Golden Age, May 13, 1931
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Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF 'E AND_ COURAGE
in this issue TELEVISION CASTIGATION OF AMERICA PARABLE OF THE WATER TANK ' WASTE AND POVERTY
' THE ALUMINUM PROBLEM
GARDEN OF DESOLATION LIBERTY IN LIBERIA THE CREATOR’S PROVISION FOR THE PEOPLE
smomosmMOOMimwwaimmHmmgmmmmMsmi every other WEDNESDAY
five cents a copy one dollar a year Canada & Foreign 1.25
Vol. XII - No. 304
May ,(3? 1931
CONTENTS
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
Unemployment Bound to Grow . 520
Welfare Agencies Ask for Help . 522
The Parable of the Water Tank 525
AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY
Rice Growing in California . . . 519
Producing Rubber in California . 519
Range for Caribou in Isle Royale 520
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
New Coinage ........ 519
Prohibition as Cause of Crime , 520
Six Dollars a Bushel for Bye . . 520
Crime Business in St. Louis . . 521
Chicago Movie Censorship . . . 521
From the Korean Press .... 532
KDKA at Cresson Sanitarium . . 538
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
219 Directors Do It All . . , . 519
384,000 Road Hogs ..... 522
About Railroad Passes .... 537
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
A Castigation of America . . . 518
Raton Owns Its Light Plant . . 519
General Assembly of Pennsylvania 521
Martial Law in Cuba .' . . . ‘ . 523
Wholesale Management of
Retail Stores C ...... 523
Clerk Hire in Washington . . . 524 . Wanton Waste and Pitiful
Poverty ........ 529
Liberty to Preach in Siberia . . 538
SCIENCE AND INVENTION
Getting Ready for Television . 515
Europe Making Structural Glass 520
The Radio Teletype ..... 521
First Work at Hoover Dam . . 524
HOME AND HEALTH
100.000 Injured in Bathrooms . 521
U.S.A. Pneumonia Death Rate . 523
Nick Longworth Is Dead . . . 528
Mental Health and Sanity . . 530
An Outline of Osteopathy . . . 531 A Cheap and Good Baking Powder 532 “About the Aluminum Problem” 533 “Cardlic Trouble” Killed Him . 534
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
Nature's Garden of Desolation . 535
Extracts from Interesting Letters...... . 539
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
To Make Whoopee in Choir . . 529
Prayed to the Infant Jesus . . 539
The Creator’s Provision foe the
People ......... 540
Big Business Broadcasts Religion 543
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, CZ/ie Golden Age
Volume XII Brooklyns No Y.s Wednesday, May 13, 1931 Humfeer 304
Getting Ready for Television
EVERY few days a newspaper states that radio station so-and-so is getting ready to broadcast television programs, and the public takes it all as a matter of course without even faintly comprehending all that is taking place in the field of science and that must take place before such a marvel can occur.
■ Events are moving too swiftly in the television field for us to gain a very clear idea of what is happening. No doubt some of our subscribers are experts in that field. If so, they will please be patient while wTe try to tell our readers something about an art that is developing before our eyes with lightning-like rapidity.
Few* ever stop to think about the billions of television systems that the Creator has in operation throughout the earth. That is what an eye really is. Only, instead of a presently cumbrous system of 2,500 wires, it has more than a million nerve fibers, each of which carries light impulses to the brain. The result is that we see vv’hat happens at a distance.
In motion pictures the eye is deceived. Pictures, one “still” or fixed view, then another view’, and another, are presented before the eye so fast that the rapid succession of the many view’s seemingly forms one view- and the impression of motion is obtained. The same thing happens in television, which is a series of spots of light flashing on and off, but each spot maintains its effect on the eye long enough for the brain to comprehend them as an organized picture. ...
Television naturally divides itself into many fields, still life in black and white, still life in colors, moving scenes in black and white, moving scenes in colors, moving scenes synchronized with sound, and combinations of these. Each of these fields presents great problems if sent over a wire, and still greater problems if sent by radio.
It was found in 1873 that selenium changes its resistance when light rays fall upon it. This discovery has stirred inventors all over the world, because it opens the door to translating light values into electric currents, the same as is done with sound, both over the telephone and over the radio.
What Television Is
Television is the transmission of a picture a dot at a time. Did you ever take a coin, place a sheet of paper over it, and rub it with the butt end of a lead pencil ? Little by little you get the picture which is on the coin transferred to the paper. That is what television does.
With a point of light successive parallel lines are drawn across a picture until the whole is covered. This is done at the rate qf 50,000 light points a second. Each dot is in its exact place. There cannot be an error of one hundred-thousandth part of a second in time of sending.
The lines and colors and contours cause variations in the brightness of the spots they reflect. By means of the photo-electric cell, these variations are turned into variations of electrical current. This current is amplified five quadrillion times before it is strong enough for the work required. The current is a flying picture. Every change in volume is a feature of a scene or portrait. The receiving apparatus reverses the process.
It is only four years since the picture of Mr. Hoover was televised from Washington to New York and the president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company looked him in the eye as he talked with him. Europe claims to be two years ahead of America in television development. .
The picture to be televised is divided into 2,500 sections, each section of which is visited by the light pencil about eighteen times a second. At the receiving end are 2,500 wires connected with that many squares of tinfoil. When the fragment of a picture reaches one square of
tinfoil if leaps from the tinfoil to a wire through neon gas, and the flash is strong or feeble according to the light or shadow on one particular part of the scene. These tiny flashes build up the picture on the screen.
Up to June, 1930, a television receiving apparatus would fill a good-sized bathroom, and required an operator to regulate the apparatus of sight and sound. To maintain it in a home one would have to pay for about 35 telephones. Since that time the television receiver is said to have been much simplified and can now be housed in a cabinet about 3 feet wide, 2 feet high and 1 foot thick.
