Golden Age, August 6, 1930
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Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE
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in this issue
SERUMIZATION BY THE STATE
WHEN THE WORLD WENT MAD
DID YOU NOTICE THESE?
EVENTS IN CANADA
JUDGMENT
OF PROFESSED CHRISTIANS
An address by Judge Eutherford, broadcast June 15 in WATCHTOWER national chain program.
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every other
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Volume XI-No. 284
AUGUST 6, 19 3 0
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY
Why So Many Are Idle ... 716
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
Did You Notice These? .... 714
Venezuela Pays National Debi . 715
11,000 Rooms in the Vatican . . 715
One Million Slain in Accident:: . 715
Mirages in the Atlantic . . . 716
Reason for Change of Name . . 717
When the World Went Mad . . 719.
Vaccination Advice of “The Quest”
“There Ought to Be a Monument” ....... f
Radio Treatment of Seeds . . 714
Growing Plants by Artificial ’
Light
Trying to Help India .... 715
SCIENCE AND INVENTION
Map-Reproducing Apparatus . 714
Talkies in Colors by Wireless . 714
Schenectady’s House of Magic . 715
A New Source of Electric Power 717
Geographical Factors in History 723
HOME AND HEALTH
MANUFACTURING AND MINING
Oleo Less Attractive . . . . 715
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
World’s Largest Railroad . . 715
Serumization by the State . . 707
Egypt’s Lone Chiropractor . . 722
Cratometer Treatments Versus
Spectacles.......724
Philosophy of the Morning Brush 725
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
Is It Ozone That We Smell? . . 713
California’s Old Age Pensions . 713
Afraid to Build Channel Tunnel 714
Making the Soldier See Red . . 715
Britain Scolds the Vatican . . 716
Events in Canada......717
Drawing the Prohibition Line . 725
The Thirteen-Month Calendar . 731
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
Assorted Items.......725
An Interesting Letter .... 726
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
A Question and Answer . . . 727
Judgment of Professed Christians 729
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The Golden Age
Vohsme XI
Brooklyn, N= Y., Wednesday, August 6, 1S30
Number 284
Seramization
HP .HERE are 1200 different kinds of germs -L recognized by the medical profession, but thus far only eighty-nine serums or vaccines have been manufactured and licensed for sale by the Federal Health Service, and some are raising the question whether until the other 1,111 serums are prepared and made available the state should hurry us all into serumization willy-nilly. '
In addition to the 1200 different germs, 800 of which are classified as bacilli (rod-shaped bugs), 300 of which are classified as cocci (round-shaped bugs), and approximately 100 as spirilla (screw-shaped bugs), there are the myriads of other bugs too small to be seen through any microscope yet invented. Nevertheless, says Dr. Park L. Myers, of Toledo, Ohio, “With all the -wonderful strides of our science in 100 years, we still have the public as abjectly cowed today before the omnipotent hosts of bacteria as it was by the evil spirits and ghosts and witches of the past century.”
Among those who are waiting, none .too patiently, for the medical profession to attempt to prepare and place upon the market and have pumped into the veins of children and adults the other 1,111 kinds of serum prepared from bugs from which no preparation has yet been marketed are John L. Spivak (author of The Medical Trust Unmashed, 170 pages, clothbound, published by Louis S. Siegfried, 13 Astor Place, New York city, price $1.00), and H. B. Anderson (author of State Medicine a Menace to Democracy, 115 pages, clothbound, published by the Citizens Medical Reference Bureau, 1860 Broadway, New’-York city, price $1.00). The facts in this article are taken from these turnbooks.
One objection that seems to hold back Messrs. Spivak and Anderson from clamoring for wholesale serumization by the state for the whole list of 1200 varieties off bugs if, as and when dis-
by the State
covered, or even the wholesale serumization by the state for the eighty-nine kinds of bugs that have been more or less discovered,, is their joint and collective inability to see where the time is coming from to provide us with opportunity to recover from all these inoculations, which hypothetically and ptitativeljr we so sorely need. It takes about two weeks to fairly regain one’s health from one of these inoculations or serum-izations. Some of them are not claimed to give immunity at all, and the length of time in which immunity is even hoped for is sometimes set at as little as six weeks. But as there are only fifty-two weeks in the year, a wholesale serumization with even a portion of the eighty-nine kinds of serum now on the market would make us all sick for fifty-two weeks out of the year without waiting f dr the other 1,111 varieties, and in effect, as six weeks is the period of immunity for some of these serums, we could not expect even then to be well stocked up with more than three kinds of bugs at once, and thus would at all times be liable to catch any one of the 1,197 other kinds of disease, the bugs of which we did not happen to have available in our systems at the time. .
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The Progress of Medical Science
It is very evident that medical science has traveled some since the fatal illness to Gen. George Washington. Medical science has styles, like the styles in women’s clothing. The style in Washington’s day was bloodletting, and when the general got sick they first took from his arm fourteen ounces of blood; and finding that that did not make him feel any better they concluded to do the job right and took thirty-two ounces more. The general forthwith passed out of this life, hut it was a great mystery to the medical profession why he should have done such a thing when medical science did everything for him and to him that it- knew how to do.
Another medical style, brought from Constantinople, was the insertion of the running matter from the sore of a smallpox patient into the blood of a healthy person. Prior to 1840 the Royal College of Physicians highly endorsed such inoculation, but the result was to spread smallpox so rapidly that in the latter year an act of Parliament condemned this form of inoculation as a criminal offense.
The Current Style of Vaccination
There is on record much expression of opinion by many eminent physicians that vaccination is a fad and will pass out of existence as many other medical styles have done. Japan enthusiastically vaccinated almost everybody, yet in 1907 had an outbreak of 19,101 eases of smallpox, with 6,273 deaths. Most of those who died had been vaccinated.
