Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume], January 29, 1910, Image 1

About Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1902-1919

Image provided by: University of Utah, Marriott Library

                
Vol. XVI SALT LAKE CIX VV&TAH, JANUARY 29, 1910 No. 15
l. r & H
Coming of the Aeroplane
T F THE weather is propitious, the people of
J this city will see some of the preliminary
achievements towards making a conquest
r of the air. The centuries past have witnessed
many triumphs, but they have been on the land
"k or the sea. The unstable, elastic air lias held its
!jj domain undisturbed save as it itself has called up
, its forces and waged upon the sea or the land its
fury. We mean undisturbed by man. It has not
quite had its way. The electric currents have
brought down their forces from the sun, have
rent the air with their lightnings, and convulsed
it with their thunders, and the sunbeams caressing
I and warming the ocean have called up its waters
I and loaded them on clouds and compelled the air
vL to bear them landward and unload them upon the
E plains in rain and the mountain tops in snow,
r at the glacier might be builded and finally set
flow, to make channels for rivers, to make
1 F oil that was eventually to raise food for the
men and animls that infinite wisdom and mercy,
p ages before, had planned should find homes on
the planet.
But in the last days of theNineteenth century
W an inspired man took up the idea that as electric
currents traversed the air, as in a limited way
L those currents had been brought under the do-
minion of man, his rule might be further extend
f ed, and that they might be disciplined to carry
I messages at the sovereign will of man, even as
man directed, and that neither the air nor roar
H ing oceans, nor interposing mountain tops could
r-' have the power to arrest or divert them from
" their designated path. That man worked his
j.. idea to a successful conclusion, and now, from re
' mote lands, from laboring ships far out at sea,
l these messages come with absolute precision,
j bringing whispers of love; telling of disabled
w ships, or of contending parties in other lands.
About the same time another genius, noting
1 hat all the elements of nature were doing the
T work assigned them, that even the stars and the
seasons had their regular processions; that all
"these elements that touched the earth had their
f' duties to perform and that all were in the service
Cv o,f man, from the sunbeam to the rivulet that
i f goes singing and babbling on its way back to
, the sea; that even the ocean was forced to set
5 aside the laws of gravitation and supply the earth
with moisture, took up the idea that maybe, too,
the air, notwithstanding its elasticity and its
erratic ways, might likewise be conquered and
become a help to mortals in a material way. He
remembered, too, that the promise had been given
6 man that he should have dominion over the earth
! and all therein. He saw, too, that while iron will
instantly sink in water, still when it is rolled thin
enough it will float, as notice the mighty ships
1 It,,-. on which modern ocean commerce is carried, and
Mfolr further that if force enough is behind a projectile,
j so long as that force remains, the thunderbolts of
; P war skim the air like birds. Out of all these
1 cts, there came to him the belief that as the
iteelt is made to carry the monstrous ship with
its cargo, and the cannon ball is made to cleave
the air, so if he could get the right material in
, theright form and the proper impetus to drive
".$haj mHterlal, man might challenge the condor
S anae erf&fe- in their flight. The same thought
eVjdjntly bpgan to haunt the minds of many men
'in mafaycounfeies. at the same time. And the
'work, in ifsrelimmary stages, at least, has been
"accomplished, and an exhibition of it is promised
;
the people here & It is altogether
wonderful, but as we JTit, what has so far
been done is but prel.uiinary. The engine that
Watt made, side by side with a modern great
engine, would look most crude and poor. But
the principle was there; tlie first week respiration
of that little machine was a notice that a new
power, which was destined to add a thousand
fold to the world's working forces, had been born,
and looking upon the aeroplane of today, and re
membering that first little steam engine, there
comes a picture to the mind of the possibilities
of the near future, when regular lines of aero
planes shall do the world's passenger carrying,
and when men may imitate the swallows; fly
south in the autumn to warmer lands and in the
spring made their summer residences In Labrador
or on the shores above Behring sea.
Mercy and Progress Combined
THE trend of the civilized world is to extend
more and more mercies to the poor. Eng
land's old age pensions are an example.
There are a host of rich men in England, there
is a vast accumulation of wealth there. But there
is at the same time a mighty aggregation of the
dependent poor. Where there are so many des
titute, some unable to find employment and some
physically unable to work if they had the oppor
tunity, in the scramble for food and shelter the
old are liable to be overwhelmed. This situation
had been before the eyes of Englishmen for years,
when suddenly the thought was born that special
