Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

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in this issue

A GLIMPSE AT MERCHANDISING

BRICKS AND BRICKBATS

"SOAKING THE RICH”

HERBS FOR THE SERVICE OF MAN

EXACTLY AS THEY ARE

GOD’S RAINBOW COVENANT

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every other WEDNESDAY

five cents a copy one dollar a year Canada & Foreign 1.25

Vol. XIII - No. 334

July 6, 1932

CONTENTS

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

Ford Workers Not Overpaid . . 619

Business Picking Up in Pawtucket 620

Hoover Hotel of College Corner 625

‘’Soaking the Rich”.....630

Half of Merthyr out of Work . 638

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

Bricks and Brickbats.....620

The Uses of College Athletes . 621

Imprisonment of a Six-year-old Boy......". ... 622

MANUFACTURING AND MINING

Lachine Gives Up—but Why? . 622

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY

Staggering Farm and Factory

Work

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

Aviation in 1863

HOME AND HEALTH

Parade of Aluminum Ignorance

Continues

An Unusual M.D

An End of Compulsory Medication

Herbs for the Service of Man . 626

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

A Glimpse at Merchandising . . 611

Who Manage the Big

Corporations ?......621

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

Beer Trucks Still Parade

Chicago Streets......620

The Killings at Chapci .... 620 1,350,000 Homeless in Shanghai . 620 The Dispute over the Gran Chaco 621 What the Allies Promised . . . 624

Increased Cost of National

Government

South Dakota Greets Prospective

Citizens

Hurrah for Judge Miller! . . . 632

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

How a Great Italian Cave Was Discovered

Quake Felled Jericho’s Walls . 622

Growth of Los Angeles County . 623

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Continued Interest in Radio Debate

Pope Admits His Blessing Does Not Work.....  .

Holy Humbug of St. Bartholomew 624

Things Exactly as They Are . . 632

Demons Broke Up His Home . . 633

God’s Rainbow Covenant .... 634

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

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

Five Cents a Copt—$1.00 a Yeab Make Remittances to THE GOLDEN AGE Notice to Subscribers: For your own safety, remit by postal or express money order. We do not, as a rule, send acknowledgment of a renewal or a new subscription. Renewal blank (carrying notice of expiration) is sent with the journal one month before the subscription expires. Change of address, when requested, may be expected to appear on address label within one month.

Ihiblished also in Esperanto, Finnish, German, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish. Swedish.

Offices in Other Countries British............34 Craven Terrace, London, W. 2, England

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Australasian......7 Beresford Rd., Strathfield, N. S. W., Australia

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Entered as second-class matter at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1S79.

The Golden Age

Volume XIII                        Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, July 6, 1932                       Number 334

A Glimpse at Merchandising

WE DO not know that Jabal ever made a tent for anybody else. We merely know that “he was the father of such as dwell in tents”. (Gen. 4: 20) We cannot be sure that his brother, Jubal, ever made any musical instruments for anybody else, although we think that he did, from the statement that “he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ”. —Gen. 4:21.

But when we come to Tubal-cain, who is in the same generation with Methuselah, the grandfather of Noah, we feel quite sure we have located somebody who was engaged in merchandising; for it says of him that he was “an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron”. —Gen. 4:22.

The construction of Noah’s ark, a huge ship of three decks, called for a great quantity and a considerable variety of materials, and it is not unreasonable that some of the things required were obtained in exchange for other commodities and perhaps money.

When we come to the time of Abraham, we find the merchants were established in the earth. Abraham himself “was very rich, in cattle, in silver, and in gold”. (Gen. 13:2) We know that he received a thousand pieces of silver from Abimelech (Gen. 20:16), and that he bought the Cave of Machpelah for 400 shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.—Gen. 23:16.

When Eliezer visited Syria seeking a bride for Isaac, he had with him earrings and bracelets of gold and silver, and other precious things, such as were to be had in trade in those times. —Gen. 24:22,53.

At the conclusion of Job’s time of trial his brothers, sisters and all his old acquaintances each brought in a piece of money and an earring of gold.

The derivation of the Hebrew word for “merchant” signifies a peddler, and the itinerant character and temporary location of oriental merchants is still a marked trait of the same class in the East.

The Peddler’s Wagon and the Country Store

In the days of our dads, the peddlers’ wagons were a familiar sight throughout the country districts. They carried everything needed in the country home. If they did not have it on the wagon this trip, they would bring it on the trip next week or next month.

Nobody was in a hurry in those days. In some places the cattle were driven 500 miles to market and grazed along the way in fields that were free to the user. When the cattle reached Kansas City on the long drive from southern Texas they were fat as butter and ready for the market.

At the Mountain Lake Park Convention in 1911, an aged delegate from Virginia stated that he could remember the time when his father's store bill averaged about $1.50 a year. A little salt and a little iron were obtained from the merchant; everything else was produced on the farm.

Salesmanship a Relatively New Art

Ever since there have been merchants there have been salesmen, but it seems as if only in our day have we come to the time when everybody is trying to sell something to everybody else, and has to do it in order to live. Most of us are far removed from conditions where a store bill of $1.50 a year would carry us any great distance.

Not everybody that poses as a salesman is one. Sometimes an intending customer can hardly get waited on in a store. We read of one instance where a woman in a department store noted a lack of interest on the part of a young man who was supposed to wait upon her, and when she drew his attention to that fact, he haughtily informed her, “Madam, we didn’t send for you.”

A man who went into a New York store with a definite intention of buying an overcoat shown in the window was so pressed by the salesman to buy a higher-priced coat that he went out of the store without buying anything. Another man went into a large sporting goods house to purchase a canoe. The salesman tried to sell him a launch. The man became dissatisfied with a canoe and, not having money enough to get a launch, bought nothing. In Kansas a young farmer was so distressed by the persistence of an insurance agent that he finally decided the only way of escape was suicide.

The right kind of salesman is the one who creates in his prospect a desire for a certain thing and then does not crush it by too much talking. Salesmanship is a study of human nature. A New York merchant offered a rare bargain in shoes at $3.50 a pair, but the shoes remained on his hands. The next day he offered them at $6.00 a pair, with an extra pair thrown in for a dollar more, and closed out the entire stock in less than three hours.

One New York store employs a child psychologist whose duty it is to aid mothers to get the right kind of clothing. Similar service is rendered in the selection of proper toys.

It is estimated that $6,000,000 is spent annually in New York by professional shoppers. These undertake to clothe families, to furnish homes, and even to look after the amenities of absentminded husbands and busy friends. The service they render may be a very real service to those who can afford to engage them.

Appeals to the Senses

A salesman of high-priced autos discovered that the sense of luxury created by the judicious use of delicate perfumery is a great aid to the other arts of salesmanship.

A salesman is most appreciated who, when a customer comes in for a shirt, can sell him a box of shirts and the necessary collars and neckwear to go with them, without making the customer feel that the extra goods have been thrust upon him.

In Fort Worth, Texas, in 1896, a dry goods merchant opened a grocery store in the back of his establishment and sold sugar far below the usual price, but only $1.00 worth to a customer. Those who patronized the grocery had to go through the dry goods department, and the grocery department was purposely undermanned so that the customers necessarily were attracted to the dry goods counter.

Merchants today dread an interruption of business. An Elizabeth (N. J.) grocer moved his store 200 feet to the rear of his property in a single day without interfering with his sales. Standing near the moving structure, the proprietor took the orders of his customers and raced into the store to fill them while the store was on the move.

In Rice Lake, Wis., two stores on opposite sides of the street engaged in such a fierce competition that when one announced free house dresses, the other invited shoppers to get a dress and a nickel premium besides.

It not infrequently happens in Brooklyn and elsewhere that women are injured in the bargain day rushes caused by unusually attractive offers for merchandise fixed for a certain hour.

Quick Action in Emergencies

A merchant must be quick to take advantage of any emergency. A Paris dealer in men’s furnishings recently advertised widely a “Bargain Sale After Burglary”.

It is noticeable that there has been a great change in the appearance of the dummies in the stores in recent years. At first they tried to make them as attractive as possible, but found that the faces were attracting more attention than the garments. Now the dummies are made to look as devoid of sense and intelligence as possible.

Students of the art of salesmanship have noticed that purchases are larger where selfservice is employed. This is found also to be the case in cafeterias, where it is a common experience that patrons select more food than they can eat.

It appears that in certain sections the people expect to find the highest-priced goods in a certain district, medium-priced goods in another district, and low-priced goods in still another. Hence, it is considered important for the merchant that he should select the right location for the quality and price of goods he expects to handle.

Paris merchants are said to be disturbed because in recent years American women buy less abroad than formerly. The reason which the women assign is that they can buy better goods at home for less money.

In times of great prosperity there are here and there foolish women and perhaps occasionally foolish men who really seem to prefer to pay an unreasonably high price for an article than to pay what is reasonable and what it is actually worth.

Installment Buying—Mortgaging the Future

The old folks used to wait until they had the money to buy a thing before they got it; and sometimes they never got it, because they could not afford it; but today the young folks want everything under the sun and want it right away, and the stores are so eager to find customers that they are quite willing to let them have the goods provided they pay the extra prices which are always charged when goods are bought in that way.

Installment buying got its start with autos, and today more than one-half of all the money outstanding on installment debts represents obligations on account of autos. Household furniture is next in importance. It is estimated that 80 percent of all radios are sold on installments; 75 percent of washing machines; 65 percent of vacuum cleaners; and the greater part of all pianos, sewing machines and electric refrigerators. Indeed, it is claimed that 25 percent of all jewelry is bought on time.

The extra cost which installment buyers have to pay for buying things in this way is from 11 to 40 percent. The purchasers would be much better off if they borrowed the money at the bank at 6 percent, thus saving the additional 5 to 34 percent.

It is estimated that approximately 15 percent of all goods now sold are sold on the installment plan. Exclusive of homes, life insurance, stocks and bonds, this amounts to approximately $6,000,000 worth of goods a year. The installment debt outstanding at a given time is estimated at two and three-quarters billion dollars.

Installment buying has spread throughout Europe. London reports “paid with thanks parties”, where the friends of a couple gather to celebrate the fact that all the installments have been paid on furniture and piano.

It occasionally happens that abuses are practiced in connection with installment selling. Cases have arisen where purchasers have inadvertently signed assignments of their wages. The assignment was served, and the employer, without the knowledge of the employee, paid the entire salary to the installment seller.

It is a good rule in buying anything never to sign any papers of any kind except upon the advice of persons whose friendliness is certain and whose judgment is known to be good.

New Methods of Distribution

New methods of distribution have cut deeply into the usefulness and earnings of traveling salesmen. The mail order houses have taken away half a billion dollars’ worth of retail trade, the chain stores have taken away a good deal more, and buying methods of large department stores have reduced their business as much as 30 percent in some instances.

Occasionally a wide-awake man makes connections with a wholesale house and builds up a retail trade which is inevitably at the expense of the regular dealers. Thus a station agent in the little town of Redwood, Minn., became aware that a consignment of watches intended for a local jeweler had been rejected. He got permission from the wholesalers to see if he could market the watches and in a short time found that he had built up among the railroad employees a business in watches which added substantially to his income.

Quirks of Storekeeping

The cash-carrier was invented by a storekeeper in Lowell whose store was in a long and narrow building. The cashier of the store was in the rear of the building, and that was where the proprietor wanted him to be, so he devised a system of wooden troughs running from one end of the building to the other and, with wooden croquet balls hollowed out, he had the progenitor of the modern cash-carrier system.

Some of the stores of a generation ago were not such attractive places in which to work. They had to be open from six o’clock in the morning until nine o’clock at night, the year round. The clerks had to sweep the store and dust the counter bases, shelves and show cases. They had to fill and trim the lamps and clean the chimneys. An employee who was shaved at a barber shop or went to places of amusement was under suspicion. Each employee had to pay not less than $5.00 a year to some church and attend Sunday school regularly. It was expected that leisure hours after 9:00 p.m. and before 6: 00 a.m. would be spent in reading.

Delivery and C.O.D. Costs

One of the things a storekeeper has to figure on is the cost of delivery, which averages 16c a package. A wide-awake, independent grocer who found that his average grocery order was about $1.60, offered a 10c discount to his customers on such of their purchases as they carried home themselves. He found this arrangement worked very well and that some of his charge customers who had been going to the chain stores for their cash purchases spent their cash with him.

