Golden Age, September 19, 1928

Download: PDF — Golden Age, September 19, 1928

tfie Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

mmimmammsEwmmmmmmmmmmmmmmiim

in this issue

> RUBBER

its uses, and sources of world’s supply

CONDITIONS IN BOLIVIA a friendly criticism, and information about the natives

! YOSEMITE VALLEY .

account of a delightful trip

WHO MADE MAN? .

fourth lecture of a radioeast series on “Reconciliation;” by Judge Rutherford

EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY

FIVE CENTS A COPY OR ONE DOLLAR A YEAR

Volume IX » No. 235 September 19, 192 8

Contents

—.....-....... ========d

Labor and Economics

News .Gleanings ................... 808

Carpenters’ Home at Lakeland .............808

Social and Educational

Alabama Takes a Step Ahead .............. 808

Effect, of War on Child Minds ............. 809

The University of Pennsylvania ............. 811

Manufacturing and Mining

Rubber and its Uses . . - . . . . . . . . . . . . . ■ 803

Diversion of Cotton-Mills Southward ........... 808

*• Finance—Commerce—Transportation

Dividends to Eastman Employes ............ 808

Editors Jollied and Called Fools ............ 807

Power Trust Rilling Uncle Sam ............. 808

Six Cents Carfare Ample ......... 809

War Farmees Find it Habu ............... 813

The Aluminum Company of Canada ........... 816

Political—Domestic and Foreign

Freedom of Inquiry in Ohio .............. 808

Kaiser Vetoed London Bombing ............. 809

Mooney Still in Jail ................. 810

No Interference in Foreign Affairs .

Items on Mexico ................... 812

Home and Health

Answer to Db. Morris Fishbein ............. 814

No More Aluminum Headaches ............. 816

Playing a Mean Trick on a Kn> . .

A Bachelor's Way of Cooking Rice ............ 824

Travel and Miscellany

Columbus One Time a Pirate .............. 817

Conditions in Bolivia . .

Yosemite Valley, California

Religion and Philosophy

Another Day at Carbondale .............. 820

Who Made Man? . .

The Children’s Own Radio Story' ...

I’ublished every otter Wednesday at 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A., by WOODWORTH, KNORR & MARTIN

Copartners and Proprietors Address: 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, S'. I . 8. A. CLAYTON J. WOODWORTH .. Editor ROBERT J. MARTIN .. Business Manager NATHAN H. KNORR.. Secretary and Treasurer

Five Cents a Copt—?1.00 A Year Maks Remittances to W GOLDEN AG.H Notice to Subscribers: We do not, as a rale, send an acknowledgment of a renewal or a new subscription. A renewal blank (carrying notice of expiration) is sent with the journal one month before the subscription expires. Change of address, when requested, may be expected to appear on address label within ons month.

Foreign Offices

British . . . .■ . » . 34 Craven Terrace, London, W. 2, England Canadian ..... 40 Irwin Avenue, Toronto B, Ontario, Canada Australasian ..... 405 Collins Street, Melbourne, Australia South African ..... 0 Lelie Street, Cape Town, South Africa

Entered as second-class matter at Brooklyn, N. X., under the Act. of March 3, 1879s

Golden Age

Volume IX

Brooklyn, N. Y»f Wednesday, September 19, 1928

Number 235

Rubber and its Uses

IT IS four hundred thirty years since Columbus found the natives of Hayti playing ball with a resilient, bouncing material, but it is only within the past twenty years -hat rubber has come to be one of the prime essentials of our civilization.

It was about the middle of the eighteenth century that the French explorer and botanist La Condamine identified, in Ecuador, the Hevea tree, and described the native way of using the gum, caoutchouc, to waterproof cloth. By 1770 a ball of the new material had found its way to England.

While experimenting with the ball, Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, found that caoutchouc would rub out pencil marks and gave it the name rubber. It had an immediate boom among artists, the price soaring to 75c a cubic inch.

In the early 1800’s Brazil was exporting, rubber shoes and water bottles and the first rubberized fabrics were made in England and America, but these goods were unsatisfactory. In hot weather the rubber in the goods flowed, and in winter the fabrics were stiff and crackly.

The father of the rubber industry of the world was Charles Goodyear. An educated man, and an enthusiast regarding rubber, he was lecturing to his family on the subject, having in his hand at the time a small lump of caoutchouc which, he had mixed with sulphur to render it non-adhesive. This was in the winter of 1839.

By the merest accident his lump of caout-choue came in contact with the red-hot door of the stove. To his astonishment it stuck to the stove without melting, stretched easily without breaking and was no longer sticky. He rushed to the other side of the room, seized a knife and scraped the residue from the stove, while his relatives were convinced that he had gone insane.

But would the new rubber stand the cold? He nailed it up outside the door of his house that night and in the morning found it unchanged. He had discovered vulcanized rubber, and the name of Charles Goodyear became a household W’ord.

Goodyear a True Inventor

TT IS rare that any inventor derives any profit from his invention. Some one else gets hold of it and makes a business success of it, while the true inventor languishes in poverty; and this was the case with Goodyear. His secret was stolen by a competitor who came to his factory one bitter 'winter night in the guise of a tramp seeking shelter. He remained long enough to find the Goodyear secret.

Immediately after the Goodyear discovery of vulcanization L. Candee popularized the rubber shoe and put it on the market to stay. Goodyear spent his time trying to find new uses to which rubber could be put. At the exhibition in the Crystal Palace, London, in 1851, he made an impressive exhibit of rubber goods, contracted more debts, and was thrown into prison.

In 1860 Goodyear died owing more than he was worth, but had discovered that which now makes possible the automobile and thousands of other machines. After the close of the Civil .War rubber manufacture began to come into its own. The first article made to any extent was the comb.

A scientist at Manchester University, Mr. Peachey, has discovered a process of vulcanizing rubber with other compositions than sulphur, by a process of cold vulcanizing. The new material takes colors and a pattern quite readily and is serviceable as floor coverings and wall linings, as well as having a great variety of other uses. :

Tremendous Increase in Use of Rubber

ekbebt Hooveb is authority for the statement that the three greatest American industries, rubber goods manufacturing, the automobile industry, and the oil industry, because of their dependence upon the automobile business, hang for their operation upon raw rubber. Great Britain, the next largest manufacturer of rubber goods, imports less than one-fifth as much as America.

