Open forum, vol. 2, no. 7 (February, 1925)
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~ THE OPEN FORUM
A Pacific World Around The Pacific Sea
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, FEBRUARY 14, 1925
A Plain Talk
When this paper began its publication one of the
items quoted to encourage us to its publication was
that "two hundred thousand men and women in Cali-
fornia voted for Robert M. LaFollette. We ought
to be able to get at least five thousand of these to
back a liberal publication."
Not ten per cent of this number have so far mater-
ialized as subscribers to the OPEN FORUM. Our
list is larger than this confession would imply, but
it is not larger by reason of the support of Southern
California liberals. It is doubtful whether fifty
people have subscribed for our paper because they
were of the two hundred thousand who voted for
LaFollette.
The fact is the forces of liberalism in the United
States are at the present time almost as badly de-
moralized as were the forces of the Union after
the first battle of Bull Run. They are not support-
ing any liberal paper in any very liberal fashion.
Hven so great and effective a publication as THE
NATION is having hard sledding to get by the space
of bare, wind-swept soil where there is neither ice
nor snow for the runners. Liberal meetings are
practically non-existent, and liberals write one an-
other in the most downcast and disheartened way.
Here is a letter from one of the finest liberals I
know, a man of mature years, a teacher by pro-
fession, well-read, and clearer in his views by far
than most liberals are. He might almost be called
a radical, so much more does he see than most of
the liberal-minded. or forward-minded people do.
Yet he sends this, not for publication, but to a
friend as forward-minded as himself. It is too signifi-
cant an utterance not to be quoted. He speaks for
himself and for his family, which contains other
teachers:
* % *
"The powers that be are reaching for our scalps
at the slighest opportunity given. I have utterly
lost hope of anything worth while being -accomplish-
ed in any reasonable time-perhaps in a thousand
years. Everything is reaction now, and all the facts
of past history, especially the immediate past, are
conclusive against anything but slow evolution. If
one has a hankering for fight, he can get all he wants
from the plutes, with the odds hopelessly against
him. These are the people who help to get what
_little progress is possible, and they are entitled to
great credit. But me! I'm too old to fight any
"more, and I never was the stuff martyrs are made
Ob If you ever come this way do not fail to drop
in and see us. I keep my ear to the ground for
indications of world progress. The hope, if not
faith, is still present, but I am persuaded as for
myself that the tactic should be for gradual evolu-
tionary efforts-not reformist simply."
3% * *
Now it. is foolish for liberals to get as downcast
and submissive as their present apathy and melan-
choly correspondence implies. If the disaster of last
November, as they see it, were tenfold as bad in
fact as they make it out to be there would still be
No occasion for such surrender. The world doesn't
depend on the success of the liberal program, any-
way, half so much ag a lot of us imagine.
aie you ever study that curious book in the Old
= 8 men, "THE LAMENTATIONS OF JERE-
ne eh it is worth studying. It is artificial
ne ast degree, a agrOs of acrostic poems, repre-
Pe i aloe low form of literary art. But the thing
ogee Hote about it, is that the writer, probably
ae emiah by the way, was utterly down in the
ice He had been as sure as a man can be that
m couldn't be destroyed by the heathen.
With Liberals
Why it was God's city, and God wasn't going to be
licked-out by a lot of foreign plutocrats. Just the
same old, hard-boiled Nebuchadnezzar got the town,
and did with it what he pleased, and what he pleased
wasn't a very pleasant thing. It was so much worse
than anything we know about we haven't any way
of saying just how horrible and utterly overwhelm-
ing it was.
And this chap who wrote the LAMENTATIONS
was all in. To him the world was a dead world,
and God was so nearly out of business that He
didn't count much, except as a receptacle for tears and
complaints. ``Why the world can't get along without
Jerusalem," wailed this fellow. `And besides Jerusa-
lem deserved a better fate. And then, too, this
bunch that did up Jerusalem are such an utterly
hopeless lot. Really, there's no use trying to do
anything after this. The world won't get anywhere
for a thousand years, if it ever does."
Well, apparently the world didn't just exactly rush
into the millenium for more than a thousand years
after that wail was let out. But Jerusalem came
back, and that very soon. And the world moved on,
if not toward betterness at least toward another and
a larger and more powerful world-order. Old Neb-
uchadnezzar died off, and is remembered now as a
good deal of a joke. Others like him came along,
of course. But so did folks of quite another ilk,
practically all the liberals the world has had, with
some who were more than liberals, in fact.
