Awake!, September 8, 1948
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CATHOLIC CENSORSHIP OF THE MOVIES
The Church’s role is far more than "guardian of morals” as she sets up "Iron Curtain of the Movies”
Native Uprisings Strike Gold Coast
Hectic days and nights of looting and killing
Spinners of Spiderland
A glimpse at them as weavers, hunters and lovers
“Pearl of the Orient Seas”
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CONTENTS
Catholic Censorship of the Movies
Legion of Decency and PCA
The Legion, Private Pressure Group
Different Censorship Batings
Vehicle for Catholic Propaganda
Movie-Makers Speak
Native Uprisings Strike the Gold Coast
Wholesale Looting
Biotlng and Looting Spread
Spinners of Spiderland
Strange Habits of the Spiders
Marvels of Their Spinning
Web-Weaving at Its Best
The Body’s Outer Covering
Nerve and Pore Systems of the Skin 18
“Pearl of the Orient Seas”
The Friendly Filipino People
Priestly Oppression from Spain
'Rizal’s Expose of the Priests
Finally, Philippine Independence
“Thy Word Is Truth”
The Main Thing for Which to Pray 25
Preaching in Parks in Medfield
Watching the World
A\WAWE.f
C^Now it is high time to Romans 13:11 ft/
Volume XXIX Brooklyn, N.Y,, September 8, 1948 Number 17
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Catholic Censorship of the
MWES
EVERY movie that is witnessed by the sixty million Americans that attend the cinema is censored by a Catholic organization controlled by the Roman Papacy. Although Catholic movie-goers are estimated at less than a third of the total attendance, and although Catholics number less than a fifth of the total population of the United States, nevertheless every major film producer has submitted itself to a Catholic censorship that approaches the Nazi pattern in thoroughness. Not only the major producers, but also foreign and non-member producers have also submitted to Papal control because they need the approval of the PCA (Production Code Administrator) to exhibit their films in member-owned theaters. Added to this is a private Catholic censorship body, called the Legion of Decency, that runs the whole works.
Just how is this accomplished in a nominally non-Catholic and democratic land? Is it done in the interest of the Catholic population as claimed? Why has it come about? and what are the results? Why have Americans been generally unaware of this insidious threat to liberty? These questions concerning so great a publicity channel cannot be lightly dismissed. The origin, structure, and operation of the censorship body is treated as of public interest.
Nor should Catholics wrongly assume that this is a Protestant attack on their religion. Their interest in the matter of picture censorship is just as vital as that of their non-Catholic fellow citizens. As one writer puts it: “Because most Catholics in this country are good citizens and good Americans it seems inevitable that sooner or later they will recognize the censorship of their priesthood for what it is, a survival of medieval coercion which has no rightful place in the American environment.” (“Roman Catholic Censorship, II, The Church and the Movjes,” The Nation, May 8, 1948) Motion picture censorship joins hands with Catholic press and radio censorship to form an unholy three. As part of a strong ring throwing a curtain around what Americans should hear and see, the division ostensibly protecting Catholic morals against salacious films should be given critical examination. Admittedly the Roman Catholic Hierarchy censors the news. But they have not suggested that Catholics need to be protected from press descriptions of theft, murder and sex crimes. Is movie immorality worse?
In fact, the great Catholic Church hue and cry about immorality in the movies is at least open to the suspicion that it is an excuse and smoke screen to cover up the primary objective of Roman censorship, namely, to suppress and delete
ALL HISTORICAL, POLITICAL, AND RELIGIOUS FILM SEQUENCES THAT MIGHT EXPOSE THE Catholic church to criticism. A later consideration of some of the Legion of Decency’s condemnations of individual films exposes this concealed intention.
The manner in which the people have been generally taken in is spotlighted by the Nation writer:
Most Americans probably think that the Legion of Decency, the Roman Catholic instrument for censoring films, is concerned primarily with what H. L. Mencken once called “translucent drawers”. The legion’s name implies that it is the guardian of purity. . . . It pleases the Catholic Hierarchy to have Americans to take this view of the agency because if it were called the Catholic Political and Doctrinal Censorship it would immediately lose its usefulness to the church. . . . Actually, the Legion of Decency, in its private censorship of nearly four hundred films a year, is far more concerned with Catholic dogma and Catholic philosophy than with decency.
It should be remembered that the government has its regular censorship board which censors out suggestive sequences, recumbent petting, etc. After this, over and above this agency’s operations, the Legion of Decency has constituted itself the super sifter of cinema sin. Exposure of too much thigh is often the talking point. But exposure of too much of Rome’s history is the acting point!’
“Many people believe that the industry is over-censored already by government, the Johnston office, and a considerable amount of internal Catholic influence,” said the writer in The Nation. In order to understand how this “influence” makes itself so painfully felt, an examination of the origin and structure of the PCA and the Legion of Decency is needed.
