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Show THE MIDVALE JOURNAL Page Two us as an e Friday, July 12, 1929 DEMOCRACY AS WAR'S ANTIDOTE ayedat 0 • .., B7 GENERAL SUMMERALL, Chief of Stalf U. S. A:rm7, W es AR will decrease as democracy increases among nalions. l • Religion and patriotism always have gone hand in hand, and atheism seems ever to breed communism. No man or group of men can formulate public opinion in this nation. It is the result of a national psychology, a great force aroused simultaneously throughout ~e land by some incident or experi~ ence, and carrying all before it when it moves. The people of thla rountry have an innate love for peace. They have dev:eloped and will d.;velop an aversion for war. But in the last analysis the responsibility for the common defense ,. rests upon the nation as a whole. The armed forces can only assist the people in the direction in which they wish to move. No nation ever has survived a great military defeat. Each war has strengthened the moral fiber of our people and given them a greater ... ® @. 1. A Hlndoo playing card. 2. Chinese money playing card. 3. A French card of the Napoleonic era. 4. Back of a Korean playing card, showing the arrow feather. 5. Japanese flower game cards. 6. A patriotic playing card of ·the Norld war period. 7. One of the ea~liest known playing cards of Europe, printed from wood blocks In Provence about 1440. 8. An early rrench playing card. 9. A card bearing one of the songs fror.t the Beggar's Opera, 1728. 10. One of the playing cards made In England in 1678 by L. Hewson, son of Cromwell'• general, "Hewflon the Cobbler." ~-----------------------------------------· D your parents would have been horrified if they had found playing cards In your possession because "the devil lurked In a pack of CRrds1" How surprised they would have been if you had told them that to play cards was not a thing of evil but a perpetuation of an ancient rite as old as the history of mankir d. For that "ould have been perfectly true. Primitive man was accustomed to resort to the making of magic to determine what course he should pursue In a world filled with bewilderment and suJ;erstltlous !ears. Arrow divination was a favorite kind and to make this magic a circle was drawn on the ground with the proper rites and Incantations and divided into the "Four Directions." Then with more mystic cere· monies arrows were cast Into the rin& and upon the manner of their !alllng depended tile future. A survival of this rite and these instruments 1s shown in the card game of the Koreans ln which an arrow feather appears upon the back of the playing card. (Figure No. 4.) · In !act it was among the Asiatic people.. that the beginnings of card games ami playing cards, as we know them now, took place. Marco Polo, tbe famous traveler, returning to Venice late tn the Thirteenth eentury, told 11mong other woaders, bow the great Chan In fJJ.r-otr Cathay ha6 paper money made !rom the bark of the mulberry tree. The Chinese hat! been making this paper money since tbe Sixth century. At first a gam• was played with the paper money Itself but Iatet cards ln the form of paper money wet•e made, using the old money symbols, a coin, a string of coins, a myriad string of coins and tens of myriads of strings of coins, which are the names of the Cblnese suits today. The form of the Chinese playing cards is shown in Figure No. 2. The Japanese 1s early as the Eighth century were making prints from wood blocks and pilgrims to the shrines In the monasteries were given these prints as souvenirs of their journeyings. These prints were used then, as now, to play the Flower game, founded on legends which date back to the beginning of the Japanese people. The Hindus also have a card game but their cards were thin painted disks of wood or ivory or cotton fiber paper. In their game there are 12 cards to a suit and the number of suits to a pack varysometimes eight and sometimes ten. The court cards (king, queen and jack) always picture one of the Incarnations of Vishnu. It: was probably Chinese cards, however, which found their way into Italy in the Fourteenth een· tury and which soon afterwards became known In every European country. The gypsies, after long wanderings through Arabia and Egypt, from their homes In Indla also brought Into Europe cards whtch carried in their strange designs, parts of the myths and legends of these countries. Grad· ually there evolved !rom all of the sources a game called "tarots," late In the Fourteenth century. These tarot cards were madP. for the nobles and