Vaccination for smallpox, typhoid, influenza, etc., is very popular among the surgeons in charge of the United States army and navy. As illustrations of this popularity we have the fact that the number of admissions to hospital in the army in 1918 on account of typhoid vaccinations was 23,191, and the number on account of vaccinia was 10,830. In 1917 there was a total of 19,608 admissions to the hospital on account of typhoid vaccination and vaccinia, thus making a total of 53,629 soldiers made sick in two years directly due to typhoid and smallpox vaccination.
Despite this great enthusiasm for vaccination, the death rate in tire military camps was higher than among the civil population even in similar age groups. This was so true that in the Journal of the American Medical Association for December 7, 1918, Dr. Victor G. Heiser said, “It is apparent that it is more dangerous to be a soldier in peaceful U. S. than to have been on the firing line in France.”
The same situation prevails in the navy, where the death rate in the naval forces ashore in the United States in 1918 for influenza and pneumonia was 18.77 per thousand, while that of the population generally in the United States in 1918 for the same diseases was 5.83 per thousand, and 18 per thousand for all diseases.
The DUlculty ef Diagnosis .
Before one could take steps to protect himself from any one of the 1200 germ diseases it would be necessary for him to have some expert identify the disease for him so that he would know which bug to call, and here he would find great difficulty. The learned Dr. Cabot, assistant professor of medicine in Harvard University, prepared a table made up from a study of 3,000 autopsies. This table shows that the autopsies were correct in 53.5 percent of the cases and incorrect in 46.5 percent of the cases.
A similar table was prepared by Dr. Horst Oertel, formerly chief pathologist of the Bussell Sage Pathological Institute, in 388 cases in which post-mortems 'wore held. The net result was that the diagnoses were confirmed in 52.3 percent of the cases, and not confirmed in 47.7 percent of the cases.
A much worse situation was revealed during the war among the French and German physicians. During the first year of the war, the French physicians discharged 86,000 soldiers on account of tuberculosis, less than 20 percent of whom were found later to have the disease, while a similar situation involving the same disease and the same figures occurred among the soldiers in the German lines.
Too Many Hungry Seram Firms
It would not be so bad to have the thirty-one establishments holding licenses for the manufacture and sale of viruses and serums, nor would it be so bad that these thirty-one concern s have eighty-nine different licensed products, if it -were not for the fact that there seems to be considerable profit in the virus and serum business in which profit these makers seem unduly eager to participate.
It is not denied that microbes are always to be found where there is disease,, nor can it be denied that they are also found where there is no disease. Concerning these little creatures which, in Germany are called “germs”, in Paris are called “parasites”, and in Ireland are called “microbes” (“Mike Robies”), Dr. Rudolph Virchow, the world’s leading authority on the subject says that they “may be the result and not the cause of disease”.
It seems that some of these great vaccine and virus concerns (pharmaceutical companies) seem not to have caught this idea of Dr. Virchow, but are over-enthusiastic in spreading health to all mankind by the bug route provided they may furnish the bugs.
That was a wonderful bit of advertising they did, rushing the toxin-antitoxin across the frozen wastes of Alaska to the stricken city of Nome. That was a beautiful statue erected to Balto, the dog that made the famous dash; but the enthusiasm of the public has cooled since it became known that there were only five deaths from diphtheria in Nome, that even those five did not have diphtheria, and that Balto did not even make the dash. Even The Golden Age fell for that Balto bunk, and it now appears that even if Balto had made the dash with the toxinantitoxin which was to have cured the sick city of Nome, if the city had been sick, yet the toxinantitoxin would have been harmed 1 yy freezing, because in Massachusetts, not nearly so cold as Alaska, the use of frozen diphtheria toxin-antitoxin caused several deaths.
The Popularity of Serums
The popularity of serums is brought about by the well known game of advertising, the science of salesmanship. A pharmaceutical concern, for instance, on the work of one investigator prepared and marketed pollen preparations and other similar concoctions. In a short time other' pharmaceutical concerns took advantage of the advertising and put out substitutes for these. Believers in and practicers of serum therapy did the rest. A certain proportion of the patients recovered in spite of these nostrums, but the nostrums were credited with their recovery.
One of the great pharmaceutical companies advertises that 2400 physicians in the United States are cooperating with it daily in testing out new products. Just how many lives have been sacrificed by such human experimentation will never be known before the resurrection.
The serums do not always contain the exact kind of bugs named on the label, and some patients are much more sensitive to the insertion of poisons in their blood. According to Dr. Wilfred II. Kellogg, director of the Bureau of Communicable Diseases of the California State Board of Health, in the October, 1925, American Journal of Public Health, “The percentage of error in reading reactions in those who are protein sensitive is, in the hands of even the most experienced, frequently as high as 50 percent.”
The handling of serums is accompanied with great uncertainty. Thus two great epidemics of foot and mouth disease in the United States in 1902 and 1908 are alleged to have been caused by the vaccine virus of two vaccine manufacturers, which epidemics resulted in great mortality to animals and to man, with a loss of millions of dollars to the government and to the people and for which no recompense has ever been made.
When, some years ago, Philadelphia was in the midst of an epidemic of diphtheria and there were many fatalities, a firm of vaccine manufacturers stated that the antitoxin was not being properly administered and that they would take entire charge of the situation and furnish the antitoxin free of expense, provided they could use the statistics which they would thus obtain. Although their proposition was promptly accepted they never published the statistics. The reason for their failure to do so is believed to be that those statistics were against them, and advertising men do not make a practice of publishing statistics which prove their products are worthless or injurious.
Another difficulty in the “bug” business is that bugs are sometimes found and widely advertised which can never be found thereafter. Thus, the general paresis germ discovered in Scotland years ago has become extinct, “in connection with crotaline, Bacterium cincinnaticum, which caused so many epileptics to have their colons reduced to semicolons by operations.”
In the Experimental Stage
Fourteen different mixtures of toxin-antitoxin and toxoids have been tried out upon the school children of New York city, and there is naturally some question as to which of these fourteen mixtures to use, or whether to mix them all together into one variety or to cast lots as to which is the best mixture.
