Golden Age, July 24, 1929

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crhe Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND. COURAGE

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in this issue

EDUCATIONAL GRAFT .

POWER OF THE ATOM

IMPRESSIONS OF LATVIA

IN LOUISIANA

VACCINATION

FOR TORMENT’S SAKE

GOD’S GOVERNMENT seventh of a series of radio lectures by Judge Rutherford

EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY 5c a copy - $1.00 a year - Canada & Foreign $ 1.50

Volume X - No. 257 July 24, 19 2 9

Contents

..............................-........ -uvr—.=:8g

Labor and Economics

Charwomen of New York ............... 678

The Beal Labor Agitators .........

A Few Hints to Foremen ................ 686

Social and Educational

In, the Decent Past

The Defeat of Drake and Alair ........... .

“Sport” ................... . , , 683 ■

What the Men Must Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 684

Educational Graft ............... 685

President Hoover to Associated Press ......

Manufacturing and Mining

Travertin in Florida ............. 679

Finance—Commerce;—Transportation

Pennsylvania Transportation (Services ........... 676

The Air Services of Vienna .

Financiers Greatly Overpaid..... 676

Political—Domestic and Foreign

Nitti Foresees Collapse of Fascism ............ 678

Bepresentafives Bainey’s Bold Speech ....

What the War Department Wishes

Events in Canada........ . . .... 681

Doings in Louisiana......... 690 ,

Agriculture and Husbandry ■

Japanese Kudzu

Cork and Its Uses

Science and Invention

Releasing the Power of the Atom ............ 687

Torment for Torment’s Sake ....... 692

Home and Health

“The Doctor’s Economic Problem” . .

The Slaughter of the Innocents

Taxes, Vaccination, Inoculation .

An Unbelievably Mean Piece of Propaganda

Travel and Miscellany

Impressions of Latvia .

.Religion and Philosophy

Christianity and Citizenship

Bible Questions and Answers........ 691, 702

Beginning of God’s Government ........... .

The Children’s Own Radio Story ......

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Golden Age

Volume X

Brooklyn, N. Y. Wednesday, July 24, 1929

Number 257

In the Recent Past

In a Gas 'Attack on Washington

Blame God for Airplane Crash

IN A gas attack on Washington, Arthur Bris- A DECISION by a Long Island court con-bane says naughtily: “We should lose at one -tx strues the fall of an airplane as an act of

blow the entire government that has failed to show intelligence worthy of a tuberculosis chimpanzee, in preparing for what will come some day.” ‘

Biblical Research in Transjordania '

ARCHEOLOGISTS working in Transjordania have recently discovered the home city of the Prophet Jonah, and have also located the city of Ham, mentioned in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, along the line of march taken by the kings who captured Lot.

Airplane Service Across Persia

THE airplane service across Persia has been extended to include a route from Teheran to Bagdad. This makes it possible to go from Europe to Bagdad by two air routes, either via Cairo and Palestine or via Moscow and Baku. The world is getting smaller every hour.

Accidental Death of a Child

A CORONER’S jury in Manchester, England, brought in a verdict of accidental death in the case of a thirteen-month-old baby whose mother had just fed it, among other things, fried fish, bacon and ham pie. Looks as if there might be something to this diet idea after all.

No Longer a Nation of Beef-Eaters

BRITAIN is no longer a nation of beef-eaters, as formerly. The consumption of meat has fallen off sharply, salads taking its place. The lighter work of a machine-driven age is causing less and less consumption of heavy foods in many parts of the world. The Italian people are said to be the greatest eaters of green vegetables.

God. Seems as if He should be consulted in these matters before blame is laid at His door.

150,000 Jews in Palestine ■

T^OLLOWING the armistice there were 55,000 -®- Jews in Palestine. The number is now estimated at 149,554. This is the official estimate of the British government, at the close of the year 1928.

Decayed Eggs Useful for Tanning

BY A newly discovered process rotten eggs may now be turned into tannic acid. The joke of it is that the eggs have to reach the worst stage of putrefaction before useful for tanning purposes.

Northwestern University to Study Crime

THE Northwestern University, Chicago, will this coming fall inaugurate a course of instruction in all the sciences necessary to be understood by a thoroughly first-class detective. It will cooperate with the Chicago Crime Commission.

The Power Trust Honor Roll

ON THE Power Trust honor roll, according to the president of the International Paper and Power Company, there are listed the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Chicago Daily News, Albany Knickerbocker Press, Albany Evening News, Ithaca Journal-News, Boston Herald, Boston Traveller, Chicago Journal, Tampa Tribune, Greensboro Record, Augusta Chronicle, Columbia Record, Spartanburg Herald and Spartanburg Joxwnal. The Cleveland Plain Dealer was offered $20,000,000 to sell out to' the Power Trust, but refused the offer.

Pennsylvania’s New Mine Law

ACCORDING to Pennsylvania’s new mine law the main points underground must be kept in touch with the foot of the mine shaft and Avith the colliery office by telephone. The only remarkable thing about this laAV is that it Avas not enacted and put in operation forty years ago.

Deer Scared the Cook Badly

AT DUNCANNON, Pennsylvania, a deer afflicted with wanderlust SAvam across the Susquehanna River, wandered over several streets, got into a back yard, became alarmed at something and made a flying jump through a kitchen Avindorv, nearly frightening an aged avo-man to death. The animal escaped.

Why Philadelphia Was Selected

THE first congress of the American colonies was held in Philadelphia because delegates from Georgia and NeAV Hampshire could reach there in eighteen to twenty days. If the capital of the country Avere iioav in Kansas City, it could be reached from any point in the United States by an airplane trip overnight.

Pennsylvania Transportation Services

THE Pennsylvania Railroad is planning transportation services that will enable passengers to go part Avay by rail, part way by airplane, and part way by motor bus, with the railroad in control of all three methods of carriage. Eventually, through tickets will be sold for the combinations desired.

