Golden Age, August 7, 1929
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Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE
MONEY:. ITS. LIV .UNS
SOIL FERTILIZATION
ORGANIC ALUMINUM
NO MAGIC IN GRAPES
BAPTISTS RESTLESS
LOST TRIBES NOT LOST
GOOD GOVERNMENT Judge Rutherford sums up his first seven lectures on this subject
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EVERY O T HER WEDNESDAY 5c a copy - $1,00 a year - Canada & Foreign $1.50
Volume X - No, 258 August 7,1929
Contents
........r-:„ .......-----1<^58—-v.w ■ :.........—......-.........
. Labor and Economics -Passing of Skilled Labor
Social and Educational
Teaching- Geography by Cinema . , ......... . . . 708
Comical Errors of Printers
‘■'The Unknown School” .
Finance—Commerce—Transportation New York Central and Santa Fe Service......... ;
Chain Stores and Manufacturers . . . ....... . . .
Independent Grocers Fight for Existence . . . . . ■ . . - .
Money: Its Flaw’s and Injustices—at the Hands of Men . . ..-
Political—Domestic and Foreign
The Kernel of Militarism..............• ■
Restrictions of Liberty in Russia
The Harris Letter to President Hoover ........... 710
Agriculture and Husbandry Fertilization of the Soil .
Science and Invention The Heinkel Catapult . .....
Iron and Clay Do Not Cleave
Home and Health
A Paragraph from a Government Letter .......... 718
An Experience in Tonsillectomy .....
An Apostle to Aluminum Sufferers
Organic Aluminum Is a Poison Too
Watch Tower (?) Treatments
No Magic in Grapes
Religion and Philosophy Southern Baptists Getting Restless .... The Day of the Alarm Clock ApproAciieth . . Bible Questions and Answers . ......
Good Government............
The Never-lost Ten Tribes ........ The Children’s Own Radio Story ......
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Golden Age
Volume X Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, August 7, 1929 Number 258
World
News
Hindu Postal Service
INDIA enjoys a first-class postal service. Last year some 548,000,000 letters w7ere carried, besides other hundreds of millions of pieces of other kinds of mail, with a total non-delivery of only four one-hundredths of one percent. Automatic telephones are in use in all the principal cities.
New York Central and Santa Fe Service
"DOTH the Pennsylvania Railroad and the
New York Central are now operating combined air and rail service from coast to coast. The Pennsylvania has two nights by rail and tw’o days by air, at a rate of $350; while the Central has three nights by rail and only one day by air, at a rate of $250. The Central air hop is from Cleveland, Ohio, to Garden City, Kansas.
The Heinkel Catapult ■
A GERMAN inventor has designee, a new form of catapult for hurling airplanes into the air from the decks of liners. The plane rests directly in front of the mouth of a cylinder of compressed air. When the air is released, the sleigh, with its burden, is shot in two-thirds of a second over a greased track thirty-six feet long, which speed is sufficient to enable the plane to remain in the air thereafter.
Dog Guides Blind Safely
A SHEPHERD dog, specially trained for the purpose, has shown that it is entirely competent to guide a blind man across the busiest corner in the world, Fifth Avenue and Forty Second Street, New York, at the busiest hour in the day. The blind, man tells by the tug on the harness whether to go forward or backward, or whether to slacken his pace or lift his foot for the curb. It is hoped to train other dogs to render the same service.
Turkey's Struggle with New Alphabet
TURKEY is still struggling with her alphabet. The people are finding the letters hard to read and harder to use.
new new The
circulation of the ten magazines formerly printed in Constantinople has fallen off to one-tenth of what it was while they were still published in Turkish characters.
No Progress Toward Disarmament
JPrank II. Simonds, noted newspaper correspondent, declares that in ten years the League of Nations has not carried disarmament one step forward. He says: “Everybody has signed the Kellogg Pact, thus renouncing war as a policy, but the ratification of this solemn instrument has not contributed to the disbandment of even a corporal’s guard or the scrapping of a single torpedo boat.”
World War and Mine Rescues
TXT AR, while a great curse, does produce some ’ “ minor benefits. Out of the World War has grown the general use of gas masks in mine rescues, with good results. Besides this form of protection of rescuers there is also the selfcontained oxygen-breathing apparatus, now -available in many parts of the country. Several thousand sets have been sold in the United States.
Holy Water and Tobacco
TAURING the month of April, in the city of Bath, England, the firm of Charmbury and Son embarked in the tobacco business. Not wanting to run any chances of failure they engaged the services of the Rev. H. G. Gooding to go around through the shop and sprinkle the walls with holy water before the doors were opened. Needless to say this guarantees that the angels will hereafter take special care of this tobacco business. HAR! HAR!
San Antonio America’s Air Center
IT HAS been decided to make San Antonio the official center of America’s air fleet. The site selected covers five square miles of ground. It lies a few miles east of San Antonio and will be large enough to enable 250 planes to take . the air at once.
Irish Free State in Good Condition
A FTER several stormy years the Irish Free State is now said to be in excellent condition. The taxation per capita has been reduced, the national debt is small, the budget is in balance, emigration has been curbed, and agriculture and other industries are prospering.
An Expensive Visit
BEING homesick and knowing about transatlantic telephony a Toronto servant girl called up her folks in London. She did not know till afterward that it was going to cost her $50, but she knows it now and will now stay away from the telephone when she is homesick,
Women to Be Ousted from Hindu Mines
DECREES have been issued by the Indian government which it is expected will result in the ousting of women from Hindu mines within the next ten years. At present there are 32,000 women working underground in India, at an average daily rate of pay of 16c,
Level-headed Judge Moroney
Judge Mokoney, of New York, instead of sentencing a drunken auto driver to fine and imprisonment, held him to the payment of all the hospital and medical expense that his carelessness had caused. In all, this set the wild driver back about $600 and probably accomplished much more than even a term in jail.
