Golden Age, January 9, 1929
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The Golden Age
A JOURNAL'OF FACT HOPE AND. COURAGE
iiimomiHimiimmiiiiimnih
• in this iss.
THE EASTERN SHORE .
once prosperous; now in adversity
THE RED MAN •
neglected, exploited and starved
ROME IN CANADA
"SCIENCE” AND LIVER
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COVENANT BY SACRIFICE its operation and purpose; lecture , broadcast by Judge Rutherford
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Volume X « No. 243
January 9, 192 9
Contents
Social and Educational
Points of Interest ...........
Brooklyn to Be Like Heaven.......
The Need of Morons ..........
Police Access to Prisoners , .......
A Splendid Enterprise .........
The Summit of Infamy.........
Seven Cents Versus Eight Million Dollars . .
The Purpose of the British Press.....
M. Andre’s Debunking of Columbus.....
On Female Smokebs ....... .
A Still Longer Word . .........
Finance—Commerce—Transportation Value of Output per Worker ......... $35,000,000 Ford Plant in London........
No More Private Business ...........
SOPHY
Five Cents a Copy—$1.00 A Yeas
Political—Domestic and Foreign
What the Peasant Party Found In Rumania . . . The Baby of Coubbeck Loo . ....... .
The Noble Rep Man ......... , .
Rome Rules in Western Canada ........
Agriculture and Husbandry
The Eastern Shore of Virginia .......
Home and Health A Personal Opinion of “Aluminum Poisoning” The Way of the Reformer.......
So-called Medical Science and Liver ...
Religion and Philo
Spiritism in an Episcopal Church . .
Cadman’s Over-advertised Service . .
Knows He Has Been Lied To ....
Is This a Mere Coincidence? .... Bible Questions and Answers .... Covenant by Sacrifice (Part 2) ...
The Children’s Own Radio Story . .
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Golden Age
Volume X Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, January 9, 1929 Number 243
The Eastern Shore of Virginia
THE Eastern Shore of Virginia is one of the garden spots of the world. It consists of two counties, Accomac and Northampton, slivers hardly more than ten miles in width, north of Cape Charles and between Chesapeake Bay and the broad Atlantic, extending sixty miles up and down the coast.
The soil is red sand, about a foot deep. The subsoil is a stiff red clay, which makes an excellent table on which plant food may lie until it is needed for consumption by the growing plants. The weather is just right for plant growth. The natives are at least as high a type of citizen as is to be found in the United States.
A generation ago the farmers of the Eastern Shore of Virginia were engaged in diversified farming. Their principal crops were wheat, oats, corn and live stock. The farms produced the greater part of the fertilizers needed, and supplied in abundance a variety of food for the family table.
About a generation ago the Eastern Shore of Virginia discovered, to her present sorrow, that her soil and climate and location with respect to markets is ideal for truck-growing, and particularly for the growing of white or Irish potatoes.
The intervening years have been years of wonderful prosperity for the Eastern Shore. Perhaps in no other part of the United States may there be seen as many large and beautiful and well-kept homes of farmers as are to be seen in these two counties.
From Florida to Maine
The garden-truck for the New York, Philadelphia, and other great industrial'’ centers of the north, starts from Florida very early in the spring, and terminates in Maine late in the fall. Each producing district has about two weeks when it occupies the center of the stage.
“The Shore,” as it is affectionately called by the natives, comes into the market with its white potatoes about June 10 and leaves it about August 1. It enters the market shortly before the North Carolina season has ended and leaves it after the New Jersey season is well under way.
Today the Shoreas in despair. There is hardly a farmer in the region but is mortgaged to the banks for as much as his farm is worth. Interviews were had with B. E. Mears, farmer and Bible Student, Cedar View Wharf, Va.; William Thomas, farmer and potato grower, Exmore, Va.; J. W. Chandler, potato dealer, Exmore, Va.A. T. Hickman, hardware merchant and potato grower, Painter, Va.; W. Cr. Emmett, cashier, Belle Haven (Va.) Bank; James E. Turner, farmer and potato grower, Exmore, Va.; E. Gr. Long, truck driver and machinist, Bible Student, Belle Haven, Va.; R. D. Vail, potato grower and landlord, Concord Wharf, Va.; Al Johnson and R. B. Johnson, farmers and potato growers, Concord Wharf, Va.; and C. R. Waters, sales manager of the Eastern Shore Farmers Association, Onley, Va. All are agreed as to the desperate condition of the farmers on the Eastern Shore, at the present time.
Ed. Kellam, Painter, Va., has a seventy-five-acre farm. Four years ago it was clear. Today he does not OAvn a foot of it, and meantime has farmed it every year.
R. C. Doughty, Craddockville, Va., has a 150-acre farm with a beautiful home. Three years ago the farm was all his own. Today he does not own a dollar of it.
One of the tenants of R. D. Vail said: "I came down here three years ago with several hundred dollars in money and went into the potato-growing business with my brother. This year my brother, and I produced and marketed 3,000 barrels of potatoes. My money is now all gone and I have not enough left of it to buy myself a pair of shoes.”
In the last three years an estate of several hundred thousand dollars has so dwindled in value that if it continues another year it will go bankrupt. The estate was cut up into small plantations and rented to potato growers. These growers were too pool’ to finance their own needs for farming, and as they received practically no returns for their products, they have had no money wherewith to repay the estate for money and machinery supplied.
The Average Potato Farm
The various experts visited agree, in substance, that the average potato farm has about thirty acres. This land, worth $100 an acre, represents an annual interest charge of 6% amounting to... $180.00
Taxes, including improvements, were estimated at ..... 65.00
Annual depreciation of equipment would be ...... 100.00
It is the custom of Eastern Shore farmers to use fertilizer at the rate of 1800 pounds to the acre. Up until this year many of the farmers have been . able to make a deal with the fertilizer companies to trade ten barrels of potatoes for one ton of fertilizer. The assumption in this trade has been that 1 the value of white potatoes is approximately $3.50 a barrel. Therefore the fertilizer companies expected to get back the $35.00 a ton which the fertilizer ordinarily sells for. But these companies lost so much money this year that it is doubtful if they can make any such arrangements for another season. Fertilizer for thirty acres of land, at 1800 pounds to the acre, would be 27 tons, which, at $35.00 a ton, makes the annual fertilizer bill of the average potato farm ........................ 945.00
Most of the small farmers were obliged to pay $40.00 a ton for their fertilizer; so the cost to them would be an additional ...................... 135.00
Seed potatoes are planted at the rate of five barrels to the acre. Therefore to plant the average farm of thirty acres would require 150 barrels of seed.
