Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

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in this issue

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

INJUSTICES IN MISREADING METERS

GLOBULES ASKING FOR TROUBLE WHY THE COLLAPSE OF MORALITY

PROSPERITY FOR EVER ESTABLISHED

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every other

WEDNESDAY /ive cents a copy one dollar a year

Canada & Foreign 1.25

Vol. XIII - No. 338

August 31, 1932

CONTENTS

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

50,000.000 on Relief.....755

Cigarettes for Women ’ .... 757

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

Elementary Education—

Getting Ready to Live . . . 739

Globules.........753

Nine Finest Buildings .... 756 Bad Flour from Farm

Board Wheat......756

Definition of a Racket .... 757

Cop Shot While Training . . . 758

Why Collapse of Morality . . 763

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

Injustices in Misreading Meters 752

86% of Value Gone.....754

36 Railroads Helped.....754

First Air-Cooled Train .... 754

Middle West Utilities Company 755

Country Banks and Local Loans 755 "The Rocket” at Reading-

Terminal ........756

Like Child Blowing Up Balloon 758

Ship Canal Across France . . 758

C. & O. s Crack Train .... 759

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

Withhold All Rights .... 753

"The Law Is Done”.....754

307 Foreign Conferences , . . 755

Nicaraguans Serve Notice . . . 755

What Presidentls Concerned With 756

Council of National Defense . . 759

U. S. Loses Russian Trade . . 759

Prison Beatings in Portsmouth . 760

Satan's Kingdom Hard to Manage 760

Britain Living in Dreamland . 760

Another Prison Murder in Florida 761

Asking for Trouble.....762

AGRICULTURE LYD HUSBANDRY

Oranges in Palestine .... 753 New Potatoes from Bolivia . . 753

Homesteading in Pennsylvania . 761

SCIENCE AND INVENTION Glassmaker’s Invention . , .759

HOME AND HEALTH

Dry Bread Made Fresh . . . .767

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

More Ancient Cities Found . . 753

Cruelty to Horses in France , . 756

Fall of Ashes in Argentina . . 757 $1,000 Funeral for Dog . . . 75S

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Nashville Deeply Stirred . . . 753 What You Get for $25 . . .753 Tucker Is Right......756

Christians and World War . , 758 "The Workshop of God’’ . . 760 Willing to Take Anything . . 761

Prosperity for Ever Established 764

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

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

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

The Golden Age

Volume XIII                       Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, August 31, 1932                       Number 338

Elementary Education—Getting Ready to Live

IT IS a good while since we were in the Garden of Eden. Life is more complicated than it was. An education that was all right for Cain and Abel would hardly do now. God expects men and women to use their intelligence in training their children for the battle of life.

It is God himself who says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hos. 4:6) There are things they must know if they would live. What are the things they must know ? Who is to teach them? How far is the instruction to go? Who is to shoulder the responsibility and the cost? What may be expected of the teacher? What may the teacher expect of the child? Where does the duty of the parent begin, and end? These are some of the questions that call for an answer.

It is the right of the child to be so taught that he shall not be destroyed, either temporarily or permanently, for lack of knowledge. That means that somebody must tell him about God. The ones who are most in duty bound to do that are the ones who were responsible, for his coming into the world, his parents. Parents who do not try to tell their children about God, and teach them to look to Him for guidance in all things, are poor parents, hardly above the dogs and cats and other animals about them.

There was a time when a parent felt in duty bound to see that his son was instructed in a trade; but what trade shall he learn today ? The trades of yesterday are but memories now. Shall the boy learn to be a wheelwright, or a blacksmith, or a teamster? Who can tell what line of business he will be in when he grows up? Has he musical talent ? There are thousands of capable musicians who can find nothing to do since the radio took over the work they once performed.

The Neighbor Next Door

What is it that you want in your neighbor next door, for your own good, as well as his?

You want that he should be a man who loves God, for you know if he loves God he will love you and every other man, and thus be a good neighbor. You want him to know how to read and what to read, so that you can have pleasant and profitable interchange of ideas with him.

You want him to have ability or skill in at least one line, and preferably in many lines, so that he may obtain and retain employment and you not be forced to see him lose his home and his family suffer because he cannot provide for them, and you be forced to have a stranger in his place.

You want him to have the power of thinking clearly and well, so that when you have discussed some matter with him his responses will indicate that his mental processes are reasonably reliable. You would not want to have a half-witted person live next to you.

And, finally, you would want your neighbor to be a person with some power of emotional response. If your little girl fell into the well, or your house burned down, or your wife ran off with another man, you would not like to have him take it all as a matter of course.

What you want in your neighbor you want in your son or your daughter. You want that they shall be somebody’s good neighbors sometime, as good to somebody else as your present neighbor is to you now, or as you wish him to be. And therefore it is your bounden duty to see to it that your child is given adequate guidance and exercise in acquiring knowledge, doing things, thinking and feeling, to make him a good neighbor. If you do less by your child you are not doing to others as you would wish to be done by; you are not loving your neighbor as yourself.

How much knowledge shall you see to it that your son acquires? That is a hard question, but it must be answered. Economic conditions almost compel most parents to look to the schoolteacher to answer, and the school-teacher is an

important factor in the development of almost every American,

The Three Rudiments

Does it seem unreasonable that a child should learn to read well? Who is there that has not been in companies where some have been called on to read something, and it was very apparent they had never learned to read anything, and their entire audience suffered and groaned inwardly from the first word they uttered until they finished?

Does it seem unreasonable that boys and girls should be taught to spell the words they are likely to spell? There is a book, the Thorndyke Word Book, which contains the 10,000 most-used words in the order of their frequency. Those are the words that boys and girls should learn to spell.

Does it seem unreasonable that boys and girls should be taught to write a plain, readable handwriting, so that when they are away from home they can give some intelligent account of themselves or make such appeals for assistance as may be necessary?

And does it seem unreasonable that hoys and girls should know enough about mathematics that they can keep a check book? It is almost certain, in the present state of society, that every one of them must learn how to keep one, for it is the way almost all bills are paid and receipted.

Mathematics in the higher branches, or even in multiplication and division, is still difficult for children to learn. In the year 1929 more pupils failed in mathematics in the New York high schools than in any other subject. In one school more than half of the pupils failed in first-term algebra. On the other hand, less than 5 percent failed in music and domestic science. The reason: mathematics is work; music is play.

Some of the best lessons of school life are outside of the books. In one New York family it was noted that, though there were several children of school age, only one came to school each day, though hot always the same one. Investigation showed that there was only one pair of shoes; the first kid up in the morning seized them and made off to school in them.

New York schools have an element of thrift education, well conducted. More than half the total enrollment of 1,200,000 pupils have saving accounts in the school banks. Money is withdrawn only after great deliberation. One little kid drew on his savings and his check book stub stated that it was for “a pair of shoes so my father can look for work”. Good reason, eh?

Stars and Plants and Animals

By the time it is old enough to go to school every child has seen some of the stars and plants and animals and is entitled to know something about them. That includes some knowledge of geography, the things that go to make up God’s physical handiwork.

Coming down from the stars to terra firms, there is a huge amount of satisfaction for a city child to have a part in a school garden. As early as 1869 laws were passed in Sweden and Austria requiring the wide establishment of school gardens. France, Russia, Belgium, England and Switzerland followed and by 1891 the first school flower garden was established in Boston. Training in the care of living plants and animals inculcates sympathy, love of the beautiful, and tends to promote self-support, physical vigor and moral stamina.

Someone has said that man is not born free, hut is born helpless, and comes to freedom more through what he learns than in any other way. It seems not a bad way to put it. The most helpless people in the world are those who know the least.

It is good to have access to a library, and to make u.se of it, but one may have “book lamin’ ” and still be broken in health, disagreeable, unfitted for any task, unsuited to home life, a moral menace to society, a grafter politically and an emotional wreck.

To educate means to “draw out"; but it means to put in, too. Something can be drawn out of a barrel that has been filled, but not out of an empty one. The true object of education is neither to increase production nor to develop a governing class. It is to awaken in all the power to think logically, to develop powers of discernment and construction, to cultivate sympathy, generosity, large-heartedness and honesty in every direction.

Education versus Selfishness

God is the great Educator, the supremely unselfish One. No matter how many facts one may have acquired, if he is selfish he is not educated. Real education means ability to take the knocks that come. Reading about toleration will not make a person tolerant. Practice is necessary. Mr. II. G. Wells says very well that “education exists to subdue the individual for the good of the world and his own ultimate happiness”.

An educated person should be able to support himself and three others. He should be able to use his hands as well as his mind. He should be a person of high moral principle. He should be physically fit. An educated mind can always amuse itself while planning useful things for others.

The classroom can do something for a student, but he must do most of it himself. Tests which have been made show that less than ten percent of what is heard in the classroom can be reproduced by the pupil immediately afterward. That education of itself is far from being a cure-all is evident when we consider that the period in which the troubles of society have multiplied with the greatest rapidity witnessed an unprecedented expansion of organized education.

Such schools as have been teaching their pupils to think and act selfishly have really been adding to the burdens of mankind instead of lightening the load. A highly intelligent thief who has had his wits sharpened by contact with others like-minded is a far more dangerous man than a dullard who works out some stupid plot alone. That is why the prison system is such a colossal failure. It is a graduate school in crime.

Merely from the standpoint of selfishness, it is not denied that such education as is provided in the colleges is financially profitable. The total earnings of an untrained man up to the age of sixty are $45,000; that of a high school graduate $78,000; that of a college graduate $150,000. Ninety percent of college men rise to large salaries and responsible positions.

It is to their selfishness that we owe the present wretched condition of civilization. Most of the apostles of Big Business, the Big Preachers and the Big Politicians, were trained in the big colleges and universities. The readers of The Golden Age are not specially interested in these men or in their schools, but we are interested in the common schools for the common people, and therefore this article is specially about them.

The Kindergarten and On Up

It took humanity a long time to realize that children have some rights. Dickens tells us that in his days, in England, '‘There were little faces which should have been handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen, dogged suffering; there was childhood with the light of its eye quenched, its beauty gone, and its helplessness alone remaining; there were vicious-faced boys, brooding with leaden eyes like malefactors in a gaol; and there were young creatures on whom the sins of their frail parents had descended, weeping even for the mercenary nurses they had known, and lonesome even in their loneliness.” It is not a happy picture.

One of the greatest ideas ever evolved was that of the kindergarten. At first the idea that children should learn to play while at school, and should meanwhile make a start in the use of the manual crafts and in social development, was looked upon with suspicion even in its homeland of Germany. The farmers looked upon the notion of play as likely to produce loafers.

Froebel, the originator of the kindergarten, was not at first able to interest women teachers in his plans for making the schoolroom as nearly as possible a miniature society, but by teaching the little folks games and songs about the carpenter, the blacksmith, the farmer and the shoemaker, he gradually won over the men and later enlisted the cooperation of the women. At one time he was deeply disappointed that the women of Germany were more interested in baking and brewing than in his ideas of child training.

The first kindergartens in America were German-speaking ones, dating from 1855. At first American parents thought of them as places where parents could park their infants safely and diversions were employed to keep them out of mischief. Their value is now well recognized.

Though, of the 5,000,000 children of kindergarten age in this country, only about 750,000 are enjoying the training between the ages of four and six, yet the better progress of such children in the grade schools is well recognized. They have better vocabularies and are less likely to be retarded at the end of the term. They are less timid and antisocial and have acquired valuable habits which are of importance throughout life.

The Platoon System

Those of us who were not educated in schools where the platoon system is in force ought to take a little time off and visit a public school some day. The little folks under this workstudy-play system are divided into two groups which alternate between sessions in the classroom and equally long periods in the auditorium, library and gymnasium.

Advantages claimed for the system are that the rudiments are as well taught, while music, art, nature study and other subjects receive better attention, and that school buildings, when the work is organized on the platoon system, will accommodate a third more children than otherwise, and with no increase in cost.

As more than half of the children never attend any other than the elementary school, it is very important that such schools accomplish many ends. They are supposed to provide such training as to make good citizens, worthy members of the home, made ready for some specific vocation, familiarized with the tools of learning, able to appreciate good health and knowing something of how to maintain it, and prepared for further educational advantages if they present themselves.

