Newspaper Page Text
Items of Interest Gathered Here and There
[ Trouble With Transatlantic Wireless.
It is now more than a month since the Marconi
. Company opened its transatlantic service. The
daily papers have published many messages marked
as having been transmitted over its lines, and some
of them have made a feature of the new service. It
would seem, however, that in some quarters disap
pointment is felt. The Electrician (London, No
vember 1) says that in the first two weeks of oper
ation it noticed but one press message transmitted
by wireless telegraphy, while the speed, which, it
was promised, should be thirty words a minute,
seems to be nearer three. The writer of this criti
cism also points out that any wireless system capa
ble of being put to immediate use can have but
small effect on the business of the great cable lines.
During a busy hour 25,000 paying words now pass
to and from England by cable. Besides this, non
interference for many stations seems not to have
been attained, nor has the problem of secrecy been
solved. After quoting these strictures, an editorial
writer in The Electrical Review (New York, No
vember 16), goes on to say:
“In reply to these criticisms the wireless system
might very justly point out that the first transat
lantic cable was not laid in a day, and a number
of years elapsed before permanent communication
was established. The wireless system has, as every
one knows, a good many difficulties to overcome,
but there is no theoretical reason why this can not
be done satisfactorily.
“The most urgent problem in wireless telegraphy
is to secure syntonization. There are two ways of
attacking this. One is to design the transmitting
and receiving systems so that they are, so to speak,
opaque to all waves not of the desired frequency.
A good deal has been done in this direction. But
until some means of producing waves of a definite
and constant frequency is available, interference
between systems will occur. The oscillating arc
seems to be a step in the right direction, but only
a step, and today mechanical means of setting up
the oscillations is being sought.”—Exchange.
n *
'Reforms Stimulated by the Panic.
A financial paper predicts that Congress, which
assembles next month, will find its time largely
occupied with the problems made acute by the re
cent panic. Meanwhile the press is so teeming with
suggestions for financial legislation and currency
reform that The Wall Street Journal offers our
legislators some kindly advice in regard to selection.
Preference, says this paper, should be given to
those plans which involve the least change in the
present financial machinery of the country, pro
vided they can reach the end in view. Thus plans
for an emergency circulation, it urges, should be
given preference over the plans providing for a
pure, low-taxed asset currency; and it further spe
cifies as worthy of consideration ‘ ‘ those plans which
provide for the issuance of emergency circulation by
(a) the treasury, (b) the clearing houses in the
central reserve cities, (c) a central bank, (d) all
the national banks of the country.”
The idea of a central bank, which was unani
mously approved last year by a committee of the
New York Chamber of Commerce, is thus described
by the New York Globe:
“Under the plan sketched, the bank, like the
Bank of England, would be a bank of banks. Such
an institution, part of its directors representing the
government and part the owners of $50,000,001)
stock, would have branches in leading cities and
would have relations only with banks. The bank
would carry a large reserve in specie and act as
the custodian of the metallic reserve of the govern
ment, be its agent in the redemption of all forms
of credit currency, and its agent in receiving and
disbursing all public revenues, thus performing
functions now performed by the Treasury Depart
ment and the subtreasuries. With such a bank it
was believed that an elastic currency could be pro
vided responsive to the varying needs of business;
that the interest rate could be steadied, and those
wild fluctuations prevented that do so much to dis-
The Golden Age for December 12, 1907.
turb business; that it would permanently prevent
that alternate locking up and letting out of the
money supply that the subtreasury system implies
by making the whole supply at any time available
for use.”
Another suggestion comes from Postmaster-Gen
eral Meyer, who believes that the psychological mo
ment has arrived for the introduction of postal sav
ings-banks in this country. Other postmasters-gen
eral have recommended a system of postal savings
banks such as other civilized countries have adopted,
but Congress has so far failed to move in the mat
ter. “Doubtless it is permissible for every nation,
like every individual, to display a reasonable amount
of stupidity on any subject,” says the Chicago
News, which adds: “On! this subject of postal sav
ings-banks, however, the stupidity shown by the
United States long ago passed all bounds of rea
son.” The same paper goes on to say: ,
“Money deposited in postal savings-banks and
rendered absolutely safe by the vast resources of
the nation would earn a small rate of interest for
its depositor, and would be available for the use of
business. Mr. Meyer presents facts to show that
many foreign-born residents of this country pur
chase money orders byway of securing the govern
ment’s custodianship of their savings. Thus they
get no interest and pay a substantial fee, and the
money lies idle. The postmaster-general also has
found that large quantities of money are sent
abroad by its owners to be deposited in government
savings-banks of European countries. . . . The
earnest demand of the people for the assistance af
forded by postal banks in practising thrift should
not be longer ignored.”
The New York Independent adds its commenda
tion of the idea in the following words:
“In a case of panic like the present, postal banks
would be a resort which no one would be afraid
of, and there would be no run on them. An even
more important benefit would be that it would be
possible in country regions, where there are no sav
ings-banks, to encourage economy and thrift. We
commend the subject once more to the favorable at
tention of Congress.”
