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8 The Golden Age (SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS FORUM) Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden Hge Publishing Company (Inc.) OFFICES: LOWNDES "BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA. Price: $2.00 a Year WILLIfXMD. UPSHXW, - - - - Editor A. E. RAMSAUR, . . . Associate Editor Entered at the Post Office tn 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. To Our Readers. We will esteem it a favor if our readers will men tion The Golden Age when replying to any of the advertisements found in these columns. We desire simply to receive the credit for such business as is directed to our advertising customers by us. Another Blow at Happiness. A Minnesota Legislator has introduced a bill making it a misdemeanor for any person to kiss another unless he (or she) can prove that he (or she) is free from infectious diseases. The bill also provides that a physician’s certificate that a person has a weak heart shall prevent him (or her) from indulging in kissing. A fine of from one to five dollars is prescribed for each offense. It is no wonder so many young people are leaving Minnesota and coming South. It was hard enough to get the girl’s consent and avoid the watchful eye of the parent before; but to have to look up the family physician and get a certificate every time he expects to call, is too much to ask any young man. The Man With the Patch. “This is the day for the man with a patch on his breeches to come forward and the-man-of-the dollar to go to the rear.” Our distinguished President says a large share of the good things that are being said these days; but he doesn’t always enunciate things that are startling by reason of being entirely new T and there fore unthought of. It is quite true that “this is the day for the man with the patch on his breeches to come forward.” We belong to that class of men and our breeches have always had the patch. Our experience has taught us that the man with the patch has always been coming forward. From away back—since this country went into business —the men in the front rank have worn patches, clearly visible to all the rear ranks. In all the great struggles this nation has made, whether on the battlefield or in the quieter ranks of civic re form, the people who went forward and did the work mostly had the patches and the ones who were in the rear with a fan and a tall glass were the ones with the dollars. This is, indeed, the day for the man with the patch to come forward and receive the credit and the reward he has so fully earned— and he is hustling to the front to demand his rights. Probably there never was a time when an observant mind could discern more encouraging indications that our people are determined to make their gov ernment in real earnest a government for the peo ple, personally conducted by the same people. The Children’s Playgrounds. Among the many movements for good which have been inaugurated by the Associated Charities, that recently undertaken in Atlanta, to have some of the school play grounds opened for the use of the children of the city during the summer, is vital in its importance. Some of the play-grounds have been The Golden Age for June 28, 1906. so opened and the plan is to have the children play there under the charge of competent and reliable guardians. This will give to the children in the crowded portions of the city the exercise and breathing space their physical well-being demands, and will keep them from running the streets under conditions which would tend to their moral undoing. Upon the children of to-day depend the existence of the nation and the civilization of to-morrow. Every effort should be exerted to keep them men tally, morally and physically in a healthy and nor mal condition. Nothing so promotes this aim as the innocent games of childhood. To those who have been reared in the country and whose lives have been spent always among green fields, and by wood lands musical with bird songs and the babble of brooks, the conditions surrounding the lives of the poorer classes of city children are hardly conceiva ble. Their homes are not attractive; the quarters in which they live are often dark and far from clean; they have no yard to play in—there are no trees to climb; no brooks to wade—there is no place for them during their waking hours except the pave ments and the street corners. Here they are thrown into contact with the very worst influences and the result is easy to forsee. Any movement to provide for safeguarding the health and morals of these children should be earnestly and continuously sup ported by every citizen. We trust this first step will lead to many others in the same direction. The Pure Food Bill. It is beginning to seem that there is really no “pure food.” It is only a name, used as a caption for the bill pending before the House of Representa tives. When we were children—not so far back as that—it was once upon a time—there was some talk about Yankees making wooden nutmegs and palm ing them off for the real thing. A little later, the corner grocer was suspected of selling the least bit of sand in his sugar—'but there was little atten tion paid to any of it. Recent investigations tend to convince that there is really nothing that is what it seems to be. It is not adulteration of food pro ducts; that would be bad enough; the truth is we have been eating things which have absolutely no right