That splendid old fighter for every good cause,
Theodore Parker, once rebuked himself with the
remark, "I guess the trouble with me is that I am
in a hurry, and God isn't."
No, God isn't in a hurry. Or Nature, if you prefer
to put it that way. But there are three things lib-
erals will do well to remember just now. One is
that the world's progress isn't all in the realm of
ideas, by a good deal. Just filling up the world is
a man-sized job for humanity, taking possession of
the earth. And then learning how to handle the
world when you get it filled up is another job that
is worth a few hundred years. Better individuals
we want of course. And better ideas. But progress
has very much to do with just breeding and just
feeding folks. And that brings you to the second
thing liberals may well study; which is that things
move more rapidly a whole lot than they did of old.
We have done more on lines of breeding folks, and
feeding folks in the last five hundred years, the last
one hundred, than in ten or a hundred times that
period before. We are travelling faster today on
lines of social evolution than we ever did since man
was man, so much faster that our speed is as the
flying machine to the stage coach. A thousand years,
now, are as "yesterday when it is. past, or as a
watch in the night." And finally, let liberals re-
member, that evolution has to be figured in terms
of revolution also, or else it is lacking in reality.
The educators are always slipping up at this point.
They cannot get away from trusting to talk, books,
votes and all manner of other nice things. But
every now and then something that isn't at all nice
happens, and jolts the world ahead like a blast of
dynamite in a canal cut.
Drop out the thousand year stuff, folks, and get
busy now. This reactionary bunch that are running
the nations today are driving toward the ditch.
There'll be another header besides the Russian
header soon. Meanwhile let's get ready for it, by
facing facts, and trying to understand them. Social
understanding is what the world needs. That is
what THE OPEN FORUM is trying to give. That is
what we particularly need here on the Pacific Coast.
Let's work together for it. Lend us a hand.
R.W.
NO WORKERS NEED APPLY
PHOENIX, Ariz-If you are a poor but honest
laborer seeking a job and a chance to make a home
and enjoy the mild winter climate of the southwest
you are not the man the chamber of commerce and
the Phoenix Arizona Club are looking for. They are
trying to sell the climate and the wonders of the
Salt River valley to the moneyed class, according
to an article in a local paper, which states that many
letters are being received from persons now em-
ployed elswhere who are seeking positions in this
city on account of the warm winters, but that "the
chamber is not encouraging migration of that char-
acter."
i
Hair Nets And The Y.M. C. A.
Another striking example of the commercial inter-
dependence of the world is to be found in the re-
cent announcement of Dr. John Y. Lee, acting na-
tional secretary. of the Chinese Y. M. C. A,, that
the branch of that organization in Chefoo is in
serious financial difficulties. Chefoo is the city in
which most of the world's hair nets are made.
The financial support for the local "Y" came large-
ly from men interested in these hair net factories.
Since the women of the west began to bob their
hair, Chefoo's factories have been almost idle. It
seems to be a pretty crowded world when you can't
go to a barber in Chicago without upsetting a
men's Christian Association in China.
-From The Christian Century.
ee :
THE FOG
A Parable For Liberals
The valley dripped with fog all day,
One vast and all pervasive gray,
A veiling so impalpable
Where it began you could not tell.
The moisture brushed against your face
Soft as a breeze blown bit of lace.
Yet looking straight into the air,
You could not say that it was there.
But all the earth was white and still,
There was no outline of a hill.
The higher tree tops scarcely showed
A little distance down the road.
Save that the nearer trees were bare
You hardly guessed 'twas winter there.
And somewhere up above the trees
You heard the honking of the geese.
Scattered and broken in their flight
The wild things knew not where to light.
Yet were too heavy quite to stay
Above that filmy sea of gray.
And now and then a booming gun
Told of some more adventurous one
Whose dubious fate filled all the skies
With his lost mates' resounding cries.
So are there folks who seem to go,
While the world fog is hanging low.
Flying between the earth and air
And never lighting anywhere.
Too heavy are their thoughts to rise
Into the sun-kissed upper skies.
Too timid now at every sound
To find a harbor on the ground.
Better it fares these troubled days
With those who calmly hold their ways.
Making the most of fireside cheer
While the drear landscape seems more drear.
But happier the few who dwell,
Where on the heights ineffable,
They look down on the misty sea,
And glimpse the day that is to be.
-R. W.
