Newspaper Page Text
July, 1916
THE ATL ANTI AN
5
No industry has a right to rob the State of that which
constitutes its greatest wealth. No commerce that de
pends on child labor for its success has a right to exist.
Justice to the Workers.
Let us, then, be just to the workers. No man can pay
too high a tribute to labor. It is the creative force of
the world, the genius of accomplishment of the brain and
the brawn of man, the spirit of all progress, and the
milestone marking the advance of nations. Civilization
owes everything to labor—to the constructive toiler and
the creative worker. Labor owes very little to civiliza
tion. Mother Earth is labor’s best friend. From her
forests and her fields, from her rocks and her rivers, the
toiler has wrought all and brought forth the wonders
of the world.
We live in a progressive age; the world is moving for
ward to a higher level, and mankind, conscious of its
power, hopes for nobler things and demands better gov
ernment, untrammeled by political expediency and un
hampered by partisan considerations.
Convention—Savannah
August 14-19, 1916
The present year is fraught with unusual interest for
Eagledom in the Southern States; for a Southerner is
serving as Grand Worthy President of the Order, and a
southern city, Savannah, is to be the meeting place of
the Grand Aerie, August, 1916.
Grand Worthy President Grayson is measuring up to
the trust reposed in him. By good counsel, earnest ex
hortation, and wise rulings he is promoting the useful
ness .and prosperity of the Order. He is particularly
anxious tMt the Aeries in the Southland shall display
a growth in membership and finances that will prove
their appreciation of the honors bestowed upon them.
And, indeed, the general activity south of the Mason and
Dixon line indicates that hie wishes will be gratified.
The Eagles of Colonel Grayson’s section of the country
seem to share in his laudable ambition.
On August 14th to 19th, the General Convention of the
Order will be held in Savannah, and that city is now
arranging for the reception of 75.000 enthusiastic
Eagles, and for such a celebration as the staid old city
has never seen.
In this connection it is not amiss to touch upon the
work that has been done bv our Fraternal Orders.
While the known statistics fall far below the actual
facts, it is a matter of record that the various fraternal
orders of the country have, in fortvifive years, contrib
uted in sick and death benefits to the families of mem
bers the stupendous sum of one billion six hundred mil
lions of dollars ($1,600,000,000). This vast sum, which
it is difficult for the mind to grasp, is twice as much as
the assessed value of every dollars’ worth of property in
Georgia. It would build four Panama Canals, or 160 bat
tleships, or 50,000 miles of railroad.
It represents the organized benevolence of an army
10,000.000 strong, which believes in the “brotherhood of
man” in a practical sort of way.
These bodies have done more to soothe old animosities,
and to smooth awav sectional asperities than all other
causes combined. They have educated more men in par
liamentary law and trained more men for the duties of
public life than all our schools and colleges combined.
All this great educational work has been done in such
a way as to relieve the training of its drudgery, and the
pupil has at one and the same time been rendering effi
cient service to his fellow-men and receiving even greater
benefit from them.
The man who believes in Reciprocity, in Fellowship,
in Friendship, in Brotherhood, in Good Works, in
Charity, can find nowhere in the world more splendid
examples than these great orders, whether, like the ma
sons, they date from an unknown antiquity or whether,
like the Eagles, which yet in the period of non-age, have
attained such growth their pinions spread from Maine to
California, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf.
We do well to encourage these mighty factors in the
growth of the nation towards that period when Justice,
tempered by Love, shall rule the world, for that is what
Fraternity means.
Removal of the State Capital
There are some people in Middle and South Georgia
who are really taking seriously the proposition to move
the State capital to Macon. Why anybody should want
to trouble themselves in hot weather with such visionary
dreams is beyond comprehension. There is about as
much chance for the capital to be moved to Macon as
there is for a railroad from Mars to be built to Atlanta.
Life is too short, and the weather is too hot, to enter
into anv extended argument upon the merits of the
case. If when the capital was moved from Milledgeville
it had been moved to Macon, it would have been all right
—but the people did not then so elect. The conditions
which moved them at that time to settle upon Atlanta
are a thousandfold stronger now than they were then.
Now it is the financial, manufacturing and the com
mercial metropolis of the State. Nay, more, it is rapidly
becoming the first city of the South. The capital, it can
not be denied, was an important factor in Atlanta’s
early growth. Today it could be removed without creat
ing a ripple.
But would any good purpose be served by such a re
moval? Is it not true that the man called to the capital
would in a majority of cases lengthen his journey to At
lanta in any event? The city on the Ocmulgee may, and
we believe it to be, a most delightful place of residence—
a good town; and we have no doubt it would be a very
good place for a capital. But Atlanta has now acquired
such preponderating interests in many directions that
the man called to the capital finds himself able to attend
to other things at the same time. This would not be
true of Macon.
We have not touched the financial question. There is
no reason on earth why the State of Georgia, having a
plant in Atlanta worth a couple of millions of dollars,
should abandon that plant to build a new one in Macon.
It would be poor economy, to say the least of it, in view
of the fact that Atlanta is now connected by trunk lines
with every corner of the State, and is only four hours
farther from the most remote section of the Southwest
or Southeast Georgia than is Macon.
The arguments in favor of Macon might have had some
force in stage-coach days. But stage-coach days have
passed away, and we are now living in the age of steam
railways—and until we go back to stage coaches the
capital will remain in Atlanta.