Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

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in this issue

PRESUMPTUOUS SINS

Complete text of second of a series of lectures by Judge Rutherford regarding “prohibition’', broadcast in a national chain program.

’’PEOPLE VS. WALL STREET”

WHEN THE WORLD WENT MAD

LESS LABOR FOR MOLDERS

W. C. T. U. HEAD "DEMANDS”

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every other WEDNESDAY

ftve cents a copy one dollar a year Canada & Foreign i.yo

Volume XI.No.2Sl

JUNE 25, 1930

C O N 1’ E N T S

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

Unemiiloyment in the

United States ...... 615

Old Age Pensions in New York 617

Reduced Labor eop. Molders . . 617

SOCIAL AND 'EDUCATIONAL

Pickings ......... 614

Fast Pace of the U. S. A. . . 615

Queens’ Traveling Library . . 616

In Toledo in February .... 619

Class op ’30 ........ 621

When the World Went Mad . 623

The Threat of the Chain Banks 615

Samuel Untermyer’s Big Fee . 616

Coffee Follows Rubber and Sugar 616

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

Britain and France to Violate

Belgium ........ 615

Massacre at Lipari Islands . . 615

Tyranny in Ohio . . . . .617

America’s Vast Military

Establishment ...... 627

W. C. T. U. President’s ‘¹ Demand ’ ’ 638

HOME AND HEALTH

Comfrey Root

MANUFACTURING AND MINING

Oleo Made of Copra .... 615

End of Kitchen Coal Stoves . . 616

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

People vs. Wall Street . . . 611

Merging the Steamship Lines . 614

Income-Taxes in Britain . . . 614

All-Air Service to the Coast . 614

Fords eire Piling It Up . . . 614

Power Trust Grabs Greece . . 615

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

The Growth of Los Angeles . . 622

The Hotel St. George .... 628

Items of Interest from Daily Mail 632

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Religious Fakirs the Meanest

Kind .......... 628

A Question and Answer . . . 630

Why Reverend Pierce Was Peeved 632

Presumptuous Sins ..... 633

Published every oilier Wednesday at 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., ,U. S. A., by WOODWORTH, KNORR & MARTIN

Copartners and Proprietors Address: 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., Z7. S. A„ CLAYTON J. WOODWORTH.. Editor ROBERT J. MARTIN.. Business Manager NATHAN H. KNORR.. Secretary and Treasurer’

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Entered as second-class matter at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879«

Golden Age

Voluma XI                         Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, June 25, 1930                        Number 281

°People vs* Wall Street”

TN THIS 272-page $2.50 book, published by A The Vanguard Press, New York, William. Floyd, true American, able editor of The Arbitrator^ under the guise of a mock trial, has shown that it would not be possible to imagine more selfish and unreliable men than are at the head of practically every Big Business enterprise in this country; and the grimmest part of the trial is that the evidence is presented as collected from the public expressions and public acts of such men and named:

Calvin Coolidge Charles Evans Hughes Charles M. Schwab J. D. Rockefeller, Jr. George B. Cortelyou National City Bank J. P. Morgan Harrison Williams John D. Ryan A. W. Robertson Rob Roy McGregor Henry Ford Owen D. Young John J. Raskob George E. Roberts Roger W. Babson E. H. H. Simmons Herbert Hoover . Jacob Schiff Interborough Co.

From this galaxy of talent, which will at once be recognized as fully fitted to speak for Wall Street, there is wrung the unwilling testimony that the much-vaunted “service” is self-service, that Big Business is controlled by persons that know nothing about it, that the great utilityholding companies could close their doors for a year without impairing service or interrupting dividends, that “paying the highest possible wage” means hiring at the lowest possible figure, and that those who most successfully mulct the public are most honored in Wall Street.

Glancing through the pages of this wonderfully interesting and informative book, we find the utter shamelessness and dishonesty of Big Business brought to light on every page. Lying is nothing, stealing is nothing, principle and even decency are laid aside in the mad rush to ‘heap treasure together for the last days’. Some extracts illustrate:

Q. After Robert A. Stewart had deceived the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, what happened? A. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., managed to have Stewart ousted, but the company gave him a pension of $50,000 a year.

Q. Bid the honest workers get pensions too? A. Don’t you understand? Stewart had managed the Standard of Indiana so that stockholders made enormous percentages each year. He deserved some recompense.

Q. So when his attempt to conceal $757,000 from his own company was detected after six years and he had to return the bonds, he was given a pension as an appreciation of his efforts in overcharging the public and in violating his sacred trust? A. Don’t bo too hard on Stewart. He was acquitted by the courts.

If you wonder why the Standard Oil Company of Indiana was able to pay such a handsome pension, and wander farther in the book, you find the explanation in another tilt between the witness and the counsel for the people, as follows:

Q. What has been your most successful investment? A. The $100,000 I put into Standard Oil of Indiana before 1903. That investment is now worth $215,000,000.

Q. I suppose you mean 215 thousand. A. No: 215 million is right. You can figure it yourself

from tho stock records. I bought the stock in the early days at par ($100) giving me 1,000 shares. I spent all the regular dividends, ranging from 10 to 32 percent a year, but I reinvested the extra cash dividends and kept all the stock dividends. The first big plum was in 1903, when the company gave me $850,000 as an extra cash dividend. I immediately bought 2,125 more shares of stock, which was all I could get with the price at $400. That gave me 3,125 shares. The next extra cash dividend was 450 percent in 1906, amounting to $1,405,250 on my 3,125 shares. With that I bought 1,400 more, the price then being about $1,000 a share. After that the price rose to $6,900 a share and I was tempted to sell out for $31,222,500, but I held on and was justified in my confidence for in 1912 came a stock dividend of 2,900 percent, giving me 131,225 additional shares, bringing my total to 135,750 shares. Soon after that the market value rose to $950 a share, bringing my investment to $128,962,500, but I did not sell. In 1920, a stock dividend of 159 percent was declared, giving me 203,625 additional shares and bringing my total to 339,375 shares of $100 each. The par was then split four for one, giving me 1.357,500 shares of $25 each. The next extra stock dividend was 100 percent in 1922, making my holdings 2,715,000 shares. In 1929, the company made me a present of 1,357,500 shares, by a 50 percent stock dividend, bringing my total to 4,072,500 shares which, at a price of $53 a share, are now worth $215,842,500. My income on the original $100,000 investment is $10,181,250 each year.

Q. That should astonish even Wall Street. A. Not at ail. I was a comparative piker. If I had bought on a margin instead of oatright, I would have made real money. John D. Rockefeller started with no capital and accumulated over a billion dollars. The possibilities are boundless.

Of the trimmings that Mr. Floyd has given United States Steel, Mr. Schwab, the Pennsylvania Bailroad Company, the Telephone Trust, the Power Trust, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, the J. P. Morgan company, the Aluminum Trust, the United States Government and the strong and silent statesman, who was so strong and so silent that he never had an idea on any subject, any one is worth the price of the book.

Items that will catch the eye of the reader are Babson’s admission that forty million workers are controlled by fifteen thousand business men: that whenever there is a merger and new stock is issued it is John and Mary that have to dig down in their pockets and find the extra cash for the new dividends that have never before been paid; that though the Steel Trust had $40,000,000 increased business in 1928 its payroll was $17,000,000 less; and that in the reorganization of large enterprises the lawyers charge $500 a day and the banks make charges running into the millions, all of which must come out of the common people to whom the book is dedicated in a single line reading “To the Victims”.

It seems that in 1923 the average stockholder in General Motors received $467, but. in five years this annual payment was increased by $1,974. Meantime the average wages of employees ascended by the dizzying amount' of $62. This is about thirty-two times as much increase for the stockholder as it is for the employee, but it shows that John and Mary were not entirely forgotten.

It makes you love the Steel Trust when you read that in one year it spent ten million dollars in the construction of new buildings, in order to furnish employment; but it chills the ardor of your love when you learn that this -was directly after a cut in wages that saved the company $120,000,000. They still had $110,000,000 in change left over.

Referring to the slaughter in front of the Marion cotton mills, Marion, N. C., when 23 strikers wore shot in the back and six of them slain, there is the following by-pass:

Q. In the last slaughter you have mentioned, what casualties did your sheriffs sustain? A. Sheriff Adkins was attacked by a sixty-fivc-year-old man named Jonas with a stick and one of the deputies had his cheek cut by a bullet.

Q. What happened to Jonas? A. He was handcuffed and taken to a hospital where lie died with the handcuffs still on.

Q. Was Adkins injured sufficiently to need hospital attention? A. No.

For a glimpse at the “holy of holies” of American finance consider the following:

Q. How do you manage to evade the usury law? A. There is always some good way of evading every law. When Judge Gary was a comparatively inexperienced lawyer, he was asked by J. Pierpont Morgan how a certain transaction, could be put through. Mr. Gary investigated and reported back that it could not be done, as it was illegal, to which Mr. Morgan countered that he did not hire a lawyer to tell him what he could not do, but to find a method of doing it. We evade the usury law by purchasing the borrower ’s paper at a discount instead of lending’ to him direct, or by charging a premium or bonus for ths loan, or by dealing through' a corporation which exempts the loan from usury.

There is an embarrassing set of questions and answers on the distribution of wealth in the country—a question as to the sanity of a system under which fourteen men have incomes averaging $7,000,000 a year, while the average American has less than $1,300. Beeent figures show that in 1915, 2 percent of the people owned 60 percent of the wealth, and that in 1925 ownership was narrowing dowm, only 1 percent of the people owning 59 percent of the wealth.

Judge Walter Clark said of the fortunes of millionaires that “none of the fortunes could have been accumulated except out of the enormous profits derived from public utilities; that these fortunes control politics, furnish the means of filling legislatures, Congress and public offices of all kinds with the agents of special privilege, and to execute the orders of predatory wealth; that they corrupt public life, destroy equality and debauch morality and public opinion by systematic propaganda”.

It makes you feel sick to find that during the World War the American people were urged to ‘give until it hurt’, and that out of the proceeds of the First Liberty Loan the tidy little sum of $400,000,000 was turned over to J. P. Morgan & Company to pay the debt which Britain ow’ed to them. It makes you feel sick too to know that Senate Document No. 259, which describes the colossal profits made by Big Business during the World War, cannot be had by the common people.

You love your country. Of course you do. But you do not feel altogether easy when you “remember that Diaz, put in power in Nicaragua by the United States, sanctioned the sale of 51 percent of his country’s national bank to the Guaranty Trust Company; that a commission, two of whom are appointed by American bankers, supervises the customs of Bolivia; that our Supreme Court is the arbiter of Salvador’s disputes; that an American financial adviser exercises control in Haiti; that Cuba can make no loan without consulting the United States; that two American corporations have in the past controlled Honduras; that American bankers control the business of Guatemala and Costa Rica; and that, all told, we dominate twenty-one Latin-American countries”.

It seems that by the device of the Pennroad Corporation the Pennsylvania Railroad has been able to do all kinds of things that would otherwise be illegal for it to do. The ownership of the two companies is identical. The consciences of all concerned have become seared. Here is another gem:

Q. Under the Esch-Cummins Act, what amount of the earnings of the railroads is the-Government entitled to ? A. Fifty percent of the net earnings above 6 percent.

Q. Is it true that the Toonerville Trolley has paid, but that at last reports the New York Central, Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, Lehigh Valley, Union Pacific and Illinois Central had not paid? A. The Interstate Commerce Commission valued the New York Central at $2,080,363,422, and as its income was $124,821,805, the net return was exactly 6 percent to the dollar, so the Government got nothing.