were painted with the greatest care. They were so costly that the poorer classes of people ~ould not afro•' them but eventually another card game sprang up In which common cards made wltb stencils were used. Johannes, a monk at Bue!eld, writing In 1877, describes this new game which "men eall a game ot cards." The pack consisted of 52 cards with three court cards to each suit just like those of today. It ts believed by some authorities that the earliest wood-block prints made In Europe were playing cards, made about the middle of the Fifteenth century. By this time playing cards were common in all parts of Europe. Germany especially was making great quantities of them not onlt !or use In th t country but in Italy. Sicily and other countries. In fact, in 1441 the card· makers of Venice proteRted to the Doge against the Importation of .:hPse German {lroducts ''by which our art Is brought to total decay." The earliest Germn:~ cards were ~ery large and were painted by hand. The d~slgns on tbem reflected the early nerman fon<lness for hunting, since the suit signs were deer, dugs, falcons an<! ducks. In contrast to the German cards were the beautifully decorated Italian cards with raised borders, which were sometimes dotted or checkered. Then, too, the suit signs on the Italian cards were very different from those of any other country. They were long curved swords or scimitars, standing for the nobility; cups for the clergy; danari, or money, for the citizens; and bastoni, or clubs, for the peasants. In !act it seems that there was no uniformity 1n the matter of suit signs In any , one country. Since most of the rlaylng cards were made for the nobles on special order, the makers often placed on them such designs for suit signs as would best please their patron. Sometimes he chose them himself an · in other cases figures !rom his coat-of-arms were taken. Reference has ah·eady been made to the pre·.. aillng suit signs in the cards made by the Germans but these hunting symbols were not unlfonhly used in that country. One set of round cards made In Cologne had suit signs of flowers, parrots and rahbits. Another used lions, monkeys, p::rrots atid pea· cocks. The suit signs of today-spades, hearts, dla· monds and clubs-originated In France and mad,. their first appearance early in the IPifteenth cen· tury. They were called coeurs (hearts), piques (spades), trefles (clubs) and carreaux (diamonds). The suit of coeurs stood for the church, or clergy; the carreaux was symbolical of the arrow-heads of the vassals (the class from which the archers and bowmen were dmwn) ; the trefics, or clover, signified the husbandman, and the piques, or the points of lances represented the knights. It was about this time, too, that the court cards were first named and these, too, we owe to the French. The earliest known cards printed from wood blocks which are p1·esen·ed to this day are six cards from a set made in Provenct in 1440. Four of these are in the British mu>eum anti two are in the museum of the United States Playing Card company In Cincinnati. (Figure 7). They are the k11aves, or valets, as they are known In France, and bear the names of famous knights, Lancelot, Hogier and Valery. It is interesting to note that during the French revolution when the house of Bourbon was dethroned, the kings and queens disappeared from playing cards also. Instead there were sub&tituted philosophers (for the kings), emblematic personages (for the queens) and sansculottes or the revolting workmen (!or the knaves). Playing cards came Into England early in the Fifteenth century, during the fighting in Nor· mandy and Touraine, Anjou and Poltou. English soldiers brought back lt'rench <"ards with them and these served as the models tor ~n!o{lish card makers. In spite of the fact that paper was not made in England until the end of the century, In 1463, upon the petition of the English craftsmen, the importation of playing carrts was forbidden. By 1484, card playing bud become an Important part of the Christmas festivities, at least among the nobility, and it spread so ra;1idly to the lower classes that Henry VII in 14H5 Issuer! an edict forbidding their use to serYants nnd apprentices exrept during the ('hri~tmus hollolnys. Although the French ga\'e to us the familiar snit signs and the figureR on th e "pieture cards, • the queer costumes whirh we sPe nn the kin!!s. queens, and jacks, "'hen we pi.-k up nur hands, are English of the lime of I!Pnry \'It The queer· looking lupJlf'ts o~f>T the qneet1 's ears are the !lame kind ns we1·e wom hy the lurlit•s of Henry's court. although the \n·nr;ug of their cr"wn~ far bark on their hPnrls did nnt hel'ome common until Qu~;>en Wh;aiiPth 'g Lfme. 