Golden Age, April 29, 1931
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PERSIA
THE LAND OF EXTREMES
CRASHING IDOLS
ENGLAND' '
ORIGIN OF BIG BERTHA
HOMES NOT CITY PROPERTY
RESURRECTION
OF JUST AND UNJUST
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every other WEDNESDAY
five cents a copy one dollar a year ' Canada & Foreign 1.25
Vol. XII - No. 303
April 29s 1931
CONTENTS
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
Good Use for War Materials . . 491
Feeding the Hungry in Arkansas 492
Britain Must Now Retrench . . 494
How We Reward Our Heroes . . 485
Only in Morning of
Unemployment ..... 495
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
The Editor’s Lament .... 490
Dandelions in the Grass . . . 491
Radios in Half the Homes . . 492
Ur Inhabited Before Flood . . 492
Railway Mileage of the World . 492
2,000 on Capone’s Payroll . . 492
Parable on the Days of Noah . . 502
Extracts from Interesting
Letters ........ 504
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
Hindenburg Versus Wilhelm . 492
36% a Tear Profit . . ■. . . 495
Taking What They Can Get . . 495
The World Must Disarm . , . 496
The Cost of Government . . . 496
Homes Are Not City Property . . 505
The Great Escape ...... 505
AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY
The Trees of Nebraska .... 491
SCIENCE AND INVENTION
America Once Joined Asia . . . 491
America’s Most Important
Problem ........ 491
Distance of Fastest Nebula . . 492
Probable Origin of “Big Bertha” 503
MANUFACTURING AND MINING
Eleven Hundred Tons of Iron a
Day .......... 492
The Mysore Gold Mine .... 501
HOME AND HEALTH
An Honest and Courageous
Doctor ......... 490
“Crashing Idols” ...... 496
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
Faster Service London to Paris . 591
Air Route to Cape Town . . . 491
China vs. United States Banks . 491
Deaths in the Auto War . . . 493
Why Bread Remains Dear . . . 493
RapiWT|pping Up of Treasures . 494
Natidliii Broadcasting Company 494
Where the Money Is .... 495
Why Not Import an Irishman? . 511
Persia—the Land of Extremes . 483
Ceylon Has Far to Go .... 493
Racketeering in Glasgow . . 494
England .......... 500
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
Putting on Religious Cabaret . . 493
No Scriptures to Baek It, But—■ , 495
Even the Demons Are Silly . . 502
Resurrection of the Just and the
Unjust ........ 506
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Volame XII Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, April 29, 1931 Number 303
Persia—the Land of Extremes
EVERY land where the Devil has had sway is 'more or less a land of extremes. It is his way of ruling. There is a philosophy in it, too. He selects a chosen few as his representatives, and by the very wealth which he lavishes upon them they so dazzle the common people as to keep them in subjection, keep them in order, make them their hewers of rvood and drawers of water. This is particularly true of the land of Persia.
Persia is a land of contrasts. It is a land of the most beautiful gardens and the most forbidding of deserts; of the most lovely climates and the most inhospitable; of art and of squalor; of wealth in the extreme and of poverty in the last degree.
Though Persia has been described as Ba land where no water is”, yet there is no place on earth where the nobility are as proud of their gardens. Even the poorest of the poor have some sort of garden, if they have any roofs over their heads at all.
In latitude it corresponds to the southern states of the United. States, from Philadelphia to Key West. From t W northwest to the southeast ■ is as far as from Portland, Maine, to Jacksonville; and from the northeast to the southwest, as far as from. Atlanta to Milwaukee. The area is about one-fifth that of the whole United States. ’
It seldom rains in Persia in the summer; hence water must be brought all the way from the mountains in aqueducts, requiring incessant labor to keep them open. This water is conducted through the gardens in trenches and finally lands in the open pool which is the star feature of the family garden, and incidentally provides an ideal place for the breeding of mosquitoes and other insect pests for which the country is famous.
■ In these pools the family dishes are washed, and also the family feet and hands. But lest you gag too easily over this last item, we pause to remark that such bathing of the hands and feet is rare. Indeed, in the case of babies, the Persian mother has the idea that water is injurious to an infant, and hence its first bath is at six months of age. This first ablution of the child is usually given in a public bath, in which others bathe daily and in which the water is changed once in ten days.
Despite the fact that there is no clean piped water in Persia, but the supply for each family is taken from open ditches, and despite the occasional loss of babies through falling into the family pool and drowning, the Persians somehow manage to survive. The reason no doubt is that it is a land of sunshine and none can wholly escape its life-giving rays.
.4 Huge Basin Within Mountains
Persia is a huge basin within mountains. To get into the country from almost any direction one must climb over a high mountain. The rivers in the interior are few and small and terminate in salt marshes with no outlet. The whole land would be a desert but for the high mountains which surround it. As the winter snows melt they provide water throughout the year.
Each city is an oasis, separated from' each other city by the inhospitable lands of the desert. In between these oases the soil has been eroded until nothing but barren ridges are left. There was a time when much of the intervening area was well covered with vegetation, but een-' furies of mismanagement have left it in bad condition, difficult of rehabilitation.
It is no doubt because of the large stretches of desert lands intervening between the various cities that Persia has remained a land in which, the people prefer to stay at home rather than to travel, and the same influence has made them lovers of and makers of gardens. The favorfi e
m. QOLDEN AQE
design of the garden is a succession of terraces, with water falling from one terrace to another until it finally lands in the family pool. The Persian refers to his home as his garden.
The distances between the cities has led to brigandage, and has made close government of the territory difficult. Among the poor, food of any kind is scarce. It has been estimated that three out of every four Persian children die before they reach the age of five years.
During the World War, when the opposing armies were ignoring her rights and trampling upon her neutrality, conditions in some sections became so terrible that the starving people ate horses, cats and dogs, and even the flesh of their own dead.
Ons of the Oldest Empires
Persia is one of the oldest of empires. At one time a part of Media, the Persians, under Cyrus, revolted from the Medes, engaged in a bloody struggle with them, and finally succeeded, not only in establishing their independence, but in changing places with their masters and becoming the ruling people. This turning of the tables took place about 550 B.C.
