Golden Age, May 5, 1926
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Contents of the Golden Age .........80^58-..... ■ —
. Labor and Economics
Reductions in Church of England Salaries .......... 483
Rearrangement of Agricultural Italy
The Makwar Dam Opened . .
(The Hopes of the Telegbapheb
Social and Educational Races of the British Empire
Reforms in Turkey ................
From Oue Canadian Cobbespondent
The Grand Canyon of the Colorado
Radio Pbogbams
Finance—Commerce—Transportation
British Profits on Rubber ................
The Aldan Gold Fields .
Canadian Gold Mines and Fisheries ............ 493
Political—Domestic and Foreign Civilization on the Precipice ....
Peace ob Was—Which?
Th® Cost of War ................... 489
An Attempt at a Reform in China ....
Science and Invention Train Telephony a Success
Latest Explorations of the Milky Way and Spiral Nebulae . . . 495
Camera, Photometer and Spectroscope ........... 495
Spiral Universes ........
The Astronomer’s Yardstick ............... 497
Home and Health Medicine Indicted
Health of the American Sailor .......
Breathe Freely and Eat Less
A Cube fob Catarrh and Hay Fever
A Fundamental in Health
Religion and Philosophy The Rusty Church Door ................
Commendatory of the Bible Students
Comfort fob the Jews ...
Studies in “the Habp of God”
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Golden Age
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Volume VII Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, May 5, 1926 Number 171
In Other Climes
Lost in Brazil for Over Fifty Years
A POLISH naturalist has discovered in Bra
zil, in an unfrequented valley, a Polish settlement that has been lost since the year 1873. The original settlers have all died off; but their children and grandchildren, to the number of 1,000, were found healthy and happy, and still talking their own language. Their existence was unknown to the Brazilian government or people.
Races of the British Empire
OF THE grand total of the population of tha
British Empire, which is calculated to be 463,000,000, only one person in seven is of European stock. The remaining 397,000,000 are governed only by the superior mental, moral or physical force of their white rulers. This superiority is disappearing and the powers of the colored races are expanding.
Items of Life in Britain
Britain’s Profits on Rubber
LAST year as many railway journeys were made in Britain as there are people in the whole world, yet there was but one passenger killed in a train accident. Magistrates in Wales have revived the curfew, forbidding dancing after ten o’clock p. m., and on Sundays and Tuesdays. Somebody in Britain is getting crooked, because short weights and skimpy measures arc becoming so common that legislation against them is now necessary.
A School for Gipsy Children
IN SURREY County, England, there is a portable school for gipsy children. Whenever the gipsies move on the school moves with them. There were forty children in school on the first day it was in operation. At night there are classes for the almost equally ignorant grown-
ups. ' .
Reductions in Church of England Salaries
THE Liverpool Post and Mercury contains the surprising information that the Church of England advocates the reduction of the salaries of its archbishops and bishops from about $45,000 per year to about $15,000. But the surprise is lessened when the discovery is made that what is taken off from salaries is to be added to expenses of these dignitaries, and that the real object of the proposed change is merely to reduce the amount of income taxes which they will pay. .
BRITAIN’S profits on rubber at $1. a pound, and on tin at $1,435 a ton, which are now the ruling prices, are said to be sufficient to enable Britain to pay off her debt to America in four years. The employment situation in Britain is improving, but with fears as to what the coal situation will be in April when the subsidy expires.
The Americanization of Europe '
TN NOTHING has the Americanization of «*■ Europe shown itself more than in the increasing habit of European business men to give up their long and heavy midday meals and resort to the American glass of milk and crackers eaten at the desk, or the quick lunch counter,
France Absorbs Foreigners
HDHE American Commissioner at. the Paris -*■ headquarters of the International Chamber of Commerce estimates that more than one million foreign workmen have come to France and stayed there since the close of the war, taking the places in industry of the hosts slain in the war. Unemployment is still practically un-know’n in France.
The War Toll in France
rpERRIBLE as was the war toll in England, where one man in sixty-six was killed, it was more terrible in Germany, where one man in thirty-five was killed, and still more terrible in France, where one man in every twenty-eight was killed. In the latter country one-seventh of the agricultural male population was killed.
Tram Telephony A Success in Germany
rpKAIN telephony in Germany is a complete success. A call from Berlin or Hamburg to the train, or the reverse, costs from 94 cents to $1.30 for the first three minutes. he service is satisfactory and perfect in every way, and all important trains between Berlin and Hamburg are now fitted with the necessary equipment to render this service.
Italy's State Lottery -
WITH Denmark and some other countries
Italy shares the humiliation of having a state lottery. In other words, the state is a partner in and an eneourager of gambling in one of its grossest forms. Like all gambling machines, the lottery machine is fixed so that the proprietor never loses. In two days recently the Italian government made $5,000,000 from its lottery, nearly all taken from people that could ill afford the loss.
Rearrangement of Agricultural Italy
CREDIT must be given Mr. Mussolini for a new plan which has in it much of merit. He proposes to build new villages in the centers of the wheat-growing districts, so that farmers may live near their work and save the time and fatigue of going many miles to and from their work as they now do.
The Makwar Bam Opened
THE British Makwar dam across the Blue
Nile, which is intended to irrigate three million acres in the Sudan, has been formally opened. The dam is two miles long, 128 feet high at the deepest point, has 206 spillways, and is the largest enterprise of the kind in the world. The principal crop intended to be raised in the irrigated areas is cotton.
Reforms in Turkey
EFORM follows reform in Turkey so fast that it is hard to keep up with them. Recent changes are the adoption of the Roman alphabet, the abandonment of the old Turkish notion that work is degrading, and the abolition of wedding gifts by law. Marriage feasts which hitherto have lasted for a week are now limited to one day. The object is to encourage matrimony. Turkey has taken all power and every platform of social influence from the ecclesiastical class, which it recognizes as the most degenerate and least progressive part of its population.
