Golden Age

IV                        Brooklyn N. Y., WednMday, Jaa. i. 1123              -          Number M

The Deflation of Labor

IS IT the true standard of civilization to see how many persons of all sorts, useful and useless, can be supported by a given band of workers! How many idiots! How many insane! How many helpless children! How many frivolous women! How many crooked financiers? How many scheming politicians! How many shyster lawyers! How many fake newspaper men! How many quack doctors! How many dishonest merchants! How many purchased professors! How many snide scientists! How many beggars! How many preachers? How many priests! How many nuns? How many criminals! How many loafers of all sorts!

Even if this is true (as some seem to think) it yet Amains to be proven that it is to the interest of all these non-producers to see to it that the producers work as long hours as possible and for as little remuneration as possible.

As to the hours of work, the British Home Office issued a report in the year 1916, showing as a result of their investigations that a worker employed for eight hours a day may, because of his better physical and mental condition, produce a greater output than another of equal capacity working twelve hours a day; that a sample group of workers showed an absolute increase of over five percent in output as a result of a diminution of sixteen and one-half percent in the length of the working day and that another sample group increased their average output from 152 to 276 as a result of shortening the day from twelve hours to ten, and to 316 on a further shortening of two hours. *

What has been found to be true in England with respect to reductions in hours of labor having a different effect upon output from what one would imagine, has been found to be true in the United States with respect to compensation. Dr. Julius Klein, director of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, told a subcommittee of the House committee on appropriations that at the time when the coalminers here were paid the highest wages, much higher than were then paid in England to the same class of workers, coal could be landed on board ship at Norfolk cheaper than it could be landed on board ship at Cardiff. This was partly due to better pumping and hoisting apparatus, better shipping and delivery methods, but it was also largely due to the far greater productivity of the higher paid worker. Large wages are a spur to large output, and the largest producers are generally best paid. The well-paid man fears to lose his job, thinking that he may never get another one as good. He strives to please. The poorly-paid man, deprived of adequate comforts for himself and family, renders relatively poor service.

There is the tragic side to low wages, too. Whenever a large employer of low-priced labor makes a cut in the wages of his workers, he can know to a certainty that some precious lives will be lost as a result of his act. The „ Children’s Bureau of the Department of Labor has published statistics showing the close relation between income and infant mortality; the lower the earnings the less chance the worker has of saving his babies. Can a man whose babies are dying because he cannot properly care for them put the same heart into his work as one who is adequately paid?

And then there is the business side to high and low wages. “Wages are too high; we propose to see to it that the wages of all worker® in the country are reduced at least a dollar a day.” Let us suppose the business men of the country coming together and making such a statement. It might sound reasonable, but is it!

There are 40,000,000 workers in the country.

If they get a dollar less a day they will spend a dollar less a day. Is it good business to turn away from the possible profits on $40,000,000 worth of merchandise every day! Can the business interests of the country get along with the annual total of, say, $12,000,000,000 less purchases of commodities than at present! Many business men are like sheep, and show about as much sense. If the workers in a community spend their earnings in that community why should any of the business men in that community want them pa^;d a minimum wage! Is it not to the interests of everybody in that community that they should be well paid? Will the workers not be more contented, and will not the industries be busier and the dividends larger than could possibly be the case if the workers were paid on a subsistence basis?

Air. Gompers has pointedly called the attention of American business men to the fact that they have much to be thankful for because wages have been high; that it is these high wages that have made America what it is; and that if long hours and low wages make for commercial prosperity then China should be the leader among the family of nations instead of being a tail-ender, so to speak.

Yet with all these good reasons for holding wages at a high level, the leading financier of Wall Street, when asked in 1914 if he thought ten dollars a week was a high enough wage for a longshoreman, is alleged to have made the nonsensical reply, “Yes; it is enough if he accepts it.” Our comment on such a remark must necessarily be that one who would make such a remark shows plainly that he does not love his own children. He is thinking only of the present and not of the future. Or if he is thinking of the future he is thinking of it in terms of machine guns, without a doubt.

Senator La Follette, in some respects the ablest statesman in American public life, boldly claims a great conspiracy by the masters of American finance to bring the workers of this country to actual serfdom through a systematic campaign of wage cutting. Some of his expressions on the subject are as follows:

“I set myself the task of proving to the Senate and the country that the wages of labor today are less than they were at the beginning of this century; that the purchasing power of labor at this moment of time will not command, by a considerable amount, as much of the necessaries of life as was the case ten years before the beginning of this century. I undertake to say that no answer can be made to the facte and arguments which it will be possible to put before the Senate of the United States.”

"Today there are five or six millions of toilers in the United States who are out of work and their families are hungry, to the end that their spirit may be crushed and a new generation of serfs may be bred. This evil combination against the workers is made more formidable and terrifying because it has enlisted the active support and cooperation of the national administration and courts. The United States Supreme Court and the lower courts are depriving the workers of their weapons of defense one by one and seeking to bind them with chains, so that their masters may with impunity scourge them into submission. No such combination has ever been arrayed together for an evil purpose in the history of this country. Beside it, the slave power pales into insignificance by the record that is being made by the federal courts at this time.” The Overshadowing Issue

THE Golden Age gives considerable atten-tion to economic questions because the eco- • nomic issues created by the World War overshadow all others. They are greater than all the other issues combined. If the great financiers are blundering along in the dark bo that they can actually view with equanimity the possibility of a longshoreman working for ten dollars a week, it is not to be wondered at that the common people need to discuss such matters. If they do not discuss these issues and keep the desire for justice always before their minds, they but hasten the day when ten dollars a week for longshoremen and for all other workers will be considered the outside limit in wages, and “efficiency experts” will be preparing elaborate tables showing just how many ounces of oatmeal and chopped straw are necessary to sustain life, while the financiers meanwhile are devising ways and means to get more profits out of oats and straw.

The brightest minds in the world are studying economics, in the hope of unearthing some plan by which the present system of driving the workers furiously for six months a year, and then locking them out of the factories for the next six months while the excess products are being consumed, can be avoided. Just recently some new items have been presented by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The Bureau finds that in 1909 the national income was $28,800,000,000; that in 1918 it was $61,000,000,000; but that when the cost-of-living yardstick is applied, on the basis of the 1913 experience, the actual income had increased in the nine years from $30,100,000,000 to but $38,800,000,000; and that this increase does not allow for the increase of population.

Basing its calculations on data obtained from mines, factories and land transportation the Bureau furnishes figures to show that the proportion of total income paid out in wages and salaries increased from 68.7 percent in 1909 to 77.3 percent in 1918. Of the amount paid out in wages and salaries 8 percent went to officials and the balance to other workers.

The Bureau also shows that of all of those who received income, one percent obtained fourteen percent of the income, ten percent received thirty-five percent of the income, and twenty percent received a little less than one-half of the total income. Stating the same facts in another way: If there were 100 persons interested in each $100 of income, one person out of the 100 received fourteen dollars of the amount, nine other persons received two dollars and thirty-three cents, ten other persons received about one dollar and fifty cents each, and the remaining eighty persons received about sixty-three cents each. In the year 1918, on the basis of the 1913 cost of living, the average worker received $682 a year. The working class, however, purchased seventy percent of the total product.

The Bureau takes up the average net annual income of 172 large corporations in sixteen basic industries during the period 191G-1920, and finds that it was $1,096,000,000 as compared with $414,000,000 during the period 1912-1914. It takes up the matter of reserves; and finds that out of a total net profit to corporations of. $40,000,000,000 in the years 1913-1920, $17,000,-000,000 were added to corporate surplus, some of which was invested in buildings and some held as cash in the bank from which to pay future dividends.

As a matter of fact the New York Journal of Commerce shows that with all the deflation of farmers and the assassination of industry by the Federal Reserve Bank system in 1921 the dividend and interest payments in that year were the largest in history and were double those in 1913. These facts move one to ask: What great service did these corporate interests render to society that justified their being doubly rewarded in the year of the farmer’s greatest disappointment, and in the year when the factory doors were closed to union labor!

That those who doubly rewarded themselves in the same year in which they punished the fanner and the worker knew in advance what they were about is plain from a thoughtful reading of the following extract from the "Business and Financial Outlook of the First National Bank of Philadelphia,” published April 15, 1921, just as the liquidation of labor policy was getting nicely under way: (The italics are ours.)

"Liquidation of labor has become the chief factor in the most extraordinary financial and industrial situation that has developed within the memory of those now living. Wages are being reduced just as the prices of staple commodities have been lowered, and the movement is by no means ended. It is the most important task that the American people have engaged in since hostilities ceased; for it is a life and death question, not only for the workers whose wages are being reduced, but also for the infinitely greater multitude of citizens who are struggling hard to make both ends meet, owing to the continued high cost of living which enters into everything that they eat, wear or consume.”

In other words, here is "an infinitely great multitude of people” who are of little or no use to society, except to the makers of automobiles, golf sticks, fine clothing, and tableware. They do not want to work themselves. It is expensive to live, and the only way they know by which to live nicely is to cut a chunk out of the farmers and workers and live on that until some new war or labor-saving device or other scheme creates another opportunity to pile up a bank roll for those who "toil not, neither do they spin.”

The same effort which we see going on in America to make the workers pay for the war and support in luxury the "infinitely great multitude of people” who came into the leisure class as % result of the war, is going on elsewhere. The London Daily Herald calls attention to the fact that the internal national debt is about £7,000,000,000, and the interest on it about £350,000,000; that as the money increases in value in proportion to goods, the real burden of the interest charges increases and the holders of the war loan get higher and higher returns on their money in goods which can be produced by none others than the workers; that if only one percent were taken off that interest there would be nearly £70,000,000 a year saved — enough to prevent the cutting then under way of the wages of miners and agricultural laborers.

It strikes observers in these matters as very unfair that when readjustments are to be made the ones that are "readjusted” are usually the ones that do the producing, and the legal decisions tend that way. The Supreme Court decides that “no legislation can compel corporations to work for the public at a loss.’" But what court has ever attempted to decide that a workers remuneration is unfair and must be rectified upward! Is a man of less importance in the eyes of the law than a corporation!

But during war times even such a thing might happen; for when the world is being made safe for democracy everybody is anxious that the workers have a fair deal. So it was that the National War Labor Board made a decision in 1919 that 38,000 workers in the em-jdoy of the Bethlehem Steel Company were to have an increase in wages for the period from August 1,1918, to February 28, 1919. But the Bethlehem Steel Company refused to abide by the award; so what good did the decision do the workers! Corporations have a habit of refusing to abide by the decisions of anybody, but woe betide the worker that tries it. No corporation lawyer will rush to his rescue, and no corporationally-inclined court will lend a listening ear to his specious pleas.

Bamnurinff Down tfu Waga

THE peak in wage rates was reached in 1920, when the average rate per hour for males was fifty-eight cents and the average rate for women forty-three cents. The great drive against wages was made during the first nine months of 1921. During that time five million American workers sustained an average cut in wages of sixteen percent. Believing a review of this great movement will be of interest we give some of the details.

In the lines of food production and preparation we find that wages of farm-hands dropped during that period from an average of $46.89 to $29.48 or about thirty-seven percent, and in Brooklyn there has been a large- reduction in the wages paid to bakers and bakers⁹ helpers — about $9 per week less for each, we understand.

In the mining business during that time 128,500 mine-workers had their wages cut nineteen percent, but the real fight to reduce mine-worh-ers wages was reserved to 1922, as all readers of The Golden Age are aware. The papers have been full of it and hence we have not attempted to keep pace with it. For a fine, statesmanlike review of the situation President Hard

ing’s address to Congress on August 18th was par excellent.                                  '

The President, knowing that the mining agreements would expire on April 1st, 1922, tried to obtain a conference between operators and miners five months before that time, but failed; and the strike occurred on that date. The public has been .robbed shamelessly by the coal profiteers, and with their wages lessened are demanding cheaper fuel

In July the President got the contending interests together, but with no result Then he -pleaded with both sides to renew work on the basis of the wages in effect prior to April 1st, while a coal commission should make a carefid inquiry into all the facts bearing upon the matter and then make recommendations. But a powerful minority of the operators and alt of the mine-workers declined the proposal. Then the President announced protection to any mine^ that would operate. Again the results were nil S

The President calls attention to the fact that there are 200,000 more mine-workers in thk * country than are needed, and that it is impend.....

tive that something be done toward stabilizing their earnings and the distribution of the coal * they produce. He urges an impartial invest!-gation fend concludes with the argument:

‘The almost total exhaustion of stocks of coaL ths , crippled condition of the railways, the distressed situation that has arisen and might grow worse in our gnat cities due to the shortage ol anthracite, the suffering which might arise in the Northwest through failure to meet winter needs by lake transportation: all theaa added to the possibility of outrageous price demand^ in spite of the most sealous voluntary efforts of ths government to restrain them, make it necessary to ask you to consider at once some form of temporary control of distribution and prices.”

