Golden Age, February 5, 1930
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Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND. COURAGE
“OF MAKING MAi. OOKS”
THE CHILD’S HEREDITY
FIRST METHODIST CHURCH “ALUMINUM PROPAGANDA” ABOUT THE EHRET SYSTEM EVENTS IN CANADA
JEHOVAH AND HIS SERVANT Radio lecture by Judge Rutherford
EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY
5c a copy $1.00 a year Canada & Foreign $1.50
Volume XI» No. 271
February 5, 193 0
Contents
:K?®»
Labor and Economics
What Child Labor Does ........ Street Car Workers in Montreal .....
Social and Educational
Russia Will Latinize Alphabet
Funeral of Dr. R. F. Joiinuun The Child’s Heredity . .
Oberlin’s New Halloween
Manufacturing and Hiking
Tin Found in Canada ...........
Finance—Commerce—Transport atio:
Losses ill Values of Stocks . . . . . . . . . . First Methodist Church of Corpus Christi .... How Chain Stores Increase Taxes.......
Drop in Savings Bank Deposits ........
Political—Domestic and Foreign
Would Pay to Treat Indians Better .......
Agriculture and Husbandry
Tariff Has Ruined Bermuda Agriculture ....
Science and Invention
The Maya Calendar . ..........
The Varityper .............
Home and Heai.tii
Vaccination Takes Life of Dickey Rice . .
Events in Canada
Travel and Miscellany
Religion and Philosophy
Jesus and the Archbishop ........
Bible Question and Answer . .......
Jehovah and His Servant ......... The Children’s Own Radio Story ......
299 .306 310
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The Golden Age
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Volume XI Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, February 5, 1930 Number 271
a Of Making Many' Books There Is No End ”
Ecclesiastes 12:12
THE letters with which we are familiar were slowly and painfully formed over the centuries. At first there were sixteen of them, and they served every purpose.
Originally the letter A was upside down from the way we have it now, and was quite a fair representation of the ox-head it was designed to picture. Our letter B was once like a letter U turned upside down, and' was intended to represent a house, which it did very w’ell. The letter P, in its original form, was the door to the house.
E was a lattice or window, G represented the head and neck of a camel, 1 was a hand, K the hollow of the hand, L an ox-goad, M was water, and N a fish in the water. P represented a mouth, Q the back of the head, B the head itself, and 8 a tooth in the head.
T was a cross like a cattle-mark, V was a hook or tent-peg, and Z was a weapon. All the books that have ever been written trace back to these arbitrary marks that were once used to illustrate simple and familiar things. The first writings were without any division into words.
Ancient books were called skins, because written chiefly upon the skins of animals or birds. The skins when, written upon were formed into rolls and rolled upon sticks. They were usually written on one side only, and divided into columns, called doors, with a space of two fingers’ breadth between the columns. The ink was of lamp black dissolved in gall-juice.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English offers the following definition of a book: “Portable, written or printed treatise, filling a number of sheets fastened together (forming a roll or usually with sheets sewn or pasted hingewise and enclosed in cover): literary composition that would fill such a set of sheets (or several) if printed.”
In God’s eternal purpose with respect to the human race a Book occupies a most conspicuous place. In that Book we have God’s purposes declared, and the manner of their understanding and application made known. The Bible is the chart of liberty and of hope.
Why Books, Anyway?
It is not possible for good authors (and they are few) to spread themselves over the country and give a little personal time to each of those homes they would like to visit and where they would be made welcome. In a book is the only way the author can come.
When the author comes, in his book, he brings with him his own friends, brings his hopes and fears, his ideals and ambitions, his theories and imaginations and convictions. They stalk through the pages with his heroes and heroines and become the personal friends of the readers.
In the year 1344 Richard de Bury said: “Books are the masters who instruct us without rods and ferrules, without hard words and anger, without clothes or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep: if investigating, you interrogate them, they conceal nothing: if you mistake them, they never grumble: if you are ignorant, they can not laugh at you. The Library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches, and nothing that can be wished for is worthy to be compared with it. Whosoever therefore acknowledges himself to be a zealous follower of truth’, of happiness, of wisdom, of science, or even of the faith, must of necessity make himself a lover of books.”
Two centuries ago there were few who could read. Our ancestors used to sneak out to the woods or stable and listen, with a feeling of guilt, while one of the party who knew his letters would slowly spell out from the Bible some words which his hearers might or might not understand.
Subsequently rea’ding aloud by the home fireplace became a treat for all the family. "While one of the home circle read, the others watched the flames dance and the book became a living thing, the dancing fires and the actors in the books becoming merged one with another in the minds of those who heard. The hearth became the center of incentive and of adventure.
Books are friends that can be banked on. When days are dark no friends are better. The possession of good books is not extravagance. A man or woman who does not read or will not take the time to read is living on about the same plane as his dog or cat, and not getting much more out of life. Good books are a necessity. They save money.
A lover of books advises never passing a stack of books without glancing at the titles. Even the titles are educative, and in later years one may recall having seen the title of a book that will just suit the need in hand.
Half of the questions of most persons can be answered by a dictionary and by the World Ahnanac, but that is no reason for living in such a condition of mental confinement. Why live a little and narrow life when you can just as well live a broader and happier one?.
Forbidden Books—and Worse '
The Union Theological Seminary of New York has recently placed on view a thousand volumes that a few hundred years ago would have led to the whole. faculty’s being hanged, burned, banished or thrown into dungeons. Among the dreadful books exhibited was a German Bible, translated from the Hebrew by Martin Luther I
Boston, the conscienceless, still essays the control of the conscience of her citizens. The Watch and Ward Society decides for the people of Boston what they may and what they may not read, and sends word to the booksellers accordingly. After what Boston did to Sacco and Vamzetti it seems peculiarly appropriate that her citizens should have their thinking done for them by a chosen few.
At the other extreme is a little city of 24,000 people in Ohio. Out of 110 monthly periodicals placed on sale in the city, sixty-eight were out-and-out devoted to-sex stuff, and unfit for anybody to read. America now leads France in the production of this kind of mental food. Fifteen or twenty of these magazines are frankly pornographic, carry no advertisements, and are shipped to the dealers by express instead of through the mails. The sad part is that they are multiplying rapidly.
