Notes and News

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 28, 1913

Enterprise, Oregon, is following the plan of consolidation in its church enterprises, or at least it is endeavoring to. A recent article tells us that three of the four Protestant churches in that town consolidated at a mass-meeting of members held in the Baptist church. The fourth church, the Baptist, wanted another week to consider. The proposition is, that one pastor will serve the Union church, holding services in the house of worship best suited for the purpose. If the Baptists unite, we are told that that church will be taken, as it is the newest, largest, and most modern, the pastor to be selected with the view of utmost efficiency. Doctrinal differences will not be considered. The board of control will consist of three members from each of the constituent churches, making a board of twelve members if all unite. Leaders in the movement are very enthusiastic. The article tells us they will plan concerning entertainments and amusements of all sorts, for old and young. The other three churches are the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Disciple. Of course, if these various bodies have no doctrines which they hold as essential, it would be the very best thing to fall into line in one congregation. Church government is all that would naturally hold the Congregationalists and Presbyterians apart; but what about baptism with the Disciples and the Baptists? Is this non-essential? If so, what a mistake the latter have made during all these centuries!

Will some of our Enterprise friends tell us whether or not the Baptists have taken action on this?

Dr. Thomas D. Wood, professor of physical education in the Columbia University, teachers' college, declares to the United States Board of Education that there are 20,000,000 school children in this country, not less than 75 per cent of whom need attention for physical defects which are prejudicial to health, and partially or completely remediable. Several million have two or more handicapping defects,—400,000 have organic heart disease; at least 1,000,000 have, or have had, tuberculosis; about 1,000,000 have spinal curvature, or some other deformity; those having defective hearing are numbered at 1,000,000; while 5,000,000 have defective vision, and an equal number suffering from malnutrition; over 10,000,000 have defective teeth. Surely this is anything but a cheerful report of the hope for future men and women of the country, and they certainly are in a condition which demands some kind of treatment. Take, for instance, the six or seven millions that have enlarged tonsils, adenoids, or enlarged cervical glands, furnishing good ground for bacteria of throat and other contagious diseases.

One of the great drawbacks in California, during all its years, is that its lands have been held in too large tracts, altogether. In the north-west, land holdings are small; consequently the country is settled by more people, there is more uniformity. California's large holdings have crowded out a vast population. It would seem that the land in some way ought to be regulated by law. Just recently, we are told, a great realty deal, involving 90,000 acres, has been engineered by Mr. Patrick Calhoun, of the United Railroads of San Francisco, and a syndicate of California and Eastern capitalists. Now if it is the object of this to subdivide into small tracts, giving water to each one, and sell at a reasonable rate, it is a good thing, but if it means that this syndicate is to hold this large piece of property, it certainly is not good for the state.

Child labor has well been called “the modern barbarism,” especially when it is carried to the extremes that it has been found to be in connection with some cheap labor institutions in the country. For instance, Mary Elizabeth Chamberlain, a Vassar graduate, reports, from personal observation in visiting canneries in New York state, that children as young as four years of age were kept at work from 4 A.M. to 10 P.M., snipping beans and husking corn, with their little split fingers wrapped in bandages, falling asleep at their tasks, and some crying through pain and fatigue, only to be whipped by their parents and compelled to remain at work. And conditions, we are told, in the tenement factory work in New York City are worse than in the canneries. This surely ought to be stopped.

This is a day of big things. It is reported that a canal to cost $10,000,000 will be built at Priest Rapids, on the Columbia River, which will generate from 75,000 to 100,000 horse-power. The big ditch will be over 200 feet wide at the bottom.