BSR rcam eee rs hn cee Oa
ay SARS TRON EE
Man and His World
By Robert Whitaker
Vv
THE MOVEMENT OF HISTORY
The easy going optimism which says, "God's in
his heaven; all's right with the world,' no longer
satisfies the thoughtful mind. Even the people of
the churches are no longer content to accept the
notion that things are going well. On the contrary
millions of them insist that progress is a delusion;
that the world is getting worse rapidly, and that
we are close to bankruptcy proceedings on the
part of High Heaven against man and all his works, .
and the substitution of a supernatural receivership
in the person of the returned Christ. The liberals,
to whom this doctrine of catastrophic salvation is
impossible, are confessedly bewildered at the situa-
tion of world affairs, and find it hard to hold fast
their ancient faith that there is a gradual progres-
sion along quite natural lines toward a higher and
a better social order.
Yet the testimony of history is unmistakable that
there is a distinct movement in human affairs, and
that this movement can be followed with assurance
along certain quite ascertainable lines. Intellectual
improvement it may be hard to demonstrate. Moral
improvement may be open to question. Whether
man is a better man physically than he was under
the conditions of primitive life is debated with a
good deal of weight of argument on either side.
Men of very high scientific standing can be quoted
to the effect that there is no conclusive evidence of
any appreciable progress of man within the historic
period. But all these who argue so measure progress
in terms of the individual and the idea, or of in-
stitutions that are built around ideas. There is a
forward movement of man which cannot be denied
and that movement was never so distinct and pro-
nounced as it is today.
That movement may be defined in two phrases,
THE EXPANSION OF HUMAN CONTACTS, and
THE EXPANSION OF HUMAN LABOR POWER.
Just what do we mean by these terms?
THE EXPANSION OF HUMAN CONTACTS
means that man is filling up the earth today and
crowding upon other men as never before in the
history of the past. Our own country has grown
enormously in population within the past one hund-
red and twenty-five years. Two hundred years after
the landing at Jamestown of the founders of the
first permanent English settlement our fathers were
still clinging to the Atlantic Coast, and numbered
hardly Five Million all told. Within another hundred
years we had multiplied that number twenty times.
If it be said that our growth was largely due to
immigration from Europe it is to be remembered
that in spite of all the millions who left Europe
for the United States of America during the nine-
teenth century, and who migrated to other parts of
America, to Australia, and to Africa and every other
section of the earth, Europe itself increased from
One Hundred and Twenty Five Million population
in 1800 to Three Hundred and Seventy Five Million
a hundred years later. And this in spite of the
Napoleonic Wars, and all the other wars that devas-
tated Hurope during that period.
Primitive man did wonders in finding his way to
all parts of the earth. But his numbers were few.
The Red Man had been in North America an in--
calculable time when the Spaniards discovered the
New World, yet within the territory which now
makes up the United States there were probably
fewer humans when the European arrived - than
there are in Seattle, Washington today, or in Port-
land, Oregon, or in Oakland, California.. Three
Hundred Thousand would probably be a liberal esti-
mate. In all America the natives at the time of
Columbus were a handful compared with the popula-
tion of the Same areas now.
Whether man is abler physically than he was
ten thousand years ago, or mentally more potent,
or morally improved under the surface of civiliza-
tion's veneer, may be questioned. But it cannot
be questioned that he is vastly more numerous, and
that his communication with his fellows is an al-
together different matter from what it was even so
recently as a century ago. Whether this is progress
or no is not `the issue here. It is movement, and
movement of a tremendously significant kind. If
man's first business is, as the Old Book has it, to
"be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,
and subdue it," he is carrying out the program
in modern times at a remarkable rate, so rapidly
indeed, as to be disconcerting to many who fear
that the passing of war, and pestilence, and famine
may lead to an oOver-populating of the face of the
earth.
Those who reason so, whatever pretense of scien-
tific standing they may make, are poor observers
of the second great item in the movement of man,
the EXPANSION OF HUMAN LABOR POWER.
Man as a food producer and as a food distributor
has increased his capacity within the past one
hundred and fifty years far beyond the increase in
his numbers or his adjustment of his relations with
his fellows.
Man had been a producer of goods a long time
when George Washington died, at the end of the
eighteenth century. But he was little more effec-
tive in the days of Washington than he had been
in the days of Caesar or Alexander or Khamurabi of
Babylon, or in the remotest ages of which his
records tell. Some increase of human labor power
there had been, but it was very slight. Between the
death of Washington and the death of Abraham
Lincoln, though the period is only about sixty five
years, there was a greater multiplication of the
labor power of the world than there had been within
the whole historic period before. `This increase has
continued in the sixty years since Lincoln died
hardly less miraculously. The THREE BILLION
MAN POWER which we have in the United States
today is greater than the whole man power of the
world when the United States was born, though that
event is less distant from us than the span of two
human lives.