The Aldan Gold Fields
WHAT are believed to be the richest gold fields in the world are now being exploited on the Aldan river, five hundred miles from the nearest station on the Trans-Siberian railway. By a decree of the Russian Soviet government none but Russians may work in these fields. On account of primitive methods of work, the earnings of the men are small, averaging only about $100 a month, The gold is in the form of dust,
Persia's First Census
PERSIA’S first, census brought to light a woman 146 years of age, living with her son 117 years of age. Persia is figuring on a complete railway system and is also negotiating for airplane service to and from Paris, across Germany and Russia.
The Way They Do in Afghanistan
THE New York Times reminds us that in Afghanistan if a man puts out the eye ofi another, one of his owm eyes is put out by a burning glass; if be causes a man to lose a tooth, one of his own teeth is filed down level to the gum; if caught in a theft, he loses his right hand; if caught in another, he loses his left foot; if caught again, death is the penalty. Highway robbery is punishable by death, or by amputation of hands and feet.
An Affectionate Horse in Scotland
IN SCOTLAND recently, at a pier on the Firth of Clyde, a vessel turned partly over in the water, imprisoning two horses in the hold. One of these was rescued and placed on the beach; but missing his companion he walked into the water and swam back to the ship, whinnying around it until finally the other horse was rescued and the two were placed on th© beach together.
Civilization on the Precipice By 'J. A. Robinson
THE word civilization, according to Webster, means, “reclamation from the savage state, or instruction in refinement; culture.” The word precipices signifies, “The edge of a deep descent.” Therefore, “Civilization on the Precipice” means that the order of society under which we now live, after boasting of its “evolution” from the barbaric state, has so declined as to be at the very tip of a steep descent which may mean its oblivion.
It stands like a drunken giant on the brink of a canyon. Our system of refinement, of cultural education producing such a civilization, has signally failed of its objective; hence it must have been based upon a false premise, or 'was faulty in its construction; and in either event it has been untrue in its teachings.
The question is, Is civilization on the precipice ? If so, what is the cause! And what will be the outcome? The answer may prove a silver lining to the otherwise dark and ominous cloud portending trouble. As civilization is still existent a prediction is necessary. Predictions are usually far from the truth, except when based upon solid facts. Therefore facts must be assembled to support the prediction here made.
That the present condition of civilization is precipitous, dark and uncertain, no one can well deny. In fact the human heart cries and groans for relief from the oppressiveness of the present order, the cries and groans varying in intensity in proportion to the immediate circumstances of the industrial slave. Hence the conclusion that distress, discontent and restlessness on the part of the great majority exist wholesale, is based upon facts revealed by investigation.
Investigations usually result in quashing. The facts revealed are usually hushed up, but not always. We hail the courage and honesty of those few in whose heart is a. chord of sympathetic feeling for their fellow men, and who refuse to remain silent in view of the atrocities practised in the name of civilization. All honor should be accorded to courage of this sort; for it provides us with necessary data warning us of impending doom, that we may make proper preparation for the safety of those under our responsibility. Therefore by dissecting the present order of things, as revealed by fearless and honest investigators, we may be able to determine the outcome. Let us view some of the
elements of modern civilization with which wa are surrounded. •
Labor
LABOR is that portion of the present order who do the world’s work. Even the moneyed system itself calls them the producers. Thus this class is clearly separated from the parasites who “toil not, neither do they spin”. For centuries the working element has borne the burden and heat of the day. Slavery and ignorance have been their lot. Rulers have plotted and planned to keep them in subjection. Realizing at last its inability to obtain its rights, labor has banded itself together in unions and fraternal orders, believing that in unity there is strength, but with much disappointment; for from within and without spies upset their plans, and in the place of brotherly love and fraternity, selfishness frequently abounds!
Indifference on the part of employer has produced a similar feeling in employes. Indifference is the first step to disintegration. The giant thus takes his first drink. Stone number one becomes loosened on the brink of the canyon.
Royalty
WHAT a gigantic hoax is this that has been foisted upon labor in his ignorance, that a few fellow mortals should consider themselves of special origin and right! A sterile class, living upon the backs of the workers, and at the same time claiming the authority of the gods for so doing! Can it be that their blood is superior to that of the humble toiler? Cannot the worker’s corned beef and cabbage produce the very life blood of Irish kings? Likewise the spaghetti and garlic the supposedly blue blood of Latin monarchs? Did the German Kaiser have a celestial brewery to give him special tone and color “by divine right” ? And does some angelic messenger bring to George V his five meals a day in order to maintain the proper standard of vital fluid necessary to his arduous task as king of an empire in whose politics he really has no voice? Thanks be to God that such frauds have lost their power in recent years. The king business is on the wane. Thus the giant takes drink number two, while another stone is shaken loose under his feet.
Education
SCHOOLS and colleges should have first place in any system of civilization; for education is the very backbone of society. Yet it is sad to note that, as Ingersoll put it, our colleges polish the pebble and dim the diamond. Speaking specifically of one New England academy he said that a professor of this, school could not take his seat until he had taken oath to the effect that he would not advance intellectually for five years; then he must renew the oath if he would remain any longer. Is it not a fact that our whole educational system smacks of subsidization rather than of untainted civilization ? The seat of learning has become commercially contaminated. Education, free press, free speech, the greatest foes to barbarism, have again been throttled and chained. Thus the giant has taken another long swallow of the blinding and maddening intoxicant, as he. advances one step nearer to the edge of the abyss.
War '
ONSIDERING the fact that mankind is of one family, limited to one tiny sphere of the universe, the object of mundane civilization should be the complete elimination of the relics of barbarism from this planet. National boundaries, breeders of jealousies, all relics of the past, are still maintained. We have not emerged from the barbaric, tribal rivalries of yesterday. How can we, so long as we maintain and cherish the petty relics of the savage past? War is the result of international differences. International differences are relics of savagery, from which civilization was expected to have freed us. If civilization does exist it has signally failed in its mission; we are still barbaric. Every international difference is another intoxicating draught by the already drunken giant called Civilization, who is listlessly but certainly staggering to the very edge of the yawning chasm ©f oblivion. .
