Awake!, October 22, 1948
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HUMANITY AT THE CROSSROADS
Appalling plight into which sixty centuries of religion, politics and commerce has dumped the world
China’s Tottering Economy
Propped up by American aid and by currency reform
What About Painless Childbirth?
Variety of methods, with variety of consequences
Crows,
Shrewd Rascals with Big Hearts
Praised by some, cursed by more, he’s not as black as he’s painted
OCTOBER 22, 1948 semimonthly
THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL
News sources that are able to keep you awoke -to the vital issues of our times must be unfettered by censcz’Uiip and selfish interests, “Awake!” has no fetters. H recognises facts, faces facts, is free to publish facta. It is not bound by poutival ambitions or obligations; It is unhampered by advertisers whose toes must not be trodden on; it is unprejudiced by traditional creeds- This journal keeps itself free that it may apeak freely to you. But it does not abuse its freedom. It maintains integrity to truth.
“Awake!” uses the regular news channels, but is not dependent on them. Its own correspondents are on all continents, in scores of nations. From, the four corners of the earth their uncen sored, ©n-the-scenes reports come to you through these columns. This journals viewpoint is not narrow, but is international. It is read in many nations, in. many languages, by persons of all ages. Through Its pages many fields of knowledge pass in review—government, commerce, religion, history, geography, science, Social wndi Lions, Patwral x venders—wJy, xte coverage is as br oad as the earth and as high as the heavens.
“Awake!" pledges itself to righteous principles, io exposing hidden foes and subtle clangers, to championing freedom for all, to comforting mourners and strengthening those disheartened by th© failures of a delinquent world, reflecting fjure hope for the establishment of a righteous N«w World.
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CONTENTS
Humanity nt the Crossroads
Stupendous Divisive Torres
Distress of Nations
Degradation of Democracy
Religion No UniHur
Chinn’s Tottering Economy
New7 Currency Reform Plan
Staggering Under the War Load
Tax Evasion
Dangers of Blood Trau ^fusion
Gum-Chewing, Vice or Virtual
Prom Jungle to Candy Counter
Religions Notes,
What About Painless Childbirth!
Dopesj Drugs and Anesthetics
Crows, Shrewd Ruseals with Hijj Hearts 20
The Amueing Side of Cniws
Community Life in Crowdom
Cat-and-Ca.nury Murders
•“Thy Word Is Trutfc"
W by Mu st M essiah Die Be fore Hie Glory ! 25
Speak to Be Understriod
Gilead’s Twelfth Class
Watching the World
/AWAKE!/
©’“Now it is high time to awake.— Romans 13:1191
Volume XXIX
Brooklyn, N. Y.t October 22, 1948
Number 20
HUMANITY AT THE CROSSROADS
r I '’HIS postwar world looks fearfully to-I ward the storms of political crisis that hang black and heavy over the international horizon. The wise men of Christendom cry "peace, peace!” when there is no peace, and the sound of their voices goes out to an embittered world and comes back to mock them when all their fine words and bright promises return unto them void. The bitter cries of the discontented masses rise from every land under heaven, and all the fond hopes for the ‘brave new world’ to be fashioned by men’s hands have been dashed to the ground; while hundreds of millions of disillusioned peoples harden their hearts and gnash their teeth at this colossal failure of human government in this stricken generation.
For three years now the scarred, crippled nations have been trying to bind up their terrible wounds, erase the horrible memories of war, and seek a future of stability, prosperity, and peace. But the tremendous repercussions of this atomic age have driven men into frenzied apprehension of the fearful things they see coming upon the earth. World leaders no longer sit in their ivory towers with serene smiles and folded hands, secure in their splendid isolation. Seeing the unmistakable signs of world chaos, and frantic with fear of the dark specter of world-wide anarchy, they cry out in desperation :
‘Gather yourselves together, you bewildered peoples of the earth. The foundations of Christian civilization must not crumble. The human race must not annihilate itself. With the fate of mankind hanging in the balance, now is the time to hasten with your tribute and lay them at the feet of the greatest idol man has ever reared in all his history—this United Nations organization. Place your trust and your hopes in it, even for generations yet unborn. Give this idol your moral, your intellectual, your financial and political support. Let this United States of the World be the crowning achievement in the history of civilization. It is our last chance, our only hope for peace.1
Ravages of War
As men listen to that clarion call to inter-faith action and political unity for self-preservation, the terrible happenings of the recent past burn in their memories. For men remember that in the twenty-year prolonged armistice that followed World War I human rights were swept aside under the violent upheaval of international depressions, disharmony, disagreement, and civil wars that spawned so many ruthless dictators. Human life was the cheapest commodity on the market. Small nations were sacrificed and sold into slavery on the auction block of international diplomacy to feed the insatiable greed of the power-hungry Big States, until the peoples of earth were split apart politically and socially, and the giant conflagration of a second world war became a titanic struggle for the survival of the fittest in the gore of battlefields stretching around the earth.
All thjs was visited upon mankind because. the nations were divided within and among themselves; they could not trust each other; they could not live together as peaceful neighbors. Economic oppression bore heavily on the backs of the whole groaning human creation, and men cried for deliverance from the religious intolerance and political terrorism .that reigned in. the earth. All nations were racked with suspicion, criminal intent and conspiracy, which within one generation* raised up a convulsive whirlwind of political and social revolution that threw class against class, nation against nation, continent against continent. Great cities were gutted and pounded info the face of the earth. Bombs rained from the skies upon defenseless men, women, and children. Millions poured out their lifeblood to defend and preserve their way of life. But that was only the beginning of sorrows. Five hundred million people are today foraging for food like wild beasts; and disease, the silent killer, rising from the ruins of war and in the wake of international famine and malnutrition, is taking a devastating toll of human life.
