Golden Age, September 3, 1930
Download: PDF — Golden Age, September 3, 1930
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE
in this issue
THE THIRD CHAMBER AT WASHINGTON
BEWARE OF DIET FADS
WHEN THE WORLD WENT MAD
ALCOHOL IN MODERATION
JUDGMENT OF THE NATIONS Full text of last of a series of three addresses by Judge Rutherford, broadcast in watchtower national chain program.
every other WEDNESDAY
five cents a copy one dollar a year Canada & Foreign 1.50
Volume XI-No, 286
September 3, 19 3 0
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
The Cost of Industrial Accidents 779
Bargains in Men and Women . 779
Wages not High Enough . . . 780'
Mines of Somerset.....782
Toronto’s Community Chest . 782
The Fiercest Battle in Bombay 779
The Kellogg Peace Pact . . . 781
The Killings at Peshawar . . . 783
Socialism Being Forced On Us
All ......... 783
■SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
Pungencies . .......779
The Crane Company’s Liberality 780
Rules of the Road in Europe . 780
Mass Vacations Popular . . . 781
How Masonry Originated . . . 783
When the World Went Mad . 787
MANUFACTURING AND MINING
Machine Production of Bulbs . 781
The Weighting of Silks . . . 782
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
Merciless Buying Wrecks Soft
Coal Industry......780
London Goes Underground . . 782
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
The Third Chamber at Washington ....... . . 771
The Net Cost of Yap .... 778
War Resisters in 1930 .... 779
SCIENCE AND INVENTION
The Deaf May Sip Music Shortly 779
Robinson Stenode Wireless Receiver ......... 782
HOME AND HEALTH
Goldenrod........784
Beware of Diet Fads ..... 785
You Can Tell the World . . . 792
Effects of Alcohol in Moderation 798
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
Babies Thrown Away in Shanghai 779
Unprecedented Hails in South Africa
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
Transubstantiation at Stamford Bridge
Sinclair Goes After Cardinal O’Connell
If You Will Believe It . . 792
Judgment of the People . . .
The July Radio Prayers . . .
Published every other Wednesday at 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A., by WOODWORTH, KNORR & MARTIN
Copartners and Proprietors Address: 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.f V. S. A CLAYTON J. WOODWORTH .. Editor ROBERT J. MARTIN .. Business Manager NATHAN H. KNORR.. Secretary and Treasurer
Five Cents a Copy—§1.00 a Year Make Remittances to THE GOLDEN AGE Notice to Subscribers : We do not, as a rule, send an acknowledgment of a renewal or a new subscription. A renewal blank (carrying notice of expiration) is sent with the journal one month before the subscription expires. Change of address, when requested, may be expected to appeal- on address label within one month.
The Golden Age is published in six languages: English, Finnish, German, Norwegian, Polish, and Swedish.
Foreign Offices
British ............. 31 Craven Terrace, London, W. 2, England
Canadian...........40 Irwin Avenue, Toronto 5, Ontario, Canada
Australasian . . 7 Beresford Rd.. Strathfield, Sydney, N. S. VL, Australia South Africa ............6 Lelie Street, Cape Town, South Africa
Entered as second-class matter at Brooklyn, N, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
^he Golden Age
Volume XI Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, September 3, 1930 Number 283
The Third Chamber at Washington
TpVERY piece of legislation affects somebody in a financial way, and the one that is affected is for or against the bill, if he knows about it, and today he generally does. Or the bill affects the interests of himself or his friends in some other manner, and in this day of American high-pressure efficiency it has come to be the thing to look after what one regards as his interests. Hence we have lobbies at Washington,
Lobbying is the practice by nonmembers of influencing members of legislative bodies either for or against proposed legislation. Most progressive magazines today are in favor of lobbying at Washington, on the ground that a clean, honest, upright attempt to influence legislation is right and proper. How to get it clean, honest and upright is another matter.
Today Washington has every kind of lobby that the mind of man can conceive. Propaganda is worked overtime. One press agent sent out 9,025 specials to newspapers in one year. Each of these appeared or was intended to appear in a great number of papers, and to affect millions of readers. Thus public sentiment is worked up for or against a measure, and pressure is brought to bear on the legislator from the folks at home.
One of the most insidious forms of lobbying is the net spread for the feet of the legislator at Washington itself in what is called “social” lobbying. Those who are on the inside know for a certainty that whenever certain measures come up for consideration there are Washington families of great social prestige who entertain senators and congressmen lavishly. Flattery is the edge of the social lobby weapon. Many a brilliant and beautiful Washington woman has caused a legislator to vote contrary to his reason and common sense and the interests of his constituents.
When Joseph Tumulty was secretary to President Wilson he said that by watching the society columns one could keep tab on what this or that legislator was likely to do. Many men who go to Congress hoping to be of real service to their fellow men get roped in by social lobbies and turn out to be useless or worse.
“Legislative Agencies”
The influencing of legislation has become a science, and standardized, like everything else in America. Everybody expects that the United States Chamber of Commerce, the American Federation of Labor, the American Publishers’ Association, the American Railroad Association, the American Manufacturers’ Association, and so on down the line, will maintain legislative agencies in Washington. They would be considered foolish not to do so, and they send their most capable men and women to the capital.
The American Farm Bureau Federation, the Anti-Saloon League, the Association Against Prohibition, the American Legion, the National Coal Association, the National Council for the Prevention of War, the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America—-if one started to name the lobbies, where would he stop ? There are admitted to be three hundred active and powerful lobbies in Washington. These lobbies write much of the legislation which afterward becomes the law of the land.
The American custom is to discuss bills by small committees, and the lobbies appear before the committees and give information, state their views, and make suggestions. The bills, when approved by the committees, are frequently carried through with little or no public debate.
The Chamber of Commerce has three hundred employees, and they are all kept busy. Col. J. H. Carroll, legislative agent for the Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum Company, the United Fruit Company, Cuban Sugar, and half a dozen railroads, has an income of nearly $150,000 annually. One lobby press agent has a salary of $25,000 and employs an assistant at a salary of $15,000. The American Legion lobby costs but $26,000 a year.