'Justice
GLARING example of the uncertainty of the giant’s step is found in the modern administration of law. Law should mete out to all men uncompromising justice, that unbending and unchangeable principle of God as revealed in nature. Yet our lawyers attempt to use it pro and con, in defense of the criminal as well as in defense of the innocent, until so-called constitutional rights often become a myth. The law that can defend the guilty and fail to protect the innocent is detrimental to the purposes of civilization.
A recent instance in point was the defense of two internationally famous, cases by the same prominent criminal lawyer 'who, in the first case, used the Bible to attempt the justification of two youthful and wealthy murderers, but who flatly denied its sacred authority when defending a law7-breaking school teacher in Tennessee a few ■weeks later. Such procedure should not be labeled justice, honor or civilization. This double-dealing in law is not confined, to a few cases or localities. It is general, world-wide. Therefore it is not a. cause for surprise when we see the drunken giant wending his way nearer and nearer to the brink of the canyon of destruction.
Medicine .
rpHERAPEUTICS, which deals with the pre-®- vention and cure of diseases, is a science of great worth when'properly applied for the alleviation of human suffering. With sickness, disease and death on every hand the doctor should find a useful place in human society. After centuries of attempt and opportunity, with billions of organisms on which to practise, this profession should have reached a stage of development second to none. Summing up the results. of modern medicine’s share in the reclamation of the human family we quote from Dr. Gregory of Edinburgh, who says: “Ninety-nine out of every hundred medical facts are medical lies, and medical doctrines are for the most part stark, staring nonsense.” Dr. Ramage, F. R. G., of London, corroborates this statement, and adds: “The present system of medicine is a burning shame to its professors.” t
Other fearless authorities are even stronger in their denunciation of modern medicine, calling it jargon, deception, professional hypocrisy and even legalized murder. It is not to be won-. dered that after such serious charges by members of their own Told we should find the medical profession frantically using all their power, and the wealth obtained under false pretenses, in securing legislation to prevent all other systems of therapy, lest these newer and better methods further decrease the revenue of the old-line medics.
Note the alleged shameless attempt of this system to bribe the editor of an eastern magazine with a quarter of a million dollars to refrain from printing articles upon a drugless method of curing disease, and the" warning that if he refused they would spend half a million in putting his publication out of business. The intoxicated giant imagines the world is made for him. Delirious, he takes a terrific reel and barely escapes the final fall.
Politics
POLITICS is the method by which the world is ruled. Man has been taught to believe that civilization has so progressed that he can now vote and rule himself. If man has succeeded in ruling himself why should those in power who have robbed the people of their wealth use that wealth to defeat the wishes of the people, spending fourteen million dollars to elect a man almost unknown to the people? How could it be worth that tremendous amount if fairness rules the actions of men, if civilization really exists? The people vote, but they do not rule in any country today. The soggy giant drinks on and staggers at the very edge of the dizzy precipice,
Finance
[NANCE is the octopus of our civilization, ever ready and willing to enslave the world and if need be to reduce it to the state of barbaric slavery to gain its end. Its profiteering plans portend the ruin of civilization, and its methods are sure of success in that direction. It fails to note that poverty breeds barbarism, and that the poverty of the masses is the road to the savage state from which we are supposed to have emerged by becoming "civilized”.
When predatory wealth endows a school it . uses the money which it has stolen from the people to make the people think they are being philanthropically educated and civilized, when <in reality it is but another way of throwing dust into the people's eyes, while they are made into ■ more profitable servants for their speculative masters. Speculation breeds high prices; high prices and big profits demanded by profiteers call for low labor cost; and this means low wages, high cost of living, and poverty which produces barbarism, the destruction of civilization. Frenzied finance is the fatal draught that goads the mighty giant to his final plunge.
Religion
LAST but not least among the contributory causes of the impending crisis is that diabolical element of superstitious fear misnamed religion. There is a true religion and there is a false religion, and the latter predominates in every land. True religion is designed to teach reverence and adoration for our Maker, and the conduct of justice and righteousness between fellow men. Reverence is a normal faculty of mankind, but this faculty has been prostituted and commercialized by religious leaders who have taught men to kill, to lie, to steal, to swear falsely, and even to worship material things of wood and stones, like their savage ancestors.
Apostate religion, organized and powerful, is needed to encourage the slaughter of man, to invoke God’s blessing (?) upon bloody war. to teach man how to vote against himself and at the same time imagine lie is voting for his own interests, to keep man quiet and serene while' his employers rob his children of bread, to make man believe that while his children are at school they are receiving an education in refinement and culture, when in reality they are being taught how to perpetuate a tottering civilization that systematically robs the people to keep the kings upon their thrones and the peasants in poverty. Such are the needs of a false religion, and such are the accomplishments of the hypocritical ecclesiastical system which now exists.
Noav and then an honest religionist arises to "upset the apple cart” by telling a little truth, with the result that the ecclesiastics cry: "Heresy, sedition, lies.” But after investigation it is invariably found that the ecclesiastical complain-ers are the falsifiers, generally full of poison and breeders of superstition and ignorance, •which, engender slavery, debauchery and crime, This ecclesiastical element, cooperating with politicians and big business, is largely responsible for the 'wholesale enslavement and universal poverty amongst mankind, which may ultimately lead to world-wide anarchy in which the rapid descent of the drunken giant of civilization over the precipice to complete an everlasting destruction will occur, and with it the complete overthrow of all institutions detrimental to human welfare. But upon the ruins thereof will then arise the long-awaited kingdom of God. Thy kingdom cornel
Peace' or War —Which? By c. J. Fekei
WAT?, is a business. It is advocated by those who profit by it. Every available means is used to agitate and inflame the diseased and unstable mind of man. A contented, peace-loving neighbor is pictured as a revengeful, covetous and greedy enemy. The military man cries, “We are unprepared.” The prognosticator yells, “Our neighbor is ready to seize us by the throat,” while the munition maker and profiteer insist that for safety’s sake we must fill our vaults and cellars with their wares.