The C.O.D. business is another vexation to storekeepers. One large storekeeper in New York city estimated that 52 percent of the packages sent out were sent out C.O.D., and that of all the C.O.D. packages, about 11.2 percent came back to the store with a notation ‘‘Out’’ or “Don't want".

While honesty is the best policy, yet not all storekeepers are honest; perhaps you may have ascertained that fact yourself. Several large New York stores have agreed that they will discontinue the practice of paying servants and other representatives secret commissions for purchases of merchandise made for their employers.

The district attorney of New York county, when informed of the purpose of some of the big stores to the above effect, volunteered the information that gratuities given to employees without the knowledge and consent of their employers to affect their conduct is a misdemeanor and punishable under the law.

Some Oddities in Stores

Pat Kenny, cobbler, situated under a railway arch bridge in Bermondsey, London, claims to have the smallest store in the world. It is only four feet square, entered by a door less than 5 feet high.

Somewhere near Canal Street, New York city, there was a store of usual height, but much narrower than Mr. Kenny’s little coop under the railway bridge. The New York store, if we recall correctly, was a little piece of real estate accidentally overlooked in the making of a deed. When last seen it was used as a cigar store, and was so narrow that the owner claimed that he had to go out into the street to change his mind. Perhaps by now this little sliver has been absorbed in a larger building.

The west coast of Scotland has a store mounted on a barge. The barge master sells everything wanted by the natives and takes in exchange whatever they have to barter, eggs, fish, lobsters or what not.

A California florist catering to auto tourists has made his roadside place of business in the form of a great flower pot. The “plant” in the flower pot is made of tin and painted to resemble a natural growth and its blooms.

Pasadena, California, has a general merchandise store owned and managed entirely by boys. The capital for this experiment in sociology was provided by a Los Angeles philanthropist.

Eastham, London, England, has a store that does a successful business in renting overcoats at the rate of 4c a day. A small deposit is required. We doubt if such an enterprise could succeed in New York. The overcoats, once rented, would never be returned.

Antique shops are not so new; one was recently unearthed among the ruins of Pompeii.

Passing of the Country Store

The old-fashioned country store is passing away. There was a time when the politics of the nation, the state, the county, and the township were discussed around the stove in the village store. Benches and chairs were provided, and the farmers from far and near made themselves at home and were expected to do so.

Their children come into modern emporiums equipped with electric lights, cash registers, steam heat and all the latest devices for displaying merchandise to the best advantage. They get their goods, hop into an auto, and in a few minutes are at the old homestead, which in Dad's day could be reached only by ahorse and wagon, or, in the winter, by sleigh after a long, cold drive.

Most of the packages of the old-style grocery store, such as the flour barrel, the cracker barrel, and the old wooden tobacco pail, have practically ceased to exist. The dry goods box has given way to the carton.

China and Siam are still in the stage of the peddler. Everything the householder needs is offered from door to door, and nearly every small householder does all the shopping at home. Not only do the wares offered cover every form of foodstuff, but everything needed in the way of garments and material for making them are offered at the same prices asked in the stores.

China, being desperately poor, is a land of pawnshops, and, on account of the deep-seated national custom of using them, the Chinese are frequent customers of pawnshops in America. The dealers say that it is a common thing among Chinese to pawn a ten-dollar gold piece, receiving six or seven dollars for it, and returning after a month or so to reclaim it. Pawnshop dealers report that 92 percent of all pledges are returned, and most of them within a few months. Pawnbrokers’ interest charges are fixed by statute at 3 percent a month for the first six months, after which the rate is reduced.

The Department Store

The department store is thought by most people to be quite new, yet the ruins of a department store, nine stories high, have been uncovered in Rome. There were no elevators, but there were inside staircases and galleries to connect the different levels.

When H. Gordon Selfridge, once a partner of Marshall Field, opened in 1909, in London, what is now planned to be the world’s largest department store, it was considered quite a joke; but when he hired one of the leading British ladies to take charge of his dress department and rented for sixty-five years Landsdowne House with its great art collection, his great department store took London by storm. The net profits of this store in the bad year of 1931 were $2,000,000. The old-style floor walker has disappeared from Selfridge’s, which is now advertised as the playground of London.

Japan is now in the department store stage where London was in 1909. The Japanese go through their large department stores in great crowds which often include sight-seeing parties from country districts, and bodies of students from various schools may be seen in the stores at almost any time.

In Macy’s, New York, some dresses, furs and other materials are sold bearing tags, “This will not wear well,” or, “Fashionable, but fragile.” The general advertisements of the store say, “If that tag is not on the article you are considering, you may properly draw the conclusion that the article will give reasonable wear.”

A Continuous International Exposition

A great department store in New York is like a continuous international exposition of merchandise. On rush days the influx of purchasers may run as high as 200,000, requiring traffic management of no mean order of ability in order to prevent accidents and congestion interfering with business.

At certain times some of the largest stores take on 2,000 or more extra employees at a time, representing a 50-percent increase in personnel.

In one New York department store a small Negro who had concealed himself in a closet but later escaped was subsequently lost in the darkness, and although all the lights in the building were turned on and the entire staff of detective and watchmen of the store undertook to find him, it was all to no avail, and, for aught we know, he may be in the store yet!

The efforts made by great department stores to hold their business are truly noteworthy. In England it is possible for a home owner to telephone his favorite store and place a request to have his country house closed and his town house opened. At least one of the great New York department stores maintains a bank for the convenience of its patrons, and, incidentally, for its own convenience.

Buyers for the department stores roam the entire earth, including remote parts of China and Persia, searching for articles of merchandise that will be appreciated by their patrons.

It is said that as yet there are few department stores in all Sweden. There are no mail order houses at all in Sweden, and there is no house-to-house selling. Most of the stores are what would now be considered old-style, yet are models of efficiency and service.

Department Store Chains

There are now several department store chains, the first of which, the J. C. Penney Co., founded at the beginning of this century, now operates nearly 900 stores.

Many have noticed the increasing tendency of druggists to stock immense varieties of other things besides drugs; of grocers to encroach on drugs and meats; of butchers to dispense groceries ; and of gasoline filling stations to sell almost everything under the sun.

An attendant at a filling station, when asked what kind of store the proprietor was running, is said to have made the following reply:

“Well, he has auto parts for sale, buys butter, eggs and poultry, deals in real estate, paints houses, marries folks in his capacity as justice of the peace, runs the postoffice, sells stamps, hams, molasses, etc., and takes boarders upstairs. I reckon you’ll call it a drug store.”

Edward A. Filene, president of the department store in Boston which bears his name, thinks that the great department stores throughout the country must unite in chains or themselves go down before the chain stores. He expects to see the organization of a chain of department stores having a volume of sales unexcelled by that of any other group in the country.

Inception of the Chain Store

It is claimed by some that the first chain stores were the saloons operated by the great brewing interests. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. established its first chain store in 1858. The Jones Bros. Tea Co. followed in 1872. The first Woolworth Five & Ten Cent Store was established at Watertown, New York, sometime prior to 1880.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. operates 15,737 stores. They add about 300 new stores a year, and their net annual profits average about $2,000 a store. There are now 1,760 Woolworth stores in the United States, Canada and Cuba, and 434 in England.

We have collected from various sources some statistics regarding stores. We cannot guarantee their accuracy, but present them for what they are worth. There are said to be in the United States 1,549,168 stores doing among them an annual retail business of $53,207,000,000. If these figures are correct, the annual turnover of the average store is about $34,000. That would mean a daily turnover of about $100.

We presume that in this general statement the huge establishment of Sears, Roebuck & Co., with daily sales of almost a million dollars, is counted as one store; and no doubt the same is true of the huge Woolworth, Safeway and Montgomery Ward stores, each of which has a daily turnover of more than half a million dollars. In this connection we may say that in January the total sales of the 33 largest store systems in the country amounted to $142,173,094. Their average daily turnover was therefore in excess of $172,000.

In 1929 the retail business of the country was put at $50,034,000,000; of which amount $10,772,000,000 was turned over by the chain stores. This is 21.5 percent of the total. In the last few years 500,000 independent dealers, or one in every three, have gone down before the chain stores. In 1930 it was estimated that if the then present rate of absorption continued, 90 percent of the independents would be out of business by the end of the year 1934.

Its Tremendous Growth

In 1914 Printer’s Ink made an elaborate investigation of chain stores and learned that there were then in existence 2,030 chains, with 23,893 units, or 12 units to a chain. By the year 1930 there were 7,837 chains, with 198,145 units, or 25 units to the chain. Thus, in sixteen years the number of units was more than eight times as great; there were almost four times as many chains, and there were more than twice as many units per chain.

Of the 7,837 chains, 18 chains operate more than a thousand units each; 28 operate from 501 to 1,000 units each; 117 operate from 101 to 500 units each; and 155, from 51 to 100 units each. In other words, there are 318 chain store systems each of which has 51 or more stores in the chain.

At the close of the year 1931 there were said to be 9,785 chains of stores of all kinds, distributed in 41 different lines of business. Of these, 47.8 percent had but three stores; 82 percent had 10 or fewer; and 92.1 percent had 25 or fewer stores in the chain.

The Federal Trade Commission has been making a study of the grocery chains. It estimated that there are 395 such chains in the country, with 53,400 units, or an average of 135 stores per chain. The stores in these chains are estimated to do an annual business of seven hundred million dollars. That is an average annual business of $13,000 per store, or a turnover of $35 per day each; and that is probably pretty close to the truth.

Recent studies show that the food chains are now making 28¹/o percent of the food sales, and in the larger cities of over 30,000, where the chains are most numerous, they are making approximately 48 percent of all the sales of food in those cities. The studies also show the tendency of housewives to make all their purchases as far as possible in one shop. Hence the food stores are constantly extending their lines.

It takes some six months to three years for a new branch of a chain store to crowd its way into a neighborhood already well served by independent stores or by other chains, and these months are necessarily less profitable than those that follow, because they are and must be months of savage price-cutting.

A survey of drug stores shows that there are 60,000 stores in the field and that they handle annually merchandise of the value of $1,500,-000,000. This is an average of $25,000 per store per year, and a turnover of about $80 per day. Of the drug stores, 6,000 are chain stores estimated to do an annual business of $300,000000, or just double the amount of the general average for drug stores. These chain drug stores derive nearly 33 percent of their business from soda fountain and lunch counter sales.

Buying and Selling Is a Science

Buying and selling is a science that calls for and utilizes the world’s highest-priced help. Before a store is located, the engineers whose business it is to do so have charted the town. They know just how many people average to pass a given corner every hour of the day and every day in the week, and they know what kind of people they are and about what kind of goods they will buy.

Five and ten cent stores are usually located in the immediate neighborhood of the large retail stores; nut shops are usually located near railroad and ferry terminals; dealers in men’s footwear have learned to avoid residential districts.

The competition for desirable locations is so keen that the larger chains maintain files showing the dates of expiration of the leases of stores of rival chains and at the right time they make an effort, often successfully, to cut the ground from beneath their competitor’s feet by taking over the building in which he has built up a successful business.

The thing that makes the chain store inevitable is, of course, the power that comes from collective or centralized buying. The Woolworth company was reported as having 36 buyers for about 1500 stores in 1928. It is estimated that the number of stores selling the same variety of wares if independent would require at least 5,000 buyers. The Woolworth company therefore not only saves the services of 4,964 buyers, but it possesses the advantage of buying in such great quantities that it can almost name the price it will pay for a certain thing and no doubt often does so.

This price is far less than the independent store must pay for the same article; indeed manufacturers have gone so far as to say that if chains and independents were on a price parity there would be no more chains. It is estimated that the Wool worth stores handle from 750 to 800 different items.

As illustrating the colossal advantage which the great buyer has over smaller buyers, the story is told that a few years ago when the eastern wholesale grocers wanted to buy their goods for the next season they were unable to get a price from the California canners until those canners had first made their annual bargain with Armour & Co., at that time the largest buyer of canned fruits and vegetables in the United States. What this meant in effect was that Armour & Co. would get the best price and if there were losses or disappointments these would necessarily be added to the price quoted to those buying in smaller quantities.

There does not seem to be any way by which the obvious unfairness of such a system can be overcome except by having all the businesses of the country merged into a single great industry. That is what it will come to in the end. The Lord himself will be at the head of that industry, and it will be operated, not for profit, but for the general welfare of all the people.