The best that can be done so far is crude, but the public seems perfectly confident that perfection, or substantial perfection, is ahead, and those able to speak with some knowledge of what they are talking about expect that in five years the ordinary citizen’s eye may be carried from his home all over the country as his ears are now.
Incidentally (and here is something for Dad to worry about), the radio receiving set. and the television receiving set. will probably have to be separate, because sound broadcasts employ long-wave channels, while television images travel on short waves.
The Theater First
Television programs have already been broadcast to and received by theaters. In Schenectady, in June, 1930, orchestral numbers and vaudeville acts were televised by radio for a distance of over a mile. These were reproduced in images six feet scpiare which were readily visible to the entire audience.
At first it was thought that it would be necessary for television actors to carefully paint eyebrows and lips, and that only persons with strong faces could be used in the scenes, but it is claimed that this is no longer required. The first sight-sound dramatic production wras televised in January of this year. Everything possible was done to exclude noise. The actors played in their stocking-feet.
Facsimile transmission of photographs, pictures, drawings, typewritten documents or manuscripts may now be had between important cities of England, France and Germany, and a regular service has been established between England and Germany. The Germans are also transmitting weather maps to planes in flight, and maps of emergency airports may also be transmitted to aviators while they are on the wing.
In May, 1930, John Hays Hammond announced that his engineers had made an application of television to the airplane which enables the pilot to actually visualize the scene below him on a screen placed ahead of him in the cockpit/and this regardless of fogs or storms or darkness. According to the account, the aviator sees a speck moving across a map, indicating his exact position. An arrow pointing from the speck indicates the direction in which he is flying, another arrow his altitude, and another the wind velocity.
In April, 1930, it was announced that twoway telephone television is now possible, the head and shoulders of each speaker being visible to the other. A special booth is necessary for this. Instead of the familiar mouthpiece one talks through a microphone which, however, is out of sight. The conversation seems to be addressed direct to the image, which is about like that of a person ten or twelve feet away, and the sound is adjusted to conform to that impression. In January, 1931, a twowvay television-telephone social affair was arranged by the Bell Telephone Laboratories for some forty women, each of whom made use of the new device.
Some &f the Problems
Distance is one of the problems that make television difficult. Although the British claim that their telephone system is the best in the world, the lines were not made for carrying electrical frequencies as high as are required for television, and thus a difficulty of mechanization is presented.
Photography is not up to the requirements. Today it is impossible to take pictures of every minute of a football game; and if the pictures cannot be taken at all, then certainly they cannot be televised. It is likewise impossible to take a film of an ordinary stage performance, because of inadequate light.
When it comes to televising by radio, there are the problems of static and fading. As one of the television experimenters puts it, “To send television images through space today is like expecting a brook to run through a populous area clear and uncontaminated.”
When television goes into the homes it is expected that most of the broadcasts will be made from films. That may be some years away yet. C. AV. Horn, radio engineer, says, “The present state of development of image broadcasting I do not believe to be any nearer real television than that well known old-fashioned booklet composed of a number of drawings, each a little different from the other, is to our motion pictures today.”
At first the television images were very small. Those in color, when first made, were only about the size of a postage stamp. Gradually the size has grown until now televised action can be projected on screens of the same size used for motion pictures. The faces that travel through space are also becoming clearer.
Referring to possibilities for the future the General Electric Company bulletin says: “You can put an electric eye wherever you wish and you can see through this eye just as if you were there. An airplane with a news reporter will fly to see whatever is of interest, and the whole theater audience will be with him, seeing what he sees, and yet the audience will be perfectly safe and comfortable.”
The Federal Radio Commission has set aside five specific bands of frequencies in the shortwave spectrum for television experimentation. Each of these is 100 kilocycles wide, or ten times the width of the ordinary broadcast channel. One of them is shared with Canada.
Television in Colors
Three groups of photo-electric cells are used for color television, one covered with red felts, one with green and one with blue. Colored television has been by wire, but could be employed by radio if separate wave lengths were used for each color. It is still a one-way affair. It was first demonstrated at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York, June 27, 1929.
In August, 1929, a talking film was transmitted by television in London. The televising of a film was also done in Berlin. The Baird Television Development Company of London, managed by John L. Baird, a Scotsman, is. playing an important part in the development of the art. Mr. Baird has shown pictures two feet by five feet. His screen is of ground glass behind which are over two thousand small bulbs. It is these bulbs which, “lighted” in turn, reproduce each an element of the visual image they together build up.
Scores of engineers are working feverishly at the television problems, in all parts of the world. They know that when it is perfected it is going to be exceedingly valuable to advertisers, who will pay most of the cost of what is broadcast.
It is claimed that for months there has been an uninterrupted two-way 24-hour-a-day television test between New York and the plants of the Television Laboratories, Inc., of California, and that these people have a tube development which makes television on a commercial scale immediately practicable. It is further said that they will make television sets for the home which will cost about $600 each. It is also said that it will be possible to broadcast but. five television programs at one time and that the company is now buying up control of 51 percent of the broadcasting stations utilizing the five vital bands used in television work.
There are at present twenty-four licensed television stations, and seven under construction. Regular daily visual broadcasts were begun February 23, 1931, by the De Forest superstation, W2XCD, at Passaic, N. J., with a nationwide television audience of more than 10,000 receivers. That looks as if television was coming, does it not? Selfridge’s department store in London has opened a department for the sale of television experimental apparatus.
What of the Future?
For fifteen years radio .was merely an auxiliary of navigation. Now look at it. In 1915 nobody ever imagined the present uses of radio. Twenty-five years ago Prof. Ayrton said, “The clay will come when, with an electric voice, you will be able to call your friend in any part of the world.” Today that is an accomplished fact. Radio telephony is a world-wide service.
