Golden Age, June 24, 1931
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A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND .COURAGE
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WHALES AND WHALING
CHANGING STRUCTURE OF
INDUSTRY
TESTS FOR
ALUMINUM COOKING UTENSIL
VALUE OF FASTING
FIGHTING SATAN IN ALABAMA
NEW SONG
OF THE CHRISTIAN
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every other
WEDNESDAY
five cents a copy one dollar a year Canada & Foreign 1.25
Vol. XII - No. 307
June 24, 1931
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
Good Word for Standard Oil . 616
America’s Two Choices . , . 617
Canada Economizing.....617
Telegraph Companies Cut Wages 618
Senator Couzens’ Advice . . 619
Avella Miners Seek Relief . . 623
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
Giving of Alms in Racine . . . 617
Letters in the Alphabet , . . 617
Radio Sets in Use.....617
Expenditures for Broadcasting . 617
Trains Handled by Telephone . 617
The Papal Train .....617
Less Crime in Russia .... 618
Unprofitable to Operate Saturdays 620
Bucking the War Heroes . . .620
Britain Imprisons for Debt . . 621
Attempts at Calendar
Improvement ...... 630
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
Night Flying to India .... 618
Longest Air Mail Line . . . 618
Quotations from “The Book” . 624
Prices for Secondhand Books . . 627
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
Taxless City of Chanute . . . 618
Hamilton Utilities Pay . . . 619
Professor Laski on Democracy . 620
Poorhouse Made, Not Acquired . 621
Europe’s Twelve Republics . . 622
Changing Structure of Industry 623
China and Japan..... 626
SCIENCE AND INVENTION
Improved Diesel Airplane Engine 617
Power from Sunlight .... 618
New Use of Electric Eye . . 618
Tsetse Fly Conquered .... 621
What Is Man?
HOME AND HEALTH
Grippe Tablets and Headache Pills
How to Test an Aluminum Cooking Utensil . . . . . 628
Fasting—Its Therapeutic and
Spiritual Values
Open Letter to Governor of
Delaware
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
Whales and Whaling .... 611
Convicts Escape from Devil’s Island
Extracts from Interesting Letters......
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
Desertion of Churches in Germany 617
Why There Was No Book-Burning 628 Fighting the Devil in Alabama . 631 Organized Church or Organized
Truth, Which? ..... 632
New Song of the Christian . . 635
Published every other Wednesday at 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. U. S. A., by WOODWORTH, KNORR & MARTIN
Copartners and Proprietors Address: 111 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A, CLAYTON J. WOODWORTH .. Editor ROBERT J. MARTIN .. Business Manager NATHAN H. KNORR .. Secretary and Treasurer
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Entered as second-class matter at Brooklyn, N. Y„ under the Act of March 3, 1879,
oiia Golden Age
Vo'.ama XII Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, June 24, 1931 Number 307
Whales and Whaling
THE whale is a cetacean. That is to say, he is a marine mammal, breathing by means of lungs. The cetaceans bring forth living young, which they suckle for some time. The anterior limbs are paddles. The tail flukes are horizontal. The dolphin, the porpoise, the grampus and the manatee, or sea cow, are all cetaceans, as well as the whales.
There are two grand divisions of whales: baleen, or whalebone whales, and those that have teeth. The baleen whales go by different names, Bowhead, Arctic, Greenland, Right. Instead of teeth they have plates er blades of whalebone from two feet to twelve feet long and sometimes a foot wide, attached side by side along the upper jaw, and forming a fringelike sieve by which the food is retained in the mouth.
As a baleen whale goes cruising along through the waters he opens his mammoth mouth and every day swallows several tons of tiny crustaceans and other minute sea organisms. These catch on the fringe of their baleen (whalebone) and are sucked down continuously, while the salt water filters out again through the corners of the mouth. The throats of baleen whales are small, never more than eight inches in diameter and sometimes not half that. It was not a baleen whale that swallowed Jonah.
There was a time, a hundred years ago, and even less, when whalebone was an important
article of commerce; but changing feminine fashions and the introduction of flexible steel for umbrellas and corsets have made it less used than formerly.
There are baleen whales, like the Sulphur-Bottom of the Pacific, which attain great size, and then others, like those in New Zealand waters, may be as short as fifteen to twenty feet. Right whales, as baleens are called, are slow of movement and easily caught. The earliest whaling operations were confined to whales of this class.
The Gray Whale and His Terrible Enemy
It isn't all fun being a whale and cruising around swallowing baby mackerel by the ton. The gray whale has an awful enemy, the killer whale, the terrible and ferocious tiger of the seas. Although this species attains to but thirty feet in length, it will attack anything that swims.
The gray whale can navigate but about six to eight miles an hour, and, when a killer whale arrives, becomes absolutely paralyzed with fright. It turns over on its back, with flippers outspread, and lies helpless at the surface. On comes the terrible killer at full speed, puts his nose against the gray whale’s lips, forces its mouth open, sticks his head inside, and with his mighty teeth, set in both jaws, bites out the gray whale’s tongue. Of thirty-five gray whales examined, seven had had their tongues eaten to a greater or less extent by these frightful savages of the seas.
The whalers are glad when a school of killer whales locates a school of gray whales and they themselves happen to be in the vicinity. The gray whales are thrown into such a panic that the men have no difficulty in capturing them.
It is said that the thresher shark, also called the sea fox, sometimes uses its whiplike tail to flog a whale to death. The so-called white whale is not really a whale, but a variety of porpoise.
The Homely Humpback
We can’t all be good-looking, and it seems that it is that way in the whale family. The humpback has a big, flat, massive head, but his total length is only about fifty feet. The anterior portion of his body is quite slender, for a whale, and at the same time so irregularly shaped, and so peculiarly joined to the thorax, that the animal appears misshapen.
But the humpback has his strong points. In the first place, he is good to eat. The Japanese hunt him for food. In the second place, he is a savage fighter; and you can’t help but respect
him for that. The old-time whalers let the humpbacks alone, but the modern ones take everything. The humpback would sink when killed, and hence could be hunted only in shallow water.
