American Turning Out Fine Grade of Idols for East

1903

CONSOLATION FOR HEATHEN.

American Genius Turning Out a Fine Grade of Idols for the East.

Manufacturers in the Christian city of Philadelphia make idols and ship them to Asia. The traffic has horrified many who thought ruin was the only objectionable article shipped to the heathen from this country.

For years England and Germany have bean monopolizing the trade in Buddhas, Krishnas, Sivas, Ganeshes and Jum-Jums. This was because they happened to be on the ground first. The idols which they turned out were, as a matter of fact, both expensive and inefficient.

The American manufacturer has now succeeded in bringing the trade where it really belongs. His success was inevitable. His idols are cheaper, do more work and last longer. The heathen who has once used an American idol, with self-closing eyes and automatically wiggling toes, refuses to use any other. Besides, many a poor heathen who could not afford to buy an expensive English or German idol, is able to allow himself the cheaper American article. Idols have been brought within the reach of the smallest purse. Within a few years the most impoverished native of the far East will find, thanks to the energy and ingenuity of the American trade, that he need not deny himself the spiritual consolations of his religion.

Some squeamish persons think that they see something a little bit inconsistent in sending out a ship with a deckful of missionaries and a holdful of idols. Such persons have not grasped the fact that this life is a matter not of consistency but of balance. There is a certain anarchist in Chicago who owns a public hall. In the course of his business he is obliged to let this hall out to Republican, Democratic and Socialistic speakers, who take special pains to expose anarchism to the hatred and derision of their hearers. What is the hall-owning anarchist to do? In order to live and in order to retain a place in which anarchism can be occasionally expounded he has to keep his hall in constant use. His speculative opinions and his business operations have to march abreast, but in parallel lines which will never meet.

Of course, there might be some good reason for complaint if the idol manufacturing companies should begin to boom their trade by getting out advertisements in defense of idolatry or by instructing their agents to hold joint debates with, missionaries. "Worship Flim Flam! A psychological analysis by government experts shows 89 per cent of deity! In portable, collapsible form, with a case! When opened out the reverse way ceases to be Flim Flam and becomes Jim Jam! The great duality! Two gods at the same time! A clear saving of 50 per cent!" — this kind of advertisement might be objectionable. After all, though, it is a mere exchange of idols. They get Buddhas and Krishnas; we get dollars and cents.— Chicago Tribune.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, March 5, 1903, page 5.