The tremendous increase in the demand for rubber is shown by the fact that the importations in 1911 were 72,046,000 pounds, while twelve years later they were 775,000,000 pounds, more than ten times as much. More than four-fifths of this goes into rubber tires. Over one-third of these tires were made in .Akron, Ohio.

Dr. B. Franklin Goodrich started the rubber tire industry in Akron with twenty men. Now the city has 65,000 workmen employed in turning out about $300,000,000 worth of rubber goods. One concern alone makes nearly 30,000 different rubber products.

It is inadvisable to attempt a classification of rubber goods. Some of the interests that depend upon rubber, besides the automobile business, are hospitals, electrical establishments, fire and rain protection, baseball, football, tennis, golf, cables of all sorts, drug sundries, surgeons’ sundries, dental sundries, stationers’ supplies.

Some of the things familiar to us ail are battery jars, tubing, steering wheel rims, buttons, fountain pen barrels, telephones, rubbers, raincoats, erasers, hot water bottles, garden hose. We are so' used to these things that we fail to consider how new they all are.

Dipped rubber goods, such as gloves and toy balloons, are made by dissolving rubber in benzine and dipping mandrels in the solution. It is a dangerous process. A new form of rubber tubing is insoluble in gasoline and oil. Greece imports annually 50,000 old automobile tires to make shoes for her peasants.

No material is known which resists the action of abrasive materials so well as rubber. It is invaluable as a lining for cement-grinding mills and as a conveyor for coke or other abrasive materials. Occasionally one sees sidewalks paved with rubber. Many automobiles now have rubber covers.

Some Sources of Rubber

EARLY five hundred plants, vines and trees produce rubber, but only a few of them provide rubber in sufficient quantity or quality to make them commercially valuable. Most of these plants grow in the tropics, but the ordinary and much despised milkweed is one -of the exceptions. For generations this plant has been considered good for nothing. Cattle will not eat it, yet it persists in living. Now we see that it may pay to cultivate it.

The guayule, which grows wild in southern Texas and northern Mexico, finds a ready market at Akron. The shrubs are uprooted, washed and ground and yield about ten percent of their weight in dry rubber. The rubber thus produced is considered inferior to Brazilian rubber and that brings us naturally to the Hevea tree, which even now supplies 99% of the world’s supply of crude rubber.

The Hevea or rubber tree grows in a moist climate, but will not grow in a swTamp; hence the saying that ca rubber tree must have its feet dry and its head damp’. A tree begins to produce when five years old. The yield increases as tire tree ages, but the total annual production per acre is only about 350 pounds.

In the South American Rubber Jungles

EW occupations of man are more perilous, more unpleasant or more poorly paid than gathering rubber in a South American jungle, and yet the work requires skill of a high order. The tree must be gashed just right. If too deep the tree will be ruined. If not deep enough the flow of the latex 'will be impeded. The latex is not the sap of the Hevea, but is a fluid sent forth to heal the wound in the tree.

The natives make their way through the 'dense jungles by paths which are so faint that only they can find them. Serpents, venomous spiders and ants are in their path. Seventy to one hundred and fifty trees a day must be visited, and the metal cups emptied into the run- < Ker’s pail. The gatherers often have to travel six to eight miles to complete their circuits.

It takes a year’s milk of two full-grown Hevea trees to make rubber enough for a single cord tire. Curiously enough, if a pail of latex is allowed to stand the rubber in it will rise to tho top like cream. A.t night the native cooks his latex, stirring it slowly until the milk has evaporated and only the pure rubber remains. This is a mean job, as the smoke is acrid.

The work of rubber-gathering is so perilous and is managed with such cruelty that in the years from 1900 to 1912 twelve thousand tons of rubber were collected at a cost of thirty thousand native lives. Many of these natives were starved, shot or flogged to death for failing to turn in as much latex as their employers thought should come to them.

When these conditions were first uncovered by explorers and travelers many British directors of the Peruvian company involved, men prominent in London society and finance, gave up their directorships; but there are still many British stockholders in the company. The management is now entirely in Peruvian hands.

Hoiv Brazil Lost Her Rubber Industry

FIFTY years ago Henry A. Wickham, an Englishman familiar with the rubber tree and with its possibilities, chartered a steamer, made his way to South America, and smuggled seeds through Para on the pretense that they > were botanical specimens.

The seeds were planted in Kew, England, . under glass. They grew and were transplanted to Ceylon, and from that small beginning there are now five million acres of rubber trees in Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo, Malay Peninsula; and those trees control the rubber market of the world.

Until 1913 Brazil remained the chief source of rubber, but now the British and Dutch plantations in the Far East produce nine-tenths of the supply. About four-fifths of the plantation output is in British hands. The Brazilian supply is dropping oft’. Earnings are insufficient to maintain life.

For several years past the British Government has been restricting rubber production under the Stevenson Act, so as to keep prices up, but it is announced that from November 1, > next, all restrictions will be removed, the reason for this being that the Dutch plantations are increasing their acreage so rapidly as to imperil the British business.

The cost of producing rubber is around fifteen cents a pound. Rubber plantations can not be neglected. If the trees are neglected for a year the jungle will grow up around them and make their future harvesting difficult. Rubber tappers in the Straits Settlements receive eight. pence a day, or about sixteen American cents.

American Attempts to Grow Rubber

ALTHOUGH using two-thirds of the world’s rubber, America grows only three percent of it, and in case of another World War would be as helpless as an American citizen in a fight with one of these public service companies. Uncle Sam today is running around on rubber. Take the rubber from under him and he would hardly move. Imagine America without automobiles 1

Harvey Firestone has virtually taken a mortgage on the life and liberties of the government and people of Liberia and expects to be harvesting rubber in 1930. It is too bad that it has seemed necessary to impinge such hard conditions as are required of the Liberian people to get this industry.