The war seems to have settled nothing. The victors are as disorganized as the vanquished, and erstwhile allies quarreling over the spoils and the plunder threaten to blow each other to bits in a suicidal third world war. The poison pens of propaganda are today more decisive than the bloody weapons of war, while the human race sinks still deeper in the muck and mire of its appalling ignorance of the great signs of the times. Day by day the forces of evil grow worse, and the blind follow the blind wheresoever the promptings of the moment lead them.
Sd it is that all mankind has come to the fateful hour of decision. Humanity is at the crossroads from which there is no turning back. Tiine is swiftly running out, and the question of world unity, the vital-'need for it, day and night racks the brains of the religious prophets, political master-minds, and commercial overlords of the earth. Indubitably, -the day for choosing is here. But frantic men know not which way logo, and they continue to grope blindly in. indecision and perplexity, trying to pierce the future and accurately determine the shape of things to come. And while they ponder their “■‘rendezvous with destiny”, many are the roads that lead off into the gross darkness that enshrouds the whole earth; each with its own insistent propaganda, its panaceas, its familiar signposts.
Here at the crossroads to which sixty centuries of religion, politics and commerce has brought them, the desperate peoples of the world look hopefully to the 58 nations of the United Nations that are bound together in a solemn covenant to outlaw war and insure lasting peace and domestic tranquillity within and among all the countries of the earth. But fervent hope is mingled with doubt and suspicion. People arc asking questions when the utter futility of all human effort toward international security and peace is so shockingly demonstrated in failure after failure.
Stupendous Divisive Forces
What can be done about the centuries-old political, social and ethical traditions of nations that divide country against country? Specifically, what can be done about the great barriers of language, religious differences, and social customs, yes, even the inborn racial instincts and characteristics that separate mankind into classes and castes, throwing race against race in‘open antagonism? What can be done about the four hundred million people of India and Pakistan that are dangerously restless, conspiring, filled with the venom of racial hatred and religious intolerance, and on the verge of communal riots and fratricidal war that could drench that subcontinent in blood? What can be done about the battered people of China, five hundred million exploited human creatures, politically divided between the Communist juggernaut and the crushing tyranny of Fascist Chiang Kai-shek?
What can be done about 1,300,000,000 persons in Asia and Africa, generation after generation living as beggars, for centuries, indescribably poverty-stricken, hundreds of millions of these people in chattel slavery, and divided against each other in violent confusion over countless forms of pagan religious worship—religious forces loaded with a greater potential danger to world peace than all political factions combined? What can be done about the caste system that elevates one class far above the other in India, Burma, China, Japan, other parts of the Far East, and the Pacific isles?
Consider the seething caldron that is Europe today, five hundred million people divided among contending nationalistic governments and hostile factions, where intrigue in high places, sly diplomacy in foreign offices, espionage and rabid revolutionary elements threaten to explode the powder keg mislabeled “Western Civilization”. Western Europe professedly crusades for world peace, but the unerring facts of history condemn its peace-making powers. It is saturated with those reactionary elements, political and religious, that sold out to the Nazis and Fascists during World War II; reactionary elements whose philosophy is that a master class is predestined to rule over & slave class and take the fruits of other men’s labor.
Now ponder still another cause of world perplexity and distress. This war-gutted earth is honeycombed with hundreds of church systems claiming millions of members. Look at the hundreds of millions of Shintoists, Taoists, Confucians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Moslems. They comprise more than half the OCTOBER 22, 1948 human race. Look at the Jews divided among Orthodox, Reform, and Karaite Judaism. Look at the two major divisions in the Catholic church system: 340,000,000 Roman Catholics religiously and politically opposed to 128,000,000 Eastern Orthodox Catholics, and vice versa. Look at the senseless confusion in haphazard Protestantism, In the United States alone there are 256 different religious denominations, each claiming to be the true church. Not only are these hundreds of different religious systems— Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and heathen-divided in teaching, doctrine, and ritual, but the laity, yes, even fellow members of the same “church” are also divided in politics, divided over domestic and international issues, divided between the opposing claims of Capital and Labor, divided over Fascism, divided over Communism, divided over Democracy, divided in war, divided in peace. And in actual practice they worship literally hundreds of conflicting “gods”.
t The misnamed “Christian” churches, like their heathen kin, have never hesitated to divide themselves over political differences between.,their respective nations, even to the extent of slaughtering each other on the battlefields of the world. Thus have they demonstrated to all mankind that their allegiance to the kingdoms of this world is far stronger than their much professed love for God and Christ.
Distress of Nations
Of the major powers now setting themselves to the brain-racking work of maintaining at least a modicum of peace, the political, military and revolutionary forces of Communist Russia are straddling the continent of Europe, and 192,-000,000 Russians labor under the ominous shadow of the Kremlin. Ninety million people in eastern Europe languish in the mammoth police state of Soviet power, and Russian communism has extended its political and economic hegemony over Poland, eastern Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Yugoslavia, and Albania. The Bolshevists are steadily gaining strength in Spain, Italy, France, and Greece; they are awaiting the propitious moment to rise up with crushing power and declare themselves the masters of all Europe.
We see in England a country politically created from the blueprint of the Protestant Reformation of four centuries ago; the same England that has stood for four hundred years as the bastion against Roman Catholic control of the earth. But it is an England now weakened from the ravages of war, battle-scarred, and writhing in the throes of internal unrest. It is an England envious of the overshadowing influence of America; an England attempting to retrieve its world balance of power, but forced to relinquish the political dominance of its great dominions sprawled over the face of the earth. The British Empire, mightiest in human history, is shrinking; and the great contending forces of the United States and Russia are rushing to fill the vacuum in the mad race to world supremacy.