. 771
In Germany it is taken for granted that Big Business will, must and should have contact with the government, and hence there is a Parliament of Industry functioning, besides the Reichstag. There are similar provisions in Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Jugoslavia, Poland, Spain and Italy.
A Business of Big Dimensions
Several years ago the claim was made by Edward F. Grady, himself a legislative agent for the American Federation of Labor, that ho personally knew one hundred lobbyists in Washington each of whom received a larger salary than that of the president of the United States ($75,000 a year) and that, at that time, there were fully two thousand in the city.
It is said that even now these lobbyists are paid more money than is drawn by all the members of Congress put together. Many of them are grafters, pure and simple, and render no real service to anybody.
The most effective and dangerous ones are those who were former senators or congressmen. These have been known even to walk upon the floor of the senate or house while measures in which they were interested were being debated.
It will be on the mind of every reader of The Golden Age that we ought to say something about Big Business in this connection. The reason is so evident that any child can see it. Big Business finances politics, both parties, and when legislation comes up in which it is interested it makes it its business to renew the acquaintances which were inescapable while collections were in order. It is hard to go back on the paymaster, the one who furnished the collateral to insure election. Gratitude is expected, and usually forthcoming.
Recently we have approached the place where the paymaster himself becomes a legislator. In a country in which Grundy the Magnificent can become a United States senator anything may happen. Grundy is said to have raised $700,000 for the election of the silent statesman (who was silent because he failed to sprout an idea on any subject in twenty years of public life) and to have raised $1,000,000 to help the cause of Mr. Hoover. He was one of the impeccable souls that were present in the smoke-filled room in Chicago when it was unofficially agreed to turn the United States over to the Ohio gang, Harding, Daugherty, Jess Smith and others.
Attempts at Regulation
While the Devil is still running things, and human nature is what it is, it is hard to regulate such a business as lobbying. It is like trying to regulate bootlegging, or bribery, or holding companies, or the pickpocket business, or collections on account of purgatory.
In the days before the murder of Sacco and Vanzetti, while Massachusetts still had a few shreds of honesty, and of consideration for the opinions of the just and honest among mankind, an attempt was made to forestall present conditions as they now exist there and everywhere. Lobbyists must register with the sergeant-at-arms, give the names and addresses of their employers, and the terms of their employment. That was forty years ago and is interesting chiefly from a historic viewpoint.
Maryland and Wisconsin followed Massachusetts in an effort to lessen the evil by publicity. It was like asking bootleggers to advertise. There was no rush to get listed. Legislation in the same direction has been enacted in Utah, Tennessee, Oregon, Montana and Arizona.
In California and Georgia lobbying is a felony. In North Dakota and Wyoming it is bribery for one legislator to come to agreement with another, “You vote for my measure and I will vote for yours.” Legislators in South Dakota must take oath that they have not accepted free passes on railroads for any votes they may cast or any influence on legislation they may exert.
The New York law requires attorneys and agents who desire to lobby at Albany to file application with the secretary of state, setting forth in detail the services they expect to perform, and to make public a sworn statement of all expenses incurred in the performance of such services. This is like asking a hijacker to file an income tax report. The Congress at Washington makes spasmodic investigations of what is conceded to be one of the major industries at the capital.
The Tariff Lobbies ■
Somebody has described the 'American tariff as “a thing of duty and a jaw forever”. Every time it comes up for revision the ticket offices all over the country do a land office business in pasteboards having Washington as the destination, and the 100-percent-profit Americans who do not come themselves cheerfully chip in to pay the expenses of a representative. The only ones that are not represented in the Third Chamber are the common people. It is enough for them that they must pay the bills, in the end.
Last fall the United States senate began one of its infrequent investigations of the Third Chamber, and in three days found that the pottery interests had a lobbyist who was also a tariff commissioner. This is like a flock of bootleggers putting one of their number on the bench. His decisions would be friendly, to say the least.
Thereafter, the senate added a clause to the tariff bill providing a penalty of $1,000 fine or a year’s imprisonment, or both, upon any person, corporation, association or other organization that should attempt to interfere with or influence the work of the tariff commission. Thereupon Joe Grundy, head of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, was made senator from Pennsylvania. Being actually now a member of the senate, he could do ‘legally, and with perfect security, what would have been illegal before this brilliant move was made.
Qualifying for the 100-percent-Profit Class
Mr. Hoover’s tariff bill has had a hectic career. Before Mr. Grundy was made senatorial representative for the august state of Pennsylvania there was much excitement in Washington when it was found that a friend of his, Charles L. Eyanson, assistant to the president of the Manufacturers’ Association of Connecticut, and, like Mr. Grundy, a lobbyist of first caliber, had been put on the payroll of Senator Bingham of that nutmeg state, as his private secretary.
Mr. Eyanson made a good assistant to the president of the Manufacturers’ Association. His job as private secretary to Senator Bingham let him into the secret hearings of the senate’s subcommittee on finance, with the result that forty-four of the fifty-two industries of Connecticut received tariff favors aggregating $70,000,000.
When Mr. Eyanson gets back to Connecticut he will still have to explain to his regular employers how he came to miss the remaining eight industries. Tie will be reminded that while he was in Washington he received a salary of $10,000 a year and his living expenses from the Connecticut Manufacturers’ Association, and that to deliver forty-four out of fifty-two industries over to larger profits is not enough. That is less than eighty-five percent, and not enough by about fifteen percent, to make him a true 100-percent-profit American. Grundy is the true model of the 100-percent-tariff statesman.
While the charges against Bingham and his private secretary were being aired it was publicly charged by T. L. Hill, the president of the American Society for the Promotion of Aviation, that Senator Bingham himself is president of an airplane trust that has worked for the diversion of millions of the government’s money to private pockets, and has shoved inferior aircraft on the army and navy air services, and at excessive prices, which inferior aircraft has caused the death of scores of pilots. It seems easy to see why Mr. Bingham is a senator.
The Arnold Lobby
W’hile the lobby investigations were under way special honors in that direction fell to the lot of J. A. Arnold, yclept manager of the Southern Tariff Association and of the American Taxpayers’ League. We have no desire to contradict the statement of Senator Caraway that Mr. Arnold is “utterly without regard to veracity”. This definition of a lobbyist seems like a good one and capable of extension much farther than Mr. Arnold goes.
