Golden Age, June 1, 1927

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J Contents of the Golden Age

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Labor amd Economics

At Hom® and Abroad .................. 547

Low Wages a Delusion ................ 547

Forty Dollars a Minimum Wage in New York ........ 547

A Buyer’s Paradise ................. 548 terrible Housing Conditions .............. 548

Too Much Soft Coal ................. 550

Social and Educational

Why Immigrants Succeed ............... 548

Some Effects of Cigarette Smoking ........... 550

Suicides Among College Students ............ 550

Manotactubes and Mining

The Shikous Industry ........ 559

Finance—Commerce—Transportation

Commercial Use of Radio Beacons ........... 541

Increase tn Kansas Mortgages ............. 540

Net Profits Paid out in Texas ............. 54®

Political—Domestic and Foreign

Movements Toward Ending Slavery ........... 548

Abolish the Espionage Act ............... 552

Killing by Concussion at Half a Mile ........... 55S

French Formally Adopt Liquid Fire ........... 558

Events in Canada ............ ...... 558

Cabmnai Hayes Blesses the Regiment .......... 572

Home and Health

In Re Hay Fever ................. . 572

Travel and Miscellany

Location of Ous New Owices .............. 554

America Named After its Discoverer ........... 555

Religion and Philosophy

The Memorial .................... 563

Christ in the Book or Numbers ............. 570

Why Two Angels Visited a Very Wicked City ........ 573

Little Studies for Little People . . ........... 574

Studies in "The Harp of God” (Concluded) ........ 575

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<Mie Golden Age

Voiwne VIM BrooMya, N. Wednesday, Jane 1, 1927 Naaiber 201

At Home and Abroad

[Radioeast from WBBB on a wave length of 416.4 meters by the Editor.]

Commercial Use of Radio Beacons workers, though their living expenses are high-

RADIO beacons have proven entirely practical in guiding an airplane from Detroit to Dayton and return. The pilot received a stream of signals constantly informing him as to whether or not he was on the right course, and if off his course the signals indicated whether he should turn to left or right. It is expected to so arrange the control board of the new Ford planes that these signals will be given by lights, and thus the pilot will be independent of the telegraph code as well as of landmarks below.

Low Wages a Delusion

A A MERICAN products, produced by the high-est paid labor in the world, are crowding to the wall the products of all the underpaid labor of the rest of the world. High wages have led to mass production, the best of machinery, huge buying power for the workers, and the ©reation of a wide home market. American workers today have all the comforts possessed by those who in Europe are considered moderately wealthy.

#0 a Minimum Wage in New York

ACCORDING to a careful study made by the

National Industrial Conference Board, a New York employer who pays an office man less than $40 a week is paying him less than is actually required for the decent maintenance of himself and his family. Out of this sum $10 goes to the landlord, $15 to the grocer, butcher and milkman, $5 for the clothing of himself, his >■ wife and his children under fourteen years of age, while the balance is needed for sundries, Bttch as medical care, insurance, recreation and. the like. Th® manual worker can get along on $36 per week, his expenses for rent and clothing being less. But as a matter of fact the office er, are generally paid less than the manual workers.

The Necessity of Keeping Bush

THE necessity of keeping busy has been again brought to light by the revelation that eighty percent of all juvenile crime is committed after three o’clock in the afternoon; or, in other words, after school is out and the boys have nothing to do. The Children’s Aid Society null now give attention to the subject of giving school boys adequate means of entertainment after 3 p. m.

Life First, Property Second

THE national convention of the union of

American Hebrew Congregations held at Cleveland passed resolutions that labor is life and is not a commodity to be bought and sold in the market, and that human rights take precedence over the rights of property. These axioms run contrary to general economic and legal practice, but they are parallel to the teachings of the Bible and must ultimately prevail. The best men and women are coming more and more to see that the Golden Rule is not only right but a necessity.

New York’s Deaths by Automobiles

NEW YORK STATES deaths by automobiles were 2,143 in 1926, which is a slight increase over 1925. Among the principal causes of death and accident were grade crossings, speed mania, reckless driving, intoxicated drivers, intoxicated pedestrians, pedestrians with umbrella-obstructed views, pedestrians with package-obstructed views, running from behind one machine into the path of another, sudden backing of cars and running into parked cars.

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A Buyer's Paradise

NEW YORK is to have a new type of building which might be called a buyer’s paradise. It will have thirty stories and will be given over to buyers. The first three floors will house a permanent exposition, and the remainder will be operated as a hotel for the 3,000 buyers who can there bo accommodated. None but members of the International Mercantile Club or their invited guests will be accommodated.

Terrible Housing Conditions

WITNESSES before the State Housing Board show that there are still terrible housing conditions in New York City, due to the inability of many to pay the rents required. In numerous instances there are three families occupying apartments of only five or six rooms; and in some of the Negro sections of Harlem there are double shifts of boaiders, using the bedrooms day and night. On the other hand there are numerous high-class apartments that are standing unoccupied. An attempt is being made at Albany to persuade the leading New York life insurance companies to invest five percent of their funds in providing better housing facilities for the people of New York.

Widening and Lighting &f Streets

MANY American cities are now determinedly widening their streets and none too soon.

The cost of street widening is offset by the increased value of the abutting property. Much the same may be said of improved street lighting. The crowds which the better lights bring to the improved areas soon pay for the lights.

moments Toward Ending Slavery

THERE are several encouraging movements toward the ending of slavery in the United States. In Louisiana the United States government is prosecuting two men for selling a fifty-year-old Negro, his wife and three children for $20; in Pennsylvania there is agitation against the binding out of dependent children in return for food, clothing and lodging; and in several of the states there is legislation pending forbidding the clergy of any denomination from requiring the marriage contract to bind parents to educate in any particular religious faith the children born to the union.

Peonage in Texas and Arizona

TpIVE men, including the sheriff of Willacy A County, Texas, have just been found guilty of peonage by a federal jury. Young men 'were arrested on vagrancy charges, and instead of being placed on trial were forced, to work in the cotton fields. The charges of peonage in Arizona are less definite, but are based upon the supposed mistreatment of Porto Ricans brought from. Porto Rico to Arizona for cotton culture purposes.

Why Immigrants Succeed

npHE reason why Dora Martin of Costa Rica could enter the United States two years ago with no knowledge of English and then become the valedictorian of her class in that brief time, is that she was willing to work hard to accomplish her purpose. A native-born American could have accomplished the same result with an expenditure of much less energy. This happened in New York City. There is a similar case in Reading, Pa., where a boy from Jugoslavia achieved the same result under similar conditions.

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Achievements of a Blind Jewish Lad

TAKEN blind on the way here from Russia, twenty-three years ago, a young Jewish lad, now only thirty-eight years of age, is the proprietor of a successful printing business in New York City and has just purchased a five-story building off Cooper Square, where he is opening an American Jewish Association for the Blind.

This young man, Mr. Needleman, began life as a newsboy on Broadway and was successful from the start.

Mariani Is F&nd of Grapes

NEAR Nyack, New York, prohibition agents visited the farm of a Mr. Mariani, where they found ten acres devoted to the cultivation of white grapes; 5,000 gallons of fermented wine; 8.000 gallons in process of fermentation; a machine for charging wine to make it fizz; and forty-eight cases of bottles, each bearing champagne labels similar to that sold in New York night clubs at $20 per bottle. No arrests were made. Mr. Mariani claims he has a permit to hold the wine.

Broward County Goes Dry

BROWARD COUNTY, Florida, has gone dry ;

but in order to bring it about the prohibition authorities had to arrest the sheriff and all six of his deputies, the deputy police chief and eight of his patrolmen, and twenty-five other leading citizens. Up until that time the bootloggers of Broward county had enjoyed full police protection. Eight stills and a considerable quantity of liquor "were seized in the raid.

Increase in Kansas Mortgages

THE Kansas City Journal tells us that there are now $20,000,000 more in mortgages resting on Kansas farms than v’as the case seven years ago. It is plain from this that the farmers are not getting a square deal, for in that time the general wealth of the country has increased by leaps and bounds. The original fertility of the Kansas farms has all been used up, and from now on the crops will be more expensive to produce.

Net Profits Paid Out in Taxes

JL ”D ogee Babsox, the statistician, claims that ’ ■*-»' taxes consume 83% of the net profits of agriculture; 60% of mining profits; 36% of transportation and public utility profits; 32% of construction profits; 31% of finance, banking and insurance profits; 27% of mercantile profits; and 24% of manufacturing profits. Justice requires that these matters be evened up. Instead of the farmers having to pay the most they really ought to pay the least, for there is no class of workers who work as hard for their money.

The Income of Park Avenue

THE income of the 4,000 families living on

Park Avenue, between 34th and 96th Streets, New’ York City, is said to average $75,000 a year. Although the greatest concentrated collection of wealthy families in the world, they nevertheless live not in private homes but in apartments, like the cave dwellers of old, one apartment above the other.

Ptostj? of fJcws at the Bottom

HDHE present manager of the Standard Oil

Company entered that company as a stenographer at $50 a month. The president of the General Electric Company started as a helper in the repair shop at $1 a day. Of twenty-nine heads of important American railway systems, twenty-eight came from the bottom, although thirteen of them were college graduates.

A Big Discovery of Borax

A N IMMENSE deposit of borax has been discovered in Kern County, California, about thirty-five miles from Barstow. The deposit, which is six hundred feet under ground, has been found to be about five miles long, three miles wide and ninety feet thick. The man who first drilled through the borax was in search of water, and abandoned his place in disgust when no water was found. The deposit is now under control of one company.

Peat As a Paper-Making Material '

TpXPERIMENTS in Wisconsin have demonstrated that wrapping paper and wall board can be made from peat, when a little waste paper is mixed with it as a binder. This is a valuable discovery, as there are unlimited quantities of peat in Wisconsin and other states, and a scarcity of paper-making materials.

Engine Number 5200

A NEW engine has just been turned out by the American Locomotive shops at Schenectady, N. Y., that is expected to haul two complete sections of the heavy and fast trains operated over the New York Central lines, with only one train crew. This engine, No. 5200 could, if unleashed, attain a speed of 120 miles an hour. It will be used on the Twentieth Century Limited.

Thirty Trillions of Stars

BY CAREFUL estimates based upon photographs of various sections of the heavens made with the world’s largest telescope the conclusion has been reached that there are not less than thirty trillions of stars. The Psalmist says of these stars that God knoweth them all by name. It is known that the light traveling at the rate of 186,300 miles a second would require at least a million years to merely pass across the face of the portion of the heavens that has already been mapped.

Too Much Soft Coal ,

THE likelihood of a prolonged strike in the soft coal regions calls attention anew to the fact that, under present industrial methods, America has too much soft coal. Ordinarily there are too many mines in operation and too many workers, so that the inevitable result is part time employment, with all its attendant evils. Along conies a spasm of prosperity, such as was caused by the British coal strike. For a time the mines are all busy. Then comes the inevitable slump, which is now upon us. The owners want to cut down wages, but the costs of living are high, the work is dangerous and taken from one year to another provides employment only about half the time. As a natural consequence the miners want more wages instead of less, and there you are. What the soft coal business needs is Christ’s kingdom. The problem seems beyond human ability to solve.

Some Effects of Cigarette Smoking

CIGARETTE smoke contains nicotine, creosote,* pyridine, prussic acid, and seven other poisons. One drop of the liquid will kill a sparrow in seventy seconds; one and one-half drops will kill a snake in twelve minutes; one-half drop will paralyze a mouse instantly. These poisons readily pass through the delicate linings and air tubes of the lungs and poison the blood. Tobacco affects the brain and spinal cord, the stomach and reproductive organs. Women working in tobacco factories are especially subject to miscarriage. _

Tobacco used by growing boys produces intellectual apathy and melancholia, with occasional insanity. Athletic trainers refuse to permit men in training to smoke. Smoking reduces a man’s accuracy in the pitching of baseball. The excessive use of tobacco injures the eyesight. Thomas Edison will not employ any person who smokes cigarettes. Most of the cigarettes now sold are doped with glycerine, which adds charm to the cigarette and also adds to its deadliness as an agency for the destruction of manhood and womanhood. Cigarette smoking makes the complexion of women yellow and ashen, and makes the women themselves nervous and inclined to insomnia. In twenty-four years the consumption of cigarettes in the United States inereased from fliree billions to seventy-two Milons.

Suicides Among College Students ,

DURING the first month of 1927 there were

nine suicides among the students at Atuat. ican universities. Several of these committed suicide because of a morbid desire to find out about the things of the next life, and some of them because they failed to pass the midwinter examinations. A Texas college professor believes that several of them have concluded to suicide because they believe the whole of life ** is what they have found it to be at the universities, and what the professor in question calls a rotten mess. As far as faith in and reverence for the Creator is concerned most universities are what the professor says they are; and when a young man or young woman has had love and reverence for God taken out of his or her life there is nothing left but disillusion and despair. Any college professor who by any means robs a believing young man or woman of faith in God is a foe to humanity and a well-developed child of the Devil, who is thus often proven to be a murderer in fact as well as in intent.

Proper Place to Train Children ,

HDIIAT home is the proper place to train chil-J- dren has been proven again by a force of Columbia University psychologists who made careful studies of 2,400 children. All tests showed that the home influences toward honesty were preponderant, the influence of friends second and the influence of Sunday schools, schools and clubs of slight value. Girls cheated more often in classrooms and boys more often in games. Children of wealth were less honest than those of the poor. Honesty seemed to be in direct proportion to intelligence.

Massachusetts Insane Asylums

IT SEEMS that in Massachusetts any person who wants to get rid of a relative or ward and get possession of his property can hire two unscrupulous medical men to sign a commitment, get the formal approval of a judge, and then rush the victim off to an asylum. Commenting on these conditions the Fellowship Forum * says:

It has been discovered that for many years the^e has been an interlocking system composed of unprincipled and shyster attorneys, corrupt politicians and unscrupu* lous and ehaxacterless medical doctors. These men, cooperating, have looted and, stolen the property of well-

to-d<j citizens and have defrauded the rightful heirs of these estates, driving than, in many instances, into suffering and poverty.

When some of these defrauded heirs have had the courage to protest against these outrages, bold, highhanded conspirators, no better than brigands and buccaneers, have had them railroaded into insane asylums to languish unfriended to the end of their miserable days. The administration of some of these Massachusetts insane asylums is declared to be unspeakable and a disgrace to any state which would permit and tolerate such ® condition of affairs.

California's Mice Plague Ended

KEEN COUNTY, California, has been having an invasion of millions of mice. While the farmers were putting forth desperate efforts to stop their march of devastation nature took a hand. Thousands of sea gulls came inland a 'distance of two to three hundred miles, and with many other varieties of game birds brought about the end of what threatened to be a great catastrophe.

Two More Great Bridges

PNTAEIO and Western New York are rejoicing over the completion of a splendid highway bridge connecting Buffalo with Fort Erie. Bayonne is rejoicing in the plans just announced for a magnificent structure which will span the Kill van Kull between Bayonne and Staten Island.

Ionized Layer Located

TWO scientists of the Carnegie Institute have succeeded in definitely locating the ionized layer which for many years scientists have reasoned was located above earth’s atmosphere. This layer is now shown to range from 50 to 130 miles above the earth, with a greater height in fall than in summer and a greater height in afternoon than in morning. Changes in the height of the layer affect radio communication. Fading is a related problem.

Late Wonders of Radio

'’CALIFORNIA talks .. ith London by radio, V/ Lloyd George converses with New England, the Presidents of Harvard and Cambridge Universities engage in colloquy, and Greenland complains that where she was once cut off from dvifization eight months in the year, now she is constantly in touch with all the scandals of the world and almost wishes she were back on the old basis. New inventions in radio are announced almost every day. Every policeman may shortly be carrying an easily portable receiving set which will enable him to keep in constant touch with headquarters.

The Wild Horses of Wyoming

THE state of Wyoming is pestered by thousands of wild horses running over the ranges and eating the food which would maintain valuable cattle and sheep. The horses are of almost no value, except for the hides and fat; although some of the flesh is sent to France, where it is marketable. An effort is being made to get rid of these superfluous horses.

Automobiles Promote Thrift

IT HAS just been discovered, in an unexpected way, that automobiles promote thrift. The way it has come about is that thefts of payrolls by automobile bandits have become so common that many great concerns have adopted the practice of paying their help by checks instead of in cash. The employes have been keeping the cash in the bank as long as possible, and thrift has been encouraged in a most unlikely manner.

The Training of Foremen

THE Department of Manufacture of the

Chamber of Commerce of the United States points out that some of the results obtained by the training of foremen are found to be increased production, decreased personnel, reduction of material in process, better inspection, less labor turnover and better relations between employers and employes.

Significant Words of the President

President Coolidge in his message to Congress on January 10th said in effect that the United States Government would always take the steps necessary for the preservation and protection of the lives, the property and the interests of its citizens and of this government itself, whether those interests were endangered by internal strife or by outside interference. The citizens of Uncle Sam now have investments in every country under the sun. It is estimated

QOWEN AGE

that by 1950 they will have fifty billion dollars invested in foreign lands. The stocks and bonds ©f all countries will shortly be sold on the New York stock exchange. Unde Sam is getting deeper and deeper into it every year, and. if he proposes to land marines wherever there is trouble it will not be many years before America will be in trouble up to her neck all over the globe.

Student Attitude on War

THE National Student Conference held at Milwaukee went on record with a vote that shows 357 students will take part in no war, 740 will take part in any "righteous" war; and as all wars are made to appear righteous, they can be put down along with the 356 who were non-committal as being for war. By their own vote the students show that less than one-fourth of them have the backbone to hold out against war, and when the test comes the number is sure to be very much less than even that small proportion.

Wise Words From Henry Ford

TT eNey Ford writes with a punch when he! says:

The same people, ministers and editors, who listened to the war propaganda of the financiers ten years ago, teaching the doctrine of killing, are now rooting for capital punishment. And the same crowd of financiers are backing up this present campaign for the adoption of the methods of cruelty. They want to harden the sensibilities of the people, for it serves their ends to have war.

Abolish, the Espionage Act

AWAY with the infamous Espionage Act, which was never intended to catch German spies, but only to prey upon the liberties of true Americans whose Americanism is much better than that of the men who were cajoled into passing the act. Senator Reed of Missouri is one of those who still believes in the good old American doctrine of freedom of speech and of the press. Tn a recent address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors he said: “It is monstrous that a citizen cannot speak for or against the prosecution of war. The liberty of the press must be maintained in peace and war alike, trusting confidently in the patriotism and common sense of our people." Senator Reed is right; and that American act of infamy, th* Espionage Act, should not be allowed to remain on the statute books another day. Away with M

Never But a Few Communists

■ETROM the New York Times we learn that when the American Communist movement was at its height, and ministers, editors and politicians all over the country were frothing at the mouth and demanding deportation for everybody, there was a possible total of more than 35,000 people in the movement which, however, is now only about 5,000 to 7,000. The Times, reviewing a book by a labor historian, notes that many of the persons highest in the Communist movement at that time, 1919, were agents of the Department of Justice, all of which makes the whole subject look ridiculous to anybody with any common sense. Instead of being afraid of Russia it seems that we were all afraid of ourselves and did not know it. “Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”

a Sunday Not Enough

HOHE Wilkes-Barre Times Leader tells us that Reverend J. J. Curran, priest of St!

Mary’s Church of that city, has announced that' the present Sunday collection of $1,000 is not enough; and hereafter all adults will be required to contribute at least thirty-five cents each Sunday. The Leader goes on to say: “The order issued by Father Curran will be closely followed out, and pennies and nickels offered for contribution will not be accepted on Sundays.” To this ought properly to be added the written words of St. Peter, supposed by Catholics to have been the first pope, who said in 1 Peter 5: 2, 3: “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly: not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind: neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.”

Swing Your Partners All

THE Linwood Boulevard Christian Church of Kansas City is earnestly engaged in the highly religious and profitable discussion as to whether or not they should continue to hold their regular Sunday night dances in the church parlors or whether they should encourage the young folks to go elsewhere to dance. It seems that some of the old folks couldn’t just find the Scripture passage which spoke about the Lord and the apostles having a shakedown after meeting; but their, pastor has comforted them by assuring them that he is in favor of the dances continuing, and so of course everything is all right. What a lot of fun the dogs must have laughing at the fool things that are now so popular in the field of so-called religion.

'Religious Liberty in Mexico '

TT IS true that at one time the Constitution -*• of Mexico did provide that the nation profess the Roman Catholic religion and that the public worship of any other would not be tolerated; but the Constitution of 1917 now being enforced explicitly provides in so many words that “every man is free to embrace the religion of his choice and to practise such ceremony, devotions or observance of their respective creed, either in places of public wvorship or at home”. It additionally asserts: “The Congress shall not enact any law establishing or forbidding any religion whatsoever.” pHremn Do American Oil Men Differ?

HnilE inquiry is being widely made as to wherein American oil men differ from other investors in Mexico. Eight thousand other foreigners have already accepted Mexico’s offer of fifty-year leases with thirty-year renewals. Why is it that American oil men refuse to do what others do? Are they sure they can force a war and get what they want?

Killing by Concussion at Half a Mile

WRITING in the London Daily News, P. J.

Noel Barker, calls attention to the fact that the Berlin bombs, prepared for the campaign of 1919, were so powerful that they would kill by concussion anyone who was in the open within six or eight hundred yards of where they fell, but that the high-explosive bombs which ©an now be used by army bombers are more destructive still, and will destroy all life within half a mile of where they hit. Looks like a fine time ahead for somebody.

Briiai^s Censorship

“DRITAIN is undertaking movie legislation

■‘Which will, in effect, gradually replace

American films with British-made films. At present American films are shown everywhere; but if the newly proposed law becomes effective five percent of the American films will be replaced with British each year, and in twenty, years American films will be as extinct ia British territory as the Diplodocus and Gigan-tosaurus are in the streets of London.

A House a Day

IN Leicester, England, the Monolithic Building Company has been constructing concrete houses, pouring one complete house a day after the sectional framework is in place. This would be considered unusually fast work in the United States, though the feat has been duplicated here.

Progress in Belgium

NOT only has Belgium, closed five of its prisons because of a general decrease in criminality there, but it has just entered into a compact with. Sweden, making war with that country illegal under any circumstances. Sweden now has similar war agreements with Denmark, Finland and Norway. Will they prove to b® mere scraps of paper?

Lynxes and Wolves Multiply

T YNXES, the largest of the cat tribe left in

Europe, are multiplying to some extent in Scotland; while the past season has been the worst for wolves in the Caucasus and in Russia that has been known in many years. At one place two hundred attacking wolves were killed by gas bombs dropped in their midst from an airplane.

French Formally Adopt Liquid Fire

BACK in those humane and gentle days of 1914-1918 it was not considered polite for one army to pump blaring liquids upon another; but the farther we get from the days of the World War the less the people seem to have profited by its lessons, and now the French. Government has officially appointed liquid flamethrowing squads in every batallion of its army. This no doubt means that millions of boys now living will be burned to a crisp by liquid fire. The only solace left us is the expectation that they will die quickly. How horrible would be the thought that they would have to stay in such flames, writhing in agony for ever and ever, as the theologians once had it mapped out |

Location of Our New Offices

THE boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn are connected by a series of bridges across the East Biver. Of these the Brooklyn Bridge is the oldest and the best known. It is the most southern of the series, and ranks among the great bridges of the world. About a mile above the Brooklyn Bridge is the Manhattan Bridge, opened in 1910. Over these two bridges an immense amount of traffic passes—automobiles, trucks, street-cars, elevated railways—in the orderly fashion predominant in New York.

The Brooklyn district between these bridges is the oldest part of the borough of Brooklyn, as shown by the names of the streets therein. One can usually tell by the names of the streets just about when any district began its existence. The names of the streets in this locality are those of men prominent in the Revolutionary War— Washington, Adams, Jay—and of those subjects which then interested deeply the people of this section of the United States—Liberty, Concord, etc.

In the olden days this entire section was doubtless a desirable residential district, overlooking the East River, with the upper New York Bay not far south. Those houses still remaining are three or four stories in height, the usual height of the better class of residences in that day. But as the city grew, and business encroached upon the docks and streets nearby, the well-to-do citizens built new homes farther ©ut on Long Island; and in time what had once been a desirable residence district sank into slums.

During the past few decades, however, another change has begun. Many of the tenement houses have been demolished; in their stead factories of steel and concrete have been erected, and now the erstwhile slum district has become & factory section. Meanwhile the traffic over the bridges has been many times multiplied, until now the stream of motor vehicles flows by incessantly.

Hundreds of employes pour forth from these factories at quitting time and scatter to various parts of the city. The roar of motor traffic increases. For a short while the hum of the departing workers fills the air. Then silence drops upon the factory district, broken only by the voices of children at play upon the streets or by passing citizens returning home. The great factories are also silent, except for the sounds indicative of the presence of the faithful watchmen wffio guard them against the possibility of fire or other damage.

These modern structures of steel and concrete are much alike in their construction. Perhaps the most noticeable feature is the immense a-mount of windows which they contain. The buildings vary in height from eight to ten or twelve stories, with roofs carrying the huge tanks necessary for adequate protection from fire. As a rule the offices are in the top story of these buildings.

The new home of The Gowen Age. is one of these concrete and steel plants. It is located on the corner of Adams and Prospect Streets, and covers about one-fourth of the entire block. At present every one of the eight stories is occupied by the various departments of this plant; and doubts are already being expressed as to whether the building will long continue to be large enough for the needs of the rapidly growing business.

The offices are on the eighth floor, where there is plenty of light and fresh air, and where a fine view is presented of the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan. A few squares to the north is a bend of the East River; and a steady stream of rivercraft passes to and fro—ferries, barges, tugboats, and occasionally a naval vessel of some sort on its way to or from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a half-mile or less up the river. At a short distance to the right and the left are the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, those important thoroughfares between the boroughs.

Brooklyn Bridge, the first suspension bridge built between Manhattan and Brooklyn, was completed in 1883. It is over a mile long, and consists of one main suspension span and two shore spans. The roadway is eighty-six feet wide, and is divided into five sections; the two on the outer sides being used for vehicles and electric cars, the two on the inner side for the elevated railway, and the central division for foot passengers. It is estimated that about 250,-000 persons cross this bridge daily.

Manhattan Bridge was opened to the public on Dec. 31, 1909, but was not completed until May, 1911. This bridge is of double-deck design. The lower level has one thirty-five foot roadway in the middle, two subway trades on each side/-and one eleven-foot footwalk on each side; but at present the south side of this level is

dosed. The upper level has four trolley tracks and a roadway for motor vehicles. The number of persons crossing this bridge daily is estimated to be about 500,000. The subway trains become surface trains while crossing Manhattan Bridge. This bridge is also a suspension bridge.

Street railways pass on both Adams and Prospect Streets, but these lines do not cross <|ther bridge. A walk of two short blocks from our offices brings one to the entrance to Brooklyn Bridge, where you will find street-cars going to and from klanhattan, the chief of the five boroughs which go to make up Greater New York and comprising that part of the city commonly called New York City.

The eastern windows of the office floor present an unbroken view of old-fashioned houses interspersed with factory buildings, the tall chimneys of which indicate their location. It is not generally known that Brooklyn is a manufacturing city of no mean proportions. The N. Y. American declares it to be the greatest single center in the country where shoes are manufactured, and states that during 1926 more than ffiky million dollars worth of footwear were produced here.

As the spectator looks over the approach to the Manhattan Bridge, far off to the north-east* ern horizon the forest of tall chimneys corroborates the statement that this is a great manu* facturing center, as well as the city of homes and the beaten track to Coney Island, New York City’s famous pleasure resort

From the south side of the building one can see the district around Borough Hall, where the Brooklyn skyscrapers are located. It is not generally known that one of these, the most recently built, is thirty-five stories in height. Beyond the skyscrapers the city stretches out as far as the eye can reach, and farther; for Brooklyn has an estimated population of more than two million persons.

The western windows of these offices look upon the billion-dollar mile of lower Manhattan, otherwise known as the Wall Street district. Far away to the left of the gazer can be seen the waters of the upper New York Bay, with Staten Island in the dim distance; while near at hand is the part of Brooklyn best known to the Bible Students—that which environs the home of the faithful men and women who have devoted their lives to the promulgation of the truth of God’s Word throughout the earth.

America Named After Its Discoverer

IT IS a pleasure to note that historians are now agreed that America is properly named after its real discoverer, Leif the son of Eric.

■ The prefix Amt in Scandinavian means Land of, and the combination Amt-Eric, or Am-erica, simply means the Land of Eric.

: Not only did Leif, the son of Eric, or Leif

' Ericson, as he is usually called, unquestionably visit and make settlements in New England, but ithe name which he gave the land, Amt-Eric, has continued with the North American Indians to

. this day. Among the Indians the ancient name is still given as Am-arok-e, or America; and when Columbus and his friends crossed the southern part of the Atlantic, five hundred years after Leif and his friends had crossed the northern part of the same body of water, the name was in general use.

The idea that the name America had anything io do with one of the explorers, Morego Ves-rd, who, by the way, was unable to write wn name, rests upon a single sentence in ths writings of a Boman monk, where it appears only in the form of a suggestion. If the country had been named after this man surely it would have been called Vespuccia and not after his first name, Morego.

Among the historians and noted men. of letters who have expressed themselves as convinced that Leif Ericson was the real discoverer of America, are William Cullen Bryant, Sidney Howard Gay, H. H. Bancroft, F. H. Von Humboldt, Benjamin Franklin, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Bussell Lowell, Bev. Charles Kingsley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, T. Wentworth Higginson, and forty more.

The evidence shows that Leif’s countrymen, the Icelanders, maintained colonies in America from the year 1000 to 1347 A. D. Inscriptions of other relics traceable to those colonies have been found at Kensington, Minnesota, Fall Biver and Dighton, Mass., Newport, R. I., Malba, L. I., and Fort Mountain, Ga. The find at Fall River was a skeleton in armor. A Roman Catholia monk, Adam of Bremen, made reference to these colonies in a manuscript written in the year •1073. The manuscript is still preserved at Copenhagen, Denmark.

The h’Mory of Christopher Columbus shows that h«i made a voyage to Iceland in 1477; and the historian Henry Vignaud, a great admirer of Columbus, presents the evidence that before he sailed on his voyage of discovery Columbus knew of the existence of America and had an approximate idea of its distance from Spain in sailing days. This detailed information he obtained while in Iceland, the only place where it was procurable.

A recent discovery, confirming the Icelandic claims to the settlement and naming of America, is the tribe of white Indians near Panama. It seems that these Indians are not albinos at all, but are golden-haired, blue-eyed and white-skinned, and look very much like the primitive Norse people. Without a doubt these are all that are left of the original Icelandic colonies. Wars with Indians, and pestilences in their home lands, caused the abandonment of the colonies.

The historians claim to have established the fact that Leif Ericson touched at Cape Cod, ascended the Charles River at flood tide, landed at Cambridge, built a house there at what is now known as Gerry’s landing, and that tho0-who followed him built the ancient city of Norumbega at what is now Watertown, Mass.

The Norse peoples are quite plain in their statements that they believe they see why such a persistent effort has been made to take the glory away from the Protestant Norse discoverer and to give it all to the Roman Catholic explorers, Christopher Columbus and Morego Vespucci. It is indisputable, of course, that our history of that period is mainly from Catholic sources.

In Re Hay Fever

A MEDICAL authority defines hay fever as a “form of nasal catarrh, accompanied with fever and occasional dyspnoea (shortness of breath)”. He hasn’t said the half of it, as all sufferers from this malady can attest. It has been attributed to the effluvium from hay, and the pollen of certain plants.

The plants most stigmatized as causing hay fever during the pollen-spreading season, are the Oldfield Goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis), and the common Ragweed (Ambrosia trifida). The ragweed merits most of the blame, however, for its pollen is intensely irritating to most human noses possessing an inherited or acquired catarrhal tendency. The family name of the ragweed, Ambrosiaciae, though suggestive of the Greek “food for the gods”, seems to be a misnomer, since we are certain that no one would mourn the loss of this obnoxious plant.

Tn fact, the tears of hay fever victims would greatly decrease, in the event of the complete extermination of Ambrosia trifida. This does not seem likely, for the plant is established from New Brunswick to Florida, and to New Mexico nn the west. So it will no doubt continue to charge the autumn breezes with its golfa. '

■ By C. J. W., Jr. v

I am sure that if “L Sneeze”, whose lamentation appeared in No. 192 of The Golden Age, had thought twice about the matter he would not have allowed even the tortures of hay fever to betray him into the hasty statement about “his Satanic Majesty getting ready to shake the ragweed and blow its pollen into the air to torture mankind once more”.

The fertilization of large areas of certain species of plants by the agency of wind-blown pollen is one of the most beautiful examples of the Great Creator’s provision for the welfare and perpetuation of His plant-creatures. We must not be led to think that the Lord created man, and then turned the job of creating plants, pollen, and air currents over to the Devil. The supposition that Satan has anything whatever to do with the economics of plant life is altogether erroneous.

Fertilization is also accomplished by other methods than that which makes the ragweed and its class so objectionable. As an illustration of the manifold and wonderful ways in which the Lord accomplishes the transmission of virile pollen between remote male and female flowers, I subjoin an extract from the pen of the eminent

biological authority, William Joseph Showalter, Sc. D., a member of the publication faculty of the National Geographic Society, Washington, D. C.:

The flower has been called a living machine for making seeds. The essential parts of this machine are pistils and stamens. To fertilize the ovules of the pistil with the pollen grains of the stamen, and thus to start the promise of the plant that is to be, is the flower's problem. / Less virile flowers, possessing both stamens and pis-til«, fertilize themselves. ... In others the sexes are so feoparah d that stamens and pistils occur in different fe.crs or even on different plants.

Some of these employ the wind and the water as mes-sei’gi rs for carrying pollen from mature stamens to receptive pistils. Such flowers are rigid economists exempt in the matter of pollen, of which they are profligate spenders. Insects might be attracted by pleasing odors, bi'isht colors, and sweet nectar, hut the wind and the nater pay no attention to such things. So color, scent, and sweetness are absent. But there is greater need for pollen, since wind and water are poor messengers and mu-t be loaded down if any of the pollen is to reach its proper destination.

Some of the water-f°rtilized plants have had to adapt selves to fertilization under water, and hence are f provided with pollen of the same specific gravity as water. Others must be fertilized at the surface, and these launch their pollen grains on floating rafts. . . . When the water-living tasselgrass matures its pistils and stamens in separate flowers, their stalks suddenly shoot up to the surface of the water, no matter what the depth, and the staminate flowers there spread their pollen abroad.

But the most interesting of all the water-living plants in the matter of fertilization is the familiar wild celery, fl be female flower raises its head to the surface on a long stalk, but the male flowers remain entirely submerged until the time for fertilization comes. Then their buds detach themselves, float to the surface, and ’curve back their sepals, so as to make a raft for their two perfect staiiicns. These, float abort, until they meet the female flowers. Once the female flower is fertilized the stem contracts and the flower is drawn beneath the surface, where it matures its seeds.

The wind-pollinated plants include many of the forest trees and most of the grasses.

Of the pollenization by insects, Mr. ShowaHer says:

One of the birthworts, for instances, has hairs in the corolla which permit the ant or other creature to enter, but hjfld it prisoner until it has crawled all over the stamens and pistils, and is either loaded with pollen by the one, or has had its burden taken from it by the other. Sometimes the imprisonment lasts as long as sixty hours.

The Dutchman’s-pfpe accomplishes the same object by making the tube leading to the nectar so smooth, that the small flies entering it cannot get a foothold on the way out until the flower withers.

Some of the orchids secrete a copious supply of nectar, which is poured into a little chamber that has an overflow spout to discharge the surplus. The bees visit the flower to gnaw the sweet, fleshy ridge within. In doing so, they frequently push their fellows into the nectar chamber, where they get involuntary baths and from which they can escape only through the overflow spout. This forces them to rub their bodies against the receptive stigmas, and thus leave with the latter pollen from a previously visited flower. . . .

The mountain laurel fastens each of its stamens down in a corresponding pocket of the corolla. When a bee visits the flower and treads around over the corolla in its task of draining the nectar-cup, it steps on the stamens one by one. This releases them after the manner of a mouse springing a trigger trap, whereupon the stamen springs up and over the back of the bee, dusting it with the pollen in the anther.

Some flowers, like the milkweed, grip the legs of insect visitors and hold them fast. In trying to “yank” the trapped leg free, the bee pulls loose a little saddlebag arrangement, containing two packs of pollen, which adheres to tho leg. Flying away to another flower that has a receptive stigma, the insect leaves the saddlebags with it.

The actual, underlying cause of hay fever is reasonably apparent. Were all membranous tissue in a perfectly normal state, sufficient fluid would be exuded thereby to enable the accumulation of large quantities of irritating matter without di seomfort. This of course would be removed, on occasion, in the usual manner, with, no subsequent ill effects.

But as catarrhal tissue is pre-eminently dry tissue, it follows that all external irritants 1’eadily attack it, stimulating abnormal secretion of the mucous fluid, with consequent inflamation of the mucous glands. Violent astringents are not natural, and do not promote a normal condition of the tissue. Healthy tissue is moist, and this moisture collects dry irritants to a surprising degree.

"When discomfort is felt after exposure to dust or similar irritating mediums, a normal nose will expel the collected material, leaving’ the surface of the membrane in a protected state. Such, of course, is not the case with our poor, imperfect, catarrhal noses, and when w® are subjected to the very fine, pungent pollen of Ambrosia trifida, we suffer. And then we suffer some more.

Events in Canada

THE Vancouver Sun in championing the cause of the people speaks in no uncertain terms regarding the intolerance, oppression and superstition of the "Medical Combine”. It has the following to say:

Addressing the board of trade last week, Dr. Young of the Provincial Health Board, attacked health work being done by others than the Medical Association members. Is Dr. Young trying to ridicule the Medical Association ?

Last year there was taken from the taxpayers of this province, for health purposes, the following money, every dollar of vhich expenditure was control led by Dr. .Young:

By Our Canadian Correspondent

But just as public intelligence rejected the bath-hating doctors of seventy-five years ago, public intelligence will reject the medical practices of todry. The injecting of filthy serums into the blood streams of little children will be put into the same class as witchcraft and voodoo-ism, and the thousands of lives that are being lost through unnecessary operations will be classed v>iih the brutal sacrifices of the superstitions ancients to their bloodthirsty gods.

Health is a matter of publication and education and the use of common sense health mechanics. The newspapers and health boards throughout the continent could, by application of these principles, relieve ninety-percent of our present di-tress and human suffering in one year.

Provincial Board of Health

Mental hor-pi tals

Grants to hospitals

Tranquille

Incurables

$109,626.55

602,866.22

483,853.42

196,334.31

24,879.14

Total

$1,417,559.64

This is one dollar out of every fifteen dollars collected in provincial taxes. And this represents only a fraction of the money cost and public suffering caused through lack of health information. And the appalling fact is that the procedures and theories upon which this money is spent have absolutely no relation to the essential principles of the maintenance of health.

Does Dr. Young, as a presumably devoted public servant, ask that the taxpayers go on putting up this money, year after year, and at the same time go on suffering ill-health when good health is available for a few dollars’ worth of common sense health knowledge?

Medical history is a history of intolerance, oppression and superstition. The first bath tub was introduced into the United States at Cincinnati, December 20, 1843. The Medical Association of that city, in order to display its superlative intelligence, warned the public against taking baths. They said it would bring on rheumatism, inflammation of the lungs and other dreadful diseases.

One year later the city council, of Philadelphia, prompted by medical men, failed by only two votes to pass a city ordinance making it unlawful to wash the entire body between November 1 and March 15.

In 1844 the Medical Association had the City of Boston pass a law, and it remained a law for seven awful years, forbidding anyone to bathe in a tub without a doctor’s prescription.

The bigoted doctors of seventy-five years ago who forbade the taking of baths are the same men who today, animated by the same spirit, attack and vilify and would prohibit the education of the public into the Bonunon sense mechanics of health.

Health is a matter of diet and internal cleanliness. Each person can, with a broadening of simple health knowledge, be taught to maintain that cleanliness lor himself better than a doctor or anyone else can do it for him.

Having in mind hundreds of incidents similar to the bath-tub barbarity, the Vancouver Sun believes that the public and not Dr. Young should be the judge as to the value of common sense health ideas which emanate from other sources than Medical Association members.

Where the Moose Flourishes

TVTOOSE are thicker in British Columbia than^^f 1¥JL ever before, and they have increased to such an extent in some districts that the caribou herds are threatened, according to big game authorities at Vancouver.

At the beginning of the present century many 'districts that are now teeming with moose did not even know the species. They were, however, favored haunts of caribou, which were so plentiful that they formed the principal food supply of the nomad Indians, who used to follow the herds just as the prehistoric "reindeer men” followed the reindeer in Northern Europe.

The caribou and moose, however, do not get along well together, according to big game men. When the moose move into a region populated by caribou in large numbers, the caribou move out. This has been going on over a vast area in northern and central British Columbia during the past twenty-five years. One authority writes:

The caribou is too hardy a breed to vanish altogether. The moose and the caribou seem to gain dominance over each other according to cycles. We happen to be passing through a moose cycle now. In a few years an epidemic

or some other disturbance may weaken the moose and the caribou will have his day again. In any event, there is no possibility of serious depletion of either species for many generations.

The waphti or elk, another antlered family, was in danger of being annihilated as a result of ruthless hunting some years ago; but since restrictive measures have been adopted the remaining herds, two on Vancouver Island, one in the Kootenay district and another in northern British Columbia, have grown to large proportions.

The Shingle Industry By E. C. O'Neall

THE Shingle Industry is a comparatively small one, and one that only a few people know much about. Shingles have been used from earliest times to protect buildings from the weather, both as roofing and as siding. Up to comparatively recent times they were made by the slow process of hand work. The logs were cut into bolts, hand-rived with a frow or broadaxe, and the shingles were shaved with a drawing knife. A "shaving horse" was used in early colonial times. A man who could rive 500 shingles in a day was considered an expert worker.

Until a few decades ago white pine, chestnut and southern white cedar were relied upon for 'the major portion of shingles used in this country. The rustic shingle-maker was often able to fell from general appearance of the tree whether it would rive properly or not. Frequently, however, a large block was cut out of the side of the virgin white pine trees to test their splitting qualities. If the wood did not split well the tree was left a prey to the next forest fire, which quickly ignited the resin which oozed from the exposed portion. This pioneer custom was very wasteful, since only the butt log was used for shingles; and very frequently a tree that would now’ produce throe thousand shingles was then able to produce only about five hundred.

Hand-made shingles were generally of two kinds, known as "joint” and "lap”. The latter were longer, with one edge thicker than the other, and nailed on the roof so that the edge of one lapped over the edge of the other, like weather boards. The "joints” were nailed edge to edge, '’like sawed shingles. Hand-made shingles, called "shakes”, are still made from) sugar pine and redwood in California. The introduction of shingle’machinery proved to be a great economy in saving the available raw material. With the shingle saws, shingles which included knots, cross-grain, etc., could be made not only from butt levs of the best trees but from the tops and partially decayed butts.

Gradually the center of the shingle industry moved to the Pacific Northwest, where the western red cedar, which grows so abundantly in that region, was found to be an ideal shingle wood. In the East shingle mills are usually located in connection with saw-mills, the shingles often being made of defective or misshapen portions of the butt logs of white pine, yellow pine, spruce, cypress, etc.

Advent of Machinery

SINGLE machines wore introduced on a commercial basis about 1880. Several years before that time hand-made western red cedar shingles wTere being shipped around South America to the Atlantic seaboard. The shaved shingle industry had already assumed proportions in the Puget Sound and Columbia Biver sections. With the advent of machinery and the opening of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1883 came a great impetus in the manufacture of sawed shingles and their distribution, not only in the Northwest but throughout the central prairie states.

About the year 1892 came a rapid increase in production and several hundred million shingles were shipped to the far eastern market. About 200 shingle mills were then in operation in western Washington. At the present time western red cedar shingles are sent to every state in the Union, and compete successfully with shingles made from all other species. There are approximately two hundred shingle mills in Washington at the present time, most of them being operated as separate industries.

According to a circular that was printed by the United States Cedar Industry Tariff Committee last year, there have been about one hundred mills lost by fire in the States of Washington and Oregon; and some went bankrupt and were never rebuilt because of the small marginal profits, due to foreign trade. I will insert here what this committee stated in their circular under the heading of Investment:

The shingle industry is the fifth largest industry in the Pacific Northwest; and in Washington and Oregon there are about two hundred shingle mills, representing an investment of more than $30,000,000. This industry is capable of producing a product having an. annual value of approximately $30,000,000, and will produce that amount if the mills are given full time operation. In 1922 and 1923 alone a total of fifty-nine mills in Washington and Oregon, with 197 shingle machines, vent into the hands of a receiver, or burned and were not replaced. Many are now on the verge of bankruptcy.

There are probably fewer shingle mills today in the Pacific Northwest than there were a few years ago; but there is a much larger annual output, due to the larger capacity of from 100,-000 to 550.000 shingles per day of eight hours. A few of the places with mills of the largest capacity are: Everett, Wash., Vancouver, B. C., Ballard, Wash., Hoquiam, Wash., and Edmonds, Wash. Of course there are more than one mill in each one of these places. The President of the shingle weavers union, Mr. J. G. Brown, made the statement some time ago that Everett, Wash., was the largest shingle manufacturing center in the world; Grace Harbor coming next.

Annual Production

ABOUT 85OOO,OOO,OOO to 12,000,000,000 shingles are produced annually in the United States. The latter amount lias been produced during the several years past; but for the last few yeais the production has decreased, due to numerous cities’ inaugurating fire laws which prohibit the use of shingles in new buildings within city limits.

Of the total shingle production, between seventy and eighty percent are made up of western red cedar. These shingles are largely manufactured in the state of Washington, which a-lone produced seventy-three percent of all the shingles made in this country up to 1917. Oregon and northern Idaho also now turn out large quantities of shingles, and a few western red cedar shingles are also made in western Montana. Many northern white cedar shingles are now being made, mainly in northern Michigan, Maine and Minnesota. Southern white cedar shingles are produced chiefly in eastern Virginia and North Carolina.

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