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8 The Golden Age (SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS EORUIT) Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden Hge Publishing Company (Inc.) OFFICES: LOWNDES 'BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA. Price: $2.00 a 'Pear WILLIXM D. UPSHAW, .... Editor A. E. RAJTSAUR, . . - 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. My Vision. By WILLIAM D. UPSHAW. I sometimes catch a flitting gleam Os heights I long to reach— I sometimes feel the swelling stream Os thoughts beyond my speech; I sometimes soar on Fancy’s wing, Or climb on golden staff To where the silent Muses sing, And worldly crowns are chaff! And at such times I cry: “A Voice!— A voice to speak the spell, That others, with me, may rejoices In thoughts too deep to tell!” The Lasso of the Devil. By the hands of his faithful emmissaries Satan begins early to throw his lasso over the young. No more horrifying illustration of this fact has come under our eyes of late than that which is re vealed by the following incident: One of the brightest women in Georgia (who, by the way, is a valued contributor to The Golden Age) has been spending a part of the summer in Atlanta, having with her her two little sons, the older of whom has hardly lived in this world of temptation a dozen years. Lunching with them one day at a popular fam ily hotel, this fine little fellow who had come from his South Georgia home to see the “wonders” of Atlanta during his vacation, came running up to give greeting to the Editor who had one time visited his school. A shining piece of metal was seen hang ing like a watch fob from the vest of the youthful Atlanta visitor. And lo! on the front side of this new-found treasure was engraved the pet phrase of a large liquor house in Atlanta. Seized with horror the other side was turned and there was the brazen name of one of the most shamefully enterprising advertisers of liquor on the American continent. “Where did you get this, my litle man?” “I got it from little playmate across the street. He’s wearing one.” The unsuspecting mother was shown the brazen head of this advertising serpent, and startled at the impudent effrontery that was beginning to coil its devilish self about her boy, told him to make tracks to his playmate and give him back his property. And it has come to this! Boys of tender years are to be caught by their natural fondness for badges and “charms” and mottoes and banners, and yielding, at first unconsciously, to the serpen tine design, they are induced to become walking ad vertisements of the very brew of hell. They are given these shining badges doubtless—if they will come after them! Thus their scampering little feet are led to ex plore the office of the wholesale liquor dealer for the first time. With a show of conscience this deal er would assure these children, their parents and even the Recording Angel himself, that he would not think of having these boys enter the tempting atmosphere of a barroom—no, no! because it is against the law. (Yes, and that is the only rea son.) But meantime these same boys, with twink- The Golden Age for August 30, 1906. ling, wondering eyes, are allowed to look at the pret ty pictures all around and see just a few sample bottles clad in attractive wrappers that tell of the contents in letters of shining gold. And so these happy boys—each one some moth er’s darling—-scurry away, rich in their new pos sessions, to scatter the news among the other boys of the city. And as they leave the office of their new-found friend who has so generously given them these pretty badges, each with a furtive look be hind, says perhaps to himself: “Some day when I am older I will know about this business. I will be man enough myself to find out what is in those sample botles.” And the enterprising liquor dealer, smiles com placently as he watches them depart, smacks his lips in Satanic contemplation and remarks to his clerks, his bookkeepers, his young lady stenograph ers and his chuckling confidential secretary: “Those young Americans will make* good custom ers after a while.” And then the demons of hell strike up their glee ful chant, “He’s coming our way,” in reply to the mother’s plaintive wail: “Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight?”. .This —all this and more, is the meaning of the shining metal badges being worn by the boys and men around us—the lasso which the devil is throwing early around the boys of the present and the men of the future! Surely the seared conscience of even the liquor dealer himself would relent if he could catch a real vision of the ruin he is seeking and making! If he will not, or if he will, an outraged public conscience will arise in its right and in its might and sweep his horrible business from the face of the earth. Parents, watch well the kind of badges your boys are wearing! Election Aftermath. We have had an election in Georgia—a nomina tion, rather, the like of which we never saw before, and which we devoutly hope we w 7 ill never see again. Each of the five candidates for Governor has had friends who, in the excitement of political agita tion, have said things about the other candidates, doubtless, which facts did not warrant and even partisanship could not excuse. With all of these things The Golden Age has had nothing to do. Not being a political paper, the purely political phases have not been touched upon in these columns and will not be discussed. But standing for conscientious citizenship and “Purity in