We behold in France a nation humiliated by the armies of Catholic Hitler; a nation rife with sedition, torn by political dissension, pressed between the militant Communists and the intransigent Fascists. Here is a country betrayed to the Nazis eight years ago by the French Catholic Hierarchy and their political minions, including Catholic Marshal Petain and Jesuit Marshal Weygand. Here is a divided nation whose own military, political and religious leaders treasonably turned against their fellow countrymen, capitulated to the Germans, and thereafter willingly and willfully deported hundreds of thousands of the common people of France to toil in the Nazi slave-labor camps. Here is a country scourged for centuries in the bloody battles for supremacy between Catholic and Protestant forces, and the same hatred and viciousness still rankles in the breasts of Frenchmen on both sides, even though for the present time such feeling is forcibly restrained.
Turning to the Western Hemisphere, we see the United States towering as the colossus of the Americas, and widely advertised as the “arsenal of democracy”, the land where liberty enlightens the world’, the last hope and great defender of the rights and dignity of man against the barbarism of godless Communism and international anarchy’, "the land of the free and the home of the brave.” But in too many cases these boastful claims do not agree with the uncompromising facts.
Degradation of Democracy
Everywhere one looks in America there is greed and oppression. Vast numbers of the younger generation are fast becoming juvenile delinquents. Terrible slums are eating out the heart of the greatest cities in the land. Half the people in the United States do not enjoy decent standards of living. One-third of the people are ill-fed, ill-housed, and ill-clothed. Millions of the colored race and “poor whites” are in virtual peonage, eking out a miserable existence all the days of their lives. The cost of living has soared to the highest point in the history of America, far outstripping the best wages of the laboring man. All over this country there are strikes and rumors of strikes. The labor unions are split politically.
The third party movement of Henry Wallace, trying to bring in “the century of the common hian”,1 threatens to send Harry Truman back to Missouri, and to elect a Republican president. The president shouts that the Eightieth Congress is the ‘worst in history’, and members of that Congress retaliate by branding Truman the ‘worst president’. The emissaries of Wall Street and Big Business, in an unholy coalition with military leaders and the American Catholic Hierarchy, are determining the foreign policy of America for “the little man in the big chair”, who vacillates between interminable fiascos. The Red demons of Bolshevism strike such terror in the jittery hearts and send so many cold chills down the spines of Congressional committees investigating un-American activities that even a youthful peddler of pink lemonade is a likely suspect for the Thomas Inquisition.
Senile “elder statesmen”, aided and abetted by armchair strategists and the loud-mouthed element of the American Legionnaires, whisper sagely in Truman’s ear that the way to preserve peace is to prepare for war. So, the American government in its cohtradictory policies spends billions for European aid ostensibly to keep the peace, but at the same time a vastly greater sum will be expended in preparation for war. But the Truman administration does not share the blame alone. The Republican party has done everything in its power to whip the common people into a frenzy over the Communist bogey. The Eightieth Congress, dominated by the Republicans, has in some instances been even more war-minded than Truman. They know that whoever shouts the most against Communism is certain to attract the Catholic vote, and become also the hired puppet of Big Business. It should be remembered that Republicans in the national House of Representatives recently voted overwhelmingly to give economic aid to Franco Fascist Spain, and it was only the weight of public opinion that forced them to recant.
So this is the appalling degradation of democracy at this most critical hour in-its history. Willful political leaders of the democratic nations, jockeying for power, are buying the Catholic Hierarchy’s favor at the price of human liberty; and they are aided by a supine Protestantism that has lost the moral courage to protest unitedly against the desecration of democratic ideals, the unofficial union Of church and state, the undermining of democracy under the deceiving guise of an anti-Communist world propaganda. The astute papacy, working with the active support of an anemic world press too well bought and too cowardly to expose the international Catholic Fifth Column, now makes bold to come out in the open and spark a Western world “holy war” against the East. Ironically, the democratic nations are being used by the Catholic Hierarchy to supply the strong arm of power for a crusade which has as its final objective the destruction of democracy everywhere.
Now weigh the evidence. The mightiest of the member nations of the U. N. —America, Russia, Britain, France—> themselves rent by civil strife, and politically, religiously and socially divided within and among themselves, must take the lead in the global work of world unity. It is living proof that man is totally unable to underwrite the peace and bring about a United world.
Religion No Unifier
Now comes the Roman Catholic Church proclaiming herself the fount of “Christian civilization”, the caretaker of the traditions of the Western world, the great peacemaker, the protector and champion of the common man. But as . you listen to the siren song of this religious singer who croons sweetly of herself as the guardian of peace, the beloved of God, and the one source of unity in the earth, just look behind her pious pretensions and see the bald facts that brand her as the most prolific‘falsifier in human history. Look at the divisions and the misery in the lands where she has ruled. Look at the political and religious support she gave Catholic Hitler, Catholic Mussolini, Catholic Franco, and Catholic Petain. Look at starving Italy under its present Catholic leadership masquerading under the misnomer “Christian Democrats”; a Catholic leadership whom the United States has taken to its bosom to mother and protect them from the rampaging Reds.
In recent years the Catholic Church has warned Protestant missionaries to stay out of South America. She wishes to keep it a Catholic domain, where for generations the nations have been torn ay civil wars, Catholic butchering Catholic, assassination following assassination. In these South American countries, as in the benighted lands of Spain and Poland, the big Catholic prelates and nuncios hand in hand with feudalistic landlords and industrialists have shoved the faces of the common people in the dust, worked them like brute beasts, and have taken to themselves the fruits of the unrequited toil of the laboring man, until the groaning masses rue the day they were born into the human race.
But that is not all; not by any means. Some 340,000,000 Roman Catholics in five continents have been arrayed against each other in two world wars. German Catholics have marched to the battlefields to kill American Catholics, who retaliated in the same bloody fashion. Italian Catholics have fought against, then with, and once more against Ger-' man Catholics. French Catholics warred against German and Italian Catholics. Millions of other European Catholics divided themselves into warring factions and ranged themselves on both sides in both world wqrs, slaughtering each other without pity or remorse. But, at the same time, they all paid homage to the Roman Catholic Church—the very ehurch that in the face of such violent disunity among her own subjects still has the unmitigated gall to pose before the nations as the sweet keeper of peace whose own house is in perfect order!