It seems that having noticed the millions that are readily collected from northern manufacturers’ associations Mr. Arnold got the helpful idea that there are plenty of manufacturers in the new South and that if approached skilfully they also could see the tariff light which at 'Washington is not for long kept under a bushel.
His idea bore fruit to the tune of $200,000 a year, of which fifty-five percent went for the salaries of Mr. Arnold and ‘organization work’. The disbursement records were destroyed, as is the usual custom with the modern Ali Babas, but there were receipts of $1,000 or more from the Insull crowd, the Van Sweringens, Wrigley whose flavor lasts, the Westinghouse Airbrake Company, Armour & Company, and the nephew of Andrew Mellon. Mr. Grundy gave only $10 to this jackpot. 'When Grundy gives anything worth while he is going to get something for his money, and not give for the mere fun of giving.
One of Mr. Arnold’s enterprises is the National Council of State Legislators for the repeal of the federal inheritance tax. It was Mr. Arnold’s job to load entire legislatures on the trains and bring them into M ashmgton, all expenses paid, there to appear before the house ways and means committee to fight the estates tax.
Big estates all over the country were invited by Mr. Arnold to grease the wheels of this machine, and the 100-percent-profit Americans with swollen estates were glad to do what they could by this means to prevent the common people from, getting a fair deal. Mr. Arnold was on the witness stand for nine days.
The Cuban Sugar Lobby
“Hello! Hello! This is Mr. II. C. Lakin, of New York city, president of the Cuba Company. Did you get my letter ?”
“"What letter ?”
“What letters have you received?”
“I have one here which says, "Our knowledge of the desire of President Hoover is accurate, but naturally the sources of our knowledge should not be stated in writing.’ The same letter goes on to say, Tt is the custom of the beet interests to maintain a lobby in Washington. I think that eventually the Cuban interests should have a permanent office in Washington, but the fact that Cuba is a foreign country makes the old-fashioned lobbying dangerous for it to undertake. I do not approve of unguided entertainment of members of Congress. That form of lobbying is no longer fashionable in Washington.’
“I have another one which says, ‘Our chief reliance will be on Mr. Shattuck, who is a very intimate friend of Hoover, and has already talked with Hoover about this subject.’ The same letter shows a willingness to injure the foreign relations of the United States government, and an attempt to do it.
“I have another which says, ‘President Hoover has taken a direct hand. He has already suggested a possible solution to Senator Smoot and to Mr. Shattuck.’
“None of those just suit. I guess I shall have to fall back on the letter from that great American statesman and patriot, General Crowder, in which he said, ‘Discussed with Mr. Shattuck the opportune time to see Smoot and contribute what he could do toward perfecting sliding tariff, but always with the idea of making Smoot father the proposition in the name of beet sugar, as a means of giving it added strength.’ ”
To these exhibits, brought out at the investigation of the Cuban Sugar Lobby, v<e may merely add that the Mr. Shattuck thrice named in the letters denied that he had discussed sugar legislation with the president. Looks as if somebody’s mama or papa had not spanked him enough for fibbing when he was little. In the background, President Hoover may be discerned carefully sucking the molasses from his fingers, and singing, in between, “Oh how sweet it will be in that beautiful land!”
Mrs. Gladys Jones, one of the sweet feminine agents of the sweetest of lobbies, told the senate investigating committee that she received a salary of $230 a week and expenses from the United States Sugar Association. The expenses amounted to about $500 a week. In addition, she received $1,333.33 a month from the American Chamber of Commerce of Cuba. She refused to give the name of a lobbyist who, she said, burned his letters every forty-eight hours to prevent them from getting into the hands of investigators.
The Shipbuilding Lobby .
Does anybody suppose that if the sugar lobby could afford to spend half a million dollars on its Washington office in eight years the Bethlehem and other great ‘steal’ companies would withhold any loose change that could be advantageously used in getting Uncle Sam to spend money for battleships or cruisers each with costs running into the tens of millions?
Wm. B. Shearer told the senate investigating committee that the first person who talked to him about acting as chief lobbyist and propagandist for a big navy was Charles M. Schwab. Mr. Schwab testified that he knew nothing about Mr. Shearer. “Check and double check.”
H. C. Hunter, counsel for the associated shipbuilders, of whom Mr. Schwab was the most prominent, testified that prior to the Geneva conference he paid Mr. Shearer $7,500 for three months’ work, and in three years paid him more than $50,000, none of which, of course, appeared on the shipbuilders’ books. Bookkeepers make only such marks as are desired.
When the time came for the Geneva conference Mr. Shearer was the man of the hour. So capable a periodical as the Manchester Guardian charges this man with having deliberately wrecked the conference, the outcome of which presumably meant so much to millions who were interested in the cause of peace. He sent reports regularly to the shipbuilders.
Shearer received extra pay for his work at the Geneva conference. The executives of the shipbuilders apparently did not know what he went there for, though in 1924 the three firms which employed him were awarded contracts for five cruisers at an added cost of $15,000,000 over the bids submitted by the government's own yards. It is Uncle Sam who pays.
At Geneva Mr. Shearer obtained a seat in the famous Glass Room of the League Secretariat, and was supplied with official information from the United States Navy Department. During the seven weeks required to wreck the conference he published a tremendous amount of elaborate data showing that he was what he claimed to be, a naval expert.
Referring to Mr. Shearer’s suit for $250,000 against the shipbuilders who employed him, the Nev/ York Times said:
To most of those who saw him at work in Geneva, the news that Mr. Shearer has had to sue his employers for money he alleges was due him, will cause surprise. If, as he says, he was employed to help wreck the conference, the opinion at Geneva would be that he earned his money.
“The Active and Pernicious Power Lobby”
That is what Senator Lenroot called it while he was still in office as a senator, but as soon as his fellow Americans elected him to leave the senate and to get a job somewhere else, he took a $20,000 job for the power trust, and then thrilled America with the declaration that there is no power trust and no power lobby, which he had previously stated was “infesting every nook and corner of the capitol”.