The common practice is to plant about one-half home seed, estimated as worth $3.00 a barrel, and one-half northern seed, which ranges in price from $4.10 to $5.00 a barrel. We therefore say, 75 barrels of home seed at $3.00 a barrel 225.00
And 75 barrels of northern seed at $4.50 a barrel ...................... 337.50
The usual price paid for the help in cutting the seed is 25c a barrel. On certain of the farms this cutting was done at 20c a barrel, the lowest price shown on any of the estimates. Therefore the cost of cutting 150 barrels would be .................. 37.50
The cost of working, i.e., plowing, planting and cultivating, was estimated at all the way from $6.00 an acre to $12.00 an acre, Some farmers actually paid the higher price, and from our studies we believe that about $9.00 is what is actually paid in practice .... 270.00
No one will deny that a potato grower must live. The lowest estimate of cost of living for one year was put at $720; while one man interviewed, with 160 acres under cultivation, and an elegant home to keep up and two daughters away at college, did not see how he could get along on an income of less than $6,000 a year. We put cost of living ................................ 720.00
Potato-bugs will come from the north, the south, the east and the west to do their share to make life interesting. It requires two applications of Calcium Arsenate, totaling twelve pounds to the acre, to satisfy their ravenous appetites. It costs eight cents a pound. Total for 30 acres, at least .............................. 28.00
Most growers would estimate this at least 10% higher .................. 2.80
. Total first costs .................. $3045.80
A Three-Thousand-Dollar Gamble
We are not misstating matters when, we assert that the Eastern Shore farmer bets his time and strength and over $3,000 in cash that he will at least come out even in his self-imposed task of supplying food for the table of the northern working man.
Frequently this cost is greater. Thus, one gentleman in the group interviewed, A. T. Hickman, Painter, Va., plowed in $96 worth of wheat, rye and crimson clover on his thirty-five acres of land. He did this to improve the land. He also spent $150 on a tent which he used to protect his potatoes from the sun and storm until he could get the best market. If we include similar items for our thirty-acre farm we shall have another initial cost of $82.29 for the wheat, rye and clover, and $150 for the tent, totaling ................ $232.29
Estimates of average production vary from forty to forty-five barrels an acre. We give the farmer the benefit of the better average. He will need 1,350 barrels to hold his crop on its way to market. Prices for pine barrels vary from 40c to 43c, according to location. Gum barrels are 2c less, but, as they can not be repaired, are not much used. We give our farmer a good location and the benefit of the best price on pine barrels and find that his expense for this item is .................... 540.00
The covers for the barrels cost 4e or 5c each, and again we give the farmer the benefit of a price he may not get 54.00
The usual price for digging is 20c a barrel. If the poor man who does this work gets any less, he suffers. This year, in some places, he got but 12^c; but we can not estimate the average cost at less than 20c, or another .... 270.00
The farmer must still get his product to market. Nobody will come to him and get it. If he lives close by the station his cost of hauling may be as low as 5c a barrel. If some distance away it may be 15c, the usual price, but we give this farmer an extra good location, and assume that his hauling cost will be only 10c a barrel; and this makes another ........................... 135.00
Total ........................... $4277.09
The Average Potato Farmer
Here, then, we have before us the average potato farmer of the Eastern Shore. He is a business man of consequence. He makes a cash investment of $4,277.09 each year, his hopes being to maintain a livelihood for himself and family, keep his farm from running down, and so at least break even on an average crop. What must he have per barrel for his crop if he is to “just get by”? The answer is that, producing 1,350 barrels of potatoes at a cost of $4,277.09, he can not get along with a return of less than $3.17 a barrel.
Last year the average price which he received was $3.65. If he was a prudent, efficient man, he had a margin of 42c a barrel on 1,350 barrels, or $567, with which to*add to his standard of living, which, at $720, could not be a very high one in these days, for it costs about $500 a year to keep up a good automobile.
But last year is a long time ago. Nobody is interested in ancient history. What did he do this year? He received an average price of $1.25 a- barrel. Think that over. If this man did the very best he could do, and received an average crop, he could not fail to lose the difference between his investment of $4,277.09 and what he received, $1,687.50, or the small fortune of $2,589.59.
But this year he did not receive an average crop. He received double the average. He thus had all his usual expenses, with another $540 for more barrels, $54 more for their covers, another $270 for digging and another $135 for hauling; and if you figure up all that you will find that his total costs this year were $5,276.09, his yield was 2,700 barrels, his average costs were $1.95 a barrel. He lost 70c on every barrel he sold, and his total loss was $1,890, and that is just about what the average Eastern Shore farmer lost in cold cash this last season.
Not All Did as Well
Not all did as well as to lose merely $1,890. The man who had a larger farm lost more. R. B. Johnson, of Concord Wharf, had 75 acres in and lost about $3,000 besides all his labor. He will not plant a potato this next year. He averaged to receive but about 90c a barrel for his crop.
The next question that arises in the mind of the inquirer is, Why must the fanner accept for his produce irftfcK less than if aerially cost him to raise it? and if you can answer that question down on the Eastern Shore you will be the greatest man that ever came into their midst. That is what they are all inquiring about.
Another question obtrudes itself. What about grading? It used to be that potatoes were potatoes, and if you dug a big one or a small one it made little difference; but now the chain stores do not want any very small potatoes and they do not want any big ones, because they are unpopular. They want all the potatoes of about one size, and potatoes do not grow that way. Here is another cost of sorting which is coming sharply before the farmer and making his already thorny way still more difficult. A future cost of grading is now in plain sight before the Eastern Shore farmer.