The 6-3-3-4 plan is a system of distributing the sixteen study years which has found favor in Detroit and elsewhere. Six years are spent in elementary education, three in junior high schools in which some opportunity is given to test predilections or aptitudes, three in senior high schools or technical or vocational schools, and four years in college or professional training.

In Kansas City the usual 8-4-4 plan (eight years in elementary school, four years in high school, and four years in college) has been changed to a 7-4-4 plan and data has been collected showing that in crowding the eight years of elementary work into seven years there is no measurable loss of educational standing.

Nevertheless, it is not possible to trim very much out of elementary schooling. It is found from experience that poor records in preparatory schools mean poor or worse records farther up.

There have been some experiments in allyear schools, which divide the school year into four 12-week quarters. In these schools the child is allowed to omit any quarter after having passed one of the voluntary quarters, or he. may continue without interruption and thus graduate in a shorter time. The latter method takes about all the play out of a child’s life. It is a vicious example of 'efficiency’ at its worst.

Education at Home

Occasionally there are parents, well educated themselves, and appreciative of their great privileges and responsibilities as such, who enjoy teaching their own children in their own homes. There is no question of their absolute, right to do so. Adam and Eve were not told to send their children to the public schools.

The United States Supreme Court, in the Oregon school cases of June 1, 1925, has ruled that a state cannot lay down a uniform type of education for youths, obliging them to attend only public schools. The child is not a creature of the state, but he has parents, and those parents have the duty and the privilege to attend to the child’s education, either directly or by other methods that are acceptable or may be made acceptable to the state. No state can oblige any child to attend public school if the parents can provide proof that satisfactory instruction is being given in subjects which the state regards as essential to citizenship.

How is it, then, that we so often read in the papers that where parents have undertaken to educate their own children the courts have stepped in and insisted that they be sent to public schools ? The answer must be either that the parents did not give the required instruction, or else that the court was unjust, or the parents had a poor lawyer. If the instruction is up to standard, the court can do no more than prepare itself for a rebuke if it judges unjustly, and if the parents are able to insist on their rights.

Any person who can read and write can study almost any subject under the sun with any of the great correspondence schools. One of these institutions, in Scranton, Pa., has upward of three million students, living in all parts of the world, and studying in their own homes almost every known branch of science and art.

Education by Wireless

If the courts were to try to decide that people could not study in their own homes, either they or the people would be out of luck in short order, for the education of the people by radio is just now the greatest phenomenon of our day. Whether the education the people are receiving by radio is the best that could be given them, or whether it is the worst, nobody can deny they are getting it.

In some homes the radio rims almost constantly from morning until far into the night. Indeed, the occupants of the home get so used to it that when a stranger calls with the message of God's kingdom, the most important message in the world, they do not even know it is going, but listen open-mouthed while he tells them about the New Government, the meanwhile the loud-speaker is flooding the air with news about everything from tooth paste to proclamations of truth almost sufficient to awaken the patriarchs from the tomb.

Dr. J. E. Morgan, editor of the Journal of the National Education Association, has stated that one powerful organization in the United States is expending a million dollars a year in propaganda to keep control of radio in the hands of private interests. He wishes to go to the other extreme and have certain radio channels assigned to ‘the educational authorities’ and owned and operated at the public expense, without recourse to commercial advertising. Whether the education that would then come to the people via radio would be better than that they are now getting would remain to be seen.

The first National Advisory Council on Radio in Education, financed by the Rockefeller and Carnegie interests, held its initial session a year ago, with 500 educators present, and is developing programs, securing broadcasting facilities and studying the effectiveness of instruction by radio. Saskatchewan supplements its regular school courses by radio. In some cases there is unusual interest manifested in instruction given by a far-away teacher, but it needs the influence of a local teacher to sustain it. Experience teaches that a twenty-minute radio lecture is about the right length. If longer, the effect is usually lost.

Education by Movies and Talkies

Movies and talkies can be operated in the home, but they are naturally adapted to group instruction. By their means the child may now see and hear Niagara Falls, or any other cataract, and may learn more of polar exploration in a few minutes than could be learned from any number of textbooks.

As long as four years ago 15,000 educational institutions in America were using “teaching films”, and many state universities maintained film libraries to cooperate with other educational organizations in their respective states. By now this use of films must be much more widespread.

At that time Yale University had participated in the preparation of a series of films on American history and Harvard was cooperating with a big film-producing concern in making films relating to science. Some other universities were making films on their own account and upon a rather extensive scale.

In the teaching of science the combination microscope and lantern projector are still used. The teacher places a drop of ditch water on a glass slide. The lights go out and in a moment, on the screen, the children see the teeming, moving, varied forms of life which occupy that drop of water. A lens is lifted out and instantly the busy life on the screen ceases, killed by the heat. Thus the child has, in a moment, seen life in its simplest forms, and has also seen the principle of sterilization applied.

There is no end to the instruction that can be conveyed by pictures and talkies, and we revel in the prospect that is ahead of mankind. Everything in the physical universe, every form of life and every manifestation of that life, from its beginning to its end, may be illustrated, and in due time will be.

It is said that there are no more beautiful flowers in nature than those which grow on moldy bread. Quite likely, by now, these flowers can be photographed in magnified form in their natural colors, and ere long we shall be able to watch the process and even to hear the growing magnified millions of times. The circulation of a man’s blood rushing through his veins was heard all over the country. So is the world today.

How important it is that a child should have good pictures before it from babyhood up. Parents should buy with care the picture books for their infants and always keep evil pictures away from them. The first pictures the child sees should present objects with which the little one is familiar. Illustrated alphabets are not considered to have any educational value.

What Is Expected of the Teachers

To be a perfect teacher one would need to have an inexhaustible fund of information on every subject and to know exactly how to bring the right items to bear on every child. It is admitted to be the most difficult of all the arts. Every editor is a teacher; if he did his work perfectly he would say just the right thing, at the right time, always. Non est!

Married teachers are believed to be more capable than unmarried ones. If there are no children the home does not suffer; if there are children of school age, mother and children are away together. From an economic point of view, single girls need the employment and tho retention of married teachers is considered against the public interest.

In times of financial stress teachers’ examinations automatically become more difficult; and this is as it should be. Those who have made the effort to become best trained should have the work. Males are absent on account of illness only about one-half as much as women teachers. It is generally held that girls over 11 should be taught by women, and boys over 11 by men.

As they are on the public pay roll teachers are subjected to what might be termed coercive donations, especially in times of depression. In New York they have been compelled to give 5 percent of their salaries, with the understanding that announcements would go out that the contributions were voluntary. The last we knew, Chicago had 12,000 teachers whose unpaid salaries totaled more than $17,000,000.

A Happy, Useful Occupation

Other people may grow old, but a teacher has no moral right to do so. Other people may grow dull and stupid, but not the teacher. Chalk dust causes considerable laryngitis and acute bronchitis, and there is some predisposition to tuberculosis and heart disease among teachers, but, taken as a whole, the teacher’s lot is an enviable one.

It is a grand privilege to be in constant contact with the young, to guide, encourage and help the most ardent, enthusiastic and ambitious among us, to stimulate them, to repress them, to partake of their hopes and their spirit, to be a comrade and a confidant of boys and girls, the most interesting things in the whole wide world.

Teachers have three months’ rest in summer, two weeks at “Christmas” time, one week at Easter, two days out of every seven, and two hours out of every day. They must have time to keep abreast of the rush of new sciences. They are better educated and better trained now than was the case a few years ago.

Discovering that 25 percent of the school children of one city had never seen a cow, and that 50 percent had never seen a calf, the board of education of that city has a truck with a mother cow and a calf making the rounds of the various schools so that the little folks may learn something about milk and steaks and things.

Occasionally a teacher gets up against strange conditions. A Tennessee mother was indignant because her child had been taught the earth is round. She referred to the symbolic statement that the four angels stood on the four corners of the earth, and demanded that her child either be taught that the earth is flat, to agree with the corners, or that the child come home for good. The matter was referred to the principal, with request for a decision. He compromised by saying, “Teach it round to them who wants it round and flat to them who wants it flat.”

Mary Ellen Cahill was graduated more than fifty years ago from Public School 27, Brooklyn. When appointed as a teacher she was assigned to Public School 27, and a few months ago she was still teaching in Public School 27, where she went to work April 1, 1880. Moreover, the building is the same today as it was when she first entered it as a child.

“Religion” and the Schools

“Religion,” the observance of forms and ceremonies, should be kept as far away from the public schools as the east is from the west, but that does not mean that the teacher should be afraid to mention God, the great Creator, or to keep Him ever before the minds of the little folks. To fail to do it is to fail as a teacher.

To see Him in every wonderful and beautiful thing in the universe, and to show Him to the child as He is revealed in first this and then that law or principle or form of life, should be the joy of the teacher’s heart, as it is bound to be of the pupil's.

It is well known that the colleges are, for the most part, atheistic centers. Eighty-five percent of the students enter college with a definite belief in God; but when they reach their senior year less than fifty percent have such a belief. A college student wrote to his parents: “If I had been a Chinaman or a Hindu attending the university, I would not have known from any remarks in the classroom that I was living in a nominally Christian country. Very many hours have been given to discussions of heathen philosophers, but not a single moment to the teachings of Christ.” If you want your children to lose their faith in God, send them to college.

Militarism is a form of “religion”. It is an outward expression of the “religion” that the Devil's kingdom is God’s kingdom and that it is right to commit mass murder, and to train for it, in order to keep that kingdom dominant in the earth. Many colleges have instruction in militarism and are “religious” in that sense.

Another form of the. Devil’s “religion” is evolution, taught in every college, as gospel truth, though it is false. Worship of any flag, no matter whose it is, and “oaths of allegiance” are all “religions” and entirely out of place in a public school supported by taxes paid by all the citizens. If anybody wants to worship a flag, let him do it at home.

The Bible in the Schools

In England, a century ago, the Bible was used as a textbook in teaching arithmetic, history and geography. An arithmetic book called attention to the fact that there were six stone waterpots at the marriage of Cana of Galilee, each holding two or three firkins, and the question was asked the pupils, “If they held two firkins, how much water would it take to fill them: and how much if they held three firkins each?”

The Pittsburg Gazette Times says very well: “There is a time and place for everything; a time and place for education, and for religious instruction. The school is no place to teach the Bible or religion, and the pulpit is no place to teach geography or politics.”

There are now eleven states, with a population of 70,000,000, that prohibit Bible reading in the public schools; thirty, with a population of 14,000,000, where the Bible may be read in the schools; and seven states providing by law that it must be read. In California the King James Version may not be read, on the ground that it teaches a particular creed.

In North Dakota the law requires that a copy of the Ten Commandments given to the Jews shall be displayed in every schoolroom in the state. We see no objections to this, if there is no protest from the taxpayers.

Parochial School Influences

Parochial schools furnish 65 percent of the criminals of the country, and the public schools five percent. The average illiteracy in the seven solidly Roman Catholic countries of Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Brazil and Guatemala is 61.86 percent. We mention these facts because of the oft-repeated claims put forth by Roman Catholic writers that the public schools are “godless”, “vicious,” and a “sink of corruption” because they are (and should be) strictly secular institutions.

In all countries where there are public schools the Roman Catholic church works against them, but in Ecuador and some other countries any priest who uses the pulpit to disseminate propaganda against the public schools is summarily deported.

The undermining of the public schools is sought in a variety of ways: by the usual charges that they are godless; by diversion of funds to parochial schools; by encouraging other sects to start parochial schools; by placing Roman Catholics on school boards and on teaching staffs; and by working against the normal schools engaged in training public school teachers.

The public school system of Maryland is entirely in the hands of the Roman Catholic church, not a single official in that state being elected by the votes of the people. It is only two and a half years since the pope, in 12,000 slobbering words, demanded that in every country the teachers, the curriculum and the books, as well as all the teaching, be “under the maternal direction and vigilance of the church”.