'l'be knaYes with their llat caps "I.Jroade on the crowne like the love for their country. In observing Memorial day and in honoring the fallen heroes of other great wars, it takes no eulogies, no recital of their tragedies to interpret what their going means to America. We take the army and navy for granted, and trust to those in charge the responsibility of keeping them sufficiently strong to protect our nation. We owe it to those who gave their lives, to take into consideration what they might have to say about it. We think of the Statue of Justice, and of the scales in one hand but we forget the sword in the other. No government can or does exist without sufficient forces to protect itself. Self-preservation is recognized as a primary obligation. EDUCATION IS ROAD TO WEALTH • By ELMO SC01T WATSON . . . . . . . . 0 YOU remember "way back when" ~ battlements of a house" are like the figures which we see In the paintings and tl!pestrles of that time. Incidentally, the meaning of the name for this card has chan~ed greatly through the years. In those days the term of knave was use<l in the same way as the French varlet or valet and meant merely a son or young servant. Later tt came to mean a rogue and from that meaning our present term, Jack, is supposed to have come. It was probably jackanapes, originally, which was derived from Jacka·naipes, "naipes" being the Spanish word for cards. Card playing grew in great favor in England during the reign of llenry VII and the king himself \vas an addict. Among his private expenses are several entries for money at car<ls. His daughter was also a fun and of James IV and his bride it is written ; "the Kynge came privly to the said castell and entered within thf· cbammer with a small company where he found the Queene playing fit Cardes." When English royalty was overthrown and tile commonwealth came into power cardplaying fell under the stern displeasure of the Puritans. But under the gay rule of Charles II It was again in favor. Moreover, besides the playing cards with the conventional suit signs we find many other early En~lish cards bearing curious pictures, political satires of the day which served much the same ).lurpose as the cartoons and comic strips of the t:re.sent time. In view of the recent revival of the Beggar's Opera 1u this country It is Interesting tc nete that one pack of English playing cards was awrned with songs from that famous composition. (l<'igure No. 9.) It is also curious to find that, despite the Puritan disapproval of playing cards, one of the well-known card makers of that period was L. Hewson, who was a son of Cromwell's general "llewson, the cobbler.'' The practice of printing upon the cards many other things besides the figures of the various suits bad a great vogue in Europe during that time. For instance Cardinal Mazarin, In an effort to Interest the young prince, who later be· came Louis XIV, In his studies, a1 ranged for several sets of playing cards, each bearing some geog1·nphicnl or historical Information. One set was illustrated w'th the pictures of famous queens and short biographical sketches and another with symbolical figurPs of the d!IIerent conntriPS and a short description of that country. There was als'l a heraldic series illustraTing the various coats-of-arms of the nobility, another lllustratlng the famous military operations of the period and another adorned with var!ous mythological figures. Among the English cards of this period were some In which the different suits bore the portraits of kings and queens of various countries. Another was devoted to lllustrated proverbs; another to Aesop's fables, another showed scenes' Jrom the Monmouth Rebellion and still another scene illustrative of the r"eign of Queen Anne. This practice continued down to the Nineteenth century. One set of Frf'nch cards made ln 1814 reflected the war-like sph·it of the Napoleonic era (Figure 3), being illustrated, pic· tures ot soldiers upon whose banners appeared the suit signs .nd numbers. Another set of 1830 bore the music of famous dances of the time and stil'l another of that period showed the wotk of famous caricaturists. 'fhe same tl1lng was being done in England where the playing cards bore such dPsigns as money tables, the multiplication tnblf'S, maps of the various countries, the signs of the Zodiac, portraits of ull th~ kings of Eng. land and various dther educ·ational featurf's. ~inee I<Jn~and he!'arne a <"ard·plu~·ing nation within a comparath·ely short rime after playing <·ards were introduced into that ("tllllltr;v. it wns ouly natlll'UI her eulonliefl st.