The greyhound of the seas is the razorback or finback whale. These used to be found in great abundance off the New England coast. Shooting them from tugs and steamers was a regularly organized business. A rorqual, as this whale is also called, will make thirty miles an hour. It is one of the largest of the whales, sometimes attaining nearly 100 feet in length. It has a dorsal fin and strong longitudinal folds on the throat and belly.
The Antarctic or blue whale is the largest living animal on the globe. It has been known to measure 115 feet. Such a whale contains 250 barrels of oil, worth about $30 a barrel. When frightened or wounded a blue whale has been known to travel fifty miles an hour. After being wounded one of these monsters will tow a killer boat for several miles at a dizzy pace even when her engines are going astern at eight knots an hour. The capture of these monsters has been possible only since the invention of the harpoon gun. Blue whales are found in pairs; finbacks, in packs.
The Cachalot, or Sperm Whale
The cachalot or sperm whale has on the top of its head a large cavity containing the oily fluid which after death concretes into a whitish crystalline substance called spermaceti. It has a head of enormous size. The upper jaw is destitute of teeth. This ’whale sometimes grows to the length of eighty feet. It is found in the warmer parts of all the oceans.
It has been conjectured that the sperm whale may have been the great fish which the Lord prepared to swallow Jonah. Its throat is large enough that it could swallow a piano. When mortally wounded a sperm whale has been known to disgorge chunks of cuttlefish six feet long by four feet in width. The spermaceti organ, ■which lies above the skull, contains as much as fifteen barrels of oil. The head of the sperm whale makes up one-third to two-fifths of the entire creature.
The sperm whale is the only one of the species that suffers from indigestion, and this lends support to the thought that it was this type of great fish that was so uneasy after taking Jonah aboard. Ambergris is never found in healthy whales. It is produced only in the intestines of the sperm whale. Sometimes it forms so rapidly as to clog the intestinal tract and the whale dies. Then he becomes a gold mine to his discoverers. Ambergris is used as a fixative of the most delicate perfumes: it causes them to last. It is worth as much as $20 an ounce.
Good-sized Babies
The whale mating season is in June or July, and near the equator. The period of gestation is believed to be ten months. A whale baby may be twenty-one feet long when it is born, which is some baby. The mothers nurse the cute little things for five or six months, and'when they attain a length of forty-five to forty-eight feet they are heartlessly weaned and straightway have to shift for themselves. After that they grow more slowdy.
The whale has its young once in two years, and it takes another two years for the young to reach maturity. Like our friend Warren G. of Teapot Dome fame, the bull whales are said not to be as faithful to their life companions as they might be. .
Whales are warm-blooded, as are all mammals. The blubber or fat acts as a nonconductor to keep the huge creature warm and comfortable in the cold ’waters of the seas in which he delights to sport, and where he obtains his food. His hide is without scales. His head contains four chambers, wdiile that of a fish contains but two. He has lungs instead of gills. His front legs, toes and all, are enveloped in sacs and are called flippers.
The Greenland wfliale is believed to descend to 800 fathoms below. The reason for thinking this is that in very deep waters a very long line is required, while in shallo’wer waters a much shorter line will do. Sometimes, when wounded, a whale strikes bottom so hard as to kill it, and has to be hauled up dead. Others claim that the whale could not survive a descent below 100 fathoms (600 feet), on account of the terrible pressure to which he would be subjected, but it is hard to get around the long rope argument. Only the whale and his Designer know the truth about it.
The Wonderful Lung Structure
The One who built the first whale knew what He was doing. The cell structure differs mate-, rially from other mammalian lungs. In the whale lung there is much more smooth, involuntary muscle, and the cartilaginous rings 'which support the bronchial tree are much more numerous and extensive than in the air passages of other mammals.
When the whale is at a low ocean depth the increase of pressure on him enables him to utilize the oxygen in his lungs down to perhaps one percent. It is also inferred that the oil and fat of the whale aid in absorbing the carbon dioxid from his blood. Otherwise it is not knowm how it is possible for one to remain under water for nearly an hour, as some of them evidently do.
A whale will, without even pausing to take a deep breath, plunge beneath the waves and be gone for a long time. When "wounded he dashes about in a frenzy which would, theoretically, consume oxygen at a terrific rate. The carbon dioxid created must be stored somehow, and the oil and blubber no doubt has something to do with it.
When a whale comes up to breathe he does not rise vertically, but obliquely. His first act is one of respiration. The heavy condensation of air and moisture brought about by his long stay under the water at great depths is blown out through his one nostril, located in the top of his head. This blowing can be heard for half a mile and can be seen for some distance.
Whales do not spout water. They forcibly expel from their lungs the air taken in at the last inspiration, which is highly charged with watery vapor in consequence of the natural respiratory changes. This, rapidly condensing in the cold atmosphere in which the phenomenon is generally observed, forms a column of ‘steam’ or spray, which the spectator mistakes for water. But as the whale blows just as he comes to the surface, some water is inevitably mingled with the blast.
The whale’s vision is not so good, and he depends for safety mostly on the organs of hearing. These are located on the sides of the head, three or four feet behind the eyes. A whaler’s engines must run very smoothly and, as nearly as possible, at uniform speed. Any sudden change in a ship’s speed will frighten whales in the neighborhood.
The whales prefer the colder waters. It is a whaler’s adage that “no ice, no whales”. This is true of the mackerel and other fish upon which the whales feed. By September the whales appear in the Antarctic, and leave for the west coast of Africa in May.
Seme Whaling History
The Northmen, i.e., the Norwegians, were the first ones in the whaling business; and they will be the last ones, for it is on its last legs. The whales have been nearly all destroyed. King Alfred, whose reign ended more than a thousand years ago, wrote of the whaling adventures of Othere, the Norwegian viking.
In the eleventh century the Basques were pursuing the Eight whale with harpoons, in open boats. It is even claimed that they visited the shores of Newfoundland in search of their prey, and it is known that they visited those waters immediately after the discovery of America. The Basques became familiar with the whale in their own home waters of the Bay of Biscay. Their industry reached its highest point in the thirteenth century.
In the sixteenth century Holland and England were rivals for the whaling business of the waters off Spitzbergen and Greenland. During the decade 1699-1708 the Dutch equipped no less than 1,652 vessels and captured between 8,000 and 9,000 whales.
