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VIEWS FROM THE WATCH TOWER

HUMAN FORCES BURSTING ALL BONDS AND BARRIERS

JUSTICE BREWER, of the Supreme Court of the United States, was one of the speakers at the recent Yale bi-centenary celebration, and he made some statements which were extremely startling as coming from one in his high judicial position. The Picayune epitomizing his speech says:

“Commenting on the extraordinary results attained in scientific discovery and mechanical invention, and their use in all the business and economies of daily life in a country inexpressibly rich in natural endowments, and inhabited by a vast and rapidly increasing population of the most enterprising and intelligent races of men, he said:

“‘These various causes are operating in our midst to produce wealth, consolidation, centralization. The rapidity and multitude of mercantile transactions are seen in colossal fortunes, in gigantic undertakings, in enormous financial consolidations, and corresponding organizations of labor. Local self-control is giving way before the pressure for centralized power. The town meeting is supplanted by the State Legislature, while the latter in its turn is yielding to the expanding power of Congress. Political parties are largely under the management of bosses, and the whole great forces of industry, business and politics seem passing under the domination of single central control.’

“The eagerness with which the physical forces brought into play by scientific discovery and invention have been adopted and enlisted in every branch of industry and business is not more remarkable than is the tendency towards the concentration and centralization of human forces and agencies. On one side capital is concentrating. On the other labor is combining. Each is mustering all its forces so that each may work with the other with completer system and to better advantage, and, in case of a conflict, each will be able to hurl itself against the other with all the great energy and effectiveness, and the prospect is that, sooner or later, both sides will attain conditions of such formidableness as that the shock, should they come in full collision, will destroy the existing social and political organization of the Republic, unless the masses of the people, who will not be bound to either side, shall rally to crush out the combatants and save the country’s institutions.

“It has been declared by jurists that there is no evil which can occur in human economy that cannot find its remedy in the courts, but Justice Brewer does not agree with any such doctrine. He said in his Yale address:

“‘You cannot stay this movement towards consolidation and centralization. It is a natural evolution. The commercial spirit is taking advantage of the wonderful facilities given by steam and electricity. Injunction against strikers will not stop it; legislation against trusts will not. Attempting to stay the movement of its chariot wheels by injunction or statute is lunacy, compared with which Dame Partington’s effort to stop the Atlantic with a mop was supreme wisdom.’

“Then the last appeal is to the court of public opinion, and it must be a court independent of the contending parties. Not all the people of the United States belong to the privileged class of combined capitalists any more than they are members of labor organizations. The aristocracy of capital is made up of only a few thousands at the most. Organized labor may embrace a few millions of men not yet united under a central power. But although they may be so combined when the great conflict shall come, they will only make up a minority proportion of the entire population. There will be a great body of the people, to the number of tens and scores of millions, who will to a greater or less degree be independent, in sentiment at least, of both concentrated capital on one side and combined labor on the other, and this great majority will sit as a court to judge and determine what is necessary to protect the people’s liberties and their free institutions from the aggressions of either or both of the combinations.”

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The thinking people of the world all perceive that

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the great day of trouble is approaching,—very much as we have shown it from the Scriptures in The Day of Vengeance and The Divine Plan of the Ages. Yet, as above stated, they hope that the masses will at the proper moment save society from complete wreck and ruin in anarchy. It is well for mankind that hope occupies so large a place in the natural heart which has nothing else to lean upon.

But if the Scriptures forbid us to exercise such hopes they give “us who believe” a still better hope of blessings to follow. The learned Justice hopes for the farming element, which heretofore has always been the conservative one, to preserve society and to enforce law and equity. But the Scriptures show the reverse of this. They show that it will be the reapers, the farmers, who will specially suffer and cry out at this time, and be specially instrumental in bringing about the anarchy.

Already the “Agrarian Party” (the farmers) of Europe are now causing kings and emperors serious trouble. They cry out that they cannot make a living at present prices and want prohibitive tariffs which would so increase the cost of living for laborers and mechanics as to seriously disturb manufacturing and all foreign commerce. This is the result of the demonetization of silver—farmers of gold standard countries being obliged to compete with farmers of silver standard countries, while manufacturing is all done in gold-standard countries and has no such competition with the cheap labor of heathendom.

Phenomenal conditions have given American farmers great prosperity—at the expense of millions in India and Russia, who have suffered from famine. But we are not to expect bountiful harvests here, and famines elsewhere to keep up prices, always. When the reverse movements come, the farmers of this favored land will also begin to cry out as represented in James 5.

