Golden Age, January 23, 1929

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<^e Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

in this issue

WILLS AND TESTAMENTS

■ FOREST FIRES

THE DRUG MENACE

EUROPE AND PEACE

RECONCILIATION

Its ministry, the real commission of the true church; broadcast by Judge Rutherford

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EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY

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Volume X <• No. 244 . January 23, 192 9

Contents

Labor and Economics

Items or Interest . . . .

Class Consciousness . .

Social and Educational

Nuncupative and Written Wills ............. 262

Practical Lessons on the Great Pyramid .......... 269

Man the Weaker Sex ....

Finance—Commerce—Transportation

Now That Flying Has Come

It is Better to be Cautious

Political—Domestic and Foreign

Hungary Suffering Because of Anti-Semitism

This Happened in Saskatchewan (Maybe) ....

Showed the Veil at the Right Time ....

Communism .....

Europe in Time of Peace ...

Agriculture and Husbandry

Western Forest Fires ................ . 265

Science and Invention

Possibilities of the Milikan Rays ............. 259

From a Boston Newspaper

Television ................

Home and Health

The Ditua Menace .................. 274

Two More Aluminum Sackh'ices

Religion and Philosophy

The Jian at the Top .......

“Open to Considerable Argument’’

The Cardinal's Mistress ....

Blessings of the Service Work

“Blessed are the Peacemakers” .

Faith no Longer Necessary (?) .........

Ministry or Reconciliation ............... 277

Bible Questions and Answers .............. 286

The Children’s Own Radio Story ............. 287

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Golden Age

Volume X

Brooklyn, N. Y.» Wednesday, January 23, 1929

Number 244

Items of

Interest

Our Debt to Radium Workers

WHEN confronted with radium signs at night, including the dials of our clocks, let us not forget that this convenient form of sign has caused the death of many persons. Among these deaths is that of the inventor of the signs, Dr. von Soehocky.

Big Business as an Entertainer

SEVEN hundred theaters are expected to be included in the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation for joint production of talking pictures by radio, with television entertainment the ultimate probability. It is evident that the time is at hand when virtually all the industries of the world, and even the entertainment of the people, will Toe in the hands of a very few men. The whole thing will be done by machinery.

Possibilities of the Millikan Rays

SPEAKING of the newly discovered Millikan rays, Professor Owen D. Young in a recent address at Albany said: “A microscopic speck of yeast under proper conditions will produce 75 tons of edible food in ten days. What blessings may not the electron and the cosmic rays some day confer on a perishing race when their incredible hidden energy is tapped and brought under control.”

The Man at the Top

THE man at the top is to blame because the people read trash, listen to jazz, swarm to prizefights, make millionaires of men that are unworthy to be polishers of the shoes of honest men, and because millions of them .are now ’disheartened, discouraged, disillusioned and sore. The man at the top is the Devil. Get him out of the way, and get his religion out of the way, and the man below is a good man, disposed to treat his fellow man as he should.

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Parents in China Selling Children

T N THE famine district of China, 'which is A now much larger than heretofore supposed, parents are selling their daughters. The price for the pool- creatures runs from $200 in gold downward. Bubonic plague has broken out in the famine-stricken area.

President Gil’s Program

‘PRESIDENT Emilio Portes Gil of the J- Mexican Republic has announced as part of his program that every able-bodied citizen of the republic must work at some gainful occupation eleven months out of every year. If he is able to put this program across it means that plenty of religious and other loafers will have to get out and do some common, ordinary honest work; and oh, how that will hurt them I

Asiatic Reformers Experience Trouble

ASIATIC reformers are experiencing trouble in putting their reforms in operation. Six Persian officials have been killed by Arab tribesmen who did not wish to wear trousers, and Afghanistan farmers resent having their ’wives have any liberty; and so it goes. However, the Afghan women have laid off their veils in the capital of the country, and it is certain the veils will never go back on.

Hungary Suffering Because of Anti-Semitism THE Hungarian Minister of Education has appealed to his fellow citizens to cease their attacks upon the Jews and to give them equal opportunities for education, advancing as a reason for a more enlightened course the fact that Hungary is now discredited in the eyes of the world because of her unjust treatment of the Jewish people, and as a result can not obtain for herself in international conferences the consideration which she desires.

Mechanical Machine Watcher

IT IS claimed that a new invention is of such a nature that it can be attached to a machine, without the knowledge of the operator, and will faithfully report in the office whether or not the man has been away from his job, and for how long, and how many articles have been turned out.

Heavy Taxes of Farmers

THE claim is made that in 1914 the farmers paid in general property taxes in the United States a sum which was roughly equal to two-fifths of the entire wheat crop that year, but that ten years later they paid in general property taxes a sum equal to the total wheat crop. .

Highways Only Started -

IMPROVEMENT of the highways of America has started, but it is only started, after all. There are even now 2,900,000 miles of recognized highways in the country, but only some 200,000 miles, or about seven percent, are in the national system, with another three percent included in the total of state roads. Nine-tenths of our roads are still mere wagon tracks.

Sixteen-Foot Lens at Pasadena

ONSTRUCTION will begin shortly on a lens for a telescope that will be two hundred inches in diameter. The lens of this telescope, more than sixteen feet in diameter, will be made in Massachusetts and polished near Pasadena, where it is to be installed. This lens will admit four times as much light as any telescope now in use.

Plenty of Work to be Done

EVER fear that humanity will run out of work. There are permanent homes to be built, better and wider roads, bridges by the thousand, electricity must be put in all city and country homes, sanitation must be made a reality, grade crossings must be eliminated, heating and refrigeration are in their infancy, the deserts and rock-strewn wastes must be tamed, and possibly some of the ocean currents may need to be modified. The latter project, contemplated off the shores of Newfoundland, is the greatest task in sight. It has for its objective the detouring of the Labrador current, so that it can nevermore chill the North Atlantic coast.

