Judge — February 1937 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Our Own Prophecy for 1937 Our OLD FRIEND Sit George Paish is here again, He came over here in 1913 and warned us that the World War was coming. He came again in 1927 and warned us of the Wall Street crash. Overlooking the times when he warned us of dire disasters that didn’t happen, if any, we may well agree with the re- mark of one of our candid contempor- aries, “He is probably the world’s lead. ing prophet of gloom, doom and chaos.” This time he is a bit milder. For ex- ample, he does not think that our na. tional debt is too heavy for rich folks like us. He thinks we are sitting pretty so far as our world influence is con. cerned, because the United States is “probably the most impartial country in the world, and because the rest of the world knows it is impartial.” But— here's the catch—we've got to realize that the world situation is our situation. We can't play it out alone. The credit machinery of the whole globe is a single intricate’ unit. Unless we adjust our business to it, there’s disaster ahead be- fore the end of 1937. Well, we'll go Sit George one better, and predict with no if, but or unless, that there's disaster ahead anyway. We don't know just whom it's going to hit, or where, but it will hit somewhere, somehow. And some folks will go down and some will go up and the world will go on wagging. There have been Golden Ages, but they have gilded only certain classes, while the others went on grovelling in mud. There have been piping times of peace, during which, instead of men dying on the battlefield, women and children as well as men went on quietly starving in slums. There have. been boom eras which have boosted their thousands and busted their millions. So far as we can see back, there never has been a period when there wasn’t disaster for some- body. And so we aren't going to listen to any more prophets of either gloom or glory unless they tell us just who is going to get the glory and who is going to get the gloom. Judge JUDGE ON THE BENCH The End of Slavery in Sight Business 1s BeTrER. And child labor is worse. As demand for goods grows, the greed of employers and—yes, the greed of parents, grows also. Govern. ment figures show that more boys and gitls have been put at hard work. The National Child Labor Committee after a study of the wood-working industry in southern states, found “'a misuse of chil- dren as predatory in essence as anything that has gone on in this country since the days when the mills of New Eng- land 100 years ago advertised for chil- dren to do their work.” Boys of ten were found engaged in lumber mills, pole peeling, and even logging on the swamps and sand bogs, and 14-year olders at jobs that would tax the strength of grown men. Many schools were closed or on short terms. Dozens of children were found who either had attended no school for years or were behind by two to six grades. Ten hour work days were the standard, but some boys were working from sunrise to sun. set—twelve hours or more. eed A similar study of sugar-beet fields in the west showed that the great majority of children above 8 years of age in the families of sugar-beet laborers were kept at heavy manual labor for long hours. One company has had clear profits of from five and a half-to six and a half million dollars from sugar-beets ‘for the growing of which little children have slaved at starvation rates.” More than two yeafs-ago we hailed “the final drive” against child labor. We hoped that the long-sought-for amendment would be adopted in 1935. It was not. Few legislatures meet in even numbered years. Now, in 1937, the chance has come again. Only twelve more states are needed. And this time we have more than hope, we have strong confidence. Very probably by the end of this year the amendment will have become a part of the con- stitution, and child slavery will be for- ever at an end. Will your State join the procession for freedom? Will you some day regret that you did not take part in this last assault to sweep away the major disgrace of American life? Man, Self-Reliant THE TROUBLE WITH MANKIND is man- kind itself. This truth should be obvious. Yet there is a certain crude fatalism in us, a dull survival of ancient fears, that makes us lay on the outside world the blame for all our disasters and the burden of our destiny. So, for a current example, we charge the climate with dust storms, droughts, floods, forest fires, which are actually due to our foolish handling of the soil and the trees. But the most seri- ous of our superstitions is the one about the menace of Science, about chemicals and electricity and other forces that we don’t understand well enough and there- fore had better stop tampering with. It is true enough, as Professor Bogert of Columbia says, that “the end of life upon this planet of ours may be brought about by man himself, through the loosing by some miscreant of uncontrollable, devas- tating forces.” And that “man’s mastery over the forces of his universe is growing far more rapidly than he himself is de. veloping the qualifications or character to be safely entrusted with such vast power.” But it is also true that—and still quoting Professor Bogert—"many things which seem impossible today will be mat- ters of such everyday knowledge a few years hence as not even to evoke passing comment.” To win through to mastery may cost us thousands, even millions of lives. Cer- tainly it will cost countless hours of the devoted labor of scientists, years of trial and error, agonies of discouragement and partial failure. Yet it is the only road ahead. When the first man struck fire, or mixed strange earths and liquids togeth- er, or drew down the lightning from the skies, he began to forge a shining chain that stretches now beyond all the hori- zons. It will never reach an end, either in disaster or in final knowledge of all that there is to know. comicbooks.com