Cyrus went on and conquered Babylon, and his son even conquered Egypt. A successor, Darius, a great general and born leader of men, extended his empire east into India and west into Europe. One of his generals captured and burned Constantinople. Darius coined the first Persian money. Both Cyrus and Darius are many times mentioned in the Scriptures.
Darius was succeeded by Xerxes, or Zerzes, supposed to be Ahasuerus “which reigned from India even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces”. (Esther 1:1) From his day the country began to retrograde. Since then it has been many times overrun, and often in anarchy. It was overrun by Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, in 331 B. C., and in the thirteenth century (A.D.) by Genghis Khan, the slayer of thirteen million of his fellow creatures.
For handed )f years, until .August 5, 1.906, the ruler of Peiila was an absolute despot, and even now its Mejliss, or Parliament, is a very tame affair of 120 deputies, 40 of whom constitute a quorum. In 1925 the- then reigning monarch, Shah Ahmed Kadjar, lost his job because he spent all his time gambling at Monte Carlo, Nice and Paris; but he does not care, because he is a very rich man. His crown jewels include the Great Mogul, one of the largest and most beautiful diamonds in existence, and have been appraised at $40,000,000. When the vote came to be taken, which cost him his throne, he ■was so unpopular that only five out of eighty-five voters voted to retain him. He was in Paris at the time the vote was taken,.
Fanaticism and Bigotry
Mohammedanism is a plagiarism of the Scriptures, and a heartless system of bigotry and superstition, appealing to the basest emotions. It is this that is the “religion” of Persia. The people are under the thumb of the priests or mullahs. Thirteen hundred years after his death the Persians spend one month of each year in mourning for Hussein, one of the sons of Mohammed’s son-in-law7, because he was slain while at prayer. '
In the year 1924 the American consul general in Persia, Robert W. Imbrie, one of the best friends Persia ever had, was killed by a mob of Moslem fanatics merely for taking a photograph of a “holy” well. His real slayers were the mullahs, who made the people believe the well is ‘holy’. There are some Jews, Babists, Zoroastrians and so-called “Christians” in Persia, and they have not had an easy time trying to live with the Moslems. The influence of the mullahs will prevent Persia from going Bolshevik. The mullahs do not wish to lose their jobs.
Ages of despotism, and the curse of a fanatical religion, have left the stamp of cruelty upon Persia. The Persist is nervous, artistic, voluble, witty and polite, but he is cruel. The ancestor of the shah who has recently been deposed, Agha Mohammed, caused 35,000 inhabitants of Kerman to be blinded because the city had offended him; he sold into slavery 20,000 'women and children; he caused a pyramid to be built of the skulls of his antagonists. His son caused a general ■who had offended him to be bricked up in a dungeon.
Agha came into possession of the Persian throne by one of the most clever tricks ever perpetrated. His opponent Lutf, with a handful of men, defeated Agha’s army of 30,000 men. .Unnoticed, Agha remained in his tent while all about him. fled. With the coming of sunset he bid his muezzin call the faithful to prayer as usual. The effect was wonderful. The fleeing soldiers returned in such numbers that the tide of battle was turned and Agha gained the victory over his courageous, generous and able foeman, whom he afterward had put to death by torture.
One of the most progressive men now living in Persia, Saram-ed-Dowleh, a one-time cabinet minister, who seems to have taken a real interest in housing and other problems, murdered his own mother with a shotgun because his father ordered him to do so. She had been suspected of infidelity. In few places in the earth would a man thus unhesitatingly kill his own mother at somebody else’s request.
Hiza Shak Pahlavi
The Golden Age is no admirer of aristocrats, autocrats and dictators; nor is it an admirer of Riza Khan, Persia’s new ruler. The newspapers like to picture him as a. stableboy that came to be a monarch. That is all folderol. His father was master of ceremonies under two shahs, and he himself is an aristocrat who went into the army to learn the business from the bottom up. Possibly his father suggested to him that some time he could do the very thing- he has done, grab the whole country.
The revolution which put Riza Khan on the Persian throne urns a bloodless one. The people wanted him there; that is one reason why he is there. He is well educated, a pianist of fine technique. Besides Persian, he speaks Russian, French and German.. He is said to be a charming conversationalist, -witty and well informed. Like his countrymen, he is a devout Mohammedan.
Riza has increased his army to 60,000 men and has the country under discipline, as far as that is possible in a territory embracing such vast wastes. He has all modern equipment, airplanes, tanks and wireless. Idle first thing he did after he had seized control was to dismiss all his Russian and British officers, an act that made him very popular all over the country. He has reformed the army, hanged the bandits, made traveling safe, and tried to do away with open corruption.
Riza is no coward, and he is a leader. Nearly 60 years of age, on one occasion he dashed into the camp of an enemy and slew the rebel leader rvitli his own hand. Everything comes to his desk, and he makes an effort to keep it clear. He is said to be tall, heavy, of imposing carriage, calm, slow, definite, unyielding, and capable of unrelenting enmity.
Humanitarians have pleaded with him to let one of his old enemies, the sheik of Moham-merah, who is slowly dying of an incurable disease, end. his life- in Germany, where lie can receive medical attention. But no, the old man is technically a prisoner and must finish out his days in the house assigned to him just outside Teheran. He is said to be an adept in choosing subordinates and playing one off against another in such a way as to gradually elevate himself.
He is a great admirer of Mustapha Kemal Pasha, of Turkey, and is doing all possible to emulate him. In future all Persian men must wear coat and trousers, the same as we barbarians of English and American extraction. And they must all wear the pahlavi, which is a new form of headgear named after the Riza Khan Pahlavi himself. Government officials are required to wear, at least part of the time, clothing made in Persian mills. Persia hopes soon to be able to work up her own cotton from the fields of Azerbaijan, performing all the operations until it reaches the consumers.
Some of the Natural Features
Persia has thirty lakes, all of them salt. Both the lakes and the rivers that run into them have an uncanny habit of shifting themselves from one location to another. It is believed that at the time of the Flood Persia was a sort of quiet spot in the waters within which the ark floated without being exposed to much turbulent treatment.
