The Wateree messenger. (Camden, S.C.) 1884-1942, March 29, 1932, Image 2
THE WATEREE MESSENGER
Published Every Tuesday By
CHARLES W. BIRCHMQUE, Proprietor
Entered as Second Class Matter at the Postoffice at
? Camden, South Carolina
Subscription $1.50 a Year in Advance
Tuesday, March 29, 1932
BIBLE THOUGHT: "This people honor eth me with
their lip?, but their hearts are far from me. ? Mark 7:16.
Hypocrisy is folly. It is much easier, safer and pleas
anter to be the thing which a- man aims to appear than
to keep up the appearances of being what he is not. ?
CecM.
NERO FIDDLED WHILE ROME BURNED
The squabbling of the National legislators over the
liquor question brim^s to one's mind that there was a
man named Nero who fiddled while Rome burned. Our
senators and congressman know what is wrong with
other countries but cannot tell us what is wronpi with
ours. Our streets swarm with able bodied beggars,
young men, most of them that want may drive into
crime. Human life is cheap. Men are slain in this al
leged Christian land for less silver than led Judas to be
tray Christ. Young girls are sold into shame and from
squallid attics comes the cry of starving babies. The
Goths and the Vandals are once more gathering, imperil
ing civilization itself and belief in God seems to be fad
ing from our country. Want and wretchedness skulk in
tjie shadows of our churches. Ignorance and crime stalk
abroad at high noon, the Legions of Lucifer are over
running every town and transforming a beautiful coun
try into a Gehenna. The Field of Blood is filling, the
prisons are overcrowded, the work-house filled to the at
tics, with wretched folks that dared to dream of life
and happiness. The great sea of life here is strewn
with wreck and jvraith, millions are drifting hopeless
and helpless on the rocks of life. Prom out of the dark
less comes cries for aid ? men PLEADING for employ
ment and life; women shrieking in the agony of hunger;
children wailing from the cold winds. And the winds
are ever stronger, the waves run higher and higher; the
wreck and wraith prow ever more pitiful, more appeal
ing. And church and state pause in this mad vortex of
chaos to prate of prohibition, to legislate and perorate
about the enforcement of an unpopular political question
of little stability. The people ask of the church bread
and receive a stone. They ask of the state protection
for their lives and liberties and it gives them only long
er sessions of the legislature. Verily? it seemeth, that
our government is more interested in Japan, China, Per
sia, Russia and Egypt than America. Ancf our own
legislature is more interested in devising plans for pay
ing increasing deficits than in reducing the state's po
litical office-holders and decreasing taxes.
Lord, Lord, how we need men, REAL MEJN! To hell
with politicians!
PATIENCE IS NEEDED NOW
People are hearing so much about the steps which
ilrvrv fn nr. i ? * r
interests, that it
street to a&k:
"What {food does that do me?"
Directly it doesn't do the average person any more
immediate good than the spring rains do the farmer.
The immediate effect of rain is to give everybody who
goes out in it a good wetting. But the farmer who haw
gone through one or two seasons of drought knows that
a season of rain at the right time is going to do him a
lot of pood in the course of a few weeks or months.
Under our capitalist financial system, the tendency of
money and credit is to concentrate in the hands of a
comparatively few trustees, the large banking and in
surance companies, the big industries and the like. Ib
flows out from them through the nation, in the form of
loans for the purchase of goods, the financing of indus
try and business. It percolates through those channels*
into the hands of the mass in the form of salaries and
wages and t)he price of raw materials, produced on the
farm, in the forests and mines. As these final recipients
?pend it, it flows back through other but similar chan
nels to its sources. In normal times this process of out
flow and inflow is continuous and the movement in both
directions i? e<jual in volume and speed. But in the
times wo have been going through, some of the larger
channels of inflow have been blo<fked and thero has not
been enounh left in the main reservoirs to maintain the
normal outflow.
That is tho way our financial system works. It may
not be the ideal system; wo are not, arguing about, that.
It in the existing system, which, on the whole, works
better than anything else thait, has b????n tried, and it is
not likely to be changed very soon.