Here is movement enormous and _ undeniable.
What if it be granted that man is individually no
stronger in body, no abler in mind, no better in
character than he was when he came forth from
primeval cave and forest ten or twenty or fifty
thousand years ago? Even fifty thousand years is
but a moment in the reach of the ages. He has
moved, unmistakably, to the filling up of the earth,
and to his command of the earth's resources and of
nature's powers. And his movement on these lines
has been lightning-like in its rapidity and spectacu-
lar glory within the last one hundred or one hundred
and twenty-five years. He has increased in numbers,
and he has increased in power. What if that move-
ment be vital to the greater things he is yet to do?
Grant that at points the increase has menace as
well as promise in it. The pressure of poulations
upon populations, with the multiplication of man's
ingenuity in working out destruction on a vastly
greater scale than his savage forbears knew, may,
it is conceivable, precipitate a world struggle in
which all that he has achieved could be wrecked,
or such damage done as it would require milleniums
to undo. This may be admitted without involving
any admission that there is lack of a discernible
movement in life, or that such movement holds
forth no reasonable hope of an end that is to justify
the best that men have dreamed. The very vastness
of the menace, if humanity miscarries, is a token
of the even greater promise which this movement
of history portends if the world order that is strug-
gling in the womb of today can be brought forth
alive.
But we must see clearly where and what the
movement is if we are to act intelligently and effec-
tively to relate the life of our own times to the
majesty and meaning of the past.
--- - and --___
*
"The proposal to put Christian principles into prac-
tice would be bitterly opposed by all the Churches
in Christendom."
Professor F. T. Schiller of Oxford.
Ss a ANU ia ia
"CARRYING
ARMS SHOULD BE A FELONY:
is the title of an editorial in the Los Angeles Bxap.
iner of the date of February 5, 1925. There follows
some statement of the legislation proposed before
the California legislature to make the carrying of
arms such a crime in this State it will enable the
courts to deal very drastically with it. The write
says:
"If the burglars, highwaymen, and other
dangerous characters could by any system be
prevented from carrying firearms they would
resort to crimes of lessor risk to them-
gelves-because they are constitutionally
and almost unanimously without the physi- (c)
cal courage to carry out any daring scheme. .
In fact they are mostly cowards. That is
the reason they carry firearms; that is the
reason: they. shootee eon we
Whether the reasoning as to what "burglars, high.
waymen, and other dangerous characters" would do
in case it was made more difficult for them to get
guns is conclusive or not, the argument is sugges.
tive of a good deal more than the editorial says.
If the argument has any force with respect to
individuals why has it not at least equal force with
respect to nations? The writer of the Hxaminer
editorial is undoubtedly right when he says that,
"Burglars, highwaymen, and other dangerous charac:
ters,'-a pretty sweeping description by the way-
"are constitutionally and almost unanimously with-
out physical courage to carry out any daring scheme.
In fact they are mostly cowards. That is the reason
they carry firearms; that is the reason they shoot."
Well said, Mr. Editor. But why not say it of
nations also? Is the collective carrying of firearms
any less dangerous or mischievous than the use of
such weapons by individuals? Is it not rather im-
measurably more menacing to the welfare of man-
kind and more actually destructive in almost. in-
finite degree than all the damage which so-called
"burglars and highwaymen" have done?
And is the carrying of arms on the part of
nations any less a matter of felonious intent and a
cowardly spirit than it is where individuals only
are involved? What is all this "preparedness" which (c)
the Hearst papers have themselves preached s0
much but a polite camouflage for scaredness? NA-
TIONAL "SCARE-RED-NESS" would be a far more
truthful designation of it than NATIONAL PRE
PAREDNESS. And back of this SCARE-RED-NESS,
it will be found if honest examination ig made, is
the collective burglary and highwaymanship of the
masters of great capital, playing upon the cow:
ardice of the common crowd. Militarism is, and
always has been a combination of felonious intent
to plunder other people when the opportunity pre
sents, and of cowardly fear that someone is under
the bed.
It is not only recognized criminals who are "mostly
cowards:" Unhappily that description fits too ac:
curately the great majority of respectable people.