Ramie Suits Look Like Silk and Wear Like Iron T N A few years now the man who wants to have an elegant-looking suit that will wear indefinitely will ask for ramie cloth. Ramie resembles a good grade of linen, but has a silken luster. It is known that a shirt made of this cloth will last for ten years. The plant grows abundantly in Louisiana.

Insanity in Michigan

INSANITY has increased at such a rate in

Michigan that the state is now $20,000,000 behind in its equipment for caring for the insane and about 2,000 insane and feeble-minded persons who have been committed by the courts to the state hospitals are at liberty because there is no place for them.

Vaccinating New-Born Infants

T T WILL be a shock to some to find that the vaccination craze has now gone so far that Doctor Calmette is vaccinating new-born infants against tuberculosis. Some of the harderheaded ones will wonder why the completion of the job of making human beings ready for the world should have been left in the hands of those who have serums to sell.

One Thousand Kinds of Gas

THE Hague Peace Commission announces that whereas only thirty different kinds of gas existed in the World War, there are now over one thousand. The commission has abandoned all hope of protecting civilians by the use of gas masks, because of the difficulty of making civilians wear them and of the impossibility of fitting all faces.

Must Have Been in the Trenches

NEWSPAPER man in Hattiesburg (Miss.) who must have been in the trenches during

the World War said recently: “When there is a war it is the statesmen who arrange it. The old men quarrel and oblige the young men to fight it out. What a hideous mess 1 Men must abandon their businesses, leave their homes and families, go into filth and vermin and slaughter and die or be butchered alive for thirty dcuars a month apiece, because statesmen haven’t sense enough to get along with statesmen. What about letting the chaps who decree the wars do the fighting?” ■

Landlord for 30JDOO Families

LONDON has a landlord for 30,000 families.

This landlord buys old houses a block at a time, repairs them, paints them, installs dressers and ironing boards, teaches his tenants how to care for them, paints the interior walls instead of papering them, and rents them at a profit at as low as $3.25 a week for a five-room flat.

The Way of the Gadarene Swine

T)bime Minister Baldwin, in a speech in A London in behalf of the Kellogg Pact, made the following remarkable statement: “The alternative before us in Europe is very simple and the choice ought to be easy. We must either keep faith with the spirit of the pact we have signed, or in time we must go down the steep place altogether like the Gadarene swine and perish eternally/’ .

Charities of the City of New York

A FTER deducting from the total amount ex-AL pended for charities by the City of New York the sum of about one and a half million dollars which is expended in miscellaneous ways, and is apportioned among the various institutions for help and expenses, there remains the sum of $6,894,900.00 which was actually and directly apportioned to the various charitable institutions of the city. The nine Protestant institutions received a total of $107,100, or about $12,000 each. The twenty-three Jewish institutions received a total of $1,074,000, or about $47,000 each. The thirty-seven city institutions received a total of $1,872,300, or about $50,000 each, and the forty-four Catholic institutions received a total of $3,841,500, or about $87,000 each. Each of eleven of the Catholic institutions received over $120,000, or more than all the Protestant institutions put together.

The Billions of Cigarettes

NOBODY, unless perhaps it might be an advertising man employed by one of the tobacco companies, would claim that the smoking of cigarettes is other than harmful; yet in this country last year there were consumed about ninety-eight billions of these coffin-nails. That means about a thousand cigarettes every year, for every man, woman and child in the country.

The Anglo-French Pact

THE Anglo-French secret pact is virtually an agreement between France and Britain aimed at the United States. It substantially agrees that Britain will back to the limit France’s ambitions for conquest by land while France will back to the limit Britain’s domination by sea. All this is in the face of the four thousand million dollars wrung from the American people and loaned to the French people since the war, and shows the absolute hypocrisy and devilishness of both the French and British governments.

Wheeling and Martin’s Ferry

WOULD you think that in Wheeling the police would drag from the platform a man like Scott Nearing who, with other speakers, was advocating the election of candidates not acceptable to them or to their masters? Would you think that in the nearby town of Martin’s Ferry they would use tear-bombs to accomplish a similar purpose? How hard the police of some cities try to show that at heart they are anarchists and try to prove to all lawabiding men that, in their judgment, that is the only way to get what you want. One would think the police in both these cities would have carefully guarded the halls to make sure that no evil-minded persons should do just what they themselves did.

“Open to Considerable Argument”

npHE editor of the Greensboro (N. C.) Baily

News was somewhat peeved because the preachers of his vicinity abandoned the preaching of the gospel (they did that long ago, but he did not know it) and spent their time and energy preaching against Al Smith. Anyway, here is what he said, after election:

A traveling salesman putting over his line is a thousand times more dogmatic than, the preacher who “sells” the gospel. Even when the preacher comes to you to collect the subscription on his salary, he does not admit that he has given you a run for your money; he merely says “A preacher’s got to live”, a statement which seems to be open to considerable argument.

Nuncupative and Written Wills

A NUNCUPATIVE will is a will made orally in the presence of witnesses and not supported by any written documents, but it is valid in court and is a recognized form of legal disposition of property. Such wills are often made by soldiers and seamen, sometimes when they have but a few moments to live.

Lawyers do not make their living from nuncupative wills; but they do make a large part of it from the other kind; and some of them, it is to be feared, enter the legal profession, or remain in it, looking for the day when, in the disposition of a good-sized estate, a considerable part of it may fall into their hands.

There are as many honest lawyers, probably, as there are honest men in any other profession or business; yet there have been instances where men have gone to lawyers to make their wills and those wills have been so drawn that at the conclusion of the legal proceedings which followed, the lawyer who drew it, or other lawyers, got all there was, and the widow got nothing.

One woman who had been stung by a lawyer remembered him in her will. She said: “I leave to rny faithful lawyer—that he was NOT—a lock of my hair.” The lawyers who participated in the settling up of the Jay Gould estate had the nice little sum of $2,703,635.56 to divide up between them.

It is a difficult piece of wrnrk to write a will so that it will stand all tests; and yet some of the best 'wills are very brief. Nine words on a soiled piece of cardboard, “I leave all my money to my children equally,” proved to be satisfactory in every respect.