A favorite method of boosting parochial schools is to parade the names and pictures of winners of educational contests in such a manner as to make the public suppose that the contests include pupils of the public schools. Headlines announce that such and such a pupil of a parochial school won such and such a contest, but neither the headings nor the statements acquaint the readers with the fact that only parochial schools participated.

Working on the Inside

Though the opening of a parochial school has before now caused the closing permanently of some public school, yet the principal of the public school at Perronville, Michigan, is a Roman Catholic priest, and if he leaves off his horse collar and beads and skirts he has as much right to the job as anybody.

In New Haven, Conn., the “mother superior” of a convent is principal of the Hamilton Street public school and twenty-three other nuns are teaching in the same school. Moreover, while other teachers walk to their work, or get there the best way they can, these nuns are carried by motor bus at public expense. Their wages, instead of helping to maintain American homes, go into the treasuries of the prisons in which they reside, to the last cent.

Though the number of parochial school students in America is now almost exactly 2,500,000, yet singularly few of these pupils have ever attained to eminence in American life. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that the increase in juvenile crime is in proportion to the increase in the number of pupils enrolled in Roman parochial institutions.

The Best-Educated People

The best-educated people are the Hebrews. Not only was Moses “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts 7:22), but he knew a lot of things the Egyptians never learned. The command to write the words of the Law “upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates” (Deut. 6:9) implies a general knowledge, an ability to read and write at a time when the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons were naked savages and cannibals.

The elders of Israel knew how to write (Deut. 27:8), the wisdom of Solomon “excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt” (1 Ki. 4:30); there were the schools of the prophets, and others such as Gamaliel conducted; and the superiority of Daniel and his companions over their heathen competitors is known to all.

Teachers were treated with great respect, and, unlike some so-called “religious” teachers today, the teachers in the days of Nehemiah “read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading”. (Neh. 8:8) Our Lord was the greatest teacher that ever lived. He caused men to think. God’s “servant” in the earth is a teaching organization. “The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge.”—Prov. 1: 7.

The Greeks spread education over the ancient world. A painting on an ancient Greek vase shows one boy reciting, another fingering a lyre, and a third working with an abacus calculating machine, with a teacher supervising all three.

The general education of the masses began in Holland coincident with the Reformation, and from there spread to Massachusetts and New York. While it is free in America, it is not free in Germany, France or England. In all those countries each pupil, unless a pauper, must pay school fees.

Conditions in America

The country’s school population is estimated at 31,000,000, or more than one-fourth of the population. The average school year is now 172 days, or 10 days more than in 1920. In Belgium there is a six-day school week of thirty-four hours, but in America there is a five-day week and the school week does not exceed twenty-five hours.

The first free school in New York city was opened in 1805 with one teacher and forty pupils. This has grown to 36,000 teachers and 1,250,000 pupils and an annual school budget of $140,000,000.

America now has but 4.3 percent of illiterates. This places it ahead of Canada and far ahead of France, but away behind Japan, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The proportion of illiteracy in the South is 8.2 percent, and this cuts down the showing of the country as a whole.

Des Moines, Fort Wayne, Long Beach, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Seattle, Spokane, Tulsa and Wichita each has less than 1 percent of illiterates. Fall River has 10.2 percent; New Bedford, 8.8 percent. Birmingham, El Paso, Philadelphia, San Antonio and Utica make a bad showing.

The depression has closed many rural schools. In some places in the South not a school in the county was opened this past winter, as there was no money to pay the teachers. Of the 3,000,000 children between the ages of 7 and 17 that are not in school, it is estimated that 2,000,000 are gainfully employed.

Occasionally we hear of a large family back in a remote place where none of the family can read or write. A French Canadian farmer so situated appointed himself as school commissioner to select a teacher, built a school house, and, as he had fourteen children, the Quebec government granted him a small subsidy and he was able to educate his children.

The South remains the weak spot in America’s educational system. The school terms are shorter, the teachers are more poorly trained, the percentage of nonattendanee is higher, the salaries of teachers are much less, the expenditures for library service are least, and the maintenance of dual school systems makes improvement slow and difficult.

Twenty-one percent of the total population of the South are Negroes, the climate is enervating, and, as it is the most rural part of the country and much of the soil is poor and thin, the recovery from the terrible drain of the Civil War is better than could have been expected.

As to the Expense

When it is reflected that only 3¹/2 percent of the nation’s income goes for education, while 8 percent is used in fighting crime and ‘22 percent is spent on luxuries, it does not seem that too much attention is being paid to giving the boys and girls a start in life.

In the year 1928 the yearly cost of educating a public school pupil in 36 of the principal cities of the United States was $107, as against $38.31 in 1913, in which year the wages of the teachers were notoriously inadequate.

The children of 1932 go to school two more years than in 1914. The classes are smaller. The chances of going to high school are five times as good as thirty years ago, and the chances of going to college six times as good. The length of the school year has been gradually increased. The school day has also been stretched out.

The public property used for public school purposes in 1928 amounted to a value of $5,423,280,092. States with more than $100,000,000 invested in school buildings were California, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. There is over $1,000,000 invested in Alaska, over $5,000,000 in Porto Rico, over $11,000,000 in Hawaii, and over $20,000,000 in the Philippines. There are sizable investments in American Samoa, the Canal Zone, Guam and the Virgin Islands.

The public school buildings in the United States are 257,521 in number. The largest junior high school in the United States is located in Oklahoma City; but Far Rockaway, N. Y., has one that cost $2,500,000. In the effort to save 5c on each graduate, the diplomas issued in New York have been reduced in size from 14 by 17 to 6 by 8 inches.

Consolidation Schools

The little red schoolhouse was painted red because red paint was the cheapest. The coming of the automobile marked its end. True, there are still 161,000 one-room schools and 20,000 two-room schools, but a huge number of them have been closed for good and most of the children are now educated in town.

Some 15,930 schools are now using 40,875 buses, which cover 410,370 miles daily. It is estimated that 44 percent of all motor buses in the country are used for school transportation.

These buses take 1,250,000 children to and from school.

In the past three years about one-half of the states have enacted laws providing for the transportation of pupils to school. Anybody who thinks the automobile companies did not have something to do with getting this legislation passed, please hold up the hand.

The consolidation of schools has caused the construction of elaborate buildings in unusual places, incidentally giving work to builders and providing communities with suitable auditoriums for lectures, pictures, meetings and entertainments, besides increasing their taxes.

At Cape Creek, Oregon, in the fall of 1931, employees of a state highway crew built a schoolhouse 20 by 50 feet in a single day. The pupils were the children of the construction gang; and the teacher was the wife of one of the employees.

The Slimy Hand of Big Business

For more than one generation Big Business has been fattening on the textbook graft. The books are changed frequently, and the parents are charged 80c each for books which could be printed by the Government for a tenth of that amount.

Four years ago the utility companies were flooding the schools with their propaganda against public ownership of public utilities. A certain amount of this is still done, but it is more generally confined to the colleges and universities than to the elementary schools. Most of this is now done under the auspices of the General Staff and by order of the secretary of war, in a course miscalled ‘‘Citizenship’’.

The statement has been boldly made that Big Business has supplied the funds for so editing and preparing certain textbooks as to make them teach that Big Business and Americanization are one and the same thing, and that a proper interpretation of the United States Constitution is that nothing must ever be done to molest them in their hauls.

Of 800 books for juveniles published a year back a committee reported that only 140 could be recommended, more than 500 were found to be of only passing interest and of no literary quality, while 150 of them were actually harmful; the child would be bettei’ off without them.

Dr. William C. Bagley, professor of education at Columbia University, discussing a meeting of educators, said:

"The nation’s educators joined in admitting that our public schools do not teach the basic facts about our industrial, economic and political life. Those who control the textbooks and the schools will not permit it. Soon the only way to get the facts to the child will be through bootleg channels.”

The Worcester Opportunity School

Worcester boys of the seventh and eighth grades, who have lost interest in “book lamin’ ”, are permitted to attend a school in which half the time is devoted to school work and the other half to shop work. The plan should work out well. It is the basic idea upon which the International Correspondence Schools of Scranton and other educational institutions are founded. The fact that one has lost interest in books does not mean that his powers to learn have ceased. They merely need to be directed anew. And when a person has actually begun to work with his hands it not infrequently happens that he sees where a little more knowledge of drawing or mathematics or chemistry or what not would be very much to his advantage, and takes a fresh interest in studies he thought he had for ever laid aside.

“Withhold Not Correction”

The Proverbs contain some pretty plain statements about how to get the best ultimate results with children: “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” ‘Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from the grave.” “The- rod and reproof give wisdom; but a child left to himself bringeth . . . shame.” “Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul.”—Prov. 22: 6,15; 23:13,14; 29:15,17.

The British seem to take these suggestions more literally than do the Americans. At Mer-cara, South India, 183 pupils quit their school work and went on strike. The schoolmaster caned the lot. When the boys reached home they complained to their parents and most of them got a second dose. Two of the latter then went to a hospital for sympathy and aid and the head surgeon gave them a third walloping and sent them away with their wounds undressed. That was three years ago and there have been no strikes at Mercara since.

Conditions are not as bad as they once were, but (according to Dr. P. B. Ballard, former inspector of London County Council schools, at the Educational Association’s Conference in London) there are still girls’ schools where a girl may be compelled to kneel to the schoolmistress. It is a disgrace to Britain that such a thing should happen under the British flag. No child with a knowledge of the Scriptures would kneel in such a case if he were killed for not doing it. It is tyrannous and outrageous in the extreme.

A Badly Punished Mother

In Brooklyn a boy got into a fight with another boy and got well bruised. He came home and told his mother the teacher did it. The mother waited on the teacher and beat her up savagely with an umbrella. Then she started to run and fell down stairs, fracturing her right leg. As soon as she was able to be about she was arrested and fined $25. Seems as if that mother got the worst of it all around.

A century ago the schoolmaster was expected to flog the recreant; and in some schools in the country there are still closets under the chimney where bad boys may be temporarily kept in storage. In certain English schools a large wicker cage is preserved in which the delinquent was fastened, the cage being then drawn by pulley to the ceiling, where it remained until the ill-doer was ready to be received back into society. The modern tendency is toward extreme freedom rather than toward extreme severity.

On account of the costs of instruction the Council of School Superintendents of the State of New York has gone on record as favoring the dismissal of pupils 14 years of age who are, for any reason, found unfitted to satisfactorily carry out the school program. Schools must be managed in a systematic way, and if pupils cannot keep in line they must go, seems to have been their thought.

In recent years mothers’ clubs, parents’ guilds and parent-teacher associations have exerted a beneficial influence upon the child, both in the home and in school. It is a good thing for fathers, mothers and teachers to keep in close touch with one another, and for the child to know of it.

Examinations and Vacations

Examinations are freely employed by those who approve them, those who condemn them, and those who regard them as a necessary evil. No better way of gauging school progress has yet been found or is likely to be found than an examination properly conducted.

Summer vacations are survivals of the days when farmer boys had to stay out of school to help with the tilling and harvesting of the crops; but there is now no reason why the young folks, especially in the cities, should waste three months of every year. But during the midsummer the schools should be conducted in the parks, and the subjects changed. Educators say that the long summer vacations in cities make the boys bad.

New York has nineteen “Summer Play Schools”. Cleveland has one. For eight weeks during July and August the entire enrollment of fifty pupils studies industrial art under a big tent. They cultivate their own luncheon vegetables, and cool themselves with plunges in a swimming pool, all as a part of their school work.

An intelligent educator has observed very wisely that parents should have vacations from their children and children should have vacations from their parents.

The wise principal of every school has the children assemble as usual and on some heavenly day in spring, unknown to anybody in advance, he tells them, “There will be no school today.” The happy surprise of such a day lasts throughout a lifetime.

Another wise principal is one who on a day unknown to them sends all the teachers off for the day and leaves the school under the guidance of a student body trained for the task, while he stays around so as to be on hand in case of an emergency.

Morals—Sex—Liquor

The real place for boys and girls to be trained in the above subjects is in the home. If the home influences are right the chances of the child’s turning out well are good. If the home influences are not right, the chance of the boy’s or girl’s turning out better than the parents is remote.