With all this, it is an appalling spectacle to behold the mighty nations*that claim to be “Christian” staggering drunkenly from one experimental political binge to another, trying to drown their sorrows with a blended brew of politics and religion, trying to f orget the blood and the carnage of two world wars that erupted within one generation; Look at demoralized Christendom wallowing in the slime of her own’ religious pollutions, and caught in a miasma of crooked politics that stink to high heaven. Truly, she wears the smell of death; she is diseased and full of sores from the virulent social ills that afflict her, and the wisest fools in politics, commerce and religion can not heal her, nor wash away her bloodstains, nor soothe her tortured conscience that screams in this nighttime of trouble, confessing her guilt in the millions of her people that she has sent to the slaughter pits of the world in the name of the “Christian religion”.
Now that the mighty upsurge of Communism is convulsing the world; now that the spasms of postwar readjustment have seized the nations with an agony of social travail and abortive political schemes, bewildered mankind cries for “more religion” to sponge out the horrors of the past and the sufferings of the present. The people plead for religion as a sedative for the screaming nerves. They beg for it to palliate the mind plagued with guilt, in the same way and for the same reason that a drug addict must have his dope to make himself de-, liriously oblivious of the sordid world in * which he lives, to let him escape the harsh realities of his miserable life.
But persons of good-will who see democracy dying in the earth ean make a momentous choice as they stand at the fateful crossroads, facing the inevitable hour of decision. There is a way of escape. Not decayed religion, but true Christianity. Hearken to the ancient prophecy from Jehovah God that points to the final end of this world:
“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed . , . but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” (Daniel 2:44)—Contributed.
WAR and prosperity seldom go hand in hand, as is evidenced in the case of China. Fighting a seemingly endless war with Communists has drained away the prosperity of the nation, until today China is facing economic collapse. Many nations are watching the deteriorating condition in China and they are anxious that there should be no collapse, because such would almost certainly be followed by complete Communist domination of China and eventually the whole of the far east of Asia. Such a possibility has prompted the United States to extend aid. to the national government so that it can continue its fight against the Communists with the hope ultimately of complete victory.
The China Aid Agreement was signed between the two countries in Nanking on July 3, 1948. The aim of the agreement is stated as “to help the speedy achievement of internal peace and economic stability in China”. The total amount of the aid is $400,000,000, of which $275,-000,000 is for economic assistance and $125,000,000 for military purposes. These sums will not be repaid by China, but are provided in the nature of a gift. The whole of the aid fund is to be used during the period from April 3, 1948, to April 3, 1949.
According to the terms of the agreement, China in turn is obligated to take full measures to stabilize her currency, to make full use of assets in the United States belonging to Chinese nationals, and to co-ordinate her own effort with the aid program by promoting home production and the improvement of foreign trade. Hence, in effect, the agreement calls for maximum of self-help on the part of China plus American aid.
Propped Up by American Aid and by Currency Reform
It is on the point of self-help that the Chinese government has been woefully lax in the past. The present plight of China is largely due to inefficiency, looseness and corruption in the handling of the national affairs, and no real effort has been made to remedy the worsening economic and military situation. Consequently there is much skepticism over the national government’s ability to apply the new aid funds efficiently and honestly. Confidence is lacking in the government’s willingness to make and carry out plans for selfhelp, and it is realized that without planned government action the aid will accomplish no real good and. will be wasted.
New Currency Reform Plan
. However, on August 20,1948, the National government took a bold, business-like-step and announced a new currency reform plan, the most thoroughgoing plan China has made in the past decade. The plan provides for a new currency called “Gold Yuan”, to replace the old National currency, which had depreciated to such an extent as to become worthless. The conversion of the old currency to the new is‘set at CN$3,000,000 to GY$1, and the foreign exchange rate is to be set at GY$4 to US$1.
Additionally, the 'reform measure calls for the surrender of the large amount of foreign currency and gold held by private individuals, in exchange for the new gold yuan notes. All foreign assets of Chinese nationals must be registered
with the government, so that this wealth now lying in foreign banks may be utilized for the national effort. Figuring that their wealth would not last long if left in China, the rich have transferred approximately US$500,000,000 to United States banks, and so far the National government has failed to get its fingers upon the cash, or even precise information about it. Now by law these assets must be registered.
The new reform measures came as a surprise, since few people credited the national government with possessing such initiative. Reaction varied from mild optimism to unconcealed skepticism, and the general view seemed to be that the plan looked good in theory, but will the government see to it that the plan works in actual practice?
China’s currency inflation is the, highest of any nation on earth, and it has been brought about largely because of the civil war. China cannot pay for such a long, costly war. Her expenditure is always very much in excess of her receipts m taxes, etc.; hence China is never “ able to balance the national budget. The national government has resorted to the use of the printing presses to print more paper money to pay her way. In this way China has paid her soldiers and civil servants and bought her materials, but only at the cost of a terrific flood 'of paper money which has been losing value daily, until at this writing CN$12,000,000 is equal to one United States dollar.
Obviously, to halt China’s inflation it is essential to stop printing any more paper money. Means must be found to increase revenue so that the budget can be balanced in a regular manner. Under the aid program the national government will receive very large quantities of goods which it will sell on the home and foreign markets, and some of the cash received will go toward balancing the budget. Additionally, a thorough reform must be made in the assessment and collecting of taxes, which at the present time are ridiculously small. If these points are handled wisely, and the new currency stabilized, then all commitments wifi be met without having to print more money, and an effective brake will have been put on the inflation, and a way. opened toward better economic conditions.