Limitations of the Chains

There are undeniable difficulties connected with the operation of chain stores. Though the public patronizes them, their general attitude is unfriendly. They are looked upon as intruders who have come into the community aiming to put out of business the true and tried and, it must be admitted, often sorely tried neighborhood grocer.

The public trade with the chain stores because they feel that they must make their income go as far as possible in the purchase of the necessities of life; but they do not appreciate the utter heartlessness of absolutely no credit for even a day, or the inconvenience of always carrying home their own parcels. Therefore, in times of prosperity, illness or bad weather, the telephone is again brought into use and the oldtime grocer’s order boy and delivery truck are again at the door.

Not all chain store managers are honest. It would be strange if they were, but the honest ones have to bear the obloquy that in the community attaches to the dishonest ones. No chain store has any mortgage upon a community. If it builds up a very large business it is liable before long to suffer from the encroachments of another chain store in the immediate neighborhood.

All the arguments in the world will not convince the mothers in a neighborhood that it is a good thing to see all the merchandising opportunities of a community in the hands of big concerns that have no local interest in the neighborhood.

Before the advent of the chain store a boy might learn merchandising and might hope to be a merchant on his own account in his mature years. The inducement held out to such a boy by the chain stores is a small inducement. Tie must go where he is sent, and he will always be under the thumb of somebody who will see to it that he does not have a moment that he can call his own.

The larger chain stores, in their own defense, are obliged to employ stool pigeons. These are shifted from store to store and city to city. Their job is to find out what employees are crooked and to help in getting them fired.

There have been instances in which honest chain store managers have been double-crossed by crooked supervisors. When inventories are taken the recording of quantities on hand is always done by the supervisor, and the store managers are then at their mercy. If the supervisor is honest and accurate the store manager gets a fair deal, but if he is dishonest or inaccurate he can make the manager appear short when he is not short and make him appear not over when ho is really over.

The Department of Commerce made a study of the history of chain stores and independent stores over a period of five years in a southern city of 60,000 population. The study shows that the independent stores have a mortality rate of 55 percent, while the chain stores’ rate of mortality was but 17 percent. This shows that an independent store is three times as likely to fail as a chain store; but it also shows that the chain stores may and sometimes do go into bankruptcy. One of the things that sometimes helps them to do it is that they get to fighting among themselves. The housewives in a neighborhood, when such fights are in progress, always view them with equanimity.

Things the Public Resents

Not only do the store owners and their families and friends resent the destruction of their businesses and the general destruction of individuality, individual initiative, personal responsibility⁷ and self-reliance when the store manager is substituted for the store owner, but the local bank resents the cutting into its business when the funds of the community are sent away every day for the use of Big Business in New⁷ York or Chicago. It is a common observation that chain store managers take no interest in local affairs but store owners in times past were looked upon as among the mainstays of the community.

The Michigan Tradesman tells of at least one chain store concern where a clerk was employed whose business it was to pad sales slips by making errors in addition. The errors were always in the one direction. In nine cases out of ten they went through unobserved. When detected it was only necessary to apologize. If a careful housewife notices too many errors in addition, especially if they are all in favor of the store, her business after a while goes elsewhere.

W. P. Johnson, secretary of the Virginia Wholesale Grocers Association, has made the statement that if the public bought nothing from the chain stores but the standard advertised goods or the specialties offered for sale, every Friday and Saturday, every chain store in the United States would be closed within six months. This may or may not be true, and it probably is less true than Mr. Johnson wishes it were.

Legislation Against Chain Stores

In 1929 Indiana passed a law requiring the payment of annual license fees of $3.00 on one store; $10.00 on each additional store up to five; $14.00 on each additional store up to ten; $20.00 on each additional store up to twenty; and $25.00 on each additional store over twenty. The Supreme Court has decided that the law is constitutional, and this form of legislation is spreading rapidly.

In the legislative year 1930-31 more than a hundred such bills were proposed during the sessions of forty-four state legislatures. In Wisconsin the tax reaches to $50.00 on each store in excess of thirty; and in New⁷ York state the law proposes $1,000 a store for every store above a given number.

It is believed that during the past year public support of anti-chain store legislation has diminished, owing to the necessity that people have felt for doing everything possible to reduce their expenditures.

Since 1928, under a resolution of the United States Senate, adopted without debate, the Federal Trade Commission started an investigation, which is still under way, inquiring into the chain store system. It has been retarded by the recent fire in Washington which destroyed practically all of the Federal Trade Commission's records.

Students of American financial and legislative conditions believe that the thing that will take place before long is a sales tax similar to the Canadian sales tax, which was moderately successful during the World War and has been more so since. No matter how the tax is collected, the public pays it in the end.

Chain Stores Abroad

Chain grocery and drug stores have found their way into Alaska, and while that is not a foreign country, it is far enough away to be one. There are 434 Woolworth stores in England, and 60 in Germany. The first chain stores in Germany did not fare well, but the conservatism of the German people has gradually been overcome and it is believed that the Woolworth stores will succeed. Instead of being five and ten cent stores, they are really six and twelve cent stores, since the German coins have about that value.

The chain store is not entirely new to France, because in Paris there is a chain of wine shops which is 106 years old. However, the five and ten cent store as we now know it has invaded Paris and has caught the fancy of the Parisian poor. A Parisian newspaper correspondent says that the inauguration of these stores in Paris will have a far-reaching effect upon the French people. Hitherto the French have been so economical that almost everything they have in the way of furniture and clothing is secondhand. Whether the advent of the cinq-et-dix store will lead to the general purchase of new merchandise and the general abandonment of French thrift remains to be seen.

Keen Continued Interest in Radio Debate

Corona, N. Y. “This is simply to let you know that I heartily endorse your challenge, given over the radio Sunday, May 1, for a radio debate in order that the people of the United States may decide for themselves as to what organization is carrying out God’s commandments in the earth at the present time. Shall be only too glad to help back this broadcast financially.” M. D. Z.

New York, N. Y. “I was intensely interested in your talk over the radio this morning. If the statements you made are not true it is inconceivable that the representatives of ‘organized Christianity’ will sit still and let your challenge be unheeded. We of the radio audience are thinking, and expecting a lively scrap, but if out of all of it the smoke and confusion is cleared away from the Bible, we will feel grateful for the fight. It looks like a David and Goliath fight, now, but we will wait to see which one loses his head.” A. L. N.

Yonkers, N. Y. “It is my humble opinion that if the Federation of Churches can prove that their doctrines and activities are based on the Word of God they will welcome the opportunity you have offered them of doing so in a public debate. Failure to do so can mean but one thing: they know they are guilty of the charges laid down in the Bible that have been brought to their attention by you. The people have a right to know the truth, and surely they owe this much to the ones who are supporting them.” A. A.

Haledon, N. J. “I had the pleasure of hearing your address, May 1, over WODA, Paterson. In regard to your challenge to the clergy to a debate, they should accept that challenge and bring forth their proofs from the Bible. If they refuse to do so, then, by their silence they stand condemned before the Almighty God and are unfit to pose as His representatives.” C.W.II.

Ford Workers Not Overpaid

THE Ford company workers are not overpaid. There were so many idle days in 1930 that the average wage, even with a daily rate of $7.60, was only $959.20 for the year. Wages are often cut by the simple process of laying men off and then after a time rehiring them as new men at lower pay. And, besides, it is too bad to have private police kill unarmed workers who seek better conditions of work, and to injure them with gas bombs, and turn the fire hose on them in bitter winter weather. Too much prosperity has turned Henry’s head.

Bricks and Brickbats

Pope Admits His Blessing Does Not Work

THE pope seems to be out of luck. Two years ago he gurgled out a blessing on all the ■world and now, in the year 1932, he admits that perhaps never in history has the world been afflicted with such grief and suffering. All he needs to do is to get the mental connection and learn not to have so much to say. Incidentally, his speech was intended to be a rebroadcast for use all over the Western world, but conditions were unfavorable and it could not be heard on these shores.

Beer Trucks Still Parade Chicago Streets

SOME have taken it for granted that the imprisonment of Al Capone and his two brothers, along with “Messrs.” Guzik, Druggan, Lake, McGurn, Nitti and Volpe, had put an end to organized crime in the city of Chicago, yet a dispatch from that city under date of February 28 says that business is going on as usual, under the direction of Murray Humphries, and that “beer trucks parade through Chicago’s streets unmolested by law enforcement officers and deliveries are made throughout the city under the noses of policemen”.

Parade of Aluminum Ignorance Continues

THE medical parade of their ignorance on the dangers of cooking in aluminum continues. We have the word of a gentleman twenty-eight years a druggist that there is absolutely no excuse for a doctor’s being ignorant on this subject, as the United States Dispeii-sary, standard work of the United States Government on the subject of drugs, provides all the evidence needed. Meantime Dr. E. H. Howe, editor of Industrial Engineering Chemistry, tries to earn his salary for his employers by saying, “There is a certain editor of an Eastern publication, with exact support unknown, and a Mid-Western dentist who appears to spend on this crusade more than his visible income justifies, who are the leaders in this unfair movement.” He then goes on to say that the widespread use of aluminum ware is sanctioned by the best known medical journals; and so it is, and if you look at their advertising columns you know the full story. They want the revenue from the advertisements for aluminum cooking ware. But we prefer to keep our subscribers well.

Business Picking Up in Pawtucket

T>USINESS is picking up in Pawtucket, R. I.

The gas mask industry has received a boom; 20,000 have been shipped to the fighting forces of China. It is not known at this writing whether this shipment of gas masks was blessed by the local priest before it was sent forward. But prayers to Baal have been offered on behalf of the Chinese by those whose business in the community it is to offer such prayers, and at the present time it looks mightily as if the Chinese are going to need them and then some. A prospective market for several million gas masks is looming up in China. The Chinese are getting more and more civilized every day.

The Killings at Chapei

rPHE killings at Chapei, Shanghai, were executed with neatness and dispatch. Twelve airplanes appeared out of the haze at 11: 20 in the morning. In perfect formation they flew over the mass of Chinese humanity in Chapei and bomb after bomb blew hundreds into eternity. In twenty-five minutes after the first attack the Japanese were back with fresh supplies of bombs. At the time of the bombings eight great fires had been burning in Chapei uninterruptedly for a period of twelve hours. No doubt hundreds of Chinese perished in the fires as well as in the bombings. The United States has been the great educator and civilizer of the Japanese.

1,350,000 Homeless in Shanghai

THERE was no war about Shanghai; at least that is what the Japanese claim, and they ought to know. But a little item in the daily news touches the heart. It merely says that as a result of the recent military movements “Chinese official sources estimate that more than 90 percent of the 1,500,000 residents of Chapei, Hongkew, Yangtsepoo and Woosung (suburbs of Shanghai overrun by the Japanese) are homeless”.

These poor things never have enough to live on. They are always hungry, always ill-clad, always inadequately housed, and right in the middle of winter the strong and remorseless arm of the military in a few days plunged more than a million people into depths of sorrow and trouble beyond our power to imagine. What a shame it all is, anyway I

Staggering Farm and Factory Work

enry Ford is trying to devise some scheme by which his men can work on farms in the summer and in factories in the winter, and it must be admitted that the basic idea is excellent. The Jewish Agricultural Society, moving along similar lines, has purchased a tract of land near New Brunswick, N. J., subdivided it into five-acre poultry and truck farms and placed a selected group of New York City needle workers upon it. It is hoped that these needle workers may devise a plan of working at their trades in New York in the winter and getting the benefit of farm life in the summer.

Who Manage the Big Corporations?

THE financial editor of the New York American points out that the fifteen directors of the United States Steel Corporation have among them less than one-half of one percent of the corporation's capital and one of the directors has exactly one share of stock. And then he lets us in for a look at the Power Trust, and there we see that its nine directors have exactly sixteen one-hundredths of one percent of the aggregate capitalization. Yet the directors of these two trusts have the absolute and final say as to what shall be done with properties in which four hundred thousand stockholders have interests.

An Unusual M. D.

HE other day, out in the witness work, with a company of Jehovah’s witnesses, in a

little village in northwestern Pennsylvania, one of the workers ran across the local M.D., and found that he had become a subscriber for The Golden Age, through having read some copies of back issues distributed by a brother anxious to make good use of them.