In 1922 George Bernard Shaw had on the stage a play showing a scene in the British Isles in A.D. 2170. The president of the republic turned a dial and on the screen saw the dainty bedroom of the handsome Negress who was minister of health in his cabinet. He apologized for the intrusion. That was only nine years ago, and today the thing is possible. Indeed, Dr. Furse, bishop of St. Albans, recently said, jokingly, “I view with great trepidation'the coming of the day when by television my morning ablutions will be reflected on the screen in New Yorii for the entertainment of the American public.” There is much yet to be done and much to be overcome. Pictures must be made larger and clearer, and receiving apparatus must be made
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fool-proof, and all these things will take time, but it is certain that the time will come when living pictures, taken in broad daylight, will roam the air, accompanied with music or words or both, and in colors, ready to be picked up for the entertainment and education of man where-ever he may chance to live.
Without a doubt in the world the "princes in all the earth” will have at their hand, all ready for their use, all the apparatus they will require wherewith to direct the affairs of earth, and it is all coming about in a way so simple and natural as to ‘deceive, if it were possible, even the very elect’. Many men give all the credit for these marvels to the wisdom of men, not seeing the great truth that they are in very deed and in very truth the hand of God preparing the earth for the perfect administration of truth and justice and wisdom and love in the Kingdom we now announce as begun.
A Castigation of America By Samuel Unlermyer
[From an address before the Los Angeles University Club]
«miIEEE comes a time when some one should undertake as a public duty this wholesome and ungrateful task.
“Ours is the veritable paradise of the demagogue and ignoramus in public life. Our standards of public service are so perverted that true statesmanship rarely dares assert itself if it runs counter to the public delusion of the moment.
“I venture to assert that on the whole a more generally untrained body of national, state and local legislators and one of lower intellectual standards is not to be found in any civilized country on earth.
“The anti-trust laws of today are, in a less sensational way, as much of a reproach to our administration of justice as the prohibition law, which has failed of its purpose and proved an overwhelming disaster. Monopolies have now accumulated and buried their tentacles so deeply into our economic life that any genuine attempt now made to enforce those laws would lead to a cataclysm in the business and financial world. The truth is that the influence of these great law-breakers, exerted on one administration after another, has proven irresistible.
“The most vicious and demoralizing effect of the now grotesque prohibition law is that it has converted law-abiding citizens by the millions into hypocrites and potential criminals. It should be wiped from the statute books with as little delay as possible if we are to rescue a vestige of our self-respect in the eyes of the world. By every rule of a moral code, a purveyor of liquor is no more a criminal than is the buyer.
“The anti-trust laws constitute another of our economic follies which we persist in retaining upon the statute books.
“The Sherman law has been on the statute books for over forty years. Spasmodic and unequal efforts at enforcement in isolated cases have served only to demonstrate that the powerful offenders against the law are stronger than the courts or the government, and so for every violator who has been prosecuted hundreds, perhaps thousands, have cropped up and are now operating and growing stronger and stronger in open defiance of the law.
“The only serious attempts at enforcement have been in the assaults on organized labor, to which the law was never intended to apply.
“The greed of the power trusts is shaking at the very foundations of government. We have the most striking instance of this desperate, unequal struggle at the moment in my own State of New York between Governor Roosevelt and the most formidable power trust on earth.
“'A struggle is raging in Congress and all over the country between government and these fabulous and perilous power combinations that are spreading their poisonous tentacles all over the land, undermining and shaking the very foundations of government. The evils of the industrial trusts that have conquered us, as compared with the operations and effects of this form of legalized banditry, are ‘as moonlight unto sunlight and as water unto wine’. Is their conquest to be added to the long list of America’s follies? We shall see.”
New Coinage
Improved Air Service to Boston
TT IS now possible every two hours from 9:15 a. m. to 7:15 p. m. to go from New York to Boston. The trip takes two hours and includes a stop at Hartford. There has been a service from New York to Washington every hour, on the hour, for some time.
Blood Sellers in New York
ACCORDING to the health authorities there are now 8,000 persons in New York who are trying to make a living by selling their blood for transfusion purposes. The number is three times what it was a year ago. The hard times are offered as an explanation. The blood sellers must be licensed.
Land Owners and the Red Cross
CRITICS have noticed that the large land owners of Arkansas are chiefly the ones holding the highest positions in the Red Cross organization, and that the common people now on the verge of starvation because of the unfavorable conditions under ■which they have worked in years past are now actually dependent for life itself upon those to whom they owe most of their miseries.
Wpes Off $400 a Family in 1930
OWING to unemployment the wage bill of the United States fell off 21. 5 percent in 1930, or a total for the country of $9,600,000,000. This figures out about $400 a year for every family in the country. What would your family have done if they had had $400 more to spend last year ? The money would have been expended for necessities, comforts and conveniences, and business would have been good.
Inefficiency of Efficiency Experts
A WRITER in TNT tells of a concern paying workers $3.30 a day. Two efficiency experts were put on to stpdy the men, one at $150 a week, the other at $90. In due time the workers were all put on piece rates which made it necessary for them to work at top speed to make $2.50 a day. The result was that in three months’ time every experienced man was off the job. ..The efficiency experts had ruined the job for everybody.
21S Railway Directors Do It 'All
TJRACTICALLY ail the railroads in the
United States are run by 219 directors, all associated with the big financial groups. These directors hold 2,298 directorships on the fifteen most important railroads in the country.
Must Curtail Wheat Production
nPHE Federal Farm Board has warned that -*• wheat production must be cut 25 percent or government stabilization operations cannot continue. Meantime there are millions of hungry in the great country of China and all around the globe who need the food which America can so well supply. And there are hungry people in America too, lots of them.
Rice Growing in Northern California
THE banner rice-growing district of the United States is now in Butte county, northern California. The district contains 18,000 acres, and is fertilized and planted by airplane, the fertilizer used being ammonia sulphate. The harvest runs about 40 sacks pf grain to the acre, 100 pounds to the sack. The growers have recently bought for $500,000 the irrigation system they have been using for several years.