Legion of Decency and PCA
Many living Americans remember that Pope Pius XI, predecessor of the present pope, declared 1933 to be “a holy year”, in which a “golden jubilee of prosperity” was to be ushered in. Some also remember that Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933, and gained general recognition by means of a contract (concordat) with that same pope. At this time the Papacy also had its eye on the American cinema, because of, as declared the present pope, “the vast power you wield in affecting social life.” (Newsweek, August 6,1945) Twelve years previously the message from the pope was entirely condemning. In 1933, the apostolic delegate to the United States, without his titles, plain Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, spoke thuswise of the cinema: “What a massacre of the innocence of youth is taking place—incalculable influence for evil.” (American Mercury, June 1945)
Moved by this imperative Papal outcry the Catholic bishops of this country got busy. In 1934 the Legion of Decency was formed 'to include the personal cooperation of the laity with the Hierarchy in endeavoring to prevent the showing of obscene or lascivious films’. The well-publicized Catholic tirade and film boycott that accompanied this legion’s begetting frightened the major picture producers into servile surrender. With little pause for. consideration of the eventual outcome of a “please Rome policy”, they abjectly courted favor by engaging the country’s most aggressive Jesuit pamphleteer, “Father” David Lord, to formulate the articles of the Production Code Administration, which is how often called the Breen office because of its, headship by Roman Catholic Joseph I. Breen. The industry, particularly the big five—Paramount, Loew’s (MGM), RKO, Twentieth Century Fox, and Warner Brothers—bound themselves to pay $25,000 fine for each production that violated any of the Jesuit prescriptions of the code; and agreed to another fine of $25,000 for each exhibition of such film in any member-owned theater. After thus tying itself hand and foot, the shackled corpse was handed to the National Legion of Decency for further bonds and gagging. Do you wonder now why the movies have become largely a propaganda agency to glamorize Catholic Church figures and functions?
The Legion, Private Pressure Group
The National Legion of Decency has no official standing. Yet it has been called “the strongest pressure group in this country”, “a restraining undemocratic force,” “a minority group imposing its censorship on the whole world” and “an affront to democracy”. And it operates through fear. Catholics and others are inclined to think that it merely rates the finished pictures according to their fitness for Catholic people attendance. Never would Rome be satisfied to leave this great channel of publicity free until it flows forth to the public. With the cunning born of fifteen centuries experience, it finds it more expedient to indoctrinate the river’s source than to be content to dam its flow. No truth that extols God’s Word, the Bible, or that exposes Rome’s guilt, must glide down that stream. Murky waters must hide all religion’s evil deeds such as Nazi collaboration, while muddy waters efface the tell-tale stain of innocent blood. The muddy feet that dirty so many films belong to the Papal espionage agency, the Jesuits, deceitfully named “The Society of Jesus”, and to their assistants. These men and their women not only have especially arranged previews of practically all presentations, but are asked to assist in the preparation of the scenario. Let us take a few typical examples.
The Legion of Decency was asked to comment on the script of a new film picturization of Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers”. They immediately objected to the true-to-life characterization of Cardinal Richelieu as the unprincipled prime minister of Louis XIII, and the producer tried to mollify them by agreeing to divest the cardinal of his church robes. But the Legion was not satisfied. They insisted that he be called Duke Richelieu! Again, while given access to a pre-production council discussion of Columbia’s film on Lucrezia Borgia, notorious poisoner, they had, at last reports, forced the suppression of the fact that she was the illegitimate niece of Pope Alexander VI! In another case, from the enactment of Galileo’s life must be removed the historical accuracy that he was arrested and persecuted by the Roman Catholic Inquisition in an effort to suppress his great discoveries about the earth’s rotation.
These are instances of interference in the production of pictures. Discussed later are the many distortions forced upon completed pictures. It should not be assumed that the Legion of Decency is satisfied merely to cause the withdrawal of sequences objectionable to the Hierarchy’s warped viewpoint. Their campaign has its positive side as well. It exerts pressure to force the production of stories flattering to the Roman Church. Concerning the priest-starring pictures, “Going My Way,” “Boys Town,” “Song of Bernadette”
and "The Bells of St. Mary’s”, it is claimed that they “were probably worth more to the hierarchy in creating goodwill than all the propaganda produced by the church's official proselyting agencies in a decade”.
Different Censorship Ratings
The work of censoring is usually done by a board of thirty-five Catholic women reviewers in Hollywood and seventy in New York. These “thought police” are in constant consultation with Jesuit hierarchy representatives. They usually see previews especially arranged for them. Producers seldom refuse to make changes. In the rare instances when such changes are refused, as in the case of Walter Wanger’s “Blockade”, which portrayed Fascist Spain in a mildly derogatory manner, the blacklist rating of "condemned” is conferred by the board. A second listing “objectionable in part” is reserved for pictures which tend to deny any Catholic doctrines. For example, the film about an episcopal couple entitled “The Bishop’s Wife” was so listed because it revealed the truism that a bishopric can be bought. “Miracle on 34th Street” was given the gray rating because it countenanced divorce. “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” a strong expose of anti-Semitism, was under partial ban for the same stated reason. However, anti-Semitism is not a theme the Hierarchy wishes denounced, as it has been a standard practice of Rome since long before it was ever utilized by Catholic son Hitler.
Besides the “condemned” and the “objectionable in part” ratings the Legion rates films “unobjectionable for adults” and some as recommended for the family. Only the “condemned” rating has any great effect on box office receipts, and one picture, “The Outlaw,” starring Jane Bussell, made considerable money for producer Howard Hughes despite condemnation as obscene. Probably the indecent-exposure criticism did not have as much weight with the censors as the fact that mention was made of a “Protestant preacher” for the marriage ceremony, and not a priest. A review of some of the other "condemnations” by the legion discloses Catholic bias and fear of exposure.
In some instances the legion is more arbitrary in America than in certain Catholic countries, such as Eire. A British film depicting the frustrations of Anglican nuns, entitled “Black Narcissus”, was submitted to the Irish censors, who approved, it provided a prologue made it clear that the nunnery was Church of England and not Roman Catholic. But the Legion of Decency raised a furor against its American release. Because one sequence showed a young novice dreaming of a red dress and of her sweetheart, and the deprivations of convent life were portrayed generally, the film received a “condemned” by the board. The fallacious philosophy behind this criticism was similar to that inducing the “gray” rating for the amusing comedy “Life with Father”, which portrayed baptism in an un-Catholic manner, namely, that the Roman Catholic Church is the repository of the Christian religion and must protect it.