Vaccines have been recommended for vertigo, hay fever, rheumatism, sciatica, appendicitis and gallstones. Immediate attention should be devoted to getting out serums against doughnuts, mince pie, fried ham, welsh rarebits, and other similar enemies to human health.
Regarding typhoid fever, in the Charlotte Medical Journal Dr. Joseph A. White says that “vaccination against typhoid fever is being experimented with and has been partially successful”. They used to have lots of typhoid fever in Chicago. Some sanitary engineers, not fully versed in the serum route to health, thought the opening of the Chicago drainage canal might cut the Chicago typhoid rate in half, but they actually cut off more than ninety percent of it. Had it been foreseen how the drainage canal would cut into the business of making typhoid fever vaccines, or the business of administering at a profit, one may question whether the drainage canal would ever have . been built.
Suppose, for instance, that the state board of health of Illinois should have happened to be entirely composed of those who believe it essential to the public welfare that there should be vaccination against typhoid fever, while here would be a canal which would make such vaccination unnecessary. Would they not have been likely to use all their influence against such a canal ?
We do not like to say anything about the injection of tuberculin into the eyes of orphans, nor the giving of a full man’s dose of toxin-antitoxin to 2,000 infants only three days old, but we do think it is all right for us to mention that in 1925 the League of Nations stated that “the ideal antidiphtheria, vaccine has yet to be discovered”.
Not only does toxin-antitoxin deteriorate rapidly and often show disappointing results, but it has caused many deaths, mentioned at various times in our columns. Physicians tell us that the toxin contained in toxin-antitoxin is so poisonous that one ounce of it will kill 75,000 large dogs. The tests made of toxinantitoxin when ready to apply to infants and children are as to the time which it takes for one dose or ten doses to kill a guinea pig.
We understand that in the Journal of the '' American Medical Association for November 7, 1925, there was published a statement that certain remedies were unacceptable as new and non-official remedies on account of their indefinite composition. These remedies, put up by E. B. Squibb & Sons, were said to be “Horse Dung Allergen-Squibb, House Dust Allergen-Squibb, Le Page’s Glue Allergen-Squibb and Street Dust Allergen-Squibb”. We have to confess that we do not seem to see anything so indefinite about this composition, though perhaps the word that should have been used is “'decomposition” instead of “composition”.
The People Who Disagree
Perhaps not fully appreciating their privileges of having 1200 kinds of bug extract put into their veins to cure as many kinds of diseases which they may or may not get, there are estimated to be in the United States some 35,-000,000 persons who exercise the mulish propensity of doing with and to their own bodies about as they see fit.
For example, there is that ungrateful state of North Dakota which, in the early part of 1919, passed an act providing that “no form of vaccination or inoculation shall hereafter be made a condition precedent in this state for the admission to any public or private school or college, of any person, or for the exercise of any right, the performance of any duty, or the enjoyment of any privilege, by any person”.
Then there is also that ungrateful state of Utah, which since 1907 has had a law providing that “hereafter it shall be unlawful for any board of health, board of education, or any other public board, acting in this state under police regulations or otherwise, to compel by resolution, order, or proceedings of any kind, the vaccination of any child, or person of any age; or making vaccination a condition precedent to the attendance at any public or private school in the state of Utah, either as pupil or teacher”.
Seeming to sense that there might conceivably be some lurking Patrick Henry germs yet lingering in the blood of some of the men whose ancestors tamed a wilderness and reared a great civilization before we had any such thing as a pharmaceutical company, Dr. Victor C. Vaughn said, either with bland irony or else a child-like belief that all the descendants of the pioneers have become morons, “The exercise of medical functions, whether the regulation of medical practice or preventive medicine, is under state control, and I think it is rather fortunate that this is the case, because, divided as we are into forty-eight political groups, we do not have to make the same experiments at the same time.”
In view of the fact that smallpox is a disease which originates in filth and that Dr. C. Killick Millard, in a recent book, entitled The Vaccination Question, stated that in ten years the deaths from vaccinia had several times outnumbered those from smallpox, it is probably true that vaccinia, so far as the community is concerned, is the more serious disease of the two.
Prof. Alfred Russell Wallace, noted British publicist and statesman, says, “The conclusion, is in every case the same; that vaccination is a gigantic delusion; that it has never saved a single life; but that it has been the cause of so much disease, so many deaths, such a vast amount of utterly needless and altogether undeserved suffering, that it will be classed by the coming-generation among the greatest errors of an ignorant and prejudiced age, and its penal enforcement the foulest blot on the generally beneficent course of legislation during our century.”
As far as toxin-antitoxin is concerned, Austria has forbidden its use, and as less than ten percent of children would contract diphtheria, if left entirely alone, and toxin-antitoxin fails in about fifteen percent of its cases, the objectors against the bug system seem to have some basis for their objections. They have another basis in the fact that at the Illinois training school for nurses all incoming nurses were required to be inoculated. There were thus two groups, one inoculated, and the other not inoculated, and when diphtheria became prevalent there were more cases of disease among the nurses who had been inoculated than among the other group Avho had not been inoculated.
The Claim to Infallibility
It is not just clear at what point in his career a medical student becomes infallible and thereafter not responsible to anybody for his acts, but it would seem as though this era must begin either just before he becomes a hospital intern or just afterward. In no other business, except the financial business, and perhaps not even in that, is there such an ironclad arrangement for preventing practitioners from suffering the due results of their own ignorance or carelessness.
In effect, when a citizen sues a physician for malpractice he sues all the doctors in the state. The medical societies defend and indemnify their members. Whenever a fellow member is charged with malpractice, every doctor in his state stands to lose his own money unless the member is acquitted, and every member of the society is required to assist in every way possible to prevent conviction and to secure acquittal. The medical societies pay all expenses for witnesses, and special remuneration for testifying favorably.
No physician a member of a medical society, in his intercourse with a patient under the care of another physician, may give any hints relative to the nature and treatment of the patient’s disorder, nor- do anything whatever to diminish the trust reposed in the attending physician even if he knows that the attending physician is prescribing incorrectly or is even endangering the patient’s life.