A magazine which made a careful study of the moral complex of several hundred children learned that over half of the children are found to cheat, lie and steal, and their whole outlook on life is unmoral. Very evidently their parents did not bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

A boy's first conscious recognition of sex phenomena comes at six years of age. If his father will not interest himself to help him to clean and clear ideas, he will surely get unclean and badly muddled ideas within a short time thereafter, and think less of his father for it. The psychoanalyst with his dirty mind and dirty methods is ready to poison a little mind out of which can be made to flow reverence, awe and gratitude for the great Giver of all life, the Fountain from which every blessing comes.

Keeping the sexes apart, a skillful educator can do much to help both boys and girls at a time when they need help; and this phase of education is now being carefully considered, and courses in elementary biology taught which really help the children to sane ideas of human society.

Studies of children made by the University of Chicago showed that nearly 100 percent of the boys and about 90 percent of the girls knew all about the bootlegger and his activities. Twenty-six percent of the boys in a New York high school admitted doing some drinking.

An investigation of a group of children showed that they knew all about vote buying. The subjects about which they were most familiar were bootlegging, divorce, sheriff, juvenile court, bail, jury, mayor, election, polling place, ballot, taxes, insurance, bank, rent, and bank deposit, in the order named.

A collector and student of old school readers, L. W. Hendrickson, Jones Spring, W. Va., in several letters to the public press has voiced his suspicion, and we believe he is correct, that “some sinister infernal hand has been tampering with our school readers”. He says, and we believe him, “I have made a careful comparison of the old readers and those now used. It is clear that there has been a serious decline in moral instruction. Not a few of the modern readers are chiefly froth and contain few life-lessons worth remembering.” He thinks McGuffey's, 1879 edition, stands head and shoulders above any published since.

A French master, De Sailly, found that after he had introduced in his school the teaching of kindness to animals the children in the school became more kind to each other. This is as we would expect.

In the Matter of Health

Obviously there is no common sense in spending over $100 a year to educate a child and then not take any interest in his health. A well-educated child in the cemetery has no value. If the child is in need of food, that is something that is relatively easily fixed.

Dallas feeds 20,000 children at a profit, supplying a forty-cent chicken stew for five cents, and ice cream and salad for another five cents. In New York the serving of lunches to 170,000 high school students has grown to a business of almost $2,000,000 yearly. It is conducted at cost. Some thousands of smaller children receive milk from the School Relief Fund regardless of whether school is in session or not.

Capitalism, i.e., 'civilization,’ this system of alternate gluttony and starvation, points out that 90 percent of the school children are victims of bad teeth, abnormal tonsils, defective nose, skin or vision, and the American Medical Association would like to take over the job of rectification, for a consideration. If we let them do it it would be but yet a little while before we would all be working for the doctors; and some of us are already doing it, even as it is.

After what we read in the “Symposium on Medicine”, published in our issue of June 8, we find it impossible to get very enthusiastic over letting the M.D.’s do as they will with the children. We know one young man whose life was ruined by vaccination, administered by an M.D.; and there are many such. At 25 years of age he is unable to accept a position because of constant eruptions on his skin, due to the poisons working within. His parents have expended thousands of dollars to try to effect a cure. For months this past winter, in order to live, he swallowed a tube and every other day had eight quarts of water poured down it, thus giving his stomach and intestines a thorough washing. As a result of this drastic treatment, made necessary by filling his blood with poisons, he is gradually recovering.

We know the facts. Of 5,000 children, 1,000 need special attention. Of that number, 700 are improperly nourished, more than 100 have weak or damaged hearts, 35 or 40 are tubercular, twice as many are suspicious cases, 40 are deficient in hearing, 2 are totally deaf, a number need attention to their eyes, 2 are totally blind, and 35 are seriously crippled. There are stammerers, stutterers, lispers, baby talkers, cleft palates, tied tongues, malocclusion cases, nervous disorders, and a host of other things that need attention, but we cannot feel that any one class of healers has shown such wisdom that all these little folks can be turned over to its tender care to the exclusion of the others. It looks as if the parents ought to have something to say about what is done to their children; and that puts the care of the sick back home, where it belongs. But there seems no objection to having their teeth being cared for at school.

Steps in the Right Direction

Every New York school has at least one room open to the weather, in which children with tubercular tendencies may be rendered robust. As a consequence, tuberculosis is diminishing. To reduce the effects of malnutrition many German communities have established schools in the woods.

In Seattle the children are taught how to relax. Mothers provide their children with mats made of newspaper and covered with wrapping paper. The children are taught to lie on the floor ten minutes each day. They lie on the mat face downward, head turned to the left, right leg straight, left leg bent, most of the weight on the right side, and take to it like a duck to the water.

The suggestion has been made that first aid and home nursing should be taught to all students in the. public schools, and it is common sense. The idea of the medical profession that the common people should be taught nothing about how to care for their bodies is the same as that of the preachers that they must learn nothing about the Bible. Children could at least be taught reasonable care of their eyes, how to remove the wax from their ears, to eliminate white flour products from their dietary, to avoid aluminum cooking utensils, to drink plenty of pure water, and to sleep with the windows open.

Among the Dullards

The world's experience with prodigies has been unsatisfactory. On the other hand, Thomas Edison’s teacher reported that it was a w’aste of time to try to educate him; General Ulysses S. Grant was near the foot of his class at West Point; Henry Ward Beecher was considered a poor scholar; and Charles A. Lindbergh was requested to take his books and leave the University of Wisconsin because his standings were so low.

Sometimes it is defective eyes, and sometimes defective ears, that cause a student to fall behind and get discouraged. Sometimes the other pupils tease him for failing to he promoted, and that disheartens him completely. A Brooklyn girl committed suicide because she made a second failure to graduate from the grammar school. In Mississippi a sixteen-year-old boy burned down the schoolhouse just before it was supposed to open, and when the sheriff came to lug him off he explained that the reason he burned the structure was “just because 1 don’t like school”.

When the unusually bright children are separated from the others it turns them into snobs. Every school has its problem children. Considerable has been accomplished by making individual studies of these. Vienna has been making use of data gathered from the child when it first enters school. Both the child and the parents fill out comprehensive questionnaires, and from time to time these are considered in connection with the teacher's own experiences with him. In emergencies the child and his parents and teachers all meet and go over the situation, and this has been found helpful.

In Dalton, Mass., and in three thousand English schools and about a hundred schools in America, there are no classroom recitations, but the children are dealt with individually.

The Walden plan of teaching makes geography the basis of everything. Babies are admitted as soon as able to walk. First they learn to go about the school, and locate, their room with reference to the rest of the premises. Later they venture out into the streets and locate parks, markets, docks, bridges, public buildings and factories.

Reading is taught more rapidly than formerly by the use of cut-out pictures which must be fitted into certain places, designated by names. By the new method the child learns 190 words in the time usually spent in learning 125.

Little Folks Elsewhere

All Mexico is athirst for education, meanwhile making it hot for the Roman Catholic church that has hitherto held everything back. Within the past five years an entirely new type of school has been opened in the congested districts. The schools are built about a patio. Each room has two or, at most, three walls, the side toward the courtyard being always open. Shower baths, swimming pools and playgrounds are provided.

In Great Britain elementary education is in the hands of the Church of England. It is claimed that the use of men teachers for boy pupils in these schools gives British boys a two years’ start on Americans. This may be true, yet, for some strange reason, Canadian business men are favorable to the employment of American-trained help and prejudiced against those trained in England.

As in America, the British are using wireless, and films and talkies in their schools, but thus far this work is largely experimental. Last year educational talkie films were shown four times to each of seventeen schools on the northwest fringe of London. Four films were shown at each of the four sessions. The results were to be studied; we do not know what conclusions were reached.

School attendance has been falling off somewhat of late, and Britain is now considering adding another year of school life for 400,000 children. There is the same exasperation at examinations as here, but no good way seen to avoid them. Britain claims a half million dull and backward students, and another half million needing medical attention. There is one Soviet school in London, but only for children of Soviet workers. There is a demand that teachers be given a six months’ leave of absence with pay after every ten years of service, so that they may rest, travel or study. There is a recognition of the fact that 100 percent of the children show unmistakable and unreasonable dislike of the people of other nationalities.

All the World Is Astir

All the world is astir on this subject of education and it must be a very painful thing for the Devil to contemplate. As he is the ‘prince of darkness’, and delights to blind the minds of the people, so the Dark Ages of Roman Catholic supremacy and the benighted lands where Roman Catholics have had control of the educational facilities speak for themselves. Just now Spain is crying mightily for thousands of schoolma’ams to come and teach her little folks something, anything, so that they can read and learn and think.

In the French elementary schools everything is provided: books, paper, pencils, ink, and sometimes food and clothing. Norway has a class of ambulatory schools, which are moved about from place to place in the thinly settled districts. In America the opposite principle is employed, of gathering the children up and taking them to one place, rather than moving the teacher around to where the children happen to be. The Lutheran religion is the first subject taught in Norway curricula, and the child is confirmed when he reaches 14 years of age.

Soviet Russia provides free instruction, clothing, shoes and food up to seventeen years of age. The schools are open seven days a week; but two of the days, remote from each other, are used for reading, excursions, lectures and play. All punishments are prohibited, there are no examinations, and the Soviet religion of atheism is a required subject.

In Stockholm, Sweden, the board of education has installed individual bathtubs for the pupils. The child is assigned an individual tub, to correspond with his desk. At certain specified times the child must bathe, and while he is bathing his clothing is fumigated.

All over Turkey, and over much of Arabia, Persia, India and China comes a new and insistent demand for food for the mind. Japan has outstripped them all. In forty years illiteracy was wiped out, and today the Japanese, as far as head knowledge goes, are second to none. One could wish that hearts had expanded as fast as their heads.

The world is all unknowingly getting ready for the Millennium. While much of the education by movie and radio and otherwise may not be approved, and may even be deplored, it all has its effect in waking up people’s minds and getting them ready for something better, the pure truth, when it comes, as it will, to every door and to every heart.

Injustices in Misreading Meters By W. G. Beasor (Kentucky)

WHEN I recently remonstrated with the man who read my gas meter that he had probably over-read it, he admitted, after looking at the meter a second time, that he did inadvertently sometimes make a mistake, but added that, as the meter automatically adjusts itself, there is no harm done, as it evens up the next month.

But the fact is that with these sliding scales of charges and with the insertion of minimum charges, service charges, etc., these things do not now work out financially as they are supposed to do; and I give you herewith the proof.

Suppose the incorrect reading of the meter to be 800; the previous reading was 780; the customer is charged for 20 cubic feet of gas. The correct reading was 790; the customer should be charged for but 10 cubic feet.

Suppose that next month the usage of gas is the same, that is, 10 cubic feet. The meter will show that the account with the customer is balanced, but the finances do not work out that way.

The particular utility company which serves this district charges a minimum, though the meter shows that no gas was used. It charges the first 4 cubic feet of gas at the rate of 25c a cubic foot, and the next 16 cubic feet at 16c a cubic foot. Now for the finances:

Charge on the first bill is for 20 cubic feet, reckoned as above

Charge on the second bill is for the minimum, with no gas used

Total

Charge on the first bill should have been for 10 cubic feet

Charge for the second bill should have been the same

Total

From the foregoing it is evident that the customer, which, in this case is myself, is set back 64c by the apparently unessential error of not reading my meter correctly. A consideration of the matter brings to light the following facts:

The utility company can lose by the meter’s being under-read. If the consumer uses only the minimum for several months, and the meter has been over-read enough, it will not adjust for several months. There is no way of accurately adjusting finances in connection with losses caused by misreading of meters. What is said here applies also to electricity and water readings.

PROBABLY as a result of abandoning the gold standard, Britain now has 200,000 less unemployed than a year ago and is today the most prosperous country in the world.

Wheel way of the World’s Fair

THE wheelway of the World's Fair at Chicago will be twenty-two feet wide, and segregated from pedestrian traffic. Sixty buses are being built, each with a capacity of ninety passengers, to travel the wheelway. The fare will be 10c.

