Golden Age, October 24, 1934
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The Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii in this issue "NEWS BY RADIO” FAMINES - PAST AND PRESENT WHOSE SERVANT?
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES STANDING FOR THEIR LIVES EVENTS IN CANADA
OBEDIENCE ENDEARS ONE TO SAVIOR
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every other WEDNESDAY five cents a copy one dollar a year Canada & Foreign 1.25
Vol. XVI - No. 394 October 24, 1934
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CONTENTS
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
Looking at NRA with Skepticism . 55
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
“News by Radio”......35
Mix-up in Relationships .... 53 Grave-Robbing in Chicago ... 53 671,866 Persons on Relief in New York 55 A Disgusted Robber.....58
Atlanta Convention.....63
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
A Glance at the Air Schedules . . 54 Interborough Receivership Scandal 54 Anchor of the Big New Cunarder . 54 Two Air Passengers Lose Nerves . 54 The Deadly Auto in Illinois . . . 54 Too Many Taxicabs (?) . . . . 54 Leviathan Loses Half-Million a Year 54 Seaplane Commuter Service ... 54 Some of the Coal Tricks .... 55
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
Creeping Paralysis of Bureaucracy 55 Too Many Political Quacks ... 55 Fascism Breaks Out in Illinois . 55 Equipped for Strike Duty ... 55 $12,000 for a Single Letter ... 55 Papal Fascism in Austria ... 57 Radio Hearing Chart Defaced . . 58 Bulgaria Ends Clerical Grafts . . 58
AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY
Famines—Past and Present . . 40
Lantern-Bearers of the Deep . . 56
Largest Flood-Control Reservoir . 56
Midsummer Frosts in Bavaria . . 56
SCIENCE AND INVENTION
The Mersey Tunnel......54
Artificial Lightning at Pittsfield . 56
Electroplating of Rubber .... 56
Radios on Motorcycles .... 56
HOME AND HEALTH
Senora Chairez of Santa Ana . . 53
Cabot Condemns Human Vivisection 56
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
Events in Canada......51
Blinding the Minds......56
One of the Gibborim, Perhaps . . 56
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
Whose Servant? (Part 1) ... 49
Jehovah's witnesses in Germany
Standing for Their Lives . . 50
Observations on New Jersey “Hate” Bill.......57
Hindu Catholics Abandon Church . 57
The ‘ ‘ Flames of Purgatory ” . . . 58 Obedience Puts One Close
to the Savior’s Heart ... 59
Demonism in a Catholic Church 61
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jl Golden Age
Volume XVI Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, October 24, 1934 Number 394
“News by Radio”
An address by Clarence C. Dill, Senator for Washington, before the Annual Convention of the National Association of Broadcasters, at Cincinnati, September 17, 1934
THE controversy in this country over news by radio centers about the question whether the radio or the newspapers should be first to give important news to the public. We may properly recall that the broadcasting of news not yet printed in the newspaper gave birth to radio in the United States. Since radio broadcasting service originated in this country, news by radio brought radio service into existence for the human family.
Why did the broadcasting of election returns from East Pittsburgh on election night in 1920 arouse so much interest? Because those returns were news, up-to-the-minute news not yet printed in the newspapers. What if those election returns had not been broadcast for several hours after the newspapers printed them? Do you think the listeners would have written such strong letters to the Westinghouse Company urging the broadcasting of more news? Of course not. Those election returns were flash news, up-to-the-minute news, if you please, that made them so interesting.
Our newspaper friends should note also that the newspapers furnished those election returns to the Westinghouse Company and that those same listeners were not satisfied with simply the flash news heard by radio that night. They bought the newspapers the next morning just as previously. They wanted the full reports and the interpretative discussions which only the newspapers furnish. The people wanted newspapers before we had news by radio. They will continue to want newspapers after radio gives up-to-the-minute news flashes and brief news reports in the future.
How Radio Broadcasting Was Born
News by radio gave birth to radio broadcasting not only in this country, but also in Denmark. A few years ago the Politiken, the leading daily newspaper of Copenhagen, was operating an experimental radio station. It announced in its news columns that each day at noon the radio station would broadcast brief news reports of the trial of the president of a large bank in Copenhagen, who was charged with embezzlement. Depositors all over Denmark were deeply interested.
As a result the interest of listeners in radio became so great that the government later took over all radio broadcasting there. Today the government radio station of Denmark broadcasts news four times each day and pays the Politiken several thousands of dollars annually for the news which it furnishes.
What is the result ? There are more radio sets in proportion to population in Denmark than in any other country in the world, and the Politiken has found that news by radio is one of its best means of holding its circulation.
News by radio in this country has had a haphazard history. Generally radio stations have used news reports from newspapers, sometimes by permission and sometimes not. Of course, no radio station has any right to use news collected by press associations or newspapers without paying for the news, but, since radio stations can give news so much more quickly and to such vast numbers instantaneously, news by radio serves the public interest; and serving the public interest is the legal basis for the grant and renewal of radio licenses.
Surrender of the Birthright
During the winter of 1934 representatives of the press associations and of the radio chain systems held a conference on this subject and formulated what is known as the Press-Radio agreement for news by radio. By that agreement, the radio chains surrendered radio’s birthright. They made the agreement as an experiment to avoid a bitter fight over the question of whether radio or the newspapers should be first to give the news. They yielded to the newspapers.
At that time I protested against the agreement on the floor of the Senate. I predicted it would be highly unsatisfactory to radio listeners. I pointed out it would certainly bring rebellion and confusion among radio stations and that it could not continue long.
Several months have passed. The result is chaotic. The Press-Radio agreement is a failure. It satisfies nobody, because it flies in the face of progress. The listeners are disgusted with it. Most stations refuse to use it. Many newspapers say it is unsatisfactory. Radio stations and newspapers all over the country are trying all sorts of schemes to furnish news by radio in violation of the spirit of the agreement. Even most of the stations now using the Press-Radio bulletins pronounce them highly unsatisfactory.
