Golden Age, August 28, 1935

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The Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

in this issue

HIERARCHY TAKES CREDIT FOR MOVIE CLEAN-UP

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

BREVITIES

WHY CLERGY OPPOSE TRUTH

REFUGE FOR MEN OF GOOD WILL

every other

WEDNESDAY

five cents a copy

one dollar a year

Canada & Foreign 1.25

Vol. XVI - No. 416

August 28, 1935 CONTENTS

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

The Share the Wealth Plan 745

Who Is to Get the $4,800,000,000? 746

Redistribution of Wealth? 746

Labor Office in the Dumps 752

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

HIERARCHY TAKES CREDIT FOR Movie Clean-Up 739

The Right to Lynch 744

Free Speech over the Radio 747

Where the Birth Rate Is Up 747

Free Speech and Free Press 761

People Betrayed by Newspapers 762

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

All Aboard the Propaganda Special 748

Cahaba Coal Company 748

What Happened in Fourteen Years 748

Big Business Wanted a Dictator 748

The Canal Across Florida 748

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

BRIEF HISTORY OF UNITED STATES 742

"Grass Roots" Charges Against Roosevelt 745

Huey Keeps the Senate Awake 745

Indictments of George III 746

Smelling the Hempen Rope 746

The Biggest Bill-Collecting Agency 746

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY

Postgraduate Courses for Livestock 749

Dust Storms Turn Day to Night 749

In the Great Mississippi Valley 749

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

28 Earthquakes in 35 Years 750

Demons Invent Musical Instruments 750

American Stratosphere Flight Fizzle No. 2 750

Cellophane Instead of Celluloid Films 750

Mummy in Mammoth Cave 750

Grayslake Gelatin 751

HOME AND HEALTH

100 Physicians Poisoned in France 751

Aluminum Wrappers Spoil Cheese 751

Safest for What? 751

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

Something About the Normandie 752

First Sky Train into Cuba 752

Subterranean River Causes Flood 752

England Backsliding on Liberty 752

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

WHY CLERGY OPPOSE TRUTH 753

Songs of Degrees 754

Church Members "Religious Morons" 754

National Church Snoopers' Department 756

"This Bloody Western Religion" 757

Where the NRA Came From 758

The Popes versus Jefferson 758

Fear of Coughlin as a Dictator 759

One of Coughlin's Critics 759

REFUGE FOR MEN OF GOOD WILL 763

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The Golden Age

Volume XVI Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, August 28, 1935 Number 416

Hierarchy Takes Credit for Movie Clean-Up

MRS. SMITH makes up her mind to clean house; she has 15,000 children; the house is large; it takes time to get over it; but she announces her plans and begins vigorously at the attic, working her way down. Her neighbor, Mrs. Brown, needs to clean her own house, but wants credit in the community for cleaning Mrs. Smith’s house, or having it cleaned, and so she runs up and down the sidewalk, dressed in her thinnest and most lovely pajamas, and shouts to all passers-by how terribly filthy is the home of Mrs. Smith, and in the name of public decency and morals demands that something be done about it. Meantime Mrs. Smith is diligently minding her own business and working her way down.

Mrs. Smith is the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc. She has 15,000 artists to keep in line; that is some job for any good housekeeper. But she was hard at her clean-up job when the Roman hierarchy heard about it and wanted credit for it, and got it, too, more’s the pity.

In the year 1932, and perhaps earlier, the above-named organizations previewed American motion pictures.

American Library Association

Boy Scouts of America

California Congress of Parents and Teachers

Daughters of the American Revolution

Southern California Council of Protestant Church Women

General Federation of Women’s Clubs

International Federation of Catholic Alumnae

Los Angeles Branch, American Association of University Women

National Council of Jewish Women Los Angeles Section

National Society of New England Women

Young Men’s Christian Association

These previewers (censors) were untrammeled in judgment or expression. The American Motion Picture Producers modestly inquired in 1932: “What makers of what other product in the history of the world have invited disinterested outsiders to view their wares before the wares were offered on the market, and have encouraged the dissemination of advance criticism, however ruthless?”

It was not until 1934, two years later, that the storm of the Roman hierarchy broke on the Producers, and it broke then only because the hierarchy wanted to be the kite and wanted the other previewers to be the tail, which, as a matter of fact, is just what they immediately proceeded to become.

In a closely typewritten 27-page review of its efforts to produce films suitable for the child mind the Producers mention that “in this one field contacts were established in 1933 with more than 10,000 additional community leaders, including 6,000 teachers, editors and club group leaders; 1,200 librarians; 800 clergymen, directors of religious education, and Y.M.C.A. secretaries as well as 2,000 theater managers”. Quite a list, now, isn’t it?

A year later the Producers said: “We are now carrying on active co-operation and tendering continuous facilities to more than 3,000 better film councils and other groups.” In other words, besides attending to their own business, which was considered a virtue 2,000 years ago (1 Thessalonians 4:11; 2 Thessalonians 3:11; 1 Peter 4:15), the Producers have been trying to satisfy a group of idlers and mischief-makers that the Mexicans have had to expel from their country before they could do anything worth while in an educational way.

The Producers intimate that they dimly sense that they have been captured and bound hand and foot by their natural enemies when they say that it may well be before long the Producers will be saying to Will Hays:

"We have followed your leadership. We have tried to give these people what they want, but nothing will satisfy them; nothing will even mitigate their attacks. They are simply enemies of entertainment, and we cannot go along with groups who wish no end but our destruction."

The Producers are making the mistake of a lifetime. What they should do is to rip the mask off this whole system of hypocrisy, Catholic and Protestant, and show it up for just what it is, a method of keeping the people in bondage to fear and superstition, and with no more resemblance to Christianity of the Bible than a Galapagos Island turtle bears to a beautiful gazelle.

