Golden Age, February 1, 1933
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crhe Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE
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in this issue
HAMAN VERSUS MORDECAI AFRICA
A CONTINENT IN THE MAKING OWNERSHIP OF WATERWORKS THE WAR DEBTS WORLD NEWS IN BRIEF OBEDIENCE TO JEHOVAH BRINGS PEACE
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every other WEDNESDAY five cents a copy one dollar a year Canada & Foreign 1.25
Vol.XIV - No. 349 February 1, 1933
CONTENTS
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
One-Fourth of All Women Working 278
Relief Camps in Halifax . . . .278 Only One-Tenth Found Work . .278 Three Cents for Making a Dress . _79 Labor Camps in California . . . 289
Free Clothes for a Million . . .
Old Men Retain Their Jobs . . .
Relief Methods in Milwaukee . .
Free Milk in Uniontown .... ..SO New York’s Single Veterans . . 281 Real Depression Due in 18 Months 283 Present Disaster Unequaled . . . 283
Columbia U .Shows Capitalism Dying 2S3
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
Sun Life Assurance Company . . 275
Allspice.........278
PRR’s Bureau of New Ideas . . . 278
How Industrial Workers Met Death 278 50,000 Trespassers a Month . . .278 Free Street-Car Rides.....279
Basic English, a New Language . 282
Air Line Through Heart of China 281
Why They Found It Hard to Pay 281
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
Uses of the Kenya Legisiature . 271
Police Not at Fault at Pekin . 275
Municipal Ownership of
Waterworks.......275
The War Debts.......276
Stirring Times in Taylorvii e . . 278
New York City’s Printing .... 281
Hunger Marchers at the Capital . 282
Business of the Munition Makers . 282
SCIENCE AND INVENTION
Longest Concrete Arch in America 279
San Francisco-Oakland Bridge . . 281
The Things That Are in Sight . . 283
HOME AND HEALTH
Aluminum Sauerkraut Path to Death 279
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
Africa—A Continent in the
Making . . . '......263
400,000 Motor Boats......278
Prices of Wool........278
Helium Toys Imperil Skies . . . 278
Branch Plants in Canada .... 279
Lockheed Transcontinental Planes 279 Across Continent in 12.5 Hours . . 279 Lower Ocean Fares Did Not Work 280 International Barter on Huge Scale 280 Less Gasoline Being Used .... 280
Kingdom “Tanks" in Japan 272,273
Island of Tristan da Cunha . . . 281
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
Anxious to Know Judge Rutherford........259
Note to Virgin Mary .... 262
The Radio Witness Work 232, 277, 287
Obedience to Jehovah Brings Peace..........284
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ake Golden Age
Volume XIV Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, February 1, 1933 Number 349
Anxious to Know Judge Rutherford
uivrcC0MB’Miss-’Nov-19, i932-
JLV1 Editor, The Times-Picayune:
‘' I have always believed your paper worked for the very best interests of all our people. Especially do you uphold our schools and churches and labor to encourage relief for the needy at all times.
"For this reason I was surprised when I saw a big advertisement in your paper telling of a Judge J. F. Ilutherford’s books and speeches. I am sure he is opposed to Christianity and is working to help destroy it. Ue calls all churches, preachers and priests ‘workers in the Devil’s organization’. He predicts the certain and immediate downfall of all our religions and of our government.
"Of course, this must be old-time Russellism, but why do our papers help to put such blighting influences before the public unless there is more to back up such broad statements besides one ‘Judge’ Rutherford’s private opinion as to what is found in the Bible ?
"His insults and ugly slurs against Christians of all denominations should not be published that he might sell books. Isn't it time our papers stop featuring such ads? Our country needs encouragement, not direful predictions.
"Don't you think that our churches and schools are vital to our national life and anything or anybody who openly attacks them should be investigated? What sort of life would we have in our cities if our churches and schools should be suddenly destroyed?
"This pessimist Rutherford pretends to be the only person capable of interpreting Scripture, but maybe that is a ruse to put over his campaign against our churches. He knows his statement ‘that all Christians are hooked up with big business’ is not true. He also knows that the churches are the greatest factor for good and are of divine origin.
"He tries to explain away the fact of the trinity but has made a poor argument of it. I understand that the clergy ignore him. We have thousands of learned, godly men ‘pulling’ for our country and its needs; then why is such a pessimist as this Rutherford allowed so much publicity?
"In many of his papers he complains of the police in many places arresting his workers, but can he expect any better treatment for his insults to Christians? Please pardon me for this lengthy letter, but I am anxious to know more about this man who is so arrogant in his opinions. Does he give to the poor, the sick, afflicted, old men and women, orphans and the unemployed? Not a cent, so far as can be found out, but our churches give constantlv to all of these.
' " A. S. W.’’
An Embarrassing Introduction
We do not know that Reverend S. A. Williams, Osyka, Mississippi, was the writer of the foregoing letter, which appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune of November 20,1932, but there are reasons for thinking that he was, and so we have pleasure in introducing everybody all around. Copies of this will go to him and to the Times-Picayune, and to Judge Rutherford.
Introductions are sometimes embarrassing. The story is told of a Big Business man of New York city, years ago. He helped a beautiful woman on a street car and contrived to sit beside her and tried to engage her in conversation. Finally he said, “I will give you $20 if you will go with me.” She declined to notice him. That evening he was invited to the home of another Big Business man where he was exceedingly desirous of creating a good impression. The first person he was introduced to was the lady he had helped on the car. Confused and embarrassed, lie proffered his hand, but the lady said, icily, “I have met the gentleman before.'’
However, we proceed with the introduction. Mr. Haman, meet Mr. Mordecai. Mr. Williams, meet Judge Rutherford. And while you are about it, Haman, here is the halter, and you can head down the main street, shouting as loudly as you like, ‘‘Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the King delighteth to honor.” (Esther 6: 9) It will give you a better appetite for the feast which is just ahead. Judge Rutherford is in the saddle, and you are on foot, and the laughingstock of the community. You might as well know it now as later.