"Mostly cowards" describes our judges, our preach-
ers, our teachers, our editors, indeed the bulk of
"nice" people in all classes. Don't ask us to prove
it; the process is too painful, and the evidence too
overwhelming. Get into trouble yourself for any
real issue of conscience, or on behalf of any vital
new cause and you will have all the proof you want,
and a good deal more. The "burglar and highway-
man" intent is nothing like so widespread as is
the cowardly spirit. But back of all the high non:
sense which the Hearst papers, and their literary
high priest, Arthur Brisbane, and all the rest of those
who are shouting up preparedness for America just
how are getting off, there are groups of national
and international looters who are the profiteering
promoters of the Big-Gun policy. And they get by
with it because most of respectability ig a thin
veneer for either the thieving spirit, or the coward's
heart in ourselves.
Undeniably carrying arms, nationally, is very muccentl
a matter of the burglar and the highwayman of high
finance, and the tragic reality that civilization is
made up yet of "mostly cowards. That is. the
reason they carry firearms; that is the reason they
shoot." Say it again, Mr. Hearst.
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FROM VARIED VIEWPOINTS
*K
A Clearing - House
For Peace
By B. C. Huber
Perhaps many of us have snickered as we allowed
Charles Lamb to tell us how we came to eat roast
pig. Cumbersome as this original oriental method
of cookery appears to us moderns, perhaps to poster-
ity it may seem fairly efficient compared with our
present European way of making the world safe
for democracy. Democracy, efficiency-one gets the
impression from the newspapers that they are a
married couple.
But the Chinese no longer burn the house down
when they want roast pork for supper. It is logical
to suppose, therefore, that at length it really did
occur to some radical innovator to suggest building
a very small house to burn the family pig in. This
in place of burning the family palace was certainly
a step in the right direction. At the risk of being
charged with atheism I wish to suggest a Somewhat
similar simplification of our modern process of ar-
riving at whatever it is we're arriving at. :
When in our sappy days we pursued the three Rs
or were perhaps pursued by them, we learned that
the fraction 7x7X7x7x6x8+7x7x7x7x5x11 could be
much simplified and many brain cells saved for
baseball by cancelling the sevens. That is we de-
mobilized the factors common to both numerator and
denominator. Wetting the end of our lead pencil
with our tongue we welcomed the discovery as a
real boon to the poor oppressed-by-learning. Later
when we grew to the years of indiscretion, we heard
that the banks in the city employed the same prin-
ciple when they used a clearing house to do away
with the necessity of driving truckloads of dollars
from place to place and counting them over.
Now, here we are not dealing with who is going
to start the war. We are not concerned with that
feather edge of morals. As red blooded go-getters,
we're aiming to roast our pig in the most up-to-date
manner. Not who propounds the question, but what's
the answer. Let's find a common factor and cancel
it before we start to divide.
In the last war we find there were in all coun-
tries, some men who could not be made to fight
either by propaganda, profits or torture. This class
was certainly a drag on the war makers. It was also
much larger than is generally supposed. In another
war it will number among its members many who
were active killers, the last time Europe burned
down the house. French, English and German offi-
cers aS well as an occasional clergyman are among
those who have declared their non-participation in
future international slaughter. It is really too beast-
ly to murder these fellows for we have tried it
and it don't make them fight. Besides many of
them are quite intelligent and useful if they are
left alone. Being common to all countries they
constitute a common. factor.
Certainly it is cheaper to cancel a German con-
Scientious-objector against an English CO before
we start to divide, than it is to try to argue with
them. We can't convince them you know, they just
are that way. We don't kill our milk cow because
She doesn't happen to be a good saddle animal.
Neither is it good business to shoot, torture or im-
prison the COs because they are by nature wealth
producers if left alone. And war is made with wealth
a8 well ag for it. Besides, much as it is to be re-
gretted many of these peaceful men have strong
friends among the soldiers and it is not good for
our morale to start in murdering our neighbors.
Of course to do the job up brown we need a clear-
ng house' for non-combatants through which to
sees these men. The League of Nations would be
eat by taking over the job of cancelling
a ee rors for it would -be a positive function
es not in conflict with national powers. It
ee the league some real supporters in all
ea anes would put the high aims of the league
i ee y considerations, because a clearing house
one `combatants would make a respectable per-
Bua a 2 peaceable citizen. No one could say a
he sai e dots his bit in war time for already
elena ave eliminated an enemy through the
5 Mouse of the league long before the fire-
K
A QUERY
In the Christian Science Sentinel of December 27,
1924, page 329 under the caption "Extracts from Re-
ports of Christian Science Committees on Publica-
tion for the year ended September 30. 1924," I read
the following:
"At the request of this office several book pub-
lishers have revised incorrect copy, and one pub-
lisher destroyed plates containing disparaging refer-
ences to Christian Science. An unauthorized work
on Christian Science was removed from circulation
at the Chicago Public Library, and an obnoxious
text-book on hygiene, containing derogatory refer-
ences to Christian Science, has been withdrawn from
use in. a university. It is also noteworthy that a
plan purporting to accomplish the removal of ob-
jectionable books from all public libraries is now
receiving the attention of Assistant Committees on
Publication,"
As a citizen and tax payer I would like to ask if
we must support Public Libraries where we can
have access to such books only as the Christian
Scientist will permit us to read?
