Golden Age, March 14, 1934
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(The Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE
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in this issue
SWEDEN
RADIO PETITION ATTACKED
RUTHERFORD BOOKS AWARDED DIPLOMAS AT PARIS
NEWS COMMENTS
THE NOBLEMAN’S RETURN
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every other WEDNESDAY
five cents a copy one dollar a year Canada & Foreign 1.25
Vol. XV - No. 378 March 14,1934
CONTENTS
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
Increase in Hours of Workers . . 365 145 Times as Many Paupers . . 367 Things to Be Abolished .... 377 Why Not Tax Church Property . 378
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
Radio Petition Attacked . . , 362
Members Must Stay in Jail . . 365
Catholic Control of Press . . . 366
Can Never Go Back to
Planless Society......367
What Is Wrong with the Devil ? . 368
Moscow’s Anti-Religious Museum 369
Seventeen Happy Churches . . 369
Summit Receives Free
Advertisement
Rutherford Books Awarded
French Diplomas
Chat with the Figure-Minded . . 374
Less and Less
Saluting the Dead
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
News Stand Racket
Plundering the Producers . . . 377
Pennsylvania Railroad Items . 364
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
Harvester Machines Shipped to France
In Love with Image of Beast . . 366
Threat of Fascism in America , . 366
National Economy League . . . 367 “Onward, Christian Soldiers” . 368
AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY
How Fruit Is Grown in Germany 374
Running Fits in Dogs .... 374
Anonymous Essay on the Cow . . 375
HOME AND HEALTH
Some Recipes
A Breadless Sandwich .... 372
Medical “Science”
Red Pepper Virtues
Food Chart
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
Sweden—Whence Davs of Week 355
Flight of 400 Planes in Turkey . 368
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
God’s Kingdom Hope of World . 365
Just Preceding the Avalanche . . 367
Talmudic Cure for Nosebleed . . 3G8
Gruesome Exhibits in
Capucine Church
Inflammation of Gall Bladder . 375
Shepherds in Hard Luck . . . 376
Who Had the Bible ?
Test of Transubstantiation Theory 377
Funereal Calisthenics
Saints of Federal Council . . . 378
The Nobleman’s Return . . . 379
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Published every other Wednesday by GOLDEN AGE PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
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Clayton J. Woodworth President Nathan II. Knorr Vice President
Charles E. Wagner Secretary and Treasurer
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crfie Golden Age
Volume XV Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, March 14, 1934 Number 378
Sweden.—Whence the Days of the Week
ONE cannot mention the days of the week without giving honor to some of Sweden’s ancient gods. Besides worshiping the sun on Sunday, the moon on Monday, and Saturn on Saturday, the ancient Swedes worshiped Woden on Wodensday, Woden’s wife Frigg or Friga on Friday, their son Tyr or Zeus on Tuesday, and Thor, the god of thunder, on Thursday. Apparently, when those same ancient Swedes chased our Anglo-Saxon ancestors back into the hills, the said ancestors were so impressed with the gods of these fair-haired worshipers of Woden that they never got over it.
Sweden is a little larger than California, and of much the same shape, except that its chain of mountains is on the west instead of the east, and the seacoast, instead of being an ocean, is the Baltic sea and its great extension, the Gulf of Bothnia.
But there is a big difference between the climate of California and that of Sweden. The most southern part of Sweden is far north of any portion of the United States, and its upper reaches project above the Arctic circle. The Swedes are very practical. They say if you are in Sweden along the latter part of June and you wish to see the midnight sun, all you have to do is to take the train up to the northern part of the country, where you can witness the midnight sun and visit a great iron-ore mine at the same time.
The Swedes, by the way, cannot persuade the Lapps to work in the mines, and so the 10,000 miners at work in far northern Gellivara are a cosmopolitan lot of people from all over the world that do not much mind the climate so long as they have steady work. They have everything in their town that any town has, and besides, once a year, they have a day several days long, when the sun merely makes a low bow to the northern horizon at midnight, but steadfastly refuses to go below it. They have a long night too, but electric lights and movies, the same as on Broadway.
Plenty of Lakes and Rivers
There are plenty of lakes and rivers all over Sweden. In the northern half there are about twenty rivers, rising on the Norway border and flowing some 200-odd miles through chains of lakes southeast to the Gulf of Bothnia. One of these is navigable for 70 miles. This part of the country is mostly covered with a scrub growth of stunted trees, and is rather flat and uninteresting.
The heart of Sweden is in the southern half, for two hundred miles north or south of the magnificent system of lakes and canals that cut clear across the peninsula from Gottenborg to Linkoping and really make an island out of the great southern province of Gotland. Several of the country’s important cities are on the shores of the two great lakes, Wenner and Wetter, that comprise essential parts of this famous transportation system.
Stockholm, which lies to the north and east of the system of water transportation last named, is the eastern terminus of Lake Malar, where it empties into the Baltic sea. On this important lake, which is about seventy-five miles long, are several other of Sweden’s important cities, and on the shores of all these great lakes in the southern part of the country are fertile farm lands running back as far as the eye can see.
Lake Malar, upon which Stockholm is located, is remarkable for the number of islands which so crowd its surface that it is hardly possible to find a square mile of open water. These islands are studded with homes of the wealthy residents of the capital. Indeed, the city itself is built on numerous islands, and is sometimes called “the northern Venice”.
Stockholm is unique in that the harbor is right in the midst of the residence section of the city.
When the wind is from the east it blows the smoke from the steamers directly into the palace windows. Firewood and other freight is dumped almost on the doorsteps of the aristocracy, where it lies until it is hauled away. The aristocracy do not seem to mind it, and it would not matter if they did. Swedes are practical.
More About the Gotha Canal
Nobody today has any leisure, but it is said that if anybody did have such he would find a trip through the Gotha canal, above mentioned, a very interesting experience. The trip takes two and one-half days. It requires seven hours to cross Lake Wenner, and for at least two hours the steamer is out of sight of land. There are 74 locks, of solid granite, which lift the steamer a total of 167 feet. In places the route is through virgin forests of silver birches whose boughs overhang the banks. The landscape throughout is the loveliest in Sweden. By rail the same journey takes less than 12 hours.