Compensation of Railroad Workers

THE average number of railroad employes in

1928 Avas 1,680,187, and the total Avages paid to them Avere $2,862,099,609, an aATerage of $1,703. During the year the railroads increased their profits, handling more freight Avith feAver men. There Avere 80,812 fewer railroad employes in 1928 than in 1927.

Decreased Use of Coal by Railroads ,

A N IMPORTANT factor in the coal situation •TA. tpaf a(- present time the railroads, although actually hauling more freight than in 1920, use only three-fourths as much coal, due to improved methods of fuel use and handling. This decreased use of fuel runs to $100,000,000 a year.

The Air Services of Vienna

TTIENNA, though in the heart of an Alpine ’ country, now has fourteen airplane services to various parts of Europe. The fares are cheap: $50 for the 510-mile ride to Rome, the same to Paris, and $30 for the 306-mile ride to Berlin. The latter trip takes only three hours . and forty minutes.

'Attendance at High Schools

& N INTERESTING phenomenon of the times ■TA ig that in the last sixteen years the' attendance at high schools in the United States has more than quadrupled. In 1910 the number of high school pupils was 915,000; now it is almost four millions, with another million in the junior high schools.

Financiers Greatly Overpaid

TN 1928 all classes of corporations increased their earnings 17.19 percent. That is too much. But the financial corporations increased their earnings 70 percent over the previous year, and that is very much too much. For the work they do, the great financiers are very much overpaid.

Alaskan Waters Now Charted

THE United States Coast and Geodetic Survey has completed its charting of Alaskan waters. By an odd coincidence the celebration of this notable achievement was marred by a million-dollar steamer’s being wrecked in Alaskan Waters. This Avas not the fault of the chartmakers, hoAvever.

The Penal Colony of French Guiana

TN THE torrid streets of St. Laurent de Ma-roni two thousand men, some of them conscientious objectors, have been alloAved by the French government to die of starvation. These men are exiles, former prisoners, for "whom no provision is made for their return to their native land.

“Millions Now Living” Makes a Hit

THE world’s newspaper men seem to have

caught on to the title of Judge Rutherford’s famous lecture, “Millions Now Living Will Never Die.” In the midst of Britain’s election campaign the London Sunday Graphic came out with a headline clear across its first page reading, “Millions Now Living Are About to Vote.”

Chicago’s New Beacon

CHICAGO has been offered a new aerial beacon of two billion candle-power, to be located on a 125-foot tower on the roof of a thirty-seven-story building. The beacon, if constructed, will be harder to look at than the sun itself and, it is estimated, will serve as a guide to fliers at a distance of five hundred miles. If erected it will be called the Lindbergh Light.

Pellagra Not Transmissible

THE United States Public Health Service has proven that pellagra is not transmissible, but is caused by diet deficiency. In our judgment this is the absolute truth and marks the beginning of the end of the serum craze. It is the food one eats and the efficiency of his eliminative powers that determine the condition of his health.

Increase in Land Values

ONE of the richest synagogues in New York city recently sold its lot for a profit of a clear million dollars, and the Madison Avenue Methodist Church made $650,000 by moving around the corner and selling its old site for an apartment house. If St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue were to sell out it would make a clear profit of about $10,000,000 on its property.

Chelsea, World’s Center for Scrap

CHELSEA, Massachusetts, is the world’s center for scrap of all kinds. Old hats are made into rugs, -woolen rags into woolen cloth, other rags into writing paper, old auto tires into tile flooring. Old brass and copper go to Hamburg, and old vests to India. The annual business of some of the junk dealers of Chelsea exceeds a million dollars.

Why Two Strangle-Holds

ODHE Kansas City Star wants to know why it

is that the Power Trust is allowed to have two strangle-holds, a 10% penalty if the payment of the bill is not made instanter and a discontinuance of service if payment is a little longer delayed. We presume the reason why the Power Trust has these strangle-holds and is gladly choking the common people black in the face is because the newspapers are only now waking up to the evils of trusting all the property of the country to the tender mercies of a few groups of heartless capitalists.

Six Times as Many Cigarettes ' ’

TO THE shame of American artists, whose best work for years has gone into the glorification of the cigarette, it is claimed that there are now six times as many cigarettes smoked as fourteen years ago. A considerable portion of the increased use has been brought about by the clever advertising which has inveigled women into thinking it is the smart thing to do.

Most Profound Loss of World War

Newton D. Baker, former secretary of war, declares that the most profound loss of the World War was the loss of faith in the ability of men, by any sort of process, to set up enduring political institutions. This is a very good statement of the fact that humanity has reached the end of its rope and that God’s promised kingdom is its only possible relief.

Celebration of Tel Aviv

HDEL AVIV, founded on the sand dunes of J- Palestine, has just had its twentieth celebration. It is now a thriving city of 40,000 people. The public address, by the British commissioner of that district, was given entirely in Hebrew. The first child born in Tel Aviv, now a youth of 20, welcomed the guests. Tel Aviv has had but one mayor. ,

Cures by Mesmerism '

Von Hindenburg, president of Germany, having some trouble with swollen knees, had himself mesmerized fifteen times at $25 a mesmerism. He obtained temporary relief each time, until the spell upon his mind wore off. At length be became dissatisfied, had a new pair of shoes made to order, and the trouble completely disappeared.

'Advertisers Control Country

THE Federated Press points out that the press is in effect subsidized by advertisers to the amount of $1,030,221,019 per annum. This provides the press with 1,030,221,019 reasons why it should publish nothing that will reflect upon the practices of its advertisers, if they happen to be business men; and as all business men advertise, this makes it unanimous. The people of the country would do well to buy their reading matter and their advertising separately ; but just how to do it is a problem.

New Teeth at 79 Years r

William Clark, Raglesville, Indiana, is cutting a complete new set of teeth at 79 years of age. Instances of this kind are becoming more and more common, indicating that the original provision for man is that he should live everlastingly. Another item pointing in this direction is the fact that it is claimed that no man at death is found to have developed more than two percent of his brain cells.

Important New Process of Malting Lumber

FOR several years the pulp of crushed sugarcane has been made into a form of lumber that has become very useful. Now corn-stalks, excelsior, and wood chips are similarly used, and it begins to look very much as if henceforth there would be no such thing as waste lumber. The. work is accomplished in fifteen minutes. The result is a board that does not split, with a smooth surface similar to marble.

Prince Madoc Expedition to Mexico '' " ‘"

A DISCOVERY in the British Museum shows that as early as 1170 a band of Welshmen crossed the Atlantic to a point somewhere on the Gulf of Mexico. On his first journey the discoverer, Prince Madoc, left 120 men to colonize the land. He returned to England to report his discovery. He then set out with another party of colonists and was never heard from again.

Great Western Sugar Company

ON THE floor of Congress, Representative Frear, of Wisconsin, recently said: “We •send missionaries to China; why not to Colorado? We expect children to grow up into decent men and women with eleven persons living in one room. That is necessary, however, if 45% annual profits are to be squeezed out of child labor by the Great Western Sugar Company.”

Nitti Foresees Collapse of Fascism

Francesco Nitti, one time premier of Italy, now an exile in Paris, declares that in spite of all Mussolini’s efforts, Italy’s revenues are falling off, 800,000 are idle, and there are now more business failures in Italy than in any other country in the world. He declares that during his premiership the Vatican offered him much better terms to settle the so-called Roman ques. tion than Mussolini was finally forced to accept.

Composition of Elizabethton Mob '

TT IS interesting to know that the mob which J- illegally deported Edward F. McGrady, American Federation of Labor representative, from the scene of the Elizabethton (Tenn.) strike, was composed of bankers, real estate men, clergymen and two policemen. The troops which were brought in to overawe the strikers are alleged to have been sent as a result of political pressure brought on the governor of Tennessee by one of the kidnapers.

The Real Labor Agitators

A lfred L. Hoffman, southern representative of the Textile Workers’ union, referring to the low ivage conditions which prevailed in the Bemberg-Glanzstoff rayon plants at Elizabethton, Tenn., before the strike, made the interesting statement that nobody on the earth can agitate people where conditions are right, but that the worst labor agitator in the world is the short-sighted manager of industry who insists' on paying low wages. '

Exciting Figures on Silver Foxes ■

A WISCONSIN man figured that, according to the multiplication table, if somebody would send him $1,500 for two silver foxes they would clean up about $995,860 apiece. It seems that about two hundred persons thought this1 W’ould be a nice profit on their money, and they sent it on; but he forgot even to buy any silver foxes, to say nothing of sending them on to the purchasers. At last accounts he was trying to explain to the court how his multiplication table works.

Charwomen of New York .

IN THE Borough of Manhattan there are 20,

000 women between the ages of 30 and 40 whose work is that of making tidy the offices in which some millions of New Yorkers are employed. These 'women who work between six and eight o’clock in the morning and between six and eight o’clock in the evening earn about twelve dollars a week apiece. Many of them work in two or more buildings during the night, thus doubling their income. A philanthropic effort to provide vacations for these workers showed that they could not afford to risk the loss of their positions and could not maintain their home expenses even when all vacation expenses would be met without cost to them.

The Wasteful Mississippi

THE wasteful Mississippi River system annually carries out to sea 428,000,000 tons of the finest and best soil of the United States. If this load were carried by trucks it would require seven trucks abreast, moving at the rate of one group of seven trucks every second, and moving constantly day and night, to handle the same quantity of material. This annual loss of plant food amounts to twenty-one times the loss of plant food occasioned by cropping.

Jamaicans Wish to Remain British

Emery Ashbury, now principal of a school in Tacoma, formerly in the United States consular service, reports that when in Jamaica he was directed by the secretary of state to ascertain the sentiment of Jamaicans toward coming under the American flag, and that he found that 95 percent of them wished to remain where they were. He interpreted these inquiries as indicating a possible desire to trade some of the British West Indies for the American debt.

i

Travertin in Florida

LORIDA is greatly pleased with the discovery in Manatee County, just south of Tampa, of a deposit of travertin covering sixty acres and running to a depth of 650 feet. This rock is greatly appreciated as a building material because it hardens on exposure to the air, yet is worked easily when first quarried. It is expected that wide use will be made of this new discovery. At present America’s supply of travertin for public buildings is brought from Italy.

Representative Rainey’s Bold Speech

IN ONE of the boldest, most scathing addresses ever given on the floor of Congress, Representative Rainey is accredited with having used the following remarkable language:

"When the Harding administration came on with all its corruption and scandals, when Mr. Daugherty and the Ohio gang were reeking with scandal—many of them have gone to the penitentiary since—it became his duty to suggest who should be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and when the frequenters of the little green house on K Street were able to get together, the only question was who would be most suitable to them.

They agreed on ex-President Taft when they found he was receiving a subsidy from the steel trust. He was elevated then to the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the greatest court in all the world, and he sits there today drawing his subsidy of $10,000 a year in semi-annual installments from the steel trust, secured by a deposit of steel trust bonds, and he does this in direct violation of his own code of ethics which he himself drew for the American Bar Association and which any of you' can read if you desire to do so.

Night before last, in a sumptuous apartment in the most elegant of Washington hotels, Mr. Taft and Mr. Wickersham, his old attorney-general, both of them responsible for the escape of the sugar trust thieves back in 1910 and 1911, stood shoulder to shoulder and solemnly advised the lawyers of the American Law Institute to go back home and do what they could to enforce the laws.

Washing Not Well Done

BROOKLYN man originated a new industry of collecting used stamps and washing them, and then selling them to his own company to be used again. His little scheme worked ail right for a time, but went to pieces when a fellow clerk made a complaint to the government that its stamps were not properly gummed. They investigated, found a quantity of the washed stamps, and now the man who did it is wondering why he did not think of some more honest way to make his income larger.

tsThe Doctor’s Economic Problem”

TN AN address before the Optometrical Club of Brooklyn, Dr. Shirley W. Wynne, commissioner of health of New York City, is reported to have said, “Here is the necessary solution of the doctor’s economic problem. Let him take in twenty children an hour, one hour a day, three days a week, at a charge of $5.00 for each anti-diphtheria inoculation. This will bring a revenue worth while to the doctor.” Can you beat it?

To this recipe for picking up a little easy money, no matter how hard it may be for the frightened and long-suffering parents, should be added the interesting information that in checking over an epidemic of diphtheria among the nurses at the Cook County Hospital in Illinois, last fall, more cases of diphtheria developed among those who had had toxin anti-toxin than among those who had not had it. As the light of truth on all subjects spreads it looks more and more as if the medical doctors are in for a bad time.

Indian Children as Sugar Beet Workers INVESTIGATIONS made by the Institute of ■L Government Research indicate that it is not good for Indian boys 13 years of age to work in the beet fields from 4 to 6 a.m. without food and to continue working till 6 p.m., except at meal times. The boys are reported as returning from their work in the fall underweight and diseased. Seems as if Uncle Sam is rich enough to find some better way to care for these wards.

Three Hundred Million Profit

A PITTSBURGH dispatch states that the

Mellon family made a profit of $300,000,000 in the first five months of 1929 in the rise in value of stocks of the Aluminum Company of America and the Gulf Corporation of Pennsylvania. That means that if a man received $3,000 a year salary, and saved every cent of it, in a trifle like one hundred thousand years he could make as much money as the Mellon family made in five months.

Archbishop of York on War

HE archbishop of York reasons as follows on war, and it is interesting to see the means by which he. convinces himself that what is absolutely wrong is absolutely right. He said: “War remains absolutely wrong and only relatively right: but that will not perplex any one who has grasped the elementary logical principle that relative terms are in their relations absolute, and, therefore, if it is right in the circumstances, it is in the circumstances absolutely right.”

What the War Department Wishes ,

WHAT the War Department wishes may be gathered from the bill introduced in the

House of Representatives, in Washington, at its request, in the spring of 1929. This bill has plenty of sharp teeth in every paragraph, but plenty of loopholes for bishops, priests and millionaires.

The bill, if enacted into law, would demand the registration of all males between the ages of 18 and 45, under penalty of imprisonment, and after their imprisonment they would be registered anyway, automatically. Those registered would be subject to martial law.

High government officials would be exempted, and the president could also exempt such “regularly ordained ministers of religion”, minor officials, and persons engaged in essential industries, as he might see fit. There ■would be no other’ exemptions on account of occupation or religious beliefs.

Members of “'any well-recognized religious sect whose creed or principles forbid its members to participate in Avar in any form” would be required to render noncombatant service.

Those who have declared their intention of becoming citizens would be able, under certain conditions, to withdraw their intention and thus be relieved from liability to military service, but such persons would by such act be for ever barred from becoming citizens of the United States.

The Defeat of Drake and Alair

TWO gallant men have gone down in defeat.

First, there was Admiral Drake. In Golden Age No. 238 he produced for the delectation of our readers what he thought and what we thought was a very long word. Let’s see! If we remember right, it was “antiinterdenomina-tionalistically”.

Then a little while ago along came General Alair with a still longer word, “proantitransub-stantiationalistically,” and we all acknowledged that he had triumphed over friend Drake. But little did General Alair know what was coming, nor did we.

The trouble that has come on these two dictionary fighters is now in its last stage, FieldMarshal Boy Van Le Cair, of Michigan, has risen up in his might and taken a clipping from his National Geographic Magazine for March, 1920. In that clipping, which is right in front, of us, the geographer mentions in the most matter of fact way . a little lake on the border of Connecticut. We hesitate to pronounce it, but it reads: Lake Chaugogagogmanchaugagogchau-hunagungamaug. If it had not been for those last four letters Alair would have been all right. As it is, he is gone. Somehow, the name of this lake makes a man feel that he has discovered the real reason why our ancestors killed off the Indians.

Events in Canada By Our Canadian Correspondent

SPEAKING of Canada as the best customer of the United States, and its rival for wealth, Mr. Lynn W. Meekins, United States commercial attache at Ottawa, when addressing the sixteenth national foreign trade convention of that country, said in part:

Canada is our best customer because it needs our products and has ample resources with which to pay for them. It is a close second to the United States in per capita wealth and income.

With less than 10,000,000 people Canada has many more than 1,000,000 motor vehicles and 500,000 radio sets—impressive evidence of the large buying power of our good neighbors. ‘

The estimated wealth of Canada is in the neighborhood of $27,000,000,000, and its aggregate annual income is not far from $6,000,000,000. About three million Canadians are employed in gainful occupations. These producers have an average stake of $9,000 in their country in the form of actually developed natural resources, land, buildings, implements, machinery, automobiles, investments and cash, and in addition to that an average annual income of $2,000.

Canadians are prosperous. Their recent progress is remarkable. Between 1925 and 1928 their annual production increased by $1,000,000,000, or 20 per cent, in three years. If they continue at that rate we shall have to hustle to keep up with them.

Traffic of the Great Lakes

The Toronto Daily Star contained the following interesting editorial upon the greatness of the Great Lakes traffic:

The magnitude of the freight traffic on the upper lakes is seen when the traffic using the Soo canal is compared with the traffic passing through the Suez and Panama canals in the year 1928.

The canals between the Indian ocean and the Mediterranean and between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans carried more freight last year than ever before, but the combined tonnage of their traffic was only 75.7 per cent, of the, traffic passing between Lakes Superior and Huron. The figures, now available for the first time, are as follows: Suez canal, 32,622,000 tons; Panama canal, 33,186,394 tons; Soo canal, 86,933,000 tons.

The total quantity of freight carried on the upper lakes was appreciably greater than 86 million tons. That figure does not include the tonnage carried into and out of Lake Michigan nor a lot of local traffic between lake ports. The saving in freight rates effected by using cheap water transportation on the upper lakes instead of rail transportation, amounts to more than 200 million dollars yearly.

A great increase in the economics of water transportation would be made if deep water were carried from the great lakes eastward to Montreal, making a continuous water highway between the five lakes and the seven seas. But Canada, after spending 115 millions on the most expensive part of the extension eastward, one which will not bring benefits commensurate with its cost unless the rest of the work is done, seems to have forgotten what it is she intended to do. The losses occasioned to her people by this state of amnesia or mental aberration will reach many millions of dollars per year.

The explanation usually given for Canada’s uncertain course in regard to the provision of deep navigation on the St. Lawrence river is that her politicians lack decisiveness. But a truer explanation is that her business interests, for all their reputation for alertness, have failed to make adequate representations to those who make public sentiment and mold governmental policy.

Exploration by Air

Canadian fliers are adding to the aerial maps of this country at the rate of some 66,000 square miles a year, according to Mr. N. C. Stewart, Victoria surveyor:

“These maps are not taken for any mere scenic record, although they would be well worth while for that alone,” said Mr. Stewart. “The maps are used for tracing mineral deposits, oil and timber resources, locating transportation routes, range land and water courses. The airplane is giving Canada the best opportunity she has ever had of studying herself and finding out just how wealthy her resources really are.”

Under the caption “Exploring by Air” the Saskatoon Star Phoenix editorially states:

At a recent convention an internationally known Canadian mining engineer and a deputy minister of the federal government spoke casually of hundreds of thousands of miles of almost unexplored wilderness which have been covered by airplane. This work is typical of the Canadian air service. While United States fliers have been staging spectacular endurance flights immediately over airdromes or across well mapped country, and while Great Britain has specialized in speed records, Canadian airmen have engaged in stupendous commercial tasks, doing their work quietly, almost unknown to the public.

The air mail service in Canada is fairly well known through official statements. Commercial flying is looked upon as a matter of course. Even the work of the forestry patrol in covering huge territories by plane is familiar to Canadians. But in that, vast stretch of country in the north part of the prairio provinces there has gone forward a work of far great*

GOLDEN' AGE

er importance than airmail or passenger-carrying between cities.

It is not so many years since the prairie country of Western Canada was looked upon as a tract unfit for human habitation. So it has been with respect to the northern ‘hinterland.’ But within the last year or two there has been a change. Prospectors, conveyed by airplane, have penetrated to every corner of this country hitherto regarded as barren land. Through the efforts of these men and the airmen, Canada is beginning to realize that there lies an empire equal if not superior to that which was developed by the western penetration of the railways.

Peaceful Industrial Life

The flour production and flour exportation of Canada keeps on the increase. During 1928 the production amounted to 19,349,000 barrels, compared with 17,701,000 barrels in 1927, according to the Bureau of Statistics. Exports during the year amounted to 10,737,266 barrels, valued at $63,973,066, as compared with 9,262,936 barrels at $60,266,510 in 1927.

Speaking upon the peaceable condition prevailing in the industrial life of this country at present the Saskatoon Star Phoenix has the following to say:

Canada has been fairly free of serious industrial trouble in recent years. The loss of time due to strikes and lockouts in the Dominion last year was 238,132 working days. On the face of it that seems serious enough, but the figure is one of the lowest recorded since statistics began to be kept in 1900. The peak of industrial trouble in Canada was 1919, when 3,942,189 working days were lost. The average thereafter until 1925 was well above one million, and approached two million in 1922,1924 and 1925. By comparison the record for last year is distinctly encouraging.

The decline in the number of serious disputes is due to several causes. Among these the most important is undoubtedly the fact that industrial workers in Canada enjoy a higher standard of living now than ever before. Prices have declined from the peak level of the post-war years to a point about 55 per cent, higher than the 1913 scale. Wages have not come down simultaneously. They stand at between 80 and 90 per cent, above pre-war standards. In terms of buying power the factory employees of Canada are much better off than they were fifteen or ten years ago. Increased production and improved methods of manufacture enable employers to pay the relatively high wages now prevailing. There is no pressure on the workers to accept lower rates; so wage disputes, the most potent cause of strikes, are remarkably rare. That is one reason for the good strike record of 1928. Another is that employers and workers, not to mention the citizens generally, have come round to the view that the strike and lockout are wasteful weapons and should be held in reserve for use as a last resold, and not regarded as the normal method of settling arguments about wages, hours and working conditions. There is nowadays a marked tendency to resort to conciliation and compromise. Legislation providing for arbitration has been a useful safeguard of industrial peace.

The Slaughter of the Innocents By L. G. Manchester

ON READING a report in The Golden Age that seventy percent of New York’s children are defective, and eighty-five percent of Chicago’s children, we must all realize that this terrible condition is only of very recent years. How can it be otherwise? The streets are just lined with M.D. poison squirters. They are seen everywhere with grips full of the most deadly poisons and needles for injecting them. This they do to every child they can corner.

Without doubt the fifteen and thirty percent found O.K. are in most cases those who have escaped the poison squad. First, there is the M.D. vaccinating mania. Then comes an antitoxin for other excuses, etc., until the children are full of the most deadly poisons known.

Added to this is the fact that they are compelled to drink milk from cows that have also been subjected to a liberal injection of tuberculin, a most terrible deadly poison. This poison enters directly into the blood circulation. Hence the milk. Then this milk is sterilized, or scalded to the boiling point or nearly so, destroying much of the life-giving nourishment of the milk, but not injuring the poison therein.

Scalded milk, for either adults or children, is very constipating. This in turn causes more deaths and resulting ailments than do all other causes combined, I surely believe.

Oh, how badly we need the kingdom! I certainly believe the fulfilling of the slaughter of the innocents is now taking place, right before our eyes; and were the time of trouble to be long continued there would surely be no flesh saved.

Christianity and Citizenship

BY A majority vote the Supreme Court decided that the United States of America is a Christian country, and now by another majority vote it has decided, in substance, that a man can not be a real Christian and be an acceptable citizen of this same United States. This necessarily makes us what we are, a nation of hypocrites, like every other professed Christian nation under the sun. .

The new decision declares, “That it is the duty of citizens by force of arms to defend our government against all enemies whenever necessity arises is a fundamental principle of the Constitution.” This leaves no room for the pacifist; but if our conception is correct it leaves no room' for the power trust either, though we do not think there is any immediate danger of a declaration of war by this government against that particular trust, nor against any other of the abominations that desolate the Western world. The. opinion proceeds:

Whatever tends to lessen the willingness of citizens zo discharge their duty to bear arms in the country’s defense detracts from the strength and the safety of the government. And their opinions and their beliefs as well as their behavior indicating a disposition to hinder in the performance of that duty are subject to inquiry under the statutory provisions governing naturalization and are of vital importance, for if all or a large number of citizens opposed such defense, the good order and happiness of the United States can not long endure. . . . The influence of conscientious objectors against the use of military force in the defence of the principles of our government is apt to be more detrimental than their mere refusal to bear arms. ... And one who is without any sense of nationalism is not well bound or held by the ties of affection to any nation or government.

Neither Justice Holmes nor Justice Brandeis could see that a sincere belief in the Sermon on the Mount would make a person an undesirable citizen, and they thought that if America stands for freedom of thought she ought to be as ready to accord freedom of thought for those who think differently from the majority as she is to grant freedom of thought to those w’ho do no thinking at all, or, in other words, go along with the majority in everything.

Shades of Kellogg and of the cruisers! Of thee I sing! '

^Sport” By Sheilah M. Jeoffreys (Johannesburg)'

TT WAS a living thing: ,

A little body hid in feathers brown,

Warm and pulsating—

Giving his thanks to God, foi’ life’s short day,

Loving and mating,

Feeding his young ones, singing all the time.

And now? He lies a helpless, feathered thing;

Silenced the voice, and stayed the soft, swift wing. ,

It was a living thing.

Made with a beauty sleek and taut and glossy—

More fair than woman;

Limned by a Master hand. An artist’s joy!

And almost human.

A deer and doe together—or the herd,

Leaping and bounding, graceful as a bird.

And now? Brought low the lovely springbok form.

Ah, note the human cry of those who mourn.

It was a living thing.

A great, strong body with its tawny skin, Its muscles rippling.

Proud and unconquered, king of all the beasts— A lion stripling!

Filled with the joy of life—and shoving it; Loved by his lioness, and knowing it.

And now—he lies your trophy, while his mate Seeks all in vain her love, disconsolate.

But better dead than caught

And kept as show7 thing in an iron cage.

Wasting its nature '

Within stone walls, and nursing inner rage Against the creature

Who has torn him from his forest fastness, Taken sense of freedom and of vastness And confined him. Up and down he paces, Weary, sick and tired of staring faces.

' Japanese Kudzu

ONE of the most wonderful pasture plants known to the South is “Japanese Kudzu”; but we have until recently been ignorant of its merits as such. Kudzu is a legume and uses the same inoculation as cow peas; hence it will grow vigorously anywhere in the South, if planted on well-drained soil. No other known plant will so completely dominate all other growth and take charge of the soil. It will even smother trees and succeed them, when once it gets well established. Our poor, red, rocky, gullied hills, once they are set in Kudzu, will graze more livestock to the acre than any other pasture plant known.

This vine is perennial in its growth (needs to be planted but once) and will smother out Bermuda, nutgrass, and even wild onions, when once it is well established. It gets its nitrogen from the air and needs only “acid” and kainite (or other form of potash), and is one of the best known plants for stopping gullies and making “waste lands” pay a good profit instead of hang-

By W. II. Barton

ing like a black pall on our tax liabilities.

It has been known to “run” 50 to 100 feet in -one season; and each year’s growth remains alive like grape vines, and as soon as the land is matted with such a growth, the rapid growth of side runners (which grow erect) furnishes an amazing amount of green grazing that tastes better to a cow than probably any other green growth known to the “Bossie” family.

One of the best methods of establishing Kudzu is to plant it five to ten feet apart each way, fertilize, and cultivate for one season to keep down other growth until the vines can cover the land. Then graze only lightly for the first year, and ever afterward. Divide the area into halves and alternate the grazing; let stock graze one to two weeks at a time on each half. This will about double the capacity of its grazing, and will keep the plant more vigorous. Only two-year-old Kudzu roots should be planted. Any thing younger than that is liable to die when transplanted.

What the Men Must Learn By One of the Fair Sex

Within a recent issue Of your valued magazine, I read where one poor reader Made quite a startling scene Because he left his topcoat A hanging in its place And thought to dress like women Who can wear thin clothes with grace. Now, if this same good reader Would read again that page He said he read beforehand In a previous Golden Age, He’d find ’twas ’indoor garments’ It suggested leaving off, And not a needed topcoat In cold weather he should doff.

Now I have often wondered

Why the men all choked up go In white, stiff, starched, high collars; And I’d also like to know

The good of vests and woolen coats On good hot summer day, Or even in the winter, If indoors it’s sixty-eight.

I think, though, they are learning, If my observation’s bright.

I know a stylish shirt-house That’s making those things right. They’re making up some dress shirts With the bodies all of voile, And other shirts with collars That lie flat and will not soil.

And then they put in elbow sleeves, A thing I’m sure men need;

And I’ve even seen some colored shirts Made out of French batiste.

Now, if this certain reader Wants to learn to dress like us, Just let him start next summer With a shirt like the above, And keep his coats and outer things To wear when it gets cold;

Then soon he’ll learn to stand it, And in zero feel quite bold.

Although his recent writing Seems to satisfy the rest, He hasn’t quite convinced me But that our dressing is the best

Educational Graft By Gerald W. Johnson [Reprinted from Baltimore Evening Sun]

THERE is in Cleveland, Ohio, an organization called the Association for Retrenchment in Public Expenditures which has been broadcasting some startling facts and figures. Recently it has issued a pamphlet with the suggestive title “Sanctified Squander” in which headlong attack is made on the whole American conception of popular education.

It- quotes Dr. Henry S. Pritchett, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, as saying: “The striking characteristic of our schools under the process of enrichment of the curriculum is superficiality, coupled with tremendously rising cost.”

About the tremendously rising cost there is no doubt. The United States Bureau of Education reports that in 1890 it cost the country $140,000,000 to teach 12,000,000 school children, while in 1925 teaching twice as many children cost fourteen times as much, or just under $2,-000,000,000. Nor is there any doubt about the enrichment of the curriculum. The parent who received his college diploma ten years ago today is frequently unable to understand even the names of many of the subjects required of modern school children.

What, then, of the third factor, the superficiality which Dr. Pritchett alleges is characteristic of modern education? He elaborates the charge in these words:

“Education in the elementary schools, instead of meaning a thorough grounding in fundamentals, means a smattering of many things, some of them important, some of them pleasant, and many of them mediocre and trivial. Intellectual discipline has been notably weakened, and the school system has come to be looked upon as the door by which every boy and girl is to enter into some kind of calling that may afford the means of making a living.”

To the support of the argument the Ohio bulletin brings a host of authorities. For example, President Butler, of Columbia, is quoted as saying:

“'The ability to read has well nigh disappeared if the reading be serious, instructive, or ennobling; the ability to write, so far as it exists at all, delights to manifest itself in forms of exceptional crudeness and vulgarity; the ability to perform the simplest mathematical operations is, to all intents and purposes, confined to

teachers of mathematics or to specialists in that’ subject.” '

Then there is Dr. William M. Thornton, of the University of Virginia, lamenting that the colleges and universities are being filled with students, “the majority of whom can neither read intelligently, nor vTrite respectably, nor spell correctly, nor compute as accurately as an ordinary grocer’s clerk.”

And President R. M. Hughes, of Miami University, is declared to have said recently that pupils are graduated from high schools who do not know arithmetic, cannot write and cannot even read understandingly a page of English.

There are others, all lamenting that the pupil’s school days are being spent in something other than learning to read, to write and to compute.

Immediately the question arises, To whose interests is it to divert the pupil’s time and attention from the things he really needs and squander them upon trifling subjects? To this question the Ohio organization make a reply sufficiently appalling. It points out that there are embedded in our educational system innumerable “experts” who must perpetually be making a show of doing something to our educational system in order to hold their jobs. Furthermore, there are commercial organizations making countless devices for use in the schools and these are always introducing new things. Finally, there are political teachers and politicians who specialize in school support and it is necessary to supply jobs for them and for their hangers-on.

In other w’ords, there is a very large economic interest in the expansion of the schools, not only physically but as regards the curriculum. Every time a new subject is introduced there is a new job, new equipment to be sold, perhaps a new classroom-do be built and considerable profit to be made. Consequently the schools are expanding beyond all reason, and to the damage of pupils and taxpayers alike.

Now, this may be disguised under all sorts of dignified names, but at the bottom it is plain, ordinary graft. The gravamen of the charge of the Association for Retrenchment in Public Expenditures is that a large proportion of the American money being spent ostensibly for education is really spent for graft. More than that, the children are being cheated out of the intel-685

lectual training they have a right to expect for vantage of parents’ unselfish devotion to their the expenditures of their parents’ money. children’s welfare in order to rob the parents Incidentally, this makes it about the lowest is shameful. But to take advantage of it to rob form of graft known to politics. To take ad- the children also is the lowest infamy imaginable.

A Few Hints to Foremen By Isaiah Hale

TpOREMEN are seldom or never eye-witness--F cs to injuries, but a far more important fact is that they too often fail to see an injury in the making; they fail to see a workman doing something today which their experience ought to tell them will, if repeated, result in an injury to some tomorrow, and to stop the practice before and not after an injury occurs. Following this thought, so firmly am I convinced that it is the exceptional supervisor who has even a reasonably clear understanding and appreciation of the responsibilities and privileges of foremanship, that I imagine when they were called into the “inside office” and told they were to be made a foreman, while some of them knew they had been struck by Opportunity, they did not know just where or why.

Later, and still in a daze and wondering what it was all about, I imagine they turned to a dictionary to learn what a “foreman” really is. Among other things, they found a foreman is an “overseer”; all very interesting, but what is an overseer? Turning a few pages, they found an overseer is “one who oversees”; following their quest, they found that one who oversees is “one who overlooks,” and so from that day to this they have been overlooking things they ought to have seen.

It is high time managements began, to realize the different levels of intelligence in men, and be more discriminating in taking new men into their service. You have all read during the World War that out of the 1,700,000 young Americans given a psychological test, 70% of them were given the mental rating of a child fourteen years of age, and that 45% of that number, or 31% of the entire total 'were rated by our government experts as “morons”—a “moron” being defined as a “person not mentally capable of complete self guidance.” A man applies to many of'you, looking for work; you take his chest expansion and note his back-muscle development, and if it compares favorably with a prize-fighter or wrestler you hire him even though he has not the brain capacity of a jumbo peanut. On the other hand, if you were considering the purchase of a piece of machinery at $25,000 or $30,000 there would be no end of conferences and analyses to make sure the new machine was worth its cost.

Roger W. Babson, recognized as an eminent authority on the subjects he discusses, said not long ago, “Only one man in fifty in America ever thinks; only one in five hundred ever originates anything, even an idea, that is worth anything to himself or anybody else; and at the age of fifty years, 53|% of the male population of America are down and out, have quit cold, and are living on the bounty of relatives, friends or some charitable organization.” Rather a sad commentary, I would say, on our much vaunted civilization and intelligence when we are told that at fifty years, at what ought to be the best years in any man’s life, 53^% of us are through. Do you know why these men have quit ? They’ve quit, most of them, because they never tried; they never tried because they never cared, and they never cared because they never had the right sort of influence from men like you.

I would have you earn, and earning get, and getting, hold the respect, the confidence and the friendship of your men; find them coming to you with their petty personal problems, that some day you might feel the cockles of your heart warmed by that thrill, comparable to which there is no other, the thrill that comes from reaching down a helping hand to some poor devil who is in a rut, and who, down in his heart, wants nothing quite so much as a pat on the back, a kindly word of encouragement from his boss that he now too seldom gets.