to the names they bear except in so far as flavoring and coloring matter entitle them to them. When the bill was up for consideration recently in the House, Representative Mann had on dis play before the Speaker’s desk a number of alleged foods, and stated what each really was. He had four cans labeled as containing pure olive oil. One of them did contain pure olive oil. Two contained cottonseed oil, and the other, pure machine oil. There was a bottle of apparently fine honey. In it was a dead bee as an evidence of purity. The stuff had never been in a bee hive—it was manufactured of glucose and the bee put in it to deceive. There was black pepper of corn meal dyed black; Java coffee made of chicory, bread and corn dust, and so on. There is every reason to believe that some really effective law will be enacted for the protection of the people against this outrageous condition of affairs. That manufacturers would go to such lengths in adulteration is hardly conceivable. The more one reflects upon it the angrier he gets, until directly his mind is naturally forced to a consider ation of what a wonderful institution the human stomach is. Who would not thrill with pride in the possession of one? The ostrich once aroused the envy of mankind because he could eat and di gest with the utmost nonchalance little trifles like nails, rocks and assorted hardware; but he has to take a back seat now. Thinkers and Writers in Dixie. The Golden Age is pleased to announce that early in July, Professor David E. Guyton, of Blue Moun tain College, Mississippi, will begin a series of arti cles, “Among Thinkers and Writers in Dixie.” David E. Guyton is a blind son of genius, who, like Milton, walks in the radiance of myriad stars by common eyes unseen. For nearly a year, his weekly stories of “Southern Celebrities,” in the Commercial Appeal, have held a sustained and grow ing interest, and have made the author wonderfully popular as a writer, especially in the states of the middle southwest. ■ - ? - On a recent visit to Blue Mountain, the editor of The Golden Age was astonished by the brilliancy of this remarkable man and secured from him a promise to contribute the articles referred to above. We are happy to bring him and our readers into an acquaintance with one another, and will, next week, have a more adequate sketch of Prof. Guyton by Prof. A. H. Ellett. Echoes and “Amens.” “A Citizen’s Protest,” published in the last is sue of The Golden Age, has brought many gratifying responses from the people. Highly as we appreciate these hearty commendations, we cannot undertake to publish all the cheering words that have been spoken. We give here a few of the first that reach ed us, and we emphasize again, the statement of the article itself—that it is a non-partisan position on a great moral issue. It is a fearful hour for the youth of the present and the citizenship of the fu ture, when good men—men otherwise good, so far forget themselves as to place expediency above principle, and thus find themselves coquetting with that false light that ‘ ‘ leads to bewilder and dazzles to blind.” Selling liquor to build up education and benevolence! Horror of horrors! But read the let ters : “A Citizen’s Protest” tells the truth, but not the whole truth. Come again. God bless you. Yours sincerely, George W. Carroll. Your “Citizen’s Protest” struck the keynote. I felt the force of every word you wrote, and I com mend you for it. This question rises way above the question of politics or political office-holding, and its effects are untold. Can an honest prohibitionist or anyone interested in the moral welfare of our great State view the question in any other light? Your friend, M. J. Yeomans. Your reasoning in your “Protest” is logical and Scriptural, and I hope it will change the minds of many who are in favor of making blood-money for the sake of charity. The cheapest and godliest way is to let the damnable stuff alone, and use that money from the first investment for charitable work. “Amen to your ‘Protest!’ ” W. H. All. I have just read “A Citizen’s Protest,” and I want to thank you for it. I shall reproduce it in this paper next week. Surely you must have writ ten that after “fasting and a season of prayer.” It sounds like inspiration to me. I thank God that He has raised up in Georgia one editor who, like Daniel of old, refuses to forsake the Truth. Again I want to thank you. Your Brother in Christ, Joe Winburn, Editor Mansfield Leader. Your article in the last issue of The Golden Age on “A Citizen’s Protest,” is timely and deserves the thanks of every lover of sobriety and good mor als. I know not what others may say as to its bearing on present issues. Many of us are more concerned for the future of our young people than we are for the success of any candidate for governor now in the field. Politicians, schemers, and time servers may discourage you, and object to such plain talk “just at this time.” Nevertheless thousands of the “tried and true” are bidding you “God-speed” in your courageous course, and will stand by you. Fraternally, E. Z. F. Golden. So, then, there are three Hebrew children whose ears are deaf to “the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer and all kinds of music, when it calls them to afll down and worship “the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar, the king, has set up.” And there be seven thousand men yet, thank God, “who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”