A NEW CHEMICAL AGENT

“The first milestone on the journey toward bloodless surgery has been reached. Its name is Adrenalin, that being the title of a chemical composition recently discovered by Dr. Jokichi Takamine, a well known and highly educated Japanese, who is connected with a chemical house that has a local office in this city. Adrenalin is to medicine what liquid air is to science, the only difference being that the chemical is under complete control, with unlimited possibilities before it.

“By the local application of Adrenalin, in solution of one part to 5,000, operations may be performed on the nose, ear and eye without the spilling of a drop of blood. Such operations have also been performed with Adrenalin in solution of one part to 10,000.

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“Thus has it been demonstrated that the discovery is the most powerful medicine known, and at the same time, it might be said, the most expensive. Physicians but it at $1 a grain, or $7,000 a pound.

“The isolation of the blood pressure raising constituent of the suprarenal gland is of course the chief virtue of Adrenalin, and its uses and developments along this particular line are unlimited. It has also been ascertained, however, that Adrenalin is a most powerful cardiac stimulant, and it has been hinted by physicians that it may be possible to resuscitate persons who have died of heart failure.

“Premature childbirth may also be made obsolete, as it is said Adrenalin can be made to revivify the heart of the dead child. Work along these lines is now being carried forward by Dr. Takamine in his laboratory, and before another year is gone it may be possible to perform amputations without the loss of blood, which is so disastrous to the patient.”—New York Herald.

STREAMS IN THE DESERT

“Surely the ‘Great American Desert’ of our childhood days will soon be a thing of the past. The only conception of a desert that the next generation will be able to obtain must come from pictures and descriptions of something that once existed, but is no more. Indeed, it is quite likely that we shall not have to wait for the next generation to witness the realization of this change.

“A special from San Bernardino announces that an artesian gusher, with a flow of nearly 200 inches of water, has been struck on the Mojave desert, near Victor, at a depth of less than 200 feet, by parties who were drilling for oil. This is not, by any means, the first time that water has been struck in Southern California by persons who were seeking for oil, and in some cases the water has proved to be more valuable than a moderate amount of oil would be.

“Out on the Colorado desert, below sea level, they have obtained a fine supply of artesian water at a moderate depth, and at the other end of the desert, near Yuma, water is flowing through a canal which is big enough to be navigated by a steam launch.

“All this is only a slight foretaste of what is to come within the next few years. That favorite quotation of our friend, the country editor ‘The desert shall blossom as the rose,’ is destined to be exemplified to a remarkable degree in Southern California within the next decade. Not only shall the desert blossom as the rose, but also the less beautiful but more profitable cabbage and potato and cauliflower and sugar beet and watermelon and fruit tree, and many other things which profit a man’s stomach and swell his bank account.”—Los Angeles Daily Times.

The foregoing clippings corroborate the testimony of the Scriptures,—that we are in the dawn of the new epoch, long by God’s prophets foretold—the Millennium, the period of divine favor for the blessing of Adam’s race through him who redeemed it—Christ. They corroborate the assurance that under that Kingdom of Messiah the “curse” shall be lifted from the race and as Sin and Death have reigned for 6,000 years, now soon Grace and Truth shall reign unto righteousness and life.—Rom. 5:17-21.

Meantime, also let us not forget the teaching of the Lord’s Word that so far as humanity is concerned, it is so full of selfishness that it cannot enter into these blessings now due peaceably; but must needs pass through “a time of trouble [anarchy]

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such as was not since there was a nation.” We must note the trend of events in this direction therefore, also. It is significant that one Socialist publication claims to have sent out during the forty weeks of this year, over 6,000,000 papers and pamphlets. And below we quote a cable to the Chicago Daily News—also significant.

IN PERIL FROM THEIR OWN TROOPS

“London, Sept. 30.—Dangerous social fanatics in the ranks of continental armies are causing unrest in a number of the principal capitals of Europe, according to a high officer of the British army who has just returned from a professional tour of the continent. He asserts that some monarchs are in peril when in the presence of their own troops and are now taking drastic measures to correct the evil. To the correspondent of The Daily News he said today:

“The barracks of Europe have become nurseries of anarchism. Realizing the opportunity offered to them in the leisure hours of army life, anarchists have gladly submitted to conscription and subsequently have poured the poison of their doctrine into the ears of their comrades. They have appealed especially to young peasants caught in the net of compulsory military service, and have sent many of the latter out of the army convinced of the tyranny of the ruling classes and eager to identify themselves with the radical element of the population.

“This has happened on a particularly large scale in Germany, Austria and Italy, and the officials of those countries are greatly disturbed. They have adopted measures for strangling revolution in the barracks. The latter are now frequented by government eavesdroppers and spies who make short work of the preachers of assassination and insurrection.”

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— November 15, 1901 —