National Affairs: Civilization

Life and property (in the U. S.) are relatively more unsafe than in any other civilized country in the world—President Hoover to the Associated Press meeting last fortnight.

The North German Lloyd liner Stuttgart docked last week at a Manhattan pier. Purser Emil Remer had a $6,400,600 gold bullion shipment to deliver. Gauntleted, cartridge-belted policemen swarmed up the gangplank. Others, armed with sawed-off shotguns and submachine guns, stood about in anxious readiness on the pier. The heavy gold was stowed into armored trucks, ominously loopholed. The bristling caravan, like a party of Forty-niners crossing Indian territory, moved off varily toward Wall Street.

His transfer receipt in his pocket, Purser Remer grinned broadly over the Stuftgart’s rail and said: “When that gold was delivered to me at Bremerhaven, it came in an ordinary express wagon. All it needed to protect it there was one man sitting beside the driver.”