the State” as a part of our motto, we have dared to have some “home-made” convictions on a great moral issue involved and we have spoken these convictions in an impersonal, non-partisan, honest way. Now that the battle of ballots and the bitterness of partisan contention are over, let this thing be clearly said: Hon. Hoke Smith, who has just won the most remarkable victory which any candidate for Governor has won in Georgia in two generations, began this campaign on the “inside track” so far as our personal admiration was concerned. A mem ber of President Cleveland’s cabinet and serving there with a conspicuous ability in which all Geor gians felt an honest pride—prominent in religious conventions, state, national and international, and keeping, we believed, his great heart on the right side of every moral question, we counted—let us say it with due deference to all other great men in the state—we counted Hon. Hoke Smith the fore most citizen of Georgia. An intellectual giant, an orator of surpassing eloquence, and clad in Uje spotless vestmnts of stalwart and aggressive Chris tian manhood, we verily believed that America con tained no greater, grander man. We say this that people may see how painful it was to ns to see our ideal in Christian statesman ship yielding a point—a vital point—an awful point on the liquor question. There is something inspiring, commanding, sweeping, overwhelming- in a victory which has carried one hundred and twen ty-two out of one hundred and forty-five counties in Georgia, and humanly speaking, it would be “mighty pleasant” to be on the side of those who Editor are shouting only the chorus of praise and the peans of victory. It hurts us to sound a discordant note. But we say now—and we expect to say to our dy ing day—that no man ought to use a powerful per sonality and the rising tide of popular political measures, however just, to carry into the White House of Georgia the staggering stigma and the blighting example of being an original owner and an actual sharer in the blood-stained profits of a saloon. And we dare to deal Mr. Smith the justice, and the people of Georgia the justice likewise, to say that if that saloon had been down on Decatur street instead of in a handsome hotel on Peachtree, lie would not have submitted to “minority” owner ship in it—and if he had, the people of Georgia would never have elected him Governor. But where is the difference? Hold on, reader! Don’t make the charge of partisanship. Remember that several weeks before a word was said in these columns about “one of the candidates for governor and his interest in a barroom,” we had spoken in the strong est terms which we could command against the prac tice of advertising liquor—con dem lining the course of two other candidates for governor. And we only refrained from further expression before the election because we learned that an honest moral intention was being misunderstood. Now that a partisan imputation is impossible, we renew the call in which thousands who voted for the successful candidate will join. We have heard the expressions already. They voted for Mr. Smith because they believed him “the strongest man in the race,” and because he stood for other things they believed in. But they do not want their Governor to be mixed up in any way with a bar room. The insidious sophistry that “a first class hotel must have a saloon” has blinded the eyes and blunted the moral sense of many a good man who, at heart, would shun to do wrong. We believe Mr. Smith wishes in his heart that he had never had any connection with the Piedmont Bar. He has said so—and we believe him. But he could not get out “under fire” without being mis understood. Now it is different. Now he has the greatest opportunity to do a brave, far-reaching moral deed which any man in America has faced in years. Let him wash his hands of the whole sa loon business before he sits down in the Governor’s chair! Then he will teach the world that he be lieves there is no difference betwen the actual rav ages of a saloon, whether surrounded by the “pat and dance” of a low down dive or the glitter and glare of gilded sin. We have stood in the arcade of the beautiful Piedmont Hotel, and we have seen the “educated” son of wealth come up from his contact with that “necessary” (?) accompaniment to a first class hotel. His face was red, his eyes were bleared and sickening gibberish fell from his wagging tongue. No, good people of Georgia, we do not want our great reform Governor to have any connection with a saloon that debauches men like that. God grant that the brilliant, brainy Governor elect may see his DUTY and his OPPORTUNITY, • and seeing, dare to do! A Bouquet From Mississippi. We take your paper in our home and I can say there is no other paper that I enjoy reading so much as I do The Golden Age. AA hen you were at Blue Mountain College last spring you completely won the hearts of four hun dred college girls. I know it must be hard for a busy editor to bear all this burden, but I just must tell you. You remember you said then that all the girls might consider The Golden Age every week a sort of “love letter” from you. Well, at my age, I have received very few “love letters,” of course, but I must say if they were all as good as yours have been, I don’t care how many I receive in the future. Everywhere I have been I have talked The Golden Age, and shall continue to do so. Do come back to Blue Mountain next term. Your visit and lectures were an inspiration to us all. Your Blue Mountain Friend, Ora Miley.