It is a matter of common knowledge that the labor c>st in a ton of coal is around $3.00, while the sell ag-price to the consumer sticks around $11.00, and has done so ever since the war. AH the talk by the operators about wanting to reduce the wages of the coal miners so that they can reduce the price of coal is pure moonshine, made for public consumption. The public win not get a lower price for coal; they will get a higher price. One anthracite coal company is alleged to have boasted that it will clean i not less than $30,000,000 as a result of this strike, due to the fact that it will sell off its surplus coal at fancy prices.

As to the suffering magnates in the bituminous industry, the vice-president of the Pittsburgh Coal Company, producing annually 13,-000,000 to 18,000,000 tons, stated to the Senate committee on manufactures in January, 1921, that the net profits made by his company were equal to four-fifths of the wages paid to its mine workers. This is one of the companies which is leading in the fight against the miners’ union, on the ground that miners’ wages are too high and must come down. How would it do if these distressed plutocrats would accept say three-fifths as much in profit as the combined wages of all their workers . instead of four-fifths 1 Indeed, one who is well out of reach of the courts that must pass upon such revolutionary remarks might even suggest two-fifths, or possibly one-fifth.

The coal industry is as badly demoralized in Nova Scotia and in Australia, or nearly so, as it is in the United States. The struggle to reduce the miners⁷ wages is on in both places, thus indicating sympathy of action among the mine owners, and probably collusion.

Oil production is a species of mining. In Bakersfield, the center of the California oil field, there is an industrial association, consisting of the bankers, merchants, real estate men, lawyers and doctors, which is undertaking to set the wages to be paid in that city for all classes of labor. This is an odd undertaking. We wonder how effective would be an organization of workers that should attempt to stipulate the fees which might be charged by the legal or medical profession, or what might be the profits of the merchants and real estate men and bankers.

In the House of Commons, in England, the Scottish Oils, Limited, has been up before Parliament for paying men so poorly that the wage$ were insufficient for the support of their families and the poor board had to be called upon to furnish relief. The British Government, which has large interests in the corporation, declared it illegal to authorize relief for men working full time; but it did nothing to raise the wages of the underpaid workers.

In the American iron and steel business 412,-800 employes had their wages cut in 1921 to the average amount of 19.2 percent. The re-duct'.uns followed one another in rapid succession. There were three cuts between May 1st and September 1st, one of which was the abolition of time and a half for overtime. The wages for day laborers in the iron and steel industry are now in the neighborhood of thirty cents an hour, and are not enough to live on.

During the first six months of 1922 the sales of iron and steel bonds were enormous, based upon the happy information that “wages in the iron and steel industry are coming down.” The bonds increase as the wages decrease. This is a grim joke, and a grimy one. Investors in bonds in the New York Stock Exchange in the first half of 1922 bought over two billion dollars worth, or more than twice the amount purchased during the first six months of 1921. When the cuts in wages of steel employes were made, no charge was made in the ten- and twelve-hour work-days or in the 24-hour day, when the employes change shifts. The cut cost the steel workers over $100,000,000 a year in wages.

At the same time that cuts were made in the iron and steel industries there was a general reduction in wages in the plants of the General Electric Company at Lynn, Schenectady, and 'elsewhere, and among other electrical workers, affecting 75,500 employes and reducing their wages an average of 18.2 percent. There was also an average cut of 14.8 percent in the wages of 109,300 shipbuilders and 19.6 percent in the wages of 15,600 car builders and repairers.

In the Textile Group

ACCORDING to the table of wage reductions compiled by the J. L. Jacobs Co., Chicago, the group of workers that sustained the worst cuts were the textile workers and, among all the textiles, the cotton workers. It thus transpires that 213,000 cotton workers had their wages reduced by 25.7 percent, and the kindred lines of hosiery and underwear workers to the number of 7,000 employes had their wages cut 24.3 percent. The woolen workers did not fare quite so badly, but they fared badly enough; 100,200 of them sustained an average reduction in wages of twenty percent

At the invitation of some labor leaders the New York Times made investigation of the conditions in the cotton-mill districts of New England. It found unsanitary and deplorable living conditions; it found villages where the owners control everything, including the church and ball park; at Crompton it found an old ramshackle block intended for six families oo cupied by forty-three persons, aged women working for less than seven dollars a week, men working for less than twelve dollars a week and the highest-paid workers receiving only twice that amount, while they all worked fifty-four hours per week. The increase from forty-eight hours per week to fifty-four hours per week was contested bitterly by the workers, and it should have been contested; for it is inhuman.

When the cuts were made in the cotton-mill districts of the South the workers, who had been lifted from a mere existence up to a measure of something like comfort, were thrust back toward the edge of barbarism. Thomas McMahon, president of the United Textile Workers’ Union, cites instances where women who were receiving twenty-seven dollars for a week of fifty-live hours had their wages reduced to eleven dollars and fifty cents and their hours. increased to sixty per week. All these reductions took place in one year’s time.

Reports reach us that more than thirty factories in the textile region of Northern France were idle because of a strike of the workmen, who refused to accept a wage reduction because the application of a coefficient indicates a decrease in the cost of living.

Silk-makers in general were not hit so hard as other textile workers, although 30,500 of them received cuts in wages averaging 17.5 percent. 100,000 men’s garment workers received cuts averaging 16.7 percent In the paper-making industries 24,000 workers received cuts averaging 16.6 percent. Leather workers, boot and shoemakers, wood-heel makers, ribbon weavers, bag menders and box makers, government workers, and clerical workers all came in for their share of similar attention here and abroad.

An odd exception to this general wage slashing was that of the Nash Clothing Company of Cincinnati, which reduced the hours of labor of its employes from forty-four to forty and increased their wages ten percent. Mr. Nash, the head of the company, declared that he was abolishing Saturday work purely because he is trying to live and do business by the Golden Rule; that he is trying to treat the women in his employ as he would wish his own mother, sister, or daughter, treated under similar conditions, and that he must enlarge his plant just at the time when others are retrenching.

Railroad Wage Cutting

NO, READER—we are not speaking of railroad rate cutting. That was done in the olden days, when the railroads were bidding against one another for the public support, and before they had the public at their mercy. We are speaking of railroad wage cutting. And it has been an uphill job; for the railroad men know that the country must have , railroad service, and they are not disposed to be sheared without protesting in such a way that the country will know about it

The Railroad Labor Board, authorized by the Esch-Cummins Act, hfcs no power to enforce its decisions ; hence it is merely an advisory bureau. It advised the carriers not to undertake to farm out their shop work on a contract basis to relatives and friends who would agree, for a large consideration, to use the carrier’s shops and appliances and employ only non-union men. But the carriers, for tin most part, ignored the advice and did as they pleased.

Then the Railroad Labor Board advised the shopmen to take another generous cut in their wages, and the shopmen, seeing what some of the carriers had done, declined to cooperate • and the fat was in the fire. The President of the United States tried desperately to get the carriers and their workers to agree to a review of the whole matter by the Labor Board and to agree to abide by its decisions while they meanwhile return to work.

The question of seniority was involved. Old employes who stayed on at work had been pro- * moted. The strikers were not willing to return to work unless they could have their old jobs back. The President, believing there would be a sum total of less suffering by that means, urged that the strikers be given their old jobs; but the carriers refused to do as he asked.

Then the President urged the men to return to work anyway, and let the Labor Board adjust the seniority disputes individually. A majority of the carriers agreed to this, but a minority refused even that solution, and the men stayed out The President reported lawlessness and violence in a hundred places, where public sentiment had been unable to restrain the strikers from molesting those who had taken their places.

In 1920 the total payroll of all carriers in the United States was $3,733,816,186, which included the salaries of all officials; in 1921 the total payroll was $2,800,896,614, a reduction for the year of $932,919,572, with no record of the salary of even one official being reduced. It will thus be seen that in the matter of bringing down wages the Railroad Labor Board has been very energetic. It reduced the express company workers also.

But the Board has not acquired the same reputation for fairness that it has for energy. It based its case for the shopmen’s cut on the statement that the purchasing power of the reduced wages would still be above the 1917 level, the worst year that railroad workers had had for fifty years. At that time the costs of living were rising rapidly, and the wages had rise n not at all.

The Board made a cut of 13.2 percent in the wages of maintenance of way employes, the lowest-paid workers on the railroads, after E. L. Hardy, a section foreman of Cambridge, Mass., had told them that the children of the men under him were underfed, that their mothers had to work to help out the family finances, and that many of the families had to be helped out by charity.

The Esch-Cummins Act laid down seven principles which were to guide the Labor Board in rendering its decisions: The scales paid in other industries; the relation between wages and cost of living; the hazards of employment; the training and skill required; the degree of responsibility; the character of the employment and the inequalities of wages resulting from previous decisions. In ordering the cut in wages of shopmen, which precipitated the strike, the Board cited only the first two of these items as having entered into their calculations, and they made the fatal mistake of referring again to the costs of living in 1917.

If it be asked what benefit the people have - received from the savings of millions of dollars in operating the railroads, the answer is that they have received nothing. Rates continue at about double what they were before the war, and the service is incomparably inferior to what it was when the rates were low.

Just because he has more sense than a thousand ordinary captains of industry, and because he has a vast fortune, too, Henry Ford is buying all kinds of things; and among the lot he bought a 400-mile railroad running south from Detroit to the Ohio river. First he raised the wages of the workers, and the road made so much money that Henry said he would be glad to cut the rates in two if the Government would let him. But the Government would not let him. What a squeezing of watered stock and a stirring up of old dry bones it would make among the gentlemen that have been persuading the Labor Board to cut wages if they had to show the results that Henry says have come to him just naturally!

As the railroad operators have come to the Labor Board and asked and received what they wanted in the way of wage reductions of workers, so the American Steamship Owners’ Association has come to the United States Shipping Board and obtained drastic reductions in the wages of shipworkers. The total reduction in wages of seamen in one year was fifty percent and for the officers forty percent           \

President Furuseth of the International Seamen’s Union, before the joint committee of Senate and House, declares the cost of seamen on a British ship of like tonnage is now fifty-four percent higher than on American ships, due to the limited number of men in the standard American crew and to the great reduction in the wages. He says further that while the American seamen have been submitting to cuts ranging from thirty-seven to fifty-three percent the wages of Japanese seamen have been increased forty-five percent, the wages of Australian seamen nine percent, and the wages of Chinese seamen by a substantial but unreported amount

In the building trades in America 477,500 persons had their wages cut an average of 17.3 percent in the first nine months of 1921, and 6,800 makers of building materials sustained an average cut of 18. 3 percent. Timber workers sustained cuts of forty to fifty percent in wages, and had their working day lengthened by an hour. There was a slight temporary reduction in. the price of lumber as a result, though the price has remained practically stationary.

Minimum Wage Legislation

IN TWELVE of the states'of the United

States, in Porto Rico, and in the District of Columbia, laws are in effect which forbid the employment of women and children at less than certain stipulated wages. Massachusetts was the leader in this type of legislation, which in

some European countries is applied to men as Well as to women. The constitutionality of these laws has been contested in several states, but in each case the laws have been upheld.

Employers of women have been casting longing eyes at these minimum wage laws, hoping for some way to get around them. In Massachusetts a suspender manufacturer came before the wage commission and submitted a budget Betting forth that $11.40 per week would maintain a self-supporting woman. In his budget he provided 15 cents for each meal; he was anxious that women workers should not overeat. Miss Weinstock, president of the Women’s Trade Union League, was present and shattered the efforts of the suspender maker to curb the appetite of his help by demonstrating that $16.50 is the minimum living cost of a' worker in the industry.