About the middle of the journey Lake Wetter is crossed. The height of the surface of this lake above the Baltic is 300 feet, but its depth is 400 feet, and in one place no bottom has ever been found. The behavior of this body of water is most singular. It has periodic rises and falls independent of the wetness or dryness of the season, and is subject, even in the calmest weather, to violent underground swells, emitting terrific sounds when covered with ice. The claim is made, but denied, that this lake is directly connected with a lake, the Boden See, in Switzerland.
A further extraordinary feature of Lake Wetter is the mirages, frequently visible to many people and for hours at a time. These include marching armies of cavalry, infantry and artillery with banners and glittering weapons; palaces, castles and ships have been seen to rise from the water and remain in view for hours; caravans of camels have crossed from shore to shore in full view of multitudes. We judge that natural conditions are favorable to mirages and that perhaps the demons have a hand in it.
Gefle the Prettiest Town
Gefle, 100 miles north of Stockholm, is said to be the prettiest town in Sweden. In 1869 this town was visited by a great fire which obliterated the greater part of it. The residents of the burned area met together and agreed to pool their interests and rebuild a replanned city. Accordingly, every other street has a line of shade trees and a promenade in the center, with driveways on either side. At intervals are parks, parade grounds and open squares. It makes one feel that the best thing that could happen to some of our American cities would be a big fire that would compel the adoption of similar measures. Dannemora, near Gefle, is famous for its high-grade ore. There are places on the coast of Sweden where forty or fifty tide marks may be counted one above the other, upon the rocks. These tide marks show that the water was once higher by seventy feet. The shores are indented by cliffs which formerly inclosed bays and beaches that are now thirty, forty or fifty feet above the level of the sea. These tide marks are particularly noticeable on the island of Gotland, which is slowly being pushed up from the sea. Gotland, by the way, is 75 miles long, and important enough to have its own railway system and a branch line besides.
It is an interesting fact that the north parts of Sweden are rising more rapidly than the south parts. The evident explanation is that the ice cap was heavier in the north, heavy enough at one time to cause subsidence of the earth’s crust, but as the ice deposited in Noah’s day gradually melted the earth returned to its former position, or level.
Some Comparisons with California
There is much waste land in California, but there is much more waste land in Sweden. Several items of interest are presented:
California Sweden
Acres in farm lands 30,442,581 9,193,000
Number of farms 135,676 430,000
Gross farm income, 1930 $586,538,000 $258,108,000
Average acreage per farm 224
Average farm income $4,323
Average income per acre $19
A little consideration of these figures shows why America has many thousands of citizens of sterling worth that were born in Sweden, and why Sweden has almost no citizens that were born in America.
It never gets cold enough to freeze in California, though under certain conditions there is a penetration to the chilliness that one feels more than freezing weather. In Stockholm they get the real thing; in January it goes to 26 below zero and in July may rise to as much as 97°.
Of the forest lands, 23,547,375 acres, about 45 percent are owned by farmers, 4 percent by large landed proprietors, 27 percent by companies having sawmills or pulp mills, and 24 percent by the state. In forestry, lumbering, sawmills and pulp mills 100,000 men are regularly employed, and 400,000 more obtain some part of their living therefrom.
The iron mines at Dannemora already mentioned, have been operated continuously for 300 years and produce the iron from which the very best tool steel is made. The mine, which is over 600 feet deep, extends beneath a lake of the same name. The miners never know, when they touch off a blast, whether or not the whole lake will be in upon them.
Three-fourths of all the mechanical energy produced in Sweden is hydroelectric. About 45 percent of the farms are equipped with electricity. Some of the Danish cities are lighted and their street cars operated by current supplied from Sweden.
The Swedes love their country, hate to leave it, and love to return to it. In the year 1929, after 250 years of exile in southern Russia, several hundred Swedes returned to their homeland at one time. They had managed to preserve their language, and many of their customs, but were reabsorbed with difficulty.
A Law-abiding Country
In the beautiful and charming American city of Jacksonville, in a recent calendar year, there were three times as many people killed as in the whole of Sweden, which has sixty times the population. That is 180 to 1. The same year New York city had 387 murders, while in the whole of Sweden, which has the same population, the total of homicides was 20; that is 19 to 1, and plenty bad enough. In Stockholm, with 474,000 inhabitants, in the year 1929, the total number of homicides was 3; one of the slayers was under the influence of liquor.
Five percent profit is the amount which the liquor monopolies of Sweden may receive. There are 121 liquor control districts, ■with a separate company to each district; each must buy its supplies from the one wholesale house. All concessions are granted by the county authorities. Stock in the liquor control companies may not be sold.
Each reputable citizen may purchase one gallon per month, but must pass an examination to prove that he is financially and socially responsible. In restaurants liquor may be had only with hot foods, and not at all after midnight. People below par are limited as to the amount of liquor they may purchase; those wholly irresponsible may not have it at all. Police keep the liquor control companies posted as to who are responsible.
In all Sweden there are but 201 retail liquor stores; 2,200 districts are dry. Bootlegging is unknown; there is no enforcement problem; since 1912 the consumption of liquor has decreased 50 percent. The total prison population is but 2,000; many jails house but two or three inmates.
A Peace-loving Country
It is a curious fact of history that Alfred Nobel, discoverer of dynamite, explosive gelatines and ballistite, •who made his millions in the manufacture of ordnance and nitroglycerin, is chiefly perpetuating his name by the Nobel peace prizes, awarded, among others, to Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root, Woodrow Wilson, Fridtjof Nansen, Aristide Briand, Gustave Streseman, Austen Chamberlain, and Charles G. Dawes. The prizes are of $50,000 each, and awarded annually, not only for peace, but for the greatest discoveries in physics, chemistry, medicine and literature.