Producing Rubber in California
FOB many years Mexico has made rubber from the guayule (gwy-oo-lay) weed. This weed has now been acclimated in California, 6,000 acres of it are growing near Salinas, and in season 15,000 pounds are gathered daily. The rubber is turned out in 200-pound blocks only four hours after harvesting. If prices are unattractive the plant can be left growing in tire ground for another year.
Raton Owns Its Light Plant
RATON, New Mexico, owns its own lighting plant and is glad that it does. Last year, after paying all expenses, including interest on bonds, the city had a net profit of $35,358.68. All this money, and more too, would have gone to the Wall Street crowd if the people of Raton had been willing to heed the cries of purchased college professors and bought newspapers. The Power Trust tried to get the plant, but the people of Raton were too well posted.
West Virginia Miners 'Ask State Relief
WEST VIRGINIA miners have sent a deputation to the governor of their state asking for an appropriation by the state to keep them from starving. They claim that their present distress is due not only to the depressed conditions of the coal industry but to inadequate -wages to those employed.
Unele Sam Will Pay Fair Wages
ANEW law provides that on -work for Uncle
Sam, if the contract runs to more than $5,000, the wages paid by contractors must be the prevailing rate in the locality in which the work is done. The final determination as to what is the prevailing rate is to rest with the secretary of labor.
Noise Abatement in New York
GRADUALLY the Noise Abatement Commis
sion is accomplishing results in New York and the city is becoming noticeably a better place in which to live. The manufacturers of auto-horns have been prevailed upon to produce a less objectionable type; the number of outdoor loud-speakers has been reducedj the vessels in the harbor are not so noisy. This is all much appreciated.
Prohibition as a Cause of Crime
IN New York city the Wickersham investigators found that 93 percent of all criminal cases were connected with the prohibition law or its attempted evasion. It has been found in both New York and Chicago that racketeering begins by collecting from beer runners and speakeasy proprietors and ends by collecting from every business that can be intimidated.
Six Dollars a Bushel for Rye
SIX dollars a bushel for rye I You mean sixty cents, do you not? No I Rye flour, when it is macle into bread, sells in Chicago and Minneapolis for six dollars a bushel of its flour content.' But what does the rye sell for before it is made into flour and then into bread ? Oh, on the future market it is selling for 40c a bushel. That is quite a difference, between $6.00 a bushel and 40c a bushel, is it not? Yes, a difference of $5,60. Who gets the difference ? Ask the man who gets it, not us.
Range for Caribou in Isle Royals
LOVERS of nature will be glad to know that
the largest island in Lake Superior, Isle Royale, is to be made into a national park in which 400 caribou, 2,000 moose, and other wild animals can range perpetually through primeval forests and among some of the prettiest little lakes on the continent.
1931 a Good Year for Radio
RADIO reception this year is counted as two to five times as good as a year previous, and is still improving. The difference is due to absence of spots on the sun, and it is anticipated that radio reception will continue to improve until the spring of 1933, when it is due to begin to go the other way while the sun spots are coming' back into prominence.
Europe Now Making Structural Glass
EUROPE is now’ making structural glass bricks and building blocks, and they have been used in the construction of a railway station and an aii'plane hangar. The building blocks are in. vacuum form, effecting some heat and sound insulation. These blocks have recently been imported for some jobs in New York and one in the Middle West.
Old Age Pensions in Salt Lake County
IN SALT LAKE county, Utah, charity payments were $4,000 less than during the year previous. This is most unusual, in view of the general increase of 45 percent the country over. The reason assigned is that they have old age pensions in Salt Lake county, and the old age pension tends to keep people going on their owm resources who would otherwise give up the fight.
Unemployment Sound to Grow
IF PRESENT most efficient methods of operation were everywhere in use 25,000 blast furnace workers could be laid off, and so could 247,000 sawmill w’orkers, 330,000 coal miners, 119,000 boot and shoe workers, and 4,600,000 farmers and farm laborers. Present conditions are bound to force greater efficiency in all these businesses. Hours of labor must go down and wages must go up if general prosperity is to return. Otherwise, unemployment is bound to increase.
Revival of Hebrew in Palestine s
ONE of the world’s most interesting experiments in philology is the revival of ancient Hebrew in Palestine. The Bureau of Jewish Education now maintains nine afternoon schools where all the studies are in the original Hebrew. Songs are sung, games are played and plays are staged in the tongue of Abraham, and it xvi.ll not be long now before he will be in 'Palestine himself to enjoy it all.
Crime Business in St. Louis •
THE crime business in St. Louis is getting down to a fine art. In May the Grand National Bank was looted of $822,000 worth of bonds. After nine months the bonds were returned through a bondihg company for a reward of $140,000. Neither the St. Louis police nor the 'district attorney knows who the robbers are or the intermediaries through whom the loot was returned. Clearly this is compounding a felony and encouraging crime.
Facts About the Hard Times
Y MEANS of a questionnaire sent out to 127. municipal officials The Nation has ascertained that, in spite of continued optimism at Washington, unemployment continues to increase, that pay rolls have been slashed, that private charity is unable to cope with the present emergency, that public vrorks construction has proven inadequate to relieve the unemployment strain, and that few public men have any idea at all as to how to deal with the problems of unemployment and relief. They are at their wits’ end.
The General Assembly of Pennsylvania
usjice Kephart, of Philadelphia, gives an illuminating picture of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania at Harrisburg. He says:
Human whips are on guard to make certain, that no legislation freeing the people from taxes or oppressive laws be enacted. Hypocritical crooks claiming to represent the religious and moral forces of the community are naught but sacerdotal blackmailers who represent none but senile old fossils long removed from pulpits. These grafters have driven millions of men out of the churches, and now, from the pulpit, comes the universal cry for men in the pews, but no men respond and none will so long as the church is used as a ballyhoo for grafting fakers pretending to speak with authority for the religious and moral forces of the community.