In California the married woman who is at the head of the minimum wage commission in that state reduced the minimum wage from fifteen dollars to ten dollars per week; and the editor of the Sacramento Tribune was not pleased. He said:

“Who the hades authorized this lady to obtain figures of the lowest point of existence for working women ? Could this work not just as well have been left to interested employers? Is it part of her secretarial duties to compile data to be used as propaganda for employers? If so, then the Welfare commission is not a body beneficial to working women, and its abolishment cannot be brought about too quickly,”

President Harding is not in favor of the payment of wages that will just sustain life. He sets that a suitable wage should not only provide normal food, clothing, shelter, education and recreation, but that it should offset unforeseen contingencies and give time for development and social expression, without which life is but a monotonous grind. In a speech delivered in New York, May 24, 1921, he said:

“In our effort at establishing industrial justice we must see that the wage earner is placed in an economically sound position. His lowest wage must be enough for comfort, enough to make his house a home, enough to insure that the struggle for existence shall not crowd out the things truly worth living for. There must be provision for education, for recreation, and a margin for savings. There must be such freedom of action aa will insure full play to the individual's abilities.”

It will be & shock to the narrow-minded who believe everything they read against Socialism, and who never get the chance to read anything on the other side of the question, to note how strangely like the President’s utterance is the following from the Socialist New York Call:

"If any more drastic indictments of our capitalist civilization have been drawn than the attempts of various commissions to arrive at a minimum amount that workers, both male and female, can ‘live’ on, we have never read them. If any one asked for a commission to establish a wage that would insure a real living to every worker, a wage that would buy the best of everything for the workers, and allow them to put away enough to give them ril the" comforts in time of sickness, he would be looked upon as crazy. This is the only kind of commission that would be asked if the world were really sane. That such a commission has never existed proves that what we name civilization is merely a condition of society in which a few get a real living and the mauy a bare existence.”

The Family Income

ALL are familiar with the fact that the wages of our daddies are not the wages of today ; but perhaps not all know that while their wages were less their income was more, due to the difference in the purchasing power of the dollar. The following table illustrates the average American wage in dollars for the year stated and the nmount of food such wages purchased in the year before the World War:

- Food Value .

Year               Wages              in 1913

1889 .'.......  $445

1899 .............. 426

1904 .............. / 477

1909 .............. 518

1914 .............. 580

1919 ............. 1,162

A concrete example of what has happened to the dollar may be seen in the case of pickminers. In 1900 they received fifty-two cents a ton. In 1913 they received sixty-five cents per ton; but the purchasing power of the sixty-five cents,]n comparison with fifty-two cents in 1900, was only forty-eight and one-half cents. Apparently they had received an increase of pay of thirteen cents per ton; actually they had received a reduction of three and one-half cents per ton. In 1921 the situation was still worse. The miners were then receiving $1,116 per ton; , but the purchasing power of the $1,116, in oomparison with fifty-two cents in 1900, was only $0.4279. Apparently their wages had consider- > ably more than doubled in the twenty-one | years; actually they had received a cut in in- ' come of about twenty percent                     ।

Mudi has been said about family budgets for the typical family of husband, wife, and three children under fourteen years of age. There are such families, of course; but there are great varieties of modes of living. Some have homes of their own, some have not; some have sickness, some have not; some have more children, some have fewer; some have dependent parents; some have no children at all; some have other wage-workers helping out the income; some have no resources other than the wages of the one person; some have investments that help out the income; some live from hand to mouth; some families double up and live in most cramped quarters; some have more room than they can use; some live in climates where there is no fuel bill; some have to purchase and use fuel during nine months of the year. The averages of all these conditions are interesting but not overly conclusive.

In June, 1920, the Bureau of Labor Statistics computed how much of all the different commodities of life such a typical family would consume in a year. There were 400 commodities or services. In different cities in the same year the items enumerated could be purchased for from $2,067 to $2,533; in New York city for $2,368. But three-fourths of the wage earners of the United States receive less than $1,700 per year; so it is apparent that the typical family does not get its full share of the 400 commodities, or else the typical family has additional sources of income.

The saint* Bureau, from studies which it has made in nineteen cities, calculates that of each dollar of family income expended 38.2 percent goes for food, 16.6 percent for clothing. 13.5 percent for housing, 5.3 percent for fuel, 5.1 percent for furniture, and the balance of 21.3 percent for recreation and incidental expenditure.

Where the fathers are paid insufficiently to provide for family needs, the mother comes to the rescue; and the employment of women up to almost the very hour that they give birth to their children is a feature of American civilization of which none can be overly proud.

The Government Children’s Bureau made a study of 843 families in Chicago in which the mothers work. In these families were 2,066 children under fourteen years of age ; as a matter of course these children received inadequate care or no care during the day, and their mothers were usually over-fatigued and in ill-health. The report pays a deserved tribute to these women, many of whom do all their own washing and cooking. Some of these poor souls sacrifice themselves in every way in order to save their children from tasks too heavy for their years, and they work under such strain that they sometimes fall asleep over their machines from sheer exhaustion.

Wage Cute in Britain

THE same campaign of wage reduction which spread over the United States during the first nine months of 1921 spread over England at the same time, showing a determination on the part of the great financiers of both countries to make labor retreat from its advanced position. The wage reductions in Britain in this period affected 7,000,000 persons, and wiped out virtually all the increases in wages granted during 1919 and 1920.

The New York Times published early in 1922 the following table showing the net wage re-,duction per employ^ in various British industries for the first eleven months of 1921. It will be seen that all lines were affected, the same as in the United States:

Net reduc-

No. of	Net reduc-	^ion per
employes	tion in	employ^ .
affected	w’kly w^g,s	per week      ' £ s d.
Iron and steel. . 239,500	£431,690	1 16 1
Mining and quar-
rying .......1,291,200	2,460,000	1 18 1
Binding and allied
trades....... 447,400	302.200	0 13 6
Textile ........1,006,700	594,720	0 11 10
Eng’g and ship-
building___..1,362,700	651.250	0   9 7
Transport ..... 912,000	381,300	0   8 4
Public utility .. 316,700	124,400	0   7 10

In the early part of 1920 the workers in British iron and steel industries were receiving average weekly wages of £5-8s-0d, a year later £4-18s-8d, and two years later £3-8s-2d, and in the fall of 1921 there were less than half of the number at work that were employed fifteen months before.

The London Herald, commenting upon the wage cuts whfle they were at their height, said:

“Millions of workers are bearing the bruin of a ruthless attack upon their standard of life. Mines, engineering, shipbuilding, steel, agriculture, building, rsflvaya, education, the riril —rrifle- all have the mi» atoiy to tell Wages and hous aro the objects of the attack, and the anptoyars an seeking to drive the vorkera back to the conditions that obtained before the •Great War?*

The moneys of Germany and Austria have so depreciated that no information can be imparted regarding wages that will adequately represent the facts. In Austria carpenters used to get 34 crowns per week; now they get 2,400 crowns per week, but the purchasing value of their wages has fallen from $7 per week to between $3 and $3.50, depending upon the rate of exchange. This is a fair sample of what has happened in all lines o$ industry. The net Austrian wages in American money range from .$2 to $5 per week. In Germany skilled mechanics receive forty-five cents per day up to ninety cents. •                             .

The U. & Government has just published estimates of the weekly wages earned in ten leading industries, computed on the basis of current exchange rates, but not taking into ao count the all-important factor of the difference in cost of living in the countries named. The figures are as follows:

Per Week

United States ........................$30.33

England

Belgium

France

Japan

Germany

Italy

Some subscriber in ‘England is kidding ns» In order to make us think that the times are completely askew there he has sent the following facetious clipping regarding the doings in the London Zoo:

JUMBO OH 8TRIDI

rumrs Dovnr nw-xanzjD Morions ar m zoo

As a protert against a naw standard of condititMM ₁ not wages—the biggest and most popular elephant at the London Zoo has gone on strika

The trouble arose during ths wook end, when the elephant without warning to its employers^ withdrew its labor, and ceased to give any mars rides to the hundreds of demoting childrm.

His keepers, casting about lor a key to the problem,    '

noticed that a change from wooden to trow steps as a means of mounting to the howdah had affected him. - . Sightly or wrongly, Jumbo refused the new sealer

The authorities hope to settle the trouble today by* replacing the old scale and conditions.             .

But the times are bad enough everywhere f we do not doubt that at all, and the only remedy we can discern for the lowly workers thatare bearing and have always borne the brunt of tho burden of civilization is the ushering in of Mee-siah’s kingdom and the laying of * justice tn: the line and righteousness to the plummet.*— lariah 28:17.

"And I will pome near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against *. . . those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the*' stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.*—Malachi 3:5.

The Four Councils of Nations By Thomas r. Smith

IN ALL business it is a safe and wise procedure once a year to take stock, and note the success or faihirp of the year. In this very important business of bringing peace to this distracted and war-torn world, stock should be taken. In this ease of stock-taking, the question that first confronts you is, Why four councils where one, if rightly conducted, ought to dot The next question is, Why are the whole four councils failures 1 Let us answer these important questions in the light of God’s Word and common sense.

There are four parties or taAan elements that have made up these councils, and every one of them has been and is intensely selfish and self-seeking. Bight here is where they made

their greatest mistake—in leaving the God of heaven out of their councils. How could they ask God’s blessing upon the selfish, greedy, grabbing schemes of their councils f Then again, there are four other factors or parties that made up all their councils: Big business, big churchianity (not true Christianity), big poh- . ticians and big labor. Now all these are in- -tensely selfish elements, and are used by the god of this present evil world—Satan —to run this world along the Satanic line of .war and bloodshed.                           _t

When this world-wide war began in 1914, , there were four popes, and all were Divine Righters: First, the Czar of all the Russians; second, the Emperor of Germany; third, the

King nf England; and fourth, the Pope of Rome. This Pope of Rome is the original and foundation of all Divine Righters.

Please notice that all these popes were heads of their several churches, as well as kings. Also notice that three of these pope^ have disappeared and gone out of the pope business. The great pope of Russia and nearly all of his family disappeared into the grave. The German pope covertly deserted his popedpm, ran into Holland, and has gotten a job at sawing wood. The English pope is no longer a real pope; democracy has eaten the heart out of his popedom; and Ids kingship will soon go with his popedom, also.

The only pope left is the first Divine Righter, the Pope of Rome; and he is desperately holding on to his doorposts in a death grip like a drowning man. This world-wide war has played havoc with all Divine Righters and with Rome especially. The greatest and only Romish Empire in the whole world—Austria—is smashed into many pieces. Over 2,000 Catholic cathedrals and churches were destroyed in Belgium and northern France. Italy suffered also in the same way at the time the Romish Pope doublecrossed the Italian army, when the Austrian forces smashed through the Italian lines so suddenly, almost giving the final victory to the Germans.

_ America went over there under the pretense of enforcing the theory of “Self-determination of the Nations.” Where was that fine theory enforced? In the Mesopotamian grab by England? In the Asia Minor grab by France? Or in the Shantung grab by Japan? Or in the grab of Fiumeby Italy?

The only nation that did not grab, and much to her credit, was the United States. Let us sum up the gain, or Ipss. As measured by a worldly standard, we have lost. Why? Because there is no real peace yet. We are at war now. The Turks and the Greeks are fighting yet. Besides, we have laid a good foundation for future wars in every new frontier we have made. There is no nation nor any person that seems to be satisfied with the present situation. Did you ever know selfishness of any kind to permanently settle any kind of row?

When the apostate church sold out to Constantine for state recognition in 325 A. D., she lost the non-resistant, sacrificial spirit of Christ that had through suffering conquered the great

Roman Empire. She gained the Satanic spirit of conquest and war, and has ruled the world by war and blood, massacre and martyrdom, ever since. It was a sectarian row between two paganized churches as to which should rule Servia that brought on this world-wide war.

The true reason why these four councils have been such great failures is that there was no justice practised at any of them. Rome, during the centuries of her rule, has waded through blood; and the machinery of her inquisition attests the cruelty of that rule. Fifty millions of people have gone ta death, and the Bible says in the Book of Revelation that 'the blood of all the martyrs was found in her.’

Rome is nearing her end. She is the mother of anarchists, and makes them by her despotic rule in all of the countries which she rules. She is also the niother of the boycott. It was born in her confessional. It is the dreaded nightmare of the Protestant merchants. She is the originator of double-crossing. There is hardly a country in the world that she has not doublecrossed. To my knowledge, historical and personal, Rome has many times doubte-erossed the Irish people in their efforts to throw off ithe English yoke. The Jesuit priests know that creed hate of Protestant government is the greatest incentive to keep the Irish true to Rome. Rome double-crossed the U. S. Government and the Protestant clergy in the late Espionage Law enforcement. She started the propaganda that the Bible Students were aedi-tionists and German sympathizers; and the Protestant ministers, houndlike, took up the cry and began their persecuting work.