Only three or four films are actually banned each year, but this is due largely to the fact that the pressure group starts its molding process long before the film comes forth. Occasionally a producer resists. Mention has been made of the battle waged by Walter Wanger for his Spanish film "Blockade”. In its battle against this film the Hierarchy resorted to boycott and picketing of the theaters scheduled to show it, and a voluminous tirade that was given free space in the press. Later Wanger had similar trouble with an educational production dealing with venereal disease.
For purely political reasons “The Mission to Moscow” was condemned. For the same reason two Spanish films were condemned in 1944. At the time when Parnell Thomas was trying to remove
the gnat of communism from Hollywood’s eye, he completely overlooked the beam of Catholic Fascist domination. At a Manhattan Center rally called to protest the discharge and citation for contempt of ten Hollywood writers and directors, Dr. Emery Shipler, editor of the Episcopal Churchman, declared:
I would remind you that there is another and far more powerful organization than the House Committee on Un-American Activities which is attempting with too much success to dictate to all Americans what they shall, or shall not see, in our motion picture theaters. I refer, of course, to the Roman Catholic hierarchy. These representatives of a foreign political state have long been successful in keeping off the screen many productions which Americans had a right to see, including the film on venereal disease planned by the United States Department of Health for American soldiers. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 16, 1947]
Vehicle for Catholic Propaganda
No movie-goer needs ponderous proof of Catholic influence. Nearly every picture fairly exudes Romanism. A few of the more nauseating examples might be cited. The picturization of the famous Mexican president (1858-1872) and hero, “Juarez,” a pure-blooded Zapotec Indian, who gained popularity by his fight against Catholic priests and their superstitions, became famous for his “Juarez law” which cut down the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in affairs of state, and was engaged in battle with the pope’s French emissary Maximilian when the United States intervened at the close of the Civil War, does not even mention his fight against Catholic religious bondage.
In the RKO film of “Life and Miracles of Frances Cabrini”, “first American Catholic ‘saint’,” a stupendous effort is made to please the Hierarchy. Advertisements in the Los Angeles Times (January 29) include a round picture of the face of “Saint Frances Cabrini”. Un-SEPTEMBEE 8, 1948 der this picture these instructions appear: “Look steadily at Saint Frances Cabrini’s eyes for 15. seconds, then look at a fixed spot in the sky or on the wall for 5 seconds. Concentrate on Saint Cabrini and vision will appear.” Commenting upon this trick The Converted Catholic (April, 1948) says: “The use of this well-known optical illusion to deceive credulous people into believing they will see a ‘vision’ of a saint, in order to get them to see a movie, is proof of how far the movie industry will go to boost its box office receipts and to please the Roman Catholic Church of America.”
“Miracle of the Bells” was another example of wholesale Catholic provender. The first part of the picture shows Fred MacMurray caught in the toils of a racketeering undertaker and a racketeering priest while endeavoring to bury the body of a young actress (Valli) who has requested him as her press agent to bring her remains back to this coal town. One priest tries to highjack MacMurray for high fees, but he finds a poor-parish benevolent priest, Frank Sinatra. Back-flashes show how the girl won a lead in the filming of “Joan of Arc”, how she overworked and died. In order to “immortalize” her acting, since, the producers will not release her picture, MacMurray gives a bad check to several Catholic churchmen to ring all the bells in town for several days. After charging MacMurray $20 per hour to ring his church bells, one priest has quite a row with his humbler colleague, Sinatra, as to where the funeral shall be. The ensuing national publicity brings the producer to Coal Town, after a settling of the church’s foundations cause a fake miracle at the girl’s funeral. Cashing in on the publicity, the producer, with ‘benign’ tears in his eyes, agrees to release the picture and use some of the proceeds to build a hospital in memory of Valli. It seems that only stark and abject fear could bring Hollywood to use its talent and capital for dreary fodder and driveling like this.
Movie-Makers Speak
At least one producer is awake to the danger that the approval of the Hierarchy may be the “kiss of death” for the industry. Emphasizing the unpalatable trend forced by censorship he remarked: “We are selling a phony morality in the movies. This is not the way life is. In spite of the excesses before the Breen office and the Legion of Decency came into existence, it was still possible to make an honest picture of life.”
In view of this abundance of evidence, which is no secret from Hollywood’s directorates, there is a sardonic humor in Photoplay’s editorial question “What’s Wrong with the Movies?” The editor does not dare touch on the obvious cause, but he does admit: “The truth is, there is a universal sense of dissatisfaction with film product.” Another critic claims that instead of the movies’ being “salesmen” of the United States to foreign nations, as claimed by James Byrnes, they are “a primary source of resentment against us”. Samuel Goldwyn saw that “motion pictures are facing disaster unless the quality of pictures is doubled and costs cut in half”. Harold Hendee, research director of RKO Radio Pictures, had the temerity to blame the public for poor pictures. But for those who are collectors of modern examples of hypocrisy, a recent speech by Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, is cited. At a New York meeting he is quoted as saying:
The motion picture industry is prepared to support the fight for democracy by promoting freedom of action and expression throughout the world. . . . All hopes and plans of Hollywood and the future of the country itself center on successfully combating the threats of censorship for communication industries. . . . Those who demand censorship have lost faith in democracy. . . . Censorship and totalitarianism are partners everywhere, just as free speech and democracy are partners everywhere. ... We in our industry intend to fight censorship on every front and to fight it with all our resources before it becomes a serious danger to free speech and democracy. [New York Times, January 28, 1948]
Toward the back of the hall was a guest who was probably grinning secretly and applauding outwardly. His name was “The Rev. Patrick J. Masterson, executive secretary of the National Legion of Decency”.
It is not the intention herein to blame the movies for everything—delinquency, divorce, crime. Many, like a well-known Hollywood clergyman, hold the “capital of silken sin” responsible for glamorized but fallacious standards of success, both business and marital. They decry its surface glitter and inward venality. They point out with considerable proof that youth particularly is given a false conception of life by the success of screen grafters and the over-emphasis on male and female charm. L. Shearer charges it with graver responsibility, in his article “Grime Certainly Pays on the Screen”.