The world is changing rapidly. A cement road runs all the way down the Eastern Shore. Truck of one kind or another has been shipped by the highways direct to Boston and even to Detroit. Of course it would never pay to carry potatoes that far, because a truck can carry only fifty barrels of potatoes and the cost of running no farther north than Philadelphia would mean at least another dollar added to the cost. Strawberries were carried through to Boston in thirty hours, and were sold at auction on arrival.
Ordinarily the Eastern Shore sends into the market, in its season, 700 to 800 cars a day; but this year the shipments ran to 1,600 cars a day. And this year, by an odd streak of the weather, the Shore was into the market earlier than usual, with North Carolina later than usual, so that the two markets were piled one atop the other. The result was that the price was smashed to smithereens, and the growers of New Jersey, Kansas and Oklahoma were offered such little prices that they left their potatoes in the ground.
The Eastern Shore is exceptionally well situated to market its product. It is only a night’s ride by boat to Baltimore or Washington. It is but 208 miles to Philadelphia by rail. There is steamer connection to Havana, which is one of the large markets. Practically none of the Eastern Shore potatoes were left in the ground. They all went out at some price. The freight rate to Cuba is only 40c a barrel; to New York it is 69c. The seed for the Eastern Shore crop this year was better than ever, the quality was fine, and there was very little deduction for rot.
The Selling Proposition
Twenty-five years ago the Eastern Shore carried its potatoes into Cape Charles, and there they were bought on the spot. J. W. Chandler, one of the men interviewed, used to step out on the wharf, which was loaded down with thousands of barrels, and offer a price for everything in sight. If it was accepted he paid cash and disposed of the day’s receipts to his trade scattered all over the East. If another dealer who was present offered a better price, then the day’s receipts went to him and he handled it in the same way.
Today the farmer has absolutely no control whatever of his market. He meekly brings his stuff to the station and the local commission merchant receives it on consignment, not promising him that he will get a cent for it. Mr. Chandler, himself a commission man, denounces the whole scheme as unjust to the farmer to the last degree.
Prices are made in the following manner. A dealer in New York or any other large northern city telegraphs to a half dozen local produce dealers and asks for a price. He buys where he can buy cheapest. When the local dealer has his platforms all jammed with produce he offers them for what will move them.
Reductions of quotations are always made when a dealer has an overstock. When a dealer drops 10c it affects the market fc r that day. If he is not a big man the influence of his drop is small. If he is an important man it affects the market seriously. '
One day does not control another. All the stuff that is received today must be sold today in Boston, New York, Chicago, or wherever it can be sold. If there is a shortage in the market, then the prices go sky high. If the market is glutted the prices go the other way. Potatoes have sold in New York one day at $3.00, the next day for $1.50 and the next for $3.00.
The farmers all seem to feel that they are not getting a fair deal at the hands of the commission men. It is natural for them to feel that way. They see men rise to affluence in a few years while they in turn get nothing for their work. They know that the commission man never runs any risks, never takes any chances. L anybody is to lose, it is the farmer. The worst that can happen to the commission man is merely that his commissions may be smaller than usual because of the smaller prices secured.
The farmer says to himself, "All the potatoes I raised were sold and eaten by somebody, and the people who ate them generally had to pay a fair price. Why should I be the one to suffer ?”
Farmers- at a Disadvantage
It was a bad day when some trusting farmer turned his produce over to a commission man and said, “You sell it for me, and when you get your money let me have what you see fit to give me,” or words to that effect. Few men can stand the strain of being put in a position of trust. The world is full of Falls, Daughertys, Stewarts, Dohenys, Sinclairs and Hayses. If you have anything that is of real value it is a mistake to part with it until you have a definite understanding of just what you will get in return.
The farmer notices the commission man’s argument that he can not fix a price for his stuff because it is perishable stuff; but he also notices that as soon as the commission man gets the stuff into his own hands he has no difficulty then in naming a price.
Farmers are suspicious, do not understand the nature of marketing, and sometimes work against their own best interests. Thus, Will Shields, local produce buyer, bought potatoes for shipment to Baltimore. He had agreed with a certain farmer to give him $5 a barrel for his crop. (This was some years ago.) After seeing the farmer he was notified from Baltimore that the price had gone up 50c a barrel, and he gave the farmer the benefit of the extra 50c. This farmer never understood this matter; and because he did not understand it he would never let Shields have another barrel of his potatoes, at any price.
The farmers make the charge that commission men discriminate against small growers and in favor of large ones, and there is probably some truth in the charge. It may be done in this way. During the day the commission man may sell several lots of potatoes, at different prices. The custom is to pool all the sales for the day and divide pro rata; but a commission man may pool all the low-priced sales and not pool his best sale, but let the higher price for that sale go to some grower whose trade he desires to keep.
The local produce dealer takes a commission of 10c a barrel, and the New York produce dealer takes a further commission of 25c a barrel. If the potatoes come in bad condition the price of $2.75 may be cut to $1.75, and in that case the local commission man, the New York commission man and the farmer all lose. The way matters work out now the commission man actually makes more money when his grower is being ruined by overproduction than he does when the man who does the work receives fair compensation for it.
The farmer can not go from door to door to market his own produce. That is a business in itself; and in order to make sure that the farmer will not try it many municipalities have illegally made ordinances requiring licenses for such peddling. The Supreme Court of the United States has decided that every one of these licenses is illegal.
The wholesalers have a way of retaining control, not only of their growers, but of the grocers who handle their goods. The wholesaler may say to a grocer, “You must buy from me all the year around or I can not sell to you at all. You can not buy from others in July and August and expect me to take care of you when produce is not so plentiful.”
Juggling the Price
It is known that not all commission houses are honest; and that is putting the matter with a degree of mildness that would make the average Eastern Shore farmer angry just to even hear it said, because he would wish to make the statement much stronger and say that they are all a bunch of thieves. But perhaps that is not quite true.