Either the press associations must change the terms of the agreement so radio stations can give their listeners up-to-the-minute news and for longer periods of time, or radio stations will find or create means and methods for securing news entirely independent of the press associations.
This is not only their full right. It is their duty. It is a part of that public service which they are bound to give if they are to justify the use of the radio frequencies the government has granted them.
An Agreement to Suppress News
Let me call attention to how one-sided the Press-Radio agreement is:
First, it limits the time in which stations may broadcast general news, to two five-minute periods during each twenty-four hours. That is about 1,000 words per day.
Second, it fixes the time at which even those five-minute periods shall be used, so that the news by radio will not be broadcast until after it has been printed in the newspapers.
Third, representatives of the press associations, and they alone, determine what news shall be broadcast and what shall not be broadcast.
Fourth, the representatives of the press associations, and they alone, write the language of the broadcast copy, and literally hundreds of station managers say the language used is uninteresting and tiresome.
Fifth, no station is allowed to have the news it broadcasts sponsored by a commercial advertiser.
Sixth, the press associations give the news to the stations. They say it is a “public service”. That makes the stations charity institutions, as it were, so far as news by radio is concerned. Since the news costs them nothing, the radio stations can’t complain. They must take what they get and be thankful.
Seventh, and worst of all, radio stations are bound not to use news from any other source except the 1,000 words from the press associations. This compelled the Richfield reporter on the Pacific coast recently to abandon the up-to-the-minute news reports which have made that source so popular.
Tyrannical and Indefensible Censorship
As operated today, this Press-Radio agreement simply results in the press associations’ censoring all national and world news by radio. From the standpoint of radio it is tyrannical and indefensible. Every radio station that complies with it makes radio subservient to the press in the collection and dissemination of news. It cannot continue, because radio stations will not submit to it.
There have been so many complaints that the press associations themselves have changed the agreement. The press associations have lately been giving brief flashes of world news too important to be held up until newspapers have printed them. Such events as the killing of Dillinger and the SOS call from the Morro Castle steamship last Saturday morning are examples of this change. But even with this change, the radio stations bound by this agreement must await the pleasure of the press associations as to what flashes they may broadcast and when.
The most objectionable thing about the PressRadio agreement is the effect it is having on radio listeners. Intentionally or unintentionally, the press associations are chloroforming radio listeners into believing that news by radio is a poor substitute for news by newspapers. To that extent they are destroying the listening public of radio.
They are teaching radio listeners that they must look first to newspapers for news. If they can’t get the newspapers until they are old, then they may get a stale, sketchy, uninteresting statement of a few items of news by radio. In actual operation this plan causes radio stations to destroy their own listeners’ love for one of their most popular and informative features, namely, live, hot, up-to-the-minute reports of news events of the nation and the world as they happen from hour to hour by day and night.
Newspapers Afraid of the News
This Press-Radio agreement had one virtue. By surrendering their birthright of broadcasting news before it was printed and limiting the broadcasts to two five-minute periods each twenty-four hours, the radio chains proved their willingness to do everything possible to avoid a fight. Now that this plan has proved a failure, the press associations should be willing to sell uncensored news to radio stations, let them broadcast that news with sponsors or without sponsors, ■whenever the stations desire. Newspapers and radio stations should cooperate fully and freely, and radio stations be just as free to broadcast any and all news as newspapers are to print any and all news.
"While there may seem to be some competition between the press and the radio in giving news to the public, the fact is they supplement one another far more than they compete with one another. News by radio must be brief to be interesting. News by newspapers must be more detailed to satisfy readers. News by radio lasts but for the moment. News by newspapers is in permanent form.
News by radio includes descriptions of events while they are happening, such as sports, races and celebrations; and radio also may give the actual event itself, such as a speech, a musical program or a convention. Such news is exclusively for radio. News by newspapers contains descriptions of things about these events impossible for radio to cover at the moment, and also interpretations by leaders and experts.
Newspapers Should Advertise
The fact is, the newspapers should use the radio transmitter as a new advertising medium. Not all newspaper publishers have overlooked this, because newspapers own 68 radio stations and an even larger number have mutually beneficial arrangements with privately owned radio stations.
In the past newspaper publishers have been quick to seize upon new inventions. They replaced the pony express with the telegraph and the telephone. Then they added the teletype and the automatic printer. They bought linotype and type-casting machines. They bought highspeed presses. They established mail distribution by auto and airplane. Why? To speed up the delivery of news.
In addition, they have used every device possible to attract readers. They have erected bulletin boards outside their offices to carry news headlines of events before being printed. They have newsboys to shout headlines in their newspapers in stentorian tones. Why? Towhet the news appetites of those on the streets.
Here is a medium by which the newspaper can cry its headlines and brief news statements to literally hundreds of thousands and millions all at once. It seems unbelievable they don’t use it or that they should try to throttle and handicap it to the point where they force radio stations to set up a competitive service, which a few years hence may easily become so powerful that it will prove a Frankenstein to them by printing radio newspapers simultaneously all over the world.
There can be only one explanation: The business manager has supplanted the news manager in dealing with news by radio. In other words, they are thinking in terms of advertising. They think if radio becomes more popular, radio advertising will increase and newspaper advertising will be more difficult to secure.
No Reason for Newspapers to Be Timid
Statistics show that fear is more imaginary than real. Radio advertising has never exceeded one-seventh of the amount spent for newspaper advertising, nor one-ninth of the combined total for newspapers, weeklies, and magazines. There cannot be much increase in this proportionate expenditure for radio advertising, because the number of radio stations is limited and increased rates cannot more than keep up with natural increase in newspaper and magazine advertising.
