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The Atlanta Georgian and News Second Section VOL. VI. NO. 65. ATLANTA. (iA.. SATURDAY, , OCTOBER jp.VmT. PPTPTC. In Atlanta: TWO CENTS. 1 I\ll. Ij. 0n r ra | n-: FIVE CENTS. John Temple Graves accepts Editorship on N. Y. American; Highest Newspaper Honor Ever Paid a Southern Man; Editorials will continue to appear in The Georgian. MR GRAVES’ STATEMENT It is like pulling eye teeth for me to think of saying goodbye to Georgia and The Georgian. ' > All my life has been wrapped about the beloved state, and the best that is in me of these later years has been consecrated to this cherished newspaper. Mr. Ilearst has tendered me editorial responsibility upon the New York American, the first and favorite of his eight great newspapers. The signal promo tion in the line of my profession is a great temptation. The increased emolument is a large consideration to one who has never found time in his public service to make money. These in themselves would not have carried me to New York. I have had other flattering offers to go there within recent years. If the editorial page of The American did not offer me a larger field for service and remembrance for the people whom I love, I would decline it now. When Mr. Hearst asked me to join him he said: “I wish to do two things: I wish to make The American national, and I de sire to help the South.” Mr. Ilearst has always been a brave and generous friend to the South, and I am sure that he means what he said to me. Both of these objects are dear to my heart. I love Georgia and the South as children love their mother. But loving my state and section, I love also the great republic of which it is a part, and it has been the dream and aspiration of my later years to establish the oneness of our country. The opportunity for serv ice along thepe great lines is infinitely greater in the columns of The American, •which ranks ps one of the three or four great newspapers of the world. The edi torials of The American upon general themes are repeated generally to the other dailies of the system in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Speaking every day to some four million people and sometimes to twice as many, I can be of greater service to the South and to the country than in my present field. That is if I can be of service anywhere. And this larger opportunity for service is the supreme consideration which leads me over the pain in my heart to leave the dearest associations of my life, and to break ties which have grown to be fibres in my nature. I shall serve this people better absent than I have ever been able to serve them present, and this is the consolation which salves some of the sorrow with which I say goodbye. For the rest, the policies of The New York American, its creeds of govern ment, its consistent championship of popular rights have been the things for which I have witten and spoken since I have been or age. I am following my convic tions straight to its editorial sanctum, and the people of Georgia will bear me witness that I have not faltered within these five years in the faith that its pub lisher is one of the greatest, truest and bravest Americans of his generation. The pang is in those I leave behind me. I can not speak of that. No mere words can convey the regret with which I leave the people who have always been better to me than I deserved, and to whom my only compensation has been the love and loyalty I have given them. No man knows better than I do the defects in the work which I have done within these years in Georgia. All its faults and im perfections parade before me in the perspective of separation, and I am sorry for some things that I have done and for so many of the things that I have left un done. Of only one thing I am sure. My motives have jieen good. I have hated no man, wronged no man, nor used any power given me by press or platform to vent a personal enmity or to voice a private grudge. I have sought for kind words whenever they could possibly take the place of bitter ones, and I have hugged the sunshine, thanking God for it, while to the best of the human that was in me I have loved my fellowmen—Georgia, in thy gentlest charity be all my faults re membered. I am indebted to The Georgian in greater part for the honor and responsi bility which have come to mo here unsought. Mr. Seely’s munificent liberality, his splendid heartfulness, his catholic kindness, and his rare power of judgment and organization have given me the best and broadest arena in which I have ever been free to work. It is from The Georgian’s columns which he more than I have made great and strong, that I have been lifted to a larger professional sphere. I am perfectly sure that my exit will be more than compensated by his entrance upon editorial work. It is with my going that the people of Georgia will come to know Fred L. Seely better. He has a great heart, a great purpose and a great brain which are all consecrated to the service of the city and the state. There is the ring of the genuine in Mr. Seely’s written sneech—the simplicity and naturalness which is the highest strength, and there is always in them the sugges tion of a man behind the words which will give them weight and dignity. With the larg<$ culture of travel and study he combines a practical training which stamps him for high and vigorous usefulness in the years which are before him. I have no fear for the splendid future of The Georgian in his hands. I have no fear for the future of The Georgian in such hands as these. May all my friends be his. . . „ , To my contemporaries of the press in Atlanta and in the state I extend m parting from local and state associations a right hand that is heartiness it self. No shadow-of memory lingers upon any passing asperity of division that the bygone has in store. I remember only the fellowship, the kind words, the brave purpose, and the rare capacity to bury every difference in the common cause of Georgia and the right. To Dick Gray and Clark Howell and Pleas Sto vall and brave old Pendleton, and generous Henry McIntosh, and lorn Loyless and Bowdre Phinizy and Colonel Estill and John Boifeuillet and Hardy and McCart ney and Lindsav Johnson, names all a part of my happy memory, with all my splendid brethren of the weekly press, I blow a breath of parting that would be balm and benediction if it were mine to give . We shall all be food for worms within the half century, brethren. Let us be forgiving and friendly even in our fighting while we live. _ And to this great hearted and charitable people who make our Georgia, my debt is too deep for utterance, and my tongue when it touches you is too thick for speech. You have been good to me beyond my merits, trusted me beyond my worth but not bevond my motives, and made me happy for more than thirty years There is iio forgetting or forsaking the obligation winch binds me. If I am or am to be anything in the future it is to you I owe it. You have fed me by your kindness, nourished me by your sympathy and inspired me by