Courts are not particular what wills are written on. They have been written on eggshells, coal-bins and bedposts. In one instance a will is said to have been tattooed on the shoulder of an heiress, and remained valid. But the court does want to know that the testator was sane.

An unusual condition came up in connection with the will of an inmate of a Massachusetts state insane hospital. For fifty-three years he had conducted a candy business and done bartering for his fellow inmates and accumulated $8,000. When he attempted to dispose of this sum by will, the point was raised that he was not legally sane, and had paid the state no board; and there was talk that the state might confiscate his life’s earnings.

As everybody knows, the fights over wills are endless. First, there are forged wills to contend with; and then there are wills the provisions of which are never carried out. No doubt many of our readers have inherited lawsuits or opportunities for such. ‘

Hundreds of the descendants of the Edwards, Gilbert, Jennings and Anneke Jans families are vainly trying, after the lapse of a hundred and fifty years, to get back property which was leased for ninety-nine years or otherwise got out of their hands in the heart of New York city back in the eighteenth century. They have about as much chance of getting it back as a man has of having a successful flight over the ocean after his plane has been blessed by the pope.

Regard for the Physical Tenement

It is common for testators to indicate some interest in what is to be done with their remains. Joseph, nearly his whole life an Egyptian, and possibly influenced by the Egyptian customs, left a bequest that his body should be Carried back up into Canaan. The heavenly Father showed a regard for the body of His faithful Son. Not a bone of it was to be broken, nor was it ever to suffer corruption. We do not know what became of it.

Lord Byron left bequest that his interment should be in the same vault with that of his faithful dog and without any ceremony or burial service whatever. Requests for cremation are common. Some ask that the ashes be spread on clean ground; a lawyer asked that they be thrown into the waters of the Connecticut River, ‘on which I passed many happy hours in my boyhood.’

Vanity has caused men to leave all their money for monuments to themselves. The same motive caused Queen Anne of Brittany to leave her heart to the city of Nantes, France; . and two museums of that city have a pei _ ^ual quarrel as to who shall have possession. Our 1 advice is to throw it into the garbage and substitute chicken gizzards; maybe it is a chicken gizzard they are fighting over anyway.

It is not uncommon for men and women to leave thousands of dollars for the care of animals. One man left hundreds of thousands for such a purpose. A Wisconsin woman left $1,500

for the care of one cat. Another woman wrote in her will, "It is my dearest wish that my children be kind to animals.”

Bequests to Relatives

As only one in ten of the human family accomplishes much in the accumulation of property, it is not to be wondered at that each person who dies and leaves anything worth while has about nine needy relatives who are hoping they will not be forgotten when he comes to "shuffle off this mortal coil”. The wife naturally comes first, and deserves to do so.

A jealous man willed $100,000 to his widow provided she stay single. Gouverneur Morris showed his greatness of soul by a provision in his will that if his wife remarried she was to have double the income she would have otherwise. Many men make tributes to their wives in their wills. The term “My Beloved Wife” is one that often appears in such documents.

Some mean men remember the meanness of their wives and go out of their' way to give them a rap. A New York man who gave $17,000 to his housekeeper requested that his wife and son remain away from his funeral. But he remembered them in his will as follows: "I give my wife $1. I make only this provision for her for reasons well known to her and all our friends, and because during our entire married life she has brought me little but unhappiness, and has utterly failed in the realization or performance of the duties and obligations of a wife. I bequeath to my son one penny, to show that I did not forget his presence in the world and because he has proved himself an unduti-ful son.” Did a man with a soul so small deserve to be buried at all?

On the other side of the story is that of ah aged California man. When found dead in a hotel room he had clutched in his hand a bit of verse: "When he is forsaken, withered and shaken, wdiat can an old man do but die?” His will showed that he had been abandoned by his children and left to a lonely old age. He gave $3,500 to he distributed to needy old men. ■

Sometimes a man thinks he is forsaken when he is not. A laborer of Newark, N. J., who thought he had been disinherited by his father, a wealthy Australian rancher, had only to sign his name to a piece of paper to be richer by $38,000. This present reached him on a certain Friday the 13th.

A "woman who disobeyed her grandmother and had her name legally changed to a more euphonic one had her bequest cut down from $30,000 to $500. “What’s in a name,” eh? There was $29,500 in this one.

A man who had been unfair to his wife received a fortune of $45,000 from his sister, but must lose every cent of it unless he returned to his wife. Another sister thought enough of a brother to leave him $10 ‘to buy him a good meal’. ’

A woman left her nephew, 39 years of age, $2,000. to be used for his education. A mother left a six-room house to be divided between a daughter and a son. The daughter was to receive four rooms, and the son to receive two rooms and the lot on which the house stood.

A Boston ■woman left a fortune for her grandchildren; but all were debarred from contracting marriage without the consent of a majority of their parents, brothers and sisters. The forfeited shares were to go to Harvard University.

Bequests to Servants

Why should a man remember his blood relatives and take no interest in those equally near to him, equally needy, and who, perhaps, have been much more faithful and trustworthy than his relatives? George Washington, and many other Southerners, freed their slaves at death, showing that at heart they did not endorse the custom of slavery.

A fifty-five-year-old spinster left her entire estate of $650,000-to her forty-year-old chauffeur and life-long friend. Bequests of various sums to family servants are proper parts of the will of every person of means. Dr. Abbe, famous American surgeon, left $50,000 to his secretary. A New York wholesale grocer left $30,000, to be divided among as many of twenty-two employes as should gather at his grave on the first Memorial Day after his death. Evidently he intended to be remembered one year anyway.

The papers mention a lady who befriended a beggar for twenty years, not knowing that the begging business in America is not such a bad industry. At his death she came in for a bequest of $10,000. An orphan asylum in San Francisco took in a little lad of ten years of age. Fifty-four years later, a successful business man, he gave the institution $2,000,000 in his will.