Henry Ford has secured a concession of four million acres in the Amazon valley of Brazil, lying just east of the territory traversed ■ by Theodore Roosevelt when he descended the River of Doubt. The concession calls for the planting of a certain number of rubber trees .every year. The land is now unbroken jungle. It is a safe bet that .Henry makes a success of it. It is expected that airplanes will be used in carrying mail to and from the concession, and a line of Ford boats will be installed. He will also build 1,000 miles of railroad to it. —

The United States Rubber Company has about seventy-eight square miles of rubber plantation in Sumatra. In 1922 this company reported, net profits of $12,662,110 and celebrated by announcing a ten-percent increase in the price of auto tires and tubes.

Germany Makes Her Own

THE German chemists have shown that they can do about everything anybody wants done, and do it with no raw materials to speak of, and it is a fact that they have made synthetic rubber. The rubber, however, is thus far not all that could be desired. It absorbs oxygen from the air, can not be readily vulcanized, lacks elasticity and plasticity in the soft state, and is not regarded by the New York rubber trade as fulfilling the hopes of its discoverers.

A great improvement has been made in the separating of rubber from the latex. By the new method a tiny stream falls on a rapidly re-

n. GOLDEN AGE

volving disc in a hot room. This breaks the latex up into tiny particles. The air mingling with these tiny particles dries the moisture at once, carrying it off in the form of vapor.

Hereafter the latex will probably be shipped in liquid form direct to America; and cars of latex may soon be a common sight on our railroads. It has been found that latex will remain sweet indefinitely if ammonia and certain other preservatives are added to it in correct proportions.

New and better methods of making rubber goods are being used. Cloth is combined with rubber by two general processes. Frictioning forces rubber into the cloth, while spreading, so. called, lays a thin coat of rubber over it. By a new method of treatment the useful life of

rubber may be prolonged to as much as sixty years. .

By a new method of manufacture articles may now be electroplated with rubber, resulting in seamless' rubber goods of greater strength and elasticity than those produced by older methods. Molds of any size and shape can. be made, and plated with rubber as thin as tissue paper or as thick as a brick wall.

Kneadable rubber is now made. It can be colored and molded into any desired shape. Furniture is made of rubber. The best of it is that rubber can be used over and over. Perhaps the tires you are riding around on now may be made in part from the tires used by the president of the United States a year ago. Who can say?

News Gleanings

Alabama Takes a Step Ahead

ALABAMA has taken a long step ahead m ending the convict leasing system, which has hitherto given the state so bad a name. The prisoners have all been brought out of the mines and placed at' work on roads or state farms.

Dividends to Eastman Employes '

IN THE last seventeen years the Eastman Kodak Company has distributed more than $55,000,000 in stock and cash to its employes. The wage dividend distributed this year was three and a quarter million dollars, the largest in the history of the company.

Identification Cards

THE Department of Labor is now issuing identification cards to immigrants, and requesting that they be kept with care so that they may be shown at any time called for. No penalties are attached for failure to show the cards, and no law requires them to be shown.

TF/rafes in North Pacific

WHALES are reported as more plentiful in the North Pacific, and new expeditions are being fitted out for their capture. A single .whale may yield forty tons of oil, worth $100 a ton, besides hundreds of dollars worth of whalebone, fertilizer and chicken feed.

Mitchel Field’s Landing Beacon

TT IS claimed that Mitchel Field’s new land

ing beacon with its gas-filled tubes of the equivalent of 500,000,000 candle-povzer will provide an orange-red light which can be seen through seventy-five miles of mist and fog. It seems hard to believe that, but who can deny it?

Britain’s New Airplane “Ripon II”

ID BITAIN’S new airplane, “Ripon II,” can ascend almost vertically and remain in the air twelve hours. It can travel several miles a minute, carries a load of two tons, is equipped witli machine guns and can discharge a torpedo weighing a ton.

New Use for an Airplane

THE Argentine Republic has produced something new in the world. A man under sentence to twenty years’ imprisonment on a penal island dressed himself in women’s clothing, hopped into an airplane and literally fled away to parts unknown. This is the first recorded jailbreak by airplane.

Around the World in Two Days

Captain- Geobge Wilkins, who flew from Alaska to Spitsbergen via the North Pole, believes that within a generation the circumnavigation of the -world in forty hours will be an accomplished fact. That would require a sustained speed of six hundred miles an hour, nearly twice that thus far attained.

Better Times in Europe

ETTER times in Europe are indicated by the fact that the fifteen million people of foreign birth now in the United States are now sending back to Europe only $220,000,000 a year as against $700,000,000 ten years ago. Restrictions of immigration also help to cut down the remittances.

Immigration Hardships Removed '

IMMIGRATION hardships have been removed

by a new alien law now in effect By the new act families which have been long separated will be reunited. Wives and dependent children of citizens, skilled farmers and alien residents ■will be given preference for admission over others in the immigrant quota.

Editors Jollied and Called Fools

HHESTIMONY before the Federal Trade Com-J- mission shows that publicity directors of the power trust made a specialty of calling country editors by their first names, slapping them on the back, and entertaining them, and then, when by themselves, they called the editors fools for swallowing their bait.

Not Necessary to Answer Conundrums

WHEN Rosika Schwimmer, cabinet member of the Karolyi government of Hungary, applied for citizenship in the United States her request v7as refused on the ground that she did not answer to his liking a question put by the court as to what she would do in a certain emergency. The appeal court decided, that the duties o'f citizenship do not require the correct answer to conundrums. This sensible and genuinely American opinion was awarded by the Federal Court of Appeals at Chicago.

Old Ladies Fib About Blacklist '

IT SEEMS that the old ladies not only had and used Fred Marvin’s blacklist in Massachusetts, Michigan and Kansas, and elsewhere, but when they were accused of it they denied it, and that is fibbing, and it is not nice for old ladies to fib. But fibbing in public is very popular in the United States nowadays. It got such a powerful start during the World War that anybody who tells the truth about anything is considered peculiar, and worse than that, a red; and the first thing you know he gets his name on the blacklist of the sewing circle.

2,151 Bad Brooklyn Boys .

URING the year 1926 there were at various times confined in the city prisons of Brooklyn 2,754 boys between the ages of 16 and 21. Moreover, out of 150 defendants in burglary eases during three months of 1926, eighty of them were boys between the ages mentioned. The boys need employment.