your applause. “If any word or thought of mine Has ever given hope or consolation Yon have repaid me back a thousand fold Byevery Triendly sign and salutation.” JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES. MR. SEELY’S STATEMENT. Possibly few realize fully what it means for Mr. Graves to be called to edit The New York American. First, let us set aside the matter of whether we individually like or dislike Mr. Hearst or his policies. No one is always right, and Mr. Graves’ identifying himself so closely with Mr. Hearst does not mean that he accepts or rejects all or any of Mr. Hcarst’s ideas. Mr. Graves has ideas of his own. Mr. Hearst is probably the largest individual newspaper owner in the world. He owns, in his own right, eight of the biggest papers in the United States, not to mention several magazines, the great “Cosmopolitan” being one of the latter. His New York Evening Journal has the largest circulation of any daily paper in the United States—nearly three-quarters of a million. Whatever he has done, he has shown himself capable of conducting his af fairs in such a manner that, unlike the proverbial rich man’s son, he has added to his list of holdings as the yearn have gone by, rather than been compelled to re trench. He has in his hand today, without lease or let from any man, the great est power of publicity, the greatest rein over right or wrong through the printed page, of any living man, and with it all, he has called to his side no less than that distinguished and honored Georgian, John Temple Graves, to he possibly his clos est personal adviser and to edit the biggest and most serious of all his papers— nationally and otherwise—The New York American. Mr. Graves and Mr. Hearst have been friends for years. In the main, Mr. Graves has been an admirer and supporter of Mr. Hearst and his policies—he has not hesitated, however, to criticise adversely, from time to time, such acts of Mr. Hearst as did not meet his approval. Probably Mr. Hearst has liked that in him— really strong men do not believe in friends who approve of every act blindly— real friends tell you of your mistakes—false friends tell you you don’t make any. And so Mr. Hearst has said to Mr. Graves, “We have wanted you a long time, but now you must come.” Very well—what may this all mean to Georgia, and what can Mr. Graves do for the land that gave him life and light and tradition and romance and all that makes him what he is? Why should he leave us now? Many men have been called from the East, the West, tho North and tho South to serve their country and their section—our own governor was honored to sit in the president’s cabinet in 1893, but his contact was principally with less than a dozen men who sat at the Capitol and watched over the enforcement of laws that the popple at large had made, and had little power to help the section that had reared him except to represent its needs as best ho could at- the seat of government. Notice the contrast—Mr. Graves has been called to sit at the seat of gov ernment of the greatest organization of publicity our nation has ever seen—to advise with and aid in directing the pulse that gives the life blood to the daily, visits of nearly four millions of copies of the Hearst papers to the homes of the peo- S le of the East, the North and the West, and to give the messages that shall in- uence the more than ten millions of readers that these papers have. The South has laws—has Federal protection, has tho mails, the army and all—but it has problems that the North and tho East and the West have not, and only the few who are privileged to visit us long enough to realize them, learn th^t we labor under difficulties that can not be regulated unless understood. And now the opportunity is afforded us to send a favored son, who, with all the traditions, tho trials, the joys and the sorrows of our sunny Southland bound up in his bosom, shall be our ambassador to the courts of the world to represent us not to the few but to represent us to the millions of the common people, who shall make the laws under which we must live. He does not go, it is true, to write incessantly about the South—he goes to discuss matters of national importance, politically and otherwise, for the great daily newspaper of which he shall be the head. But as the violet could not grow and take its color and shape without the matchless but unseen and unheard odor that it gives, no more could he, whose ever}” heart beat sends the blood of Dixie land coursing through lus veins, do less than glorify and defend us, though his theme may often treat of matters far re mote from us. It will fall to my lot to take up the editorship of The Georgian where Mr. Graves shall leave it. My efforts will seem but feeble ns compared with what he has done. My life has been one of matter of fact. My style of putting what I may have to say in written words is more o'r less blunt. It is not entertaining. Yoii have seen it often in Mr. Graves’ absence from the city—principally during the prohibition campaign and the sessions of the legislature. I am fortunate in having seen much of the world. I know its needs—its joys—its sorrows. I have a happy home, where the children play and sing and keep the hearts tender—and it may be that, in time, the readers of The Georgian and I shall grow a relation of sym pathy and interest that shall be tolerable. I never expect the place Mr. Graves has won in your hearts. That may be filled in part by the fact that The Georgian will receive his editorials each day over its telegraph wires that keep The Georgian office in direct touch with New York, and they will, of course, be printed on the editorial page. They should be even more interesting than ever, since they will treat almost entirely of national sub jects that will never fail to touch the South as keenly as any other section. Mr. Graves’ time, too, will he used a great deal in addressing large gather ings, political and otherwise, and, in fact, his field of usefulness will be magni fied a thousand fold, in all of which we shall share. The Georgian will be the greatest loser—we will miss him most. Only the grossest selfishness could prompt us to ask him to refuse this, the crowning recog nition of his life, with five times the remuneration we could give him. It is the highest compliment that could be paid The Georgian—the highest honor that could be paid the South. If other considerations were as nothing, we could not rob the South of the results that will surely follow Mr. Graves’ ad vancement. So we say go—and a thousand hopes and joys go with you to cheer you on your way. Our hearts and our prayers go with you, and if your work is ever done, or if sickness or death rob you of your joys, and your heart turns back to Dixie, as it surely will some time—remember the door is open—it stands ajar to you alwavs—the chair you have left will await you, and you will come back as a soldier wno has left the sunny hills of his happy home and fought our battles at the front for God and home and native land. * F. L. SEELY, Publisher.