Whenever- a woman requires treatment at a hospital for a badly performed abortion, the abortionist becomes known; yet medical ethics prevent the exposure and punishment called for by the law.
The foregoing advantages do not apply to doctors who do not belong to a regular allopathic association. Those not so belonging are liable to arrest at any time for “practicing” medicine without a license. Such arrests are made by the state at the instance of the “regulars”, and the latter supply the witnesses which the state requires to make out a case.
Not Wholly Altruistic
There are some who think that the American Medical Association is not wholly altruistic. They point to the opposition of the association to a law under which 14,000 veterans had appealed foi- aid to the government. There seems to have been a desire to secure for private physicians most or all of the $5,000,000 which the government was paying to its physicians to care for these men. The men themselves were sufferers from this agitation.
Hospitals are not wholly the generous and noble institutions they are usually supposed to be, because about one out of every three absolutely refuse to accept patients from doctors who are not attached to the hospital’s staff. Men dangerously ill have died in ambulances because trundled from one hospital to another when the doctor in charge of the case was net the right one to suit the hospital. A doctor complained bitterly because a relative of his, not under his professional charge, was levied upon for roentgenology, blood chemistry, etc., to the extent of $220, nine-tenths of which, in his judgment, was unnecessary.
That vaccination is not always urged from motives of generosity and good will is indicated by Andrew S. Draper, commissioner of education, Nev; York state, who said in his Fifth Annual Report, January 25, 1909: “In many cases physicians become interested in the strict enforcement of the law because of the fees resulting therefrom . . . in the more populous districts the medical fees resulting from vaccination are an important item . . . this mercenary motive has been the controlling factor in a sufficient number of cases which have come to the attention of this department to justify the above assertion.”
As an illustration of the sordid views which are held by some physicians, consider the following statement made December, 1926, before the Annual Conference of Illinois Health Officers held at Alton, Illinois, Dr. Mathew Pfeif-fenberger, president of the Illinois State Medical Society said:
Prevention practiced to its utmost will create more work for the physician and not diminish it, for the full time health officer will be educating his community constantly. There will be more vaccination, more immunizing, more consulting and use of the physician. Eis services would be increased many fold. I am informed that epidemic and endemic infections cause only 12 percent of all deaths and that this percentage is declining rapidly. Only 15 percent of all children would ever get diphtheria, even under epidemic conditions, while 100 percent are prospects for toxin-antitoxin. The percentage who would get smallpox, under present conditions, is even less; but 100 percent are prospects for vaccination. Scarlet fever will soon come in for its 100 percent also, as it may for measles, judging from the reports on that disease. Typhoid fever is disappearing due to sanitation, but vaccination should be used when the individual travels into unknown territory, and countries.
Not all great physicians would be willing to give expression to such ignoble sentiments. W. C. Gorgas, M. D., formerly surgeon-general of the United States army, made the wise and statesmanlike observation that •'■'poverty is the greatest of all breeders of disease and the stone wall against which every sanitarian must impinge”.
Again, James Gordon Cumming, M. D., made the statement that “the eradication of diphtheria will not come through the serum treatment of patients, by the immunization of the well, or through the accurate clinical and laboratory diagnosis of the case, and the carrier followed by quarantine; rather it will be attained through the mass sanitary protection of the populace subconsciously practiced by the people at all times”.
It is not more bugs the people need, but more income, a better share of the good things of this life. Studies in infant mortality macle by the Children’s Bureau, Washington, D. C., show that—
The infant mortality rate shows a marked and almost regular decline as the father’s earnings become larger. For the group of babies in which the father’s earnings are less than $450 per annum, the infant mortality rate is 242.9 per 1,000 live births, while in the next group, in which the father earns from $450 to $549, the rate is 173.6. It rises very slightly in the next class, $550 to $649 to 174.5, and thereafter drops steadily with each advance in economic status. The rate, however, does not fall below 100 until the father’s earnings reach $1,050 or more. Babies whose fathers earn $1,250 and over per annum have a death rate of only 58.3.
No Tyranny, Please ■
It, seems better to listen to the American peo-pie when they are in the mood of saying, “No tyranny, please,” than to listen to them when they say, “NO TYRANNY!” Parents have a right to have their child educated, and a right to know that when he returns home at night he will come home without any parts missing.. In Newark, girls have been stripped to the waist in the public schools in the presence of others and then sent home to be treated for diseases which upon closer examination were found absent.
What right has any man to say to another man that he intends to terrify him with respect to 1200 kinds of bugs, to drive the man insane and to make his life a sorrow, when he might never have need for one of the bugs from his birth to his box? It is probably true as claimed that these bug specialists do more harm to the minds of the people by their bug philosophy than they actually do with the bugs themselves, yet see what they propose: Dr. J. W. Hodge says:
It has been recommended that all domestics be examined by official inspectors before being admitted into a household; that all school pupils have their throats officially inspected every morning before entering school; that all the children, in our public schools be injected at stated intervals with antitoxin in order to immunize them against diphtheria; that it is dangerous for even a healthy person to spit upon the sidewalks; that it is not safe for men to wear whiskers; that it is dangerous to frequent the town post-office or the court-room unless these are daily disinfected; that it is not safe to enter a department store, a theater or a trolley car that is not daily fumigated; that it is dangerous to receive letters written by a consumptive or handled by consumptive clerks or carriers; that it is not safe to use plates, cups, knives, forks or spoons in restaurants or hotels because the simple rinsing of these articles in boiling water is not sufficient to kill the microbes; that it is not safe to drink water which has not been sterilized; that it is unsafe to eat vegetables that have not been washed in sterilized water; that it is dangerous to eat the flesh of bovine species until it has been cooked sufficiently to destroy the tubercle bacilli; that for the same reason it is dangerous to eat butter, cheese, cream or milk that has not been pasteurized.