Higher Wages and More Unemployment
Jacob BiLLiKoni', executive director of Jewish
Charities in Philadelphia, says that not in years have charitable organizations been so burdened with the care of needy families in their own homes. By reason of improved machinery those who are employed earn more than ever before, but fewer are called to work and there are more unemployed.
Teaching Geography by Cinema
LONDON has begun an experiment of teaching geography by cinema, and it seems to work well. Instead of being shown so many smudges on the map and told that this is such and such an island, the children are shown moving pictures of the peoples, plants, animals, industries and other activities and get a far better idea than could ever be had from maps alone.
The Spanish Dictatorship ■
npiIE Spanish dictatorship concerns itself -*• with the smallest and most personal affairs of its citizens, such as the establishment of new factories, new systems of industrial production, the limitation of production, the importation of certain articles, etc.
Soviet Closes 532 Churches
TABBING- the year 1928 five hundred and thirty-two places of public worship were closed by majority vote of the local population. These churches have been turned into clubs, public schools, libraries, hospitals and other places of public interest.
Cannibalism in Europe
TN CZECHOSLOVAKIA seventeen men and two women are on trial for their lives on the charge of cannibalism. The accused men are all between the ages of 19 and 29. They are accused of six murders, and are believed guilty of many more. The women hauled the corpses into camp, dismembered and cooked them.
The Communist Riots at Berlin
rpiIE Manchester Guardian points out that a post mortem examination of seventeen of the twenty-four victims slain in the May-day riots at Berlin shows that all were killed by police bullets. Not a shot was fired by any civilian against the police, and the streets were at no time in any danger from the activities of the Communists.
The Greatest Year for Bibles
LAST year the British and Foreign Bible
Society distributed nearly eleven and one-half million copies, an advance of nearly half a million over the previous year. One or more complete books of the Bible are now to be had in 618 languages, 203 of which are African tongues. The complete Bible is to be had in 146 versions.
Pelorus Jack, the Friendly Dolphin
FOR twenty years a white dolphin, Pelorus Jack, met every steamer entering Pelorus Sound, New Zealand, escorted it for five miles, and then disappeared. Jack has now disappeared. There was an order in council of the New Zealand government against anybody’s killing him. It is supposed that he may have become entangled in the propeller of a vessel and thus been accidentally slain.
Moving a Town of 40,000 People
AT FUSIIUN, Manchuria, a Japanese mining company has moved an entire town of 40,000 people a distance of three miles in order to enable them to get immediate access to a vast coal deposit underlying the city. From this deposit last year they averaged to dig 30,000 tons of coal a day. The seams reach a maximum depth of 3,000 feet and are estimated to contain well over a billion tons.
Armenian Artig Dufa
AARMENIAN artig dufa sounds like something strange, does it not? Well! It surely is strange, as strange as it sounds. Artig is the name of a town. Nothing so very strange about that. But dufa is strange. It is a form of lava, very plentiful near Artig, which may be sawn and planed and nailed and painted any color and behaves just like wood, except that it is permanent. It makes an ideal building material, and as ideal for the furniture as it is for the house itself. It is light and tough, and will withstand great strains. Heat and sound penetrate it very little.
Church and State Row in Malta'
MALTA is a Roman Catholic appendage of a Protestant country, Britain. In practice the rulers of Malta are Catholics, but civil law is paramount to ecclesiastical law. Recently the Vatican desired to punish a certain monk by sending him out of the island so that he could be imprisoned in a monastery in Sicily. Three times the order has been given and three times the governor of the island has refused to issue the necessary passports on the ground that under British law not even the governor himself can banish a man from his homeland. Meantime all kinds of threats are being made against the governor, but he stands firm.
The Lloyd Dam at Bhatgar
THE Lloyd Dam at Bhatgar, India, is 190 feet high and nearly a mile in length, and is built of twenty-one million cubic feet of masonry. The dam cost $6,000,000 to construct, and took five years to build. It will furnish irrigation for an area of about six million acres and is at this time the largest single irrigation project dam in the world.
Free Training of Young Farmers
rfHE British government, cooperating with the provincial government of Alberta, will give young men 17 to 25 years of age a month’s free instruction in a government agricultural college, and then find employment for them on a farm, with the ultimate object in view of training them to take up farming on their own account. Seems like a long step in the right direction.
Told to Leave the Platform
TN THE year 1886, in the city of Buffalo, N. Y., at a convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an aged engineer who attempted to read a paper showing that it would be possible for human beings to invent a machine in which they could fly, provided enough power could be applied to it, was requested to discontinue reading his paper and to leave the platform. No doubt Buffalo has people who still believe or try to believe the doctrine of eternal torture, but it surely has learned something about airplanes, anyway.
A Use Found for Clergy
Henry Ford has found a use for the clergy.
In an article in the Red Book magazine he argues that, instead of preaching about booze, the clergy should spend their time teaching the people what to eat, and that if properly instructed on this point they would not be craving for liquor. Senator Copeland indorses Mr. Ford’s view, but thinks the children should be taught the right combinations of food in the schoolroom. If his idea should be carried out the clergy would not have a solitary thing left to do, but would be compelled to take up some honest and productive form of employment. The day of the alarm clock neareth: it hasteth greatly.
Chain Stores and Manufacturers
IT WAS brought, out in the Federal trade investigation of chain stores that manufacturers have sold to the chain stores at less than to the independents, have given them free goods : in order to introduce their wares, and have given them rebates on goods sold. The independents are now mad all the way through and will put the goods of such companies under their counters, forcing people to call for them, and will refuse to give such concerns any orders and will tell their salesmen why. The Independents still claim to control 70 percent of the grocery business of the country—a problematical claim.