Q. If the Company’s own book value had been taken, what would have been the result? A. The New York Central would have had to pay $9,500,000 to the Government.            ,

Q. Does it appear sane to you that numerous experts should be paid salaries for many months to reach a conclusion that one clerk could have arrived at in one day? A. The exact capitalization value on a 6 percent basis was a coincidence.

We cannot undertake to make a more extended notice; but after you have read the Interborough story you will understand perfectly w’hy Mr. Charles Evans Hughes is back in the Supreme Court, and when you have read the story of the Telephone Trust you will see clearly that Big Business is utterly shameless and indecent, in its greed for profits.

The reader is let in for a treat in the expose of the Aluminum Trust, in which, by the way, The Golden Age comes in for honorable mention. He sees Mr. Hughes shining again as counsel for the American Woolen Company of polecat fame. His present position is a much more honorable one.

The section devoted to the Power Trust is wmrth much more than the price of the book; and in the chapter devoted to the inconsistent sayings of Mr. Coolidge and the Schwab-Shearer shipbuilding snarl there is enough material for a good-sized book, although it is all crammed into a few pointed, biting questions and answers.

Mr. Floyd has the rare faculty of putting more information in ten lines than some men can put in ten pages.

Pickings

Unemployment in the United States

T UNEMPLOYMENT in the United States is '-J set at 3,700,000 by the president of the American Federation of Labor. The new bills for government buildings and highways, signed April 1 and 4 by President Hoover, are expected to provide employment for 125,000 of these. This is about 4 percent of the total. Our great financiers must be proud of this shoving.

Power Trust Grabs Greece           .

NE country after another falls into the maw of the Porver Trust. The last one to go overboard is Greece, where the first public utili ty holding company has just been organized. The holding company, be it explained, is one of the methods by which the Poxver Trust makes sure that the public cannot get justice in public utility matters.

Morgan Foots the Bills

DISPATCH from London states that the archbishop of Canterbury is not able to meet his running expenses on his meager salary of $75,000 a year, and that when he gets in the hole financially J. Pierpont Morgan, of New York, comes to his rescue by making up the difference. Big Business will stand by Big Church to the end.

Britain and France to Violate Belgium

rances Countess of Warwick, England, has admitted that she was interpreter at a conversation held between Lord French, of the

British army, and Georges Clemenceau, of France, in which it was agreed between them that in the event of war between France and Germany, Britain and France together would ignore the neutrality of Belgium, as, in fact, Germany actually did.

Fast Pace of the U. S. A.

HOUGH the United States contains but 6 percent of the population of the earth, it consumes more than half of the world’s coffee, silk, rubber, petroleum, automobiles and telephones; more than a quarter of the 'world’s cotton, pig iron, copper, lead, zinc, tin, coal, water poxver and electricity; and more than 15 percent of the world’s wheat and sugar. It sends 25 percent of the telegrams, and 34^ percent of the mail.

Massacre at Lipari Islands

TVTEWS is leaking out that the Fascist government has permitted a massacre of the political prisoners confined to the Lipari islands, and that the massacre did not even stop at the abuse of civilians, of whom twenty-five were wounded. The state doctor refused to attend any of the wounded, which gives one a fair idea of the present Italian civilization, or lack of it.

Precocity of Illiterate Adults

TN THE recent campaign in the South to make a better showing in the census on the subject of illiteracy, one Alabama man was so anxious to learn that, in a single lesson he learned to sign his name and to read eight pages of a special primer used in the work of instruction. It is noted that most adult negroes are anxious to learn to read the Bible.

Headed Toward Barbarity

EFERRING to the growing custom of

American -women of painting their finger nails in various shades of red, green, purple and mother of pearl, Jean Patou, fashion expert of France, declares American women are imitating the barbarians and in a few years, at present rate of decadence, will be wearing nose rings and lip plates.

Ole® Made of Copra

COPRA, the dried meat of the cocoanut, is handled in bulk, and after being shipped to America does not smell any too well on arrival. Formerly the oil extracted from it was used only for soap. Noax⁷ it is treated xvith sodium and ether, and after being mixed with skim milk and salt costs the oleo manufacturer about five cents a pound. It is said to have but onefifth the nutritive value of butter.

The Threat of the Chain Banks

xtther F. Symons, banking commissioner of Indiana, states that the threat of the impending chain banks is to wipe out local enterprise and local control and make the country districts mere sources of revenue for the financial centers like New York and Chicago. Mr. Symons has it right. Only a feAV years more will suffice to reduce the population of the entire Avorld to mere clerks and employees of the Wall Street croxvd.

Eflictent Russian Telegraph Service

IN THE recent Associated Press tests of news transmission about the world, in which all the principal cities of the world were involved, it was found that the very best service was through Russia and Siberia, and the very worst was between Paris and Geneva. It took the test message only two hours to go around the world twice.

Queens’ Traveling Library

HE Borough of Queens has a traveling library that really travels. A truck with 2,000 books, two librarians, and a chauffeur, travels the remoter parts of the borough, loaning books en route to any persons who furnish identification cards. Books not on the truck may be ordered for delivery a week later. Unemployment conditions have added greatly to the patronage of libraries of all sorts.

World Made Safe for Hypocrisy

VERYBODY knows about the great effort that was made some years back to make the world safe for hypocrisy; and how well it succeeded is told by the present-day record of unemployment among the poor and crime among the public utility, oil, and other interests. But now since all the peace conferences and pacts to celebrate the great event that 'war is to be no more’, some will wonder why 135 planes of the United States Anny should undergo the suffering of maneuvers at upwards of five miles in the air and temperatures of forty degrees below zero. There is a, reason.

Samuel Untermyer’s Big Fee

WHEN the Halsey Stuart crowd took away the control of the Fox Film Corporation from William Fox, the daddy of the motion picture business, Mr. Fox engaged Samuel Untermyer to look after his interests, and Mr. Untermyer no doubt made the best solution possible under the circumstances. For his three months’ work Mr. Fox paid Mr. Untermyer a million dollars; but when it is considered that strong-arm financiers often make much more than that in a few minutes, he was not, from their point of view, overpaid. Mr. Fox has been given an honorary job for five years at an annual salary of $500,000 a year, after which he will be ditched.

The Foundations of St. Paul’s

rpHE reason why St. Paul’s Cathedral is al"®- ways in jeopardy is that the foundations of the great structure are only four and a half feet deep. Beneath the foundation remain six feet of earth and twenty feet of wet sand. If the water were drained from the sand the building would collapse. Let’s see; who was it who warned against erecting a building on the_tsand?

End of Kitchen Coal Stoves

OBESEEING that kitchen coal stoves are coining to their end the Bucks Stove and Range Company of St. Louis, founded in 1846, has decided to go out of business. For many years this concern was on the blacklist of the American Federation of Labor, and no doubt this had some effect on the company’s determination to discontinue business.

Coffee Follows Rubber and Sugar .

RITAIN’S artificial control of the rubber market and Cuba’s artificial control of the sugar market are now followed by Brazil’s artificial control of the coffee market. Each had its period of power, each overstimulated production elsewhere, and each came to its ruin, It looks to us very much as if wheat were headed the same way. Price-fixing looks all right at the start, but the world is too big for any one nation to try to control world prices for any one product. Sooner or later a way is found to produce the same thing elsewhere, and the monopoly is killed, off,

Jude's Bone in Australia

JF YOU send five shillings (about $1.25) to

Reverend Walter S. Cain, 267 Gregory Terrace, Brisbane, Australia, here, he tells you, is what you will get. “Would you like to have a medal of St. Jude? We will send such a medal to everyone that sends us in his subscription. This medal will be blessed and will have been applied to the relic of this dear apostle, kept at his shrine in our Chapel. This relic is a piece of the bone of the glorious St. Jude preserved throughout nineteen hundred years and recently received by us from Rome.” If you can think of any easier way of making $1.25 in these hard times let us know. The offer does not say who dug up St. Jude and took him apart in order to get the bone.

Old Age Pensions in New York

HE 51,000 (estimated) persons that will benefit by New York’s old age pension law must be 70 years of age, unemployed, childless, citizens of the IL S. A., and for ten years citizens of New York state. They may not be inmates of any public or private home for the aged, nor have made any transfer of their property to others. Relief will be from $5 to upward of $50 a month, depending upon the needs. It is not anticipated that many directors of public utility corporations will apply for these benefits.

First Steps in Honest Disarmament

WRITING- for British readers H. G. Wells recently said: “The first step in any honest disarmament of Great Britain would be, of course, mental and moral: the complete disuse of military uniforms by the monarch, for example, and the abolition of cadet corps in the public schools. It would be excellent, for example, if one of these peace conferences were to forbid men in official positions the use of gold lace and spurs and feathers, and to restrict each country to so many million brass buttons a year.”

Dead Bandits in Texas

INSPIRED by a deisre to make $5,000 easy money four white men in Texas, one of them a bank guard, induced two negroes to attempt a holdup of the bank. The guard then shot the negroes dead, with the expectation that he would divide among his three white pals the reward offered by the bankers’ association for dead bandits. The only sure thing about this is that the negroes are dead and that the white men who cruelly murdered them will go free, after some temporary inconvenience.

Tyranny in Ohio

NDER the heading “Tyranny in Ohio” the Pittsburgh Press calls attention to the fact that Lincoln, Jefferson, and many others asserted even the right of revolution if necessary to bring about a better government, but laments the fact that two girls in Ohio have now been sentenced to from one to five years in prison for expressing the belief that the workers, who constitute the vast majority of citizens, should organize to obtain control of the government. The Press wants to know why we have freedom of speech in the United States if we have to go to prison when wo dare to exercise it.

Reduced Labor for Molders By McKinley Wilkins

HAVING been employed in one of the leading manufacturing industries of the country since 1915,1 am prepared to give The Golden Age readers some interesting facts pertaining to this subject, obtained by practical experience, and observation. I am prepared to deal, however, with merely one phase of human progress, such as was made -within the last decade by the steel industries, which progress may serve as a criterion of that made by many similar industries.

Progress of One Decade

Fifteen years ago, employment of approximately 3,500 men in this particular industry was required to supply an order for from 10,000 to 20,000 steel castings within a given period. Today, as a result of the displacement of human labor by modern machinery, employment of 1500 men is sufficient to supply an order for from 30,000 to 50,000 steel castings within the same period.

As an indication of the increasing speed with which this and many similar industries are progressing in the general improvement and expansion of their manufacturing facilities (’which progress, unfortunately, adds year by year hundreds to the ranks of the army of unemployed), it is but necessary to state that prior to the beginning of the World War all molding and core-making was done by hand power; that is, hand rammers were used to compress the sand in the flask and core-boxes. During and following the war, which, more than anything else possibly could have, served to give added impetus to the increase of knowledge along all lines, particularly along the lines relative to the invention, development and perfection of modem manufacturing machinery, air power was introduced. That is, air rammers became the means of compressing the sand for purposes of both molding and core-making.

Within the year 1929, ten molding machines and what is Known ss the Harper Sand System were installed in the foundry department, and preparations are about to be undertaken for setting up similar machines in the core department.

Present Method of Operation

In this connection a brief detailed description of the operation of these machines and this unique sand system might be of interest to those employed in foundries using machinery of different designs. These machines are of three different sizes, namely, four 3x10 feet, four 3 x 6 feet, and two 18 x 18 inches. The first size makes car box bolsters, engine side frames and castings of a similar size.                     .

The second-size machine makes molds for castings too small for the larger machines to make. The third size makes molds for engine brakeheads, hinge-butts, draft lugs and other castings of similar’ size.