Though Sweden once dominated all northern Europe, and had huge possessions in Russia, Denmark, Poland and Prussia, yet the Swedes as a people are peaceable and peace-loving. There is universal military service, with about 600,000 men on the army roll. The navy is maintained merely for coast defense, but has 4,000 officers and men stationed on its 80-odd vessels. Sweden is more proud of its old folks’ homes than of its navy.
In every community there is a director of public relief, aided by a committee of representative citizens whose business it is to inquire into the needs of the unemployed and the poor. Hospital care for such is provided free of charge. There are also child welfare committees in every community, and committees to distribute funds to widowed and abandoned mothers. Old age and invalidity insurance is obligatory for every person between 16 and 66 years of age.
Divorces are granted by mutual consent and may be secured by either party after a separation of three years. Woman suffrage was granted in 1909, and more women vote than men.
Sweden was the first country to recognize the equality of sons and daughters in the inheritance of property. The country is world-famous for its cleanliness.
The First io Recognize America
On April 3,1783, five months to the day before the peace treaty was signed between Great Britain and the United States, the king of Sweden, Gustav III, was the first of all monarchs and of all governments to recognize the United States as an independent nation. The two countries have always felt a special interest in each other from that time.
The Swedes are said to be the proudest people in Europe. One reason for this is that Sweden has always been Sweden, and it is the only nation in Europe that has never been invaded or conquered or had its boundaries changed by foreign powers.
The people are too conservative to take kindly to Bolshevism. Fifty thousand people paraded in Stockholm in a demonstration against Socialism, and some have taken it from this that Fascism would be acceptable to many. The country was strongly socialistic some years ago, but has swung away from Communism.
The public debt is only $500,000,000, most of which is held at home. The king must be a Lutheran; he has the absolute power of veto. All public officials, including school teachers, must be Lutherans, and, by law, the Lutheran religion is taught in all schools.
The country is divided into six bishoprics, 83 deaneries and 482 parishes. The parishes are grouped into 24 provinces, each with its own government, responsible to the national government, the Rigsdag, one of the oldest of parliamentary bodies. The clergy are theoretically all appointed by the king.
The nobles have no legal privileges, but only social advantages. They meet once a year to consider subjects pertaining to their welfare. The “house of knights” in which they meet is considered the finest specimen of old Stockholm architecture. A noble may run for office, the same as anybody else, but being a noble may prevent him from getting the office, as the people do not take much stock in titled aristocracy.
In 1811 the Swedish parliament designated one of Napoleon’s field marshals, General Bernadotte, the son of a French lawyer, as crown prince, and his descendants are still on the throne. Napoleon advised him not to take the job, but he did, and, in the final coalition, was on the opposite side. The royal palace at Stockholm, 348 by 372 feet in size, is the largest building in Sweden, and the most imposing. Street traffic, the music from a neighboring cafe, and the smoke from a dozen steamers, with the confusion of loading and unloading cargoes, make it an unlovely place to live.
The princes are all millionaires, interested in science, sports and art; they are not permitted to occupy governmental positions. One of the princes married a commoner; the princess Astrid married the crown prince of Belgium. Everybody in the king business in Europe is related to everybody else in the same industry.
Some Ancient History
The first historic mention of Sweden is by the great Roman historian Tacitus, toward the end of the first century A.D. He mentions the Suiones, living in the midst of the Baltic, as powerful both in warriors and in ships. The bows and sterns of their ships were constructed alike, and therefore equally well suited for landing. The boats did not carry sails; the oars were not fastened in a row along the sides, but left free.
The northern part of Sweden was peopled by the Svea, or Swedes; the southern part by the Gota, or Goths, the latter an offshoot of the former. These people, consolidated into one, were migratory, restless, courageous and indomitable. For hundreds of years the tribes were at war with one another, but Upsala, where the heathen gods were worshiped, gradually came to be the acknowledged center. There the heathen priests offered human as well as animal sacrifices. Priests are like that.
One of the sacred acts was to throw a poor man into a sacred well in the precincts of the temple. When the priests could not recover his dead body, it was taken as a token that the wishes of the people would be fulfilled. The poor people had not yet caught the brilliant thought that, if they really wanted peace and happiness, what was needed was that somebody should throw all the priests into the well and then put a cover on the well. Upsala is the present seat of Swedish learning.
The Goths, under the name Goutoi, are mentioned by the Greek geographer Ptolemy in A.D. 150. Southern Sweden is still called Gotland ; it was once called Scania, hence the name Scandinavia. The Greek historian Procopius mentions the Heruli, who inhabited Hungary in the sixth century, as sending messengers to the Heruli of Scandinavia, requesting that a member of the old dynasty might come and rule over them.
The Goths Always Enterprising
Several Arabian geographers give interesting information about the Scandinavian merchants, who sold furs as well as slaves. They are described as tall and invariably armed with axe, knife and sword; they adorned themselves with chains of gold and silver; they prayed to wooden images.
Forty thousand oriental coins of this period were found in Swedish soil. The word Russ was used by Arabs and Slavs to describe the Swedes who were the first rulers of Russia. The Goths (Swedes) overran Russia, Poland, Ukrainia, Bulgaria, and menaced and finally destroyed the Roman Empire. The most important geographical names in Russia are Swedish names. A Greek writer of the tenth century uses Scandinavian names for the rapids of the Dnieper river. The Gothic historian Jordanes, living in the sixth century, speaks of Skadza (Scandinavia) as “bosom of peoples”.
Both as warriors and as merchants the Swedes, or Russ, as they were also called, made their way from the Baltic to the Black sea. One of their chiefs, Rurik by name, in 859 was chosen by certain wild tribes of the country now called Russia to be their first prince. His capital was Novgorod, thence shifted to Kief, and finally to Moscow, where at length his successor became the czar of all the Russias.
In those days, when the Swedes (Vikings, Northmen, Goths) made their way into every European land, bands of them entered the service of the eastern emperor at Constantinople, where they received the name Varangians, from the oath by which they were bound. They are frequently referred to in literature imder that name.