Is it any wonder that the Revelator said, “And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the ‘whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty” ?—Revelation 16:13,14.
In answer to the question, Bo large armaments provoke war? Dr. Jefferson said:
They do. First, they are enormous masses of explosives. Dump down in frc-it of iry house a ton of dynamite or gunpowder and I at once become nervous. I cannot help it. I know there are some bad boys and I cannot sleep while it is there. Armaments piled along frontiers are piles- of gunpowder disturbing national security. For forty years Europe tossed and moaned in a hideous nightmare. Wr.r itself came at last as a relief. Fear begets suspicion. Out of suspicion springs dislike. Dislike deepens into hate, and hate rushes to bloodshed. Fear, suspicion, dislike, hate and slaughter take nations down the stair vay to hell.
Not only did General Sherman say, “War is cruelty and cannot be refined, war is hell,” but General Tasker H. Bliss has declared:
The responsibility is entirely upon the professing Christians of the United States. If another war like the last one should come, they will be responsible for every drop of blood that will be shed, and for every dollar wastefully expended.
Under an editorial -entitled “Slandering a Race” the Pittsburgh Sim remarked that false propaganda has led us to regard Mexico as an unscrupulous, unprincipled coward, with a cigarette in his mouth and a bloody dagger in his belt. This is Mexico as fiction, the stage and the films ... usually present. One would be led to think that in Mexico the flowers have no odors, the birds have no songs, that there is no honor among men,nor virtue among women in that sister republic. The truth is the reverse of this.
Mr. Fred B. Smith, chairman of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, on returning from a three months trip abroad, said:
In India Christianity is called a warring, bloodspilling religion. The East says, “Christ, a cannon ball, a submarine, and a gas bomb go together.” If war is part of the Christian religion, and actions speak louder than . words, then the heathen want none of it.
We would not be surprised to hear the heathen using a new figure of speech. Instead of saying, “'They fight like cats and dogs,” “like tigers,” or “like devils”, they may justly say, “They fight like Christians.” This reminds us of ‘ ’ the interesting argument made in the Connecticut legislature many years ago. A bill offered to charter a foreign missionary society was opposed on the ground that it would export religion, which was all needed at home.
Military men agree that “peace is better than war, war is unchristian”, but they also say, “War always has been and always will be/” Exactly the same was said of slavery and duelling, which men thought were permanently fixed.....
upon society; but their abolition was easy when men decided to abolish them. Why not abolish war? Some may have thought that wTar would become less cruel, more humane, as we become more civilized; but the recent great tonflict, and present preparations for the next on* show that the very reverse is the case.
The Folly of War
^"OTAR is the most ferocious and futile of
’ « human follies. It never decides who is right but only who is the stronger,” said John Hay. The truth of this statement cannot be questioned. The desire for peace burns in every human heart. Many a mother’s heart has been wrung, many a father’s has been racked with pain, millions of children have been made orphans, and billions of property have been destroyed by this idiotic diversion which men call wTar.
In the court of brute force the victor is both the judge and the jury and fixes the verdict to please himself. It is an established principle of justice that when two individuals disagree
neither should be allowed to fix the terms of settlement. The same is true of two corporations. Why not then also with two nations? It is not a difficult matter for two disagreeing parties to consent to the decision of an impartial judge.
The folly of war is evident when we consider its unrighteousness, its uncertainty and its vast expense. If a man kills another he is an assassin. If a thousand men kill another thousand they are considered heroes. The deed is the same; war is criminal. Men who never exchanged cross words, who never even saw each other, are caused to unite in bloody, brutal conflict. 'Afid behind these human pawns on each side, inciting both armies to devilish deeds, stands the professed Christian church hypocritically chanting, “God is with us.”
Others may do as they will, but the true Christian cannot help but recall what the Apostle John said: “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and we know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.”—1 John 3:15.
The inevitable tendency of war is to harden the hearts of men, to make them less appreciative of the just rights of others, and less sensible to torture, pain and suffering. Andrew’ J. Palm records the feelings of Captain Stoica as he looked into the face of the first man he ever killed. What horror, what a nightmare! The account is too terrible to review.
The spirit and teachings of Jesus are absolutely irreconcilable with war. It is said that between the years 50-170 A. D. men threw down their arms and accepted death as traitors, by simply saying, “I am a Christian, and therefore I cannot fight.” James Russell Lowell said:
“Ez for war I call it murder;
There you have it plain and flat.
You don’t want to go no furder Than my New Testament for that.”
In contrast to the uncertainty of an armed peace stands the tranquility of an assured friendship. For seventy years under William Penn, Pennsylvania did hot have the loss of a man, woman or child by the Indians, though other colonies were in constant terror. From the time the Quakers were outvoted in the legislature and the state began to depend on force, trouble with the Indians began.
The Cost of War
TF THE time, energy and money devoted to war (a destructive process) had been used in the pursuits of peace (for the betterment of mankind) they would have converted the world into a garden of Eden. Mr. Herbert Brown, head of the Efficiency Bureau of the United States government, declared that 85% of the money paid to the government in taxes goes for wars, past and prospective. Using the 1924 budget as a basis Mr. Brown estimated that of every dollar, 25^ goes to the Veterans Bureau, 17$ to the army and navy, 4$ is devoted to special war activities, 28^ for interest, and 11^ for the retirement of the public debt. This leaves just 15^ for the civil government. That is, only 15% of the money collected in taxes is used to run the government.