Eight men are necessary for the operation of the first-size machine; four for the two cope, and four for the two drag, machines. The. same number is necessary for the operation of the second size, and two men operate the two smaller machines; making a total of only eighteen operators. All ten machines working at full capacity turn out an approximate average of 1000 molds a day, whereas it formerly required a hundred men to turn out an equal average.

These machines are operated solely by air power, and compress the sand by the jolting and squeezing process. A runway two and a half feet wide and twenty feet long extends from each of the smaller machines, each having rollers which convey the molds as they are made from the machines to the end where they are lifted off and stacked three high, for casting. The molds are made at the rate of one every three minutes, and move down the runway at a rapid pace to the amazement of the spectator; whereas it formerly required at least five minutes to make one and five minutes to carry it from the bench whereon it was made for the purpose of stacking.

The Harper Sand system is such a complex piece of machinery that I feel I am not qualified to describe its construction. I can only describe its surface operation. It consists, first, of three sand mixing mills; second, of a giant and ingeniously constructed sand house having electrical switch boards and levers for operating purposes; third, of two sand conveying belts, one of which is elevated thirty feet above ground and the other is several feet under ground. The first extends from the sand house, which is situated at one end of the shop, to the other end, and then returns. The other extends from the sand house to the middle of the shop and returns. Both belts are operated by electric pov^Ter and are moved forward by means of rollers. The belt above ground conveys the prepared sand to the machines. The belt in the tunnel conveys the unprepared sand to the mills. Two machines are situated over the tunnel belt which are used for shaking the unprepared sand out of the flask. Extending from the belt above ground to each of the smaller machines is a sand conveying trough having a door just above the machines, which is opened and closed by a lever. Similar sand conveyors extend to the four larger machines, but the method of their operation is so complex that it can hardly be described with pen. However, their operation is by electrical instead of hand power.

From 25 to 75 Percent Layoff

Although the departure from the use of hand rammers resulted in approximately a 25-percent reduction in the company’s operating force, the change from the use of air rammers to the use of machines, which is still in progress, has already resulted in at least a 75-percent reduction in the company’s operating force.           -

Decreased Drudgery, Increased Poverty

While it is true that the few of us retained have, due to the company’s installation of modern machinery, been to a considerable extent relieved of drudgery, or manual labor, and are appreciative of the change, yet, being sympathetic toward our fellow workmen, we wonder ■what provision the thousands of discharged men will be able to make for themselves and their dependents. One thing is certain, and the unemployed will sooner or later realize it, and that is, that the big business men, big politicians and big preachers do not care whether any provisions are made for them or not. A great army of these return to the gates of this shop almost daily seeking, though in vain, reemployment if just for a day.

A Rare Privilege to Witness

Although I am one of the few retained on the pay roll, I do not consider it luck on my behalf; indeed, I consider it a great favor from Jehovah God, a favor extended me in order that I might have the privilege of witnessing to these "weary and heavy-laden” peoples that Jehovah is the true and almighty God and mankind’s greatest friend and benefactor, that Christ Jesus has now become earth’s rightful Governor and is moving toward the complete destruction of Satan's power over men and the ultimate liberation of the obedient of mankind from all oppression, poverty, fear, suffering, sickness, sorrow and death.

I have made a thorough canvass of this industry with Judge Rutherford’s publications, placing many sets of the volumes and numerous booklets, and am engaged in recanvassing with Scripture Studies, of which. I placed seven sets the first day. I am the only consecrated witness employed in this plant so far.

It may be of interest to some to learn that the haggard and care-worn faces of these rough, tough, hard-working laborers are seen to light up with smiles of joy and surprise as the good news of God’s incoming kingdom sinks into their ears and hearts; and many questions are asked by those meek of heart for the purpose of further enlightenment and guidance in Jehovah’s Word concerning the kingdom,

In Toledo in February

(Extract from a letter to a friend in Tennessee)

ASI watch passing events it seems to me that the great time of trouble is already upon the old w’orld. I have never read nor heard of such distress and suffering as the people in this place have had to endure this winter. And conditions in Toledo are said to be better than in most other large cities.

There has been very little w’ork here all winter. Weeks ago more than 40,000 men were out of work here, and I do not know what present figures are. The stock market disaster in the fall hit Toledo hard. We read something in a recent issue of The Golden ..Age about the loss the Overland- company had sustained at that time. It appears that this company is tottering: they ordinarily employ about 15,000 men, but part of the winter have been closed down entirely, and when they have worked it has been only short-time, with only a small percentage of their usual force of men.

At present the Chevrolet plant here is working full-force and full-time, but there are many, many industries at a standstill. There are hundreds of vacant store buildings all over town. I think I could count as many as ten empty stores, big ones, within one block of Sears Roebuck, right down in the heart of the business district. There are so many big banners out advertising “bankrupt sake”, “closing OUT SALE,” “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE,” “STOCK REDUCING SALE,” “FORCED TO SELL,” etc., that it looks like Fair time.

Since the people have no work they are buying only the barest necessities, and there are many hundreds of families that are simply down and out entirely. The stories of destitution reported every day in the papers would make the hardest heart sympathetic. One man appeared at the charity organization down town and told a story of woeful want in his home; he dropped dead on the street before he could get home. A collection was taken in the city to provide decent burial for him. There has been much cold and snow, and the city has spent $100,000 cleaning snow from the streets. That provided work for a few’. They worked day and night shifts when the snow was real bad.

The city makes an effort to provide to a small extent for some of the suffering people. Other organizations dole out second-hand clothing and, in some instances, food. One man, a professional boxer, has served bread and soup to all the hungry who applied, twice a day, for months. Weeks ago there were over six hundred men in his soup line. Recently he put on a boxing exhibition and charged admission, intending to use the money to feed the starving. Bandits appeared and took the money away.

Last week I stopped at a bakery and a man came in after me, asking the lady if she had any work he might do to earn a loaf of stale bread. She said she had no work to be done, but if he wanted bread she would gladly give him a loaf. He hesitated about accepting it, saying he would prefer to pay for it. He offered to clean out ashes or any chore she might have to be done. When he had gone with his loaf she told me she was sure that a few days previously she had turned away fully a hundred people who came asking for food.

Another family I have met keep a small grocery and live in rooms back of the store. They have an average of eleven or twelve a day begging food. They keep hot coffee and sandwiches and feed every one who comes. One day a man came in and asked for something to eat. The groceryman was busy, so told him to wait a few minutes till he finished his task, and he would feed him. The man stepped out the back door, and when the storekeeper went to look for him he was eating out of a pan of waste and scraps they had put out for their chickens. They gave him all he could eat and said they had never seen one person consume such a vast quantity of food. I could go on indefinitely telling you of individual cases I know about, but it is of no use doing that. You know what it is like, I have no doubt.

Many of the biggest business establishments are on a shaky foundation. All over the city are homes where the gas and electricity have been turned off because the people could not pay their bills. Our neighbor was just telling Irwin tonight something about a delegation’s asking the city to prohibit the gas and light companies’ turning off these necessities, on account of the children, etc., and also requesting that these suffering families be provided with bread and milk. . . . Our worthy mayor and his wife and daughter are sojourning in the West Indies at present.

The lack of money is not confined to the working classes alone. The well-to-do classes, or those who have been well to do, tell the same story. I talked with one woman who runs an exclusive boarding home. She had a large house and had paid $155 a month rent for the past eight years. She had had an average of twenty-five boarders. She said they were all out of work and all but five had left. She was not getting enough board money to meet her expenses. Another family, who made a practice of boarding one man to help out with their household expense, said their boarder was out of work and $110 in arrears with his board money.

Added to the suffering of the people, we endure a siege of banditry and robbery that I do not believe was ever equaled in a place of this size. Stores, homes, restaurants, oil stations, banks, hotels—anything is robbed that has any money about. The thugs are very defiant too, and if the police arrest any of them, those who are still at large retaliate by making a raid and scooping in more money than ordinarily.

Never a day or night passes without numbers of holdups. These bandits go in numbers, never less than two or three. In some instances they have gone into homes and made the people lie flat on the floor while they took every thing of value. I recall one case where the robbers took the shoes and part of the clothing from a family and threatened to shoot the small son of the family if the father did not disclose'the hiding place of his money. While this outrage 'was going on a friend happened to call on the besieged family. The robbers took part of his clothing and departed in his car, which he had parked outside the yard.

Last week three armed bandits held up a grocerywoman and shot her, near the heart, when she recognized one of them as a former customer. The chief of police issued an edict telling the police they must “either produce or be reduced”; meaning that if they did not bring in some of the desperadoes they would be demoted. They went forth and captured over two hundred men and clapped them into what they call “the bull pen”. It seems they had all the available prison space full to overflowing.

These men were crammed into this enclosure like sardines in a box, and without food or a place to sleep. The paper states that conditions in a Siberian prison were never any worse. They were mostly fellows out of work, and without homes, perhaps. Today they turned ninety of them out and brought in sixty more. So far as we are able to learn, there has not been a bandit in the lot.

The real bad men defied the police and proceeded to 'stick 'em up’ and rob more than ever. In one instance they cornered a policeman and took his gun away from him and used it in further holdups.

You see there is not much semblance to law and order. I talk with all classes of people, and all say they never have seen such conditions before. Some of their views about the cause of all these things vary a little, but I think I am safe in saying that around ninety percent curse the prohibition law with a right good will, and lay the blame for conditions to it.

One lady told me she and her husband belong to nine clubs and lodges and have a wide circle _vof friends here. They cannot go to a meeting of any of these clubs where liquor does not flow freely, and on several occasions the officers have been called in to these meetings to quell the disturbances that the liquor caused. She also said of all their friends’ homes to which they were invited, there was just one home that did not pass the drinks. They themselves are strictly temperate and always have been.

Many have told me they never drank a drop till the prohibition law went into effect, but that then they began tippling with their neighbors, who were all in the same kind of game. ,

Conditions in Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago are much worse, we are told, than in Toledo.

Last week 1200 people out of work' and out of money gathered at the city hall in Cleveland to confer with the commission about their condition. They demanded work or money, and the police tried to disperse them and several were seriously injured. Now the jobless and communists (?) are preparing to stage a demonstration there soon, 10,000 strong. We hear rumors of such a demonstration here too, but I know nothing about it yet.               '

Twice during the winter the public has been called on to donate clothing for hundreds of school children that could not attend school until somebody provided them with wearing apparel.

This is not half of what I could tell you about conditions in this place, but it is surely enough to give you a very vivid picture.

Class of ’30 By David Shulman

A GROUP of students were sitting in the senior alcove of the College of the City of New York. There was nothing unusual in this excepting that their expressions of worry and gloom attracted attention. Dejection seemed to have overwhelmed every one of them. What was the trouble? Had they failed in their exams? Had they been suspended, or, perhaps, expelled?

One of them threw down the newspaper he had been scanning closely. “No use.” he deplored, “not a job.” “Why didn’t I grab that chance to become an electrician?” said another ruefully; “I might have been earning some money now.” “To think that I wasted four years at this place,” despaired another. “If I were only a freshman now,” sighed a fourth, “I’d know what to do.”

Goodness! why the despair? Weren’t these seniors among the upper five percent of the population as regards intelligence? Didn’t their college education make them self-reliant and ready to shoulder all responsibilities? Were they not the ones about to enter professions of distinction? Should not they be determined, ♦ light-hearted, optimistic? 'Why then the gloom? Why the looking back into the past instead of the future ahead?

Why? Reason enough. They were members of the graduating class. No longer were they helpless children dependent on the parental hand to feed them. They were now thrown on their own responsibility. They were adults with a host of wants to satisfy. They were at the cross-roads of life.