But even if the fears of newspaper publishers were justified, and even if increased popularity of radio would decrease newspaper readers, there is a bigger consideration than the financial one. The public interest demands that radio stations give news to their listeners in order that the people may know the truth and whole truth regarding public controversies.
When the forefathers wrote the constitution, they inserted freedom of speech and freedom of press as two of the chief pillars of the temple of liberty. They knew that no majority, however strong, should ever be allowed to override these rights, and that any minority, however weak, must always be able to exercise them.
What has happened ? By taking advantage of inventions for rapid communication and rapid printing and speedy transportation in the newspaper business, newspaper publishers are giving the American people millions of copies of daily newspapers every day.
Exercising this right of freedom of the press, the owners of many of these newspapers omit some news, exaggerate other news, and minimize or distort still other news. In short, many of our largest newspapers have become the personal or partisan organ of the corporation or individual who owns them.
If readers complain, their answer is that this is a free country and you can start a newspaper of your own. But that isn’t as simple as it sounds. It takes enormous sums of money to start a daily newspaper and build it into a paying proposition. The result is that year by year big newspapers are being bought by their competitors and we have larger and fewer daily newspapers in our great cities each year, with a more monopolistic control of sources of news.
Why People Lost Confidence in Newspapers
The abuse of this right of free press by great newspapers as I have described it has destroyed the confidence of the masses of the people in the press in many parts of the country. They doubt that they are getting the full truth about controversial matters. They deplore their inability to get both sides, and in many communities the support of certain newspapers for any cause often does that cause more harm than good.
During this development of the free press into such a vast power in the creation and influencing of public opinion, the power of free speech has dwindled greatly in comparison. The human voice can be heard only a short distance. Without newspaper publicity it has often been impossible to assemble crowds to listen to a speaker. The newspaper reaches millions, and they are often dependent on one set of newspapers for their information.
Now wTe have radio. It can combat the abuse of the power of the press as no other agency ever developed, if we establish complete freedom of speech on the radio. We must make freedom of speech by radio as sacred as freedom of speech on the platform has so long been.
We have the only system of radio by which we can compel freedom of speech by radio. Under government-owned radio systems, there is no freedom of speech. There is no freedom of speech by radio in Germany or Italy or Russia. In those countries speech by radio is simply propaganda by those in power to retain control of the government. Even in democratic England, in free France, and in liberty-loving Denmark, there is no freedom of speech by radio for the discussion of public questions.
People Still Have Some Rights
Under our system Congress makes the law for regulating radio stations and Congress will compel freedom of speech by radio whenever public opinion demands it. I think the law already implies that. Freedom of speech on the radio is in the public interest, it serves the public convenience, and it is a public necessity. If radio listeners are to be able to think and act intelligently as free men and women in the formation of that public opinion, which, in the end, becomes the law of this land, they must have the facts that only freedom of speech by radio will give them.
News by radio is the very essence of freedom of speech by radio. No radio station would dare omit important news items or exaggerate or distort facts. That would be against the public interest and would endanger the renewal of its license. Radio stations today which broadcast only the one-sided reports of individual newspapers are likely to find themselves in that kind of trouble when their licenses come up for renewal. That is one of the strongest reasons why radio stations should have their own independent radio news service.
Another great public benefit which a radio news service giving both sides of all public controversies would render would be that it would compel those newspapers now guilty of omitting, exaggerating or distorting the news to cease such practices or stand convicted of duplicity before the world. By means of short waves and chain system broadcasts, an independent radio news service could reach the whole country. This would make radio an invaluable force in the creation and formation of an intelligent public opinion. It would compel the press to serve its highest purpose of telling “the whole truth and nothing but the truth”, because the truth will keep us free.
Radio Stations Unorganized for News
Radio stations are handicapped because they are not organized to secure news by radio. The Associated Press has 1,200 members. But the Associated Press, the United Press, the International News Service, and the Universal Service, with their 2,000 newspapers, are all solidly united when they deal with radio stations regarding news by radio. It is the old, old story: “In union there is strength.’’ If radio stations are to be able to assert their rights to give news by radio, they must have an organization for that purpose.
Let me now outline what an associated radio news organization of 100 or more stations could do.
First, it could either induce press associations and newspapers to sell news flashes and brief news reports for use by radio stations or, failing in that, it could finance the beginning of a great radio news service. At a cost of $25 per week for small stations, and $50 to $75 per week for large stations, it could set up its own news bureaus in large cities, use its own station members as correspondents in smaller communities, and buy a foreign news service for use until it became powerful enough to create its own worldradio news service.
Second, an associated radio news organization of 100 or more stations could secure recognition for its correspondents on an equal basis with press associations, because its listening public would be greater than any press association on earth.
Third, such an organization could send its news to member stations by short waves to be received on automatic short-wave silent printers in station offices, at rates low enough for sending 3,000 to 4,000 words per day. This shortwave printer is not a dream of the future. It is a reality now. I have seen it in operation. It is being tested for distance of reception now, and will be on the market for commercial use before an associated radio news organization of 100 stations or more can be formed and in readiness to use it.
Fourth, such an organization could secure licenses for its members to use the necessary short waves to pick up sport events or celebrations where wire service is not available. The Associated Press and United Press often secure short waves for such purposes, but individual stations in small communities find it almost impossible. Such an organization could work out schedules for the use of short waves by member stations with approval of the radio engineers of the Communications Commission.
Fifth, if the newspapers should start a fight on radio because of news by radio and refuse to print station programs, as they have repeatedly threatened to do, such an organization could easily print their own national weekly publication, such as the Radio Times of the British Broadcasting Corporation. It could then copyright radio programs, and no newspaper would dare print them except by permission, and then in the form the organization might direct. When it is possible to transmit newspapers by facsimile, it will be able to compel newspapers to treat fairly or face a new kind of competition in their own field.
Sixth, such an organization could keep in direct touch with the impending developments in short-wave facsimile transmission that will certainly revolutionize the art of communication. This development, again, is not a dream of the distant future. It is already a reality that is just ahead, probably not more than a year or two at most. Radio broadcasters should have such an associated radio news organization to take advantage of these developments as fast as they are made, in order to fulfil the true destiny of radio in presenting news first to all the world.
Such an organization is not only possible now, but it is highly desirable in the interest of radio. I believe the broadcasters of this Association should start it before they leave Cincinnati.
Statements Based on Facts
I have talked to many leading radio men of this country. I have read the replies of 364 of the active station managers to my letter and questionnaire. Practically all of them believe that listeners want news by radio, and 281 of 364 replies favor the formation of an associated radio news organization.
In other words, 80 percent say they favor such an organization. Of course, nobody knows the attitude of the other 200 stations, which did not reply, but, having had considerable experience with election returns, I have generally found that when 60 percent of the vote was in, if that 60 percent was from all parts of the state or nation, the final totals generally resulted only in added majorities for those who were ahead.
Several of the newspaper-owned stations favored such an organization unless the press associations release more up-to-the-minute news. Many stations favored on condition the cost is not too heavy.
The 281 stations favoring the formation of an associated radio news service consisted of
1............15-watt station
2............50-watt stations
98 ........... 100-watt stations
21 ........... 250-watt stations
63 ........... 500-watt stations
55 .......... 1,000-watt stations
3 .......... 2,500-watt stations
13 .......... 5,000-wTatt stations
5 ......... 10,000-watt stations
2 ......... 25,000-watt stations
12 ........ 50,000-watt stations
Of the 106 chain stations of the two networks replying, 82 favored such an organization and 34 opposed it.
Of the 364 replies, 296 give some kind of news by radio and 141 use Press-Radio. Of these 141 such users, 100 said it was unsatisfactory, while 54 stations not using Press-Radio news declared it so unsatisfactory they would not use it.
Of the 364 replies, 214 favor sponsoring the news by commercial advertisers. So long as press associations give their stale reports to radio stations “as a public service”, they will never permit the stations to secure commercial sponsors. This is another reason why many radio stations are so insistent for an associated radio news organization. They want news which can be sponsored.
Radio News Abroad
I wrote also to the capitals of the leading foreign countries of the world to learn what they are doing in the way of news by radio. I have
(Continued on page 62)
Famines—Past and Present
RIVERS, lakes and ponds dry and their bottoms baking in a heat that for weeks hovered around 100 degrees Fahrenheit; oil rigs drilling day and night for streams of wTater hoped for at 2,000 feet below the surface; prairie lands that it took thousands of years to form dried to po-wdery dust and blown completely away in dust storms; livestock starving because they could not eat the dust-covered grass; no gardens; crops abandoned over large areas and in toto reduced to 25 percent less than consumption; the government buying 360,000 cattle a week, killing and canning the meat because there is no feed; 200,000,000 bushels less of wheat raised than are needed for domestic use; barren and blasted orchards; losses amounting to $5,000,000,000 ; 3,200,000 persons on drought relief: these and similar conditions in the United States, which many of us never expected to see in this favored land, give us all an interest in a subject that is in the most absolute sense of vital concern to every creature on the earth.
In past ages men had but a limited knowledge of agriculture and in unfavorable seasons or localities knew but little how to stimulate the productive powers of nature; transit was poorly developed, so that it was often impossible to relieve the wants of one region, even when plenty existed at no great distance; stupid and brutal governments interrupted labor in the fields and wasted the fruits of their toil; droughts, floods, frosts, wars, pestilences and pests all contributed to keep food supplies low and famine never very far away.
Famines in China, India, Egypt
To go back less than sixty years: It is reckoned that 9,500,000 perished in China in the single season of 1877-1878, half of them in the provinces of Shensi, Shansi and Honan. We do not know how it is this year, but up to 1933 there had been no rain in the fertile province of Shensi for five years, and tens of thousands were dying wThen the item last came up. The province is so remote that news filters through slowly. This year the provinces of Honan, Anhwei, Kiangsu, Chekiang and Hupeh are the sufferers, with 500,000 virtually without food and water the last we knew. At that time crops were burning up in a temperature of 100 to 115 degrees, locusts were destroying what the sun left, and even before August 1 the peasants over large areas were reduced to eating the bark from the trees; cholera was taking a heavy toll; food supplies were steadily shrinking; no relief was in sight.
In India, in 1769-70 as many as 3,000,000 perished; in 1865-66, about 1,500,000; and in 1877, about 500,000. Since then the authorities have grappled more successfully with what is, in India, an almost constantly recurring problem. In 1900-1901 the famine cost $250,000,000: much help was sent from other countries, including very large contributions from the United States.
In the famine of 1870-72 Persia lost 1,500,000 inhabitants, a quarter of the whole population.
All our readers are very familiar with the famines mentioned in the Scriptures. The famine which occurred in Egypt in Joseph’s time has been duplicated since. There is always scarcity of food in Egypt when the inundation of the Nile is either too scanty or too great. In the years 1064-71 (A.D.) (seven years, the same as in Joseph’s time) people ate corpses and animals that died of themselves. The catching and murdering of men for food became a regular business. Organized bands of kidnapers infested Cairo and caught passengers in the streets by means of ropes furnished with hooks and let down from the houses. Persons that were burned alive for eating human flesh were themselves, thus ready roasted, eaten by others. Better pin your faith in Jehovah God; no telling what the Devil has in store for humankind yet.
The Situation in Russia
It is hard to get the facts regarding conditions in Russia. Soviet authorities are past masters at propaganda; it suits them well always to put conditions in Russia in a favorable light. The enemies of Russia declare that between 5,000,000 and 10,000,000 people died of starvation in that country in 1933, and insist that not only was this dreadful condition hidden from the rest of the world, but 1,700,000 bushels of grain were shipped out of the country because the Soviet authorities desired the cash it would bring. It sounds too horrible to believe, that any so-called “government” would send food away from the starving, for any financial reason.
The reports about last year’s Russian famines are sponsored chiefly by the Roman hierarchy, and therefore their truthfulness may be questioned, but they are supported by photographs of what are alleged to be the bodies of starved peasants in Ukrainian cities, lying in gutters and along sidewalks.
One thing that lends some color to the possible truthfulness of these reports, despite the general unreliability of their source, is that William Henry Chamberlin, correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor, ten years a newspaper correspondent in Russia, married to a Russian wife, and himself speaking Russian fluently, when transferred to the Far East, wrote that he estimates that 4,000,000 peasants died of starvation in Ukrainia and the North Caucasus during the winter of 1932-33. He further stated that the Soviet officials deliberately allowed millions to starve to death to force the survivors into the cooperative farms. Mr. Chamberlin did not dare send out this report until he was safely out of Russia.
The same Roman authorities that reported last year’s famine in Russia predict that 10,000,000 will starve in Russia this fall and winter; the Soviet authorities say there is not a word of truth in it. The truth probably lies somewhere between. It is certain that the present drought prevailed over much of the country, and, though wonders were done by the military organization that now operates the Russian farms, yet even the military cannot do impossibilities. It is not possible to raise crops without water. In some districts every able-bodied man who could be spared from other tasks was ordered to carry water to the parched crops.
Droughts are common in parts, of Russia. Soviet authorities are now compiling a register of all water resources of the country, reservoirs, rivers, lakes, marshes, seas and glaciers, estimated to fill a hundred volumes. The last of July, 1932, they disclosed in connection with this register the seriousness of the drought of 1931, resulting in the loss of 10,600,000 metric tons of grain. It took a full year for the facts to get out of the country.
There is a drought-proof grass from the steppes of Russia which is proving of great merit in western North Dakota. It is called “crested wheat grass”, survives drought and cold, is palatable as livestock feed, grows well after other varieties become unproductive, and yields seed abundantly.
Serious Droughts in Europe
Generally favored with plentiful rains, Europe has, nevertheless, occasionally suffered from the lack of food which results from a prolonged drought. The year 879 (A.D.) was such a year. In the year 1125 famine diminished the population of Germany one-half. For centuries during the Dark Ages, while Roman Catholicism was the only religion tolerated in Europe, in times of dire need the “Christians” who had thoroughly Tammanyized the city governments regularly drove out of the gates the neediest inhabitants and let them perish of cold and starvation. All they had to do to square the account was to go to confession and get the priest’s O.K. In a famine which devastated Hungary in 1505 parents who killed and ate their own children were not molested.
The last famine in Germany was in 1817; since then transport on a large scale has made famine less likely. But even in 1934 the hay crop of Germany was a failure, and Germany bought the entire hay crop from the reclaimed land of the Zuider Zee, Netherlands. In July the Rhine was so low that many vessels grounded, and the “blue Danube” was also at low ebb.
In May and June, 1934, there was much pessimism all through southeastern Europe because of the prolonged drought, with crops calculated to be 25 percent to 30 percent below normal. In Rumania bakers were again making war bread, and the export of grain of all kinds was forbidden. There was need of rain in Italy. In Bavaria several small rivers ran dry; water for households and for cattle had to be brought long distances. In Egypt many children fainted from the heat during lessons and it was necessary to close the schools. Red dust from the Sahara desert settled in such quantities in Switzerland as to give a red color to the snow on the Alpine peaks. Crops were greatly reduced in France, owing to a prolonged drought from March 20 to June 9. Little rain fell except in isolated spots, where deluges often did more harm than good. On the latter date Portugal mobilized its army in an effort to save the wheat crop from the army of locusts which threatened it. Spain was the only nation that by midsummer, July 15, offered optimistic crop reports, and got this “break” in spite of the fact that it threw out “holy church” with its “holy year”.
Drought in Great Britain
In normal times Great Britain is well watered, making it the garden spot of the earth. Droughts are rare, but not unknown. The periodical John Bull mentions a past famine, but not the date, during which “the Thames was so low that it could be crossed on foot at Westminster and on horseback at London Bridge; every meadow in the country, even the marshlands, cracked and crumbling. Fruit dried on the trees. Corn was of such bullet hardness that it was unusable. Grass falling to powder at a touch. The country pestered with plagues of fleas, flies, gnats and other insects. Sweats and agues affected the healthiest people, and deadly fevers took toll of the lives of thousands. Farm stock died and rotted unburied in the scorched fields. Dogs died in thousands”.
The drought in Great Britain in 1934 was not as bad as the one above described; nevertheless, the papers of the country carried many items indicating its great severity. For convenience we give them chronologically:
December 29, 1933, a little ten-year-old boy at Boxford, Berkshire, died of drinking dirty water; clean was not to be had. This state of affairs followed a spring drought in 1933, a hot summer and inadequate autumn rains. January 1, 1934, the people were flocking to the churches to pray for a downpour. January 12 several villages had to rely upon water carted to them.
April 14 the authorities stated that conditions in the British Isles had reached such a stage that even if normal rainfall were resumed it would not set the drought right. The erection of modern buildings, calling for water for bathing and toilet purposes, had created a situation not contemplated years ago, and which was not being met. By the middle of April the temperature was 76 degrees, and a veritable sirocco from the Mediterranean was drying gardens completely and depleting stocks in reservoirs seriously. By the last of April it was 76 years since there had been such water scarcity, people in many places had to give up bathing, and the watering of cattle became a problem.
Water Queues in a Land of Showers
June 16 carried a picture of a water queue, 26 good-natured, smiling, lovable faces, with their owners standing in line with buckets of every size and shape, waiting their turn at the one water faucet where they could get the sine qua non of life. At that time, near Bristol, there were places where the people were suffering from tonsilitis epidemics due to lack of water. June 18 the sheep and cattle were dying by the hundreds, and in some waterways the fish were dying by the thousands and could be seen floating in solid masses. In some places water was being sold at one penny a bucket. At that date the fanners were said to be in the worst plight for 200 years.
At that date also the bishop of London was urging prayers in all churches in London and plans were being made for rain prayer meetings in other centers. The press backed up the bishop and scolded some person unknown to them (the same being the one for whom they work) because there were plentiful rains in midocean but they came not near Britain. On the same date 500 police, having no more important work, guarded the Ascot heath and race course from the danger of fire.
June 28 it was a punishable offense anywhere in the London metropolitan district to wash cars or water gardens or sports grounds. Where the river Dee is ordinarily 90 feet wide, at Berwyn, in Denbigshire, people were able to walk across it dry-shod.
July 2 snakes were overrunning Wiltshire, their appearance being due to the drought. July 4 the training of summer troops was abandoned over 400 square miles of Cambridgeshire, Essex and Hertfordshire, due to lack of water in the district. The heat of the sun caused a street fire alarm to go off. July 6 water was cut off the fountains in the royal parks of London.
July 9 the “upper crust” were asked to cease horseback riding in London’s famous Rotten Row; water could not be spared to keep down the dust stirred up by the horses’ hoofs. July 15 the gravest fears were experienced as to how London would get its water. July 19 there was concern because of the likelihood of pollution of such reserves as remained.
Recent Canadian Droughts
The vast farming regions of Canada have not escaped the blight of drought. In 1931 an eyewitness stated, “The elements loosed themselves upon us with demoniac fury. The heat mounted to 104 degrees in the shade, and was driven upon us with a high wind which felt like a blast from the Inferno. Yesterday the wind veered and churned up the dust from fields that had been baked to a fine powder, and today the wind is still more violent, with a dust storm raging which blackens the heavens so that it seems like midnight.” In the worst districts crops failed and there was no grass for pasture. The blowing away of the soil injured a large fertile area in Saskatchewan.
Drought had a damaging effect on crop growth from eastern Quebec to the Rockies in 1933, and, together with hail, heat, insects and disease, deepened the feeling of hopelessness which previous lean years had brought about. No relief came the following year, in which the greatest invasion of grasshoppers in the history of western Canada conspired with the drought to devastate the fertile farm regions. Nearly sixty percent of the 21,000,000-acre wheat crop was burned up before rains gave some hope that the late-sown crops might be saved. More than a million dollars was spent to combat the plague of grasshoppers which afflicted the three Canadian prairie provinces. There was a shortage of seed to sow in the drifted areas. The wheat crop, which in preceding years had been around 400,000,000 bushels, was 270,000,000 in 1933, and in 1934 an estimated 240,000,000.
Our neighbor to the south has not altogether escaped the ravages of drought. The drought caused a serious reduction in the water supply of northern Mexico and its irrigated lands, most of which are watered by the Rio Grande.
In the United States
The shortage of water in Mexico’s irrigated lands was largely the result of drought conditions in the United States. Scarcity of rainfall has been the situation over large areas of the United States in varying degrees since 1930. Dry spells are common enough in all parts of the country from time to time, but there has not, as far as records indicate, been a drought in the past that has affected the greater part of North America at one time, as was the case in 1930. Not only the western plains, but the eastern or Atlantic states were affected by drought.
In 1930 the water board of Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, ruled that a fine of $10 to $20 would be imposed on residents who wasted water. At Olean, New York, a spring which had failed only once in the memory of local residents, diminished its flow and then the water gradually became oily, until, finally, more than a barrel of oil daily was taken from the spring. In Logan, West Virginia, drinking water was selling at three cents a gallon.
August 4, 1930, the chairman of the Federal Farm Board said, “The present severe drought has reached a point where the shortage of feed and forage threatens serious losses to livestock growers and dairymen over a wide area.” That year’s drought was described as “the worst in the country’s history”. Scattered rains did little good, and in certain sections hail instead of rain only increased the damage to crops.
A “Blessing” to Big Business
Big Business considered the drought a blessing in disguise, because it checked decline of prices. The secretary of agriculture, however, said, “I do not share the feeling that this terrible drought is a blessing to American agriculture, either in disguise or in any guise. The devastation of whole groups of counties, and of large areas of states; the ruin of thousands of farmers does not appeal to me as a desirable thing, no matter what economic results it may have in clearing away the accumulated surpluses.” Of course, the secretary failed to get the viewpoint of Big Business. What these gentlemen meant was that it was a “blessing” to them, and with them that is all that matters. Business is business, no matter who may suffer.
The Department of Agriculture considered the 1930 drought as the worst the country experienced since records were kept, a period of forty years. In some sections the drought continued for nine months.
The drought gave the Mississippi an opportunity to air its bed in many places. At some points its width was a few hundred yards where before it was over two or three miles. Millions of fish died as a result of drying up of rivers and lakes, and wild life in many parts of the United States and Canada was greatly reduced.
Cattle had to be transported from one place to another in search of pasturage, and in several instances the beds of shrunken rivers grew grass which supplied the best pasturage for cattle in the surrounding territory.
Government agencies provided drought relief in numerous states and prevented the complete ruin of the farmers, appropriating $45,000,000 for the purpose, where forty years ago they were completely wiped out in the wheat lands of Dakota and other states, the life insurance companies being compelled to foreclose their mortgages and sell the farms.
Dust storms, accompanied by rains, resulted in a shower of mud at Edenton, North Carolina, a phenomenon that is likely to occur after extended droughts.
San Francisco faced the crisis of a water famine. New York city, though it consumes 800,000,000 gallons of water daily, was able to withstand the drought because of good rains.
Physicians at a “better babies” contest of the Kansas state fair stated that the drought had left its mark on babies to a greater degree than on crops.
The loss entailed by the drought of 1930, the most severe of record, was estimated as high as $3,000,000,000. The weather bureau explained the drought as “a prolonged stagnation of the air over nearly the whole continental extent of the United States”.
Radio stations, blamed for the drought, have in previous years been blamed for floods. A survey of the location of radio stations and atmospheric conditions indicates, however, that there is no connection between ‘radiodation’ of electric energy and the drought. Rather, the effect of too much radio on the air would be the opposite, as the disturbance of the atmosphere tends to cause rains.
Destitute farmers at England, Arkansas, angry and armed, threatened to seize merchants’ supplies unless adequate relief were given them by the government. The Red Cross collected $10,000,000 to deal with the drought sufferers, but, as these numbered about 2,000,000, the funds were quickly exhausted.
Blessed Are the Merciful
Scarlet fever, pellagra and dysentery were far more prevalent than in previous years, as a result of the drought. They were the result of contaminated water, particularly in Kentucky. In not a few instances death came to those whose undernourished and weakened bodies could not resist the onslaught of disease. Entirely destitute, large numbers had no money, and not even anything which they might exchange for the necessary food. In Arkansas, State Representative Fleming wept as he described conditions in his district and proposed a bond issue of $15,000,000 for relief of drought distress.
President Hoover, on the other hand, opposed a move to appropriate $25,000,000 for relief, and was praised by the Chicago Association of Commerce. It can never be said that Hoover was unfaithful to his employers. His ability to deal with the unemployed and destitute is proverbial, and was fully demonstrated at the Battle of Anacostia.
Drought sufferers in the middle-western states were generously helped by farmers in other states. Colorado and Wyoming shipped them over two million pounds of foodstuffs. New York farmers contributed 31 carloads of fruits and vegetables to needy farmers in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.
One generous individual sent a $1500 stock certificate to the Red Cross in St. Louis, saying, “My heart has been touched by the suffering of the drought victims.” Investigation showed, however, that the certificate had been stolen, and it was returned to its owner, as the donor signed his communication only “J. C.” It hath been said by them of old time, “One should be just before one is generous.” That bit of sentiment is now quite out of date with many folks.
At Brunswick, Georgia, the local Red Cross organization arranged to give a Sunday matinee for the benefit of drought sufferers. No admission was to be charged, but a free-will offering taken. When the Ministerial Association got wind of this interference with their time-honored method of getting through the world without work they raised a howl, threatening to withdraw all future support of the Red Cross. Result : No matinee for the benefit of drought sufferers. Also, a little more blood on the skirts of the ministerial garments.
Red Cross Relief
No doubt there are many well-meaning persons connected with the work of the Red Cross. Yet its tactics in connection with the administration of drought relief were severely criticized by a writer for Labor. He stated that “the Red Cross makes men work for what they get at the rate of $1 a day, and in many cases compels them to work for someone to whom they owe a debt”. Men were paid in orders on local merchants. One gentleman of leisure is reported to have said, “That’s the way to do! Make them work for what they get. Those ‘bums’ wouldn’t work at all if they weren’t forced. I don’t believe in giving anybody anything.” These are noble sentiments, worthy of an apostle of Big Business.
Men were given work for two or three days a week and received the munificent sum of from $2 to $3.50 for their work to “relieve” their families. Families thus “helped” were afraid to give the facts to investigators for fear they would lose even this pittance. This is probably the Red Cross application of the injunction, “Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.”
However, the press reported that more than 2,000,000 persons in 21 drought-stricken states came under the care of the American Red Cross. The situation called for the most extensive relief operations in half a century. At the close of the summer of desolation seed was distributed to more than 58,000 families for the planting of rye and other pastures, and 27,000 families received seed for planting kitchen gardens, which would enable them in time to provide food for their families, the weather permitting.
The Department of Agriculture appropriated $65,000,000 for making loans to farmers, of which $45,000,000 was for financing the purchase of feed, seed and fertilizer, and $20,000,000 for “rehabilitation”. Thousands of farmers took out loans.
In Ohio nature reversed herself to the extent of flooding sections of the drought region in the southern part of the state. The 1930 drought, however, continued far into 1931, in large areas of the country.
The Super-Drought of 1934
While not characterized as drought years, 1931, 1932 and 1933 were abnormally dry in many parts of the United States. And then came 1934. The scarcity of rainfall in April, May and June of this year surpassed any previous drought on record, and threw the drought of 1930 completely into the shade. This fact, added to that of the unusual dryness of preceding years, made the drought of 1934 exceptionally serious.
The extent of the territory affected almost doubled that of 1930, in which year about twenty states were involved, while in 1934 almost the entire country suffered from excessively dry weather, the only states having a rainfall that was average or above being Washington, a portion of Oregon, Kentucky, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. In the middle west the drought was especially severe. In all, thirty-five states were affected, from the Rocky mountains to New England, twenty of them severely.
In many sections of Kansas water had been hauled for livestock since the fall of 1933. In Utah the drought was the most serious since 1847, the year when settlement began. Reservoirs of twenty-five cities and towns in southern Iowa were depleted to an alarming extent. Western New York state took on the appearance of a parched desert. Damage to crops in Erie county alone was estimated to exceed $2,000,000. At Winona, Minnesota, the Mississippi river set a new low mark, receding to 2.5 feet below the low water mark of 1864. Creston, Iowa, pumped all the water out of two lakes and then had to go to Council Bluffs and haul its water supply in tank cars. A daily allowance of 20 gallons to a family was established, though many housewives used less by making laundry water serve for house cleaning and making a single filling of the bathtub do for several members of the family.
Water was hauled, wherever that was possible, all through the drought-stricken area, for both man and beast; and improvised methods of irrigation were resorted to in places where water could be drawn from rivers or deep wells.
Fields which in normal years are yellow with corn and verdant with wheat were pictures of desolation. Ranges ordinarily filled with grazing herds were empty and barren or dotted with dead and dying cattle. Planes flying over hundreds of miles of territory could find hardly a drop of water. The beds of rivers were caked hard, and lakes were only dry and ghastly depressions in the earth.
The river having the largest watershed in Texas, the Brazos, which ordinarily had an average flow of 2,640 second-feet, had, in July, 1934, a flow of only 12 second-feet. A second-foot is the equivalent of 90 gallons passing a point in one second.
The abnormally high temperature, which continued above 100 degrees for weeks at a stretch, added to the absence of rain, brought unprecedented loss of. crops and herds. Insect pests added to the work of desolation.
In May the secretary of agriculture stated that the wheat crop would probably be but little more than half the country’s requirements. Taking into consideration all foodstuffs and feedstuffs, the United States would, according to another observer, raise but three-fourths of its total requirements. Wheat abandonment proceeded at the rate of a million bushels a day, representing a loss of nearly that many dollars to the farmers. Early in September the Chicago board of trade anticipated that the corn crop would be the smallest since 1887.
Herds Die in the Fields
After the crops, the next to suffer were the herds of cattle. Thousands upon thousands languished, grew lean and gaunt, and died, their carcasses, falling where they expired, lying as evidence of the terrible extent of the drought. As the problem of furnishing cattle with feed became more and more acute, fields of grain, because practically worthless for harvesting, were thrown open to them, temporarily halting their deathward course. In Wisconsin the two million acres of national forest land were thrown open to grazing, in an effort to preserve the cattle. Texas, having no such means of halting the course of destruction, saw cowboy firing squads riding over the ranches and shooting over a thousand cattle daily to keep them from the suffering incident to thirst and starvation.
Nebraska’s director of the Federal cattlebuying program, inaugurated to preserve for food cattle that would otherwise die of starvation, said, “We had 3,130,000 head of cattle on hand in the state on April 1, about one-fourth being in dairy herds. The outlook now is that we cannot carry more than 1,500,000 through the winter. I doubt if we can carry more than 1,000,000.”
In the Dakotas there was not enough feed and water for 1,000,000 cattle out of 2,500,000. The excess had to be slaughtered and canned to prevent complete loss.
Government agents* bought cattle all over the country, weeding out those too weak to ship, and destroying them, and feeding and watering the others to enable them to make the journey to the stockyards or to pasturage in the southeast. The stockmen call the drought-cattle “shells” and “hatracks”, apt descriptions of their emaciated appearance. It was estimated that between 7,000,000 and 10,000,000 head of cattle would be butchered, the meat canned, and much of it given to the unemployed. The government is doing some of its own processing to help out the regular canners.
In New York state the tuberculin testing of cows was being discontinued for fear of a milk shortage. Evidently there is no real danger from cows that have not been inoculated, otherwise this course of action would only invite the addition of pestilence to famine.
One traveler, who passed through Missouri, described conditions as follows: “Not only are the hogs and cattle all gone, but there are no horses, no chickens; nothing at all is left. Even the birds one usually sees along the road are not there. Weeds are all dead. Trees are bare or have their leaves burned as brown as if a heavy frost had hit them.”
Damage from Dust Drifts
Because fertile farms had been turned to powdery dust, the wind raised numerous dust clouds. One storm is described as having been fifteen hundred miles long and a thousand miles wide, which should be big enough for anybody, even an American, who likes to have things big.
On one occasion dust blown from western fields reached as far east as New York and a thick layer of dust continued to annoy dwellers in the central states. Had the dust storms been combined with rain, the result would have been a “shower of mud”, like the “rains of blood” which sometimes fall in the south of France when the red dust of the Sahara is blown across the Mediterranean sea, and brought down by rain.
Pictures of dust drifts, almost completely hiding drought-denuded trees, give an effect of desolation which resembles midwinter but lacks all of that season’s natural charm and beauty. Fences are covered with piles of dust, groves are filled with it, and pastures made unfit for cattle. Even the drought-stricken cattle will not eat the dust-coated grass, which would only increase their gastronomical distresses.
At Tekamah, Nebraska, the topsoil from Fred Morehouse’s farm was blown across the road and deposited on a neighboring hay meadow, spread out to an average depth of six inches. About ten thousand cubic yards of dirt are estimated to have been thus transferred, and Morehouse sees no chance of getting back the most valuable part of his farm. It would take him 500 days to haul it back, if he hauled twenty wagonloads a day, which would seem to be a man-sized job.
Millions for Relief
Needless to say the drought and its effects brought distress to millions of farmers and their families. First of all, there was the discomfort and even death caused by the heat, which was intense and protracted. City hospitals in St. Louis were crowded with prostration patients, and deaths in Missouri and other states were counted by the hundreds. Typhoid fever, due to the use of polluted water, also broke out in Missouri, where the heat destroyed two-thirds of the corn crop.
A conservative estimate was that 10,000,000 persons had been affected by the drought. Actually the entire nation was affected. In July there were 3,200,000 families receiving drought relief, which added to 800,000 receiving Federal relief makes a total of 4,000,000. The total monetary loss ascribed to the drought was placed at about $5,000,000,000, which is equal to about one-half of the war debts.
It was estimated that from $800,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 would be needed for relief work in drought states. Congress approved an appropriation of $525,000,000 for the purpose.
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