April 28,1920, VoL 1. No. IS

•J3B Published every other lySl iceek at SS Myrtle Atmute, VW yew York, X.Y., Z7.S.X

(Borovsk of Brooklynf

Tea Cents * Copy—IL 50 a Tear

Canada a Foreign Countries, 12.00

VOhuma 1 WTONH8DAT. Arm 28, U» Itabv it

CONTENTS o/ The Golden AGE POLITICAL. DOMB8TIO til FOREIGN ^^^Sdr leaning, ,.—^.__483 Justieo and the Poor

LABOR nd XCONOMZC8 HOW tO             

■OCTAL nd EDUCATIONAL

Chfldroa Moot PUy^—.^491 About BngUab CMdren—4« MANUFACTURING nd MIXING

Hngland and the             American Manganese

Geld Standard. 498 Improved Car Refrigeration 494

PTHANCM COMMERCE. TRANSPORTATION British Nafiwayw—^^..493 Shrinking Bank Deposits—49< British Trade BaUneea_49S

AGRICULTURE nd HUSBANDRY the Cheops* Fertiliser—-.497 Anything But the Farmsrs Mon Inquiaitiv»....498 Real Reason....

8CIZNCH and INVENTION ghowero of Blood..—____499 Springtime in Old

The ’•Bun of tho Unireraar-499    Kentucky

HOU8XWXPERY nd HTGIBNB Food Cssabtaatfona    ...............—.

TRAVEL and

Dtphtbanga tad

Triphthongs la Onlor 503 Needs of tho Far Ma* , —508 40% Predt tn Sugar____504

HBUGION and ■he TOO ef Team.—'......BOO

mscsmurr

Life In the Country...—.304 Disinfected Wheat    —505 Brening World Sees

Something --------koa

Coming. Millions Strong—^BOB

PHILOSOPHY

Juvenile Bible Study—J18

Tan Cbnxs 4 Corr—41.58 a Tia*. Mako remittances to The Golden Ape.

Golden Age

Volume I             ¹                New York. Wtafacaday, April 23, 1920                             Number 16

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CURRENT EVENTS—THEIR MEANING

THE world's weather—social, political, ecclesiastical, economic—continues unsettled. The majority of people know that it is unsettled*, although there is a division of opinion as to how it will end. Here or there 13 a fatuous group that, while rubbing its hands from cold, calls for the imprisonment of the thermometer, as though the thermometer were responsible for the changes in the weather.

The Spartanburg (S. C.)EerM recently carried an editorial which sums up the sentiments of the average person very well:

"Not even the wisest men of our day seem able to make out what is next ahead of us. Opinions of every conceivable variety are laid before us day by day, but agreement upon any single prediction—there is none. Never was there such complexity in human affairs. There are so many competing forces straggling to prevail that the probable result is not to be calculated by any mathematics nor perceived by any intuition at our command.

“More than half of Europe is in such a fluid, unsettled state that anything may happen within the current calendar year. In our own country a national campaign for control of the government is on, and not a soul can figure even on probabilities as to the outcome. Anything may happen there before this calendar year is gone. Will prices begin to recede or ascend still higher? On this point even the keenest minds are all at odds. Will the senate ever ratify the League of Nations covenant? Who can say? What of the railroads, what of the ships, what about our military system henceforth? Nobody can hazard even a reasonable reliable guess as to where we shall be when 1920 has become history.

"Here we are in a world better equipped with ways and means of knowing all the facts as they stand from day to day than ever before. We have more trained men, accustomed to survey and marshal complicated data so as to get at the proper conclusions. Yet they all alike are helplessly baffled by the endless complications of life as it is now. We are just groping along till things clear up somehow. That is about the simple truth. We take ear# as best we for today and trust for tomorrow.

“But it is a critical year—this same year now slipping by us. It will in due time settle many questions now asked in vain, and it will raise probably just as' many more to puzzle thinking minds twelve months hence. A new order of things is doubtless on the way, but what it is to be like—well, there is no oracle can tell us and in patience we must abide until it has arrived.”

All agree that very significant symptoms are present. The disease is selfishness, of course; but the particular phase of the disease which is most apparent in all the world today is disregard for the idea of authority. Every one wants to be a leader and no one wants to be a follower, for fear the leader will gain some prestige or advantage not enjoyed by all the followers. All men are not equal in endowment; and nearly all men recognize this fact, though they do not always acknowledge it. Those who are more generously endowed in some respects are able and generally very willing to carry a little more than their own responsibility. On the other hand, the world is full of people who are trying to dodge responsibility. If they can find some one who is willing to assume a partial oversight over their affairs they are glad of the opportunity to be relieved from a burden which they cannot easily carry. So the world has been divided for the most part into masters and men, though the names have changed to suit the taste of changing times.

If the masters, having assumed the responsibility for others, have not carried that responsibility with fair consideration for the interests of the men, the men have taken steps to get new masters. There seems to be a deep and very general impression in the world that the masters of the last fifty years—political, financial, ecclesiastical—not only have not taken their responsibilities seriously enough but have actually used their advantageous positions for selfaggrandizement to an extent hitherto unknown in modern times. Whether this impression is founded entirely upon fact or not is beside the question; the impression prevails. And it is because of this distrust on the part of the tnen in those who have superior endowment or advantage that almost no one is willing to do quite as he is directed, even though the direction be accompanied with the most elaborate reasons why the directed cdurse is best.

This condition is partially recognized, and hence only partially expressed, by an editorial writer in the Tulsa (Okla.) Daily World *.

^<rEf you rift most of the complaints lodged against things as they are you will discover that they spring from an unwillingness to earn promotion. There is a worldwide revolt against discipline. Mankind in the mass refuses to recognize superiority in either God or government. Armies are turned into impotent mobs because all the soldiers want to be commanding officers. - Industrial establishments are bereft of efficiency, because every member on the pay-roll insists on becoming boss.

“In our Quixotic attempt to make the world safe for democracy we appear to have succeeded only in making democracy unsafe for this or any other world.

“That only a good soldier can make a good officer, is a doctrine no longer accepted. Discover a man nowadays who adheres to the theory that he who has proven his ability-to execute orders is the only man safe to entrust with the authority to issue orders, and you will have found a rare specimen

Possibly this would be looked upon as capitalist "propaganda”, but it at least contains a modicum of truth.

The Reverend Richard AV. Boynton recently told members of the Social Workers" Club in the Hotel Iroquis in Detroit that

“There is no certainty the world is going forward to better days”.

“This is not pessimism. It is looking the facts in the face. Our generation has got to get down to the hard facts. The world is closer to barbarism today than it was in June, 1914, and life will be sterner for us of this generation so long as we live. Our generation will have a job on its hands that will try it to the utmost?"

But it is hard to get the facts. If we try, for Instance, to get the truth on even the commonest of subjects, we find that the newspapers have long been bought up for propaganda purposes. We find that dispensers of facts unwelcome to the aristocracy were for a time heralded in magazines; whereupon these were bought up or controlled to the suppression of information. More recently the book, which had been rather relegated to the background as a medium of anything else than entertainment, has been made use of in the world. Life thinks man’s wisdom is as a small light in a murky world, adding:

“Our world is desperately befogged, and the wisdom of man is stumped to find a course for it to safe harbor.”

Mexico, like several of the countries of Europe, has had an epidemic of revolutions. As one result there has been a very general effort on the part of those who are not enthusiastic about a revolution in the United States to make it appear that everything in Mexico has been on its last pair of legs for many years. The mistake was made of trying to hold the emotions up to a strained pitch too long. The last pair of legs seems to be holding out pretty well.

In the last few weeks it has become less elegant form to speak slightingly, of Mexico. The Rocky Mountain News (Denver) contains an editorial as follows:

"The news from Mexico is not all blood, thunder, and petroleum. Comparative peace is permitting the Mexicans to start a new decade in a way that leads to better things in the way of civilization and prosperity.

“Some facts and figures for the year 1919 are beginning to come through from the land of the Montezumas. For instance, Mexico is a land of silver. Its soil is full of the white metal; and a good deal more digging was done last year than for many years previously, with the result that shipments of silver to the United States for the twelve months totaled $10,000,000 more than the previous year.

“The crops of Mexico in 1919 were the best in years and of course sold, when shipped out of the country, for the highest figure on record. The abundant yield made food plentiful and far cheaper than in the United States.

“And after all is said about the wonderful mineral resources of Mexico, they are nothing to what that great country can be made agriculturally. Her future is in farming. But the prime necessity for successful farming in many of her states is irrigation, and it is interesting to know that the government has worked out a great irrigation program and is already spending money to carry it out.                                      ■

“With reasonable scientific education and management, the agricultural possibilities of Mexico startle belief. No other country in the world has such a variety of soil and climate; within its territory can be grown every product useful to mankind. Every one of its thirty states is highly productive. A noted American agricultural expert, after a risit to all these states, ventured the opinion that, given even a half-hearted effort to extend the neglected farming industry, Mexico by 1950 will be one of the first countries of the world in the volume of its agricultural products?"

To this the New York Evening Sun adds:

‘‘Thirty billions of unbacked paper money issues and an Oriental trade growing by leaps and bounds are features in the present situation that promise untold wealth in the years to come for the American and Mexican owners of silver mines. Silver must be found to back almost unlimited quantities of Europe's paper money. Silver must be found wherewith to pay China and India for a trade balance swollen greatly in volume and made up of greatly increased units of value.”

Russia was rubbed off the visiting list of the polite smart-set nations of the world some two years ago. Of late there has been a somewhat grudging and reluctant inclination to stop fighting the Russians and to trade with them. How to get the cheese of Russian trade without springing the humiliating trap of Soviet recognition is a problem which claims the attention of the most astute statesmen of Europe and America.

Meanwhile a somewhat cautiously presented course of instruction is being given the public. Very gently the light is being let in on their perceptions. Gradually they are being given to understand that the Russians walk on two feet rather than on four, and that while they may grow a little more beard than other men, they really do not have horns. The Rocky Mountain News, of February 20, contained one of these entering-wedge editorials, parts of which read:

"How to resume business with Russia without beginning diplomatic relations with the Soviet Government at Moscow is now the problem that confronts the council of Premiers in session in London. Hence comes the proposal to send a special commission to find out what is the situation in that country, and whether or not the reign of terror has come to an end.

"Berlin has notified the world that unofficial negotiations, or conversations, between a Soviet trade agent and German representatives have progressed in the direction of a working agreement This is the significant and outstanding fact in the situation. While the Frenchbalk because they want to be reassured that the Soviet Government will recognize the loans made to Russia, largely by the French, under the old regime, they naturally have no desire to see Germany enjoy anything like a monopoly even for a time of a great source of supply of food and raw material.

"Anyhow Great Britain, France and Italy need to do business with Russia because they need the money to pay America and for other purposes. Besides in extremities they might fall back on the good old self-determination theory to prove that Russia has in the present system the sort of government that she desires.”

Another one appeared in the New York Sun and Herald of February 25:

"Today was the first time since the advent of the Bolshevik! in Russia that the Allies have officially mentioned diplomatic relations with the government of that country. The official communique of the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference today outlines a policy of testing the Soviet’s international reliability. The encouragement of trade with Russia and the discouraging of anti-Bolshevist activities by the states bordering on Rus-, sia already are foreshadowed here, but a positive step in the direction of recognition of the Soviet was made when the Premiers decided to ask the League of Nations to send a labor investigation commission into Russia to study the situation there. This is construed in high circles here as representing an unexpected triumph for the prorecognition policy of Lloyd George "and Nitti.”

Carl W. Ackerman, correspondent of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, in its issue of March 14, goes even further:

"England and France today are looking to Russia for food, raw materials and cooperation. The United States is criticized, denounced and hated. The suspicion thkt we are a 'dollar-chasing nation’, which was always talked about during the war, is now a conviction. England and F rance—England more than France, and Italy more than England—look to Russia instead of to the United States for future economic assistance.