He manifested an interest in meeting the editor. As we met, we said to him, “Brother, you must be a good deal of a Christian, to be an M.D. and yet interested in The Golden Age.” Back came the surprising answer, “You are engaged in a very dangerous occupation, but you have not told the half of it.”

We thus learn again what we always knew, that there are honest, upright men in every walk of life who know the conditions that hedge about the human family and in their hearts sigh and cry for all the abominations that are done in our midst. More power to this honest M.D.

How a Great Italian Cave Was Discovered

URING the World War, while Italian troops were being conveyed from one position to another, an entire truckload of soldiers disappeared. Investigation showed that, in a certain place, the crust of the earth broke through and that truck, with all its contents, was plunged into a cavern now found to be about three thousand feet deep. The skeletons of a few of the soldiers have been found, but the truck containing the remainder has not yet been located. An attempt will now be made to explore the entire cave, which is believed to be the deepest known fissure in the earth's crust.

The Dispute over the Gran Chaco

HE Gran Chaco, an immense wooded plain east of Bolivia and west of Paraguay, is believed to be one of the best potential fruit growing countries in the world. Both Bolivia and Paraguay claim it, but neither has ever tried to settle it until just now, when Paraguay is trying to get some Germans to undertake it. Bolivia objects, and there may be war, but students of South American affairs say that the Gran Chaco is on ground too high for the Paraguayans and too low for the Bolivians. On one occasion some years ago a Bolivian army undertook to invade Paraguay through the Gran Chaco, got lost, invaded Brazil by mistake, and was sent home around Cape Horn. So there is no immediate danger of any great war over the Gran Chaco.

The Uses of College Athletes

OME of us have wondered in times past why it is necessary to throw away forty young lives every year in football in order that the boys and girls who go to college may get an education, but now we know. When the intelligent among the student body went on a strike for freedom of speech and of the press, and undertook to set forth the reasons for their actions in front of Columbia University, on April G, they were set upon by the college athletes, who manifested great skill in projecting eggs through the air, even if unable to project any ideas. Six of them pounced on one man, tied him, and dragged him through a hedge. They abused all the speakers. They came to be known as “administration men”; and it is a fair inference that their training in athletics is intended to be of use occasionally just as it was used on this occasion.

Aviation in 1863

IN THE year 1863 Solomon Andrews, a physician of Perth Amboy, N. J., went aloft over New York city in a cigar-shaped balloon the tilt of which was regulated by a weight that could be adjusted. In this ship he navigated against the wind, and took three passengers into the air and landed them safely. He swung around in circles a mile and a half in circumference, zigzagged back and forth, cruised about in all directions, and finally succeeded in returning to his starting place. The excitement of the Civil War crowded his achievement out of the public mind. He was an inventor with twenty-four patents to his credit.

Imprisonment of Six-year-old Boy

IN THE Sonora (Mexico) state penitentiary at Hermosillo, is a six-year-old boy serving a two-year sentence for stealing seven cartridges from the army barracks. The boy, Manual Hojos by name, said that he stole the bullets to get twenty-five cents to buy candy. Judge Silva, of Hermosillo District Court, sentenced the youngster to serve two years in a correctional institution. Since there is no juvenile prison there, the authorities seemed to consider that they had no alternative, and put the boy in the penitentiary.

Seems as if the best way out of this would be to have Judge Silva and the hoy trade places for the two years. The judge could then learn that penitentiaries are merely schools of crime and are no place for babies, and most certainly anybody can see that the six-year-old kid could not bring more disgrace to the bench. The chances are he would redeem it, somewhat. No boy of six can be a very bad boy; he has not lived long enough with grown folks to make him so. And the boy might have an elementary sense of justice, and even a little common sense, and that would surely be a help.

If it is all right to put six-year-old boys in penitentiaries, so that our civilization may be preserved, why not preserve it better by putting in the miscreants that are still younger? Why not lock up the five-year-olds, the four-year-olds, the three-year-olds, the two-year-olds, and the babes in arms? Is the majesty of the law in Hermosillo content that babes should disturb the peace by crying for sweets? Lock them up!

Lachine Gives Up—But Why?

WITH glee the "P. G. and E. Progress”, published by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company of San Francisco, gives a headline “Another City Gives Up” and underneath tells the sad tale that ‘‘Property owners of Lachine, Quebec, have approved the sale of their municipal electric light plant and distribution system to the Montreal Light, Heat and Power Company for $200,000”.

If we could know all the facts, what a sad story the above paragraph would record! In the first place, there is not a reason why the property owners of Lachine should have given up their valuable investment. They could have made a great success of it; for many others have done so. In the second place, while it seems nice to get $200,000 in cash, yet the money will soon be spent. In the third place, the chance of lower rates now passes, and the people of Lachine will pay and pay and pay in electric bills for the great error they have made in turning over their assets to a private corporation. The Montreal Light, Heat and Power Company will see to it that they get huge profits on that $200,000 investment, and the ones that will pay the profits are the good but foolish people of Lachine.

Quake Felled Jericho’s Walls

A BRITISH archaeologist is reported as having discovered that the walls of Jericho collapsed in a great earthquake, and not because Joshua blew his trumpet. What could have been reported in the newspapers, and should have been reported in them as in every way confirmatory of the Bible account, is made to appear the opposite. There is nothing in the Scriptures that says it was the blast from Joshua’s trumpet that caused the walls of Jericho to fall. Without a doubt the direct cause was an earthquake, but the time of the earthquake was fixed by Almighty God to coincide with the trumpet blast. The discoveries at Jericho show that after the walls crashed outward the houses of the city were utterly destroyed by fire, and all this agrees exactly with the Bible account. “And it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein.” (Josh. 6: 20, 24) The archa?ologists working at Jericho this past season have found this entire account true in every particular just as it was recorded in Holy Writ. The cable telling of their work says: “The report also tells of blackened timbers in burnt-out houses excavated on the site of Jericho, all pointing to the fact that the city was utterly destroyed by fire.”

Growth of Los Angeles County

THE people of Los Angeles county cannot be blamed for being proud of the growth of their paradise into what is now virtually one large urban and suburban district. There are 27 towns of over 5,000 population in the county, and there are in the county a round million of people outside of the city limits of Los Angeles itself.

The growth of the county in population is shown by the following table:

1850 ................ 3,530

1860 ............... 11,333

1870 ............... 15,309

1880 ............... 33,381

1890 .............. 101,454

1900 .............. 170,298

1910 .............. 504,131

1920 .............. 936,455

1930 ............. 2,240,208

The county is four-fil'ih.s the size of the state of Connecticut. Nine-tenths of its people live within 30 miles of the ocean, where its coast line stretches for eighty-five miles. The county has 1,500 miles of interurban tracks, comprising the largest interurban system in the world. For many years this county has led all the counties of the nation in the value of its agricultural production.

An End of Compulsory Medication

THE Citizens Committee Opposing Compulsory Vaccination, 11 Beacon St., Boston, has ten objectives: To repeal, at the next session of the legislature, the Massachusetts compulsory vaccination law; to put a stop to medical and surgical propaganda in the schools and institutions at public expense; to put a stop to the inoculations and vaccinations in the schools; to put a stop to the use of children as free distributing agents of medical and surgical advertising; to put a stop to smallpox, diphtheria and rabies scares as a basis for wholesale inoculations and serum profiteering; to replace the state “commissioner of health” with a “sanitary engineer” and corps of trained assistants; to unite the forces of drugless healers with all other forces opposed to compulsory medication; to watch for and expose all efforts of organized medicine and serum manufacturers to secure legislation establishing medical compulsion; to be represented at the two big national conventions, republican and democratic, by sincere men and women advocates who will urge national measures to obtain freedom from compulsion in all medical, surgical and health matters; and to endeavor to protect men, women and children from poison and disease, administered in the name of health.

What the Allies Promised

IN THE Treaty of Versailles it was stated that the disarmament of Germany was exacted “in order to render possible the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations”. Before the German delegates signed the treaty the Allied and Associated Powers, in a formal communication to them, said:

The Allied and Associated Powers wish to make it clear that their requirements in regard to German armaments were not made solely with the object of rendering it impossible for Germany to resume her policy of military aggression. They are also the first steps toward that general reduction and limitation which they seek to bring about as one of the most fruitful preventives of war, and which it will be one of the first duties of the League of Nations to promote.

In the Covenant of the League of Nations it was provided that the Council should draw up plans for the reduction of armaments to be considered and acted upon by the governments of the world. Yet -when the Russian Government, through its duly accredited representative, offered to totally disarm in a year's time if every other country would do the same thing, she was virtually declared out of order.

Realizing that the record of the churches in the World War was all that it should not have been, the World Conference for International Peace Through Religion is going to see what it can do in 1932 to back up the League of Nations in carrying through some kind of peace program.

The advertising matter says that represented in the membership of the World Conference are: “Roman Catholic Christians, Protestant Christians, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Buddhists, Confucianists, Hindus, Taoists, Shintoists, Moslems, Jews, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Jains, Theos-ophists, Bahaists, The Sufi Movement, The Brahmo-Somaj, The Arva-Somaj, the Ramakrishna Movement, The New Thought Movement and Christian Scientists.” There doesn't seem to be anybody left out, except the Newfoundlands and St. Bernards.

Realizing that past records would show up pretty bad, the folder which announces the 1932 Conference says:

No one will be encouraged to boast of the past or of the superiority of his particular religion [they were all killing one another in 1914], except as to its ability to serve humanity by ridding the earth of the age-long curse of war.

The name of God does not appear in the literature ; and it is just as well that it does not, for He will not be at the Conference.

The Holy Humbug of St. Bartholomew

ON FEBRUARY 23 the New York American treated its readers to a double-column article under the general scare head, ‘'Christ-like Figure Seen on Wall of Church; Picture in Marble at St. Bartholomew’s.” Then followed six inches of description of what one was supposed to see if he went to the trouble to go and look.

The next day the New York Times managed to get up an article fifteen inches long on the same subject, and its headlines tell of “Crowds at Church See Figure on Wall. Many Visit St. Bartholomew’s to Inspect Picture of Christ in Veining of Marble. Other Outlines Revealed. Dr. Norwood Finds Joan of Arc and Allegorical Group Depicted in Stone of Sanctuary. Sees Expression of Sermons. Finds Tomb and Cross Outlined.”

That all looked promising, so we asked a young woman, a proofreader, sharp-eyed and clear-headed, to go over and see the “miracle” and give us the exact facts. She came back, laid the papers on our desk, and if she did not say, “It’s all the bunk,” it is because she used to be a school-teacher and is too refined to say that; but that is what she meant, and we honestly think it is what she said.

Anyway, if you go and look at the “Picture”, it has no head to it, and if you can imagine a picture of Christ with His head missing, go to it; we don’t wish to rob you of any of your joy in life. The American people love to be humbugged, and the daily press delights to assist all it can.

Increased Cost of National Government

rpiIE increased cost of the national govern--C ment for the year 1932 over the year 1927 is shown in the following table.	(Figures to nearest hundred thousands)
	1927	1932	Amount Percent
			of Increase ■	Increase
Department of Agriculture........ Agricultural Marketing Fund—net (Farm Board)	$ 156,300,000	$ 333,500,000 155,000,000	$ 177,200,000 155,000,000	113
Post Office Deficit...........	.    27,300,000	195,000,000	167,700,000	614
Treasury Department..........	. 151,600,000	312,900,000	161,300,000	106
War Department............	. 360,800,000	483,700,000	122,900,000	34
Naw Department............	. 318,900,000	378,900,000	60,000,000	19
Shipping Board............	.    19,000,000	60,800,000	41,800,000	220
Department of Justice..........	.    24,800,000	53,800,000	29,000,000	117
Department of Commerce.........	.    30,900,000	54,700,000	23,800,000	77
Other independent offices and Commissions . . .	.    35,400,000	57,600,000	22,200,000	63
Legislative Establishment.........	.    19,700,000	32,400,000	12,700,000	64
Department of Labor..........	.     9,900,000	14,100,000	4,200,000	42
Adjusted Service Certificate Fund......	.   115,200,000	200,000,000	84,800,000	74
Interior Department and Veterans'Bureau . . .	. 694,200,000	862,700,000	168,500,000	24
Total of Major Departments, Commissions, etc.	$1,964,000,000	$3,195,100,000	$1,231,100,000	63%

By comparing their happy estate now with the conditions that existed five years ago the people can see the great blessings that have come to us through this 63-percent increase in

expenses at Washington. By the time they have shoved this increase up to 100 percent we shall all be so happy that we won’t need them any more at all.