Rome Obscures the Record
It is manifest that the people who knew how to write (the Romans) did not give the Varangians or Goths or Swedes the attention they should have had. Visby, on the island of Gotland, was for centuries the wealthiest city of its size in the world; it had 13,000 merchants, divided into sixteen guilds. The elaborate rules of trade formulated by these guilds are the basis of the present admiralty laws of Great Britain, and America.
Lawsuits were strictly formal. If the evidence was obscure, one of the parties had to prove his case by oath. This oath was corroborated by a certain number of “trusted men”. Out of this curious institution a jury was developed, whose business it was to acquit or condemn the accused. It was the business of the lagman (lawman, lawyer) to recite from memory the law of the province which applied to the case in hand. Result, our modern courts.
The Viking lords brought back from their raiding and trading trips the wealth of the world. When they died they were buried in magnificent armor, together with their boats, weapons, household goods, dogs and horses, fully equipped, so it was supposed, to continue their earthly life of warfare and adventure in the kingdom of the dead. Actually, of course, they are merely dead.
In due time the Swedes became “Christians”. At the dawn of the Reformation the Catholic king, Christian II, gathered 82 of the most prominent men of Sweden for a conference and put them to the sword. Thereupon Gustavus Eriksson Vasa, son of one of the magistrates that had been put to death, organized the movement that drove the king back to Denmark and placed Sweden definitely on the Protestant side, and it is there yet.
Vasa was clever enough to discern that the Roman Catholic system is the greatest of all possible enemies of the common people; he lined the whole of Sweden up against the papacy, and his grandson Gustavus Adolphus, the victor in the Thirty Years’ War, nearly destroyed it.
The latter, with an army of 13,000 handpicked Swedes, crossed the Baltic sea and overcame the combined forces of the Catholic kings until he was master from the Alps to the polar sea. No man, before or since, wielded greater power in Europe, and he was at the height of his fame and influence when he was killed in battle. His army went out in the morning singing a hymn he had composed, and returned in confusion at evening bringing his lifeless body.
Queen Christina and Ivar Kreuger
He had a fool for a daughter. Educated and trained to take her father’s place, she surrounded herself with the worst of rascals, eventuating in her public profession of conversion to the Roman Catholic faith and abdication of her throne in favor of her cousin. After relinquishing the throne of a Protestant country she tried in vain to get herself made sovereign of the Roman Catholic countries of Poland and Naples. But Christina is not the only Swede that ever made a mistake.
How about Ivar Kreuger? There is the boy who got our greatest (?) and wisest (?) American bankers to sell the American public $250,000,000 worth of blue sky that had nothing more substantial under it than hot air. Our internationally famous robbers of widows and orphans let this man have anything he wanted, and were so polite about it that they never bothered to ask him if he had any assets. All they did was fork the money over.
Kreuger was clever enough to loan $75,000,000 of the above to the French government. Kreuger left personal debts of $93,500,000 and direct liabilities of $74,800,000. He was a clever juggler of books and a good paymaster of bribes to the Swedish premier.
The Match Industry
Everybody knows that Swedish matches are the best in the world. The first phosphorus matches were manufactured at Jonkoping, Sweden, in 1843, and it is today the match center of creation. A single machine in the factory there puts up 40,000 boxes in a day of 11 hours.
Kreuger’s trustification of the match business nearly wrecked Sweden financially. Sweden is not a rich country, and it was impossible for her to safely embark on the career into which his financial operations plunged her. The government was compelled to grant moratoria on private debts, close the stock exchange, and take heroic efforts to keep the most important banks in the country from going to the wall.
Swedish engineers are famous the world over. John Ericsson, inventor of the screw propeller, and of the ironclad battleship, was employed as a surveyor on engineering works when he was seven years of age, and at twelve was in charge of the work of six hundred men.
Electrification of the railway lines of the country has proceeded apace, financed in America. With her water powers fully developed (set at 5,000,000 horsepower) Sweden could become a great industrial country.
An interesting Swedish invention enables the seasoning of wood artificially in two days. A log is placed in a cylinder, a centrifugal pump creates a vacuum and out comes the sap from the entire log, including the heart. In 48 hours the lumber is ready for use; the cost is only about one dollar per thousand board feet.
Somebody figured it out that the annual yield of Swedish forests would make a hoop around the world one inch thick and one hundred and forty-four feet wide. To handle this lumber and take care of its extensive iron-mining industry, Sweden has more miles of trackage in proportion to its population than any other European country.
Not only are the Swedes famous as engineers, but they literally take to the water like ducks. Every Swede is a swimmer and a sailor. There are 1100 lakes in the country; so there is plenty of chance to learn.
Some More Industrial Items
Sweden has admittedly the best servants in the world; children are trained to the duties of the kitchen and general housekeeping as thoroughly as in the schools they are trained in other matters of education. Formerly the relations between master and servant wTere close and confidential. In our evil times this is breaking down, and within the past few years Sweden had one labor riot where troops were called out and shot and killed four men and one woman. The Ford Company has a plant at Stockholm.
The General Export Association maintains commercial stipendiaries in all lands that obtain merchants, agents and buyers for Swedish goods and put foreign business houses in communication with Swedish exporters. It has a great fund of information available to all inquirers who pay the actual expenses.
In 1929 it arranged for large shipments of Canadian silver and black foxes and of American skunks and muskrats into Sweden, for breeding purposes. The Swedes intend to make the best use of their cut-over lands. Wolf and bear are still found in Swedish forests and often commit great ravages. Elk and deer are also found. Lemmings in immense numbers often lay waste large areas. There are 34,000 persons engaged in fisheries.
The Swedes have been called the proudest people in Europe except the Spaniards. The children are taught to say yes and no and to mean it. Some give no titles to anybody, not even the king, while others give titles to everybody, invariably giving their occupation every time they are mentioned. This creates a curious situation where people are constantly referred to as “Thora-daughter-of-Upholsterer Anderson”, or “Son-of-Organist Nilsson”, or “Mr. -the-Wholesaledealer Smith”. A doctor’s wife is always a doctoress, and a colonel’s wife is a coloneless. Every man is an uncle, and every woman an aunt.