Releasing the Power of the Atom

A FARMER’S boy near Frankfort, Indiana, is said to have succeeded in splitting an atom. The first time the current was turned on it released so much power that the automobile in which it was installed leaped ahead and went through the side of a building, destroying the machine and generator and nearly making an end of the inventor, Howard Martin. He is now engaged in building a new generator, essentially a bar surrounded by a complicated network of wires. Beware the Power Trust if they get this.

A writer in the Edinburgh (Scotland) Evening Dispatch, discussing the possibilities of released atomic energy and correlated subjects says:.

The consequences of this liberation of energy will be almost inconceivable. There is more than enough power in a pint of water to drag the heaviest railway train from London to Edinburgh. A bath full of water would drive a liner from Liverpool to New York. A few thousand tons of water (far less than fills an ordinary dock) would provide enough energy to level all the mountains of Scotland, or to remove Wales from her present position into the middle of the. Bay of Biscay.

Think of engines weighing one ounce for each horse power they develop; of electricity so cheap that an ordinary household’s electric light and heating bill for a year will amount to a shilling; of huge ships where engine rooms are as small as your bath room: these are a few of the possibilities which the release of intra-molecular energy will bring in its train.

This new energy will enable us to alter the geography and climate of the world at will. By artificial heating the polar regions could easily be turned into pleasant winter resorts. The Sahara might become a calm inland sea—a second Mediterranean—surrounded by smiling fertile shores. The arid centre of Australia might be transformed into a huge garden.

These are not fanciful dreams; each one of them is within the immediate scope of engineering ingenuity. But, because power is at present so costly, their achievement would swallow up a great part of the world’s wealth.

. Armed with cheap power, however, the engineers of the future will be able to carry them out as economic propositions. That is to say, the benefits derived from such improvements to the earth’s geography and climate will more than repay the cost of making them. Some scientists, however, believe that the solution of the power problem will be reached through harnessing the tides. The tides of the Bristol Channel could provide all the power needed to run the industries

of the Midlands. Once harnessed, the tides of the Firth of Forth could generate far more electricity than Scotland could at present consume. .

There is no need for the world to wait for abundant cheap electricity. The man with enough vision, organising power, and command of finance could start to work solving the power problem of Britain tomorrow.

But there is a reverse side to this rosy picture of a world from which drudgery has been abolished. The coming of plentiful power costing only nominal sums, wall mean the utter decay and collapse of coalmining. Coal will no longer be of any use to the world; and lumps of it will be preserved in museums, under glass cases, along with bows and arrows, armour, and other relics of a barbarous past.

The consequences of this will be extraordinarily serious to Britain. The export of coal remains one of our principal national sources of wealth. By coal’s aid we pay for a large proportion of all the food, cotton, wool, and the thousand and one other kinds of goods which we must import or perish. If coal became as valueless as mud, Britain would be faced with a new set of circumstances which so far as we can see to-day Would mean bankruptcy and ruin.

Can science promise any solution for this problem, which she will raise by destroying the importance of coal? Many scientists of the highest repute believe that she can. Biology, they declare, will come to the rescue, by making synthetic food-stuffs practicable.

At present we nourish ourselves in a rather curious manner. All the food value in most vegetation (grass, leaves, &c.) consists of cellulose, which is totally indigestible by human beings. Animals, however, can digest cellulose and extract nourishment from it. So we keep large herds of animals, feeding ourselves to a large extent on their milk and meat, which we can digest. The animals, in fact, are a sort of living laboratories, which transform indigestible cellulose into nourishing beef, mutton, pork, and milk.

Biologists and chemists believe that in the not very distant future they will be able to imitate the activities of cows and sheep, and tranform cellulose into synthetic beefsteak or mutton broth in their laboratories. When they can do so on a commercial scale, Britain will become a self-supporting country, able to feed all the millions of her inhabitants without importing a single bushel of wheat or carcase of mutton.

Nor need we fear that our great-grandchildren will find their synthetic meals dull and nasty. The chemical foods of the twenty-first century will be far and away more delicious than our present diet. Not only will scientists be able exactly to imitate the flavours of natural foods, but they will also invent new and pleasant flavours unknown to nature.

Impressions of Latvia By D. L. Cranston

THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED

□HOWARDS the end of the 18th century that -®- portion of country now called Latvia eras forcibly taken possession of by the old Russian Empire. Since that time, and until 1918, it was exploited to the full. With the fall of the old czarist regime, and the termination of the great World War, Latvian independence was proclaimed. The new republic commenced in an impoverished condition and during troublous times. That for ten years this little republic has continued to maintain its existence and make some progress is to the credit of her statesmen.

Readers of The Golden Age are cognizant of the fact that the period since 1918 has been one of political and financial corruption throughout the world. During that period hypocrisy, fraud and deceit have gone to seed, and no nation today is untainted. Latvia is, in this respect, akin to all other nations.

It is possible for a country to make progress as a nation, and to improve its standing among other nations, without having accomplished any real progress. The success and health of a state should be measured by the contentment and happiness of its people. The people of Latvia are very discontented. Their standard of living is low, and their conditions even worse than under the old Russian Empire.

At the beginning, the socialist influence in th’e government was powerful. It has gradually become less so. About November, 1928, a new government went into office. It is decidedly conservative and reactionary. It stands for the protection of the church denominations. In Latvia, as in other countries, the financiers, politicians and clergy go hand in hand. This is a combination always against the interests of the common people. It is of the Devil.

In the days of the old Russian Empire, Latvians were not permitted to acquire a higher education or enter any municipal vocation. Only those who could afford to travel abroad could obtain such an education. As a result there was practically no Latvian bourgeoisie in those days. Since 1918 a bur-geois class has come into existence, gradually becoming more powerful. These are the oneswhose interests are served by the government. To them the Latvian republic has been a success. To the common people it is, and has been, a failure.

IN A WES

The coinage system is based on the American $ system. Most of the motor cars are American. Like America, it is a republic. In many ways it seeks to imitate the great American republic, but not always with good success. In one respect it has attained a splendid likeness. That is, in its claim that it is democratic. They talk much about democracy and make great claims. The American people do the same for America. Democracy means a rule by the people for the people. In America democracy is dead. It has as much life in Latvia.

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