period of the war, and save 250,000,000 eggs a year. There are 300,000
barbers in America. They will average more than two eggs a day."

Could something else be used? Nothing will do that is not extravagant.
The costly things of life are craved simply because they are costly.

Common observation, to say nothing of experience, will teach us the
evils of waste. In the home they may be in little things. What makes the
situation worse is that extravagance becomes a habit which in turn becomes
an inheritance. Will there ever be an accounting? What if famine comes?
How ill fit we shall be for emergencies of individual and national reverses!
"Oh, well, the world has always been so," and the world has also had its
days of reckoning. Have we lost our vision? Can we not see the impend-
ing dangers? We are standing with our faces to the wall. There are dan-
gers, but as we see them they look a long way off. Many would be as blind
if they were near. A London correspondent writes:

"I find the streets full of cheery faces, the theatre crowded with
pleasure seekers, and everywhere the accents of an uplifting hope."

"Uplifting hope!" For what, for whom? "May as well be cheerful
and hopeful as sad." We need not be either, but ought to be sober. Human
suffering is past expression, human lives are going out by millions, and
sorrow reddens the world as never before. It is all so "hopefully uplifting."
Men are at war to redeem the world from a ruthless foe. The gay and ex-
travagant care just about as much for the work of redemption on the battle-
field as the masses in Jerusalem cared for the redemption of Christ.

Penalties. All excesses pay their penalties. The law of compensation
makes it so. Extravagance does not simply drift. It is always in a hurry
its friction wears life away into a premature grave. The later life which
follows one of gaiety and splendor is discolored by the disappointment which
vanity always brings. Is there no hope for a simple and sober ending? It
is the foliage of life which most delights us, even though the foliage leaves
no place for the fruit to grow.

Individual extravagance is but one phase of an insistent evil. In public
life there is a similar tendency to waste. Senator Aldrich, a distinguished
political economist is declared to have stated that approximately one-half of



PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 25

the public money appropriated by Congress was extravagantly wasted. State
legislatures, as well as Congress, make appropriations that a frugal system of
administration in federal and state institutions do not really require. Log-
rolling is the favorite method in most legislative bodies. Local appropria-
.ns are the measure of local patriotism. They are too often beyond legiti-
mate needs. No private business could be run successfully by such wasteful
methods as characterize our legislation. The "pork barrel" of Congressional
fame has long been a federal scandal. Organized revolts against it are inef-
fectual. Our natural resources have been squandered shamefully. We are
living for today with no thought of tomorrow. Talk of famine and suffering
awaken little response in our national and individual lives. Wrapped in
s If-content, we go our way, indifferent to all danger.

Nor is the extravagance in our material lives our only vice. We are
wasteful of our physical energies. Men of simple and frugal lives do not
hesitate to work far beyond the limits of the strength of their bodies. They
are guilty of excessively long hours. They are ambitious to achieve certain
aims which they reach only at the waste of physical and mental energy.
The spirit of extravagance is manifest in all world activities. It means a
break-down in our universal system of waste. Conservation is the catch-
word of the age, but it is more than a catch-word. We are all involved in an
excessive struggle for accomplishments.

Thoughts and Feelings. Extravagances in material things creates extrav-
agance in thought and feeling. Our mental concepts become exaggerated,
and the vision of life perverted. Our ideas of the world are overdrawn.
We cease to see things as they are, and consequently are led into false
methods of reasoning. There is a proper enjoyment of the riches of the
world, and there is a hope that comes within realization when moderation
is practiced. The world needs, in these fateful hours, a return to conserva-
tive living. Extremes follow one another. When we pass beyond the limits
of our powers, the return to normal conditions produces disappointment and
suffering. It is in order to bring the "old fogy" into fashion again, the
man who fears the dangers of extremes would keep within the bounds of
his ability to recover himself. Individual extravagance carries with it the
burden of debt and leads to bankrcptcy. It creates national and state extrav-
agance, that sometimes causes them to repudiate their obligations. The
spirit of moderation, on the other hand, enables men in extreme emergencies
to recover themselves. It carries with it the blessings of its own rward. Fur-
thermore, waste begets heedlessness and makes men indifferent to correction
or warning. Witness today the signal which the leading and thoughtful men
of the nation are holding aloft to the people. They do not heed them;
they are rushing headlong into a world of troubles that might be avoided
were they not intoxicated by the spirit of excess. They will not know the
truth, until the bitter realization of it brings home to them the partial, if
not the full penally of their folly. For years the Saints have been warned.
Even before the war, coming calamities were foreseen, and the people were
admonished to "set their houses in order" against the day of God's judg-
ments.

