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Vol. X—No. 2
WHAT ATLANTA NEEDS
A Ringing Message Os Responsibility To Atlanta Christians
IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS, DR. H. M. DU BOSE, THE COURAGEOUS PASTOR OF THE FIRST METHODIST CHURCH OF
ATLANTA, DECLARES THE GREATEST NEEDS OF THE CITY AND THE STATE.
TLA? TANS and Georgians have been
told hv an oracle in lawn that what
the Capital City needs is municipal
A
ss
dance halls, less police oversight, abol
ition of the Men and Religion Forward Move
ment and a soft pedal put upon general re
ligious and ethical restraint. Such advice
would be startling if it were new, but it is
no<; it is old, obvious and threadbare. It is
opposed to the canons of experience, common
sense and moral soundness. The only thing
which could give it a call upon public atten
tion is that it comes from the dean of a Cath
edral. This fact, however, serves less to re
deem it from offensive gratuity and the com
mon-placeness of sham than it does to recall
the incident of a bishop’s having advocated,
a decade or two ago, the open saloon as a prop
er club and resort for working men. The
ignoble end of that travesty on reform em
phasizes the folly into which this latest ad
venture has fallen. While I have been one
to discourage giving newspaper notoriety to
these criticis and enemies of high public mor
ality, nevertheless, since the evil eminence has
been achieved, I think it well to indulge in
some pertinent reflections on the situation
which has thus received a sinister illumina
tion. Tn doing this I dismiss the incidental
personality of the oracle in lawn and count
his utterances and performances as part of the
general Philistine movement against old fash
ioned righteousness and true social soundness
The logic of the alignment can not be dis
proved.
Atlanta does need some things which it does
not now possess, and it needs a tremendous
emphasis put upon some things which it pos
sesses and some movements which it has b
gun Atlanta has a right to demand these
things of herself, and the state, as represented
in the capital city, has the same right of de
mand.
Atlanta needs a daily newspaper that will
advocate the highest principles of Christian
morality, and demands, so far as law and lo-
WHAT A CHRISTIANS ATTITUDE SHOULD BE—Page 2.
ATLANTA, GA., MARCH 4, 1915
such newspaper, and they are far from being
journalistic mendicants or pensioners upon sen
timental bounty.
A daily newspaper in Atlanta that would
frankly advocate the strict enforcement of all
laws, including the prohibition laws; that
would speak out boldly against all clubs and
public places violate these laws, would
By DR. H. M. DU BOSE.
cal administration can secure them, the con
ditions of social soundness and purity. Such
a newspaper would, like many other industries
ami institutions, exist primarily as a means ot*
public service and benefit, mid only secondar
ily as a means and end of financial profit to
its promoters. These promoters would count
themselves benefactors, as do the founders of
self-supporting hospitals, schools and the like.
Such a newspaper would at all times speak out
in fearless and instant advocacy of right, the
enforcement of law and political cleanness and
honor, and would with equal fearlessness and
swiftness condemn evil, official delinquency and
political and social obliquity of every degree.
Several American cities have each at least one
Jglg
DR. H. M. DU BOSE.
not only voice the highest and truest convic
tions of the best people, but would quickly
augment a public sentiment which would be
irresistible. The mayor of Atlanta recently,
in an. official message to the city council, call
ed attention to a matter —the growing evil of
female tippling in clubs, cases and other pub
lic places—which, had it been taken up and
fearlessly and frankly developed by a daily
newspaper, would have brought a cure locally
for the most frightful menace to modern so
ciety. As it is, the threatened plague gets
treatment by a few pulpit volunteers whose
. solemn calls .get characterization in the news
paper press as “clerical antics,” or are pri
vately denounced as fanaticism. Atlanta needs
a great robust, modernly conceived, bright, but
clean, newspaper whose message shall be the
burden of the old Hebrew prophets —righteous-
ness, truth and judgment.
Atlanta needs, as already intimated, a more
vigorous and outspoken support of its moral
movements, as also a more generous and sym
pathetic support of its officials who have shown
themselves the immovable friends of law’ and
social honor. It is so obvious that the Men
and Religion Forward Movement and the fear
less city chief of police fall into this category
th: t they can not possibly be counted other
wise than among the chiefest of the city’s moral
agencies. The bulletins of the Men and Relig
ion Forward Movement have always betrayed
an authorship of genius and an exceptional
depth of moral purpose. In any comparison
with other cities, Atlanta’s possession of this
bureau of moral ideas would give her a su
perlative advantage.
Atlanta does not need dance halls of any
sort, much less those of the municipal variety;
she does not need any place where intoxicating
liquors of any character are sold or dispensed,
and that the people of Georgia as e' pressed in
plainly written statutes, have said. We want
a real newspaper that will recognize this fact,
and officials who will make it effective in an
enforcement of the law.
ONE DOLLAR AND I'll TY CENTS
A YEAR :: FIVE CENTS A COPY