Mr. Mears said on this subject: “It would be possible for a New York house to sell potatoes for $2.00 and to return $1.75 as the price they received, and they sometimes do it. I once talked with a Baltimore commission man who had only fifteen or twenty barrels to sell. He had to live from that small amount and maintain an office and family. I asked him how he did it, and he frankly told me that he kept out 25c on each barrel besides his regular commission, and never let the farmer know of it.”
It is the custom now in commission houses to whisper prices when in the presence of truckmen, as the commission merchants do not wish the farmers to learn the actual prices they get for the goods that pass through their hands. There are other concerns which allow no whispering on the premises.
Miller Edwards, 159 Dock St., Philadelphia, is said to be a man who takes 10% straight profit on the merchandise which passes through his hands, and farmers and grocers alike know just what each has to pay or receive. One could wish that all were such.
AV. H. Harrison, Washington, D. C., is also set down as another high-class concern which pays cash immediately on receipt of goods and allows no whispering about the place. Why can there not be more such men?
E. G. Long, Belle Haven, Va., truck driver, said: “On one occasion I had a load of string beans on the way north. I wired a Philadelphia house saying, ‘I have been offered $2.50 for . .these beans in New York. If you can not meet %*' these prices, do not unload my truck but send it on to New York. I am wiring my driver to the same effect.’ In spite of these definite instructions the Philadelphia man unloaded my truck and paid me only $1.50 for the beans. This grieved me, because, in my business as a truck driver, I had carried the beans for one of my fellow citizens. The commission merchant told . me that if I would bring another lot he would make up the difference. I did send another lot, and stood by and saw them sold for $4.75; and ■when he paid me off he gave me only $3.00.”
R. B. Johnson, Concord Wharf, Va., said: “This very morning I had string beans. C. R. Duer, local broker, said, ‘I can not possibly pay you more than $2.15/ Within a few minutes he sold them in Philadelphia at $3.25. I happened to know of the price received and made him set-. tie at the $3.25 price. Ten years ago Duer was worth nothing. Today he is a man of wealth. I am up at three o’clock in the summer and at five the rest of the year, and not only am getting nothing for my work, but am being ruined, and I can not go on.”
Juggling the Quality
Juggling the quality is an even meaner trick than lying about the price; yet it is done. Mr. R. B. Johnson, the gentleman last quoted, said: ■ “The year before last I shipped a car of potatoes to go to Cuba. The car passed Government inspection, and the inspector said it was the finest car he had ever seen. The date of the shipment was July 6. Settlement for this car was not made until the 28th of February. When settlement was made it was claimed that every potato in the car was rotten, and I received not a eent for that shipment. In other words, that car of potatoes was stolen outright by the concern to whom it was shipped.”
Years ago Samuel T. Apollonio, of Boston and Providence, a Bible Student w*ell known to some of our readers, while still a lad arranged with a captain trading between Boston and Haiti to sell for him in Haiti a number of barrels of choice cabbages. Young Apollonio selected the finest cabbages that could be found, packed them personally, and knew that every cabbage was good and sound when it left Boston. On the return of the vessel he asked the captain for his money and was told that on arrival in Haiti it was found that the entire shipment was worthless and they had been obliged to dump it into the sea. Subsequently one of the sailors informed him that every cabbage he had sent had been sold at the wharf in Haiti by the captain himself, and that the natives seized them like hot cakes at 50c a head. The captain stole the entire shipment, price, quality and all.
Years ago, also, according to a story told us, and which, at the time, we had every reason to believe reliable, a northern man went to northern Alabama to engage in peach-growing. Determined to make a success of the new venture, he paid particular attention to his first shipment and sent it on to an Indianapolis house whose name he knew, but with whom he had no personal acquaintance. He received word that the fruit had arrived but in a damaged condition and was hardly worth handling. He boarded the first train, went to the head of the firm, and, without revealing his identity, wanted to know if he had any choice peaches. The man replied, ‘Yes, I now have in the yard the finest ear of peaches that ever came into Indianapolis/ The grower asked to see them. The man took him out in the yard and with pride showed him his own car, saying, ‘Nothing as fine as this ever before came into this city/ According ing to the story, the grower pulled out a gun, shoved it against the man’s ribs and demanded instant settlement at the original price agreed upon or he would blow a hole clear through him. He got the money. How many such men there are in the commission business we do not know.
It is to be feared that commission merchants as a whole are disposed to take advantage of the farmer, and to take special advantage of him at the time when he most needs help, i. e., when markets are overstocked. Quite probably in a time of panic, such as this last year has been in the potato business, there are unreasonable and inaccurate claims as to damaged goods and prices received. We do not know this, and it may not be true.
Eastern Shore Farmers Association
The Eastern Shore of Virginia Farmers Association is the largest commission merchant on the Shore. It is a cooperative association embracing 85 percent of the growers and has crowded out most of the older jobbers. Members of the association agree to market all their stuff through this one agency, and are fined 25c for every package shipped otherwise.
Under the farmers contract with the association he is not allowed to have his own barrel cover; and even when lie has bought the covers they do not belong to him outright, but may be used only to market through the association the goods which they protect.
The association ships to 616 different cities and towns in the territory east of the Missouri. River. Its diversion points are Manhattan Transfer, Pitcairn, Northumberland, Toledo and Fort Wayne. In 1928 the association sold 13,800 cars (2,760,000 barrels) from the Shore territory, and employed ten. salesmen, located principally at the great distributing centers, keeping constantly apprised of the condition of the market.
Farmers who are members of the association receive dividends from the shares they have in the association; and after these shares receive their permitted dividends, the balance of profits, after payment of salaries and expenses of management, goes to the shippers in proportion to their shipments. The association claim strongly that their whole trouble is inability to cope with a vast increased acreage and increased production.
B. E. Mears was at one time a member of the association but has dropped out. He thinks the association too anxious to sell at any price and too ready to admit heavy discounts for spoilage. In one instance, after a check for $900 for two cars of potatoes was in his hands he was obliged to return it and accept about $325 for the two cars, though, to his personal knowledge, the goods were in first-class condition when turned over for shipment. Naturally a thing like this makes a man sore and makes him suspicious that his interests are not being properly looked after.