It is of not much avail now to write anything about the activities of the power trust—since they showed their power to dictate platforms at both Kansas City and Houston right while they were exposed by the Federal Trade Commission as engaged in the greatest rascalities ever practiced in this country.
The power trust seems to have come aw’ay from Kansas City with everything they wanted in the way of platforms and candidates, but if they wanted anything since then they have not been handicapped seriously in getting it. The impudence of this crowd of highwaymen in purchasing and using editors, professors, Chatau-quas, school book publishers, banks, publicity experts and everybody else who is willing to work for money is beyond belief. They have had their tools working in Washington in places of trust. For a sample, take the following from the Boston American:
Mrs. Minnie L. Ward has been for many years file clerk of the Power Commission. She now makes the criminal charge that F. W. Griffiths, Bonner’s chief clerk, set about to rifle her files of the incriminating letters. It upset Mrs. Ward to the degree that finally she brought a dozen eggs to the office, and, exercising-rare restraint under the circumstances, slung six of them with good aim at Mr. Griffiths, who promptly suspended her.
The last we knew, this woman, who was true to her trust, was still out of her job. The thing is working the way it nearly always works: the one who is honest is the one who is punished for calling attention to the dishonesty.
Boulder Bam and Muscle Shoals
The whole reason there has been so many months of wasted time spent in discussing Boulder Dam and Muscle Shoals is that the power trust has been determined that, as far as possible, the American people shall continue to pay for electricity fifteen to twenty times as much as it costs. They are perfectly willing Uncle Sam should spend his money for building-expensive dams, but they are not at all willing that he should let the people have the power after they have paid for producing it unless they pass that power through the hands of the power trust so that the costs to the people can be multiplied by fifteen or twenty.
There is evidence that the American Farm Bureau Federation has been used as a cat’s-paw by the power trust to help them get Muscle Shoals power away from the control of the government. Claudius IL Huston, chairman of the National Republican Committee, right-hand man of Herbert Hoover when the latter was secretary of commerce, is also involved in the Muscle Shoals scandal. Does anybody suppose that Mr. Hoover will be ungrateful to Mr. Huston, who was so helpful in boosting him into the presidency?
The New Republic gives us the following interesting summary of items that are of unusual interest to us since the elevation of Mr. Charles Evans Hughes to the Supreme Court of the United States, and we have only to add to this that immediately, on the day following the confirmation of Mr. Hughes, public utility stocks on the New York Exchange bounded upward in price by an average of eight points. The New Republic said:
Moreover, the recapture clause of the bid, which should provide for the government’s recovery of Muscle Shoals on the failure of the lessee to manufacture fertilizer, doesn’t guarantee that at all. Drawn up by that great legal mind, Charles Evans Hughes, the recapture clause consists of 21 lines of whereases, provisos and heretofore, which, translated into intelligible English, state that in fifteen years (not until then, mind you), if the lessee is converting all the power at Muscle Shoals into profits and none into fertilizer, a board may (not must) file a complaint with the Secretary of War; that the matter is then to be submitted to arbitrators, who are to hold hearings; that if the arbitrators agree with the board that the suspension of the manufacture of fertilizer is likely to be permanent—no, the lease isn’t canceled yet—■ the matter then is to be referred to the Secretary of War; that he is to refer it to Congress, which may acquit the company of the duty of making fertilizer; finally, in case Congress fails to act, the Secretary of War may acquit the company himself.
The Resting Places of Patriots
It will be remembered that during the reign of the Ohio gang everything was running in oil, so to speak. Mr. Hughes was at that time commonly referred to as the “Secretary for Oil”; and when a statesman like Mr. McAdoo left Washington he headed straight for oil, and went into it so deep he never emerged.
We are not claiming that there is even yet lack of oil wherewith to calm the troubled seas of the as-it-were patriot, but everything today is looking toward electricity, and the hydroelectric power house seems now to be the haven of rest for the true 100-percent-profit American patriot.
The Congressional Record says modestly:
One of the most striking and effective means employed by the Electric Power interests to overcome opposition is to eliminate their opponents by absorbing or converting them. An astonishing number of men who were formerly active proponents of Boulder Dam are now at work for the power lobby at nice fat salaries.
There is always plenty of money wherewith to pay the converts. Anybody who can sell Iris goods at fifteen to twenty times what it costs to make them, and can have a monopoly in cities by the score, and can use strong-arm methods to collect his bills, and has the legislatures and courts and executives to fall back on, can get what he wants and all he wants in the way of money, and will spend it to get more.
The Congressional Record says of one gentleman that “J. S. S. Richardson, former executive in the United States Army Secret Service in France, received $22,125.18 for nine months’ work as publicity director of the New York Office of the Power Lobby”.
The same authority says that “Josiah T. Newcomb, chief lobbyist, drew $39,994 for nine months’ work. Stephen B. Davis got $33,735.64 for the same length of time. He was formerly Hoover’s solicitor in the department of commerce and is now director of the committee’s activities in New York”.
Richard Washburn Child, ex-United States Ambassador to Italy, received the nice little sum of $7,500 for preparing a pamphlet in opposition to the Boulder Dam bill. If you don’t see what you want, pay for it.
The power trust means business. It was so taken with one of Bruce Barton’s effusions on behalf of Big Business that it is said to have placed 67,000,000 copies of his panegyric in the mails. The bill for these envelope stuffers ran to the tidy sum of $175,229. But let nobody think it was misspent.
If you have a monopoly of something the people must have, and if you are authorized to charge them fifteen to twenty times as much for it as it is worth, you cam afford to put out millions for the defense of your ill-gotten pile and your intent to add to it. If any statesman rises up against the power trust and he cannot be bought off, he is publicly labeled as a Bolshevik, so as to destroy his influence.
Before leaving the discussion of this juicy power trust lobby we feel that we ought to say one more word about President Hoover’s personal friend, Mr. Claudius H. Huston, one time colaborer with Mr. Hoover in the department of commerce, but more recently chairman of the Republican National Committee.
