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May, 1921
THE ATLANTIAN . j!
The Atlantian
Box 118, Atlanta, Georgia
THE ATLANTIAN will (In free space to all Secret Societies and Liber
Organizations.
On the other hand, we put everybody on notice when THE ATIANTIAN
makes a statement which we believe to be true, and sneh statement goes
uncontroverted, we shall Insist that It is trne.
Published Monthly by The Atlantian Publishing Co.
Vol. XI MAY, 1921 132
Our Motto: “Pull for Atlanta or Pull Out.”
Editorial Etchings
Upshaw Appointed to Committee on
Labor
In the organization of the new Congress, Congressman Upshaw
from this district goes to the Committee on Labor, which is a most
excellent appointment.
Other Georgia congressmen have as a whole received satisfactory
assignments. The present Congress is so overwhelmingly Repub
lican that Democratic representation on committees has to some
extent been reduced.
As we see it, the wise part for the Democrats is to make no fac
tions opposition but to support the Republicans when perchance they
are proposing a righteous thing, and to register united protest
and vote against unrighteous measures.
Let the Democrats maintain a truly patriotic attitude. This is
a Republican administration, it will be judged on its record. If it
does well all of us will be pleased, if it does ill the people will be
heard from, and nothing the Democratic minority can do will avail
to change the result.
This, however, may be done; (when any flagrant injustice is pro
posed the Democrats can give the facts a good advertisement which
will be nothing more than plain duty.
The Great Cotton Bank
It is a singular thing that the cotton and wheat and cattle men go
on year after year submitting meekly to the hazardous conditions
under which they do business.
William Allen White, one of our clearest thinkers and most acute
observers recently made the statement that it is quite possible to
give these producers more equitable prices and at the same time
reduce costs of these staples to consumers. That is literally true.
Men in all avocations seem to the so wedded to existing conditions,
whatever the abuses, that they will only make effort for amendment
under the pressure of overwhelming necessity.
The overwhelming necessity is here. We cannot indefinitely en
dure present conditions. There is a way out and it is not an impos
sible way. The Cotton Bank is a station on the way.
Here is the solution. General Co-operation among the producers.
Bonded warehouses or elevators in each producing county. A great
Cotton Bank, a great Grain Bank and a great Live Stock Bank.
These to have (branches strategically located. At the opening of
each season the producers through their Directory to fix an equit
able price on their products for the season which are to be held in
warehouses or elevators. The Banks to lend necessary amounts to
producers on warehouse or elevator certificates at not more than 6
per cent. Buyers will purchase at their convenience paying the
basic prices plus interest and storage charges. Millers and manu
facturers having thus the certainty of stabilized prices can go ahead
with confidence and can dispense with the so call “hedging” of the
gambling exchanges. There would be no risk of loss from fluctuat
ing prices, hence consumers could be served on a moderate margin
of profit.
The Live Stock end of the method could ;be worked by each pro
ducer binding himself to his co-operators to furnish so many head
each season and the whole association then standing sponsor for the
individual units. Is this a pipe dream? Not at all, because it is a
perfectly practicable method of amendment.
Naturally, every exploiter and gambler in products in the coun
try would bitterly contest it, and these wolves exert a powerful in
fluence, but to the impartial observer it appears that the parasites
of business have had a long enough inning, and that the time is
ripe for giving the overburdened producers and overcharged con
sumers a fair chance. Let us have by all means the 100 million dollar
Cotton Bank as a step in the right direction.
Reconstruction
Never in all history have the nations of the world confronted
such tremendous problems as now confront them. Measured from
a mercantile or banking standpoint, outside of our own country and
Japan the world is financially bankrupt. Starting with the 300 bil
lions of dollars of national debts and adding to that the state, provin
cial, county, municipal and individual debts it would be found that
for every dollar’s worth of property in the world there is a dollar
or more of indebtedness.
That means, if the world is to recover from its distemper, long
years of steady industry and ftgid economy. But even that will not
be enough. There must be a higher order of statesmanship than has
developed during the past decade.
Everywhere we see the so-called statesmen busily engaged in play
ing the old game of trying to get the advantage over other nations.
Eevrywhere (we see them playing party politics looking to their per
sonal preferment together with the continued supremacy of their
party and the material advantage of the special interests with which
their party may be allied. That way world destruction lies. Unless
men feel the spiritual urge and thereby become bigger, more unsel
fish and better men than heretofore, there is no hope for humanity.
And this regeneration must become general.
In our own country our failure since the signing of the armistice
has been colossal, and at this writing no change 'for the better is in
sight. In the same breath we see our public men crying out for the
extension of our Foreign trade and for a High Protective tariff.
The two things don’t hang together. In the same breath we see
them clamoring for the destruction of Labor Unions, on the ground
of greater efficiency, and supporting the present iufamous Immi
gration system which is unloading on us monthly 100,000 of the
cheapest and most dangerous workers in the world which certainly
does not contribute to greater efficiency. These same men justify
the High Protective Tariff as the only way to uphold our American
standard of living.
They utterly lose sight of the basic industry of all.—Farming—
which is most injured by these high tariffs and which, if not care
fully fostered during the coming years, will fall into ruins, and in
so doing will drag all the rest of us down.
We see innumerable talk-fests, conventions, meetings, discussions
and no results. We see a section of the Congress trying to unload