Newspaper Page Text
8
The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS FORUN)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden fAge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OFFICES: LOWNDES BUILDING, (ATLANTA, GA.
Price: $2.00 a 'fear
WILLI HMD. UPSHMW. .... Editor
A. E. RAMSAUR, - - - Associate Editor
W. F. UPSHA W, - - - - Business Manager
H. R. BERNARD, - - - Sec’y and Treas.
Entered at the Post Office in (Atlanta, Ga.,
as second-class matter.
To the Public: The advertising columns of The
Golden. Age will have an editorial conscience. No
advertisement will be accepted which we believe
would be hurtful to either the person or the purse of
our readers.
The Wheeler Memorial.
As we go to press the city of Atlanta is just un
dertaking a sad but sacred duty in conducting a
memorial to that great Confederate, Gen. Joseph
Wheeler. It is a significant fact that the Southern
mind considers General Wheeler first of all as a
“'Confederate soldier,” but it is not in that capa
city alone that he has made the greatest impress
on the affairs of the nation.
General Wheeler was among the first of the old
Confederate officers who enlisted in the Spanish
American War, thus convincing the world that he,
at least, had in very truth “let the dead past bury
its dead.” This was a moral triumph the force of
which cannot be over-estimated, for the donning
of the blue by a soldier so loyal that his heart must
ever wear the memory of the “grey,” typified a
conquest over self, and a moral courage so broad,
so beautiful and so supreme that it could only be
equalled by the physical courage, the evidence of
which the brave soldier bore in the numberless
scars upon his frail body.
It is difficult, if not impossible, for the Southern
heart to suppress the natural emotions caused by
the sight of the stars and stripes hanging in close,
amicable and fraternal touch beside the stars and
bars, for the soldier of the South, although he
stands side by side with the soldier of the Union,
does not forget the past, but remembers it only
to make it more sacred, to enshrine its struggles, its
triumphs, its defeats in a haze of tenderest recol
lections.
Like all good Americans, General Wheeler rose
to the needs of his country and of his time. In the
halls of Congress, or on the foreign field of battle,
it was still to serve his country that he strove, and
even had he accomplished far less than he really
did, the mere effort, the mere willingness and the
deep desire could not fail of their high purpose.
Since his death, so much has been written of his
life, his work and his achievements, that even the
briefest review is unnecessary here; but to the mem
bers of his family, to his close personal friends, to
his old comrades in arms as well as to the country
at large, the honor that has been meted out to him
seems in some measure consolation for the great
loss his passing meant.
The citizens of Atlanta have contributed the nec
essary amount to make the memorial a fitting one;
great statesmen have come from North, South, East
and West to do honor to the distinguished dead.
A feature of the occasion is the large number of
Grand Army of the Republic men who have come
to Atlanta to participate in the memorial. Much
has been said of the “union of the Blue and the
Grey,” but it is our good fortune to see the realiza
tion of this long cherished dream. And seeing, we
take heed of the philosophy which underlies the
fact. One man, who in himself, combined the noble
qualities which commanded the admiration of the
country he served so long and so ably, has suc
ceeded in consummating this great event and this
great purpose—the spiritual as well as the physical
Union of all the people.
Therefore, while we honor General Wheeler for
his prowress in war, let us pause a while to give him,
The Golden Age for March 29, 1906.
as we gave the “Father of His Country” before
him, a well-merited and high place “in peace and
in the hearts of his countrymen.”
The Anglo-Saxon Revolution.
Fifty-five members of the present House of Com
mons are laboring men. Not men, like our Lin
coln, our Garfield, our Andrew Jackson, our Jos
eph E. Brown, and hundreds of other distinguish
ed citizens who were once laborers, and who by
dint of superior genius and well-centered endeavor,
rose above their class, but actual laborers! They
were elected by the honest vote of their fellow la
borers in the recent elections. They, too, have risen,
but not above their class. The significance of the
situation lies in the fact that they have risen
with their class. Their presence, and their votes in
Parliament mean that the steady tendency of legis
lation in England will be toward a reduction in the
cost of the common commodities of life, and the
enlarging of the opportunities of the masses of the
people for recreation, for education, for develop
ment. It means on the other hand, legislation re
straining the growth of private fortune, and the
power of corporate wealth. It means that the rich
treasure of public franchise, and natural monopoly,
shall pour their wealth into the hungry lives of the
vast millions—no longer into the lap of the idle
few. It means in fact that Anglo-Saxon sanity—
slow, but always sure—has discovered that the
wealth of her country lies not in her coal mines,
not in her countless factories, not in her merchan
dise, not in the splendid fortunes of her tradesmen,
her bankers, her nobility, nor yet in her glorious
expanse of territory “Upon which the sun never
sets. ’ ’ but in the lives of her toiling people.
“There’s more in the man than there is in the
land.” There is more wealth in Anglo-Saxon people
than in Anglo-Saxon possession. After all, the lat
ter is but an incident to the former. When actual
toilers from the mines, from the factories, the rail
road yards, the ship-yards, the blacksmith-shop,
and the carpenter’s bench, make laws for their
country, we may be sure they will look to the wel
fare of humanity as their prime object, and regard
the fostering of accumulated fortune as quite a
secondary matter.
