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The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS FORUN)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden Hge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OFFICES: LOWNDES “BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA.
Price: $2.00 a Year
WILLIHM D. UPSHIXW, .... Editor
A. E. RAMS AUK, - 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.
Mr. F. L. Seely.
The recent return of Mr. F. L. Seely to Atlanta,
after an absence and illness of several weeks, has
caused many expressions of genuine rejoicing among
his wide circle of friends, and especially among the
staff and employees of Mr. Seely’s paper, The At
lanta. Georgian. The Golden Age covets the priv
ilege of obeying the sacred injunction: “Rejoice
with them that do rejoice.”
Frederick L. Seely deserves everlasting honor
from his fellowmen for being the unselfish projector
of a great daily paper with ideals high and columns
clean—flowing like a pure gulf stream through
daily journalism and blessing wherever it touches.
Great New Tabernacle.
The announcement that Dr. L. G. Broughton’s
great church, the Baptist Tabernacle, will meet the
demands of its wonderful growth by erecting a mam
moth institutional church building with an audito
rium seating seven thousand people, has caused a
refreshing sensation in Atlanta and will be wel
come news in religious circles throughout the na
tion.
A little more than eight years ago, Dr. Broughton
came to Atlanta as pastor of the Third Baptist
Church, and on the first Sunday in March seven
years ago he preached his first sermon in the plain
wooden tabernacle seating three thousand. Later
it was veneered with brick and enlarged to a capac
ity of over four thousand, and now comes the nec
essity for larger quarters, and at a cost of $52,000
the lot has been secured on which to erect a build
ing costing $300,000, large enough to be a home for
the different benevolent institutions of the Taber
nacle, take care of the thousands that flock to hear
Dr. Broughton from Sunday to Sunday, and at the
same time accommodate the great conventions which
have so long been shut out of Atlanta for lack of
an auditorium.
This will be more than the Tremont Temple of
the South—for it will hold more people and do
more benevolent work. And it is indeed refreshing
to contemplate that through it all and over it all
the vital influence of a definite and saving Gospel
will be thrown. Humanity owes a debt of grati
tude to our conquering Christianity for the bless
ings that have come to Atlanta, the South and the
nation through the commanding genius and the in
spiring leadership iof 'this consecrated man of
God.
From a Preacher.
I have just read “A Citizen’s Protest,” in The
Golden Age of June 21st, and just felt that I must
write (not to tell you how much I appreciate it, for
I can never do that), but to let you know that"l
do appreciate it some. It is the best thing I have
ever seen from your pen on a purely moral issue.
It is worth many times the price of the paper.
* * * Never hesitate to put such things into
its pages.
Now you know that I am conservative and I in
sist that these are conservative statements.
Macon, Ga. R. O. Martin.
Non-Partisan—lmpartial—Fearless.
These words, carefully weighed and deliberately
chosen, describe the attitude which I had mapped
out for The Golden Age on every phase of civic
righteousness and every moral question in any way
affecting the public welfare.
I had thought to edit a paper, not only to inspire
and safeguard our youthful and formative citizen
ship, but to help our full-grown and active citizen
ship to find and walk in the path of Duty toward ev
ery element that makes or mars our Christian civili
zation.
Non-Partisan—so far as political affiliation is
concerned—free to commend the moral right and
condemn the immoral wrong in any party organi
zation; Impartial, in discussing public men—deal
ing not in personalities and personal preferences
among candidates for office, but standing for Prin
ciples above every personal or party consideration;
Fearless, in the advocacy of these principles—
“speaking the Truth in love” as Paul says, but
speaking it “though the stars tumble down!” This
was my ideal—this is my ideal now, and
an ideal lower than this would be unworthy
that part of the paper’s motto, “Power in
the Life—Purity in the State.” This much said,
the editorial “We,” it seems, is not direct enough
for present purposes and hence this personal state
ment.
The publication of “A Citizen’s Protest” in the
issue of June 21st, has caused grave anxiety on the
part of some of my friends, while from others there
has come a refreshing plenitude of hearty commen
dation.
Never mind that the head-lines and many other
lines in that “Protest” declared it to be “A non
partisan discussion of a great moral issue,” the
fear has been expressed in letters, both signed and
anonymous, that I have made a tremendous mistake
to publish anything discussing or attacking the at
titude of one of the candidates for governor to
ward his bar-room, whose proceeds are made white
and right in the eyes of many good people because
used to buy books for poor children. I deeply
appreciate the beautiful spirit of the letters from
my friends, but they must allow me to remind them
that I have not discriminated between gubernato
rial candidates.
