until they are thirty months. So thoroughly is this soul foolishness instilled into humanity that even a well-read professor does not know that the word soul simply means being, existence; and that every creature in existence, from an angle worm to an elephant, is a soul, not has a soul but is a soul; and that ©very baby is included in the list from the time it draws its firri independent breath. ' '
Ruins &f Capernaum Found
RECENT dispatches from Palestine seem to indicate that the ancient city of Caper-mum has been found. A synagogue in fine condition has been uncovered, possibly the very ©ne in which Christ preached. It is believed that Capernaum was destroyed by an earthquake. It will be remembered that Christ declared that Capernaum would be cast down to h®U; 1 ®,, to the death state, be destroyed. tion of the International Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen at Detroit. Th® official time of the delegates’ train was 198 minutes for the 224 miles from Windsor, Ont., to Victoria Park, Niagara Falls, an average speed of 67.88 miles an hour.
A Record Run in Canada
rpiIE new oil electric cars of the Canadian
National Railway have made the 2937 mile run from Montreal to Vancouver in a little less than sixty-seven hours. For running the same distance, from Utica, New York, to Los Angeles, the time of the fastest American trains is about eighty-eight hours. '
Fast Time from Detroit to Mineola •
AN AMERICAN aviator recently made the
trip from Detroit to Mineola, L. I., 550 miles, in three hours and twenty minutes. Airplane speeds continue to increase. Over 300 miles have been made in one hour. The world is becoming smaller. The oceans are becoming ponds. It will not be many years, at present rates of increased speed, before one can reach Europe in less than a day.
The White Way of the Aviators
THE white way of the postal aviators is about ten miles wide across the United States.
In the center of the way, every ten or fifteen miles, revolving searchlights throw their brilliant rays of light far out, so that to the- aviators speeding with their cargo of mail through the darkness they must look like gigantic pinwheels/ On the edges c-f the lighted way ar® beacon lights stationed on hill tops, the object of these being to show the edges of the road. . The landing fields are near the revolving searchlights. Along the edges ©f these fields are small lights pointed upwards, with red lights in the corners.
Concrete Houses in a Dap ’’
AT PHILIPSBURG, N. J., they have form# aB ready; and if you have the money, which is somewhere around $10,000, you can get a very beautiful solid concrete hew® poured for yew |n one day. Of course it will take a little longer than that to dry it out and decorate it inside and out; but the sample house is a beauty, one yhich anybody would be glad to have. The interior finish is of the new and valuable sugarcane composition and makes a beautiful appearance.
A Tree Seven Thousand Years Old
AS FAR as known there is but one object now living on the face of the earth that was living on the day when the Lord breathed into 'Adam’s nostrils the breath of life. That thing is the giant redwood recently discovered in a secluded valley near Requa, California. The tree in question has a circumference of 125 feet 7 inches, is 329 feet high, and is estimated to be nearly 7000 years old. An automobile highway will be made to bring the tree within reach of tourists.
'■ Sleepy Hollow Up to Date
THE New York Tinies has a story of a town in Switzerland where the school teacher fell asleep at his desk and the pupils went home. <A school inspector came in, sat down to wait for the teacher to wake, and fell asleep himself, jjlhe teacher awoke and stepped softly out of j the room. The janitor came and locked the in-t Bpector in, who escaped an hour later only by making a racket that disturbed the whole village.
Earth Bombarded by Strange Rays
Db. R. A. Millikan of the California Institute of Technology has interested scientific men by announcing the discovery at ten miles above the earth of a new series of waves, shorter than •X-rays, which bombard the earth constantly on all sides. They come from outer space. They were discovered by means of scientific balloons sent up for the purpose.
Measuring the Speed of Light
AT THE same time that Dr. Millikan interested his fellow scientists by announcement of the discovery of rays stronger than the X-rays and a thousand times greater in frequency, able to pass through six feet of solid lead, which gome to our earth from the outside, and which jrould kill us all if there were enough of them, another scientist, over a carefully measured course of twenty-two miles between mountain tops in California, has measured the speed of light with greater accuracy than heretofore, by means of an arc light and an eight-sided mirror revolving at the rate of 530 revolutions per second.
New Foods Are Coming
THE Farm Journal tells us of the many new and wonderful fruits of which we are soon to partake. It will not be long before we shall have zarda melons, ilamas, marangs, mangosteens, bamboo roots, paradisiaca plaintains, itzamnus, roselle jelly, palm tree potatoes, a new kind of peach from Africa that grows in bunches, jujube dates and many other absolutely new foods. Uncle Sam’s experts are scouring the world, looking for new things for American farmers to grow; and the climate here is so varied that anything that will grow anywhere will grow somewhere here.
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