On the other hand, the movies have performed a considerable public service in providing visual education and harmless diversion. And like the stage in other eras, the cinema mirrors the evils of the age rather than creates them. Also, as long as it remains a commercial industry depending on the approval of a large sector of the public for existence, it can never be free. Considerations of self-interest, however, merely underline the dangers of their present course. If they persist in trying to inject a shot in the arm to enliven the dead corpse of hypocritical organized religion, and continue to turn over censorship to the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in exactly the manner now prescribed by Fascist Franco, they invite double trouble. In the offing staring at them lurks financial disaster brought about by public repudiation. Hollywood, come to your senses!
TN THE United States buyers’ .strikes i were at one .time talked about as "a means of arresting the soaring price spirals. The talk led to nothing that' was organized or effective. But in the Gold Coast' of Africa the natives not only talked about a boycott against high-priced goods; their talk led to something. It led to an organized boycott that was rigidly enforced for weeks. It caused tension between the natives and the Europeans to mount. Coinciding with the lifting of the boycott a demonstration by native ex-servicemen. was fired upon by the police. This' drastic- action taken against the unarmed ex-servicemen and which resulted in the death of some natives lit the fuse to an explosion that rocked the Gold Coast touts foundation.
It touched off three days and three a country-wide boycott to be enforced 1 '■ " z 1' n 1 ‘ upon the imported goods.
Coast, the'Gas and the Akans, had been and a stringent curfew was imposed-by : unable to agree, but not so with this com-
nights of uhequaled plundering and burning in the city of Accra and ended only when emergency regulations were invoked to declare a state of emergency the military. The native uprisings struck at the end of February, and when:.this article was written in June a commission of inquiry was still investigating the causes.'
Boycott vs. High Prices
The writer of.this article, a correspondent for Awake! in the Gold Coast, has noted that especially , since the end of World War II the African has been nursing his protest against the insufferably high prices of goods of all classes sold in the shops. .He claims these high prices bring large profits to the shopowners, and that only the fortunate African with a full .purse can buy. The poorer one must go without. From the A.frican’s viewpoint it seems he could do little tc alter the state of affairs. His protest was against large European firms' which held prices high and provided for no even distribution of their goods. Many of the highly educated Africans have beenpon-dering this problem confronting the four 'and a half million populatiomof the Gold Coast, but it was in January, 1948, that the. solution seemed, clear. Then it was that through one of the important native chiefs, ' namely, Nee Kwabefa Bonne III, the command came forth for
Iii the past there had been occasions when the two main tribes in the Gold mand. The Africans en masse supported the boycott, which lasted for 33 days. All towns and villages in the ■ Gold Coast have their chiefs, and in the larger towns several subchiefs, and when the time arrived for the boycott to be enforced., namely January 26, these chiefs saw to it that the boycott was carried out. In Accra, the capital and the largest town, in the country, the native police, acting, under orders from the native authority, patrolled the streets to see that all Africans kept strictly to the-boycott. Any breaking the boycott were immediately arrested and taken to the native courts
and sentenced. Only Europeans could shop with safety. Many shops closed.
In due time price reductions came and with them the end of the boycott. With its lifting on February 28 the African was free to go and buy. And he does love to buy new things. In Accra, on that Saturday morning, ir.any of the shops were working at top speed in their sales department. But the victory through the boycott was marred somewhat by certain shops tliat would not reduce their prices as much as the African thought proper. This resentment was forcefully expressed by stones hurled through shop windows. Native and government police were therefore posted outside of these offending shops.
Coinciding with the lifting of the boycott on imported goods a petition was presented to the governor on befialf of the African ex-servicemen. Its principal points were request of government recognition of the ex-servicemen’s union, a demand for the release cf seme ex-servicemen now serving court-martial sentences, and a plea for increased financial and other assistance for ex-servicemen generally.
Three Hectic Days and Nights
While the petition was being presented at the secretariat 2,000 ex-servicemen marched in Accra in support of the petition. Following the procession tramped several hundred natives. As they marched they sang war songs and, as the African can'become very emotional, the procession soon became a very high-spirited one. The police had outlined the line of inarch for the servicemen but the marchers swung off this established route and paraded in the direction of the government house. The police took quick and drastic action, firing upon the unarmed ex-servicemen, killing at least three Africans and wounding several others.
The fuse had been lit. The explosion did not tarry. Enraged at the death of their comrades, the natives headed for the center of town bent on .revenge. There followed the three most hectic days and nights in the history of Accra. Through this correspondent’s eyes look in upon the main shopping streets cf Accra on this Saturday afternoon at 3:30.
It being Saturday afternoon all European-owned shops are closed. But not for long. Listen io that rumbling noise in the distance. It is getting louder. To the window you go and see a riotous and shouting crowd running down the street. For the time you are unable to untangle sentences of meaning from the rumble of discordant noise, but as they come nearer their slogans aie distinguishable, and ail of them are against the white man. Predominating us the angry cry: "White man kills African!”
Look, they are breaking into the shops: glass windows are no obstacle. Even wooden shutters splinter as two or three throw their weight against them. No European store is missed. Now they are turning over a European-owned car ar.d setting it afire. Eurther down the street another car is on its side and huge stones and blocks cf cement are hurled to complete its wreckage. The din grows until the entire center of the capital is in an uproar.
Only’ the beginning. As nightfall comes a new tempo is reached. By now the whole town has learned cf the shooting and most of the onlookers join in with the rioters. At times the noise becomes deafening as glass windows, wooden doors and even iron bars give way.