Whether true Christianity can be popularized is another matter. But if it cannot, why pander to the frauds that are trying to live upon its reputation? It is entirely untrue that the Roman hierarchy represents any considerable following. Many Catholic people (but not all of them) bow to their will because they are afraid of their imagined power. In their hearts they hate them. Witness what is happening in Mexico.

One visualizes a great octopus, defined in the dictionary thus: '(1) A devil fish having eight arms or tentacles, each with two rows of suckers. (2) Figuratively, any organized power regarded as of far-reaching capacity for harm.' Quite an apt figure of speech, and agrees with the above quotation; don't you think?

There is no one more adept at good words and fair speeches than the Roman Catholic system. Like Jezebel, she sits at her window, painted up and adorned for the passer-by to admire her. Why criticize her? She wants to feel young and have a chance in the movies—she simply couldn't keep her nose out of that—she is such a chaste lady herself, and simply must teach the world good morals.

One is most surely interested in decency, by all means, but when a system representing one-sixth of the population of America, twenty millions against one hundred millions, five-sixths of other faiths, says what one is to see on the screen, it is coming to a fine show. The twenty million, to be frank, represent about one-third minors, one-third Roman Catholic in name, and perhaps on a church roll, and the last third one might say ACTIVE Catholics, moving like Punch and Judy by a string manipulated by the 'man in the box'. One might say, "The Roman Catholic church restricts only its own flock from seeing certain pictures, do they?" Let one turn his eyes to the moving picture industry. They have what they call "the index"; that is a list of books banned by the Roman Catholic system, and which influences producers considerably. Cannot they shake the fear of this system, seeing Roman Catholic active members are so limited in number, compared with citizens of the U.S.A. not Catholic, and indifferent to what Catholics think?

Strange, isn't it, and sounds paradoxical, that the representatives of the system that criticizes the moving picture industry so severely, and had nothing good to say of the actresses thereof, and advises the people not to pour millions into their lap, should have such an awe-inspiring influence over the producer? Really it is surprising that producers are so fast asleep, and ask, Why let fear of Roman Catholic newspaper articles, and croakings of Roman Catholic cardinals and bishops, dictate and govern us in the production of plays?

Motion pictures are a means to impart instruction, and admittedly a power for good and evil. The truth portrayed in pictures is not always palatable to the Roman Catholic system; Jezebel's interest in pictures is to keep under cover some of her own past indelicacies, that her present lovers may be kept in the dark. Take, for instance, the banning to Roman Catholics of the Affairs of Cellini. This was based on a document "The Autobiography of Benevenuto Cellini". It related the marriages and lives of popes and their bastard sons in Italy a few centuries ago, written by a Roman Catholic at that. The document was lost for a very long time, but finally was found in a secondhand shop and translated into English. The book was too enlightening for the Catholic laity; so the hierarchy banned it. Of course, the immorality banned was Cellini's, not the pope's. Cherchez la femme, Revelation 17:5, 6.

If producers continue to permit the Roman Catholic censorship to govern their productions, here is the pitfall for them. They unwittingly, no doubt, will withhold from the American people, and especially the youth of America, interesting historical facts in plays. Of late such pictures have produced instructive entertainment for the masses, and awakened an appreciation of better pictures for the people.

A class of people that found no interest in plays of lighter vein are now attracted to pictures. However, if the producer is going to allow "the index" to bias him in production, this will be the result:

The Roman Catholic system will censor any book, likely to be written up for production in scenario form, that will reveal her in her true colors. That is part of her business. It is appalling, the ignorance of Catholics on common history of the past centuries. A young man studying for the priesthood stated: "King Henry VIII translated [he said 'wrote'] the Protestant Bible." They are confident St. Peter was the first pope, and do not know there were no popes until the fourth century. Can you imagine the Roman Catholic system's passing a scenario of the "Persecution of Arius", who stood for the truth—God the Father, and Jesus the Son, and against the worship of the virgin Mary as though Mary was divine, and her offspring God himself?

Or of the persecution by the Roman Catholics of Peter Waldo, who had the Gospels translated into French from Latin, and, finding they differed widely from the teachings of Roman Catholicism, began to let his light shine—alas for Peter Waldo?

Or of the persecution of the faithful martyrs in Britain, under the reign of Bloody Mary, a Roman Catholic queen?

Then turn your eyes to France, Italy, Germany, and note the same wicked system persecuting faithful souls for their constancy to truth. To the excommunication of Archbishop Fenelon from church and court for his love of justice toward a suffering woman, Madame Guyon. They imprisoned her in the Bastille. Let us quote from one of her letters, written in the seventeenth century—it sounds so up-to-date—a letter to Pere la Chaise, confessor to Louis XIV: "They have not only shut me in prison, and attempted to blast my honor, but they have insisted that I have failed in respect for the doctrines of the church, and have denounced me as a heretic. Permit me to say in soliciting your kindness and protection that I ask nothing which shall be found inconsistent with justice and truth. The judge of the ecclesiastical court has been to my prison, and has examined the statements and papers laid before him against me, and has pronounced them false. Have I not reason then to think that it is something besides my alleged want of orthodoxy which keeps me in prison?" Another letter from her: "It is true that my feeble nature has sometimes been greatly burdened. Sorrows have come in upon me like a flood; I have been obliged to say with the psalmist, 'All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me.'"

Years later, when banished to Blois, a broken invalid, she wrote the well-known hymn in which appears "While place I seek or place I shun". Will the Roman Catholic system ever permit such enlightening historical facts to pass censorship if adapted to the screen? One thinks not.

The Roman Catholic church is a menace in its self-appointed censorship of the moving-picture industry. It is to be hoped that producers will awake and not withhold from the American people truths of history that will enlighten the masses, uncensored by a system that poses hypocritically to protect them from immorality.

Perhaps no more fitting picture comes to mind than that of Abimelech, who slew all his father's sons, save one, and made himself king. Jotham, who was spared, stood on the top of a hill and lifted up his voice. Read what he said [Judges 9:15-20]—it fits well today: "And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow; and if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon."