There are millions of pure men and women who know that a literature which appeals only to baseness of mind, lewdness, is wholly the work of degenerates, and a slander against pure romance and wholesome love. The only way to stop the stream of impurity is to let in a flow of clear water, and that they are doing.
The task of trying to censor evil literature is too onerous in a land of free speech and free press. Let the Devil go ahead with his books while the Lord and His people go ahead with His books. We shall see who will win, and it is not Open to question. Forty American authors have organized a committee for the suppression of irresponsible censorship.
How the Books Are Divided ■
The greatest demand for new books every year is for school use, 84,000,000. The next demand is for works of fiction, 37,000,000. The next are juvenile books, of which 31,000,000 are sold. Then come works on religion and philosophy, with 22,000,000. Poetry, drama and biography account for 9,000,000 more. These figures are for the United States.
Besides the books that are bound in covers we must take into account the fact that twenty of the largest magazines actually published 55,560,000 books a year, mostly devoted to sex.' The United States puts 10,000 new books on the market each year, France 12,000, and Britain 14,000. The total value of the American output is placed at about $900,000,000.
The possession of a typewriter or a fountain \ pen does not make a man an author. Many people could never be taught to write readable or profitable literature. We say of some people that they have a “knack” for writing; but writing that is worth while is more than a knack. It is work, and plenty of it.
Those that aspire to fame as writers must be students of words and lovers of words, and must love to express themselves. Robert Louis Stevenson always kept two books in his pocket, one to read and one to write in, and thus was always practicing the writing art. The poet Keats once said of himself, “I should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if my night’s labors should be
burnt every morning, and no eye ever rest upon them.”
Some people write because of an inward urge that is almost uncontrollable. A few years ago a Georgia youth who writes poetry, and writes it well, walked all the way to New York to make sure that his work would be read by the magazine to whom he submitted it, and it was read and published.
'Authors Are III Paid
One reads that David Lloyd George is to get half a million dollars for writing his memoirs, or that the ex-emperor of Germany received half that amount for his effusions, and possibly jumps to the conclusion that it is a profitable kind of work, being an author. Be not deceived. It would be hard to pick an occupation that would be less so.
Milton received $75 for writing Paradise Lost; Goldsmith received $300 for The Vicar of Wakefield; Samuel Johnson wms paid $500 for writing Rasselas. The most popular writers, especially those that aim at fame, do more writing for the waste basket than they do for the public.
If a young author makes a bad guess at a name for his villain and it transpires that there is a mail of that name anywhere, the author can be sued for libel, even though he was unaware that such a person existed. The work requires great concentration. Many writers have kept themselves up on tea, coffee, tobacco and other stimulants until they collapsed. A poet may die of hunger and a good actor may take his poems and recite them in public and make enough in a month to keep him and his family for a year. Writing can not be learned: it must be self-taught.
The young author learns that fiction has the largest sale of any class of literature. He will write fiction and get rich I His hopes grow dim when he learns that of every nine hundred manuscripts submitted to publishers only one enjoys a popular success as a book, and only one in thirty ever gets to the bindery.
Does the young author’s book attain popularity? Likely as not somebody will accuse him of plagiarism, and even ‘prove’ the claim, and the author may be as innocent as can be. Or the reverse may be true. He submits a manuscript, his ideas are stolen, and he has to fight in the courts to get what are justly his dues.
English authors have just organized a society styled “The Society of Authors Who Have Been Hissed”. A requirement for joining is that some of their works shall have been publicly hissed. A work may sell and yet the author be very unpopular. .
Many Odd Authors
Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield, always wrote in evening dress. This habit is believed to have made his writing elaborate and artificial in style. Dean Farrar used to write his books standing. Maurice Jokai was able to write only if he could use violet ink. James Fenimore Cooper could not write unless he was chewing gum drops. Louisa M. Alcott, famous writer of books for girls, did not like girls. Her book Little Women was written at the request of her publishers, and against her own desires.
The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to a woman W’ho thought she could not write a decent letter. She had made a failure at music, and to assuage the feelings of her teacher she entertained him by telling him the things she had seen and heard on a Carolina plantation. He advised her to write out what she had told him, and out of that suggestion came a world-famous book.
An Irish girl, living in an old castle, could not get her works published until finally she wrote a book The Diary of an Eighteenth Century Lady of Fashion, The young woman who wrote the book knew next to nothing of the subject of which she "was writing, but the book made a hit with the reviewers and with the public and the young woman became famous.
Thomas Chatterton, one of the lights of English literature, when twelve years old palmed off his own work as the literary relics of a monk long dead. He kept up the deception until he was seventeen, when the fraud was detected and he was reproved by another author. In chagrin he took his own life, while still less than eighteen years of age. Had he lived he would have been one of England’s greatest authors.
Shakespeare, the modest bard of Avon, has been said by the British to have been Lord Bacon, Lord Rutland or Lord Stanley. He has been claimed by the Germans, and only recently was claimed by the Italians. The latter have it that he was born at Valtellina, at the foot of the Alps. It thus appears that even if an author becomes famous he may lose his identity in the shuffle.
The Publisher's End of It
If nine hundred manuscripts have to be examined in order to light on one really profitable book, the publisher is to be pitied for having to wade through the other eight hundred and ninety-nine, even though he does select one in thirty of them as a possibility. It is no fool of a job to read 900 manuscripts. If you doubt it, try it.
Long years of practice have enabled many publishers to know how to protect themselves, in a measure, against the results of their own poor judgment. When they publish a new book they send advance copies to literary celebrities. The celebrity pays the book a compliment. Backed by half a dozen such compliments the publisher forces a market, because humans are sheep and readily follow wherever the leader goes.
Some publishers make their living by publishing only those books which have already proven their popularity. Over 22,000,000 copies were printed of the book In His Steps after three Chicago publishers had rejected the manuscript. The book netted its author only $75. When it became popular sixteen publishers took advantage of a defect in the copyright to reprint it.