It seems that Mr. Huston in his official duties as lobbyist for the power trust, Muscle Shoals branch, received from the Union Carbide Company two checks totaling $36,100, and deposited them to the credit of his margin account with a New York stockbroker. He made a nice profit and kept the profit. But suppose he had guessed wrong and the market had gone the other way. Well, what of it? He would still have had influential friends.
The Anti-Saloon League
The Anti-Saloon League was “born of God”; so said F. Scott McBride, general superintendent of the organization. And from what Judge Rutherford has recently said on the subject, and from what we see written in John 8: 44, we judge that this statement was made with some regard to fact. The only question is as to which god is meant. And 2 Corinthians 4:4 gives us the answer.
Dr. McBride went on to say that the League was horn at a prayer meeting and that the work of the League is done in close communion with the churches, the same institutions that everywhere resist the message of the kingdom of God and oppose Bible Students in their work.
Dr. McBride is alleged to have said in January that 90 percent of the work of the League clusters around the elections, and four months later to have said on the witness stand that only about 5 percent of the work of the League is directed toward political ends. The difference between 90 percent and 5 percent is 85 percent, in only four months; and for a thing that is “born of God” that is an awful big change in a short time. Dr. McBride is a “doctor of divinity”.
Representative Tinkham, of Massachusetts, claims that the Anti-Saloon League has collected and disbursed $67,565,313 since its formation, but has violated the Federal Corrupt Practices Act by making what amounts to only nominal returns to the clerk of the house of representatives of the vast sums which it collects and expends for political purposes. It may be a mental struggle on Doctor McBride’s part to get around this that caused him to change his mind about how much of the League’s effort is of a political nature.
The state leagues of the Anti-Saloon League are composed of delegates elected by the various church groups. These in turn elect the 154 members of the national board of directors. The League is said to have written the Volstead Act. It furnishes briefs to prosecuting attorneys, and is, in effect, a government within a government. It keeps a check on district attorneys and state governments.
The Methodist Lobby
The Methodist church is profoundly impressed with the idea that an aggregation of talent such as Warren G. Harding, Harry M. Daugherty, Albert Bacon Fall, Harry F. Sinclair, et ah, when acting as the government of a country like the United States of America, constitutes an integral and important part of the kingdom of God.
So long ago as when Ulysses S. Grant was president of the United States he said that fin America we have three political parties, the Republican party, the Democratic party, and the Methodist Episcopal church’. And the ‘good old M. E. church’ is still willing to show everybody else the right and wrong on every question, and in detail, regardless of whether it knows it itself or not.
The Methodist church has denied that it is lobbying. On the other hand, an official publication of the Methodist board says, “Fortunately we have the location of all locations, just opposite the Senate wing of the capitol”; and there is still to be explained the statement of Bishop McDowell, that “I think God himself kept those lots vacant for Clarence True Wilson to see when the time came for a Methodist building in Washington”.
To the stranger in Washington the Methodist building looks like one of the government’s own buildings. Maybe it is near the senate building so that when one of the senators wants to do a little praying he can go outside of the government premises, where there are so many politicians about, and get into a more godly atmosphere.
It is considered much out of place in Washington for even the august United States senate to dare ask any questions of some of the Methodist hierarchy. At least that is what Bishop James Cannon, Jr., of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, seems to think. At any rate, he flatly refused to answer many questions, and at length left the stand in open violation of the senate committee’s expressed desire to have him remain. He is charged with the most flagrant case of contempt of court ever known in the history of the United States senate.
Bishop Cannon thinks that Christ Himself “took an active part in the political life of His day” and that this eventually “led to His crucifixion”. This shows, as we should expect, that the bishop knows little or nothing of the contents of the Scriptures. Jesus was killed because He showed up the hypocrisies of the scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites of His day. As far as the Roman government was concerned, He kept His hands off.
There is no record that Jesus ever gambled on the stock market; but Bishop Cannon seems all betarred with stock market operations, if we may believe the public press. Moreover, the senate is unable to understand why when E. C. Jameson, of New York, gave Bishop Cannon cash and checks of the amount of $65,300 for use in the anti-Smith campaign in Virginia, in 1928, Bishop Cannon’s reports to Congress showed receipts of only $17,000. If anybody but a bishop had held out $48,300 from a report like that he would have been in danger of a ride to Atlanta under the Corrupt Practices Act; but maybe it is all right in a bishop.
Some of the Methodist brethren in the house and in the senate are very indignant over what they term "an improper activity, the work at Washington of the Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals of the Methodist Church, in its manifest efforts to dictate and control legislation”. Senator Royal S. Copeland, of New York, himself a Methodist, was recently the spokesman of these sentiments for the group of statesmen he represents.
Other Religious Lobbies
It must not be thought that the Methodist church is the only one maintaining a lobby at Washington. The Federal Council of Churches have manifested their intent to grapple with every problem that is being considered at the national capital, and the facts show that there is little legislation in which they have not interested themselves.
The churches have sense enough to know that they were used as cat’s-paws during the World War, as in every previous war, and they think that if they are to be recruiting agents in the next war it is only fair that they should have something to say beforehand.
The name of the Roman Catholic lobby at Washington is the National Catholic Welfare Conference. There are eight bureaus, cooperating with the federal government in about every direction that could be imagined. Archbishop Hanna, chairman of the conference, in an address in San Francisco, said of the Catholic lobby: “Now, in these days of the closest organization the world has ever known, unless wo emulate those who oppose us and organize for our own defense, we will succumb to persecution.” ■
The Form recently had an extended study on the various church lobbies at Washington, and in conclusion said:
So we see in Washington two powerful religious lobbies, one representing Protestants, one representing Catholies, sometimes opposed to each other, sometimes in mutual support. There is little to choose between them. Their spirit, as shown in the pronouncements of their leaders, is the same. They are the church militant in politics, resolved to make people conform by law to their conception of ‘right fundamental principles of morality’. Their chief point of difference as far as the public interest is concerned is that the Methodist Board would prevent the individual from forming his own drinking habits and the Catholic Board would regulate man’s—and especially woman’s—sexual life.