The Revolution is on! The Anglo-Saxon revolu
tion of the twentieth century! Anglo-Saxon revo
lution and bloodless, but intensely vital, purpose
ful and real! The Anglo-Saxon, who dominates the
world, has here shown a higher quality of domin
ion. for he demonstrates that he is master of him
self, master of his wealth. He will teach the world
that wealth is not a fetich to be fawned upon, but
a ready servant to minister to human needs.
Has the growing Anglo-Saxon revolution any spe
cial significance for us? America is younger than
Great Britain, and her people are still pressing
hard in the chase for personal wealth. There is
more elbow room here and the day of the revolu
tion is postponed. But some day private fortune,
even here, will touch its limit. By and by our peo
ple will learn what they need and elect their own
men to office, rather than truckle after hypocriti
cal office-seekers who pretend to be the people’s
candidate just to get the people’s votes.
Our people, to the very core—are Anglo-Saxon.
In their own good time they will push aside the
minions of monied interests, they will part asunder
the trappings of wealth itself, and enshrine upon our
national altar the welfare of individual Amer
ican units. J
■! . Hi AJ
Alas, Poor Millionaires.
These are parlous times for the rich in free
America. John I). Rockefeller is hiding in a coal
hole to dodge the court bailiff; Chauncey Depew has
for the first time in fifteen years failed to receive
an invitation to the annual banquet of the Montauk
Club; several others have hurriedly scooted across
the sea, and Mr. Andrew Carnegie is learning that
riches do not invariably give happiness. He has
recently written a letter in which he speaks of the
burden of riches. In part he says. “Beyond a
competence for old age, and that need not be great
and may be very small, wealth lessens rather than
increases human happiness. Millionaires who
laugh are rare. This is just as it should be.”
We have been troubled ever since we read this.
Just think of poor Uncle Andy being worried this
way. If in any manner we could lessen the burden
that his wealth imposes on him we would gladly do
so; and we are willing to make sacrifices and place
ourselves in the path of the lightning to the extent
of taking a fourth or even a third of his riches and
assuming the responsibilities they entail. Uncle
Andy is getting old now; his strength is not what
it once was, and in view of all he has done for us
in erecting book warehouses in so many places, and
giving medals to the deserving here and there,
surely, surely other altruistic persons can be found
who will take a part of his money off his hands
and thus reduce him finally to that state of poverty
where he can enjoy life and spend his evening days
in quiet and contentment. If some one would only
give Uncle Andy a mule and about thirty or thirty
five acres of land up in Pickens 'County, he could
dwell far from the madding crowd and “husband
out life’s taper at its close.” It is a beautiful pic
ture; a sweet contemplation. A modest cabin—a
small door-yard with morning glories clambering
over the rustic trellis-work; a faithful dog, an ash
hopper and a cow; a coon skin stretched on the cabin
weatherboarding, evidence of Uncle Andy’s prowess
as a hunter; and strings of rosemary, sage and pep
pers pendent from the loft poles. Perchance as the
simplicity of the surroundings and the majesty of
the mountain’s calm turned Uncle Andy’s thoughts
back to long-forgotten things, he w’ould resume the
kilt and conduct his agricolous pursuits in the dress
of his native land. After a day spent in collabora
tion with his faithful mule in the nurture of his
crop, when the evening shadows lengthened in the
glens and from the far-away valleys came faint
sounds of lowing kine and mellow tinklings of sheep
bells, Uncle Andy could wend his way to some shelt
ered cove, and with his replenished jug return to
his cot to dream of fair Scotia. Hoot, Uncle Andy,
Hoot! Gang Awa!
The State Normal.
It was the Editor’s privilege to visit last week
the State Normal School at Athens, and speak
briefly to the students at Chapel, and he was deeply
impressed with the increasing usefulness of this
institution. President E. C. Branson and his superb
faculty have done a marvelous work at this great
school. Time was—and that not so long ago—when
the value of the State Normal (in the eyes of legis
lators, at least) was considered problematical, and
the meagre appropriations made the early days of
the institution very trying—even pathetic. But now
the tide has gloriously turned. Legislators and
philanthropists have seen the need, heard the call
and risen to meet the demands. Buildings have gone
up like magic, and students, like the soldiers in
Napoleon’s last campaign, “have seemed to rise
firm the earth and fall from the skies.”
The low price at which the best instruction is
offered has already been a widespread blessing to
thousands since the Normal was launched during
Governor Northen’s administration—young people
(and some older ones) who have hastened either for
short term or long term, to better prepare them
selves for teaching. And the pathos of it all is
that actual hundreds have been shut out year after
year for lack of room.
The State Normal School is not the competitor
of any school, but rather the friend and comrade
of all—stimulating and supplementing the work of
all other schools.
Mr. George Foster Peabody, that golden-hearted
son of Georgia, now in New York, “whose name
spells “Santa Claus” for so many educational in
stitutions, has given liberally to the State Normal,
and Hon. Jas. M. Smith, of Smithsonia, Georgia’s
greatest farmer, has proven the wisdom of his
philanthropy by a recent gift of SIO,OOO. No State
institution with whose life we are acquainted is
pervaded by a more wholesome Christian atmos
phere than the State Normal School.
It is fast becoming the pet of “classic Athens,”
and is regarded not only with admiration, but genu*
ino affection by the whole State,