Dr. E. E. Tull, a former New York surgeon, took a kindly interest in a little eight-year-old girl in Maryland, the daughter of a poor farmer. He wished to adopt the child, but the parents objected. When he died, his entire estate, valued at $1,250,000, was left to the child, with the exception of certain annuities left to faithful servants.

Bequests to Religion

It is well known that “religion” (the practice of certain forms and ceremonies supposed to honor the Creator, but really designed to furnish jobs to those who prefer easy work) would die out instanter except for the money wheedled out of the sick and dying. Women are easy victims of this scheme.

Once in a while the pressure put on the dying is so raw and done so crudely that the courts step in and undo it. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin upbraided as “ghoulish” the work of Methodist ministers in that state who induced Francis C. Walker, of Douglas County, to change his will just before his death and leave his $40,000 estate to a Methodist Hospital at Rice Lake instead of to his relatives.

A priest in Connecticut was rebuked at the same time for a similar piece of work done in the Nutmeg State. Practically one-half the $3,000,000 fortune of John Whalen, lawyer, banker and former corporation counsel, was left to Cardinal Hayes. The will was made three days before the death of the testator and was signed by his mark, he being too weak to sign his name. The priest who got away with that was certainly on to his job and deserves to be made a Bish Hop. Maybe he is, by this time; for that was a year ago.

Thomas Paine, although commonly considered an atheist, bequeathed his soul to God. A Spanish writer, Don Francisco Maslleria, said : “I will it to the devils, if they want it and are clever enough to get it.”

A Briton who died last year, and who must have had some bitter experiences with the English church and surely had a glimpse of the truth, said in his will: .

I strictly forbid my body or ashes to be taken into any church, chapel or other so-called place of worship whatsoever, and I also strictly forbid any so-called religious service to be said over my remains . . . I solemnly charge my wife, who failing, my executors, to see to it that none of my children are ever confirmed according to the rites of the English Church under the age of 21 years, after which they can decide for themselves as to their religious views or procedure. I am profoundly convinced that the presentday religious beliefs and teaching and preaching are not only erroneous, and, in fact, pernicious, but a blasphemy upon the Name of the great Architect of the Universe, and calculated to lead children especially astray ... I sincerely hope that no well-meaning but misguided individual will waste any time in praying for me as a lost soul, because I die perfectly happy as to my future, knowing that God is a loving, just and merciful being, not a monster of vengeance, jealousy, and pettiness, as the parsons portray him to be.

The best will ever made -was the nuncupative will of the Savior of men: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” What better legacy could anybody have than that?

U! i!

This Happened in Saskatchewan (Maybe) By Tlws. C. Milliken

A JEW by the name of Isaac became converted to the Roman Catholic faith. The priest said to him, after sprinkling him with holy water and pronouncing some Latin words, “Thou shalt from henceforth no longer be called Isaac, but Maclsaac.”

Some time afterward the “holy father” decided to visit his new convert. It was a Friday morning. Upon entering the house, “his reverence” began to sniff. “What are you cooking, Maclsaac?” said he. .

“Fish,” said Maclsaac.

The priest took a few more sniffs and then, walking deliberately to the oven, opened the door and beheld a duck half cooked. Turning to Maclsaac he said, “How dare you violate the rules of our holy church by eating duck on Friday?”

“Oh,” said Maclsaac, “I sprinkled some holy water upon it and said a few Latin words over it and then said, ‘Thou shalt from henceforth no longer be called duck, but haddock.’ ”

I can not remember what happened next, but if I am not mistaken the priest had dinner at that house.

, Western Forest Fires

TOURISTS from the eastern states passing through Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon and California at this season of the year (August) are asking, “What is the occasion of all this dense smoke hereabouts?” The answer is given to them in just two words, “Forest -------------Fires!”

Yet what does that convey to the mind of the average inquirer? In all probability the ques----------tioner pictures in his mind a line of leaf and dried grass fire, such as may be seen burning .....leisurely through an eastern wood lot or through some field of dried stuff, making a lit-7 tie smoke and a pretty little night scene, and which in reality is but an insignificant joke to what -me would see in the heavily timbered hill and mountain furnaces designated forest fires, of the states here mentioned.

If a tourist desires to see these states, midsummer is no time for doing it. He should come during winter or early spring time. Then will he see the grandeur of this western world to best advantage. Whereas in midsummer he will _______ see only the road ahead of his car, the towns i and cities he passes through and the camping grounds where he puts up for the night, with - a peep of lake and river here and there along the way, and with, of course, gigantic forestry interspersed with undergrowth, fern, berry bushes (such as salal, salmon, thimble, huckle, evergreen, Himalaya, grape, elder, etc.) and farmland of orchardry and cereal production, 7..... large-size henneries, stock-raising districts, and

- such like; but he will not take in the splendid 7^'Tiafural scenic beauties, for the reason that he can not see them at all. And why not? The answer is, Forest fires!

According to the report of the Forestry Bu-ireau of this northwestern district, one week ..... there were 999 serious fires raging fiercely in this region, many of them entirely beyond con" trol, and from ten to twenty others starting daily from one cause or another, until it has been found necessary to close all roads leading into the big timber districts and government z reserves. Only the main highways (through .. roads), and even these under severe restriction, are left open for encampment except where guarded camp ground is provided, and where a fire can be made only for cooking, and at designated places already prepared at the roadside. '

By J. A. Bohnet

.’/hat is a forest fire ? It must He seen to be appreciated. It can not be adequately described, unless one should term it a “hell’s afire”; for nothing short of that expression could rightly impress the mind. It is woods afire many times multiplied and magnified. It is terrible; beyond expression; dreadful beyond comparison; dangerous, destructive and costly. Its roar can be heard five miles away.

When a forest fire just breaks out and is seen from a distance of ten to twenty miles, a dense yellowish dark-brown smoke arises thousands of feet in huge volume above the forestry, making an enchanting sight to behold as it steadily increases in volume and density, spreading itself over miles and miles of territory until it effectually darkens the air and land and hides the sun.