The Devil is such a braggart that all one has to do is to wait and he always lets the cat out of the bag. In the Jesuit magazine America the admission has just been made that the motion picture producers met with the Catholic bishops in May, 1934, at that time came under the code written by the church authorities and under their code interpreter, and since that time have acceded to his every order. It seems that the Jesuits forgot to tip off the Catholic "daughters" and they kept squawking about the indecent movies, whereas the bishops' objective was already gained. The truth is that the bishops would never have started that campaign except to throw dust in the eyes of the two and one-half million people who signed the petition of Jehovah's witnesses for fair treatment on the air. The unsophisticated would jump to the conclusion that the bishops are really interested in cleaning up the movies and that there must be some reason why they really wanted to get rid of Judge Rutherford. And there is. The real reason is that Judge Rutherford is telling the people the truth about their devilish organization.

A Brief History of the United States

(By Robert M. Sperry, in Bridgeport Life)

THIS country began with a tree and a flintlock musket. The first settlers on these shores had to hide behind trees and shoot Indians. It was not a very difficult task to drive back the Indians, who were armed only with bows and arrows. The old blunderbusses loaded with gunpowder and slugs made noise enough to scare the red men even if they did not always score a perfect hit. As the Indians moved back the white men moved forward. This was confiscation in early history, and it worked perfectly.

After the Indians had been put on the run the Colonists thrived and prospered. The prosperity of these early settlers brought added taxation from the mother country, England. The natives paid taxes until they became so burdensome they could not possibly make enough money to meet these increased demands. There was nothing left for the Colonists to do but fight; and fight they did.

Again it was a tree and a rifle. Instead of shooting red men, this time it was redcoats. The natives hid behind trees and took pot shots at English and Hessian soldiers. They knew their trees and their flintlock muskets, and in time ran out the redcoats as they had the red men.

With this country now their own the natives formed their own constitution for future government and started a republic that was destined to lead the world. The vast extent of territory, with its great abundance of natural resources, made this country the paradise of the world. It offered life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When the Americans subdued the red men and the redcoats the progress of this nation was sure and rapid.

Before the Revolutionary War the exploitation of the people was in the hands of the royalists of Great Britain. It was not until big Americans sought to exploit the people that we began to see trouble again. It took a bigger war to stop the exploitation of the black people than it did to push the Indians off their own land. Even in the act of freeing the blacks new financial giants were produced whose wealth made it possible for them to own the government.

With the emancipation of the slaves came the immigration of cheap labor. Shipload after shipload of immigrants were landed in this country. These newcomers were eager to get out of their country where the future offered them nothing more than the miseries of the past. They were grateful to work for little or nothing just to enjoy the personal liberties of this country. They worked hard and were thrifty. They asked nothing more than the privilege to work and earn. They knew well the hardships they had endured in their native countries, and could compare their past with their future. To these immigrants America was heaven.

The rapid breeding among the immigrants brought forth a new situation. Their children had never known the hardships of their parents in their native lands. As the children grew to the age where they could breed and bring forth more and more children, the situation became more and more acute. The rapidly increasing population, with no added land areas and the diminishing of the natural resources, soon made making a living more difficult as time went on. Life now became a matter of the survival of the fittest.

With more people being born than could be absorbed in gainful occupation there came the labor leaders who sought to live well from the efforts of the actual workers. These leaders formed their armies of dues payers and were soon ready to carry rifles and look for trees. This was the beginning of the wars between labor and capital. Capital retaliated with labor-saving inventions. Steam shovels replaced hundreds of human diggers. Elevators threw thousands of hodcarriers and ladders out of use. Gasoline engines and electricity took the place of labor, with the laboring classes breeding as rapidly as ever. It was just the beginning of the wealthy becoming wealthier and the poor becoming poorer.

From the very start of the American nation the people had been divided into three parts: the wealthy class, which controlled the currency; the middle class, which furnished the brains; and the lower class, all the hard work. All during this set-up the middle class was the buffer between the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor. As long as such a situation existed the wealthy actually had little or nothing to worry them.

Along came the World War at a time when such a war was considered necessary to kill off a percentage of the already too large population in all countries. Progress in the science of medicine had made plagues and epidemics impossible as a means to accomplish this. Here was a grand opportunity for the wealthy to become far more so. The powerful Americans sold their people into war to increase their power. The outcome of the World War was to find America actually stuck for the major portion of the expense.

The World War was followed by the most disastrous effect in American history. It was the beginning of the annihilation of the middle class in America. People of the middle class were urged to purchase securities in American industries. The urge for gambling was built up in the only legalized gambling game in the nation. They were urged to purchase homes under the guise that home owners made the best citizens. They were urged to purchase everything on the installment plan, from homes to automobiles and from real estate to stocks on margin. This created a fool's paradise that could last only as long as the extremely wealthy would permit.

Before the days of automobiles a man could buy a horse for one hundred dollars. The horse would earn its keep and make money for its owner and five years afterwards could be resold for one hundred dollars. Later on a man paid three thousand dollars for an automobile and five years afterwards was glad to get fifty dollars for the out-of-date, secondhand contraption. There are some people owning automobiles today who have neither the money nor the brains to operate a wheelbarrow. There are people owning automobiles who have not the price to purchase a collar and necktie. There are those who are depriving themselves of the actual necessities of life in order to loaf around in an automobile. It would be doing humanity a favor if the government were to put a tax of ten cents a gallon on gasoline. This would do much to bring back the horse and the bicycle. Automobiles and installment buying have put the public in hock for many years to come. Those now in hock are living at the expense of those who endeavored to save for a rainy day. It will not be long before no taxpayer has even an umbrella left.

Then came the elimination of the middle class. The Stock Market took a well-timed toboggan slide with such stock as that of the New York Central railroad falling from two hundred and fifty dollars to nine dollars per share. The currency paid by the middle class went into hiding, leaving the victims holding countless batches of worthless securities. Then came the confiscation of their homes for back taxes and unpaid interest. Installment payments could no longer be met, and away went all those unpaid luxuries. The extermination of the buffer class between the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor was now complete.

