Golden Age, September 30, 1931

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Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

iiimiymwmiiHmmmmgEmmsmmmmmsmmmm! in this issue HARDING’S DIM REALIZATION WORLD’S LARGEST AIRSHIP EVENTS IN CANADA CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IS GRAVITATION UNIVERSAL? COMMON SALT VIVISECTION OF HUMANS MAN’S CHIEF CONCERN

every other ' WEDNESDAY 'five cents a copy [one dollar a year Canada & Foreign 1.25

Vol. XII - No. 314

September 30, 1931

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

Ameringer’s Picture of America 840

Truth About the “Dole System” 841

State Insurance in Wisconsin . 843

A Proposed Congress of Industry 843

Wages of Women

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

“The Akron,” the World’s Largest Airship

Five-Room Copper Houses . . 845

30,000,000 Nebulae

Attraction op Gravitation Not Universal

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

In a World That Is Upside Down 840

Blaine on Redistribution . . , 841

I . S. Population Is 124,069,651 845

MANUFACTURING AND MINING

Huge Power Plant at Buffalo . 843

Gas Wells in Southern New York 846

. FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

More Banks in the Ditch . . . 842

Brooklyn Edison Company . . 842

Uncle Sam’s Customers . . . 843

$5,000,000,000 Invested in Europe 845

What Happens to Cities That

Sell Their Utilities . . . 848

■ HOME AND HEALTH

Ten Rules for Keeping Cool .

More About the Corn Sugar

Dictum.......

Ain’t Science Wonderful! . Banana Oil Fumes and

Aluminum Castings . .

Common Salt .......

From the Jaws of Death . . Some Free Dental Advice . . Vivisection of Humans

Actually Under Way . .

Eight Diseases for Eighteen

Dollars.......

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

. 842

. 849 . 852

. 853 . 854 . 855 . 856

. 856

. 857

The Job of Being a General . . 837

Events in Canada .

Mr. Hardings Dim Realization . 835

Pittsburgh Coal Company’s Police 840

Cost of World War

Chain Store Taxes

Campaign Gifts and Income Tax

Refunds

North Carolina’s New Labor Laws 846

Crime and Punishment .... 847

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Tomorrow Will Never Come

(Poem) . .......848

No State Religion in Spain . . 846

The Radio Witness Work . . . 858

Congregational and Christian Church ........842

A Courageous Pastor .... 858

What Is Man’s Chief Concern? 859

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Golden Age

Volume XII Brooklyn, N. Y«, Wednesday, September 30, 1931 Number 314

Mr. Harding’s Dim Realization

IN HIS eulogy of Warren G. Harding, on the occasion of the unveiling of the monument to his memory erected in Marion, Ohio, President Hoover spoke of Mr. Harding’s “dim realization that he had been betrayed”. Well, if he were to awake and read May Dixon Thacker’s Strange Death of President Harding he would know perfectly well all about it.

It was bad for Warren that he had an ambitious wife that was a slave to demonism, and it was bad for him that after he was married he had the several clandestine love affairs which enabled the Ohio Gang to get him by the throat. Mr. Hoover could hardly have failed to know all about it, and for him to say that Mr. Harding had only a “dim realization” of what was going on is preposterous.

It was bad for Warren that he was president while Jess Smith was operating the house at 903 16th St. NW., in between his trips to Washington Court House, Ohio, to deposit the pickings of the gang. Sometimes the gang had as much as $500,000 hidden there at one time. If Warren Harding did not have more than a dim realization of what was going on in that house during his administration, then he did not know much about anything; for in that house, Miss Thacker’s book shows, the Harding administration was managed by Jess Smith and his gang.

If you read Miss Thacker’s book, you come to know that nobody can have any private papers of any kind in America. If a detective wants anything you have, it matters not what, he gets it, and that is all there is to it. It was because Mrs. Harding wanted all Warren’s love letters to Nan Britton that she got them all, to the last one. It is all so easy for “ropers” and “investigators” to lure people away, to make wax impressions of keyholes and to take what they want. It makes you envy the pygmies of Africa.

Don’t fool yourself that you can hide a piece of paper the size of a postage stamp. If they want it they will find it and get it, whether you live to tell the story or not. But you can believe it or not, just as you like, when Mrs. Harding showed Warren all the letters he had written to Nan Britton, some of them wdiile he was president, he had more than a dim realization that he had been betrayed. He knew it mighty well. Mrs. Harding even knew where Nan met the president when she came to the White House. And when she told him about it his dim realization must have glowed like a volcano.

If Mr. Harding were to wake up and read Miss Thacker’s story of the glass bowl through which passed the $7,000,000 of prohibition graft funds, all under the management of his friend Jess Smith, and if he could read about how the Alien Property matters were handled by himself, Mr. Daugherty and Col. Miller, his dim realization would shine like the sun at noonday.

As for the Teapot Dome and Elk Hills matters, they have been discussed so often, and have found such a large place in the public prints, that one wonders how Warren could have been or anybody else could have thought him to be so stupid as to have had only a dim realization that he was betrayed.

He was caught with the goods; everybody was caught; but business went on as usual, and the public, the poor suckers, listen wide-eyed and open-mouthed and drink in the encomiums and look up to Warren and his friends as examples of what American youths should aspire to become. We have a dim realization that they know better, but, as Barnum said, they love to be humbugged. And they have been, and are. But sometime they will see a great light.

“The Akron,” the World’s Largest Airship

TpROM our office windows, on the eighth floor ■ way, the cars being counterbalanced, of the finest printshop in the world, we

often see passing over New York the airships which are based at Lakehurst, N. J. They come up, sail around with infinite grace over the tallest buildings, and disappear as quietly as they come, back to their home in the pines.

It would be hard to think of anything more beautiful than their silvery sides gleaming against the azure sky. In no time they come and are gone. Airplanes are so common we never stop to look at them, but an airship is different. It is hard to sit still when one comes in sight. Somehow’ one feels that this is the thing that is to be used in the new7 age for swift travel overseas.