Surely their fear of criticism has made them des-
perate. Cu W..
eater next door could get over to No Man's Land
and become a hero on a piece of barbed wire.
It is true that from the point of view of a general
the grave is a sufficient clearing house, but some-
how looking at it from the business angle it's more
like a safety deposit box-and both keys lost. To.
the general no doubt a soldier is like a chessman
and if the mothers of men have not taught the
generals perhaps we can not blame them for their
ignorance of the fact that there are some points
of difference-nowadays. These points of difference
between chessmen and soldiers refutes the conten-
tion of the generals that the grave is a sufficient
clearing house.
Certainly the establishment of a Clearing House
of non-combatants will make it to our advantage as
business men and patriots to urge aS many men
as possible to use the clearing house, because even
if we start the war `ourselves, it will reduce the
expenses, both running and overhead to work with
as small volumes as possible. That is, unless we
put profits from war contracts above the national
good in which case we are nothing but aristocrats.
But assuming that we are fighting for democracy
the use of the clearing house for non-combatants
will reduce the power of the enemy equally with our
own. The League Clearing house will guarantee it.
The League guarantee will be backed up by the
peaceable citizens who have cleared. Why it will
pay enormously even if we have to transport the
non-combatants to neutral territory and feed them
for the duration of the war. It will cut out muni-
tions for that number of fighters. Possibly these
fellows while on a neutral territory might .even
become producers. This seldom happens to soldiers.
From the war makers standpoint of course the
chief objection will be, that thus thrown together
these men might even come to admire and respect
civilizations alien to their own, thus drawn to their
attention, but even if this happened it would help
trade as soon aS peace was declared and so again
business would be sitting on top of the world.
I hear somebody growl that few would fight if it
was respectable to get out-of it by knoeking an
enemy out through the Clearing House. The fellow
that makes that growl has no faith in bunk like
he'd ought to have. He will probably be found
to be one of these old Nordic 100 per cent efficiency
guys and he'll be wheezing out something like this
next, "It don't pay to burn the house down even
if the pig is in the kitchen when the: whole family
is asleep upstairs like they were last time and its
got so nowadays what between airplanes, radio and
poison gas we all live in the same house anyway.
Why not have a civilized barbecue if were going to
roast pig-provided we're going to eat pig?"
One answer to a fellow like that is to tell him
he ain't even as heathen as a Christian. That will
give him something to think about besides business
and pork.
K
War Talk
By Malcolm Hardyman
War is inevitable! Why waste time talking of
peace when the clouds of war loom denser than in
1913?
There are two methods to stop war and neither
of them are, at present, practicable. The first method
is to make the manufacture or possession of arms
punishable by death and the second, the establish-
ment of International free transportation.
To make either of the methods popular it is first
necessary, to prove profits in dollars and cents for
the exponents.
It is worse than useless for the radical to shout
and rave against capitalism and thereby antagonize
the vast majority of his fellow embryo millionaires!
What he must do is.to prove to the selfish inter-
ests of the capitalist that more money can be
made by sharing profits with the employee. Free
international transportation would very soon create
a world so cosmopolitan that war would be impossi-
ble. To attain this dream, it is necessary to prove
in a small way the commercial possibilities of such
a plan. Who can deny that were the merchants of
Venice to institute free transportation to their watery
jazz fields, there would nightly be a vast influx of
pleasure seekers to patronize their shimmering bath
rooms? If such a step were adopted gradually the
public consciousness would become aware that it
pays to have people where they want to be.
Nations have only to mix freely to forget the differ-
ences foisted upon them by those whose coffers de-
pend upon racial antagonism. War today severs the
first law of Nature-the survival of the fittest. When
ultimatums and all the other pre-war diplomatics are
terminated the cry is for those who are most fitted
to propagate their kind. Having exterminated th
fit and sane and diseased and imbeciles, gather to-
gether and continue to carry on a world which the
former have failed to make habitable.