It was an absolute victory for the wealthy. They now owned practically everything from the government to all the tall buildings. They had won decisively and had nothing at all to worry them. Millionaires were now billionaires, and if anybody needed money it would have to come from them. They had cornered the money market to such an extent that even if the government needed money it would have to borrow from them and pay them interest. The battle was over, and the people were again slaves; just as much slaves as were the Negroes before the Civil War, when they worked for their keep.

But, with their victory for wealth came unforeseen worries. Starving people were dangerous to contemplate, so they were fed through fear, and not through charity. Their food must be paid for, and the money must come from added taxes. High taxes must naturally come from those who had hidden the currency. Wealthy men, like Andrew W. Mellon, began to engage clever lawyers to protect what they had hidden. With the middle class, or the buffer class, wiped out, the extremely wealthy were left at the mercy of an augmented lower class. This was a terrible situation.

Many European countries, since the World War ruined them, had overthrown their governments and now dictators were in power. Kings, emperors and monarchs had been dethroned and Napoleons of the present day were in power. The financiers were now face to face with troubles to which they had never before given thought. All their schemes had gone screwy. They outnumbered everybody in wealth, but they did not outnumber the people. The people must be fed or all their wealth would be in serious jeopardy. Taxes were now chasing them to their hiding places.

The financiers sought through the power of their wealth to buy up the lawmakers and have them put into law codes and regulations that would protect them from the wrath of the people. They endeavored to throw the country into war, which would silence the people and the press, but the people had not forgotten the World War. With so much frightened currency in hiding, the government was forced to issue new money in order to feed the people. This quite naturally made the hidden money less valuable. It was a state of affairs never thought possible by those who had planned the downfall of the middle class. Many of the great financiers were now in the same fix as a billionaire on a barren island who would gladly exchange a thousand-dollar bill for a ham sandwich to sustain life. Things had not worked out as they had been planned. They saw what they had taken from others being taken from them through higher taxes, as a highwayman would take it with a gun. They saw the government vote five billion dollars in one lump sum to be used as financial water to prime a pump gone dry. They know if the five billion dollars does not set financial water flowing again another and perhaps still another five billion dollars must be produced by added taxes.

In the meantime the lower class has been reduced to living on dole. Members of the middle class have lost their investments, their homes and their all, and have no purchasing power left. The middle class is falling back into the lower class, making the largest army of unemployed the financial directors of this nation have ever had to face. This army will increase as it breeds. Idleness breeds crime which will attack those believed still to possess wealth. It was much easier and much quicker to tear down America than it will be to rebuild it. Greed has conquered, but at what a cost to humanity!

Homes in the hands of bankers are not where they belong. Currency hidden is just as much unemployed as the people out of work. Keeping people alive by taxing those who still have some money left can last only as long as taxes can be paid. When all is taken and there is nothing left, what then?

This country began with a tree and a musket when the white man fought the red man for what he owned. Our nation began with a tree and a musket when the Colonists fought the redcoats for what they governed. We may again resort to a tree and a rifle to fight the yellow man. It may be the yellow men in our own race or it may be the yellow race. As an individual makes his bed, so must he lie in it; and as a nation makes its bed, so must it lie out of it or fight. Whether we live to fight or fight to live may soon be settled in a manner that will call for the reprinting of all the histories in American schools.

Government and Misgovernment

The Right to Lynch

THE Fergus Falls (Minn.) Daily Journal comments on the sad fact that 97 percent of American lynchings are in the southern states, and 90 percent of those lynched are Negroes, and then says:

The southern states always championed states' rights, until the present administration came into power. Under this administration they have forgotten all about their states' rights and turned everything over to Washington except the right to hang and burn anyone a mob happens to select.

Ogden Mills Wants to Know

IN AN address at Staatsburg, N. Y., Ogden L. Mills wants to know, "What is to be thought of a leadership which, however well-intentioned, devotes most of its energies for over two years to leading the country up a road which it now has to admit is a blind alley, and never was anything else?"

Why Insult the Goldfinch?

THE Camden Courier-Post, calling attention to the attempted legislation at Trenton to have the Eastern goldfinch proclaimed the official bird of New Jersey, wants to know what the goldfinch has ever done to deserve such infamy. It says the goldfinch is decent, law-abiding, a loyal companion, a right fair musician, and smart. In view of the record of the present legislature the Courier-Post thinks the Japanese beetle, which is of no good to anybody, should be made New Jersey's official bird.

The Boys That Got the Bonus

IN THE World War the United States Government sent 2,000,000 boys to France. The pay of these men for the time they were in France was $1,100,000,000, which is the sum that the United States Steel Corporation made in clear profits, over and above all taxes, in the five years of the World War, 1914 to 1918 inclusive.

“Grass Roots” Charges Against Roosevelt

THE so-called “Grass Roots” conference at Springfield made 18 charges against Roosevelt: (1) The most profligate waste of the people’s savings ever witnessed in human history; (2) the addition of 120,000 civil service employees to the Federal pay roll; (3) annual deficits of $4,000,000,000 a year; (4) the placing of governmental corporations in direct competition with private industry; (5) debasement of the currency and devaluation of the dollar; (6) coercion of Congress; (7) ignoring of states’ rights and of Jeffersonian democracy; (8) subjugation of the people to the “brain trust”; (9) forcing Congress to appropriate $4,800,000,000 for secret and undisclosed purposes; (10) devoting over $2,000,000,000 to speculating in foreign currencies; (11) lowering the American standard of living by destroying foodstuffs and cotton; (12) spending millions to retire agricultural acreage, and other millions to bring heretofore unimproved acreage into cultivation; (13) surrendering home markets to products of foreign countries; (14) creation of monopolies and destruction of small businesses; (15) attempting to socialize bank deposits; (16) concentrating in his own hands a larger mass of wealth than was ever before controlled by one person or group; (17) using his combined industrial, financial and political power to put political pressure on the hungry and needy; (18) distaste for the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court relegating the NRA to the ash can.