Revelation. "For it is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every
man accountable, as stewards over earthly blessings, which I have made and
proposed for my creatures" (Doc. and Cov. 104:13).



XI Inequalities a Besetting Sin of Present Day Life
Marvelous and miltiplied opportunities for the acquisition of wealth
give rise to social differences which today threaten the stability of every
so-called civilized nation of the world. Inequalities create envy, envy be-
gets hatred, and hatred entails in its pathway the spirit of destruction. Men
do not always, in the superior advantages which they enjoy, exercise a wise
stewardship. If those who enjoy superior advantages of wealth would so
use their property as to benefit others and give others an opportunity like-
wise to increase their holdings, the difference in wealth would not be so
dangerous, so destructive. But there has always been a strong tendency in
man towards vanity and false pride that seduced men into the belief that



26 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE

because they were richer they were likewise better than their fellow men.
Such vanity has given rise to exhibitions of frivolity and excesses that were
hard for the poorer classes to witness and endure.

There is now going on within the United States, and indeed through-
out the world, but more particularly in the United States, a propaganda of
pride that may have much to do in this country in creating a revolution,
if not down-right anarchy. Our newspapers, and more particularly the Sun-
day editions, are filled with social notes and advertisements which cater to
the vanity and extravagance of those who enjoy more money than most of
their fellow creatures.

Society Life. The newspapers are thus giving their powerful support
to an increase of hatred on the part of the poor towards the rich. Much of
this advertising is harmless. It is of an innocent personal character that
touches in a small way the vanity of those who enjoy so-called "newspaper
publicity." Some of this newspaper notoriety is excessively dangerous to
the peace of society and the stability of government institutions. When
people are poor, and perhaps suffering from deprivations and want, they do
not look with much toleration upon the follies of the rich. Some time ago
a lady paraded in the newspapers of New York the fact that she had built
a $25,000 house as a home for her favorite cats. Society women of wealth
had social gatherings in honor of some dog, and thus their vanity in parad-
ing before the public such wanton extravagances is giving rise to criticism,
and to class hatred.

A Dog Cemetery. The New York Times of August 19th gives a photo-
graphic and written review of a dog cemetery in Westchester county, in
which there are more than two thousand graves. The writer says of this
cemetery that "on a pleasant summer day there were not fewer than 100
visitors, and that as many as fifteen automobiles would be at the entrance
at a time. There has been no saving of expense in the monuments placed
over some of the graves; several have cost $2,500; and including the price
paid for the plot and other expenses, the total individual expense is fre-
quently as much as $3,000 and $4,000. Arrangements were recently made
for a mausoleum ten feet square to be erected, at a cost of $10,000. The
lowest priced dog is $10, the highest $250."

The advertisement of such wasteful extravagances at a time when this
country is at war, and when thousands and thousands of its sons may per-
haps be thrown into great excavations and simply covered with dirt, is likely
to give rise to feelings of bitterness.

Social Functions and Dress. The modern world is also given to undue
extravagance in the matter of its social life, which means excess in dress, in
flowers, perfumes, and other wasteful manifestations of wealth. We witness
now in Russia the overthrow of a dynasty which has brought upon itself
the hatred of the people because of its wastefulness and consequent weak-
ness. The people of that country have insisted on knowing something of the
daily habits of the Czar and Czarina, and their courtiers. We are informed
that the Czarina spent $25,000 a year in perfumes.