From the beginning of the nineteenth century the supremacy shifted to America. By 1690, and as long as whale oil was the world’s recognized illuminant, New Bedford, Massachusetts, was the whaling capital of the world. Now it is only a memory, as such. Prior to the Revolutionary War there were 308 American vessels hunting whales in the Atlantic; by 1848 they were in Bering Strait. In 1846 the American whaling fleet consisted of 722 vessels, claimed by 34 ports. This was the golden era of American whaling. In 1854 there was a peak production of 12,000,000 gallons of blubber for the whale oil lamps which one can find today only in antique shops.
A Dangerous, Exciting Business
The old-time whaler was a little wooden sailing vessel which went to sea for two to four years on a trip. The whales were hunted with man-powered boats. The old harpoon was a piece of tough steel, fastened to a long wooden shaft for throwing purposes. The whale boat was rowed right up to the whale, and one or more harpoons were hurled into his side. It required an alert and powerful man to make a sure hit.
The line attached to the harpoon was coiled in tubs in the bottom of the boat, and whizzed out at terrific speed. If a sailor vzas caught in the line he seldom lived. When the line ran out the tub was thrown overboard and the crew waited for another chance to harpoon the animal. Boats were often upset, and men lost.
An infuriated whale would often deliberately attack a small boat and, with the vessel caught in its jaws, the sailors were either drowned or wounded. James Bartley, an English sailor, was actually swallowed by a sperm whale in February, 1891, near the Falkland Islands.
The crew of Bartley’s ship had captured a large sperm whale. After the attack Bartley could not be found. Sailors worked a day and a night removing the whale’s blubber. On the second morning they hoisted the stomach on deck. Something in it gave spasmodic signs of life. They found it was Bartley, doubled up and unconscious. He was a raving maniac for two weeks, but eventually recovered his usual health. His skin was bleached to a deadly whiteness by the gastric juices and became like parchment.
Afterwards he remembered being thrown out of a boat into the sea and. slipping along a smooth passage, yielding a slimy substance that shrank from his touch. The heat was terrific, but he could breathe. He became weak and sick, and the next thing he knew he was in the captain’s cabin. His skin never recovered its natural color.
Hard, Difficult, Disagreeable Work
Few people except the Norwegians can stand the fatiguing, harassing, disagreeable work that falls to the lot of the whaler. There is probably no regular line of work that is so unremitting in its toil, so uncomfortable, and so dangerous.
The whalers spend their summers on their little farms in Norway. In the latter part of July or the first of August they leave home, to be gone until the next spring. A month or six weeks is spent in going to the other side of the wrorld, to Tasmania, New Zealand or Uruguay, where the small boats, 120 tons register, 120 feet long, have steam up awaiting them.
For the next five months they live in the roughest seas in the world, and in the most uncomfortable boats, for a whaler has no keel. It must be able to follow the whale and change its direction in a hurry. There is scant time to eat or sleep. The food is all canned stuff. The work is cold, greasy and disagreeable. The odor is disgusting. Yet every year large numbers of college men are eager to have a share in it.
The attempt to have a church at one of the land stations in South Georgia was abandoned. The men were willing to come ashore to see the movies twice a week, but not to attend church. The dominie gave it up as a bad job and pulled stakes for Norway.
From the time the whaling starts there is but one theme, and that is to catch as many whales as possible, get the oil out of them and get a full cargo in the least time, and get back to Norway. As a consequence, as there is no darkness in the land of the midnight sun at the bottom of the world, the work goes on unremittingly.
The greatest adventures of today are not with the whales, but with the Antarctic ice. The bergs sometimes are miles long and three thousand feet high. Sometimes a chaser is sunk and the men may make their escape only in their underclothes. Sometimes the chasers have to let go of whales they have already caught. At the close of the season there is danger of being caught in the drifting pack ice and not being able to get out at all.
Every Whale a Gold Mine
A big whale may have a value of $10,000, but he may be worth much more than that. A single lump of ambergris, weighing 926 pounds, was valued at $135,000; and of course this came from a single whale, a very sick one. But whalers cannot depend on finds of ambergris, except rarely.
The principal value is in the oil. There are several different grades. The finest blubber oil is a pale yellow, with a faint fishy odor. This is used primarily in cosmetics. The flesh and bones yield bone oil, and the lowest grade of all is used for lubrication purposes.
A good part of our soaps, and all our shaving creams, come from whales; and if we eat margarine, much of that uncertain compound may come from the whale, too. Most glycerine is made from whale oil, and it is used in currying leather, oiling woods, and batching flax, jute and other fibers.
The production of guano, bone meal and flesh meal is of great value. Flesh meal makes up into cattle cake, an excellent food for fattening
..... cattle. Guano is the meat of the whale, generally the residue of distillation, which goes through a process of drying and disintegration and is mixed with crushed bone in the proportion of two parts flesh to one part bone.
Whalebone is worth $5 to $7 a pound. From the whale’s hide are made large quantities of heavy belting, besides a quantity of boots, shoes, shoestrings and leather findings. Nothing is wasted, and science is constantly finding new uses for this rapidly vanishing animal.
A big whaler may have 200 men in its outfit and may kill a'dozen whales a day and turn them into oil. The captain may get as much as ~ $25,000 for a season, while a mere deckhand,
receiving as his share of the profits half a cent to a cent a barrel, may get as much as $1,800. The companies that send out the whaling outfits have sometimes made 100 percent profit a year. The total annual value of the business is around $40,000,000. A single ship Jias been known to bring in $3,000,000 worth of oil.
Reeking with disgusting, nauseating odors, the Norwegian whaling fleet, when it returns from the Antarctic, is the most evil-looking and evil-smelling denizen of the seven seas; but with millions of dollars’ worth of cargo, all hands can afford to smile as they come back to civilization, for they have what the world is mad after, wealth.
Modern Whaling Equipment
Modern whaling began about 1870, with the invention by Svend Foyn of the harpoon gun. Following this invention each whaling field has had a run of a few years, when all the whales were killed off and the business was transferred elsewhere. It is now confined largely to the Antarctic, which is bound to be its last stand, as all the other regions have been worked out.