A minister, or perhaps two; with a crowd of Knights of Columbus as heelers would arrest a man Bible Student, take him out into the woods, lecture him, beat him, and abuse him, or perhaps tar and feather him, just as the fancy moved them. Some men and women were arrested and sentenced to imprisonment. But one noticeable fact is: Not one priest was ever seen at any of these unlawful outrages. Jesuit craft. Why should they be seen when they could double-cross the foolish Protestant ministers and make them pull the espionage npts out of the fire for them? Yet the priests were the originators of the whole Satanic scheme.

We are nearing the end. The last industrial features or struggle of the Battle of Armageddon will occur here in the United States soon. The shooting down of nearly seventy of what they call "scab strike-breakers” in the State of Illinois is only a prelude to the universal anarchy that is coming. Big business and the clergy, Catholic and Protestant, are combined. Labor and the fanners are combining, and evidently will come together. The churches are entering politics, and it will be their destruction. Rome will secretly try to double-cross the Laborites; and it will split the United Catholic Societies, Knights of Columbus. and other organizations right in two. In every country Rome has always gotten the hardest knocks from her own children and she certainly will get the hard knocks here when they discover her treachery. Now I do not claim this to be a prophetic statement of the coming event; but I do claim it to be common-sense placement of the very forces that are already formed and in motion toward the goal.

Like the disciples on the Sea of Galilee, the world is in a boat on the sea of anarchy, and rowing very hard to get to the shores of peace. The world for six thousand years has been rowing hard to get peace in its own way. If Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson, and others at the League of Nations had stopped their rowing and grabbing, and turned to the waiting Christ, He would have arisen and said: "Peace, be still”; and there would have been a great calm. God help the world to learn this lesson, stop rowing, and "cry unto the Lord in their trouble” that He may bring them "unto their desired haven.”—Psalm 107:28-30.

A Ku K1UX Kick By John Balter

WE HAVE in this great state, and according to reports in many others states, what is known as the "Ku Klux Klan,” an organization which is causing much dissension, hatred and turmoil among families and friends. And as one of many thousands, I would appreciate a careful discussion of this organization in your editorial columns, setting out your ideas as to the ultimate results and as to what the immediate and future purposes are; or you may use this article, if you think it will serve any purpose.

Not being a member, I am compelled to look to current news items and local events and the Klan's conduct as my guide. I understand that the Klans claim to combat the political power of the Catholic Church. If so, very well; I have no objection to that. They also claim to uphold white supremacy and enforce the laws of the land generally. They swear obedience to their "Imperial Wizard,” to obey all of his commands. edicts, etc.

Tn the face of all this, I see threatening letters written and sent to individuals, commanding them to leave, stay, or do thus and so, signed "K. K. K.” The Klans claim that they did not send such letters, though such were not received until they appeared as guardians of law, order, and morals. Many people, male and female, have been kidnapped, assaulted and mistreated in numerous ways by mobs garbed in their (Klux) regalia. The Klans deny such acts; but such treatment was not accorded any one until they appeared upon the law and moral arena as guardians of law, modesty, and morals.

The Klans swear to uphold and enforce the law, and in the same oath and at the same time swear to protect each other in every infraction of the law, except in treason, willful murder, and rape. They have been brought before courts of competent jurisdiction, and have defied the court and the law which they have just sworn to uphold, by refusing to answer or give testimony before such court They violate the constitutional rights of citizens by depriving them of liberty and freedom without due process of law. The Klans swear and declare that they are not guilty of offenses against the laws of the land in the face of the fact (so claimed by them) that their "Imperial Wizard” has revoked a few of their charters for such law violations. They break into and violate the sanctity of American homes with impunity, an act which in all nations, now, and in their darkest days, and in our own land, is and was and always has been denounced as one of the greatest violations of a citizens’ rights. They strip females bare and expose their nude bodies to the gaze of a crowd of hooded "guardians” of morals, modesty and law. They deny participation therein, though those who did it had on the regalia of the Klux; possibly the garments were borrowed. They break into the homes of

Californians (under indictment now), and compel two young ladies to arise and dress under the gaze of some thirty of their “Hooded Guardians" of morals, modesty and law. They write letters to officers of the law, advising them: “Go slow in investigating the doings of Klux.” The Kians openly solicit support of Protestant churches and preachers by small donations of filthy lucre, and get said support. But as for me, I would just as soon be under the power of one religious bigot as another; for any of them will devour you if power is given them. They do some charity among the unfortunate, and always manage to get it spread broadcast in all the newspapers. They go heavily armed in their expeditions to protect modesty, morals, and law. They march up and down the streets of our cities with banners threatening folk: "Idlers, go to work"; "Radicals, beware/’ etc., regardless of whether people are idle on account of lockouts, business depression, panics, or what not; or whether or not one could reasonably go to work for a dime or two dollars a day. But this sounds like music to big business, does it not? They do not say to the officials of the corporation and government, “Give these people work and go to work yourselves and lighten the burden." No, indeed! They would see their finish in that command.

Their Big Klegal Klark makes the statement for publication in Dallas, Texas, that it is a military organization, that twenty percent of their membership will be their regular ^(<military force," that they do not care who knows they are Ku Klux, that they are brave men and will be feared, that in case of necessity they can and will call eighty percent of their entire membership to do military service, and that they are not fighting the Catholic Church, etc.

Then what and who are they fighting? Labor, ultimately.                     •

Now suppose the garment, mill, mine, railroad, and all labor unions were to announce as a fact that they maintained a “military branch” with eighty percent of their entire membership subject to call at any time to do “military service'’ and that they would be feared (and they would be by big business), what would be the attitude of our well-known Uncle and his best friend, “Big Business”? I wonder whether any one could guess.

What did our Government and big business do to the I. W. W., and they without a “military branch”? What did the New York State government do to the six Socialists elected and sent to represent the people, and they without a “military branch”? What have the Government forces done to the steel strikers of Gary, aud they without a “military branch”? What did and are the state and national governments doing with the coal strikers, and they without a "military branch”? What did our Government do to Debs, Rutherford, and hundreds of others, and they without a "military branch”? What have all governments done to all the suffering, toiling, starving, ragged, illiterate (enforced) masses, and they without a "military branch” f

From the day of the dark beginning of civilization, the moneyed, aristocratic, overbearing, imperial, bigoted owning class have murdered millions of people, and they murdered Christ, all of them without a “military branch”; and that same class who have the people of this nation by the throat, brutally extracting the last ounce of strength, vitality and blood from the people, are permitting the Three K organization to exist, browbeat, and intimidate people, ' and still maintain their “military branch.”

It is well known among people who read and who have quietly and thoughtfully trod backward down the corridor of time as best history will guide them, and who have tried to keep pace with events during the past few years, that all military nations (and that is all of them) have come to be very doubtful as to whether or not they can depend upon their regular armies to defend their vested interests and their positions upon the people’s backs.

Hence, Wall Street, big business, has already gone to the fountain-head of the Three K’s and tested the pulse of the “Big Wizard" and found his child, the Klan, to be a robust, strong, well-organized gentleman with a reliable "military branch”; which child will be just the thing for excellent use in their defense against the people in their last hour of need and trouble.

Does any one imagine that big business does not know just what they can expect of and do with this organization? If they did not think that they knew and if they did not expect great benefits from it, there would not be much time lost in pruning it of its “military branch” and all other branches offensive to big business.

My friends of the Three K affiliation: If you really want to do a service for which you will be long remembered and go down in future pages of history, quit taking advantage of helpless men and women and violating the law by violating the fleshly bodies of those who have, no doubt, been guilty of no greater offense than you yourseves have been some time in life, or possibly within a few hours or days prior to your attack upon them.

Quit trying to scare people with gowns, sheets, and hoods; but, on the contrary, make a vigorous attack upon the power causing all the evil in our land and other lands; that is to say— big business, the controllers of the destinies of men and women generally, who exercise control and power in the most dastardly manner, the class that has brought about the very things which you profess to rectify.

They have driven myriads of our sweetest womanhood to loathsome prostitution through the channels of poverty. They have corrupted officials, from the highest to the lowest They have murdered millions of the bravest, noblest _t youth of all lands, only to gratify their lust for gold.                        '

They have, relentlessly, without pity or mercy, driven the brawn of all generations to the most degrading and loathsome poverty lines; they have prostituted pulpit and preacher in every land; they will sell the life of the last one of you for more filthy lucre; they will sacrifice you upon battle fields, fighting you against your own brothers, in order that they be held in power.

Yes, dear friends, defy that element, and see how soon you will draw their wrath, and become acquainted with sleuths, bloodhounds, and jails.

Beware, my good friends, that your “military branch” is not used against you and society generally, to weld tighter the chains of slavery round your own and the public’s arms. Again, beware that you do not oust one church and enthrone another, and thus procure unto yourselves and all mankind an ecclesiastical, intolerant, overbearing group of fanatics that will make the days of tha ecclesiastical governments of Europe, and the days of the iniquisition of yore, look as innocent as a newly established ice-cream parlor.

History teaches that church and religious fanatics make the most tyrannical, dangerous, and damnable rulers of state and nation known to man and civilization. Beware that this is not a movement at the behest of big business and crooked politicians to draw -attention from them and their crooked work and to keep you truckling to the polls to vote in the old party primaries and elections generally,           .

Adjuncts Of Civilization By Benjamin Innis

THE following is from the Rockford Republic under date of September 13, 1922: “40,000,000 Gallons of Bonded Liquor Stored "Washington, Sept. 6.—Selections of fourteen warehouses under the treasury’s program for concentrating the liquor now stored in bonded warehouses has been announced. Preliminary plans call for the concentration of approximately 40,000,000 gallons of liquor."

Yet the Volstead law says: “Alcoholic liquor must not be made, sold, or transported.” In the city of Rockford, Ill., a distillery was operated for several months under Government, supervision night and day, am) thousands of barrels of alcohol were made and transported. Is the Volstead law a law, or is it an insult to

Itiw!

The Treasury Department is evidently not a part of the United States, or it would be fined or imprisoned. When a citizen or an alien is caught making, selling, or transporting liquor ccntnining more than.half of one percent alcohol, he is fined and landed in the county jail Is the Government abovents laws! What constitutes government! Representatives. From whom do the representatives get their powers f From the people.

Since the Volstead Act took effect, this nation has been deluged with “moonshine whiskey.” “The Soldier’s Bonus” was appropriated to pay spies and informers, political henchmen; and a spy system has been established like that which ruined Russia. The Treasury Department will do some “high stepping’* if it “transports and sells” 40,000,000 gallons of booze. But see the revenue it will bring! Distillers have been putting out their “hell broth” under Government supervision, and the men employed did the work. That experience gave those workers what they wanted to know—how to make a still and operate it; and today the moonshiner is equipped with the latest equipment, and many of them turn out over fifty gallons per day, which sells for eight dollars per gallon. I am not a spy, an informer; neither did I gel these facts from an informer. The truth of the matter is, the Volstead* Law is responsible for thousands of deaths. [We are advised that in this vicinity at least one prohibition enforcement officer makes regular weekly calls at the illicit stills on his beat, collecting heavy toll from the operators of the stills as his price for keeping his mouth shut.—Ed.]

I have more respect for an intoxicated man than for a preacher that sells “worthless stock,” or that is connected with any “popular gambling device.” Our so-called Christian civilization is a delusion; in reality it is a gilded barbarity, built on mountains of hypocrisy. Look at it Marriage has degenerated into licensed crime, divorce is a commercial commodity, and our laws are decrees of pagan emperors with the date changed. Our statesmen pocket their salaries, and we pocket their mistakes, unpardonable blunders, persecution, prosecution, and legalized robbery, and bequeath them to generations yet unborn.