Some American statesmen do not relish this ecclesiastical interference in the work of the regularly chosen representatives of the people, and have said so. One of these is Justice J. K. Hines, of the supreme court of Georgia, who recently expressed the following opinion:
Whenever a preacher undertakes to use the pulpit of his church to advocate or to denounce the cause of any political party, or whenever any church, as an organization by itself or by its councils or commissions, undertakes to participate in the administration of the government or in the enactment of laws, it violates the principle of separation of church and state and its action should be suppressed.
The Net Cost of Yap
Woodbow Wilson kept us out of the war.
That is, he did until he was reelected, but not afterwards. When the United States finally went into the war it sought as its share the island of Yap, in the Pacific, which island it did not get, as its contributions to the cause were not large enough’. However, Uncle Sam 'did spend the neat sum of $37,573,960,000 in trying to get Yap, and many people who have tried to find that little dot on the map have wondered if it was worth the price paid, to say nothing of what it would have cost to actually get it.
Big Hailstones in Greece
HAILSTONES as big as tennis balls are reported as having killed twenty-two persons in Greece. As many more were seriously hurt. Hailstones of this size had not been previously seen in Greece.
Babies Thrown Away in Shanghai
IT COMES as a shock to the nerves to find that even in Shanghai Chinese women think nothing of throwing their babies into the river, and are eager to sell them for as little as twenty cents each.
War Resisters in 1930
T N 1930, after all the peace pacts and other pacts have been signed, war resisters are subject to arrest and imprisonment and rearrest and imprisonment in Holland, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, France, Russia, Finland, Jugoslavia, Spain, New Zealand and Poland.
Fifty-three Stores per Chain
ON MARCH 30, 1929, there were 1,050 chain organizations operating 56,674 retail stores in the United States, or approximately 53 stores to each chain. Some of the chain stores are now beginning to extend credit to customers, despite the signs which read to the contrary.
Wear fellow in Mosquitoland
Experiments show that mosquitoes win not willingly go near anything that is yellow in color. This seems to suggest that in mosquito time the thing to do is to wear yellow clothing, and that it would be a good idea to paint screen doors and windows accordingly.
Unprecedented Hails in South Africa
HpERRIFIC hailstorms in South Africa laid the country in places submerged under ice a foot deep. The menacing roar of the approach of this storm could be heard for miles. Roofs were torn and broken. The stones were of fantastic shapes. Some resembled human hands on which were long jagged fingers. All plants in the track of the storm were completely destroyed. Trees were completely stripped of their leaves. The hoods of cars were torn to pieces. Galvanized iron tanks had great holes battered in them.
Nobody Dares Testify
IL/TANY have wondered why gang murders in XV-u Chicago continue year after year with few interruptions and no diminution. The reason is that nobody dares testify as to what he has seen. Witnesses must flee the city, keep silent, deny the truth, or be slain.
The Cost of Industrial Accidents
HIHE number of disabling industrial accidents in the United States is estimated at 2,500,000, of which about 21,230 result in death. The annual wage loss on account of these accidents is about $1,000,000,000, four-fifths of which is borne by those who suffer the accidents.
In Philadelphia in June
IN PHILADELPHIA, in June, so the welfare officials of the city say, there were thousands of children of unemployed parents who had never previously asked for aid who were reduced to living on one meal a day. If this is so in June, what will it be in December?
Bargains in Men and Women
ANEW YORK employment agency is announcing bargains in men and women, hundreds of office workers that must be placed at once and that are willing to work, and must work, for whatever wages can be had, usually about seventy percent of the wages they were accustomed to receive before the stock crash.
The Deaf May Sip Music Shortly
THE professor of physics at Cornell Univer-J- sity has invented a device by means of which the deaf may hear music when they bite upon a piece of wood placed in contact with a vibrating mechanism a little larger than a baseball. Two-thirds of the deaf can thus hear through teeth vibration, it is claimed.
The Fiercest Battle in Bombay
THE fiercest battle in Bombay was fought on
June 22. Reports of the battle are that there were 550 casualties, a number of them women, but no police were hurt. British leaders are finding it harder and harder to get their men to fire on unarmed and unresisting natives, some of them old men and women. An American missionary has been expelled from Madras for hobnobbing with the nonresisters.
Wild Camels in Australia
UNTIL recently camels were used for transport in Australia, but with the wider use of the automobile truck they were no longer needed and were turned loose. Now they are crashing through the fences everywhere and doing immense damage. How their rapid multiplication can be stopped is not yet known.
A Great Inventor Passes
Elmer Sperry, one of the greatest inventors of all time, has passed from this life. He is accredited with nearly four hundred devices, most of them in steering mechanisms. This number is about double that accredited to Mr. Edison. Mr. Sperry was the holder of seven of the most prized American medals for scientific achievement.
The Crane Company’s Liberality
SETTING a splendid example of wisdom an'd justice, Richard T. Crane, Jr., president of The Crane Company, Chicago, has in the last four years made stock gifts to employees of the company aggregating $10,000,000. The stock goes to the employees who have been with the company over ten years and have helped to make it what it now is.
A Little Lesson in Arithmetic
THE Akron Beacon Journal is conductinglittle lessons in arithmetic for the benefit of business men. It has recently proposed the little formula that 200 wage earners at $2.50 a day are worth no more to stores and banks than 100 at $5. This ought to soak in and be really helpful to those who think the trouble with America is that wages here are too high.
Merciless Buying Wrecks Soft Coal Industry THE Consolidation Coal Company, Charles
ton, W. Va., has issued a statement which virtually admits that merciless buying has wrecked the soft coal industry. When a purchasing agent gets so efficient that he takes all the profit out of an industry he is really cutting off his own income. Business thrives on profits, and it is as necessary for a purchasing agent to see other businesses thrive as to see his own. The recent stock smash shows clearly that when one business suffers, every other business suffers; and when it suffers in America it suffers everywhere to a very great extent.
Michael Glad to Dodge the Crown
"OY HEN little Michael found he had lost his ’ ’ job as king of Rumania he said to his father, “Thank goodness you are back and will be king. I have been terribly tired of wearing long trousers and a stiff hat, and going to places where I do not want to go at all. I am not king any more. Can’t I go out and play with the other kids now?”
