Communications
COMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRIAL OUTPOSTS New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:-About four hundred miles along the northwest coast of British Columbia, on the Alaskan inland water passage, is the town of Ocean...
...SAFETY ALOFT Moline, 111...
...The only point is, that the Catholic art of a thousand years, from Hagia Sophia to Salamanca, Le Mans and Gloucester, is a better basis to work on, and from, than the 'alive, distinctive, up-to-date, un-ecclesiastical' art which has had such ludicrous showing in France and is the product of about twenty years of ingenious activity on the part of the exponents of an un-Catholic, anti-Catholic, civilization...
...The radio beam will positively not do the latter but the new altimeter will...
...There is only one beer parlor-as they are properly called in British Columbia...
...The curving coast line makes the ports of this part of North America 500 miles nearer China than any seaport on the Pacific coast...
...A strike took place some years ago, and the policies of the company-owned town do not provide for any discussions among the workers that might question the benevolent economic structure created by the company...
...A new altimeter which will show altitude above the ground instead of above sea-level, obviating the danger of flying into hilltops...
...Just what Mr...
...Information is readily furnished that there is no unemployment problem...
...Orville L. .Binkerd...
...How large this majority should be to satisfy a minority and make them willing to accede, is difficult to ascertain...
...Many pertinent questions could be asked, but perhaps the most discomforting one of all would be, why has there been spread so much disrespect for and even disobedience to law in order to advocate some other law in substitution...
...Law can be repealed without being destroyed, and the reasons given for repeal of any law to which there is objection surely can be made apparent without a near approach to anarchy...
...Charles J. Byrnes...
...A. Wagner...
...Japanese, Hindus and Chinese mingle with paper-makers from the Pacific coast and descendants of those who went to the Yukon and remained to domicile the solitudes of the Northwest...
...And since such artistic skill belongs to a man who is himself not a member of the Catholic Church, it ill becomes any of us who are members of that Church known as the Mother of Arts to find fault with someone who is trying to bring us back to a proper artistic standard...
...His scathing attack on Mr...
...And if so, why not allow those who know what they are doing to go ahead with the right work...
...Its population of about seven thousand souls, reflects the immigration of the Pacific coast, with its oriental section for Japanese, Hindus and Chinese...
...Who is going to decide this point for the one out of sympathy with this or any other law...
...COMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRIAL OUTPOSTS New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:-About four hundred miles along the northwest coast of British Columbia, on the Alaskan inland water passage, is the town of Ocean Falls...
...Cram states in his communication to The Commonweal of September 25: "No one would claim that the recovery of good art in the service of religion that has been going on now for twenty-five years has reached its term...
...THE MORALITY OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC Pittsburgh, Pa...
...Must we consider the legality of any enactment weakened by each infraction of its rule...
...Just so long as we are all satisfied with gaudily decorated statuary and ill-fitting vestments, we will be served these and no other...
...The revolution taking place in industrial methods of production tends to locate manufacturing plants at the source of the raw materials...
...William Collins, General Organizer, American Federation of Labor...
...Since your magazine is written for the general public, which has still almost everything to learn about aviation, I take it that you would not willingly misinform that public, and lead it to expect something from airplane instruments that these instruments are not intended to do...
...It is a company-owned town, with shipping its only means of transportation to the outside world...
...that is conducted under the law, which provides that only those seated can be served, and does not allow any loud recitations of The Shooting of Dan McGrew, or singing of Sweet Adeline...
...All of the land is owned by the company except that occupied by the three churches, the United, Episcopal and Roman Catholic, the company generously recognizing that company control must end where religious freedom begins...
...The government liquor store was closed some time ago because of the tendency of some of the workers to indulge too freely, which interfered with the efficiency of the plant...
...As Mr...
...May I therefore call your attention to the following paragraph in Safety Aloft, which contains misstatements: "Three instruments . . . : the radio beam, which will keep a pilot true on his course, bring him to his destination through darkness and fog, and enable him to land safely even when he cannot see the ground...
...The subject state of the workers in their everyday activities makes him feel quite at home in this western civilization that prides itself on its democratic principles of government...
...Gerrity states in his letter that there has been going on for some time a return to the inspiration of religion in the art...
...Wagner agrees in part with John A. Ryan, but in one chief particular he is opposed to the Doctor for the conviction he expressed in a former article as follows: "Concerning those provisions which forbid the sale of liquor and its manufacture and transportation for sale, I still hold, as I did in 1920 and until 1926, that they enjoyed during those years a presumption of social utility and ethical validity...
...Many of the workers are married and settled in comfortable homes, but the tendency of the younger generation is to work long enough to get a stake that will provide steamer fare to Vancouver or Seattle...
...The 20 percent that escapes is classified in savings, mail orders for liquors, wearing apparel and sporting goods...
...Cumulative experience, however, has definitely destroyed the presumption that favored the noble experiment during the early years of the experimentation...
...Are we reaching the point where, when the company interest begins, individual liberty ceases...
...Cram's artistic ideals are, to say the least, unreasonable...
...An airplane can dispense with everything except the man at the stick, but the newly perfected artificial horizon is the pilot's greatest friend in blind flying, i.e., in snow and fog when he cannot see the real horizon...
...The visitor who registers at the company-owned hotel must tell his business or leave with the next boat...
...The docking of the steamer furnishes an event for those not employed at that particular time: they watch the lowering gangplank that brings its cargo of tourists and mining prospectors, seeking the elusive fortunes that exist in the mineral wealth of these northwest mountains...
...Why not give this seed an opportunity to grow and flower along real artistic lines ? It is hard to understand in just what sense Mr...