* I?
Clerical Raillvay Rates.
While the subject of the minister’s inadequate
salary is so much discussed, the corollary question
of the special reduction of railway rates to travel
ing ministers becomes one of interest. Some rail
roads have already discontinued the reduced rate
allowed to the clergy, and others have practically
served notice that they intend to do so. These
acts have met the approval of The Presbyterian
Banner (Pittsburg) on the ground of the plea for
“equal rights.” Such a plea, of course, implies
equal rights in the matter of salaries, as well as
in the question of paying railway rates. “Pay
ministers as others are paid, and then let them
pay as do others,” was the principle enunciated.
Ideally this principle is approved by the Pittsburg
Christian Advocate; but a writer in that journal
goes on to point out certain facts that no pos
sible reconstruction of conditions can ever change.
He says:
“One of these is the fact that there is now, al
ways has been, and always will be, a multitude of
ministers who are underpaid. Their living is not
only not what might be called 1 comfortable, ’ but
it is a mere existence. They have the barest nec
essaries of life, and their children must be put to
world at the earliest possible age to aid in their own
support And, now, however little clerical
discount may mean to ministers who are well or
fairly well paid, to these struggling men and their
families, it is no small matter.”
This journal insists that the “clerical rate”
ought not to be looked, upon as a gratuity, but as a
simple recognition of unrequited services. Fur
ther :
“If a railroad employs a laborer, a clerk, a law
yer, or a doctor, it pays him for his services in
cash, or free transportation, or both; but when
it calls on a minister to administer consolation to
its sick or dying, or to bury its dead, it never
thinks of tendering him any remuneration. The
same is true in all other cases. Other men are
paid for their services, but the minister is the
servant of the public. He not only ministers to
his own church, for which he may be assumed to be
paid in his salary, but he serves the whole com
munity, visiting the sick and burying the dead who
have had no connection with his church, and for
which service he not only receives no compensa
tion, but often does it at his own cost. Busy pas
tors know only too well how much of their time
and strength is consumed in this outside and unre
quited labor. The clerical discounts received do
not pay a tithe of what this labor is worth.
“Now, we are not defending clerical rates, or ar
guing for their continuance. They grew up in the
past as a voluntary recognition on the part of the
people of unpaid services rendered by ministers.
It never was a gratuity, nor was it half-pay for
such services. We do not plead for the continu
ance of the custom, but we do claim that it shall
be understood, and that ministers, because they
have been given these small favors, shall not be
put in the position of mendicants. Including all
such favors, they have never been adequately re
munerated, nor will they be in the future if the
discounts are discontinued. And yet we are sure
they would prefer the discontinuance of all such
aid, and would render outside services entirely free,
rather than be suspected of being objects of charity,
and thus made to differ from their fellows.” —Ex-
change.
*
*Tn God We Trust” ttgain.
From every part of the land has arisen the sin
cere and earnest voice of thousands, protesting
against the removal of the motto, “In God we
trust,” from our coins. In his answer to the first
outcries the President pointed out his view of the
matter, stating it as his opinion that such a use of
the motto robbed it of its sacredness, even of its
significance, and tended to degrade the expression
of our faith in the Supreme Deity. But the answer
came back, like a great chorus, that as a Christian
nation, acknowledging ourselves as such, and found
ed in the beginning upon the right of worshiping
God freely, we should not “hide our light under a
bushel,” but “let it shine before all men,” etc.,
by retaining on our medium of earthly values ’the
words acclaiming our trust in a power higher than
“reeking tubes and iron shards,” higher than our
selves, our might, our laws.
Now come fresh supporters of the President’s
point of view and present another aspect of the
subject. These, too, claim all the sincerity and
Christian earnestness of his opponents, but they
say that once certain of the Pharisees went to the
Man of Galilee, tempting him, and they showed
him a coin, asking him to whom it belonged. He
asked them whose image it bore, and they an
swered, “Caesar’s.” “Then,” said the Man of
Galilee, “render therefore unto Caesar the things
which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that
are God’s.” And they went away, confounded.
Again the supporters of the mottoless coin re
member the Scripture saying that not every one
who crieth, “Lord! Lord!” shall be called.
With these words as a text they contend that the
motto on the coin is not like a lighted candle of
our faith, but much more like the sunset cry of the
muezzin from the temple porch which, when men
hear, they say, “He is a good man. He prays
loudly.”
Faith and trust in God seem better expressed, say
those who take this view, in our works than
in our words, in the realities of our national
powers rather than in the symbolisms. Our unso
licited return to impoverished China of a large
part of her indemnity moneys approached nearer
to the teachings of the Nazarene than the placing
of inscriptions on our dollars. If America’s men
and women bear on their hearts that inscription,
“In God we trust,” our money won’t need it.
The Washington Post.
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