Japanese Gods and Goddesses Will Get Facts
ON THE return to Japan of the Japanese delegation from the London Naval Conference they split up and went off to different shrines to tip off the gods and goddesses as to just what happened while they were away. It is comforting to know that these old gents and ladies will get the information which otherwise they would have no way of getting.
Love for the Young
T T SEEMS inherent in all creatures to love the young. In Australia it was recently discovered that for months a child had had a dangerous tiger snake as a pet and was accustomed to let the snake feed out of its bottle. It did not hesitate to pet the snake on the head and the snake did not resent it. The bite of this snake is fatal.
Rules of the Road in Europe
DRIVING from Norway to Italy the automo-bilist keeps to the right through Norway, to the left through Sweden, to the right through Denmark and Germany, to the left through Czechoslovakia and Austria, and to the right through Yugoslavia and into Italy. Berlin has 344 traffic rules, the violation of any one of which may mean a fine of $36 or fourteen days in prison.
Wages Not High Enough
JN THE year 1927 the combined values of manufactured and agricultural products in the United States was $72,450,000,000 and the combined wage bill of the country, including amounts paid to executives and office staffs, was $50,058,000,000. The difference between these two amounts is represented by goods of the value of $22,400,000,000 which the workers and executives were unable to purchase because their wages were not large enough.
Lewis of Lewisite Gas Fame
professor Lewis, of Berlin, inventor of Lewisite and some thirty other types of poison gas, claims that against every one of these
gases all antidotes and all protective measures are virtually useless. Every great country in the world, including the United States, is studying and developing and storing these gases in preparation for the coming conflict.
. Pope Gets a New Title
THE regular titles of the pope are “Vicar of Christ”, “'Successor of St. Peter,” “Bishop of Rome,” “Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province,” “Primate of Italy,” “Patri.. arch of the West and Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church.” He now has a new official designation, “Sovereign of the State of Vatican ; City.”
Pope Just 'Missed Getting Hit
HE other day the pope just missed gettinghit. Immediately over his head the huge
glass face of a clock fell off, but was caught and held by the iron hands of the timepiece. It seems as though somebody or something is always bringing the attention of ecclesiastics to the fact that they need to watch the timepieces. It is not known if the clock that came near hitting the pope was an alarm clock.
The Kellogg Peace Pact
INCE the Kellogg Peace Pact was signed there has been a great boom in the building
of cruisers. It is claimed that Italy was building more cruisers last year than were building in the whole world in 1913. The munition business is also in good shape in both Britain and the United States. Any country that wants to start a war knows where weapons can be had quickly in any quantity.
Cannon Will Soon Be Obsolete
I T IS good news, in one way, that cannon will soon be obsolete; but it is mighty bad news in another. It is now predicted that in the next war rockets will be used instead of cannon. The rockets will be packed with poison gases, liquid fire, shrapnel or smoke-producing powders, and their contents can even now be landed within fifty feet of the desired point when set off from a place a mile distant.
Machine Production of Bulbs
WELVE years ago it took one man an entire day to make 40 electric light bulbs. Now a machine will make 73,000 bulbs in 24 hours, and each such machine has placed 992 men on the scrap heap. In that period of time the jobs in the manufacturing industries have decreased by 585,000 and the population has increased by 5,500,000. That, by the way, is just about the number of people now estimated as out of work.
Not Real Public Utility Men
'VO men who posed as public utility men entered and robbed a house in Hollywood,
California, and in the course of the process overlooked a diamond brooch worth $25,000. The reason they overlooked the brooch is now plain, Had they been genuine public utility men the brooch would certainly have turned up missing. It is evident that these amateurs had not been properly trained.
Mass Vacations Popular
HPHE mass vacation system as practiced by “S" the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society is growing in popularity. Sixty-five large plants in the country now close shop entirely or almost entirely while the bulk of the workers take a two ■weeks’ layoff at the same time, and on full pay. When work is resumed all are in good condition, and the vacation season has given the employees opportunity to meet one another socially.
Public Utilities in California •
T THE annual convention of the National
Electric Light Association, recently held in San Francisco, Paul M. Downing, general manager of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, made the statement that “the electrical industry on the Pacific Coast is opposed to public ownership of utilities but it is strongly in favor of their ownership by the public”. Stripped of its foolish phraseology this simply means that the electrical industry of the Pacific Coast does not want the general public to be profited and benefited by the low cost at which electrical current can now be manufactured and distributed, but it is willing and anxious to take in as shareholders whatever number of the public can be taken in, so that their mouths may be closed because theii- bellies are full.
Mines of Somerset
J N THE mines of Somerset, England, coal is A hauled through the mines in tubs by boys who work naked except foi’ boots and short underpants. Around their waists is a tarred rope which passes between their legs and is attached by a chain and hook to the loaded tub of coal. The loads in the tubs are two hundred pounds, and there are no wheels beneath them. It would be hard to think of a more inhuman, stupid, inefficient system, or lack of system.
Mayors Object to Having Peasants Stabbed
IT COSTS Spain more to raise wheat than it does to lay American-grown wheat on the doorstep. As a consequence the poor Castilian peasants made a demonstration asking that a minimum price be placed on wheat in Spain. The government refused and had the police charge the poor peasants, wounding them with their sabers. Thereupon a hundred Spanish mayors resigned in protest. Hurrah for mayors who do not want the common people stabbed!
The Way to Resume Is to Resume
A GREAT financier once said that 'the way to resume specie payments is to resume’.
He expressed a great truth. The same is true about employment. The way to resume is to resume. Put the unemployed at work at road building or any other constructive work, and in a little while their needs of clothing, houses, furnishments and a thousand arid one other things will make everything hum. It is estimated that the United States lost $1,000,000,-000 of buying power through unemployment during the first quarter of 1930.
Transubstantiation al Stamford Bridge
AT THE Stamford Bridge Football Ground, England, Sunday, June 29, high churchmen of the Church of England openly celebrated mass in the manner of the central ceremony of the Roman Catholic Church. This practice of Avhat is called transubstantiation is a rite in which a sacrificial priest professes to change a substance of flour and water into the true body and blood of Christ in a miraculous manner. The proceeding is wholly unscriptural and wholly unreasonable, and Britain is rising in protest against such acts within the church supported by British taxpayers.