About half the proper names in Sweden end in “son”, and half the space in city directories is monopolized by the families of Oleson, Larson, Anderson, Johnson, and Peterson. There are no colors in the nomenclature—no Whites, Greens, Blacks, Browns or Grays.
A Desire for Excellence
The Swedes have a desire for excellence in everything, including athletics. Diplomas and degrees are awarded for superior swimming. Everybody can skate as well as swim. The nation’s winter sport is skiing, skimming over the country on snowshoes. A skillful skier can make a mile in two minutes, and the jumping record is 70 feet. In 1930 a swimmer jumped 115 feet from a bridge in Stockholm and was uninjured. Ice-yachting and sailing are popular sports.
Music? Answer—Jenny Lind. At nine, admitted to the Stockholm Conservatory of Music; at eighteen, made her debut with great success; at twenty-four, acknowledged the leading singer of Europe; at twenty-seven, carried England by storm; at thirty, sang in Auburn, New York. A man who was there (and, to get the chance to hear her, paid $1 to stand on a ladder outside of the opera house window) said that when the Swedish Nightingale sang the old Negro melody “Old Black Joe” her voice was so inexpressibly sweet and tender that every person in the audience wept, including himself. Music is taught in all Swedish schools, and every town has its singing society.
In Spain every other person is illiterate— the Roman Catholic ideal. In Sweden only one person in five hundred is illiterate—the opposite ideal. Women in Sweden have every right that men have. Children are taught to save; the government opens an account with each child and puts two crowns to its credit to start it off.
Museums have been constructed on the most elaborate scale. These museums show several complete farmhouses, with every feature of Swedish country life just as it exists in various sections, and families living in the houses just as they did before they were moved to their present locations. The scientific museums of Sweden contain more than a half million treasures of antiquity, and are said to be the richest prehistoric relics in the world.
The Lutheran Religious System
By somewhat the same methods as link sausage is made, “religion” is made a part of the education of every Swedish child. When the child reaches 16 the young girl wears her first long dress, and the boy his first black suit; there is an examination in the catechism by the pastor and the elders of the church, and the following Sunday, no matter what interest they have in the Lord, in the Scriptures, or in anything else, they take their first communion and are “confirmed”. As a result of this entirely unscrip-tural plan of procedure, Lutherans are about the hardest people in the world to have listen to a message from the Lord’s Word; they know it all—learned it by machinery when they were young.
It was formerly against the law for Roman Catholics to enter Sweden, but now they have 3,424 communicants, and are growing rapidly in numbers among the aristocracy. The king, a Bernadotte, is of Jewish ancestry. Formerly everybody went to church on Sunday morning; nowT Sunday is becoming, as in America, a day of excitement and amusement.
In his own country Swedenborg is held in appreciative memory, not for his religious views, which few accept, but for his works on iron, copper, geology and algebra, which are standard. Linnaeus, one of the greatest of botanists, was a Swede; so also was the famous chemist Scheele, who discovered oxygen. Baron Norden-skjold, the first to accomplish the Northeast Passage, though born in Finland, was a Swede, and all his explorations were on behalf of the Swedish government.
Ever Hear of Swedish Massage?
Friction, kneading, rolling and percussion of the external tissues of the body was mentioned by Homer and Hippocrates and long ago practiced by the Japanese, Chinese, Turks, and Egyptians. The value of these operations depends upon the skill of the operator, which in Sweden has been brought to its highest level.
In Sweden doctors more often recommend massage than medicine. They do not send bills to their patients, but depend upon their generosity. They receive an annual fee, with something extra In case of serious illness in the family. Electrical treatments of various sorts are much in vogue. Sick clubs are popular in all the Scandinavian countries; they should be a feature of every country. In Sweden the national government contributes 15 percent and the communes 25 percent of the clubs’ funds; when a member falls ill he collects 83c per day.
As a result of attention to their bodies the Swedes are rapidly growing taller and stronger. Between 1841 and 1928 the average height of 21-year-old recruits increased from 5 feet 5 inches to 5 feet 8 inches.
There are comparatively few poor. At the “people’s kitchen” in the wintertime a man may get a substantial dinner here for 9c, and a breakfast or supper for 4c. It is not intended as a charity, and nothing is given away. At some hotels a man and his wife are charged as iy2 persons if they occupy the same room. There is high respect for motherhood, both married and unmarried. It is regarded as a special service to the state.
The only thing we have to say against the Swedes is that they are the greatest coffeedrinkers in the world, averaging 600 cups apiece annually. And that is not a very serious charge, now, is it?
Radio Petition Attacked
SHALL the American people hear the truth, or shall clergymen, who want to shield themselves, prevent the truth from being told? The responsibility is upon Congress to say whether or not an organization can browbeat and threaten any citizen into doing anything in the United States. Almost two and one-half million Americans have recently voiced themselves as being against such browbeating and threatening methods by signing the Protest and Petition circulated by Jehovah’s witnesses, for freedom of speech on the radio.
Fearing the consequences of this tremendous popular expression, the Catholic press is throwing sand in the eyes of the people by howling “Fraud!” in the obtaining of the signatures to the Petition. Using the Catholic press as its instrument of inquisition, the Hierarchy is making an investigation the results of which can be colored to meet the urgent need of the moment; for “statistics”, properly selected and presented, can be made to ‘prove’ almost anything. But it is most difficult to explain away 2,416,141 signatures to a petition of national significance. It is important, vitally important, to the continued power of the Catholic hierarchy that Catholics, or those who can still be induced to read the Catholic papers, shall not realize what it is all about. So the petition for freedom of speech over the radio is persistently misrepresented as of no consequence.
Petition Indicates Public Attitude
The fact remains that the petition, circulated by men and women in all walks of life, furnishes a remarkable cross-section of public opinion, not only with regard to free speech in general, but also in respect to interference with Judge Rutherford’s broadcasts in particular. Similarly, polls taken by leading periodicals have proved effective previews of public action in political and other campaigns. The petition may be misrepresented by the Hierarchy, and it may even be ignored by certain unfaithful representatives of the people, but it will have its effect nevertheless.
