p. 16 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 12. (3/25/1913)

Earlier text: Wide-Spread and Growing Dishonesty

All Can Use Tracts

All the Time

The Dollar Package for family use. 120 selected tracts on 12 different subjects, 1,896 pages. Price, post-paid, $1.25.

“Tracts can go everywhere. Tracts never tire. Tracts can be multiplied without end by the press. Tracts can travel at little expense. They run up and down like the angels of God, blessing all, giving to all, and asking no gift in return.”

Methods for All

1. Systematic Distribution to interest people in Bible study in their homes. Plan outlined in instructions in the $5.00 package with envelopes.

2. With Correspondence:

a. Relatives;

b. Friends.

Select tracts that are suitable, and never lose an opportunity to enclose one. You can not tell what interest it may arouse.

3. “As you go,” . . . make it a habit to be prepared, and hand out tracts, and “scatter” them as you follow your daily occupation:

a. With the neighbor and the stranger;

b. At the post-office and the store;

c. In the reading rack;

d. Everywhere where people may be reached.

“Who can measure the influence of one little tract put into the hand of an unconverted person?”

True Stories Give Inspiration

Recently the wife of a banker in a Western city gave one of our agents an order for “Bible Readings,” when she learned it was an Adventist work. She said, “I have been secretly reading some tracts given me by an Adventist woman a year ago, and I have about concluded they are right.” She talked freely about the Sabbath, and other points of truth.

A family enthusiastic in work with literature, recently met, are in the truth to-day because an uncle, years ago, sent tracts. The packages kept coming through the mail until the mother of the home accepted the truth. The father opposed it. One Sabbath day, however, after he had thrown a package of tracts into the stove, he returned and raised the lid, there to be met with the message—“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work,” etc. The printed lines stood out in white upon the charred page which had burned to ash. It was too much for him. From that day, that family kept the Sabbath, and the children—now with families of their own—are living witnesses to the influence of that faithful work with tracts.

Order of your tract society or

Pacific Press Publishing Association

Mountain View, California

Diligence—Earnestness

TO THE reader, and especially if he be a young man, we want to suggest a few thoughts, and one especially.

Do not waste your time.

Do you appreciate the importance of an hour and of a day?

Do you call yourself strictly to account, once a week or once a month, and ask what you have done to make yourself abler, better equipped as a thinking creature, than you were before?

Do you realize that the strength of your body should be economized and saved up for mental effort? Or do you devote energies that could give success to foolish amusements and self-indulgence?

All around you other human beings of your own age are living and working.

Some of these in a few years will be enjoying great success and great rewards.

The difference between the future great man and yourself is not so much the difference in opportunity as the difference in earnestness, application, self-denial, concentration of purpose.

Who will be president of the United States twenty-five years from now, or, more important still, who will be the most useful thinker of the United States twenty-five years from now?

Nobody knows.

But if that most useful and ablest man could be pointed out to you, you would probably laugh. You would see in him, undoubtedly, one with whom you would not fear to compete. That man is living somewhere about. He is perhaps on a farm, competing with a poor start in life, the hardest conditions. He is perhaps some poor clerk, some young mechanic.

Of this you may be sure: Whatever he is and wherever he is, he is an earnest young man; he is a dissatisfied, self-criticizing young man. He is trying to develop his mind; he is not content to spend the hours in amusement.—San Francisco “Examiner.”

Helping Together

By Editor

THERE are constantly coming to this office requests for this paper for (1) those who are poor and unable to take the paper; (2) for mission work among prisoners and others otherwise confined or secluded; (3) for public reading-rooms; (4) for general missionary work in foreign fields by our missionaries; (5) for general missionary work in various phases. Sometimes there are calls for tracts in foreign languages as well as English. It is not possible for the publishing house to meet all these requests. Publications are sometimes published at a loss to the house. We felt sure that many more of our readers would be glad to help us in this work. Thus may we bring together those who have no time or opportunity to do missionary work, but who are able to help others who have the time and opportunity, but not the means. Who will contribute to our Coöperation Fund?