“The Propaganda Pay Roll”

IN AN address before the Chicago Bar Association, Governor Talmadge, of Georgia, charged that the national government has embarked on a policy of bribery, and asserted: “They have got twenty-three of the biggest newspapermen of my State on the propaganda pay roll at Washington, besides all the postmasters.”

Plans for Destroying American Government

NOT sure just how clearly he sees the identity of the foreign power that is bent on destroying the American Government, but former president Herbert Hoover has formally charged the Roosevelt administration with attempting to set up a European form of government in the United States; and the charge is true.

Huey Keeps the Senate Awake

IT SEEMS that nobody can be quite sure what Huey Long will say, and therefore he disturbs very much the slumbers of other statesmen who, if they wake up and say anything, merely repeat what they said twenty years ago. Referring to Mr. Roosevelt’s fishing trip on Vincent Astor’s $5,000,000 yacht, the Nourmahal, Mr. Long was mean enough to say:

“Our president of the United States, the knight of the Nourmahal, says we are confused because we cannot see just how this thing is going to look when he gets through making it. Why, to be sure! All those millions of hogs they killed; all those cattle they shot down; the milk they poured into the rivers, with the people starving for it; all of the cotton they plowed under and wool that they burned up, with the people naked because they could not get it; none of us can just see how that is working out. But the president says it is going to look pretty when he gets the picture made up. Surely it will look pretty. It may not look exactly like a song, but it will be something like a dance, the St. Vitus’ Dance. Now the president said this: ‘They know that the process of the constructive rebuilding of America cannot be done in a day or a year.’ No, and if he is a fair sample of it, they know it cannot be done in a hundred years. His process of construction, if you call it construction, is to start out repairing the automobile by first tearing off the top and then, when the rain begins to beat in, to hammer the engine to pieces, tear down the chassis, and then wind up by taking off the wheels. That leaves only one thing to do,—he sends the bill for the work. That bill has now reached the size of over thirty billions of dollars, six times more than all of the money in circulation in the United States.”

The Share the Wealth Plan

UNITED STATES SENATOR HUEY P. LONG insists that in sticking to his Share the Wealth purposes he is merely standing by the declaration which Mr. Roosevelt made at Chicago, when, in his speech of acceptance, the then future president said, “Throughout the nation, men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the government of the last years, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth.” When the president subsequently brought forth his desires for legislation requiring much larger income taxes from those who have the largest incomes, Senator Long smiled and said that all he had to say is “Amen”.

The plan would bring in at least some money to pay the debt incurred to protect the rich.

Indictments of George III

ONE of the indictments of George III was that "he has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance". What has that to do with the addition of 120,000 to the Federal pay roll at Washington in the reign of Franklin D. Roosevelt? Nothing. Another indictment was "taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our government". What has this to do with the oft-repeated claims of Catholics that Jeffersonian democracy has been destroyed and America is in full tilt to be guided from Rome? Not a thing. If a person prefers to go to sleep in the presence of pickpockets, and only gets angry when his attention is called to the fact that somebody is making off with all his trousers except the suspender buttons, why irritate him? Let him sleep while he can. When the awakening comes it will be crude enough, and rude enough and nude enough to create a lasting impression.

Smelling the Hempen Rope

REALIZING that the United States is going to be a mighty bad place for Americans after the second Tuesday of November, 1936 (and protesting that he already smells the hempen rope), Oscar Ameringer, editor of The American Guardian, thinks all persons with anything above their necks but feathers should get together in a hurry. He says, "Such a federation might capture a block of western states, make them safe for democracy, and furnish a place to run to when the storm breaks." Ameringer is looking for something he will never see. The United States is going through the cornsheller right now. When the handle is given a few more yanks the Big Business gang will have all the corn and the people at large will be the corncob, and thereafter will be for only such use as the owner of the corn may elect.

New Deal Dead and Buried

CLARENCE DARROW says that the NRA was the heart of the New Deal; into it the administration put all its enthusiasm and talent; that when the heart is out of a thing there is nothing left; that he felt sure the Supreme Court would never approve it, and that he does not see how the administration can go any farther with the idea. The New Deal is dead and buried.

The Biggest Bill-Collecting Agency

GENERAL SMEDLEY D. BUTLER, retired commander of the United States Marines, only person ever to receive twice the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery under fire, said:

"I spent thirty-five years with the biggest bill-collecting agency in the world, the United States Marines. I served in every rank from private to general, and half that time was spent in fighting on foreign soil for the benefit of American bankers. But now I have sworn that I will never fight again in a war outside our borders, nor let my three sons fight, even if I have to shoot the conscription officer that comes to take us. War is a racket."

Who Is to Get the $4,800,000,000?

FRANK R. KENT, in the Baltimore Morning Sun, speaking of the final disposition of the $4,800,000,000 entrusted to Mr. Roosevelt, said:

"It was in January that this Works-Relief program was conceived. It does seem that in six months these basic matters of policy might have been determined. The lack of co-ordination and general confusion is typical of the Roosevelt régime. In all our history, there has never been an administration so muddled and unbalanced, so lacking in a sense of direction, so full of futility, so prolific of wasted effort and wasted money, so extravagant in everything except thought."

Strong Language of New York American

THE New York American said: "If the national program that is now undermining the traditional American Republic had ever been hinted at in the Democratic platform adopted in the summer of 1932 Herbert Hoover would now be president of the United States. The Socialists who now rule at Washington are bent on a program of Down with Everything! They are doing precisely as the dictator-tyrants of Europe are doing—everything to dig themselves in indefinitely."

Redistribution of Wealth?