The question now in the minds of the people is, Will the new currency remain stable in value, or devalue like the old? The government gives assurance that the paper gold yuan note will have a 100-percent backing of gold. But people who have foreign currency and gold are hesitant to part with it in exchange for the new gold yuan because they are not too sure in their mind that this backing really does exist. If they once change all their wealth into the new notes and then there is a devaluation, then it would reduce them to poverty and ruin. The matter of the people’s co-operation with the government in the new currency measures. is highly important to its success, and it depends solely on how the government pegs down the gold yuan. The people must believe that the new money is worth possessing. In the past the national currency has been considered more or less as a joke because of its inflation, but now the gold yuan must be made respectable.
Staggering Under the War Load
American aid of US$125,000,000 to “help the speedy achievement of internal peace” will enable the Chinese government to purchase equipment abroad, but it will etill leave the nation the great burden of financing the war. China possesses a very large and costly army which has been losing the war with the Communists. During the past year the army has lost the initiative to the Communists, and now they are spread out and glued down in defense against a determined and aggressive enemy. This ineffective army is by far the largest drain on the national treasury, and, until the
war is over and the army demobilized, China cannot hope for prosperity,
A large part of the Chinese army exists on the pay rolls only, and these help to boost up the salaries of the generals. Of the soldiers who actually'exist, only a small percentage can be classified as effective fighting personnel. Militarily as well as financially the army will remain a liability unless there are drastic reforms, especially in a nose-counting method of pay, and in giving the soldiers better training, better pay and better all-round conditions. Until there is reform, American aid will fail to turn the tide of the war and will be just wasted, probably ending up in the hands of the Communists.
To put into effect all these reform programs is probably the most difficult task of all in China. There is a crying need for reform from the top of the nation to the bottom. In the government, selfish cliques have always bitterly resisted honest reform measures, . their idea of reform being the elimination of their opposing clique. In the army generals acting more like warlords have been a law unto themselves. Of the 35 provinces in China, at least 26 have military men as governors, and these hold practically dictatorial powers in their province above the civil officers. The number of civil servants is much higher than need be, and practically all are underpaid; hence, in order to live, they turn to dishonest methods and graft. Reform would mean fewer civil servants and better pay. Then, no doubt, there would be more efficiency and less corruption.
Tax Evasion
On the matter of tax collection, it is an open secret that there is widespread laxity, dishonesty and fraud in the coU lection of practically every item of taxation, with the possible exception of the customs levy. It is estimated, that the Chinese government does not collect more than 10, percent of the taxes legally due. There is seldom a Chinese business firm that does not in one way or another evade business and income taxes, and the same is true of personal income taxes, and yet all taxes are assessed unusually low. Consequently, the national treasury is always broke, while the rich find living very cheap. Self-help calls for an overhaul of the question of taxation and the methods of collecting taxes. Full and prompt payment of taxes is a reasonable requirement, when one considers the poor state of the'nation.
Today the rich and middle classes are quite indifferent to the country’s problems. The .manner in which reasonable taxes are evaded shows a complete lack of interest in the welfare of the nation. While millions of poor, destitute people are living under the worst conditions of poverty and misery, multimillionaires fight to evade even a low taxation.
And yet the government policy appears to favor the rich. Government subsidies make for cheaper living for the people with the money. For instance, airlines are subsidized which enable the well-to-do to fly from Shanghai to Nanking for the equivalent of one American dollar. Those with the money can still enjoy their cars, and get unlimited supply of cheap gasoline. Luxuries are still available despite halfhearted measures to restrict some goods. The way of life of the average person in Shanghai compares much more favorably than that of the people of London. Whereas an egg for breakfast in London is considered somewhat of a luxury, in Shanghai, if you have the money, you can buy all the eggs you desire; you can even have caviar for breakfast if you desire. Also, the Shanghailander is not restricted by food rationing in order to save foreign currency; lie can get the most sumptuous and wasteful meal in the world any day of the week.
In an effort to make the rich pay a little toward the country’s welfare, a “soak-the-rich” tax has been put into operation in the large cities. But it has been like squeezing milk from a cocoa-nut The method adopted has been to list all the big firms and rich individuals, and to assess a figure of taxation against them. However, the law does not compel them to pay up. They are first asked to pay; and failing, they are pressed, then threatened with public blacklisting by having their names put in the local press. Under such pressure they mostly pay up, but generally not completely.
For Shanghai the quota tax for the period ending August 31, 1948, was CN$8.5 trillion, but only CN$4 trillion was expected to be paid. Tientsin was the only city to collect its full quota of CN$230,000,000,000, a mere US$23,000, and this only after tw6 months of “persuasion”. At first every person involved requested a reduction; but the authorities countered by sending three jeeps full of soldiers and police to visit every one. This show of force with the threat of public blacklisting brought results.
However, it may be that the rich would be more willing to pay up if they were confident their contributions would be used for the national good, and not just to line the pockets of unscrupulous persons. But one cannot help but see in this tax evasion a sample of the nationwide lack of public-spiritedness.
Within the period ending April 3, 1949, all the present aid fund will have been used. During that time all proper steps must be taken by the Chinese themselves in conjunction with the aid. It may well be that the next half year will decide the fate of China one way or the other. The present measures of currency reform and the utilization of all assets constitute a good, sensible step in the right direction. Now the question is , whether these measures will be consistently followed up, honestly and vigorously, and as to whether the gold yuan will be genuinely protected against devaluation. Judging by past measures of a similar nature taken by the national government, one could only be deeply pessimistic about the results, but in view of the serious consequences upon the nation and its people in the event of a failure, one can only hope that this time it will be different.-A.wake/ correspondent in China.