And Now, Enter the Chain Store
And now into this confused and perplexing situation there enters the chain store; and with connections all over the country, and the power to turn its money over every week, there is almost no limit to its buying power. The jobbers foresee that the chain stores mean their end; and it may mean the end of the farmers too, and it looks as if such would be the case.
Today there are 1300 chain stores. Mr. Chandler, commission merchant, many times referred to in these notes, has sold to the A&P, American, Reeves, Butler, Bohack, Cloverdale, National, Mayflower, Cupp, Kroger, Charles Thompson, Piggly Wiggly and Albrecht and reports them as fine customers, honest and easy to please, but now the A&P is doing its own buying.
The A&P deals with the farmer direct. It is even reported to have lost $250,000 this year through financing the farmers of North Carolina, but a quarter of a million dollars to a firm like the A&P is only small change. The lesson learned this year will be taken advantage of next year.
The A&P sales to customers are made on a small margin.’ There is an estimated difference of 13% in costs over the old method of buying through jobbers. The jobber sees the end of that 1.3%; and the farmer will see the end of something too, no doubt. '
On November 2, in Exmore, Va., Mr. Chandler was buying from the farmers at $1.95 and selling to his trade at $2.10. At the same time the A&P were buying from the farmers direct at $1.75, which is 35c less a barrel than the Chandler selling price. When potatoes sell in A&P stores at 16c to 23c a peck the selling price per barrel is only $1.92 to $2.76, not enough for the farmer to live on.
This past season it was noted on several occasions that when the markets became completely glutted with potatoes the A&P, with their enormous outlet, wyere able to come in and take the whole surplus, and of course they obtained it at practically their own price, and there is no way to prevent them from doing so. Nor can they, if they find it profitable so to do (and there is no question that such is the case), be prevented from waiting until such times as the markets are glutted to make their purchases. It may be depended on that such a vast organic zation has capable men detailed for just that work.
What Is to Be Done?
The concluding question is easy to ask and hard to answer. What is to be done? Nobody knows; nobody on the Shore, nobody on the coast, and, it is to be feared, nobody in the White House or anywhere else.
Conventions of the principal potato men of the United States have been called, to meet at Chicago and Norfolk. They will have remedies to propose. The first is that production be cut in half. It is easier said than done. Who is to tell an American farmer what he may or may not plant?
Diversified farming will be urged. It is but a makeshift. If one man can make a success one year by turning from the raising of potatoes to growing peppers for a pickle factory, what will happen when ten thousand farmers do the same thing? Good-bye pickle factory outlet, and profit.
A very intelligent farmer, Mr. Thomas, said the excess potatoes should be turned into starch and alcohol, as in Germany; but he forgot to say what would happen when we had more starch and alcohol than we could use or sell at a profit. And the Farmers Association claims to have tried the starch scheme and to have found it impracticable.
President Coolidge, mindful of the great famine in China and the fact that millions in India and Africa are always on the border line of starvation, has recently said that the world is not producing more food than it needs, but that it is wholly a question of distribution.
That being the case, how fervently all right-minded men and women could wish that the happy day had come when matters like this could be made right. Divine Wisdom would be adequate for feeding the starving millions of Asia and Africa and at the same time giving the farmers of the Eastern Shore a proper return for their labor. We wish for nothing unreasonable when we wish “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”; and it will surely not leave unsettled such a great and pressing problem as the production and distribution of human food.
Meantime we must stand by and see billions wasted in armaments that are obsolete before they are completed, and that are of no earthly or heavenly use to anybody. How much better that money could be used in paying for food and carrying it to the hungry people on the other side of the world. And in the end it would be good business too.
Points of Interest
Peace, Peace, by the Kellogg Pact
red B. Smith, Secretary of the World Peace Union, in a recent address said: “One of the signers told me that the very room where the Kellogg compact Avas signed was charged with suspicion and fear that some one would gain an advantage. Then they talk of cruisers and three-billion-dollar navies and make the compact look like a piece of hypocrisy.”
Brooklyn to Be Like Heaven
ROOKLYN is to be made like heaven.
The ministers of the city have sent a request to Washington that the number of dry agents in the city of churches be increased from 12 to 100. When these 100 men have made Brooklyn like heaven we will issue another bulletin. P. S. Please do not expect any more bulletins.
Local ion of Defective Bails
lmer A. Sperry is the inventor of an electrical device which when moved along a railway track at seven miles an hour squirts white paint on every weak spot in the rails. Out of 822 derailments last year due *3 failure of track, 552 were caused by broken rails that will be detected by this new device before the cracks have spread sufficiently to cause a wreck.
Carboloy for Machine Tools
CARBOLOY, a new material composed of tungsten carbide and cobalt, will cut a screw thread on a glass rod or bore a smooth hole in a block of concrete. It will finish 11,000 parts without necessity of sharpening, and will bore holes in any material without causing a taper. This product of the Krupp German works will hereafter be made in this country.
The Need of Morons
THAT was quite a thought advanced by Dr.
C. E. A. Winslow, professor in the Yale Medical School, that we need high-grade morons in our civilization because there are so many repulsive jobs which the alert do not desire. We presume the professor had in mind those Power Trust professors, but as he did not like to call them by name he just lumped them all under the one head as high-grade morons.
Gravity Control Possible
FOR aerial navigation to be entirely secure some sort of gravity control seems almost essential, and it is significant that this is now being discussed as a possibility. It is even now said that if an electric magnet is placed on the floor an aluminum plate can be made to float above it, and that one piece of supermagnetized cobalt steel will support another in the air when the positive pole of one is placed subjacent to that of the other.
Massachusetts Necessaries of Life
THE Massachusetts State Commission on the
Necessaries of Life has found that, by crooked, devious and dishonorable practices, 27% of the total cost of building in that state goes to the promoters and financiers. The Commission also says that the conditions it has uncovered are a disgrace to the building, banking and real estate interests of Massachusetts. They found instances where mortgage money furnished by hanks at 6% was let out again by the middlemen at rates figured to net 25% per annum.