THERE was to be a redistribution of wealth. The NRA report comparing December 1934 with December 1926 said: "The income enjoyed by those who received dividends and interest was 50 percent higher than in 1926, even though the national income had declined nearly 40 percent since that date and volume of production had declined one-third." That shows there has indeed been a redistribution of wealth, but in the wrong direction.

Social and Educational

Free Speech over the Radio

THE National Broadcasting Company absolutely refuses to let Judge Rutherford tell about God's kingdom over the lines which they control. Their excuse is that the clergy do their thinking for them as to what the people shall hear. In 1934 James Aloysius Farley spoke 22 times over the National Broadcasting Company's station; the president went him one better; members of the cabinet had 78 periods; assistant secretaries had 34 periods; heads of federal emergency agencies, 21 periods: total, 178 periods for the executive branch of the government. Senators and congressmen had about as many opportunities. Apparently the clergy have not felt called upon to bring any pressure on the National Broadcasting Company to restrain freedom of speech by those to whom the National Broadcasting Company looks for renewals of licenses. And to a true American, with still a spark of manliness or honesty in his make-up, it does seem strange that the concern that virtually monopolizes the radio privileges of America could be so ready to help advertise one of the greatest governmental failures in history and yet not allow an able, thoughtful, reverent presentation of the only way out of the tangle, even when it is paid for. Free speech in America has become a joke, and the National Broadcasting Company is the principal offender. The NBC seems to take the attitude that the level of the intelligence of the American people is fully reached when they are fed pabulum by the party in power in respect to how all may get wealthy by killing unborn pigs, plowing under cotton, and otherwise destroying God's bounties, and a sufficient amount of jazz, tooth paste, mouth wash and laxatives are administered along with it to make it seem like entertainment.

Babies Employed on Newspapers

THE United States department of labor investigated 4,000 newsboys and newsgirls. Of these, 178 were under 10 years of age, and 493 between 10 and 11. Besides 25 hours a week in school these little tots put in, frequently, 25 hours a week in the paper business. Half the boys under 12 earned less than 79 cents a week. In most cities the publishers held the little folks responsible for nonpayment by customers, so that it has happened that a boy worked for a great publisher 20 hours in a week and his whole week's work netted him 30 cents.

Where the Birth Rate Is Up

A STARTLING fact is that relief families are now producing from 50 percent to 60 percent more children than they were producing in predepression days and that the maternity wards in all county and charity hospitals are overcrowded. Meantime the brilliant statesmen that have the job of squeezing the taxes out of those that have jobs are trying to pass a law that would send to prison anybody who even has in his or her possession any information on the subject of birth control. But if such a law could be enforced at least half the people in the country would have to go to jail, including most of the alleged statesmen. Most certainly it would be necessary to lock up every doctor and every druggist.

Fired for Telling the Truth

SENATOR Long claims that when the Government put able investigators to work to prove that it is not possible to produce enough so that every family in the United States may have an income of $5,000, the investigators, so it chanced, were honest men, and brought in a reverse report, whereas the administration was so peeved that it fired every last one of them. Just why the administration really desires only a breadline and soup-kitchen America is unknown.

Got the Captions Mixed

SOMEBODY got in too big a hurry in the office of the New York American on the morning of June 22. Two pictures of about the same size had the captions transposed, with the result that the parade of the queen of England through the streets of Windsor was pictured as a munitions explosion where 75 were killed, and vice versa.

Dionne Quintuplets Wards of the King

THE Dionne quintuplets are being reared in a hospital as wards of the king. The parents may see them on application, but have no control over the situation and resent very much having their parental control taken away from them.

Seven New Prisons Needed

SANFORD Bates, director of Federal prisons, thinks seven new prisons are needed. The inmates of Federal penitentiaries, reformatories, camps, hospitals and jails now total 14,752, which is an all-time high record.

Finance and Transportation

All Aboard the Propaganda Special

A CORRESPONDENT of The New Republic cites an instance where every employee of a utility company must write by hand 75 letters to influence legislation. The letters are according to sample supplied by the company, which also supplies paper, envelopes and stamps. Any employee who fails or refuses to come across with his 75 letters loses his job. It is like the Israelites' being compelled to write to Pharaoh praising him for compelling them to make bricks without straw; only that in Pharaoh's time the Devil had not learned to be so mean and small.

Cahaba Coal Company

THE Cahaba Coal Company contributed to the general fund raised by coal companies to fight distribution of electric power by the Tennessee Valley Authority. And then Judge W. Irvin Grubb ruled that it is unconstitutional for the Tennessee Valley Authority to sell electric power. And then it came out that Judge Grubb has 100 shares of stock in the Cahaba Coal Company. And that is all for now. Those who think the Big Business crowd are going to let the people have anything at all without a big fight, signify it in the usual manner.

What Happened in Fourteen Years

IN 1916 the United States Industrial Relations Commission said that 2 percent of the people of the United States own 60 percent of the wealth. Fourteen years later the Federal Trade Commission said that about 1 percent of the people of the United States own 59 percent of the wealth. That is what the interest system does, just as naturally as the waters of Lake Erie fall over Niagara Falls. In a few years more, at the present rate of increase, a half dozen families will own it all. No other conclusion is possible to anybody who knows how to multiply.

Big Business Wanted a Dictator

IN AN address at Mayfield, Ky., General Hugh S. Johnson, former NRA administrator, said that in March, 1933, many of the Big Business crowd wanted to have a dictatorship, and added, "And strange as it now seems, the principal urgers were some of the very barons of Big Business who recently came to Washington and passed resolutions telling the New Deal to fold up and die."

The Canal Across Florida

THE canal across Florida, first proposed by Philip II of Spain, will probably be built in the near future. Though its length will be 180 miles, it will follow the St. Johns river, and traverse numerous lakes, so that the total that will have to be dug will be only 65 miles. It is estimated that the canal can be completed in three years, at a cost of $100,000,000. It will be used by about 10,000 ships annually, and cut off about 700 miles of ocean travel.

Nine-Word Telegrams for 12c

PERSONS in Britain may now send telegrams anywhere within the United Kingdom for the very low cost of nine words for a sixpence. This is one-third what it would cost in America. In Britain the telegraph service is in the hands of the Post Office, where it ought to be. British postage has been cut from 3c per letter to 2c.

A Million Dollars a Plane

THE United States Government appropriated six hundred and forty million dollars for its air service in the World War. It so happens that just six hundred and forty American-built planes were ever flown across the German lines. The name by which they went among aviators was "flaming coffins", due to the fact that the majority of them were shot down in flames.

New York to Chicago for $2.21

LATE in June C. I. Cummins, president of the Cummins Engine Company, made the trip by automobile from New York to Chicago in one of the first cars ever propelled by a Diesel engine on the highways. He claims that his total fuel cost for the trip was $2.21 and that he can cross the continent for $8.

Crossings in Middle of Blocks

THE chairman of the Washington (D. C.) traffic committee recommends crosswalks in the center of city blocks, so as to cut down the use of crossings at street corners. He believes the inauguration of this rule would lessen accidents and speed up traffic.

Eight Miles of Walks in Mammoth Cave

TO MAKE the wonders of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky more accessible, eight miles of walks have been built, requiring about eight hours to traverse. It took 100 men two years.

Agriculture and Husbandry

Postgraduate Courses for Livestock

SENATOR Long thinks it may be necessary to have postgraduate courses for the livestock. The Congressional Record reports him as saying:

"Congress is going to adjourn, they say. I guess it will. It would have been better if it never had met. Congress is going to adjourn with nothing whatever done to increase the purchasing power of the masses. The only reform that is urged is to destroy a little more cotton, and a little more pork, and a little more sugar, and a little more molasses, and teach the hens not to lay eggs, and give lessons of birth control to the swine and to the cattle, so that they will not raise too much of those products to flood the market for a public that has not the money with which to buy!"

Dust Storms Turn Day to Night

PHOTOGRAPHS and letters from Kansas tell of dust storms when it became as dark at 11 o'clock in the morning as it usually becomes at midnight. It takes 400 years to create an inch of topsoil, yet in some places in Texas 16 inches have been blown off exposed areas, and in southwest Kansas, in one place, the level has sunk six feet in three years. The dust storms have spread to the west as well as the east, compelling Nogales (Ariz.) citizens to clamp wet cloths over their noses. While the dust storms were raging Kansas City did not see the sun for an entire month. Some land is known to have been rendered useless for a hundred years.

Reindeer Now East of Mackenzie River

THE great herd of 2,300 reindeer bought by the Canadian government is now safely east of the Mackenzie river. It has taken ten herders four years of hard work to cover the 3,000 miles the reindeer have come. Wolves slew many en route. The reindeer are expected to provide livelihoods for great numbers of the Eskimos, whose normal methods of life have been broken by the incursion of whites into their territories.

After the reindeer were delivered at their destination one of the herders walked 1,200 miles to the nearest railway station, so that he could visit his father at Grand Rapids, Mich.

Livestock and Humans

THERE are more humans in the world than all the cattle, sheep and pigs put together. There are about three humans to each of the cattle, three humans to each sheep, and seven humans to each pig.

Stingless Bees in Jersey

SIX years of crossbreeding, inbreeding and artificial propagation have developed stingless bees at the apiary of Henry Brown, Burleigh, N. J. Swarms were dumped over the bare heads of men, women and children without a single casualty. The bees have stings, but do not use them. By contrast, the Apis dorsata, the great wild bee of India, is the best honey-producer in the world, but cannot be domesticated, and refuses to work in captivity. Besides, it has a very bad temper and its sting is something to dread.

Locusts in Virginia

A CORRESPONDENT in Virginia sends the wing of a seventeen-year locust, a very beautiful, shimmery thing, like crinkled cellophane, amber color, beautifully striped with orange-colored veins. Each wing has a "w" on it, a sure sign, so the superstitious say, that war is imminent. The seventeen-year locusts spend seventeen years underground and then come forth to live about four weeks, breed and die. They make plenty of noise but are not specially injurious to crops.

In the Great Mississippi Valley

IN THE great Mississippi valley, granary and treasure house of North America, and the richest and largest valley on earth, one-tenth of the farmers have electricity in their homes, and nine-tenths have not; one-tenth have water piped into their homes, and nine-tenths have not; one-fourth have radios in their homes, and three-fourths have not; two-fifths have telephones in their homes, and three-fifths have not; 65 percent have automobiles, and 35 percent have not.

Utah's Intelligent Gulls

IT IS 750 miles from the Pacific Ocean to Great Salt Lake, but 750 miles is nothing to a sea gull, and it was long ago that the gulls found Utah a nice place to come for a summer vacation. Now they have discovered that cherries make good eating. On account of having webbed feet they are unable to alight in the trees, but with their strong wings they beat the ripened fruit to the ground and manage to get along quite well, thank you.

Science and Invention

28 Earthquakes in 35 Years

GOING over its records The Associated Press has discovered that since 1902 there have been 28 major earthquakes, resulting in the loss of more than 250,000 lives. This is in accord with Jesus' statement of the order of events associated with His second coming: war, pestilence, famine, earthquakes in divers places. The locations of the major quakes, published in the New York Times of June 1, 1935 (the day before Judge Rutherford's great address in Washington on the subject of "Government"): St. Pierre, Martinique; San Francisco; Valparaiso, Chile; Kingston, Jamaica; Sicily; Calabria; Turkey; central Italy; Guatemala; Java; Mexico; Persia; Tokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto, Japan; Dutch East Indies; New York to Newfoundland; southern Italy; southern Italy again; New Zealand; Managua, Nicaragua; Japan; Honshu island, Japan; southern California; India; eastern Crete; Formosa; northern Iran, Persia; Kars, near Turko-Russian frontier. The four last named were in 67 days of this year, 1935, and resulted in 4,000 killed, 11,240 injured, and 23,000 homes destroyed or damaged. To this list may now be added the earthquake which leveled Quetta, Baluchistan, and killed 20,000 persons in that city alone, in addition to an estimated 30,000 in the surrounding country.