The British Society of Authors, Playwrights and Composers has made up a blacklist of publishers that have been imposing upon authors by asking them to put up $500 to $1,000 toward publishing their books on a cooperative basis. As soon as the author has put up the money the interest of the publisher in the book suddenly terminates.
Snags the publisher has to watch are getting out his books all at one time of the year and thus overloading the market; the copyright and international copyright features; the use of bright-colored jackets on the books; illustrations, and the copyrights on them; and a thousand and one other things that the readers of the book never know, anything about.
The Making of a Book
The most up-to-date publishing house in the world, located at 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., lists forty-five steps in the making of a book. These steps we summarize briefly as follows: 'Writing the -manuscript, marking the manuscript for composition, linotype composition, first galley proofreading, first galley linotype corrections, second galley proofreading,
second galley linotype corrections, pasting up. ________
the dummy, making it up into pages, first page, proofreading, first page corrections, second..........
page proofreading, second page corrections, locking up the forms, matrix impressions of page forms, make-up on matrices, making stereotype plates from matrices for rotary press, stereotype plates bored and routed, stereotypes beveled to fit cylinders on press, washing plates, nickel plating, and make ready on rotary press. Thus far we have twenty-two steps, with nothing yet printed.
The printing on the rotary press comes next, two 32-page signatures being printed at each cylinder revolution. Next is the folding of the printed signatures or sections, by means of special folder attachments on the rotary presses. Then comes binding the folded signatures into bundles on the bundling machine, storing the . bundled signatures in dry room. End sheets, previously cut to size, are folded and separated. First and last signatures are run through the endsheeting machine for application of endsheets. 32-page signatures or sections are gathered by machine into complete books. Pressed on smasher, using one hundred tons pressure. Sewed on sewing machine. Cut apart into single books. Books trimmed. After thirty-three steps ■we are now ready for the bindery.
First coat of glue is applied by machine on backbone of books. Rounded and backed in machine known as rounder and backer. Fed into ' back-lining machine, which successively puts on the back a coat of glue, the gauze hinger, another coat of glue, and finally the back-lining.
In the making of the covers, book cloth is first cut to required width on a special machine. Another cuts the chip or cardboard to proper size. The cut cloth and cardboard are fed into a ma- ' chine known as the casemaker, which glues the cloth on to the cardboard and attaches the backlining strip. Covers are then fed into gold leaf stamping machine, -where heated brass die stamps gold leaf upon them. The case-former machine rounds the backbone of the cover. Forty-one steps before a cover is on a book.
Now the books are fed into a casing-in machine, which mechanically pastes the cases or covers upon the books. From the casing-in machine the freshly covered books are put between brass-bound boards in the standing presses for drying. After six to ten hours in the standing presses the books are taken out and inspected.
Books are now packed in cartons and are ready for shipment. They still have to be sold!
Oddities in Books
Does the mind run to many words? There is the Ganyur, which is the religion of Tibet, cramped down into a single book of 200 volumes. When it was carried across country to Peking it took 100 coolies to carry what was absolutely the biggest load of nonsense that was ever piled on human backs.
Perhaps the mind runs to books with large leaves. If so, there is the Golden Book of French Industry, which contains three hundred pages each fourteen feet by seven feet. There is also an atlas in the British Museum which is taller than the average man. It was once the property of King Charles II.
Does the mind run to books with small leaves ? The Court of Flowers, published in Holland in 1674, is one-fourth the size of a postage stamp. The London Almanack, published in 1838, measures three-quarters of an inch by five-eighths, and is about one-eighth of an inch thick. It contains several portraits.
Perhaps the mind runs to beautiful pages. If so, there is the Book of Kells, made by an Irish monk, at Kells, Ireland, an embellished copy of the Gospels. Designers who have seen the book marvel at the thousand and one intricacies of design, and the keenness of vision which enabled lines of microscopical fineness to be made so sharp and clear.
When it comes to bindings, it is said that one of the most beautifully bound books is in Paris, where, delicately traced on the front cover, is a butterfly with its wings extended ready for flight, made of the skin of the anonymous author of the book. The Philadelphia hospital medical library contains six volumes bound in human skin.
Books have been made of virgin parchment, soft as velvet, made from the skin of stillborn kids; they have been embellished by hand decorations of the finest artists of the day; and they have been enclosed in covers of ivory inlaid with precious jewels, or within tablets of beaten gold. Oddly enough, the summit of bookbinding excellence was attained in Russia, where the expense of doing anything, if it was for the royal family, wms never even considered.
The Best Sellers -
It is claimed that there have been distributed of the Bible some 675,000.000 copies, or enough, if they were preserved, to provide two copies for every family now living on the earth. Of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress it is estimated that 150,000,000 copies have been sold, and of the Analectics of Confucius about 100,000,000, strung out over 2,300 years. Some 50,000,000 copies of Judge Rutherford’s books have been sold in the last ten years. Of Dickens’ books 30,000,000 have been sold.
Six American authors, Mark Twain, Irving, Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman, have a yearly average sale of 25,000 copies each, and in the retail book trade are considered the best American sellers. When a writer is in the high tide of his popularity his books may sell by the millions, but when the wmve of popularity passes his books are soon forgotten.
America has some literary clubs that take it upon themselves to tell the American people w’hat books are wmrth reading and what are not. In effect this has worked out as a dictatorship, resulting in millions reading only what they are told to read, thus making all their minds monotonously alike. The Book of the Month Club is peculiarly an American institution, having as its apparent objective the making of all Americans into intellectual automatons.
No man is clever enough to pick out in advance the books which will finally be proven to be permanent favorites. Indeed, it isj claimed that the total number of books in the English language which the best obtainable judges would declare worthy of the first rank is only about 600, and that if 50 more books were added to the list, for translations, it would not be necessary to go much further to see all that man has done in the writing line that is worth while.
Books at Second Hand
A dealer in second-hand books must himself be a book-lover, and second-hand books are their own salesmen. In the largest and best second-hand book stores there are stalls or nooks where the interested may read for hours without being disturbed. A man who stops to look at a second-hand book will usually buy it. Many college textbooks are resold, often many times.