South Dakota Greets Prospective Citizens

SOUTH DAKOTA greets prospective citizens.

And howHere is a copy of one of the greetings. S. C. Oathout, one of Jehovah’s faithful witnesses, sent it to us with this message: “A family here who has the mother in the truth and is diligent in Jehovah’s service received the enclosed notice some time ago. It should be exposed or written up. Surely the Devil is devilish. This man is a good man and has not become a public charge, and if he had one onethousandth of a chance could make a living.”

The notice is a bluff, pure and simple, and would certainly, we think, not have a leg to stand on if fought out in the courts. It is on a legal form No. 1801, and is entitled “Notice to Prevent Acquiring a Legal Settlement”. The form is supposed to be delivered in person, and an affidavit to the effect must be sworn to before a notary public. In this case this evidently was not done. The notice reads:

To Henry W. Barck, 700 East 6th Street. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 10038 of the South Dakota Revised Code of 1919 and acts amendatory thereof, and by authority of the governing body of Minnehaha County you, as a person who has come into Minnehaha County from another county or state and who is or is likely to become a public charge, are notified that you are not entitled to acquire a legal settlement in Minnehaha County, and you are hereby warned to depart therefrom. If you are the head of a family, the service of this notice upon you is deemed to be service upon each member of such family, and this notice shall apply to all members of such family. Dated this 19th day of October, 1931. Chris Olsen, Chairman County Commissioners.

The way the notice stands there is, of course, no means of knowing whether Chris Olsen is the chairman of the county commissioners, or whether the signature on the blank is his, or whether he intended the notice for the party to whom it was addressed, or whether such party received it.

But assuming that the notice is genuine, look at the position Chris is in. When was it that he or his folks came from Denmark to America? Not long ago, one may be sure. And where did he get all this authority to tell another man, whose folks may have been here first, that he may not live anywhere he pleases in the land of his fathers? Somebody in South Dakota surely has good nerve but not good sense.

The Hoover Hotel of College Corner By John Iseminger

AS THE distress upon the nations continues to increase, so likewise the opportunity to give witness to the vindication of Jehovah’s name is ever on the increase. I have been staying a few days in the little town of College Corner, Ohio. There is not now so very much distress among the people who live in this little town, but the army of the unemployed continues to march along upon the highways and is on the increase in number day after day. But many of these unemployed ones stop in this little town looking for a place to rest their weary and very nearly shoeless feet, and for a place to warm their thinly clad bodies.

This little town has an old abandoned jail with a stove and a few benches in it. These unemployed ones are permitted to stay in the jail over night, then the town marshal comes around the next morning and tells these poor weary travelers to get out and move on. With nowhere to go, these poor fellows have no homes where Jehovah’s witnesses can knock on their doors and tell them about the happy days soon to come.

My little part in this drama is putting into the hands of these poor fellows the Oppression and Kingdom booklets, with the remark that if they are interested and are not through reading them when they leave they take them along; and the booklets are all gone every time I visit the Hoover Hotel, the name given the old abandoned jail by the people of this community.

Those two booklets, Oppression: IT/ien mill it end? and The Kingdom, The Hope of the World, seem to touch a tender spot in some of the Hoover Hotel guests. Many of us have lifted up our voices in prayer to Jehovah. Some of these prayers, no doubt, He could not answer, but the prayer that the Devil’s organization may soon be destroyed that the people of good will shall be blessed with peace, happiness and contentment is sure to be answered in Jehovah’s own due time.

Herbs for the Service of Man By Eric F. Powell, Herbalist, England [Reprinted, by request, from The Golden Age No. 172]

ONE of the Biblical prophets wrote: “He [Jehovah] causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herbs for the service of man.” (Ps. 104:14) In this article we shall consider the value of herbs.

There is, or should be, but one idea, but one main object in medical practice, and that is the improvement of the quality and circulation of the blood; for the blood is the life. By this process all growth is accomplished and all repairs must be made. Therefore remedial measures are valuable only as they act upon the blood and circulation, removing impurities therefrom and restoring the correct chemical balance of the former and insuring its efficient distribution throughout the system.

Nutrition is the physical basis of life, and the disturbance of this function, such as expressed in the words “mal nutrition” and “mal assimilation”, must of necessity be regarded as potent factors in the host of ailments to which mankind is subject. The state of nutrition in any organism, whether it be plant or animal, determines the state of health of that organism.

Man seems ever to be at variance with natural law, and in no way does he violate nature more than in his indulgence in eating and drinking. The body can assimilate only a certain amount of nourishment each day, and all food taken in excess of the quantity assimilated becomes waste matter: and if this is not speedily eliminated from the system, auto-intoxication (selfpoisoning) results. Ill health is bound to follow sooner or later, and man becomes the poorvictim of a thousand ill-considered efforts to restore health by the means of poisonous drugs and stimulants which only add to the trouble aud eventually leave him a physical and mental wreck.

When the normal condition of the digestive, assimilative, and circulatory organs is interfered with in any way, defective circulation is the result; hence the importance of correct eating and drinking. Wrong feeding means poorblood, chemical unbalance. A clogged body is the outcome of such a condition. In proportion as the body is diseased, in that proportion functional activity is suspended. The vital organs slow down, and until normal function is restored health is an impossibility. Nature sometimes makes an effort at elimination. That is, the body makes an effort to overcome the clogged condition and eliminate the cause of the trouble. Hence the colds, fevers and inflammations to which we are subject; fever is nature’s effort literally to burn up toxins and thus help restore the normal condition.

No machine will work properly if clogged and dirty, and it is exactly the same with the human mechanism. Health is a matter of purity of body and mind, and it is the writer’s object in this brief article to give some simple but powerfully effective information for the purification of the body.

Much has been said in The Golden Age on the vital question of diet, and your readers are no doubt fully acquainted with the fact that commercialized foods are little better than useless ; the natural produce of the earth being the ideal food for man, supplying the essential mineral salts and vitamins in which “faked” food is almost entirely deficient.

A most important point to impress, however, is that many of our cultivated foods are far from being perfect. Wrong and excessive manuring of the soil has most disastrous effects upon the health of vegetation and in some cases actually renders it unfit for human consumption. Also plants raised year after year on the same soil upon which no other crops have been grown are known to be deficient in organic mineral elements, the continual production of the one species without change having exhausted the soil of these elements. We are just beginning to learn something about correct fertilization; and a little while along the stream of time, when adverse influence has been withdrawn from the atmosphere of our planet and when it is fully under the control of a divine government, then and not until then will the earth yield her increase and produce perfect food suitable for a race of creatures destined to live for ever if in entire harmony with the laws of the new government.

We find that wild herbs are rich in the vital elements so essential to life. All down through the ages herbs have been successfully used for the elimination of disease and the promotion of health. Herbs, noted for their virtues in certain disorders, have come down to us today, having withstood the acid test of time; and many of them stand unrivaled as specifics in certain diseases. AVliat ancient herbalists learned from experience and observation modern science has enlarged upon.

Herbs that have been of value in diseases marked by a deficiency in one or more mineral elements have been found to be rich in the very element required, thus supplying nature with the thing she needed. Moreover, nearly all herbs have a powerful eliminative action, and morbid material is speedily eliminated through the system's appointed channels. By clearing out the waste matter, supplying the essential chemical elements, and supplying nourishment at the same time, herbs come first in the ranks of therapeutical agents calculated to be harmless and effective in combating disease.

Many years’ experience in various branches of healing has confirmed the above statements, and the writer would pin his faith to simple herbal remedies, combined with reconstructive diet, before any other known system. Herbs assist in eliminating the root cause underlying the symptoms produced. Most drugs are entirely foreign to the system and tend to suppress nature's healing effects; they interfere with all the vital functions and only add evil to evil. You cannot cast out the devil by Beelzebub.

Massage, spinal adjustments, hydrotherapy and other natural methods can be employed in conjunction with the herbs if desired and, of course, attention should be paid to diet in all cases.

The fact must also be impressed upon the reader that one of the most evident causes of both physical and mental degeneration is wrong thinking. Morbid thoughts produce disease and poisons within the body, just the same as wrong feeding. Mind governs matter, and if one is suffering from a clogged brain that organ cannot function normally, and the body suffers. All the success ever accomplished in this imperfect world seems to have been accompanied by a certain amount of sacrifice and self-restraint. It is so with those who are seeking health. Appetite must be curbed; physical desires and impulses subdued; thoughts must be pure; one must be pure all through in order to enjoy a measure of goodly health.

When mankind think correctly as a result of being in harmony with the laws of the glorious kingdom of Messiah; when they meditate only upon those things that are true, honest, pure and lovely; when love is the prominent characteristic in every human heart; when the Sun of Righteousness floods the whole earth with His beams, then will come the desire of all nations, perfect health, mental and moral perfection, and —wonderful thought—‘‘God will dwell with them, and they shall be his people.”

Some Simple Remedies

Acting on the principle that all disease, except where mechanical lesions are present, is caused by impure blood and obstructed circulation, the logical procedure in every-day ailments is to aid elimination and improve the blood and circulation. The following recipes are entirely harmless and have proved effective when all other means have failed. They may be given to feeble and aged individuals without fear of harm resulting, and should be persisted with until the desired effects are produced.

Anemia

The cause of anemia is lack of iron in the blood. This cannot be replaced by inorganic iron as purchased at a chemist’s; inorganic substances cannot be accepted by the cells of the body. The natural way to supply the deficiency is by eating foods rich in organic iron. Watercress, leeks, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, celery, endive and carrots are all rich in iron. At least one salad a day should be eaten, composed of one or more of these vegetables. Cooking spoils vegetables and robs them of their mineral salts. One leaf of raw cabbage is better than a whole one boiled. All dark berries and fruits are rich in iron. Instead of ordinary tea, take bran tea. It is made by stewing a good quantity of ordinary bran in water. Strain it and add brown sugar and milk to taste. This is a wonderful drink for all diseases caused by a deficiencj’ of mineral elements.

A splendid herbal medicine is made by infusing an ounce each of yellow dock, bogbean, and comfrey leaves in a quart of water. Simmer slowly for twenty minutes. Strain and bottle.

Dose: A wineglassful every four hours.

Appendicitis

One ounce each of elderblossom, peppermint and yarrow; best crushed ginger, half an ounce. Simmer in three pints of water for twenty minutes. Sweeten with old-fashioned black treacle (not golden syrup) and take a wincglassful every fifteen minutes until relieved. The medicine must be taken hot every time, and you must keep it up, sometimes for twenty-four hours. A cure is usually certain in the most severe cases. Do not be afraid of the perspiration caused. You may vomit at first, but that will pass off and you will be all the better for having an empty stomach.

Use Hie leaves left over from each infusion to make a hot compress to cover the whole of the abdomen. You will, of course, need fresh infusions continually. Eat no food until a cure is established.

Asthma

Sufferers should practically live out doors in pure air. Deep breathing should be practiced daily in order to strengthen the chest and lungs. Leave alone the much advertised inhalants. Take one ounce each of vervain, horehound, and elecampane. Simmer in three pints of water for twenty minutes.

Dose: A wincglassful every four hours. Cut down the diet, especially sugars and starches. Eat at least one good salad every day.

Bronchitis

Exactly the same as for asthma. Do not eat white sugar; pure honey is the ideal food for this complaint.

Cancer

Cancer is almost unknown among the Jews. This may be owing to the careful inspection of all their flesh foods. People who live on a vegetarian diet are also free from this scourge. The writer has heard of only one case where a vegetarian died from cancer, and that was in the system before the reform diet was adopted. A natural diet has been known to cure cancer. Never have more than three light meals per day, and have the food as raw as possible. Cut down the sugars and starches and thus give the body a chance to eliminate pathogen, the cause of the trouble.

Here is an herbal remedy that has cured many very severe cases. Violet leaves, yellow dock, red clover tops, one ounce each. Simmer in three pints of water for twenty minutes. Strain and take a wineglassful every four hours. If there are any external sores make a poultice of the used herbs and apply freshly morning and night. Follow these instructions and startling results may await you.

Catarrh.

Here again the sufferer must cut down sugar and starch, and include an abundance of green, leafy vegetables in his diet.