And Dr. W. A. Evans, formerly Commissioner of Health of Chicago, says:
As I see it, the wise thing for the medical profession to do is to get right into and man every great health movement; man health departments, tuberculosis societies, child and infant welfare societies, housing societies, etc. The future of the profession depends on keeping matters so that when the public mind thinks of these things, it automatically thinks of physicians, and not of sociologists or sanitary engineers. The profession cannot afford to have these places occupied by others than medical men.
Is It Ozone That We Smell?
TS IT ozone that we smell when electricity is ■A in the air? Seems to us that is what we have heard? Well there is ozone, then, in and about the position of national chairman of the republican party. In fact the smell of ozone in this administration is as pungent as the smell of oil in the ones that went before.
It seems that nobody denies that Chairman Huston has been and is the Washington representative of the branch of the Power Trust which is called the Tennessee Ei ver Improvement Association, and is specifically entrusted by and for itself with the prevention of the government’s getting anything out of its $150,000,000 power plant at Muscle Shoals. “The people be —” stung.
It seems that in the writing of the Muscle Shoals plank in both the republican and democratic platforms Mr. Huston had a large hand. It is said that he has disbursed $156,000 in Washington in four years. Legislation comes high.
Now it so happens that Mr. Huston got pinched in the stock market squeeze in New York, and that money which was solicited to keep the Muscle Shoals project from being of any benefit to the people who paid for it was sent to Nev,7 York and used to buy stocks on a margin. Many people v/ould consider this gambling with other people’s money. But a G.O.P. chairman is impeccable.
Mr, Huston says he will not resign. No doubt he remembers what happened during the Teapot Dome administrations and how they got away with it, and thinks anything will go. And it looks as if it would. Call "Will Hays and Andrew Mellon to the stand. Or recall Harry M. Daugherty or Mr. Fall,
Califoraia’s Old Age Pensions By John F. Dawn, (Calif.')
TN THE April 16 number of The- Golden Age A you name ten honorable states that pay old age pensions. In this list was California. I am sorry to be compelled to strike California from the ‘honorable’ list. The legislature did heed the insistent demand of the press and people, and did pass a lav/, and did report to the press, and it v/as published. It read that any man or woman 70 years old or older who had been a resident of the stade for fifteen or more years was eligible for a state pension of $30 a month. The press announcement caused universal rejoicing.
I took the trouble to make a personal investigation of this law, for I knew something of California politics. It required two days to run down any office holder who knew anything of the law. Finally a bright stenographer recalled having’ seen a clipping in the office. She made a search and found it. Then I was sent to the “Community Chest” secretary. This chest raises about $200,000 a year on the plea of charity, about $30,000 of it being allotted to the “Chest” for emergency demands. The underground war agencies get most of the balance.
The lady in charge informed me that any pauper who met the legal requirements of the law, and passed the examination of the charity chest examiner, could receive $15 a month from the city, and could then apply to the state for a like amount, but that the chest preferred to advance emergency rations or rent, that the in-, dividual or others might take up the burden and relieve the city, temporary aid being their only thought. The politicians had put over a boost for themselves and a frost for the aged. The Eagles were especially hard hit, as they sponsored the bill.
Map-Reproducing 'Apparatus
MAP-REPRODUCING apparatus enables aviators to make sketches while in the air and instantly transmit them to stations on the ground. This has been done recently in the army and navy war games off San Francisco.
Uruguay Doubles Population.
IN THE last twenty-two years Uruguay has more than doubled its population. Even now the population is small, being less than two millions, and there is room in the country for many millions more than are now there.
A Czech Voter’s Joke
T N CZECHOSLOVAKIA voting is compul--s- sory. One voter recently marked his ballot with “Isaiah 41:24”. When the judges came to look it up the passage read: “Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooseth you.”
Alley Homes in Washington
THERE are about twelve thousand people in the nation’s capital who live in alleys, in buildings so dilapidated and filthy that they are unfit even for the lower animals to occupy. Most of these alley dwellers are negroes, but there are some white families housed in equally miserable quarters.
Britain’s Traffic Deaths Increasing
RIT AIN’S traffic deaths are increasing with dreadful rapidity, though at their worst they are as nothing compared with those of the United States. In 1924 there were 3,631 killed by automobile accidents in Britain; in 1929 the number had increased to 6,696, or almost double the number in five years.
Getting Rid of the Hungry
CCORDING to the Federated Press an applicant for work at the Ford plant in Detroit was somewhat out of line and was ordered by a policeman to leave the line altogether. When he declined to do so, on the ground that as one of the 12,000 applicants he had been standing in line all night, the policeman struck him with his club and killed him. His dead body was taken away. The story did not get into many of the papers.
Radio Treatment of Seeds -
A DISPATCH from Zehlendorf, Germany, states that vegetable seeds treated by short radio waves grow into plants about three times as quick as ordinarily and that the flavor of the product is materially improved.
A Use for Flame Throwers
LAME throwers, designed by men to murder their fellows, have found a legitimate use in Algiers, where soldiers who learned how to use them during the World War are now making effective use of them against the locusts.
'Afraid to Build Channel Tunnel
FTER fifty years of thinking about it Britain is still afraid to build the channel tunnel, and Premier MacDonald has announced that it will not be begun while he is acting as premier of the country. It is rejected on strategic ground.
'A Scientist’s Comical Remark
TTTHEN Edison first presented his phono’ » graph to the Academy of Science in 1878 one of the Vise’ men present arose and shouted, “Wretch! We will not remain dupes of a ventriloquist.” The joke of it is that even six months later he still refused to believe that the phonograph is anything but an acoustic illusion.
Talkies in Colors by Wireless
OES it seem impossible that soon the talking movies can be sent by wireless and received full size in all the colors worn by the original actors ? Nevertheless, that is the claim made by a German inventor, Albert Alexander Ahronheim. Moreover, it is declared that the new device will be inexpensive.
Business of the Ohio Gang
WHEN the Ohio gang had control of the department of justice under Daugherty, Gaston B. Means tells us, seven million dollars was made for the gang by modification of decrees of federal judges, the selling of paroles, pardons, judgeships and United States attorney offices, the removal of whiskey from bonded warehouses, the privilege of selling whiskey under federal protection, and other like exhibitions of lawlessness.
