Yesterday three men were working quietly in the laundry near a huge brewery in upper Manhattan. Then an electric spark ignited coal dust in the basement of the brewery and bango! it blew up like any other bomb when ignited. The men in the laundry were killed.

That is one of the hazards of living in cities. Death menaces you from quarters you do not suspect and over which you have no manner of control. The old truck lumbering there so innocuously in the street beside you may suddenly take fire as you cross the green light, and fry you alive. Around the corner, may come an imbecile or a criminal at a steering wheel. The cop walking his beat may lose his head at the sight of a wanted criminal, start firing, and hit you instead of his prey. An electric power line may part and drop at your feet, a cable burn in two and short-circuit metal on which you walk. Gas, expanding in the heat of Summer, may send the pavement suddenly flying into your face.

But at about the time the brewery was exploding and killing three, a flood suddenly came down out of the San Bernardino Mountains of California along the ordinarily dry bed of the Santa Ana River--and perhaps as many as 200 died. And with almost as little warning as the man in the laundry had. When it comes to menacing you with sudden and unexpected hazards, Old Dame Nature can still make the best efforts of men in cities look pretty feeble, as anybody who has ever lived through a hurricane or storm at sea will tell you.

The militarists and politicians who rule Japan are at least quite clear about what they want. They bow and smirk and "excuse it, please," at every other breath. America is fortifying Hawaii and Alaska and the Pacific Coast, planning more big battleships, because of fears as to what the little brown man may have in mind. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Of course, Japan has no intention of "attacking" the United States.

But at the same time, says Minister Hirota, Japan does want something. She wants capital naval ships abolished, and fleets restricted to vessels of less than 10,000 tons, armed with guns of no greater caliber than eight inches. And ships of that size are too restricted in their cruising range to be of the slightest service to Western countries, like the United States and Great Britain, for battle operations in Asiatic waters. If that limitation were accepted, these countries would be helpless to protect what, rightly or wrongly, they call their "rights" in Asia.

Minister Hirota, in short, tells us with circumspect politeness and indirection, but nevertheless quite plainly, that Japan wants to establish a "Monroe Doctrine" for Asia, with herself taking over the hegemony of the whole.

For a long time, ever since Finance took Honest Toil by the collar, the South has suffered from a lack of capital. Absentee ownership has been only a part of our trouble. The real deficiency lay in the ownership of too little money. Did we contemplate the utilization of her unrivaled natural resources, the first and last question always was, Will New York let us have the money? Did we issue bonds to build roads and schoolhouses, Yankees bought them. Did we want to establish a cotton mill, it had to be done in a small way to begin with, for all the textile capital was in New England. Do we, at this juncture, gasp with joy at the potentialities of paper-making from our limitless forests, outside money and initiative will do the job and keep the lion’s share for their pains.

There is a distinct possibility now, however, that that constantly ebbing tide is about to turn, that the unbalance of trade is about to swing to the underside, that this South is to have the sweet experience of doing business with the North on its on terms. For look ye: Bishop Grace has bought the main "heaven" smack out from under Father Divine.

' Struth. With a little piece of paper did Daddy close the deal whereby he became landlord to Father and all the angels in Harlem. And Daddy Grace, while a Portuguese to begin with, is a self-adopted Southerner. In fact, his headquarters House of Prayer is right down yonder on South McDowell Street.

And is Daddy going to invade "heaven" and take a chance of losing his shirt in the soul business? Not he: he’s too smart for that. He’s going to sit back ‘n’ collect the rent. As long as the remittances come on the tenth of every month, Father Divine may dispose himself on the pearly throne and intone, "it's wonderful." But all de time ol' Br'er Fox'll be a-chucklin' to hisse'f 'n' sayiin': "Boy, you ain't nothing but a tenant. We owns this here place down South."

Framed Edition

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