Best to Be Open and Honest
Surely you believe that the Times-Picayune is for the best interests of the people, an up-
holder of schools and churches and an encourag-er of relief for the needy, and the reason you mentioned it was to encourage them to publish your letter. It was in the nature of a canvass or sales-talk. It hoodwinked the editors of the Picayune not at all. They are accustomed to such preambles.
Every piece of bum poetry that was ever patched together was accompanied by a letter to the editor telling him what a great man he was, and what an excellent judge of fine poetry. The poet looks on that as really clever. He does not know that the editor has seen the thing done so many times that he is sick and tired of the whole sham. What, in his heart, he would at all times really prefer is that everybody should tell the truth.
It would have been a lot more of satisfaction to the editors of the Times-Picayune if you had come right out and said, “I am a preacher. Judge Rutherford has made us all angry by what he says about our hypocrisies, and I want to see if there is not some way in which we can get together and put up the fight over the radio that this man wants to make. Let’s have it out with him, so that the public can see who is right.” Then the editors would have had some respect for you; as it is, they can have only contempt.
The Biggest News of the Day
Well, you saw the big advertisement that Judge Rutherford thinks that all the churches, preachers and priests are workers in the Devil’s organization. He doesn’t think it, Haman. He knows it. And, besides, the Times-Picayune was paid for the advertisement; they are not running the paper for their health. Now stop and think, for a minute. Suppose it is true that you and your friends are working for the Devil while pretending to work for God, isn’t it a matter of enough importance to be put in an advertisement in a newspaper? Why, really, it deserves to go on the front page as a big news item, the most important news item of the day.
You are sure that he is opposed to Christianity; the scribes and Pharisees were sure that Jesus was opposed to Judaism. The fact of the business is that Christianity and churchianity are as far apart as the east from the west. Jesus of Nazareth and Judge Rutherford have set to their seal that God is true and that His Word is now judging His professed people. There is not the least doubt where the judge stands. His position is well known. The New York Times, defender of and apologist for the Devil’s organization in its entirety, has made the public admission that he is the “uncompromising foe of Organized Christianity”.
It is now up to the much-diversified institutions that claim the title Christianity to prove that they are what they claim to be. If they are of the Devil, as Judge Rutherford claims them to be, it is of great importance to the people that the people get to know the facts.
How Do You Silence a Prophet, Anyway?
“He predicts the certain and immediate downfall of all our religions and of our government.” Listen! “There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” (Matt. 24:2) Would you have had Jesus locked up because He predicted the ruin of the temple ? Listen again! “In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” (Dan. 2:44) Do you know any way that the kingdoms can get together to prevent Almighty God from doing what He has said He will do ?
The Truth Is Not an Ism
“Of course, this must be old-time Russellism.” It is nothing of the kind. It is the truth, and the truth is not an ism of any sort. Pastor Russell knew much of God’s Word and made good use of what he knew. If alive today he would be cooperating with Judge Rutherford in the great work in which he is engaged. He did not have and could not have the truths that are specially due since 1918, but in his day he was as far ahead of the preachers of his time as a modern automobile is ahead of an oxcart.
You wonder if there is anybody backing Judge Rutherford’s “private opinion as to what is found in the Bible”. You have the evidence. There is hardly a place in “Christendom”, or in the world, for that matter, that is not getting his radio talks, and there are more than 130,000,000 copies of his books in circulation. You could see the hand of God in this if you were not stone blind.
You make a bid to the papers to stop running advertisements with which you do not agree. Seems like a good idea. All the publishers all over the United States and the world will have to do is to submit their business to you and you will pass on it, as to whether it should go in or stay out. Nobody but a preacher could have fathered such an asinine suggestion.
“Speak unto Us Smooth Things,
Prophesy Deceits.”—Isaiah 30: 10
“Our country needs encouragement, not direful predictions.” You bet it needs encouragement, but it has had Mr. Hoover right along now giving it encouragement by the barrel for almost four years. Every time he spoke it was to cheer the starving by telling them conditions were fundamentally sound, there was nothing wrong with the country, and better times were just around the corner.
The people have had plenty of encouragement; Judge Rutherford confines himself to the Scriptures and to the facts, and if you hang on to the halter, Haman, and make yourself at home at the feast later, it won't be long now till you will find out who is right. You want to know the judge? You are going to have a grand opportunity.
Putting the Shells into the Omelet
That was quite clever, putting the churches and schools together, and inquiring if they are not vital to our national life, but we will separate them, just as the government does. The churches are one thing, and the schools quite another and a different thing, and if you ask if the churches are necessary, the answer is that they are not. The proof that they are not is that more than half the people never darken church doors, and there are 40,000 churches that have been abandoned to the rats and mice that are now their only occupants. Jesus never had anything to do with the building of any of these churches, or with any of the churches, but He did hare a lot to do with the development of Christianity.
As to your inquiry regarding what sort of life you would have in the cities if the churches should be suddenly destroyed, the answer is that you would get rid of all the hypocrisy at one time, and there would then be a decent chance for the honest of heart to get together and worship God in spirit and in truth. Something like that is evidently in God’s mind. When the 213 varieties of churchianity go to smash, the people will have the truth in Judge Rutherford's books, which will then be their joy and comfort.
Paternity of a Famous Doctrine
About this doctrine of the “trinity”. There are two reasons for feeling shaky about it. One is that it is nowhere even hinted at in the Scriptures ; and the second is that it was fathered by the Roman emperor Constantine in the same year that he murdered his own son.
You “understand that the clergy ignore him”. You know mighty well that they do; and you know the reason why, and so do we. But go along, Haman, don’t drop your halter; you would better hang on tight, for the feast and the day of reckoning is ahead, and the rope will come in handy.
Sure, you are right! The police in many places have done just what the Devil wanted them to do, and always at the behest of the clergy, his children, and if you had your way you would have every one of Jehovah’s witnesses slain so that they could never approach another door with the message of the truth, the message of The Kingdom the Hope of the World.
