Revising the Map of America to Save a Nation
By William Dyce
DISASTER threatens the United States. Productive farm lands are becoming desolate deserts. Cleared lands, where once stood thick forests, are being ravaged by destructive floods. Uncle Sam is in danger of losing hundreds of thousands of acres that are now helping to feed his 125,000,000 citizens.
To avert the threatened calamity the government is in effect revising the geography of the country. Where waste land now exists, happy farmers are expected to till a productive soil. Where flat prairies sweep to horizons on all sides, great forests will arise. Where rivers never existed, water will flow. Shallow, sluggish streams will become principal arteries of commerce. And, in some cases, where civilization rules today, a wilderness will exist tomorrow.
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These stories are always the same: bold white explorers set out on a quest with local guides. At some point the locals will prove how cowardly and superstitious they are and the white men will have to either beat or bribe them back into shape. And oh yea, they’re not civilized like we are. They actually execute people.
Strange Scenes in the World’s Dark Corners
RETURNING from travels across the “no man’s lands” of the uncivilized spots of the world, hunters and explorers tell of seeing people and animals and passing through adventures so strange that they were impelled to take the evidence of them by trap or camera, even though these things did not come within the purposes of their trips.
Recently, a young member of an exploring party which had entered the forbidden regions of Tibet in Asia decided to take up the venture alone when the rest of the party turned back at one of the most dangerous points. Selecting a few native servants who declared they were brave enough to accompany and assist him, he resumed the journey through precarious wilds.
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Apparently our country has a long and not-so-proud history of exploiting cheap Chinese labor. “Sure we could use our loading equipment, but it’s so much easier and cheaper to have the coolies do it by hand!”
SHIP-LOADING METHODS IN MANCHURIAN PORTS
American sailors hail with joy the entry of their vessels into Manchurian ports.
There is no work for them at Dairen, the ocean terminus of the South Manchurian Railway, situated 28 miles east of Port Arthur, and full shore leave is allowed. Native coolies, working for 20 cents a day, load and unload the ships. The automatic conveying machinery on hoard the American vessels making this harbor is never uncovered while in port, because coolies perform the labor more cheaply.
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The First Machine Age
MAN’S mastery of mechanics which brought about the machine age of today dates back thousands of years to the first machine age when primitive men discovered and applied the two basic principles of mechanics—the lever and the inclined plane—and then invented and used the six elemental machines: the lever and the inclined plane, the wheel, the pulley and the axle—all modified forms of the lever—and the screw, an adaptation of the inclined plane.
Today, in the Seymour H. Knox Hall of Civilization at the Buffalo Museum of Science a unique exhibit titled “Mechanical Power” pays proper tribute to the ingenuity and inventiveness of the ancients. Miniature figures are portrayed using models of the rough, crude, but highly important machines of the first machine age. As the sub-title of the exhibit explains it: “The discovery and application of simple mechanical principles made possible tasks to which muscles alone were unequal.” Thus even primitive man proved the superior power of brain over brawn and paved the way for the machine age of today.
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America’s Part in Soviet Engineering Triumphs
FEW people realize, even today, how important a part America played in the greatest drama in history, the Five Year Plan of Soviet Russia.
This octopus-like rebuilding program, which provided mighty power plants, towering steel mills, and humming factories surpassed in size only by the American plants after which they were patterned, was brought to a highly successful conclusion in 1932. The second Five Year Plan of the U. S. S. R., now half-completed, calls for more factories and more machines, but stresses the production and consumption of Soviet-made goods.
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END OF ANOTHER NAZI DREAM . . .
THIS WAS GERMANY’S FLIVVER
“PEOPLE’S CAR” PROMISED BY HITLER IS ERSATZ JEEP
BACK in the thirties, when Germany’s war preparations were weighing heavily on her people, Nazi leaders dangled before the public a vision of a wonderful “poor man’s car” soon to pour from the factories. It was to be an automotive marvel, light, fast, roomy, and inexpensive; and it would reward Germans for the low wages, long hours, and shortages.
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Machine-Made “Stars and Stripes” Replace the Flags of Betsy Ross’ Day
Uncle Sam’s Factory Turns Out Nation’s Colors
IT is a far cry from the handmade flag of Betsy Ross to the production of flags by machinery, and yet the cradle of the “Stars and Stripes” has remained in Philadelphia since the symbol of our nation was born there 145 years ago. The traditional scene of this woman patriot patiently fingering the colors of a new nation, has shifted to the operation of scores of machines, increasing production a thousandfold.
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Sounds great, what could possibly go wrong?
OIL PIPE LINE CROSSES PALESTINE
Crossing the Tigris, Jordan, and Euphrates rivers and winding for 1,180 miles across the birthplace of Christian civilization, a new pipe line will soon begin transporting oil from the rich fields of Iraq to the Mediterranean sea coast. At some points, the line descends into valleys more than 800 feet below sea level and at others has to rise over mountains. It is estimated that the twin ten-inch pipes of the line will transport 30,000,000 barrels of oil a year. In spite of dust storms, heat, and the rugged nature of the country, gangs of welders have been laying as much as four miles of pipe in an eight-hour shift. Many American methods are in use. Iraq, formerly Mesopotamia, is the site of some of the world’s richest oil fields and the new pipe line will cut the cost of getting this oil to outside markets.