A London dealer in second-hand books has hit upon the novel plan of buying and selling them by weight ; surely an odd method. This presupposes that the best books are the largest and heaviest; surely a wide departure from the truth.
A Tarrytown (N. Y.) man recently bought a second-hand dictionary for his children. Arrived home he found that some of the leaves were glued together. He placed the dictionary on a radiator, with the result that the glued leaves fell apart and eight dollars in gold coin dropped to the floor. One of the coins was of rare coinage.
High Prices for Books
Rare books are like rare pictures. Special associations give the books a value far above anything they might have for the purpose for which they were originally designed. Edgar Allen Poe’s own copy of The Raven sold for $7,600 merely because he had once owned it.
Some years ago Rudyard Kipling wrote a book entitled The Smith Administration. For some reason it was decided to withdraw the book, and only six copies escaped the flames. One of these was recently sold for $14,000, a record price in view of the fact that Mr. Kipling still lives.
Some authors pay no attention to the original manuscripts of their books, consigning them to the flames as soon as published; yet five pages of the original manuscript of The Pickwick Papers were recently sold for $37,500.
One of the first folios of Shakespeare’s plays was recently sold in London for $62,000. Shelley’s own copy of Queen Mob, with numerous manuscript notes by the author, sold for $68,000, and the original manuscript of Alice in Wonderland was recently'sold by Alice herself, namely Mrs. Alice P. Hargreaves, for $75,259.80. This book was written by a stammering young Oxford instructor in mathematics who, when Alice and two friends were little girls, entertained them on a boat ride on the Thames by telling them this story.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, including “Ilans and Gretel”, “Tom Thumb,” “The Frog Prince,” “Rumpelstiltskin,” etc., were folk tales of German peasants carefully collected by two brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who subsequently became professors at the University of Berlin.
Ordinary Prices for Books
The World War boosted the price of books sky high. Even in the fall of 1929 one of the largest department stores in New York advertised its gift books at $2.50 to $5.00, none less than $2.50. These prices are beyond the means of the common people, and purchasers are necessarily limited.
Judge Rutherford’s friends have made a vast improvement here. His books, on the most vital subjects that can affect the destiny of man, are sold at 35c to 45c each, and reach thousands where they would reach only individuals if sold at the higher prices charged elsewhere for works no better gotten up. Many authors would be glad if their books, too, could get into the hands of the people at a cost to the latter of only forty-odd cents, but they do not know how to get it done.
The Care of Books
Books need to be dusted once a day v/ith a light wool or feather duster, and at least once a month should be carefully wiped separately. Leatherbound books should be given a coating of neatsfoot oil once a year. No book should be left in the direct rays of the sun. It will dry out the glue, loosen the binding, and discolor the cloth. A book should either stand vertical or lie flat. It should never be allowed to stand on edge on one cover, in a twisted position.
The way to open a new book is to take a few pages at a time and gently press them back. A book that is grabbed and cracked open violently may be permanently injured.
Finger marks may be removed from books as follows: Pour benzol (not benzine, but benzol) on calcined magnesia, and apply it lightly with the tip of the finger. When the benzol has evaporated the magnesia may be brushed off and any dirt that yet remains can be removed by using a piece of soft, rubber.
Russia Will Latinise Alphabet
qpHE Russian alphabet of thirty-six letters will be Latinized, and the work has been already begun. It seems inevitable, with the start that has now been made, that the Latin characters will become universal, because first one country and then another is giving up its antique alphabet for the one now most generally used.
This Way and That
Hard Times in Wall Street
ALL STREET is having what, for it, are hard times. Bonuses of employees, customary at the end of the year, are less than usual, salary increases are withheld, and many are losing their positions outright, especially in the brokerage houses.
Losses in Values of Stocks
TN THE stock crash United States Steel lost “ 39% of its value; General Electric, 52%; Standard Union Gas, 65%; United States Rubber, 76%; Baldwin Locomotive, 78%; Schulte Retail Stores, 80% ; Fisk Rubber, 82% ; Willys Overland, 85%; White Sewing Machine, 97%.
What Child Labor Does
COMMITTEE of fifteen doctors of national reputation declares that child labor results in nervous diseases, heart defects, tuberculosis, toxic conditions, catarrhal affections, curvature of the spine and permanent injury to bones and muscles. Also, chronic fatigue stunts growth.
Street Car Workers in Montreal
THE Roman Church Union has an agreement with the Montreal Street Railway Company by which only its members may be employed on Montreal street cars. The American Federation of Labor has criticized this policy by which no Protestant worker, however capable, can procure a job on the Montreal Street Railway.
2’lie Dollar Steamship Lines '
FOR five years the Dollar Steamship Company has maintained a round-the-world service, with a boat every two weeks, and the passenger list always filled. The Dollar boats are all dry. No liquor is served on board, and any officer or man caught drinking loses his place instantly.
Wages Must Go Up
enry Ford says: “Nearly everything in this country is too high priced. The only thing in this country that should be high priced is the man who works. Wages must not come down—they must not even stay on their present levels. They must go up.”
256s000 Bootleggers
fpii E Inspection Service of the Retail Credit
Company, after checking up 23,000 applicants for life insurance, found that 118 of them were engaged in the liquor traffic. On this basis they determined that the total number of bootleggers in the country is 256,517.
The Worst Auto Offenders
eorge A. Parker, registrar of motor vehicles for Massachusetts, speaking at a Y.M.C.A. meeting in Boston, declared that the facts show that the worst violators of the motor vehicle laws of the commonwealth are the clergy; the doctors rank second, and the traveling salesmen third.
Great Unrest in South Africa
IPHE South African minister of justice, Mr.
Pirow, declares that native unrest in South Africa has now reached a dangerous stage, that it has spread all over the southern portion of the continent, and that in another twelve to eighteen months it is liable to manifest itself in many and severe riots.
Lloyd George Scores the League
Lloyd George, one of the founders of the
League of Nations, has recently criticized the League sharply in the British Parliament, declaring that great meetings are held and eloquent orations delivered in favor of peace, but that nothing is done and armaments and ths cost of armaments are steadily mounting.