As this cloud of smoke goes farther and farther to leeward it changes to blueness and evenness over all the land. One can not then see the distant wooded hills and mountains. The snowcapped peaks are lost in the blue haze. The air looks as blue as the natural sky in normal times. One now sees only those objects within two miles’ distance, and these more or less indistinctly. The tourist is disappointed, yet knows not what he missed. He can go back to his eastern home and tell his people what he did not see. .

Now, as to the forest fire: Imagine a sea of fire ranging from two to ten feet in height and a line of it extending from half a mile to ten or twenty miles sweeping everything in its path except rocks and 'water, often climbing forty or fifty feet up the bark of a dead tree trunk and staying with that snag until it falls to earth and is consumed or partly consumed by the fiery element.

One could not penetrate that wall of flame sheathed in wet blanket. Its intense, heat would turn you back, if indeed the dense smoke and deadly fumes did not suffocate ere you had yet gotten to it.

During the mad rush through the fallen timber-land its heat current lifts aloft blazing embers that are carried by the breeze far in advance of the roaring fireline, only to start another fire which in turn rushes up the timbered mountainside at a terrific rate and sends on ahead of it other fiery embers to ignite yet more places for destruction.

Talk about fighting such a demon of devasta-

tion! Far, far in advance men are clearing a wide path in the hope or expectation of halting the fire on that line. At times the effort succeeds. At other times the wind carries a fire brand beyond the cleared path, or back-fire, and a desperate effort is put forth to check the blaze before it assumes uncontrollable proportions.

The fire-fighters are in imminent danger of being cut off or surrounded by fire and of suffocation by the smoke. They are men of experience, trained for the work, and are usually poorly paid for the service. It is no child’s play to battle a forest fire. Here and there a blazing tree comes tumbling upon them if they are not watchful.

There is no water obtainable for quenching the irregular line of flame. The work must be done by trenching and clearing the debris in the path of the onrushing fire, and this in the smoke it sends ahead persistently.

Deer, elk, bear, cougar, and all manner of smaller animal life and birds go rushing past the fighter. He sees, but heeds them not; neither give they heed to him—safety first.

There are settler’s slashings through which the fire goes with a mighty roar; flames a hundred feet high. What could check them? In places there has been not a drop of rain in the past four months. In other places none in three months. And in no place has there been any rain in the past two months. '

Yet fruit and crops are not much retarded by this lack of moisture from above. Fruit in these regions is not suffering from drouth, neither is the land croppage in most places. But irrigation is in places depended upon for the crops. In most places there is no irrigation, however.

On many high points are stationed foresters, watchmen, day and night all through the summer months, to report any fresh fires they may discover. There are airplanes, too, but what can fliers do in the dense smoke pall? Very little. Still they are useful for quick reporting where there are no phone lines.

Rain is not expected before some time in September or early October, and none is desired by the fruit growers. Prunes and plums are injured by rains. Oat harvest is on at this time, and also hay-making. There are wild berries in abundance.

Several large sawmills have been destroyed by the forest fires. These mills are equipped to turn out a million feet of sawed lumber daily and are running full force along the streams of water, lakes and oceanside.

The logs are sometimes five feet in diameter and forty feet in length, but mostly from two to three feet in size and twenty feet long. These are chiefly of Douglas fir, spruce, cedar and hemlock. There are some hardwood logs, of course; but these are less plentiful in the big timber districts.

I saw a squared stick of timber four feet by forty, and a piece of timber squared eighteen inches by 154 feet. It is a pity to have such timber destroyed by forest fires, which often start from carelessly discarded cigar and cigarette stumps by thoughtless smokers.

The Cardinal’s Mistress By H. L. Philbrick

I HAVE just waded through this book by Mussolini, written when he was but twenty-six years of age. In it he denounces the clergy as

“Pagans of the decadence masked under the hierarchy of Catholic Christianity—the men who wasted the wealth which the brutalized people had accumulated by their long years of labor—a smile of satisfaction on their sensual lips.”

Then with some caustic descriptions of the gentry who have long professed to be the vicars of Christ in the earth he says that they are as handsome as all this x “Lords with irregular faces, flat foreheads, these old legates who represent two senescent institutions, the papacy and the Empire.”

To the latter we can say truly, openly, loudly, AMEN. The Papacy and the Empire have grown old, very old; and today they are living on stolen time. They are wholly out of order. The question naturally arises: Will the man who knows no competitor for his honors one day rise up and cuff that girl Jezebel so rudely that she just won’t recover? But then, who cares? She is going to expire somewhat ungracefully anyway. <

Blessings of the Service Work

IT IS impossible to overstate the blessings that come to those who at this time go out in the service work regularly, provided only that their motive is one of single-hearted desire to do God’s will, to glorify His name, and to sound His praises abroad. Just a few per......sonal experiences.

Out in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, two hours before sundown, the Ford starter broke and all efforts to move the car were futile. It was one mile to the nearest house, and beyond that seven miles to the next one. A careful examination of the state and national maps showed that even if a telephone could be located it would be impossible to tell anybody how to find us. Bears and panthers are occasionally shot in the vicinity.

It was finally agreed that one should go to the nearest house in the hope that the head of the home could diagnose and remedy the trouble with the Ford. As soon as he was out of sight both began praying for help, because the two hours of light were done, and twilight was falling, and no cars passing.

Inside of three minutes a Ford came from each direction, each with two men in it, one the partner who had gone for assistance. In the group of now five persons was an expert mechanic. He removed the starting mechanism, took his pay in books and said he would read . them at once as he was on his way to the mountains for a week-end holiday. He was a Catholic.

The others said, “It is a good thing we came along. This road comes to a blind end. All the farms along it have been bought by the Spring .........Brook Water Company, and there is no traffic over it except to the reservoir. We work for the company and just happened to be here.”