I THE eight great industries of steel, gen- A SPLENDID enterprise is the Marshall eral engineering, motor vehicles, electrical -O- Stillman group of businesses in New York
Value of Output per Worker engineering, shipbuilding, cottons, woolens and worsteds, and boots and shoes, the average annual output per worker in the United States is $6,114, while in Britain it is only $2,548. The average horsepower per worker in the United States, in these same industries, is about 4.6, while in Britain it is 2.8. It is this difference in machine power which is crippling Britain and enabling American financiers to pile up the most fabulous fortunes ever seen beneath the sun. The race between the machine and the man is on, and the man, the British man, has already lost out.
The World Growing Better '
TN HIS address to the Episcopalians Presi-J- dent Coolidge said, “We can not doubt that the world is growing better.” He did not enlarge upon the activities of our Stewarts, Falls, Denbys, Dohenys, Daughertys or Hayses, nor upon the flourishing racketeering industries of our larger cities, but contented himself with a general statement. Meantime, in America, we have ten thousand murders a year.
Receptions of Zeppelin Visitors '
THE Prussian Minister of the Interior was
one of the passengers on the' Graf Zeppelin w’hich recently landed at Lakehurst, N. J. He has publicly called attention to the markedly polite and kindly reception granted by the American people and the impolite and unkind treatment by their official representatives, the police. He states that the police several times . yanked and pushed the passengers and that in one instance one of them was struck in the face.
Police Access to Prisoners
A WRITER in The Nation calls attention to the obvious fact that if the police were denied access to prisoners there would not henceforth be any cases of the third degree or other tortures of prisoners, of which rve have heard much in recent years. The care of prisoners awaiting trial ought not to be left in the hands of those who are financially interested in having them proven guilty. A warden of prisoners should not have any interest whatever in their guilt or innocence, but should be interested in them merely as human beings awaiting trial.
A Splendid Enterprise
which aims to provide employment for youths . that have at one time or another gone wrong. It is found that these youths make unusually clever workers, scrap among themselves for the chance to make extra money by over-time, and when given a share of the profits show intense eagerness to avoid waste. This all shows that all that humanity needs is proper guidance. The whole prison system, start to finish, is a disgrace and a reproach to the intelligence and goodness of mankind. The Bible approves no such system, but provided for Cities of Refuge where one who had gone wrong might go right.
Fewer and Fewer Railroad Employes
LABOR-SAVING devices are hitting railroad employes hard. The average number of employes in the first half of 1928 was 99,227 less than the average for the first six months of 1927,113,154 less than 1926, and 183,364 less than in 1923. The average hourly rate of pay of railroad workers is only 66.8 cents.
Pacific-Atlantic Bus Service
THROUGH bus service between New York and Los Angeles has been inaugurated.
Three busses leave daily on the 3,433-mile route via Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Denver, scheduled to complete the trip in five and one-half days, one day longer than by train. These busses contain kitchen, toilet and sleeping accommodations for twenty-six passengers. Radio entertainment is provided. Passengers are allowed sixty pounds of baggage and may stop over on the trips at their convenience.
End of the Prayer Book Row
HAVING been defeated in their efforts to force Roman Catholic practices on the people, the bishops of the Anglican church are now going to use their unapproved prayer book wherever they can, regardless of the fact that it was turned down by Parliament. In other words they will do illegally what they were forbidden to do legally, and thus have their own way anyway. Now if the people will just shut off their support, that will end the whole row.
What the Peasant Party Found in Rumania
WHEN the Peasant Party came into control of Rumania early in November, not only did it not find a single cent of money in any of the cash drawers, but it found that many long dead and others not yet born were drawing regular salaries, while actual working employes, of the government were left unpaid. In many instances persons were living in grand style at government expense who held no pretense even of government positions of any sort. Now the wretches that have been displaced are referring to the new government as a “terrorism of the masses”, doing everything possible to get the public scared into putting them back into power. American and other financiers were just about to loan $250,000,000 to the government that has been displaced.
No Beggars in Jerusalem
TTITHERTO Jerusalem has been cursed with -LJ- beggars, mostly Arabs, who have made it a business. A new ordinance now in effect prohibits all future begging in streets or homes, and, if enforced, will put Jerusalem ahead of most of our western cities in this respect,
The Summit of Infamy
THE summit of infamy will not be reached when Leopold and Loeb are shortly given their liberty, as is now likely to be the case. It was reached in Boston when Sacco and Vanzetti were executed, after seven years, for a crime of which nobody believes they were guilty. The Outlook and Independent has devoted an entire issue to affidavits showing that Vanzetti could not have been guilty of the Bridgewater holdup, and that this information was in Governor Fuller’s hands when he sent the men to the chair.
$35,000,000 Ford Plant in London
Hexry Ford is building a $35,000,000 plant in
London,, where cars will be built for the European, African and Asia Minor trade. The plant, which has a frontage on the Thames of two-fifths of a mile, and extends back one mile from the river, will have a capacity of 200,000 cars a year. It will be a British plant, manned with British workers. Ford will supply 60% of the capital of the new venture. It is a safe bet that those who buy the balance of the stock will speedily become millionaires.
Communists Have Strange Bedfellows
rpiIE open shop committee of the National -*• Association of Manufacturers has made the surprising and rather comical charge against the American Federation of Labor that the latter has been exaggerating and over-emphasizing the communist forces of the country as a menace to American industry. Looks as if, in their desires to have open shops, some of the manufacturers hope that the labor organizations will all turn communistic; but if they do so what 'will become of Some of these great captains of industry, such, for instance, as povTer trust executives? It is a good thing, perhaps, to be in the public eye, but not in the form of a cinder; for even the public can get tired of a cinder -which persists in making itself and everybody else uncomfortable.
A Legionnaire Wishes Justice Done
Captain E. P. Coll, member of the American Legion, Hoquiam, Washington, is urging the release of the eight men ■who have now been confined nine years for the killing of Warren 0. Grimm at Centralia on Armistice Day, 1919. Captain Coll, in a letter to his comrades, deplores the unjust attitude of the Washington Legionnaires against these unhappy men and says: “It is common knowdedge among at least certain posts of the American Legion that the attack upon the I. W. W. hall began vdien Warren 0. Grimm and other members of the Centralia division broke from the line of march and began to batter down the door and windows of the hall.”