English Barmaids to Go

BILL in the British Parliament proposes that no more may the prettiest girls in England get jobs standing behind a bar and ministering to half-soused men. At the present time 26,000 women and girls are engaged in this work. Many' of them eventually become drunkards, due to the treating habit of patrons.

Seventy Million Pounds of Gum

THE world chews seventy million pounds of gum a year. Would you believe that the habit could be so widespread? Primarily an American habit, it has spread to the four corners of the earth. London police headquarters has had to issue an order that patrolmen must not chew while on duty.

Manicuring a Tiger :

IT IS a rather delicate job manicuring the finger nails of a tiger, but it has just been done at the Central Park Zoo in New York. The tiger was first lassoed, then a two by four scantling was put into his open mouth to give him something to chew on, then his legs were lassoed until he was entirely helpless and his ingrowing toe-nails were neatly trimmed. He seemed immensely relieved after the manicuring was finished, but it was a wild job while it lasted.

Ancient Dyes Not So Good

THE reason ancient dyes have had such a wonderful reputation is because the climate of .Egypt, where the specimens were found, is very dry, and the specimens were usually in air-tight compartments. When exposed to the light all the old Egyptian dyes except indigo fade quickly. It is believed that no better dyes have ever been made or used in the world than those now made and used in America. Processes, taken from Germany during the war, have been so improved that American dyes are now supreme here and in many other places.

Single-Family Dwellings

IN THE city of Baltimore 94.4 percent of the rp new houses built are single homes. In Phila-

delphia and Pittsburgh about 72 percent of the new homes are single ones. In Boston, Chicago and New York the percentage of single homes is less than 16 percent. In most other cities it is less than 50 percent.

Diversion of Cotton Mills Southward

rp.H.E long hours and low rates of pay per-■■••• mitted in the South have rapidly turned the cotton mills in that direction until now fiftyeight of every hundred yards of cotton goods made in the United States are produced where the cotton is grown. The eight hundred plants of the South turn out a billion dollars’ worth of goods a year.

Controlled Eighty Companies

GENTLEMAN has just died in London, David Yule, of Edinburgh, who at the time of his death controlled eighty companies, largely in Calcutta, 'where lie spent fifty years of active business life. His entire fortune of $100,000,000 is left to an only daughter twenty-four years of age, making her the wealthiest woman in England.

Power Trust Crowd One-Seventh Honest

THE New York American in an interesting editorial shows'the crooked way by which the power trust crowd manage to take 55% profit where legally they are entitled to but 8%. By their thus taking seven times •what they are entitled to we have a fair measure of the honesty of these men. They are one-seventh honest and six-sevenths crooked.

Power Trust Riding Uncle Sam

exAtou Nonius says: “The power trust is riding Uncle Sam as the mythical ‘old man of the sea’ rode Sinbad the Sailor, and the one sure method by which its strangulation grip can be broken is government competition. Nothing like this gigantic monoply has ever before appeared in the history of the world. It dwarfs the Standard Oil Company in magnitude. In the face of such a concentration of capital, industrial control and political power, the state and national governments can maintain their economic freedom and the ability to govern themselves only by prompt, constructive action.”

Railroads Practising Economy

AKING a lesson from the beef-packers and from Henry Ford the railroads are now making a careful study of their waste materials and are finding much benefit from it. Old materials once thrown away are being used for other purposes which they serve quite as well as if freshly bought. ■

Women Smoke in Erie Diners

EEPING pace with the demands of women that they be just like the men in every way in their power, the Erie Railroad announces that hereafter women may smoke on their dining-cars. The cars are said to be so built that the air in them can be changed every three minutes, which is an item to those who find tobacco smoke sickening.

Reforestation Under Way

WENTY-FIVE million new trees is not much for a country the size of the United

States, but it is something, and by far the largest number of trees .ever planted here in one year. This'is the number which, with, the fall * plantings, it is expected will be started this year. Nineteen million of these are already in the ground.

Carpenters’ Home at Lakeland

HE Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America has erected a beautiful home

at Lakeland, Florida, for the use of retired members of the craft. The building of 250 rooms is located on a tract of 1826 acres of land, six hundred acres of which, are in orange, tangerine and grapefruit trees. The home is debt free. '

Freedom of Inquiry in Ohio

TN ATHENS, O., Prof. Wesley H. Maurer of

the Ohio University, and editor of the Athens Messenger, inquired of a newly formed civic association whether that organization favored or opposed organized labor. As a result of the 4 mere inquiry he lost his job as editor and also as professor of Journalism, which shows what a dangerous thing it is to even ask a reasonable question in the state of Ohio. When employed as professor of Journalism, in which his wmrk has been eminently satisfactory, Prof. Maurer was told his term of employment would be for six or seven years.

Disfranchisement in South

DUE to the barring of the Negroes from the polls in the South, it takes only 17,000 votes to elect a representative to Congress from South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia and Alabama; but fcin the states of Indiana, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Kansas it takes 77,000 votes to accomplish the same thing.

Brazil Enlarging Coffee Market

THE republic of Brazil has entered into contracts with 1,200 firms in Germany and

Switzerland to do specific propaganda work in various European, African, Asian and South American countries to enlarge the coffee market. Coffee bars wifi be opened in all the principal population centers where coffee is net now generally ' w ftffy ytftirk

Rumania Lets Up on the Jews

T) UMANIA, stung by the flood of criticism ■L* leveled at her for her barbarous treatment of the Jews, has finally made an agreement with them by which they are to have a subsidy of $60,000 for their religious work. A partial loaf is much better than none, and Jews generally; are pleased with the Rumanian Government’s modified attitude.

Kaiser Vetoed London Bombing

THE New York Times is authority for the statement that after the German War Office had prepared a plan to annihilate London by sending twenty Zeppelins each carrying three hundred incendiary bombs the project fell through because the Kaiser definitely and emphatically vetoed it. The Zeppelin raids over England had military points as their objective.

. Six Cents C&rfweAmpIe> » . ■

DETROIT finds six cents street earfare is ample when the street railways are operated under municipal ownership. In seven years, unchr municipal ownership, all charges v have been met out of earnings and almost $5,000,000 has been accumulated toward a depreciation fund. Under private ownership, other cities are charging up to ten cents and giving abominable service.