A whaling outfit now consists of a floating factory (which is really an airplane carrier in disguise, and quickly convertible into one) and a half dozen or so of the actual whale chasers. There are also shore whaling stations at Deception Island, South Georgia, and in the South Shetlands. When the whalers return in the summer the first duty of the 150 men who constitute the shore staff is to free the sheds and flensing platforms of the accumulated snow.
On the bow of each whale chaser is the invention which is putting an end to the whaling business. The harpoon gun is a muzzle-loading cannon, mounted on a swivel. It shoots a hand-forged harpoon of Swedish steel, about six feet long, and weighing 120 pounds. Set in the harpoon’s end are four twelve-inch barbs which spring out at45-degree angles when the harpoon is lodged in the body of the whale. In the harpoon point is a 28-pound bomb charged with gunpowder, automatically fired three seconds after the shaft leaves the cannon. By a later device a light cable is attached to the harpoon and the whale is electrocuted as soon as it is hit.
Lars Andersen, foremost whale gunner in the world, has a guaranteed income of $40,000 a year. It requires an unusual man to aim a harpoon gun at aw’hale from a notoriously unstable craft, plunging about in the world’s roughest seas, at the exact moment the whale rises to the surface for air.
To the harpoon shaft is attached a rope which passes over a roller and is connected with a powerful winch. The struggling whale is slowly brought up to the chaser and dispatched. Air is pumped into its body, so that it will float. A flag is stuck in it as a marker, and the chaser goes after another -whale.
The Floating Factories
The little old wooden whaler used to flense the whales alongside, consuming several days in the operation. The modern flensing factory hauls the whale aboard through a door in the bow and cuts it up in two hours. The flensers slice through the blubber the length of the body. A winch is attached to each strip and peels off the outer coating as one would peel an orange. The flesh and bones are torn apart by machinery and fed into the boiling pans so that every part is utilized.
Norway sends out thirty-nine of these floating factories, with some 200 of the chasers and nearly 10,000 men. They bring back about 70,000,000 gallons of whale oil. The whaling capital of the world is the little Norwegian town of Sandefjord on the Oslo Fjord. Here is published the Register of the whaling fleet of the world, and here are the headquarters of the Association of Norwegian 'Whaling Companies, John Rasmussen, ship-owner, chairman.
The whaling equipment is now stiffened by the use of airplanes, equipped to land on the deck of the mother vessel, on the ice, or on the water. The Germans are figuring on using airships and dropping bombs. Everything in dicates that the days of the whale are numbered. He cannot compete with man’s scientific equipment for taking his life.
Extermination Is Near
During the last season there were forty-two whale factories in Antarctic waters, and associated with them were 250 chasers. There was thus a cordon of chasers around the entire Antarctic continent, located only fifty miles apart.
In the season 1925-1926, during the months November to March, when the whaling season is on, there were taken out of the Antarctic 793,790 barrels of whale oil. It is very doubtful if the whales could survive even such a catch as that, but in 1929-1930, with the whales hardly a fourth as numerous, the more efficient methods of slaughter resulted in bringing out 2,447,690 barrels.
It was estimated that in 1925-1926 there were at least 30,000 whales destroyed, as many that are killed are not recovered, so that it is likely that something like 120,000 perished in the season of 1929-1930. Realizing that the business is: at an end the old-timers are going after the remnants harder than ever, so as to have a share in the last of the profits.
Whales have been practically exterminated in the Northern Hemisphere, and it looks now as if tw’O years more will see the termination of -what, in its day, was one of the most thrilling and dangerous occupations of men.
The British and Norwegian governments are trying to do something to restrict whaling operations, but it seems a difficult task. It has been decided that whale cows vvitli calves are to be protected. The practice of paying whaling crews according to the number of whales taken must be discontinued, and all parts of the animals containing oil must be utilized. Illegal catches are subject to confiscation. Each whaling captain must now keep a record of the number, kinds and location of his catches.
Have you ever read the 'whaling story entitled “Moby Dick”?
The Giving of Alms in Racine
LET’S see. It was the Lord who said some. thing about being sure to give your alms in secret, was it not, and not to let your right hand know what your left hand does? Yes. Well, they just don’t do things that way in Racine, Wisconsin; that is all. Racine is too businesslike for that.
A subscriber writes that he was fired from his. job for not subscribing to the community chest fund and that the manufacturers’ association of the city has issued a decree that anyone who applies for a job must sign a card that the factory is to take a stated sum from his pay envelope each month. Racine Big Business is. determined to see to it that all employees love their neighbors as themselves, regardless of what Big Business itself does.
A Good Word for Standard Oil
EMPLOYED by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, I wish to state something in favor of this company.
Employees are pensioned at 65 years of age for 20 years’ service or over, the pension being full salary for first year, and about 75 percent of salary until death.
We also have a free insurance plan as follows : Death after one year’s service, three months’ pay. This is increased one month yearly; so after ten years’ service an employee is insured for one year’s pay.
By Kempson Wall (New Jersey)
Our stock plan runs from three to five years. An employee can have deducted from his salary not more than 20 percent. The company gives us 50c worth of stock for every dollar’s 'worth we buy. If we draw out of the plan before the term is up we receive 6 percent interest on our investment.
When it occurs that some department of the company is done away with, the ones discharged receive quite a handsome sum of money, according to length of service.
We also receive money prizes for new ideas.
Letters in the Alphabet
Germany’s Worst Winter
GERMANY’S worst winter was last winter;
the same as Uncle Sam’s. On February 15 unemployment had risen to 4,991,000; and that is a record for Germany. The unemployment distress is now common all over the world.
America’s Two Choices
THE Manchester Guardian says on the subject of unemployment insurance:
America offers at least one lesson to those who denounce the dole as the source of all our evils. Over there a man who is out of work has two resources on which to fall back—private charity or crime. Charity is limited. The opportunities for crime are not.
Canada Economizing
WHILE America, for no reason, is spending more than ever in giving free vacations for citizens that will undergo military training, Canada, with better sense, is cutting out the nonsense, in the effort to save a little of the taxpayers’ money in these hard times.