Plenty of people think thus, especially around Akron, Ohio, where a three-day convention of Jehovah’s witnesses recently afforded us an opportunity to enter the world’s largest airship dock (of the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation) and to see there, in process of construction, the largest airship in the world.

So vast is the area of this dock (eight and one-half acres under roof) that sudden changes of temperature cause clouds to form inside the hangar and rain falls. The little booklet published by the Goodyear people explains that this $2,225,000 building is so large that it is useless to attempt to heat it, except in the offices and shops which it houses, and adds:

The orange-peel-shaped doors, weighing 600 tons each, follow the contour of the building in opening and closing and are attached to a single six-foot pin at the top and roll on 40 wheels, assembled on four-wheel trucks, riding on a circular track.

The building is 1,175 feet long, 325 feet wide, and 211 feet high, the largest structure in the world without interior support. Ten football games could be played simultaneously under its roof, six miles of standard railroad tracks could be laid on its eight and one-half acres of floor, 100,000 people could gather within its walls, the Lexington and Saratoga, the great airplane carriers, could be housed there, the Woolworth building could be laid length-wise inside and the Washington monument added alongside it and there would still be ample room.

Since the 7,200 tons of steel in the framework expand and contract with changes in temperature, the arches of the building are placed on rollers, so that the giant building may be said literally to breathe.

Several working platforms, lowered from the roof, give the workmen access to the ship; and a series of six catwalks along the under side of the curving roof make the upper reaches accessible. An inclined railcarries the workmen to their stations aloft.

A helium storage plant -was built underground, alongside the dock, huge cylinders having a total capacity of more than 1,000,000 cubic feet of gas at 750 pounds pressure, being utilized.

At either end of the huge semi-paraboloid building are doors, each of the general shape of one-eighth of an orange peel. These doors weigh 1,200 tons to the pair. One man opens them at the rate of forty feet a minute. They swing in circular form around the end of the hangar, so that ’when fully opened the end of the building is missing altogether.

“The Akron” now building will have a gas volume of 6,500,000 cubic feet, as against the Graf Zeppelin’s 3,700,000 feet. It is only 9 feet longer than the Graf, but is 133 feet in diameter, as against 100 feet in the German ship that flew around the world.

It will have eight engines, as against the Graf’s five, and will have a range without refueling of 10,500 miles, as against the Graf’s 6,125 miles. The horsepower will be 4,480, as against 2,750, and the gross lift 403,000 pounds, as against 258,000 pounds.

“The Akron” consists primarily of a series of huge rings connected with longitudinal girders, the whole appropriately covered. The gas, helium, is non-inflammable, and is enclosed in twenty cells or separate bags, placed between the ring girders. If several of these cells should be wrecked the ship would still be seaworthy, or airworthy, perhaps we should say.

The little book tells us that Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to witness a balloon flight and that he wrote home to some of his friends what he thought might eventually come of this matter of navigation of the air. He said:

Among the pleasantries that conversation produces on this subject, some suppose flying to be now invented, and that since men may be supported in the air, nothing is wanted but some light handy instrument to give and direct motion. Some think progressive motion on the earth may be advanced by it, and that a running footman or a horse slung and suspended under such a globe so as to have no more of weight pressing the earth with their feet than perhaps eight or ten pounds, might with a fair wind run in a straight line across countries as fast as that wind, and over hedges, ditches and even waters. It has been even fancied that in time people will keep such globes anchored in the air, to which by pulleys they may draw up game to be preserved in the cool and water

age

to be frozen when ice is wanted. And that to get money, it will be contrived to give people an extensive view of the country, by running them up in an elbow chair a mile high for a guinea.

At the moment this is written, all the world is agog over the achievement of Messrs. Post and Gatty in flying around the top of the -world in less than nine days, but the Goodyear people pin their faith to the zeppelins for travel over sea. Their spokesman says:

All successful Atlantic airplane flights may fairly be discounted as having been made by overloaded planes, without pay load, by abnormally courageous pilots, and in the most favorable summer weather that could be found. The unsuccessful airplane flights give mute testimony that good luck cannot be depended on.

We do know, however, that the modern airplane can fly the Atlantic provided one of several things does not happen. The things that must not happen are: first, persistent head winds causing exhaustion of fuel supply at sea; second, engine failure from any cause; third, loss of visibility with consequent loss of control and course; and fourth, failure of any structural part or function of lifting, stabilizing or control surfaces.

Each of these contingencies may be fatal to the airplane, and in this I include the flying boat or seaplane in the North Atlantic, as its chance of survival there on the surface of the sea is at best precarious. In low latitudes both in the Pacific and Atlantic, a flying boat has a very fair chance to remain afloat, but due to the infrequency of passing steamers many days may elapse before rescue. In general, a forced landing on the high seas cannot be tolerated by a commercial enterprise.

The chance of a forced landing at sea due to exhaustion of fuel is measured by the margin of fuel carried versus the weather to be expected. We know that even with an overloaded start and no pay load and with favorable weather there has been practically no margin for those airplanes that have successfully negotiated the eastward crossing of the North Atlantic.

In Germany, prior to the World War, more than 35,000 passengers were carried in zeppelins over various routes. By the close of the conflict 115 zeppelins had been constructed.

A word more about “The Akron”. In her gas cells there will be used goldbeater’s skins from 400,000 cattle. These skins are taken from the intestines of steers because of their thinness and extraordinary strength. The engines are inside the ship. This is possible because a nonexplosive gas is used to sustain the craft.

There is a hangar in “The Akron” for five airplanes. The planes may be released while the ship is in flight and may be picked up again by a trapeze arrangement operated by a winch. These airplanes, we conjecture, will be used to distribute Sunday school lessons in time of war. There are observation and “gun” platforms, and seventeen telephones.

There is an interesting item regarding winds, which we think will attract attention of those who consider it:

Wind—The effect of wind on the airship is not entirely understood because of the comparison of its effect on anchored objects, like trees or houses, or those moving slowly, like ocean vessels.

The airship, however, is moving with the air currents. If a ship were to fly in a 60-mile gale with all its engines shut off like a free balloon, the passengers would be conscious of no sense of motion at all. If they stuck a hand out of the window there would be no rush of air past it. .

The airship during such a gale is not subject to anything like the stresses tugging at a house which cannot move, or a ship at sea the response of which to the wind’s movements is impeded by the water.

If the wind is moving in the same direction as the ship it merely increases its speed to that extent. If flying against the wind its forward speed is retarded. An 80-mile-an-hour airship bucking a 30-mile wind would be actually making only 50 m. p. h.

The airship skipper figures shrewdly to take advantage of winds and hunts for storms rather than avoids them.

The Job of Being a General

rpiIE American Guardian of Oklahoma puts -L forth the following which contains just enough truth to make it one of the funniest things ever printed:

The occupation of general at the front is classed a first class risk by all old line life insurance companies who have figures to prove it. For every general wounded in the battles of the last war, 200,735 civilians broke their necks stepping on cakes of soap in their bathtubs and 6,800,547 other civilians received serious injuries falling out of hammocks. In fact the only way to kill a general in modern war is by hitting him in the neck with a gun that shoots around the world.

Events in Canada By Our Canadian Correspondent

CANADA, in an effort to stay the progress of

Russia, has taken the drastic action of refusing to trade with her; and in this connection the Toronto Daily Star says editorially:

■ In refusing to carry on trade with Russia Canada is alone among trading nations.

The United States is delivering to Russia by midApril tractors and combine harvesters to a value of $45,000,000 and her manufacturers will go on making such wares for Russia. The ten-million-dollar order which Canada refused will, no doubt, be added to the bulk of the orders placed in the United States.

An amalgamation of British engineers has, according to the Ottawa Citizen, been awarded by Russia an order for twenty-three excavators worth $500,000 to be delivered in three months. An order for coal cutters was placed with a British firm for $775,000. The mayor of Newcastle reports that orders from Russia up to $150,000,000 will be placed in Britain if financial credit is arranged.

Norway has voted to guarantee credit up to $20,000,000 for fish and other products ordered by Russia. Germany is financing all the orders Russia places with her. They are all at it. Russia is buying everything she wants.

Canada probably believes she is setting the world a noble example in refusing to trade with Russia for the reason that the Russians do not go to church the ■way they should. But no other nation follow’s Canada’s example.

Would. Have the Jeremiahs Silenced

One would have thought that doing business with Russia might serve to help out somewhat the unemployment situation. But what matter the unemployed? Capitalism must live; and for Russia to succeed would mean the end of the capitalistic system and of world-wide unemployment.

Speaking of the unemployed and hard times the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix has little patience with those who would deceive themselves and others into thinking it is only psychic. It says:

Conservative newspapers throughout Canada are now engaged in showing, so far as in them lies, that the present depression in Canadian trade is a passing phase which we should bear with fortitude, and that the advocates of secession and other extreme measures are irresponsible agitators trying either to line their pockets or to embarrass the government. The reason for these assertions is clear. Falling wheat prices and rising unemployment are visible proof that Mr. Bennett has failed, to date at least, to make good his glowing promises to the Canadian public.

Among the papers which object to references to present poverty, distress and discontent in the west the Winnipeg Tribune is the most articulate. Day after day it plays the role of Pollyanna, pointin™ with enthusiasm to a silver lining which others are unable to see. The fact that most people in the west have adequate food, clothing and shelter convinces the Winnipeg paper that all is reasonably well and that there is no cause for resentment or for exploring such radical proposals as a break with eastern Canada. The Tribune’s latest blast on the subject is a denunciation of the Toronto Star for sending a reporter out west to describe conditions in the distressed areas. This writer has told some gloomy stories, including mention of the fact that where crop failure and low prices have hit hardest gunnysack is in use for clothing and dried gophers for food. The Winnipeg paper thinks this is “slandering” the west and that the Toronto Star ought to be ashamed.

This ostrich-like point of view is shared by Winnipeg’s chief magistrate, Mayor "Webb, who in Saskatoon recently announced glibly that talk about hard times should be suppressed and that all the radical farmers could be put in one room. Many people are unable to agree with the Webb-jtVwwa theory that the unpleasant facts should be kept out of sight. It is true that no one in western Canada is dying of cold or starvation, but surely that can be taken for granted in the twentieth century in a country where modern production methods are known and used. Western Canada is aiming at something immeasurably better than living at a subsistence level, and the fact that a fair-sized minority of its people are just at that level, and would be below it but for charity, is shocking to any sensitive observer. The demand that this deplorable state of affairs should be hushed up surely establishes a new’ low for all times in political discussion.

The reason for the hushing-up process is, quite evidently, a partisan reason. Conservative newspapers took a different line six months ago. Last summer, when wheat was $1.05 and the unemployed numbered 170,000, they thought it was a patriotic duty to view with alarm the state of industry, denounce those in authority and demand a change. Today, when wheat is 58 cents and there are 300,000 jobless, anyone who says that times are bad is a mean-spirited slanderer who wants to spoil poor Mr. Bennett’s sleep. That is about the size of the joyful noise-making now heard from the Pollyanna chorus.

Warm Belt in the Upper Air

The fliers of western Canada have been observing a very strange phenomenon: a layer of warm air spreads across the prairies at a height of from two thousand to three thousand feet, with temperature from thirty to fifty degrees higher. The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix reporting thereof states:

Air mail pilots, winging their way over the prairies, have observed a phenomenon which so far has defied explanation by meteorologists and others who lay claim to weather wisdom. At 2,000- or 3,000-foot levels the air has on many occasions this winter been anywhere from 30 to 50 degrees warmer than at ground level. This strange vagary of old man Winter has been noticed to a greater or lesser extent in all parts of the prairie provinces, but has been more noticeable around Saskatoon and Regina.

According to the airmen and the weather experts, this is contrary to all law’s of nature, and to any previous experiences. Pilots believe that it has something to do with the chinook winds which sweep in from the Pacific, but beyond that they can offer no explanation. Meteorological experts confess that they are completely baffled. They have never before heard of such a thing, and can offer no answer to the problem.

W. L. Brintnell, operating manager, Western Canada Airways, tells of one experience of this nature he had last winter. He took off in a temperature of 17 below zero. A dense fog forced him to fly within 200 feet of the ground. Suddenly he noticed a rift in the fog and climbed to a height of 3,000 feet. At once he noticed his oil temperature gauge rising very rapidly. He was at a loss to understand this till he put his hand outside and realized that the air wras warm. Glancing at his thermometer, he saw that it wTas 45 above zero, 57 degrees higher than the temperature at ground level.

A little later the fog once more closed in around him and he was forced again to descend to the 200-foot level, -where he found that the mercury again registered 17 below.

Queer pranks of the weather man have made flying difficult this winter. West of Moose Jaw there is no snow and no cold weather. Between Moose Jaw and Winnipeg, while not as cold as usual, it is nevertheless distinctly wintry weather. The result of this is a wide belt of heavy fog where the cold and warm weather meet. This has delayed the prairie air mail frequently during the winter.

A Birth in the Skies

News comes from the west that 4,000 feet in the air a baby was born in a plane. In true story-book fashion Mr. Stork, 1931 model and gasoline-propelled, arrived at The Pas from the north country carrying a bouncing boy.

Receiving an emergency call from Mile 214, Flight Lieut. A. L. McPhee, of the R. C. A. F., took to the air in his cabin monoplane and three hours later was winging his way back to The Pas with Mrs. Alex. Miller as his passenger.

Fifteen minutes after leaving Mile 214 on the return journey Baby Miller made his appearance at a height of four thousand feet.

Both mother and son are reported as doing nicely today.

Alas! Poor Ferguson!

What next? The Canadian Press informs us that a loyal Orangeman, none other than ExPremier Ferguson of Ontario, has been blessed by the pope. It says:

Hon. G. Howard Ferguson, Canadian high commissioner in London, who is attending the World Wheat Conference here, and Mrs. Ferguson today were received by the pope in private audience.

“It was merely a courtesy call,” Mr. Ferguson said afterward. “Later he will pay his respects to ‘his holiness’ on behalf of the Dominion,” Mr. Ferguson said.

Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson were presented to the pope by G. A. D. Ogilvie-Forbes, charge d’affaires of the British ministry to the “holy see”.

“His holiness” discussed Canada in a most cordial and interested manner with Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson, and imparted the apostolic benediction before they left.

Atheism in the Universities

In further evidence of the fact that most college professors have no faith in the Bible as the Word of God and are practical atheists, the Globe adds in its testimony in a long editorial upon the matter, which in part we quote:

Ominous conditions have come to light in the public discussions of atheism in the colleges. That the students of two great universities should mention quite casually in their undergraduate dailies that atheism is a prevalent and well-recognized fact among students of the various schools, including even that of theology, has surprised and startled a considerable part of the general public. Yet it should not surprise us. For there is no gainsaying the fact noted by “A Student” in a letter in the Globe-. “Practical atheism is a world condition today, and a large and increasing number of people in everyday life practice it.” The same letter, however, shows ignorance of the facts when the writer says that “the classroom cannot be blamed for the practical atheism of the undergraduate body”, and that no subjects taught either in Applied Science or in Medicine could affect belief in God. It takes but slight familiarity with the teachings rife today in most college and university classrooms, and in such subjects as Science and Medicine, to have convincing proof that the instructors and professors arc constantly going out of their way to throw doubt or ridicule upon the teachings of the Bible, with the result of shattered faith on the part of students.

Iii a World That Is Upside Down

Oscar Ameringer’s Picture of America

IN THE American Guardian of Oklahoma Oscar Ameringer describes America at this time, and it is not a nice picture. He says:

At least one third of labor is unemployed. At least one other third is only staggeringly employed. Millions of workers and tens of millions of human beings, if we embrace their families, are actually suffering from a lack of the prime necessities of life. Six hundred thousand railroad workers are permanently laid off. Thousands of conductors and engineers have been reduced to brakemen and firemen. The plight of the 500,000 coal miners alone is enough to cry to heaven. The campfires of tramping wage earners flicker along every railroad track. Desolate strings of homeless and jobless workers, men, women, and children, in soleless shoes and rickety Fords pass each other on the concrete roads, going north, south, east and west in search of work and bread. Labor leaders, these are not voluntary hoboes. They are the exodus of American labor from home and fireside. This is the slaughter of the innocents brought up to date and multiplied a thousand times. Can you not see that this is the crime of starving in the midst of plenty? The crime of willing workers locked out from the factories they built, the mines they sunk, the railroads they strung, the storehouses they filled with food and clothing. Strong arms, skilled hands, trained minds, begging for a chance to earn a living by honest toil, by giving twice for once and yet denied the chance.

Dallas Pastor Hated Overalls

A DALLAS pastor who nearly made a living as a hotel baggage man was found stripped, bound and hanged by the neck in his own church, but with his feet resting on a folding chair beneath him. When found he stated that he had been attacked by four masked men who had previously written him threatening letters. He has since admitted that he wrote the letters himself, and that he had trussed himself up with the rope; that his whole story was a lie. To make a success of the clergy business it is necessary to tell many lies, and this seemed to this man the reasonable thing to do. However, his fright at contact with the overalls is quite unfounded. If he becomes a good, honest, industrious porter he not only stands a chance of making a fair living in this world, but he will get something besides destruction in the world to come. And the clergy business is going to bring that to many. It is a bold man that will spend his life maligning and defaming Almighty God.

Pittsburgh Coal Company’s Industrial Police

TpROM reports which reach us, the Pittsburgh J- Coal Company’s Industrial Police are not different from the Pennsylvania Coal and Iron Police whom they have replaced. The reason, probably, is because they are the same individuals. We get the same stories of beating men and women over the head with clubs, including assaults on innocent bystanders, as we always get from western Pennsylvania wherever these armed anarchists are on the job. One woman, a pottery worker, not connected in any wray with the coal miners, stood waiting for a bus, and one of these entirely illegal officers of the law came along and hit her with a club. A sick woman was ordered out of her bed and out of her house because a striker ran into it for refuge, and a boarder in the same house was clubbed when he tried to escape the trouble by climbing out a cellar window. A farmer reports having seen tvro hundred men, women and children, knocked flat with clubs wielded by some of these horseback apostles of Big Business. The poor people thus clubbed are by these means given thorough lessons in what it means to be 100-percent American.

Gravel in the Pope’s Spinach

Mr. Batti is finding plenty of gravel in his spinach these days and mighty little comfort. In a burst of confidence to some the other day he disclosed that “all bishops declare that life is being made a burden to them, that they are constantly subjected to the most odious espionage, odious secret accusations and constant odious threats”. The old man is taking it pretty hard and, speaking for himself, said: “You perhaps expect me to say something special at this sad moment, but I do not wish to abuse your patience, and besides I would have to say too many bitter things.” It is just as well that the old gent shut off the gas. It would not do just now for him to ‘rile’ Mr. Mussolini too much. But the chances are good that Mussolini will throw the whole Vatican City works into the ash can before he finishes, and then the pope will be still sadder than he is now.

Italy Restores the Death Penalty

ITALY has restored the death penalty, after forty years of respite. By the new method of disposing of condemned criminals, the offender is shot in the back as he sits tied to a chair.

Oiling Up the Sanctified

OF ALL the comical situations is the one in

. which fifty-two churchmen have been caught as having been oiled up by the film trust, of which our more or less oleaginous and truthful Presbyterian brother Will Hays is the head. It seems that "Will wanted these erstwhile saints to glorify the movies for a consideration. Among the apostles so engaged was the former senior general secretary of the Federal Council of Churches of [Anti] christ in America, who pulled down $150 a month for eighteen months. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. But it is so embarrassing to have the payroll come up for air. Hays was sore because he thought, in these hard times, some of the dominies had the disposition of wanting to overload the payroll and work it overtime. He did not see doing it and so he spilled the beans, to the public’s delight. Meantime the dominies can remember his testimony in the halcyon days of the Teapot Dome investigation and can solemnly say to themselves (for that is where their prayers go), “0 Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men.” When fibbers and grafters and hypocrites fall out, honest men laugh till they bust.

India’s Child Marriages

I) EFERRING to Miss Mayo’s second book on India’s child marriage evil, the Manchester Guardian says:

It is not true that marriage is merely a betrothal, consummation being deferred until tire girl is reasonably mature. Pre-puberty consummation occurs to a far greater extent than may ordinarily be supposed, while, as for the rest of those married early, consummation soon after puberty is almost universal. The evidence gives us glimpses of the alliance of sacerdotalism, beastliness, prejudice, ignorance, and inertia behind which the custom is securely entrenched. As to its evil effects, Miss Mayo’s citations from the evidence and the report are sufficiently horrifying. Wc are left with the conviction that there is not today in the world another custom which produces so much oppression and suffering, physical or mental.

Cost of World War

THE direct cost of the World War is estimated at $186,233,637,097, of which the

United States bore one-sixth. The casualties of all belligerents, killed, wounded and missing, numbered 37,499,386, of whom only about iy2 percent were Americans.

The Truth About the So-called “Dole System” overnor Joseph B. Elx, of Massachusetts, tells the plain truth about the so-called “dole system” when he says:

We in this country commonly speak of the British unemployment insurance as the British dole system. As a matter of fact it is not a dole system at all in the ordinary meaning of that word. Under it the employer contributes to a fund a percentage of his earnings, the state contributes a portion, and the worker a portion. This fund is utilized to equalize the wages . of those men and women who are unemployed through no fault of their own. It is a part of the cost of production. Contrary to the opinion in this country, it has generally operated successfully.

To this we may add that there would have been no unfavorable opinion of the British unemployment system in this country except for the malicious and dishonest prejudice against it aroused by the Judas press. America will have to come to it, anyway, and then the enemies and misrepresenters of it should be remembered.

Senator Blaine on Redistribution

TN A COMMENCEMENT address at Valparaiso University, Senator Blaine, of Wisconsin, made the following radical utterance:

When the masters of industry take their toll in inordinate salaries, bonuses, dividends, surplus inventories, and add to capital investment, there isn’t much left for the worker, and eventually he becomes the victim of unemployment. Today there is utter disgust with the universal order, and that disgust is being embittered by the sting of untold poverty. The clamor is being heard everywhere for legislation against the abuses of the capitalistic system. To my way of thinking and as I understand the history of the human race, a redistribution of wealth, and thus a redistribution of the income of wealth on the basis of services rendered and income earned, is the only means of escape from the present economic tragedy.

Pleasing Declines in Trade

REFERRING to reductions in our export trade of about $20,000,000 per month over last year’s poor record, and reductions of about $120,000,000 per month in our import trade, The Nation soothingly remarks:

Especially pleasing to the New York Chamber of Commerce must be the fact that purchases by Soviet Russia showed a decline of $844,861 as contrasted with March, and of $3,438,867 from April, 1930. The total remains at $6,786,831—still much too high for the chamber, which desires to cut off all trade with the Soviets. - '

Chain Stare Taxes

TN ALABAMA the proposition to tax the chain J- stores was carried in the House of Representatives almost unanimously. Such legislation is just. The small, independent merchant, who knows the industries and the people of the community, is the strength of the country in a time of chaos, for it is to him that the worker looks for credit, and something should be done to offset the harm to his business that is done by the chain stores. They should pay heavier taxes than he does. He is a support to the state which they are not. When they have cash the people buy where they can buy cheapest, and that leaves the independent merchant to regain his footing as best he can. It is an unequal struggle.

Stabilizing the Peach Growers

TT IS expected that it will cost $2,000,000 this year to stabilize the peach-growing business.

That amount will be expended to pay the growers for the peaches that are destroyed in the orchards of California. The people who eat peaches will pay the $2,000,000 but they won’t get the peaches, and the peaches they do eat will cost them twice what they would if this law of supply and demand that we hear so much about were allotved free play. The railroads will not haul the peaches that are destroyed, so they will have to have the freight rates raised. Raising the freight rates will make the cost of the peaches.to the peach eaters just that much more. It is a peach of a way to treat the peach eaters.

Killing Rats in Peru

WITH the killing of some five million rats in six months the bubonic plague has been stamped out in Peru. Seventy tons of arsenic were used on the job. The arsenic, temptingly mixed with grated cheese, ground salt fish, ground pressed seal cake, dried shrimps and wheat flour was just what the rats wanted. The disease, so far as known, is communicated by fleas which infect rats.

More Banks Land in the Ditch

IN THE first three months of 1930 there were 124 bank failures; in the first three months of 1931 there were 270 such failures, and the total liabilities were nearly three times as great. The largest banks in Toledo have gone under.

The Coach of Crazy Jane

fJlHE Spanish republican government does not know7 -what to do with the coach of

Crazy Jane, queen of Spain in 1540. 'When her husband King Philip le Bel died she had this elegant coach made and used to drive about the city with the body of her husband enclosed in a black and silver coffin. The coach itself is jet black, adorned with black onyx and inlaid with ebony. When Jane went out for a drive she had the coach drawn by eight jet black horses, was herself dressed in black crepe and had the window’s draped with black crepe curtains. Alfonso left behind him another coach, which is valued at $75,000. His automobiles have been sent on to him at Paris.

Brooklyn Edison Company

IN 1930 the Brooklyn Edison Company paid $57,080,808 in cash dividends and showed net earnings of $84,169,841. With no competition to meet, and enjoying rates which are inexcusably exorbitant, it celebrated this best year of its history by laying off 1,600 of its employees, i. e., turning them over to the tender mercies of charity. No doubt some newspaper could explain all about this strictly American way of doing things and show just why it is right. They have done considerable of such explaining in the past. Anyway, public ownership is all wrong, isn’t it ? The paper says so, and it must be so if it is in the paper.

Ten Rules for Keeping Cool

TTp. Shirley W. Wynne, New York health commissioner, gives ten rules for keeping cool, and they are all excellent:

Keep your eye on your work, not the thermometer; dress lightly; keep in the shade; eat lightly and avoid rich foods; drink water freely; do not worry; move about as little as possible; keep windows closed and shades drawn during day but wide open at night; if possible get an electric fan to keep air in motion; avoid crowds.

Congregational and Christian Church

AT A JOINT convention in Seattle, June 25, 6,670 churches of the Congregational and Christian denominations were united, and they will take the name of the “Congregational and Christian Church”. They are hoping to induce other denominations to join and to change the name to United Church of Christ in America.

State Insurance in Wisconsin

WISCONSIN state owns its own fire insurance company, in which it insures public buildings owned by villages, towns, cities, counties and the state. At first it charged 25 percent less than the ordinary insurance companies, but the state made money too fast and the rate was cut so as to be 35 percent less. Now the surplus has so grown that a new orthopedic hospital for children has been erected at a cost of $300,000 but without a cent of expense to the taxpayers. It will now be in order for the Judas press to show that this was against the best interests of the people. But Wisconsin will be slow to believe it.

Uncle Sam’s Customers

TN THE first quarter of 1931 Uncle Sam’s -*• sales to the United Kingdom were 35 percent less than in the same period of 1930; sales to Canada were off 38 percent, to Germany 34 percent, to Japan 20 percent, to France 37 percent, to Mexico 42 percent, to The Netherlands 34 percent, to Belgium 35 percent, and to China 34 percent; general average, 37 percent. Purchases from abroad fell off in about the same proportions, the ten largest suppliers of goods to America being off in their sales to us respectively by 37 percent, 24 percent, 40 percent, 36 percent, 19 percent, 15 percent, 46 percent, 19 percent, 21 percent, and 35 percent.

'A Proposed Congress of Industry

James W. Gerard, chairman of the Commission of Industrial Inquiry of the National Civic Federation, taking a leaf from the Soviet 5-year plan for Russia, has issued a call for a Congress of Industry to develop a ten-year plan for America’s Wall Street Soviet. Matthew Woll, acting president of the National Civic Federation, is interested in the proposed new congress and believes the congress should consider a 6-hour day and a 5-day week.

American 'Boxed the Duke’s Ears ■ ’

Tp )R making remarks about his wife, in a publie restaurant, William Hodgeman, American commercial attache at Budapest, Hungary, soundly boxed the ears of the duke of Mecklenburg, and served the alleged nobleman jolly well right. Challenged to a duel the American merely laughed at him. That was right, too.

Huge Power Plant at Buffalo

UNTIL the treaty is changed, Canada may take but 36,000 cubic feet of water a second from Niagara River above the Falls, and the United States may take but 20,000. The demand for more power has led to the building at Buffalo of a huge steam plant, the Huntley plant of the Niagara Hudson System. This plant will consume about one million tons of coal per year. The coal is fed into the boilers at a speed of one and one-half miles a minute through the pressure of a button. One man at a switchboard controls the power output of one of the 107,000-horsepower generators.

lamascia Lands in Hades

Daniel Iamascia, Bronx beer runner, has gone to his reward, and he went in the most approved bootlegger and racketeer style. The funeral was held at the Roman Catholic Church of our Lady of Mount Carmel, and the floral tributes packed thirty-five open automobiles. The mourners filled seventy-five limousines and fifty private automobiles. lamascia seemed to sense that it would not be long before he would get it, as he purchased six cemetery lots only the day before he was shot. His body will rest in a $25,000 mausoleum. Oddly enough, it was a clash with the police that brought his end.

Cause of Goiter

IF A PUPPY is fed too- much meat it gets a big neck. The same is true of other animals that are fed too much concentrated protein food. Goiter is common in Australia, where beef is the chief article of diet. When the amount of beef consumed is reduced the goitrous condition is helped. Goiter patients must see that the intestinal tract is kept active, and this can be done only by a diet principally of fruits and vegetables. In Japan, where seaweed is a common article of food, there are no cases of goiter.

Scotland Loses in Population

SCOTLAND is losing in population, the loss in ten years being 39,943. In 1921 the total population was 4,882,497; now it is 4,842,554. There are still more women than men in Scotland. The population of Holland is almost twice that of Scotland, being set at 7,920,388 on December 31, last.

Campaign Gifts and Income Tax Refunds

Advertising Men See the Point

enator Dill, of Washington, names twenty- /ATHERS may or may not use their brains, 1 four men who gave the republican fund but advertising men have to, if they are to

$477,000 in 1928 and calls attention to the fact that these men have been given tax refunds of $114,655,279, which is a 24,000-percent return on their investment. He seems to think it pays to be a republican. He also cites seven that were repaid for contributions by official posts, naming specifically the ambassadors to Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Cuba, the governor general of the Philippines, and the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

Mellon Will Censor Health Bulletins

THE Public Health Service advised the people to keep well in summer by eating less meat than usual. The big meat packers put the screws on the government, and hereafter all health bulletins must go through Andrew Mellon’s office, to be censored before they go out. This means that the health department may advise the people all they please on health matters just so long as they do not interfere with business. That means they can do nothing at all, for Big Business has its hands in everything that affects mankind.

Effect of Business Depression on the Aged

rpiIE business depression affects the aged as well as the young. Their children -who would otherwise be willing and able to care for them find themselves without the means to do so, and the aged are obliged to apply for relief to the states they have supported by their taxes, and of which they are integral parts. In the year 1931 New York city will expend about $7,000,000 for relief of the aged. This money is well spent, as it enables families to stay together. When business conditions improve, if they ever do, less assistance will be required.

British Getting Like Us

THE British seem to be getting as bad as the rest of us. One department store in London brings the cases of 250 shoplifters a year into court and is said to lose $50,000 a year by stealage that is undetected. And there, we thought the British were such nice honest people, too.

get results. Seeing clearly that if the people have no money they cannot buy, the convention of the Advertising Federation of America has officially expressed the opinion that business prosperity can be restored only by “the widest possible distribution among the creators of wealth of an equable share of the profits of production and of the time economies made possible by the development of machinery”.

Pity the Poor Stockholders!

STOCKHOLDERS of the American Smelting and Refining Company are receiving the same returns on their investments now as they did in the boom year of 1926. The public reads that the dividends now are $2 per share, whereas in 1926 they were $6 per share, but the public quickly forgets that since the dividends were paid the stock has been split three for one, so that the apparently small dividends are really the same as they were before.

Last Week’s Talk with Mr. Jones

IT WON’T be long now until the office manager will say to the office boy, “Bring me last

-week’s talk with Mr. Jones,” and the boy will go to the cabinet and get the wire upon which the whole talk is transcribed verbatim. If desired, the message can be obliterated and the wire used again. This device will soon be on the market.

Indianapolis’ First Citizen

Charles Henry Johnson, of East St. Louis, claims to have been born in Indianapolis when there w?as only one house there, and that is 110 years ago. Charles says that he expects to live another 100 years. He declares that two of his grandparents lived to be almost 200 years of age.

Winnipeg Gets Six Thousand Tons of Dust

IN A DUST storm recently six thousand tons of dust fell on the city of Winnipeg. The calculation was based upon the amount that fell on one square yard of pavement. When weighed it was found to total 2% ounces. It came largely from the drought-stricken areas of North Dakota and Saskatchewan.

Amish Mennonites Please Their God

THE Amish Mennonites of Ontario will please their god. They have solemnly decreed, in conference assembled, that the faithful may not have radios. The penalty is excommunication. The Amish Mennonite god will be very much pleased with this decision because he does not wish the Amish Mennonite people to learn anything or to have anything else than the misery which they so much enjoy. The Amish Mennonite god is the Devil.

Five-Room Copper Houses in Germany

AT A BUILDING exposition in Berlin one hundred five-room copper houses were sold during the first five days of the exposition. The walls are two inches thick, with copper on the outside and pressed steel on the inside, and doors and windows built in. It is claimed that the houses can be delivered and set up ready for occupancy in two days, provided foundations are ready. Prices of the two designs offered were $1,800 and $2,500.

Write Tour Name and Address on Baggage

IT DOES not take long to write one’s name and address on baggage. A Pennsylvania man who did this was rewarded by the return of a brief case he had lost twenty years previously. The man who first picked it up lost it himself; it went to the lost and found department of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and the address inscribed within provided a clue to the real owner.

30,000,000 Nebulae

Dr. Edwin Hubble, of Mount Wilson Observatory, as a result of his studies of photographs of the heavens, has expressed the opinion that there are 30,000,000 nebulse and that they are spaced at exact intervals 1,500,000 light years apart. The uniform location suggests one Designer for them all.

Fewer Books Published than in 1910

LARGELY due to the business depression there are fewer books published in this country now than there were in 1910. In that year the number of new books published was 13,410, but in the year 1930 the total published was only 10,127. It is expected that for this year it will be still less.

High School General Organizations

EVERY high school in New York city now has a general organization of students, supporting nearly 200 activities. The lunch rooms operated by these students do a business of more than $2,000,000 a year, conducted as nearly at cost as can be figured. Students receive a reduction on all tickets to school activities, the benefits they receive amounting to several hundred percent on the investments.

More Women Have to Work

MORE women have to work away from home in order to help maintain their homes. In 1920 only 25.8 percent of married women were engaged in gainful employment, and that is bad enough, but in 1930 the number thus engaged was 29.9 percent, and that number would have been greatly increased but for the fact that many of those who would have liked to work could find nothing to do.

16,000 Mothers Die in Childbirth

EVERY year in the United States 16,000 mothers die in childbirth. It is believed that two-thirds of these deaths are needless. An effort to get $1,000,000 as a fund to promote the welfare of mothers and children failed to pass the last congress, perhaps because of fear that these funds would be used to build up the already dominant power of the American Medical Association.

$5,000,900,909 Invested in Europe

AMERICANS have $5,000,0005000 invested in Europe. One-half of this amount is in securities of governments and municipalities and corporations guaranteed by the government. Holdings of the securities of private corporations are estimated at about $1,000,000,000. The balance is made up by direct investments in commerce and industry. One-half the total sum is invested in Germany.

U. S. Population Is 124,069,651

ON JULY 1, 1930, the population of the United States, according to the census, was 124,069,651. The population increases at the rate of one every thirty-six seconds, so that some time on July 22, 1931, we were due to pass the eighth-of-a-billion mark, 125,000,000 persons.