Huge Boilers at Edison Plant
SOME idea of the huge size of the three boilers at the East River station of the New
York Edison Company may be gathered from the fact that in one of the boilers, on a platform 42 feet 6 inches long and 23 feet 6 inches wide a luncheon was recently served to the ninety men who had been engaged in building it.
297.
Japanese Colonies in Brazil
JAPAN is finding an outlet for her surplus population in northern Brazil, principally in the states of Para and Amazonas. A shipload recently arrived from Japan was sent to Belem, capital of Para, and thence to the municipality of Acara. A large Oriental population in Brazil is promised soon.
President Hoover’s Cabinet
TN THE White House cabinet of twelve men J- there are nine who earned their own way in life without money or pull. The president himself was a farmer boy, an orphan at six:.
Paris to London in Ninety-live Minutes
ON THE wings of the terrible gale ■which roared across the British Isles on Decem
ber 5 an airplane flew from Paris to London in ninety-five minutes. The storm was accompanied by a meteoric show’er, a tiny meteor hitting a roadway, barely missing a policeman and a woman, both of whom were stunned.
Fresh Changes in Turkey
THE latest changes in Turkey are a shifting of the Mohammedan sabbath from Friday to Sunday, contemplated but not yet in effect, and a rule ordering no more plowing by oxen. The plowing must be done either with tractors or with horses, so as to be in accord with the livelier movements of American farmers.
The Shah’s Mark of Respect
MISLED by false information, the shah of
Persia, on a recent departure from London, is alleged to have placed his thumb to his nose and twiddled his fingers. This farewell to the flower of Britain’s diplomacy came about through a courtier of the shah trying to explain why a little boy had climbed a lamp post to bestow the same mark of courtesy upon “his royal highness”.
Prenatal Radium Poisoning
RADIUM poisoning has been discovered in the blood of three children whose mothers worked for the United States Radium Corporation, and who are now suing the corporation for $200,000 each. The husbands are also bringing suit for $50,000 each, and it is considered likely that suits will be brought in behalf of the children. It is generally admitted that radium poisoning is incurable and that a new disease has been introduced into the world. This is the first time that suit has been considered for prenatal injuries. The children who were prenatal-ly poisoned are already showing the symptoms of the poisoning in its malignant form, as their tissues and bones are being eaten away by the radium in their blood.
The Faithfulness of a Dog
A DOG caught in a hunter’s trap in Massachusetts was fed for eight days by an Airedale that carried him meat and food scraps from refuse pails until finally the dog v/as found and released.
Tin Found in Canada
T ABLE and valuable deposits of tin ore have been found in Canada, near the line of the Canadian National Railways, and will be developed at once by American capitalists. The deposit is believed to be the largest in the Western Hemisphere.
The Heated Baths of Ephesus
TN ITS excavations at Ephesus, Asia Minor, the Austrian Archeological Institute has uncovered a swimming pool ten yards wide and thirty-five yards long, with " several smaller swimming basins, and a perfect system of central heating and a complicated pipe line, all about 2,000 years old.
Derivation of America
Dr. Soto-Haix, Guatemalan historian, claims
that the Mayans once referred to the country about a certain chain of mountains in Nicaragua as America. If this be true it would cast a doubt upon the claims recently put forth that the name really means Amt-Eric, the Land of Eric.
France’s Treasure Chest
HHHE treasure chest of the Bank, of France occupies a labyrinth two and one-half acres in extent and is 150 feet deep. Sixty feet from the surface there is a layer of concrete nineteen feet thick. There is a kitchen capable of feeding two thousand soldiers; and also sleeping quarters. France is piling this treasure chest with bars of gold. For what? we wonder.
Four to Six Million Slaves
Lady Simon, wife of Sir John Simon, has stirred all England with a book in which she gives facts to substantiate her claim that there are two million slaves in Abyssinia, and two to four million more slaves in Liberia, Portuguese Africa, Arabia, China and elsewhere. Lady Simon insists that the buying and selling of slaves is a common practice even in Hong Kong, a British possession.
'Air Mail France to Madagascar
THE French have opened an air mail service from France to Madagascar, via the French Soudan, with stops at Oran, Ksabi, Coquilhat-ville, Elizabethville and Broken Hill. How strange this must seem to the primitive people of Africa, to see these planes flying over their heads.
The Maya Calendar
TT IS claimed that the Maya calendar, destroyed by Cortez and his fellow bigots, was so accurate that it could have run 300,000 years before accumulating an error of one day. It is alleged to have begun its time count on August 6, 1613 B.C., and to have never .lost a day until its destruction in 1561 A.D.
Holland’s Reclamation of the Zuider Zee
BY MEANS of a dike nineteen miles long, 336 feet wide at the bottom, 550,000 acres ..........of land will be reclaimed from the Zuider Zee.
The reclaimed area will be divided into five parts. Four of these areas -will he drained into the fifth, and the fifth into the North Sea. The pumps employed have a capacity of 535,000,000 gallons a day.
The V arity per
THE Vari typer, newest machine to invade office work, has 1,160 keys in 40 alphabets and by the turn of a knob can be instantly changed to type in any one of the forty languages. Machines in offices are so multiplying that office engineers estimate that soon onefourth of all the office -workers in the country will be dispensed with.
Tariff Has Ruined Bermuda Agriculture
THE United States tariff has brought about
the same ruin of Bermuda agriculture as has taken place in the Bahamas. At the present time Bermuda is actually importing from the United States annually $120,000 worth of onions, potatoes, lemons, oranges and other fruits and vegetables because the island does not raise enough food to supply the hotels there.
Aftermaths of the Stock Break
AFTER the break in stocks in New York one undertaker reported that he had buried eight suicides daily for three days. But this does not mean that anything -will be done toward stopping the buying and selling of stocks on margin. The New York Stock Exchange could put a stop to margin buying and to selling stocks short if it cared to cut down the suicide rate.