Poland Scrimping on Salaries
IN THE effort to try to make both ends meet, Poland has reduced by 15 percent the salaries of all government and army officials, employees of state railways, and the tobacco and alcohol monopolies. It is calculated that this will effect an annual saving of about $14,400,000.
Radio Sets in Use
TN CONNECTICUT about 55 percent of the -®- families are equipped with radio sets. This is the largest percentage among the twenty states for which the United States Census Bureau has announced statistics. The District of Columbia comes next, with 54 percent. Then come Wisconsin, with 51 percent; Iowa, with 49 percent; Delaware, with 46 percent; New Hampshire, with 44 percent. In Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas the percentage is less than 10.
Convicts Escape from Devil’s Island
READERS will be glad to know that recently several persons have escaped from France’s penal colony at Devil’s Island and made their way along the South American coast to Trinidad and Colombia. A kind-hearted and courageous Trinidad Negro is accredited with having made the escapes possible. For a small sum he provided the sufferers with boats and maps.
Expenditures for Broadcasting
TN THE British Isles the people have the -®- choice of two programs on the radio, produced at a cost of less than a million dollars yearly. In the United States they have hundreds of programs available, produced at an annual cost of thirty million dollars.
Trains Handled by Telephone
T ITTLE by little the dots and dashes of the telegraph system are disappearing. In 1908 all trains were dispatched by telegraph; twelve years later 47 percent of them were handled by telephone; while last year over 60 percent were thus handled.
Improved Diesel Airplane Engine
A N IMPROVED Diesel engine for use in airplanes has been exhibited at Detroit. It contains 1,500 parts, as compared with 5,000 to 6,000 parts in other engines, and weighs but 492 pounds. In a flight of 1,150 miles the cost for fuel and oil -was but $1 an hour.
Unmarried Taxed in Rumania
TN RUMANIA, male or female, you are out A of luck if you are single at any time between the ages of thirty and sixty-five. In case one loses his or her life companion a new one must be selected within two years or the excess taxes required of all single persons are levied.
The Papal Train . -
THE papal train will be the finest thing ever mounted on wheels. It will have a throne room, a chapel, and a combination diner and sleeper for the pope’s personal use. The cars will be of steel, painted red; each will carry the pontifical coat of arms in bronze; ceiling decorations will be in gold. It will be paid for by the poor and ignorant and deceived and oppressed.
Desertion of Churches in Germany
SINCE the World War 2,500,000 persons have withdrawn from the churches with which they were formerly affiliated. In the one city of Berlin 65,000 residents withdrew from churches last year. Reluctance to pay church taxes, and a conviction that they were getting nothing for their money, were responsible for most of these withdrawals.
Less Crime in Russia
THE New York Times tells us that there is much less crime in Russia than in previous years, and that there is the greatest labor shortage there in the history of the country; all of which sounds very strange to come from the New York Times and to be published in America in 1931.
Immigrants to Australia Disappointed
SPOKESMEN for one thousand British immigrants have pleaded with the government of South Australia to be sent back to England. They explained that hundreds of them are now dependent upon the government for food, that they are without clothes, and that a number have gone insane.
Public Still Enjoys Music
Night Flying to India
THAT the public still enjoys music is evident 0TEPS are being taken to operate the mail from the fact that during the past musical routes between London and India on a day
season, in one of the years of greatest business depression ever known, the American public expended about $10,000,000. Five percent of this amount, or $500,000, was expended to hear the one artist, Paderewski.
A Radio Wave of Seven Inches
THE other day radio communication was held between Dover and Calais. The wave length was seven inches. The antenna required was of one-inch length. The power required for transmission was half a watt, and the results were perfect. The extremely short wave length is unaffected by rain or fog.
and night basis that will bring the London mails into Karachi in four and one-half days. The Indian government will light the 700 miles from Karachi to Delhi, placing recognition lights at forty-seven railroad stations along the way.
Dutch Have Longest Air Mail Line "OAMILIAR as we are with the vast distances J- American airmen have to fly, it comes as a surprise to know that the longest air mail line in the world is not American, English, French, German, or Russian. It is the Dutch line from the Netherlands to Java, in the South Seas, 9,000 miles.
Both Telegraph Companies Cut Wages -
DETAILS are published of cuts in wages made by both the great telegraph companies operating in America. These concerns have paid out colossal fortunes in dividends. Seems too bad they have to come down to such a petty business as cutting the wages of messenger boys. Incidentally, they are prominent members of the group that assured President Hoover wages would be sustained during the period of business depression.
Taxless City of Chanute
CHANUTE, Kansas, 11,000 population, has no taxes. The municipal gas, water and electric plants pay all the bills and have even paid the city’s bonded debt. In addition, the city has erected a fine auditorium costing $376,000, and a municipal airport costing $75,000. The gas, water and electric rates are among the lowest in the Middle West. Now just what is it about this that is dangerous or disadvantageous to the people of Chanute? .
Power from Sunlight
A COPPER oxide cell three inches square has xX driven an electric motor by dull sunlight for some months now in a laboratory in Berlin. The cell is fifty to one hundred and fifty times as efficient as any similar light-sensitive cell heretofore made. The cost of power produced by this means is still something like a hundred times the cost of producing it by hydroelectric means, but a long step forward has been made in the ultimate aim of science to convert the light of the sun directly into electric energy.
New Use of Electric Eye
NEW uses are being constantly found for the electric eye or photoelectric cell. One of the latest is a device called the transmeter. Material of any kind is fed into the device at the bottom, and a finger at the top points out the amount of light transmitted. The device can be used to ascertain the genuineness of doubtful documents, such as checks or stock certificates, and is also valuable in determining the value of tapestries and silks. It will locate the thin spots in any fabric.
Tourists Spend Less Money
RANCE had more tourists in 1930 than she had in 1929, but the total amount expended
was 30 percent less. Either the tourists were of a different class or else they honestly felt that they had less to spend. It was noted that the big hotels complained of bad business but the moderate-priced ones did well.
Right of Big Business to Exist
CONCERNING the right of Big Business to exist the New York American says:
A Priest for Every Fourteen People ' IPHE Roman Catholic population of the United
States increased during the year 1930 by a total of 13,391 persons. The number in the priesthood increased by 939. That is one new priest for every fourteen additional persons, which would seem to be plenty, except in Chicago.