Well, what of it? Didn’t a four-year college course fit them adequately for the struggle for existence? Didn’t it even give them an advantage over the non-college man ? Apparently n ot, if eighty percent of the graduates were in the same boat, a frail craft on a stormy sea, with neither a compass nor a port in sight.

This alarming percentage of graduates without a goal is applicable not only to the class of ’30, but to many past classes as well, and, for all we know, to classes in the future; applicable not only to the college in question, but to others too. But what in the world did they do at school during these years? What training did they receive ?

Four^- years of academic cloisters and musty professors; four years of pretty theories and hypotheses removed from concrete situations and reality; four years of freedom and indifference toward the uncertain future that awaited them; no! these four years did not fit them adequately for any one task.

Many had studied to enter the teaching profession and taken the examination for a license to teach in the elementary schools. But competition in this field is very keen nowadays, the ratio of successful candidates being one to six. Even the few successful ones have to wait two or three years for an appointment. Those desiring to teach in the high schools must take graduate courses leading to a higher degree. This means more time and money and puts the poorer’ students out of the running.

Many simply took cultural courses leading to nothing definite, hoping to decide before they became seniors. But now they were graduates and without a goal. Some did have specific plans, only to have them disturbed by unexpected circumstances; as those who planned to enter a medical school, only to find themselves denied admission.

Well, whatever the cause of this unpreparedness or helplessness, these graduates are confronted with a grave problem. What are they to do now? Heaven knows how they'll end up, but most of these will work, or rather, try to find work. The familiar joke about the graduate is very fitting here.

College Man—Have you an opening for an ambitious college graduate?

Employer—Yes, and don’t bang it on your, way out.

The majority of these graduates entering the ■world of business and industry wall start at the bottom, there to remain or rise to the top. Some will find work during the day and attend a law school at night. Some will study for higher degrees and find all sorts of employment at night. Many will take civil .service tests.

The post office, which employs many students, is, for its heterogeneity of characters, a most unique institution. There one may find civilians and disabled war veterans. There the failures in every profession seek refuge from an unkind world. Thither, too, flock the aspirants for every profession, students of varied physical description, from different colleges, with different goals; all striving to earn the money that will bring them nearer their goal, to support them while they strive for the better jobs in life; all living a hectic and hurried existence: rushing from school to their dull, drab work, back home again for some sleep before repeating yesterday’s routine; all thrifty, almost ascetic, knowing in advance how every cent will be spent.

The questionable value of a college education is a much discussed topic, and I shall refrain from reiterating the pros and cons of a college career. Certainly not every boy and girl has the mental equipment for higher education, and colleges should refuse entrance to inferior students. But for those who do go to college there ought to be a vocational guide, an expert acquainted with the requirements, demands and supply of the various professions, to aid the student in setting a goal.

This is lacking at present. The student enters blindly into a profession without knowing its demands and his particular fitness for it. AYasting time and money, he abandons one premeditated career for another. For the student to experiment is too costly, and yet experimentation is what is needed. There ought to be some way of giving the student actual practice in the field he contemplates entering, enough to enable him to determine his liking and fitness for it.

Thus, prospective medical students should know of the rigors, sacrifices, unremitting labors of' research, the responsibilities, that the medical profession holds in store; not by hearsay, but by actual activity along these lines. This, to be sure, would take time, but would save much in the end by influencing the student’s choices before he has penetrated too deeply in that profession.

But who is to offer this opportunity for the student to explore himself? Who will provide a means of deciding whether or not he should undertake the career of his own choice? Who will help the student at the crossroads to avoid the path that leads to disillusionment? Nobody knows; very few care. And so, future generations of students, blissfully ignorant of the maze and blind alleys through which, past graduates had to wander, blunder through unfortunate college careers. And hence the perennial problem confronting every graduating class: What to do?

The Growth of Los Angeles

IN THE year 1900 Los Angeles had a population of 102,000: in 1905 it was 201,000: in 1.912 it was 427,000: in 1923 it was 890,000 and in 1929 it was 1,427,480, according to late estimates. Los Angeles county has 50 airports and landing fields. There are in the neighborhood 25 schools of aviation, with approximately 2,200 registered students taking up flying.

When the World Went Mad

A Thrilling Story of the Late War, Told in the Language of the Trenches

Copyright, 1930, by Daniel E. Morgan (Continued)

THE BATTLE OF SOISSONS

OVING up to the front, there is a strict order against smoking. Officers are at every hand to enforce the rule. It was cprite different at the front. We covered ourselves with blankets to hide the light, and smoked and smoked.

The mail goes out and every letter we write to our parents, friends, or sweethearts is censored. My girl in blue told me many times, “Your letters seem very cold.” It is too bad that a country you are laying down your life for will not trust you to write a letter to your lady friend without sticking in its nose. Lieutenant C----, after censoring some of the boys’

letters, added phraseology of his own. This letter-censoring at the front seems as cruel as the cold steel that crushes out existence.

The world marvels at the courage of soldiers, who keep on moving to their objectives despite the horrible fact that every weapon known to science is used against them. On they go, the wounded and dead falling on all sides. Their minds are in a whirl, their heads almost bursting from the terrible sound of flying and bursting shells; on and on; sometimes the gases and smoke from the bursting shells almost strangle one. Thank' God for a breath of fresh air!

Behind all this bravery, and this obedience under the most terrible conditions, lies the training of these men in peace time. My first fourteen weeks of discipline broke down my spirit as a free man. Known only to a marine is the order. He obeys without asking questions; squads right, squads left, salutes, marches, parades, like mechanical men, obeying orders and commands: an arrangement of a supermind.

Discipline is a necessity in any organization, yet under an arrangement of oft-repeated insults one felt lower than a dog. It is little wonder that men trained as these had at first a false idea that they were not only serving their country but serving their God, and, with a sham pride, took the mental position that one would be a coward to seek even the most scanty shelter. This all passed with the progress of the, war. But training counts, and we all felt at this time that we had absolutely no say of our own, but must march on even in the face of the most terrible of deaths.

Ringing in my ears are the cries of the boys as they dropped exhausted in the mud, cursing everybody like a blue streak, from the president down. “Who is the man, or who are the men, that demand that this murder be carried on? Wliy must we go on? We cannot stop. The dirty, rotten, sons of------ought to be hanging

up by their toes. The ones that order these onslaughts must have hearts of steel, void of any human sympathy, gambling with the lives of the poor innocents.” These and many like phrases were expressions of the nerve-racked and exhausted humans “obeying commands”.

Atop these horrible cries and tragedies rang the sounds of the long-nosed, pious-faced preachers, who cried to the youth of the land, “I could kill the man that insults that flag.” What a dream it all seems, the “dollar patriots” with flags in their buttonholes and their hands in the pocketbooks of the public!

Back to the Front

What front are we headed for now? We have been on forced marches for days, marching all night and hiding in the woods by day. Tramping feet going up and down, loaded sacks on our backs, the straps cutting into the flesh. At last a halt in the marching hordes. Every man flops in the mud, some going sound asleep in the ten minutes rest.

I sat on a pile of stones, common along the roadsides in France, in order that when the march began I could get started.. The human frame refused to move. Cursing and snarling, we pulled one another to our feet. With much effort and with aching feet and joints we forced ourselves on, swearing that we should drop in the mud ere we passed another mile post. There seems no limit to human endurance. We are forced ten miles farther.

Tramping feet going up and down, a neverending tramp, tramp, with a meal when you happen to get it. The gods of war and murder had blessings for their faithful subjects. It was along one of these forced marches that I kicked

something in the mud, and upon investigating found it to be a loaf of bread. Hurriedly we skinned the monster loaf, and ate it gratefully.

Training camp conception that the whole of America would look at us as disgraced if we fell out, kept us grinding like steel. However, some of the boys dropped by the wayside. A wreck, and deathly sick, I crawled into or between the hose coiled up on the water wagon, in order to be on hand for the next slaughter.

We were bound for another front, and it is with astonishment that I look, upon a system of mental training that could capture the minds of men, make them plan and scheme, forcing their bodies to unmerciful endurance, in order, in obedience to the commands of other humans, to be on hand for the next slaughter, to kill or be killed.

At daybreak we stopped. A pal and I climbed up on the bank alongside the road. We said nothing to each other. The dominant factor in each of our minds was rest, sweet rest. We wrapped ourselves in our slickers. It was raining. We slept the sleep of the dead. How long

We were in the support marches, burdened with heavy machine guns and cases of ammunition. A six-foot boy, known by four names, emptied out his ammunition and carried the empty cases in order to keep going with the crew.

A German who had been wounded lay by the wayside. He looked at us with piteous eyes as we passed by; but we could not bother with him.

The sky was filled with aeroplanes, both allied and enemy. The anti-aircraft, on fast motor cars, moved rapidly into action. Bang I Bang! They pounded out preparations of steel on the human birds in the air. Hordes of men with rifles and packs passed us on our right.

We stopped near some trees. The ruins of a German first aid station were near by. I walked over, looking for souvenirs. A terrible feeling overtook me, as I watched the wounded coming back, knowing only too well that the same fate would be meted out to many of us. The attacking units pushed on. We knew what it meant, and looked at one another with an empty, silent look.

Like a ferocious beast, the smoke and fire flying out of its structure, a tank dashed down a ravine, driving out the prey from their dug-in holes along the bank.

Two lads, yet in their teens, came hobbling by, the one a German, the other a marine. They were both wounded, and with their arms around each other’s waist, aided each other to drag their bleeding bodies to the rear. A little farther on they stopped and the American said, “Give us a drink, Buddy.” The marine took a swig from a canteen and then handed it to the Ger-

man.

The poor German hesitated to take it, and motioned as if to say, “Please may I take a little water from your canteen?” “Yes,” said the %/ ^wounded marine. Turning to the others he said,

“Let him have a drink; he is a good bugger.” With that they put their arms around each other and continued their journey rearward.

With this pathetic episode turning over in my mind I could not but wonder what sort of multiplied lies were fed to the armies on both sides to put this terrible fear of each other in us, when in reality w^re were friends, at heart.

The Charge

We advanced to the top of the ravine, and there, lined up along the top of the bank, was the enemy’s artillery, a complete battery, abandoned in the rush. The prisoners of war were coming back, carrying the wounded. There were long lines of them, about 500, I should judge. They were cap

The allied cavalry, in the distance, vzas charging the town. The third platoon, of which I was the sergeant, had orders to back up the charge. The fine-looking horses dashed into the town. We were unable to support them with overhead fire, on account of the uncertainty of the range. They rushed into the streets. Smokelike clouds of dust arose from the village. Men ran like mad this rvay and that way. The dead lay in the streets and out in the field. The scene vanished as I busied myself digging in.

Between the Frying Pan and the Fire ' '

On our way up to this position the excitement ran high. The enemy had us covered from yonder hill, by direct fire from a battery of one-pounders. The aeroplanes swreoped down on us with fierce machine-gun fire. I lay in a ditch while the stream of bullets, like lightning, kicked up the dust as they sped by. There was no place and no way to hide from these missiles of death.

Down from the sky, almost to the earth, came a French plane, with a German at his tail. Like two sparrows they flew in and out, up and down. We could see the streams of tracer bullets as they left the muzzle of the plane in position to fire. Frenchy headed over our troops. They fired on Fritz and away he flew toward his own lines. We crawled on toward a wheat field.

A Walking Corpse

Some one came down the road. It was a marine. What a horrible sight! One of his arms was shot off. He looked at us and said, “What company are you out of, Bud?” This was a very common question among the boys. He was in a daze. I took him by the arm. One eye was shot out and part of his hand was hanging by a thread of flesh. He did not seem to mind it as much as I did. The back of his neck was shot off.