Violent sandstorms are frequent in the spring in the desert regions, and hailstorms with bail as large as marbles occur in the same season in the north. In a day’s travel one may be amid heavy frosts and in a tropical zone of luxuriant palms and intense heat. In Arabistan the dry heat in summer reaches 120 degrees indoors. Some parts which are very fertile abound in malaria and insect pests.
Flowers are abundant, roses flourishing so profusely that they are cultivated for perfume. The famous Persian eat is now well known all over the world. There are numerous weird types of reptiles and spiders. Fresh water fish are rare; the lakes are destitute of animal life. There are numerous quagmires through which nothing can pass.
Along the Caspian seaboard wild animgls are plentiful: hyenas, leopards, tigers, ch|etahSj jackals, lynxes, wild goats, wild asses and smaller creatures. Lions exist in some sections. . he boundaries of the country are indeterminate, a cause of much friction.
The center of Persia is a vast plateau of 3,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level, traversed by ridges running for a hundred miles at 8,000 to ’ 10,000 feet, rising in places to 16,000 to 17,000 feet. In southern Persia the mountain ranges present a succession of parallel ridges and valleys, so that it is possible to drive between the ranges for hundreds of miles.
The air in the interior is dry and exhilarating, - and clear, enabling the vision to travel incredible distances. Extremes of heat and cold alternate. In the north heavy snows occur from November to March. The sun shines fiercely by day, but at night the temperature falls to 15 or 20 degrees.
Some of the Treasures
Coal exists all over Persia, and is being mined in two places. Miners will laugh when told that the way a Persian mines coal is to dig a hole in the ground and when the coal is reached throw it to the surface, but when this is no longer practicable the excavation is abandoned and a fresh one started. As a consequence the best coal is never reached.
Lead and copper mines have been worked from time immemorial. Persia is known to have some of the most valuable copper deposits in the world. There are also iron, zinc, tin, manganese, gold, silver, mercury and marble. The pearl fisheries on the Persian gulf are annually worth about $2,500,000 and employ 70,000 fishermen.
But the greatest treasure of all is oil, of which there is so much that it is believed the country will eventually produce as much as the United States, which at present produces 65 percent of the world’s supply. This oil is now in the control of Great Britain. No doubt you have heard of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
The Anglo-Persian Oil Company employs some 20,000 persons, and spends enormous sums for the founding of hospitals and schools for its own employees and others. Fifteen percent of its profits go to Persian government, but it is to all intents a state within a state.
In these oil fields the British fleet has always a supply of oil to protect its trade route to the East. If at any time this company were to get in trouble with the Persian government there is not the slightest doubt that Britain would take control of Persia, or as much of it as suited her purposes. The oil would come first, and the neutrality next.
Persian oil has been known since the days of Plutarch, and was known to Alexander the Great. The Persians saluted Alexander by sprinkling the street to his dwelling with naphtha, and then lighting it at one end. In consequence the whole street was soon ablaze from, end to-end.
The Opium Question
Opium is produced in 18 out of the 33'provinces of Persia, and its production is scattered over an area of 400,000 square miles. The city of Ispahan produces 4| million pounds of opium a year, most of which goes to China. The opium growers include many of the most influential clergy, and it is well known that the opium growers and merchants are the wealthiest people in the country. This makes it difficult to control the trade. •
Another great difficulty is the method of paying the growers. The extra hands are usually ■ paid in opium sap or in part cash and part sap; and. as there are 5,000 of these extra hands employed in Ispahan in time of harvest, and as they dispose of the sap to peddlers, storekeepers and others, it may readily be seen why anything approaching control is hard to obtain.
The growing of opium appeals to the Persian mind. The returns per acre are higher than for any other Persian crop, opium requires little water, and other crops can be planted on the same ground after the opium is gathered. Opium is not dependent on railroads or even good roads for transport, and there is always a ready market for the sap and the export opium. It is too bad that it should be so, but it is so. Poppy juice represents 20 percent of Persia’s entire export trade and 10 percent of the government’s revenue. Some attempt has been, made at curtailment, but it is futile.
Bedeviled by Britain and Russia
For the same reason that she is afraid to build a tunnel under the British Channel, or to let anybody else build one, Britain has done everything humanly possible to retard the development of Persia. The theory has been that Bus-sia wants India; and as Persia is on the highroad, everything possible must be done to make the road difficult of travel.
In 1914 Russian troops invaded the northern part of Persia, and Britain the southern part. This was to keep Germany out of Afghanistan, still farther on the road to India. In August, 1919, a treaty was signed by which Persia virtually lost her independence. Previously there had been in force an agreement between Russia and Britain that Persia was to be divided into three zones of influence, with Russia in the north, Britain in the south and east, and a central zone where each could do as she liked.
This is like two highwaymen holding up a man and each agreeing to take the contents of the pants pocket nearest him, and to fight - for what he may have left. Britain has always been a corrupting influence at the court at Teheran. To many British statesmen this has seemed necessary in order to protect British interests; but, to the Devil, everything he does is necessary. '
The invasion of northern Persia by Russian armies in 1914, and the resulting requisitioning of armies and withdrawal of food supplies, reduced the country to famine and resulted in the death of one-fifth of all the people in the country. At present the Persians have no confidence in the good intentions of any foreign power. And ■why should they have?
Since the establishment of the Soviet, the Persian people have been notified that Russia no longer adheres to czarist policies, but wishes to see the Persian people independent, flourishing and controlling their own possessions. It has also said that none of the Russian loans need be repaid. Nearly all the commerce which northern Persia conducts with Europe must pass through Russia.
It is only since July, 1928, that Persia has been mistress of her own customs tariff, and until that time foreigners were tried by their own consul courts.
A recent concession to the British allows the British Imperial Airways to pass through South Persia, effecting a junction at Bushire with the Junkers Line from Teheran, thus bringing Persia into communication by air with India, and the Far East. Persia herself will construct and own the airdromes, which will thus be available for the airplanes of all nations.
Persia and England are continually quarreling over the islands in the Persian Gulf. Persia has always had them, and wants to keep them because they are near at hand. England wants them for the same reason that she wants everything else on the earth. Persia recently protested to England’s League of Nations about the possession of some of these islands. Britain has hung on to the islands on the ground that they are necessary for the protection of British coaling stations.