Spiritism in an Episcopal Church '
ST. MARKS-IN-THE-BOUWERIE, the Episcopal church that so distinguished itself by having barelegged girls dance in the pulpit, has gone one better by having an out-and-out spiritistic seance at which a woman under demoniac control uttered gibberish poetry for the spiritual uplift of the audience. Christ used to cast demons out of people and denounced them as unclean, lying spirits. Now they are allowed to use the pulpit and thus fulfil the Scriptural declaration, ‘Babylon is fallen and is become the hold of devils and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird.’
Cadman’s Over-advertised Service
AMID a blare of trumpets it -was announced that Doctor Cadman wmuld preach over the radio to the greatest of audiences. The services started October 14, with just twenty stations on the air. This is considerably less than half the stations that have several times listened to Judge Rutherford, and less than one-fifth the number that listened to'the Judge on the occasion of his address at Detroit, August 5, of last year, when 107 stations broadcast at one time, the greatest hookup in history. In his speech Cadman said, “A peace conference of all religions of mankind is proposed for 1930”; and then he added, “There is nothing but good can come of it.” All that mankind has to do is to look back to 1914-1918 and see what all the religions of mankind did to peace then, and they will know rvhat they would do to it again if they had the chance. .
No More Private Business
TV"illtam Butterworth, president of Cham-W her of Commerce of the United States, in an address before the Associated Business Papers of New York said: “There was a day when the institutions of business were indeed private. - That was a day when the ownership and management of business enterprises were vested in one man, or at most, in a small group of partners. But, today, literally millions of our people are shareholders in our great agencies of finance, transportation, communication, production and distribution. And the end is not yet of this widespread public ownership of business.” When William said that last sentence lie said something; but he forgot to go on and say when we would all be awarded free, stock and bonuses, etc., in these corporations which he now admits control all avenues by which one might make a living. "Won’t it be nice when all these great corporations put us all on the payroll? Who would like to be first?
On the Same Day
ON THE same day that the president of the
Chamber of Commerce of the United States made the above happy remarks that private business is passing, because the big fellows are getting it all, along conies Mr. E. W. McCullough, manager of the Department of Manufacture of the same Chamber of Commerce of the United States, and in-addressing the Findlay, Ohio, Chamber of Commerce, said: “The day of the big, inflexible plant, facing intense competition in distribution as well as production, seems to be passing. The cry that the big fish are eating up the little ones sounds less alarming. Already many of our newer and best-managed industries are getting away from building very large units and leaning more strongly toward those commensurate rvith the market to be supplied.” Seems like some confusion here. Butterworth says the big fellows have gobbled all the little ones, and McCullough, working for the same concern, says it is no such thing. These boys ought to get together and figure out a little more closely just what they are going to ladle out to the rest of us, so that we may be able to tell which one to believe, or whether it is desirable to tell New York people one thing and Findlay people another. Maybe that is the clue to it.
Baldvino and Pennsylvania State Police
WHEN the miners at Export, Pa., were on strike, a man named Baldvino was standing in front of the post office of his home town. The troopers came up and Bruce Kunkle grabbed Baldvino, struck him again and again with a black-jack, broke three of his ribs, and so injured him that he has not been able to work since that time. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Kunkle.
Seven Cents Versus Eight Million Dollars
THE New York Sun, October 17, 1928, first page, column seven, narrates the sending to the workhouse for six months of a deaf man charged with having stolen seven cents from a fellow spectator. He pleaded guilty of the offense and had many times previously been arrested for similar crime.
In the next column Maurice Connelly and Frederick Seely, former officials of Queens Borough, New York city, are reported as having been found guilty of collecting about $8,000,000 in graft from the taxpayers; and although this sewer graft has resulted in hundreds of poor people’s losing the very homes over their heads, these two villains get but a year in jail and a fine of $500. If this is not a good picture of the Devil’s organization, send us one.
Turkey Struggles with Roman Alphabet HDURKEY is in the midst of a gigantic strug--*■ gle with the Roman alphabet. The law has gone forth that all good Turks, big and little, must learn the Roman alphabet in sixty days or lose their jobs. Text-books galore have been published, newspapers are helping, and today Turkey is one vast school. On December 1, all newspapers in the country abandoned Turkish characters and went over to the Roman alphabet.
A Shrinkage of 249,961 Years
UNIVERSITY of California geologists found bones of a mastodon in Marin County, California, and published careful estimates that they had been in the location where they were found for just 250,000 years. The facts are that these bones were found in Alaska. The ship that brought them down sank off the coast of California. A diver rescued them, intending to give them to a saloon-keeper fond of curios. He started for the saloon but his buggy became mired with the heavy bones. He heaved them overboard into a little creek where the University of California scientists found them. But it was not 250,000 years ago he heaved them overboard; it was only 39 years ago, and the scientific difference is represented by a shrinkage of 249,961 years. How easy it is to make mistakes!
The Baby of Courbeck Loo
[Excerpt from “Falsehood in War-Time" by Arthur Ponsonby, M. P.J
IT IS not often that we have a confession of falsehood, but the story of the baby of Courbeck Loo is an illuminating example of an invention related by its author.
Captain F. W. Wilson, formerly editor of the Sunday Times, related the story in America in 1922. The following, account appeared in the New York Times (reproduced in The Crusader, February 24, 1922):
A correspondent of the London Daily Mail, Captain Wilson, found himself in Brussels at the time the war broke out. They telegraphed out that they wanted stories of atrocities. Well, there weren’t any atrocities at that time. So then they telegraphed out that they wanted stories of refugees. So I said to myself, “That’s fine, I won’t have to move.” There was a little town outside Brussels where one went to get dinner—a very good dinner, too. I heard the Hun had been there. I supposed there must have been a baby there. So I wrote a heart-rending story about the baby of Courbeck Loo being rescued from the Hun in the light of the burning homesteads.