Junkers Freight Car of the Air
COHERE are 28 cubic yards of space in the freight section of the Junkers special plane now building. It is calculated that three tons of freight can be carried, besides passengers. If one of these planes, when it is well loaded, hits a man’s house from about a mile in the air there will be no need for wrecking crews or undertakers. Everything will disappear beneath the cellar floor.
100,000 Injured in Bathrooms
THE facts seem to show that the bathroom is one of the most dangerous things with which we come in contact. Every year 100,000 persons are overcome and drowned, after eating a heavy meal and then taking a bath too soon afterward, or by touching electric fixtures while bathing, or by going to sleep and drowning, or by being scalded, or by stepping- on wet soap, or by heart shock from jumping suddenly into a tub of cold water.
The Radio Teletype
THE teletype which, a few months ago, we were told could transmit and receive messages over the telegraph wire, the service in both directions being by typewriter, has now been applied to the radio, and the sending set is said to weigh less than 20 pounds. The statement is made that with multiple variations in shortwave radio impulses, every owner of a sending and receiving apparatus can be independent of all others, and that such connections can be made as to prevent any other owner from cutting in on messages sent by another person.
Chicago Movie Censorship
IN ONE year the Chicago censorship board eliminated from motion pictures 1811 scenes of assault with guns with intent to kill, 175 scenes of assault with knives with intent to kill, 129 scenes of assault with other weapons, 231 scenes of hanging, 173 scenes of horror, as clawing out eyes and biting off ears, 757 scenes of attacks on women for immoral purposes, 929 scenes of nudity and semi-nudity, and 31 scenes of jail-breaking. And look at what they left in! In one year the Chicago censorship board made 6,470 cuts from films in the effort to eliminate much tending to incite to crime, or indecency, or obscenity, or immorality.
Jfan Not So Much Stronger
AI THE moment of birth 100 boys ’die to every 80 girls. In infancy 50 boys die to every 41 girls. At 50 years of age half the males are dead, while of the females half are still living at 57. In India, trained for the work, the women are said to carry or haul as much as two men. Woman has greater fortitude against pain, and lives on where a man gives up and dies. The women are not so weak as the men think they are.
Children of Mexican Parents Starving
MUCH of the farm and railroad and other heavy work of the South and West is done by Mexican labor, which is not overpaid for the work it does. For the past year or more work has been scarce and these poor laborers have not been able to provide food for their loved ones. The situation came to a head at El Eio school, near Oxnard, California, when a child fainted from starvation and an investigation disclosed that many of the children in the school, mainly of Mexican parentage, were in the same condition.
Spiritism over the Radio
REFERRING to the wave of astrology, necromancy, palmistry and kindred subjects which has recently been flooding the ether from multitudes of radio stations, a writer in the New York American says: “With prosperity, people let go of superstition, but in adversity they grasp for any straw, like the proverbial drowning man. The minute disaster comes many sensible men and women are attracted by the mysticisms of the savage. In times of stress civilization shows it has progressed very little from ancient necromancy.”
Insurance Business the Next to G&
HE insurance business is to be the next to go the way of all other business. Sears, Roebuck &> Company have organized a new company that will undertake the selling of automobile insurance, to be followed later by other lines. As a starter they propose to sell automobile insurance at 20 percent less than other companies, and that will be bad news to many in the insurance business. One by one all businesses necessarily gravitate toward the one ultimate business, and nothing can stop this centralizing process. In the end the Lord will own that business and operate it for the benefit of the people.
384,000 Road Hogs
WE DO not say that among the 25,000,000 automobile drivers in the United States there are only 384,000 road hogs, but there is no doubt that there are at least that many. That is the number of persons who caused automobile wrecks last year by refusing to give the right of way to the car that should have had it, or who exceeded the speed limit, or who drove on the wrong side of the road to the injury and damage and death of others.
New York Welfare Agencies Ask for Help
ONE THOUSAND representatives of welfare and relief agencies of New York city have asked the city administration to appropriate $10,000,000 to provide jobs for unemployed heads of families. The resolution, which was voted unanimously, stated that the number of idle and part-time workers in the city is equivalent to 750,000 totally unemployed. The $8,000,000 given by private citizens and corporations has been exhausted.
Power of Flowers
CINCINNATI recently had a National Flower and Garden Show. A million flowers were on display: tens of thousands of school children came to see the exhibits; not a flower was stolen. Crime among florists is almost nonexistent. Here is a good point for criminologists. A man may be helped by being put to raising flowers; he is not much helped by being locked behind iron bars and made to associate with the outcasts of society. The Biblical plan of a city of refuge for misdoers was far better than the idea of dungeons and iron bars could ever be. The city of refuge gave the misdoer a chance.
$200 Coffin for a Monkey
LONDON dispatch states that in that metropolis a highly trained monkey named Dodo was buried in a coffin costing $200. And then the dispatch was mean enough to add, “’Chicago papers, please copy.” Now, isn’t that mean? The only chance a Chicago racketeer has to be decent or to make any kind of showing that will really appeal to magistrates, detectives and others with whom he has associated is at his funeral, and nowr the Londoners want to put him in competition with their dead monkeys. How discouraging a thing like this must be to even the vice king himself I
Marital Law in Cuba
UBA is practically under martial law most of the time of late; The president, Machado, first had his term lengthened to six years, and then was reelected for a like term. His concern supplies ail food for hospitals, penitentiaries, army, navy, and has a monopoly on flour and bread. Requests have been made to him to resign. Students and newspapers consider him a menace’ to the well-being of the country. Troops are used to put down every expression of discontent. The troops are paid regularly and treated well. The money to pay them comes from Wall Street. These items are the gist of an article in The Nation on the subject.