"I do not believe it would be a rash forecast to say that within considerably less than a year England, Italy, and possibly France, will extend de facto recognition to the Moscow government. Today everything tends toward such an official step by these three great allied powers.*

The European nations are in hard financial straits. These facts have been very generally published in the newspapers. We quote from the Houston (Tex.) Post:

"Owing the United States $18,000,000,000 Europe ia bankrupt and probably will never pay its debts, in the opinion of Mark O. Prentiss, chairman of the board of directors of the Bankers’ Foreign Credit Clearing House.

"Mr.. Prentiss, who is in Washington participating in conference on the foreign exchange situation, said Friday that he looks for the repudiation by the Allies of their enormous financial obligations 'as the only way out’.

" 'The world is sitting on a volcano that may start its eruption at any time with the result that the financial structure of the world, as we have grown accustomed to it, will be totally destroyed/ said Mr. Prentiss.

" ’The nations of Europe,’ he said, 'are now trying to devise some form of promises to pay which really partake of the character of receivership certificates. There arc few men who really have any hope that any part of the international debts will be paid.’

"Germany is worth $50,000,000,000, Mr. Prentiss estimated, and owes $55,000,000,000.

" •'We do not like to disclose Great Britain’s plight’, the banker continued. 'The people are prone to look to Great Britain aa the meet solvent of nations; and thought of British repudiation ia one that we have refused to entertain. But here are the conditions:

^w ^Before the war Great Britain had $20,000,000,000 invested throughout the world. This has been reduced 75% by forced sales, shrinkage, destruction and other causes, leaving $5,000,000,000. The income of Great Britain last year was $10,000,000 per day less than her national expenditures) and it is estimated that the discrepancy is greater today. The British government is under tremendous expense to maintain the 'penny loaf’, which costs $5,000,000 a week; and this expense is steadily increasing. Her interest charges are $1,840,000,000 against a pre-war interest charge of $122,000,000.’ ”

This statement was published partly with a view to eliciting American sympathy for the British plight so that those canny financiers without too much abruptness could decline to pay interest on their large American loans and would therefore be in a position to use such financial resources as are at their command, before America can start in the same direction, in opening up trade with Russia and in extending their activities in South America. American financiers have been willing to play up the situation, thinking that their chances of getting the interest on United States loans would be greater after, say, three years of British forehandedness in foreign trade than they are now.

But was not the interest of these foreign loans to be used, in part at least, to pay the interest on the American popularly sold bonds! Yes. And how is the interest on those bonds to be paid now! Indirectly by taxation. The poor and moderately circumstanced bondholders are selling their own bonds, at a reduced price. As a result they pass into the hands of a financier who does not pay the taxes but who does receive the interest on the bonds which he has bought at a reduced figure.

And how is it that the great and strong financiers, perhaps it would be better to say the profiteers, do not pay their share of the taxes! The Oakland (Cal-) Daily Post gives this as the answer to the question:

"The burden of the world’s war debt would be heavy enough to make every human being feel it in some way, even if every sane adult should do his very best to carry his just share of that burden. Is it any wonder, then, that it is crushing the hope out of millions since so many selfish individuals are dodging responsibility, compelling othera to do all the paying for the sins of Europe?

‘Tn theory the federal income tax wag to compel the rich to pay in cash as the poor had paid in blood to free civilization from the blight of Prussian militarism. In practice it has only whetted the avarice of the rich! It has only succeeded in making them bolder so that they take even a greater share of the medium of exchange.

"Study the financial news * follow the reports of the gigantic combinations of capital and you will learn that many of them laid away larger net profits during 1919 than during any previous year 1

"That is, they paid all the income taxes Unde Sam demanded and still had left, out of their enormous gains, a greater interest return on their investment than during any year before the income tax was suggested!

"The men at the head of such unholy enterprises sat back comfortably amidst their luxurious surroundings while the youths of America crossed the seas on their way to eternity. They allowed others then to do all the sacrificing; and now they greedily take all they can get, and refuse to make the slightest effort to help heal the wounds of wartorn humanity.

"It is rank hypocrisy for any rich man to say be is paying income taxes when he insists first on gathering profits of such outrageous proportions that he can surrender the taxes and still have normal profits I

"If a man, who had been laying aside profits annually equal to 6% on his investment should so regulate his business that he continued to receive profits equaling only 6% interest return and then should reduce that income by giving part of it as tax to the government, he could honestly say that he was helping pay the cost of the salvation of civilization.

"But money-making becomes a vile habit just like the use of morphine or cocaine; and, like the drugs, it drives the decent instincts out of moat mortals.”

As one result of this state of affairs the men of small means are bearing a disproportionate amount of the enormous taxes which the war has brought upon the populace at large. The Phoenix (Ariz.) Gazette informs us:

. “Government taxes during 1921 will amount to approximately $550 for every family in the United States, Representative Luce, Republican, of Massachusetts, declared ... in the House. Criticising the federal reserve board for issuing $3,000,000,000 in notes, Luce said there was an impending ‘financial menace’.”

The New York American speaks of the financial condition thus—and the Hearst interests cannot be accused of being pro-British:

“Some optimists still make themselves beEeve that England can pull through. But when the situation is considered soberly and calmly, England’s prospect of pulling through is practically hopeless.”

“Undoubtedly England is in better financial condition than is any other European nation. And yet with everything taxed practically to the limit of taxable possibility, England's expenditures at this very time are almost double her income.

“An examination of the taxable wealth of England shows that if she were to raise revenue equal to her going expenditures she would have to take the whole of every individual and corporate income and take besides a part . of everybody's property and actual capital?*

Even as thorough-going a Britisher as General Smuts is reported in the Manchester (Eng.) Guardian as saying that “the British Empire ceased to exist in August, 1914”.

On top of this financial condition, and in all probability not dissociated from it, is discernible a growing tension in this country against the British and a similar tension in Great Britain against things and influences American. The Philadelphia Public Ledger, of March 14, has the following to say:

‘Anglo-American relations, unknown to the world at large, are drifting into a state of tension that is beginning to cause anxiety. Anti-British agitation in the United States is provoking equally intense anti-American sentiment in Great Britain. It is unquestionable that a condition of strain is coming about which, if un" checked, must sooner or later directly affect the official relations between, the two countries.

“Charges and counter-charges are being flung back and forth across the Atlantic. Attacks on Britain in the United States Senate are met with recriminatory references to America in the British House of Lords.”

It is not, let us explain, the purpose of this journal to be either socialistic in its views or capitalistic in its sympathies. It is no part of our mission to deepen class feeling, but rather to tell the facts as best we are able to ascertain them, and to call attention to the significance of the affairs of the day.                •

The New York State Bar Association believes that some of the unrest, which aristocratic agencies are wont to call Bolshevism, merely because tha’t word sounds so much more dreadful, is due to a too careless regard for the spirit of individual liberty. On this the New York Evening World says:

“Fear for ‘all that we have saved in the evolution of human justice, when so much of constitutional liberty and protection is lightly set aside simply because it seems inconvenient to the single-tracked mind? is expressed in a report given out by the State Bar Association’s Committee on Law Reform.

“‘As a result of war conditions there is danger’, the report says, ‘that the fundamental spirit of individual liberty may be seriously impaired in the ^apposed interest of public safety and efficient administration.' ”

Justice and the Poor Reginald Ke&er Smith, o/ tXo Botlon Bar.

THE First Defect: Delay. “While the law is enforced, justice waits. The possibilities of delay and of enforcing a compromise to avoid expense and annoyance induce litigation by those who wish to escape the faithful performance of their contracts. The calendars are crowded with such cases. In such a game the poor stand little chance against the rich, or the honest against the unscrupulous.”—Elihu Root

Although the days of Jarndyce y. Jarndyce are over, the course of American justice still amply provides the opportunity for delay “which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right”. Delay is not entirely bad. In cases where it serves to cool hasty tempers and stay spiteful litigation it is desirable. Bat when it becomes so prolonged that the issue ceases to be that of the merits of the case and becomes one as to the respective length of the parties* pocketbooks, it is altogether intolerable.

This evil of delay is established, and the injustice which it causes is universally recognized. It works to defeat justice in two ways: first, by making the time required to reduce a cose to final judgment so long that persons unable to wait do not start the case at all but give it up; and, second, by forcing unfair settlements and compromises on persons so situated either before suit is brought or in discount of a verdict after trial in exchange for a waiver of appeaL In a wage claim speed is the essence of justice, for the suit is brought to obtain the means of livelihood. A judgment years or even months later is little better than no judgment. In negotiations between counsel for the settlement of personal injury cases it is customary to deduct something for the amount agreed on as fair damages on the theory that less is better now than more three years hence in the due course of the law. The evil tends to aggravate itself by encouraging parties without meritorious defences to make a sham contest so that they may avail themselves of delay and perhaps beat down the claim against them. The natural delay of the system is thus increased by this artificial burden; it is like throwing sand into unoiled gears.

Delays are mainly of two sorts: those encountered in getting a case, after taking its cn-try in court, actually heard and determined; and those occasioned by the taking of appeals on points of law to the highest courts.

The following case illustrates the delays in securing a final judgment in Philadelphia before the creation of the Municipal Court in 1913 and ia typical of a condition which has existed in every large city:

A wage earner jhad a claim for ten dollars, which represented a week's work. On January 19,1911, the Legal Aid Society tried his case in the Magistrate’s Court and secured judgment. On February 8,1911, the defendant appealed to ^v the Court of Common Pleas, which gave him the right to have the entire case tried over again. On March 11,1911, the plaintiff’s claim was filed in the Court of Common Pleas and the case marked for the trial list. Owing to congested dockets the case did not actually appear on a trial list until February 7, 1912,

Here entered a rule of procedure which would be incredible if it did not exist. A case marked for trial Monday must be tried Monday or Tuesday or else go off the list entirely. That is, if any prior case or cases marked on Monday’s calendar should occupy the time of the court during Monday and Tuesday, then all other cases assigned on that list are cancelled and the parties must begin at the bottom again, re-marking the case for trial and awaiting the assignment. While this is going on in one session, another cession of the same court may have no cases and so be obliged to suspend; for, under the legal procedure, it was forbidden to do the commonsense tiling of transferring cases from a congested to an empty session of court.

The wage earner’s case, assigned for February 7,1912, was not reached on that day, or the next, and so went off the list. It was re-murked and assigned for April 3, 1912. Not being reached on April 3 or 4, it again went off and did not reappear until October 10, 1912. Fortunately it was reached and tried on October 11, 1912, and judgment entered for the plaintiff.

It took one year and nine months and required eleven'days in court for both attorney and client to collect the original ten dollars.

In the criminal law, delays while awaiting trial are even more serious; for, where the defendant is too poor to furnish bail, delay is equivalent to a sentence of imprisonment for poverty.

In appeals taken to the courts of last resort on points of law, a reasonable delay is to be expected. The right of appeal cannot be cut off, and a certain deliberation of the points raised is desirable. Such appeals are relatively few in number and are not objectionable. But wheu the highest courts get years behind in their cases, as has happened in California and New York, and parties appeal, nbt to secure rights but to secure delay, to get the benefit of the old adage that “time fights for the defendant", with hopes that the opposing party will die, or run out of funds, or become discouraged and give up, then delay becomes an outrage.

The delays which mar the existing administration of justice originate in, and are mad^ possible by, our faulty court administration and our "thoroughly antiquated civil and criminal procedure”. With unification of court organization and simplification of procedure unconscionable delay will be swept away.

The outlook for speedy reform is promising. Already great strides have been taken. On this score the public conscience is aroused. The elimination of intermediate appeals permitting two trials on the facts has accompanied the creation of modern municipal courts and has done away with one of the most flagrant abuses. The modern municipal courts, despite their vast number of cases, are keeping abreast of their dockets. In February, 1917, the New York Municipal Court rendered judgment in a tort claim for an accident which happened in February. It is not unusual for judgment in breach of contract cases to be entered the same month in which the breach occurred.

The intelligent propaganda of the American Judicature Society is clearly pointing to the methods whereby judicial administration can be lifted out of the muddle into which it has fallen; and there is an increasing disposition on the part of the courts, the bar, and the legislatures to make the needed changes.