But our point is that every measure for easing credit
and replenishing the supply of money must necessarily
begin at the top. The main reservoirs must be fille<!
fimt. And if that is done ? and the reports we hear in
dicate thait there is already a great improvement? rfunds
ami credit wilt begin to resume tiheir old rate and vol
ume of outflow into industry and business, ami so into
the pocket* of the public at large.
It id a* foolish for the individual to get impatient over
th? delay in getting his share as it would be for the
fftiwiet to get impatient for his crop to ripen. Once the
**ifk begins to fall, his crop id assured If he gives h!s>
fields their proper attention. The economic v,?>? v.*
A True CkRiSTlAtf IS THE WORLD'S GREATEST
WONDER
The world once boasted of possessing seven wonders;
but a greater than any or all of them is a true Christian.
His feelings, enjoyment, aims, and objects are such that
he is more than a wonder; He is a mystery which none
but those initiated, like himself, in the mysteries of the
faith, are able to comprehend.
Dying, yea, by nature "dead in trespasses and sins",
he lives. Sorrowing, he rejoice?. Having nothing, he
possesses all things. Poor, he make3 many rich. Re
versing the common proverb, that "seeing is believing",
he believes more firmly in what he does NOT sec than
in what he sees. Contrary to the ordinary laws of na
ture, he is more powerfully attracted by distant objects
than by near ones. His well, like Israel's of old, is a
flinty rock; his bread grows; on barren sands; his home
ward path is at the beginning through a tumultunous
sea, and at the end through a dark roaring flood.
'He is confident of wanting nothing, yet depends on
the bounty of One who depended for his own bread on
others, and had not a place to lay his head.
Fur his joys he looks to One who was a Man of Sor
rows, and he expects a crown of glory from Him who
wore no arown on earth but a wreath of thorns.
A Christian is truly the greatest wonder in the world,
probably because he is not of the world.
CHINA KNOWS HOW TO ENFORCE LAW; OUR
#
COUNTRY SHOULD LEARN!
China has never been bothered with bank failures be
cause under Chinese laws when a bank fails, the heads
of the president and cashier are cut off. In South Car
! olina ONLY depositors, (which include widows and or
phans) lose their heads. The officers responsible are
usually feted, and everybody seems happy because it
gives us all an excuse for failure to pay our honest
debts. We can join the chorus in sayinpv. "I lost all
my money in the bank." The gates of hell,, like pros
perity, are just "around the corner." Better watch
your step.
China also had a real prohibition law about 2,500
years ago. They wanted to stop the flow of rice whiskey
and they STOPPED it. How? Very simple: just two
| punishments named in this law. Here they are.
The first punishment, and the mild one was pro
nounced on the man who had the liquor in his posses
sion. All his property was taken and he was order
ed to jail for life.
The second punishment was for the man who sold
it ? he was just beheaded, that's all.
Perhaps China could teach us how to enforce laws as
well as we could teach them how to fight.
SPRING IS HERE AGAIN
Every year about this time we begrin to feel that life
is worth living after all. There is something about the
return of Spring that? falls the human spirit with new
courage, that compels the human soul to a new realiza
tion of the wonders of this wonderful world we live in.
It is no wonder that humankind, from the ear Li eat
times, has celebrated the return of Sprinp as its great
est religious festival. The dead world has come to life.
The sun has come back to us. That which was buried
in the ground has arisen from the grave. The bare
branches are clothing themselves with green. The birds
have returned from their Winter retreats and are build
ing their nesta among us. The beasts of the field and
the forest are bringing forth their young. A new life
cycle is beginning, after a cycle of darkness and death.
We can take it as- symbolic, or believe litearally in the
resurrection of tihe body,, but in every land all peoples
of the earth have, from time immemorial, celebrated this
season as- the return of their gods fro?m exile, as the
promise of a new life hereafter when this one shall have
been finished. That we shall come from beyond the
grave, clothed in new raiment, as the trees and the
fields are clotihed in new verdure after their Winter's
wlumber, is the belief of nino-tenths of mankind. It is
a belief that has sustained countless millions to endure
the harshness and hardships of this life, and that shall'
continue for all time f?o to sustain those whose faith is
strengthened and refreshed by each succeeding Sipring.