As to the inevitable, there are consolations, from
the biological standpoint. The unfit and diseased
will be swept away with the old folks early in the
day. Clouds of unmoored aeroplanes will spread de-
struction behind the armies, ignoring the entrenched
battle lines, and very soon little will be left of the
great cities. Then will the veteran diplomatics
shiver in their cellars as the waves of deadly fumes
billow upon them. Then will the fighting clubmen
who wished that they: were young enough to go,
have an opportunity to prove their mettle against
flying steel. Practically speaking, with the present
trend of culture, the only certain method to stop
war is to make it unendurable. Hence it is up to us
to pursue our devilish experiments and construct
weapons so deadly that fear will over-ride avarice
in the dark souls of the makers of war. Suffering
is the only path to knowledge, so let us see to it
Mat the facilities for suffering are adequate.
War is sometimes a boomerang. The vanquished
are not always the final sufferers. The nation that
sent its physical garbage to the front would, at least,
be more fitted to wage peace after its defeat.
Greed is the root of all wars. Hence the way to
prevent war is to prove in dollars and cents the
profits of peacetime co-operation. Altruism must be
forgotten and greed must be counted. Dollars and
cents are alone understood by the war lords, so we
must study GREED.
SP SS
a
Crime costs American business, we are told, ten
billion dollars a year. The direct property loss alone,
it is estimated, is $3,500,000,000. The remainder of
the ten billion dollar total is to be charged to the
expense of policing the country, paying the salaries
of court functionaries, maintaining penitentiaries,
prisons, jails, reformatories and-yes, asylums.
Clayton B. Trost.
a
RANK
"Superior worth your rank requires;
For this mankind reveres your sires:
If you degenerate from your race
Their merit heightens your disgrace."
Author Unknown.
RI Ca en
A Re, See ae
THE OPEN FORUM
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SATURDAY, FEB. 14, 1925
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Program for February, 1925
A Lesson in Psychology `for the Working Class,
Ps PCPS ame Nees .....February 21
THE REVOLUTION NON-RESISTANT, Fanny
Bixby Spencer a February 28
HEALTH TALKS: The entire field of health, all
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Feb. 16-"Food as a Cause of Disease," by Dr. Axel
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Capitalism Est Delenda
When the old Roman, Marcus Cato, looked out
across the Mediterranean and saw in vision the
city of Carthage, expanding on the opposite shore
as a formidable rival of his beloved "Eternal City,"
he was filled with discomforting forbodings. It was
a thorn in his side and in the side of many of his
fellow citizens. They regarded it as a menace to
the future expansion and glory of the Roman Em-
pire. Carthage and Rome could not go on together;
one must give way to the other, and of course the
one to give way must be Carthage.
Therefore `"Carthago est delenda!'' was the climax
with which this old Roman sought to bestir his
countrymen to action in every speech which he de-
livered to the senate. "Carthage must be destroyed!"
got under their skins at length; they were made
to see the peril of allowing Rome's rival to prosper
and grow more menacing, and finally it was decreed
that the proud African city should be overthrown.
Ships were assembled, soldiers transported, and
Carthage was besieged. For two long years Publius
Cornelius Scipio battered away at its walls and gates
before it surrendered; and then the fight continued
in the streets of the city for six days, both men and
women engaging in it with a dogged determination
paralleled. only by that of the Jews in the case of
the siege of Jerusalem by Titus. Carthage was
indeed destroyed before the process ended-the 700,-
000 inhabitants driven out or killed, and the city it-
self razed to the ground.
I have often reflected upon the persistence of that
old Roman who kept crying, in season and out of
season, that Carthage must be destroyed; and in
the insistent cry that is raised by statesmen of the
New Era-``Capitalism must be destroyed'-I think I
can discern echoes of his eloquence. The call for the
destruction of capitalism, however, is motivated by a
nobler purpose than that of Cato. No mere ven-
geance is in this modern demand. It is not that
we would get rid of one evil that another may thrive
-more lustily. Rome was as full of cruelty and es-
sential barbarism as was Carthage. Her preserva-
tion and prosperity after Carthage went into the dust.
gave no assurance of progress or happiness to the
human race.