provision should be made for such people, and
out of it grew the "old age. pension law." It is
proving a sovereign mercy.
In this country, some years ago, a railroad
company decided to place old and faithful em
ployees on a pension roll, when they had reached
a certain number of years of service, or when, in
the line of their duty, they became disabled.
Whether the motive behind it was purely humane,
or whether the belief was that through such a
course better service would be secured, or
whether it was a blending of the two ideas, does
not matter. It was a great mercy, and is extend
ing to more of the great corporations in the treat
ment of employees.
The general government can only establish
such rules for its own employees, but the gov
ernment can, with the revenue it draws from the
whole people, do very much for the poor of the
country in an indirect way. not a fraternal gov
ernment, to find work for men, but to remove ob
structions from their paths. We see one exam
ple in the reclamation law. There the govern
ment expends a great amount of the public money
upon its arid lands, but by that expenditure it
makes what was practically of no value, very
valuable, and draws the money back by the sales
of the land. But In the meantime thousands of
poor men obtain something which they can earn
a living from, and which at last becomes an in
heritance for their children.
When the land to be reclaimed is swamp land,
the same results follow, and with them the health
of the region is improved.
In the same spirit the government should
make provisions to justify capital to build and
sail a merchant maJne. To do this -as it should
be done, would keep quite 200',000 men at work
in the coal and iron mines, at the furnaces and in
ship yards. ' By doing this "many" millions of dol
lars, now sent away in fares and- freights would
be kept at home, and American, rather than
foreign, laborers would find employment. More- ,H
over, it would make our flag familiar to people in H
lands which hardly know It now, and earnest fll
Americans, following the flag, would And new ill
and" profitable fields in which to extend their en- 'II
terprises and magnify the prestige of our country. II
Then in the event of a war, there would be H
plenty of auxiliary ships, and seamen to be re- IH
lied upon. Then more funds should be appro- H
prlated to states to encourage them to make (H
more effective their experiment stations, that IH
more food might be obtained from the lands, and IH
no more "worn-out" lands should ever be known jH
in our Republic. Then the government should H
establish one unmatched university and art school H
at the national capital, the students to be, by se- H
lection from the brightest of every state; such a jH
school as would attract foreigners this way rather JH
than the steady drain of American students H
abroad. Again, such provisions should be made H
as would insure a military training for the youth H
of the land; have, say, the junior year, spent in
camp under the control so far as the discipline jH
was concerned, in the hands of graduates from H
West Point and Annapolis. That would be bet- H
ter than football, and the result would be a na-
tion equipped for any duty or emergency. H
So Blind Our Government
A3ITY has an inefficient fire department. Cau
tious men want it Improved. The newspa-
pers point out its defects. A thousand peo- i
pie say: "What is the use? We have been here
a long time and suffered no disastrous fire.' Why
spend money getting a great fire department?"
After a while a fire comes, a real fire, and when
it is over the city is out more than it would be
to keep an efficient Are department for one hun
dred years.
A city has an inefficient police department.
The men are overworked, then cannot see to
everything; they cannot be everywhere. By the
free masonry which prevails among toughs, the
rough element In every town within a thousand
miles is informed that such a city has no real
protection. It is a rendezvous for them in a
month, and people lose more by burglaries and
incendiarism in a year than it would cost to keep
a thorough police department twenty years. It
is the way of the world, evidently.
The head of the army, made a request for 750
more officers two months ago, and he was as
sailed, or rather, the position was assailed, by
more than half the great papers of the east. They
pointed out that we are at perfect peace, that
there is no cloud of war in the sky in any direc
tion, and yet in the little nucleus of an army
which we have, where every company ought to
have a captain and two lieutenants, the most of
them are run by one officer, the others being de
tailed on special duty in this place or that.
In the war of 1812 we had no efficient militia.
Our standing army was a joke among the na
tions. When the battle of Chippewa was set in
array one afternoon, the armies had to be placed
close together because they had no guns but the
old-fashioned muskets of short range, and the
Americans in that array heard the order of the
-British commander to fix bayemets and charge,
adding, "They are nothing but Buffalo militia."
Prior to the time the Mexican war came on
it was a theme of bitter editorials and editorial
paragraphs in the papers all over the country
i that we .were, at public expense educating some
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