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THE ATLANTIAN
National Topliners
Prices and Wages
HOKE SMITH AS SEEN BY
JAMES HAY, JR.
When Hoke Smith was a young man
ho was the, best boxer in Atlanta, Ga.;
which place, being Southern anil full of
hot-headed, impetuous gentlemen, had
more pugilistic ability to the square yard
than any city in this hemisphere. More
over, it is a matter of indisputable rec
ord that in all the fights he won his
seconds never had to mop off his face
or pry open a bunged-up eye. When it
came to shutting up an orb or giving a
handsome Southern chevalier a cauliflow
er ear, Hoke was the fellow who filled
all orders. He was fairly good on up
per cuts and short-arm jabs to the jaw;
but the thing in which he excelled was
shooting out his right hand like a can
non-ball and hitting has opponent di
rectly over the most sensitive part of
the human heart, thereby inducing in the
helping man a fine lino of angina pec
toris, acute indigestion, lean degeneration
of the heart, and valvular vacumms.
This brings us to a paradox. Lead
Hoke to a public platform today, give
him a sad and patriotic subject on which
to speak, and he, suddenly convinced that
his organs of vision aro bath towels,
wrings enough tears out of them to float
a torpedoboat destroyer. Hoke is a great
fighter when fighting is necessary or ad
vantageous; but, when kindness and gen
erosity aro possible, his whole system is
inhabited by strenuous desires to do good
work.
At the present time his six feet two
and a half inches of height and two hun
dred and forty pounds of weight are
anchored in the Senate of the United
States—all this accumulation of physique
representing half of Georgia’s member
ship in that body. But lie has boon many
other things, such ns Secretary of the
Interior in Grover Cleveland’s adminis
tration and twice Governor of his Stnte,
not to mention a law praetico that for
many years has thrown into liis capa
cious pockots an nnnual income of thirty
thousand dollars. When it comes to shak
ing down the money tree nnd picking up
baskets full of the golden fruit, Hoke
takes and wears with splendor the belt
of the heavyweight championship.
One day not many years ago a little
boy came into Mr. Smith’s offico in At
lanta on an errand. Hoke had never
scon him before; but something prompt
ed an inquiry as to whether the boy went
to school. He, replied that ho did not
go to school, as ho was confronted with
the solemn business of trying to subju
gate enough of the world to yield him
three square meals a day.
“You come in here every evening,”
said the legal giant, “and I’ll teach you
a little something.”
Why should prices in England during the last ten
years have risen to a smaller degree than in any other
country for which comprehensive statistics are available?
And why to a greater degree in the United States? Tariff
can hardly account for it all; and England is as much af
fected by increased gold production as any other country.
This is one of the knotty but important questions an
international inquiry into the cost of living may solve.
Tt is important, because the well-being of a great part of
the population of every industrial country is tied up
with it.
In spite of greatly expanded payrolls there has been
little if any real increase in wages in the United States
in fifteen years. Increased cost of living has absorbed
increased pay, leaving real wages where they were before.
On the other hand—in England at least—labor nominally
benefited greatly by the big fall in prices between 1865
and 1896. Prices fell by two-fifths and wages rose by
one-quarter. In forty years real wages almost doubled.
No doubt real wages have risen greatly in the United
States since 1865; but the gain was made while prices
were falling, not while they were rising—and when prices
are falling employment is apt to be uncertain. Can real
wages rise only when prices fall and labor is party idle?
There are some large subjects here, and it is high
time we knew more about them. That international in
quiry can not start too soon.—Ex.
HON. HOKE SMITH,
Junior Senator From Georgia.
And he did—which is sufficient guar
antee that his service of many years as
president of the Board of Education of
Atlanta was prompted by his real inter
est in schools and the tuition of the
young.
But it is as the advocate of the rights
of the working man that Hoke has al
ways glittered, glistened, and gleamed.
Give him a case involving this question,
and he thunders and weeps,—thunders
with such volcanic energy that the county
clerk runs out and rigs up a lightning
rod on top of the courthouse; weeps with
such volume and vehemence that every
single member of the jury puts on his
mackintosh and thigh boots and screams
lustily for an umbrella.
Smith was admitted to the bar when
he was only eighteen years old, and prior
to that lie had made enough money teach
ing school to pay for his legal educa
tion. Let that rumble around in your
cranial cavity for a moment. At eighteen
he began to practice law, and fifty dol
lars was his entire capital. At the age
of thirty-six he won a case that yielded
him a fee of seventy thousand dollars.
One of his first big jobs was for a rail
road engineer whose leg had been cut
off when he was on duty. Several other
attorneys had refused to represent the
man because there was involved in the
case the negligence of a cocinployee. The
youthful and mountainous Smith grabbed
the case like a hot cake, pushed it through
the courts, and grabbed from an unwill
ing railroad company sixteen thousand
dollars for the injured man. That was
the beginning of his interest in legisla
tion, both State and national, to protect
working men.
If you drop into the Senate at almost
any time, you arc likely to see a per
son who looks liko Hercules discoursing
rampantly and distinctly about laborers.
Incidentally, there are flocks of laborers
in Georgia, and every time the belligerent
brow of Hoke is pushed above the politi
cal horizon in search of a job they drop
their tools, leap from their scaffolds, de
sert their locomotives, and stampede to
the polls to vote for him.
Whenever he is not working or writing
pr speaking for more safety devices on
railroads or greater compensation for in
jured employees of corporations, he is
apt to be campaigning for a friend or
delivering an address that starts out with
something as silvery and delicate as the
extreme ends of the new moon and con
cludes with something else as proud, tri
umphant, and gorgeous as “The Star-
Spangled Banner. ’ ’ They beat him for
the governorship once down in Georgia.
The blow came after his first term. When
the next campaign rolled round Hoke was
there like a bunch of wildcats. In that
fight he used to work until one o’clock
in the morning and catch a six o’clock
train for a long day’s campaigning and
speaking. And he trimmed the fellows
who were trying to beat him.
Pugilist, school teacher, lawyer, human
itarian, Cabinet officer, Governor, United
States Senator,—that’s his biography in
eleven words. But there’s one thing you
must see if you have to travel all the
way to Georgia to do it. Catch one
glimpse of him when he weeps—and
weeps—and weeps 1