A flapper murderess was executed some time ago and
it if* said that the executioner hooked up an extra gener
ator to the electric chair. He was probably one of those
old-time men who thought it took a lot to shock the pre
sent day flapper.
Rich men's sons often begin where their farther left
off ? -wealthy, and end where their fathers began ?
penniless.
Ruth may have been a wonderful character but in our
opinion she was very rude to Hoax ? she pulled his ears
and trod on his corn before mnrriage. We na/turally
expect it afterwairds*
In our opinion no punishment would be too pV"oa^ ^or
the kidnaipper. He should be twisted around his own neck
rammed down his own throat until ithere is nothing left
of him but the extreme ends of his shirt collar sticking
out of his eyes. After sufficient physical punishment,
perhaps it would be mercifid to kill him.
It may have taken Nature over a million years to
make a man out of a monkey, but a good looking woman
can often make a real monkey out of a man in less than
thirty minutes. That's evolution, a la carte!
Italians and French have no W in their languages.
Wonder how they rjjoU wagon, wealth, worrrrati and wine
without a W ?
I
Woman i? said to be a mere delusion, but In these de
pressing times it is sometimes pleasant to hug delusions.
Wihrh*key in the key by which many gain entrance into
our prtoon* and alme-houses.
v'.; ? .'>? ? ? - - ''''
imii n?(i?m
Send Them Back, Uncle Sam! - By Albert T. Reid
A ROCK IN A WEARY LAND
When I was fifteen years old my
father took me into his study and
gave me a talk about life insurance.
He was a preacher, with a large fam
ily and a small salary.
"Paying my premiums has kept me
poor, and often in debt," he said,
"but I am well rewarded. I can lie
down and sleep soundly at night."
In order to bring the lesson home,
he applied for $3,000 of life insurance
on the twenty payment plan for me,
saying that he would carry it until I I
had graduated from college and I I
could go on with it from there.
Twenty years seemed longer at that
time than a hundred years seem now.
I wondered if I would ever live to the
ripe old age of thirty-five, when the
policies would be paid in full.
Well, I have lived that long, and
these policies, and some others, are
all paid up. Father himself lived
long and, having educated his child
ren and seen them all started, he
??had in his insurance and was com
fortable in his old age.
Remembering this lesson, I have
signed my checks for premiums very
cheerfully, but never with so much
?atisfaction as during the past two
years.
In a period when almost everything
one owns is tumbling it is great to
know that one investment, at least,
is just as good as it promised to be.
Nothing has happened to any of the
big insurance companies, and nothing
will.
I was reminded of this the other
day when I attended a convention of
( insurance salesmen. They were full
of human interest stories.
Said one: "A business man walked
into my office and asked for an ap
plication blank. He said that two
years ago he was wonth $200,000, and
thought that he and his family were
safe from financial worries forever.
Now the $200?000 is less than $50,
000. His only hope of independence
is through systematic savings as re
presented by payments of life insur
ance premiums."
Another told of a man who asked:
"I am thirty-five and have to start
all over again. What kind of a pol
icy can you offer me that will insure
me a competence at sixty?
We were all carried off our feet by
the new theory of investments in
1929. Bomls and insrurance were out
of date. Common stocks were the
one sure way to fortune.
Now the pendulum has swung back.
The old-fas'hioned ideas are in style
again. It is a time when insurance
companies oujiht to double their ad
vertising, and insurance salesmen
their efforts.
When we were prosperous we some
times regarded these salesmen as a
nuisance.. Today their wares are "as
rivers of water in a dry place; as the
shadow of a rock in a weary land."
Send Your
?
Job
Printing
To The
Wateree
Messenger
I TlNKLkPAUGH SAY S
"THE WAY THE QALS Go
A^TEfc THE FELLAS THESE
PAYS LEAP YEAR DoMT
SEEM To MAKE No
I -> DIFFERENCE. *
BUD 'n' BUB
iMffiaaKk. *
By Ed KRESSY I