&onld follow the lead of the mother country. ~u Anwri<"n. too. ha!'l he· come a en rcl-pln~· in~ nntinn. periUlflS the gn~atest In the world. 'l"he rf'nson fur rloat sratemPnt Is this; last year there were printPd In this country !i~,lltY.I,OUO jlll<'kl' of ca rds. This mr a 0!' l,llOO,OOO a weelt I All down tlu·ough the nges man ha' pla~· ed Ill f'ards. ~o America Is ~imply fullowillf the tradition and In this as in mar•y othu Ullngs, she leads the world l r B1 DR. f J. S. NOFFSINGER, National Home Study Councll Education is one of the greatest of all wealth producers in .the ... nation's economic structure. The per capita wealth last year in the five states which maintain the most efficient educational systems was twice that of the five states whose schooling standards are considered the least efficient. Incidentally, the progress of adult education has made notable strides in the wealthier states. This fact is due to the expansion of industry, finance and commerce, which made it imperative for organizations to educate and .train large numbers of their employees for advancement to higher positions. The scarcity of skilled workers and trained executives is 1-eflec~d by the latest statistics bearing on the national employment conditions. These figures show that more than 42,000,000 persons are gainiully employed i."1 the United States, and of this vast army less than 4 per cent are installed in executive positions which carry the responsibility of directing the energies of these workers. Moreover, the deman<l for trained executives, teclmician~J and r.killed workers still exceeds the supply found available. 1. INDIFFERENCE TO PUBLIC DUTY. By GOVERNOR CAULFIELD, Missouri. ~------------------------------------····~~~ Indifference to politics and disdain of politicians is tentling to degrade government. No service is more important than service to the •.. state. In the days of Washington, Jefferson, llamilton, :Madison, Franklin and their contemporaries, the go-.ernment seemed able to command and attract the very ablest men of the nation. Unfortunately there is a tendency on the part of our people to despise the public service and to shirk public duty. It is becoming fashionable to affect indifference to politics and a certain disdaia of J)Qliticians. Such a tendency is deplorable, as it tends to degrade and ~lti mately destroy the people's government. It is manifest that it is a hi~~ public duty, upon the performance of which the perp_e tuity of this fvrm c of government ~pends. The people should develop a fterce and militant passion fo:r honest public service and should esteem those who render such services. RELIGION NOT MERE COMFORT By REV. DR HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK. Religion lias its comfortable aspects. Folks want it. It is dreadful to be really ~rreligious, to think that creation has no spintual origin, meaning or destin;·, that the creati\·e power cares no more for us than the weather for the grass. One flees from the arctic cold of irreligion to the~ gracious warmth of faith in God and llis goodness and to the comfortable and sustaining rower of His fellowship. ~ ,. But it is easy to get a religion. for comfort only. A man can love "' his family primarily for what he gets out of it. A man can love his country primarily for what he gr.ts out of it. A man can love a friend and squeeze him like an orange into his cup; and a man Ca.n love God for what there is in it. There is a lot of that kind of religion today. Some • of our most prominent modern cults face the tremendous temptation to be religious for comfort only. MISPLACED SENSE OF "HUMORr' By RABUI ISRAEL GOLDSTEI.:-1, New York. A sense of humor is destructive of the will to progress aro:d achieve·• mt>nt when it bec:omes a studied habit and pose. Most of the great leaders o<nd reformers who left an impre~s upon their own and subsequent gencrations were not noted for their ~ense of humor. Moses, Mohammed and ,Jesus, in the sph~rc of rcligi(ms leadership, and Alexander auri Napoleun, in the sphere of nntional karler8hip are outstanding exampl-es. The great figures in public life today a:e on the whole very serious-minded men. \\'hen it is an occasional rela:,ation a sense of humor is wholesomtJ and cleansing. H11t scoffing and mockery for the sake of amusement, which has become the vogue of our blase youth, is a seasoned negation of the things that should :matter most r • |