Nearly every war has been extremely costly to the generation then living as well as to the future ones. In 1862 President Lincoln proposed a resolution which passed both houses, and which provided that every state that would abolish slavery before 1900 should be paid for its slaves. Three hundred dollars was given for each slave of the District of Columbia when it abolished slavery. Delaware, because loyal to the Union, was offered four hundred dollars for each of her slaves, but the state legislature refused to accept anything. Even at this price slavery could have been abolished still cheaper than by war.
In the late World War, the war to end war (?), it took 390 shells to kill one man, and half that number to wound one. The war cost Germany two million of her citizens, eighty-five percent of her territory, and increased her national debt seven.thousand percent.
France claims thirty-three billion dollars as an indemnity from Germany, the interest of which at four percent is three and a half million dollars for every day of the year. France lost 1,654,000 men, 500,000 houses, 25,000 miles of highway, and 3,000 miles of railway. Her debt increased 800%.
England lost 939,000 lives, and her national debt increased 700%.
The United States lost 109,000 lives, and our national debt increased 2,300%. One-half of this amount, borrowed from the people through Liberty Loans, etc., was taken and loaned to foreign nations who have not paid it back, nor even the interest thereon.
The amount appropriated to the navy by the United States in the last ten years is sufficient to build fifty good roads from the Atlantic to the Pacific at $40,000 per mile, and still leave a billion dollars to spare.
In 1914 the debt of France was greater than that of the United States, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Rumania, Serbia, Norway and Sweden combined. Since then she has spent billions in order to make her army the greatest of any nation on earth., The four years of war cost France more than would have been the cost of a century of peaceful government.
How Wars Will Cease
WARS will not cease so long as huge armies are used to coerce weaker powers. Examples of this are when Bosnia and Herzegovina were taken by Austria in 1908. Germany appeared in shining armor at the side of Austria and the case was “settled”. Later at Agadir Great Britain appeared in armor at the side of France and coercion, not reason, silenced all opposition. But disputes so silenced never stay settled. When people tire of being constrained by force, war in some form results. 'And now, as a consequence, there are two million less men in England than there are women, and one million female surplus in Turkey, besides- the numberless orphans to take care of in both countries—to say nothing of the situation in Germany and in France, which is much worse.
Wars will cease when the propaganda favorable to war is exterminated by divine power. Until then, Sauls will continue to hurl javelins at Davids, Davids will put Uriahs in the front line to fight, and Hamans will plot against Mordecais. Individual habits as well as those of nations are hard to change.
The late Lord Northcliffe, who owned the London Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, Daily Graphic, Daily Express, Evening News, Daily Times, and Weekly Dispatch frankly said during the w'ar that he -would not allow the least item to be printed in his papers that would wound France or be agreeable to Germany.
The seeds of war are planted in almost all literature. In the latest encyclopedia fifteen times more space is devoted to Napoleon Bonaparte “the human butcher” than to Henry Ford, although the latter is the richest man on earth, employs about 60,000 persons and, by bringing town and country together, has revolutionized the industry of the world. Napoleon’s disgraceful fame rests on his heartless jest, “I killed but a million and they were mostly Dutchmen.”
Individual habits are hard to break. The late Walter II. Page, United States Ambassador to Great Britain during the World War, told in the days of President Wilson that in England a pot of herbs was still put on every court desk, although this custom originated in Defoe’s time, two hundred years ago, and for the purpose of keeping away a plague. In the United States Senate it is said that the snuff boxes continued, to be cleaned regularly and filled until only one snuff-using member remained.
Though the metric system of measurement was invented by James Watt in 1786 and is vastly simpler and superior to our present system, yet it has not been adopted by either the United States or Britain merely because of habit.
The medical profession declaimed against the first bathtub, and Boston passed an act forbidding bathing in one unless prescribed by a physician. This act was not repealed until 1862.
War, in like manner, continues to be resorted to for the settlement of international disputes because it has become an international habit that is hard to break. Nor will wars ever cease by a mere word agreement between the present world powers. .Such treaties have repeatedly proven themselves to be mere scraps of paper; In 1889 at the Hague a treaty banning gas or chemical warfare was drawn up. Germany agreed not to use poison gas, but in 1915 sho introduced chlorine on the plea of “necessity”.
A treaty prohibiting poisonous gas, and limiting submarines in time of war, was signed February 6,1922, by the delegates of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan at the Washington Disarmament Conference. Still preparations to use them go merrily on. The government’s forty-five million dollar chemical warfare plant at Edgewood, Md., is still functioning, and so too are those of other nations.
The disarmament treaty has been ratified but the preparations for war still continue. After ratification of the pact, the Italian army established a chemical warfare service, and a factory is now busy making war gasses for her future use. Chinese factions are using gas bombs, and the Bolshevic army has a gas and flame section.
Although the final cataclysm of trouble upon the world is inevitable, yet the people of good will may take heart. Nevertheless, the nations have been made drunk with the wine (intoxicating false doctrines) of Babylon (Christendom); they stagger, to and fro, and are at their wits’ end. Our King will yet arise and tell us to view His works in the earth, as His prophet declared:
“Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and - cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46: 8-10) “Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger.” (Zephaniah 2:3) “And he [the Lord] shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks■: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” —Isaiah 2:4.
Health of the American Sailor ■
By Dr. W. Armistead Gills, United States 'Navy (Retired)
IN THE five years from 1920 to 1924 inclusive, out of a navy personnel of 827,099 there were 2,341 diagnoses of organic heart disease, 2,927 of tuberculosis, 6,760 of acute and chronic rheumatism, 5,235 of hernia, 62,301 of gonorrhea and its complications, 4,972 of pneumonia, 68,641 of acute and chronic tonsilitis, and 9,065 of acute and chronic ear disease. Of these sailors and marines 720 suffering from mastoiditis required surgical intervention—their skulls were chiseled open. Twenty-four died.
Free care of the teeth is among the inducements to enter the service. Here is a resume of some of our most important statistics: Number of eases of diseased gums, 30,022; abscessed teeth, 25,812; teeth extracted, 231,213; cases of pyorrhoea, 12,791; 1,903 diseased jaw bones; 113,979 diseased root canals.