Demons Invent Musical Instruments

ACTING under what he claims are instructions and specifications received from unseen spirit sources, a man in Ironia, N. J., has made a weird collection of musical instruments of the stringed variety unlike any others in the world. All the instruments are playable. One is a fiddle fourteen feet high; another is a combination of a harp and violoncello; another is a three-headed violin.

Epsom Salts Lake, Washington

EPSOM SALTS LAKE, in Washington, is virtually pure Epsom salts. It crystallizes in warm weather and liquifies in the winter. Thousands of tons of Epsom salts have been shipped from this lake.

Hail Six Feet Deep

IN A freak storm near Hazelton, Kans., the last week in March, in an area that had been ravaged by dust storms, five inches of rain fell in fifteen minutes and hail piled up six feet deep in some places.

American Stratosphere Flight Fizzle No. 2

THE largest balloon ever made, a sphere 192 feet in diameter, exploded suddenly in the Black Hills, South Dakota. It was intended for a trip into the stratosphere, the second futile American effort. The gondola, a globe 9 feet in diameter, with a metal shell less than one-fifth of an inch in thickness, was to have carried more than a ton of scientific instruments.

Cellophane Instead of Celluloid Films

THOUSANDS of deaths have been caused by fires due to inflammable motion-picture films. The end of this series of disasters is in sight. It is now found that motion pictures may be made on cellophane films, which are non-flammable, non-scratchable, and weigh only one-seventh as much as the old films.

Mummy in the Mammoth Cave

FOUR miles back from the entrance a mummy was found in the Mammoth Cave. The savage was caught by a fall of rock, and now scientists will have the rock carefully lifted and try to ascertain just what he was digging for at the time the rock fell, what tools he used, and all about it that can be known.

Making Ice by the Sun's Rays

A CALIFORNIA rancher, with a flare for invention, supplies his home with refrigeration by heat obtained from the sun's rays. The heat is used to vaporize ammonia enclosed in tubes, and as the ammonia is condensed the refrigeration takes place. The apparatus is homemade, and works well.

Phosphorescent Paint on Autos

A FRENCH firm of automobile makers has started painting its cars with phosphorescent paint. A car so painted can be seen for a half mile at night, even when the headlights are turned off; the device also increases parking safety.

Shivery Days on Planet Mars

FOR reasons unknown the planet Mars is having unusually cold weather. The usual temperature there is about that of earth's August, but recently there have been snowstorms and the polar icecaps are larger than in thirty years.

Gravediggers' Department

100 Physicians Poisoned in France

AT A banquet in Amiens, France, more than a hundred physicians were made gravely ill; so says the New York Times. Every reader of The Golden Age knows what it was that caused this wholesale poisoning, but the ones that were poisoned did not know, and the account in the Times says that the police were called in to question the kitchen employees. That is rich. A good way to do would be for both the police and the doctors to bake a good big dish of pork and beans in an aluminum pot, let it stand in the aluminum for 24 hours, warm it up, and feed it to the personnel of the Aluminum Trust, and stand over them while they eat it. They might get personal information that way, but even then their findings would never get into the papers, not so long as the Trust has plenty of money to pay for advertising aluminum cooking utensils. Meantime the poisonings continue, and the cancer rate grows by leaps and bounds.

Aluminum Wrappers Spoil Cheese

THE Blue Moon Cheese Products Company of Minnesota filed suit for $1,148,200 against the Aluminum Company of America, alleging that inferior wrappers caused cheese to spoil. Prior to May, 1934, the cheese company had always used a tinfoil wrapper, but changed to aluminum foil on representations of a superb but unprincipled sales organization that aluminum is impervious to aromas and would keep the cheese in better condition. Complaints from retailers that cheese was spoiling resulted in an investigation. The cheese company wants $1,000,000 for loss of business and good will, $100,000 for spoilage, and the balance for unusable wrappers and other items.

Blaming the Insect Powder

AT THE Transient Service Bureau Home, Armleder Building, Twelfth Street and Central Parkway, Cincinnati, Ohio, 100 were poisoned on Thursday, May 16. All foods cooked there are prepared in aluminum utensils; also, the inmates eat from aluminum dishes. It was necessary to find some cause for the wholesale poisoning, so the statement was published that "the poisoning is believed to have resulted from the sprinkling of insecticide powder about the kitchen". The idea is that those who believe it will believe it and those who don't believe it won't believe it; all of which is very simple.

Grayslake Gelatin

A CIRCULAR explains all about how Grayslake Gelatin is produced. Quoting in part, the literature explains: "The skins [of animals] are conveyed to aluminum cooking kettles. . . . The gelatin solution is drawn off and passed through aluminum filter presses. . . . All the piping and equipment in contact with the gelatin solution are aluminum . . . placed on drying racks covered with aluminum wire screening." The circular is a reprint from the Journal of the American Medical Association of July 25, 1931. It is too bad that those more than a hundred doctors at Amiens, France, who called in the police to find out what was wrong in the kitchen, didn't have some of this gelatin while they were convalescing, but it seems that the boys in the kitchen were on the job first and so the doctors could get along without it until the next time they have a group poisoning.

Safest for What?

A CIRCULAR at hand from the N. C. Joseph, Ltd., Aluminum Works, Stratford-on-Avon, England, says, "Pure aluminum, as you probably know, is the safest of all metals for beverages or food." In view of this statement, and the fact that even aluminum salesmen have almost died after leaving "beverages" in aluminum over night and then drinking them the next morning, one wonders just what is meant by the word "safest". Does it mean safest for the beverage consumer, safest for the doctor, safest for the undertaker, or safest for the maker and purveyor of the utensils? Probably the ones last mentioned; certainly not the one first named.

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