“God, I Thank Thee that
I Am Not as Other Men Are.”—Luke 18:13
As to your boasted gifts to the poor, the sick, the afflicted, the old men and women, the orphans, and the unemployed, who is it that puts up the money? It is the common people, is it not? And if it were not for the billions that have been filched from their pockets in the name of religion, and if the “principal of the flock” had been the Christians they have pretended to be, it is a matter of common knowledge that there would be no poor and no unemployed. And, anyway, how do your clerical friends and you know how many millions of copies of Judge Rutherford’s books have been given away to these classes? You don't know, and you never will know, and the reason is the following:
“Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: that thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, himself shall reward thee openly.”—Matt. 6:1-4.
Here’s your halter, Haman. Be on your way. You are holding up the whole procession.
P.S. If the clergy of America were really honest and wanted the people to understand the truth they would pick out some man of national reputation as a preacher and put him up for the radio debate to which they have been challenged. Surely if they are for Jehovah God they could find one man who would meet these requirements. If they cannot, then they should admit that the god whom they serve is too weak to really meet an argument. The people are entitled to the truth, and they are going to get it regardless of the preachers.
A Note to the Virgin Mary
TAEAR Mary: We don't like to turn this ' over to a priest, to be sent to you by way of Vatican City, for there are too many crooks at both ends of the route, and you might not get it. No doubt you are a reader of 77/e Golden Age, so we address you direct.
We are just in receipt of a nicely printed four-page folder sent out by Rev. Joseph A. Skelly, C.M., Director, 100 East Price Street, Germantown, Philadelphia, Pa., in which he reports you as saying: “I am the Mother of the Poor Souls in Purgatory, for all the sufferings they have deserved are being mitigated every hour more or less by my intercession.”
Assuming that Reverend Skelly told the truth, we ask you frankly, Mary, What is the big idea? Why keep this hot oven or steam cooker going so steadily? And if you have any influence at all, why don't you use it once for all to put a stop to this infamous way of doing things ? You know that your Son once said, ‘Whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you, do ye even so to them.” Would you like to be parboiled in brimstone?
Reverend Skelly intimates that there is a way to get in your good graces if we will pay him 25c a year for anybody, living or dead. But why should we pay the money to him? That is the sticker. But hold. There is more to this. If we send 4 members, and don't forget to put in the $1, we get a silver-plated medal. Now, honest, Mary, is that medal silver-plated, or is this just one more line of bunk, of which the world is full to overflowing? If we send $2, $3 or $4, for 8, 12 or 16 members, we get a rosary, paper weight, or pendant.
Mr. Skelly ought to be all right, for we notice he says that he is “Approved by His Eminence Cardinal Dougherty, Archbishop of Philadelphia, and by His Excellency, the Apostolic Delegate”, but we have to call your attention to his statement that “Solomon’s Temple was empty of the Living God Who will dwell behind the tabernacle door in our Chapel. There the sacrifice of the Altar will be an infinite one, and God Himself both Priest and Victim”. That is plain blasphemy, Mary, as we both know.
Because you were a Jewess you are familiar with 2 Chronicles 7:1,2, which reads: “Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of Jehovah filled the house. And the priests could not enter into the house of Jehovah, because the glory of Jehovah had filled the house of Jehovah.” And how about any human priest’s making the Living God his victim?
Mr. Skelly says, “I shall be quite satisfied with your prayers alone,” from which we gather that he does not insist we send him any cash; but the last thing in his advertising matter shows that he would not turn it down. He mentions a list of 123 things that he needs for the chapel, which include altar bells, cruets, missals, crucifixes, altar cards, candlesticks, altar cloths, credence tables, priedieux, sanctuary lamps, stained glass windows, altars and an organ, all footing up to a total of $70,281, which is quite a little wad for these hard times.
A lady who used to be one of Mr. Skelly’s flock writes us: “Rackets of this kind are worked frequently and heavily. A chap told me once that it was the best kind of selling and paid well. I don’t doubt. Most of the medals are composed of lead. Oh, well, why give the suckers a break?”
The Radio Witness Work
EUNICE, La. “I have been listening in on Judge Rutherford over station WJBO, New Orleans, every Sunday morning and enjoy his talks very much. I get many inspirations for sermons from his wonderful thoughts. I would like very much to receive a copy of The Golden Age magazine and also some of your tracts.” Rev. L. N. M.
Africa — A Continent in the Making In Four Parts — Part II
TRAVELING from Egypt westward along the top of the great head which we have imagined Africa to be, we come to the Barbary states, all of which, with the single exception of Tripoli, the least important of the lot, are in the hands of France. Tripoli was grabbed by the Italians in 1912. Prior to that time it was nominally in Turkey's hands.
Taken together, the Barbary states, Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria and Morocco, have an area more than three-fifths of that of the whole United States. The total population is about 13,000,000, of whom 1,000,000 are Europeans. Civilization there dates back thirty-five hundred years.
For centuries these states were a thorn in the side of the rest of the world. They have had an extremely checkered career. When all the rest of the world went Roman Catholic northern Africa remained independent. When the Saracens overran Asia and Africa they put all the Christians to the edge of the sword. Then these countries became solidly Mohammedan.
For three hundred years these lands were in anarchy. Their principal business was piracy. To gain a monopoly of the trade of the Mediterranean, England paid ‘'Barbary" $280,000 a year tribute. A part of this was always demanded in armed vessels, ammunition and naval stores, so that England really furnished these cutthroats with the tools wherewith the piracies on the ships of other nationalities were accomplished.
The time of settlement came when the Algerines captured two United States vessels and 21 men, who, as usual, were reduced to slavery while the question of their ransom was pending. Eleven of these died in slavery, and as a consequence Admiral Decatur raided the whole coast. Coming into Algiers he chanced to find the entire fleet at sea. He gave the high muck-a-muck, called the Dey, three hours to release all captives, of whatsoever nationality, and forswear all future tribute, or he would blow his village off the map. Subsequently he visited Tunis and Tripoli on the same errand and with like results. The next year the British government stopped paying tribute and made a similar trip.