Independent Grocers Fight for Existence
THE Independent Grocers have declared war on the chain stores which now threaten their existence. Their executive secretary, Harry W. Walker, of Baltimore, says feelingly: ‘'That there is a predatory, avaricious and heartless money class in this country striving for dominant power, with an unscrupulous disregard for the rights of others, none can deny. The Supreme Court of the United States has decided that large size and great wealth is no evidence of wrong-doing; but just the same, it is a pretty good clue where to look for wrongdoing. The so-called Captains of Industry, with their efficiency experts trying to cut down overhead by decreasing wages, laying off men and increasing the hours of labor, are not Captains of Industry, but Pirate Chieftains and Bandit Leaders.”
The Kernel of Militarism
HDHE kernel of militarism is contained in the -*• following statement of a military man to a group of professed Christians. It states the matter just as it is. Every Christian must, in the face of this statement, be a pacifist or be nothing at all, give it all up.
The trouble with you church people is that you are not willing to back up your theories with your life, or even with your property. When one qf us military men believes in war he . is willing to go to war and be shot at. This you church people are not willing to do. Therein lies your great weakness. Whenever you are willing to pay the price of putting your principles into effect, then we military men will be obliged to retire. Our strength is due to your weakness.
Restrictions of Liberty in Russia
T) ELIGIOUS groups in Russia may not found mutual aid societies, nor have cooperative stores or workshops, nor hold prayer meetings for women or youths, nor maintain Bible study or sewing circles, nor open lending libraries, nor give medical advice or aid, nor organize excursions, nor operate playgrounds, nor have in their possession any books other than those directly used in worship, nor establish any fund for collecting donations, nor purchase or lease property of any sort, nor make any agreements whatsoever. No meetings can be called without written permission of.the authorities, and all minutes and resolutions must be sent in duplicate to the Home Office. Russia is determined to blot out the very existence of religion.
The Harris Letter to President Hoover
THE letter of Wm. W. Harris, Jr., major in the U. S. Army (retired), Clemson College, S. C., to President Hoover, has attracted considerable attention. The letter follows:
Sir: I request that you have arrangements made —through legislation if necessary—for stopping the retired pay, which is now being paid to me, or rather into the account being held for me, as a pension for former service rendered by me as an officer of the United States army.
I have accepted Christ, and I love him with my whole heart. I cannot imagine Jesus stabbing men to death with a bayonet, or destroying their lungs with poison gas. Would I not be a fool if I claimed to be a follower of Christ, and at the same time engaged in doing those things which I know He hates ?.
That this retired pay is one of the many schemes by which the Beast buys men’s souls, and engages them to do his murdering for him, has become very apparent to me. I therefore, in the name of Almighty God, before whom I stand, have the honor to inform you, sir, that I shall in the future refuse to kill my fellow men at anybody’s command, and I shall refuse to accept any money which may be offered to me in the future as compensation for having engaged in that business which I now hate with all my heart and soul.
There are millions of Christians who, strengthened by Christ, will stand like a great rock, when antichrist, in his lust for gold and for glory, tries to force them into his great murder machine, to kill their fellow men. Who are the great beasts of the earth that we should bow down to them? Not by the power of Satan’s might, but by the Spirit of God we shall stand.
Money: Its Flaws and Injustices—at the Hands of Men By F. W. O’Neill
S FAR as Wall Street is concerned, there are two classes of people: those who gamble (they call it promoting and trading) and those who do not.
All will enjoy Mr. O’Neill’s article, but there will not be any Bible Students who will make preparation for the impending collapse, or even try to. They went through that experience fifteen years ago. When the big smash does come, the only safety will be in the Lord, and unless He grants deliverance to His people, and miraculous deliverance, too, all hope is vain. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day. Meantime, publish the truth, publish it, publish it. The time is short.—Editor.
True servants of the Lord, while belonging to the latter class, should, however, note and observe this manipulation of money, stocks and credit, not only for the future elimination of errors, but to repair to His haven of understanding and protection before the fallacy and downfall of the system takes its toll in the terrible days of the Lord.
“Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins” pertains to this system as truly as to the church system under which it is allow’ed to exist.
What errors, tyrannies and slavery are encompassed in its system! Who, if honest, admits that one man’s ability so transcends another’s that one should live upon a kingly scale of power, and that millions should pay tribute to his maintenance? It is well known that the minority controls the majority; and in these United States a small group (five percent) control seventy-five percent of the nation’s wealth. Even this would be tolerable, if they were content ; but greed for more, and the unsound foundation upon which money is based and manipulated, is leading to the greatest catastrophe the world has ever known.
Let us observe some of the errors and injustices, for instances are numerous of unearned profits totaling millions being made over night; yet somebody foots the bill, and that somebody is generally the mass of consumers.
On the Street today they take stock; and because business is prosperous, labor generally employed and profits good, they keep bidding-up the prices of stock values out of all proportion or prospects of the earning power of the companies involved. Conservative Wall Street men admit it. In terms of natural production, they would say that values have been taken far beyond -what the apple tree will bear this year, and for many years to come 1
The tragedy lies in the fact that millions must work and slave, for years, to produce or make up values that are taken now by clever schemers who neither work nor spin, productively !
They not only bid up values: they take out of the empty air the values and profits of combines and mergers they promote, and let the public pay the bill. In a recent report of such a merger 500,000 shares of first preferred stock were issued for the original holdings of the company involved. Then 100,000 shares of second preferred stock were issued to pay the promoters for their ‘toil and labor’. But that was not all. Then they issued 3,000,000 shares of no-par value common stock, showing to what extent they considered their proposition would pay. First preferred stockholders received one share of common stock for every share of preferred, but the promoters hept twenty shares for each share of preferred. That still left 500,000 shares of common stock which the promoters sold as a favor to the first preferred shareholders (and to set up a value for their own million shares of common stock) at a value of $25 a share. Therefore that common stock will have to sell at $25 or better to make the holdings worth anything to the first preferred stockholders. And, of course, the promoters ride the tide of ease and luxury, for their two million shares, naturally selling at the same $25 price, will bring them $50,000,000—for something that did not previously exist! -
This is an instance that is multiplied in various ways, many times. If this is sound practice and justice, then the Mississippi River flows up-hill.