How could a man stand on his feet, butchered up like that? I called for first aid, contrary to the general orders that we had no time to take back the wounded, and commanded that this poor fellow be taken to the rear. The next I heard from the first aid man was that he was killed when the dressing station was shelled.

We were now in the wheat field. The shelling became very heavy. The black crosses of the enemy planes were plainly seen. They controlled the air. They are the eyes of the artillery. Why could not our great supports control the air? Where were the hundreds of thousands of 'American planes that we had heard about ? Two billion dollars of graft squandered on them in America had given us nothing at the front.

The third platoon was ordered led on up into tire front. I had to get the other boys in motion. They had dug in back along the roadside. It did not seem fair that what we called ‘the dirty job’ should be given to us again. We soon saw that the enemy was shelling the back area. I later learned that our boys suffered heavy casualties while waiting in reserve.

"Water, if You Please”

A high explosive shell hit a group of men at a pump while they were filling their canteens. I saw only one run out of the smoke: the others were killed or wounded. I passed on without any water.

The tanks were on our right; one was on fire. The munitions of the tank exploded. We dug for safety, but private Spade was hit. He ran to the rear. We envied him. Another tank was wrecked. The bones of some mothers’ sons hung burned to a crisp.

The wounded were crying in the wheat field. I tried to avoid them, but stumbled on a black Moroccan. With pleading eyes, and in the French language, he said, ‘Water, if you please.” At this time I had a little, but needed it to keep alive. I understood the French term “If you please”, and it was so pathetic that I gave him my canteen. He drank what I had, and in grateful appreciation kissed me on the feet. I felt well repaid for giving him my last water.”

I passed near another who begged me to stop, crying, “My God, Buddy, give me a 'drink of 5vater!”

“I have none; honest, I haven’t.”

“Let me feel your canteen. You might be this way yourself some day.”

A shiver ran down my spine.

“Boll me a cigarette, please.”

That I did, and placed several of them alongside of him on a piece of board, I do not know how badly he was wounded, but his face, hands and legs were covered with dried blood. I stuck up his rifle and put his hat on it. Perchance they would gather up the wounded.

We made a dash for a ravine, and huddled in. this ravine was one of the most pitiful and horrible sights that a human eye ever witnessed. A hundred or two hundred of the flower of America, who had been sent off with cheers and songs, were now lying huddled together, ths living among the dead, and no one able to dig even a little hole to crawl in.

Digging for Life _

The air filled with enemy planes meant only one thing, that they would signal to the artillery when ready to blow us off the map. Wa began to dig in. It was Saunders’ first battle. I told him to dig in, but he was too tired.

Hamp and I dug like mad, knowing well what to expect. We just got below the surface when hell broke loose. We lay together in our much too small hole, his feet toward my head and mine toward his. Bang! Bang! The shells fell short. The. guns increased their range. The next salvo fell a little short also. Saunders now frantic, looking for a place to hide, jumped in upon Hamp and me. We kicked him out. He cried for a shovel. He got one and began to dig. He macle a steam, shovel look sick.

The dirt and pieces of shell were now covering us. Every time one burst Hamp and I would squeeze together a little more. Before it was over the hole seemed too big. We lay there wondering about the poor mortals farther down the ravine, with no protection other than the bodies of the dead, if they chose to use therm We could do nothing.

With the last bang just a little short, the same thought was running through our minds, 'Will the next volley hit us or go over? We knew

from experience that they would move up their range. We lay there in an awful silence, as of living dead men. Bang, Bang! tore the dirt over our heads. We were almost buried, but not hurt.

It was dark now and the shelling had passed from us. Hamp kissed me. We said nothing. Saunders was still digging. He had almost sunk a shaft. I told him to save his strength, he might need it; but he kept on digging.

Relief Orice More

Runners came in with the word that all had gained their objectives and that the French would relieve us at midnight. We never heard better news in our lives. The orders were to bring back all unused ammunition. A good soldier never disobeys, but I felt like saying, “To hell with the ammunition!” I ordered the boys to make stretchers from the coats of the dead, to look for rifles sticking up in the wheat fields, and to take back with them some of the wounded.

We sent for water. My tongue was now swollen until it filled my mouth. We started back. Aeroplanes could be heard overhead, and were dropping lighted flares, to see what was going on upon the earth. A shell landed in our midst, but failed to explode. Groups of boys, here and there, lay by the roadside where a shell had landed in their midst. Six of them lay dead like the petals of a flower.             ’

Wagons and munition trains were stuck in the mud. Dead mules and horses were here and there, with wreckage of every description. It looked as if a cyclone had changed the surface of the earth. We finally got back in reserve to be reinforced, and with trucks and by forced marches were hurried to another front.

(2’o be continued)

America’s Vast Military Establishment

LULLED to sleep by Uncle Sam’s previous history, and by the oft-repeated claims as to his pacific intentions, few now know that this country is today supporting one of the greatest military establishments of history. About 800,000 men, and a few beautiful women, are directly involved in this establishment and plugging hard to make it bigger and bigger, and succeeding very well.

The regular army is only 205,177; but the. National Guard is 192,000, the Organized Reserve is 107,344, the reserve officers’ training corps is 147,402, the citizens’ military trainingcamp is 37,976, and the rifle teams include 110,000 ;.and they all want to grow and shine at the expense of the public treasury. Many are the ways to dip into it,

With the world still grappling with the awful burden of debts piled up during the World War, and trying hard to get rid of war and to give its attention to the pressing burdens of peace, it seems a shame to have to record the fact that the current expenditure of the United States on strictly military activities of the army and navy constitutes the largest military budget of any nation in the world today.

President Hoover has been good enough to analyze the country’s budget and to show that 72 percent of the federal funds go to the paying for past wars and the preparation for future wars, while only 8 percent is used for the machinery of government. The estimated expenditures for 1933 are $803,000,000. They are already over the $700,000,000 mark.

Uncle Sam is not stingy. Money has been appropriated for the purchase of planes faster than the Air Corps could purchase them. He has been liberal about vacations in summercamps at Federal expense for reserve officers who are in business and who would rather reduce their figures in a uniform than otherwise. Reducing the figure in a uniform helps a business man to keep his bank account from shrinking at vacation time; and, following a big stock market. squeeze, that is something worth considering. Why pay your own vacation expenses when you can get the government to do it ?

It is quite romantic to be in the cavalry. You may get a chance to ride a fine horse; and if you have been riding fine horses all your life it is easy to get to thinking that you would like to ride them all the rest of your life, if Uncle Sam pays the feed bills and provides the mounts. And he does, for many.

At least 2,160 of Uncle Sam’s cavalry horses are used for playing polo. Horseback riding, fox hunting, coon hunting and drag hunting are very popular in the army: popular with the of-fleers and with their lady folks. Uncle Sam pays the bill. We get these facts from a speech by Hon. Ross A. Collins (of Mississippi) in the House of Representatives.

In previous speeches, referred to in these columns. Mr. Collins has reminded us that the military establishment is popularizing itself and keeping itself in the saddle by selecting the prettiest girls in the schools and colleges as honorary officers for the reserve officers’ training corps. In effect this is bribery of the girls, and of their parents, to keep them interested in what all must admit to be, and to have been, the world’s outstanding curse, militarism. .

Mr. Collins points out that the things taught the boys that are enrolled in the reserve officers’ training corps are not the things that belong to war: not at all. By their own admission these boys are being taught “to build character”, to have “respect for all religions”, to be courteous, to brush their teeth, to salute properly, to march spryly in parade and to be military martinets. Military training is compulsory in 159 American colleges, universities and other Schools.

General Robert E. Lee, than whom few persons have ever lived who knew more about militarism,- advised against military education for those who expected to engage in civil pursuits. Theodore Roosevelt discouraged his son from entering either the army or the navy. Ho knew much more about the subject than most of us can ever know, for he was in both.

Relmous Fakirs the Meanest Kind

A LL WILL' admit that the meanest kind of fakirs are those that get money away from people under the false claim that it is God’s will that they should "fork over” their savings, so that it may be spent by other people, and that thus God would be very much pleased, or, at the very least, conciliated, with good results all around.

Our readers know what we think of the purgatory and hell-fire swindles. These are hoary with age, but as reprehensible as though but recently invented. Nothing can be said in extenuation. of the meanness that will induce the poor to part with their hard-earned savings on the pretext that it is necessary to do this in order to keep out of a fire or to help somebody else out who has had the bad luck to get in.

Britain is just now stirred by a deluge of what are called “hypnotic pastors”. These gather their flocks into private homes. A victim is selected. Choruses are sung at breakneck speed until the victim, usually a nervous person, has been reduced to a hypnotic state. As soon as the victim becomes cataleptic and begins to mutter incoherent words the "pastor” proceeds to interpret the message which, has come from the more or less holy spirit.

The victim is told that there is a message for him from God and that God has said, “I am in the midst of thee. Thou shaft give my servant [here the pastor is named] the sum of five hundred pounds,” or whatever amount it has been decided can be raised. By this means scores of people have been made penniless and the House of Commons will probably pass a bill requiring all such contributions of money to be registered and accounted for to a charity commission.

However, it is hard to see how that will help matters much, for probably several or maybe all the members on that charity commission are themselves engaged in wringing money out of the poor on some religious or other pretext. The charity commissions themselves need to be investigated, in many instances.

The Hotel Sk George

THE Hotel St. George, half a dozen blocks from the office of The Golden Age and three blocks from the new studios of the Watchtower station WBBR, is the largest hotel in New York, and the next to the largest in the world, which latter is located in Chicago. The St. George has 2,6-32 rooms, and is thirty-one stories in height. It has sixteen banquet rooms, and the largest hotel ballroom in the world. The hotel is topped by the largest air beacon in the United. States. It is of 480 million candle power.

Comfrey Root By A. E. 8. Beckett (England)

SEEING that you say that articles on health are welcome, I submit the following, showing the wonderful healing power God our Maker has placed in the lowlyTierbs^often pooh-poohed by those who call themselves “doctors”.

A dear old gentleman whom I knew well (and whose wife had often accompanied him to our meetings before her death), became very ill with a carbuncle at the back of the neck. He was rushed off to a nursing home and operated on. In a few days the doctors decided he needed another operation, as they said they found they had not cut deeply enough. In two or three more days he was X-rayed and they said had he been a younger man they would have advised another operation, as it was cancerous and another carbuncle "was forming farther down the spine. On account of his age they would do no more and he was taken home.

I went to see him on the Sunday following. He was sitting in the front room downstairs looking like a wounded soldier, as I told him, very white and ill, His daughter took me aside as I was leaving, saying with tears streaming down her face and choking with sobs that “the doctor has only given him three weeks to live and he might die in a week, and if the cancerous carbuncles don’t kill him his bladder trouble (which he has had for years) will”. So she said, “There is no hope, is there? He will be eighty-three if he lives until next Wednesday. Oh, I do hope he will live over his birthday!”

I must say that previously, on hearing of his operation for carbuncle, I had told his daughter I wished I had known about it beforehand, for I thought comfrey would have saved his being operated on, and suggested she should have some made, all ready to use when he came out. So she said, ^CT did not get any comfrey. It is no use, is it? The doctor comes every day and the nurse dresses it every morning.” “Is the doctor, giving him any medicine to take?” I asked. “No,” she replied. “Here is your chance,” I said. “'Get some comfrey and soak it at once and make it tomorrow and give him some three times a day, beginning with half a teacupful and gradually increasing the dose until he is taking a teacupful at a time. I know it will take away the inflammation at once, and so if he must die it will smooth the pathway for him, for he will certainly have less pain.