Wholesale Management &f Retail Stores
TN THE wise effort to keep from being swal--*• lowed alive by the chain stores some wholesale concerns today are hooking up with large numbers of independent grocers, teaching them how to keep their stores clean and well lighted, their windows trimmed, their stock in order, and how to advertise. These independent merchants may have uniform signs, but on each sign is the name of the proprietor. The retailer still owns his store, and the wholesaler still has his own business. Such a development is taking place in New York among the colored merchants of Harlem. There are already twenty-five members in the Colored Merchants’ Association, including two model stores.
Stealing Cattle Wholesale
THE old-style cattle rustler drove his cattle away on foot and, when he was caught, argued the matter out with his gun. Times have greatly improved. By the new method twenty-five or thirty head are picked up, put on a high-poriered motor truck, and the next morning are disposed of at a market that is far away. But all this is crude as compared with the beautiful hold-up job that is being done by the Power Trust. What are even twenty-five or thirty head of cattle, stolen only once in a while, as compared with taking regular monthly tribute from millions of people, charging them thirty times the cost of the current they consume, and then' even having the nerve to increase the rates to the poor and lower them to the rich under the various service charge, room charge, or outlet charge schemes that have been evolved as instruments of oppression of their fellow men?
Fann Board’s Loan to the Grape Growers WE ARE not complaining about the Farm
Board's loan of $20,000,000 to the grape growers of California, nor to the plan under which these growers sell their grape concentrates throughout the country with a guarantee that they will develop a ‘kick’ or the money will be refunded. Anybody can see that the growers of wine grapes have got to be helped or go out of business. And if the government wants to get its money back it must help them market their product, which, by the way, produces wines rating 20 percent alcohol. The government is putting up a wonderful fight on this prohibition, question, yes.
Too Many Lutheran Ministers
THE Lutheran church has come out definitely and stated that there are too many Lutheran ministers. We .knew it all along. Not only that, but there are too many Methodist ministers, too many Baptist ministers, too many Presbyterian ministers, too many Catholic priests, too many nuns, too much of all this kind of thing altogether. But there are not too many Christians. The Lutherans that are now being ousted from the ministry, or from the chance of getting into it, can take heart. In the ministry they would be of no use to their fellow7 men. They would only be a drawback. History has proved that. But as plain Christians they might be helpful to somebody.
U. S. A- Pneumonia Death Rate
REFERRING- to the fact that the United
States army lost 45,000 men by pnemnonia in 1918, Dr. Wilbur J. Murphy, M.D., in The Open Door for February, 1931, said:
The high death rate is due to the serum treatment of the disease, which burdens the kidneys with a toxemia that the pneumonia patient can not survive. If the patient with pneumonia were treated by measures that open up all the avenues of elimination, and individual symptoms were overcome by rational means, the disease would spend itself and the death rate would be 3 percent instead of 45 percent. Those who uphold and recommend the absurdities of serums and vaccines, uphold vivisection; and, as these products’ are bad from the start, they cannot become good in any branch of this debauchery of present-day medicine. I know of no other influence than Anti-Vivisection that is shedding light upon their failures, and there is a calm and great satisfaction that the just criticisms of their departures from sound medical practice continue to fall on fertile soil.
First Work at Hoover Dam
THE first work at Hoover Dam, the laying out of a construction camp, is under way, and by midsummer work will be begun on the construction of a double-track railway line from Las Vegas, Nevada, to the site of the dam. Most of this railway, which will be a hard-worked line until the dam, 727 feet high, has been constructed, will be carved out of the side of the canyon. It will be partly tunnel almost all the way from Las Vegas to the dam. After the railway has been built, the next big job will be the construction of the four diversion tunnels which will keep the 'water of the river off the site of the dam until it is finally let in behind the completed structure. There are already more workmen at Las Vegas than can find work on the job.
Hurrah for John Goodhouse, Justice!
ohx Goodhouse, Indian justice of the peace, in South Dakota, engaged in combat with a
white neighbor. After it was all over, and he had had time to think about it, he held court, fined himself $10, which he paid, and sentenced himself to thirty days in jail, which he served. What a splendid example he sets to the magistrates of New York city 1 If a lot of them would sentence themselves to Sing Sing as fourth offenders the city would be better off. And they could take some of the police with them, to advantage, especially those framers of innocent women and whoever it was that strangled the witness against them, Vivian Gordon, and incidentally caused her innocent daughter to commit suicide through shame. '
Clerk Hire in Washington
IT SEEMS that congressmen at Washington seem to find it very convenient to have near relatives as clerks. Thus, the daughter of one congressman, down on the records as clerk of the House, receives a salary of $3,900, but while she was getting this she was traveling in Europe. Another congressman, a millionaire, has a boy in ‘West Point and a daughter in Vassar, each of whom is on the government’s pay roll as clerk. The crooks anywhere will have to go some to beat that record. A Western congressman, a committee chairman, has on the pay roll a son, a daughter, and a nephew, and their combined salaries are $5,900. A Southern congressman has had $16,000 paid to his father, although he has never been in 'Washington. A further sample of some of the statesmanship at Washington lies in the fact that at the end of sessions of Congress some of these solons fire their clerks and turn over the clerk allowance to wives* daughters, sons or other relatives.
Thinking in Oregon
IT IS dangerous to read or think in Oregon.
Mike Kulikoff, eighteen-year-old schoolboy, was found reading books by Lenin. They not being able to send him back to Russia, he was rushed to jail, fingerprinted, and the next day, with no lawyer present on his behalf, the judge and a physician pronounced him insane, leaving the cause of insanity blank. He was again handcuffed and was then rushed to an insane asylum fifty miles away, where he was at last reports. The boy had never been in any trouble before; he had never committed any acts of force or violence; he had always attended school regularly ; and he had always lived at home. But he had been reading hooks not approved by some Oregon residents, and probably he had been thinking thoughts they would not approve, also. Now he is in the same 'ward with about fifty insane men, where he can continue thinking how crazy this world is.