The next time you are pestered with mosquitoes go and take the screen door off your neighbor’s house; and if he wants to know 'why you did it, tell him you had to do it to keep the mosquitoes out of your home. Then put the door up on your own house and make yourself at home. The seizure of the island of Ormuz in 1622 is what gave Britain the control of India.
The Persian Men .
The Persian men are described as fta people of lively and impressible minds, brave and impetuous in wrar, witty, passionate, for Orientals truthful, not without some spirit of generosity, and of more intellectual capacity than the generality of Asiatics”. The estimated population of the country is 10,000,000. The area of the country is 628,000 square miles.
Persia is a land of large proprietors and landless peasants. The peasant plows with oxen and a bent stick, as his ancestors always did. Three-fifths of his crop goes to the landlord. A landowner may possess hundreds of square miles of arable land, with a dozen or more villages on it, without ever seeing the district more than three or four times in his life. The head man of the village' does the business with the agent of the ovmer, the same as he did 500 years ago. . '
The nomadic tribes of Persia move in great masses today as they did in the days of Abraham, moving flocks and herds in a constant search for grass, and continually striving with other tribes for water. A New York Times representative saw 30,000 Baktiari tribesmen and 250,000 animals ascend from their winter quarters on the Persian Gulf to the highlands, over roads that w’ere still covered with snow’ and ice.
These tribesmen 'and their families were barefooted and unprotected from the sun, wind and hail, yet not one of them caught a cold. The dust was unbelievably thick. The American marchers tied handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths, and even drank through handker-
chiefs, as . the dus’f got info everything. The .whole Baktiari tribe take this trip every spring ..nd return to the Gulf in the fall. It is very hard to exercise any kind of government over people who live that kind of life. ■ '
There is no middle class in Persia, no engineers, no architects, and hardly any doctors. The mullahs or priests are the lawyers. Persia is divided into master and slave, landowner and landworker, aristocrat and peasant, oppressor and oppressed. Virtually all the nobles are government officials; and as there are not jobs enough to go around, they work one year and scheme for two more to get back into office.
All of the original races of mankind are found in Persia. The frequent invasions from central Asia have left a strong element of the Mongols. The inhabitants of the hot lowlands in the southwest are Arabs, Semites.
The Persian aristocracy is not religious, but frankly and openly selfish, willing to sell out everything for the sake of being maintained in ease and affluence. The aristocrat is ceremoniously polite in the extreme. His speech has three forms of address, one for equals, one for ' superiors, and one for inferiors. Custom demands that they keep on their hats indoors.
In Persia, when a man does not wish to see callers, his servants state that their master "has gone within’, the exact contrary of the American foot at home’. When a high priest visits a town everybody who has a black suit of any kind puts it on. This shows that even the Devil has a lingering sense of the "eternal fitness of things’, for surely nothing could be more appropriate than for a people to put on mourning when they see- one of the Devil’s own crowd headed their way.
The Persian Women
The Persian girl runs about for a few years draped in a long black cloth, but at 10 or 12 years of age is usually married to a man old enough to be her father. Meantime she has learned to help with the housework, to prepare meals, -weave, and wash clothes in the stream outside the town.
Trial marriage is common. A Persian may have four legitimate wives, but he can enter into temporary wedlock, for a year, a month, a week, or even a couple of days. The mullah or priest fixes all that. Great are the uses of a priest!
His principal job is to govern men through women.
There is no furniture in the home. The -woman wears one dress day and night for a month, at the end of which time it is washed. Chairs are practically unknown in the Orient. Wherever a Persian woman goes she carries a mattress stuffed with cotton, on which she sits and rests during the day and sleeps at night.
An old Persian proverb says: “Woman is a great calamity. However, no household should be without this evil.” The Persian women must live in an inner courtyard, the anderoon, the only entrance to which is through the birooni, or men’s apartment. Persian women rise respectfully when their husbands or fathers enter the room.
The Persian veils his wife, so that none but he may see her charms, but in his absence his wife can go anywhere wrapped in her veil and he is none the wiser. Of late some of the women are appearing in the streets without their veils, but this is not safe in all Persian cities. Fanatics do not hesitate,in some places to attack or even kill women ignoring the teachings -of the Koran.
The Persian kitchen is simplicity itself. Holes are dug in the floor alongside a wall. The pot containing the dinner is placed in a hole between two fires. The more dishes there are, the more holes there are. Refrigeration is unknown. Clocks are not used. The jangling telephone bell has only recently arrived.
Life in the Cities
Life in a Persian city is interesting because it is different. Only a few of the -streets in the capital, Teheran, 350,000 population, have any name. None of the houses have any numbers. Until three or four years ago none of the inhabitants had any family names. Then an edict required the adoption of family names, and there were some wonderful inventions.
The guardian of a gate gave himself the Persian equivalent of “Honest and Faithful”. A postman styled himself “Here, There and Everywhere”. A merchant chose as his name his telephone number, which happened to be “Three Hundred and Ten”; while a proud possessor of much livestock gave himself the euphonious and appropriate name of “Multitudinous Ass”. '
The sick are treated by charms and prayers. A sick child may have tied around its neck the dried eye of a sheep, the kneecap of a wolf, .or the claw of a tiger. Or he may be treated by having him drink water in which lias been soaked a piece of paper -upon which a verse of the Koran has been written in Arabic. The mullah or priest attends to all that. Great are the uses of a priest ! A little later, no doubt, the priests will be blessing automobiles and airplanes.
The Persian boy dresses like a little old man, with long trousers and a long coat. At six or seven he is apprenticed to a carpenter, mason, tinsmith, carpet weaver or other tradesman, and must work ten to twelve hours a day while he is gradually learning the trade. Constant wearing of a hat, indoors and out, leads to early baldness.
Some new highways are being built, and motor cars are coming into use. Teheran is building new public buildings and lighting the streets, and hotels are coming into existence. Saloons and gambling houses have been closed. There are some newspapers, but they have to be careful what they print. If the editor pays too many compliments to Western civilization they lock him up; if he -is too hard on the westerners they lock him up.