But in the bidding up of values, they are creating a whirlpool that is sucking in the real productive labor and earnings of the industry of the nation. Not only of the nation, for every foreign investor who is wise in the ways of money manipulations is adding his influence, and productive money, to the vicious cycle.
And when the whirlpool gets beyond control, wise will be the man who has his values in Stocks of goods and materials beyond the reach of the false value of the money system.
Many will say that the wealth of the country today is proof that our system has been founded upon a solid basis. Let us see.
When our forefathers gave men the sacred
rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the latter actually meant property, or the pursuit of property. It prospered the strong, it took away from the weak; it sponsored “the survival of the fittest”. Actually, it gave free license to the propertied class to live, devise, demand and take according to their desire, at the expense of any or every other individual! There was, in other words, no restriction of the individual in his rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness even though it imposed injustice upon other individuals!
In seven states one could vote only because of ownership of property. (The New Democracy—Weyl) Where could an honest but poor man exert his influence? “In South Carolina no man could be elected to the Lower House unless he owned 500 acres of land and 10 slaves, etc. Imprisonment for debt was universal, and attacks upon property were repelled with savage severity. In Maryland a thief was branded with a T on his left hand, and the rogue, or vagabond, the unemployed man, with an R upon his shoulder. New Hampshire branded burglars on the hand or (if on Sunday) on the forehead, while in Virginia all deceitful bakers, dishonest cooks, cheating fishermen (all of them 'simple men’) were ordered to lose their ears. It was also a capital crime in Virginia to obtain goods or money under false pretense. It enabled the rich man to incarcerate his poor white neighbor for debt, or to buy his negro neighbor at the auction block; to hold office and to serve on juries. The majority of offenses were infractions of the rights of property.”
And the money class today, inheriting the wealth and the privilege of control, guards the possession of that privilege as jealously as selfish minds and ingenuity can devise. A reasonable limitation upon accumulations of wealth or property would be considered a direct infringement upon their liberty and rights, regardless of the fact that their control restricts, limits, or defrauds the majority of the people of their rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness !
Truth today is a sword that is severing the errors and injustices from bygone beliefs and practices. It discerns honesty, and gives credit where credit is due. But if we find evidences of truth in the money system, let us not blind ourselves to its errors because we may happen to possess a goodly portion of worldly goods.
And money today, as a medium of exchange, is as necessary to man as the possession of property and goods. Business simply could not be conducted nor exist without a liquid flow of money to complete the multitude of transactions between man and man.
And money could not readily be handled without a system of control; therefore the development of the banking system has been as natural as that of money itself.
But values, whether of gold, property or wealth, interest, labor or service, and upon which money serves as the medium of exchange, are as unstable as conditions, demands and the fears of men can make them.
Measured in dollars, the wealth of a man may be ten million. And he may possess that ten million in gold. Yet if that gold could not buy a loaf of bread, or extend the breath of life, or bring joy and happiness, it would have no value.
One draws the breath of life without gold, grows without it, works, produces, marries, dies, and gold may never cross his path.
In commercial terms, however, gold is a standard upon which the value of money is based, and is so used by the world today. But gold is as useless in the lives of the people generally as a steamship would be on Fifth Avenue. True, it lies in bank vaults mostly in ingot form, but useless as a medium of exchange.
So man issued certificates or notes to the value of his gold, this medium of paper being a more convenient form of handling and exchange. Bankers soon perceived that the interchange of notes greatly exceeded the actual demands upon their reserve of gold. Therefore they averaged the number of transactions and proceeded to let their reserves secure the actual demands made upon it while allowing business to exchange values many times in excess of the reserve carried. Thereby was the policy of banking credit incorporated in the money system. In this wise a bank could carry ten million dollars as a reserve, and would issue notes to the value of fifty million dollars. Peter would pay Paul, Paul would pay John and Henry; money would continue in a circle to the bank, while paying interest to the bank—out of profits, for its services. But when business or conditions were unfavorable, Peter, Paul, John and every one else made demands at the source of gold, and so we had our‘panics in the past.
Credit, however, is the fundamental principle undertying money today, for credit is built upon faith. Man must, however, remain honest in his use of it, or credit could not exist.
Today the law compels the twelve Federal Reserve Banks to carry not less than thirty-five percent of deposits as reserve, or only about one-third of. the amount of their notes in circulation. The Federal Reserve Banks issue to their member banks, and these in turn need carry a reserve of only thirteen percent in reserve cities and seven percent elsewhere. And so long as man produces, and meets his obligations, credit, as a system, will remain fairly safe.
But even this Reserve system, the greatest and wealthiest in the world today, founded in reality by the demands of the governmental and moneyed classes to protect properties and values to their greatest extent by keeping money mobile and secure, even this system can not by its methods avoid the flaw in the money system due to man’s unsound sense of values and his unreasonable demands.
If you need a. plow, clothes or radio, you go to your neighbor who deals in these things and arrange to purchase them, with money if you have it, or by credit if he has faith that you will fulfil your word regarding payments. He does not demand gold, and . proof that the paper, check or credit system is fundamentally sound is present every day in the fact that man has generally kept his word to meet his obligations. The checking account by individual or firms proves also that gold is not needed as a basis of exchange, just so long as man understands his obligations and lives up to them.
But if money is a commodity of exchange, if banking is sound, if credit performs its functions, then wherein lies the error of the money system? for error there is, as big and false as ever selfish mind demanded, in desire for accumulated wealth.