Looking backward through the past history written with blood in quagmires of quivering flesh, we see Christianity (?) as it is. All religious (1) sects or creeds radiate from King Henry the Eighth, except the Roman Catholic and the Lutheran. King Henry was a libertine and murderer, and he was created the “head of church and state.” Politics and religion combined make a monstrosity more hideous than the imagination of Dante pictured with the help of Dore. No two men ever described modern Christianity more perfectly than did Dante and Gustavus Dor&

William Jennings Bryan does not believe in the Darwinian theory of evolution. The Reverend JIr. Pierce took issue with Mr. Bryan and said that Mr. Bryan took the Genesis record "too literally.” Was the deluge literal? Was the siege of Jerusalem literal? Was the overthrow of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome literal? Yes; the ruins are witnesses.

Did Christ sell oil or mining stock? No; He sold nothing. He gave His life—all He possessed, all God gave Him, all that was possible for Him to give. He freely gave the world love, justice, and wisdom. And now, knowing the facts, I instinctively abhor a man that will sell the tears of Jesus. A more sublime poem was never written than the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. It brings tears to my eyes every time I read it. No poet living, no artist, can describe or paint a more pathetic scene.

Now let us ramble through a few ages of history. Christ rode an unbroken ass. The ass knew his Master, man does not. This is the history of man from Adam to the present time. President Wilson in his Thanksgiving Proclamation, in 1917, requested all people to assemble in their respective places of worship and give thanks to God, the “Ruler of Nations.” Did President Wilson imagine that he was an “attribute of God'* when he usurped the power of Congress and declared war, and whipped Congress till it declared war? Did President Wilson imagine that “imperialistic ambition, dynastic pride, and greedy commercialism” were attributes of God? If he did, and his statements imply that he did, we must get down to the absolute truth.

Satan is the prince of this world. From the events that have transpired during the past few years the people should soon aw^Taken to the fact that the rulers of the old order have unwittingly acted at the behest of the evil one.

Improved Engine Oil

THE Golden Act readers are familiar with the Miracle Oil Sales Company, which heretofore has been advertised in this journal. We carried the Miracle Oil advertisements because the sales company was managed by Mr. G. 8. Millen whom we have long known, and also because the oil had been tested by an expert

Mr. Miller and his associate, Mr. T. H. Doremus, advise us that they now have an improved < method of manufacturing the upper cylinder lubricating oil, which is equally as good, if not better, than the Miracle Oil, and which they can manufacture and sell at about one-half the price that Miracle Oil has sold for. Their company is known as the Firezone Lubrication Company.

Wc gathered this information for the benefit of The Golden Age subscribers who have heretofore purchased oil of Mr. Miller’s company. At our request Mr. Miller has given us the following description of this oil, which is named "Firezone-Oil.”

017 That Stands the Heat of Combustion

FIBEZONE-OIL is a new product for upper cylinder lubrication in the internal combustion engine, automobiles, etc., in which several high-grade mineral oils are secretly com- T pounded in such a manner as to mix perfectly with the gasoline or any fuel and survive the "heat of the gas-explosion under compression inside the cylinder head* long enough to lubricate the upper walls, piston rings, valves, and valve stems, where friction due to heat expansion, carbon, and lack of oil, is the greatest.

_ This oil lubricates the fuel and sprays the frictional surfaces with every explosion. It completes the oiling system of the motor, never yet accomplished, and results in a smoother, quieter running engine, fifty percent less vibration and heat, quicker pickup and maintainenee of power on upgrade in high gear, which is a boon to the .automobile, and in a more comfortable riding and driving car.

It is used, two ounces with every five gallons of gasoline or any other fuel, poured into the fuel'tank, which readily mixes with the fuel.

The Firezone Lubrication Company will cultivate a reputation for fair and honest business dealings and for conducting business in a prompt and efficient manner. It will produce an honest product of quality truthfully represented. It has a reasonable and substantial financial standing.

The Richardson Retort By Henry Fox

THE most wasteful industry is the coal industry. If coal were the only substance gotten out of the mine, the miner, the operator and the public would be the gainer. But there is also bone coal, a substance resembling coal, that clutters the empty rooms of the mine as well as the surrounding territory about the mine. Slate, shale, and bloom at present find no useful place in humanity’s list; on the contrary, the handling and the final disposition thereof is charged against the coal. The miner handles it, the operator disposes of it, the public pays for it at a loss. It forms an ever-threatening danger in and around a coal mine. In a mine explosion or fire it ignites and burns for months. Piled up it is fired by spontaneous combustion. Today many hundred piles, mountains in some instances, are burning.

J. F. Richardson of Pittsburgh, Pa., has invented a machine, or rather a process, whereby ail the former waste finds a use. The mere fact that such waste bums betrays the heat units it contains. In 1918 Mr. Richardson set out tn discover some method to extract the heat unita From 1918 to 1922 he spent every spare moment of his time in solving this question.

While the coke industry today is getting valuable products from coal, it could not show the way in the reclaiming of mine waste.

The Richardson Retort is the result of tire* less effort and dauntless courage in spite of many failures. The retort is an inverted cone, the small opening being at the top. Into this crushed bone coal is put, through wliich it is carried by its own weight, A vacuum entering at the top draws off the gases and hydrocaz< bons, after a flame is introduced at the bottom of the retort. After the retort is sufficiently lighted, the opening through which the fire is applied is closed; and thereafter the crushed bone coal forms its own fuel A water-seal below allows just sufficient air to keep the fire lit. At the same time it acts as a thermostat, controlling the temperature within ten degrees.

The falling material enters an area heated to 200° Fahrenheit, where it gives up some of its gases. As it falls it expands, the widening of the retort taking care of the expansion and prevents caking or freezing to the sides, as it fe sometimes called. The change of temperature from the top to the fire ranges from 200° to 500° F. When it reaches the bottom, all the gases have been extracted; and then it ignites and furnishes the heat for the oncoming material. Those gases pass through a pump and through condensation coils, where they condense into oil and tar; the non-condensable gases pass on, are purified, and form the power by which the machinery is run.

The wastes of various mines differ greatly in their oil content. Some run as high as 100 gallons to the ton and some as low as twenty-five gallons to the ton. Various runs on different samples submitted prove conclusively that henceforth every coal mine can convert its waste into tar, oil and gas. Sixty gallons of oil. tar. and 5,000 cubic feet of gas have been gotten from one ton of waste. The residue can be used in the making of cement, brick, or fertilizer. The oil is a refinery product, the same as crude oil; and the tar furnishes the basis of coal tars, dyes, drugs, fire-proofing, paint, ammonia, and road-making binder. The gas contains benzol in sufficient quantities to make the extraction profitable.

Besides the coal industry, the Richardson Retort can be used in the salvaging of other waste, such as sawdust, garbage, and oil shales. As all the labor connected with the process is done by automatic machinery, it is possible for one man to handle fifty tons per day; and since the material in every instance furnishes its own fuel and power, and the first cost of construction of the plant is very small, the next few years should witness the erection of such plants wherever accumulated waste is found.

In the coal industry alone it will mean a wonderful change as well as a great saving for the nation. Eventually coal itself will be converted into oil, and the heat units piped away in pipe lines. The day is not far distant when we shall no longer carry coal into and ashes out of our cellars. Our coal will come in a tank and be burned in an oil-burner.

The Vaccination Fraud By Mrs. Andrew J. Holmes

IN RECENT years, there has been a great deal said of the merit and demerit of vaccination. There never was complete acceptance or unanimity of opinion among the medical and surgical professions. There have been dissenters since the time of Jenner; and the number has greatly increased since the anti-vaccination societies have published the vast amount of evidence against the practice, thus opening people's eyes to the tragedies of this abominable practice.                                           _s

The very principle of vaccination is enough to condemn it. The idea of injecting rotten matter, pus, into the circulation of the blood, is disgusting, repulsive, to say the least. If vaccination is anything, it is a loathsame, vile disease caused by injecting infectious matter into healthy people as well as into sickly ones.

There are many honest doctors whose statements attest that they feel greater uneasiness about vaccinia than about actual cases of smallpox: that there are less suffering and fewer critical cases from the latter than from the former; that they are even convinced that an active and deliberately induced vaccinia was the existing cause from which developed disease that eventuated in untimely ending of lives full of promise; ^nd that there is too much evidence against thirVicious practice to fear a satisfactory denial of the foregoing statements.

Public resentment against compulsory vaccination is spreading; for the whole Jennerian theory of vaccination has been shown to be built on falsehood.

The following from the Denver Nezvs, February 2, 1921, shows what Justice Robinson had to say on the subject of vaccination:

"Vaccination prevails and becomes epidemic only in countries where the population is dense and where the sanitary conditions are bad.' It was in such countries and days when sanitation was unknown, that the doctrine of vaccination was promulgated and adopted as a religious creed.

"Gradually it spread to other countries where conditions are so different that vaccination is justly regarded as a menace and a curse; and where, as it appears, the primary purpose of vaccination is to give a living to the vaccinators.

“Hence, were vaccination to become general, it would be certain to ckom the sickness or death ci a thousand children when <me child sickens and dies from smallpox.

“Of <nurae, a diflenut story is told by the class that reap a golden barest from vaccination and the diseases caused by it Yet because of self-interest, their doctrine must be received with the greatest care and scrutiny. Every person of common sense and observation must know that it is not the welfare of the children that causes the vaccinators to preach their doctrines and to incur the expense of lobbying for vaccination statutes.

“England with its dense population and insanitary conditions was the first country to adopt compulsory vaccination, but there it has been denounced and abandoned. In the city of Leicester vaccination has long since been tabood, and there because of special regard for .cleanliness and good sanitation the people fear no smallpox.

“In Dr. Peebles' book on vaccination there are statistics to the effect that 25,000 children are annually slaughtered by diseases inoculated into the system by compulsory vaccination.

“It is shown beyond doubt that vaccination is not infrequently the cause of death, syphilis, cancer, consumption, eczema, leprosy, and other diseases. It is shown that if vaccination has any tendency to prevent an attack of smallpox, the remedy is worse than the disease.

“Finally, the proper safeguard is by sanitation. The chances are that within a generation vaccination will cease to exist. It will go the way of bleeding, purging and salivation. The-vaccinators must learn to live without sowing the seeds of death and disease.”

Anti-vaccination societies have collected the statements of many honest men who are greatly esteemed for their work in their chosen field of science, medicine, and literature, and who are opposed to vaccination.

One of these publications which are doing a great deal in exposing the medical fraternity in their fraud and deception, and which also disclose the Vivisectionist in the cruel and devilish torture of poor defenseless animals, is “The Open Door,” published in Y. I do not know of a publication more worthy of the support of all kind-hearted people than this one.

Among the names of famous men who are opposed to vaccination is that of Alfred Bussell Wallace, who after exhaustive study prepared an essay on the subject “Vaccination a Delusion; Its Enforcement a Crime.” Prof. Wallace says: “While utterly powerless for good, vaccination is a certain cause of disease, and is the probable cause of about 10,000 deaths; and annually of 5.000 inoculahle diseases of the

most terrible and moat disgusting character.” - Dr. Walton Ross, a scholarly student, physician and scientist, has this to say on the sub-ject:                                        f

“I should fail in my duty and prove false to the beat interests of humanity did I not record my convictions based on irrefutable facts that vaccination is an unmitigated curse, and the most destructive medical delusion which baa ever afflicted the human race. I know full well that the vaccinator sows broadcast the seeds of many filth diseases, of the skin, the hair and eye^ which are transmitted from generation to generation, an ever-abiding curse to humanity.”

Dr. Charles Crighton, a recognized authority on epidemiology, and a pronounced vaccin- -ist, was selected by the publishers of the "Encyclopedia Britannica” to write an article on vaccination. To his own surprise and that of the editors, the fifteen-column article resulting from his exhaustive investigation was packed full with irrefutable proofs of the fallacy of vaccination.

Dr. Carlo Ruata, Professor of Materia Medics, University of Perugia, Italy, was indicted and arraigned in the Prefers Court in Perugia* When making his own defense, he stated, after reciting the disastrous results of the practice in Italy:

“Were it not for this calamitous practice, smallpox would have been stamped out years ago, and would have disappeared. Believe not in vaccination; it is a worldwide delusion, an unscientific practice, a fatal ^uper* stition whose consequences are measured by thousands of dead and wounded, by tears and sorrow without end.”

F. M. Lutze, M. has this to say about vaccination:

“When sowing disease we can only reap a harvest <rf disease and death, and this is the result of vaccination.