The following Sunday I called again and fancied the dear old man looked a trifle better. I inquired if he was in much pain. He said, “No,” and that he slept well and enjoyed his food.

The next Sunday there ~was a marked change in him. Instead of sitting still and saying as he had on the two previous occasions, “Excuse me for not rising,” he rose to greet me and grasped my hand with some life and said, “How are you?” I said, “I can see you are better.” “Yes,” he said, “I am, and I am getting better.”

Then he asked his daughter to show me just what dose she gave him, and she brought a half teacupful out. He remarked, “You know, I could drink a teacupful!” So I instructed the full dose to be given, and after that his progress was rapid.

The next Sunday he informed me that he had been to the post office the previous day, three-quarters of a mile away, to draw his pension. I said in astonishment, “You did not walk!” He replied, “Not there [it was up a steep hill]; I took the tram; but I walked back.”

After that he was outdoors as much as possible and soon got well and the place healed perfectly. The nurse who dressed the wound told his daughter that at first the hole wffiere the carbuncle was cut was as big as to hold a small teacup. She was amazed at the quantity of matter that came away daily. The comfrey expelled it and filled up the place with new, pure flesh. In six Aveeks it was filled with new flesh to within one-half inch of the top, and soon it was perfectly healed. The other carbuncle farther down the spine never developed, and the bladder trouble was cured, too. Also, though for years he had been afraid to venture out to an evening meeting in the winter on account of asthma and bronchitis, he never had either that winter; and came to many a Bible class, with a skin so fair and healthy-looking that I often thought, as I looked at him, of the days to come when the Lord will heal the people, and of those words in Job, “His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: he shall return to the days of his youth.”-—Job 33:25.

The dear old man lived three years, instead of the three weeks given him by the doctor, and was a living witness to the power of just one of the many thousands of precious herbs planted by God “for the service of man”. Comfrey will not cure everything, but the great and good

herbalist, W. H. Box, late of Plymouth, England, wrote in his book, “Sell your coat and buy betony.” This is true of comfrey also. Betony will cure fifty diseases, and comfrey is not one whit behind.

I myself have known of a case where it knitted broken bones after the doctors had done all they knew for eighteen months and were suggesting an operation to graft a piece of bone from one leg on to the other. The man realized he would have two bad legs instead of one. The doctor gave the man another month to get well and said that if he was not better in that time, it must be done. However, during the month some one took him some comfrey, which he was thankful to take, and he was able to satisfy the doctors that he was making progress, by walking around the table, steadying himself with one finger. Not only did his leg get wwll, but his health was so built up that his friends who had seen him looking pale and thin from long suffering scarcely recognized him.

Another case I came across vzas where spitting of blood was cured in a fortnight. Constipation and bad cough, diarrhea,, dreadful burn, dreadfully inflamed and raw to the bone: inflammation gone in three hours and the blueness of the wound which the Bible says Tleanseth away the evil thereof’ in its stead. Dreadful wound in leg, through cycle accident (inch and a half deep and touching a vein); comfrey applied by day (changed every hour lest it stick), ointment by night, comfrey drunk by the cupful; acted the same as for the old gentleman: the wound cleansed and filled right up smooth with pure flesh.

How io Make and Take Comfrey

To begin, with, see that the comfrey is good. It should be of light color inside before cooking. It is almost black outside, of course, but if dark inside it is rotten and unfit for use.

Take two ounces comfrey root, wash away any grit, and if any bits of comfrey float to the top of the water, throw them away.

Now add two pints of cold water and leave to soak all night.

Then place in an iron saucepan (not aluminum on any account); enamel might do, but I think the iron has some good effect on the comfrey, as the cure of the old gentleman first mentioned in this article was with the comfrey cooked in an iron saucepan.

Simmer very gently for two hours or longer. If for application only or for violent hemorrhage, four hours.; if for taking, two or three hours is plenty.

Allow it to get quite cold before straining. Then strain and bottle.

Take a teacupful three times a day, before meals, commencing before breakfast. It is better to commence with half doses, as the system gets used to it better; also, it digests more easily if made lukewarm by standing the cup in a basin of hot water or on the hob, and then it should be sipped.

Comfrey cures all wounds, bruises, broken bones, coughs, diarrhea, dysentery, hemorrhage internal or external, ulcers, etc., and never heals falsely. Its property is to expel the evil and repair the tissues and build new flesh where wasted by disease.

A Question and Answer

QUESTION: Do the teachings of Jesus, on the subject of forgiving sins, point to ths “confession” as it is practiced by the Catholic church?

Answer: No. Jesus never forgave sins but twice, so far as the record shows, and in neither case did the party confess his sin to Him. More than that, Jesus never gave any instructions 'that confession should be made to any man. He always taught that each person should go alone into his closet, and “pray to thy Father which is in secret”. Again He taught us to pray, saying : “When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.” Of course, “Our Father which art in heaven” has no reference to any so-called earthly “spiritual father”. It means just what it says. All sins are to be confessed to Jehovah God, and it is to be done in secret, and in 1 John 1: 9 we read: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” We note that nothing is here said about confessing sins to any man. Surely if God had intended that sins should be confessed to any man, or that any man should be authorized to forgive sins, there would have been some plain statements of such a fact. In Romans 14:11 are these words: “As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." In Ezra 10:11 we read: “Now therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers, and do his pleasure.”

Jesus forgave the sins of the man sick of the palsy, as recorded in Matthew 9:2-6, and in Mark 2:3-10, also in Luke 5:18-24. In Luke 7:48 is the record of Jesus’ forgiving the sins of the woman who had been a sinner. These are the only records we have of instances where Jesus forgave sins, and in neither instance did the sinner confess his sin. After His resurrection, Jesus, addressing the eleven disciples (Thomas not being present), said: “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” Not one word, however, did Jesus say about anyone’s confessing his sins to the disciples. This text, however, has no reference to the forgiveness of individual sins. Moreover, there is no record that the disciples ever exercised the power of forgiving sins. When Jesus said to the disciples, “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted,” He meant that, under divine inspiration, they would be enabled to accurately explain what sins would be forgivable and what sins would not be forgivable. This the disciples did. In 1 John 5:16,17 the Apostle John describes a “sin unto death”, and says that it is useless to pray for it. James also tells us that if a brother do “err from the truth, and one convert him, . , . he . . . shall save a soul from death”. (Jas. 5:19,20) Paul describes a sin, and tells us that one who commits it cannot be renewed again to repentance. (Ileb. 6:4-8) He also tells us that one who sins wilfully is beyond recovery. (Heb. 10:26) The verdict of the disciples, as to what sins can be forgiven and what ones cannot be forgiven, and which verdict is recorded in their writings, has divine approval, and is acceptable to Jehovah God. This is what Jesus meant when He said to His disciples, in Matthew 18:18, “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven.”

In James 5:13-16 is a record of a sinner who had gotten so far away from God that God would not hear his prayer. He was told to call in the elders (not the priest or clergyman) and that they must anoint him with oil, and that he should confess his fault to these elders, who would pray for him. This man’s sin is described in verse 19 as not being a moral relapse, but an erring from the truth. In some way he had done violence to the truth. It will be noticed that the elders were to anoint him with oil (this is not done at the confessional). It will further be noticed that the elders did not forgive his sin. They simply acted as an intercessor, and the record closes with the remark that the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

There are certain other texts which tell us that men can and should forgive sins. In Luke 17: 3 we read: “If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; if he repent, forgive him.” This text refers to cases where one individual trespasses against another, and later makes an apology and asks to be forgiven. Such should be fully and heartily forgiven, even as Jesus taught us to pray to God, saying: ‘Forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ The individual, however, could not forgive a trespass committed against a third party.

When on earth, Jesus could properly forgive sins, for the reason that He was “the Lamb of God W’hich taketh away the sin of the world”. He was man’s Redeemer, and as such was fully authorized to forgive sins. No human being is authorized to forgive sins, except trespasses against himself, as we have just noted. The claim that men can forgive sins, and that a confession must be made to some man, was made a law of the Catholic church in 1216 A.D., at the council of Lateran. There is no authority for either claim to be found in the Scriptures. Every properly repentant sinner has the sacred privilege of going alone, and in secret, into the presence of the great Jehovah God, and there confessing his sins, and asking for forgiveness, in the name of Jesus, who is now sitting at the right hand of God to make intercession for all such repentant ones. The Scriptures assure ns that such will he forgiven and reinstated in the divine favor, without the necessity of confessing to any man.

Items of Interest from Daily Mail

Millbum, N. J. “I was listening to Judge Rutherford’s sermon this morning on the radio and I would like very much to read the book he spoke of called Government.”

Stratton, Nebr. “Heard your Sunday morning talk yesterday. I would like to get those books Judge Rutherford mentioned. Perhaps you can tell me where I can get them somewhere near here. ’ ’

Salem, Ohio. “Every Sunday possible I am a member of the radio audience of the watchtower program, and I am firmly convinced that the watchtower program and that small group of men and women that go from house to house are bearing witness to the great name of Jehovah.”

Beaver Falls, Pa. “I enjoy listening to your watchtower programs, and especially the talks by Judge Rutherford on Sunday morning. The program broadcast by the Bible Students on Sunday brings light to people who may be in darkness. Keep it up.”

Bala, Kans. “Last Sunday (May 18) I heard your radio program, and wish to take this means of telling you that I heartily approve the message that was delivered. Please mail me your literature and price of the helpful books you have. My intentions are to listen to you each Sunday and also urge others to do so. ’ ’

Wilkinsburg, Pa. “We want you to know that we enjoy the radio lectures given by Judge Rutherford very much, and that we believe his teachings. We listen in every Sunday morning. We were raised in the Baptist faith, but have drifted .away from church. For a year or more we have listened to your programs, and your lectures give us new hope every Sunday. We get discouraged because the way looks impossible sometimes, but your lectures give us a great deal of comfort.”

St. Louis) Mo. “I have just finished listening in on Judge Rutherford’s talk on ‘Comfort’ and was very much enthused over the subject. I am a police officer in this city and come in daily contact with the people, and find the majority of them dissatisfied mainly on account of prohibition and its effects, and of so many failing to find work. The clergy, both Catholic and Protestant, have contributed a big part in spreading dissension amongst the people by preaching too many other things but not the Word of God.”

Montgomery, Pa. “I am a regular listener-in on your program every Sunday morning and I enjoy it very much. I would be pleased to receive some free literature. I am disgusted with the church, I am through with commercialized mechanical professional preachers. I have lots of sympathy but very little respect for them.”

Elmhurst, Ill. “I listened to your wonderful talk over the watchtower stations Sunday, the 18th, on Prohibition and will be a constant listener hereafter. Yours for more like them, and hope other church members will follow.”

Talmage, Nebr. “I want to say that the watchtower programs are the most interesting on the air. It seems that nowadays many ministers the country over do not preach from the Bible any more, and it is certainly doing great harm to millions. I myself do not attend church any more on that account, but stay home and listen to watchtower. program. ’ ’ Washington, D. 0. “Judge Rutherford’s lecture on Prohibition was the most splendid I have heard. I would like to have a copy of it, that is, if it. is printed for distribution. I want to give the lecture to a friend of mine, who is a noble and conscientious worker for the Anti-Saloon League.” .

Bangor, Me. “I have been listening on the watchtower for the last six months, and I won’t, miss one of them for a farm; and last Sunday, May 18, on Prohibition beats them all, it hit the nail right on the head. Would like to see your Government book.” Lakewood, Ohio. “Have been a deeply interested listener to Judge Rutherford’s lectures for a long time, and look forward to them with great pleasure; and I am therefore taking the liberty of writing to ask if it will be possible for me to obtain a copy of his lecture over the radio Sunday morning, May-18, on the question of Prohibition.”