But how useless, how utterly useless, to try to misrepresent a man whose works are as well known as Judge Rutherford’s, or to try to besmirch a class of people who are known and read of all men, whose works testify to their integrity. All these misrepresentations, together with defamations and outright lies, must inevitably react upon those who send them forth; because not what is said, but the truth or falsity of what is said, will tell in the ultimate reckoning. When the Catholic hierarchy (and we say this with sincere sympathy and regard for honest Catholics) is governed by its age-old maxim, “The end justifies the means,” it is not strange that it imputes the same course to others. Jehovah’s witnesses, however, are prohibited from following any such rule. With them the means must conform to the end to be gained; nor could they by any stretch of the imagination follow the course of those who say “Let us do evil, that good may come”, which course Paul so specifically denounced. (Romans 3:8) To Jehovah’s witnesses the two things are incompatible; for no good can result from wickedness, nor is any one of them permitted, by the Word of Almighty God, Jehovah, ever to inflict evil or use coercion. The claim that they misrepresented their mission is therefore incredible. Their instructions were clear and to the point. In The Golden Age No. 374 the method followed in presenting the petition to the people was clearly set forth to offset a malicious statement by the Catholic Universe Bulletin, Cleveland, Ohio, of December 15, 1933, to the effect that Jehovah’s witnesses had misrepresented the petition. But the falsity of the charge is so evident that no statement in contradiction could make it more palpable. Every one of the sheets upon which the signatures were to be placed had at the head a full, clear statement of what it was for.
Inquisition in the U. S.
Note how desperately, how recklessly, the Catholic Universe Bulletin, issue of February 23, 1934, seeks to make out a case. It says, “Signed statements in the possession of this paper in cases of seven persons are unanimous in declaration that the Rutherford solicitor approached these persons, mostly Catholics, with a plea for continuance of Father Coughlin’s radio sermons, saying that by so signing efforts to ban the Sunday afternoon discourses would be squelched.” Seven persons, approached by the inquisitor, were persuaded to give the Universe Bulletin a signed statement. (That leaves 2,416,134 signatures still to be accounted for.) It would be interesting to know how these seven were persuaded to sign this statement which states that they did not know what they were signing previously, though the wording of the petition was before them in plain type. It may also be queried whether they knew what they were signing the second time (for the Catholic Universe Bulletin), or under what conditions they signed their “recantation”.
But suppose a few Catholics did sign the Petition to Congress under a misapprehension. Does that give the Catholics any right to threaten and coerce radio stations to break their written contract to broadcast the speeches of Judge Rutherford or to refuse to renew such contract ? Does it justify the Catholics in having actually used such threats and coercion ? Or does it give the big radio corporations of America any right to discriminate unjustly in favor of one broadcaster and against another! Judge Rutherford has not attacked any individual, but is only setting out the Bible doctrines or truths and thus merely following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in declaring the truth.
In its desperate attempt to discredit the petition and its sponsors the Catholic Universe Bulletin stoops to such inanities as saying that many people signed the petition being circulated by Jehovah’s -witnesses “to get rid of them”, not knowing what they were signing! Let it even be granted that some who signed the petition mag have done so without appreciating fully its significance, it is utterly absurd to claim that ‘they signed because the circulators of the petition represented themselves as trying to keep Mr. Coughlin on the air’. As a matter of fact, however, Jehovah’s witnesses would not move a finger to get Mr. Coughlin off the air. They realize and appreciate the fact that liberty of speech over the air will likewise mean a continuance of Mr. Coughlin’s talks, regardless of their estimate of that radio speaker’s efforts. They are willing to give to others the same liberties they ask for themselves, and, no doubt, in circulating the petition they so stated when the name of Mr. Coughlin was brought up by the person called on. The petition first of all calls for liberty of speech over the air, and secondly expresses disapproval of a notorious effort to interfere with such liberty. No one who signed the petition blanks can truthfully say that he did not understand what he was signing because Jehovah’s witnesses made no effort to help him understand. The congressmen who received the petition can testify that every sheet was headed by the full wording of the petition.
Do Congressmen Cater to Hierarchy?
But how does it come that the Catholic Universe Bulletin and other Catholic papers run by priests are in possession of signatures to a petition presented to representatives of the people at Washington? This petition was submitted to congressmen for presentation to the proper authorities at Washington, and not to the Catholic hierarchy. Further, if certain congressmen thought it well to check up on the matter, why was the work of inquisition entrusted to a highly prejudiced agency, one of the very groups against which the protest was made? It is an unheard-of situation in the ‘land of the free”. The Constitution prohibits the union of church and state. It smacks of the Dark Ages, of Mexico and of Spain. Is it to be the policy of the representatives of independent Americans to turn over to the Catholic hierarchy information of ■whatever sort may come into their hands? Shall the people protest to Congress and have their representatives turn their protests over to highly prejudiced agencies? Shall they be subjected to inquisition by those who have no interest in America other than to make it a duplicate of Spain and Mexico and other benighted and oppressed countries?
Another characteristic observation by the aforementioned paper, and similar statements by other Catholic papers, belittles the petition because it contains signatures of colored citizens. Most assuredly it does; and why not? Are not Negroes people, and citizens ? Are they not a part of the population? Do they not have equal rights with other Americans? The petition was circulated among all classes, rich and poor, great and small, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and the large number of unchurched and unfettered individuals not represented in any religious organization. The petition is therefore most emphatically representative. It seems that the Catholic press in America still retains the viewpoint that the average man and woman, the lowly and the working classes, are not to be taken into consideration, and that any petition signed by them is of no consequence. This is evidently the Catholic hierarchy’s traditional attitude toward the people generally. Witness such countries as Spain, Mexico and Portugal.