More About the Stille System
THE Stille system, by means of which ineradicable sounds are impressed on the surface of a thin steel wire, will be in general use now very soon. The Bible is now being recorded on about a mile of this wire. The wire can be used to make a record of a telephone message in the absence of the person for whom it is intended.
Vaccination. Takes Life of Dickey Rice
rpiIE Wooster (Ohio) Daily Record of Novem--A- ber 29, 1929, says: “Thanksgiving Day found little Dickey Bice, son of Mr. and Mrs. Belmont Rice, lying cold in death. The child, vaccinated two weeks ago, became ill on Tuesday. Wednesday morning, suffering apparently from swollen glands, he was taken to Massillon hospital. There tetanus developed, and proved fatal in a few hours.” -
Tammany and St. Clare’s Mission
Her Daddy a Poor Cook
Iranklin Ford has filed suit enjoining the VX7HIEN a little Italian girl in Philadelphia Tammany board of education from renew- ’ ’ offered some bright quarters and half-
ing any more leases of parochial schools as public schools. At St. Clare’s Mission, Mr. Ford alleges, the Catholic altar is on the stage of the room of the auditorium which the public school children must use, public school rooms and parochial school rooms are intermingled, children use the same corridors, and nuns and crosses are about. Similar conditions prevail in two or three other properties. dollars in exchange for meat the butcher declined to accept them on the ground that they were not good. The little girl insisted that that could not be the case, as her daddy had just cooked them. Now he and his wife and two boarders are trying to explain matters to the Government, and having a hard time of it, for the officers found $150 more of the poorly cooked money, and the apparatus wherewith to cook it.
The President and Big Business
FTER the stock smash President Hoover called to Washington the fifty biggest business men in the United States, and among them, to offset the smash and give the people Avho got caught in it an opportunity to partially recoup their losses, and spare us all the sorrows of hard times, the biggest of the industries have promised to spend this coming year ten and three-quarters billion dollars. This ought to make 1930 a good year for business.
Holy Water on the Hounds
THE Lebanon Valley Hunt Club, New Lebanon, N. Y., on November 3 had their pack of thirty hounds blessed by the Reverend John Le Febvre, after which, although it was raining, the hounds were blessed some more by having holy water sprinkled on them. Just why the water as it came from heaven, a gift of Almighty God, was not holy until a priest had blessed it and resprinlded it was not made clear in the Berkshire paper from which we take the account.
Seattle’s Torture Chamber
THE Seattle Post Intelligencer of November 23,1929, contains parts of four columns regarding the torture chamber operated eight to twelve hours a day on the top floor of what is described as the old courthouse, Seattle. A prisoner testifies that in that room he was choked, beaten, strapped to a machine which was supposed to extract the truth from him, and had the so-called truth serum pumped into him at least twelve times. These are not the first reports of the torture of prisoners which have come from Seattle.
The Third Degree in New York
NEW YORK detectives have had the humiliating experience of having a confession of murder repudiated in open court. A little lad twelve years of age had confessed under pres-sui ' to the murder of an aged widow. On the witness stand in court he testified that he had been frightened into his confession, that it was not true, and that the reason he had confessed was because he wanted to go home to his mother. The chief detective who engineered this job admitted on the stand that he had not tried to obtain any other evidence.
Would Pay to Treat Indians Better
Tndian Commissioner Rhoads, of Philadelphia, J- has reported to the Secretary of the Interior that improperly fed, improperly clothed, and improperly trained Indians constitute a drain on the public treasury, and has urgently advised increased appropriations for food, clothing, and vocational training, on the ground that they will be an actual saving to the people because the Indians will thereby be much more quickly made self-respecting and self-supporting.
The Deer Along the Delaware
qpHE season in which deer may be hunted in -L New York state differs from that in Pennsylvania, and farmers on the border declare that with the first shots in New York state the deer migrate in large numbers to Pennsylvania, whence they move back again to New York state as soon as the Pennsylvania season opens. Similarly intelligent are the wild animals of the Rockies, which now fight to get into the Yellowstone National Park. They have found that when they are in that area they are not molested.
Oberlin’s New Halloween
UPON this last Halloween twenty-eight groups of students in Oberlin, Kansas, loaded nearly one hundred wagons full of leaves, cans and rubbish, and by eleven o’clock in the morning had every alley and street and lawn in the city looking clean as a picture. At noon the girl students delivered over 100 baskets of apples and doughnuts to the shut-ins and widows of the city. If this is not a better celebration of Halloween than was ever before held anywhere, tell us about one and we will publish it.
Power Trust Tentacles in India
BOMBAY, India, is up in arms because the
American Power Trust has bought and paid for a half share in a permanent lien on the prof- ": its of Bombay’s hydro-electric industries. This i s merely a step forward in the determination of American financiers to place the whole world under tribute to them. By the time the common American people have paid back to the big fel-, lows the sixty billion dollars squeezed out of Wall Street’s paper profits in the big panic of........
1929 there will be little left in America that they do not own.
Cows Enjoy the Radio
XPERIMENTS of the Detroit Creamery
Company, near Mount Clemens, Michigan, show that the cows enjoy the broadeasting programs. It is noted that after loud-speakers are installed in the barns there is a greater milk production, and now all the barns of the Creamery Company are being fitted with receiving sets.
St. Peter’s Cracked Cupola
HE cracked cupola of St. Peter’s at Rome is to he repaired. An American architect has warned that a good job must be done or the thing will fall in. The jewels which were stolen from the papal treasury on the night of July 3, 1925, have now all been recovered. The pope is alleged to have been a heavy loser in the recent stock crash in New York, so heavy, in fact, that the papal bank which was projected will not be started at the present time.
Medical Liberty in New York
HERE are now several million people in the
United States who firmly believe in chiropractic adjustments as an aid to recovery of health when pills, potions and serums have done their worst and failed. And now, in New York city, a chiropractor, Christian P. Eifertsen, has been sentenced to three months in the county jail for doing what these millions of Americans think he has every natural right to do. Question : Just how long can a natural right be overridden by an unjust law? And now long can a bunch of “medics” dictate to some millions of their fellows as to methods of caring for their bodies ?