Tedious proceedings and long delays are not necessary. They are not inevitable or inherent in the nature of our judicial institutions. They can be abolished whenever we so will it.

[This is the fourth of a series of articles reprinted from a work of limited circulation published by the Curnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and entitled “Justice and the Poor”. The articles aye: (1) Freedom and Equality of Justice: The Ideal; (2) Denial of Justice: The Fact: (3) Defects iu the Administration of Justice; (4) The First Defect: Delay: (5) The Second Defect: Court Costs and l ees; (C) The Third Defect: Expense of Counsel. Letters are welcome from renders giving an account of their experiences with the administration of Justice.]

'The Golden Age for April 28, 1920 4$9

LABOR. AND ECONOMICS

Hour to Profiteer

SUCCESSFUL profiteering calls for an elab-orate and efficient, withal invisible and un-■ scrupulous organization. It is not a game that the tyro can break ^into without proper training of conscience and greed. Not every one can find admittance into this charmed circle of Chamber-of-Commerce respectability, where there exists “commercial honor”. The honor of thieves is more worthy of respect than is this pilfering of the pockets of widows and paupers.

However, if one is to become a profiteer, he must dedicate himself to the profession, and learn the way into the sacred precincts. Cleveland, it appears, is able to teach something about profiteering. There is a lake on one side of that city, ready to function for an important part of the profiteer’s art, but lacking in the essential of secrecy; for nothing done upon Lake Erie could be kept from the populace, who are to be profiteered upon, and must not learn the game.

On the far outskirts of the city is a bog traversed by a lonely railroad line, and there it is that the daily “rot” train dumps its burden of eighteen to forty-one carloads. Not that the fruit and vegetables are spoiled, or in any way inedible. They are too gopd to keep—so good that the Cleveland rabble of a million hungry stomachs would gladly buy such perfectly good food. But part of the education of the profiteer is in the art of making away with sufficient supplies to keep the price up enough for a real profit on the rest, and not to educate the common people back to the ancient idea that occasionally there are bargains because there is plenty.

The Cleveland News is to furnish lesson number two in the school of profiteering. According to this publication admissions have been made by prominent Cleveland railroad officials, who do not desire their names made known, presumably because it might interfere with the revenue from the "rot” train or perhaps affect their "standing” with other members of the commer-cial and financial "elect’. In Cleveland it takes four concerns prominent enough to be able to control the situation to profiteer properly in food products that the populace would eat, if they could get them.

The consignees, says the News, are members of what is known in the commission house district and at the railroad receiving stations os "the combination”.

All four members, it is pointed out, very often deal with the same shippers simultaneously, even going so far as to offer special inducements, this lieing done, it is said, for the purpose of giving the impression that there is no secret understanding between them.

In tha case of four carloads of cucumbers that were destroyed the four consignees placed their orders simultaneously, one of the-combination for two cars out of a total of five. When the cars were delivered, however, he accepted only one. That left four cars on the track, all of which were refused, despite the fact, according to the railroad officials, that they were in perfect condition.

The purpose of placing the order, when the “combine” had no intention of making use of the entire shipment, was to prevent it from going to any one else, it is said. In this way they had the market in their hands and could dictate prices.

The combination is so perfect, one railroad official says, that the four members even go so far as to share one car of a shipment and refuse the remainder.

He specifies one instance where a Cleveland commission merchant not in the combination he so vigorously condemns, cornered the entire Michigan potato output for a period of weeks on a promise to the shippers to give them ten cents a bushel above the market prices.

“When the shipments began to arrive,” he says, “tha commission man proceeded very promptly to refuse all but a few cars, making the excuse that many lots were specked and otherwise bad. He then made the offer to take over the shipment on speculation, agreeing to give the shippers what he could get. By the time the dickering was completed much of the shipment had rotted, and the shippers got for the rest a price that was ten or twenty cents below the prevailing market price. The commission man, of course, sold at the then current prices. He cleaned up a nice sum of money, while the shippers suffered.”

In the meantime, the railroad official explains, decay of most of the shipments served to keep potatoes on the “scarce” list and made it possible to maintain high prices.

This will do for lesson number two. The profiteers are still out of jail, except a few ones of microscopic importance that retailed a little sugar a few cents above the current price prematurely—that is, before the word was passed among these "men of social and commercial importance” that the time had come for the big raise from ten to twenty cents a pound and for the releasing of the millions of pounds "hidden” in store cellars, barns, warehouses, lofts and buildings of every description and “concealed" so mysteriously that not even the sleuths of the law could “find” them. These were perhaps the same officials that, after war prohibition was in effect* and saloons were then selling drinks in every corner of New York, could not get even a scent of the forbidden liquids—a scandal that, was no sooner ou$ than it was hushed up, because it was openly charged that widespread bribery of sleuths figured in the case. This will do for lesson number three in this course by mail in the elements of the new profession.

The “scarcity” of food has spread from Cleveland to other portions of the world. It was noticeable in Indianapolis, where earloads of fruit rotted in the railroad yards. In New York the sick could not get enough lemons, though truckloads were being dumped into the river. Poor people went hungry in Chicago, while millions of pounds of good food were being destroyed.

The trouble passed the confines of the United States; and in Winnipeg great quantities of eggs rotted in storage warehouses, and had to be scrapped because they were not fit to eat The price had not risen soon enough. It spread like the influenza into Italy, and at Genoa five millinn eggs from America would have decayed on the docks if the government had not seized them and sold them to the people at a fair price.

It touched Northern Europe—“starving” Europe. Tens of millions of pounds of the best kind of food lay deteriorating in bursting warehouses and on wharves, waiting, waiting, for the “killing” that never came; for Europe bought to the limit of her credit through the Allies, and there was neither money nor credit left to pay the tribute demanded by profiteers.

Meanwhile babies died at birth; mothers ill from undernourishment could not climb out of the valley of death of childbirth; little children were swept away in thousands by colds, and other slight affections; and men were not strong enough nor ambitious enough to do a good day’s work. “The food for starving Europe,” says Mr. Hoover, “was bought up by speculators to corner foodstuffs and hold them for the tremendous demands that would rise from Central Europe when the embargo was lifted.” But now Europe must be ‘’helped” with billions of dollars from rich and charitable America; for the people must have the food, and it cannot be had except by buying the hoards of the profiteers. Here endeth the fourth lesson.

It is not to be expected that the graduate profiteer intends to let the people alone permanently, even if he should be checked. What is an education for? Mr. Hoover expects the “D. P's”, the Doctors of Profiteering, to bring on more price climaxes:

‘TTnstable political conditions, a recurring shortage of shipping, a shortage of credit and a combination of either buyers or sellers will tend to create great speculative waves and may inflate prices to a point unendurable to the consumer, or in the reverse direction, unendurable to the farmer."

According to this, profiteering is destined to be a good, permanent occupation, which is quite likely if the same individuals as now continue to control politics, shipping, credit, buying and selling. But that is not likely, if heed is to be paid to the voice of the farmer and the worker in politics, who say that they expect to take control of the administration in the old-fashioned American ballot way and to snow in the profiteer, his friends, and the political, financial and ecclesiastical autocrats, in a second “glacial age in North America”. This will be the last lesson of the course in profiteering.

After the profiteer has abdicated the throne and -come down to be one of the common people from whom he sprang, better times will begin to dawn. The day of the ordinary man is at the door. For a while in that day profiteers and their friends will be unpopular. Very likely they may have to suffer some of the "many stripes” of which Christ spoke.—Luke 12:47.

After the San Francisco earthquake rich and poor fraternized for a little while in the sudden leveling. The rich forgot that they had held themselves aloof, and the poor forgave the once proud. In a time when all needed help, all helped one another; and so it will be in the Golden Age when the artificialities that now separate man from man are gone.

For the people and the profiteer this will be the post-graduate course in the school of a life that for apt pupils will never end; for the time will come in the Golden Age when people will no longer have to die. “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54)— the God-given victory over imperfection, evil, sin and death.

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL 1 —  ..................—___— -  _r —

Children Must Play

IT IS as natural for children to play as it is for them to breathe, but children should not have this tendency stimulated unduly by parents or others playing wi^h them too much; for it excites their nervous systems more than is good for the little ones.

When the child first begins to play alone its natural tendency, if there is a fire in sight, is to move toward the fire. Hence it is never safe to leave any minor child alone where it can gain access to an unprotected flame. For the same reason the child should never be in a position to get his hands on guns, knives, scissors or razors.

Children should not be permitted to play with toy guns, toy soldiers and other playthings that foster the war spirit. It is impossible in the same breath to teach children "peace on earth, good will tovrard men” and "war on earth, hate toward men”; for children are not naturally » hypocrites. It is their nature to believe what is taught to them and to act upon it It was our Lord that said to some grown people on one occasion, "Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom”—Matthew 18:3.

The true child is simple of heart, meek, truthful, free from ambition and rivalry, faithful, trusting, loving, obedient, teachable, without guile, indifferent to social distinctions and popular notions; and until he has been spoiled by contact with those who have not these qualities he is a living sermon to every honest adult It is hard to estimate what a horrible place the world would be without the softening influence of little children. It is folly for those who do not love children to think that they do or can love the Lord; and when the little ones come into a home they should be as welcome as the flowers in the month of May.

The natural place for a child to play is out of doors; and the best place is in his own back yard, where he can dig in the earth and do all the other unaccountable tilings we all delighted to do when we were children. Parents who can do so should try to find such homes for their children as will provide the little ones with such yards, even if it makes considerable extra effort on the part of the workers getting to and from their work. It is one of the chief businesses of a city to see that transportation between the workers’ homes and workshops is quick and cheap, so that as many people as possible could have semi-country homes for their children.

AU children love to watch the development of seeds into plants in the spring-time; and every child should, if possible, have a little plot of ground for a garden, even if it be no more than a flower-pot in a sunny window.

In a metropolitan area like New York it is next to impossible for all the children to live out within reach of the country. Hence we find tenement houses overflowing with children, while apartment houses inhabited by the well-to-do are empty of youngsters.

As the proper care of children is a city’s first duty, the apartment house building regulations should provide that a certain percentage of all the apartments should be available for occupancy by children, and all apartment houses of every kind should be built with the correct amount of light and air,, with roof playgrounds and nurseries, and, if of large size, with porches and open air suites. Why allow a hard-hearted and stingy landlord class to rule out children T Such landlords are like the so-called Christians who would class Jesus Christ as an undesirable citizen were he to appear in their midst.

The children of New York city have very few playgrounds; and there are vast areas where the standard fonn of entertainment of the children consists of shooting craps, this sport being less offensive to their elders than dodging trucks, taunting merchants or slapping pavements with slapsticks—pastimes vrhich engage their attention in intervals between gambling.

Considerable efforts are being made to improve the situation. In the summer of 1919 Health Play Schools were organized in five New York city centers, with excellent results, every child showing benefits at the end of the season. The course of training included a daily bath, a lunch, a nap, an afternoon meal of bread and milk, games, instruction in singing, dancing, cobbling, chair-caning, basket-weaving and other practical things, with an outdoor picnic once a week. Regular medical examinations were made.

At Christmas time special efforts ate Jnade to bring some sunshine into the Eves of the most needy. In New York a pathetic incident of child life happened in connection with a Christmas festival in one of the armories, arranged by the Police Department. Seven thousand children were invited, to whom presents were to be given. The 7,000 came; and with them, as a perfectly natural sequence, 7,000 other children that had not been invited. The armory was divided into sections, and at first the children were crowded into the places that had been assigned to them, those from the same specified precincts all being put in a certain place.

This was all very well until the entertainment began; but as soon as the two dozen clowns engaged to entertain the children began to march around the armory the 7,000 preferred and the 7,000 common broke all the bonds restraining them and started after the clowns. All barriers and rules were broken down, and in a few minutes that armory was one of the wildest spots on earth.

Knowing that they had come there to receive presents, and realizing that in the mixup somebody was liable to get to the place where the presents were being given out before they could get there themselves, each child tried to beat the other to the end of the room where the representatives of Santa Claus awaited their visitors.

The result was that 7,000 of the non-elect showed themselves warriors of equal ability with the 7,000 of the elect. Individuals of both classes fought and scratched each other for the possession of dolls, toys and packages. Many received gifts only to have them torn from their arms by other youngsters. When the police tried to separate groups of combatants, some of them were considerably mauled by the youthful warriors. The police had to clear the armory in the effort to restore order, and it took the reserve of six precincts fifteen minutes to perform the task.

About English Children

HERE recently appeared in The Golden Age an article on the working conditions of English children, the data for which was drawn from an extended and supposedly reliable article in The London National News. We now have further information. Mr. J. Hemery, of London, having personal knowledge of matters treated in the News article, writes us:

Ma. EmTor: Tsi Golden magazine is v*ty welcome here. It is a refreshment to the mind not only because it is unusual in style and matter, but because it is so clean and because it so evidently looks at things from the Bible's viewpoint. If I might offer a criticism I would say that if more British items were given, the magazine might be more acceptable to the British subscribers; for at present the atmosphere is almost wholly American. 1 notice that you have made a beginning, for you have given us in your issue of February 18, No. 11, some British items, and it is really this that causes me to write. I refer you to your article “English Child Slaves” on page 327.

Someone has misled you rather badly. Without doubt the labour conditions in this country in tune past have been such as to bring ghame to the faces of good men and women, but conditions have materially changed, though no doubt the spirit of greed in some parents and some employers is unchanged. When I read your article I asked a friend, a Manchester cotton merchant, to give me the facts respecting child labour, and his reply is:

“The half-timers under 12 years of age are not allowed to work in the mills. Both girls and boys are allowed to work full time from 13 to 14, according to the town. Tn Oldham boys cap commence at 13—in Manchester at 14; girls at 13 to 14 years of age. In the weaving section of the cotton trade there are no half-timers at all, and almost immediately the age for full timers both girls and boys is being increased to 14 years. Half-timers whether boys or girls work 24 hours per week and girls are paid 10a. (O. I.R.) and boys 12s. When working full time they work 48 hours per week, and their wages are about 30s. When merely learning, say for six to eight weeks, they are paid 5s. per week.

“Newspaper and errand boys, half-timers, ages 12 to 14 years, earn from 7a. to 10s. per week.

“Boys of the age of 14 are employed by the various Kailway Companies from 8 a. m. to 5 p. m., with an hour for dinner: these earn about 24s. per week.”

You will see that now there are no such young children working in the mills as stated in your article, also that the week's pay is not on so miserably low a scale as you state. I do not know how many half-timers are employed in the towns of Manchester and Warrington: perhaps your figures are correct as to the number of these: ,The point I would make is that they are not paid such miserable rates. The writer had a turn at this now nearly 50 years ago. When only 11 years old he had to get up at 4:45 a. m. so as to start work at 6 o’clock. As half-timer he worked 36 hours per week for the sum of 2 s. 6d. Things are now somewhat improved, as the enclosed note shows. Child labour is not now optional; the law of Parliament is obligatory.

What you have to say about Deansgate as a centre of child labour is quite out. Deansgate is a Manchester business street which may for this purpose be compared to New York's 23rd street.

~~ MANUFACTURING ANdViNING ~"j

American Manganese

MANGAN ESIG is a hard, gray, brittle, lustrous metal which has no value In the arts by itself, and which is never found in nature except in combination’with other elements, but which is exceedingly valuable in the manufacture of steel, its presence in small amounts adding to the hardness, tenacity and elasticity of the metal. While the steel is molten, the manganese is added to it in the form of an alloy known in the steel industry as ferromanganese or spiegeleisen.

When the war became imminent, the Government sensed the possibility that the destruction of shipping by submarines would make it difficult or impossible to obtain from abroad the manganese upon which the steel industry in America has hitherto depended. Thereupon it took stops to encourage domestic production.

The foreign sources of the ore, in the usual order of the valuc-of imports, are Brazil, Cuba, Costa Rica, England, Russia, Mexico and Argentine. Small quantities have also come from Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Portugal, Japan, Australia and South Africa. The domestic ores cannot compete in quality or cost with the foreign ores.

The development of manganese properties in the United States produced shipments from Minnesota, Nevada, Montana, Michigan, Colorado, California, New Mexico, Virginia, Arkansas and Arizona, listed in the order of their importance as producers. Much of the production was at a loss. In some instances there was a little temporary profit, but the business is now at a standstill and with no bright future.

Throe things have combined to demoralize the American manganese industry. In the first place, on account of its relatively poor quality, there would have been no demand for the domestic ores except for the war. In Die second place the great w^Tar contracts have all been filled or cancelled and the production has continued until there are great quantities piled up at the mines for which there is no adequate market. In the third place, and most disastrous of all, four or five years of normal steel production will exhaust the manganese resources of the country.

An effort is being made to assist investors in American manganese properties by putting a protective tariff on imports of the manganese ores of other countries.,

When needed, something to take the place of manganese will surely be found. The all-wise Creator in forming the earth knew just what things man would need. In the Golden Age these will be developed by metallurgical processes of which the wisest engineers of our day have little or no knowledge.

England and the Gold Standard

XCEPT on paper, the gold standard is a thing of the past in every country in the world. Before the war, all paper money in England was redeemable in gold except five-pound notes, or notes of larger denominations. At the outbreak of the war the gold was called in; and by the middle of 1919 paper money-to the extent of $1,700,000,000 was in circulation, or $15 in paper for every gold dollar that was in the vaults. In the fall of 1919 British one-pound notes were worth 15% less than gold in the open market; this is as though, in the United States, an American paper dollar was worth but 85 cents. Since then the situation lias become worse in this respect.

Inflation has produced the same results in England that it has elsewhere. In 1914 the English sovereign was worth more than twice, in purchasing power, what it is now worth. As a consequence, those with fixed incomes, especially in view of the larger income taxes, find themselves in greatly reduced circumstances.

There is one mitigating circumstance in connection with the impoverishing of the great landed proprietors, and in the breaking of their magnificent estates up into smaller parcels. The economic result will be to make the rural population largely independent land owners, and mure of the soil will be devoted to productive purposes. This levelling process, while regrettable from an esthetic point of view, is nevertheless a necessary part of the work of the Golden Age. The mountains and hills of society, the prominent ones, are being brought low, and the valleys, the lowly and depressed ones, are being lifted up. Thus the whole surface of the sym-

bolic earth is being made level for the inauguration. of the long-promised Messianic kingdom. The levelling work most go on, and is going on.

Lloyd George says that in whichever way England tries to go she is in a fog. Lord Curzon, viewing the world as a whole said:

'Tn looking to the future nothing geerns to me more certain than that a time of great double and unforeseen developments lie before the nations of the world. I doubt very much whether as the result of the war we have succeeded in pacifying Europe. But whether we have done so or not, it is quite certain that for some time we shall not secure stability in Ama. The breakup of the Busszau and Turkish empires has produced a vacuum which will take a long t^Tna to fill by orderly and settled oonditinna,”                       ,

Improved Car Refrigeration

ANEW system of ear refrigeration that shows great economies over older systems has been invented by C. W. McCoy, of Spokane, Washington. In old systems the cold air is administered from the ends of the car, and the storage tanks in which the ice and salt are kept are not insulated. The result is that about 20% to 25% of the storage capacity of the car is consumed by the tanks, and the cars have warm air strata in the top, and especially in the top center, near the doors, where deterioration or loss is almost sure to occur in hot weather.

The new system takes advantage of the scientific principle that warm air rises and cold air falls. The tanks for the ice and salt occupy no part of the loading space of the car, and they are insulated, on the principle of the Thermos bottle, so that no appreciable loss occurs from radiation. The brine of the tanks is made to circulate automatically, by valves so adjusted that the movement of the car insures the flow. The pipes conveying the brine traverse the ceiling of the car, resulting in uniform chilling.

This A-B-C system, as it is called, can be applied to all existing cars at low cost, and affords a double service; namely, uniform and economical heating in winter as well as refrigeration in summer. As a refrigeration car it hauls 25% more product with an ice consn-mption ranging from 50% to 70% less. Tests have been made in every branch of the perishable freight industry, and it has been proven that the new system requires only about half the re-icing of other cars and will result in a saving of millions of dollars a year in foodstuffs as soon as it can

FINANCE -COMMERCE -TRANSPORTATION J

and believed that it will be a good thing for tzm whole people. The old railway directors will remain and draw their fees,, but they will no longer do all the directing. Appeals on wages will go to a board of thirteen men, consisting of four representatives each of the men, their managers, and the public, with an “independent” chairman.

Although the wage bill is -now £10,000,000 more per year than it was a year ago, yet there are some who fear that even this large concession has effected but a temporary settlement of the difficulty, inasmuch as the railway men, at their conference in London early in 1920 adopted the settlement by a majority of but two votes, and the acceptance specifically stated that it was made under protest.

The proposition is under foot in England, aa in America, to raise the railroad rates so as to put the railroads on a paying basis. Those who use the railways, whether for travel or for merchandise, should pay for them.

British Trade Balances

N GLAND is not producing as much as she consumes; and if this condition lasts, the result is bankruptcy, as surely as in any business enterprise. The British imports during 1919 were almost twice the amount of her exports, which means that she is living upon her capital. A nation can do that for a time; so can a family, but it comes to grief later. Before the war England had an adverse trade balance of £150,000,000; and this was overcome by investments abroad and by the lower wages paid for British labor. But she no longer holds these investments in the same degree as formerly, end labor is no longer willing to be underpaid, io that the adverse trade balance is now five or six times what it was before the war and cannot be economically borne.

The London Spectator, commenting on the difficulties of the situation from a trade standpoint, said:

'‘The British people were misled when they were encouraged to believe that the cost of the war could be recovered from Germany. From a common-sense business point of view the best thing to do is to restore to our

Year	Total Bank Deposit*	Year	Total Bank Deposits
1910-	——$12,085,629,545	1915____$14,886,760/165
1911.	____12,468,141,591	1916-	_____17,532,345,589
1912-	____13,196,994,749	1917-
1913-	____13,760,945,902		_. 20,330,494,322
1914-	____14,432,077,496	1918-	_____22,024/275,977

The increase in total bank deposits, taking 1910 as 100%, was $9,938,646,432, or 82%. Surely it would seem that this inconceivable amount added to the wealth of the people, and stored in the vaults and investments of the banking system, represents a vastly increased prosperity.

Genuine prosperity consists in the things that money will buy. Which is the more prosperous, a man last year possessed of $100,000 which would buy at $5,000 each articles to the number of 20, or the same man this year with $150,000 which would buy the same kind of articles, which now cost $10,000 each? On account of the increase of price he can buy this year 15 articles. Although he is worth $50,000 more than last year he is really 25% poorer than last year, when he had $100,000. In other words, real prosperity is ascertained by dividing the money by the average price.

The figure for average price is known and published monthly by the Bradstreet Commercial Agency. It is the average price of a certain quantity of about 100 different commodities that find the largest sale, and closely represents the largest price of all commodities. It is called “The Bradstreet Price Index/' and is published every month in the weekly “Bradstreet's,” a business journal. The average Bradstreet Price Index for the year from 1910 to 1918 has been:

If this average price be divided into the total money represented by the bank deposits, it will give the true value of the bank deposits expressed in terms of the number of articles the bank deposits will buy. The number of articles purchasable by bank deposits in different years was: ' Year           Homier of Articles % of 1910

1910_______________134_____________100%

1911________________143_____________107%

1912_______________144_____________107%

1913______________149_____________111%

1914_______________162- __ ________121 %

1915_______________151______________113 %

1916_______________148_____________111%

1917______________130______________97%

1918—__________117_________—87%

It looked for a while as though the war would do the bank depositor some good; for the amount of goods purchasable with his deposits increased from 100% in 1910 to 121% in 1914. But since then, with all the effort put forth by corporations and individuals to save money, and with an increase of over nine billions of dollars in savings, the total amount of goods obtainable in exchange for all the deposits is 13% less than in 1910.

On the same basis the unfortunate savingsbank depositors have increased their total deposits by the tidy sum of $1,402,158,412, but the total amount of goods that the deposits in saving banks—including this vast increase—would buy, is 36% less than it was in 1910.

If the 1896 dollar is down to a value of 29 cents now, how long will it be before the Biblical prophecy is fulfilled, "They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed [diminished in value] : their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of Jehovah” t—Ezek. 7:19.

The Golden Age for April 28, 1920                  497

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY |

The Cheapest Nitrogen Fertilizer

ONE of the costly items of a plant factory, otherwise known as a farm, is the fertilizer to make the plants grow as they should. The name of fertilizer is legion, and their expense is one of the chief considerations in deciding what crops to plant or what fields to plant them in. Since the war, the farmer has realized the increasing importance of watching his fertilizer bill; for the high cost of living has hit the fertilizer bill and reduced the possible margin of profit of many farm products.

It was a godsend to the farms of the country when H. D. Hughes, in charge of the farm crop work of Iowa Agricultural College, noticed a strange, new plant in a clover plat Many men would have disposed of the new plant with the regular output of the plat and thus lost a golden opportunity. Mr. Hughes, however, examined the newcomer, ascertained what it was, and decided that he had made an epochal discovery.

To the layman the discovery of a new plant may seen nothing unusual; but the value of this new plant lies in the fact that it affects the fertilizing of tens of thousands of acres and will save immense sums on the fertilizer bill.

One of the most ancient practices of well-ordered fanning is based on the fact that if a plant is produced year after year on the same land it both draws out the elements of the earth requisite for the growth of that plant and poisons the ground, in much the same way that human beings poison air by repeatedly breathing it. Plants, too, have certain excreta; and the growth of a given plant is greatly reduced if its waste products are allowed to accumulate in the soil.

To obviate this tendency well-informed farmers do not ptant the same seed a second year in succession, but follow one planting with a crop of another kind the next year, returning to the first kind in three or four years. This practice is termed rotation of crops.

One of the plants regularly used in the rotation of crops is clover. Clover lias the peculiarity of leaving in the ground a fresh supply of nitrogenous plant food, vsliicli is contained in Little nodules attached to the roots. Nitrogenous plant food is the land which is furnished by the manure from the barns, and is an indispensable element of food for most plants. Manure coining from live stock is limited in quantity, and fertilizers containing nitrogen are costly; and many farmers supply the needed nitrogenous fertilizer by planting clover in the regular rotation, cutting it off for hay and plowing the second or third growth into the ground.

The trouble with* clover has been that it has taken two years for the clover plant properly to develop; and the clover in the rotation took double the time of other plants. It was a great and beneficent discovery when Mr. Hughes ascertained the fact that the new plant in his clover plat was a large variety of white sweet clover which possessed the invaluable trait of maturing in a single year.

This means that the farmer need no longer devote double time to getting the soil enriched with the nitrogenous plant -food fhat clover supplies. In innumerable instances farmers have avoided the use of clover in the rotation bf crops and thus have lost the benefit to the soil that the clover supplies. Now the progressive farmer can use clover without being put to the year’s loss that has hitherto been his lot, and millions of farmers will plant clover more freely than they have in the past

According to the Rural New Yorker, one of the most interesting tests made thus far with the annual white clover was at the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station-in 1919, when the clover was sown with Iowa 103 oats. The oats were drilled in at the rate of three bushels per acre and ordinary biennial clover was seeded at the rate of fifteen pounds per acre, with a small amount of the seed of the new annual white sweet clover scattered in also. An excellent stand of clover was secured. When the oats were in the “milk” stage they were cut with a mower for hay, clipping the clover plants off close to the ground. Following the removal of th? oats the clover grew vigorously. The biennial white sweet clover, which made a very thick stand. gr?w to a height of 18 inches; while the annual white sweet clover plants grew to a height of from three to nearly five feet

It is impossible to tell definitely where the new elover plant eame from; but it is regarded as what is technically termed a “sport”, that is, an odd change or development in a regular plant, apparently without reason orcause. Some regard such a transformation as accidental; others think of it as the kind of evolution by which species and varieties of plants and the lower animals came into existence. But some who believe in tlup providential oversight of a Father who cares for us and brings things forth from his storehouse when they are needed and trill do good and be appreciated, regard it as a kind of creation, a gift from God, who loves to give gifts to the children of men.

Beaders of The Golden Age who may be interested in the annual sweet clover may get information and seed by writing to Farm Crops Section, Iowa Agricultural College, Ames, Iowa.

Farmers More Inquisitive

mHE American Agriculturist gives voice to what is probably the general sentiment among farmers on the high cost of living:

“From banker to candlestick maker, from millionaire to day laborer, we are spending money like the old-time drunken sailor. Of course, more is going for the necessities of life. But never in the history of America was there such a craze for luxuries and pleasures of life. People are out for ‘a good time' regardless of cost.

“Americans have always been notoriously free spenders. One keen observer says there is nothing strange about it, for with the war and the influenza scourge people have had enough trouble the past two years. They have ceased to worry. They don't care.

“To all this the farmer is reconciled. If city folks want to spend so much on movies, automobiles and pleasure, that is their business. However, when these same folks kick about the prices farmers must have to break even, then it becomes the farmers' business. Our farmers do not intend to accept below-production costs for their produce to the end that consumers can spend less on necessities and more on luxuries and pleasure. That isn't the kind of team work that will maintain American industry."

In rather facetious strain, yet not without some solid foundation of sense, was the joint petition recently presented to members of Congress by The Corn Belt Meat Producers' Association of Iowa, The Farmers Grain Dealers Association of Minnesota, and The Illinois Farmers Grain Dealers Association. These three organizations represent about 120,000 grain producers and stock shippers of the three states mentioned. After some statement of the facts involved in their petition, certain resolutions followed:

“Therefore, be it resolved, that we ask our representatives in Congress to enact immediate legislation dividing the country into farm zones or districts, and guaranteeing to the farmers, in the aggregate, in each zone or district for a period of two years from the effective date of the legislation, a net return of profit, plus for new fences and barns; and that the said total of shall be above oil taxes, and above all cost of labor, and supplies; and it shall be computed on the present cost of ’ reproduction of the farms in said zones or districts, in their present condition.

“Further, be it resolved, as an incident to the foregoing guaranty, that Congress shall also be requested to guarantee: (1) that we won't have a drought this summer; (2) that our sows will bring forth of their kind bountifully and plentifully; and (3) that our eggs will hatch, our hens will cackle, and our roosters will crow.”

Anything but ike Real Reason

WHEN a financier gives the reasons why certain things are so, he may be depended on to tell all but the real reasons,if those reasons affect his personal interests. When one of the big packers was discussing the priee-and-pro-duction situation he gave many reasons why food and other prices might be expected to be high, as follows:

• 1. Inflated currency.

• 2. Scarcity of staple goods. in Europe.

• 3. Higher wages.

• 4. Reduced output due to strikes and shorter hours.

• 5. Government prinp-fi-ring

G. Colossal consumption of industrial material during the war.

• 7. A wave of unprecedented buying extravagance.

Food prices took a sharp slump in 1919, owing to the beneficent activities of the poUticians in cutting down the amount of money the unorganized and unprotected farmer might receive for his year's work. The packers helped along the losses of the farmers, instead of doing something to protect the men through whose toil they made their money. If in 1920 the farmers should prove to be sufficiently disgruntled to cut down their acreage and their production to only what is profitable; and if the prices of farm products, which are the base of the high cost of eating, should soar, and another food administrator be deemed necessary, the real reason for the higher cost of living in this respect might be put down as the following:

• 8. The meanness of politician^ packers and middlemen.

I SCIENCE AND INVENTION |

Showers of Blood

"\A7HEN the red rains or red snows occur, as ’ ■ they have on several occasions in various parts of the earth, they are not showers of blood as supposed; for in most instances the coloring matter ^as not in the rain or snow at all when it fell. The coloring is usually due to the rapid multiplication of certain insects containing red coloring matter, or else to the ejection of red Boids by numbers of other insects.

Occasionally the red rains are due to red dust, and in other cases to the red pollen of certain plants. There have been instances in which the highly inflammable pollen of pine trees has fallen in such quantities as to convey to some minds the idea that the heavens were raining brimstone.

Showers have sometimes contained so much fish spawn and other material from the surfaces of ponds as to convey the impression of flesh storms; and in still other instances fishes, frogs and toads have fallen in quantities as the result of the operation of atmospheric phenomena. On one occasion, near Vicksburg, Mississippi, a turtle six by eight inches in size fell to earth entirely encased in ice.

With the information at hand, we can now see the basis of the plague in which water was turned into blood at the command of Moses, as set forth in Exodus 7:14 - 25. Pastor Russell writing on this subject said:

“The first plague—the waters turned to blood—caused serious inconvenience for the Egyptians, who are noted as the most cleanly of all the Orientals. They were obb'ged to dig wells near the river, using the soil as a purifier or strainer of the water. Of course the thought must be that the waters became bloodlike. Geikie offers a not unreasonable suggestion respecting the basis of this miracle—that it was the presence and inconceivably rapid growth of microscopic animals (infusoria) and minute cryptogamous plants of a red color. Ehrenberg, in 1823, saw the whole bay of the Red Sea at Sinai turned into the color of blood by the presence of such plants.”

“In Silliman's Journal there is an account of a fountain of blood in a cave in South Africa. It grew solid and burst bottles in which it was put, and dogs ate it greedily. The cause of these wonders is a minute alga which grows so rapidly that it actually flows, and is so small that there are from 40,656.000,000 to 824,736,000,000 plants in a cubic inch. Another writer savs of the Nile, as he saw it one morning, that the entire mass of the waters was opaque and of a dark red color, more like blood than anything else to which he could compare it/’

“The fact that we can imagine the process by which divine power produced this miracle does not interfere with its miraculousness, which is fully attested by its appearing just at the time indicated by Moses, and by the fact that it affected the water everywhere, even in household vessels.”                                 '

The brimstone rained upon Sodom (Genesis 19) was no doubt bitumen, petroleum-soaked earth, from the deposits which still abound at the head of the Dead Sea. Caught up in the great storm, and fired by the bolts of lightning, it provided the "fire and brimstone” which destroyed the cities of the plain, representing the utter destruction of those who resist to the uttermost God’s efforts for their recovery from sin and death conditions. -

The “Sun of the Universe" By joec?n Grete

NO center of interest will ever surpass the bright group of stars known as the Pleiades, from which are said to emanate the fine invisible influence which regulates the divine government. Hence it has been appropriately meta-phored: "The Sun of the Universe". The poets have sung their songs to- it, while astronomers have sought to fathom its delicate lines of contact with the great system of worlds stretching out into the infinite. No wonder the Prophet Job sounded the same depth of enquiry when he said: “Canst thou bind the sweet influence of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion F* (Job 38:31) The inference is plain that more than from any other source-will come that irresistible power which will eventually link all creation to this grand magnet of jubilancy and light; and so the Psalmist caught up the refrain of dear old Job, as he sang: “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.”— Psalm 19:1, 2.

In view of such magnificent greatness we wonder why any should look for interplanetary collisions or for the destruction of our own

sphere, inasmuch as long ages were consumed in the preparation thereof specifically for man's habitation as well as for “Clod’s glory". Moreover, it would not be in accord with the divine attributes to connect this “sweet influence" with that diabolic concoction palmed off upon mankind in the name of Theology’, wherein the major part of humanity were to be roasted in a specially prepared blast furnace for all eternity. Of a truth no libel has deprived the Holy Name of its lustre, more tAan this “bitter spirit from Draconis”, the wormwood star. From the pure testimony of Holy Writ we find mankind are having their quota of trouble here and now. Otherwise the Biblical good news of great joy which is to be unto all people, would be but an idle tale shorn of an^ practical virtue. However, the reign of sin and death is fast reaching its finale, and we are witness to Satan’s outpouring of a spurious spirit along occult lines, as against the spirit’s coming when “all flesh shall see the glory of the Lord together”, and when “the old men shall dream dreams and the young men see visions”. For “he shall pour his spirit upon all flesh”—Joel 2:28.

History tells us how the Chinese women worshipped this celestial group as the “seven sisters”, while other nations alluded to them as tha “shining dewdrops,” and “the swarm of fire-flies”. Further is recorded in legend that one of these bright shiners became lost for a time, to be afterwards rediscovered by straining the sight of a mightier telescope. Whether this refers to the Logos leaving his heavenly glory for his mission of love, is conjecture; but nevertheless the tradition is magnified when on its rediscovery, the story goes how much more brilliant it appeared, scintillating the reflections of the key-sparkler of this happy sky family. Ah! it looks as if we have too long bowed before the wrong God; and as the great Apostle to the Gentiles wrote, we “have worshipped demons”, and wrought blasphemy against the real God of Love. The Golden Age will declare the comparisons, as this attraction-group draws all hearts and things to itself; for then as the prophet says: “They shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them" (Jer-— omiah 31:34) and again: “Then will I turn to the people a pure language [doctrine] that they < may all call upon the name of the Lord with one consent”. (Zephaniah .3:9) No wonder “the stars of the morning shouted for joy” at man's creation, and no Wonder Psalm 150 was penned as the afterwards of fruit accruing from the reign of good and evil, “Praise ye the Lord!”

Springtime in Old Kentucky By Martha l. Pen* IT IS springtime in old Kentucky! The first little leaves are out on the rose bushes and the honeysuckle; the jonquils are about four inches above ground, and have buds on them; the lilies are even farther up than the jonquils; the hyacinth is up about two inches; the first tiny leaves are springing from the hollyhocks; the golden glow is peeping out of the earth; the grass is the greenest ever; the trees are waiting for a very warm, sunshiny day (it has been raining for the past week) to burst into full bloom. The cardinals have come home again; the northward-traveling blackbirds are to be seen everywhere; the voices of the meadow lark and song-sparrow are to be heard the whole day long; the robin is out looking for all he can find; the frogs have never stopped singing for the past week; and the crawfish are as thick as hops-Yes! It is springtime in old Kentucky! Was there ever such a beautiful land as that of one’s own native state? To me it is the most beautiful and how I love it! The little brook that is so peaceful and drowsy in summertime is a rushing big brook from the recent rains. The water leaps and skips over the rocks, jumping and foaming up into the air, laughing at the solemn, quiet, still-brown hills above it. It prattles and gurgles along, singing a song all its own as it goes on its course, forming miniature waterfalls and whirlpools. I could walk along its high and rugged banks all day, delighting in its song, its beauty, and its freedom.

And the Kentucky hills! How wonderful, how grand and magnificent they are! How powerful, and solemn, and stately they look! They are just awakening from their winter repose. They are majestic. Their rugged sides are covered with budding trees, hundreds of fems, and the greenest moss that ever grew. Oh, it is so picturesque, so beautiful, so sublimo and so uplifting! When one gets among them,off to one’s self (as I did for a moment) one feels indeed that he is alone with God. Reverence, awe and love fill one's heart, mind, and being. One's troubles and tribulations, yes even one’s self, seem so trivial, so unnecessary, out there away from the busy hum of the streets.

HOUSEWIFERY AND HyGIENE~~l

Fetid Combinations Ry JZrj. Andrew J. Holme*

ERY few people have any conception of the meaning of proper food combinations. I am convinced that the meals eaten every day by the most of us czjuse much sickness, and destroy our mental efficiency more than anything else. And my convictions are confirmed by the very best authorities on the human body and its needs. All agree that ninety per cent of all disease is traceable to the digestive system.

To eat good food is not necessarily to eat correctly. Many kinds of food which we have come to regard as good are the most harmful— are in reality about the worst kind we can cat; while those foods we regard os poor have the most food value. And in many instances the inexpensive foods are really the best, and the high-priced ones are the least nutritious.

Again, many times two perfectly good foods when eaten at the same meal form a chemical reaction in the stomach which literally explodes, liberating dangerous toxics which are absorbed into the blood-stream and form a basis for nearly all sickness. The first indications of this are acidity of the stomach, fermentation, constipation and many other ills leading to most serious consequences.

Correct eating involves, first, the proper selection of foods; second, the right combination; and third, proportions that each meal may form a constructive healthy and energy-building whole. Well chosen, rightly proportioned, properly combined meals are very much more satisfying than are meals chotsen in a haphazard manner. Many times it has been shown that just as wrong eating causes sickness and loss of vitality, so good foods, rightly combined and proportioned, will remove the cause of almost any disease and restore health and energy.

When you learn to eat correctly, not only do you regain good health, but you insure your good health against future impairment. .

In the study of foods we must acquaint ourselves with the different foods composing our dietary, so as to have well balanced meals. An understanding of food values is essential. It is of more practical value to classify foods according to their nutritive value than to remember that this or that food contains such and such a percentage of proteids, carbohydrates, etc. By a wise combination of food a more nourishing diet will result, and less in quantity will be required than now seems needful.

The more thoroughly mastication is practiced the less food is required to satisfy hunger. One of the causes of heavy eating is that the foods used are lacking in their nourishing qualities, and the person eats a larger quantity in an attempt to satisfy his desires.

In a wise management of our diet, we choose our foods for the nourishing qualities; and if we combine them properly we are better nourished, and that without sacrificing any enjoy* ment of deliciousness in the eating.

The first consideration in combining foods is to provide nutritive properties in their due proportions: proteids, fats, carbohydrates and mineral salts; second, that the result will be tasteful and attractive and thoroughly enjoyable. If the food is not enjoyable there is not much benefit derived from eating it. Only food that is thoroughly enjoyed is properly digested.

If, on the other hand, food is enjoyable, but not nutritious, though it has been digested thoroughly, it will not produce energy enough for the body. Both the nutritive quality and enjoyableness are absolutely essential. A combination may be made in two ways; it may be complete in itself, or two or more foods may be combined as one dish, one complementing the other. Such combinations are very appetizing.

In planning a meal one principal dish should be decided upon, and then the rest of the foods should be choseu to make up for the elements not contained in the first

In homes where meat is not used, the staple foods usually are vegetables, cereals, eggs, milk, flour, crisco, oils, fruits, nuts, butter and cheese. Among vegetables the dried legumes, beans, peas and lentils, are the highest proteid foods. They also, with the exception of peanuts, have considerable carbohydrates, but lack fat. So in cooking peas, beans, etc., fat should be added. If beans are cooked, with tomatoes, and an onion is cut up and cooked with them, and if fat in either butter, olive oil, or crisco is served with graham bread, a vegetable salad, fruit as a dessert and milk for a beverage, you have a well chosen, well proportioned and well combined meal as a result.

The egg is an important food. Its nutrive elements are proteid and fat, but it is lacking in the carbohydrates. But as eggs are. used in combination with flour, cornstarch, rice, milk and sugar these are supplied. When not used in the above mentioned manner eggs should be eaten with graham bread, potatoes, etc.

Fat is provided in the non-meat diet, in milk, cream, cheese, butter, oil, crisco, nuts, etc.

Cheese is twice as nourishing as meat, for the reason that it is a highly concentrated food. In a pound of meat there is more or less waste, bones, gristle and fat trimmings. But in cheese there is practically no waste. Therefore it should not be used in anything like the quantity of meat. Cheese is best when eaten with graham bread. Bread is lacking in fat, but cheese is about four-tenths fat. Cheese is rich in protein; In cooking, cheese is used in combination with macaroni, rice, spaghetti and similar foodstuffs because they are lacking in fat.

Nuts and fruits make an ideal diet when used at the same meal, as they supply all the elements. The sugar is supplied, in its purest and most digestible form. The juices of the fruits when combined with nuts serve to offset the richness of the nuts. Nuts eaten in combination with graham bread make an excellent meal if finished off with oranges, peaches, etc.,

Fruits can be served in many pleasing combinations, but they are best served in their natural state.

The starch vegetables are rich in carbohydrates; but owing to their utter lack of fat and protein, potatoes, the chief of starchy vegetables, should be combined with foods which contain fat and protein—butter, cream, milk, eggs, fish, poultry, etc. Other vegetables, carrots, beets, turnips, spinach, squash, brussels sprouts, parsnips, etc., may be served simply with butter, cream, or white sauce. Some cooked vegetables are more nutritious if served in the water in which they are cooked. The salts and minerals are thus saved, which are very valuable, and with the addition of butter are very delicious.

Cereals are our chief source of carbohydrates. They also contain proteid, and when served with cream, butter and sugar will provide the basis for a nourishing meat

The reason one can make a satisfactory meal on graham bread and milk, or ‘'Pettijohn’s’’, which is rolled wheat, and milk, or corn bread and milk or oatmeal and milk is, that all the nourishing elements are supplied in sufficient proportions and properly combined. Cereals, because of their amount of starch, are balanced by the addition of fats.

The addition of onions,tomatpes, carrots, etc., to macaroni, spaghetti, barley, rice, when properly combined makes a wholesome food. Split peas, when soaked over night, cooked with an onion and crisco, served with sweet cream makes a delicious puree. Milk is a food in itself. (I expect to contribute an article on milk shortly)

There are three elements which make up our food supply. Protein is found in lean meat, white of egg and gluten of wheat. Its chief purpose is to replace worn-out tissue. The average daily requirement is 40 to 74 grams or 164 to 303 calories. Fats are found chiefly in meat, fish, fowl, butter, vegetable-produced fats such as crisco, olive oil, cotton seed oil, etc., which supply heat and energy for the body, 54 to 157 grams or 312 to 902 calories. Carbohydrates are found in starches, bread, cereal grains, sugar, and potatoes, of which the average daily requirements are 244 to 440 grams or 1,000 to 1,800 calories.

How much food is required by the average individual is one of the most difficult problems and has never been answered. The amount of energy required varies with the seasons, and the kind of work done. Hard work out in the fresh air requires a larger food supply. Indoor workers as a rule do not require as much food.

Nutritive Values of Foods in Common Use

Household Metuuree	Foods            <	'•Iori* Cub* Pratdd Ikto
A glass	Milk	160	12.	7.5	.5
A tablespoon	Cream	60	.5	.5	6.
A heaping tablespoon	Fish	105		IL	6.5
A heaping teaspoon	Sugar	33	8.		5.5
One Inch cube	Cheese	70		4.
One slice	Fat meat	150		11.	9.5
One medium	Potato	90		2.
One	Banana	100	22.	1.5	.5
One	Orange	70	15.	1.
A soup plate	Pea puree	40		2.5	4.5
A heaping tablespoon	Oatmeal cooked	35		1.
One slice	Bread	70	13.	2.3
A heaping tablespoon	D ried beans cooked	40		2.5	4.5
A heaping tablespoon	Rice pudding	80	13.	2.	2.
An individual pat	Butter	80			8*5
	< ’ucoa	50	3.5	2.	3.5
A heaping tablespooni Pumpkin cooked		20	3.5	.5
A heaping tablespoon: Barley cooked		40	0.	1.	1.
A heaping tablespoont Custard		55	9.	2.5	u.
A heaping tablespoon;Turnip		20		.5
A heaplug tablespooui Bread pudding		80	13.	2.

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

©LOR SkGlARAcrEIW • ••■■BA ptftv             9* "Bit Jhr             AM

Diphthongs and Triphthongs in Color

A DIPHTHONG, as the name suggests, is the compound sound produced, by binding two vowels together by rapid successive pronunciation, still retaining a certain measure of identity with respect to the component parts. In this they differ from the vowel modifications delineated in the preceding article. To draw an illustration from the world of chemistry: a diphthong or a triphthong is a mixture of two or three sound elements, respectively; whereas the foregoing vowel modifications constitute solutions, so to speak.

In the color parallels to these vowel sounds, however, there seems to be no way of making the distinction between a modification and a diphthong—each is shown by a blending of the two elements. E-u (pronounced as yu in yule) is, of course, merely a tint of u or blue.

A-u (pronounced as ow in otvl) is the most restful sound, as green is the tranquil color. The diphthong a-u indicated above has a tinge of the o sound, even as green, except the crudest values, always has some red to deepen it and*to make the pleasing effect more lasting. Rarely, if ever, does Nature display a green unmodified by red. • In certain parts of Great Britain, New England and the Southern States this diphthong is pronounced a-u, especially by feminine lips. A-u abounds in the languages of the Indo-Ger-manic peoples, who tend to be philosophic, but is a rarity in the Latin tongues, whose users are much more emotional—having a larger admixture of vivacity (red) in their tribal character.

The twin diphthongs o-e and a-e are barely distinguishable, the o-e being used almost exclusively by Hebrews who have spoken more Yiddish than any other language. The a-e blend (pronounced as oi in oil) is most frequent in the Northern languages, even as pink is a delicately cool color.

A-e (as i in isle) is a perhaps all too frequent sound among English-speaking peoples, but it is not notably offensive, as buff is an inoffensive yet durable color. The apparently impossible triphthong a-a-u is the analysis of the closed English pronunciation of o, a sound so foreign to American ears, yet not without a rich, contemplative beauty.

Needs of the Far East

IN Australia and New Zealand the farmers propose to gain relief from the tiresome exer* cise of milking the cows by hand. The visitor to these lands is liable to see in many places something that very likely he never saw in America; namely, farmers milking two to five cows at a time by machinery. The drudgery of this part of dairy work comes to a quick end when from eighteen to forty-five cows can be milked in an hour.

In the Philippines the United States Government is giving the natives practical demonstrations of what can be accomplished by the aid of some of the most improved machinery for the farm. Agriculture is toilsome enough anywhere, but doubly so in this tropical land where the people have for centuries used only the most rudimentary implements. The change from a lean animal tractor to the up-to-date farm mechanism, known as the “mechanical horse”—the gasoline tractor—may be one of the surprises to the traveler there; for hundreds of acres are to be cultivated by tractors and the land rented to the people after its preparation for crops.

Pittsburgh was once only a trading camp protected by a fort. Its emergence into a giant manufacturing center was assured when coal first began to be shipped. There is a good' chance of an even greater Pittsburgh growing up in the neighborhood of the enormous coalfields of China—the greatest in the world. In view of the shortage of coal from American, mines and the uncertainties of its production and delivery by rail, some manufacturers on the Pacific Coast are taking advantage of the low-priced coal of China. The. first delivery of ChU riese coal to the American continent was made recently, when 1600 tons were shipped from Chinwangtao to Alaska. The coal is of good quality and costs but $7 a ton on board ship, at the Chinese port. This first venture of Chinese cool operators went to a canning firm at Bristol Bay, Alaska. That it is not the last is assured by the fact that the Chinese coal is good and cheap—qualities it is likely to have for some time to come.

40f_s Profit in Sugar

WE HAVE a copy of a letter sent out by a firm of trust organizers of Philadelphia which was not intended for the eyes of sugar consumers or retail grocers, but which contains information for our readers. It says in part:

“The Cuba Cane Sugar Corporation is now the largest single producer of raw sugar in the world. Its output exceeds one seventh of the entire production of the Island of Cuba- Since the Cuba Cane Sugar Corporation was organized on December 31, 1915, the Company^ operating profits have averaged, after taxes but before depreciation, slightly under $10,000,000 per annum, equal to 5.71 times the annual interest requirements on the debenture bonds we are now offering for investment.”

A little figuring with the dullest kind of pencil shows that the company which, for convenience, is called the Cuba Cane Sugar Corporation, has been cleaning up each year 5.71 times 7%, or 40%. But the trust organizers did not like to come right out in print and barefacedly admit that in the past five years they have cleared 200%; so they stated the shameful fact in a more obscure manner.

It is a strong picture that Solomon gives of trusts of all kinds, labor trusts as well as capital trusts, in that wonderful passage, Proverbs 1: 10-19. We quote the passage to save you the trouble of looking it up:

“My son, if sinners entice thee [into any scheme to wring 40% profits out of the common people in these trying times], consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent [ordinary citizen] without cause: let us swallow them up alive as the grave [Hebrew sheol—the only word “hell" for more than 4,000 years of human history—but let us be glad for the courage of the translators in rendering it honestly in this passage, though they could hardly do otherwise without intimating that the innocent go to hell]; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: we shall find all precious substance [40% dividends], we shall fill our houses with spoil [rare old masters, tapestries and other junk]: cast in thy lot among us [get in on the sugar proposition before its sweetness is all gone]; let us all have one purse [with which to buy up all the sugar in sight]: my son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: for their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. Surely in vain the het is spread in the sight of any bird. And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their owm lives-- So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof."

The suggestion has been made that we should not mention in The Golden Age matters of this nature, but we think it will please the Lord if we follow the example of his Word and conceal nothing bearing on the subjects we discuss.

Life in the Country . Bv Martha L-Peiie TO LIVE out there surrounded by beautiful nature, to live a free, happy life with those one loves—ah! that strikes me as being near to the way weary humankind shall live in the Golden Age; for “in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert" (Isaiah 35:6) and “the desert shall blossom abundantly". (Isaiah 35:1, 2) The people will all be happy then; for “thou shalt be far from oppression".—Isaiah 54:14.

The revivifying of every thing in the spring of the year reminds us of the resurrection of the human racte.. During the long winter (the past six thousand years) humankind has suffered from hunger and want, and from the cold of separation from God. In the Golden Age, however, conditions will be greatly ameliorated. As the grass which flourished during summer becomes dry and lifeless during winter but grows green again when the warm April rains and sunshine favor it, so humanity, which was cut down on account of disobedience, will because of the “ransom for all" (1 Timothy 2: 5, 6) blossom forth again in the resurrection. Then the willing and obedient will be restored to that beautiful Paradise condition in the summertime of God's favor and blessing; and how happy to know that these promised “times of refreshing" shall never cease.—Isaiah 65:17 - 25»

Disinfected Wheat

IF YOU eat poison with food you will be poisoned; and if you plant disease germs with wheat the wheat will catch the disease. So figured Russell G. East, agricultural agent of Shelby County, Indiana, when he thought of trying the effect of disinfecting seed wheat.

The effect of disinfecting wheat was apparent in two adjoining fields, one planted with disinfected wheat and the other with ordinary wheat. The field of ordinary wheat came up and was heavily spotted with rust, but there was no rust in the field of treated wheat.

Rust is one of the great enemies to the production of the proper amounts of wheat. It is a bacteria which grows in the tissue of the wheat plant, and in different stages of growth or development appears in different aspects, giving rise to the names of different lands of rust. Like any other diseased organism, the wheat plant affected by rust is unable to develop seed as it would if it were well; and hundreds of millions of bushels sorely needed by a hungry world fail to grow on account of the rust.

The treatment Mr. East gives for rust is simply to give the wheat a hot bath in water at * 120°, and another in water at 129°. The wheat is placed in a wire screen cylinder of five bushels capacity, Which is revolved, raised out of the water and emptied of the wheat, which is then dried. It is planted the same as any other wheat, but being disinfected by the simple process it comes up free from the dreaded rust.

The United States Department of Agriculture, attracted by the reports of Mr. East’s work, investigated the process and is introducing the East System wherever wheat is grown.

Evening World Secs Something

THE conditions that the liberties of the American people are in today is largely due to the decadence of the Press as an instrument for the conveyance of news, and its prostitution to purposes of propaganda having as their object the concealment of the real facts from the common people, and their continued blindness.

“‘Through the veil of apprehension or of terror or of unpopularity we should htill be able to defend the principles of constitutional liberty. Never more than at present have we needed leadership which will not suffer these principles to be impaired. Even an enemy should have the protection of fundamental law when he is arraigned under the processes of law? ”

jo6                 The Golden Age for April 28. 1920

| RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY ~|

THE VAIL OF TEARS

"And he will destroy . . . the vail that is spread aver all nations”—Isaiah £5:7,

STEERING blindly through a mist of tears the human race h^s encountered many rocks. Weeping and the causes for weeping have obscured in the minds of people the true understanding of why they are here and what they are trying to do. Only a clear knowledge of the course to be traversed cau guard them from total shipwreck of faith.

All the nations of the earth have entertained some kind of hope for the future blessing of mankind. Alas! it must be often said that tlieir hope is founded more on desire than any clear knowledge of God's purposes for human blessing. The Bible alone is able to give us a satisfying basis for hope; and some of the clearest statements of the Bible are to be found in the ancient Hebrew prophecies of Isaiah, from whose record our text is taken.

The 25th chapter of Isaiah's prophecy makes brief mention of the destruction of mystic Babylon, that great fusion of ecclesiastical systems which has fastened its fangs in the human vitals for more than sixteen centuries, lie encourages us with the thought that when the Lord has made of this great, impressive, and defenced city a heap of ruins those who uro strong in faith shall glorify God. They will then be able to say that his counsels, or prophecies, of old are faithfulness and truth, because he will have proven by fulfilling his prophecies that his words are dependable.—Isaiah 25:1.

Some of these counsels are given in the 13tli chapter of Isaiah; others of them may lx? found, with considerable elaborateness, in the 31st chapter of Jeremiah. Both of these prophecies are reiterated and substantiated by the 18th chapter of Revelation, which also proves that the former prophecies were not made merely with reference to literal Babylon, since? ihat city had been in ruins for some GOO years before the Apostle John wrote the Revelation.

The prophet Isaiah then describes the first and third phases of the time of trouble (verses 4 and 5); but all these efforts of men to establish a rule of righteousness in the earth will be found to be abortive. To the extent that they overlook the basic principles of the universe will their reigns be brief.

Then turning from the climax of human selfishness which will be manifest in the distressing, though brief, last period of the time of great trouble, the prophet turns to the happy time which lies just beyond the dark cloud. He says that in Christ’s kingdom shall the Lord make unto all people a feast of fat things. The last six thousand years of human experience have been years of deprivation. They have been years of gradual destitution. The wonderful endowments and blessings which God showered upon his human son Adam have all but slipped away from Adam's imperfect and disobedient posterity.—Romans 3:23.

The sentence of death wliich hangs like a pall over the earth came as a legal and just consequence of Adam's disobedience. (Romans 6:23; 5:19) The present members of the human family are not, therefore, individually respon-' siblo for the presence of death in the world; but they have inherited the death sentence along with the small measure of life which they received i'rom their parents, who in turn got it from Adam after his transgression and condemnation.—Romans 5:18, 19.

Among the blessings which Adam had to use and to enjoy were a perfect mind, a perfect body, a perfect environment, a perfect life, and a perfect dominion. With his perfect mind ho was able to enter into all the processes of reasoning which were necessary for the fulfillment of his obligation to God and to the lower creation. There was no danger or possibility of mistake in the processes of reasoning. He had a perfect memory, and could store away such facts as were necessary for his information and happiness. He had perfect powers of classification, as is shown by his ability to name the animals of earth. We should not suppose that he gave them mere odd names, chosen at random. but that the names were properly significant of the genus, species, and specific difference of each creature. When one remembers the tens of thousands of animals on earth, the fowl of heaven, and the creatures in the sea, this single feat is seen to be an indication of Adam’s mental prowess.

Our first parents also had a perfect organism, complete in every part and perfectly balanced as an intricate nervous machine. It was a body not only beautiful to look upon, but able to fulfill every desire of the mind and to respond to every determination of the will. It was an organism in which all the vital functions worked in perfect harmony, and in which the tissues were rebuilt as rapidly as they were torn down by proper and reasonable activity. All this is implied in the statements of the Scriptures that “his [God’s] work is perfect” (Deuteronomy 32: 4), and that man, together with the balance of creation, was "very good”.—Genesis 1:31.

Adam’s perfection did not stop with his mind and body. He had perfect environment. These perfect surroundings administered in every possible way to the enhancement of his joy as an obedient son of the Almighty. There were no repulsive sights, no inharmonious sounds, no unpleasant odors, nothing to taste or to touch which would in any manner mar his happiness or peace of mind.