“A Citizen’s Protest,” after all, dealt not so
much with the candidate and his attitude, as it
did with the attitude of the “shouting multitude”
toward this candidate’s attitude. But listen: To
prove that there has been no unjust discrimination
against one candidate and in favor of another in
discussing a great moral issue, note well this con
vincing fact: In The Golden Age of May 10th, I
published a “double-header” editorial entitled “The
People’s Ultimatum to the Liquor Dailies, ’’ in which
I said the strongest things I knew how to say about
the practice of advertising liquor, condemning, I
well knew, the course of two prominent candidates
for governor; and I took special care to say in that
protest “or advertise whiskey in your newspaper,”
so I would condemn the wrong in both candidates
alike. The papers of both these men have been es
pecially kind to me, one of the editors being a per
sonal friend. I was discussing the birth and atti
tude of The Atlanta Georgian, a great daily paper
that does not advertise liquor. This new daily was
discussed, not as a newspaper, but as a brave ex
emplification of a principle to which The Golden
Age is sacredly pledged.
In writing that editorial I suffered in heart, know
ing that it would cause pain to editorial friends
here and there. I knew, too, that it might be used
against the editor candidates for governor, but I
could not afford to wait until the “dog days” of
August had passed to utter a moral truth that ought
to be spoken straight from the shoulder, campaign
or no campaign!
In that editorial I wrote these words concerning
the sale of space in ilquor dailies: “Then you de
liberately sell for money the right to do wrong.
You had not thought of it that way? But your
space is to your paper what your life-blood is to
your body—what your virtue is to your character;
Editor
The Golden Age for July 12, 1906.
and yet you bargain for gain the red blood of your
being, you barter for gold the white purity of your
virtue! Your space for sale indeed! All right.
Then, sell it to a lewd house. As bright men are
allowed the privilege of describing the ‘attractive
qualities’ of certain brands of liquor for your read
ers, so, then, sell a page of your sacred space where
harlots may hold high carnival as they fling their
blandishments before your sons! If your space is
for sale, then sell it to a gambling den. Let the
owners of American Monte Carlos, large or small,
depict for the unwary on the page they buy from
you, the ‘thrill’ and ‘excitement,’ and ‘possibilities’
of the gambling table—but hide, oh! hide the hor
ror and the hell they bring! ! !”
Now, that is what I wrote six weeks before “A
Citizen’s Protest,” and if those words do not con
demn the wrong on the part of two editor candidates
for governor of Georgia, then I will confess I don’t
know how to put condemnation into words.
And yet it is singular that none of the friends
of these editors wrote to complain that I ought to
have left those caustic words unspoken “until after
election day.”
It might not be amiss to remark before appending
my signature, that I am “twenty-one years old,
a free-born American citizen, a Southerner, a
1 Rebel’ a Democrat, and a Baptist,” and I propose
to speak my mind on these paramount moral issues
until my pen 11 refuses to float the ink, ’ ’ and the type
refuses to spell out my meaning to the makers and
venders of rum. And my friends might as well pos
sess their souls in patience, for the little I have said
thus far is only a slight “moving in the tops of the
mulberry trees,” compared with the battle which
The Golden Age intends to wage against that bloody
blight of commercialism which is being sown into
the minds and hearts of men and women all over
our land—that the saloon is justified in the sight
of candidates and voters—if the proceeds be used
for education and benevolence. God helping us,
we will not submit to this insidious and fatal doc
trine.
Get ready! The battle is coming! The bugle is
sounding afar! William D. Upshaw.
Echoes.
From Columbus.
I write to thank you, not once, but over and over
again for your manly, powerful article in The Gold
en Age of June 21st, against the charity saloon. It
took courage to write that article and brave men
everywhere will commend you. John T. Davis.
From Tennessee.
I must thank you for your strong courteous, con
vincing article, “A Citizen’s Protest.” You have
been true to your conscience and true to Truth, and
you have expressed yourself in such courtesy and
kindness of speech that no man who differs from
you can feel offended. And surely the people them
selves will be made to think of the awful effect of
compromising with liquor in any form.
The Golden Age has a great mission. Continue to
be true and God will bless you.
Knoxville, Tenn. A. J. Holt.
From a Mother.
How bravely you have met your first great fight
in the temperance war! I am sure the “Citizen’s
Protest” pleased the Lord very much. And sweeter
than anything else is His approving smile.
If St. Paul had been wrting for The Golden Age
or a daily paper I think he would have said just
about what you did. You must have “wrestled all
night.” Such a piece of brain and heart work as
that can only be done after much earnest prayer.
It reminded me very much of Grady’s Boston
speech.
Os all the great and noble things you have been
charged with for twenty years, this must be the
very greatest and best. Better have the “Protest”
printed in booklet form. It ought to be preserved
in every home.
Bowdon, Ga, Mrs. Mattie Shelnut Morris.