The Berbers a Fine People
The Berbers, after whom the Barbary Coast gets its general name of Barbary, are a fine peo-2<»3
pie, thin, strong, robust, with beautifully formed bodies, and brown complexions. They often have light hair, and sometimes blue eyes. Mohammedans in religion, they are said to be generally straight and honest in their dealings, comparing favorably with the Arabs, and of high intelligence. They are of Semitic stock, remarkably industrious.
The Berbers are to be found along the entire extent of Barbary, 2,GOO miles from Egypt to the Atlantic coast, and 140 to 550 miles inland to the Sahara. The soil is fertile but light, and in the dry season, March to September, is so parched as to render walking upon it impracticable. The temperature is generally moderate, seldom descending to the freezing point and seldom becoming sultry.
The religious mix-up in Tripoli is well nigh complete. Moslems have their weekly religious holiday on Friday, Jews on Saturday, and the Italians on Sunday. Shopping may be done on any day of the week, but it is considered an insult to approach a Moslem on Friday, or a Jew on Saturday, with a view to making purchases.
A considerable part of the Barbary Coast, especially Algiers and Morocco, is traversed by the Atlas mountains, which in places rise to J 3,000 feet. The streams in these mountains are more or less permanent, but lose themselves in the light soil when they get to lower levels. Collections of water under the sand have been turned to account by the French by means of artesian wells. The general elevation is from 1,500 to 3,000 feet, but there is one large area which is 100 feet below sea level.
The French have made a great city out of Algiers. Its white houses, rising tier upon tier, present a very imposing appearance from the sea. The sea wall and warehouses cost upward of $40,000,000. The ladies wear trousers of white material, stuffed to make them almost as large as barrels. It is said to take a dozen yards of goods to make one of these pairs of trousers.
Radio Penetrates the Sahara
It is the discovery of radio that has really made the Sahara, which lies to the south of the Barbary states, penetrable. Here and there, all through the Sahara, are oases the exact locations of which in bygone years were known only to the Arabs. Now the French and the Italians
know where they are. By wireless, every one of these can keep in touch with governmental headquarters, and, if need be, in an hour, or two or three, any needed assistance can be sent by airplane. The Arab with his “ship of the desert”, the camel, is no longer in control.
And besides the radio and the airplane there is the automobile. In recent years some wonderful trips have been made by trucks and even light cars to various parts of the Libyan and Saharan deserts, and these have all helped to break down the former isolation.
You have heard of the Mauritania, and of Morocco, and of the Moors. The names are all of the same origin. The railroad across the Sahara, if it is ever built, will cross at about where Algeria proper ends and Morocco begins. It is the short cut to the Niger river, and the principal caravan route. France is too much interested in arming to the teeth to properly develop her railway transportation systems in Africa.
The French railroad across the Sahara would be only 1,050 miles long, and American railway engineers would not consider its construction a difficult problem. The “Great American Desert” is crisscrossed by railways, and now by airways, in every conceivable direction.
The rainlessness of the Sahara is due to the direction of the winds, which are deprived of their moisture before reaching these lands. But there are in the Sahara elevated plateaus and mountains with more or less permanent streams and habitable valleys in between, and artesian wells have been turned to account in Algeria.
Piracy Not Entirely Suppressed
The so-called “civilized” nations of Europe have not succeeded in entirely suppressing piracy off the African coast, though they have entirely removed it from the Mediterranean sea. Southwest of Morocco is the Spanish state or province of Rio de Oro, a penal settlement, and one of the most inhospitable places on the globe. It was to this settlement that the Spanish nobility were sent after the recently attempted insurrection.
While the Spanish are nominally in control of Rio de Oro, an area larger than New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, yet the district is not completely subjugated. In November, 1932, a fishing vessel off this coast grounded and was attacked by Moorish pirates. Only its radio apparatus prevented the vessel from being captured and its crew slain or held for ransom. An SOS appeal brought two ships to the rescue, one of which was a gunboat. The pirates were glad to beat a retreat.
The next point south, near the western extremity of Africa, is a very important one, because it was via the Senegal river that the French made their entry into the vast territory, larger than the whole of the United States, which go to make up French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa.
Until about fifty years ago the French did as all the other European nations: helped themselves to colonial territory here and there along the coast, with no apparent idea of linking their possessions up into one vast administrative area, but that is what has happened.
The Guinea Coast
Going around the back of the head to the Congo river, at the back of the neck, the countries in their order, with the countries that claim possession, are as follows:
Senegal (French) Gambia (British) Casamanca (French) Guinea (Portuguese) Guinea (French) Sierra Leone (British) Liberia (Independent) Ivory Coast (French)
Gold Coast (British) Dahomey (French) Nigeria (British) Cameroons (French) Rio Muni (Spanish) Gabon (French) Kabinda (Portuguese) Congo (Belgian)
At the time of the World War the Germans had Cameroons, and a part of what is now Dahomey but was then called Togoland, making seventeen colonies in all on the Guinea Coast.
Back of these coast settlements is one of the richest regions of the world, viewed in the light of natural resources. The French were the first to appreciate the hinterland.
It was about 1885 that French settlers pushing up the Senegal river finally came over the divide into the magnificent region of the French Sudan, to the south and west of Timbuktu, and visions of the present great empire began to take form. Since then, the French have gone around back of all the coast settlements above named, cutting them off from further development, with the result that France now has in Africa a vast country, aside from the Sahara desert, which stretches from Algiers to the Congo river and from Cape Verde almost to the river Nile.
This territory includes much of the valleys of the Senegal, Niger and Congo rivers, as well as the streams that empty into Lake Chad, and the lake itself. Without a great fanfare of trumpets the French have quietly gone about the pacification and civilization of this great area, and though much remains to be done, much has been done.
In Dahomey the French have 1.800 miles of modern highways on which automobiles flit back and forth. The natives take to them as a duck to water. Like Jehu, they drive furiously. It was in Dahomey that in bygone years the French had to conquer an army of 15,000 Amazons, women trained for warfare, quite as strong as and more ferocious than men. Dahomey was at one time a great center of the slave trade.
Native Groups in French West Africa
In their conquest of the hinterland the French have had to deal with not less than fifty groups. They found some very extensive areas almost deserted, though only needing intelligent cultivation to support vast numbers of people. In other districts there is a dense population.
The Niger river, length 2,500 miles, rises within 175 miles of the Atlantic ocean, not far from the source of the Senegal river, and sweeps around a great semicircle back into the Atlantic. At the top of the immense circle, or rather we should say at the central point of the great arc described by the river’s course, in the center of a fertile prairie, lies Timbuktu, destined, in the future, to be a rival of Chicago. Immense and fertile plains and forests stretch away to the east and west and south ; and from this territory now come enormous supplies of oils, gums, ivory, and ostrich feathers.
Timbuktu is at the head of navigation of the Niger, and a natural collecting and distributing depot for the products of the region. For generations the Arabs have carried the products northward to Tripoli, across the Sahara, making two round trips per year. Now the French take their goods out by way of the Senegal, or down the Niger through British territory. They have a railway across the Niger-Senegal divide.
If the trans-Saharan railway is ever built, these goods will go direct to Algiers. Planes make the hop across the desert frequently, and no doubt a through line from Britain to South Africa via this route will come soon. The planes usually follow the Greenwich meridian, and meet and leave the Niger at Gao, 200 miles east of Timbuktu; so Gao may finally be the big city.
Palms are to be found all over Africa. The date palm is the special characteristic of the desert, to which it is specially adapted, and in which it forms the principal means of subsistence. The Arabs, who make a living by carrying ivory and other treasures across the desert, carry dates with them as their sole food, counting out just so many to be taken at each meal, and not varying the number. They know in advance, to a certainty, how many meals they have provided for. In the western part of tropical Africa coffee plants thrive so luxuriantly as to form thick woods.
French Discourage Cannibalism
In the vast areas under their control the French have discouraged cannibalism, but it will be some time yet before it is extinct. Slavery is waning. Fetishism is greatly decreased. Some of the secret murder societies have been broken up. Tribal wars are at an end. Polygamy is much decreased. The people are learning to read and write; soon they will be like all the rest of us, but maybe not quite as bad.
The Hausa Negroes of the French Sudan and upper Nigeria are said to have the most beautiful language of the world. It is said that these Negroes themselves are as stately as their language, which is spoken by some 20,000,000 throughout the Sudan and as far as the Mediterranean. As slaves they were prized as of the highest type. They are crossed with Semitic stock and are Mohammedans, mostly.
The Sahara desert is not entirely rainless, though it averages under ten inches a year. The northern part of the Sudan has from ten to twenty inches a year, and this belt stretches clear through from Cape Verde on the Atlantic to Somaliland on the Indian ocean; it is perhaps a hundred miles wide. South of that is a great belt approximately 500 miles wide, the bulk of which is in French hands, which has up to sixty inches of rain a year and will grow anything that can be raised anywhere. The heaviest rains of all, ranging up to and over 120 inches a year, are in the heavy-forested Guinea Coast and Congo regions, much of which also is in French possession.
Why the Guinea Coast is Unhealthful
The reason the Guinea Coast is unhealthful (aside from the intense heat and humidity) is largely that the people there do not know how to live. The natives suffer terribly from constipation : they eat no greens ; they know nothing of sanitation; they do not know how to secure pure drinking water. Is it any wonder they are ill? When sick they go to a medicine man for some magic brew or incantation. We have not heard of any of them as being so superstitious, however, that they think that by having poisons scratched into their arms it will keep them from getting sick.
There are sacred groves where, occasionally, without the knowledge of their white rulers, young men are sacrificed, Tor the good of the tribe,’ but we have not heard that any of these benighted savages teach in one breath that God is love, and in the next declare He purposes to roast almost all humanity in the strangling fumes of burning sulphur throughout all eternity for something that somebody else did more than six thousand years ago.
Snake stew is a savory dish on the Guinea Coast. The odd thing about it is that it is said to taste very good indeed.
The breakers on the Guinea Coast are the most dangerous on the continent. There is a constant westerly swell from the Atlantic.
Gambia — Portuguese Guinea — Sierra Leone
All three of these are considered unhealthful, owing to the great heat and humidity. Obviously, the people need a light, thin diet, if they are to keep well. In due time, if they do not have them now, residents in such climates will be taught the real value of oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit.
Gambia is small, hardly the size of Connecticut. It is a British possession consisting of a strip of land six miles wide on each bank of a navigable stream 250 miles long. Surrounded on all sides by French West Africa it is like a sliver or wedge driven into the French possessions.
Portuguese Guinea is of the size of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. There is an archipelago of islands off the coast. There is still much big game, elephants and hippopotamuses being common.
Sierra Leone is a British possession, and though it looks to be but a speck on the map of Africa it is larger than all of New England outside of Maine. It has magnificent forests; some of the trees, hollowed out by the natives, are converted into canoes capable of containing a hundred men.
On December 31,1927, 250,000 Negro domestic slaves were given their freedom in Sierra Leone. Slavery is a curious institution. It seems to be almost indigenous to Africa. Every white family has about six servants, or “boys”, as they are always called, regardless of age. There is a cook, who does nothing but cooking; a laundry boy who does laundry work, and nothing else; a house boy that elsewhere would be called a butler; a pantry boy, who looks after the food; and a toto or kitchen boy who does all the work. Twenty or thirty dollars a month secures the services of the whole six.
The native chiefs try to imitate the whites, and as they do not have the necessary twenty or thirty dollars a month to pay the help, they make them serve without pay. In Africa it is called slavery. When freed, many of the Sierra Leone slaves refused to leave their old masters.