Hamilton, Ohio, Utilities Pay
AMILTON, Ohio, is one of the cities that owns its own utilities, all three of them,
It lias no moral right to exist unless it changes its purpose from, the senseless pyramiding of vast accumulations of wealth and economic power in the hands of a few to an enlightened policy of spreading its benefits to the extinction of poverty and the cultivation of mass well-being.
Ford Workers in Detroit
ETROIT’S director of relief. W.G.Bergman, is reported as having said that this past
and it is making money. The profits for the year 1931 will be nearly $500,000. Just why this should be bad for Hamilton is something hard to understand. But no doubt, for a consideration, some glib college professor or newspaper editor could make it all plain—plain as mud.
Cutting into a Heart
BERLIN surgeon accidentally cut into a blood pouch, part of the heart of a twenty-
year the city of Detroit has spent $8,000,000 to save Ford workers from starvation. Ford’s profits last year were $55,000,000. His son sent the Detroit relief committee a check for $125,000. Seems too bad you cannot keep your workers out of the bread line, Henry.
Peter Kuerten, Man-Killer
eter Kuerten, man-killer, is under arrest in Germany. He has confessed to murder
two-year-old girl.-His finger, with which he attempted to stanch the flow of blood, went into the girl’s heart. He had his assistant sew around it and her life was saved and the blood pouch removed. The operation, not foreseen and not intended, was nevertheless a complete success.
Religious Liberty in Brazil
RAZIL guarantees religious liberty. In November, 1930, a colporteur undertook to
ing nine of his fellow creatures, of both sexes, and of various ages, and with and without weapons, just to gratify his lust to kill. He was thirty years of age at the time the World War broke out, and the appetite to kill was so thoroughly developed that he cannot now stifle it. ~ ■
Worrying over the Wrong Crowd
EFERRING to the fact that three percent of the people of America own seventy-five
exercise this liberty in Pesquiera. A priest mounted a box and demanded that the mob fall upon him, which it did. He was rescued by a soldier, but the courageous man who stood off the mob was imprisoned for meddling. The colporteur lost $300 worth of Bibles, destroyed by the mob. Nothing was done to the priest.
Senator Couzens’ Advice
enator Couzens has been giving some advice to the little group of Big Business men who
percent of its wealth, Senator William E. Borah says that he thinks it about time that somebody in this country should begin to worry more about the ninety-seven percent than about the three percent. Seems like a reasonable suggestion, doesn’t it? The newspapers and the government are everlastingly worried about the hopes and prospects and dividends of the fellows who already have almost everything there is.
have volunteered the information that they alone know how to run the country, and also that none of their group can be trusted to run anything for the benefit of the people as a whole. He said to them:
If business is insistent upon running the Government, let it provide ways and means so that all of our citizens will have an adequate income, that they may be provided with a decent home and adequate food and clothing.
Fifty Cents a Week
WE ARE told that fifty cents a week will keep a worker from dying of starvation and pneumonia, and that an extra dollar’ will keep him in such condition as to be easily usable by the employer and his machines the next time he is needed. Does it not look as if rich America ought to be able to provide that much support for those left swinging by the eyelids by our present economic system?
Unprofitable to Operate Saturdays
THOSE who have had any considerable experience operating manufacturing plants know that the most profitable way to operate machinery is to keep it running day and night, when possible, and then shut down completely. The same principle applies to the Saturday half-holiday, and many business concerns are now abandoning all Saturday work for that reason.
Professor Laski on Democracy
IN AN address before the Foreign Policy Association, Harold J. Laski, professor of political science in the University of London, expressed the opinion that there is no case for democracy that can stand investigation for ten minutes, and no alternative that can stand for five minutes. It is his opinion that the supposed practical qualities of business men are most impractical, and that they do not know how to bring about a stable society. He might have added that they are wrecking the one we do have. And we can add to it all that man has but one hope, and that hope is God’s kingdom.
What Milk Did to the Rats
IN THE Bureau of Home Economies, Washington, six white rats as soon as weaned were put on a diet of lean beef, potatoes, whole wheat, butter, sugar, salt and all the water they could drink. In five months they gained sixty grams. Six other rats of exactly the same age and parentage were given the same diet, plus all the milk they wanted to drink. In the same five months they grew 206 grams, which is more than three times the growth measured by the first group. The difference in growth is attributed to the calcium in the milk; and, incidentally, this shows why it is that children need fresh milk, and plenty of it, if they are to grow.
Desiccated Apples? No, Thanks!
A GERMAN who could have been in better business has invented a scheme of grinding apples to a powder and then pressing the powder into blocks. His idea is to make us eat one of these tablet things instead of eating a nice apple. He says it is all the same thing; but it isn’t. The skin is gone, the cider is gone, the core is gone, the crunch is gone, and even the worm is gone; and how could it be the same ?
The Juice Man
IT USED to be the milkman, and in most districts it still is, but in some sections of New York city he has already become the juice man. That is to say, the man that used to be the milkman now handles frozen orange juice, and the custom is growing rapidly. It is only a step from orange juice to other fruit juices, and the man that used to be the milkman is the logical one to leave these products at the door.
Bucking the War Heroes -
FTER the World War the United States
Government placed many of its war heroes in chiropractic colleges, hoping thus to provide for them an honorable means of livelihood, but to this day chiropractic has been licensed in but thirty-six of the states of the Union for which the boys, theoretically, hazarded their lives. And if they try to practice their art in one of the twelve states which still hold out against the new art, what then? Oh, they go to jail for practicing medicine without a license. In thirty-six states they are honored and protected; in twelve they are jailbirds..
The Pope Blesses Science .
HE pope has just officially blessed science over the radio. When he blessed the Italia,
Nobile’s airship, it broke in two and half its crew were lost; when he blessed Kaiser Wilhelm he lost his throne and became an exile; when he blessed King Edward VII of England his health began to fail and he never recovered his health; when he blessed the queen of Portugal she lost her husband and her throne; he blessed King Alfonso, and look at him; he blessed the empress of Brazil, and in three days she broke her leg and afterwards lost her throne; and so on down the line. Wonder what science is in for now. '
Hanging Women from Pegs
XT’OU would hardly believe that in the year — 1931, at a state prison in Tennessee, they still handcuff women and hang them from pegs, would you? It seems too horrible to be true; yet in an investigation of Tennessee prisons which has just been made, the charge was admitted by the warden. That is a thing such as might have happened in Siberia in the days of the czar.
Poorhouse Made, Not Acquired
FPHE St. Thomas (Virgin Islands) Mail, re-JL ferring to President Hoover’s statement that -when the United States acquired the Virgin Islands it paid $25,000,000 for a poorhouse, makes the retort that when the United States purchased the islands it did not acquire a poorhouse, as the islands were then fairly prosperous, but that it straightway proceeded to make them into one by its stupid administration of them. This seems like a reflection on the great men of our navy who, till recently, had the entire administration of these islands.
Color Sense in the British Empire
WRITING- on the subject of color sense in . the British Empire the Manchester Guardian says:
The color sense is stronger than the empire sense. As a great empire we ought to rejoice that men of all colors living under our flag in some distant part of the world resort to our capital, but as white men disliking dark we resent their intrusion. As a people anxious to keep a moral influence over these races we ought to rejoice that an Indian prefers to go to London for education or training or society rather than to Tokio or Moscow, but in fact our hotels often coldshoulder him.
Britain Imprisons for Debt
BRITAIN still imprisons for debt: not the rich debtor, however, for he can free himself by going bankrupt; but the poor debtor, unable to withstand the temptation of credit. Concerning this subject Six* Robert Parry says, in the Manchester Guardian:
When in 1869 imprisonment for debt was abolished for the well-to-do it was deliberately retained and not abolished for the poor debtors, under ‘a saving power of committal for small debts.’ Lord Brougham protested against a debt’s being treated as a Crime to be punished at the will and pleasure of a creditor; but that remains the law today—for the poor.
New York’s Murders
"VIEW YORK’S murders have increased until last year they were 421. Eliminating the dismissals and acquittals, only 48 arrests provide some reasonable expectation of finding and punishing the guilty. As a matter of fact, more than 400 of these 421 murders will go unpunished, if general statistics count for anything. Of these murders, 66 were of the gangster or racketeer type.
Tsetse Fly Conquered
TT IS good news that the tsetse fly, which has depopulated large portions of Africa, has at last been conquered by the close observations of a naturalist. This man noticed that the fly is nervous, darting first to a shady place and then to one of bright light. This has been the fly’s undoing. A trap has been constructed which meets the conditions perfectly. The fly dashes into its shade, and then a hole in its roof leads him a moment later into the trap proper, where he beats himself to death against the bars of his cage. The device works perfectly.
Grippe Tablets and Headache Pills
AFTER you have bought your box of grippe tablets or headache pills look it over and see if you see in fine print anywhere the word “acetanilid” or “antifebrin” or “phenylacet-amid”. If you do, just take the spade and go out into the garden and bury them about as deep as they will bury you if you take enough of this dangerous coal-tar product. It is a poison which breaks up the red blood corpuscles, damages the heart, turns the skin a bluish color, and injures the moral sense. It kills pain, yes, and the one that has the pain.
Growth of Tuskegee
TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE has just celebrated its first jubilee; and it is astonishing what it has done in fifty years. Starting with one building, and a class of thirty pupils taught by Booker T. Washington himself, there are today at Tuskegee one hundred and thirty-two buildings, with three thousand pupils and a trained teaching staff of nearly 250. Forty trades are taught. The colored people have every reason to be proud and happy over the work they are accomplishing at Tuskegee Institute. They have demonstrated that the colored people can do anything that anybody can do.
Europe?s Twelve Republics
INCE the World War Europe has had twelve new republics, Russia, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkey, Greece, and Spain. It also had during the war France, Andorra, San Marino, Switzerland, and Portugal. It is significant that in Spain one of the first rules of the new- government was that the governors of the different provinces must keep away from church. The grandees of the Spanish nobility fled with Alfonso into France. They all instinctively feel that they have been part of a great fraud upon the people and that the people would be better off 'with them somewhere else. The priests were told that they must keep their mouths shut; that is just a way of saying that church and state have been separated. The Vatican took the hint and stated that it was not specially interested in the monarchy and is indifferent as to the kind of government the people of Spain choose. It has since recognized the Spanish republic. This must have been a bitter dose for it to svvallow7, as Alfonso was one of its prime supporters.
Asks Right to Cut Water Rate
HE owmer of a ‘water company in California, realizing that many of her company’s consumers were out of work or had suffered cuts in wages, made application to the public service commission of California to reduce the water rate wfliile the present depression is on. This is exactly the opposite of the course being pursued by'water, gas and electric companies in the East, nearly all of -whom, right in the face of the hardest times the country has ever seen, have been raising the rates to the poor (by means of service charges) while reducing them to those who could afford to purchase more of w-hat they have to sell. Probably nothing more contemptible in history can be found than the practice of the public service companies in the East in their treatment of the poor.
Rev. A. Ross Henderson, Justice of the Peace
ev. A. Boss Hendebson, justice of the peace, in Ohio, deserves a place in history. The father of several small children, so it seems, was brought before him on a charge of having parked on a road -without lights. Rev. Henderson asked him how7 much money he had. He counted out $4 and paid it over, wo th the remark that the children would have to go hungry this v7eek. The dominie, that is, the justice, that is, the majesty of the lav7, took the money. When did one of them ever refuse it? Then the dominie, that is the justice, tried to obtain $30.60 in fine and costs, and finally offered to take over the radio set owned by the father of the kids, but explained that he would not tell anybody where he got it. What a wonderful inspiration it must be to hear a man preach who would enjoy taking bread array from hungry kids, and taking their radio away, too. “Our minister is just wonderful; you ought to hear him!” Must be! Wonder if this is contempt of court or just contempt of dominie; probably the latter.
Radios Crowding Newspapers
EWSPAPERS are admitting that they are suffering badly from the competition set up by radio broadcasting. By means of the latter the public are now given nev7s items, editorials, special features and advertising, besides some forms of entertainment and music which, in the nature of things, cannot be provided by the press. If, in the day of its power, the press had stood for the truth and for the interests of the common people, newspapers v7ould not now7 be in the predicament in which they find themselves. One publisher recently closed his broadcasting station, because he found it v7as taking business away from his newspapers. In 1930, 107 leading radio advertisers cut their newspaper appropriations 12| percent below7 those in 1929, while increasing their radio expenditures 63 percent.
