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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 WILLIfXM D. UPSWXW, - - - - Editor A. E. RAPfSAUR, - - - 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 regret very much that we are forced to omit from this issue the regular instalment of our con tinued story, “Into Marvelous Light.” The au thor’s home is in a Northern city, and after the story was accepted, there being some revisions desir ed,. it was returned so that they might be made, and we have been receiving each week the revised portion of the story for the following week. Owing to a miscarriage in the mails the instalment for the current issue has been delayed in reaching us, and we are forced to go to press without it. We beg the indulgence of our readers for this mishap which was unavoidable so far as our efforts are con cerned. We will resume the regular course of the story in our next issue.—Editor. n No Side Stepping Now. There probably never w’as a time in the history of this nation, or State, when the people so earnestly desired reform in national and local politics and in industrial affairs as they do now, and it is quite certain that they have never heretofore been as sen sible and as sane in knowing what was necessary to secure reform. This is not an hysterical and spasmodic attack of virtue. It is a steady and determined movement by all the people to secure their rights, to have pure and proper management of their government affairs and to protect them selves from organized robbery by trusts and large in dustrial corporations. So it has come to pass that the necessity of study for his protection has brought a large degree of wisdom to the average citizen. The Legislature of the State of Georgia now in session will have an opportunity to enact legislation more vi tal to the interest of the people of the State than has come before them at any other session in a number of years. Questions not only involving enormous business principles, but the fundamental questions of moral right and wrong will be put up to them for settlement. The people know what they want. They know that the Legislature can give it to them if the body is composed of brave men and true. The issues before the people have been formulated in clear-cut bills for the consideration of the law making body. The people are watching. They want their rights. They want every man to do his duty. It is going to be harder for a legislator to side step the issues of this session than ever it was be fore. There are some questions which demand a vote which is unequivocal, and it is difficult to see how’ any man who has accepted the trust which his election imposes upon him, can so far forget what he owes to his people as to vote in any other man ner than squarely and fairly for what is right and just. The Free Pass measure will be up for con sideration; the Anti-Saloon League of the State will request legislation for the furtherance of pro hibition, and another most vital question will be that involving the existence of bucket shops within the State of Georgia. These questions really do hot admit of straddling. The man who does not vote the right way will find it amazingly difficult to ex* plain to , his constituents just why k The Golden Age for July 5, 1906. The Bucket Shops. A bill which provides for abolishing bucket-shops, wire-houses and all forms of cotton-futures gam bling in the State of Georgia, will come before the Legislature at its present session. The people at large are just beginning to realize the immense num ber of defalcations, suicides and wrecked homes ■which have been caused by this species of gambling. It is difficult for a mere passerby who strolls into one of these licensed gambling rooms, to conceive the terrible dangers lurking in the boards upon which a debonair clerk chalks rows of quotations translated from the clicking telegraph instrument nearby. It is easy to begin speculating in futures. It costs but little to “buy” a hundred bales. True if the market goes the wrong way, the investment must be “protected” by placing in the broker’s hands money to cover a margin. On an insignificant investment a large amount of money may be made. The buyer has not seen a bale of cotton; no one has seen a bale; he puts up a little money, and in a few days is returned the principal with a large addition. There is a well-oiled fiction about an order being placed in New York for a certain num ber of bales; an advance in price having occurred and the retained cotton having been sold at a profit. Sometimes a man’s “luck” holds good for a while, and he makes thousands of dollars. The fever en ters every fiber of his being and soon he "believes his judgment is infallible. Money which came easi ly is likely to go easily. A turn of the market endangers the whole resources of the gambler. He borrow’s to enable himself to remain in the game until the tide turns. The tide forgets to turn. More money must be put up to protect that already involved. He can borrow no more. He has access to funds not his own which he can secretly apply to his needs for a few days, and as the tide is oblig ed to turn, all will be well and he will be a rich man. He borrows; the tide neglects to turn—and he.who but yesterday was an honest man, respected as a good citizen, and holding an honorable place in the community, is to-day an embezzler, and in many cases, seeks refuge in a suicide’s death. This story is stale from being oft recounted in the public prints. Many do not go so far; they only lose their property and their families are forced into poverty thereby. It is time that an end was put to