Dangers of Blood Transfusion
According to God’s law, humans are not to take into their system the blood of others. “Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.” “Thou shalt not eat it; that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee.” (Leviticus 7:27; Deuteronomy 12:25) In addition to the danger of disobeying God’s law, blood transfusion involves health hazards. Science Illustrated for August says, in part:
“There has been some talk lately about the transmission of disease by blood transfusion. . . . The disease in question is a liver disease, hepatitis (also called jaundice). The two forms of virus that cause hepatitis survive transfusion, and, assuming that they are present in the donor’s blood, can produce disease in the recipient. This is.a very real problem. Dr. Richard B. Capps recently pointed- out to the Illinois State Medical Society that there is an appreciable and increasing number of hepatitis carriers, and that, in .his investigation, over 20% developed the disease after receiving blood from infected persons. ‘The danger of prodtieiiig the disease from blood transfusions is real and directly proportional to the number of transfusions.’ Pooled blood, of course, would make matters worse, since the virus from one carrier in a group of 50 might contaminate the whole pool; and for this reason large-scale pooling of blood cannot be—and is not—practiced at this time.”
NO DESCRIPTION of the American people would be complete unless it mentioned their incessant gum-chewing. The habit is "peculiar to the United States” (Encyclopedia Americana), is "a strictly American phenomenon built on ballyhoo—and maybe boredom” (Header’s Digest), and is probably the country’s most costly penny "vice”. During the recent war "Any gum, chum?” was the give-away question asked by overseas soldiers that immediately identified them as coming from the nation that consumes seven times as much gum as all the rest of the world put together. If a committee of that august and preponderant body called the United Nations were to investigate this North American habit of gum-chewing, as they are the South American habit of chewing coca leaves, one wonders what freakish facts their report would reveal.
Just when and how this jaw-tiring habit started, no one seems to know. Several theories have been suggested, one being that of Dr.- Edwin M. Loeb, ethnologist and anthropologist of the University of California, who divides all races into chewers and non-chewers, the chew-ers being the.ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Polynesians of the Pacific and the South American Indians, while the Africans, Eurasians and the people of India are non-chewers. The first to chew gum as gum, says
Loeb, were the primitive people of Brazil and Peru, who were chewing chicle found in the forests of the Amazon 2,000 years ago. However, the connection between the chicle ch ewers of the Amazon and those of North America is a comparatively recent one.
Long before the people of the United States ever,heard of chicle their tongues and jaws were busy working on the gummy resins that oozed out of the spruce and cherry trees. The sweet gum of the tamarack tree and balsam of Tolu were chewed, and later paraffin wax became popular. The history of chicle-chewing in the States goes back only some eighty years to the time when Thomas Adams, who was experimenting with chicle as a substitute for rubber, began selling chicle pellets as the sensational "snapping and stretching” substitute for paraffin. ThSn a certain John Colgan took the flavorless chicle, added balsam of tolu, and called it Taffy-Tolu. Peppermint flavor hit the chewing market in the 1880’s.
But still there remained one ingredient to be added before the whole nation was seized by the urge to chew, and that was “salesmanship”. It was in 1892 that "the greatest huckster of his day”, Wm. Wrigley, Jr., began his all-out publicity Campaign to put gum in the mouth of every man, woman and child.
The last half century has seen this infantile human "invention” grow up to be a monstrous industry dominated by three giants: Wrigley’s, Beech-Nut ana American Chicle. In the depression year of 1930 more than $60,000,000 was taken out of the people’s pockets for this one “necessary luxury". From an annual consumption of 39 sticks per person in 1914 the volume swelled to 130 sticks, and Wrigley’s alone boasts of having tickled the people’s taste buds with over 113,-000,000,000 sticks of the stuff. During this era . since 1870, when only the children were gum-chewers, a funny change has taken place. In 1890 Harper's Mana-zine said it was “mainly a female accomplishment", but today it is about equally divided between the sexes and adults far outstrip the juveniles.
From Jungle to Candy Counter
The tropical Sapota achras tree, variously known as the sapodilla, naseberry and bully tree, a native of South and Central America, produces a milky juice or latex which is commonly called chicle. It is gathered during the rainy season in a manner similar to that in which the latex from the rubber trees of India and the Far East is collected. Plunging deep' into the heavy jungles,'thousands of native chiclcros endure many hazards and hardships, many lose even theif lives, in tapping these trees for their milk. If fortunate enough to survive they receive a niggardly sum of $200 for their labor and suffering.
Starting out, a chiclero is able to milk seven or eight trees a day. With his large machete he slashes a number of zigzag grooves in the trunk to a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, to allow' the juice to run down and converge in a gourd hung about two feet from the ground. Small trees yield four or five pounds, and large ones as much as fifty pounds of juice. Daily the native makes his rounds collecting the juice from two or three hundred trees, and at the end of a week he boils it down in a huge kettle until it contains about one-third water, It is then poured into molds to form 25-pound cakes called marquetas, and these are graded, baled and shipped northward to satisfy the never-ending demand of the gum-chewing Americanos.
In 1938 over 12,000,000 pounds of these grayish-brown chicle blocks reached the gum-making kitchens of the United States. Here it was first remelted in steam-jacketed kettles and then purified and clarified. Chicle represents only about 20 to 25 percent of the finished' gum, the remainder being sweeteners, fillers, flavoring and modifying agents. After these ingredients are mixed together the resulting “dough” is then kneaded on a special mill, rolled out, cut in strips, wrapped and shipped, a trickle of it reaching the ends of the earth.
A few years ago, when Feenamint gum appeared on the market as, an easy method of giving children phenolphthalein laxative it was not the first time chewing gnm had been medicated. Away back in the last century pepsin was iii-corporated into gum with the idea of “aiding digestion”. Aspirin-containing gum was another fad. For diabetics there is & special gum, called Ditex Peppermint, that contains no sugar or saccharin. As a sweetener it uses hexitol, a form of sorbitol, and is effective because its slow absorption by the blood does not overtax the pancreas. Another medicated gum tried out a few years ago, containing sulfadiazine, was designed for the treatment of sore throats.
Double Bubble Trouble
No chewing creation since the introduction of chicle has caused a greater social uproar than the invention of '“bubble gum”. When the Fleer Corporation originally brought out their Double Bubble gum, in 1929, they had no idea of its ultimate possibilities. Today there are more than twenty brands. Following the temporary cut-off of supplies during the recent war bubble gum has since made a dramatic comeback, bringing with it double trouble. At first queues formed to get the limited supplies. Contests were held to crown the king and queen of the biggest Jiangs and messiest bursts. The bubble of prosperity got bigger and a million dollars a month was taken in.
Not only has bubble gum all the advantages of ordinary gum, for it can be chewed, snapped, stretched and popped; one can smack his lips over its minty taste; and when finished it can be left on the bottbm of cafeteria cups and theater seats—but, in addition, it possesses the all-essential capacity of nearly driving parents hysterical. The secret of this unique parent-maddening gum is its hidden elasticity supplied by a special rubber base. By pressing a gob of the gum against the inside of the front teeth and then by gently blowing, a bubble begins to grow until it bursts with a sadistic blast that makes jittery-nerved grandmothers scream. Part of the “fun” lies in the fact that when it pops it may splatter over the face, clothes and hair of the blower or a perfectly innocent passer-by.
It is not surprising that bubble gum has reawakened the older question as to whether gum-chewing is a vice or a virtue. Calling it a vice some say it leads to addiction and enslavement of the whole nation. But this is not true,1 since gum contains no habit-forming drugs. Actually only 10 percent of Americans buy 75 percent of the output. Some object to their children’s chewing solely for esthetic reasons, because it spoils their facial beauty, personal charm and poise. The flapperish show-off that uses the full-volume, open-mouthed jaw-clapping style, and that strings her gum out an arm’s length only to lap it in again with her tongue, reminds one of a cud-chewing cow. There are good and bad chewing habits, the same as there are good and bad eating habits, yet this is no reason to prohibit gum-chewing. It is better to train the young to eat properly than to forbid them to eat altogether.
The disposal problem, greater today than ever before, costs theaters, cafeterias and railroads thousands of dollars a year, not to mention the extra worry it imposes on overworked mothers.
On the virtue side of the chewing-gum question the argument goes something like this: “aids digestion,” “whitens teeth,” “increases efficiency,” “helps industrial relations,” “relieves boredom,” “keeps lips young,” “relieves nervous tension” and “corrects bad breath”. Most obviously these claims constitute the propaganda of the powerful gum industry and at best are only half-truths. Any aid to digestion they give is due to the infinitesimal amount of mint and pepsin they contain. As teeth Whiteners, the American Dental Association says the ability of gums to remove food particles “has not been demonstrated by carefully controlled evidence”, and certainly they cannot “whiten teeth” in the true sense of the phrase. Experiments conducted at Columbia University seem to show that under certain conditions chewing gum reduces nervous tension from 5 to 15 percent. One thing is certain, says Philip K. Wrigley, “the more nervous people get, the more gum they chew.” Last year’s nerve-shattering conditions accounted for a record-breaking gum consumption of 19,000,000,000 sticks. All will agree that chewing gum is a marvelous mask for bad breath. Better to suffer the bad looks of gum-chewers than their suffocating halitosis.
And so it goes, one can continue to chew on the question as to whether gum is a vice or a virtue, for it has both good and bad points. The central thing to remember is that it is an individual matter, one of personal preference and individual taste. It therefore calls for tolerance one toward another. Gum-chewers granted tolerance by non-chewers should likewise show consideration in choosing time and place both in chewing and in disposing of their cud of gum.
Religious Notes
'RigKt to Educate Everyone?
<[ In his encyclical in 1520 Pope Pius XI said that “it is the inalienable right, as well as the indispensable duty of the church, to watch .over the entire education of her children, in all institutions, public and private, not merely in regard to the religious instruction there given but in regard to every other branch of learning and every regulation, insofar as religion and morality are concerned”* Ue .further asserted that the Catholic Church's “mission to educate extends equally to those outside the fold”* —Latin American News Letter, November, 1947,
A Qloomy Picture
*g An Associated Press dispatch, July 28, from London reported: “The gloomy ex-dean of St* Paul’s, Dr* W* J?, Inge^ said today he is convinced after a lifetime in the pulpit that preaching is an unsatisfactory business* ‘It is like throwing a bucketful of water over a row of narrow-necked vessels/ he said. fA drop or two may find its way in here and there*' ” Perhaps if the clergymen would give more point to the stream of water more of it would hit the target*
The People Pay
ft Though rifle-fire from church towers was directed upon citizens of Bogota during last spring's uprising, the citizens pay back in moneyT The New York Times, July 8, reported: “The Colombian government has presented to papal nuncio Jose Beltrami a residence valued at $170,000 to replace one destroyed by fire following the political riots of April 9.” Were other buildings so generously replaced!
Barbers Frustrate the Devil
*8 Bangkok, Aug* 1 (UP)—Close-cropped hair is more than just the rage in Singhaburi province in Siam* It's a life-saving measure* According to a rumor, the Devil, in a recent conversation with a religious mystic, said he would take the life of every woman in Singhaburi* The sudden and unexplained deaths of several women seemed to confirm the rumor* Women immediately rushed for boyish bobs as a disguise to “cheat the Devil”,—New York Star.
Value of Prayer
< Does prayer firing tangible results? Last week the British Court of Appeals doubted it* A priory of Carmelite nuns had claimed they were entitled to accept a $20,000 trust fund left to them as a “charitable institution”* Their prayers benefited mankind, the nuns argued. Therefore, they were dispensing charity* The court thought not* Said Lord Greene, denying the appeal: “The conception appears * * , unlike anything that has been considered in the past to be a good charity, and it cannot, in my opinion, be justified by any known principles,”— Time magazine, March 29.