Venezuela Pays National Debt
ENEZUELA celebrated the 100th anniversary of its independence by paying off its entire national debt. She thus set a good example to the United States and other backward countries which are still obsessed with the idea that the only sure way to happiness is to eternally pay interest on bonds to somebody.
Schenectady’s House of Magic
ONE of the doors in the General Electric
Company’s laboratory at Schenectady is kept securely bolted, but one who knows how to do it can wave his hands in a certain manner and the door will open as if of its .own accord. The device indicates a time when locks as at present constructed will be out of date.
11,000 Rooms in the Vatican
T T SEEMS hard to believe that there are A 11,000 rooms in the Vatican; yet that is the fact. This vast building has just been wired for a modern telephone system. In places the Avails were found to be fifteen feet thick. In other places what were supposed to be solid walls were found to contain secret passages, which helped in the running of the wires.
Alfonso Looks the Part
LFoxso has the reputation of being a cruel and crafty monarch, and a picture of him published in John Bull shows that he looks The part. He is several times a millionaire and has his private fortune invested in safe British securities, probably7 figuring that the king business will bo good a few years longer, after which he can take his family to England and retire.
.fluking the Soldier See Red
IN HIS book A Brass Hat in No Man’s Land
Brigadier-General F. P. Crozier, of the British Army says of war propaganda: "The process of seeing red, which has to be carefully cultured if the effect is to be lasting, is elaborately grafted into the make-up of even the meek and mild, through the instrumentality of martial music, drums, Irish pipes, bands, and marching songs. Sacred and artistic music is forbidden, save at church, and even then the. note of combat is struck. The Christian churches are the finest blood-lust creators which we have, and of them we made free use.”
Growing Plants by Artificial Light
T CUMBERLAND LODGE, near Windsor, England, there are experimental gardens in which plants are grown in cellars by artificial lights. Strawberries and certain other plants mature; but tomatoes refuse to ripen, despite the heat of the cellar and the rays from the huge ultra-violet-ray lamps installed overhead.
Oleo Less Attractive
OLEO becomes less and less attractive, the more Ave know about it and how to make it. Bacteria from brewers’ malt are now used to disintegrate the cell walls of the cocoanut, thus releasing the oil without pressure. It takes the bacteria only six days to break the cocoaimt down so that the oil will rise to the surface.
World.’s Largest Railroad
HE world’s largest railroad is not the Pennsylvania, nor the New York Central, nor the Southern Pacific, nor the Canadian Pacific, nor any other railroad in the ’Western World. It is the state-owned railway of Germany, which carries annually more than twice as many passengers as all American first-class railroads put together.
Trying to Help India
IVE the British credit for trying to do something to help India. One irrigation scheme, costing -$69,000,000, will turn 40,000,000 acres of desert land into fields of waving grain; another will irrigate 5,000,000 acres; 5,000 artesian wells have been sunk in recent years, and . a new type of rice is being widely advocated which yields 450 more pounds of food to the acre than kinds hitherto planted.
One Million Slain in Accidents
T N TWELVE years in the United States one million men, women and children have been slain by accidents, and twenty-five million more have been seriously injured by preventable accidents. The economic loss caused by these accidents is fixed at about forty billion dollars. One of the interesting things about these accidents is that in the past thirty years there, have been more deaths in the celebration of American independence than.were caused by the Revolution itself. The auto deaths alone amount, to 31,000 a year, while the automobile injuries run to about 1,000,000.
Horrors of World Har Forgotten
Horace Liveright, publisher, just returned from Europe, declares that the German youth are practically all members of hunting clubs, drill regularly and practice shooting, and that everywhere he went there is an intense feeling that another war is inevitable. The horrors of the World War have been entirely forgotten, in his judgment.
Ex-Soldiers at Columbus
THE Ohio Penitentiary, at Columbus, where 320 convicts were roasted to death, is said to be famous for its cockroaches, which are to be found all over the place. It is also noteworthy that of the 4,000 men who were boarding at the place before the roasting occurred 911 were ex-soldiers of the recent attempt to make the world safe for democracy. These men were promised that after the war they would emerge into a different world, all of which seems to have been fulfilled.
Why So Many Are Idle
IN THE making of automobile chassis modern machinery in America makes the output 375 times as much per man as is possible in Europe, where similar machines are not used. In the making of shoes one machine does the work of 250 men. In the making of open hearth steel one man with a machine will do the work of 42 men without it, and in the making of bricks one man with a machine will do the work that it formerly took 88 men to do by hand. There is no solution of this problem short of God’s promised and now present kingdom.
THE Oakland (California) Post Enquirer TJRITAIN has given the Vatican a good scoldcarries a picture of relief transportation in ing for attempting to interfere in the ad-
Famine Relief Transportation famine- and war-stricken China that is enough to break one's heart. As China has no railroads or roads worthy of the name, transportation is primitive. The picture shows a kind-hearted coolie carrying an old woman too wasted with hunger to be able to walk. The faces of both the man and the woman are splendid faces, as much above the selfish Wall Street type as could be imagined. There will surely come a time when this kind-hearted coolie and this poor suffering woman will rejoice together in the blessings of God, and because of that we can but rejoice now in anticipation.
British Clergy Dying Out
A DISPATCH from London states that the •4^- number of clergy in service in England in 1928 was practically the same as in 1851, with the population of the country nearly doubled in the meantime. At this rate it is estimated that in thirty years the species will be extinct. In the seven years from 1921 to 1928 the clergy decreased by about 4,700 members.
Hoover and Jefferson
"K /Tn. Hoover is reported as having said, "The LVA crowd only feels; it has no mind of its own which can plan. Popular desires are no criterion to real needs. They can be determined only by deliberate consideration, by education, by conservative leadership.” Mr. Hoover presumably never noticed the remark of another statesman, Thomas Jefferson, that “the mass of mankind did not come on earth ready bridled and saddled and a chosen few ready booted and spurred to ride them”.
Mirages in the Atlantic
TN THE month of May, in the north Atlantic, J- and in broad daylight, seen by hundreds oL' passengers, a ship turns turtle, then it turns into a rectangular tank, then it splits along the center and there are two ships, one above the. other, one of them upside down. Thus appeared the antics of a ship which was actually out of sight below the horizon, but was represented in various poses on the clouds, in what is known as mirage. Rare, peculiar conditions of the upper air cause these singular visions, or reflections.
Britain Scolds the Vatican ministration of a British colony, and in a final note has said that this interference is incompatible with friendly relations. This interference has taken place in Malta and is especially directed against the prime minister, Lord Strickland, himself a Roman Catholic. Strickland refused to railroad a British subject out of the island because ordered to do so by the church. An attempt was made to assassinate him, and when the attempt failed the archbishop of the island refused to have the Te Deum sung in the churches, thus indicating that he was not overjoyed at Strickland's deliverance.
A New Source of Electric Power
T F REPORTS from Naples, Italy, are to he believed, the world is at the threshhold of learning’ about what may become the ultimate source of power. A youth named Natella claims to be able to draw any amount of electric power from space, having discovered electric waves in certain strata of the atmosphere that were generated by rotation of the earth on its axis. In one of his experiments he narrowly escaped electrocution.
Reason for Change of Name
HE reason why a branch of the Christian
Science church has changed its name to “Church of the Universal Design” is given as follows: “The term Christian Science has been brought into wide disfavor through the recent discovery of Mrs. Eddy’s extensive plagiarisms, her secret use of drugs while instructing her followers to discard them, and the claim that the discoveries in metaphysical healing of P. P, Quimby were her own.”
Half a Peanut for an Hour’s Work
Du. Fk/ingis G. Benedict, of the Carnegie
Institute of Washington, in an address at Boston stated that one half of a salted peanut provides the calories needed for an hour of intense mental effort. We see it all now. When one bunch of scientists have succeeded in fixing it so that machinery does all the- work, another bunch of scientists will come along and prove to all the hungry men, women and children that this business of eating is all a great waste of time and money, and useless anyway, because just as much work can be done by those who do not eat as by those who do. The only ones then that will need to eat will be those who own the machinery, with an occasional half a peanut to the scientists and other mental workers. This brings us to the interesting question as to whether or not the peanuts will be planted, harvested and roasted by robots. Maybe so. Maybe so.
Soviet Will Grow Own Cotton
npHE Soviet government anticipates growing J- in central Asia the $70,000,000 worth of cotton hitherto annually purchased in America. The new railroad, 1,700 miles long, which taps this vast region, was completed a year and a half ahead of schedule. Russia is now sellingcoal in New York city for less than Pennsylvania coal can be landed there; it is selling textiles in England for less than the British can make them.
Holy Smoke!
TIE first law put into effect in Vatican City is that the rank and file of the 625 inhabitants in this little make-believe kingdom must hereafter pay 75 percent more for their tobacco than formerly, but an exception has been made in the case of the pope and the cardinals, who-are to get theirs free. Holy smoke! An Italian citizen has just been fined $52.39 for making some derogatory remark about the pope. Seems like $52.09 too much.
J aparts Atrocities and Oppressions '
ECAUSE the editor of The Nation sent a kind word of encouragement to a liberal native paper published in Korea, the Japanese authorities arbitrarily suspended the paper for an indefinite period, despite the fact that the paper had then been published for ten years. The Koreans accuse the Japanese of unspeakable atrocities and inexcusable oppressions, and they ought to know. Never in history was there a more flagrant piece of international injustice than the seizure of Korea by Japan.
Events in Canada By Our Canadian Correspondent
TT AD the Ku Klux Klan been in existence in JUL Moses’ day and. had their way, he would not have been permitted to marry Zipporah.
Recently a colored man of Ontario and a white woman were about to be married, when the Klan members swooped down upon them and took the girl back to her mother. But they
were subsequently married. The Klan members, however, did not get off scot-free for taking the law into their own hands, but were haled into court and fined $50. The attorney general, not being satisfied, had the case appealed and the fine was raised to $250. '
This conviction of the Ku Klux Klan mem-her for having his face masked without lawful excuse draws attention to a little known and seldom invoked clause in the criminal code of Canada. Section 464 of the code says:
“Everyone is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to five years imprisonment who is found
“'having his face masked or blackened or being otherwise disguised by night without lawful excuse, the proof whereof shall lie with him; or
“having his face masked or blackened, or being otherwise disguised, by day, with intent to commit any indictable offence.”
Convictions recorded in Canada under these clauses of the law might perhaps be counted on the fingers of two hands. There it stands, however, as an instrument for the restraint of any citizens who are tempted to introduce what is known as ‘night riding’ into this country. In various parts of the United States the Ku Klux Klan has been guilty of taking the law into its own hands, usually by sending a band of masked men at night to confront the individual whose conduct is objected to. This method of regulating society -cannot be tolerated in Canada, and it is a good thing that the penal law was promptly invoked when the first attempt at “mob justice” appeared.
Religion’s Intrusion Resented
The refusal of Mr. Justice Duclos to hold court until a large crucifix that had been placed in his court room was removed caused a great stir in Montreal, and in this connection The Sentinel states:
' The matter came to a head yesterday morning when the judge withdrew from the court room and refused to sit there because of the placing on the wall immediately facing him, of a large crucifix between four and five feet in height. For the remainder of the day, he heard the cases on his roll in chambers.
Speaking of the matter of the crucifix, Mr. Justice Duclos made it clear this morning that his action was not due to any disbelief in or disrespect to our Sav-lOUP.
“Asa Protestant, ’ ’ he said, ‘ ‘ I have a great respect and reverence for our Saviour. It is my belief, however, that images of this kind should not be hung in court rooms where perhaps they may become the object of jeers on the part of certain persons.