I have treated a very large number of children for granular eyelids, disease of the heart, lungs, bronchi, and indigestion, undoubtedly due to vaccination, for they had become ill immediately after vaccination. Children who had been intellectually bright became dull and stupid soon after vaccination, and were restored to health with difficulty.

“Sanitation, construction of sewers, collection and destruction of all refuse and waste, properly ventilated dwellings, pure food—these alone can prevent smallpox or any other disease.”

Some Court Ikcitwru

IT if AY be of interest to the readers of Th» Golden Age to know what the decisions of some of the courts of the United States are on the subject of vaccination*

The Supreme Court of North Dakota has decided that children cannot be excluded from school on the ground of not being vaccinated. \ Extracts from Decisions of Court of Appeals, \ State of New York, declare:

“I find no warrant for the rather extraordinary declaration of the Commissioner that where any person ■hall refuse to be vaccinated such person shall be immediately quarantined and continue in quarantine until he consents to such vaccination. ... It is difficult to suppose that the Legislature would invest local ofiP' cials with such arbitrary authority over their fellow citizens and the language of an act would have to be very plain before the Court would be warranted in giving it such a construction. But the Legislature has done nothing of the kind. ... It is very dear that an 'isolation of all persons and things’ is only permitted when they are 'infected with or exposed to’ contagious and infectious diseases. . . the authority is not given to direct, or to carry out, a quarantine of all persons who refuse to permit themselves to be vaccinated and it cannot be implied.”

The Bridgeport Times, January 17, 1922, has the following:

"It was ^sop, who had been a slave and who became a wise man, who wrote the fable of the Ass in the Lion’s skin. The Board of Health would do better to vaccinate where the rite is acceptable, and keep far away from such language as, 'The Board of Health does not request; it orders.’

"The Board of Health may order until it is black in the face, until it bursts under the pressure of its conviction that it is very wise and competent; but it has no power whatever to force vaccination upon the body of the humblest beggar who refuses to receive it. And if by any chance vaccination is forced upon any person against his will, say upon a child against the will of its guardians, it is likely that the person and the property of the offending official would be held to answer, if those whose rights were so violated should choose to take action.

"The statute under which the Board carries on amounts merely to the statement that the individual who refuses vaccination may be fined five dollars. Those few opinions from the courts of the land ought to make Boards of Health a little modest, and a little timid about ordering.”

Judge Bartlett in the New York Supreme Court, in the case of Walters in 1894, decided: "To vaccinate a person against his will, without legal authority to do so, would be an assault.”

Judge Woodward of the New York Appellate Court in the Viemeister case in 1903, declared: *It may be conceded that the legislature has no constitutional right to compel any person to submit to vaccination.” .

The Supreme Court of the State of Massachusetts, in the case of Jacobson in 1904, said:

"If any person should deem it important that vaccination should not be performed in his case and the authorities should think otherwise, it is not in their power to vaccinate him by force; and the worst that could happen to him under the statute would be the payment of a penalty of five dollars.”

Judge Le Boeuf, of the Supreme Court in Columbia County, New York, changed the jury:

"Now I have charged you that this assault which is claimed to have existed here, due to forcible vaccination, if it was a forcible vaccination, that is, it waa against this man’s will, is one which you must consider. And the reason of that is this: This man, in the eyes of the law, just as you and I and all of us in this courtroom, has the right to be let alone. We all have the right to the freedom of our persons, and that freedom of our persons may not be unlawfully invaded. That is a great right. It is one of the most important rights we have.”

That the vaccinationists have no faith in this fetish, is proved by their demand for compulsory vaccination. If vaccination actually pro--tects, then after they have been vaccinated, why are they not content, if they believe they are immune, and let other people alonet But do they show confidence in their doctrines! No. instead of feeling safe, they have the greatest fear of contagion. Yet with the greatest assurance they go right on vaccinating and revaccinating until, now, they say that one must be vaccinated every six weeks to be perfectly safe, when there are more deaths from lightning than from smallpox.

It would not be any more senseless or absurd to make the claim for some anti-lightning specific or serum, than to claim that vaccination is a protection against smallpox.

Perhaps the next most wonderful discovery of this "brain age” by some learned M. D. will be a serum for inocculating against lightning.

But when one understands "the game” he then knows that if vaccination did not bring in the "big money” it does, there would be very little of it done.

When the medical profession itself admits that nature is the greatest doctor, how ridiculous the whole medical profession becomes. If nature is the greatest doctor, then we should divest our minds of this superstitious belief in the Jennerian theory and study Dr. Nature’s

laws and learn something about the human body and its needs. Then when one has this knowledge he cannot be humbugged.

Dr. Walton Hadwen of England has the following to say:

"No official statistics of any disease associated with inoculation processes are trustworthy. The endeavor to save the face of the inoculation fetish at all costa— . and at the same time the face of the men whose reputations (and even incomes) depend upon its ‘success* — brushes every scientific consideration aside. The ▼hole system of inoculation is built upon imagination and false and superstitious theories; and it is steeped from foundation to summit in commercial interests.

“I view the whole inoculation system—no matter to ▼hat disease it is applied—as a scientific error of the grossest description; so blind and wilful an error that it constitutes an imposition upon the public. The efficacy of inoculation has never been proved. Its unscientific nature, its uselessness, and dangers have been established beyond dispute. If health is to be maintained, the constitution must be safeguarded by sound, sanitary, and hygienic conditions; but to suppose that disease can be prevented by inoculating the system with the products of disease is as sensible as to invoke the power of Satan to cast out sin?’

Such statements from a man of Dr. Had-wen’s standing and reputation are worth due consideration.

The public is not generally aware of how large an industry is the manufacture of serums, anti-toxins and vaccines, or that big business controls the whole industry. Neither are they generally aware that it is through the M. DJs that this vast amount of serums, etc., is disposed of at from fifty cents'to two dollars per vaccination; or that every little while the boards of health endeavor to start an epidemic of smallpox, diphtheria, or typhoid that they may reap a golden harvest by inoculating an unthinking community for the very purpose of disposing of this manufactured filth. And this vicious situation is repeated throughout the country wherever an isolated case appears or can be made to appear by the officials of the various Boards of Health. They then raise a great cry for the* need of compulsory vaccination. And it is on just such flimsy foundation as this that the political doctors are using the legislatures of the various states to pass laws which they can use to compel whole communities to submit to the indignity of having their blood contaminated with a manufactured filthy pus to accommodate big medics and big business. But those political doctors cannot dele

gate to the state officials rights which they ' themselves do not posses. Then it is very plain that any state law compelling vaccination is unconstitutional, because it violates the natural and inherent rights guaranteed to everyone.

One of the rights of every child is an education, and the parents’ right to educate the child; and this right cannot be taken away by any self-constituted authority of the political doctors who try to force vaccination on the child before they permit it to go to school.. To do so is to violate the Constitution of the United States.

Whoever does any thinking on the subject must agree with Mr. S. D. Bingham's opinion;

"Vaccination rammed up is the most unnatural, an* ‘ hygienic, barbaric, filthy, abhorrent, and mo>t rfangsgr ous system of infection known. Its vile poiwu tata*^. corrupts, and pollutes the Hood of the healthy, resulting * in ulcers, syphilis, scrofula, erysipelas, tuberculosis cancer, tetanus, insanity, and death.”                       *

But the deg-rabies-vaceine imposition is ths latest. The political-medics are uniting to foiait^ upon the poor unsuspecting people the compul- ¹   >¹

sory vaccination of their dogs, for the prevent > z tion of rabies. Rabies! When it has been shows I conclusively that there is no such thing afl " rabies!                                                *

In one city of New York the Board of Health threatened to call out state troops to enforce vaccination upon the entire population if they did not submit peaceably. When will the people * wake up! It takes the “vicious circle," big business, medico-politicians, and the D. D. of Babylon to work the “game’' of intimidating the un- \ suspecting public into handing out their hard-earned dollars to gratify their greed.

Diet is the fundamental principle, not only of getting well, but also of keeping well; for it controls the action of living cells, and through cell changes it builds the body tissues and creates good health and vigor. Vegetables rightly selected, and rightly used, in connection with dairy foods, whole-wheat bread, and the other grains, the various fruits, afford a diet of changing variety, and best quality which will restore the sick to good'health, and maintain a good healthy condition. When the people learn now' to live right, and that is to learn the needs of the body, and to supply them, sickness of all kinds will disappear. But this win not be until God's kingdom is in control of earth’s affairs.

The Great Storm By L. D. Barnes

THE criticisms of Mr. Eosenkrans, as ex-A pressed in No. 76 of The Golden Age, seem to be rather precipitate, and we hope the writers thereof will not draw final conclusions without complete proof. The writer would neither defend all that Mr. Eosenkrans states, nor deny without exhaustive knowledge thereon. Many scriptures have a double application. The literal falling of the stars and the darkening of the sun as foretold by Jesus are in the past. The falling away from the faith by pulpit stars and the obscuration of the gospel light, represented by the sun, are known facts. The statement of the Bevelator that there was “no more sea,” if literally fulfilled, will mean a complete change in three-fourths of the earth's surface. The scriptures cannot be ignored: “The mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.” (Zech. 14:4) We might multiply scriptures. The restless sea represents the discontented, lawless masses, and mountains symbolize nations. It has been suggested that other continents might rise out of the sea. This would seem reasonable and necessary, as three-fourths of the earth's surface now a vast water waste would be more tillable, more adapted to planting vines and fig trees, and to building. Myriads coming from the tomb would appreciate additional space.

There is no reason why people should not be warned of the great time of trouble that closes the age. Noah warned the world in his day, and Jesus warned the Jews. To keep these things secret would be putting one's light under a bushel. The Government maintains a great weather bureau. A storm is brewing over the Gulf of Mexico. People are warned of approaching danger, so that precautions may be taken. Stock is housed, and safety is sought The Government has rendered a great service.

We are the spiritual weather forecasters. We see that a great storm is brewing.. From coast to coast the winds of war and revolution continue to blow, and the fires of human hate burn more intensely, and a great whirlwind of conflagration will result. Under one figure it is likened to an earthquake, the mightiest since men have been on the earth. Literal earthquakes are also numerous and great cities have been destroyed. The earth, is under the curse, imperfect, and great changes may work havoc to vast numbers of the race. Great physical changes are taking place. I have just read that the great lakes are “going south and west” and reports that the earth swayed from its orbit were made by scientists recently. Climatic changes are-noted. During the Millennium, extremes of heat and cold will be moderated.

It is well to remember that some have read more deeply than others. What we do not know we may find out later. Meantime let us tell what we believe to be the truth. Warn them, whether they hear or reject the message. “The day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.” “It is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.” "Verily, I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” "Whose voice then shook the earth. ... I shake not the earth only but also heaven.”

In Mr. Libsach’s Defense By g. Wood

YOUR comment on the article by Mr. Henry Willis Libsach, in issue of August 16, “This is very fine writing, but it is still true that exoept those days be shortened there should no flesh be saved,” is well.taken. I fully agree with you. Mr. Libsach’s statement is undoubtedly the expression of a sane Christian man’s mind.

In discussing the subject, “Hell,” Pastor Russell once said: “Man would not burn a rat forever (if he could). Therefore God, whose justice, love, and mercy are faiLgreater than man’s, would not torture a human creature forever.”

This being true, for it certainly is logical, how then can we be reconciled to such words as we find in issue No. 70 by Mr. Eosenkrans, who with his gruesome pen depicts God (for God alone has the power) “visiting upon the earth electric volts of stupendous power from outer space, w^Thich may swerve our planet from its orbit, halt its rotation, and shake it until the heavens seem to tremble and the stars to fall”

According to my understanding of the interpretation of Scripture by Bible students, and also in Pastor Bussell’s writings, the time of trouble will be caused by man's own selfishness and sinfulness, and not by God; thus giving us a plausible reason for the words, “Except those days be shortened there . should no flesh be saved.”

If God ia to bring about this calamity, why is He interested in shortening it! It doesn’t seem to me to be the Almighty’s orderly way of doing things. But as man is bringing this great trouble upon himself, I can readily understand the intervention of our great Creator, or there should no flesh be saved. To my mind our God is constructive, rather than destructive, as Mr. Rosenkrans would have us believe.                                  ,

Why criticise the nominal church for its belief in a burning hell, or Dante for his terrible Inferno, if yotf print such a wild nightmare as that of Mr. Rosenkrans!