A Poor Defense. Those who would justify these extravagances contend
that such numerous expenditures give employment to the men who raise
flowers and to those whose labor contributes to the vanity of wealth. There
are things in this world which we call the necessaries of life; there are
others which we call luxuries. People perhaps would not object so much
to the display of luxuries and vanity if they had enough of the necessaries
of life. But when they suffer from an actual want of food; when they are
cold in their homes and poorly clad, the exhibition of luxuries whose ex-
istence has no other excuse than that of vanity, they grow discontented, and
class spirit springs up, and intense hatreds result.

Classification of Society. The classification of society is contrary to
the spirit of Christ and his teachings. Social classification destroys the
brotherhood of man and when classification is built upon influences in



PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 27

wealth, it results in social enmities that became very bitter. They destroy
the peace of mind and the peace of the world. There is a spirit in all life;
there is the spirit of the individual; there is the spirit of the community;
and there is the spirit of the nation. As a result of these differences we
have individual strife, we have community quarrels, and national wars.
What we are witnessing today is in large meausure the result of an at-
tempted classification by which one nation would make itself superior, and
therefore offensive, to all other nations. Vanity is not merely a harmless
sentiment of the human kind. Vanity carries with it an ambition not sim-
ply an ambition to be better than others, but an ambition to domineer over
others. It creates an indifference to other people's suffering, and thus en-
mity between man and man grows.

The Corrections. The abuses of class distinction manifest themselves
in the grossest injustices of man to man. They become oppressive and hu-
man life suffers very greatly from them. As a rule, the process of correction
of these wrongs has been by means of wars, famines, pestilences, and such
calamities as have reduced the world to a common physical equality. There
is, however, a means of correction a peaceful means. Such peaceful mean?
are found in the teachings of the gospel. The religious institutions of the
Latter-day Saints are all intended to establish a feeling of brotherhood, a
spirit of humility and a condition that makes for brotherly love and uni-
versal good-will. If men and women performed their duties in the Church
as they are prescribed for them, social classes would be quite impossible.
Those who flaunt their social life before the public, who strive for class
distinction, as a rule are not those who are laboring faithfully in some of
the religious organizations of the ward to which they belong. It was no-
toriously the work of the ministry of Christ and his disciples to establish
social equality; for social inequality, if it is not always a cause of certain
immoralities, is certainly in danger of creating them. Whatever poisons the
human mind in its relationship to the children of God begets conditions that
in time become highly immoral.

Revelation. "Nevertheless, in your temporal things you shall be equal,
and this not grudgingly, otherwise the abundance of the manifestations of
the Spirit shall be withheld" (Doc. and Cov. 70:14).



XII. The Future of the Holy Land

Conquest of the Holy Land. One of the great changes which present
conditions are likely to bring about is the restoration of the Holy Land.
The British army is on its border to the South and fighting near Gaza. It
has been there for some months without making any headway. It may per-
haps be postponing a further drive in order to build a railway to bring up
supplies from Port Said in Egypt, and it may be that the abandonment of a
further drive in Macedonia is the result of a plan to shift the troops to the
Palestine front. The collapse of Russia suspended all movements in Asia,
but there seems to be a set determination not to abandon the advance on
Palestine. The whole Christian world is looking with joyful anticipation
to the day when the soil of that country shall be free from the blight of
Turkish rule. To the Latter-day Saints the day of its restoration is a divine
promise. An invading army would not need to fight its way up through the
mountains of Judea. It could pursue its course along the Mediterranean
litoral through the valley of the Sharon to Ml. Carmel, and then around the
Bay of Acre, thus following the route taken by the Crusaders. From the
Bay of Acre it could cross the valley of the Esdraelon, down into the val-
ley of the Jordan, and make a retreat of the Turks across the Jordan east-
ward necessary. What would happen to Palestine, once it was wrested from
the Mohammedans? To whom would it belong? Russian ambitions to take
it have not disappeared. No other country has any ambition for its pos-
session. Great Britain would prefer to see it a buffer state to Egypt. The
efforts already made by the Jews to reclaim it would make them the logical



28 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE

candidates for its possession. It is said that there are already about 100,000
Jews in this country. They have about 15,000 engaged in agricultural pur-
suits. The Zionist movement has been accumulating strength for a number
of years. No extensive efforts have been made because of the opposition of
the Turkish government to the settlement of that people in the land. The
great uncertainty of what the Turks would do has made a pronounced move-
ment unpopular among leading Jews of wealth.