But if capitalism can be destroyed and the co-
operative commonwealth set up in its place there
will begin a new, glorious epoch for humanity. This
is no idle Utopian prophecy either. Glimpses. and
even foretastes of the better civilization already
have been vouchsafed us. Wherever cooperation has
been substituted for cut-throat competition real
improvement has followed. Even the milder forms
of cooperation that have found expression in Con-
sumers Cooperative Leagues, profit-sharing plans
set up by various corporations, and other experi-
ments along similar lines have demonstrated the
practicability and the positive advantages of work-
ing together. Only those who are selfishly profiting
by the present system, and such others as are in
darkness as to its functioning, offer stout resistance
to the change that must come-indeed, is coming all
the while. Sidney Webb is quite right in declaring
that the capitalistic civilization is crumbling and
must inevitably perish in favor of the new and
better order of social life.
This then is no time for preachers to be coming
to the defense of capitalism, or for any other
enologists to rise up and seek to prolong its wretch-
ed life. Rather should we all be seeking to discern
"the signs of the times,' the unmistakable indica-
tions that the old order is crumbling and that a
new day is dawning. A new heaven and a new
earth are in the making. Look at Russia as evi-
dence of what I say. Of course there are pains
and pangs in the process, but that always occurs
with the emergence of new life from the womb of
the older order. Mistakes are being made here and
there, but they are by no meang so serious as is
the supreme blunder committed by many-that of
trying to arrest the ongoing of the process and the
prevention of the birth of the better day.
Above all else let's get our eyes open to the
evolutionary social process of our time and help it
on. "Capitalism must be destroyed!" It will be
destroyed by and by, root and branch. Will you
have had a worthy part in consummating its de-
struction? -C. J. T.
"The Jesus of the gospels found his most formid-
able opponent in the Judaism of his day; his chief
present obstacle is the Christianity of our day."
Professor Henry C. Vedder, Baptist Historian.
Los Angeles
OPEN FORUM
MUSIC ART HALL
_ 233 South Broadway
SUNDAY NIGHTS, 7-30 O'CLOCK
Program for February
FEB. 15--`"AMERICA'S SERVICE IN THE NAR
EAST" (Illustrated by two reels of motion pictures)
by CHARLES H. EMMONS, who recently made ,
visit to the Mediterranean area, where he met many
famous men and was given access to points of interes
and documents not often viewed by the average tour.
ist. What is at the bottom of the ancient quarre
between the Turks and the Armenians? How dog
Greece enter into the problem? What constructive
work is going forward over there? A program of
Armenian music will be furnished by Mrs. Prapioy
English, a singer in native costume, Mr. K. Vronyr,
violinist, and Mrs. M. G. Ferrahian, pianist.
FEB. 22-"THE MENACE OF FUNDAMENTAL
ISM" by MAYNARD SHIPLEY, of San Francisco,
President of the Science League of America. Shouli
the fundamentalists be allowed to block the prog.
ress of science? Are laws likely to be passed in Cali.
fornia forbidding the teaching of evolution in the
schools? Whither are we drifting? and what should
be done about it? CARL ROSSNER, 'cellist, will
favor us with some of his excellent music. a
a
HH
Church of the New Social Order
Symphony Hall, 232 So. Hill St.
Sunday Morning Service: 10:45 o'clock
Feb.156. `WHAT... DID JBSUS RBALLY., TA
ABOUT?
Feb. 22. WAS THE SPIRIT OF JESUS MILD OR
REVOLUTIONARY?
peice eS a ag
Meet the Japanese
The Los Angeles Branch of the FELLOWSHIP OF
RECONCILIATION will hold its monthly meeting:
Monday evening, February 16th, in the Japanese
Union Church, at 120 North San Pedro Street. Sup-
per will be served there, `at a moderate price, about
Fifty Cents each . Addresses will be made by the
Hon. K. Wakasugi, Japanese Consul in Los Angeles,
and Rev. K. Ogawa, minister of the Japanese Union
Church, and Rev. Robert Whitaker, Field Secretary
for the F. O. R. Americans and Japanese expect to
mingle together at this banquet in a real fraternity
of thought and spirit, and people of any race and any
tongue are welcome. It is necessary however that
reservations be made in advance for a place at the -
tables. Kindly telephone in your reservations as
soon as you can to Miss EK. Mills, phone, 560448, or to
this office,
ae ie ae
Beware of being too serious. The asses have
crucified all the saviours of the world. The pre:
tense of wisdom:is the favorite disguise of folly.
Most of our tragedies would pass quickly enough
if we could but get people to laugh at the right
time, and at the things that are really absurd. Sol:
emnity is frequently if not usually at war with sense.
If most of us could spend half an hour a day laughing
at ourselves we would be not only a good deal
healthier for it but of vastly more use in the world."
R.W.
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