London Goes Underground
T N REBUILDING some of her subwrny prop-erties London is planning for numerous shops underground. These have not been a success in New York, most of such shops not now being used for the purpose for which they were originally built. New York is looking upward rather than downward, and it is highly probable that another generation will see numerous streets high in air with shops on other levels than those now used.
The Weighting of Silks
"D ESEARCH workers for the American Home Economics Association found only two dresses made of unweighted silk. One sold for all silk was all rayon. Ninety percent of the dresses contained fifty percent of weighting. Many of them contained so much weighting (chemicals) as to make their life only about four months. Forty out of forty-two clerks misinformed the purchasers. Dresses of the same material, made to the same pattern, were priced at $11.95 and $59.50. Clerks in the highest-priced stores were just as unreliable in their statements as clerks in the cheapest stores.
Robinson Stenode Wireless 'Receiver
T T IS the claim of Dr. Robinson, inventor of -*• the Stenode wireless receiver, that broadcasting stations may now be multiplied many times and that with the Stenode receiver any station may be received with perfect clarity, to the exclusion of all others. It is also Dr. Robinson’s claim that whereas the present-day capacity of a telegraph line is about 500 words a minute the Stenode will enable it to easily handle 20,000 words a minute. If these claims are true the entire business of radio and telegraphic communication will be revolutionized. The Stenode has been described at length in the Manchester Guardian.
Toronto’s Community Chest
TORONTO has a community chest, going under the name of Federation of Community Service. This is a high-sounding name and ought to represent much unselfish effort for the public in these days of unemployment. The annual report has just been filed. It shows that this community chest gave $33,776 for relief but that it cost $83,104 in salaries and expenses to do it. For every dollar of relief accorded the unfortunate it cost $2.47 to hand it over the counter. At first glance it looks as if the man behind the counter took himself too seriously, at least on pay day. Wonder how this thing goes in America.
The Killings at Peshawar
NDER this heading The Nation tells us that in the unarmed resistance in India some persons who exposed themselves to the firing of the British soldiers received as many as twenty-one bullet wounds in their bodies. Boys, old men, anybody who stood up and asked to be shot, was immediately fired upon. This state of things continued from eleven o’clock in the morning until five in the evening. From time to time truckloads of the victims were carried off and burned. There were sixty-five bodies left on the field at the close of the day. Many noted Indians are giving up their decorations and British titles, and official district and municipal boards are resigning in great numbers throughout India. Women are taking an active part in the Indian campaign. There has been a nationwide boycott of foreign cloth. Peasants are refusing to pay taxes. Indian troops have mutinied in some places. In other places persons wearing foreign cloth have had their clothing stripped from them. The native medical profession have boycotted English drugs. There have been serious riotings in Bombay, with many killed. And Russia is always trying to find a way into India through the Khyber Pass.
Socialism Being Forced on Us All By G. B. Shaw [Broadcast by British Broadcasting Co.]
GOVERNMENT, which used to be a comparatively simple affair, today has to manage an enormous development of socialism and communism. Our industrial and social life is set in a huge communistic framework of public roadways, streets, bridges, water supplies, power supplies, lighting, tramways, schools, dockyards and public aids and conveniences, employing a prodigious army of police, inspectors, teachers and officials of all grades in hundreds of departments. We have found by bitter experience that it is impossible to trust factories, workshops and mines to private management. Only an elaborate code of laws enforced by constant inspection has stopped the waste of human life and welfare they cost when they were left uncontrolled by government. During the war our attempt to leave the munitioning of the army to private enterprise led us to the verge of defeat and caused an appalling slaughter of our soldiers. When the government took the work out of private hands and had it done in national factories it -was at once successful. The private firms were still allowed to do what little they could; but they had to be taught to do it economically, and to keep their accounts properly, by government officials. Our big capitalist enterprises now run to the government for help as a lamb runs to its mother. They cannot even make an extension of the Tube railway in London without government aid. Unassisted private capitalism is breaking down or getting left behind in all directions. If all our socialism and communism, and the drastic taxation of unearned incomes which finances it, were to stop, our private enterprises would drop like shot stags, and we should all be dead in a month. What we have to ask ourselves tonight is not whether we will have socialism and communism or not, but whether democracy can keep pace with the developments of both that are being-forced on us by the growth of national and international corporate action.
How Masonry Originated
Burns Strader, in an article in the Kansas
City Freemason, gives the following statement as to how Freemasonry originated. To readers of The Golden Age this tells far more than Mr. Strader has any idea, because it plainly links up Freemasonry with demonism. However, -we give the paragraphs which tell the story:
Two great civilizations are responsible for the institution we now know as Freemasonry. The valley of the Nile gave us Freemasonry in its speculative form; the Euphrates valley is the birthplace of the operative phase of the science.
In the valley of the Nile and in the valley of the Euphrates, two great civilizations were contemporaneous. One race nurtured and cultivated the things of the spirit, and the great buildings and structures of Egypt were temples erected and dedicated to the gods who represented and exemplified the highest spiritual conceptions of that day.
The Egyptian built of stone. It w'as his convenient material, and his edifices mark the aspirations of the human soul. The skilled workmen of Egypt went abroad to erect great temples in neighboring lands, and wherever her craftsmen went they carried the esoteric principles of her religious faith.
The secrets of the art of building were jealously guarded by the Egyptian priesthood, and none was initiated into those secrets save the select, the faithful and the worthy. The builder was a member of the sacerdotal class, and enjoyed the privileges of the select. Wherever he carried on his operations in neighboring lands the mysteries of Egyptian religion were communicated to the select few.
The temple of Osiris began to take form on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, and the mysteries of Egypt began to shape and form and outline and tincture and. color the thinking and the religious philosophy of her neighbors. The gods of Egypt were the gods of glory and beauty. They lacked the attribute of power to make them effective.
In the valley of the Euphrates another culture had taken form. The brick-built temple of the Chaldean was the abiding place of his gods. His was a god of power and force, his was the spirit of direct achievement.
…