Would Be Willing to Take Half
RADIO station has turned over to us a copy of a letter from a “Reverend” who signed himself with the initials B.A., M.A. and B.D. after his name. He asks for an audience of 100 physically blind, deaf, dumb, diseased, crippled or crazy, and says: “From my body, mind and spirit I can heal every ill person in the world who will tune in and cherish a dominant desire for satisfaction or health.”
It would take a page and a half of The Golden 'Age to list all the adjectives and high-sounding phrases with which he refers to his powers to heal at a distance, but it is not until you get dorvn to the end of the letter that you realize what it is all about.
The concluding paragraph says: “1 make no charge to you or to a long expectant public. However, the people are not to be denied the privilege of making gifts, one half of which can be retained by the station.” Ah, there is modesty for you! There is generosity! The dominie would not take it all; the station could have half. And if they got only $5 apiece it would help a lot on the price of meal tickets in these hard times.
The Parable of the Water Tank
[Reprinted from The Golden Aye No.
THERE was a certain very dry land, the people whereof were in sore need of water. And they did nothing but to seek after water from morning until night, and many perished because they could not find it.
Howbeit, there were certain men in that land who were more crafty and diligent than the rest, and these had gathered stores of water where others could find none, and the name of these mem was called '‘capitalists”. And it came to pass that the people of the land came unto the capitalists and prayed them that they wmuld give them of the water they had gathered that they might drink; for their need was sore. But the capitalists answered them and said:
“Go to, ye silly people! Why should we give you of the v;ater which we have gathered? For then should wTe become even as ye are, and perish with you. But behold what we will do unto you. Be ye our servants and ye shall have water.”
And the people said, “Only give us to drink and we will be your servants, we and our children.” And it was so.
Now the capitalists were men of understanding, and wise in their generation. They ordered the people who were their servants in bands with captains and officers, and some they put at the springs to dip, and others did they make to carry the water, and others did they cause to seek for new springs. And all the water was brought together in one place, and there did the capitalists make a great tank for to hold it, and the tank was called the “Market”; for it was there that the people, even the servants of the capitalists, came to get water. And the capitalists said unto the people:
“For every bucket of water that ye bring to us, that we may pour it into the tank, which is the Market, behold! we will give you a penny; but for every bucket that we shall drawr forth to give unto you that ye may drink of it, ye and your wives and your children, ye shall give us two pennies, ’and the difference shall be our profit, seeing that if it were not for this profit ?'■:> would not do this thing for you, but ye should all perish.”
And it was good in the people’s eyes; for they were dull of understanding. And they diligently brought water unto the tank for many days; and for every bucket which they did bring, the
(From Edward Bellamy’s ‘‘Equality”)
ISO, by request]
capitalists gave them every man a penny; but for every bucket that the capitalists drew forth from the tank to give again unto the people, behold! the people rendered to the capitalists two pennies.
And after many days the water tank, which was the Market, overflowed at the top, seeing that .for every bucket the people poured in they received only so much as wmuld buy again half a. bucket. And because of the excess that ■was left of every bucket, did the tank overflow; for the people were many. But the capitalists were few, and could drink no more than others. Therefore did the tank overflow.
And when the capitalists saw that the water overflowed, they said to the people:
“See ye not the tank, which is the Market, doth overflow? Sit ye down, therefore, and be patient; for ye shall bring us no more water till the tank be empty.”
But when the people no more received the pennies of the capitalists for the water they brought, they could buy no more water from the capitalists, having naught wherewith to buy. And when the capitalists saw that they had no more profit because no man bought water of them, they were troubled. And they sent forth men in the highways, the byways, and the hedges, crying, “If any thirst let him come to the tank and buy water of us; for it doth overflow.” For they said among themselves, “Behold, the times are dull; we must advertise.”
But the people answered, saying, “How can we buy unless ye hire us, for how else shall we have wherewithal to buy? Hire ye us, therefore, as before, and we will gladly buy water, for we thirst; and ye will have no need to advertise.” But the capitalists said to the people: “Shall we hire you to bring water when the tank, which is the Market, doth already overflow? Buy ye, therefore, first water; and wflien the tank is empty, through your buying, we ■will hire yon again.” And so it was because the capitalists hired them no more to bring water that the people could not buy the water they had brought already; and because the people could not buy the water they had brought already, the capitalists no more hired them to bring water. And the saying went abroad, “It is a crisis.”
And the thirst of the people was great; for it was not now as it had been in the days of their fathers, when the land was open before them, for every one to seek water for himself, seeing that the capitalists had taken all the springs and the wells and the water therein, and the vessels and the buckets, so that no man might come by water save from the tank, which was the Market. And the people murmured against the capitalists, and said: “Behold the tank runneth over, and we die of thirst. Give us therefore of the water, that we perish not.”
But the capitalists answered: “Not so. The water is ours. Ye shall not drink thereof unless ye buy it of us with pennies.” And they confirmed it with an oath, saying, after their manner, “Business is business.”
But the capitalists were disquieted that the people bought no more water, whereby they had no more any profits; and they spake one to another, saying, “It seemeth that our profits have stopped our profits; and by reason of the profits we have made, we can make no more profits. How is it that our profits are become unprofitable to us, and our gains do make us poor? Let us therefore send for the soothsayers, that they may interpret this thing unto us”; and they sent for them.
Now, the soothsayers were men learned in dark sayings, who joined themselves to the capitalists by reason of the water of the capitalists, that they might have thereof and live, they and their children. And they spake for the capitalists: unto the people, and did embassies for them, seeing that the capitalists were not a folk quick of understanding, neither ready of speech. _
And the capitalists demanded of the soothsayers that they should interpret this thing unto them, wherefore it was that the people bought no more water of them, although the tank was full. And certain of the soothsayers answered and said, “It is by reason of overproduction”; and some said, “It is glut.” But the signification of the two words is the same. And others said, “Nay, but this thing is by reason of spots on the sun.” And yet others ansAvered, saying, “It is neither by reason of glut, nor y7et of spots on the sun, that this evil hath come to pass, but because of lack of confidence.”