“My idea in this connection is that the image of the Saviour should be found in the hearts of his followers and not on the walls of buildings. As a Protestant, I have objected to the placing of the crucifix in the court room where I have to sit. I have done this without consulting with any of my brother Protestant judges and in this regard have spoken only for myself.”
Mr. Justice Duclos explained further’ that he had asked the sheriff to have the crucifix removed from his court room by 10 o’clock yesterday morning. The sheriff had replied that he would refer the matter to the Attorney-General of the Province. When the time came yesterday for the opening of the court, the crucifix was still in place on the wall of the court room and Eis Lordship at once withdrew from the room. No reply has yet been received from the AttorneyGeneral.
The incident is a sequel to a recent ceremony in the Court of King’s Bench at which thirty crucifixes, one of which was to be placed in every Court of Justice in Montreal, were blessed by the Abbe Verschelden, Chaplain of Montreal jail.
Short Weight Chain Stores
Recently five very powerful chain stores in Canada were convicted of short weighting their customers, and Hush, rising in justifiable indignation, criticizes in no uncertain terms the silence of the Canadian press upon the matter. It says:
The conviction, recorded in detail on another page of this journal, of five great Canadian chain stores for short weighting their customers is a matter of National importance. Nevertheless, Hush is the only newspaper in Canada to report it. In no other country in the world could such a serious thing occur without full publicity, so that the public, who have been fleeced systematically out of millions, might be on their guard. We warn everybody who buys anything by weight at these five stores to make sure that they get full value for their money and insist on having everything of this nature weighed before their eyes before paying for it. This is the only method to adopt with cheaters. '
None of the Toronto dailies dare report these fraud convictions, much less comment on them, because these chain stores, Eatons, Loblaws, Dominion Stores, Arnolds Stores and Red and White, hold the advertisers’ club over their heads. Why don’t the four Toronto dailies get together on this, in the same way that they did when they raised the price of their papers from one to two cents, and one and all publish the details of these frauds on their reading public and tell these cheating’ concerns to go to Hell. These tradesmen, are just as dependent on the newspapers for advertising as the newspapers are upon them . . . more so, if the Toronto newspaper proprietors had the sense to see it.
When the World-Went Mad
A Thrilling Story of the Late War, Told in the Language of-the Trenches
Copyright, 1930, by Daniel E. Morgan (Continued) '
OTHER troops were brought in and passed through, leaving us as a support. For miles at a time we marched on after them, through the swamps and through the mud, often wet clear up to the waist. When marching along the side-hills we were pestered by the airplanes.
Many a time a whole battalion of machine guns opened up upon the planes. The streams of bullets could be seen in the air by their tracers (a sort of light on every third bullet). I shot at them myself with a 45-calibre automatic Colt revolver. One or two of them were shot down.
November, 1918
It was now November, 1918, and the nights were bitter cold. Vve dug in, in the woods. Some of the boys who had been left behind to care for the mules forged their way up with food. What courage they had!
I sat all night and pounded my legs, to keep them from freezing, half crying for food and warmth. My hands became so benumbed that it was impossible to open or close a button. It became a tragedy to police oneself.
Sickness and disease crept upon us. The strongest men fell out exhausted. The doctors tagged hundreds and sent them to the rear. What were left of the whole division had become wrecks, yet some of us, knowing nothing but obedience to the bitter end, kept on. We did not want it to be said that we could not see it through.
That was a peace-time training: a false standard of pride and selfishness. Obedience ’ Obedience! We were in bondage to it, and although half dead we still hung on. It is true that once a thing is thoroughly learned, and believed to be true, the body can be completely wrecked and yet the mind refuses to change. God alone looseth the prisoners,
A Man Among Men
One of our young captains was returned to us, Captain Schiesswohl. He was wounded during the battle of Chateau Thierry. He was a prince of a lad. He "was assigned to my platoon of four machine guns and crews. Unlike many others, he brought with him a can of jelly, which he shared with us. '
He said to me, “Sergeant Morgan, if you ever come to Chicago, look me up and I will guarantee you one of the finest times you ever had.” It seemed a shame that when a man was once wounded they would not let him stay out of it. But no, he was patched up, and if he still had enough mentality to understand an order, he was commanded to re-enter the slaughter, to be done up right.
All through the war I had placed my own gun crews in their positions of defense or attack. Now* "with a real captain I got the friendly order, “Morgan, you dig a hole for us to crawl into and I will place the guns.” I already felt a measure of safety with some one helping to shoulder the responsibility of machine gun crews during a battle. Behind the lines there are too many telling what to do and how to do it.
Schiesstvohl’s Disappointment
We were in the Meuse-Argonne swamps. I took two or three men and began digging a hole about six feet square, so that several of us could bunk together. When wye had it down below the surface of the ground the water began running in. We worked hard, but all our work was in vain, unless we lay in the water— not so good in the wintertime.
The captain came back. It was now about dusk. He looked at the hole and then turned to me with pitiful eyes. He gave me the nicest bawling out that a grandfather ever gave a grandson who had been playing in the mud. He said, “I trusted you, and depended upon you, and now all I get is a hole full of water.” He was almost crying, and so was I.
We must get down below the surface for protection, and that right soon, for there is never any time to be lost during a battle. We bailed out the water with our mess tins and sunk a hole within a hole. The lower hole was the sump to catch the water, and when it filled we would take turns bailing it out. The upper hole we covered with brush from the trees in the woods, and we lay there waiting for food and orders. Orders! Orders!
There -were several days of waiting, as I remember it, and no rations reached us. Some one had a box of hard-tack, the most miserable of foods. We found methods of steaming it, and with some salt that had become red from rust we portioned it among us and dined gratefully.
AVe lay quiet all day, listening to the various sounds of the different guns, and trying to figure out what was going on on the other side. Would we ever eat again? I cannot say how long it was that we -waited and -waited for food, watching all night, hoping and sometimes murmuring mumbled prayers. We must have food. There were mighty few dead bodies to rob here in the swamps, and the searching netted us only rusty salt, which -was kept in the end of one of the ration cans.
Men Went Mad, and the Reason
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