The sufferings of the poor in Persia deeply affect ^westerners, but the Persians are so accustomed to them that they think nothing of it. 'Among the poor the rooms of the houses are small and dark, and in wintertime the family is crowded together with no ventilation at all. Of course there is no pretension to hygiene, sanitation or cleanliness.
Besides Teheran, with 350,000, there are Tabriz, 200,000; Ispahan, 80,000; Meshed and Kerman,, each 70,000; Barfrush, 55,000; Kermanshah and Shiraz, each 50,000; and about 25 other, cities of 30,000 and upward.
Education, and Industry
During the last few years Persia has added to the 2,139 primary schools and 308 secondary schools of the old religious type, and 1,133 schools of the Western type, and new schools are being built as fast as the American and English universities at Teheran and Ispahan can prepare the teachers. There are over 750 Persian students studying in Europe, about half of them supported in whole or in part by Government funds. Radio is a government monopoly. The Germans are teaching the Persians scientific agriculture.
The game of polo originated in Persia. It died out for a century, but is now popular once more among the nobility. It is claimed that the fireworks displays of Persia are the most ingenious and dazzling to be seen anywhere in the -world. Persian artists are famous .for their miniature paintings, decorations of costly furniture, and illuminations of manuscripts. The secret of the peculiar’ Persian tinted and glazed pottery of the eighteenth century seems to have been completely lost.
The principal industry of Persia is, of course, as is -well known, that of rug making. Here the finest rugs in the world are produced under’ the most unspeakable conditions of poverty and wretchedness conceivable. The work is done in ill-lighted and ill-ventilated rooms by boys and girls who work from sunrise to sunset for a few cents a day.
Rugs yvere woven in Persia before the days of Alexander the Great. The making of them is a very slow but simple process. Generations of training have given the workers inherited taste and ability for the work, and their fingers seem peculiarly deft in manipulation. A girl -will have some part of a design as her peculiar portion and will almost automatically do the work a hundred or a thousand times in just the same way.
Each region has a pattern 'different in main ground and border design, and sometimes in color scheme and -weave, from those of other districts. A person familiar -with Persian rugs can tell by looking at one just where it was made.
Persia stands first in rug making, sending to the western markets more than three times the value of Turkey’s rugs. Nevertheless, the large trade is gradually lowering the standard of production, and it is claimed that in the museums of New York city there are to be found today Persian rugs of finer texture and appearance than any that could now be produced there.
Finance and Transportation
Up until -1911 most Persians who were in office looked upon the office as a chance to rob' the public and feather their own nest. Bribery and corruption were so rampant that at that time an appeal was made to America for help. W. Morgan Shuster and a corps of American assistants took charge, and in a .few months made such an excellent start that Britain and Russia, then 'dominating Persian affairs, became frightened, and brought about his removal.
In 1922, Russian influence having in the meantime been overthrown, Persia again called upon America, and this time A. C. Millspaugh took charge . nd remained for five years, until such time as the Persians felt able to take up the work where he left off.
Until recently transportation in Persia was limited to the mail coach. This is a simple rack wagon, without springs. It is loaded with mail sacks and the baggage of passengers. The passengers climb in on top of the. mail, trunks and boxes, and away they go. The coaches are drawn by four strong horses, changed at every relay station. It takes ‘weeks to go anywhere by camel caravan, and the camel as a means of transport is doomed.
There are fifteen regular trade routes, over which it is hoped some time to build railroads. One of these lines, from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, is now building, and is expected to be completed in 1937. It will be 1,200 miles long. Britain and Russia have held back Persian railroad building.
In 1924 a weekly motor service was opened between Bagdad and Teheran. It takes three days to make the trip, with stops over night at two cities along the way. There is airplane service across the country in both, directions. Bicycles and motor cycles are much used.
From a study of Persia’s recent history it is plainly evident that in this part of the 'world 10,000,000 people have been retarded in their development by the devilish governments of Russia and Britain; and it is good to know that a better day is at hand, when the people will have a perfect Ruler and’know how to live.
An Honest and Courageous Doctor SHORT while after The Golden Age began publishing some plain facts about the danger of using aluminum vessels for cooking., my wife and I decided to throw ours into the garbage can. This we have never regretted.
One day, a little later, a woman called at our home selling an aluminum cleaner. My wife explained to her that we had just discarded our aluminum ware and that she would not require any cleaner. The woman then tried to persuade her that we were quite mistaken and. informed her that aluminum vessels were used in hospitals and other large institutions, etc.; but when she found that my wife was firm in her conviction, she became annoyed and finally blurted out, “If that Dr. C---- (mentioning the name
of a local doctor) had kept his mouth closed he would have been better off today.” She was assured that we had not gotten our information from Dr. C----, and then left. ...
By W. 14. Sinclair (Ontario)
It was quite a surprise to me one Sunday morning last summer, while engaged in making some calls in. the country, to run across this doctor and his wife. They were trying to get & little change and rest for a few weeks and were glad to meet a Bible student.
The doctor informed me that he had done a good deal of research 'work in connection with aluminum compounds but that his findings were not acceptable to the medical board in this center, so he was somewhat of an outsider on that subject. Friends had sent him some copies of The Golden Age warning the people against the use of aluminum for cooking, and these he fully agreed were true.
, I have on two or three occasions since met people who told me'that, their doctor had warned them against the use of aluminum; so there seems to be a doctor here and there who is honest and tells the people the truth about aluminum cooking utensils.
GETTING out a magazine is no picnic.
If we print jokes, folks say we are silly.
If we don’t, they say we are too serious.
If we publish original matter, they say we lack variety. ' .
If we publish things from other papers, we are too lazy to write.
If we stay on our job, we ought to be out rustling news. '
The Editor’s Lament ■
If we don’t print contributions, we don’t show proper appreciation.
If we do print them, the paper is filled with'
junk.
Like as not, some other fellow will say we swiped this from another magazine.
So we did.
Dandelions in the Grass
Robert Wadlow„ the Boy Giant
A Good Use for War Materials
T> obebt Wadlow, the boy giant of Alton, II- rpiIE Dominion of Canada has discovered a linois, is but 13 years of age but is now7 7, good use for thousands of militia cots,
feet 4 inches tall and weighs 282 pounds. He has grown four inches in the past year. His shoes are size 25.