And ’while the soothsayers contended among themselves, according to their manner, the men of profit did slumber and sleep; and when they awoke they said to the soothsayers: “It is enough. Ye have spoken comfortably unto us. Now go ye and speak comfortably7 likewise unto this people, so that they be at rest and leave us also in peace.”
But the soothsayers, even the men of the dismal science (for so they7 rvere named of some), were loath to go forth to the people lest they should he stoned; for the people loved them not. And they said to the capitalists:
“Masters, it is a mystery of our craft that if men be full and thirst not, but be at rest, then shall they7 find comfort in e»r speech even as ye. Yet if they thirst and be empty, find they no comfort therein, but rather mock us; for it seemeth that unless a man be full our wisdom appeareth unto him but emptiness.” But the capitalists said: “Go ye forth. Are y7e not our men to do our embassies ?”
And the soothsayers went forth to the people and expounded to them the mystery of overproduction, and how7 it was that they7 must needs perish of thirst because there was overmuch water, and how there could not bo enough because there was too much. And likewise spoke they7 unto the people concerning the sunspots, and also wherefore it was that these things had come upon them by reason of a lack of confidence. And it was even as the soothsayers had said; for to the people their wisdom seemed emptiness. And the people reviled them, saying, “Go up, ye bald-heads! Will ye mock us? Doth plenty breed famine? Doth nothing come out of much ?” And they took up stones to stone them.
And when the capitalists saw that the people still murmured and would not give ear to the soothsayers, and because also they feared lest the people should come upon the tank and take of the water by force, they7 brought forth to them certain holy men (hut they were false priests), who spake unto the people that they should be quiet and trouble not the capitalists because they thirsted. And these holy men, who were false priests, testified to the people that this affliction was sent to them of God for the healing of their souls; and that if they should bear it in patience and lust not after the water, neither trouble the capitalists, it would come to pass that after they7 had given up the ghost they7 would come to a country7 where there should be no capitalists, but an abundance of water. Howbeit, there were certain true prophets of God also; and these had compassion on the people, and would not prophecy for the capitalists, but rather spake constantly against them.
Now, when the capitalists saw that the people still murmured and would not be still, neither for the words of the soothsayers nor for those of the false priests, they came forth themselves unto them, and put the ends of their fingers into the water that overflowed in the tank and wet the tips thereof. And they scattered the drops from the tips of their fingers abroad upon the people who thronged the tank, and the name of the drops of water was "'charity”; and they were exceedingly bitter.
And when the capitalists saw yet again that neither for the words of the soothsayers, nor for those of the holy men who were false priests, nor yet for the drops that were called “charity”, would the people be still, but raged the more, and crowded upon the tank as if they would take it by force, then took they counsel together and sent men privily forth among the people. And these men sought out the mightiest among the people and all who had skill in war, and took them apart and spake craftily with them, saying,
“Come, now, why cast ye not your lot in with the capitalists? If ye will be their men and serve them against the people, that they break not in upon the tank, then ye shall have .abundance of water, that ye perish not, ye and your children,”
And the mighty men and they who were skilled in war hearkened unto this speech and suffered themselves to be persuaded; for their thirst constrained them. And they rvent within unto the capitalists and became their men; and staves and swords were put into their hands and they became a defence unto the capitalists, and smote the people when they thronged upon the tank.
And after many days the water was low in the tank; for the capitalists did make fountains and fishponds of the water thereof, and did bathe therein, they and their wives and their children, and did waste the water for their pleasure.
And when the capitalists saw that the tank was empty, they said, “The crisis is ended”; and they sent forth and hired the people that they should bring water to fill it again. And for the water that the people brought to the tank they received for every bucket a penny, but for the water which' the capitalists 'drew forth from the tank to give again to the people they received two pennies, that they might have their profit. And after a time did the tank again overflow even as before.
And now, when many times the people had filled the tank until it overflowed and had thirsted till the water therein had been wasted by the capitalists, it came to pass that there arose in the land certain men vdio were called “agitators”, for that they did stir up the people. And they spake to the people, saying that they should associate, and then would they have no need to be servants of the capitalists and should thirst no more for water. And in the eyes of the capitalists were the agitators pestilent fellows ; and they would fain have crucified them, but durst not for fear of the people.
And the words of the agitators which they spake to the people were on this wise:
“Ye foolish people, how long will ye be deceived by a lie, and believe to your hurt that which is not? For behold all these things that have been said unto you by the capitalists and by the soothsayers are cunningly devised fables. And likewise the holy men, who say that it is the will of God that ye should always be poor and miserable and athirst, behold I they do blaspheme God and are liars, whom He will bitterly judge, though He forgive all others. How cometh it that ye may not come by the water in the tank? Is it not because ye have no money? And why have ye no money? Is it not because ye receive but one penny for every bucket that ye bring to the tank, which is the Market, but must render two pennies for every bucket ye take out, so that the capitalists may have their profit? See ye not how by this means the tank must overflow, being filled by that ye lack and made to abound out of your emptiness? See ye not also that the harder ye toil, and the more diligently ye seek and bring the water, the worse and not the better it shall be for you by reason of the profit, and that forever?”
After this manner spake the agitators for many days unto the people, and none heeded them, but it was so that after a time the people hearkened. And they answered and said unto the agitators: (>
“Ye say the truth. It is because of the capitalists and of their profits that we are in want, seeing that by reason of them and their profits we may by no means come by the fruit of our labor, so that our labor is in vain; and the more we toil to fill the tank the sooner doth it overflow, and we may receive nothing because there is too much, according to the words of the soothsayers. But behold, the capitalists are hard men, and their tender mercies are cruel. Tell us if ye know any way whereby we may deliver ourselves out of our bondage unto them. But if ye know of no certain way of deliverance, we beseech you to hold your peace and let us alone, that we may forget our misery.”
And the agitators answered and said, “We know a way.”
…