How the Lord Manages Blessings

On another occasion his partner was leaving books in every home, but for some reason the ____editor made no sales. As the afternoon wore away he came to feel sure he would sell no more .__fbat day. There remained one lone man who

Fad promised to take the hooks, but even hope of his keeping the promise had fled. (How the Devil does like to get you down on your back, and roar softly in your ear that vou are licked!) '

But into the cottage we went. If was after dark. The head of the house had retired, as he has to be at his work at three a. m. to get the fires going in the Erie shops ten miles away. His wife called him. Diffidently -we said, “Here are your books.”

He smiled and whipped out $3.00. The editor said, ‘That is $1 too much.” “No,” said the man, “besides the books I want The Golden Age, the best magazine in the ■world.” The editor did not know that the man knew that there is such a magazine. Moreover, the man did not know that he was talking to its editor.

On the same day, early in the morning, the last-named service worker remembered the raw deal he had had the year previous in a certain little country store, and mentally planned that his partner should face the music this year. But it did not come around right ; and rather than be a deep yellow, in he went.

The sharp-spoken head of the home and store was not in, but his good wife was. She was interested, and about to decide, when the door opened and in walked “the good man of the house”. He had been putting up a stovepipe, and, besides the soot, had managed to get into some black oil somewhere and was anything but a happy sight.

The frightened canvasser had Government in his hand. He wb-Aed on his persecutor of the year before and said, “Listen to this.” Then he read aloud the last paragraph on page 320 and from there to where the chapter ends on page 322. Very briefly the proprietor was shown all the books, and the price was stated.

His wife said, “Do you think we had better get them?” He replied, “To be sure. Why, what the man read to us from that one book is worth more than he asks for the whole set.” And when the -canvasser left therfi was such joy in his heart that he could not even express his thanks to God coherently. Moreover, a reference to that sale produced another one in the next home. How many such blessings ought a man to expect in one day anyway?

Finding the Sheep

And then there was another day, when the county line had been reached and it was time to turn back because it was dusk. There yet remained one lane, three-fourths of a mile long. 26T

The road was excessively rough, even for Pennsylvania. The Ford went in, shivered and came back out, with the report that it was probably not passable..

Meantime, however, we learned that there was an old widow down there, and that she has a radio and listens in to WBBR and enjoys the Judge’s lectures, but that ‘it would be of no use to go to see her, as she would not buy1; so in we went, knowing from past experience that, when warned not to go to a place, that is a place that must on no account be missed.

The old widow we found to be unquestionably a child of God. She had seen some of the booklets previously and recommended them to her children and grandchildren. She was delighted to have all the books and to provide entertainment for the night. That evening, spent in talking about God’s plans and purposes, was one of the very chiefest blessings of a lifetime.

And then there was the day when we found four farms in a clearing in the midst of a great forest. Two of the families were atheists, poisoned by each other. “Evil communications corrupt”; and it is so. The central home in the community was presided over by a fine type of young woman.

When the books were shown to her she selected The Harp and Deliverance, saying, “I would rather have these than the others, I have heard so much about them over- the radio.” The Lord sold those books and placed them where He wanted them, right where they would counteract the evil influences being scattered by the power of darkness.

Bboobxtn, N, y,

And Finally Grandpa Lyman

And now on the last trip we came to a farmhouse where resides T. B. Lyman, Watch Tower and Golden Age subscriber, and reader of all our literature for twenty years. He was born in 1840, but has no trouble keeping step with the march of present truth. We did not know he was there, but the Lord knew; and when we asked the Lord to send us to the right place to stay over night, it was into his hospitable home that we went. Such entertainment and such a happy home to be in! What a blessing!

We tried to get him out to make a few calls in the service work. He is in favor of it all right, and when he has worked up a little more courage and the weather gets better we hope to have him have a share of the blessings that all may now have.

Understand now, Grandpa Lyman has, been letting his light shine in his neighborhood, and he is not nearly so big a coward as the editor, not nearly, and we feel sure that he only needs a little gentle prodding to get him going. This is the prod, in a way of speaking. We do not need to provoke him to love. He is good at that. We are just provoking him a little along the line of some more good works.

Grandpa Lyman believes in using his head. He has invented a definition of civilization, and because it is a good one, and a novel one, and one to make one think, we reproduce it. “Being civilized is being taught to submit to robbery without resistance.” And if that does not show that Grandpa Lyman has a clear view of the Devil’s organization and the way they do things, please send us a better.

From a Boston Newspaper

IN THE year 1867 a Boston newspaper published the following interesting editorial. It speaks for itself, and it makes us wonder what the people sixty-one years from now will think of the hyenas that butchered Sacco and Vanzetti just because they had made up their minds to do it: .

A man about 46 years of age, giving the name of Joshua Coppersmith, has been arrested in New York for attempting to extort funds from ignorant and superstitious people by exhibiting a device which he says will convey the human voice any distance over metallic wires so that it will be heard by the listener at the other end. He calls the instrument a “telephone”, which is obviously intended to imitate the word “telegraph” and win the confidence of those who know of the success of the latter instrument without understanding the principles on which it is based.

Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over wires as may be done with dots and dashes and signals of the Morse code, and that, were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value. The authorities who apprehended this criminal are to be congratulated, and it is hoped that his punishment will be prompt and fitting, that it may serve as an example to other conscienceless rogues who seek to enrich themselves at the expense of their fellow creatures.

Practical Lessons on the Great Pyramid

A YEAR or two ago the newspapers carried an item to the effect that an international convention of spirit mediums had been called ’ to be held in the “king’s chamber” of the “great pyramid” of Egypt. At the time this seemed like a peculiar act of sacrilege or blasphemy; but in view of recent unfoldings of the truth, as set forth in The Watch Tower, it was quite the normal thing to expect. Why lull yourself to sleep with the exploded dreams of the past?

Years ago the suggestion was made that the unfloored apartments over the “king’s chamber” had some reference to spirit beings. The suggestion may be true, and that the reference is to evil spirit beings, the guides and mentors of all clairvoyants and spirit mediums. The in-habitiveness (desire to live in one place) of ) spirit beings is a matter of common knowledge. Z More recently we had the prognostications ' of one Adam Rutherford, of Glasgow, backed by John Kuehn, Dr. Leslie W. Jones, Dr. A Thornton and a few others, that Armageddon "......would land atop of us May 28 (subsequently

postponed to October 3), and all because Adam claimed to have taken some measurements in or about the “king’s chamber”, which measure.. ments could not be wrong. Why follow men who have shown that they possess a real gift ' for coming to wrong conclusions? The “great pyramid” has made these men seem more foolish than usual. .

■ - Then came Dr. Mansfield Robinson, spirit medium of London, who made a monkey of himself by paying the British Government to broadcast a message to his big-eared lady - friend, Miss or Mrs. Oomaruru, of Mars. When he sent the dispatch he notified the world that “This is the greatest event in the history of . the human race. It is the big thing foretold in the message of the pyramids.” Unfortunately, he advertised that the Oomaruru dame would send a reply that would startle the world, but it seems that her ear was in the pillow at the time the British Post Office shot out the 18,700-meter wavelength in her direction, and the pyramid slipped another cog.

We do not like to say anything about Morton Edgar. We are sure that for a long time Morton meant all right; but he had the publishing bug and naturally wanted to sell his books. When he tried to ingratiate himself with the Anglo-Israelite crowd by intimating that Almighty God is particularly interested in that humbug, that is where we parted company. Morton has been wasting his time for, lo, these many years. We blame the pyramid.

And now comes a letter to us from “Carl, Doctor Spiritual Mediumship, A Student of the Unknown”. He sends us some of his poems and encourages us to print them by saying, “I have written many philosophies that came and are coming true. I have thousands of newspaper clippings to back them up. I write things and they happen after.”

On his letterhead Carl says: “The Great Change in Progress: The Undeniable Truth: Written in the Silence by a Spiritual Medium: The Eternal Source in spiritual poetry—most wonderful messages ever written. Truth. Something for the World to Think About.” The letterhead contains a picture of Carl floating around in space supported by a couple of rather unstable-looking wings, and down below him the sources of his inspiration, the Sphinx and the pyramids.

Carl tells us confidentially respecting his poems that “I can not find any outlet. My work has been silenced”. All this is very sad, and we mourn too for Adam Rutherford, Morton Edgar, John Kuehn and the three skidders that sport the title “Doctor”; but in bad weather it is better to keep on the chains: you may need them before you get to the top of the hill,

Showed the Veil at the Right Time

READ in the papers that after the ' ’ “ Archbishop, Cardinal Nava, had ordered : the veil of St. Agatha exposed in the cathedral the lava stopped flowing toward Catania. In the same paper we find that on the same day ■ the volcanologist watching the eruption of ■ .......... 269

Mount Etna said that the cataract of lava was much lower and was evidently slowing up. What a splendid time to get out the veil I

We wonder that the newspapers that print this silly stuff about statues and veils’ stopping volcanic eruptions are able to go to press with

it. One would almost think the presses would be so nauseated they could not run, to say nothing of the effect on proofreaders and copyholders; but still the humbug goes on from generation to generation and is called “faith”.

If there is anything to these statues and veils, why do they not work every time? Why is it that, with such valuable volcano-stoppers in existence, the government allows the volcanoes to erupt? Why not pitch the statues and veils right into the craters when, the volcanoes first show signs of being uneasy and stop it all at the first? Why wait until homes and orchards and villages and towns and cities have been destroyed, and until experts have decided that the volcanoes are slowing down anyway, before trotting out the marble and the silk?

Communism By 'J. Ramsay MacDonald [Reprinted from the New York Times]

COMMUNISM is the native growth of reactionary soil; it is the scraggy and spiky bush that grows up under the political condi-■ tions of dictatorship of an elaborate police and spy system, of exile and political prosecution : and persecution. Communism in Russia is czar-dom with the victims on the seats of authority, 1 using both Cheka and Siberia for their own pur! poses. As the responsible Government settles r down to handle the practical problems of admin-L istration it departs from this, but the irresponsible revolutionary high priests of Communist doctrines who control the Third International have abandoned no delusions which possessed them when they overthrew the Russian Gov-eminent ten years ago.

This origin of Russian Communism goes down to the roots. Democracy and it can not go together. When its ballot boxes and press ! and courts of justice are open, it may continue ’ its name, but its spirit and its methods will have changed.

First of all, what can not be done by the ballot box can not be done by a revolution; and, secondly, what is sought to be done by a rev: olution can not be done even if the revolution succeeds. The social and economic problems which ths revolutionist has to face so soon as the revolution has given him power are just those that the successful democratic politician has to face, and they call from the revolutionist the same diplomatic and creative skill as they call from the politician. The Russians found that to be true when they decreed the nationalization of land. The peasants would not have it, and no revolution could impose it upon them. Also, later on, they had to adopt a new economic policy because no revolution could readjust the economic laws of exchange and markets.

Communism here teaches the absurdity that whoever has power can use it just as he likes. .

Communism as a way of effecting social change is a vain show. It brings suffering which it can not compensate; the paralysis which it effects while engaged in its revolution is not followed by a new life; it has to retreat upon the old economic order so that it may begin its creative reconstruction.

It is also curious how the Russian parentage of communism is stamped upon the features of every Communist party in the world. Its method is the revolutionary method under the Czar. Policies have to be plotted in the dark and worked out on secret instructions given to small groups known as “nuclei”. These must be obedient to orders. The Moscow Committee is like the “Secret No. 1” of all conspiracies whose word must be obeyed.

Communism is essentially a conspiracy. The allegiance of the Communist is not to the colleagues with whom he is working, nor to his own judgment. It is to his headquarters. No one, therefore, can work with him comfortably because no one knows what he is. In his pocket are his secret instructions. He is a tool, and tools are impossible colleagues. He is am alien using his enfranchisement in obedience to his foreign control, and an alien puppet can only be cast out.

The old Russian revolutionists of the Kropotkin and Stepniak type were men who took their lives in their hands, .and who accepted the conditions of conspiracy under the shadow of the executioner. Their surrender of liberty was of the heroic kind and the moral reaction was sublime.