Wholesale Looting
Wholesale looting has begun. Like busy ants the people scurry in all directions with goods in their arms and on their heads. It seems that the entire town has gone temporarily mad. Midnight comes with no easing up of the smashing and plundering. Arson! Arson! is the cry as one’s attention is drawn to the large European stores that have been fired. Great clouds of smoke can be seen billowing upward as the fierce flames light up the night sky. Limited fire-fighting equipment stands by helpless as stores crumble to the ground in ashes. Only with the coming of daylight does the violence abate.
But, alas, by midday on Sunday looting is again sweeping through the city. No one acts to curb it. The police just look on, powerless. The only buildings receiving protection are the national post office, the bank and the cable and wireless offices, which are situated close together in the center of town. These buildings are surrounded by European and African soldiers, and occasionally gunshots add their voice to the din as soldiers fire over the heads of the crowd in the distance.
Hours go by. The looters increase. Men, women and children, all are in the scramble and hustling off with bundles. ■Each one is out for himself. Some men balance large bundles on their heads and in their hands brandish long sharp knives as a warning to anyone, even his fellow African, not to try to steal his loot. Many natives required hospital treatment because they envied somebody else’s load. Long-suppressed desire blossoms into greed. From cycle dealers it was not sufficient to take one bicycle. No, they rode one and carried another on their head. From time to time, loud reports, similar to gunshots, boomed out, but they were the explosions of powerful fireworks that had been pillaged from the stores. Some ingenious African would occasionally use these to his own advantage. How so? If there was something in a store that he wanted but there were too many looters crowding the shop, he would iight one of his powerful fireworks near by. The explosion frightened the looters and they ran out in all directions. Then, in he goes to get his haul.
As night falls on Sunday one wonders when such wholesale plundering and smashing will be checked. On tide previous night large supplies of beer and wine were taken and the native enjoyed many a fine drink, and this in due course had its effect on him. But by Sunday evening he had had time to sleep it off and was out again to see what he could get. Many grabbed, the first things their hands could touch, only to later wonder what they had taken and what it was good for. But look over there, again clouds of smoke are rising. Yes, the rioters have set fire to another one of the largest stores in the capital. The sky blackens as the flames blaze upward and a great shower of sparks shoots up as the floors fall through. The firemen can only prevent the spreading of the fire to adjacent buildings.
Rioting and Looting Spread
Rumors on Saturday and Sunday claimed that rioting and looting had broken out in other parts of the Gold Coast. Now, on Monday, definite news comes through that large European stores have been broken into and looted in Kumasi, the second-largest town in the Gold Coast, 170 miles from Accra. Other towns along the coast line and in the interior where European stores were established, underwent attacks. Despite poor communication and transport, news filtered in surprisingly quick of scattered attacks against European stores. All this news meant that the entire country, which had supported the boycott against imported goods, was now affected by the outbreak of looting. Nevertheless the organizers of the boycott made it known that they were against this ruthless plundering. But the outlook of the African in the street was that he had been nursing his complaints long enough and now the opportunity had come for him to exhibit his feelings. And he certainly did.
The expected repulse came on Monday. The military were brought into action. The streets were patrolled. A elose watch' was kept at night. Warnings were sounded that anyone caught looting would be shot on sight. Many took no heed and several natives were killed. The imposing of a curfew was announced by Accra, Kumasi and several other important towns. This meant everyone had to be off the streets between the hours of 6;30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.
The curfew lasted from March 1 to the 21st. Many violators of this ban were imprisoned. Soldiers in the colony were reinforced with troops from Nigeria and South Africa. For about two weeks the capital was completely cut off. Soldiers guarded all entrances and it was impossible to enter or to leave the town. A shaky order was restored, and on March S it was reported that 26 Africans had been killed and 227 injured, whereas only 15 Europeans were wounded.
A state of emergency was declared and under the emergency regulations the governor had great power at his disposal. He could detain or deport and exclude persons from the territory, and under the emergency regulations the legality of such action could not be questioned. From March 5 a censorship was placed upon all newspapers that was to remain in effect for some weeks. Six men were deported from Accra to places outside the capital. Their removal naturally had its effect in public reaction, but the protests did not take the form of violence.
A few days after order was restored a systematic search was conducted in-Aecra by the military. Looted articles were thrown in the streets to be picked up later by an army lorry. From reports and from the writer’s observation, in comparison with the amount looted, very little was recovered. As one can well imagine, when the Europeans returned to Accra (most of the 2,200 Europeans living there had been removed to places of safety during the rioting) tension between them and the Africans was great. Estimated value of merchandise lost and looted plus propertv damage runs to at least £3,000,000, or $12,000,000.
At the governor’s suggestion a commission of inquiry was sent out from England, which consisted of three Scotchmen. The commission was given power to inquire not, only into the circumstances of the disturbances itself but also into their underlying causes. The inquiry was held in the Supreme Court building and lasted several weeks. Large crowds attended. Evidence given by the six persons removed from Accra by the governor’s order was closely followed. The six detained men employed a British lawyer to fight their ease. As the writing of this article is concluded in June, the Gold Coast awaits the report of the commission.
Africans hope for self-government. Under it, many of them believe, they could erase high prices and selfish profiteering. They could eliminate what they consider police brutality and murder, and could even legislate out of existence Devil-inspired racial discrimination. But could they? What nation on earth today that boasts of self-government, whether it be democratic, communistic, faseistic or monarchial in form, is free from unequal distribution of goods or is totally free of harsh police action or is without the evils of race discrimination? Not one! Fallen man is not capable of ruling himself or others in fairness and equality.—Awake 1 correspondent in Hold Coast.
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Though all spiders are spinners of silk, not all are weavers of the web. There is a large section of spiderland's society that use other methods of trapping their prey. Some hunt and stalk down their game, wolf-fashion, or lie in ambush like members of the cat family. Others build dens in the ground, with cunningly constructed trap doors over the entrances, in which to hide until unsuspecting insects come near enough to be grabbed. Some of the burrowing type of spiders, instead of building a concealed trap door flush with the ground, erect a conning tower or turret about their entrance from which to get a better look of bugland. The purse spider, also a tunnel builder, constructs a long tube above the ground as a special trap for its daily quota of fresh meat. Then,
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creation than the insects, and their anatomy is far more complicated. They are “brainy" little things, have a high degree of intelligence and are able to solve many problems. Some wear camouflaged hunting jackets to hide their presence in the underbrush. Others don wardrobes of bright colors to catch the eye of passing insects. Not having antennae, as insects have, their legs, of which there are eight, serve to keep them in touch with the rest of the world. Some spiders have very long, thin legs to carry them over the ground at high speed, while the legs of others are short and stout to enable them to jump great distances. If a tiger for its size equaled the jumping distance of some spiders, it would leap a quarter of a mile! Those that burrow in the ground have special claws for digging,
Usually spiders are hairy things, and the hairs are a part of their nervous system, They serve as
of touch. The body hairs point toward the head, and hence spiders hang head downward in their webs to shed the rain. All spiders are air-breathers and seme even have a double set of lungs. They also have a heart and circulatory system. With the exception of a eave-dwelling species that is entirely blind, spiders have front two to eight eyes. Their mouths, having no teeth with which to handle solid food, are really sucking mechanisms with which, they squeeze and suck the juice out of victims they have first paralyzed and put to death with poisonous injections from their two fangs called chelicerae. Whether spiders are able to smell is still a question, but some have suggested that the lyriform organs in their legs may serve an olfactory function. The Malpighian vessels take the place of kidneys. Purity of species in the spider family is provided for by the complicated reproductive organs, which differ in design with each species. Of course, the spinning apparatus is the most marvelous part of the spider’s anatomy.
Strange Habits of the Spiders
Those who have made it their business of. spying on spiderland have learned some very interesting things about the eating, living and matrimonial habits of these little creatures. Spiders are meat-eaters, and insects are their chief diet. It is said that for their size they eat more pests than any other consumer of insects. Some prowl around at night an I do their sleeping during the day, but others reverse this practice. Some wander and roam about as vagabonds searching for their food, while others, using more sagacity and the element of surprise, hide in flowers or in pockets of the ground from where they spring out upon their victims. Trap-door spiders dig their claws in the under side of their trap doors and hold them closed until they bear an insect walking by. So powerful is their grip on the door, according to actual measurements, that in proportion to body size a 150-ponnd man would have to lift ten tons to equal it! The jumping spider attaches its Jife-liiie thread to a wall and then leaps into space to catch passing Hies on the wing, after winch it pulls itself back up by reeling in the cord, a feat of gymnastics that no athlete can duplicate.
The bird spider of South America is so speedy on foot th*1* *1 is able t0 eaten birds by running along tree limbs. A water spider once caught a fi-inch garter snake that was 350 times as heavy as itself. The fishing spider, re-ver si ng the age-old met hod of waiting for the fish to bite, dives in the water and does the biting itself. It catches baby catfish many times its own size. While spiders are extremely voracious with an insatiable appetite, they have been known to go without nourishment for as long as eighteen months when kept in captivity. Some species normally live for several years, but the older they grow, the stiffer their lees become with “rheumatism”, until thej' are no longer able to forage for their food and die of starvation.
Xot only a natural Insect control, spiders' ar,e also a control on spiders. If a shortage of insects develops, then spider eats spider, and this way a balance in earth's population cf creeping things is maintained so that neither insects nor spiders dominate the earth.
Courtship and mating is a rather hazardous adventure for the males in the realm of spiderdom. The females are more ferocious and truly the deadlier of the species. They are usually many times as big as their menfolks. Some are a hundred times as big as the males. The mistress of the common garden variety of spider weighs fifty times as much as her mate. So it is net surprising that he looks upon her with fear and dread and is careful lest he make a slip and she gobble him up. Approaching her web with great caution, he may shake the telephone lines with gentle love taps, hoping to hit a responsive chord and open up a.conversation with her. Among those like the jumping spiders that do not build webs, the male sometimes approaches the subject by putting on a song and dance at a safe distance. Waving some of his eight legs sidewise in the air while dancing a jig on the others, he attempts to w’oo the lady of his choice.
The time and manner of laying the eggs varies a great deal with the different species. Some lay their eggs early in the season to give the young time enough to grow before winter sets in. Others lay eggs in the autumn and wrap them up in a silk cocoon for protection until spring. Oftentimes spiders can be identified by the design of their sac or egg basket. One mother wraps her two or three hundred eggs in a glossy ball of down. Another sticks the eggs tightly together and then wraps the mass in several layers of silk, each layer of a different color and texture of cloth. Some spin a web around their sac; others hide their eggs under a dead tree; another carries the egg sac beneath her until hatching time. The wolf spider puts her eggs in a “sack” and drags them along on a string, and then when the young hatch out they climb on mama’s back and are carried around papoose-fashion.
As spiders develop from babyhood to maturity, they molt or shed their outer skin as many as nine times. They actually outgrow their skin, so they cast it off for a new and more flexible one that will allow expansion. With the final inciting the sexual organs reach their final development. Another very interesting thing about this molting process is the fact that if, in the battle for existence during childhood, a limb is lost a new one will bud and begin to grow at the next molting time.
Marvels of Their Spinning
Whereas the silkworm spits its silk out near its mouth and the ant-lion forces its silk out its alimentary canal, the spider’s most complicated silk-producing: organism is located in the caudal end of the abdomen. A single spider spins as many as five different kinds of silk for its various uses, by means of its spinning apparatus, which consists of three pairs of fingerlike spinnerets. In the end of each spinneret there are microscopic openings of as many as a hundred tubes that lead to the silk glands of which there may be several hundred. Like various-shaped nozzles on a water hose, the differentshaped openings or spigots produce various strands of silk. Then, in addition to the half-dozen spinnerets, some spiders secrete silk through another organ, called the cribellum (sieve), which has tiny holes numbering from one thousand to nearly ten thousand.
When it comes to spinning yarns, the spiders are no jokers. On their 25,000 different kinds of looms they turn out fabrics of exquisite beauty and great utility. So fine, yet strong, is spider silk that nothing has been found that equals it for the crosshairs of gun and bomb sights, range finders and optical instruments. One type of silk, known as the dragline, is put out when the spider drops from its perch or lays the foundation cables around the perimeter of its web. It is made up of only a few extralarge threads. Attachment discs used to attach and hold the dragline threads in place are made of a different type of silk. The swathing band or film is another type used by the orb-w’eaving spiders to wrap up their victims after capture. Then, there are sticky, viscid threads that make up the spirals of the web. These are composed of very flexible threads upon which are placed tiny droplets of a sticky mucilage. Hackle bands is another type of spider yarn, and still another type is used for weaving the egg baskets.
Silk for snaring the prey, silk for egg sacs, silk for making shelters, silk for the draglines, and lifelines, is really wonder-stuff of nature. Chemically, it is albumen, and it is so light that an ounce of webbing measures 3,000 miles in length! Somehow spiders know that this lightness and strength combine to make an ideal aviation material, and so it is not unusual to see these ingenious aviators mount a fence post or tree, spin out a long dragline, and jump into space. Putting all their trust in a single thread, they sail through the air with the greatest of ease on the wings of summer breezes. By this means of aerial navigation spiders have landed on ships hundreds of miles at sea. Like seeds, young spiderlings use this means of travel “to see the world”. Sometimes, when thousands of them take to the air on a summer evening a down draft of wind will spread them over the countryside so that in the morning fields look like seas of gossamer and hedges seem wrapped in sheets of gauze, the remains of their abandoned thread parachutes or gliders.
TVe&-Weaving at Its Best
The orb web, those super masterpieces in geometrical design, are a scientific and engineering marvel both in accuracy of angles and precision of distances between the strands. Watch these ingenious creatures as they go about constructing one of their lacy webs in midair, perhaps spreading it between two trees that are rooted on opposite sides of a brook. First they lower themselves on a long dragline and let the wind swing them over to the other side, where they anchor the cord to form the bridge. Walking back and forth over it as a trapeze artist, they strengthen the original strand with more spider wire. ISext they fasten silk cables or foundation lines in place to form a rectangular area in which the orb will be hung. By dropping a perpendicular line through the center and then spotting the hub they next string out the radii threads that form the spokes of their orb. One by one they start these from the center, and, walking out so many paces to fix the proper angle, they fasten them to the outer perimeter. The center is next strengthened by a half-dozen turns of silk. So far these threads are all dry and can he walked on without getting stuck up. In the final operation of laying down the sticky spiral they always begin at the outside and work toward the center.
Most spiders love to live alone, build their own nests and mind their own business, Hence, they construct various types of webs to catch particular insects that suit their own taste. There are sheet webs, funnel webs, hammock and bowl webs, dome webs, and doily webs, regular and irregular. Some are hung vertically, others horizontally; some are placed close to the ground, others high in the trees: some are hung in the shade, others in the bright sunshine. One group of commensal spiders in South America makes an exception to the general rule and lives in large colonies like ants, in which thousands of them will build a single web, perhaps fifteen feet high, and share the spoil among them.
It seems to he instinctive for man to he repelled by spiders. And yet spiders are among man’s most valuable friends. They constantly feed on grasshoppers, plant lice and roaches that, if left to multiply withou* cheek, would soon supplant the whole human race. Moreover, spiders are very timid things and their only though* when approached by huge monsters like men is to escape. They are practically harmless, with the exception of a few, like the- famous black widow spider, the tarantula, the banana spider, and other tropical species, whose bite is more or less dangerous. Even these will bite only in self-defense or defense of their young or if provoked long enough. You mind your business and they will mind theirs; and their business is working for your interests.
The Body’s Outer Covering
THE outermost boundary of the living organism, the perimeter of the individual, the limit beyond which we can neither flee nor escape, is our skin. With it one comes in contact with the rest of the world, for good or for evil. “Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh/’ declared Job. Not only
does the skin offer protection from many harmful things but it also regulates the body heat, removes body waste, and serves as a sense-organ by and through which impressions and stimuli are received.
Touch your skin. Feel how smooth and soft it is, how supple and movable it is, yet how firmly it is attached to the flesh beneath. Notice how perfectly it is joined to the delicate membranes around the eyes, ears, nose and. other orifices of the body. Note the difference in its various surface textures. The calluses on the soles of the feet differ from the tenderness of the cheeks and lips, and the toughness of the palms of the hands is unlike the elasticity of the eyelids. Probe deeper than the surface, with the aid of a microscope, and see how complex its amazing, nerve, blood-vessel and glandular systems work. If one loses more than a third of the skin the chances of living are very slim. This is because the human skin is an organ of the body, the largest and one of the most important qrgans we have.
Technically man’s armor-p 1 a t i n g of skin is limited to the cellular layers of tissue, together with their blood vessels and nerve endings, that cover over the body’s flesh. It is made up of three layers: the hypoderm, or subcutaneous tissue,, the deepest layer; the corium, called also the derma or cutis, and which is the true skin; and the top layer, called the epidermis, which is otherwise knowm as the cuticle or scarfskin. The fingernails and toenails, hair, hair-follicles; sweat glands and sebaceous glands, though closely associated, are properly spoken of as appendages of the skin.
VERTICAL SECTION OF THE SKIN
The hypoderm, serving as the bond between the flesh and the true skin or corium, is composed of a network of interlacing fibers in which masses of fat are lodged that give the full and smooth texture to the skin of a well-nourished body. During sickness and old age this fat disappears and wrinkling of the skin, results. It is therefore apparent that the quack preparations sold to the gullible public for the removal of wrinkles are a hoax, because they attempt to accomplish the impossible thing of restoring fat in the hypoderm by application to the skin’s outer surface. There is also, a wetwevk of nerves and special nerve-endings woven into the hypo-derm, and the deep hair follicles, certain blood vessels, and the lymphatic and sweat glands also reach down into this layer.
The middle layer, or true skin, called the corium or derma, is constructed of fibrous and elastic tissues that 'give support to the hair, nerve endings and glands. A closer look at the corium under the microscope shows that it really is subdivided into bottom and top sections, the top containing thousands’ of tiny prolongations, called papillae, that project upward into the lower part of the epidermis. Have you ever wondered about the markings of the skin that leave the individual tell-tale fingerprints? They are traced to the papillae. These number about 64,000 to the square inch, on the average, and over most of the body they are more or less evenly distributed. But on the toes and fingers the papillae occur in rows with furrows between them, and this causes the characteristic ridges and grooves that have solved many a criminal mystery. The papillae are also provided with different types of nerve endings, and these vary in different parts of the skin.
The skin’s third or outer layer, called the epidermis, when viewed under the microscope is shown to have four distinct strata. The outer or immediate surface that takes the beating from the outside world, is made up of flat cells that provide a rather dry and horny surface. The lowest stratum of the epidermis contains the fixed pigments that give the skin its racial and individual color. One of the two layers between this lower stratum of pigment and the surface of the epidermis is a stratum of granular cells that mask over to a certain degree both the pigment colors and the red of the blood vessels. Were it not for a thick layer of such granules the white man would appear pink, like his lips, where the granular layer is lacking.
Nerve and Pore Systems of the Skin
Imbedded in the skin is one of man’s most useful possessions, the sense of touch, by which he is able to get a feel of the world and through which many kinds of sensations are perceived. The sense of pressure, the sense of temperature, and the sense of locality, the latter being the ability to determine the shape of objects, are registered by several types of nerve endings working separately or together. This much is known. How they perform their function is still a mighty mystery.
Pain, for example, is considered by some as an overstimulation of the sensory fibers; by others, it is believed to be registered by special nerve endings. Women are said to be one-tenth less sensitive to pain than men. One of the strangest cases, one of the four or five known cases of history, recently came to light where a one-year-old baby girl feels absolutely no pain, even when jabbed with a needle or burned with a red-hot poker. Due to a defective development somewhere along the nervous system she will grow up to be a painless patient in the dentist chair. Besides the sensation of pain the feeling of tickling, itching, creeping and burning, and of hot and ■cold, are registered in the mind through the nerve endings in the skin.
There is no man-made thermostat-controlled or air-cooled machine that is as efficient, smooth-operating and needing less attention than the pore system of the human body. In actual tests the body is able to withstand temperatures up to 262° Fahrenheit. How the skin works when the body becomes too warm is very interesting. First, the heat excites the vasomotor nerves, which then cause the blood vessels in the skin to become dilated. This brings more blood to the surface, where it gives up some of its heat by radiation. The increased amount of blood also stimulates the sweat glands, and moisture is forced to the surface through the pores, which, when it evaporates, cools the blood further. On the other hand, when it is cold the vasomotor nerves cause the blood vessels to contract and the amount of blood is diminished, the sweat glands are checked, evaporation is stopped, and body heat is conserved.
Ripley, of “Believe It or Not” fame, tells of a boy who was born without sweat glands and had to spend the summer months submerged in water to keep cool. An interesting discovery was made at Harvard a few years ago when it was learned that the skin temperature of women is cooler than that of men. On the average, women’s hands and'feet are five degrees cooler, their arms four degrees cooler, their heads and legs three degrees cooler, and their trunks one-half degree cooler than that of a man.
Perspiration is 99 percent water, the remainder being mineral salts and complex fatty substances that are either acid or alkaline. Under normal conditions the body gives off about one and a half pints of moisture every 24 hours, but over-stimulation of the emotional constitution, or certain drugs or muscular activity or an increase in the external temperature, will greatly increase the perspiration. At 220° F. the loss amounts to about an ounce a minute, which is over sixty times the normal rate. So often the erroneous expression is heard to the effect that the skin “breathes”. Though it actually gives off some carbonic acid gas and absorbs minute quantities of oxygen this exchange is so small compared with that of the lungs that it is practically insignificant. As for absorption of liquids and poisons through the skin, this is practically nil except where the outer horny layer of corneum is damaged. '
Besides the sweat glands, also called sudoriferous .glands, the skin is equipped with oil or sebaceous glands. Whereas the sweat glands are mostly located in the hypoderm, the oil glands are found in the middle layer of the skin, usually with the hair follicles, but also on surfaces like the lips where hair is lacking. Tiny muscles in the skin force the oil or sebum, obtained from a chemical breakdown of the fats, to the surface, where as an unction it lubricates the skin and keeps it from sealing and peeling. The same muscles that control the oil glands are also responsible for the “goose flesh” experienced when cold, or the hair standing on end when fearful or excited. An example of a special service performed by the oil glands is observed along the edges of the lower eyelids. Based on the principle that oil and water repel each other, the constant oil film along the edge of the lid forces the tears and other liquids of the eye to flow to the corner and thence down along the nose rather than straight down the cheek.
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