A Waste Country. The country lies in a state of waste, and its recla-
mation would be the work of pioneers. It is a desert. The great inflow of
wealth which would be possible would lead to its rapid recovery. It is pri-
marily a problem of irrigation which would make the land blossom as the
rose. Today the colonists there are raising green grapes, almonds, and
oranges. Grapes are grown in the valley of the Sharon without irrigation.
They are of superior quality and have a good market. A grape grower once
told me that if he could get half a cent a pound for his crop in the field
he would do well. The Sharon valley is cultivated only in spots. Irrigation
can be carried on only on a very limited scale. The mountains of Judea
have been denuded of their forests, and the streams as a consequence have
dried up. Reforestation would be one of the first things undertaken in the
reclamation of the land. That would require years in the mountains, but
the valleys under irrigation would respond rapidly to all vegetable growth.

Water systems could be quickly established, and the valleys made
habitable. There are two great valleys in Palestine, the Jordan and the
Sharon. The former could be redeemed by an irrigation system from the
sea of Galilee. If the waters of that sea should be found too brackish, water
might be brought from the Mountains of Moab, east, of the river. Small
streams run from them into the Jordan. There are numerous reservoir
sites where water might be impounded and brought by pipe line across the
Jordan on to the highest points of the valley. It is an excessively hot dis-
trict, the hottest of the whole land ; but not worse than Egypt. Near by are
the mountains of Judea, to which the people might go after the harvest
season. Semi-tropical fruits would grow there in abundance. It might also
be made one of the finest winter resorts in the world.

Opportunities. It would no doubt be the ambition of the Jews to se-
cure the great table lands of the Moab where there are fine pastures and
abundant opportunities for growing grain. The Dead sea would doubtless
become a favorable bathing resort. Its water are about the same density
as those of the Great Salt Lake. The Jordan Valley might be made, without
very great expense, a paradise, and no doubt there would be opened from
New York a direct steamship line for Jafa, the seaport leading up to Je-
rusalem. Jerusalem, as it exists today, would have to be completely razed
to the ground, except, of course, the most sacred places. Reservoirs and
pumping systems could be installed to supply the city with water. The val-
ley of the Sharon is much larger than the Jordan. In the south it is fully
forty or fifty miles wide. The first work in redeeming its waste land would
be a system of reservoirs. There are some artesian wells. The underground
water is near the surface, and now pumped by means of cattle for the orange
groves. An excellent place for electric plants would be the Jordan valley.
Electricity might easily be carried over the low mountains of Judea to the
Sharon valley, and water pumping systems established there much as they
are in parts of Arizona.

The Present Worth. Palestine is, if we except Arabia, the most worth-
less part of the Turkish empire, from an economic point of view. Few peo-
ple could exist there were it not for a place of pilgrimage. In the past, men
undertaking to exploit foreign countries, have had their attention called to
the wonderful possibilities of the Holy Land. Some have invested there
without accomplishing their objects. Its inducements are many, but the
Turks have discouraged all enterprises in the country. If the wealth of the
Jews were poured into it, it would undoubtedly become one of the most
beautiful and attractive spots of earth. They have a race pride that would
induce them to make the land of their forefathers as near a paradise as pos-



PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 29

sible. Already about $25,000,000 has been expended by the agricultural pop-
ulation.