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The Law

That question of “Under the law? or under grace?” is a constantly recurring one. Bible Students' Library tract No. 163 gives a careful answer from the Bible. Single copy, 2 cents; a hundred, $1.00. This office.

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A Bible Atlas

By Editor

New Premium of the Signs of the Times Weekly

The Bible Atlas contains 38 Physical Maps of Palestine, based upon the results of an actual survey, with an identification of the Biblical Sites as far as known; also 82 Progressive Historical Maps embracing a special map for each specific period of the country's history, from the earliest date to the present time.

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Think Beyond the Surface

By Editor

A larger number of illustrations are given in this issue than usual, in connection with the inauguration ceremonies of President Wilson and Vice-president Marshall. More and more these great state occasions are made excuses for other manifestations, and the suffrage organization has used this to the full for pushing their cause. At the same time, there was a counter demonstration on the part of the antisuffragettes. We present these without note or comment other than this, that these large movements show the drift and tendency of the times, by which enthusiasm and great crowds are used to carry the sentiments of the people. It is a time when men ought to think beyond the surface, when they need to weigh carefully all of the great world movements now in progress, when they should examine thoughtfully and earnestly, as between themselves and God, the attitude that they are to assume respecting all these various things which are coming before them, and the principles which are underlying them. It is not an unheard-of thing to have not only towns and states, but nations themselves stampeded. God would have His children to be thoughtful men and women.

Starvation Wages and Fallen Girls

Of course, it may be said that a girl ought not to sell her virtue at any price, and thank God, there are many who would live to that standard, and who would give a hundred lives, if demanded, before they would yield the purity of their womanhood. But that is not the case with many others. And in the way in which vice has spread at the present time many girls find an excuse for yielding to temptation by saying that thousands of others do it.

There is a committee of investigation in Chicago that has been doing work along these lines, especially inquiring into the wages which women receive. They have examined some of the great employers of women in Chicago. They found, for instance, that Sears, Roebuck & Company earned $7,000,000 last year, and increased their reserve to $12,000,000. They pay their 4,732 women an average wage of $9.40 a week. Many of their women receive $5.00 and $5.50 a week. Many of these may be new beginners, may possibly live in their own homes, and may be able thus to support themselves on that wage. Let us look upon it as charitably as we can.

Edward F. Mandel employs 1,866 females, but the wages range from $3.00 to $3.50 a week, an average of $3.25. Think of it! When questioned closely, he thought that a woman might live on $7.25 a week, but justified the wages by saying that the girls who received $3.00 a week lived at home, according to the application blanks. He placed the living expense of a woman at—clothing, $1.00; laundry, 25 cents; room rent and board, $4.00; car fare, 60 cents; luncheons, 70 cents; doctors and dentists, 60 cents; and church expenses, 10 cents. All of which looks pretty low.

Marshall Field & Company employ 4,233 females, and the average wage paid by that firm is $10.76, of which 440 are receiving less than $5.00 a week for part of their time, and 213 are receiving $5.00. These doubtless are apprentices. These three firms employ nearly 11,000 women. Rosenwald, of Sears, Roebuck & Company, held that low wages had nothing to do with immorality. Mr. Mandel took the same ground. But when he came to estimate a woman's expenses at $7.25 as compared with the $3.25—the average wage that he gave—it seemed to change his opinion somewhat.

Mr. Simpson, of Marshall Field & Company, declared that $8.00 a week is necessary for a woman to take proper care of herself, and both he and Mandel agreed that if a woman is not paid an adequate wage, the chances of her remaining a good woman will be exceedingly slim.

Eleanor Benson, a former employee of Sears, Roebuck & Company, said that three eighths of the women working for the great mail order concern are above reproach, but she would not answer for the rest. Five eighths of 4,732 amount to 2,700. Of these, sympathy for common humanity would hope that not all were immoral, but if one half of them were, think of it, that in one establishment so many girls would be seemingly forced from their standard of morality to yield their virtue in order to dress properly!

There are all sorts of complaints about the forewomen and abusive foremen. Some of the working girls there shared their clothes because all had not sufficient for their needs. The underpaid women of the country and the child-labor conditions, as brought out in many investigations, are a crying shame. Surely such things ought to be remedied. But all these are a part of a great system of finance and combination which leaves God out of the question, and is ruled by the almighty dollar.