Chancellor Flint on Sovietism

IN HIS baccalaureate sermon at Syracuse

University Chancellor Flint said: “If sovietism in the next 25 years evolves a better system, industrially, socially and in serving and conserving humanity, it will conquer the world without firing a single shot.” That statement must make hard reading for some of the moneybags. Every time a bondholder hears anything favorable about Russia he gets the heebie-jeebies.

Great Drought in the Northwest

TN TWENTY-FIVE counties in North Dakota J- and Montana, and in sections of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta, there has been a great drought and the close of the year 1931 leaves the farmers with nothing they can sell. Great numbers of farmers will be in need of relief in that district this coming winter, as there was a failure in crops in the same district a year ago.

North Carolina’s New Labor Laws

UNDER North Carolina’s new labor laws children between 14 and 16 may work but eight hours per day, women over 16 may work 11 hours, but no woman under eighteen may work between nine p.m. and six a.m. Injured workers are authorized to choose their own physician. Railroad workers and printers are exempted from jury duty.

No State Religion in Spain

THE new Spanish constitution contains the following provision:

“No state religion exists. The Catholic church is a corporation before the law. Other religions can have the same character when requested and when they offer guarantees they will be self-supporting. All religions can observe their faiths privately and publicly.”

Wages of Women

A STUDY made by the Women’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor discloses that wages for women are highest in electrical appliances, rubber goods, metal products and shoe industries, and that they are lowest in the five and ten cent stores. The median week’s wages range from $8.29 in Mississippi to $16.36 in Rhode Island.

Whites in South Africa

ALTHOUGH the whites of South Africa do all the governing of that country and hold the native population in the strictest subjection, yet there are only a handful of them there, as compared with the natives. In the whole of South Africa there are only about half as many white people as there are in the city of Chicago.

Turned In Alarm to Get a Meal

TN KANSAS CITY a 19-year-old mother and -®- her 2-year-old babe were starving and the mother turned in a false fire alarm. She concluded that by breaking the law she could get something to eat, and it turned out as she thought. A cafe owner who heard her pathetic story gave her a good meal.

Immense Size of Colombia

C OLOMBIA is larger than Germany, France, Belgium and Holland put together, and its air mail lines carry more mail than all the air lines in Germany combined. Argentina is large too. From north to south its extent equals the distance from Hudson Bay almost to Mexico City.

Oversubscribed Seven and One-Half to One

WHEN the treasury asked for a loan of $800,000,000 the amount was over-subscribed seven and one-half to one. That is to say, $6,000,000,000 was offered. The fellows that have the money are willing to trust the Government with their money, but they won’t trust anybody else with it.

All We Need Is the 92c

THE National Industrial Conference Board has been making a study of costs of living and finds that we now buy as much for 92c as we could get for $1 in the year 1923. There is only one little difficulty in the way just now, and that is to find how to get the 92c. Otherwise everything is O.K.

Gas Wells in Southern New York

A BIG gas pocket has been discovered astride the New York-Pennsylvania line, a little south of Elmira and Corning. Fifty-two wells are pouring out gas in great quantities. It is being piped as far as Binghamton, and plans are afoot to pipe it to New York itself.

Crime and Punishment

ONE cannot help wondering what is wrong:

Why, with all our vigilance, all our criminal laws, all our police, all our penal institutions, crime of all kinds is growing in prevalence.

There are those (not the students of criminology) who feel the punishment provided ought to be more drastic, and that we are too kind to convicts in prisons; that a diet of bread and water, and the cold, hard floor of prison cells to sleep upon, a denial of all recreation, and every other possible means of making convicts feel their offense against society, should be meted out to the convicted.

Not only would such make the punishment fit the crime, but they would go back to the days when pocket-picking was punishable by death, and criminals were thrown to beasts of prey. But did the barbarous practice once in vogue serve as a deterrent of crime: did it deter? It did not.

Seeing that the attitude of early Americans toward crime, and what they thought ought to be the penalties, failed, and failed because the inhuman policy, as we look upon it today, was bound to fail, we have adopted more humane penalties.

“Whipping, branding, hanging, maiming; chambers of torture; men’s bodies broken on a wheel; suspension by arms and legs, with great weights attached; their flesh burned by irons white hot; human bodies roasted over slow fires; bound alive; thrown to wild beasts; molten lead poured into the ears; faces of men placed toward the flaming sun and their eyes blinded; tied by the sea to be drowned by the rising tide; all these,” says Hon. A. C. Backus, formerly judge of the Municipal Court, Milwaukee, in an address before the National Probation Association at Washington, D. C., “have been tried, and victims have given up their lives by the millions, and yet so-called ‘criminals’ did not become extinct. It is a historical fact that crime increased with the imposition of these terrible penalties.”

One would think that the category of fiendish and inhuman punishments cited by Judge Backus above includes all the possible cruelties; not so, for, “Let those who ascribe crime today to the lack of punishment,” says Platt, in the Riddle of Society, 1926, “make new suggestions. And lest they be led into unnecessary experiment, let them remember, too, that the above does not include all that has been tried; there is, also, the pressing to death under great weights, the cut-By C. F. Bley (New York)

ting off of the eyelids, the pulling out of the finger nails, the tearing out of the tongue, impaling on stakes, dismembering by wild horses, and the ripping-open of the body and tearing out the bowels.” And he adds, “We have carefully tried all of these; they need not be repeated.”

Did cruel punishment deter? Does capital punishment deter? Statistics say No! Even when, on one occasion, we ma.de a gala day of a public execution—when rural and suburban residents within fifty miles of Buffalo, came in all manner of conveyances—whole families— some of them came on foot—even barefoot, sixteen miles, to see a certain triple hanging, and pocket-picking was an offense punishable by death, and when the colonists made twenty offenses punishable by death,'there was no evidence that the punishment inflicted deterred crime. Pockets were picked while the (morbid) crowds were viewing public executions. And likewise when the authorities at Salem stopped burning witches, the good people of Salem were just as sure that they were right as their descendants today, and all other Americans who believe in capital punishment and other barbarous and inhuman treatment of convicts, think that they are right.

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