Faster Service London to Paris
Transportation experts are figuring on soon making the journey from the heart of
London to the heart of Paris in 1% hours. Special railways will be built at either end to connect the airports with their metropolises, and the speed of the airplanes will be increased.
Disasters on the Black Sea
IN A SINGLE winter storm on the Black Sea, the latter part of February, seven vessels went down. One of these, a British tanker, went down with all her crew. In wintertime the Black Sea is one of the most tempestuous of the inland seas. , ‘
The Air Route to Cape Town
A FTEK eleven years of preparation the air mail route from London to Cape Town has been opened. The mails will take nine days. On account of numerous storms this route is believed to be the worst flying territory in the world.
America Once Joined Asia
ON AN island in the Behring Sea evidence has been discovered that America once joined Asia. This evidence consists of fossilized wood and cones and leaf impressions of the California redwood, which it is believed could not have growm in the locations in which they were found except for the existence of such a connection. No doubt the break between the two continents took place at the time of the Flood.
America’s Most Important Problem
T ABOR magazine reminds us that “how to JLJ place the victims of machinery, chain stores and large-scale farming in jobs is the most important problem confronting the American people. Increase the purchasing power of millions of workers by higher wages is one solution. Another is to place more men at W’ork by ending the long work day. No other remedy has been proposed”.
blankets and socks that have been in stock since the days of the World War. They will be used to comfort and help the poor. Fine idea. That is what, they should have been used for in the first place.
Demons Will Set the Styles
A LONDON dispatch states that fashionable ■£-*- London women have formed the habit of consulting spirit mediums for attractive designs for their gowns, and are well pleased with the results. There is nothing the demons will not do to impersonate the dead and to persuade humans that the dead are alive.
The Trees of Nebraska
FIFTY years ago Nebraska was treeless, and to all intents and purposes a desert. Now it has 2,500,000,000 trees, many of them 45 feet tall; and as a consequence the rainfall has increased wonderfully and crops are heavier than in adjoining states originally better favored as respects forests.
World’s Largest Artificial Lake
THE world’s largest artificial lake is now in process of filling up with water out in Missouri, in the valley of the Osage river. When the lake has filled to the height of the dam it will be 125 miles long and will cover.more than 60,000 acres. It will have a shore line of thirteen hundred miles.
China Versus United States Banks
IN CHINA no bank has failed in twelve hundred years, because the directors know if the bank fails their head will be removed. In the United States last year 1,345 banks failed; and none of the directors are worrying, nor do they need to worry. Of the banks that failed, 1,200 were in the agricultural regions.
Bottle Bad a Long Ride
A BOTTLE containing the name and address of the sender was dropped into the Gold
Run river at Deadwrood, South Dakota. After . the lapse of several years it was picked up on the beach at Long Beach, California, having in ■ the meantime gone either around Africa or South America or across the top of Asia.
8/J08 Telephones in One 'Office
HE National City Bank of New York, and 'its affiliates, the National City Company and City Bank Farmers Trust Company, has the largest private telephone exchange in the world, with 8,000 extension lines in the one office. It requires a chief operator, two assistants and one hundred operators to handle the system.
The World’s Tiniest Train
HE world’s tiniest train has been built by J. Martin, a watchmaker, of Walthamstow,
England. The locomotive is 1% inches long. The train, which is eight inches long, runs by clockwork, and so slowly that it takes two hours to traverse the 4-foot-6-ineh track. The locomotive is constructed entirely of gold and silver.
Hadios in Half the Homes
HE Department of Commerce estimates that there are radios in half the homes of the
United States, the total number of sets in use on July 1, last, being calculated at 13,478,600. New York, California, Illinois and Pennsylvania are in the order named in respect to the number of sets in use, and the only states in the million class.
Hindenburg Versus Wilhelm
resident Hindenburg’s salary is $12,000 a year, to which is added $30,000 for the entertainment of diplomats. The kaiser’s salary was $750,000 a year, and he was allowed $3,750,000 additional for the expenses of the .imperial court. Hence it is apparent that the cost of a president is less than one percent of that of a monarch, and he makes a better ruler.
Feeding the Hungry in Arkansas
ACCORDING to the Seattle Star the people of Twin Falls, Idaho, offered to ship to
Helena, .Arkansas, ten thousand dollars’ worth of Idaho beans and potatoes, and to pay the shipping charges, but the San Francisco Red Cross headquarters curtly turned the offer down and demanded that Twin Falls give instead $2,000 in cash, which cash is hard to get. Meantime three thousand children in the vicinity of Helena were attending school without anything to eat. Some were being fed every other day. Hundreds got nothing from their homes except a black biscuit with lard and sugar on it. What is wrong?
Distance of the Fastest Nebula
HE fastest nebula whose speed has yet been measured by the changes in the spectrum of the light which it gives off is said to be leav
ing the earth at the rate of 11,000 miles a second. This nebula is so far away that it takes the light from it, traveling at the rate of 186,300 miles a second, 120,000,000 years to reach the earth. •
Eleven Hundred Tons of Iron a Day
HE largest .furnace in the world has just been blown in at Pittsburgh, at the Jones and Laughlin plant at Aliquippa. This monster furnace produces eleven hundred tons of iron a day, which is four times the output of the largest furnaces of forty years ago, and twice the output of the largest furnaces of only five years ago.
Ur Inhabited Before the Flood
HAT Abraham’s home city, Ur of the Chaldees, was inhabited before the Flood, has been definitely proven. At the time of the Flood a layer of clay eight feet thick rvas deposited over the previous works of man, but some of the pottery of the previous era has been uncovered. It is handmade and painted, and quite different in style from that found above it.
Hallway Mileage of the World
HE railways of the world would go around the earth thirty times at the equator, fifteen times for the American mileage, twelve times for the European, three times for the Asiatic, and better than once each for the African and Australian. The African mileage of 40,631. miles is considerably ahead of that of Australia, and grooving rapidly.
2,900 on Capone’s Payroll
olonel Randolph, president of Chicago chamber of commerce, estimates that there are 2,000 men on Al Capone’s vice pay roll, counting brewers, truckmen, armed guards, collectors, fixers, custodians of brothels, gambling houses and handbooks, and that, as vice king of the city, Capone probably has available upward of $2,000,000 a week. Mr. Randolph thinks that more than half of Chicago’s police officers have taken bribes either regularly or spasmodically from Capone or his tributaries.