It is impossible to say which causes the more intense suffering and tears—earache or toothache. I have witnessed many a poor devil, with his handkerchief to the side of his face, crying and tears running down his cheeks, ’which could have been prevented. At Guam in October, 1921, seven sailors came from destroyers with aching and abscessed teeth, ’which had to be lanced and extracted; they had been at sea for some time, and had suffered from lack of timely care.
One sailor from Connecticut had to have all of his front teeth extracted—disfiguring him and crippling his health; said he had been in the service one year and had never had his teeth even inspected. A marine from Montana had an abscessed tooth, followed by blood poison, nearly costing his life. .After one month, ill in the naval hospital, he was invalided to the States. Our dental surgeon said if the patient had been treated by a civilian dentist at San. Francisco (in the absence of enough navy denial surgeons), $2.00 would have obviated this serious illness. I have known many men to be forced to get leaves of absence from duty and go home to their own dentists at their own expense because they could not, get their teeth attended to otherwise.
From an exhaustive study of hundreds of cases accused of “malingering’, which obtains to the extent of an obsession, I have invariably found that if the case was properly investigated •—attended with patience—there was a real cause for complaint. It must be admitted that there is a certain class who will shirk if they get the chance; but they are not immune to fatigue and sickness, the inductions of which are plentiful. Such dastardly accusations reflect upon our own judgment; we accepted the lad “morally fit”.
My opinion is that if properly handled the average boy will do his part, and from the viewpoint of morale it is the part of wisdom to put a few shirkers on the sick list rather than perpetrate the many disgraceful injustices which it has been my displeasure to witness. Of the endless cases coming under my observation the recitation of three is believed sufficient here:
A sailor from Massachusetts, ill, appealed to five medical officers to put him on the sick Hst, covering a period of two weeks, and was turned away—branded a “fakir”, He was found dead in his hammock.
Due to tradition and through abuse of power I was placed under the command of a young medical officer who entered the service fresh from college, sixteen years my junior. I mention only one of his many blunders
A marine whose home is in Utah came to the sick call for three weeks without receiving physical examination or bedside observation, and was returned to duty with a perfunctory dose of medicine. The young medico said to me, “That boy is a fakir.” I replied, “I do not agree with you, doctor; you have a sick man on your hands.” I had not made any examination but was governed by the facial expression,. which told the tale. The marine >vas engaged in manual labor in the tropical sun. I “took the bull by the horns”, disregarding written orders, and sent the depressed boy to the naval hospital, twelve miles distant on the Pacific, and received a reprimand from the medical officer in command for ignoring orders; which went over my head.
Ten days later the medical officers at the hospital-entered a diagnosis of insanity; and to see the patient walking about the naval hospital under the care of a marine guard who had a pistol strapped to his hip would remind one of a sheriff in charge of an outlaw instead of a patient on a naval hospital reservation—and a sickening sight it was. The patient was transferred to the States; and the receiving officer, or the sick boy’s family, didn’t know of the case.
On another occasion, and there were numberless ones like it, a marine appealed to me at the naval hospital, Guam, saying that he had no appetite and was weak. He was doing manual labor in the tropical sun. Examinations proved to be negative, but the complainant was underweight (so disastrous in the tropics), so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and put him on the sick list for observation; for which I was much criticised. Another medical officer, of the machine type, insulted my patient by calling him a “sea lawyer”, with whom I took vigorous issue. The patient developed tuberculosis. How do you suppose I would have felt had I returned the marine to duty, and he had developed the disease ■with the pick and shovel in his hands? This patient’s home was in Kansas.
I have been frequently requested by enlisted men to become their counsel; and concerning many of them I had evidence to prove that the blame rested elsewhere; and, knowing that I would have to call a spade a spade, I always declined. Solitary confinement of our selected subjects who deserve it, and who are physically equal to such incarceration, is bad enough; but to put a patient from a naval hospital in a steel cell because he refuses to do drudgery, depriving him of sunshine, a happy mind, exercise, and other conditions necessary to convalescence, is inconsistent with psychology, ability to command, and preventive medicine. A prison on a naval hospital reservation should be condemned as un-American. Mental strain has to do with insanity, and we have two such institutions in our midst for those who caved in, men whom we pronounced normal, mentally, when they were accepted into the army.
If our officers, learned in discipline, were to take individual interest instead of leaving the teachings to the non coms, things would be changed for the better. Dr. B. A. Nolan, U. S. Navy, proves my assertion, when he says in the Navy Medical Bulletin:
The petty officer may seek to impress his importanca on the recruit by filthy and obscene language; inflict disciplinary measures, when many of these men do not know the meaning of the word discipline; or bully and attempt to cowe them at times to cover his own inferiority complex. Men have been known to suffer excruciating pain from a tooth or abdominal condition because they are afraid to ask to whom they might go for relief.
I was detailed to a camp composed of 300 boys from Tennessee, under the command of a young Annapolis graduate. We were overtaken by several days of rain and cold weather, causing illness, on account of exposure. A boy became paralyzed from the hips down, and is to this May. There was only one building at camp, occupied by the officer and myself. I borrowed a stove and picked up drift wood and soon had a hot fire in my quarters. I then brought in the paralyzed boy on his cot and had about twenty other boys come in and remove their shoes and dry their feet. The young officer came in, ordered the boys out and accused me of lax discipline, which I resented by informing him that I had done my plain, duty.
From Our Canadian Correspondent
THE Dominion Forestry Branch has made its twenty-third annual distribution of seedlings and cuttings for shelter belts and wind breaks from its nurseries at Indian Head and Sutherland, for use on the prairie farms. During the shipping period of April 14th to May 1st, 2,470,000 seedlings, cuttings and transplants were sent out from Indian Head to 3,080 farmers, and 2,500,000 were distributed from Sutherland to 3,010 farmers. To date approximately 81,000,000 seedlings and cuttings of broad leaf trees and nearly 150,000,000 young, spruce and pine transplants have been distributed from the nurseries. This represents about 45,000 shelter belts.