Dissolve a teaspoonful of salt in a tumblerful of warm water. Add ten to twenty drops of compound tincture of myrrh, then sniff up the nose until the solution returns by way of the mouth. Do this night and morning, or as often as required.

Colds and Chills

Nature is making an effort to clear out the system. The remedy that never fails is a tea made with elderblossom, peppermint, yarrow and ginger, as explained under appendicitis. Drink as much as you ean in bed; put a hot water bottle to the feet and sweat the cause of the trouble away. Repeat within a few hours if necessary. Don’t feed a cold; if you do you will soon have to starve a fever.

Constipation

Constipation is the root of many evils; it is the forerunner of auto-intoxication. Drugs cannot cure, but in nearly all cases diet and herbs will do the trick.

For breakfast take a plate of soaked raisins, prunes, and figs, with wholemeal bread and butter. Later on in the day have a good mixed salad, dressed with pure olive oil and lemon juice. Avoid white bread, condiments, sugar and sloppy puddings. Eat natural food that requires thorough chewing and be sure you do chew it. A few Brazil nuts are good every day. Drink bran tea as explained under anemia.

For a while a medicine may be necessary. A tea made of equal parts of semia leaves and mountain flax can be used for this purpose, or simple compound aloes pills. Vary the quantity to suit the case and gradually reduce as the bowels improve.

Consumption

Fresh air and water in abundance are essential. Keep your mind off your complaint and there is no reason why you cannot be completely cured even if your case is a serious one.

Include plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables in your diet. Do not eat more than three eggs per week. Eat as much watercress as you possibly can; it is a wonderful curative agent for this malady. Avoid vinegar and condiments. Drink bran tea. (See Anemia.)

Here is a marvelous herbal medicine: Take of marshmallow root, golden seal and pleurisy root, half an ounce each; of linseeds, Iceland moss and liquorice root, one ounce each. Simmer in five pints of water for half an hour, well stirring the whole of the time. Strain and add one pound of best black treacle, the old-fashioned kind. "Wait until the concoction is cold and take a wineglassful every two hours in severe cases, less frequently in mild cases.

Couyhs

The same as for consumption.

Debility

The remedy is the same as for consumption. If anemia is present see remarks under that heading and take the herbal remedy there suggested. Cold or tepid friction baths every morning are of untold value in many cases. Wet the whole of the body and rub entirely dry with the palms of the hands.

Diarrhea

Raspberry leaves and bayberry bark, half an ounce each. Simmer in one and one-half pints of water for twenty minutes.

Dose: A wineglassful every two or three hours. Add cinnamon if desired.

Diphtheria

Simmer one ounce of red sage in one and one-half pints of water for twenty minutes. Take a wineglassful as frequently as the case demands. The patient should drink plenty of diluted lemon juice and touch no food until well on the road to recovery. Gargle with the sage tea occasionally.

Dyspepsia

Here we arc at the fountain head of bodily disease. We can only repeat what we have said in relation to diet, namely: Keep to natural food and thoroughly chew everything. Find out what suits you best and stick to it. Never eat more than two kinds of food at one meal, and observe all the general dietetic hints given herein under other headings.

The writer knows of certain cases where the sufferer was completely cured by a short fast; in other cases by feeding exclusively on hard, wholemeal biscuits for a few weeks. If you can’t take a fast try the latter method, but remember the biscuit must be genuine wholemeal unsweetened. After a while go on other natural foods, and keep to a sane diet if you do not want your trouble to return. Never drink with your meals. Leave off tea, coffee and cocoa; none of these beverages is good for anybody. Bran tea or dandelion coffee is the drink for all sufferers, no matter what their complaint.

Epilepsy

Leave off all flesh foods. A vegetarian diet has cured hundreds of cases without any other aid. Exercise and fresh air are essential. Onions, either cooked or raw, should be eaten every day. Never take supper; a cup of bran tea is permissible.

As a medicine take of valerian root, vervain, wood betony and scullcap, one ounce each. Simmer in four pints of water for twenty minutes. Take a wineglassful every four hours.

Female Complaints

A tea made of equal parts of horehound and raspberry leaves will remove all obstructions and tend to produce the normal. This remedy may be taken freely without fear of the consequences, as it is perfectly harmless. If taken freely by pregnant females easy birth in the vast majority of eases is positively assured. Such ladies should take about a pint per day, in wineglassful doses, for three or four months before the expected event.

Headaches

Treat as for epilepsy if the cause is nerves. If through stomach derangements take the remedy suggested for liver trouble and pay attention to remarks under dyspepsia. Worry is solely responsible for head affections in many people.

Heart Affections

If the stomach is deranged observe the rules suggested for dyspepsia. The stomach is ofttimes responsible for heart troubles. Take of motherwort, gentian root and scullcap, one ounce each. Simmer for twenty minutes in three pints of water. Strain and take a wineglassful every four hours. If you have any meat it should be boiled; flesh with the blood in it is bad for the heart. Jehovah’s instruction that the Jews should eat no flesh with the blood in it, is of interest. Aside from any spiritual significance it is well to point out that there is a physical reason. The blood left in the veins of any dead animal is full of uric acid and other toxins, and it stands to human reason that the result of swallowing such blood is far from desirable.

Abundance of fresh air is essential. Spinal manipulation is sometimes strongly advisable where mechanical lesions arc causative factors. Plenty of walking and gentle exercise are recommended in nearly all cases, the only rule being not to get tired; leave off at the first signs of fatigue or palpitation. The heart is a muscle, and as such it requires exercise to be healthy, just the same as any other muscle in the body. The sufferer should never smoke or drink intoxicants. Liquids of all kinds should be taken only half an hour after meals, and then in moderation. The person suffering from heart trouble should be careful in sex matters, excesses often being responsible for the condition. Many cases of heart trouble can be cured by following these simple instructions, and all sufferers can be benefited.

Inflammation

For inflammation in any part of the body the remedy is elderblossom, peppermint, yarrow and ginger tea. (See Appendicitis.') This wonderful remedy will save life at the eleventh hour. Remember, it is absolutely harmless.

Influenza

The same as for colds and chills. A cure is certain, even in the most serious circumstances.

Kidney Trouble

Pay attention to diet; take plenty of exercise; drink plenty of diluted lemon juice, and take the following medicine: Buehu leaves, parsley, juniper berries, one ounce each. Simmer in three pints of water for twenty minutes. Press and strain. Take a wineglassful every four hours, or more frequently if occasion demands. Sometimes osteopathic treatment is necessary, but this is not often the case. Cold water packs applied each night over the small of the back are very useful. Steam baths are useful.

Liver Affections

Diet as for dyspepsia and take the following medicine: Horehound, agrimony, crushed ginger, gentian, half an ounce each. Simmer in two and one-half pints of water for twenty minutes. Take a wineglassful every hour in severe attacks, otherwise every four hours. Cold or tepid friction baths should be taken every morning. A course of steam baths will be found very effective in most cases, especially those of long standing.

Neurasthenia

The same medicine as for epilepsy. Pay attention also to remarks under dyspepsia. A cheerful mental attitude is essential, and sexual excesses must be avoided. A cold friction bath every morning is strongly recommended. Pure olive oil is also very good; dress your salads with it.

Piles

Treat as for constipation. A good herbal ointment will be of much service, but the cure must come from within. Get a healthy bowel action and regenerate the blood, and the condition will disappear.

Pleurisy

Take one ounce eaeh of stinging nettles and pleurisy root, and half an ounce of crushed ginger. Simmer in three pints of water for twenty minutes. Strain and drink a cupful hot every two hours. Use the herbs themselves as a poultice over the affected area. This should cure within a few hours. Elderblossom, peppermint, yarrow and ginger tea is also of great value in this complaint, but the nettle and pleurisy tea is best.

Pneumonia

See under colds and chills.

liheumatism

A vegetarian diet should be adopted, including plenty of green, leafy vegetables. Tea, coffee, cocoa and condiments should be avoided. Drink plenty of lemon juice and bran tea, and take the following medicine: Bogbean, centaury, yarrow, yellow dock, one ounce each, and a dozen cayenne pods. Simmer in four pints of water for twenty minutes. Take a wineglassful every four hours.

Rub compound tincture of myrrh into painful parts night and morning.

Rickets

Defective development is caused by a lack of mineral elements and vitamins in food. Abundance of orange juice and grapes should be given to all children suffering in this manner. As they grow older include plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables in the diet. Onions are very good indeed. Include genuine, wholemeal bread and fresh dairy butter with each meal.

A splendid medicine is made by infusing half an ounce each of wild tansy and agrimony in a pint of boiling water. Simmer for fifteen minutes and strain.

Dose for young children: A tablespoonful four times daily. Older children should be given larger doses. Sweeten the medicine with black treacle or honey.

Sleeplessness

The remarks on epilepsy apply here. Plenty of deep breathing before going to bed will usually produce desired effects.

Wounds

A dressing of diluted lemon juice and a few drops of compound tincture of myrrh is ideal for all wounds and sores. There are many good herbal ointments which can be supplied by any reliable herbalist. In nearly all cases the above dressing will be all that is necessary. For skin diseases a return to a natural diet, ineluding fresh fruit and vegetables, is the true remedy. Herbal medicine as for anemia. Medicated ointments of a suppressive nature do more harm than good; they drive the poisons back into the skin and hinder nature's healing processes.

“Soaking the Rich” By B. JU. Stiff ey (Pennsylvania)

WHY this tender solicitude, nervous anxiety and stuttering hesitation about “soaking the rich” ? Haven’t they been soaking the rest of us, lo, these many years? It's their turn now. “Turn about is fair play.”

The poor can no longer support the government. They are willing enough, always have been, if given a chance and the means. This depression is not of their making. They are paying dearly enough as it is. Who put us in the condition we are in? Who is responsible for the situation of the government? They who got us into this hole should get us out.

Probably if the poor had not been taxed so highly in recent years, had not been compelled to pay such heavy tribute to the “invisible government” in addition to public demands, they would now be better able to rallj^T to the support of what they still fondly believe to be their own government.

Both on the basis of “ability to pay” and that of “benefits conferred”, the support of the government seems to be the peculiar province and duty of the “higher rackets”. On the other hand, it is difficult to figure out how the great mass of the people are indebted to the government on either score.

Soaking the poor has been quite a conventional and popular pastime from earliest days, always open season for the game. Like the Irish to hanging, the poor got used to it and seemed rather to enjoy it and paid great deference to those that soaked them. But ‘‘soaking the rich^-’ is very different, quite rude and naughty, bad manners, wretched form, and so shocking to their dear, sensitive souls.

But, alas, the poor also are beginning to flinch. The nerves that line the mucous membranes of their stomachs are beginning to cry out in distress. Probably the poor ‘have no souls’, but they have bodies and they are somewhat sensitive; not highly so, of course, but to such a degree that they must be, in a manner at least, clothed and sheltered.

Yes, believe it or not, the poor have sensibilities. They have feelings and emotions such as hunger, thirst and susceptibility to moisture, heat and cold. They have, therefore, to be fed, clothed and sheltered. Very inconvenient and troublesome, of course, but can’t be avoided.

They cannot hibernate when idle, as ground hogs in winter; neither can they be well greased and packed away and stored, like tools and machinery when not needed. If not permitted to support themselves, someone must support them. They are now idle; unable to support themselves. We can no longer soak them. They have been soaked too much already. So there is no escape; we just must “soak the rich”. Who is there left to soak besides?

To have to support the rich in the manner to which they are accustomed and, in addition, support their government for them in the splendor and magnificence dictated, proved just a little too much for the workers and has gotten far beyond their means.

Embarrassing as it is, and much as we dislike it, we are therefore compelled to call upon the rich. If they are unwilling to support this government, which has served them so well and is still valiantly serving them, and will allow it to be dismantled and sent to the junk heap, the people need not worry.

They can, there is little doubt, find a more economical, smoother-running machine that will make a wider, fairer, juster distribution of its benefits. Probably it is little worth while to attempt to tinker up this balky old plutocratic engine. It seems pretty well worn out, knocks, backfires and sputters, wheezes and rattles in a very sad and distressing fashion. Lately it has refused to go at all. Looks as if it might never be able to even start again.