That is not the case when the secret plot is against men who live in the open and with whom one is supposed to cooperate. Conspiracy under the conditions of freedom of discussion reacts toward a mean and debased lack of scruple and honor. It selects its tools from the most worthless. The generosities of common action are stifled; the conspirators cease to care who their masters are, provided they find employment, and they use any weapon by which they can do their work.

In stressful times like these they use misery to make more misery and lead their followers to knock their heads against stone walls. They cover their failures by hot words and keep the pursuit after something not yet found by raising will-o’-the-wisp after will-o’-the-wisp. Where they have been trusted with administration they have invariably let their organization down or have fallen back in their impotence upon moderate policies which they gained influence by attacking.

Man the Weaker Sex By H. D. Pitzer

ITEM No. 11, in the News of the Day column of The Golden Age No. 239, on Men’s Abominable Clothing, I read with much amusement. It called to my mind very vividly an experience that I had three or four years ago.

I had noticed that the young ladies were getting away from wearing heavy clothing. I also noticed that they seemed to be getting along a great deal better without it. Whenever I would see a young lady going down the street with low-cut shoes and waists, thin silk stockings, and no other visible protection from the weather, and then take a look at my high-top shoes, heavy undenvear, heavy shirt, heavy suit of clothes, and on top of all this an overcoat that would tax the strength of a mule, it made me feel like a poor weak little consumptive who was about ready for a sanitarium. So I decided that I for one was not going to be outdone by the weaker sex. I decided it, but I changed-my decision. And I will tell you why.

It was on one of those chilly October days. The sun was shining, but its rays were entirely void of any warmth whatsoever, and there was a chilly wind blowing. An aunt of mine had died and was to be buried that afternoon, I hadn’t received word soon enough to arrange to attend the funeral services at the house (as she was being b^wed from h^r home which was several miles aw, z; so I went to the cemetery and waited for the funeral procession to arrive.

I had to wait for about a half hour; and I want to tell you that I could almost have enjoyed a little trip to a Fresbyterian hell for a while after that half hour was up. Yes, I had left that overcoat at home. No, I hadn’t put on the heavy underwear yet. Yes, my teeth were playing all the popular airs of the day. At last that long-looked-for string of machines came into view. My experience from the time they stopped until they started again was humiliating beyond description.

I found.myself the center of attraction. My knees were playing “Yankee Doodle”; my teeth were playing “My Country ’Tis of Thee”; and every bone and nerve in my body was playing a little tune of its owm. To tell you the truth, I would willingly have changed places with the corpse. There were uncles, aunts and cousins too numerous to mention, all wanting to know if I was sick. They were more or less concerned lest I had suddenly become afflicted with some of the ailments that go with the winter season.

Some wanted to let me have their overcoats; some wanted to take me home in their warm machines; some advised going to a drug store and getting a little peppermint; and all that I could do was stand there like a fool and say “N-n-n-n-n-n-no” to their pleas.

Now, Mr. Editor, when it comes to standing heat, I am there. I have worked in places so hot that if one of the buttons on my jacket were to touch my chin it would almost leave a blister (this in all earnestness and sincerity); but when those chilly little zephyrs begin playing hide-and-seek up and down my spine, I begin to draw up like a toad, and sometimes I get cramped. If there is a mortal (not immortal) being on this earth that hates, to wear an overcoat, I am that one. But I have never gotten up courage enough to try going out without it in cold weather since that memorable day three years ago.

Possibly you might have some suggestions to offer as to how we big healthy men might compete with the fairer sex in putting a boycott on the clothing industry. You know that it costs us more to dress than it does them; and yet we shall have to acknowledge that they generally put on a better appearance than we do.

I trust that this may be a warning to some who are thinking of trying to cut down on their winter clothing bill.

Class Consciousness By A. Bertsch®

VIEWED from a political standpoint, there seems to be a decrease in the ranks of the left wing. Twenty-five years ago large numbers attended the various meetings of the proletarian type. Today the attendance is very small. In 1920 over 5,000,000 people were out of employment, and conditions seemed ripe for a social crisis. The people, however, even in their voting, acted conservatively, and there was no apparent growth along radical lines.

Undoubtedly the war for a time forestalled the impending battle of the classes. Production of war materials gave employment to all, and with a market for her goods America prospered materially. This inflated production is now no longer necessary and America is once more forced to find markets for her surplus products. As unemployment grows America becomes more imperialistic and unjust in her relations with -weaker nations.

Modern machinery, so much used in America, has reached the point where it has become a menace to labor, under our present capitalistic mode of production. Conditions are very bad in parts of the country. In parts of the West the government has found it useless to try collecting taxes.

With the increase of unfavorable conditions of the laboring class there comes a question. Why is the laboring man so conservative? He does not attend meetings that espouse his cause. He votes for men who care nothing comparatively about his welfare. He works under conditions that are prejudicial to his well-being.

There seem to be several reasons for his passive state. In the matter of voting, it is quite generally known that in some places the refusal to vote a certain way leads to a dismissal. The refusal to listen to revolutionary speeches seems to be because of a new spirit among the Workers.

In the past, when the employer had a grievance against his help the result was strikes and lockouts. Today the boss understands psychology, and employs it to the worker’s detriment. A single case may be illustrated to show how this works out. The worker is allowed to buy stock in the company where he works. He then becomes in his mind a capitalist. He cares nothing about anything that will affect his dividends.

If necessary to safeguard his interests along this line, he will suffer a reduction in wages. The result is that in some cases, the reduced wage, together with his dividends, just makes the amount of the wages he received prior to his becoming a capitalist. This is a subterfuge practised by the boss to keep the 'worker quiet and on the job. The worker with Iris few shares of stock still has to work for his daily wage, and his chances of being independent of his job are just as far off.

In view of the fact that with the great unemployment of 1920 there was no crisis, it might be thought that the worker will always act the same. This thought is not justified, and a single illustration of the past will show it wrong.

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