this licensed gambling in the State of Georgia. These “cotton exchanges,” altogether, are estimated to take $15,- 000.000 out of the State. They pay Tn licenses something like two hundred thousand dollars. Fi nancially speaking, it is a bad investment. From the standpoint of morals and public conscience it cannot be justified in any degree. Such gambling, such a system of seeking for gains where abso lutely no equivalent is given or even contemplated, debauch the public conscience of a people. Some men say that if the system is prohibited in this state, neighboring states will continue and Georgia will lose the license income. This argument is now in an infamous old age. It has been used to justify saloons and all other forms of evil-doing smce the world began. The people of Georgia wish this menace to their industrial welfare, and this cancer at the vitals of her public morals destroyed absolutely. The law-makers have it in their power to do it. Right and conscience demand that every man vote in favor of the strongest bill that can be fnnrd against this evil. Give us a Law of the Right Kind. •S The Dispensary and Education. An item in an esteemed exchange, the Baptist Press, of Greenville, S. C., preaches in a brief space a strong sermon on the real results of the dispen sarv svstem in that State. Much capital has been made bv the friends of the dispensary out of the fact that the public schools of South Carolina re ceive from the profits of the dispensary one hun dred and sixty thousand dollars. To learn this alone without going further into the real situation, would cause a casual thinker to claim «a point in favor of the sale of whiskey under the dispensary system, but the fact that four million dollars are spent in the State for whiskey, throws a different light on the matter. Four million dollars spent for alcoholic beverages in order to secure an addition of one hundred and sixty thousand dollars to the public school fund seems a very bad investment. Leaving out the moral questions involved altogether, it seems a bad investment to spend one* dollar in away that injures body, reputation, fortune and happiness to secure four cents for the education of the children upon whom fall heaviest the results of the original investment in whiskey. The average man applies common sense to every proposition which confronts him along life’s journey earlier in life than he does to the one of whiskey. People are blinded more easily by fallacies when it comes to the questions of saloons or substitutes therefor than in any other way. One dispensary may be an improvement on twenty open saloons, but it is to be hoped that the time is not far distant when the dispensary will be recognized as a terribly dangerous snake in the grass, and will be stamped to death as it deserves to be. n The Nation’s Birthday. Yesterday we celebrated our one hundred and thirtieth birthday in the good old American way, with guns and crackers and baseball and sham bat tles. It must be a very nervous man, a very pessi mistic and disgruntled man or one who does not realize our immense national progress and pros perity, who refuses to enter into these manifesta tions of joy, noisy though they be. It is true that a lot of money is wasted in fireworks, a great deal paid to doctors for bandaging our burns, quite a bit is invested in baseball; and no telling how tall a tower the sum would make if changed into silver dollars and stacked one upon another. We could buy a battleship or two with it or found a school or lay out a park in some city for a children’s play ground if we could secure it, but some money must be spent carelessly to preserve the balancle of things and keep the human heart from hardening into an outside shell like a cocoanut. Our material prosperity and our national growth cannot be questioned. It can be seen of all men. It does not demand a reckless optimism to see that morally we are growing better. More money is spent for education than ever before. A larger per capita amount is invested in the various church activities; more missionaries are being sent to un christian lands and more and more is there a spirit of brotherhood manifested among men. The men who have accumulated vast fortunes are coming to see that they are really but trustees for the remain der of mankind and are giving munificently to edu cational and religious needs. All things are not measured by money or by the giving of it; but it is a good indication of man’s humanity to man, when he shares his substance with his brother in need. Let each recurring national birthday find us bet ter and more charitable in the midst of our grow ing national prosperity. President Bryan and Mr. Roosevelt. The American people are going to be up against a double-header problem at the time of the next presidential election. They have practically prom ised Mr. Bryan to elect him as our next president— and unless their minds change, that part will be easy. There need be no great excitement over the matter. Mr. Taft may get into the race. He is certain to do so if some one should suggest a presi dential campaign as a flesh-reducer; but even Mr. Taft’s candidacy would not demand an unusual amount of attention. The thing that calls for real wisdom and good judgment is the arranging of a job for President Roosevelt. If there was a higher niche for him to ascend to, the problem would solve it self; but he has already enjoyed our best and there is nothing more to give. If there was an official appointment available as Toter of the Big Stick with Speech-Making and Trust-Busting duties on the side, Theodore would be the very boy for the place* v .