Present Conditions. The commercial prospects of the country will be
greatly enhanced by the construction of railroads connecting Europe, Asia,
and Africa. Already there has been constructed a railroad most of the way
between Constantinople and Bagdad by the Germans. It runs much to the
north of the Holy Land. Out from it branch lines have been constructed.
The one running to Damascus is connected by the Haifa road in the nor-
thern part of Palestine on the Mediterranean. It opens the rich valley of
the Easdraelon, and connects it with the uplands of Moab. A railway runs
up from Jafa to Jerusalem for the accommodation of the pilgrims. Just
before the outbreak of the war another road was begun, going down from
Jerusalem to Port Said, where it would connect with the line running to
Cairo. The English were carrying out the plan of Rhodes to construct a
line from Cairo to Capetown; but the Germans objected to a right-of-way
over their territory in East Africa. They saw its strategic value to the
English, and planning a war of conquest many years ago, they determined
to balk the plans of Great Britain in the construction of this through road
which would have connected also Jerusalem with Capetown.

The commerce of Palestine on the Mediterranean has been greatly
handicapped from lack of suitable harbors. There are really only two, one
at Jafa, the other in the Bay of Acre at Haifa. At both, the ships must
anchor a considerable distance from the shore and send their merchandise
and passengers by small boats. Large and expensive piers would be
necessary to overcome this difficulty. Such improvements the Turks have
been unable to make, and then the inland traffic did not justify it.

Jews Now in Palestine. The Jews are really adepts in the use of me-
chanical tools, and have a monopoly of the carpentry and cabinet work of
the country.

More than four fifths of the Jews now in Palestine practically live from
the alms sent them by their richer brethren in foreign lands. They are
there from religious motives. Some have taken money with them sufficient
to eke out an existence. They were always in a poverty-striken condition.
Their condition now must be pitiful. They are greatly given to lamenta-
tions, and seem to have an idea that Jehovah will aid them through the ex-
ercise of their prayers and suffering. In the future they would really be a
bar to the material development of the country. Those who first began
agricultural life in Palestine were at a disadvantage because of the habits
of life in the countries from which they came. They greatly exaggerated
their ability to make money out of the Fellaheen or native laborers. The
aspect of the early Jewish colonies was not a very thrifty one. So far as
known, there is no coal or iron in the country to justify the hope of manu-
facture there. Fruits, grain, and live stock would provide the chief employ-
ments.

Jewish children learn easily and readily to adapt themselves to new
environments and a variety of work and study. One has been led to won-
der what the language of the country would be. Fully twenty languages
are spoken in Jerusalem. But what language will the Jews adopt? They
come from different nations of the earth. Most of them speak Yiddish, "a
spoiled German." Here is what Mossinsohn has to say on the subject of
schools in the Holy Land:

"With the growth of the population and its approximation to hu-
man life, the need for public education began to make itself felt, and
the Zionist organization undertook the establishment and support of
a complete system of public and high schools, in which the language
of the instruction is Hebrew. Every Jewish settlement was
provided with a kindergarten and elementary schools, and high
schools were established. Hebrew thus became a living tongue
once more. Even in America, Yiddish-speaking parents have
found it necessary to master Hebrew in order that they may



30 PROBLEMS OF THE AGE

be able to keep in spiritual touch with their children. Only in
Palestine the parents, loving the new old-tongue, are mastering
it as completely as the children for whom it is the only language
the language of play, of study, of romance, of ambition, of life itself.
Before the war there were plans for a Jewish university. We now have
the curious innovation of the Hebrew language printed above shops
and business places of Arabs and other nationalities. The Arab is
the principal language of Palestine today. There are very few Turks
in the country. They are the government officials. How much of the
modern Hebrew the ancient Jews would understand is questionable.
It is certain that modern Hebrew will have to incorporate a large
number of words from foreign languages to meet the progress of life
in art and science. The Jews learn foreign languages rapidly. In
their scattered condition they have been compelled to speak a variety
of tongues so that their children have inherited a linguistic genius."

A general Jewish movement to the Holy Land would have a marked
social and business effect on many leading nations of the world. It is not
easy to compute the enormous control exercised by this race in the United