The fanner values his farm at anything from $1000 to $5000 additional after a shelter belt is well grown. Planting trees gives a feeling of permanence to a proposition, as is illustrated by the story of the British soldier taken prisoner by the Germans in 1916. Tommy watched interestedly a group of Germans planting cabbage back of their lines. He inquired the purpose. The Germans told him they hoped to get a crop before the war ended. “That so?” said Tommy, “Well, you are bloomin’ optermists—-we was plantin’ acorns when I left!” It is stated by Dun’s Bulletin, quoting from a member of the Canadian Forestry Association:
In more than seven thousand miles of travel, we have yet to encounter a single farmer who has migrated from a well-treed farm. The secret of stablizing population on the prairies is closely identified with tree planting. Even in excessively dry districts, where migration was severe, the farmer with shelter belts managed to make a better living and certainly had no thought of quitting.
When the British pressmen visited Canada recently and noted the great strides made in tree planting, one of them said:
This spirit will do more for the consolidation of Canada as a nation than any great increase of those whose chief desire is to get rich quick and quit.
Gold Mines and Fisheries ■
ONE small dam in the golden river flowing into the United States from all over the world, has been placed in position by Canada. Arrangements have been entered into whereby Canadian gold mines may have their gold minted at the Ottawa branch of the Royal Mint and take payment in gold. This comes about as the result of an alteration in the exchange situation between Canada and the United States by which the Canadian dollar has come to par and above it. The minting is done without charge. In the first six months of 1925 production of gold was $17,034,480 as against $14,475,741 for the corresponding period in 1924. Canada is steadily forging to the front in gold production.
Canada’s fisheries are also becoming one of her principal harvests. The first six months of 1925 showed a total value of $9,779,620 as compared with $9,155,438 for the corresponding period in 1924. Much research is now going on to find improved ways and means of marketing the fish. Freezing, one of the simplest and commonest methods in use, is being investigated; and already it has been clearly demonstrated that fish frozen with great rapidity, almost instantaneously in fact, is virtually as firm and undeteriorated when thawed as when first caught. This fast-freezing method is now perfected and is expected to revolutionize this phase of the industry. A gross business of $100,000,000 a year is looked for in the near future by the use of this and other improved methods of handling the catch.
Four-Legged Goats and Other Goats
GOAT farming is making extensive strides on the Pacific Coast. Already 15,000 goats are pasturing on the Coast Range. Although the goat is not so pleasant an animal to have around as some other domestic varieties, nevertheless he has some good points, among which is his immunity to tuberculosis. There is no such thing as tubercular goat’s milk, and as a food it is much richer than cow’s milk. The meat is considered the equal of mutton by many owners who use it constantly on the table.
The Toronto Daily Star contains a news item of interest to Canadians and others who have recently watched with interest the amalgamation of some Canadian denominations. Under the caption, “Definite Break in Baptist Church in Near Future,” we read:
Predictions that in the near future there will be g definite split in the Baptist denomination in Canada are made today as an aftermath of the action of the Ossington Avenue Baptist congregation last night in dismissing its pastor, Kev. G. W. Allen.
n* GOLDEN AGE
Brooklyn, N. Y»
Mr. Allen is a fundamentalist and a supporter of Rev. Dr. T.. T. Shields in his attacks on McMaster University and on Prof, I;. H. Marshall, the English professor recently brought out to join tlje McMaster faculty.
Signs of the split that is prophesied are said to be well manifest already. Some of the. churches which are distinctly fundamentalist have cut off their financial support to McMaster and are threatening to contribute no more to certain of the other denominational funds. Jarvis Street Church, where Dr. Shields is pastor, some time ago ceased to help McMaster financially and has also cut off its support to the Baptist missions in Western Canada, alleging as a reason that some of the professors in the Brandon Baptist College are not orthodox in their beliefs and teachings.
The Rusty Church Door
HE Veterans Review, a paper sold by unemployed veterans in Toronto, does not seem to feel kindly toward the churches that "mothered” the soldiers during the Great War. 'A leading article is headed, ‘'‘The Rusty Church Door,” and the following paragraphs are typ-. ical:
During the war organized religion, as a whole, not only did not take the unpopular side, but quite definitely and openly took the popular side. Many of the clergy and ministers of churches, not content merely to support the war, actually added fuel to the flames of hatred.
It would doubtless have been unpopular even for those who supported the war to suggest that we must, still struggle with the temptations io hate, to believe evil, and to exact revenge; but if the churches felt bound to support the war, were they not at least bound to do this ?
Or, when "peace” came, was it not then at least possible for a great Christian campaign to take place in. favor of a peace based, on the principles of Christ— "If thine enemy hunger feed him: if he. thirst give him drink” ?
I have yet to learn, that there was any great movement in organized religion against the blockade, or in favor of something a little nearer to righteousness than the Treaty of Versailles.
Can it be denied that occasionally a strike has been justified in Ilie industrial world? Can anyone look upon the history of industrialism and not see that at least sometimes the complaints of the workers (with regard to child-labbr, wages, conditions, and so on) have been justified ?
Has organized religion as a whole ever said so, or ever publicly supported the workers on these occasions ? I do riot know of one instance.
It was the same in the struggle for the freedom of women. Someone in my hearing put a question to a clergyman on the platform as to why the clergy in general didn’t come out more openly on the side of the women. He replied with some surprise, “Well, I suppose because they don’t want to have bottles thrown at them.”
I, in equal surprise, said that I could not imagine such a consideration weighing with our Lord for an instant, and that after all the clergy are supposed to be representing Him in the twentieth century. Result-mutual surprise.