Effect of War on Child Minds

STUDIES made of the effect of German oecu-pation of Warsaw in 1918 revealed such depths of 11 al red that only now are the results of these studies being made known. How clearly this shows the need of protecting the minds of the young, and how it exposes the greedy commercialism of the power trust in attempting the debauchery c-f these minds white at their most impressionable stage!

IN THE United States there is an automobile for one person in five; in Hawaii, one in eight; in Canada and New Zealand, one in ten; in Australia, one in fourteen; in Alaska, one in twenty-eight; in Argentina, one in thirty-eight; in Great Britain and France, one in forty; in Ireland, one in eighty-one; in Germany, one in 137; in Italy, one in 254; in Brazil, one i$ 264; in the whole world, one in sixty-four. |

Louisiana Supplies the Frogs /

PEOPLE who have never eaten them .have no idea how good frogs’ legs are. But. a good many people have tried them and like them immensely. There are now fifty frog merchants in Louisiana.. They ship a million pounds of dressed frogs to New York, Detroit, Chicago and St Louis every year. One-third of Louisiana is swamp-land, which makes it ideal as a place to get a good crop.

WHEREVER ten Guatemalan children are without educational opportunities, a new law requires that owners of adjacent farms, actbries; ;;©r j othiriblBOillil® iirililiY must provide them. One child of each public school teacher who has taught ten years will be given a Government education. No further Government aid will be given to parochial * . t -11 it tit; <; - < < ;

Insurance Against Unemployment

SEVENTY thousand clothing workers in New

York city are entering into a contract with, their employers to provide insurance against unemployment. The company pays n% of its total wages into a fluid which after one year of accumulation of it may be withdrawn for the relief of workers through unemployment. This plan, in Britain called the '‘dole”, has been tried successfully in Chicago and Rochester.

Toll Roads and Bridges

THEBE are still a good many toll roads in the United States. They are anachronisms and ought to be condemned and bought up by the states. Most of them are in poor condition. Toll bridges are in the same class. There were 425 toll bridges built or proposed at the beginning of the current year.

Curious Generosity

A LONDON dealer in old iron loaded dowm the barrow of a detective who was posing as a street hawker until the poor man was hardly able to trundle it. He meant it all in kindness. A London multimillionaire, father of Elsie Mackay, left her entire fortune of $2,500,000 to the British nation and not a cent to the wife or children of Captain Walter Hinchliffe, who was the pilot of the plane in which Miss Mackay perished.

Mooney Still in Jail

ON EVIDENCE which all who have investigated the matter believe to have been perjury, Thomas J. Mooney, labor leader of San Francisco, is still in prison under a life sentence. Mooney insists that he was “framed” by District Attorney Fickert, of San Francisco, and the police of that city, and President Wilson’s commission established the substantial accuracy of his charge. The man is innocent, but has been in prison ten years, and is still there, not because he committed murder, but because he was a labor leader and offensive to the Big Business crowd that runs San Francisco.

Utilities Gone Silly

EVIDENCE given in Washington shows that in a silly effort to explain away the fact that charges for electric current in the United States are more than three times what they are in Canada, the Wisconsin Utilities Association has prepared a song-hook for use at its meetings. The first tw7o lines of one of the songs lyingly and suggestively says: “Yes, we’ve no excess profits, no overgrown surplus today.” The fact of the excess profits is bad enough. To lie about it is worse. And to set the lies to music is silly. Madness and silliness are closely akin to each other, and today the public utilities crowd is literally mad, drunk with extortionate profits.

German Chemical Triumphs

NOT only has the synthetic nitrate of Germany profoundly affected the Chilean nitrate industry, but the camphor formerly obtained from Japan is now made synthetically in Germany, and the indigo which we once got from British India also now comes to us froi^. the German chemical establishments.

Independent Farmer Doomed

HPHE independent farmer is doomed to go the J*- way of the retail store. Big Business can make farming pay by using methods out of the reach of the independent farmer. A farm corporation in Montana plows a thousand acres a day, seeds or harvests two thousand acres a day and threshes thirty thousand bushels a day. The farm corporations wrill grow and the independent farmers will shrink. Watch the tendencies and see.

No Interference in Foreign Affairs

TAESPITE the sending of twenty-six warships U to China and the maintenance of troops in Honduras and Haiti, we have the assurance of President Coolidge that during his administration there has been no American interference* in foreign affairs. Four different reasons have been assigned as to why American troops are in Nicaragua: protection of property, protection of canal concession, rebuking Mexican interference and finally guaranteeing Nicaraguan elections. All the bombing that has been done of towns occupied by women and children has been done in a friendly way, but it has killed a good many Nicaraguans.

Silica Gel in Refrigeration

ICELESS refrigeration is accomplished in refrigerator cars nowadays by the employment of silica gel, a hard, glassy material, exceedingly porous, possessing the property of absorbing vapor in great quantities, and giving it up on the application of heat. The refrigerant used in connection with it is liquid sulphur dioxid. As the silica gel absorbs the vapor of the liquid^ sulphur dioxid in the car the car is chilled. Heating the silica gel releases the refrigerant and the chilling process goes on again. All that is needed is intermittent heating of the silica gel to secure permanent refrigeration; and this is now practically secured, and perishable fruits cross the continent without any deterioration whatever. -

Urge Freedom for Centralia Prisoners

THE governor of 'Washington is being petitioned to free the eight prisoners who were so unwise as to defend themselves when the American Legion raided their hall on Armistice Day, 1919. Seven of the jurors in the case have 4 made affidavit that they believe the men innocent, saying they were intimidated by the presence of troops at the trial, by the bias of the presiding judge and by the pressure brought to bear by the lumber interests. The men have been in prison over eight years.

Eight Mice at a Clip

h NEW form of mousetrap is so constructed -“■ that each mouse as it is caught drowns itself i-n a pail of water, and in the act of drowning throws open the door to its successor. As many as eight mice in succession have been caught in a single night by this device.

The University of Pennsylvania

nnHE University of Pennsylvania is so much interested in the great fight being made on the public utilities question, and it is so thoroughly entrenched on the wrong side of that * cpiestion, that it has allowed one of its professors to deliver lectures for the power trust denouncing government ownership of public utilities and has condoned his receiving $250 for each such lecture. But when another professor of the same institution made a few complimentary references to the Soviet system of education lie was told he must get out. Most wealthy men today leave their fortunes to such institutions. Good investment.