What Is Man?
WHEN a young man has attained to the weight of 100 pounds he then consists of 72 pounds of oxygen gas, 13.4 pounds of carbon, 9.1 pounds of hydrogen gas, 2.5 pounds of nitrogen gas, 1.3 pounds of calcium, 1{- pounds of phosphorus, and fractional pounds of the following elements: Sulphur .1476, sodium .1000, chlorine .0850, fluorine .0800, potassium .0250, iron .0100, magnesium .0018, silicon .0006, iodine a trace, manganese a trace.
Changing Structure of industry
UNDER the above subhead, in his little tencent book, The New Capitalism and The Socialist, Harry W. Laidler plainly shows us the drift of all industry toward some form of socialism. The book is published by the League for Industrial Democracy. In the section which interests us most he says:
The new capitalism is also developing certain novel kinds of industrial relationships, as that between the various units of the General Motors, relationships which render it possible to bring under one unified control a vast industrial empire.
The General Motors, for instance, has under its control numerous huge plants for the manufacture of the Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Oakland, Buick, LaSalle, Cadillac, etc.; for the production of General Motors Trucks, Yellow Cabs and coaches, of Fisher bodies, of various automobile accessories, of the electrical refrigerator, Frigidaire. It controls numerous credit, sales. and realty corporations. It manages a great aircraft industry and a radio industry. It owns timber tracts and saw mills. It employs something like $50,000,000 in overseas operations in assembly plants and in merchandising operations. It centralizes a number of activities for the purposes of producing economies, at the same time administering its separate automobile subsidiaries as self-contained units, “headed by an executive who has full authority and is responsible for its individual operation.”
The Ford Company, the other giant in the automobile field, is likewise illustrative of the newer trend. Here may be found under one corporate roof nearly twoscore plants in the United States and several abroad. The Ford Company owns a fleet of boats, possesses nearly half a million acres of timber and ore land' in upper Michigan, operates coal mines in Kentucky and West Virginia, railroads, tractor and aeroplane plants and great research laboratories. In the Highland Park plant alone there are a dozen departments which, if set apart by themselves, would make sizable industries. The radiator department, for instance, is capable of producing more radiators than all other radiator manufacturers combined. The spring, axle, or steering gear departments, if freed from Ford production demands, could supply the balance of the entire automotive industry. Here also are extensive glass and leather plants, a department where Fordite, a rubber compound, is made and a textile factory which weaves cloth on its own looms, as well as numerous retail stores for the Ford workers. Indeed, this huge establishment possesses the aspect of a small American city. In years gone by one of the chief objections to socialism was that public industry would be so unwieldly that it would fall of its own weight. The great billion-dollar combinations of the present day prove that far vaster aggregations of capital can be controlled by one corporate unit than was formerly deem ed possible. Thus another anti-socialist contention may be—at least in considerable part—dismissed from further consideration.
With the development of the trust, public industry has likewise begun to assume new forms. Thus the government corporations formed during the war. Thus the Port Authority of New York, and in Canada the Hydro-Electric Power Commission, with its partnership arrangements with 600 municipalities for the generation and distribution of electrical energy. The possibilities of this newer type were thus summarized by the New Republic:
“The government may set up a corporation which has as much freedom from legislative interference and red tape as any other corporation. The legislature may define the purpose of the corporation and outline the method of its control; it may make an initial appropriation; beyond that its detailed control may stop. If the corporation has any voting stock, that stock may be vested in an executive official who has an advisory board, or it may be vested in a specially chosen board of directors. This chief authority, whoever he is, proceeds to direct and take full responsibility for the government’s business, just as if he were a corporation director representing private stockholders. The forms which have been developed to handle business undertakings are utilized for government service. A political administration whose prestige largely depends on the success of such an important undertaking is likely to take pains to discover a good manager.”
Avella Miners Seek Relief
RECENTLY 250 miners of Avella, Pa., marched on the courthouse to see if something could not be done to ameliorate their conditions. They were met by the sheriff, who told them to go back, but on they came and finally saw the county commissioners. They walked sixteen miles in a drenching rain to explain that they are law-abiding men, that they have worked but two days a week this past winter, that their wages have been cut, and that the company stores charge outrageous prices for the necessities of life. They did just right to complain, and the commissioners promised to try to help them.
Quotations from “The Book”
By W. H. Harvey (Arkansas)
CIVILIZATION cannot function -without . money. The government, business and society cannot function without it. If all the money in the United States were destroyed tonight and we entered life tomorrow7 without money, a medium of exchange, there would be a total collapse. There would be no way to buy a newspaper or magazine, to ride on a street car or railroad, to buy groceries, to pay men running the trains, or to meet payrolls in the offices and shops of all forms of industry. There rvould be bread riots in 48 hours in all the cities. Hence, we can understand the absolute necessity for money, a medium of exchange.
Congress has passed laws providing for the government, after making the money, to turn it over to the money lenders, the bankers, who are the individual owners of the banks and interested in making profits from money for themselves. The money is turned over to the bankers at the cost of printing it, estimated at one-half of one percent; they, the bankers, to put the money into circulation by loaning it to the people at an interest rate of 6 percent per annum and up, and as the government needs it, loaning it back to the government at about 4 percent per annum, taking government bonds or certificates as security.
Congress has passed another law in this connection by which the banks are authorized to loan their credit as a substitute for money for as much as ten times the quantity of money they have stored in their bank vaults; the money held by the banks to be regarded as an asset, ■warranting them in loaning their credit, all drawing interest the same as if it were money for as much as ten times the quantity of money they have stored in their vaults.
This lav7 classifies the banks, fixing the quantity of credit they can thus loan, ranging from 7| to 13 times the quantity of money they have stored, and on time deposits, thirty-three times the amount of money they have hoarded. So the average credit, a substitute for money, they can loan is as much as or more than ten times the amount of actual money they can show they have in their possession.
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