To state it simply: You can not produce your food, call it earnings, then consume a certain portion of that food, call it living, and say you still have all that food available. You can not take ten, deduct eight, and still say your answer is. ten. Yet today the system keeps adding the equivalent of all labor and all values of materials, adds on percentages of profit or services, and keeps that total in circulation regardless of the consumption for the maintenance and enjoyment of life! . -
Yrou may borrow from John and Henry an amount sufficient to maintain your life for a year. You have a farm and you raise produce for the market. You consume a goodly portion of the value you receive for the maintenance and -well-being of life, but you lay it aside to repay John and Henry. You may have a surplus left over, or you may be shy according to management or circumstances; but if a surplus, it goes to purchase other materials or goods according to your needs. That surplus actually is your profit or satisfaction you receive over and above the labor necessary to maintain life. But because the money system has not taken out of circulation the value of the goods you consumed, as is evidenced by the return of the loan to John and Henry, they must, in order to secure the value of their money, keep within the money system the value of goods you consumed in maintaining life!
Multiply this example by millions of people; keep in circulation the accumulations of used or consumed products, whether wheat, corn, electricity, clothes or any other product; and we see false accumulations mounting into stupendous figures. .
Yet (and here is the fallacy of these vast accumulations, in a nutshell) there has been no attempt or media wherein the consumed money can be taken out of circulation, that is, eliminated as a factor of circulation or value, by the government.
Many will contend that in the purchasing of goods and the payment of money for same, in spending a part of their earnings they have consumed the other man’s product, and that the other man, by taking their money, has consumed part of their earnings. Herein is the vicious circle that has kept the value of consumed products in circulation, in part with the wealth of more permanent products.
This false foundation has helped to blind men to the actual values of life. Accumulations through this error have so mounted values that man now demands and increases this false god of wealth by adding percentages of profit out of all proportion to reason or justice to fellow men.
Houses have been built, and paid for (consumed) many times over, yet man demands a value on that house today in excess of what it consumed in labor and materials to build, after reaping a harvest from his investment. In other words, in all fields of endeavor liberty has become license in demands for profit. Man demands, regardless of its bearing upon fellow men, a profit that is unreasonable and unjust, and out of all proportion to the value of goods or services that have been rendered; and this demand for unproductive profit is fast crumbling the walls of sounder values.
A farmer takes his produce to market and is fortunate if his surplus is sufficient to bring him reasonable luxuries; yet the wholesaler demands and receives profits and surpluses beyond all reason for the effort expended in selling the labor of others. To keep prices up and swell his profits he will let food rot in railroad cars, regardless of the many depending upon the food and of the farmer depending upon a return from his produce for maintenance.
Yet, admitting that the Lord God has given the world a variety of men, fast and slow types of workers, quick and slow thinkers, every man is worthy of his labor. If a man can earn ten percent above his labor and expenditures, his labor should not be penalized by men demanding twenty, fifty, to gormand demands of a thousand percent or more. Every exorbitant profit is a tax upon every individual receiving a smaller percent of profit than that which is demanded. But today, everywhere, men have the privilege of establishing any percent they feel the public will pay, which constitutes a license that is sucking the life-blood out of the structure known as justice. It is beyond government control; it is the essential demand of “privilege” that it remain so. .
For, understand, where men are able to manipulate money into their control by ideas of exorbitant values and profits, then the time will not be long before their selfish demands and juggling will lower the standard into the caldron of inflation, with all its attendant evils. No system can claim to be sound where a mere turn-over or resale can net a man a million dollars without any productive effort on his part.
A certain oil magnate a few years ago made a profit overnight of eight million dollars on a split-up of stock in which he did not raise a finger. And every man or woman who used gasoline footed the bill by higher costs, to pay the stockholders for the new valuation. Think of it: a man earning $4,000 a year, or about eighty dollars a week, would have to work two thousand years without expending a penny for living expenses to accumulate the fortune this man made overnight.
Every man is worthy of his labor; everything has a certain degree of value; but there is no justice in this unrestricted policy where the mass of people are taxed that another man might have more than he can personally consume, whether that consumption consists of food, clothes, houses, yachts or any other degree of material happiness.
This unsound policy of exorbitant profits combined with consumed money remaining in circulation is reflected in the vicious cycle of rising prices. In 1895 a pound of good-grade butter averaged 27 cents a pound. Degree of quality may vary, but on the whole a standard pound of butter was the same in 1895 as it is today. But now you pay, through the uncertain and unsound money system, an average of 60 cents a pound. Yet that pound of butter can do no more or spread no farther than it did in 1895 or 1829. Why should the medium of exchange increase over one hundred percent? Because man has so added and muddled his money system and values that today it costs 60 cents, and tomorrow it could cost $2.45; yet it remains simply one pound of butter.
The standard, whether of apples, barley, corn or wheat, will perform its function in the lives of men, anywhere, even as it has done in the past centuries. Yet the greed of man insists upon a money value (for money is a commodity, just as wheat or an apple) that would make the apple increase to over double its size, or more, according to manipulation, whereas Nature fulfils its law according to a standard!
Man calls his manipulation brain-work, or increased costs; whereas it is nothing more than greed, and the lack of a money sabbath!
Supply and demand create values, some say. True in many respects; but it is not to man's credit that he allows this to be so.
But man feels very secure in this system he has inherited. He has so manipulated and devised methods for protection; and these methods, while worthy in their intent, i.e., life and fire insurance, will not stand the shock when the foundation crumbles, for these methods of protection lie within that same system of manipulation and error.
Life insurance, for instance, has served to protect millions of people from the wmrries and trials of our haphazard method of existence.
Men who studied the laws of average saw that money in the commercial field, did not demand payment upon the deposits or reserve all at the same time. Therefore he built up the credit system, as has been noted. “Why,” he figured, “can't this law of average apply to people with a value? They die one at a time, but a hundred or a thousand or more can make deposits to offset or meet individual payments when due.”