Oratory at Harvard

IN I1IS class oration at Harvard, Barrett

Williams, of Boston, after denouncing the most terrible and brutal war in history, the increase in debts and standing armies which has followed it, and the dictation of a peace which was not peace, came out with the following: “Our political and moral items must be written ». in red ink. They show a cabinet in which one member was bribed to deliver up public domain valued at a thousand million dollars. Another member obtained a portion of the bribe funds to pay off the party deficit, while a third turned the Department of Justice into a den of corruption.” That young man had better look out. He should remember what happened to Sacco and Vanzetti.

Savings Less than Supposed '

THE Chase Economic Bulletin for June con

tains an interesting article on “Bank Expansion” by Benjamin M. Anderson, economist of the Chase National Bank of New York, in which Mr. Anderson shows how, under varying conditions, banks may erect an additional fabric of bank credit two, ten or nineteen times as great as their surplus reserves, placing a tremendously increased volume of money in investors’ hands without a corresponding growth in their savings. A vast amount of this hollow egg-shell sort of prosperity is now all about us.

The Private Ownership Humbug

JB. Sheridan, publicity director of Missouri

• utilities, is out with a letter saying: “There is nothing inherently sacred in private or public ownership. It all depends on which works out best, for the public. We talk a lot about what private ownership has done, yet many municipal plants were built because no private business would build them. If cities and states own and operate highways, schools, streets, sewers, water supply, why not electric and gas plants? I believe in private initiative, but I don’t believe in subsidizing it three to six cents per kilowatt hour. Privately-owmed industry should be ashamed of itself to permit a municipally-owned plant, operated on the square, to undersell it four to six or seven cents per kilowatt hour. Don’t say taxes. Taxes are less than 23/100 of a cent per kilowatt, hour in this state.”

National Popular Government League

A FTER making all necessary and proper adjustments regarding taxes, dividends, etc., twenty-one Ontario cities have an average rate of 2.4e per kilowatt hour and thirty-two cities on this side of the line have an average rate of 7.4c per kilowatt hour. The National Popular Government League wants to know wThy the extra five cents per kilowatt is charged on this side of the line. The first thing you know, even common burglars will not be safe from annoying questions as to why they are stealing, but we answer the question. They are taking the extra five cents on this side of the line because they need to use the money in buying up college professors, newspapers and statesmen to argue and write against publie ownership. ' '

Ginn and Company on the Rack

THE testimony at Washington shows that

Ginn & Company, publishing twelve million textbooks yearly, have had an agreement with the power trust for a yearly review of books on economic subjects by a committee representing the utilities. This idea of poisoning the minds of the children, so that when they are grown up they will think it is O.K. to sell a thing at twenty times what it cost to produce, is a new feature in American education.

Country Stores and Automobiles

/COUNTRY stores can not carry the stocks of city stores, and with the extension of paved roads are finding it harder and harder to compete. The automobiles are carrying much’ of the country store trade to the towns, and much of the town trade to the cities. In order to kee^ on an even keel most country stores are finding it necessary to put infilling stations. Thus they are helping to feed the machines that are taking their trade away from them.

Items from Mexico (Mexican News Service)

CCOltDTNG to the records of the Department of Industry. Commerce and Labor of the Mexican government, only twenty American oil companies are interested in Mexico. The complete figure for all companies and private individuals exploiting oil fields in Mexico (foreign and Mexican) amounts to 120. Some half-dozen of tho twenty American companies are subsidiaries of the Standard Oil Company, thereby reducing the number ultimately interested to about fourteen. It is the high concentration of this compact nucleus and their ability therefore to act practically as a single unit which, makes for their power with the State Department at Washington and gives them the possibility of standing out against the laws passed by the Mexican government for the best regulation of Mexico’s oil industry lor all concerned. The American State Department in pressing its policy of protection for American interests abroad is actually in the present difference with Mexico plighting the interests of the whole American people against their neighbors for the benefit of twenty companies at the most

While, as a matter uf fact., under the most strict legal enforcement of the law. the Mexican legislation on oil and .land does not in any way menace or endanger the existence of the big oil companies, on the other hand, smaller commercial activities in Mexico stand to be ruined by the present crisis provoked by and for the oil interests. The home governments of those entrepreneurs which feel so strongly the responsibility of protecting the few powerful companies and talk loudly about acting in the interests of their nationals abroad, permit the ways and means of the oil companies to precipitate the. ruin of hundreds of manufacturing importers and small holders caught in the maelstrom but who arc in no way interested in the outcome of the legal discussion about the supposed menace to the oil interests.

Every North American manufacturer and exporter suffers now in the crisis, will continue to suffer while it lasts and will feel for years to come in Latin America the effects of the ill will the oil companies are engendering for him . . . an ill will which will outlast the last drop of* oil any twenty North American companies and as many more oil companies, foreign or native, will be able to extract from Mexico’s soil.

Mexico is only in the beginning of the development of its small industries. Even a cursory glance into the history of the country will explain the situation. Up to the time and during the first part of Porfirio Diaz’ regime, foreign capital in any appreciable amount was not encouraged and was not interested to come to Mexico. With the discovery of oil in 1901. the -rush began. And, unfortunately, practically . since the country has been conscious of the vast-ncss of its oil deposits, internal political revolution has held Mexico in its throes and harassed one government after the other. Only under the last two administrations, those of General Obregon and President Culk-s, has there been opportunity to think at all of econonue develop-* monf to undo the wrongs the country has suffered for four hundred years.

The four state agricultural schools (central schools, as they are called), which were established last year in the slates of Michoacan, Guanajuato., Hidalgo and Durango, arc alone such a tribute to the enormous work for internal peace and organization going on in Mexico ■ today as to make unnecessary the mention of any of the other projects in the vast program being carried on by the Calles government—the 5000 rural schools maintained last year. 3000 of them newly established during 1926, the road building program, the irrigation projects, and «»so on without number.

The following few simple words of the representative of the peasant’s organization in the State of Hidalgo, who expressed the gratefulness of the humble people for the school, explaining how the older members of the community realized fully it was the best preparation for the man who works the soil, tell best of what is happening in Mexico today.