TN RECOGNITION of the hard times Turkey TTOW would you like to make 36 percent a A has promulgated a decree that couples cer- J-A year profit on your money? That was what
Free Marriage in Turkey tilled to be short of cash may have marriage certificates free. The usual price is $2.50. Happy day when somebody offers to repay the benedicts for all their marriage fees and the incidental expenses resulting therefrom. But it would bankrupt the world to pay the bill.
Deaths in the Auto War
THE World War caused the death of 50,510
Americans in the eighteen months in which the United States was in the conflict, but in the eighteen months ending December 31, 1930, there were 50,900 Americans killed by automobiles; so it seems that the automobile war is the more dangerous of the two. The persons injured by automobiles in the year 1930. numbered more than 960,000.
Ceylon Has Far to Go
CEYLON is wealthy, but it has far to go before it will be livable. An English traveler 'writing in the London News and Chronicle reports that in Colombo, the capital, lie saw houses that consist of one square dungeon, with no windows, no furniture, no hearth, no floor boards, and outside, an open, sewer, the whole outfit being less homelike than a wresterner’s cowhouse.
Why Bread Remains Dear
IN THE face of the cheapest wheat in many years the price of bread stays right up in the air. The bakers try to tell us that really the price of wheat has nothing to do with the price of bread. It is the other ingredients that are expensive, the plaster of paris and sal ammoniac, probably. If that seems ridiculous they cry that it is the labor that makes the bread expensive ; but that cannot be, because machinery does most of the work, and the value of production per worker has doubled since 1914. Meantime one of the baking concerns has increased its stock issue fortyfold, and if you vrant to know the real reason why bread is kept high when the people are starving, that is it, But, anyway, "white bread, is not fit for even a dog to eat; so the adherence to high prices accomplishes some good after all. If it drives more people to fruits and vegetables it will save more lives than "will be lost.
36% a Year Profit on Your Money
Jacob Kulp of St. Paul did. He receives $120,-000 annual rental on a property used for post office purposes that was assessed at $334,000. This lease by the government is non-cancelable and was fixed up for Mr. Kulp by a former secretary of war of the United States and former congressman from Iowa. We have some' wonderful statesmen in this country.
Putting on a Religious Cabaret
EMULATING a New York clergyman, the
Rev. II. G, Wilks, vicar of Upperthong, England, has been putting on a religious cabaret. The best-looking girls in the congregation dressed in abbreviated and snappy costumes and sang jazz tunes with such results that the vicar now thinks it will not be necessary for him to go back to the weekly dances, socials and card playing which had been a weekly feature previously.
Unparalleled Cruelty of Chicago Hoodlums
TO VENT their spite on a crippled salesman whom they accused of having listened to their street corner plots, seven Chicago hoodlums kidnaped him, beat him, hung him for an hour from a cemetery cross, tried to bury him alive, and finally hitched his rough box on behind their automobile and dragged him for a distance over a country road, when the coffin broke away and landed face down in a ditch. He was rescued by a farmer, who heard his moans.
Blessing the Hounds near 'Albany
EUROPE can never have any kind of nonsense that does not sooner or later find its way to the United States. The blessing of the hounds, which has for years been an annual event in France, has now broken out near Albany, N. Y, and the Knickerbocker Press gives a full-page picture of the ridiculous and blasphemous scene which took place at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, New Lebanon. The theory is that, after being duly “blessed”, the fox hounds will be more efficient in running ’down and tearing in pieces some beautiful, timid little creature that is of about as much danger to the farmers of that section as a two-year-old baby would be to a regiment of Upifed States marines.
Racketeering in Glasgow
RACKETEERING- has broken out in Glasgow, and pursues the same evil course as in New York and "Chicago. Storekeepers have to pay tribute, and have even been, blackmailed into giving donations to pay the fines of racketeers who have fallen into the clutches of the law. One gang of racketeers known as the Billy Boys is alleged to have four hundred members and to carry razors with which offenders are slashed on the slightest provocation.
Cobra Takes a Pullman Trig
THE national zoo in Washington has a new cobra, a fourteen-footer king. It seems that these snakes, admittedly the largest and most poisonous of serpents, have to be kept at a temperature of 70 degrees or they suffer fatal chills, so the curator of reptiles of the Bronx zoo took the snake along with him and took him in to bed with him on the Pullman trip. He says he did not tell anybody about his bedfellow; and it is probably a good thing for him that he did not. .
Rapid Heaping Up of Treasures
IN 1924 there were 75 people in the United
States with an annual income of $1,000,000 or over, but by making service, charges, so as to increase the burdens upon the poor, and continuing to charge thirty times the cost of electric current, and by kindred methods of extortion, the number had so increased that in the four years from 1924 to 1928 it went up from 75 to 511. The public service companies are doing everything possible to heap up treasures for the last days. Meantime the poor are starving.
National Broadcasting Company
REFERRING to what is commonly announced as the “Noshonal Broadcohsting Company” (thereby giving listeners a pain in the neck), The, Nation says:
‘"The profit-makers promptly preempted the whole territory, just as they had preempted land and forests and mines and oil and water power before. Having appropriated the air, they promptly sold it to the advertisers. They sold time and more time for money and more money, till novr the man who wants the coast-to-coast chain of both 'big systems pays $20,000 an hour for it. . . . The American, listener must hear chiefly what makes for advertisers’ profits.”
Help from London and Jerusalem
IN THE New York Red Cross drive contributions were received from London and Jerusalem to help care for the poor in the richest country in the world, a country where "we have millions of dollars’ worth of wheat -which we cannot sell. Surely some Americans would be able to take off this load from the poor of London and Jerusalem if the public service thieves would discontinue their service charges and stop holding us up for thirty times what it costs to produce electric current.