More Ancient Cities Found

ANCIENT cities of great size have been recently found in the jungles of Yucatan and in southeastern Bolivia. The existence of the Bolivian city was known for centuries, but not its location.

One Percent Got Jobs

IT IS said that there were 50,000 applicants for jobs with the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The applicants were not all disappointed : 450 of them got jobs. The other 49,550 got the usual, “We’re sorry, but we are full up.”

Oranges in Palestine

PALESTINIAN climate has been found fine for oranges. The pineapple orange, which is an orange with a rich pineapple flavor, is much appreciated, as is also the Japanese orange, an unusually sweet variety, less acid than usual.

Farm Holiday in Iowa

A HUGE mass meeting of farmers in Iowa decided to declare a farm holiday for thirty days, beginning July 4, in which time they would neither buy nor sell anything. This holiday or farmers’ strike is expected to bring about an upward movement in prices of farm products.

Withhold All Rights

BY THEIR own confession the officials of

Bell county, Kentucky, admit that they withhold all rights from anyone who even thinks “Red”. This is in a county where miners when they work rarely draw more than $5 a week. A group of investigators says: “We found the press corrupted, the county government openly controlled by the coal operators, the governors evasive.”

IN THE London area last year there were but 109 murders, and only 10 remained unsolved at the close of the year. Offenses of burglaries and breaking and entering have nearly trebled since 1913. The World War and the motor car are given as the explanation of the increase.

Herrings in British Columbia

HERRINGS were so plentiful in some of the inlets of British Columbia this past spring that the natives took them out in great quantities with such implements as rakes. The crush at times was so great it was difficult to operate a boat.

New York’s Cow Population

IN 1910 New York state had a cow population of 1,410,000, and in 22 years the number had been increased but 1,000; but look at all the steaks and roast beef the New Yorkers have had in the meantime! There is one cow to every nine persons in the state.

Nashville Being Deeply Stirred

NASHVILLE is being deeply stirred in a “religious” way. On Monday, April 25, Calvert, the famous magician, performed for the Missionary Society of the Hobson Methodist Church and on May 7 David Rose, the young magician, performed for the Christ Church Young People’s Service League.

A Tobacco Angel in Tennessee

THE Presbyterian Advance of Nashville has been arguing the question as to whether the Presbyterian and Reformed churches of Tennessee should have a tobacco angel, i.e., as to whether or not the church paper should publish tobacco advertisements, and finally concluded not to do so.

What You Get for $25

IF YOU send $25 to “Father” Stedman, Monastery of the Precious Blood, 5300 Fort Hamilton Parkway, Brooklyn, N. Y., you will get a Shrine Picture Certificate which may cost 5c each at wholesale, and also a Triple Novena Home Plaque, which may cost another nickel. And then you will get $24.90 worth of experience, which is something for which people have always been willing to pay well. The amount may be paid in installments at $1 a month.

New Potatoes from Bolivia

PRETTY soon we shall be eating new varieties of potatoes. Uncle Sam's experts are in Bolivia, the potato center of the world, tasting the 150 varieties grown there and bringing back with them those that they think will appeal to our appetites.

Where Salary Came From

SALARY comes from the word ‘"salt”, and refers to the time when the Roman soldier was given a cash allowance so that he might purchase a certain amount of salt, for use with his other rations. To say a man is not worth his salt is merely another way of saying he does not earn his salary.

The Cargo of the Manhattan

THE other day the municipal tug Manhattan carried out to sea and dumped 4,402 pistols and revolvers, 638 rifles and shotguns, and 340 knives and blackjacks, all taken by the police from lawbreakers in the last five months. Thus have the World War and Prohibition ‘made the world safe for democracy’.

The Busy Boll Weevil

TALK about the busy bee! It has been estimated that the possible number of descendants of one pair of boll weevils surviving the winter could be 12,755,100 in the course of one season. It is believed that this will be a bad year for boll weevils on account of a warm winter followed by a wet summer.

86% of the Value Gone

A LITTLE item in the New York Times, mentioning the losses in 240 of the principal stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange, says, “The loss since the end of September, 1929, in the 240 issues used in this compilation has been 86 percent of their value at that time.” It won’t be long now.

Lose Their Jobs and Husbands Too

WHEN the Texas and Pacific railway made the ruling that married women with husbands working may not retain their jobs, eight Texas women brought suit for divorce, only to learn, too late, that the order applied as of the date written. Now they have lost their jobs and their husbands too, and it serves them right. The men are well rid of such excess baggage.

The Very Reverend Dean Inge

THE Very Reverend Dean Inge, of St. Paul’s

Cathedral, London, has distinguished himself by the expressed opinion that ‘the fits of divine inspiration in which the Apostle Paul received revelations from above were nothing more than epileptic fits’. He is one of the leading lights in the Church of England.

“The Law Is Done”

AN EDITORIAL in the Philadelphia Daily

News says: “The law in this country is done. It is now little more than an instrument of annoyance for fairly honest citizens. The law enforcement agencies, such as police, are honeycombed with representatives of the various mobs of criminals that rule us.”

Some Satisfaction, Anyway

THERE is some satisfaction, however small, in knowing that one of America’s crudest injunction judges, one who did everything he could to prevent his fellow men from winning a just strike, is now serving a year in prison in North Carolina for mutilating the records to protect his daughter who had stolen $4,000 of revenue money.

36 Railroads Helped

EVEN if Uncle Sam has done nothing to help unemployment it is good to know that he has helped somebody. Of the 78 railroads that have come, hat in hand, asking for $349,000,000, the Interstate Commerce Commission has approved the petitions of 36 and in due time the Reconstruction Finance Corporation will bestow upon them $164,608,513 of the people’s money.

The First Air-Cooled Sleeping Car Train

THE credit of installing the first air-cooled sleeping car train goes to the Chesapeake & Ohio, with the inauguration of a new train, The George Washington, between Washington and Chicago, April 24. Fresh air is drawn in from the outside, cleansed and humidified. Used air is exhausted by fans. Temperature and humidity are regulated automatically. The Baltimore & Ohio has ordered the equipment for seventy-six cars, and quite likely the best trains on all the principal roads will be air-cooled in the near future. The first roads to use cooling equipment (in dining cars only) were the M. K. & T. (the “Katy”) and the Santa Fe.

War Talk in Russia

WAR talk in Russia is widespread, and there is general apprehension that war will come soon, either with Japan or some other power or powers. Men, women and children are being taught how to use firearms and bombs; even the lobbies of movies and theaters are decorated with charts intended to aid the military instruction of the masses.

Middle West Utilities Company

IN THE year 1929 the common stock of the

Middle West Utilities Company sold at $565 a share. It is a holding company, controlling other holding companies, in some instances five places removed from the operating company. The same stock is now selling at 4c a share. The losses of the bankers and security holders run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

307 Foreign Conferences

IN THE past twelve years, at an expense of $12,790,255, the United States has participated in 201 foreign conferences and 106 foreign commissions. The only benefit received is a deep-laid, ineradicable impression that Uncle Sam never made such a big fool of himself as he did when he started mixing up in Europe’s entanglements.

Nicaraguans Serve Notice

General Avgustino Sandino, Nicaraguan insurgent leader, in an open letter to President Hoover and the American people, has urged that Uncle Sam withdraw all his fighting forces from Nicaragua before the November elections or there will be many of them whose bodies will rot in the Nicaraguan jungles. He insists on a Nicaragua run by Nicaraguans.

The Mysterious Fires at Bladenboro

AT BLADENBORO, N. C., the home, of Mr.

and Mrs. Williamson has been the scene of numerous mysterious fires of unexplained origin. Curtains, bedspreads, tablecloths, and articles of clothing, have taken fire and burned, but without the fire’s spreading to articles in immediate contact therewith. Investigations by fire experts and officials leave no clues. We charge this up to the work of demons.

Would Run Out All the Aliens

THE Daughters of the American Revolution, in session at the national capital, made it known that they wanted all aliens rounded up and thrown out of the country. These are the men that have made their roads and bridges and the homes in which they live. These useful men are to be thrown out and the rest of us can live in a land bossed by⁷ a lot of old women who have hardly enough sense to feed themselves and whose ancestors would certainly be ashamed of their progeny if they could see and hear* them.

Insull Not So Bad Off

NOBODY need shed any tears over Samuel Insull. But recently he was worth $100,000,000. Just now he is not worth much, and has resigned all his jobs; but the man is 73 years old, and it is time he quit anyway. He is expected to live in retirement in England on pensions of $18,000 a year which will be paid him by the utility companies he headed.

Country Banks and Local Loans

Congressman Patman, of Texas, has made the claim that country banks lose less than one percent a year on their local loans, but their great losses and their ruin has been on other than local loans, which latter loans were advised by the comptroller of the currency. In other words, the ruin of the country banks is chargeable to advice received from Washington.

50,000,000 Are on Relief

A QUITE lengthy survey of world unemployment leads T. J. C. Martyn, an editorial writer for the New York Times, to remark that “the number of persons who are dependent on their own resources, or on private or public relief in one form or another, cannot be less than 47,790,686. And it is probably many millions in excess of the 50,000,000 mark”.

The Prince as a Farmer

THE prince of Wales, who claims that he has had twenty years of experience as a farmer, has been advising British farmers to pack their produce more attractively and to sell through marketing organizations controlled by themselves. We don’t want to say anything to discourage the prince, but we wonder how he would make out if he had to get his income from the soil, and do the work himself, and on top of that pay big taxes to a lot of drones, princes and such, who never did a stroke of work in their lives.

The Nine Finest Buildings

FIFTY leading architects have named as the finest buildings in America: Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D. C.; Empire State Building, New York city; Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln, Nebr.; Morgan Library, New York city; St. Thomas’ Church, New York city; Daily News Building, Chicago; and Scottish Rite Temple, Washington, D. C.

Twenty Years After

TWENTY years after the Supreme Court split up the Standard Oil Company because it was such a naughty company, it is coming back together again, very much bigger than it ever was. Unless present plans miscarry, the Standard Oil of California and the Standard of Indiana are coming back to the Standard of New Jersey, which was the chief sinner in days of old.

Reverend Tucker Is Right

THE Chicago Herald and Examiner reports Rev. Irwin St. John Tucker, pastor of St.

Stephen’s Episcopal Church, as saying that “by showing a minimum result in moral good done, distress relieved and poor fed, as against enormous sums invested in buildings and personnel, the church has become little better than a racket". Irwin, you have hit the right idea. Now, when all the dominies get the correct thought, and conclude to quit the racket and lead an honest life, what an improvement we shall have in the world!

What the President Is Concerned With

Oswald Garrison Villard always writes with a punch. In a recent issue of The Nation he says:

A genuine move toward disarmament in the United States without regard to what other countries may do is absolutely essential. As we have repeatedly pointed out, budget-making starts off now with a fixed charge of $3,000,000,000—more than $1,000,000,000 for veterans and pensions, more than $1,000,000,000 for the public debt and debt service, and $700,000,000 or more for army and navy expenditures. It is idle to say that all these are fixed expenditures that cannot be reduced. If Mr. Hoover had wisdom, courage, and force he could compel Congress to deal with the veteran and military expenditures before the coming summer is over, but the president is chiefly concerned with saving the bank's and the railroads—big business, big business, big business.

Bad Flour from Farm Board Wheat

INSPECTORS for the Baltimore chamber of commerce and the city health bureau condemned two carloads of flour milled from Federal Farm Board wheat for distribution to the jobless as unfit for human food. What an interesting commentary that makes on the huge salaries paid to Farm Board officials, and on the ethics of the huge milling concerns that made the -wheat into flour.

The Banks of Manitoba

IN THE United States we are used to the great financial powers’ running things political; but it is usually done under cover. In Manitoba, Canada, the banks recently ordered the. premier to assemble the legislature and then told the legislature, through the premier, exactly what they wanted to say, even to the dotting of an “i” and the crossing of a “t". The story got out and has ‘riled’ the Canadian people considerably.