The Miracles at Malden r]T1HE Nation gives us particulars of some of the cures at Malden. It gives details of a. girl of eighteen who had nothing the matter with her and got cured of a plaster cast from neck to hips which she did not need any more than a wooden kimono. Two waste baskets filled with money were emptied two or three times a day while the show was on. The sergeant of police at the grave is alleged to have said to one woman, “Get the hell out of here! you’ve been in here nineteen times already!” Take it all in all, it was a wonderfully spiritual and uplifting spectacle. Just how many waste baskets full of money were uplifted will never be known.
Robots of the Air
HE British Royal Aircraft Establishment has flown airplanes of various types for hours, and for hundreds of miles, under all weather conditions, without any human intervention. The planes keep an even keel and pursue a straight line to their destination. The United States claims perfect control of all fighting planes by wireless from the ground.
New York Postoffice
TN 1879 the postal receipts of the New York postoffice were less than three and one-half million dollars. Today they are twenty-two times that amount, and ten times what they were thirty years ago. In 1917 they were a little over thirty-six million dollars; now they are nearly $79,000,000, and will almost certainly be more than $80,000,000 for the calendar year 1929.
Ottawa and Chicago
N ELECTRIC bill which was $5.18 in Ottawa would be $22.85 for the same service in
Chicago. The Samuel Insull crowd pocket the difference, which, for this one citizen, foi* two months, amounts to $17.67. Can you imagine what is the total sum thus cleaned out of the pockets of Chicago citizens every month in every year? Meantime, Chicago has had to close its schools for two months in the winter and let the children run the streets, because there is no money in the treasury. Of course we have our highly valued press and orators to tell us that this is all as it should be. But it isn’t!
For Services Rendered
WHEN a Toronto undertaking firm entered an appeal for reduced assessment, in court a few days ago, an item of $627.85 caught the eye of the judge.
“What was this for?” he asked the bookkeeper of the firm.
“Commissions,” witness answered.
“For what?”
“Commissions paid to doctors and others for business sent to us.”
“Surely no reputable doctor would accept a commission in respect of business furnished an undertaker,” commented His Honor.
The witness answered that he did not think there was an undertaker who did not do this.
A SHORT time ago the Cormmmists lawfully assembled in Queen’s Park, Toronto, to give expression to their beliefs, but General Draper, the chief of police, autocratically determined that such a meeting should not be held and gave instructions to his force to unlawfully break up the meeting, resulting in much discussion by the press throughout Canada. The Star-Phoenix, of Saskatoon, editorially comments as follows:
The city of Toronto, in which a man was convicted for blasphemy last year, is now making itself comic by the use of its police power to suppress communists. There have been one or two clashes in Queen’s Park between policemen and “red” gatherings, not to mention innocent bystanders who were on the spot to watch the fun. It seems that the Toronto force is under orders to prevent, by physical violence if need be, the holding of open-air meetings for the advancement of communist opinion. On Tuesday last a gathering was broken up, the police using fists and batons freely, before a word had been spoken by the orator of the occasion.
Toronto does not appear to understand that freedom of speech does not mean freedom to say what is orthodox, inoffensive and acceptable to the majority. It means freedom to express heterodox, offensive and unpopular opinions. Otherwise it is a mockery. Tho theory of democracy is that the people are sufficiently intelligent to i''11 between the false and the true in political doctrines. An extension of this basic rule is that every citizen is entitled to a hearing of his views, however lunatic and impractical they may appear to others. Toronto proceeds on the opposite supposition. It acts on the theory that if the communists are permitted to talk freely they will endanger peace, order and good government. In other words, Toronto does not credit its citizens with sufficient brains to perceive the fallacy and unwisdom of communist preaching and policy. It thinks they need protection against the persuasive powers of Jack McDonald and others.
In acting on this belief, Toronto ignores the teaching of history and deviates sharply from British procedure which is said to enjoy great respect in the minds of Toronto citizens. The encounters between the police and the reds in Queen’s Park will provide the communist cause in Toronto with martyrs, a very useful asset for any minority party; frighten into silence others who hold unusual views, and so tend to impose a smug and drab uniformity of opinion; and finally persuade many people that there must be something in communism after all to explain the frantic fear its advocates arouse in the respectable majority. It is primarily Toronto’s business what the Toronto police does in restricting freedom of speech. In another sense it concerns all of Canada; for Toronto is the second city of the Dominion, and its example, for good or ill, is influential.
Hush, commenting on the same affair, says:
In London, England, on “Red Day”, after two months of preparation, the Communists demonstrated on Trafalgar Square. .
Nobody objected: Nobody opposed them. Scotland Yard ordered the police to vacate the square and give them free rein. Less than 200 gathered, spceched for twenty minutes or so, and left disgustingly disappointed because they had not been opposed.
In Toronto a handful of misguided mentally twisted irresponsible youths are denied the right of free speech. They make a fuss about it and attempt to make Communist martyrs out of themselves by defying the police and authorities.
Last week in Queen’s Park the Toronto police force staged the most brutal attack upon an unarmed, harmless handful of malcontents and two or three hundred innocent Park visitors and curious onlookers.
Mounted policemen chased women and little children pell-mell through flower beds. Burly cops slapped, beat, kicked and punched anyone and everyone who came in their way. It was a disgraceful, cowardly business. These Communists are not all bad. It is just as useless to oppose by force the evolution of thought as it is to frustrate the evolution of machinery and invention.
The same type of men who staged and glorified in this outrage, are the kind of men who fathered the Inquisition, the tyranny of the Scotch Covenanters and the riots against the spinning jenny!
It is said that if any policeman were bisected a police badge would be found tattooed on his heart.
One good-sized tear bomb was all that was necessary in Queen’s Park, if force was required.
Making a Monkey of Coercion .
At a more recent date the communists made the mayor of Toronto, the police force and the chief in particular, a laughing stock by advertising a further meeting and then not having their speakers put in an appearance. The Toronto Star in no uncertain terms criticizes, editorially, the action of the authorities. It states:
Tho police threw a cordon around the park last night and drew a ring of mounted men around the bandstand. Thousands of sight-seers lined the neighboring streets, but the Communists did not show up. Or if they did they arrived singly and inconspicuously and joined the spectators.