On page 95, the Photo-drama of Creation, issued by the International Bible Students Association, I find the following:

“Already we see... the restitution blessings promised in prophecy. Yet we are only in the beginning of the thousand years in which, under Messiah’s guidance,

God’s wisdom and power wiU undoubtedly work mi> _er , aculous changes in a natural way. It is refreshing to all hearts, and to Christian faith to know that as the Prophet declared, ‘The desert shall rejoice and bloa» som as the rose,¹ ‘and in the wilderness shall waters break out,’ so these things are beginning to be experienced. In the far western parte of the United States, and in Mesopotamia, the land of Abraham, human ingenuity, engineering feats, etc., are working miracles. Divine wisdom is behind them, just as Divine power is now blessing all of earth’s affairs, and making the world most wonderfully rich. If human skill is able to produce such beautiful fruits and flowers as are now manifest on every hand, what may we not expect will be the condition of the perfect earth when the ‘curse’ shall be fully removed by the glorious Bedevmer? Surely it will be the desire of all nations.”

What beautiful words! For, knowing and believing all this, how can a student of the Bible think of God bringing about such terrible destruction as would surely follow if our good old earth were swerved from its orbit or halted in its rotation! "The earth abideth forever.”

In dosing I would in all kindness suggest to you, Mr. Editor, that you have less of Rosenkrans’ horrors and more Biblical authority in your magazine, if you would retain the host of friends you have made.

The Time of Trouble By b. f. Mason

AN ANONYMOUS writer in Golden Age No. 76, severely criticizes the article by Mr. Rosenkrans, printed in No. 70, which deals with the features of the impending trouble. This writer admits that this article may well present a true picture, but thinks that it is not only unnecessary, but outrageously cruel, for one to force these gruesome details upon us before the time. He states that for himself the article tends to arouse a feeling of desperation.

For my part, I.think that this is a wrong attitude. Were it not necessary that men should know of these things in advance, they would not have been recorded in the Scriptures. ' Should we taboo the Bible in order that we may avoid a knowledge of unpleasant facts! Surely not.

For more than twenty-five hundred years the Scriptures have foretold the collapse of Satan’s kingdom; and Jesus himself, as well as the prophets of old, has warned us that this collapse would be accompanied by a time of trouble such as never was, nor ever will be again.

God is all wise and all merciful. He could not permit the most insignificant of His creatures to endure a moment of physical or mental pain, were this experience not necessary in order to impress a salutary lesson. To inculcate a lesson of supreme importance to both men and angels, He has permitted His earthly creation to groan in tribulation for more than six thousand years.

The lesson to be impressed is, that a finite being who transgresses a law imposed by Infinite Wisdom, just as surely brings disaster to himself, if not to others, as would our planet, if it were to forsake its orbit, be sure to bring ruin on itself and perhaps on other worlds as well.

It is logical and right that the climax to this lesson should be so overwhelmingly convincing that a rehearsal will never be necessary.

The prospect is not so dark, however, as Satan would have us believe. There is a silver

lining to the cloud. Saints may well rejoice as the climax approaches; for they have a crown of righteousness laid up for them, which they j can attain only by passing through the gates \ of death. The unregenerate, who dread death, should reflect that but for this conflict death would be inevitable; but millions will live through it, and those who do so live may, if they will, live on for ever, enjoying unalloyed health and happiness.

In the same issue, immediately following this scribe, comes H. W. Libsacln Mr. Libsach is astounded that The Golden Age should give space to what he styles “the nocturnal hallucinations .of Mr. Rosenkrans.” He claims that Mr. R. dreams of horrors much greater than those depicted by Pastor Russell; and he intimates that none of the convulsions mentioned by Pastor Russell apply to the literal earth, hut that all refer to the social, religious, and political world.

Now I believe that if Mr. Libsach will at-tentively'review the writings of Pastor Russell, he will be compelled to admit that the Pastor anticipated that the social convulsions of our times might be accompanied and emphasized with ominous physical manifestations. If he merely reviews Chapter 11, Vol. 4, I think that he will not only admit that the Pastor does not minimize the terrors of the crucial hour, but that he was justified in assuming that the awful experiences of fleshly Israel in the close of the Jewish dispensation were typical of the still greater horrors to be visited on nominal spiritual Israel—Christendom—at the close of the gospel age; and that the Reign of Terror in France, and its sequences, which marked the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, were in fulfillment of prophecy, and were also a foregleam of the still greater terrors that are to mark the close of the gospel dispensation.

Dodging the Issue

THE imaginary conversation about religion on the moon, and the candid confession of the priest that his teachings were all bluff, reminded me of an actual experience I had in Glasgow. A friend took me in his car to Ruther-glen. We left the car standing in front of the refreshment rooms, and went for a stroll in the Glen. Arriving back to the car we found a parson seated in it and engaged in conversation with his lady companion. He explained to us that he was in charge of a number of ladies (elderly) that were seated on the public benches near by.

The following conversation ensued:

I: “I suppose you are out on a picnic with the ladies?”

Parson : "Yes; we are just out for the day.” I: "I suppose you tell them the old, old story?”

Pabson : “Yes; I teU them the old story.”

I: "I hope that it is a true story you tell them.”

Parson: "Well, it is from the old Book, you know.”

I: “I guess you tell them that if they live good lives they will go to heaven when they die?’’

Parson: "Yes; that's it”

By Z, Widdel (England)

I: "What do you tell them will happen if they do not live good lives?”

Parson : "Well, I say that it is like a person taking a wrong road that leads to disaster.”

I: “I suppose by that you mean the old hell?”                                   _x

Parson: "Well, we don't put it like that nowadays.”

I: “Why not? Is it not just as real a hell as ever it was?”                           _%

Parson : “Oh yes! just as real.”

I: “Are people in as great a danger of getting there?”

Parson : “Oh yes! that is so ”

I: ’ “Then should it not be preached and put in plain words?”                           *

Parson : ‘Well, there are faithful men who do so in pulpit each Sunday.”

I: “Well now, my friend here was brought jup a Roman Catholic; he came to the conclusion that he was being gulled. Do you think that he came to a right conclusion?

Parson : ‘Well, not exactly gulled.”

I: “My friend was taught to believe that the priest has power to turn wine into real blood, and bread into real flesh and to sacrifice Christ afresh for sin. He thought he was being gulled. Do you think he was right?

Parson : “Well, you see, that is their way of putting it"

I: “Now I want you to answer a question. It can be answered with a Yes or No. Do you really believe that the priest has the power to perform such a miracle!”

Parson : “No; I do not”

I: “Then you must admit my friend came to a right conclusion!”

Parson : “Yes; that is so."

I: “Now I was brought up in the Protestant faith. Do you believe that this planet will be destroyed!"                             .

Pabson: “Well, I suppose something like that will happen some day.”

I: “My people came to the conclusion that they were being gulled by the clergy, and they left the Protestant church. It happened like this: My brother was a good worker and supporter of the church. He came into possession of a Greek testament and found that the 'end of the world’ meant the end of a dispensation or epoch. When the minister called at our house he replied to my brother’s question, To you believe this earth will be destroyed!’: *Well, something like that will happen some day.’

My Brother: "Toes not the Greek word aion mean age or dispensation!’

Minister : " 'Yes, it does; but do you understand Greek!’

My Brother: “*No; but this book explains the meaning of the word; now why is it you have not been telling us these things!’

I: “You see, we found out that we were being gulled by the clergy* Now I want to ask you a question: My friend finds that he was gulled by the priests; we found that we were gulled by the Protestant clergy. What would you advise us to dot”

Just at this moment the tearbell rang. The parson was anxious to go with the ladies as guide. His parting advice was:

Parson: “Take your Bible, study it, and you will get a blessing and never mind the clergy of any denomination."

Truly this was good advice from a* parson in his sober moments. We could only wish that he could be made to give the same advice to the dear old ladies in the tea-rooms.

I sent this letter (a type-written copy) to the editors of the Glasgow Herald and the Glasgow Citizen. It was not inserted. The-press are in favor of having the people doped*

I was an unbeliever in the Bible until I read Pastor Bussell’s book, “The Divine Plan of the Ages," eleven years ago. I have met several clergy since who have tried to undermine my faith in the Bible, by trying to make nonsense of Genesis and to replace it by Darwinism. I have always replied that even when I did not believe the Bible I could never credit the chimpanzee missing-link stunt                 _

The Most High By H. T. Shvtttewrth [Ingbiid)

A HUNDRED years ago, a man described the Most High in this language:

"Throw into one run total all you can conceive <rf Wisdom and Power, the most far-sighted discernment of results and the most absolute power over them, the keenest intuition into this character and every conceivable influence for moulding it Think of a being with intelligent power, not of this earth, which no diversion can counterplot; calmly and serenely evolving His own designs from the perverse agencies of man and turning the ven* arm raised to defeat Hie own purposes into a minister of His will. Think.of an intelligent one so wonderfully endowed that the whole keyboard of nature, providence, and the human heart, lies ■ under His hand, and smitten by His mystic flngen, gives forth the harmony that pleases Him; and then endow Him in your conception with a love so intense that He is not discouraged with the deepest moral degradation in the objects of His love, but follows the welfare of the sinner with an unchilled devotion, though He hates the sin with a hatred no le>s than infinite.”

The intervening hundred years of light and knowledge, ever increasing and unfolding as we near the perfect day, reveals to us through the pages of God’s Word, not a different idea i of our Creator, but a more intensified and mag, nified spectrum of the glory which encircles Him who dwelleth in fight which no man can approach unto. By the aid of the light now shining on the divine Word we are enabled to see, in the revelation of His purpose concerning _t His creatures, a clearer vision; and hence we ’ have a much greater conception and appreciation than has hitherto been possible, of the glorious character of our God.

As we allow our knowledge of” His plan to I- take us back in our minds over the course of _;   ages, away back through all the history of men

f   and angels, even before the existence of the

- Logos, the First-born of all creation, right back to the time when God was alone, we stand $   amazed at the patience and fortitude exhibited

i   in the outworking of His eternal purpose.

Moreover, when we observe the wisdom and . foresight, better expressed by intuition, of Je-I hdvah, ad in His mind He traversed the vista f- f of ages, seeing the end from the beginning, and i planning with marvelous detail and accuracy F - the course of future events for ages; our own insignificant plans and schemes, devised by us ’ who know not what a day or an hour may bring ■ forth, fade into nothingness. Then as we contemplate the power and skill exercised by Him in bringing into existence the radiant orbs of the bespangled heavens, and in 00 providing the laws and putting into operation the force* of nature as to ensure the preservation of eack sun and sphere throughout the aeons of eternity, we begin to accede to the irresistible logic of those words “Be still and know that I am God." —Psalm 46:10.

But it is only as we begin to understand the gracious purpose of God in respect to the ultimate happiness of all His intelligent creatures in heaven and in earth, that we begin to comprehend the wonderful love which pervades the Almighty and which was the motive power which determined the future joy and happiness of all; and that in the accomplishment of this purpose, now nearing completion, it cost Him the sacrifice of the Treasure of His heart (1 John 4:9) Nor has the deflection of a large proportion of angels and the whole world of mankind from the path of righteousness, though causing Him grief and sorrow, altered in the slightest degree His beneficent purpose to bless. Rather in His skilful handling of the contingency which has arisen, it has enhanced His power to bring about the eventual blessing. Notwithstanding the contradiction ol sinners and the opposing forces, material and spiritual, brought intp use by the rebellious factions, our God has used these very antagonisms to further His glorious designs; so that eventually in the retrospect of this permission of evil, it will be clearly manifest how the Most High has used even the wrath of men and angels, who unconsciously have been ministering to His praise.

Such a God, possessed of such wisdom, justice, love and power as is apparent to all who are acquainted with the Divine Plan of the Ages, portrayed with such ability and clarity of vision by dear Pastor Russell, calls for all our reverence, love and adoration. No wonder that when in vision the apostle John saw Him who is the express image of the Father, he fell at His feet as dead. When once we get a true conception of Him who is above and bo* fore all, in whom we live and move and have our being, we -cannot do otherwise than pr* sent ourselves to Him in consecration.

“Ye curious minds that roam abroad And trace creation’s wonders o'er, Confess the footsteps of your God And bow before Him and ^dore.”

c

jboggan By C. Benjamin

Whether we are eaten by dogs or devoured by locusts or shaken off the earth like ripened fruit off a tree matters not "And if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?”