...The working population reflects racial immigration differing from that of the industrial Atlantic states...
...The first impression of this industrial centre is the up-to-date architecture of the buildings housing the latest improved paper-making machinery, which is designed to get the greatest production possible from these seemingly inexhaustible mountain forests...
...An automatic pilot which will keep the plane level without any attention from the aviator...
...Everything within the town, with the exception of the post-office and three churches is owned and controlled by the corporation, in which it is said much United States capital is invested...
...These industrial outposts carry with them the modern machinery that practically eliminates the skilled worker, reducing human control to a minimum...
...These should be our exact sentiments at the present day...
...If the "modern minds" can really produce art worthy of the Church's approval and in keeping with the dignity of her liturgical worship, then let us step aside and remain in silence until it has been accomplished...
...If these good results have varied in extent or have seemed to have lessened, it is worth while to consider the resistance that has been offered all along by a bold insistence on the part of some sections of the press that the law should have a large majority of the citizenship with it in order to merit a respectful obedience to its principles...
...It is from these points, and the immigration that populates the industry, that our oriental neighbors will get some idea of our industrial democracy...
...J. B. CULEMANS...
...TO the Editor:-The September 4 issue of The Commonweal carries an especially interesting discussion of prohibition by Mr...
...Ralph Adams Cram is entirely uncalled for, and his criticism of Mr...
...Thus far, however, the "modern minds" have shown themselves wholly incapable of producing any such thing...
...The so-called modern mind thus far seems incapable of conceiving anything that in any way compares with the work produced by the great minds of the past...
...Gerrity states, "this intense age has great religious potentialities capable of breaking the bounds of preconceived forms and styles...
...Eighty percent of the money that is paid out in wages to the employees is received back by the company in payment for rent, food, clothing and beverages...
...The majority consist of Canadian and United States workers who have been attracted to this ideal location to follow the paper-making industry...
...There are other company-owned towns developing rapidly in the United States and Canada that are establishing a similar social basis...
...That the clergy are expecting better and more artistic churches and church furnishings can be attested by those who are in a position to know just what church men, especially of the younger generation, are asking for when they get ready to build and embellish a temple of God...
...I am sure there can be no valid objection to giving the reading public the correct information...
...Will each person be his own arbiter of the good and bad laws...
...The public at large is distrustful of the airplane because it does not understand, or because it misunderstands...
...It would seem well established that the social cost of alcohol when used as a beverage for common consumption was very materially reduced by prohibition...
...The standard of living is regulated by the $.50 per hour for the unskilled worker, and goes as high as $1.25 for the few skilled paper-makers...
...TO the Editor:-Some three weeks ago, in connection with a reference in your magazine to the disaster that befell the T.A...
...Only the largest logs seem to satisfy the appetite of this machine monster, with its continuous process of turning pulp into newsprint paper...
...REFLECTIONS UPON ART Des Moines, la...
...A situation in which minorities would be satisfied would be an ideal earthly one, but to reach such a happy state seems a hopeless task, especially where the issue which causes the clash is real...
...How far is the revolutionary machine age going to function in the paternal control of the worker...
...While your readers may not have the advantage of seeing a discussion carried on with equal prominence given to the pro and the con of this question, nevertheless the wet views offered concerning this social difficulty are certainly sufficiently varied to satisfy the requirements of an argument...
...While it is true that any place on the face of the earth where the Sacrifice of the Mass is offered and where resides the Prisoner of Love will be sacred to Catholics, that does not release us from the obligations of offering to God Who is infinitely beautiful the very best that we have...
...T. plane, City of San Francisco, I called your attention to the safety regulations established and enforced by the Aeronautics Branch of the Department of Commerce...
...Should all law come under this baneful test, or only prohibition law...
...Gerrity means by "artistic moderns" would be hard to say after reading his letter...
...This is 10 percent lower than the scale would be if there were an opportunity for collective bargaining among the workers...
...John Emmett Gerrity is aiming to say in his letter of October 23...
...eventually something far finer will be achieved...
...Every able-bodied man is employed...
...Whenever the "budding hotbeds of modern art" produce something worthy of being adopted by the Universal Church, then will be the time to give them fitting praise for their efforts in establishing religious art worthy of the name...
...I am glad to read the editorial Safety Aloft, in the issue of October 23...
...This attitude must have great effect upon the Oriental, if he ever allows his mind to leave the more engrossing job of handling logs...
...Only a beginning, though a good beginning, has been made...
...TO the Editor:-One really wonders just what Mr...
...There may be some reason for this proceeding when it is understood that the company is bitterly opposed to organized labor...
...The hidden qualities for organization that are part of the birthright of the American worker are suppressed in this company-owned town, under a cloak of welfare and benevolence that robs the worker of his initiative and right to establish his own protection for his family life...
...and yet there have been statesmen who would give us such a promise when they know that any attempt (short of prohibition) to legislate effectively with alcohol and the consequence of its consumption by a people would disclose a wider chasm between the differing elements of the wets than there is at present between the wets and the drys...
...Gerrity means that the Church Militant is essentially modern, and to class those who have had the brains and the courage to oppose the so-called modern church builders in their erection of "train shed" houses of worship as being stuffy zealous bigots is in itself narrow-mindedness...
...The town site proper is located at the foot of towering mountains, with their virgin growth of spruce and pine...
...The new altimeter serves this purpose, but also the equally important purpose referred to above of enabling the pilot to land safely when he cannot see the ground: to make a landing he must level off his plane at 12 to 15 feet above the ground, and when he is absolutely sure he is no higher or no lower than that, he can land safely...
Vol. 11 • November 1929 • No. 3