Do the rich have a monopoly of these “soaking” privileges ? Seems so. Congress is very tender in its dealings with monopolists. Gives them the keys of the government and tells them to “make themselves perfectly at home”. Loans them great constitutional powers, the power to “coin money”, “to lay and collect duties,” and to exercise the right of eminent domain so that they may have no difficulty in making ends meet and even in making them lap over a little. Merely little tokens of friendship.

They are such nice people and never forget a kindness. Always do the handsome thing when election time comes around. All perfectly safe and sane and sound, founded on that wise and virtuous maxim hallowed by time and experience: “You tickle me and i’ll tickle you.” All in accordance with our “best traditions” and the “wisdom of the ages”.

Grant special privileges to favored classes that they may acquire riches and power and thus be able to take care of the masses. That’s the blessed doctrine. A very beautiful, beneficent, idealistic theory, but highly practical and successful withal, except, of course, in unfortunate and inexplicable situations and crises like the present.

So we very wisely and kindly relieve the poverty and distress of our unemployed by pouring public funds into the coffers of the rich. This is the theory upon which our government has for years been and is now administered. We rely upon it. We expect it to work. It has worked admirably for the special-privileged classes. Under it they have secured and now possess enormous riches and power. It ought to work equally well as regards the people. Woe to our smug rulers, if it does not! Congress should see that it does work, even if they have to remind the rich of their duty by “soaking” them a little.

Of course I realize what a cruelty and injustice it would be to deprive one with an income of a million or so of the half of it or more when by his sweat and toil, under just and equal laws, he has by Herculean efforts thus produced so great a store of wealth; just as everyone else could do in this land of grand and glorious possibilities with equal opportunities open and guaranteed to all alike.

In the face of such magnificent success on the one hand and their utter, abject failure on the other, the poor should be abashed and heartily ashamed of themselves and go quietly off somewhere and starve to death, they and their families, decently, decorously, and quit making such a fuss about it. But they just linger around and won’t go, and I can see no way out but to “soak the rich”.

But we will be as humane and considerate as possible. We’ll leave them enough to buy all the meat, bread, potatoes and fixin’s they and their families can possibly consume, with a liberal allowance for wardrobe purposes and an ample appropriation for overalls and working clothes so necessary in their mighty labors. They shan’t suffer as we have had to do. We’ll deal justly with them, making an honest and fair divide, something they never did with us.

Hurrah for Judge Miller!

REFERRING to a raid led by Chief of Police Leahy of East St. Louis, in which, without warrants, police rushed into a private home, fired off tear-gas shells, and one person fell dead from heart disease, Circuit Judge Henry G. Miller, who granted writs of habeas corpus to persons arrested in the raid, made the following statement: “With Justice Brandeis of the Supreme Court I say that we Americans have more to fear from lawless acts of law officers than from others who may be planning cursory acts with the purpose of executing them. I know of no occasion when police may invade a home to get they know not whom, guessing at the reason for which they will make the arrest. The arrest of these men comprises the most dastardly act ever perpetrated by the East St. Louis police department.”

“Things Exactly as They Are” By Chief Pay Clerk of U. S. Battleship Fleet

(From a personal letter to the president of a large manufacturing company)

1TAKE this opportunity to thank you for the books you so kindly sent me, and am enclosing $1.00 to cover the expense to you. I intend to send direct to the Watch Tower in New York city for the additional bound books, for the book Government has impressed me very much. I will also be glad to defray the expense of any additional books that may be published of which I may have no knowledge.

The book Government describes things exactly as they are today, and from indications here in the East I see very little chance to survive the present depression. Everyone seems to have a fear that something terrible is about to happen. The press tries very hard to buoy up the situation, but, like everything else, it is a matter of dollars and cents with them, for if they explained the conditions as they really are their paper would not be sold.

In traveling around the world I have had a ■wonderful opportunity to observe the clergy of the different countries, and the hypocrisy of this entire scheme is appalling. In Mexico and Spain particularly it has brought nothing but suffering to the people. These two countries have now taken their first step forward in ridding themselves of this menace.

I was brought up in the Methodist church, but I am no longer proud of the fact, as their methods today are nothing short of persecution. I was impressed with the statement in one of the "books to the effect that “shooting people down and placing them in jail is surely not God’s method of correcting a wrong”.

I have no use whatever for intoxicating liquor, but know from observation in the big cities that the Methodists have done more to harm the cause of temperance than can ever be corrected. The present prohibition law has corrupted every form of law, and at the present time the situation is hopeless. Liquor can be purchased within a radius of one block anywhere in the big cities, and people now take delight in breaking the law. Our present system holds out absolutely no hope to the people.

You are to be congratulated for your efforts in placing in the hands of the people such excellent and truthful facts, and allow me to extend my sincere thanks and best wishes. As previously stated, any new literature published by the Watch Tower will be welcomed.

Demons Broke Up His Home

(We present the following touching letter just as it came to us, and think the writer of it is correct, that it was the demons working upon his mind that broke up his home. The thing to do is to reestablish the home, if that is possible, give the Lord the first place in the heart, and try to make the few days we have in the sun count for something besides self. The Lord is always ready to forgive a penitent heart, and all who have His spirit are like Him. Resist the Devil; come around on the Lord’s side, and victory is sure.—Ed.)

4<T HAVE been reading your Golden Age and

J- got so much interested in your piece on ‘Demonism’. I want you to please answer my cpiestion if you can in your next number.

“I was a very upright, clean-cut young man, never drank, smoked or associated with any bad men or women. I met one of the “Bible Students” and after about a year and a half we got married. I thought a lot of her and she did of me, but I couldn’t understand why even if she does like the doctrine so well she should have to be always going somewhere, either to the meetings or with the books. So I got so mad that I just got to treating her like I felt she was treating me. I just ignored her most of the time and I thought she would see where she was in the wrong, but she kept on going. I had quit going to meetings with her then. Then I got so mad I got to tearing up all her books and Golden Ages and Watchtowers, but she always got more; so then I couldn’t do a thing with her and I tried slapping her and she said I was obsessed with evil spirits, and then I got beyond all endurance.

“I went right out and found my companionship with whoever I could find. I started in with a woman and this kept up about six months, and my wife looked after me and found me in this woman’s house and tried to talk me away from her, and I was disgusted, but I couldn’t say I was sorry. So when I wouldn’t say so, my wife went anti got a divorce! I had asked her for one, but she said she couldn’t do it, because she knew I would he sorry soon as I got one. I didn’t really want one when I asked for it.

“Now since I have it and am away from her and my home, I am so lonely for her and I have been getting The Golden Age and I am now seeing the light, and a friend told me to read the scriptures on divorces and I think I ought to go back to my wife. I don’t do anything immoral, although I have gone with some others since I’m divorced.

“I believe I wasn’t free if I am divorced and my wife is still true. Should I rather be reconciled to her and help her with her ideas of the work? Have I been under the power of the demons?

“God knows I am miserable enough now and I can’t seem to get any place, because all the time I feel like my wife needs me, as she isn’t well, and that I won’t find any peace of mind until I go back where I was before I was foolish enough to leave.

“I know now that God is with her there, and I was wrong. I wasn’t consecrated when we got married, but I went to meetings and had some of the people come to our house. Would they ever forgive me and recognize me again? I know my wife will forgive me, and should I try to go back to her before the Lord will do anything for me or give me peace? We have been divorced a year in this month.

“Thanking you for your wonderful work in The Golden Age, and hoping you can help me out.

“Please don’t use my name. I can’t have you write me, because I am only here for an indefinite time, but I’ll buy The Golden Age wherever I go.”

God’s Rainbow Covenant

ONE of the most important subjects discussed on the pages of the Bible is the subject of God's covenants with men. The importance of this subject will at once be apparent when we learn that God has made sixteen different covenants with men, and that the subject of the covenants i.s mentioned in two hundred and seventy-six different texts. Few people realize the importance of an understanding of God's covenants. In fact they are seldom discussed in Sunday school lessons or sermons; hence the majority of people know nothing about God's covenants.

The subject becomes intensely interesting when once we learn that no human creature can come into God’s presence, nor have His favor and blessing, nor ever have eternal life unless he has made a covenant with Him, and to have eternal life he must be faithful to the terms of that covenant as long as it exists. The subject is still further interesting when one comes to realize that the entire human family are obligated to keep one of God’s covenants, and have been so obligated for over forty centuries, ever since the covenant was made. The majority of people do not know of such a covenant and are repeatedly violating its terms.

Notwithstanding the fact that they are unwittingly breaking this covenant, God holds them guilty and their punishment will be severe. The reason why they are counted guilty and will he punished is that the covenant is repeatedly stated in the Bible, and so is the punishment, and hence they have no excuse for their ignorance. More than that, even if no such covenant existed, every sane person should know that it is wicked and criminal, unjust and cruel to do the things forbidden by that covenant. It would not be necessary for God to make such a covenant, except for the fact that, since sin entered the world, men are selfishly inclined, and are not controlled by principles of justice and love.

The covenant mentioned is the one God made with Noah, and which we call The rainbow covenant’, because God set the rainbow⁷ in the sky in token of the fact that He remembers that covenant, and also to remind men that the covenant is in force.

A covenant is a solemn contract or agreement by which one person binds himself to do a certain thing, or by which two parties mutually bind themselves to do certain things or to refrain from doing certain things. When there are two parties to the covenant, it is called a bi-lateral or two-sided covenant. When there is only one person involved it is called a uni-lateral or one-sided covenant. The rainbow⁷ covenant is a two-sided covenant. In it God pledged himself never to bring another curse, similar to the flood, upon the earth, and Noah and his sons, w⁷ho stood for and represented the entire human family, pledged themselves not to take human life, nor the lives of animals, fish and fowl, with certain exceptions as provided for in the covenant.

The exceptions were as follows: If any man committed murder, his life might be taken by men, but only after due process of law⁷, and on the testimony of tw⁷o or more witnesses, and the person who acted as executioner would then act as God’s representative, and must be chosen to be the executioner in God’s appointed w⁷ay. The matters of the trial, witnesses and executioner were not stated at the time the covenant was made, but w⁷ere stated later, in the law⁷ given to Israel by Jehovah God.

This w⁷as the only exception w⁷hereby human life could be taken without violating the covenant. In the case of the fowl, fish and brute creation, the exception was that certain of these could be killed as they were needed for food, but for no other purpose. In this connection we should bear in mind that had man not sinned he would have had perfect control over these, so that they W’ould not have been a menace to human life, hence there would never have been a warfare between man and beast, birds of prey or monsters of the deep. For no other reason than for food could the lives of any of these be taken.

But, it might be asked, why should God impose such a covenant on the race? The answ’er would be that all life is a gift from God. No human creature has the power to give life, and, of course, should not have a right to take aw⁷ay the gift which God gave to another. On the other hand, as the One w⁷ho gives life, God has a right, not only to determine how long the creature shall live, but the terms and conditions upon which he shall retain his life or forfeit it.

Since no man can give life, God desires that all men shall regard it as a sacred thing, and not as something of little value which can be destroyed at the whim of some other man.

Even the life God gives to the fowl, fish and brute is God’s gift to them, and they have a right to enjoy it as long as the Giver permits them to do so, and a right to retain it, except as the Giver shall decide that they give it up.

The reason for the making of the terms of such a covenant is that God desires man to learn the lesson of the sacredness of life. Every gift of God is sacred, and nothing that comes from His hands should be lightly esteemed by men. To disregard the right of another to enjoy the gift which God gave him shows a lack of reverence toward God, and a lack of appreciation of one’s own gift, as well as a lack of regard for the rights of others. The right to take away life belongs to God alone.

With this introduction, let us now examine the subject of the rainbow covenant as set forth in Genesis, chapter 9, verses 1 to 18. Verse 1 reads: “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” It will be noticed that this is the same as the command given to Adam, and means that all the human race who have lived since Noah’s day, and all who are still living, are descendants of Noah. This fact is mentioned here, because verse 9 says that the covenant was made with Noah and his sons, and also with their seed after them, which includes all the race, and shows beyond controversy that in making that covenant Noah and his sons were the representatives of the entire race, and that the entire race were bound by that covenant.

Verse 2 reads: “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.” This indicates that Noah and his sons had full control of the fowl, fish and beasts; that all these would fear man, and if this was true, then it follows that man would not be in danger from them, and it also follows that there would be no conflict between them and man unless man should be the aggressor. In other words, man must attack the beasts, fish and fowl, in order to make these man’s enemies.