Newport, Pa. “Listened in to the address delivered this morning by Judge Rutherford on the subject of the Anti-Saloon League. We very much admire your stand in preaching the truth to the people, and the denouncement of wickedness. Let the good work continue. I would like to procure several copies of Judge Rutherford’s address and also a copy of the book entitled Government.”'

Why Reverend Pierce Was Peeved

i anyway, this little speech has heated Washing. ton up something wonderful’, and Reverend s Pierce now says he would like to ‘punch Rev. erend Ainslie in the eye’. From all this we , gather that Reverend Pierce would make a good : chaplain in any one of the three places mentioned by Reverend Ainslie.

Presumptuous Sins

An address by Judge Rutherford broadcast May 25 WATCHTOWER national chain program

JEHOVAH caused the Bible to be written for the instruction of men in the way of righteousness. He who desires to have an understanding of the right way to go may with confidence look to the Bible for instruction. This is particularly true at the end of the world, when, the greatest of all conflicts is approaching. Every one who has an honest and sincere desire to pursue a course of righteousness, and who believes that the Bible is God’s Word, will be anxious to learn of its teaching. Honest people desire to have something upon which to base a hope for the future. That desirable thing is found only in the Bible. In Bomans 15:4 it is written that The things contained in the Bible were written for our learning, that we through comfort of the Scriptures might have hope’. 'Again, it is written in 1 Corinthians 10:11 that These things were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come’. The proof is abundant that we are now at the end of the world and that we are in the transition period and that all power and authority that Satan has will shortly be taken away from him and that Christ will exercise all power and authority for the good of mankind. .

Among other things written in the Bible for the instruction of men who want to walk in the way of righteousness are the words of God’s prophet recorded in Psalm 19:13, which read: “Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.” This conclusively proves that the Christian or rnan of God is in danger of ‘committing presumptuous sin’, which leads to the great transgression, and which, is to become a part of Satan’s organization. The words here recorded constitute a prayer of those who desire to be guided aright that they shall not fall into presumptuous sins. If man holds himself out as a teacher of God’s Word and then wilfully misrepresents that Word and assumes to do what God’s Word does not authorize him to do, then he is guilty of presumptuous sin.

Defined

An act- of presumption is properly defined in this manner: To assume authority to do an act and then to perform that act without first having received authority so to do. It means to

G.

do what one is not warranted in doing. “Sin” means the transgression of God’s expressed will or Word, which is his law. To assume authority to do an act in the name of God when no such authority has been given to so speak or act in the name of God, and then to perform the act, is clearly a presumptuous sin, as defined by the Scriptures.              '                        .

The facts upon which all will readily agree are these: That the Anti-Saloon League claims to be a religious organization, “born of God”; that it said other like organizations, and particularly the Protestant clergy forming a large part thereof, have long claimed and yet claim to represent God in America; that these organizations and the men therein call themselves Christian or religious; that they, and particularly the clergy therein, have long advocated the prohibition of the manufacture, possession and use of intoxicating beverages, wines, or other drinks; that during the stress of the "World War these so-called religious organizations, and particularly the clergy, took the lead in inducing and causing the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and that since its adoption they have been the chief advocates of the rigid enforcement of the Prohibition law. It will be further conceded by all that America claims to be a Christian nation, that is to say, to accept Christ as its example and teacher, and that it is in America where the Prohibition law exists and is enforced.

My purpose here is to submit the proof that the Prohibition law is in derogation of and therein in violation of God’s law, and hence is an act of presumption; that those who claim to believe in and serve God and who participate in making and enforcing the Prohibition law are guilty of presumptuous sin before God. The people or nation that makes no claim to belief in or the worship of God. and that has no knowledge of God and His Word might enact a Prohibition law and enforce it and not be guilty of presumptuous sin, At least there would not be the same degree of guiltiness as that upon professed Christians. I. shall submit the facts and the law of God upon the question at issue and let the people determine whether or not the advocates of the Prohibition law are guilty of presumptuous sin.

Wine

Wine is a beverage or liquor made from the juice of grapes and allowed to ferment. The alcoholic content thereof produces intoxication when used to excess. There could be no wine without fermentation, and fermentation is the result of a natural law which the great Creator God made. In Genesis the ninth chapter it is recorded that Noah planted a vineyard, gathered the grapes that grew therein, and made wine from them, and drank the wine and became intoxicated. '

To say that Noah did that because he was ignorant of the natural law of fermentation would be foolish. The record shows that he planted the vineyard with full knowledge that wine by fermentation would result, otherwise why did he press out the juice from the grapes and wait for it to ferment before he drank it? Had he desired only the grape juice he would have pressed out the juice and drunk it immediately. The flood had nothing to do with the operation of fermentation, as has been improperly claimed. God was not displeased with Noah and did not subject him to a fine, imprisonment or other punishment for making and possessing wine; but long thereafter gave to him the very highest commendation. (Ezek. 14:14) In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews again Noah is specifically commended for his faithfulness and devotion to God and it is plainly stated that he had God’s full approval. Notwithstanding this, Noah has been repeatedly denounced by the Anti-Saloon League and the clergy.

Later Abraham, who had performed a great and good act of faithfulness to God, was met by Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High God, and served with wine by God’s priest and received God’s blessing, and this record is made in Genesis 14:18, 19. The clergy would today incarcerate both Abraham and Melchizedek in prison for so doing.

God anointed Aaron to serve in the office of High Priest and to serve in the tabernacle; and, in Leviticus 10: 9, He commanded Aaron not to drink wine or strong drink “when ye go into the tabernacle”. But when the service in the tabernacle was done he might drink it. The Lord did not prohibit him from manufacturing or having it in possession. Even those who were specially consecrated to God were told that they could drink wine at certain times.—See Numbers 6:20.

In giving instruction to the Israelites concerning their offerings at the tabernacle God used these words, in Numbers 28:7: “In the holy place shaft thou cause the strong wine to be poured unto the Lord for a drink offering.” No one would question that the Lord approved this, because He commanded it.

When King David brought the ark of God from the wilderness and placed it in Jerusalem he made a great feast for the people and they were all served with good wine, and this had God’s approval, as recorded in 2 Samuel 6: 15-19. In Psalm 104 the prophet is praising God for His abundant provisions for His creatures, and among other good and blessed things thus provided by the Lord he names these: “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make, his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.” (Psalm 104:14, 15) Instead of prohibiting the making, possession and use of wine, God Himself provided it for His people.

It cannot be successfully argued that these scriptures, because taken from the Old Testament, no longer apply. The entire Bible was written for the instruction of men in righteousness, and the Old and New Testaments are in full accord with each other. It is written in 2 Timothy 3:16: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Jesus and the apostles quoted frequently from the Old Testament and showmd that the Old Testament announces God’s rule as applying to all His creatures.

The words and acts of Jesus are recorded in the New Testament. He performed miracles for the purpose of establishing the faith of the people in Him as the Messiah sent from God. Would it be at all reasonable that in the performance of miracles for this purpose Jesus would use anything in connection therewith that God had prohibited or that was at all displeasing to God? Certainly not; because He repeatedly stated that He came to do not His own will, but the will of His Father who sent Him. (John 5: 30; 6: 38) Therefore what Jesus ’did had the full approval of God His Father.

The first miracle that Jesus performed was that of making wine. The record thereof is found in John 2:1-11. He was present at a marriage feast at which all the guests were 'drinking wine which the bridegroom had provided. The supply on hand was exhausted. Being called upon to do something for the guests in the way of supplying wine Jesus then and there performed His first great miracle by making wine from water. The divine record shows that it was even better than the other vane. Some of the prohibitionist clergymen, not being able to answer these plain statements of God’s approval upon the making of wine, have had the temerity to tell the people that the vzine 'Jesus there made on that occasion was merely unfermented grape juice. The clergy expect the people to believe their statement because they claim that no one else can teach the Scriptures aside from them. In proof that it was genuine, fermented wine, the record plainly reads: “The governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and -when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.” No man would say that about unfermented grape juice. He did not know that Jesus had made this wine, but he did know it was the best wine, and that proves it was not merely plain grape juice.

The Pharisees who composed the clergy when Jesus was on earth, and whom Jesus denounced as hypocrites, accused Jesus of being a winebibber. (Matt. 11:19) Manifestly they did this because Jesus indulged in the moderate use of fermented wine. Had He been drinking plain grape juice they would have said nothing about it. Had God intended that the making, possession and use of wine should be prohibited, Jesus certainly would not have drunk any of it "whatsoever. He kept God’s law in every particular.

The Pharisees accused Jesus of wrongdoing because He ate and drank with the poor or common people. They were not drinking unfermented grape juice, but were evidently drinking good wine, which represented good cheer, and this they were doing because Jesus was with them and they were glad. To illustrate the happiness of the occasion, Jesus spoke in response to the Pharisees’ accusation and used these words: “And no man putteth nevi wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new; for he saith, The old is better.” (Luke 5:37-39) Who ever heard of unfermented grape juice causing bottles to burst ? The clergy will have to find some other arguments.

These scriptures I cite to show that God does not prohibit the making, possession or use of intoxicating wine or strong drink, but that, on the contrary, He approves the making, possession and moderate use thereof. This fact of itself is proof that the so-called “Anti-Saloon League” is not •’born of God” and does not have God’s approval and has no authority to speak fox God, and that its claim to represent God is false.

Use

Let it be clearly understood that I am not advocating the manufacture or use of intoxicating wine or strong drink. If the people desire to make a law prohibiting the use of wine, tobacco, bread and meat, they must take the responsibility thereof. But let no man mislead the people, and induce them so to do, by claiming that God approves such course of action. I am of the opinion that the American people were hoodwinked into adopting the Prohibition law because of the claim of the clergy and their allies and so-called “religious organizations” that God wanted them to do it. I am certain that back of the whole scheme of Prohibition is the master mind of Satan and that his purpose is to use this Prohibition fiasco to turn the people away from Jehovah God.

Just before the death of Jesus He instituted the Memorial of His death by the breaking of bread and by producing wine and inviting His disciples to drink of it. (Matt. 26:27) If wine were displeasing to God, then Jesus would not have used it on that occasion. Furthermore, Jesus commanded that His followers should continue to perform this ceremony once each year until the coming of His kingdom. If the prohibitionists have their way, no wine can be had for use in obedience to this commandment of the Lord. The fact that the Lord used wine on this occasion is conclusive proof that its making, possession and use has the approval of God.

Moderation

God made the grapes and the wine therefrom for men and purposed that men should use it in moderation and for their own good; and that being true, no body of men has the right in the name of God to prohibit the possession or use thereof. The Bible defines the qualifications of those who should he ordained to serve in the church of Christ and, among other things, it states that such shall not be given to “much wine”. (Titus 2:3; 1 Tim. 3:3-8) Manifestly this is proof that it is pleasing to the Lord for them to make and possess and use it in moderation. (1 Timothy 5:23) This instruction is given to one of God’s servants: “Use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake.” Under the law of America the man who obeys this Biblical injunction is subject to fine and imprisonment. Those who insist on the law and its enforcement therefore falsely claim to represent the Lord. The law of God does not advise men to use wine to excess and become drunk; but, on the contrary, it is written, in Philippians 4:5: “Let your moderation be known unto all men.”