Cruelty to Horses in France

TWO Britishers who followed the fortunes of 77 work horses from Argentina to the time they were tied up for butchery at Vaugirard, France, report the most shocking cruelties practiced upon these animals. Every horse landed was dripping with sweat, every one was lame, many were almost starved to death, and the use of the running noose on both the lower jaw and the neck were common practices. A frightened horse was struck 39 times with the whip after the observer began to count. All this was in France.

“The Rocket” at Reading Terminal

IN THE lobby of the Reading Terminal at Philadelphia, on a piece of the original track on which it began to run in 1838, stands The Rocket. Built in London, when it was retired in 1879, after 41 years of useful service, it had hauled trains of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company 310,164 miles, some of them as fast as 30 miles an hour.

The rails on which The Rocket originally ran weighed 45 pounds per yard; now the Reading uses rails weighing 130 pounds per yard. The weight of The Rocket itself is 8.4 tons, while the latest modern Reading freight locomotive weighs twenty-four times as much. It was one of the first locomotives that ever used anthracite coal as fuel.

The "Public Utilities Fortnightly”

THE Public Utilities Fortnightly, published and paid for by the public utility companies and distributed free to libraries and colleges, continues the work of the Power Trust in a less crude form than that work was carried on four years ago. The magazine has the appearance of a high-class professional or engineering magazine.

A Bear Hunt in Brooklyn

WE ARE quite civilized in Brooklyn; we don’t have many bear hunts, but we had one the other day. A lady boarder of a pet shop got out of her cage and went visiting. She tipped over a refrigerator and impolitely ate everything in it; then she went visiting and nearly scared a woman and her son into fits. It took several policemen with scantlings and a rope, and the boarding-house keeper with a handful of sweet cookies, to finally induce the lady to come back into her cage and behave herself.

Demon in a Court of Law

IN A LAWSUIT in England a Mrs. Morris, spiritist, suing a newspaper for libel, became demonized while the judge was addressing the jury, and the demon interrupted the court and attempted to influence its decision. When the court ordered the woman removed a deep masculine voice came from her throat and said, “Do not touch her until I have left her body.” The demon had the insolence to address the court as “0 brother judge”, but it did not do him any good. The judge stuck to his bench, refusing to be influenced by demons, and the woman lost her case.

Cigarettes for Women!

THE magazine Labor, referring to the R. J.

Reynolds Tobacco Company, says: “During the boom period of 1929, girls engaged in making ‘Camels’ were paid as low as 10c an hour and kept ‘speeded up’ to a breaking point. And during this same year, the head of the company was building himself a $5,000,000 home with 374 rooms and solid gold plumbing fixtures at Winston-Salem, N. C.” The son of this outstanding and shining example of Big Business has a combined yacht and freighter registered under the flag of the republic of Panama with a captain and crew that get no wages, but merely food and a bunk.

Definition of a Racket

Frank Loesch, head of the Chicago Crime Commission, gives the following definition of some w^rell known terms: “Racketeers are people who maintain themselves by working a racket. The racket is a scheme for making a dishonest livelihood by crooked, illegal or criminal practices, or all combined. The racket maintains itself by the industry of others.” What an excellent definition he gives of what we may term ‘the steeple racket’!

Great Fall of Ashes in Argentina

ON APRIL 11 a string of Andean volcanoes 400 miles long roared into activity and sent millions of tons of ashes out over Argentina. The blanket was estimated as some 700 miles long by 400 miles broad. It is estimated that more than 3,000 tons fell in Buenos Aires city alone. In numerous instances trains were delayed as much as sixteen hours. Schools were dismissed and night lights were turned on at midday. In some places the ashes fell to a depth of 14 inches. No deaths were reported.

Methodists Tired of Bunk

INTIMATING that the Methodists are getting tired of bunk, Bishop A. W. Leonard of that church, in an address at Atlantic City, wants the church hereafter to be freed from the “blight of evangelism caused in other years by the claptrap of mountebanks working on overwrought emotionalism”. As Billy Sunday might not like this reflection on his converts, we offer these acknowledgments in his behalf. Let the Methodists discard the bunk and go back to the Bible. It would be a good change.

“Clean Hands and Pure Hearts”

The new York Times, referring editorially to the wheat which the richest country in the world finally and grudgingly gave so that ten million of its citizens should not starve to death, says, interestingly, if not convincingly: “The many have brought grist to this national mill and have entrusted the distribution of these elements of life to those of clean hands and pure, hearts toward humankind, who have not lifted their souls unto the vanity of this world nor sworn deceitfully.” If anything would get the politicians and their friends to heaven, that ought to do it; don’t you think?

Cop Shot While Training

IT IS not only honest people that aspire to places on the police force, but sometimes the rogues try to get on the force, too. In Brooklyn an honest policeman caught three men robbing a safe. He had to kill one of them to effect the capture of the other two, but when they came into court it transpired that one of them was a candidate for a job on the force and stood high in the list of appointees. What a policeman he would have made!

Wild Ride on a Tractor

IN CALIFORNIA the driver of a tractor fainted and fell from his seat. He had as a passenger at the time a four-year-old boy. Left on the rearing and plunging machine the boy pulled first one lever after another, and after a ride through two fences and across a gully he had the satisfaction of stopping the machine on the edge of a forty-foot precipice which would have wrecked it and probably brought death to himself.

Like a Child Blowing Up a Balloon

Senator David I. Walsh, of Massachusetts, puts it well when he says: "After the war came a period of gambling unprecedented and unparalleled in the history of this or any other country. It set a record for reckless speculation. From the prevalent financial practices there could have been no other effect than the stock crash and the resultant depression. It was like a child blowing up a balloon to the bursting point.”

$1,000 Funeral for a Dog

Frank Callahan, wealthy turfman and sportsman of Tiffin, Ohio, has just buried his 11-year-old Pomeranian dog. The dog was put to rest in a $500 bronze casket designed for a baby, the most expensive and beautiful that could be obtained. Flowers were banked in profusion around the casket. There were four pallbearers. Children walked ahead carrying flowers. The undertaker read a eulogy. Callahan will build a mausoleum, so that the dog won’t have to lie in the ground. The prospects are that this coming winter there will be thousands of American babies that will die of starvation. Wonder what ‘■'church” Mr. Callahan supports, and why he didn’t have a horse-collar theologian preach the funeral sermon.

“There Must Be a Hell"

THE bishop of Toledo, Karl J. Alter, made the ponderous and powerful statement that "there must be a hell if there is a heaven”; but as he was then trying to work up a party of pilgrims to the Dublin Eucharistic Congress we suspect that when he said "there must be a hell” he was thinking of what a misfortune it would be to him if he failed to get enough pilgrims together to make the trip to Dublin a commercially successful one.

A Ship Canal Across Southern France

THE French are considering the construction -*• of a ship canal from Bordeaux to Narbonne, which would save about 800 miles on ship travel between northern and southern Europe. The length of the canal would be about 300 miles. There would be 16 locks, each with a drop of about 70 feet. There is now a small canal along this route. Such a canal would be of military value to France, but could hardly be made a paying proposition commercially.

The Silly Ceremonies of Maundy

LONDON dotes on silly ceremonies. Nobody knows how Maundy Thursday came to be so called, but for an hour the king and queen of England, the lord high almoner, the children of the almonry, and the yeomen of the guards, all dressed in the folderol of centuries ago, handed out specially minted coins to a carefully chosen lot of old men and women in London on Maundy Thursday (the day before Good Friday), and the newspapers gurgled and blurbed and slobbered sublimely.

Christians and the World War

Dr. O. E. Goddard, of Methodist Episcopal

Church, South, speaking: "With great humiliation we must confess that the church and church people have not all been as firm and uncompromising in opposition to war as Christian teaching requires us to be. Instead of there being comparatively few conscientious objectors to war, there should be millions of conscientious objectors. Yes, every Christian should be a conscientious objector. War and the Golden Rule cannot be reconciled. War and the law of love are irreconcilable. The Christian philosophy of life will abolish war. If Christians had been conscientious and assertive there could not have been the horrible World War.”

A Glassmaker’s Invention

Mr. Canton, a glassmaker, has invented a form of glass snow, made by spraying molten glass under very high pressure through very small holes into a vacuum chamber. As the particles enter the chamber they explode into a form of snow, the sharp cutting edges of which, loaded with poisons, would destroy all life in any district over which it was widely scattered.

The Council of National Defense

USING the World War the so-called Council of National Defense was really a legal illegality, if one may use such a term. It acted in contradiction to and in defiance of the United States Constitution, but it was constituted to do that very thing.

When the World War was over, honest men and sensible men wanted this vicious legislation removed from the books, but it has remained there, and is there at this moment. Senator Thomas, of Oklahoma, who has introduced a resolution for the repeal of this law, says:

The law, to be sure, should have been repealed as soon as the war was over. Forgotten by all but a few for more than a decade, it is in as good working order today as ever. All the president need do is to make his appointments and the appointees will possess the full powers originally vested in the council. The next move would be the organization of local committees throughout the United States to enforce the council’s orders; give direction, in the administration’s interest, to all mediums of publicity, and brand as sedition the slightest sign of resistance or even adverse criticism —in short, establish fascism.

United States Loses 86% of Its Russian Trade THE state department of the United States is gratified to learn that by carefully insulting the Soviet Union at every convenient opportunity, and denying the existence of a government that all the world knows is one of the most stable on the. planet, the Russian trade with America has within the past year been decreased by 86 percent. Whereas, in the first six months of 1931, the Soviet purchases in the United States were $40,593,000, yet careful listening to the advice of Big Business reduced this amount, in the first half of 1932, to $5,549,000.

While the United States has thus been proving to the Russian people the full worth of President Wilson’s promise that the way we would treat their efforts at self-government would be “the acid test” of our friendship, the Germans, who did not shoot off their mouths so much in protestations of how much they loved the Russian people, accepted orders from them last year amounting to $230,000,000. The 'square heads’ have some sense.

Of course, it is a grand thing to have Teapot Dome statesmen that are unwilling to recognize such a 'crooked thing’ as the Soviet Union. Nevertheless there are those who will sigh when they think of the Soviet order for 475,000 tons of steel placed in Germany in April and May and wonder at the ‘wisdom’ of our ‘great’ men. Meantime, Britain’s trade is three times that of the United States. As America loses the remaining 14 percent of its Russian trade, Britain will be ready to receive it, and to extend long credits, too.

It is fitting that the next American president should be elected from the party which has for its emblem the jackass. There will be no occasion to upset the personnel of the state department if there should be a change of administration. In no possible way could it better live up to its reputation than it has under the past administration, in its dealing with Russia.

The Chesapeake & Ohio’s Crack Train

THE George Washington” is the world’s first air-cooled and conditioned sleeping car train. It employs the scientific principles of cooling and purifying air, found in modern public buildings and in the finest homes. There is always the perfect temperature winter and summer. There is a minimum of noise and an absence of dust, dirt, smoke or cinders. It is the first long-distance train with every car kept healthfully cool and clean by this modern magic, including cars for passengers who do not desire Pullman accommodations.

The interior of a car on The George Washington is as dustless and as spotless as a room in a finely kept home. All fresh air taken into the cars is scientifically cleaned and conditioned. All dirt, dust and cinders are excluded. The usual train noises are very much subdued. Passengers can carry on a conversation across the aisle in a normal tone of voice.

Temperature and humidity are regulated automatically. The inside temperature of the cars can be held as low as sixty-five degrees in the most sultry -weather. While this is not desirable, it illustrates the efficiency of the system.

“The Workshop of God”

WHEN the Jesuits broke in their new prison chapel at Harts Island, The Bronx, “Father” Cotter referred to the island prison as “The workshop of God”; “Father” Cotter went himself one better by saying, “Our Lord must be grateful to the city administration for giving him a workshop where he can be among the people he wishes to be with”; and Cardinal Hayes put on the finishing touches by blessing the prison chapel and saying that “the prisons of the world are sanctified by God”. Now you know why all the convents and monasteries are built like prisons.

Prison Beatings in Portsmouth, Ohio

IN THE Portsmouth (Ohio) prison the beating of prisoners is practiced, and, as it is condoned by the. sheriff, the beatings are really his own, though actually done by the prisoners themselves. Under his sanction the prisoners are given leave to assault each new arrival, and to flog him with ten strokes of the strap, so Sheriff Bridwell is reported as “explaining”.