The law of average favored him, and we have today a system that has done much good, alleviated many from misery; but don’t forget that the people who control these companies are living upon the efforts of millions of people; they have feathered their nests well, and live upon the fat of the land; but their policies are unsound.
The fact that they will gamble on the length of your life, and pay a full policy though you die within a week after making your contract with them, shows the gamble in the proposition, and the injustice to other and future policy-holders who must foot the bill.
For when a death occurs, it is not generally the accumulated premiums paid in by the policyholder that is returned, but the premiums of present policy-holders, and also the income from investments made with the policy holders’ money. The system penalizes the labor of posterity just as war debts tax the labor of generations following it.
The principle of honest dealing and intent is not considered here. The element of gambling and unsound security is.
As to being unsound, it is no stronger than its weakest link, money, money that fluctuates. And if they had to meet a quarter or a half of their obligations in a time of unusual stress or demand, the chances are that they would crash to the wall. Their safety has been that income in futures has exceeded a minimum outlay.
And when a policy is not worth the paper it is printed on, as was seen in the terrible inflation of the German mark, who then can say that any company or policy or system is foolproof where the same evil of inflation can occur because of man’s unsound ideas and demands for value.
A more recent policy of injustice that is being inflicted upon the earnings of the people and posterity is the new and unwholesome demands of men in the form of trust funds.
Rich men have seen the fortunes of other rich men wasted through the indulgences and extravagance of their heirs. Years of experience in the merging and controlling of large combinations of wealth have shown them they can avoid this practice. Instead of willing his wealth to his family, he now puts it into a trust fund, capably handled by specialists. In this wise his wealth continues intact and in many instances increasing automatically without effort of additional labor or capital.
For instance, a man dying in 1927 may have in trust, with other securities that average a good yield, a block of aero stock bought in that year for $25 a share. Today, in 1929, that stock is valued between $225 and $299. a share. .
And when dead men can control the lives of the living, inflicting upon posterity, through years without number, a demand (expressed in the.form of the will, and executed according to the law) that the efforts of the people, as controlled through their labor, should pay and keep the dead man’s heirs in wealth and luxury, then we see not only the wealth controlled beyond the grave but a development of tyranny that would tie up most of the wealth in the form of trust funds by dead men’s wills, if it were permitted to continue indefinitely.
Yes, it has stout defenders, just as all financial policies have their defenders. If one is part of the system and benefits thereby, it does not prove that the policies are just. Business today has to be honest, as honesty is known among business men. In other words, obligations and promises have to be met and lived up to if credit and good standing are to continue. This in no wise proves that the basis of the promises constitutes honest and just dealing between man and man. Two men can mutually agree to a purchase price of $100 for an article that costs the seller only $20. The contract is in agreement with all the standards of business honesty, and nowadays even the exorbitant profit is considered as a righteous privilege.
Big Business has undoubtedly raised higher standards. They have also endeavored to ease the burdens and worries of the mass of mankind, but for a price, and a stiff one too. For with business, profits and wealth come first; the medium of that profit, whether of materials, service or men, remains secondary.
Gold, banks, commerce, insurance and investment trusts may be concrete evidences of prosperity and security, but they in no wise confute
the fact that the foundations upon which they work are laid upon the sands of error and uncertainty. .
The unsound policy of accumulations, beyond a natural growth and with no medium of adjustment, is leading to chaos. This law of production and consumption is one of the basic laws of all Nature, and until man learns to apply it intelligently he can not enjoy the true gifts of life.
The unsound privilege of allowing individual men to establish percentages of profit, instead of governmental units, is like a tree producing a few apples of normal size, some the size of peas and plums, while some of the apples assume the proportions of gigantic pumpkins or watermelons.
And money that shrinks and rises to such proportions (through demands for profits'), will never serve man truly until he has established it as a uniform standard of value and allowed periodical adjustments for consumption.
What, then, is going to be the outcome of the present financial system? How is the present frenzy of speculation and gambling going to affect you and yours ?
Today we all find ourselves in certain conditions, good or bad, spiritually, physically and financially. And while we are not concerned with the cares of the financial system, or whether its reaction to blind errors is shown through panics, war or famine, we should be concerned with the bearing it will have upon the lives of the people, and especially the 'watchmen of the night’.
While the dollar will not buy in values what it did in 1914, it still has good purchasing power, especially in comparison with the German mark of 1922. Strange how man has blinded himself, through greed, to the lesson contained in that financial orgy! In that great German family of sixty-eight millions of people there were hundreds of thousands of well-to-do classes living upon their incomes. Even a modest fortune, considered so today, of $400,000 or about 2,000,000 marks (and think of what could be purchased with such an amount) would not buy a loaf of bread when the final frenzy left a peo-pie totally ruined, financially. A few, able to command gold, or with securities in foreign countries, modified their losses; but what will they or any one do when even gold will not bring forth bread? Read the seventh chapter of Ezekiel if you think your Lord God did not foresee and disprove this god that man has bound and blinded himself to.
No; the watchword is, Prepare! As you see the formations of prophecy taking place, utilize your judgment to the full, as He gives you the understanding, while you flee to the mountains. The interest of His people and their beloved calls for preparation now while the value of money is good. There is no command to do so; there is no restriction on your God-given liberty to choose any course, or no course, as you see fit. But the wise servant keepeth his watch upon the mountains.