The mayor was there, ready if necessary to read the Riot Act. But there was no occasion for it. There was nobody to read it to. Never, perhaps, did a mayor carry the Riot Act to a scene so peaceful. The occasion was one of police manreuvres. The preparation for battle was complete, the strategy elaborate, but the enemy was nowhere to be seen.
The Communists would have needed to have been very many times as numerous and strong as they arc to have challenged the formidable preparations of the police.
The trouble with this method of dealing with this small group of trouble makers is that the elaborate power display of last night is a large one to make every day, or whenever Tim Buck or Abie Pearl decides he would like to review police manoeuvres in the park and see the Mayor with the Biot Act under his arm. The present method is to turn out the police in battle formation at such time and place as these disturbers say they will hold a meeting, whether they mean to hold it or not. The method is absurd. The bringing out of so much heavy cannon to shoot at mosquitoes is far below the level of being sensible. Something less than cavalry and artillery is needed in a case of this kind.
■ It is not the result of chance, nor is it the mere indulgence of a theory that the British practice of allowing free speech, even on the part of those who revile the authorities, is what it is.
It is the result of a long experience. After trying every way the right way was found. It is not only the right way for the reason that free speech, is considered to be the privilege of free men in a free country, but it was found, after much experience, that it is the right way for the reason that it works. It is the most practical and effective way and the one that gives the authorities and the police the least trouble, worry and expense.
There were times when the British authorities used to try suppressing meetings, riding horsemen through mobs and in other ways applying violent action as punishment for violent speech. But it never worked. The tongue is at best an unruly member and the mouths of the multitude are not easily stopped from speaking. It was learned in Britain that the effort to suppress speeches of protest multiplied what was being said in protest, and that of all meetings the public meeting was more innocent of mischief and less significant of malice than any other kind of meeting.
The British plan of letting discontented persons relieve their grievances in speech was adopted only after attempts at forceful suppression had failed, as it still fails in many other countries. The British plan has worked. The other day an English newspaper remarked that "in Paris the one-day strike does something to atone for the French failure to invent Bank Holiday”. There is a composure in the English attitude toward the oratory of discontent and this composure arises from the assured confidence that men who are free to say what they think can never deceive themselves or others into believing that they are truly oppressed. But silence them by force and their supposed wrongs fester and complications set in.
It is not for nothing nor the result of chance that British policy in this matter is what it is. Centuries of experience have resulted in the present plan being adopted as the best for all concerned.
Prises of Flour and Eread
Owing to the very severe drought which has been nation-wide, the field crops of Western Canada will be less than 50 percent of last years. This shortage has already been taken advantage of by the bakers’ combine to boost the price of bread. Ihi.sk, commenting upon this increase, says:
The Master Bakers Association of Toronto, which is real!;/ the Bread Trust, have gone wild in their desire to garner pennies from the poor man’s table.
The price of bread has been raised to 12 cents for a pound-and-a-half loaf. Yet flour is only $8.70 per barrel.
The kindly daily press stated the other day that until flour prices fell at least $1.50 per barrel there could be no reduction in the price of bread.
Flour in Vancouver, B. C., is $8.90 a barrel. The Master Bakers Association of that city recently increased the price of a pound-and-a-half loaf from 8V to 9 cents (not from 10 to 12 cents, as in Toronto).
It is passing- strange that a few thousand miles should make such a price difference. Maybe the cost of water and salt in Toronto accounts for it, or maybe the $13.62 per share paid by the Canada Bread Company on its common watered stock has something to do with it!
Funeral of Dr. R. F. Johnson
WE HAVE in hand a four-column report of the funeral of Dr. B. F. Johnson, of Georgetown, British Guiana. There are several interesting features about it. Dr. Johnson was perhaps the most prominent physician in the Guianas. The child of parents of wealth, he was a graduate of Edinburgh and Cambridge universities, but lived for the poor and for the Lord. After his death it was found that he was carrying twenty-five children through school. He was a Bible Student, an “I.B.S.A.”
At Doctor Johnson’s funeral there were 150 motor cars in procession, and a like number of floral pieces. Business in Georgetown was practically suspended for the day. The flag at the town hall was flown at half mast and the meeting of the town council was postponed. Dr. Johnson was a native Guianese, a black man.
First Methodist Church of Corpus Christi
The Past—
WE HAVE before us a financial statement of the First Methodist Church of Corpus Christi, Texas, and it makes interesting reading. We have no criticism to make of the pastor’s salary of $3,750 a year, nor of any of the other 33 items which go to make up the total annual expense of running the business, amounting all told to $12,012.40.
The chanman of the board of stewards starts out with the statement:
The Board of Stewards wish to report to the membership the financial condition of the First Methodist Church for the three quarters of the Conference year, showing an itemized account of what the members have paid and how the same has been paid out. We feel that this private report should be put in the hands of every member of the church. You are entitled to know the facts of the on-going of your great Church.
The pastor backs up the preliminaries with the statement that “We have had 240 accessions to the membership of the church since Annual Conference. No church in the West Texas Conference is growing faster than old First Church.” Then comes a list of the 757 members, which makes it look as if most of them had been gathered in during the past three years.
The thing that we found interesting in the report was, not the contribution of Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Jones, who had come across with $675.50 of the $900 they have promised to pay, nor yet that of Mr. and Mrs. O. B. Carver, who had agreed to pay $400 and had actually paid $500. Nor did we find anything specially noteworthy in any of the twelve remaining contributions which ranged from $100 to $225. Verily, these have all had their reward, gratified vanity. Probably they are all in business or stockholders in some public service corporations and therefore well able to spare $100 or so.
We would not think of saying anything about the : middle class families, 379 : members of which managed to squeeze out something between $1 and $82 apiece and thus got among the Dollar Christians, but Ave do feel sorry for the 309 members who had to • have the humiliation of having their names listed without a single cent being set down opposite their names. Oddly enough that is nearly one-half the listed membership of the church.
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