Does the Catholic press want us to believe that the many Catholics who signed the petition were so ignorant and so lacking in common sense as to sign under complete misapprehension a clearly printed petition, or worse still, to sign something the purpose of which (according to this false claim) was artfully concealed from them? We believe that Catholics are more intelligent than that, and that the Catholic press was moved to its attack upon the petition for precisely the reason that so many Catholics, resenting the un-American actions of the Hierarchy, wished to put themselves on record as being in harmony with the constitutional provisions for free speech, and which includes free radio.
Let Congress Safeguard Rights
It is of highest importance to the American Congress to safeguard the rights of the people to worship God without hindrance. If the Catholics concede that Jehovah’s witnesses have a right to broadcast their views, then they have no right to use coercive means to prevent it. Therefore everyone should be in favor of the Bill to amend the Radio Act of 1927, to prevent any further discrimination and coercion of this sort.
Pennsylvania Railroad Items (From The Pennsylvania News)
APPROXIMATELY three-quarters of a million dollars a day is paid in wages to Pennsylvania Railroad employees.
Nearly $22,000,000 was paid in wages by the Railroad in January to men and women in more than 400 different occupations.
Practically every form of gainful employment known to the human race is represented in the ranks of Pennsylvania workers. There are men skilled in science, and there are track laborers. There are surgeons and ditch diggers; sea captains and blacksmiths; artists and freight handlers; architects and carpenters; lawyers and porters, and civil engineers and cooks.
The Pennsylvania Railroad’s great fleet of trains requires the services of the largest group of employees on the railroad. The men who man the Broadway and The American, together with the Pennsylvania’s other passenger and freight trains, including enginemen, conductors, firemen, brakemen, flagmen and baggagemen, number more than 32,000. Clerical workers number 16,400, and track and roadway employees, 13,000. The smallest group is composed of teamsters and stablemen. Only three men are left to take care of old Dobbin.
Contrary to popular opinion, women play a prominent part in the operation of the modern railroad. There are several thousand of them employed on the Pennsylvania, and they are not all clerical workers and telephone operators.
Icicles on the Eaves
Went to Jail for His Baby
OUT of work, his wife dead, and not knowing how to care for his baby boy, a laborer in Sofia, Bulgaria, laid the child on a doorstep in plain sight of a policeman and made as if to move away hurriedly. The officer arrested the man and the child was put in an orphanage in which the father had previously tried in vain to have it placed. The man himself is now in jail and happy that his child is now where it is being cared for.
God’s Kingdom the Hope of the World
THE following paragraphs from Henry Knight Miller’s work Life Triumphant reveals anew the discernment of thoughtful men that God’s kingdom is the only hope of the world. Mr. Miller was formerly a clergyman; he is now an editor. We would say this is a great reformation.
In the laudable effort to meet these needs (food, fellowship and culture) three principal means have been tried—education, invention and religion. But education has been too abstract and far removed from actual life. It consists too largely of the profitless accumulation of facts, figures and dates, while too little attention is given to the inculcation of mighty, transforming idealism and practical programs for the triumphant organization of personal and social life.
Invention has made mighty contributions in laborsaving devices, intended to free man from economic drudgery and produce bread and beauty in abundance for all. Yet the masses still live but little removed from want, so close to the poverty line that the sickness or death of the principal bread-winner renders severe indeed the struggle for existence.
Even religion has not answered the need, not because the potentialities are lacking. . . . But the soul of religion has ever been crushed under the godless heel of cold, grasping and heartless ecclesiastical organization. Religion given up to externals, competing for property, membership and power, has become an empty fetish, devoid of redemptive force, a parasite upon the social structure. It has fostered hate instead of brotherhood.
Increase in Hours of Automobile Workers
DESPITE the fact that there are thousands of automobile workers who have no work, the NRA has allowed automobile manufacturers to increase the weekly hours of work from thirty-five to forty. This means that thousands of families that had hoped to help themselves will continue to be objects of charity.
Harvester Machines Shipped to France
SAYS John A. Simpson, president of the National Farmers Union: “All war is for profit.
During a war the manufacturers make the profit. After a war those who hold the obligations of the Government and of the people make the profit. Let me give you an illustration. In the last war the manufacturers of this country in making contracts with Uncle Sam wrote into the contracts three provisions. First, that Uncle Sam must take the goods contracted for even though the war ended the next day. Second, Uncle Sam must ship those goods to France. Third, Uncle Sam must not bring them back to this country. Under this contract this government was shipping goods to France a year after the war had ended. When the war did end the government found itself with $4,000,000,000 worth of property in France. Under the contract our government could not bring this property back. They sold it to France at 10 cents on the dollar, or for a sum of $400,000,000. However, France has never paid the bill and we have now granted her a moratorium. Let me give you an illustration of how the manufacturers operated. The International Harvester Co., under this contract, sold and the Government shipped to France every kind of farm implement made by them. There was shipped to France of International Harvester make, corn planters, cultivators, grain drills, drag harrows, disc harrows, and if it were not such a tragedy it would be a real comedy, the International Harvester Co. sold to the United States and shipped to France, to be used in whipping the kaiser, thousands of International Harvester Co. manure spreaders.”
Members of Flock Must Stay in Jail
HERETOFORE the sheriff of Middlebourne, West Virginia, took erring members of local flocks to church with him Sunday morning, so that they might at least make obeisance to the collection basket when it was passed. Now the circuit court judge has notified the sheriff that when he sends a man to prison he expects him to spend his whole time there until his sentence expires. Dominies are mourning the enforced absence of some of their members and have threatened to take it up with the governor of the state.
Catholic Control of the Press
(Reprinted from The Protestant')
FROM the most commodious political headquarters ever permanently maintained in this country, the hierarchy supplies weekly voluminous authoritative propaganda from the National Capital to its periodical press. In a peerless card index and comprehensive records it is reported to have at the headquarters mentioned the most exhaustive information touching men and measures of public interest that can be found in the New World.
In the secrecy of the confessional twenty-five thousand priests can obtain that information from millions of men and women in every station of public and private life. Virtual monopoly of strategical police and secret service positions opens another avenue to personal, domestic and political secrets hidden from the general public.