Yet the churches can fight if they like. They have fought one another like tigers over Education Bills, and doubtless will again. They have fought one another over the question of a State Church in Ireland, in Wales, and some day no doubt will fight in England. They have even fought (the Wesleyans and Anglicans) over whether the former have a right to address their ministers as “reverend”.
I do not mean to suggest that if the churches really took up the battle and ‘were not ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified’ they would become popular; certainly they would not. But that, to Christian people, surely can’t be the point. What they would . become, I am quite sure, is alive. To live people, life itself is always attractive enough.
The clergy wouldn’t then have to discuss how to get people to come to church; the real Christians would come because they want to be together. When they came together they would have that intense sense of fellowship that comes to those who are up against great things— whether the soldier in the trenches or the conscientious objector in prison.
They would come because they want life, and they would find it there. When they took up an unpopular cause, because they believed it. was on that side that their Master would be found, their courage and faith, would give them a power out of all proportion to their numbers.
When they took up a popular cause that is just (and after all, with human nature as decent as it is, just causes are not always unpopular) they would bring into it the idealism that even just causes easily lose when they are too popular.
Of course I know that there are clergymen and ministers who take these risks and do these things, and are sometimes popular and sometimes not. I offer them all the more hearty tribute of admiration because I realize what a dead weight against them is the attitude of official organized religion.
Because it has so rarely been on the side of the weak and the oppressed, the under dog doesn’t trust them verv readily; and those who are fighting his battle., don’t readily trust them either. That is hard luck, but anyone can see why it happens.
Latest Explorations of the Milky Way and the Spiral Nebulae . By Dr. P. Stuker . : ' w
(Translated from- Jieue Ziireher Zeitung) .
BUT one hundred years ago the working field of the astronomer was quite limited. His instruments and methods of research did not allow him to pass beyond the frontiers of our closest spheres, the planetary system of which our sun is the center. Although the spatial arrangements and movements of these few earthlike bodies, traveling in elliptical orbits round their common centre, the sun, and shining forth in borrowed light, were at that time relatively well known, yet a hollow globe with a diameter of 9000 million kilometers would have taken in the whole reliably explored world a century ago. The swift rays of light, traveling at the rate of 186,300 miles a second, could cover the w’hole explored region in eight hours.
Information concerning the fixed stars in the universe was meagre and the facts obscure until comparatively recent years; it was merely known that their number must be very large. But the universe became larger with the bigger and more powerful instruments available; and now the number of fixed stars must be counted by the millions, although 'with the naked eye but a few thousand can be perceived.
Nor had the fact escaped the attention of the early explorers that the more they magnified the mysterious nebula, the Milky Way, the denser its light appeared, and that the pale glimmer of that band of light was dissolved into very many single sparks of light, separate stars, in the larger instruments. It was also conjectured that these stars might be extremely distant suns; but there were then no proofs for such an hypothesis, the distances being entirely unknown, and all attempts to ascertain these had repeatedly failed.
It was not until the year 1837 that the distance to any fixed star was successfully computed ; and then by one stroke, the limits of the accessible universe were immensely extended. The surmisings of farseeing explorers of long ago had become true; the fixed stars were suns indeed, and it was but their immense distances from the earth that made these mighty luminous bodies of the universe recede into insignificant points of light.
For years, decades, centuries the ultra-rapid
rays of light from these distant stars must have been on their way, untiringly rushing through their 300,000 kilometers every second, to bring us the news and proof of the existence of the measurable suns. However the then extremely difficult task of ascertaining the distance to these mighty bodies was successful in but a few isolated cases. For the remaining immense host of stars all efforts of measurement proved unavailing;: the results merely indicated that it was quite impossible to bridge the inconceivably vast space with the methods of measuring then known, and: that many of these stars must be farther distant than ten or even a hundred light years.
Camera, Photometer and Spectroscope
THE second half of the nineteenth century -®- put. the astronomer in-possession of three important expedients, with the aid of which it has been .possible to bring a large number of questions concerning the fixed stars nearer to solution; questions which a hundred years ago no one would scarcely have dared to ask.
The first of these expedients is the photographic camera, which has unexpectedly enhanced our view of the heavens. The sensitized plate, in connection with huge powerful lenses or mirrors, showed us a world of a size and profusion of which the eye, even after scanning the heavens with the aid of large telescopes,- had had no inkling. It may actually be said that today thousands of millions of celestial objects can be seen in the picture on the photographic plate.
Furthermore, photography teaches us to look upon our universe not merely as a profuse but otherwise rather monotonous collection of so many suns. It shows the vault of heaven full of diversity and variety, abounding in systems and nebulous formations of greatest richness and rarest shapes—curious rings, flaming globes and gigantic wheels of fire.
The second highly important expedient is the photometer, an instrument which enables us to measure with great precision the volume of light reaching us from a given star. Such measurings of the varying degrees of brightness give us valuable information for computing distances in the universe, and also reveal special 495
characteristics of certain members of the star systems.
The third expedient, and one by which man has succeeded in deciphering the language of the ray of light, is. that wonderful apparatus known as the spectroscope. In this incomparable instrument the ray of light tells us of the chemical construction of a far-away celestial body, of the conditions (pressure and temperature) of the matter existing there, and finally gives us information about the -movements of the stars which otherwise would surely have remained hidden to us forever.
Equipped with all these ingenious instruments the exploration of the world of fixed stars was taken in hand by astronomers. Up'to now a vast amount of material for observation has been collected and, with data still increasing daily, the full tabulation and elaboration of it will occupy generations. A number of important results have however even now, like ripe fruits, fallen into our lap, '
First of all, it has been shown with all certainty that a deeper meaning is inherent in that filmy veil commonly known as the Milky Way which spans, as a tremendous ring, our starry universe. Everything in it is of the highest orderliness. In fact all suns accessible to us, including our own sun, belong to the Milky Way. It is as one inconceivably tremendous building, the separate stones of which are suns. Probably more than a thousand million suns, all similar to ours, belong to this gigantic galaxy.
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