Britain Must Now Retrench
TN A RECENT speech Sir Philip Snowden, -®- Britain’s able chancellor of the exchequer, has expressed the opinion that Britain has now come to the end of her resources; that any increase of taxation would be the last straw’ to an already overburdened industry; that no further expenditures can be incurred; that heavy sacrifices by all classes will be necessary; that cabinet ministers will not shirk their just share in them; that he has spent his whole life in trying to improve the condition of the working classes; but he must now ask for a suspension of any improvement until times get better. This speech has created a tremendous sensation in Britain and throughout the world.
Parents Named Him Wrong
A CORRESPONDENT sends us a clipping from a village paper published down in Virginia. It is by a member of the clergy, and purports to be a warning to the people not to read Judge Rutherford’s books. It calls his writings “pernicious literature” but does not say why, though it admits that they contain what, it designates as a “wholesale attack upon the Christian ministry”. Well, if the “ministry” were truly Christian, Judge Rutherford would be the last man in the world to attack it. Jesus did not attack the scribes and Pharisees because they were God’s true representatives, but because they were not.
The name of the preacher is F. B. Sapp. The last part of the name is appropriate, but the first initials do not seem as much so. Probably this child should have been named Adam,. This is merely a suggestion. Maybe it is too late now to make the change.
How We Reward Our Hemes
HOW we reward our heroes was pretty well illustrated in South Norwalk, Connecticut, in February, when that city’s outstanding figure of the World War, Oscar Johnson, who won the Distinguished Service Cross and the Croix de Guerre in France and was cited for bravery by the governments of England and Belgium, starved to death in the barn of a coal yard. As soon as it was known that he was dead all the flags in the city were flown at half-mast and he was given a. wonderful funeral, •which no doubt he enjoyed very much.
Only in the Morning of Unemployment
Lozier, of Missouri, in a startling speech in the House says, very truthfully, “We are in the morning dawn of a long period of unemployment, and not in the evening twilight.” He thinks that five years from now Congress will still be wrestling ineffectually with this unemployment problem. He is quite right. Only God himself, and Jesus Christ His King and executive, will ever straighten out the economic tangle of earth’s affairs which is now rapidly, not slowly, twisting itself into a Gordian knot.
Taking What They Can Get
Senator Reed of Pennsylvania names twenty-two physicians, medical directors, medical officers, clinical directors, medical supervisors, medical members, consultants, regional dental officers, chief surgical service and other persons connected with the veterans’ bureau each one of whom is receiving a full regular salary of not less than $5,000 a year and each one of whom, is receiving a disability pay of not less than $1,500 a year in addition to his salary. Meantime some of the real heroes of the war are.being paid not one cent.
This Preacher Knew His Onions
A LADY subscriber in Kansas writes us of an experience at a funeral. ’A’ child had passed aw’ay, the daughter of a niece. At the funeral a “frog” croaked from the text, “And a little child shall lead them.” Of course nothing whatever that would throw any light on the text, or any other text, was uttered in the palaver that followed. But custom requires certain formalities.
After the croaking was all over, recognizing the lady above mentioned as one of the Bible Students, but not knowing she was a relative, the blind-eyed rooster that had been airing his voice came up and said, “You must not go ahead of the mourners.” Barely restraining a smile the lady informed him of her relationship to the deceased. Nothing abashed, the empty popcorn bag said, “Well, don’t go ahead of the hearse. I will lead this procession.”
Then the lady wrote us a note about the matter and said that, thinking it all over, it is quite fitting that the preachers should head the funeral processions, and even go in front of the hearse, as is the custom, inasmuch as it is their father the Devil that has led the human family, to the grave. So it is apparent that the preacher knew his onions, after all.
Where the Money Is
IN ITS opening paragraph, describing a convention, the New York Times said: “Celebrating what was described as the most successful year in the history of the trust business, more than 400 members of the trust company division of the American Bankers Association met yesterday in the opening session of their twelfth annual midwinter conference in the Hotel Commodore.” Trust company operations showed advances along practically every line during 1930. The interest game is squeezing the life-blood out of the people, and the trust companies inevitably reap the benefits, financially.
No Scriptures to Sack It, But—
THE Gospel Publishing House, Springfield, Mo., has an “Evangel Tract No. 602”. There are no scriptures in it, not one, no need for any, and no possibility of any, but there is a fine piece of the kind of literature that has brought many a poor soul to the madhouse and turned many to atheism. Incidentally we remark that the word “gospel” means 'good news’ and the word “evangel” means 'announcer of good tidings’. And now see what the 'Announcer of Good Tidings’ puts forth as 'Good News’. If you want the truth on this subject, send 10c for Judge Rutherford’s Hell- book; but if you don’t want it, just read:
Before ma was a large lake filled with red hot coals, fire and brimstone. Millions and millions of people were burning. The air was filled with their cries of agony and distress. Some were throwing their hands up in bewilderment, “Water! water!” they cried.
Some were so badly burnt the cooked flesh was just hanging on by the thread of skin. Their hair was burnt off. Their eyes were those of crazy people. Even the bones were burnt. Many of the people were charred black, they had burnt so long. “We are lost, we are lost,” was the cry. “Tell my brother, tell my daughter,” were other cries. “Oh, my God, save me, save me, give me another chance, ’ ’ but by the look on their wretched faces they knew’ they ■were doomed.
and w’oraen, old- and young, were suffering intense pain. The air was filled 'with cries of agony and distress. Millions and millions were suffering.
The World Must Disarm
HE world must disarm: so says Mr. Arthur Henderson, Britain’s foreign minister. Mr.
Henderson thinks that if the new disarmament conference now under way be not a success it may conceivably be the world’s last chance. He adds, “The present situation cannot definitely continue. Europe today is as full of difficult problems as it was five years ago, and it is in disarmament that the key of the peaceful solutions of these problems can be found. We are obliged to end the international chaos of the past, but rve cannot make cur new world order come to life unless we disarm.”
Shall the Cows Be Killed?
EFERRING to the proposition of the Farm Board that every tenth cow should be killed so as to cut down the nation’s milk supply, William E. McEwen, editor of the Labor World, wonders, over the radio, if it would not be better to give the surplus milk to America’s starving babies. Seems not a bad idea. Suppose half of our babies were starving, would it be sense to kill off half our cows, because there is no profitable market for the milk? Suppose nine-tenths of them were starving, should we kill off nine-tenths of the coavs? We have some great statesmen in this country.
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