Liberia, the Great Experiment
It is but natural that Africans and others who know of the riches of Africa, and who realize the adaptability of the black man to its climate, should think of the possibility of repatriating upon its shores the millions of blacks who are now in America and the West Indies; but the experiment in Liberia shows that the thing is impractical.
With the best of motives, Liberia was founded early in the nineteenth century for the purpose of colonizing free blacks from the United States. By 1845 about 4,500 had been sent over, and in 1847 these declared a republic in which the people of the United States have always had the friendliest interest. Only persons of Negro blood may be citizens.
In 1877 there was a determined effort to send additional colonists. A stock company was formed. An old boat was bought; and thousands sold their belongings, with the expectation of going on the initial trip. The boat was legally permitted to carry 206; but when sailing time came, there were a thousand on board. Hundreds were sent ashore in rowboats. The food ran low, and so did the water supply. Twenty-one were buried at sea in ten days. At length Africa was reached, but both natives and newcomers were disappointed, and many of the newcomers died. The boat got back to America and never made another trip.
It is most regrettable that the 20,000 Afro-Americans allowed themselves to be dragged down by the wretched examples set on all sides, particularly their next door neighbor, Sierra Leone. In 1930 a report to the League of Nations showed that slavery is rife throughout Liberia, even in the families of Afro-Americans.
In the effort to prevent the truth from coming to the light, hundreds of natives were slain and their villages burned, but the truth came out anyway. The president and other high officials resigned, and Liberia is now being run under an advisory council of the League of Nations, the United States cooperating.
The League of Nations has proposed a dictatorship for Liberia, as a result of recommendations made to it by an International Committee which includes representatives of the United States, Great Britain and France. The dictatorship would be financed by the Firestone Rubber Company, which would therefore, in effect, be the real ruler of the country.
Slavery in Liberia took the form of pawning. Men and women were pawned as children, and subsequently repawned, with no hope of redemption remaining. Villages were terrorized and depopulated to recruit forced labor gangs, some of which wore shipped to French and Spanish colonies. Forced labor for public works was diverted to officials’ private plantations. Liberia, within the past year, has freed its slaves and paid its war debt to Uncle Sam in full.
In 1925, Harvey Firestone, Akron, Ohio, announced that the company of which he is president had purchased 1,000,000 acres in Liberia and would invest $100,000,000 in rubber plantations. By 1929, 30,000 acres had been planted with Sumatra rubber trees and 10,000 Liberians were on the pay roll.
The cost of living in Liberia is so low’ that the people demand a smaller coin than the cent, ■which is the present smallest currency unit. It is pointed out that, in buying food daily for her family at the markets (most of which food will not keep, owing to the climate), a native woman frequently needs of different things only quantities which are valued at one-tenth or even onetwentieth of a penny.
One of the most successful colonies anywhere in the realms of the British Empire is the Gold Coast. This country, which is of about the size of Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia and West Virginia, is the cocoa center of the -world. The crop is grown entirely by natives, and is of the value of $50,000,000 a year.
The Gold Coast has a new harbor costing over $17,000,000, in the construction of which more than two million tons of granite were used. Five thousand miles of fine roads have been built, of which mileage 3,500 miles were built by the natives. The natives enjoy and freely use the buses, which race from one end of the country to the other.
The natives of the Gold Coast believe that the Devil is so hideous that if he sees himself in a mirror he immediately runs away in terror of his own ugliness. Mirrors are therefore something they much appreciate. If you have plenty of mirrors around your house, if the Devil comes in and gets a look at himself, away he goes before you can say Jack Robinson. These poor’ Africans cannot imagine a Devil so hideous that he would stand up in a pulpit and warn the people not to read any books that would tell them anything about God's kingdom. The Devil is much worse than they think.
The Gold Coast is really a “gold'’ coast. Besides cocoa, it has gold and diamond mines, palm oil and mahogany, manganese and rubber, with over 2,000 vessels clearing its ports every year.
The Great State of Nigeria
The great state of Nigeria was very completely described in these columns in our issue of May 15, 1929, which please see. We here merely mention a few items. This country, stretching from the mouth of the Niger river to Lake Chad, on the border of the Sahara, is surrounded on all sides by French possessions, but is in itself as large as all of the United States between the Hudson and Mississippi rivers and north of the Potomac and Ohio.
The trade of Nigeria is monopolized by The Niger Company, which has the exclusive right of importing rum, gunpowder, missionaries and other blessings of civilization, and exporting the products of the country. The missionaries have confirmed the natives in their heathen beliefs that the dead are more alive than ever. Pagan ideas are thus perpetuated.
Negroes in the northern part of Nigeria must still take off their hats in the presence of Europeans. If they do not take them off they are knocked off. lentil recently they were compelled to prostrate themselves on the ground as the white passed along.
Lagos, one of the principal ports of Nigeria, was once a great slave mart. As the British gained access to the country, they used one tribe to kill off another, thus saving the British troops. This is a standard, recognized method of the British Empire in gaining control of a land.
White Dominance Not an Unmixed Blessing
Before the advent of the British, parts of Nigeria were better governed than they have been since. The natives, as they have come in contact with European civilization and hypocrisies, have fallen away from previously high standards. This is especially true of northern Nigeria, the Mohammedan rulers of which, the Fulani, crossed into Nigeria from the Nile in the twelfth century.
The native clergy are a nuisance, perpetuating the “Hell” scare, and collecting “dues” from the people on one pretext or another. A church funeral cannot be had unless all one’s “dues” are paid, and the native clergy have fostered the idea that without a church funeral there is no salvation. Three-fourths of the people are still pagans; in the north they are largely Mohammedans.
Demonism is rampant. Some of the rites are so secret that if any female by accident chances to observe them, she is put to death. Polygamy is common. Some of the natives believe in reincarnation and have the thought that man is living this life over and over again, being born again in the person of a babe after passing into death at maturity.