And if trouble comes (and who can say it is not around the corner, in spite of the League of Nations, World Court and Kellogg Treaty, and in spite of denials of arming and preparing for conflict?) man ever will react as he always has reacted. For trouble will loosen his faith and confidence in his obligations, and the deadly spread of fear for the security of wealth and possessions starts a tightening up of the money system, as it has always done. Non-productive soldiers leave productive fields and machines ; business slacks, unemployment increases, though war supplies are at a maximum to the war financiers’ bloody gain; food is conserved for the fighting men and commands additional toll from the pockets at the home markets; governments borrow from the people to maintain and continue the bloody sacrifices, and posterity must foot the payments on the bonds. Wealth, labor and the accumulations are consumed with every discharge of a broadside and the play of artillery, and the value of money ebbs until even the man of wealth has difficulty in disposing of stocks or bonds, for the stock exchanges of the world are wise in the ways of closing early, and government bonds can not materialize for years to come. Prices rocket to unthought-of heights, and if a government is in defeat or overthrown, you can write “slavery” against the lives of its people in the days to come.
For they are the ones who pay; and when inflation and overthrow stamp all obligations in the dust, of what value are the accumulations of a lifetime if they can not buy a loaf of bread ?
“Oh the world has weathered the gale before,” they say, but they forget Russia and Germany. They fail to see' the symbol of the fig tree, with its greater and severer events in store!
But the wise man, you will find, has taken his wealth, and borrowed of his life insurance, and gone back to his heritage, the land. He has bought his tractors, tools, seed, clothes, and land; prepared, if need be, to till the soil if extremes suck the value of life out of money or wealth. He bought while the power of buying was good, replenishing, when necessary, his stocks of salt, soap, coffee, rice and other mean necessities for existence, for he understands, from the Light, that the terrible day just around the corner is one wherein no man can work. But in his wisdom of doing he blesses himself and those he loves; and when the great gale has reaped the whirlwind, his song of joy upon the mountains goes beyond into that wondrous dawn wherein justice and wisdom will guide the hearts of men.
For He who guides so bountifully, as is shown in all Nature which He has given to man to control and utilize, not exploit, will eventually show all men, even as He is in part showing today, that by justice and love and the intelligent handling of material and spiritual facts, man can attain blessings and perfection far beyond present human conception.
No more will man exploit his neighbor; nor keep him in slavery; nor inflict his demands, against the welfare of the community. No more will wealth replace the appreciation of effort, nor accumulations of the harvest carry beyond the periods of consumption. And the land shall rest, and bring forth its increase; and man shall work and rest with joy in his heart.
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.”—Rev. 21: 4.
So the wise man prayeth, and prepareth, according to the Word.
Passing of Skilled Labor [Reprinted from Producers News]
SKILLED labor is passing: they are now being employed on the machines which are taking their place as common labor.
Printer telegraph machines are now operating type-casting machines located far away from the central machine, thus putting many operators out of a job.
Installation of automatic telegraph instruments is abolishing the jobs of hundreds of operators.
Seventy per cent of all bakery products output are machine made.
Automatic machinery is rapidly taking the place of coal miners, and automatic loaders are filling the cars, resulting in speeding production and at the same time lowering wages.
Improved machinery in the farming industry in the grain belt is displacing men by the thousands. Nearly anyone can run a tractor or operate any farm machinery—no skilled labor is required.
In farming the combine has abolished the binder, has done away with the use of binding twine, and the necessity of shocking. The combine cuts and threshes the grain and scatters the straw in one operation. The horse has been superseded by the tractor, one of which can do the work of many horses and run a twenty-four-hour shift without tiring.
Automatic machinery is taking the place of skilled labor’ in every industry, and is literally abolishing unskilled labor.
Chain stores are putting small merchants out of business.
Industries, banks and merchants are merging in ever larger concerns.
Will it benefit or injure mankind?
What does it all mean'?
That is the big question that this generation wall have to answer.
Comical Errors of Printers
AN EARLY edition of the Bible accidentally changed the passage Genesis 36: 24, which normally reads: “That Anah that found the mules in the wilderness,” so that it read: “That ass that found rulers in the wilderness,” Ruth
4:13, “The Lord gave her conception,” was made to read, “The Lord gave her corruption.” Luke 21:28, “Your redemption dra-weth nigh,” blossomed out into “Your condemnation draw-eth nigh”'. ■
Fertilization of the Soil By C. E. Smith
I AM very glad that The Golden Age recently gave the information that nitrogen is released in the form of gas when legumes are burned, and that this is a total loss to the soil. Heretofore we had the impression that only the roots of legumes contain nitrogen. It is well to repeat this information frequently in The Golden Age.
We had an example of tie effect of sweet clover on a ten-acre field of corn. The field had been in sweet clover for four years. Next to this field was another, and both were put to corn. The difference in the crops was noticeable to the very row. The corn in the sweetclover field was taller, had a dark-green, healthy color, large ears, and yielded fifty bushels to the acre. That in the adjoining field had many barren stalks and yellowish leaves, was about one-third shorter, and yielded only twenty to thirty bushels to the acre.
When corn is planted on alfalfa ground there is never that much difference in the crop, even when the alfalfa had been planted for years. I had often wondered why it wras. Now I see the reason. Three or four cuttings of hay removes two-thirds of the nitrogen from the soil. The hay is hauled to the barnlot, and fed to the livestock.
In most cases the manure from this is left lying where it is dropped; for it is a laborious task to load and spread from one hundred to five hundred loads of manure in the spring of the year, when the muscles are soft and the body is loaded full of the winter’s unnatural diet. So this manure is seldom put out on the soil, and the rains descend and wash much of it away. What is left remains there; for the farmer does not have ready cash to hire help to haul it out to the fields, and he wants his money for other purposes. Now to let the manure grow and turn it under right where it is needed, and then to plow it under with the team, requires much less time.
The land is rapidly becoming deprived of plant foods. Already some farmers in this section are refusing to rent ground because it will produce only from eighteen to twenty bushels an acre average. Some of the wheat fields are producing only from four to fifteen an acre on neglected farms. This is due to the practice of removing the straw and the grain from the fields. The straw is either piled up and burned or else used as bedding for the stock. The grain is shipped to the large cities, and the refuse is dropped into the nearest water-course or river.