Verses 3 and 4 read: “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.” Here is an expression of God’s will; therefore it is a law of God. His law was that man might eat the flesh of animals, fowl and fish, but must not eat the blood. The reason given for not eating the blood is that the life principle is in the blood. Here again, God was teaching the lesson of the sacredness of life. Since the life is in the blood, it must not be eaten.

In after years, when God gave His law to Israel, a part of that law, as stated in Leviticus 17, verses 13 and 14, was as follows: “Whatsoever man there be . . . among you, which hunt-eth and cateheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: . . . whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.” Here the penalty for eating the blood is plainly stated to be death, or to be cut off from life. Thus seen, God regarded an offense against His law and against the life of any of His creatures as a serious offense, and worthy the penalty of death.

Verses 5 and 6 read: “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” This text teaches that should any person shed the blood of any beast, fowl or fish (except for food), God would require, as a penalty, the blood of that person, either at the hand of man or by beast. It further states that if a person should shed man’s blood God would require, as a penalty, that his blood should be shed by man. Verse G gives another reason for regarding human life as a sacred thing, in these words: “For in the image of God made he man.”

Briefly stated, then, we have God’s law as follows : That man shall not kill fish, fowl or animals except for food; and that he shall not eat of the blood of any of these, because the life is in the blood; and further, that man shall not take the life of his fellow except he be guilty of murder, because his life is a sacred gift from God, and because he was created in the image of God. For committing any of these crimes the penalty was death. All those who will carefully and honestly consider these requirements must acknowledge that they are just.

With these explicitly stated facts before us it will readily be seen that it is a violation of God’s law to kill animals, fish or fowl wantonly or for sport or pleasure. It is also a violation of God's law to eat the blood of any of these. Not only would it be violation of God’s law to assassinate another man, but it is equally a violation of the same to force a man, against his will, to engage in war and thus to lose his God-given life; and the profiteer, who holds the foodstuffs in warehouses, and forces the prices so high that the poor cannot purchase them and, as a result, some members of the human family die from hunger and famine, is equally guilty of murder, and thus violates the law of God. Those men who devitalize food, so that its continued use brings on disease and premature death; and those men who adulterate food by mixing poisonous and injurious substances, or who use poisonous preservatives which bring on disease and eventuate in untimely deaths, are guilty of violating the law of God as stated in the ninth chapter of Genesis.

Millions of children have been murdered by their fanatical religionist parents, by being cast into the Ganges river to appease some mythical god; other millions have been burned in the fire to Molech, to appease another mythical god; many, many millions of men, women and children have been cast to the lions, burned at the stake, crucified, dipped in boiling oil, and left to rot and die in dungeons, because they dared to exercise their God-given free moral agency, and believed and taught that which they thought was right; others have been banished from their native land and left to die in exile on rocky islands, and in penal colonies, where their bodies were racked with unnecessary disease, torture and hunger, because of the wickedness and selfishness of some political despot. Every person who has been guilty of any of these crimes is a murderer in the sight of God and is guilty of violating God’s law as stated in the verses quoted.

Two things stand out prominently, as we study God’s law, in connection with these crimes. First, the penalty for these offenses is death; and second, those who have thus suffered are innocent of any crime either against God or men which would make them deserving of such a fate.

After stating His law to Noah and his sons, God told them that if they would keep His law, He would enter into a covenant to refrain from destroying the earth again with a flood or other similar destruction. He arranged that the rainbow should appear in the sky at intervals, as a pledge that He was remembering the covenant, and also as a reminder that He was holding the people responsible to Him for its observance. He further stated that the covenant was made with every living creature, fowl and cattle and beast, and that it was an everlasting covenant, for perpetual generations. This means that the covenant is still in operation.

It is manifest that the covenant is broken every day, and by multitudes of people. Since God’s law has been and is being spurned and defied daily, He is no longer obligated to refrain from sending another curse on the earth similar to the flood, and the Scriptures indicate clearly that He will do so in the near future, and that that curse is a punishment for the blood that has been shed in violation of His law. God will soon take vengeance on the guilty ones, because they have taken innocent blood.

The text states that “whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed”. In view of the fact that the covenant was made with “every living creature of all flesh”, it follows that human courts, properly authorized, and upon incontrovertible testimony, are commissioned to take the life of a murderer. But to do this without due process of law, and upon doubtful testimony, would be a violation of the covenant. No individual, however, has a right, under this covenant, to deprive another of the life which God gave him, unless such individual has direct divine authority to do so. The law of Moses, which was God’s law, appointed an executioner for these individual murderers. This executioner was called “an avenger of blood”, and unless he acted in harmony with the divine arrangement he would be a murderer himself.

Millions of innocent lives have been taken, as above stated, in the name of patriotism, in the name of religion, and in many other needless, useless and unscriptural ways. In God’s sight these are murders; but human laws do not so recognize them, and hence make no arrangement for the punishment of the guilty. Under the terms of the rainbow covenant, these murders must be avenged. Now the question is, "When are they to be avenged?

Since God promised that He would not again destroy the earth with another curse, if the people obeyed His law, it follows that since they have broken His law millions of times, the earth is due to have another curse, and the Scriptures set forth the fact in clear and positive language that such a curse will soon come upon the earth. The Scriptures refer to it as a ‘‘time of trouble such as was not since there was a nation”, and then adds that there never shall be another like it. (Matt. 24: 21) It is again referred to as “the battle of that great day of God Almighty”. (Rev. 1G: 14) The reason for this battle is that innocent people, by the millions and millions, have suffered death unjustly, and thus have been deprived of the right to live and enjoy the blessing of life, which God gave to them, and which He never has commissioned any man to take away from them.

But who is to be God's avenger of blood, in executing His penalty against the people? Who is it that is to take vengeance on the nations, and dash them in pieces as a potter's vessel? Who is it that is to execute the wrath of Jehovah God against the nations of earth? In unmistakable language the Bible tells us that God has commissioned His Son, the “man Christ Jesus”, to do that work. He has set apart a period of time called “the day of vengeance”, during which that work shall be done, and that day of vengeance lies in the very near future. It will be a terrible time, but the punishment meted out to earth’s murderers will be a well deserved one. So when the text says that “whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed”, it refers to Jesus Christ as the “man” who will execute God’s wrath.

A few of the many references to the coming curse as well as to the fact that it is to avenge innocent blood are now cited. In Isaiah 24, verses 5 and 6, are these words: “The earth also is defded under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.” Again, in Psalm 94:21 are these words: “They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.” And, in Psalm 106: 37, 38 we read: “Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, . . . and the land was polluted with blood.”

Again, in Isaiah 59:2-7 we read: “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. . . . Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood.”

Still again, in Jeremiah 2: 34 are these words: “Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents": and in Jeremiah 19:4 we read: “They have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, . . . and have filled this place with the blood of innocents.” Also, in 2 Kings 24: 3,4 are these words: “Surely at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, . . . also for the innocent blood that [Manasseh] shed: for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood”; and, in Proverbs 6:16,17 we read: “These six things doth the Lord hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.”

These texts reveal the fact that God has remembered His everlasting covenant, which He made with all flesh, both man and beast, and that He has taken note of all the violations of that covenant, and purposes to punish the people for these violations. Every transgression of God’s law will be punished. No guilty one is to escape. Ofttimes the punishment is long delayed, but sooner or later it surely comes upon the guilty ones. The flood was a punishment for the accumulated wickedness, violence and crime which had prevailed for centuries. (Gen. 6:11-13) Not until the iniquity of the Amorites was “full” did God destroy that nation.

Cain slew his brother Abel, and many other righteous people were slain from Abel’s day to the first advent of the Lord, and addressing the hypocritical Pharisees, Jesus said: “Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers, . . . that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias. . . . All these things shall come upon this generation.”—Matt. 23:32-36.

In Romans 13:4, speaking of the time when Jesus takes His power and begins His reign, Paul says: “He is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” He will search out the guilty ones and mete out a proper punishment. That punishment will be another curse upon the earth.

That punishment will be a severe one, and will settle the account which God holds against all those who have murdered millions, in the name of patriotism, of militarism, and of religion and for the selfish purpose of fattening their own pocketbooks.

As God’s revenger, Jesus is mentioned in Psalm 9:12 as follows: “When he maketh inquisition for blood, he remembereth them; he iorgetteth not the cry of the humble.” He is mentioned again, in Isaiah 26: 21: “For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.” This means that it will be disclosed, or uncovered, so that all men will see that those who have died in war, by religious persecution, in needless famines, or in defense of their God-given rights and liberties, have really been murdered, and that the ones who caused their death will stand forth in their true light as murderers.

God’s day of “wrath”, His day of “vengeance”, which is soon to come upon the earth, is a punishment upon the people for their violation of that everlasting covenant, in shedding innocent blood. This coming curse, called the ‘battle of Armageddon’, is just ahead of us, and the prophet mentions it in Isaiah 24:5,6 in these words: “The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.”

In plainest phrase, this text assures us that the curse is coming on the earth because the people have broken the everlasting covenant; they have wantonly caused the death of millions of innocent creatures, to whom God gave life, His most sacred gift. God also gave to His human creatures a mind, will and free moral agency, and the further privilege of using these in deciding how they shall serve God and their fellow men. These millions of innocents have been deprived of these God-given rights, and compelled to slay their fellow men or to stand idly and helplessly by and see others do it, knowing that a protest would be called treason or sedition and would bring an undeserved death or persecution on their own heads.

God has marked all these violations of His everlasting covenant; He is continually placing His rainbow in the sky to remind the people that He is remembering it, and to remind them that they have made such a covenant and will be held responsible for its violation. As Jehovah God’s official “avenger of blood” Jesus Christ has already taken His power, and the foretold curse is about to come upon the earth; not another flood, but, as Jesus said, a “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be”. (Matt. 24:21) This will be a vindication of God’s word as expressed in the everlasting covenant. God’s kingdom, then in full charge of mankind’s affairs, will bring back from the graves all those whose blood has been unjustly shed, and will bless with everlasting life all who come into harmony with God’s new covenant and maintain their integrity' to Him.

Half of Merthyr Out of Work By B.P. Lanman (Wales)

T^IROM the South Wales Echo and Express, the chief news organ of Wales, I quote an item which I am sure will interest your readers:

Merthyr has 14,000 children at school, and more than half of these are in need of boots.

“If you could only see these children trudging to school on cold, wet days,” said the mayor, “few adequately shod and many of them without soles to their boots, or wearing rain-sodden canvas and rubber shoes, no words would be necessary to appeal for funds. Their plight is truly pitiable.”

This distress among school-children is an outcome of prolonged industrial depression. It is estimated that from 9,000 to 10,000 of Merthyr’s insurable population of 20,000 men are out of work, and 3,000 unemployed families have been obliged to seek relief from the public assistance committee.

Last winter, as a result of a similar appeal by the ex-mayor (Mr. John Williams), 11,000 pairs of boots were distributed among the children of unemployed work-people.

Hundreds of these poor, unfortunate people live huddled together in building basements of one room. Husband and wife and sometimes four or five children live and sleep in one room. The filth and poverty have sapped away almost all the humanity that existed in these poor creatures.

The stench that emanates from these hovels as one goes from door to door is enough to make one turn sick and faint.

As we view the results of Satan's rulership it makes one long for God’s kingdom, the only hope for these and all others of humanity, to be in complete operation.

It is only the knowledge that the New Jerusalem has descended from heaven and that soon Jehovah God through earth’s new King will wipe away all sorrow, sighing, pain, tears and death, that gives us the courage, determination and joy to go forward and lift up the “standard for the people”.

This district was for years one of the chief industrial centers of Wales. Surrounded by collieries, and with one of the largest steelworks in Great Britain in its midst, Merthyr was a hive of industry and prosperity. And, by the way, the first steam engine that ever ran on rails was run in Merthyr. The old stone blocks upon which the railway was laid are still in their original position.

Now all the collieries are closed and the steelworks lie idle and silent. Evidences of poverty and distress are on every hand. Scores of once prosperous business premises and shops are empty and dilapidated, even the beer houses are empty. This condition of affairs can be duplicated with perhaps a little less severity all over Wales. “King Coal” is fast losing ground. Hundreds of collieries are being worked out or closed down. 'What is to be done with the thousands of miners who are thus thrown out of employment ?

How opportune is the Kingdom! Speed on that happy day, when sorrow, want and sickness shall have for ever passed away.

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