Nigeria is in its infancy. It is of vast natural resources. Its tin, lead and iron ore industries are old and valuable. Railroad development has been rapid, because of the mines, the mileage in 1930 being 2,069. Slavery was abolished in 1917. There is a tremendous future ahead of Nigeria. It is on the direct air line from England to Cape Town.
In 1929 Nigeria was treated to a revolt of women. Counted for the first time in a census, they thought they were going to be taxed, as their men had been after they were first counted. They thereupon attacked government offices, looted European traders, and wrecked a bank. Fifty-four of these women were slain in the quelling of the revolt.
In the hill country of Nigeria the villages of the natives are built in a circle, all the huts facing the center. Construction is of mud, with straw thatching for the roof. Herodotus mentions the Niger river, a great stream across the desert, where some young men of the Tripoli coast saw crocodiles and black men.
In the Nupe district of central Nigeria salutations are most elaborate. The local king is saluted as “Lion”. The local prime minister is addressed as “Elephant” and “Camel”. The people, when they meet, kneel in front of one another and, instead of shaking hands, touch the tips of one another's fingers, returning the hand to the breast as a sign of fidelity and friendship.
Says a writer in the New York Times:
Two men meeting on the road would proceed to salute each other as follows: “How are you'?'’ “I thank God I am well.” “Are you up already?” ‘‘Yes, thank God.” “Did you sleep well?” “Yes, praise the Lord.” “How are you?” “I am well.” “Is your house well?” “Yes, they are well.” “What is the news?” “I have none.” “Is your house well?” “We are all well.” ‘Lire your children well?” “Yes, thank God.” “Your wife well?” “She is well.” “Any news?” “None.” “Good morning.”
Then the other party takes the lead and asks the very same questions. It is a common thing for a man to say, over and over again, that he and his wife and children and relations and property are all well, and then when the formal greetings have ended, to begin to relate how his child is sick, his horse dead, his wife left him, his crops a failure, etc. He must go through with the formal salutations first before coming to realities.
French Equatorial Africa
The French feel much elated over their possessions in Africa, especially over French Equatorial Africa, which is a stupendous country, larger than the whole of the United States east of the Mississippi river (with Louisiana and Arkansas thrown in for good measure), and which is known to be laden down with riches of every sort.
Though held tightly in the grasp of the greatest military power in the world, it is so great in area, and so complex in peoples and resources, that it has been hardly more than touched. It was entered and seized by way of the Congo river and its tributary, the Ubangi.
At the big bend in the Ubangi the French started and built a line of forts through to Lake Chad, five of them, and from these, as centers, the whole northern part of this vast area was brought under their control. Telegraph lines were installed to outlying points, and now the wireless, and the result is that what was a generation ago a land of cannibals was recently crossed from the Nile to the Niger by a motor truck engaged in making motion pictures of African wild life.
Paul L. Hoefler, leader of this so-called “Colorado African Expedition”, wrote a book entitled Africa Speaks, in which he says in one place:
Into this enchanting country I carried a motion picture camera and a typewriter. Before my eyes, the gentle antelope came to drink, immense herds of game pounded over the plains, millions of flamingoes winged over a remote lake, the prehistoric elephant and rhinoceros ambled through the torrid heat, the strange disk-lipped women passed in parade, the little people of the great forest pranced to the rhythm of their drums, the lion stalked his prey, and the ebon warriors with spear and shield met the king of beasts in hand to claw combat.
Cannibalism and Demonology
Yes; there arc cannibals in French Equatorial Africa, in some places. And the worst of it is that some of these cannibals are said to be fine fellows to meet. They are very pleasant, but they are fond of meat, and fresh meat is hard to get in the tropics. Some of the tribes buy prisoners of war, holding them in reserve, killing and eating them as they are needed. Others eat only their enemies; others eat only because they wish to assimilate the strength and other good qualities of those that have passed away. It is all very hideous, almost as much so as the diabolical doctrine of eternal torture believed by some savage whites in America and elsewhere.
Like his white brother, the African native has often been deceived by demons. As in America, the black brother in Africa is easily misguided and misled; but for the most part he is an intelligent, simple-hearted, inoffensive man.
A writer in the New York Times gives some of the details of the form of demonism called lycanthropy, which the French have been trying to root out of their African possessions. The same occurs occasionally also in territory under the British flag.
When the Negroes of old, overwhelmed by a natural calamity, sought the aid of the wizards, they were told that they must, propitiate the angry deities. Tenga, the earth god, demanded a sacrifice. The wizard would go about the countryside, peering into every hut in search of a human offering to the god, while the Negroes quailed in terror. Sometimes he would have the girls and the boys cast lots. The chosen one would then be bound and carried into the woods where, under a sacred tree, he would be killed, his blood being offered to the earth, his body silently devoured while the wizard murmured incantations.
Even today the wizard casts spells over his victims and makes them do his bidding. Selecting a person susceptible to his hypnotic powers, the wizard takes him on a dark night to a spot made mysterious by awe-inspiring legends. lie throws over him the hide of a panther, smears his body with odoriferous ointment, makes him drink a magic beverage, stares into his face and says, “Now you are a panther. The people I point out to you shall be antelopes. You will kill them and bring their bodies here.”
Such commands are carried out.1 Parts of the bodies are then wrapped in leaves and distributed over the district suffering from flood, famine or sickness. Magic formulas are spoken and the human offering is eaten.
Such atrocities have become infrequent because of the influence of Europeans. But on an island off the Guinea Coast I saw a prison settlement containing twenty-four “women panthers”. Under the influence of a wizard, they had killed their own children to ward off famine. Only one of these women remembered precisely what had happened. The others replied at the trial simply that the wizard had turned them into panthers and that they could not recall their actions thereafter. These women were sentenced to life imprisonment. The male cannibals are usually shot, going to their death coolly, not understanding in the least why thejr are thus punished, confident that they have been true to their god and will be rewarded with immortality.