A lot of petty rules, supposedly made by the prisoners, but sanctioned by the sheriff, have been devised, and for every violation the prisoner is strapped. If he can pay the fines levied he is not strapped. The cash thus raised is used to buy tobacco and candy, so Sheriff Bridwell is quoted as saying.

The sheriff who has thus confessed to permitting prisoners under his care to assault one another, and to collect fines from one another, intimates that these illegal practices are common in Ohio, and seems rather proud that he has participated in them. He needs an extended rest, in prison.

Satan’s Kingdom Is Hard To Manage

IT IS getting harder and harder to hold things in check, and as Satan’s kingdom gets nearer its end he is finding it harder to manage. One can but wonder what he thought the other day when a mob of 3,000 unemployed tried to force their way into the St. Louis city hall. The papers said they were communists, but the papers would say that anyway, if they were unemployed.

The account shows that tear-gas bombs were used and four persons were shot, one of whom was working across the street from where the excitement occurred. The mob did not gain access to the city hall, but it is said that while they were clamoring for admittance the board of aidermen passed two bills to raise money for relief of the starving. No doubt the demonstration helped the speedy passage of the legislation.

The next day, and for days afterwards, the so-called “B.E.F.” (bonus army) at Washington gave the authorities there a great deal of anxiety, On several occasions they picketed the capitol, and for a period a considerable group marched about it day and night.

During these days the Big Business crowd was helped to the extent of hundreds of millions of dollars. The only help offered to the veterans was to pay their fare back to the point where they came from, and charge it to their accounts. They became restless and as soon as Congress had adjourned President Hoover asked the army to expel them from Washington. With the aid of cavalry, tanks, tear-gas and bayonets this was quickly done, and the pitiful shacks of those that had been accounted Uncle Sam's heroes and defenders in 1918 were given to the flames, and they were scattered.

Britain Living in Dreamland

iscouni Rothermere, writing in the London Daily Mail, insists that Britain cannot re

cover unless and until she cuts her annual expenditure, both national and local, by one-half. He points out that, though in the World War Britain expended $55,000,000,000 for purely destructive purposes, and though, when the war was over, there was never before such great need of retrenchment, the actual retrenchment was never faced until September, 1931. He estimates that to keep the national finances from collapse the expenditures must be cut by not less than $1,250,000,000 a year. He says:

In the last financial year before the war the outgoings of the British Government were £197,490,000.

Our exports of British products were in 1914 (to take the month of May as a basis of comparison) £42,000,000 a month.

In the last financial year our national expenditure was £803,000,000.

In May of the present year our exports of British products were at the rate of £30,196,000.

This little schedule contains the whole secret of our grave predicament. It shows that, whereas before the war our annual exports of British goods were two and a half times our national expenditure, in the last financial year our national expenditure was nearly two and a half times our present annual exports.

Homesteading in Pennsylvania

PENNSYLVANIA, it is estimated, has 62,500 abandoned farms, and another 300,000 acres which would be available immediately for farm purposes. A current proposal for aiding the unemployed is to place them on these farms, and advance them sufficient money to finance them for three years, after which, it is calculated, they should be self-supporting. It seems that all that is needed is the money to make it go; and that is all that is needed anyway.

Another Prison Murder in Florida

THE progress any community has made toward civilization may be adjudged from the way it treats the helpless, those who, for any reason, are wards. A prisoner is supposed to be somebody that is morally ill, and needing the care of the state to fit him to properly discharge the duties of citizenship. Florida at present may lay claim to being one of the most backward, benighted commonwealths in the world.

At a prison camp only eleven miles out of Jacksonville Arthur J. Maillert was done to death recently under conditions rivaling the Inquisition. First, this lad was confined in a barrel, with slats nailed both ways, only his head projecting. He gnawed his way out and ran naked into the swamps.

Weak and wounded by the thorns, he was recaptured and thrust into a sweat box three feet square. His feet were made fast in wooden stocks and a chain was let down from the roof and fastened around his neck, so that he could not sit down; he could stand in only one position. In the morning he was found dead. He had fainted and strangled during the night.

The two men who were responsible for this death, Captain G. W. Courson and Sol Higginbotham, hasten to explain that, had he lived, they had intended to give this poor boy one ounce of bread a day, and some water. They will be tried for murder in the first degree, and should both be hanged.

A Baptist clergyman, Rev. Isaac N. Moore, has rushed to the defense of Courson. This, of itself, shows the depths to which Courson has fallen. The clergy are the only people in the world that defend the Devil. They claim that, from the first, he has been faithfully doing the very things he was created to do. The doctrine of eternal torture seems to them very reasonable and just. They stand up for their father.

As soon as the guards were arrested the state transferred 15 convicts to a point 240 miles away, so that they would not be readily available to testify against the brutalities of Courson and Higginbotham. They had refused to sign statements testifying that there were no brutalities. Is this the same Captain Higginbotham, professional prison guard, who, in the prison camp of the Putnam Lumber Co., Florida, whipped a dying man, Ned Thomson, in 1922, and murdered Martin Talbert of North Dakota in the same camp in 1923 ?

Willing to Take Anything Valuable

MANY churches within 500 miles of Philadelphia advertise that they are now willing to take any or all of the valuables their parishioners have. They list the items; and we copy the list, as showing how willing they are to do a good job: “Jewelry, antique or modern, broken or otherwise, such as watches, chains, fobs, seals, pendants, lockets, charms, brooches, rings, breastpins, stick pins, cuff buttons, buckles, cameos (shell or stone, set or unset), precious and semiprecious stones (set or unset). Any article or scraps of gold, gold plate, silver or platinum, spectacle frames, fountain pens, dental bridges, crowns and plates, toilet sets, mesh bags, trinkets, gold and silver cases of all kinds, vanity boxes; sterling silver tea sets, knives, forks and spoons (sets or broken lots), hollowware, dishes (compote), vases, candelabrums and sticks, flatware, souvenir spoons; plated silverware, cake and fruit dishes, ice pitchers, cruets, bonbon and nut dishes; Sheffield plate, trays, plates, candlesticks, cake and fruit stands; coins and coin collections; postage stamp collections ; curios and collections of curios, articles of historic interest, prints, letters, manuscripts, medals; miniatures, painted on ivory, wood or metal, miniature frames; ivory carvings, tusks, images; old laces, samplers, shawls; bric-a-brac or any ‘old^- thing of merit.” We just remark that if you live near Philadelphia and have any bridge or crown work you had better learn to keep your mouth shut and keep away from the undertakers and the churches. A Latrobe church, in on this scheme, says: “To give you an idea of the possibilities, just remember that if we can, by our efforts, reclaim a nugget of pure gold no larger than a hen’s egg, the church will secure $250.00. Many churches have produced several such nuggets.” And yet if we compared the church to an old hen they would think we are mean.

Asking for Trouble By H. F. G. (Northern European Office)

"FALSE religion, and therefore the Devil’s religion, banded together with commercial giants and conscienceless politicians called ‘statesmen’ and thus constituting Satan’s organization, has run roughshod over the people and crushed the people into the earth. Anyone daring to raise a protesting voice has been quickly dispatched. Cruel laws of inquisition and espionage and spying have been made and maliciously enforced against innocents. Autocratic rulers have dragged the poor and defenseless before them and caused such to suffer cruel death, and this has been done to gratify a wicked passion. While a few have lived in luxury and wantonly flourished upon their ill-got gains from the fruits of honest toil, billions have unjustly suffered poverty, starvation, disease and cruel death. When one part of Satan’s organization has become offended against another, or when the wicked spirit of conquest has goaded the rulers on, the common people have been horned and pushed like dumb, driven cattle into the slaughter pen, there to fight against one another and to die. This the rulers have brought about and done that their ambitious, insatiable desire might be gratified.”

In these words Judge Rutherford describes in his work Light the activities of the satanic organization. Quite appropriately we-find in the press a report of some revelations made in the French parliament by the deputy Paul Faure, of which we give a short resume.

Both before and since the World War half the world has been receiving money from France, and this all the easier, the larger their orders to Creusot-Schneider, the big French munition and armament manufacturers, have been. The latter have been paid, whereas in a good many cases the French savings have been lost.

Thus 16,000,000,000 francs lent to Russia to arm herself vanished; likewise 2,779,000,000 francs lent to Mexico were lost, and many other sums equally important which had been lent to different countries, the total of which reaches the fantastic amount of 190,000,000,000 francs (paper), which France will never see again. For the purpose of transacting the necessary loans on certain occasions banks with interests in both countries were specially established.

Recently France granted a loan to Hungary, which is under a dictatorship of monarchial tendencies, and the financial assistance was negotiated through a bank in which the French armaments firm is directly interested, and was destined, in part, for secret armaments. This same bank controls a good part of the best Czechoslovakian industries, and, among others, the well known arms factory Skoda.

The same has happened in Yugoslavia and Rumania, who also have borrowed money from France for the purchase of armaments.

Hungary could mobilize 300,000 men, and, with its desires for revenge and the establishment of a monarchy, is the greatest danger of war in the Balkans and against which the ‘Little Entente’, with France’s support, was formed. A coup d’etat is hatching there, and if successful would enter into open cooperation with the German Fascist party of Hitler. Faure further accuses the industrials controlled by Creusot-Schneider of contributing toward the funds of Hitler’s party.

A similar thing has happened with the great German armaments firm of Krupp, who, being prevented by the Versailles Treaty from manufacturing arms in Germany, have transferred themselves to Poland, where they are working in conjunction with ‘Schneider’ in the same way as before the war the two were associated in the development of the Russian armaments factory (or arsenal) of Putilov.

Thus we see International Big Business, selfish and conscienceless, united for the purpose of exploiting the people, using the savings and investments of the working classes to arm both camps: both the allies and the enemies of their country. And, lest the nations should come to an understanding, they do not shrink from using the most shameful methods to foster misunderstanding, distrust and fear among the peoples, financing hostile movements in other countries, which the press and politicians under their control present to the people as a danger for the country and a reason for increasing armaments. The dividends, their god Mammon, are all that interest them, whatever may be the suffering which millions of innocent victims may have to endure for their sakes. Can anyone doubt that this is the Devil’s organization?

How glad we are to know that the reign and dominion of Satan will now soon end for ever: that Jehovah has established his organization under Christ, and that this will bring lasting peace, health and life to all the people of earth.

Why the Collapse of Morality By B.J. Balestreri (Quebec)

UNDER the caption of “The Collapse of Morality’" you quote in the issue of February 3 an excerpt from the Toronto Evening Telegram reporting an address of Rev. Michael Pathe, C.S.S.R. (whatever that means). With your kind permission I should like to make a few observations on the subject.

That moral standards are being given a different interpretation today from that of two or three decades ago is a commonly accepted fact, and one that causes considerable alarm in certain quarters. But to be merely alarmed and yet continue blindly on is not sufficient: one should try to discover what are the causes of our moral depression and how it will be possible to bring about a recovery. What is responsible for the collapse ? Is it a tendency inherent in man to lean towards depravity ? Is it the result of social conditions? Is it because of lack of teaching and understanding of God’s principles? Is it because the church has perverted moral doctrines in order to attain certain worldly ends? In my humble opinion it would seem that a combination of the above causes is in some measure at the bottom of morality's being at a discount.

Rev. Pathe has done well not to touch anything outside the question of sex, because in that field the transgressions of the institution he represents are not quite so glaring. Still there are some anomalies even here which it is right to point out and which he has taken care to forget. “Outside the Roman Catholic church the fundamental law of nature and of God is cast out. But it is sadder still to have to acknowledge that inside the church matters are not much better. In our ranks the disregard of the law of God in the sixth commandment is so bad that leaders in the church are pitilessly helpless to stem the tide of immorality.” These are his reported words.