“Divine Mission” Ended
*8? “Th$ rman who could not be killed” died last June of heart failure. He was Marin Dajo, a Dutchman, who made his living by demonstrating his invulnerability* He pierced his body with swords and tubes, and even had a rapier driven through his heart* Baffled doctors once made hint walk into an X-ray theater* The fluorescent screen showed the rapier actually piercing the heart. Dajo’s explanation was that his body was invulnerable, because he was under the hypnotic influence of a divine mission*
More Blood for Another Crusade
ft During World War II Archbishop Margotti, of Italy, said: “Italy has joined the antiBolshevik front with enthusiasm and faith of the ancient crusaders.” (New York Daily News, July 21, 1941) Recently the pope openly agitated for a bloody crusade against Communism, and again chose Germany as “church sword”, as it was during World War II under Catholic Hitler* The New York Daily News, September 6/ 1948, reported the pope as saying to Germqn Catholics in a radiocast: “If the signs of the times do not deceive, the-future may ask even from you your contribution to the independence of the church, and the rights of parents over their children and the choice of their education and schools. In some regions this may even come to a fight to the last drop of blood.” The Germans’ blood, you of course understand.
Painless Childbirth?
I WILL make your pain at childbirth very great; in pain shall you bear children.” That was God's condemning pronouncement of judgment put upon the sinner woman Eve in the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 3:16, An American Translation) Since then Eve's daughters, born as "they are in sin and imperfection, have by nature endured the pangs of that original curse and have, in bringing forth their young, labored and travailed in pain. How best to escape the agonies accompanying motherhood has been a much-discussed subject
During the nine months following conception indny changes take place in the organic constitution of the mother which in turn may be accompanied by many distressing pains, but when the prospective mother reaches the time of her delivery she experiences her greatest suffering, the “pains of labor”. The labor period is divided into three stages, the first being ushered in by irregular cramp-like pains caused by contraction of the strong muscular wall of the womb. These growling colic-like pains may continue from four to twenty-four hours or even for several days without harm to mother or child, provided the bag of water in which the baby floats is not broken or ^ost. This first period of contraction serves to open up and dilate the mouth of the womb.
In the second stage the. pains become more frequent, longer in duration and more severe. In fact, it is said by many that the pain would be unendurable were it not for the intermissions between each succeeding wave of muscular contraction. Normally this period lasts somewhat less than two hours, but in the eases OCTOBER 22, 1948
of first-borns or with aging women it may last from two to six hours. It is during this stage that the climax is reached, the water receptacle is broken, and the child is squeezed out through the vagina.
This is followed by a period of quiescence varying from a few minutes to a half hour before the third stage of labor begins. In this final phase more pain and contraction of the uterus is experienced as the afterbirth or placenta, with its network of blood vessels and tissue in which the baby was wrapped and nourished during its nine months of growth, is expelled. This permits the organs of the mother to resume normal position.
That branch of medical science known as obstetrics, that deals with the care of mother and child before and during delivery, is very young compared with the antiquity of childbirth itself. Replacing the primitive superstitions and methods of midwifery obstetricians have greatly reduced the childbirth mortality rate through increased knowledge gained by scientific research. One of their great ambitions has been to discover a totally “painless childbirth” method of delivery that is completely safe and harmless.
Dopes, Drugs and Anesthetics
Thirty years ago German obstetricians introduced what was called “twilight sleep” in which the mother during her labor was doped into semi-unconsciousness with the drug known as morphine. Scopolamine, another (Jrug, was used in connection with the morphine to induce forgetfulness. However, morphine has many hazards. Being habitforming, mothers sometimes become dope fiends. Babies born of dope addicts, if they live, -show the effects of the narcotic, there being a case like this reported only last year. Then there is always the danger when using morphine of either the mother’s becoming delirious or the baby’s being born “blue”, or even dead (stillborn), due to a cutting off of the blood and oxygen supply by the paralyzing effect of the drug.
More recently experiments have been carried on with a combination of morphine and benzedrine with a view in mind of removing morphine’s sting while at the1 same time retaining its good qualities. By itself benzedrine stimulates breathing and is used as a “pep-up” drug to excite and keep one awake. Combined with morphine the effect is one of deadening pain while at the-same time stimulating breathing in the baby. Still in the experimental stage, the effects of its prolonged use are yet to'be determined.
Out of Germany has come another “miracle” drug for “painless” childbirth, variously known as methidon, amidone, dolophine and 10820. Praised at first, more extensive study has shown it to be a very dangerous pain-relieving chemical, It is two to four times as powerful as morphine, can also cause addiction, and is more violent in cutting off the child’s breathing than morphine. Right here a word of warning can be inserted to the effect that ergotamine tartrate, recommended by some as a remedy for migraine headache, if taken by pregnant women is liable to cause contraction of the uterus and result in a miscarriage.
Another synthetic chemical developed during the recent war for “painless” childbirth is called demerol hydrochloride. It is used with scopolamine or barbiturates and administered by intramuscular injection during labor. Claimshave been made for its efficiency in reducing if not entirely eliminating pain. Its potency as a pain-killer is listed midway between codeine and morphine, and its power as a habit-former is said to be only secondary, i.e., creating me aesire for, but not an addiction to it. Demerol hydrochloride has been used on thousands of mothers, and, though superior to morphine, is not without some drawbacks. In many cases dizziness, nausea, pallor, profuse perspiration and dryness of the mouth have been reported.
Chloroform and other anesthetic gases have also been used to relax the tension and ease the suffering during the final stages of labor. These too are not without their dangers, for when too much relaxation of the muscles is induced the blood in the placenta is not properly forced into the baby’s body and then frightful hemorrhages follow. This menace outranks all other causes of maternal death. In such cases not only is the mother weakened, if she is fortunate to escape with her life, but her baby is frail and sickly from its birth.
Other "Painless” Methods
Working on an exactly opposite theory from that of relaxation, other investigators have endeavored to relieve the suffering of childbirth by stimulating the natural contractions and thereby hastening delivery. Through the administration of hormone extracts from the pituitary gland this speeding up of the process is attempted. Obstetricians, however, have been rather cautious and slow in carrying out widespread clinical experiments along this line.
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