After the World War the French took over the German Cameroons, which comprise onesixth of what is now French Equatorial Africa. It has a rainfall of 369 inches, or more than thirty feet, a year. In this part, which is four times the size of the state of Pennsylvania, python worship is common, the people believing that the souls of dead people of high rank visit their relatives in the form of snakes.
Sleeping sickness, spread by the tsetse fly, has ravaged portions of French Equatorial Africa and given the French medical fraternity much concern. Another thing that gives the French doctors plenty of concern wherever French soldiers go is what is known in Africa as ‘the Frenchman’s disease’, syphilis.
One whole tribe migrated from the healthful highlands into the notoriously unhealthful lands near the mouth of the Congo, in the hope that they might all die, on account of the ravages of liquor and of this white man’s disease in their midst. Instances are of record where these poor natives have walked four hundred miles to a hospital for treatment.
It is believed that the women of the Sara Ky-abe tribe, French Equatorial Africa, would be the finest looking in all Africa but for the disks, often eight inches in diameter, which are inserted into their lips. The Sara Kyabe women used to fetch the highest prices on the slave market, and to preserve the tribe the elders decided the women must all be disfigured so that they would not be wanted as slaves. The French are putting an end to the barbarous practice. This last season some of these poor things were exhibited at Coney Island, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A.
Some of the poor natives are so low’ in superstition that they believe they have descended from the monkeys. In America and Europe we have college professors and doctors of divinity that are Just as low7. The poor ignorant natives and white college professors notice some points of similarity in the shapes of the physical frames and ignore the vast differences, and have no more sense than to make a D.D. conclusion.
Fernando Po — Spanish Guinea — Kabinda
Fernando Po, an island the size of Rhode Island, twenty miles off the coast, at the big bend in the Gulf of Guinea, has had quite a checkered career. The Portuguese ow ned it once, the British once, and the Spanish tw’ice. The British abandoned it on account of its unhealthfulness. It is one of the most fertile spots on the African coast. The Spanish have used it as a penal settlement. It has a mountain over 10,000 feet high. Immediately opposite, on the African mainland, rises Cameroon mountain, 13,350 feet high. The ship channel passes between these two high peaks, in plain sight of both.
Spanish Guinea, or Rio Muni, is a Spanish settlement larger than New’ Jersey, surrounded on all sides by what is now French Equatorial Africa. Spain has given France the right of preemption in case of the sale of any of her African possessions.
Kabinda is a Portuguese settlement, considerably larger than the state of Delaware, located just below French Equatorial Africa and just above
The Congo Free State — Darkest Africa
The world has never had a greater explora-tional thrill than it received in 1877 w’hen Henry M. Stanley emerged at the mouth of the Congo liver, the only white man to survive the first trip across Africa by this route. With his faithful blacks from the Zanzibar coast, he came 3,750 miles down a river no w’hite man had ever before seen, except at its mouth, and thus charted the route which opened up Darkest Africa, land of cannibals and copper.
The publicity attending the discovery of the Congo led in 1882 to the founding of the Congo Free State, a district as large as all that portion of the United States east of the Mississippi river. Probably a third of the whole is under dense and almost impenetrable forests, but the great river system, aided by railroads around the falls and cataracts, has made possible a marvelously rapid development. It is under Belgian control.
Nothing else did so much for the Congo as the discovery of the Katanga copper belt, 250 miles long by 25 to 50 miles W’ide, in the very heart of the continent. Railroads reach these mines from the east, the west and the south. To the north there is connection with Lake Tanganyika and the Congo; and from the Congo, at Stanleyville, there is now a motor road to the head of navigation on the Nile. Buses carrying the mails take five days to make the trip. Their route is right through the center of w’hat Stanley described as “Darkest Africa”.
It must all seem very strange to the poor heathen cannibals to have their country invaded first by one white man and then, within a generation, to see the white man everywhere, in steamers on the rivers, in railway cars and automobiles on land, and in airplanes overhead, and they find that if they kill and eat one another, as they used to do, the white man sends and gets them and, for some reason which they do not understand, puts them to death.
The Tallest and the Shortest Men
The northeastern Congo region is the home of the tallest, strongest men in the world, the Watussi tribe, w’hose medium height is six feet, and who often attain to seven feet. It is believed by travelers that these forest giants can outrun and outjump the trained athletes of any other people. Curiously, they live in proximity to the shortest men in the world, the Wambutti pygmies, made famous by II. M. Stanley.
This close relationship of giants and pygmies fairly w’ell illustrates the relationship of blacks and whites to the problem of the development of Africa. It is essentially a black man’s country, essentially an indolent man’s country, because it contains such a store of easily obtainable food, and because the bulk of the natives are and always will be Africans.
The Wambutti pygmies, or the Ifi, as they are called in their own country, dwell in the Ituri forest, near Lake Tanganyika. They are yellowish brown and seem to be of Semitic rather than Negro stock. The women are comely, and the men, though small, are very muscular. They kill the mighty elephant by creeping up on him while he is sleeping, hamstringing him so that he cannot rise, and finally dispatching him with a myriad of spears. The Ifi do no work; their wants are few and the forest supplies all their needs.
The use of Negro labor in the Katanga mines has shown that the Negroes need more food when they are compelled to do hard work for a living than when they live as they did for ages past.
More than half of the men recruited from some districts for work in the Katanga mines never reach their destination, because of disease or desertion. On reaching his place of “employment”, the native, separated from his family, and obliged to live in a compound with large numbers of other men, falls a prey to epidemics. Sleeping sickness has destroyed nine-tenths of the population in some districts. The Europeans have brought the natives syphilis, tuberculosis, dysentery and Spanish influenza, which previously they knew nothing about.
In the Congo, as late as 1926, thousands of men, old ones as well as younger ones, were shipped about by the administrators with ropes around their necks. Sometimes they are sent for a thousand miles. Neither these men nor their families understand the difference between the old-time slavery and the modern “employment”. When a labor recruiter for the mines at Katanga comes to a district the natives flee as at the approach of a slave trader.
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