The next day they telegraphed out to me to send the baby along, as they had about five thousand letters offering to adopt it. The day after that baby clothes began to pour into the office. Even Queen Alexandra wired her sympathy and sen! some clothes. Well, I couldn’t wire back to them that there wasn’t a baby. So I finally arranged with the doctor who took care of the refugees to report that the blessed baby died of some very contagious disease and couldn’t have even a public burial.
And we got Lady Northcliffe to start a creche with the baby-clothes.
The Purpose of the British Press By John Nicholson (Scotland)
IT IS my privilege as a colporteur to meet many classes of people, rulers and ruled.
Readers of The Golden Age are well aware that those who exercise ruling power over the people are composed of three elements, to wit, politicians, profiteers and preachers, and that these elements control the world’s newspapers, by which means they keep the common people in the dark.
The following experience amply proves the above statements to be true. While calling on some of Glasgow’s business people in connec-. tion with Judge Rutherford’s book Deliverance., I met the Scottish representative of the London Times. After I explained my mission, he said, “I can not have anything to do with Judge Rutherford. That man is against the politicians and the press, and this paper is owned by the politicians. Our purpose in getting the London Times into Scotland is in order to keep the view’s of our party before the people.”
Here, then, is a candid admission by one who is in a position to know, that the real purpose of the London Times is not to give the British public the truth of events as they occur, but to keep before the masses of the people only what the politicians think the people should know.
The political element goes hand in glove ■with the financial element, while the ecclesiastical wing of the ruling factors stand by as a tool ready to give a religious coloring to the evil deeds of her supporters. This unholy combination controls the British press, and by this means deludes the common people. A glaring example of how the truth is held from the people is given us during the coal strike. A. G. Cook, the miners’ secretary, contended that if the government bought over or nationalized the mines, conditions for the miners could be greatly improved.
Through the press the people were told that the government could not afford to buy the mines, that the country was almost paralyzed financially, and that the coal owners had been running the mines at a loss—for charity, perhaps? Cook and the miners were grossly misrepresented by the. newspapers.
The facts now- at hand show, how’ever, that it cost the country three times as much money to defeat the miners as it would have taken to buy the mines over. Thus the rule of tyranny and oppression continues.
But let the people take courage. The cry of “Deliverance” is going throughout the land. Jehovah, the true friend of the people, -will soon arise in battle, shatter the present corrupt organization and free the people, and then all men shall know7 the truth.
The Noble Red Man
IT IS a good thing to go away from home sometimes to find out \vhat people think about you. We pick up the Manchester Guardian and find the folloxving summary of an investigation of the United States Government’s treatment of the Indians under their care, made at the request of the Secretary of the Interior:
“The policy of the Government pauperizes the Indian. '
“Health conditions are very bad, with mortality and infant mortality rates markedly higher than among the white population.
“The administration of the Indian Bureau can only be called a success so far as the administration of the Indians’ property is concerned.
‘ ‘ The educational efforts of the Bureau for the Indians are of negligible value.
“Much of the land alloted to the Indians, on which they are expected to earn their living as farmers, is virtually worthless, and in any ease they are not given the capital, the expert advice, or the moral support which would be necessary to give such an enterprise' any hope of success.
“The white personnel of the administration, chiefly because of the low salaries paid and the isolation of some of the posts, is distinctly inferior. This is true in particular, the report says, of the doctors, nurses, and teachers.”
The investigators found that the Government was following a deliberate policy of breaking up the Indian families by sending the children off to boardingschool at an early age. There they are taught from one standard rigid curriculum which is identical throughout the United States, regardless of special circumstances, such as ignorance of the English language or peculiar local customs and conditions. With inferior teachers it is not surprising that this work should be so largely ineffective. Some of the “Indus-
trial training”, of which a great point is made, consists in teaching vanishing trades which are no longer of any economic importance.
The Government seeks to feed each Indian child at a cost of fivepence half-penny daily, plus such food as can be raised on the farms which are conducted in connection with the schools. In order to produce this food every child above the fourth year of school must work half of each day in the fields or barns. This gives them little opportunity for recreation, and in some cases fatigues them to such an extent that their classroom work is nullified. In spite of the efforts to produce extra food most of the Indian children are badly under-nourished. The report refers to their condition as “a grave emergency”, and recommends that Congress should immediately appropriate £200,000 to increase the quantity, quality, and variety of their food.
The two most serious diseases for the Indians are tuberculosis and trachoma, and inadequate diet is an important factor in each of these. The report criticizes the medical service of the Indian Bureau for paying insufficient attention to diet in trachoma cases. The custom of the doctors is to perform a radical operation for trachoma, and the report says that these operations have been undertaken in many cases when they were not necessary, and in some when the patient did not have trachoma at all. Even in a special school maintained for Indian children suffering from trachoma the diet was found to be inadequate. Milk was not given any child in this school unless his condition was so bad that he was actually in the hospital.
Before the white man began to interfere with them the Indians lived a fairly healthy life. Most of them occupied wigwams or tepees so flimsy in construction that they were well ventilated. Today they use white men’s houses, and these are wretchedly ventilated and appallingly overcrowded. The report says that fewer Indians use beds than use modern cooking stoves, and that those who employ washable bedclothes are fewer still. Because of the overcrowding it is rarely possible to segregate those suffering from communicable disease, and this is one reason why the Indian death-rate is so far above normal. The great majority of the Indian homes have no running water, and are without toilet facilities of any kind.
The Government has gone on the assumption that the Indians can not be trusted with cash, and this has helped to pauperize them. When the lands allotted to them to live on have been good, these have usually been taken from them in one way or another by white men, often with the connivance of the Government administrators. Some lands have been purchased by whites, and the Indians have been allowed to spend their capital thus acquired, drawing it a little at a time from the resident agent. In other cases leases have been made, often at unfairly low rates. While a few Indians on whose land oil and minerals have been discovered are wealthy, the report states that the average red man is “poor, even extremely poor”. If an Indian dies leaving several heirs, his lands have too often been sold off in order to provide readily divisible property, and the inheritors in a few months or years are left penniless.
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