God Sees the Unseen Work

“The Valve World,” published by The Crane Company, had a suggestive little note recently which is worthy of sending on. The editor says: “The other day I went into a furniture factory—one of those ‘from-us-to-you’ places—to look at some wooden bedsteads. I noticed that the one most pleasing to me—by the way, the wood was unfinished—showed some unusually poor workmanship in places. I pointed these out to the salesman. He said, ‘O, that’s all right; that’s the part that goes against the wall.’ And I found myself parodying Longfellow thus:

“In these latter days of art Any sort of botching passes; Slight each small and unseen part, For the gods now wear smoked glasses.”

Men are forgetting that there is a God, but He sees and knows, and the unseen part is as open to Him as the seen. It is worth while to have a conscience that will work as in God’s sight.

The Gospel in Type

By Editor

Our first page depicts various steps in the service of the ancient priesthood. It will bear study in connection with a series of articles which we begin with this number, the first of which is entitled, “The Gospel in Type.”

Cabinet Biographies Deferred

By Editor

We had hoped in this issue to present the photos and brief biographies of the members of President Wilson’s Cabinet—men who may have much to do in making important history in the near future. This we defer to next week.

Principles, Not Politics

By Editor

To every true Christian who is looking for the coming of his Lord, who rules in the world is not a matter of politics, but of principles. By these will he weigh events. We wish the new administration, as we have wished every other, true success, and shall, as our Lord enjoins, pray that God may guide them.

Municipal Terminal Markets

Mayor Gaynor, of New York City, sent abroad Mrs. L. Marie Black, a member of his terminal market commission, to study European conditions to help solve the high cost of living. Mrs. Black has returned. She declares that 45 per cent of the cost of foodstuffs paid by consumers can be charged against the cost of handling commissions, etc. She advocates municipal terminal markets, that is, markets in which the people can bring their produce directly to the consumer and thus cut out the middleman. She declared that provision for terminal markets would be one of the leading economic questions in all American cities of size in the near future. We believe she is right.

Dynamite Explosion at Baltimore

A frightful calamity occurred in Baltimore, March 7. The British ship Alum Chine lay at anchor in the Potomac River near Hawkins Point, loading 350 tons of dynamite for the Panama Canal. Fire of unknown origin broke out on the vessel while the last of the explosive was being loaded. It spread with lightning rapidity to the dynamite, and when the explosion occurred the vessel was blown into bits and sent hurtling in all directions through the air. Fifteen car-loads were exploded. Pieces of the steel sides of the Alum Chine were blown with such force that they tore their way through the armored side of the collier Jason, nearly a mile away, killing four men and injuring ten others on board. The tug Atlantic was sunk while endeavoring to rescue others. $500,000 is the estimated damage. The greatest loss is the big United States collier Jason, ready to start on its trial trip. Its sides were battered as tho it had been in a battle, and its interior was demolished.

The General Conference Bulletin

By Editor

“The General Conference Bulletin” will be a 16-page daily paper (Sabbaths excepted), the size of the Review and Herald. It will give full reports of the proceedings of the conference, as the meetings are held day by day. It will be printed during the night following each day's session, and mailed early the next morning. Reports of sermons will not be printed in it, but it will be filled with just such things as our people who are not present will want to know. In other words, it will be next to being present at the conference. Eighteen or twenty issues will be furnished for 50 cents. The business of the conference will be faithfully reported. All resolutions, appointments, appropriations, elections, statistics, will be given. Therefore all who desire to keep in close touch with the General Conference will certainly wish the Bulletin. Send in orders early, through the conference tract society, and so avoid the possibility of mistakes and delays in the rush and confusion of belated subscriptions.

Manila's Film Censorship Debate

Manila is having its spasm of moral legislation, as well as other places. Cinematograph films are under censure, and there is a proposition to constitute a committee, consisting of the collector of customs, director of education, and chief of police, to pass upon them, but there are some of them who think that the painters' art must not be censured, even tho it is of the nude order.