The earth is a mother, but for the Mexican peasant it has always been a stepmother because its fruits, which now come to the people almost as a blessing from heaven and from a president, have never benefited us.

The parcel of land which we now possess constitutes the tranquillity and peace of our families. ‘ Now ws have a home and in it a fatherland.

The number of inhabitants of the Mexican Eepublie, including foreigners, amounts to 14,334,780 persons, according to the last available official figures. Pure Indians account for 29.16% of this figure; Mestizos (mixed Indian and Spanish), 59.33%; whites, 9.8%; other races, 1%; all foreigners without distinction of race, 0.71%.'

Why Farmers Find It Hard By 'J. L. Kunkle

TTTE USED to hear the.slogan, "Competition V ¥ js the life of trade,” but as people get wiser in the general increase of knowledge of . our day they have learned that, when carried to a conclusion, it is suicidal and will finally dev stroy itself, culminating in warspetdw- - :J :?1

The shortage caused by the World War gave the opportunity for profiteering and a chance to control the price at which an article would be sold, and business men generally have net been slow in learning that cooperation is much safer and profitable than competition, so far as their "community of interest” is concerned. They are learning by experience that, cooperation is the true principle that all should follow. And thus it. has come to pass that all lines of business, instead of competing with one another, are combining in companies, corporations, merger?, secret understanding, communities of interest, etc., and in this way are able to control the price at which their output is sold, and run their business on a safe and sound basis and know beforehand just what their profits will be.

This is being done in manufacturing, banking, transportation, mercantile, mining, and practically all lines of business except fanning, which, from the very nature of it, the numbers and general conditions, makes it practically impossible for the farmer to take advantage of this principle of cooperation, except to a very slight degree.

Take as an illustration the International Harvester Company, which controls practically the whole farming machinery output. Their prices are set, and if the farmer wants machinery, without which at the present price of labor he can do nothing, he has no recourse but to pay them whether he is able or not; and when he has to buy on credit, the banks furnish the money at a good rate of interest, and the poorer the security he can give, tlio more interest he has to pay, making it the most expensive to the one least able to pay it.

Notv if the farmers were able to set the price at which they sell their products, they could make it in proportion to the cost; but here lies the whole problem: they must compete in tire open market, the demand sets the price, and the farmer has no recourse left but to take what ho can get; and so the price is set for him both

and the nether millstone, which is crushing the life out of him.

Many years ago our legislators with, good intention, seeing the result that must, come from monopolizing one jxrticlo of trade, passed what in known as the Sherman Antitrust Law, which made it unlawful for any company to combine with another to control prices, but it seems to

that the larger the operating concern, and the greater its output, the cheaper it can produce an article, and the multiple system of manufacture so general, instead of working hardship on some classes, would ho a blessing to the whde human family if conducted on principles of equity. But with the selfish principle in mankind, it only increases his opportunity to crush the industrial life out of his fellow man.

But while we see little or no hope of relief for the farmer from legislation, those who are privileged to have a clear mental view of God’s wonderful plan for the blessing and restitution ©f the human family can rejoice in the knowledge that a positive and comprehensive plan has been arranged and that His relief is sure in the glorious reign of righteousness which Christ will inaugurate, and which is even now at the door. From an industrial standpoint, no class of society can surely have more interest in a just and righteous government than the farmer.

Answer to Dr. Morris Fishbein By Dr. Chas. T. Betts

Morris Fishbein, M. D., has spoken and is still “speaking”. He needs no introduction; for, having easy access to nearly every publication in America and it being his duty to keep the American Medical Association and its doings continually before the public, his name is often seen and he is a well-known man.

What has he said about aluminum poisoning, and why has he said it? On pages 26 and 27 of the Scientific American of January, 1927, Dr. Fishbein disposes, once and for ever, of the opinions advanced by the author of this article in the following carefully chosen language:

ALUMINUM IN CANCER

A dentist of Toledo, Ohio, for what reason it is not apparent, has issued a pamphlet of 36 pages, presumably sold for one dollar, although sent free to libraries, school teachers an*.' hardware stores. On the basis of some naive and totally immaterial experiments, he says that the use of aluminum cooking utensils increases the incidence of cancer. The proverb “post hoc, ergo propter hoc” is here revealed to its highest extent. It is claimed that the use of aluminum has increased at the same time that cancer has increased; therefore the latter is due to the former. It might equally well be said that automobiles are responsible for cancer or that bobbed hair or any of the other things that have increased during the past 25 years share this responsibility. The reasoning is a typical example of the way medical statistics are misinterpreted by those who know' nothing of biometry.

It is not at all certain that there has been an alarming increase in cancer, since cancer is a disease of advanced age and more persons are now living longer than used to reach middle age. Life expectancy has advanced, in the past century from 35 to 55 years. Investigations in Great Britain by workers under the auspices of the Medical Research Council showed that the cooking even of acid fruits and vegetables for long periods of time resulted only in the slightest traces of aluminum in the juice when the process was completed. It j* kjKwn that alkaline substances, such as sodium carbonate or bicarbonate will eat away aluminum, but these substances do not enter into cooking processes. The theory of the Toledo dentist is pernicious in that it is used to disseminate false advice concerning cancer and to attack the use of a well established household utility.

It is apparent from the above article that Dr. Fishbein hoped to make it appear to the reader that the author may have had some ulterior or prejudicial motive in urging his opinion that alum baking powders and aluminum cooking ware are extremely dangerous to human health. Such is not the case. It is still a human possibility to be guided solely by principle and con- * viction. But just to make it interesting to readers who relish true sportsmanship and to give Dr. Fishbein, whose record for discrediting safeguarding disclosures and throwing the weight of his official influence on the side thought by many to be opposed to public health welfare may not be so unassailable, something to think about, let this suggestion be considered: This author will pay $1000' to Dr. Fishbein if he can. prove that one hundred dollars or more or the promise thereof, from any person, concern or group, to whose financial advantage would be the abandonment of either alum baking powder or aluminum cooking ware, as consideration or compensation for the publication or distribution of this book “An Opinion Upon Aluminum” which is the subject of Fishbein's profound article as reproduced above, has been paid to the author.

And this author will pay another $1000 to Dr.* Fishbein if the latter can show that the interests he officially represents, do not often receive considerable sums of money from one or mor© of the manufacturers of aluminum cooking ware and perhaps from the manufacturers of alum baking powders.

Further, if the allurement of anti-aluminum

money equals that of aluminum advertising . money received by the American Medical Association, a third offer may interest the Doctor who endeavors to create public opinion that there may be some sinister or Unworthy motive behind this author’s campaign against alumi-* num poisoning. Another sum of $1000 will be paid to Dr. Fishbein, if he or any of his detectives, agents, lawyers, “workers” or representatives can find and judicially disclose any motive on the part of the. author for publishing his “dollar book”, other than a .clean, honorable, worthy desire to disseminate what he believes to be useful knowledge and to derive an author’s customary honorarium.

Now if this disinterested (?) opponent of the author’s aluminum poisoning theory is a truly good sport, he will not only accept one or all of these three offers (or challenges) but will oome forth with a sportsmanlike proposition to pay to this author life sums if he fails te win this author’s money. It comes so easily from the facile pen of this A.M.A. editor to pronounce against seekers after and teachers of health* truth, if they happen to be “persona non grata” with him, that it would surprise many besides this author if he should meet the frank conditions of the foregoing offers with aught but silence until he finds again suitable opportunity to indulge in personal animus and innuendos, believing that, without due reckoning, it, will prove a good def ease to his obstructive and destructive aluminumizing propaganda, if propaganda it may be properly called.

Dr. Fishbein is the editor of the Journal of the A.M.A., the official magazine whose circulation is mainly among member physicians. He is ■ also the editor of Hygeia, a very attractive magazine) distributed to the public in the interest of medical propaganda, for it is published by the American Medical Association. The A. M. 'A. directly or indirectly has to do with eight or more other magazines of different names, and it is probable that this editor is the governing and directing genius of them all.

It would illuminate the discussion greatly if Dr. Fishbein would kindly summarize and publicly report in Hygeia or in Scientific American, the number of column-inches of paid advertis-ing’published in the American Medical Association publications, even during the year 1927, for the makers of aluminum cooking ware and alum baking powders. He might also publish the total amount of money paid, if any, to himself or to the A.M.A. for such advertising in 1926 and 1927. In all probability it would run into large figures. We find aluminum ware advertising in one issue of Hygeia to the extent of two whole pages, two-thirds of another page, and one-fourth of another page, and we are unable to find any advertising matter of other than aluminum cooking ware in this magazine, or of other than alum baking powders.

Now, may it not be expected that such large sums of advertising money might influence a man, even so greatly honored, to have some other possible motive than to enhance the public health welfare when he uses so representative a vehicle as the Scientific American and numerous other lay publications to question the motive of this author and to discredit his important disclosures? It is a suggestive circumstance, at least, that he seems to come to the defense of- money-paying advertisers who use the columns of publications with which he is prominently identified. And this was done without any investigation of the matter of aluminum poisoning, so far as this author has been able to ascertain. The reader can judge.

It is no idle deduction that the recorded alarming increase in deaths from cancer has been coincidental with the growing use of aluminum cooking ware and alum baking powders. The facts stand against all of Dr, Fisbbein's statements. And it is no credit to the group he heads that the reason (or cause) for the tragic fact of cancer increase has not been found by then?. It is still less creditable that, not having discovered the cause, their chief spokesman should thus endeavor to draw attention and confidence away from aluminum causation instead of frankly joining in the author’s effort to establish the probability of such causation. Such proof seems to be clearly at hand and it needs more than anything else the influence of such high-positioned men as Dr. Fishbein to warn the entire aluminumized public of the danger believed to be involved in the use of aluminum cooking ware and alum baking powders.

The reader may also wish to refer to the Journal of the- A. M. A., October 23, 1926, page 1397, for another similar editorial entitled “Aluminum and Cancer”, in which much the sama sort of language is used as in the Scientific ■American article reproduced above. The writer holds that physicians have the right to expect truth and facts in their official publication. The writer challenges Dr. Morris Pishbein to competently prove that his (the writer’s) own opinion and the scientific testimony, statements and opinions presented in the writer’s articles, are untrue and without foundation in fact. And in the absence of such proof by him, the writer asks his readers to regard his comments as trivial and wholly unworthy of this official spokesman for the great American Medical Association, many of whose members refuse to admit that he reflects their views.

No More Aluminum Headaches By Mrs. A. B. Hunton

WE DISCARDED our aluminum ware after reading articles in The Golden Age and trying the test indicated. I tried out the boiling one-half hour, and it was just as stated in The Golden Age. As a result I have ceased having the sick-headache spells which I did have. Having seven children, the eldest only twelve, I can not easily replace the thrown-away, but the inconvenience is better than to injure the health of nine persons in my care.

Playing a Mean Trick on a Kid By C. W. Fraser

SOME time ago I told the readers of The Golden Age some of the good qualities of the milk goat and of its milk, and, as some one has said, “an open confession is good for the soul,” I want to tell them of a mean trick I played on an offspring of one of the faithful ‘•'nannies”.

When the kids get to be about a month old or as soon as they start to nibble at hay, then we boil rolled oats and mix with the milk we feed them from pans. We had discontinued the use of aluminum ware for household cooking, but still used it to cook the goat feed and other uses about the barn.

After adding the grain to the milk one of the best kids developed a very bad case of bowel trouble. After checking the whole feed process * we decided to cook the oats in granite ware instead of aluminum, and today the wee “nannie” is as healthy as she was on the whole milk diet.

The Aluminum Company of Canada

Mk. R. .1. Dr:.*.cUMAX, acting f-=r the Consumers’ League of Canada, asked for a reduction of duty from 30% to 15% on aluminum kitchen-ware, whereupon the Aluminum Company of Canada countered with, an application for an increase of duty upon aluminum sheets and rods. This caused Mr. Deaehman to wax wroth and write as follows:

It is as if John D. Rockefeller were to pass the hat among the Civil Servants at Ottawa and ask for < in-triliittions to hrijj: increase the - dividends of; Standard

Canada to give our millionaires a holiday trip f r the good of their health. I gazed in amazement at th? able Corporation Counsel as he presented his story. As

…