Were the instruction to Israel complied with (Deut. 23:12-14), all residing on enough land to support the family, that system would never wear out the soil, because nothing would be moved out of its place.
I imagine that some will say: “What about our animals? We would not need them if food were consumed right on the spot where it is grown.” I know, of a person, and know him well, who has recovered from cancer and tuberculosis on a fruit, nut and vegetable diet, everything raw, and w’ho has had more endurance and less sickness year after year for over five years. The first half was one crisis after another; but he recovered as a result of faithfulness in the use of fasts, walks, sunbaths, and plenty of work in the open. He even herded cows in order to get out and have something to be forced to run after when he was so weak from sick spells and so devitalized that it was difficult to perform even light tasks in the house after eliminating the cells of diseased tissues.
A Paragraph from a Government Letter
A SUBSCRIBER who has friends in the shipping business sends us a copy of an order of the Bureau of Public Health Service, Washington, under date of February 7,1929, in which the statement is made that “one-fifth of all hospital days required for treatment of American seamen in Marine Hospitals are due to venereal diseases”. The letter contains the following paragraph:
Your Company is requested to make arrangements on each vessel for the administration, without charge, to members of. the crew, of prophylactic measures against venereal diseases. This can best be done by a prophylactic station aboard ship. When men return to the ship, the officers on duty should question them concerning exposure and send those who have been exposed to the prophylactic station. This station can be very simply arranged and consists merely of a place
with soap and running water where a man can apply the prophylactic calomel ointment. This ointment, prepared according to the “Navy specifications,” can be purchased conveniently in tubes at about five cents each. Arrangements should be made also for the free distribution of these tubes to men upon request when they go ashore. This probably can be done best through the chief of each department.
Our correspondent then comments spicily as follows:
Something is topsy-turvy about a “syphilization”, miscalled civilization, that permits fakirs to prey upon the youth of the land, selling nostrums to the erring ones at high prices—nostrums entirely ineffective in effecting a cure, when a 5c tube of prophylaxis (calomel ointment), purchased at the corner drugstore within three days of exposure to syphilis, gonorrhea, or chancroid, is 98% effective in preventing these diseases.
All the long-haired sob-sister reformers at once set up the howl that if the youth of the land were told of this simple fact, they would lose all fear of immorality. '
Very true. But it just happens that the youth of the land have already lost all fear of immorality, thanks to our wonderful “prohibition”, that has put a flask of gin into the pocket of every high school kid. It takes only about three swigs of this “prohibition” gin to remove all fear of every nature whatsoever from the inflamed mind of the partaker. So why go into hysterics about telling the kid the one and only preventive of sexual disease that is even nearly effective?
The tragic evidence in every issue of the physicians ’ weekly confidential bulletin in California (and most other states in the Union have a like weekly report) is that syphilis and gonorrhea and chancroid lead all the other diseases in the state—-the “flu” epidemic alone excepted. And even the physicians’ confidential bulletin cannot possibly register even 75% of the actual cases. .
Now comes the point of the argument: If 98% of these terrible, diseased, suffering cases could have been saved their agony with a 5c tube of calomel ointment, saved a lifetime of misery, saved from a rotting, untimely death, saved from being a harrowing burden upon family and charity, something’s mighty wrong in the policy of withholding the information from the public.
An Experience in Tonsillectomy By Margaret Carson
'V’OU might be interested to know how one orthodox doctor received the article in a recent issue of The Golden Age concerning the removal of tonsils.
It arose out of the fact that al le over a year ago I submitted to the removal of my tonsils at the Lockwood Clinic upon their strong recommendation as a remedy for rheumatism.
They wrote a few days ago to ask what benefit I had received from their treatment. I answered, None whatever; and a permanent injury had apparently been done to the muscles of my throat, as they ache upon the least exertion, such as reading aloud or singing; and that is since the tonsillectomy they did a year ago.
They replied that the tonsils were infected and there was nothing to do but remove them, and suggested that I go there again for treatment from some doctor who had recently joined their staff.
For reply I just sent them The Golden Age with the article, “Saving the Tonsils,” marked, and asked them to read it.
They are like another class of men we have with us, who ‘hate instruction’. While regretting
the loss of my tonsils, the expense and the suffering, it may be that my experience may help some one else to consider well before submitting to the same operation. :
. There is one person, at least, in this town who has decided not to have it done, though strongly advised by a leading physician.
One prominent doctor in Toronto said not long ago: “I believe the time will come when we will hang our heads in shame at the way we have treated goiter, but we know nothing better now than the removal of part of the thyroid”; and he doesn’t read The Golden Age either.
The letter of Dr. Lockwood follows:
Dear Miss Carson:
In regard to the article on tonsils, it is absolutely nonsense, and is just the sort of thing we find appearing in a magazine of this type. Time would not permit me to go into the pros and cons of such an article. It is just the same problem as a great number of the articles that are written against vaccination, vivisection and questions of that type. Personally, we prefer to follow orthodox methods, based on long years of constant study, experimental work, and observation of diseases. As regards my personal attitude, I had my tonsils removed some months ago, simply because I could not ever afford to lay up with them, and yet I had never had any trouble with them, nor did I have any infection. We do not advise that for the laity generally, but whenever there is infection in the tonsils, whether or not they are producing symptoms, they should be removed, provided that they are done under a local anaesthetic.
An Apostle to Aluminum Sufferers By Mrs. B. G. Thayer
MUST tell you of one of oui’ neighbors. He and his wife were sick and did not know the cause. They read The Golden Age with the first article on aluminum, and they quit using it and are both feeling fine. He has talked Golden Age and aluminum to two hundred people with wonderful results. In the last four weeks three people have been saved an operation (after their doctors all told them they must have one), by his giving them The Golden Age and telling them to take a bottle of milk of magnesia. All three patients are improving fast.
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