We have "kidded” ourselves so long over the freedom and association we have had with sin and sinners that we, also sinners, begin to think that we are about the real thing, and that we should not now be reminded of the gruesome end We have brought upon ourselves. When a brother reminds us of the punishment and the severity which he "thinks” may "perhaps” be administered, it makes us rather resentful and possibly angry with the brother for reminding us of such a punishment and for pointing to the Father's Word to substantiate the warning.

Dogs are eating humans in Russia today* humans are even digging up corpses and eating them, children and adults are starving to death and being pestered to death by insects and disease. Take a look-in on the coal fields of America; the whole country is in the throe* of strikes, incompetency, and perplexity. Europe is about as steady as an embezzler playing the last chance to recover losses.

The entire civilized (?) world is on the verge of anarchy, and Mr. Rosenkrans has pictured nothing that might not happen when universal anarchy prevails. It is in progress today; but one glancing through the daily papers, reading only the baseball score, the market report, the political bunk, etc., while eating a roil and sipping a cup of hot Java in comfortable and often luxurious surroundings, realizes but little and cares less about what the dogs are doing in Russia or America or-anywhere else, until reminded that they may get him. Then it is a most horrible and gruesome affair that should not be tolerated or published in any respectable publication.

And it really does seem silly and complacently stupid for any one having studied the Holy Scriptures to feel any assurance of security, safety, or rest in the present evil world; the only promise of security, safety, rest, happiness and love is through Christ, the resurrection and the restitution. "And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.”

SM

Four-Legged and Two-Legged Pork By Roy D. Goodrich

HOGS grovel and grunt. Hogs love mire and dirt. Hogs have sole-leather noses. Hogs never heard of the ten commandments. Hogs are “practical”—they never worry about the other fellow. Hogs appreciate swill if it is not more than six inches high; anything higher than that must be torn, shoved, or trampled down, or passed by entirely, in ignorance. Hogs look mostly at things a few inches ahead of them on the ground. To look at the heavens would almost break a hog’s neck. Hogs are never offended by bad odors, and a stench was never known to veer one from his course or to dissuade one from his swill.

Moreover, some of the normal joys of hogs are: To lie lengthwise of the trough; to get the nose into some one’s beautiful lawn and destroy it for the sake of getting a few succulent grass roots and dirt; withal, to squeal; to steal; to trample; to wallow; to rise above nothing but the rights of others. Hogs have but one use for the sky, viz., to rend it wjlh pitiless and vindictive cries, if other hogs threaten to get some of the swill. Oh, yes! Hogs have some good sentiments too; they believe in abstemiousness, self-control, altruism, self-sacrifice, and generosity, as very essential traits of character for all except Number One. There is one very fitting place for hogs—the pork-barrel. How emblematic of the character of Satan, then is the character of the swine!

I just met Jie man in the street. He was groveling in Uie mire of "do others like they do you, only do them first " He was grunting with rheumatism and high taxes. He showed a real love for the ideals of “business” today, and for the pious ecclesiastical frauds that foster those ideals. His atrophied conscience was in a case-hardened jacket of pride and selfishness, so that he could root for himself in the heartless soil of injustice, without pain or misgiving. He did not know that it is wrong to steal—legally; and his waking hours were habitually occupied not only with coveting the things possessed by his neighbor but also with scheming to get hold of these. He was a very “practical” “business” man — which, being interpreted, means that everything which he lifted so much as his finger to do, must first give satisfactory answer to the stern interrogation, “What do I get!” He had no time to look at the squalor and disease and blasted lives produced by his dollar-making practices. He gloried in his short-sighted slogan, “Get it now!F

This man on the street knew something of "church work,” and he willingly gave it financial support. “For,” said he, “it pays.” The Bible was like Greek to him, and he w’ould prefer a jail sentence to a real study of the Bible.

To the extent of his influence and ability he caused the vault of heaven above to echo from the pulpit, and the political and financial earth beneath to reverberate through the press, giving voice to his hypocritical arguments of camouflaged selfishness.

May I seriously inquire: Does the man on the street belong to the genus homo, or to the genus sus? Has he been made in the image of (Jod, or in the image of Satan!

The inspired record states that the progenitor of the human race was made in the image and likeness of God. Adam was the handiwork of God, whose “work is perfect” Seven times did God pronounce the things in and about the garden which he had made: “Very good.” (See Genesis 1) God’s law was written in Adam’s heart; he was lovely, lovable and perfect. The hog disposition had as yet not been implanted in his breast, nor had its diabolical fruitages been manifested.

But alas! Here it was that Lucifer, the first being in all eternity and in all the universe to cherish selfish and ambitious desires, saw his long-coveted opportunity to deceive, deflect, and debauch a new race at its fountain head, to the intent that he, like Jehovah, might become emperor; and that, like Jehovah, he might possess multitudes of beings subject to himself, who would also bear his image and be like him. For six thousand years Lucifer, who there became Satan, the adversary of God, has been writing the majesty of his perverse and Satanic image on the liearts of his subjects.

And now what! The next thing in order is the coming of Him “whose right it is” to rule the world, the One whom Jehovah has anointed to be the rightful emperor of both earth and heaven, the seed of the woman promised, who should “bruise the serpent’s head.” Or, in plainer speech, the time is now here for Christ to bind Satan, and also to “bruise Satan under your feet shortly by destroying him.—Romans 16:20.                                       .

And what will this change of rulership mean

» GOLDEN AGE

to this Satanized and blasted race! Will it mean that He who was once the "Man of Sorrows*' will increase the sorrow of mankind! Will the "Prince of Peace” do worse for the race than has the "father of lies,” the "prince of devils”! Will He who bled and died on Calvary's hill to redeem man, and to destroy the works of Satan, now institute the "death that never dies” or "the fire which burns, yet never consumes”! Will the sorrows of the "threescore years and ten” under Satan's misrule be intensified and indescribably lengthened into an eternal torture which never kills!

Thank God, No! It means that now, in His thousand-year day, the Golden Age, whose rays already gild the eastern horizon, God will entirely erase the Satanic image so painfully wrought for 6,000 years in the human heart, and engrave therein the original likeness of Himself! Only the incorrigible will find their part in the oblivion of the second death.

Has Satan shown power and might in the writings accomplished by his sword dipped in the blood of billions, during the six long days of humanity’s labor and pain! How much greater, then, will be the power of Him who shall with a mightier pen, and under the scepter of Peace, re-write the divine law and restore the divine image, in one short Sabbath day of rest—a thousand years! “I will,” says He, “put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; . . . For they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more.”—Jeremiah 31:33,34.

I THOUGHT the article that appeared in The

Golden Age under the caption of "Go to Church, Thou Fool” ought to help some to hear that voice from heaven (Revelation 18:4) who had not yet heard it My uncle and my aunt tell me how they came out of her—churchianity (Babylon—confusion). They both were in the Baptist church. The church members took to dancing and card-playing. My uncle, my aunt, and a few others opposed dancing and cardplaying by the church.

Those who favored the dancing, the card parties, etc., were in the majority. They called a church meeting and expelled (excluded) all the members that opposed dancing, etc., in the church (i e., by its membership). So that was the way my uncle and my aunt 'came out of her/—Revelation 18:4.

T think that it is better for the Lord’s people

By William Lawrence

to come out of her (Babylon,” churchianity) voluntarily in obedience to the commandthat the voice of the Lord from heaven utters, than to wait as my uncle and my aunt did until they were kicked out of her. But I am glad they are out any way. It would make my article too long if I should tell here how the writer came to be "out of her.” He was also a member of that branch of churchianity known as The Missionary Baptist Church — the same church my uncle and my aunt were kicked out of because they opposed dancing and card-playing by the church membership. Yet there are many people who have read the 18th chapter of Revelation without understanding that Babylon there mentioned is churchianity.

"Come out of her [churchianity, Babylon, confusion], my people. . . . Her sins have reached unto heaven.”

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STUDIES IN THE “HARP OF GOD” (^JUD^SfF^HS5?^D'’)

With Issue Number 6u we began running Judge Rutherford's new book, ^MTbe Harp of God", with HccuiupnnyLog questions, taking the place of both Advanced and Juvenile biole Studies which have been hitherto published.

^13flAt that time there were no means of easy \and rapid transit. It was a long journey, a tedious and tiresome one. Joseph, with his es-policed seated upon an ass, journeyed through the hills along the Jordan probably for three days, .and late in the evening reached the city of Bethlehem. The city was crowded; the private homes were full; all the hotels, inns, and other places were crowded out. Tired, worn, and weary from their long journey, they were jostled by the crowd in the narrow streets of the city. Applying to various places for lodging. at each place they were turned away; until finally they found a location where they could sleep in a stall with the cattle. And they retired for the night’s repose.

¹⁴⁰Over the brow of the hill, in the field once owned by Boaz and gleaned by the beautiful Both, the faithful shepherds were watching their sheep. According to custom, they had four watches during the night. Some would watch while the others slept

¹⁴¹The earthly stage is now set. But behold that there was no great earthly splendor or show! In truth the condition of poverty of ' Joseph and his espoused, and the like poor condition of the shepherds who were now shortly to be used of the Lord, was the only fitting way that we should expect the Lord would have it. All the pomp and glory of earthly preparation would have been but tawdry tinsel, detracting from the glorious things that were shortly to follow. Bach one of the earthly players whom Jehovah had assigned to perform a part upon this stage was humble, meek, and possessed of faith in the promises of God. In heaven there was a host of angels that should participate in the great drama; and all the hosts of heaven i were witnesses to this unparalleled and neveri' again-to-be-performed event.

,   /*²0n earth it was night, picturing the fact

that the whole world was lying in darkness and a great light was coming into the earth. The time had now arrived for the birth of the Mighty One, and all the heaveny hosts were awake to the importance of the hour. Doubtless while others slept, Mary was pondering id her heart the great events that had taken place during the few months past; and while she thus meditated there in the silence of that night, without pain and without suffering there was born to her Jesus, the Savior of the world. And •the shepherds watching their sheep in the field were attracted by the angel of the Lord, who came upon them, “and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”—Luke 2: 8-11.                                     .

QUESTIONS ON THE HARP OF GOD”

How did Joseph and Mary journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem? and at what time did they reach the latter city? fl 139.

Where did they find lodging? fl 139.

What important field lies near Bethlehem? and who were watching their flocks there? fl 140.

How many watches were kept in a night? fl 140.

Was there great earthly splendor and show at the birth of Jesus? and if not, why not? fl 141.

What kind of people had God chosen, to participate in the events of that night? fl 141.      .

Who in heaven were participating in this great event? fl 141.

What did the night on the earth picture? fl 142.

At what particular place was Jesus born? fl 142.

What attracted the attention of the shepherds? and what message was delivered to them? Repeat the message. fl 142.

Repeat all the text of Luke 2:8-11. fl 142.

“Standing at the portal of the opening year, Word? of comfort meet us, hushing every fear; Spoken through the silence by our Father's voice, Tender, strong and faithful, making us rejoice.

“I the Lord am with thee; be thou not afraid.

I will help and strengthen; be thou not dismayed.

Yes, I will uphold thee with my own right hand;

Thou art called and chosen in my sight to stand.”

EVENTS don’t “just happen

Ymi have probably promised yourself a breadth of knowledge that will enable you to understand what the day's experiences mean— Experiences that you have while at work, at home, and their relation to the events of the world.

For, after all, world events are results of the feelings and the opinions of individuals, expressed en masse.

Expressions are manifesting themselves more directly and violently, almost to the extent of anger—the employment of force that sweeps aside conventionalities of the ages.

Such are the marks of the times of perplexity that the Bible prophfr* sied would be associated with the lire of today.

Know what these events will be in their successive order, and have as your guide a survey of the ages—man’s creation, his fall, his successive attempts to regain his perfection, what these attempts have brought us to today, and—to what the Bible foretells they will lead. To inform you of these Bible prophecies would be to serve you; and this we are doing by means of The Hasp Bible Study Coomb, consisting of a text-book, a weekly reading assignment, and a self-quiz • card mailed every Friday.

The object is to enable you to check up your reading. You need not submit answers to anyone.

And we are making it a better service by publishing a new edition of the text-book* Tiu Harp of God-Cloth bound, Library size, Gold stamped—and at the same time reducing the price Of the Course from 68c to 48c complete.

Begin your course now by writing—

International Bible Students Association