So completely does the hierarchy control the daily and magazine press that scarcely a paper in the United States dares exploit any news or editorial matter distasteful to the papal authorities. The censorship is applied with equal rigor to the great national and international newsgathering syndicates. Nor do the other chief opinion-forming instrumentalities dare brook the wrath of the papal thrones.
No patriotic periodical of limited circulation can match weapons so powerful and far-reaching. The artillery range is too unequal. The hierarchy does not answer the disclosures of such periodicals. They cannot be answered. It is easier to ignore them. While they reach and enlighten a few score thousand people, the controlled press reaches a hundred million.
In Love with the Image of the Beast
THE Federal Council of Churches in America is certainly in love with the Image of the Beast, and with everything that looks like it. Convinced that they hold the politicians of the world in their hands, and that the politicians hold everything else, at a meeting in Philadelphia they urged that the United States stampede into the World Court before the Arms Conference.
They also recommended a 25-percent reduction in armament budgets. That would make us a 25-percent less unchristian world, wouldn’t it? And three more cuts of the same size, and the whole world would wake up and find they were real Christians. How exciting that would be!
Then they politely recommend the abolition of poison gas, and every polite militarist on earth will be glad to explain that the only reason why he is making it is that everybody else is making it.
And they want America to cut down the war debts, but those naughty Europeans, they will just understand, won’t they? and they must promise, too, that the money they borrowed, but which they are now not to pay, must not be used for increased armaments.
The nations will be glad to have reduced the debts they never intend to pay.
And then they want abolition of compulsory military training in colleges and high schools, and the old men who endow colleges and who start all our wars will see the dominies all in Hades first. And that’s all for now.
The Threat of Fascism in America
AYS Harold Kelso, of Illinois: "The workers of America face a fourth winter of starvation. To more than ten million workers and their families the NRA means nothing. They are still without jobs, and dependent on a humiliating and inadequate relief system for their food, clothing, and shelter.
“Our country is not alone in the misery of mass unemployment. Every nation controlled by an owning class has its millions of jobless men and women, denied the right to work which should be their birthright. Capitalism is showing more clearly than ever before that it is incapable even of feeding its people.
“This crisis differs from the many others in American history, in that millions of people have finally become convinced that ‘rugged individualism’ has gone for ever. Workers and government alike are agreed on this. The government, however, supported by a large proportion of the bosses, wants to replace this old individualism with something which would be even more dangerous.
“President Roosevelt was swept into office on a wave of disgust with Hoover’s reactionary individualism. The size of his majority indicated the strength of sentiment behind change of some sort. He has made political capital of the sentiment to set up the machinery for a controlled, well organized state capitalism, run by the bosses for their own benefit. All the workers have received from the new deal are empty honors and empty stomachs.”
145 Times as Many Paupers
CONNECTICUT is making progress. In the year 1929 the state had only 189 classified paupers, but by the end of June, 1933, it had 27,409; and if you figure it up that is 145 times as many. If it keeps on at the same rate of increase, in forty-five months more Connecticut’s troubles will all be over, for everybody will be in the poorhouse, and some 2,367,402 people besides.
National Economy League
THE Veterans of Foreign Wars of U. S. draw attention to the facts that: “Admiral Richard E. Byrd, chairman of the National Economy League, was awarded approximately $4,200 a year by Act of Congress as a ‘reward’ for his polar explorations. If Admiral Byrd (age 44) lives the allotted span of seventy years, he is still due to receive $109,200 as an outright gift from the taxpayers of the United States—a large proportion of whom are veterans. Today Admiral Byrd is lending his energy and his name to a movement that would take away from a disabled veteran the monthly sum of $12—the amount he receives for a 25 percent disability —or $144 a year. Should this veteran by some miracle defeat the mortality rate among disabled veterans and survive another thirty years until he reaches the age of seventy, he will have received a total of $4,320.
“Here is the picture. One gets $109,200 for taking a trip to the barren ice wastes of the south pole, while the other gets $4,320 for risking his life on the battlefield in time of war.
“Others whose names are linked with the leadership of the National Economy League are also beneficiaries of gratuities paid from public funds in the form of pensions, retired pay, annuities, etc. For example, General John J. Pershing receives $21,500 annually; Major General James G. Harbord, $6,000; Admiral William Sims, $6,000; Alfred E. Smith, $6,100.
Baptist Pastor Had to Shoot
WHEN a Baptist pastor at Ringling, Oklahoma, shot the village justice of the peace he explained to the sheriff that he “had to do it”. Just why he “had to” is not clear, as he failed to give the chapter and verse. It is all wrong for hardware men to sell guns to the unemployed and worthless members of the community.
Can Never Go Back to Planless Society fT'HE eminent engineer Charles E. Stuart, described by George Bernard Shaw as “the man that showed Russia how to do it”, pointing out that the income of the United States has been cut from $90,000,000,000 in 1929 to half that amount at present, but that it has to support an equal pyramid of debt, declares that it is impossible for the country ever to return to a planless society. Some form of socialism is, he thinks, man’s only hope. But God’s kingdom is still better, and is really the only hope of the world.
Just Preceding the Avalanche
JUST preceding an avalanche a few loose stones come sliding down the hill. A little later the whole side of the mountain comes tumbling. We notice one of the stones in the following postal card mailed in Corbin, Kentucky, on January 23:
Corbin, Ky., Monday, Jan. 23, ----.
Dear Fellow Member:—
We are fighting with our backs to the wall. We are going to lose our church if we do not do something, and that something now. The Louisville Title Company has offered to settle our $62,000.00 debt for $30,000.00 if we will act now, and unless we do they are going to foreclose. What does it mean ? It means that we will lose our church building. It means that 90 families that have signed the note will lose their homes. It means that it will be a calamity that not only the church but the entire City of Corbin will never be able to overcome. Are you willing to see this happen? Of course not. Then—when the folks come to you this week for a pledge to save the situation, will you make the largest pledge you can? We can borrow the money if we raise $800.00 per month. We can, we must. Do not fail the church in this crucial hour. The Church, the Town, the Lord, is waiting to see. What will your answer be?
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