One might therefore legitimately infer that the Catholic clergy consider themselves in no way responsible for conditions existing within their fold and that their main concern is to purify their flocks. I beg to differ on this point; I would say that if immorality is vastly increased within the church it can only be ascribed to the moral deficiency of the leaders. People are no longer satisfied with platitudinous sermons; if in actual practice moral issues are treated lightly by the clergy the rest will inevitably follow in their wake. It is not necessary to enumerate the faults of the Roman church; be it sufficient to say that it cannot set itself as an example of morality. Since the days of the Borgias its hierarchy has changed but little, and now it is being emulated by other religious institutions.

As for the assertion that respect for the fundamental law of nature and of God exists only within the Catholic church, I should like to know how that can be reconciled with enforced celibacy and the attendant degenerate practices. And as for respect of womanhood, how can it be said that it is highly prized, when a certain council declared that woman alone ‘does not possess a soul’. And, mind you, this declaration was made when it was theologically certain that “human beings have a soul” and that it is the mark of spirituality. By this distinction woman was made inferior to man, and from it resulted her slavery and oppression. Would it not seem that if we are today experiencing a moral collapse it is because of a mass of absurdities purveyed by the church in general and because the. truth has been withheld from the people?

Another observation might be made. When God created our wonderfully intricate organism He so constituted it that if it were to be operated in accordance with a set of universal laws abundant health and happiness could be derived as well as the possibility of a fully developed spiritual life. One such law is mating or marriage. Now, however, one finds that marriage is no longer considered a good investment; it is rather regarded as a doubtful speculation whose moral value is sadly deflated. The reason? Just read the rules and regulations of Blank & Co., or the by-laws of Jones and Jones; read the part concerning the conduct of employees, and as likely as not you will find that early marriage, marriage under the thirties, is clearly discouraged and considered detrimental to the firm and to a successful business career. I may be mistaken, but I have come to the conclusion that a similar imposition on the part of business tends to lower our moral standards.

“There is being written today the most disgraceful chapter in the history of American immorality,” says Rev. Pathe. Perhaps it is true; but it is not the first: it is merely one of a long epic. There is a cure, if the churches really want it, near at hand. It simply means the preaching of the truth.

Prosperity for Ever Established

ALL are familiar with the perplexity and unrest and dissatisfaction amongst the peoples of earth. The people are familiar with the cruel, harsh and unrighteous treatment they receive at the hands of the unholy alliance made up of Big Business, professional politicians, and faithless clergymen. That alliance has been deceiving the people and turning their minds away from the true God and from the way of relief and blessings. God declared that the time would come when He would hear the cry of the peoples of earth and intervene in their behalf.

Having in mind these conditions, now take note of the scripture, James, chapter five, verses one to seven, which reads: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned, and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.”

It is remarkable how accurately God through His prophet long ago described present conditions. He pointed out that in the last days of “this present evil world”, or the rule of unrighteousness, there would be perilous times, that men would be lovers of themselves more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. The description of this is found in First Timothy, chapter three, verses one to five. This is exactly what we see today. God also inspired His prophet Daniel to give a description of the seven great world powers in the order in which they have arisen and fallen. In the second chapter of his prophecy Daniel pictures these world powers as the hard, cold, iron legs and feet of a great metallic image representing the Devil’s organization. The last of these world powers is the British Empire, the greatest empire the world has ever known. The rulers in America are allied with this empire, at least secretly if not openly.

The League of Nations is the outgrowth of an alliance among the nations of earth, and is described in Revelation, chapter seventeen, verse eleven, as the “eighth” kingdom. In Daniel’s prophecy the Lord has His kingdom represented by a stone which smites these world powers, and destroys them and also all of the Devil’s organization invisible and visible. Daniel, chapter two, verse forty-four, says: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” That means that the God of heaven is setting up a righteous kingdom which will destroy Satan’s wicked organization, and that the selfish men in the visible part of Satan’s organization on earth will have no part in God’s kingdom because that kingdom will be a righteous one and shall stand for ever.

There is only one class of rulers under the sun that go by the name of Christ and claim to be God’s people. That is “Christendom”, or so-called “organized Christianity”. Now note what the prophet says about these who are called by His name. Jeremiah, chapter twenty-five, verse twenty-nine, reads: “For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city [that is, the organization] which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts.”

That the Lord purposes to destroy these wicked systems which have oppressed the people is made clear by the words of Jeremiah, chapter twenty-five, verses thirty to thirty-four, reading: “Therefore prophesy thou against them all these words, and say unto them, The Lord shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation; he shall mightily roar upon his habitation; he shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth. A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth: for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations; he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth:

they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground. Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes, ye principal of the flock: for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished; and ye shall fall like a pleasant vessel.”

Who, now, are the shepherds and the principal of their flocks ? The clergy, of course, are the shepherds; and the “principal of their flocks” are the big men of power and influence who draw nigh unto the Lord with their lips while their hearts are far removed from the Lord, just as the prophet said they would do, in Isaiah’s prophecy, chapter twenty-nine, verse thirteen. The Lord is going to spoil their fraudulent system ; as the prophecy of Jeremiah, chapter twenty-five, verse thirty-six, goes on to say: “A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and an howling of the principal of the flock, shall be heard: for the Lord hath spoiled their pasture.”

The Apostle Peter, in his second epistle, chapter three, gave a description of the unholy alliance which constitutes the present evil world; and he says it shall pass away in a great time of trouble, and then in verse thirteen he adds: “We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”

When Jesus stood before Pilate, charged with sedition and a violation of the espionage law of that part of the Devil’s organization, He answered Pilate and said: “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.”—John 18:36.

Thus He plainly says that the preachers do not tell the truth when they say the present evil system is His kingdom. He taught His followers to pray, and, amongst other things, to pray these words: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10) What kind of kingdom or government will that kingdom be? God’s prophet, Isaiah, chapter nine, verses six and seven, answers: “And the government shall be upon his [Christ Jesus’] shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end.”

But, you may ask, will not the Devil then interfere and deceive the people? That question is answered in Revelation, chapter twenty, verses one to three, wherein it is written that during that period of Christ’s reign the Devil shall be bound that he might not deceive the people any more. As to conditions under God’s kingdom, you may want to ask this further question: Are not all men created equal and should not all men have an equal and fair show? The Scriptures declare that God “made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth; and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitations”. (Acts 17: 26) Americans, English, Germans, Italians, French, Russians, all are human creatures; and there is no just cause or excuse why wars should be fomented among them and they be forced by their respective governing powers to kill one another. When the righteous government of the Lord is established at His second coming and kingdom, then there will be no more war. For want of space this matter cannot be fully considered here, but there is a book called Creation, written by Judge Rutherford, that fully explains this matter. Some Scriptural proof will be of interest now, however.

God’s prophet shows that in the Kingdom the nations and people will say: “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: and he will teach us of his ways; . . . they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” —Isa. 2:2-4; Mic. 4:1-3.

No profiteer, politician or faithless preacher will then be able to harangue the people, misrepresent the facts, and lead them into war and other trouble. In Isaiah, chapter twenty-eight, verse seventeen, it is written: “Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.” The lies that have been told the people will be swept away; and their hiding places will be uncovered by truth, which is represented by the waters.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the invisible Ruler of the new world, will be represented on earth by His faithful representatives, to wit, Abraham, Jacob, Isaiah, and the other faithful prophets, whom God will resurrect. Hebrews, chapter eleven, and John, chapter five, verse twenty-nine, and Psalm forty-five, verse sixteen, and numerous other Scriptures prove this. They shall be “princes in all the earth”. Christ shall he the invisible King and shall rule in righteousness. Isaiah, chapter thirty-two, verse one, reads: “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.” Then all the people will begin to learn what is right and true, as it is written in Isaiah, chapter twenty-six, verse nine: “With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” The mass of people want to do right if they are permitted to do it; and the Lord’s righteous kingdom will show them the right way. No profiteers will be permitted to ply their unrighteous business amongst the people then; because, it is written in Isaiah’s prophecy (11: 9; 65:23), “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain [kingdom].” Nor shall the people labor in vain.

God made the man for earth, and made the earth for man to dwell upon for ever. (Isa. 45:12,18) God has permitted man to battle with the thorns and thistles and have crop failures and much sorrow and disappointment, thereby to let man reap the results of sin, selfishness and disobedience toward God. When the Lord’s kingdom is in full sway, then, so Psalm sixty-seven, verse six, says, “then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us.”

Much of the land of earth has lain desolate. Under the righteous reign of Messiah it will be made prosperous for all, as it is written in Isaiah’s prophecy (35:1-3): “The wilderness, and the solitary place, shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God. Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.” Ezekiel’s prophecy (36:34,35) says: “And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, and desolate, and ruined cities, are become fenced, and are inhabited.”

Then the wealthy and influential will not have the advantage in the court’s or anywhere else, but the poor shall be judged in righteousness. Isaiah, chapter eleven, verse four, declares: “With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth.” Probably some of you bought a plot of ground and built a house, that you might have a home to live in; but now you have been compelled to move out of it because the taker of usury has made it impossible for you to live in it. But when all the people are prosperous, and unrighteousness is not permitted, then, as the prophet Isaiah (65:21,22) says: “They shall build houses, and inhabit them; . . . They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people.” Prosperity will not be only for a few, but for all people. Isaiah, chapter twenty-five, verse six, states: “And in this mountain [kingdom] shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.” Then, according to sacred prophecy, 'every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and none shall make him afraid.’

The people will enjoy these things because they will not continue to be sick. In the Scriptures (Jer. 33:6; Isa. 33: 24) the Lord says that during the kingdom “I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth”. And then “the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick”. Every sane man wants to live. Nothing that the unholy alliance has taught the people indicates how they could get life everlasting in happiness. Jesus declared: “This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”—John 17: 3.

The death and resurrection of Jesus is a guarantee that every man shall have an opportunity to live. During His reign they will be told the truth, as the scriptures before quoted show. Then they will know God. Habakkuk’s prophecy, chapter two, verse fourteen, asserts that 'the knowledge of the glory of God shall fill the earth as the waters fill the deep’; and the prophet Jeremiah (31:34) declares that everybody will know God, from the least to the greatest. Now in our present generation, says Jesus, those who know Him and obey shall live and not die; His words in John’s gospel (8:51; 11: 26) are: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my sayings, he shall never see death.” “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” (See also Ezekiel 18: 27,28.) When the people are prosperous, have plenty to eat and to wear, have a peaceful home in which to live; and men can sit under their own vine and fig tree without fear; when they arc no longer sick and have no fear of sickness; when they know and obey the Lord, which means to live for ever, then they will be happy indeed. About this the prophet Isaiah (35:10) writes when he says: “[They shall] come to Zion [which is God’s organization] with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” There is abundant evidence concerning the Lord’s second coming and the end of the world as being now at hand. This matter is fully set forth in the books of Judge Rutherford. The reason why there is so much deception, unfaithfulness and misrepresentation at this time, the reason for the World War and the pestilence and famine that followed, the reason why there is so much distress and perplexity upon the earth, is that we have come to the end of the old and to the beginning of the new world. The days of prosperity are just here. There will be a short, sharp time of trouble, called “the battle of Armageddon”; and then lasting peace and prosperity shall come to the people. Even now God’s due time has come to exercise His loving-kindness toward the people by giving them a knowledge of the truth and a full opportunity to enter upon everlasting peace, life, prosperity and happiness.

Dry Bread Made Fresh

ANY dry or old bread, such as light bread, biscuit, corn bread, or even cake, which you desire to serve may be easily freshened. Place it in a paper bag, or wrap it in brown paper or light bread paper; close tight, and set in the

By I. C. Boren (Oklahoma)

oven. The bread will become very soft and appetizing. Do not dampen. Or a loaf of new light bread put into the oven before being unwrapped will be made far better than without such treatment. Try it. You will be surprised.

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Again we have the pleasure of announcing six new booklets written by Judge Rutherford, each one containing seven concise, straight-to-the-point explanations of the most perplexing problems in the Bible. Each one of these treatises can be read in fifteen minutes, and more genuine satisfaction and profitable pleasure derived therefrom in that length of time than can be gotten from studying the Bible by yourself in a whole year.

Each one of these 64-page booklets is beautifully bound in paper cover, and its contents you will find most profitable. We give below the names of each of the booklets and the seven subjects treated in each one: