Golden Age, January 2, 1935
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The Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE
in this issue
THE ENGINE
THAT NEVER STOPS
FOOD CONTAMINATION
BY ALUMINUM
EVENTS IN CANADA
KEYS
PETITION
NOTES ON NEWS
WITH OR AGAINST JEHOVAH
every other
WEDNESDAY
five cents a copy
one dollar a year
Canada & Foreign 1.25
Vol. XVI - No. 399
January 2, 1935 CONTENTS
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
The Townsend Revolving Pensions 207
How the Strawberry Code Worked 213
Income in the United States . . . 214
Tax-exempt Real Estate . . . . 217
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
Jailing Women in Milwaukee . . 208
SEND PETITIONS TO WASHINGTON . 210
PETITION . . . . . . . . . . 211
6,000,000 Still in Bondage . . . 214
Salvation Industry in Bad Way . 214
$1,250,000,000 Annually by Catholic Institutions . . . . . . 215
In Heyday of Purgatory Blasphemy 217
MANUFACTURING AND MINING
Wilton Junction Not Sorry . . . 208
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
BRISBANE DESCRIBES "WHAT-IS-IT" 203
ALL A MATTER OF BOOKKEEPING . . 204
Who Owns the Natural Gas? . . . 204
The Huge Sears Roebuck Company 208
Senator Bravo, of Argentina . . 213
Destruction of Coffee in Brazil . . 213
Conway's Bad Guess . . . . . 217
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
Lawyers Protest Lawlessness . . . 207
Censorship in the Society Islands . 207
Repudiation of Christianity . . . 212
Raw Materials Shortage in Germany 212
The German Spy System . . . . 212
Evangelist, Visitor, Sunday Visitor 218
AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY
"KINDNESS TO ANIMALS ALWAYS PAYS" . . . . . . . . 205
SOME THOUGHTS ON DOGS . . . . 206
A 112-Pound Bunch of Grapes . . 213
Montana Cattle Shipped to East . 213
SCIENCE AND INVENTION
Rubber from Gas . . . . . . . 208
HOME AND HEALTH
THE ENGINE THAT NEVER STOPS . 195
DANGER OF FOOD CONTAMINATION BY ALUMINUM . . . . . . . . 199
Chronic Poisoning by Aluminum and Its Alloys . . . . . . . 208
Two More Group Poisonings . . . 208
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
EVENTS IN CANADA . . . . . . 200
The Dutch No Longer Dutch . . . 204
"Biggest Liars and Thieves Afield" 218
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
KEYS . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
SHOULD BLACK HATE MILLENNIUM? 210
The Invitation Came Too Late . . 215
The Nicholas Brady Estate . . . 215
Romanism and the Truth . . . . 216
Either $25 or Eternal Torture . . 218
WITH OR AGAINST JEHOVAH . . . 219
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The Golden Age
Volume XVI Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, January 2, 1935 Number 399
The Engine That Never Stops
ONE could not say that the heart never rests, for it does, as will hereinafter be shown; but if it stops, you stop, until the resurrection. One of the marvels of the Creator’s hand is the human heart, or any heart, for that matter. In the human it is five to six inches in length. The men are more large-hearted than the women. If any of the women write in about this it will be easy to convince them that they have misunderstood us. Men are larger animals and require larger hearts, in the proportion of 6 to 5.
The average heart weighs rarely over 12 ounces, yet this efficient machine pumps all the blood of the body through itself once every three minutes. Every twenty-four hours it beats 108,000 times, two ounces of blood to the beat, but so wonderfully adjusts its efforts to the needs of the body that during athletic contests it will work three and one-half times as hard, for short periods, pumping as much as eight gallons a minute.
In a day of moderate activity a man’s heart does enough work to lift a 150-pound man 1,000 feet. Even when the man lies the whole day in bed the heart still does enough work to lift the 150-pound man 500 feet. The blood stream travels at the rate of 61,000 miles a year.
In the heart are special nerve cells whose functions are to keep the heart beating as long as we are alive. These work without the voluntary action of the brain; if they did not we should die in our sleep (and people sometimes do). But what goes on in the brain has much to do with what takes place in the heart. The brain is the general manager—sometimes.
Scientists who were rather too curious found that when a woman who had been married eight years was kissed by her husband her heartbeats jumped from 70 to 116 and remained there for several minutes. When the apostle said, “Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss” (1 Thessalonians 5:26), he could not have meant to include the sisters—at least not unless the men of that time were different from what they are now—and the women too. That straightens it all out nicely about the men’s being more large-hearted than the women. Two-thirds of the heart is to the left of the breast bone; one-third, to the right.
Some Differences of Opinion
There are some differences of opinion about the heart. One medical view is that the heart contains a small mass of tissue called the pacemaker, and that the beat of the heart has its origin in this. Another is that the lungs do all the driving and the heart is merely a governor. A physician with experience in the dissecting room is of the opinion that the heart is motivated from the brain.
A German physician, Dr. Mendelsohn, believes that the circulation of the blood depends upon the vital activities of the glands of the body, the huge quantities of liquids excreted, the flow of saliva, etc. He mentions that we exhale a pint of water daily in gaseous form, as one of the items in this view. Breathe on a pane of glass on a cold day and see what a quantity is continually poured from the lungs. Thirty ounces of saliva are swallowed every twenty-four hours.
The heart is provided with what are described as “little dinner pails”. These are tiny, disk-like structures between the muscle fibers. Their duty is to collect food materials from the blood and pass them around to the heart muscles.
But if there are differences of opinion as to what it is that makes the heart beat, there are no differences as to the present prevalence of heart disease in some of its fifty forms. In 1926 one death in every six among policyholders of the New York Life Insurance Company was caused by heart disease. More recently the statement was made by Thomas Parran, Jr., state commissioner of health, that practically one out of every four deaths in the state is from this cause.
At all times in New York clinics there are 1,500 sufferers from heart affections, with 1,500 more in the hospitals and other institutions. Dr. Paul Dudley White, of Boston, says that over two percent of the population of this country have heart disease. In the country as a whole there were 132 deaths per 100,000 from this cause in 1900, but in 1929 there were 211 deaths per 100,000 of the population. Back in the quiet days of 1868 the deaths from heart disease were only 53 out of every 100,000; so they are now four times what they used to be. Supposed to be a disease of old age, over 4,000 persons under 45 die from this cause in New York state every year.
Some of the Reasons for Heart Disease
One of the main reasons for increased deaths from heart disease is that people live twice as long now as they did in the Dark Ages. The average of human life then was twenty to twenty-five years; now it is nearer sixty. The people are better fed now than then, and fat persons are more subject to heart ailments.
It is easy enough to make up a list of the things that cause the heart to get discouraged and give up trying to carry a man along who uses liquor and tobacco continuously, overworks, overworries, and, especially, overeats. It may be a happy way to die, but most people dig their graves with their teeth. Underfeeding is bad, too. The heart does laborious work and has to have food, but the best stove ever made can be ruined by jamming more fuel into it than it can handle properly.
Fright makes the heart go faster. Don't get scared; the other fellow is far worse scared than you are. Joy is all right, but too much joy is like too much sorrow; excessive emotion wears the heart out.
Kidney trouble or liver trouble eventually means heart trouble; for the heart has to keep pumping fresh supplies into the damaged organs, and that makes its work harder.
Too much of athletics is just too bad. Nurmi, the world's greatest runner, has a heart that is double size. It functions perfectly, but Nurmi must keep exercising to keep that big heart well; when he stops, no more Nurmi. Many athletes have hearts smaller than normal; the muscles are small, but tight and powerful.
There is a big difference in responsiveness of hearts. With some, one cigar a day would be too much; others smoke five a day and think it moderate. Still, why kill yourself with tobacco at all? However, it is your heart, and getting a tobacco heart is one way to bump yourself off. Many do it.
The telephone, the telegram and the automobile: are they blessings or are they merely aids to the undertakers? They keep us all steamed up, until finally the heart flies the black flag and says, What's the use?
Fifty Kinds of Heart Disease
Rheumatism is another cause, and you can aggravate that by drinking tea and coffee. Many like to go by that route. Why object? If a person prefers to have caffeine in his system to having life, let him have what he chooses. High blood pressure comes from having too many toxins; the arteries dam up, and finally the heart gets weary of working for such an unreasonable master and quits for good.
Goiter heart, it is claimed, has been cured by the removal of the entire thyroid gland. This may be necessary in some cases; we do not know.
Endocarditis, inflammation of the inner lining of the heart, is common north of the Mason and Dixon's line and unknown south of it. It is thought that difference in atmospheric pressure has something to do with this. More likely, the southerners get more fresh air.
Sometimes heart defects exist at birth. This is rarely the case, but does happen, and when it does happen it is very serious. Still, people who have weak hearts, and know it, and make use of what they know, live long and useful lives, sometimes. Such people must moderate work and play.
The heart rests one-tenth of a second after each beat, and slows down and recuperates while we sleep. Deprive yourself of necessary rest, and you will come in for an earlier ride in one of these new side-door automobile Pullmans when your friends "say it with flowers".
Some have suggested that certain Siphonaptera, or Aphaniptera, better known as fleas, are responsible for certain types of heart disease. All right, then don't harbor fleas.
There have been a few instances of slits in the heart which have been sewn up by surgeons and the patients recovered. Sometimes the surgeons have finished a heart that might have gone on beating.
Heart Disease Not Inevitably Fatal
If the doctor tells you not to drink champagne, better not drink it. A wealthy New York woman thought she knew better, and took too much. She got dead drunk in Paris, eyes glazed, heart ceased to beat, but her body maintained a temperature of 102 degrees for 16 hours. (The heat of the body rises after death.) The woman finally died; it was probably just as well. She was of no good to anybody, not even to herself, and probably never would be of any good, and the world is just as well off without her. People who live to pamper their appetites are entitled to little sympathy.
Heart disease is not inevitably progressive. The heart patient must take care of himself; that's all. Sane living methods, adequate sleep, proper food, reasonable hours of work, and even some play, and thousands of them go on for years and years.
Sometimes death comes at once to heart sufferers; but they commonly linger on for long. For every death from heart disease there are ten cases of heart invalidism.
On the other hand, if your heart is sound you may take courage. It will be equal to all the demands that you make upon it, if they are within reason. Indeed, there are numerous purely nervous disturbances of the heart in which there is no cause for anxiety. A medical examination will disclose whether or not the heart is sound; if it is, you have little to fear.
The X-ray shows that when one is suffering from any kind of heart trouble there are large gas pouches either in the upper part of the stomach or in the upper left bend of the colon. This shows that what we eat has a lot to do with what happens to our hearts.
The "Don'ts" on eating are: Don't eat too much food; don't eat the wrong kind of food; don't eat wrong combinations of food; don't eat when too tired; don't drink too much of anything, and certainly not too much of anything that stimulates.
Some of the Symptoms
Some of the symptoms commonly supposed to be associated with heart trouble are said to be fullness of the chest, particularly on the left side; intermittent heartbeat; hot and cold flashes; pain in the region of the heart; pains in the breast and down the left arm; aching between the shoulders; shortness of breath; severe exhaustion; giddiness; blue hands and feet; palpitation; profuse sweating; extreme nervousness.
A physician says, on "Sinus Arrhythmia": "The heart rate waxes and wanes gradually, usually being faster when breathing in, and slower when breathing out. This is common in healthy people, and has no special significance." That disposes of scare No. 1.
On the subject of "Premature Beats" the same authority says: "A beat occurs too soon after the last one, so that there is a short interval before it and a longer one after it. The beat is comparatively weak, so that, while it can be heard over the heart, it cannot be felt as a pulse beat at the wrist. This may or may not be serious, depending on other factors. In an otherwise normal heart it means little."
Valvular murmurs are not considered serious. Where no two beats are alike the heart may be kept going by a physician, with digitalis, for some years. When a normally beating heart suddenly becomes very rapid and the rapid beating continues for a period and then stops as suddenly as it started, the condition is serious. The most serious of all is where the pulse is regular in time but the alternate beats are strong and weak; in these cases death generally occurs within a year.
Angina pectoris is the most dreadful of all pains; when it comes on, the bravest and calmest may roll on the floor in agony. A writer says: "A heavy burden lies upon the patient's chest and he dare not try to breathe because of excruciating pain, and without breath he must die." The heart feels as if it were being squeezed in a powerful vise; the pain fills the chest and runs down the arm; the face is the color of ashes; sweat pours from the forehead; a physician should be summoned at once. He will probably provide nitroglycerine or amyl nitrite, and heat, in the form of a hot water bottle applied to the chest.
Heart Affections in the Young
Probably that heading ought to be "Heart Disorders in the Young", for that is what is meant. Ninety children out of 10,000 are found to have organic heart disease. This discovery led, in Philadelphia, to the founding of the Children's Heart Hospital, where all will be done that can be done for these poor unfortunates. The hospital has 200 beds.
Many of these children are victims of the after-effects of scarlet fever or other infectious diseases. Malignant rheumatism is another great cause of their sorrows. Some, when they got older, found the pace of petting parties, bootleg liquor, night clubs and high-speed automobiles more than they could keep up with.
In New York state in 1915 a total of 275 persons between the ages of ten and twenty-four succumbed to heart disease; in 1925 the total was 361. The figures speak for themselves.
A mother who really wanted to save her little baby, born with a weak heart, gave it sun baths every afternoon at two o'clock. At first only the legs were bared for five minutes, front and back; then she was bared to the hips; then entirely undressed, and still with only five-minute exposures. Each week the duration of the exposure was lengthened, until at length the child was getting fifteen minutes naked, front and back. In fifteen months, as a result of these sun baths and the accompanying periods of complete rest, the heart was almost completely normal, skin ruddy, and flesh firm.
Anything decayed in the body, like decayed teeth, decayed tonsils, decayed food in the intestines, etc., may induce heart troubles. How can a heart be well that every three minutes is visited by blood that has been in contact with something decayed?
Young girls may have murmurs over the base of the heart which are merely indicative of changes taking place in their organisms and do not necessarily mean that the heart itself is in any danger. Irregular or extra heartbeats are perfectly normal in a great many cases. In fact, extra beats are a carefully planned act of nature, meant to insure the continued beating of the heart. Don't get the idea that you have a bad heart unless you really have; for the world already has too many hypochondriacs.
Nature Plays Some Pranks
Nature plays some pranks, even with such an organ as the heart. One in about 100,000 has a heart on the right side instead of on the left. Edward Reynolds, of Wilkinsburg, Pa., has two hearts, the larger one on his right side, the smaller one on the left. He has never suffered any inconvenience because of this. A man at Sandy Hook, Ky., tried to suicide by shooting himself in the left chest. It happened that his heart was on his right side; otherwise he would have died immediately.
A poor little Shoreditch (London, England) lad was able to live to seven years of age with his heart on the right and turned clear around, so that the back of the heart was to the front of his body. Certain organs that should have been in the abdomen were found in his chest.
It is astonishing what some men dare do with their bodies and with the bodies of others. In Berlin Dr. Werner Forssmann, a young surgeon, propelled a rubber catheter 2 feet 1 1/2 inches long from above his left elbow upward and under the collarbone and finally into the heart itself. The course of the probe was carefully followed by X-ray apparatus. The experiment is said to have lasted less than a minute (which seems incredible) and to have produced no ill effects. More to be feared is the announcement that he will now undertake by this method to inject medicine directly into the interior of the heart. Glucose is suggested as one of the drugs to be injected.
A British device stimulates the heart into activity if used within ten minutes after it has ceased to beat. A needle is inserted into the heart and an electrical current is used to produce an artificial beat.
We don't like to say anything about the rubber hearts made for cats and dogs or the insertion of the heart of one animal into the circulatory system of another. All vivisection is abhorrent. Photographs (moving pictures) are existent which reveal the opening and closing of the valves of a calf's heart. These were taken through glass windows inserted in the walls of the organ. He that marks the sparrow's fall would surely mark that work too.
The Heart Beats Thirty Minutes After Death
The new instrument which replaces the stethoscope, namely, the electrocardiograph, is so sensitive that it records heartbeats thirty minutes after death is reported by any other means of acquiring that knowledge. In this device the body of the patient supplies the electric current. The strongest current is obtained by joining the right wrist to the left ankle.
The current generated is multiplied ten trillion times, but could as readily be multiplied five hundred trillion times, if that were desired. The results are most extraordinary. Every sound is magnified enormously, and then photographed, with the result that the exact response of the organ to various treatments may be studied.
Heartbeats, by this method, have been transmitted from Buenos Aires to Spain, and so clearly that doctors in Madrid diagnosed the condition of their patients 6,750 miles away. Phonographic records are now made of heartbeats, as well as the photographic records. Nothing is left to chance. The electrical disturbances in the heart are recorded at the same time that X-rays of its movements are being taken.
The statement is made that "through the new method it is possible to accurately time any point on the curve of movement within approximately one one-hundredth of a second of the corresponding event on the electrical curve of action".
What a physician thinks of the value of a good heart:
"I have found it a rule to which there are few exceptions that the pupil with the normal heartbeat under all conditions is the same one who is dependable in all circumstances. I venture the assertion that by making the heart record of any class of students one can as easily classify them as to reliability and success in life as from all the other class records which are usually kept, from which to recommend, promote and graduate the student. But the danger: One boy in a present physiology class shows a heartbeat of 175 per minute after violent exercise, and this boy plays football. I shall not be surprised at any time to learn that he has the 'falling sickness' on some field of great effort, or that his heart has ceased for ever."
Danger of Food Contamination by Aluminum
IN A 32-page brochure entitled "The Danger of Food Contamination by Aluminum", by R. M. Le Hunte Cooper, M.D., B.S., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., published by John Bale, Sons & Danielsson, Ltd., London, Mr. Cooper, referring to the fact that aluminum is not found in the human fetus, says of subsequent experiences:
Granted that many sources of entry are very small and even infinitesimal, collectively they must be very seriously considered, and that this collective supply is not only steadily increasing, but has already reached dangerous proportions, the following list of vessels made in aluminum will prove:
"Saucepans (and this metal has recently actually been used to line vessels made of iron, copper and nickel), preserving pans, frying pans, poachers, grillers and toasters, kettles, porridge cookers, pasteurizers, steamers and different patent cookers, colanders and sieves, officers' canteens and water bottles, cooking spoons, fish lifters and fish slicers, egg slicers, ordinary spoons and forks, skewers, and actually lemon squashers, custard and egg whisks (from which the metal must become freely detached), coffeepots (some wholly aluminum, and others with a patent aluminum structure to fit inside vessels of other material), teapots, tea-infusers, milk containers of various kinds, milk jugs, water jugs and bottles, cups, tumblers (especially nests of tumblers for picnic baskets and collapsible tumblers), canisters for holding tea, sago, rice, sugar, etc., and flour dredgers, biscuit tins and biscuit boxes, pepper pots, salt cellars, mustard pots, toast forks and racks, thermos flasks, and patent caps for whisky and other bottles, patent caps for glass milk bottles to assist pouring, tooth paste tubes and tooth powder boxes, and wrappings for suppositories and pessaries. To show the ever increasing growth of this evil the Encyclopedia Britannica gives the following startling information: 'Aluminum foil is rapidly replacing tin foil for wrapping chocolates and cheeses and for tubes holding cosmetics. Steam jacketed pans are made of this metal for institutions, kitchens, and in foodstuff industries. Producing thin sheets for bottle and jar covers is alone an industry of no small importance. The brewing industry makes wide use of it in the form of vats and fermenting vessels, storage vessels for yeast and beer, and tanks for transport of beer by road and rail. In Europe the dairy industry uses aluminum widely as tanks and vessels for the storage, pasteurization and transport of milk and cream, and for vats used in cheesemaking. For many other foodstuffs which are weakly acid aluminum finds rapidly extending use, e.g., in jam-making, fruit-preserving and meat-extracting, and the production of high-grade gelatines.'"
Just lately I find that the makers of electric refrigerators are beginning to replace the heavy metal drawers for making ice cubes with others made of this metal, and that it is largely used in the manufacture of ice creams, so extensively sold in the streets. I think it will generally be accepted that the reason why, under these conditions, we are not all continually ill, and that it causes ill effects at one time and not at another, lies in our powers of elimination and acquired immunity. So long as the former are working efficiently, no obvious symptoms develop, but any cause temporarily weakening these will at once allow the system to become overcharged, and adverse effects to follow. This throws additional light on the beneficial effects of saline laxatives, and the benefits of change of air and change of diet, which may often in reality be due to change of cooking.
Events in Canada By Our Canadian Correspondent
SPEAKING of the ever changing standards of living and the factors that govern, the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix editorially says:
So much has been said about the manner in which the standard of living improved in the years prior to 1930 that it is taken as a matter of course, and the decline since that year is equally apparent. In the period before the depression, stretching over many years, there was a tremendous development of facilities for making life comfortable, easy and entertaining. Radios, automobiles, electrical appliances, better houses and furniture and a thousand other things, all contributed to a feeling of satisfaction and pleasantness. It was, and is, very desirable, and undoubtedly is in the nature of civilized progress.
But it may be well to ask if that improving of living standards applied all the way through the business of living. For example, did it apply to food and the very necessary function of eating? Certainly there was a vast improvement in the convenience of preparing meals. Electrical devices, tin cans and can openers, prepared foods and service, all showed vast improvement. But did the improvement extend to a greater nourishment, a greater variety of healthy grub, sufficient quantities of simple foods well prepared? Or did it result in undernourishment, with meals hastily snatched and lacking both in quantity and quality? It is a matter on which there may be a difference of opinion, but it seems certain, while nourishment may have been ample, it came in condensed forms or in new forms of food of inferior quality which were substituted for those that came directly from the farm.
It may seem unimportant so long as the required amount of nourishment was obtained, unimportant, at least, so far as the consumer is concerned. But it has had a very definite effect on the market for agricultural products. Competent farm experts suggest that if Canadians ate the variety of native foods, including what they consider to be a proper quantity of dairy products and meats, it would be a healthier country and the agricultural acreage in Canada would be only slightly more than enough to feed the population of this dominion. There would be no vast quantity for export unless further land were brought under cultivation. And so, if the improvement in living standards had extended to foods, on the basis suggested by the agricultural experts, there would be no farm problems.
Wheat to the Pigs
When it is a matter of which gets the preference, humans or pigs, big business sees to it that the pigs do, according to an item appearing in the Edmonton Bulletin. It reads:
The international wheat commission, which, by the way, has not been commissioned by any Canadian authority to do anything about wheat, has had a bright thought. It proposes to "denature" large quantities of wheat so as to increase its use as animal feed and decrease the amount of flour available for human food.
There being more wheat in the world than can be sold under the trade-strangling tariffs with which the countries have isolated themselves one from another, wheat is to be turned into pig-feed—perhaps—in order to destroy the commercial surplus. As between people who are hungry because they cannot get wheat and pigs, which are being fed on a cheaper and more suitable diet, pigs get the preference in the wisdom of the international wheat commission.
And likely enough, if their subjects let them, some governments will accept and act upon this porcine advice from their wheat "brain trust". There is not, after all, much difference in folly between compelling farmers to grow less wheat and sprouting wheat so that it cannot be used for human food.
Both are means to the same end—the end of curtailing wheat in order to avoid having to "curtail" the tariff barriers and other trade restrictions which have been built up to prevent wheat's being grown where it can be grown economically and exchanged for the products of other countries which could better employ their resources, time and people in producing other things.
If as a result of the proposed pig-feed policy people have to go hungry because they cannot get wheat, that will be just too bad for the people. The tariff-mad governments apparently have nothing better to offer.
Birds Enjoy the Grasshoppers
A Canadian Press report states that birds are aiding the farmers to fight pests. We quote:
While the Saskatchewan government is preparing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to carry on the 1934 battle against grasshoppers, a game little army is already in the field carrying on a private war against the pests.
W. O. Fraser, M.L.A., Souris, whose home is in the center of the 'hopper-infested district of southern Saskatchewan, was in Regina Monday, and in an interview told of the daily destruction of thousands of grasshopper eggs and how it was being done.
"There was no grain down by my country, this year," he said. "The grasshoppers wiped it out clean in six rural municipalities. Lacking grain as a food, the birds have turned to grasshopper eggs.
"The Hungarian partridge is the leader in the enterprise. One flew against a wire fence the other day and was killed.
"Inside that bird were found 80 'hopper pods, and each pod carried about 20 eggs. Another bird that was shot was found to be gorged on 'hopper pods.
"There are thousands and thousands of Hungarian partridge down there moving in flocks that number as high as 60 and 80 birds. There has been no snow and the ground is so dry there is no frost to stop their getting the pods from under the surface."
Among the Financial Highwaymen
The government committee to investigate the spread between the price paid to the producer and that paid by the consumer apparently went too far to please the prime minister, for when the chairman, Mr. Stevens, presented his booklet covering the matter Mr. Bennett, the prime minister, immediately suppressed it. When one reads the booklet it is easy to see the reason for suppressing it. It is too lengthy to quote in full, so we will confine our quotation to his remarks concerning the two gigantic department stores of the land and one or two other specially interesting items.
Mr. Stevens begins his pamphlet by saying:
I have studied Canadian affairs assiduously during all my term in Parliament. I have tried to keep in touch with the interests of the people at large. I think my interests have been largely wrapped up in those of the general public and, during recent years in particular, certain things have become very deeply impressed upon my mind. It became abundantly clear to me that a great section of the people of Canada was laboring under unusual handicaps. There was acute suffering. I refer to the farming community. It is true that citizens generally have suffered also, but I think there is no class of people that has had to endure such a broad leveling down. That is my impression; that is my conviction.
When I made a speech in Winnipeg in the fall of 1933 on the question of livestock I did it because I felt that there was no justification for the low price that was being paid to the farmers for these things. Hogs were gradually rising, because of the amount that we could get over to the British market under the Imperial Trade Agreement. But for beef, when you find a western producer of first-class steers, high-grade, well finished steers, getting, as some of them did, as low as a cent and a half a pound on the ranch, and two and a quarter cents and so on in the Winnipeg market, the thing is outrageous.
It seemed to me to be something that we had to face. I looked earnestly for causes and I became convinced that the bringing of the control of that great industry into the hands virtually of one concern—certainly not more than two—indicated that here lay perhaps part of the cause of our trouble. I was convinced then, and I am more than convinced now, as a result of the investigations we have carried on, that these companies controlled that business. I am only going to cite in that respect one point—one that has come out in the evidence and that has been proved beyond peradventure—and it is this, that during the last four years of intense depression and, I might say, demoralization of business, and of low prices, scandalously low prices were paid to the farmer for his meat products. During these four years Canada packers have had the most prosperous years of their existence and piled up reserves that were not warranted under normal business operations.
Then speaking of the exploitation of the tobacco growers he says:
The tobacco industry in Canada has gradually passed largely into the control of one big institution, that is, the big institution takes about 80 percent of all the production, and the others take about 20 percent. You can see, therefore, that one institution virtually controls the situation.
In 1931 they (The Imperial Tobacco Co.) brought a man up from the United States called Lea, who had been used to buying tobacco from Negroes in the south, and was a typical bulldozing American buyer. They brought him up and put him in charge of buying in Canada, and in the fall of 1931 they just cut rates that they paid the grower down sharply from 32 cents and 33 cents to 19 cents.
After showing then the enormous profits to the Tobacco Co. he states:
I hope the picture is clear. On the one hand you have fabulous earnings and fabulous wealth for the companies, with the farmers cut down to the very verge of starvation. Scores of farmers were forced to leave their homes.
Now as to his findings in reference to the Robert Simpson Company and the T. Eaton Company we quote:
Then the classical one of all, to my mind, was the Robert Simpson Company of Toronto. The Robert Simpson Company was practically an ideal institution. It had been fairly well managed.
There is no doubt about that, and over a long period of years it had developed and ploughed very handsome profits back into the business as well as distributing them. During the years from 1898 down to 1928 it had made an average of 11 percent on its capital. In other words, it paid well and much of that capital was in the form of profits that were ploughed back in and stock was issued. For instance, five thousand shares of preferred stock was issued in one lump to the Flavelle interests and they still have it as a matter of fact. Then there were many other classes of stock issued without any equivalent in cash going into the company as well. But all that part of it was strictly minor; that can go by the board as simply releasing the earnings that were not taken out. But on that, as well as the invested capital, they paid 11 percent, roughly speaking, right throughout the whole history down to about 1928.
In 1925 Sir Joseph Flavelle and his associates who were in control of the business conceived the idea of taking $5,000,000 out of the business. They proceeded to do it and succeeded admirably, and still kept the business in a fairly healthy condition. Well, there is not much cause to complain there. We will let that go.
They went on then until 1928, I think it was, and they decided to have another refinancing under the leadership of Wood Gundy, and so they did this, roughly speaking. I am not going into the exact details of all the evidence, but in the printed evidence it is seen that they wrote a letter to their employees and said, “Now we are going to make an issue of,” I think it was “$12,000,000”, and they said “we invite you”—no, they did not put it that way; they said “we have made it possible for the employees to participate in this wonderful company, and we urge the employees to participate, and we have set aside a peculiar class of stock for you, that is, Class B stock, which you can get at $50.00—the other was $100, but you can get this at $50, Class B stock.”
Then they said further to the employees, “If you want to borrow some money with which to pay for your stock you can go to the Bank of Commerce,” of which Sir Joseph Flavelle was president, “and they will lend it to you on the stock if you have not enough in your savings with which to buy that.”
To make a long story short: The employees of the Robert Simpson Company took some $2,000,000 of this stock. They had not any idea that Sir Joseph Flavelle intended to back out of the company. They thought they were participating in an issue of the stock of the company which was going to enlarge and expand its operations and make it even more prosperous than it was.
Well, they sold $12,000,000, or what was left after the employees took their part, to the public and the public took it. What did they do with it? $10,000,000 of it went in cash to Sir Joseph Flavelle, the Fulger Estate and the Cox Estate. Sir Joseph’s interest, I think, came to 70 percent, or $7,000,000, and the others received the other 30 percent, or $3,000,000.
They took that clean out of the company, extracting it from the company. In its place they left $12,000,000 of mortgage bonds. But the tragedy of the thing is this, that the bonds were not secured by the assets of the Robert Simpson Company, they were secured solely by the common stock of the Robert Simpson Company, which was placed in the custody or under the ownership of a subsidiary holding company.
But the point I am making is this: Here you had an institution that was healthy, strong, very profitable, and it is now loaded by that $15,000,000 that they took out in that way, and another extra $5,000,000 that was spent in buildings in Montreal. They simply loaded it with a bond debt of $20,000,000 which is a fixed debt calling for payment of interest, and then this other stock that was issued is absolutely valueless.
The $2,000,000 that the employees got is not worth a snap of the fingers. There is no chance of its ever being worth a snap. And it was bought on a letter from the manager of the company suggesting that the employees take it.
There may be those who will say that I have been unfair to Sir Joseph Flavelle. Certain gentlemen have said to me that Sir Joseph wanted to sell out and didn’t he have the right to sell out? Yes, he had the right to sell out, if he had said to the public, “I am selling out my business and I am going out of this business.” Did he do that? If you will take the prospectus you will find that his name was prominent in them all. And the impression, as I pointed out when the thing was presented to the Committee, the inevitable impression was that Sir Joseph Flavelle was still in the business. The employees were asked to participate in the prosperity of a business institution of which he was the head. Nothing was said about the fact that they were going to take $10,000,000 out and leave a lot of liabilities in its place.
I think it is safe to say that had the public known the facts, namely, that they were pulling out of the partnership and pulling out $10,000,000 on their personal account, no one would have bought a single dollar of those bonds or that stock. I do not think there is any doubt about that.
Now, I come back to Simpson’s. Simpson’s, when they made that last loan or shortly after, cut their employees down on an average of about 17 percent. Many of the employees were getting and had got for years $17, $18, $19, or $20 for a week—which is not a large wage, but for a person who is working at that kind of work, that is a fair wage—were cut down to $12 a week, hundreds of them.
I have not said much about the T. Eaton situation. Perhaps I might say just a word or two. The T. Eaton situation is a bit different from that of the other companies. They have not paid out such large sums—except to 40 executives who got very handsome bonuses—by way of salaries and bonus as some of the others. They have not refinanced in the way some others did, and they have not drawn out of the business large sums in the way Simpson’s did. What they did was to spend huge sums of money in expansion, and in that huge building in Toronto which seems to be a veritable white elephant. The effect of their management in the last five or six years has been to increase their spread by about ten to twelve points over what it was, say, five years ago. Then, of course, they are doing just what Simpson’s did, taking off at the bottom and forcing it back on the others.
Moral Pork Destroying Itself
Speaking in regard to the Stevens’ investigation the Toronto Star, under the heading “Inside Its House of Glass”, editorially says:
When a radical of any kind mounts on a box and tries to make a speech denouncing conditions and advocating a new and better order of things he is regarded as a dangerous man. Generally he is regarded as a Red, a hireling of Moscow, an agitator who wants to tear down the fine edifice of our democratic institutions and set up in its place, with materials imported from Russia, a Bolshevik state.
The disclosures made in the tobacco investigation are likely to do more to condemn the present order of things and arouse anger and disgust in multitudes of people than all the speeches agitators could make.
It is shown that the growers of tobacco must accept whatever pay for their crops is offered them even though it is almost a starvation price and yet the profits made on the manufactured tobacco runs into high figures. Some of the incomes run as high as from $70,000 up to, including bonuses, $140,000 and more.
In manufacturing industries the private owner of a mill or factory used to think himself rich when he acquired a modest fortune. He looked upon his superintendent, foremen and employees with a personal interest. Between them there was a direct human relation. Then joint stock companies, corporations, combines, mergers, trusts followed, and the present order of things came about.
It is destroying itself. No moral responsibility is felt by invested capital toward those who work in the fields or in the shops. The man who buys shares in a corporation knows nothing about the work in the fields or shops. He expects a profit on his investment, and the more he gets, the better he feels. No doubt the corporation pays "the market price" for the field crops it buys and pays current wages in the shops. A corporation pays big salaries to its officials if they make big profits for the firm; and this is the job of those who direct operations. They make big profits, and the individual investor who buys shares and gets profits does not know enough about the business to ask questions. It is now established as a rule that a man should make all the money he can, although many still insist that the way in which it is done shall not be illegal. It used to be that men spoke of a just profit on a transaction in the sense that it was a moderate profit; it begins now to be supposed that a man is entitled to wring out of a transaction all the profit it can be made to yield, however immoderate it may be and whatever injury may come to the people at large as a result of it. The system is ruining itself inside its house of glass.
Advantages of the Simple Life
Under the caption "Canadians Live Longer", the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix editorially says:
Why do Canadians live longer than residents of the United States? It is a question not easy to answer, or rather one on which there may be a lot of speculation and in respect to which a great many possible and partial explanations offer themselves. The fact that Canadians, on the average, really live longer than their neighbors is established in a statistical bulletin issued by one of the leading insurance companies in the United States. The bulletin has the following:
"The Canadian lives longer, on the average, than the white resident of the United States, if we omit the province of Quebec from the reckoning. His expectation of life at birth is 60.74 years, as compared with 59.31 for the white male in the United States. For females the figures are 63.23 and 62.83 respectively.
"Even if we include Quebec, which is somewhat less favorably situated as to mortality than the rest of Canada, it is still true from age one on, for males, and from age two on, for females, that the Canadian has a better expectation of life than the individual in our white population."
"Leaving outside the question the circumstance that lynchings, gang shootings, murders, bombings and highway accidents take a far greater toll in the republic, there are a number of opinions worth considering. One is that the Canadian climate, with its rather severe winter, tends to build men and women of stronger health than do the southern states, in which there is a large population. Another is that life in Canada is less strenuous. This point is dealt with by the London Free Press as follows: 'No doubt the real explanation is found in the fact that for the most part we live more quietly... take our pleasures less violently and find ourselves closer to the simple life which everyone applauds but few follow.'"
Brisbane Describes the "What-Is-It"
ARTHUR BRISBANE describes the "what-is-it" in the following pointed manner:
"Lloyd George in his memoirs says that while England was borrowing American dollars so industriously 'the United States, shocked by the cost of war, was suspicious as the allies asked for credit'. He does not add, as he might, that Americans would have been wise to refuse the credit, since all of their gallant allies have turned out to be gallant welchers. The latest display of American financial genius consists in shipping American gold abroad. First, the government took away any gold that American citizens happened to have. It was too good for them. Then it raised the price of gold to $35 per ounce, nearly doubling it, thus enriching the British, who own the world's principal gold mines. Now they start sending abroad that gold, bought at fantastic prices with American taxpayers' money, or taken from citizens by high-handed methods. If there is among the African bushmen a six-month-old infant that knows less about money than the gentlemen who manage the finances of this country, that infant should be exhibited here as the legitimate successor of Barnum's 'what-is-it'."
All a Matter of Bookkeeping By Major C. H. Douglas (England)
CERTAIN general ideas are indispensable to any understanding of the situation in which we find ourselves. Unquestionably, the first of these is that of the nature and source of money. As to its nature, I think it is sufficient to say that money is an effective demand for goods and services, by which I mean that it is of no use wanting goods and services of any description, nor is it of any use that those goods and services shall be in existence and available, if your request to be supplied with those goods and services is not backed by something which we call money.
Now the second point in regard to money is as to its source, and I will put this as shortly as possible by saying that practically all money is actually created by the banks, and claimed as their property. There is now no argument possible about this, nor is it, in fact, denied by bankers themselves. So that the situation in which we are faced amounts to this: that no matter what are the physical realities in regard to food, clothes, houses and luxuries, and no matter how abundant they may be, we cannot obtain them without obtaining something which we call "money", and all money is derived from the operations of the banking system.
Please be quite clear in your mind about this. When the employer, the so-called "capitalist", says that he is making money, what he means, and what he only can mean, is that he is making goods for which he gets money which previously belonged to someone else. He is simply exchanging goods for money, but when a bank makes money, it makes money out of nothing, it gives nothing, and lends everything. It has, as we say in technical language, "a monopoly of credit."
If you look at the physical reality of the productive system in the western world today, you cannot fail to realize that we are living in an age of material wealth and plenty. Not only are the shops full of goods of all descriptions; not only are corn, coffee, rubber, all the metals, and, in fact, every raw material, so much in excess of requirements that practically all producers are engaged in all sorts of schemes to endeavor to stem the flow of real wealth, but nearly every farm and factory in this and almost every other country, with the exception of Russia, is working much less than a quarter of its possible output.
Yet, if you turn to the Press, and more particularly the London Press, which is paid to express the views of the financial interests, you will be told that only severe economy, lower wages, higher taxation, and other symptoms of severe scarcity can be deduced from the present situation, and that we have to accept them. Now I think it must be obvious to ordinary common sense that one set of statements cannot reflect the condition depicted by the other set of statements.
Either I am deluded in telling you that there is plenty of corn, coffee, rubber and many materials, or else a set of financial figures, which says that we must economize because there is not enough, must be false. In other words, it is impossible that these figures can be a reflection of the facts. So that the first essential in dealing with the situation which arises out of this conflict of facts and figures is to correct the figures. I would point out to you that what the financiers tell us to do is to correct the facts, which is some indication of the state of mind to which too much concentration on figures will drive people.
It is perfectly possible to retain and to extend the present system of private administration and private property, while at the same time organizing the country in such a way that every citizen shall draw a dividend from the activities of the community as a whole, of such magnitude that almost immediately poverty, financial anxiety, economic depression, and all other features of our present social system will disappear like the bad dream that they are.
Who Owns the Natural Gas?
IF ONE is asked, Who is it that owns the natural gas? the natural answer would be, "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," but in the United States, according to the Federal Trade Commission, the natural gas in this country is dominated by eight utility companies that produce and purchase 85 percent of the national supply.
The Dutch No Longer Dutch
THE Dutch are no longer Dutch, and anybody who cannot understand that is in Dutch. Unless you want to get their Dutch up you must hereafter refer to the Netherlands by its proper name and to the people who live therein as Netherlanders. The Dutch East Indies will hereafter be known as the Netherland Indies.
“Kindness to Animals Always Pays”
(From the Worcester Telegram)
FULL-SIZE cancers of horrifying type have been bred in healthy guinea pigs by perfect inoculation from cancerous human [creatures]. Scientists at the Rockefeller Institute are studying now to determine if cancer is a “catching” disease, and the guinea pig is the medium by which they hope to prove or disprove it.
Guinea pigs make the finest subjects for vivisection that surgeons can obtain, because they are small and do not cause the amount of trouble that a mastiff or other large-sized dog, or even a big cat, would create.
People object to having dogs and cats flayed alive for study, but they ignore the humble and homely-looking guinea pig, although doctors say that the little fellows have just as highly developed nervous systems as any other creature.
A dog when under vivisection without anesthesia will moan and whimper as the knife works in the vital organs, and as the nerves are stimulated with hot irons or electric sparks to study the reaction; a cat will cry out and struggle until the very last gasp.
The guinea pig, however, seldom gives any trouble, although it shows all the symptoms of a man when under agony; right in the very middle of a most interesting severance and electrical stimulation of a ganglion nerve, or trephining the skull, the heart will stop beating and the creature dies.
The wonderful [?] vivisection operation by a noted New York surgeon in which the entire bony structure of a guinea pig’s head was removed, leaving the brain entirely exposed, was spoken of admiringly by eminent surgeons. The brain throbbed and palpitated in full view of the students, and every day, for ten days, the vivisector cut away a portion of the brain until the senses of sight, sound, and, it was believed, feeling, were destroyed.
In a recent experiment with a living guinea pig at the Rockefeller Institute, the creature was strapped on its right side in a tiny steel casing so that it was immovable; then a surgeon removed the ribs covering the heart, and made what is described as practically a door in the creature’s side two inches square.
Then the fleshy covering around the heart was removed and the heart itself was gently lifted out and held in the air. Strong electrical currents and injections of nitroglycerin kept the creature alive for four days while the doctors studied the functions of the organ.
Death of the creature was made positive by plunging a needle into the upper ventricle and then into the lower ventricle. The peculiar feature of vivisection of guinea pigs, however, is that the creatures are timid by nature and are very affectionate to people who are kind to them.
It is always necessary for a vivisectionist, when he desires to get the best results, to pet the guinea pig and feed it himself for days and even for weeks before the ordeal under the knife, otherwise the creature is likely to expire through abject fear on the operating table.
Most vivisectors secure the love and confidence of the little fellows before they strap them on the death boards, and all the time they keep up a gentle, carefully modulated caressing tone to the dying cavities, so they may keep them on duty for a longer period.
To demonstrate this sensation of fear and how it acts on the subject, two guinea pigs of the same litter were selected. One was kept in the office of the surgeon for several weeks; he petted it, fed it with sugar, and allowed it to play around every day. The little chap became so friendly that he would climb into the doctor’s chair, scale up his shoulder, and nuzzle against his ear in dumb love.
The other guinea pig was kept in the stable and, although fed often, it was not spoken to or caressed. The two guineas were strapped to two operating boards at the same time. The pet guinea pig accepted it all as a matter of course, and as long as his master, the doctor, spoke to him he lay quiet and never stirred. The other one, however, showed every indication of utmost terror. Its heart action was trebled and its condition was made deplorable through its fright.
The pet guinea died under the knife without much trouble as the operator kept up a soothing conversation, addressed to it, until its spinal cord was severed, but the other one died almost as soon as the knife entered its hide, practically scared to death. All of which tends to prove that kindness to animals always pays even in the case of a vivisector who is about to expose all the creature’s insides. Kindness kept one creature alive whereas fear hastened the death of the other.
Some Thoughts on Dogs By Miss Bite (London)
MY PET aversion, next to the creepy, crawly things that Keating’s famous powder says a lot about, is a dog. There is an exception to every rule, however. I like the one at home, of course; but if there is another I tolerate, it is the one that is very well chained or very well fed (so well fed that he just could not take another bite) or one that is toothless and old.
I have changed my mind about what constitutes a Christian, too. Once upon a time my best definition was that a Christian is very, very good, speaks correctly, walks quietly, stays at home and waits to go to heaven. But now I know that a Christian is oftentimes a tramp, and goes in for plenty of excitement. Unlike the worldling, it need not be costly to his pocket. To get his “thrills” he does not need to march up to a pay-box first and part with a foolish shilling or two or, worse still, a good half-guinea or more.
Let us see. Just take a trip with me this fine spring day to the neat little village of Scare ’Em. First of all, we come to the policeman’s cottage. We open the gate, and are well pleased to find the officer of the law at home as well as his fine massive bulldog at the open side-door. Come right on with me; for the next bit of free fun is to be had just next door.
We approach the large iron gate of a nice, quiet country homestead; and our eyes look over a long, neat path bordered with pretty daisied lawns to the noble porch beyond. Is it a brown door-mat or is it a huge brown specimen of my pet aversion lying there? The only chimney smoking is one far enough away at the back of the house. We hope someone will answer the door, so that we may impart some comfort and be comforted, too!
Now proceed with me down this little track on the left. It is somewhat rough and stony, but it leads to a farm and another beyond. This time we see no chimneys smoking, and remember it is market day at town, five miles away. However, we give it a try to see if there is any chance of saying, “Millions now living will never die; deliverance has come.”
Hark! What’s that? Only the scraping of shoes on the mat? Anything like the sound of a rat (no, not that) makes my heart go pitapat. That proves to be chained; so we go to this door and the other, while our friend at the end of his tether makes frantic bounds to get nearer. There is evidently no one at home; and to get to the farm beyond we must pass near that kennel. And so we go, when lo! a sudden bound, and dog and chain have parted; and for a brief moment we are not sure whether something went at us or over us. It is all so sudden; and we go on, glad to find we still have our pound of flesh, “for a’ that!”
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