But life, perfect life, was the basis for all of these blessings. Perfect life implies not only an immense vitality of organism, but also a divine permission for or authorization of life. (Psalm 30:5) Such a life did not need to ebb and flow out, but could continue everlastingly. And another prominent feature of Adam’s perfection was his dominion over all the earth. The Lord told him: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth”. (Genesis 1:28) Naturally, Adam had the first requisite for dominion—self-dominion, self-control.

In Hebrews 2:8, however, the Apostle Paul reminds us that “now we see not yet all things put under him”. Alan is not the master of the earth, but Satan is "the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4), and "the prince of this world”. (John 12:31; 14:30) Man has been able to hold on to fragments of these original endowments so that he even now has some mental capacity, often quite remarkable in some one or two directions, but seldom in all directions. He also

has a measurable use of his body; though the many hospitals, the many cripples, the many disabled of all kinds, bespeak the fact that man is far from being perfect. His environment is often far from as bad as it might be, but at the same time far short of perfection. His little flame of life has flickered down until it is but a short span and almost nothing compared with the eternity of life which he might have had through continued obedience. There is some little measure of dominion, some fragments of the princely power of self-control.         •

Jehovah has allotted man six thousand years in which to try every conceivable scheme for the maintenance of these points of perfection. Mah’s dearth of success will find its pitiable climax in the time when "every man’s hand shall be against his neighbor”. (Zechariah 8:10) Thereupon the Lord will begin to do all for man which man has sought to do for himself; only Jehovah has allotted himself merely one thousand years. This happy time of "restitution of all things” (Acts 3:19-21), this time in which the Master will not only "seek [but also] save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), is that to which the prophet refers under the expression "a feast of fat things”.

Man has been starving; but God will gradually feed him with the rich and nourishing portions of truth, that his character may be rebuilt and his body follow gradually to perfection. At this banquet of blessing there will be room for all. There will be no favoritism based on aristocratic birth or previous social standing.

“Wines on the lees” will be served at that banquet—our prohibitionist friends notwithstanding. But the wines here referred to are symbolic of doctrines, teachings, instructions. A doctrine is the presentation of an ideal to the mind. When the mind grasps the ideal the vision is enlarged and the hope is spurred to the accomplishment of that ideal, very much as wine furnishes a temporary stimulus to the nervous system. These ideals which will be offered to man’s perception will be, first, such basic and necessary understanding of the divine character as will enable men to know God and to conform themselves to those standards back into the image and likeness of God. Further than this, these exalted and exalting ideals will cover all the ramifications of human interest. They will offer to man’s original thirst for knowledge science, the most boundless and sublime.

But let no one suppose that this wonderful kingdom will be established through man's unaided efforts. It requires superhuman wisdom and superhuman power to disengage the tangled threads of human aspirations, human loves, and human needs. Christ Jesus came and “gave himself a ransom [a substitutionary price] for all, to be testified in due time’'. (1 Timothy 2:6) Only on the basis of this ransom work can the blessings be brought;

Another comprehensive phase of Messiah’s kingdom is mentioned by the prophet when he says: “He will destroy in this mountain [during the operation of his kingdom] the face of the covering cast over .all people". And what is the covering cast over all people? Where are most of the people who have lived during the last six thousand years? Dead. They are down in the ground, covered over. They are in the tomb, the death state. The prophet Daniel says that they “sleep in the dust of the earth”. (Daniel 12:2) Our Lord Jesus says that they are “in the graves"—John 5:28, 29.

■ The face of the covering is the crust, or apparent surface of the covering. That which caused the human family to go into death, and which still holds them there, is the death sentence, the edict which God issued against Adam’s disobedience. By willful transgression man became “the lawful captive”. (Isaiah 49: 24) The sentence of death shall be annulled, as it touches the whole race of mankind, when Christ shall establish the new covenant for the blessing of all the families of the earth. That hew covenant will be made possible because of Christ’s obedience to God’s law while on the earth as a man, and because of his willingness to cooperate with God's redemptive plan when ho gave his sinless humanlife to be an offset for Adam’s condemned life. Since all of Adam’s children wore condemned in him, it is possible for one man to effect the release of all humanity.—1 Corinthians 15:19, 22.

As the death sentence touches individuals, it will not be destroyed until those who arc in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man and come forth. And the release will have no practical value for them unless they are appreciative of the opportunity extended to them and render the devotion of their hearts and the obedience of their lives to the new regime.

During Messiah’s kingdom it will no longer be true that death, sorrow and sickness prevail.

)

Instead of going into the tomb, th$ great stream of humanity will be reversed; and the dead will come forth. They will come forth to the same degree of character strength or weakness which they had at the time of death, but come forth (as the picture of Lazarus’ calling forth would suggest) to a state of normal physical health. Instead of sad farewells, broken home ties, bitter partings, there will be gladsome reunions, happy welcomes, and joyous fellowship in the opportunities of the Golden Age.

As conditions now exist in human society, a vail or heavy curtain of obscurity stands between God and the perceptive powers of most people. This vail is threefold in its nature. It is a vail of ignorance, a vail of superstition, a vail of tears.

Ignorance is merely lack of knowledge^ It is a pitiable state, but not necessarily a hopeless condition. There can be no question, however, that ignorance obscures a true conception of God's glorious and lovely character in the minds of a majority of earth’s inhabitants. Ignorance is darkness. So the prophet says that “darkness covers the earth [Christendom] and gross dark- • ness the people”—heathendom. (Isaiah 60:2) To dispel ignorance it is necessary merely to let in the light of information. It is a comparatively simple process.             .

But there is something much more difficult to deal with than ignorance; and that is superstition. The word superstition means the act of building upon or adding to, and usually means the adding to something which we do not know. AU the tribes of earth have certain superstitions. There have been certain vital points of religious knowledge on which they were lacking in information. But instead of acknowledging their ignorance, and oftentimes their entire inability to grapple with almost infinite problems they have worked up out of their imaginations various theories which have come to be accepted as gospel truth. As superstition touches the Christian religion, it means any theory or doctrine which is not set forth by the Bible, God’s Word. Probably none of us is entirely free from the baneful effects of superstition, but some students of the divine Word are more so than others. Tn fact, it came to be quite a common practice to add to and determine upon doctrines for the church of Christ by ecumenical councils and committees on creeds. As time progressed into the dark ages, ecclesiastical functionaries ceased to claim that their doctrines were built upon the Bible, but boldly averred that their united judgment was as valid as anything taught by our Lord or the apostles. '

There is nothing in the Bible about the trinity; and no one who is familiar with God's Word would even claim that it is there. There is nothing in the Bible about the incarnation, as that doctrine ip taught by the ecclesiastical world. There is nothing in the Bible about inherent immortality of man. There is nothing in the Bible about eternal torment as the wages of sin.. There is nothing in the Bible about purgatory as the place or condition from which souls may be “prayed”, at so much per prayer. There is nothing in the Bible about limbo, or about the confessional as an ordinance. There is nothing in the Bible about indulgences, or about hearing mass on Sundays, on holy days, and days of convocation. There is nothing in the Bible about fasting as a religious ordinance for the new creation. There is nothing in the Bible about confirmation of children, about penance as a church ordinance, about extreme unction, about holy orders, about the virtue of priestly prayers and pilgrimages, of oil from the lamps that. burn over the tombs of the “saints”, of wooden crosses, of cream and spittle, of salt and* holy water, of the sign of the cross, of vows and relics, of monastic rules, etc., etc.

Many' very devout, loyal Christian people have looked with reverence upon these many superstitions or additions to God's Word. But it must be said that most of these errors tend to fill up the mind and to obscure the real simplicity and beauty of God's message and the wonderful righteousness o f his own character and being.

Ignorance might be illustrated by a man standing in an open field on a densely dark night. No star is visible, no shimmer of the moon, no glint of lamp or lantern light. His condition, is merely a negative one, however. Should the clouds pass by apd the stars appear, or should the moon shine forth, or a lantern come his way, he will get whatever benefit the light may bring. But if, instead of watching and waiting for the light, he busies himself with building a little hut, crawls inside the hut, pulls to the door, and locks it—that is superstition. In the one case there is possibility of encountering the light. In the other case there is no possibility, even if all the stars shine forth, even if the moon shines full, or even if the day

light comes, so long as the hut of superstition stands.—Matthew 15:13.                -

But there is another thing which obscures in the minds of people a true conception of God. That thing is tears. Unhappiness, sorrow, suffering, misery, death: these occupy so prominent a place in human emotional experience that few have the faith to realize their part in human education. It takes great confidence in the integrity of God's purposes to bridge, the chasm between the conditions that now exist and those that shall obtain under Messiah's beneficent reign. Few people can understand how God can be a God of love and still permit the agony of heart which tears apart the fondest ties. Few can understand how God can be a God of power and still permit the monster death to claim his victims by the thousands. Many minds, with more reason than devotion, have discarded the idea of an intelligent God, much to their own loss. Others have striven to assure themselves by saying that death is not an enemy, but that it is a friend. The dreams of pagan poets and the speculations of heathen philosophers have been made use of to prove that there is no death, but that which seems so is transition.

The Bible, however, does not offer any chimerical hope of a fulfillment of one part of God's purposes by a denial of another part of his Word. The Bible tells us plainly that there is death, and that death means the cessation of conscious being. (Ecclesiastes 9:5; Psalm 146: 4) It tells us the cause for death, that it was willful disobedience. It tells us that death shall be done away with, only because our Lord Jesus gave his human life in death.

These facts are expressed by the prophet in the following words: “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces”.—Isaiah 25:8.

The joyous response of men’s hearts for God’s kindnesses extended to them through Christ Jesus is further shown by the prophet: “And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him”. It is true that while man has been waiting for God’s arrangement for his blessing, he has incidentally tried all sorts of schemes and devices for blessing Iiim-self, but he was really waiting on God, for nothing else than Jehovah's plan could satisfy. So happy mankind will say: “We have waited for him. we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation”.—Isaiah 25: 9.

JUVENILE BIBLE STUDY

ONE question for each day 11 provided by this Journal The parent will find It Interesting and helpful to have the child take up the question each day and to ald.lt in finding the answer In the Scriptures, thus developing a knowledge of the Bible end learning where to find in It the information which is desired.

• 1. What seven names for the Bible are used in the Bible itself?

Answer: John 5:39; 3 Timothy 3:15; Daniel 10: 21; 2 Timothy 4:2; Hebrews 4:12; 2 Timothy 2:15; Philippians 2:16.    \

• 2. Who is the Author?

, Answer: God.

• 3. Zs he the writer?

Answer: No.

• 4. How many writers?

Answer: Thirty-six.

• 5. How many years were taken to write the ' Bible?

Answer: Seventeen hundred years.

• 6. What materials were used to write it on?

Answer: Parchment, papyrus, stone, wood, and silk.

• 7. How are the books in the Old Testament classified?

Answer: (a) Pentateuch—name them, (b) Historical—12; name them, (c) Poetical—5; name them, (d) Major Prophets—4; name them, (e) Minor Proph-* ets-—12; name them.

• 8. How are the books in the New Testament classified?

Answer: (a) Historical—5; name them, (b) Epistles of Paul—14; name them, (c) General Epistles—7; name them, (d) Prophetical—1; name it .

• 9. When you undertake any kind of work is it necessary to first plan that work?

Answer: If we wish to build even a chicken coop, we must first think how it is to- be made, and the greater the work the more necessary ia a plan.

• 10. Does the Bible show that God had a plan from the beginning?

Answer: Acts 15:18.                       .

• 11. Is God's plan orderly and progressive?

Answer z Mark 4:26-29.   : *

• 12. Is it certain of fulfillment?

Answer: Isaiah 14:24; also 55:10, 11.

• 13. How is God's plan arranged?

Answer: In “worlds” (Greek Komos) meaning arrangement or social order of things. See 2 Peter 3: 5 - 7, 13.

• 14. When did the first "world" or arrangement of things "perish"?

Answer: At the time of the floods—2 Peter 3:5, 6.

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