It is true that there has been a great amount of sorrow and suffering amongst men by reason of the excessive use of wine and strong drink. It is also true that there has been even greater suffering from other excesses. The improper and excessive eating of food doubtless has killed more people than excessive drink. The Word of God especially denounces a glutton, but it does not prohibit the people from eating in moderation. Likewise God’s Word denounces the excessive use of wine or strong drink to the point of drunkenness, but it does not prohibit the manufacture, possession or use of wine.

Prohibition cannot be justified on the ground that it is necessary for the reformation of the peoples of the land. More than ten years’ effort in this behalf has failed to bring about any reformation. A stronger reason, however, is that the prohibition of the manufacture, possession and use of wine and strong drink is not God’s way of reforming excesses. If God has defined a means by which He will cleanse the world of unrighteousness, then for men or the organization of men to follow a different way not only is taking a wrongful course, but is presumptuous. Particularly is this true if the organization and the men thereof claim that God approves their course of action. Even if God had expressed His determination to destroy completely the use of intoxicating liquor in His due time and manner, any effort on the part of man to destroy it in a different manner and before the due time would be presumptuous, and, being contrary to God’s law, would constitute a presumptuous sin. Such a course would be complete evidence that the man or men thus attempting to ’do were proud, arrogant and running ahead of God and assuming to know more than God Himself knows.

God's Method

Jehovah God has plainly stated in His Word that excesses, wrongdoing and all manner of sin leading to death had its beginning with the rebellion of the wicked one Satan the Devil. Its continued practice has been the result of Satan’s influence. God has given His promise that He in due time will establish a righteous government in which Christ shall be the invisible Ruler, and that under His righteous rule all excesses, crime, wickedness and wrongdoing of every kind shall be completely eradicated. His instruction to those who claim to obey Him is that they shall teach the people that He is the true God of righteousness, to the end that the people may learn the truth and wrnit upon God to establish His kingdom and to bring about the desired condition. Concerning this, through His prophet He says, in Zephaniah 3:8, 9: “Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey; for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth [unrighteous organization] shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent.” A knowledge of God and His righteousness will affect the reformation of the people, and not the shotgun enforcement of Prohibition laws. Furthermore, it is written, in Isaiah 26:9: “When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.”

But certain leagues composed of men, and led chiefly by clergymen of the land, say in substance: AVe speak for God, and we have concluded that we will clean up the earth now, and not wait for the Lord to do it. We 'will begin by making it a crime to have in possession or to use wine or other strong drinks. And we will insist that any one who violates this low must be severely punished; and if the officer of the law shoots down a supposed violator he will be justified because he is engaged in a righteous cause.’ In so doing they are assuming to run ahead of God and to do what God has not authorized them to do; and therefore their act is clearly a presumptuous sin before God.

Under Christ’s Reign

The Scriptures explicitly prove that the manufacturing, possession and use of wine will not be prohibited in God’s kingdom under Christ. This being true, then the clergymen and their allies, by now attempting to make and enforce Prohibition in the name of Christ, are doing contrary to the law of Christ’s kingdom and therefore are guilty of presumptuous sin. In the Scriptures the word “wine” is used both literally and symbolically; but regardless of the manner in which it is used, if the manufacture, possession or use were wrong, surely God would not use it in His Word, even to illustrate the blessings and joy that shall come to the people. The word “mountain” is used symbolically in the Scriptures to represent God’s kingdom under Christ, and concerning the blessings that shall come to the people under His righteous rule it is written (Isa. 25: 6): “In this mountain [kingdom] shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.” This scripture must be taken both literally and symbolically.

Literally in this, that under the reign of Christ there will be an abundance of food supply for all the people, so that none shall be hungry any more. And there shall be an abundant supply of wine well refined, rich and nourishing, also, for the sustenance, use and well-being of the people.

Symbolically in this, that there will be an abundance of food of truth for the mind that the people may learn the truth, and know what is right and do it, and their efforts will be attended with great joy and rejoicing to the glory of God; and the wine well represents that joy and rejoicing to the glory of God. If it wore wrong to have wine, then it would be wrong to have food, because God mentions them together. If it is wrong to have either food or wine, then God would not use these words in the manner in which He does use them. It is right in the sight of God to have in possession and use both food and wine; and therefore the attempt to prohibit such is in violation of God’s law and is a sin of presumption.

Under the reign of Christ the people will be well cared for and abundantly supplied. By His prophet Joel He says: “Yea, the Lord will answer and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil.”—Joel 2:19, 24.

To the same effect God’s prophet Amos wrote: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that suweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.”—Amos 9:13, 14.

If the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead law are right and in harmony with God, then God’s prophet was wrong in foretelling of God’s provisions for the people during the reign of Christ. Which do the people care to believe, Volstead and the Anti-Saloon League, and the arrogant clergy, or Jehovah God and His holy prophets? Yon must choose between the two.

Let it be clearly understood that I am not' advocating the violation of the Prohibition law. I am not even asking the people to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The clergy and the Anti-Saloon League and their kindred organizations have forced this law upon the people, and now let them bear the responsibility before God.

I-wish to emphasize the fact that men of any organization claiming to represent God and. claiming that God endorses and approves their action of making and enforcing the Prohibition law are not telling trie truth. They are entitled to their opinions as men, but they have no right to mislead the people by claiming that they speak with authority from Jehovah God, In so doing they are guilty of presumptuous sin.

The Congressman who votes for the making and enforcement of the Prohibition law and then secretly possesses and indulges in the use of wine or other strong drink is dishonest. That all must admit. The judge who sits upon the bench and sentences some poor unfortunate fellow to imprisonment because he makes, possesses or uses wine or other intoxicating beverages. and who then connives with the officers 'who Lave seizeid liquor to appropriate it to themselves and secretly use it or dispose of it to others, is likewise dishonest.

What then shall be said of men who pose as the representatives of God, claim to speak and act by authority from God, and who advocate the making and enforcement of a Prohibition law contrary to God’s law, when they have every reason to know that their course is contrary to God’s law? Are they honest or dishonest? "When the enforcement of that Prohibition law leads other men into dishonesty, into lying and murdei’, then are not these men who thus wrongfully advocate the law and its enforcement parties also to the crime? If the clergymen wish to insist on the prohibition of the making, possession and use of wine and like beverages, that is their privilege as men to do so. But let them at once renounce their claim of being Christian and of being God’s representatives, and let them take their stand openly on

(Continued on page 639)

W. C. T. IL President’s “Demand”

For God and Home and Every Land National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union

HEADQUARTERS

1730 Chicago Ave._? Evanston, Illinois President

MRS. ELLA A. BOOLE!

-               OFFICE OF PRESIDENT

377 Parkside Ave., Brooklyn, New York

May 28th, 1930.

International Bible Students Association, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 117 .Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Dear Sirs:

I am in receipt of a pamphlet which your colporteurs are circulating entitled “Crimes and Calamities, the Cause and the Remedy.’’

Naturally people would think, because this document is being distributed by Russellites, that it would be in support of prohibition.

In your zeal, however, you have produced a booklet opposed to prohibition and it would deceive many good people who perhaps are not well informed.

If this is not withdrawn from circulation I will be obliged to call the attention of the public to the fact that it is being distributed under false pretenses.

Very sincerely yours, . Ella A. Boole.

The Answer

Brooklyn, June 2, 1930 National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Mrs. Ella A. Boole, president, 377 Parkside Av., Brooklyn, N. Y.

Dear Madam:

This acknowledges your letter of May 28. We note your peremptory demand that we shall withdraw from circulation the book “Crimes and Calamities, the Cause and the Remedy”. We must respectfully decline to obey your command. take our orders from the Lord God, and not from women or men. Of course your organization is very important, but we just cannot obey you, and must take the consequences.

May we remind you that Jesus Christ taught the truth when he was on earth and was violently opposed by the clergy of that day and their likes ? They opposed him because he told the truth, and they accused him of being a winebibber and of eating with publicans and sinners, and of almost every other crime known to the calendar. Their real grievance was that, he told them the truth concerning God and His purpose, and he proved it so clearly that they could see themselves that they were hypocrites. They tried to prevent him from telling the truth, and finally killed him because he did tell it. When he stood before Pilate his language was, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” (John 18:37)

The master mind that organized and carried on the opposition to Christ Jesus was Satan the Devil, and he used the clergy as his instruments to do it. Jesus told them that they were the offspring of Satan the Devil and were doing his will. They were members of the Devil’s organization even though they claimed to represent God. (See John 8:42-44.)

May I suggest that attempting to suppress the publication of the truth by demanding that we withdraw from circulation the booklet mentioned is but following the methods of Satan the Devil? Surely you do not want to put yourselves in that category, and admit by your course of action that you represent him ? Then the people would know that “he is the god that you serve”. (2 Cor. 4: 3,4)

Wo are not Russellites. We follow no man. We are doing our best to obey God’s commandments. We must continue the publication of the truth regardless of the demands of your organization to the contrary. No doubt you are very important, but you will please pardon us when we tell you frankly that we cannot comply with your demands.

Very respectfully,

Int. Bible Students Ass’n.

P.S. Of course, you would like to sea your letter in. print, and we -will furnish it to a magazine, together with our reply, for publication.

(Continued from page 638)

the side of God’s enemy, where they may no longer deceive the people.

If the American government desires to enforce a prohibition law, that is its responsibility; but in doing so let the nation at once tell the people that America no longer lays claim to being a Christian nation and that it is not guided in its action by the Word of God and His Christ. The people are entitled to know the truth, and it is the expressed will of God that they shall know the truth. My only purpose in these lectures is to help them understand the truth.

The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is clearly in violation of God’s expressed law, and especially so because America claims to be a Christian nation. The effort on the part of the nation to enforce the law, and to do it in the name of Christ and of God, makes the nation guilty of presumptuous sin for which God will hold it accountable.

I have submitted to you a number of Bible texts plainly stating that Jehovah God approves the'making, possession and moderate use of wine. There is not one text to be found in the Bible that prohibits the making, possession or use of wine. The indisputable facts are that the clergy and their allies claim to speak for God and by His authority to have made a law prohibiting the manufacture, possession and use of wane, and that in attempting to enforce this law⁷ much suffering and death has resulted. The people must judge for themselves whether or not the act of such organizations and men constitute presumptuous sin. If the verdict is that under the law of God and the indisputable facts the clergy are guilty of the sin of presumption in connection with the Prohibition, law, then I recommend that you refuse to further listen to their claims of being God’s representatives, and that you turn your attention to a personal and careful study of God’s Word, that you may learn the truth and follow it to your own good.

The Prohibition law is just one of the presumptuous sins of the clergy and their allies. Another one of such sins is that of the League of Nations, together with its auxiliary organizations. Next Sunday morning, by the Lord’s grace, I shall submit proof not only that the League is wrong, but that its supporters are guilty of presumptuous sin before God.

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WAR OR PEACE, WHICH?

There can be no doubt as to the answer the common people would give to this question. Unfortunately, however, the common people do not have the decision in their own hands. There are sinister powers influencing the course of nations, and the scheming of politicians, financiers and unfaithful religionists is bringing about a condition which will inevitably lead to war, unless . . .

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CRIMES AND CALAftHTIES: The Cause. The Remedy.

Calamities 1 Who has not often wondered why such calamities as floods, earthquakes, cyclones, etc., should be permitted to work widespread havoc? How can such unfortunate occurrences be reconciled with the thought of God’s love for his creatures?

-                      Crimes, too! The increase of crime is a notorious fact. Statesmen and chureh-

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PROPHECY

Generally ignored and widely discredited, those parts of the Bible which foretell the future are in reality of vital importance. Judge Rutherford marshals together an array of convincing facts in his demonstration that PROPHECY is proof that Jehovah is God and the Bible His word. PROPHECY is a bool; you’ll read and reread.

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