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THE ATLAN.TIAN
April, 1922
his hands to do whereby he can earn an honest living. That
is absolutely as true as the Gospel.
The little Republican politicians are trying to put
through a bunco game, but it will not work. The soldiers
are going to get partial justice before this thing is set
tled, even if it calls for a special levy on the swollen for
tunes accumulated between 1916 and 1920 by the smooth
gentry who knew a good thing when they saw it and were
hot hampered by conscientious scruples.
GRAND OPERA IN 1922
Another year brings another season of Grand Opera.
No other town of our size in America has had the nerve
to tackle such an enterprise year after year.
No other town has been more widely advertised in con
sequence, and thereby gained both prestige and people.
We shall miss some of the old favorites. Caruso’s won
derful voice is hushed, and his loss is a grief to multitudes
here and elsewhere. However, this world is so constituted
that though the prophets, and orators, and singers pass
over the river, their mantles fall upon others and the world
moves on.
To some of us the musical ear has not been vouchsafed,
but who would be so churlish as to deny the delights of the
Grand Opera season to those who can luxuriate in its
melodies and be uplifted to the clouds as on wings by its
silvery cadences. . .
Grand Opera has become an institution in Atlanta. On
the aesthetic and spiritual side we are beginning to accept
it as a part of the natural order, just as with abhorrent
eyes and shivers of disgust we accept the old Union Sta
tion and the smoke canon which divides the city in two
parts.
While we are accepting this delightful institution with
all our hearts, let us not forget the unselfish and long serv
ice of Mr. Bidwell and Col. W. L. Peel, to whom we owe
such a debt of gratitude for contributing so greatly to the
establishment of this most delightful feature of our com
mercial life. We. see the result, but we do not often enough
show our appreciation of the man or men who have brought
it about. Would it not be a grateful thing for us to show
to Mr. Bidwell and Mr. Peel in some way our gratitude for
their unostentatious and unvarying service in this cause?
A GREAT AND CONSTRUCTIVE SPEECH
BY HON. HOKE SMITH
Subject: Reduction of Rates on Watermelons. Place:
Washington. Audience: Interstate Commerce Commission.
Does not suggest at first thought as offering much of a
field for a notable piece of work—but with his text as "
peg upon which to hang a righteous argument, Mr. Smit
made one of the greatest analytical arguments on frei. '
rates ever presented by any man in our country at a
time.
The casual thinker will smile at the idea of watermelo
in this connection, but the writer knows of one Georgia
county where last summer a large number of farmers were
saved from destruction by growing and selling watermel
ons of the value of two hundred thousand dollars.
In endeavoring to increase their money crops, Georgia
farmers can find nothing better suited to our climate and
soil than the watermelon.
Under present freight rates they are so heavily penal
ized that many are deterred from making the effort.
Last summer it was said that the freight charge on a
car of watermelons from Thomasville to New York was
three times the value of the melons when loaded on the cars
at Thomasville.
This is out of all reason and is practically prohibitive. It
will readily be understood in the light of such facts that
there is a crying need for discussion and amendment.
Mr. Smith is at his best in the discussion of business ques
tions. He has the gift of stripping away all extraneous
matter and getting down to the core of the problem pre
sented in a simple and clarifying way that makes his argu
ments unanswerable, and in the recent discussion he was
at his best.
Incidentally it may be said that the railroads are stand
ing out for a reversal of the modern business principle
which is a big volume of business with small profits per
unit handled. The railroads, in effect, say, we want the big
business, but we are not sure of getting it, so we will stand
out for a big profit on each unit handled.
HON. A. 0. BLALOCK FOR COMMISSIONER
OF AGRICULTURE
The last few years have been a disastrous period to the
greater farming interests of this state, which, despite other
large interests, is. yet pre-eminently an agricultural state.
The State Department of Agriculture has at a crucial time
been everything but a "present help in trouble.” Commis
sioner Brown is incapable of practical effort because he is
of that type which considers oratory a cure for all evils.
So, when we have needed service, we have been handed ora
tory. There may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors
but there is seldom wisdom in a multitude of words.
It is indubitably true that Commissioner Brown has been
a failure.
In this time of stress there has appeared in the field as
a candidate for the place now held, but not filled, by Mr.
Brown, the Hon. A. 0. Blalock, of Fayetteville. It is not
extravagant to say of Mr. Blalock that he is one of the most
capable and remarkable of living Georgians. Farmer and
merchant, banker and legislator, he has been a
in each of these diverse lines of activity,
nily rare. As a farmer he is one of the
‘hard is one of the best and most prof-
As a merchant he could have been one
magnates of the state, but he has been
d job in a moderate way, and make a
Ry. . . ..