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The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS FORUM)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden fAge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OFFICES: LOWNDES “BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA.
Price: $2.00 a Year
WILLIAM D. UPSHAW. - - - - 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.
Dr. H. M. Hamil, Superintendent of training
work of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, who
recently conducted the superintendents’ rally in
Atlanta, Ga., a mention of which appears else
where in our columns, in the course of a recent talk
quoted an old Greek svaying which he said approach
ed as nearly to divine philosophy as any pagan at
tempt he had ever known: “The perfect man—
brutes follow him, children love him, old age con
fides in him.”
Chicago’s Black Blue Book.
The negroes of Chicago have organized a “400”
and have published a Blue Book. As any one could
foresee, the Pullman porters’ names lead all the
rest—then icome the “massagers, ” the Barbers
and Butlers, the “Bo’dinhouse keepers”; then the
various grades of washerwomen and so on. All
who have no local habitation are excluded from
The Book. Up there the negroes are very far from
being anxious for equality with the whites. They
have something of their own which they like just
as well.
The Ku Klux Klan.
Under the stress of the great popular indignation
aroused by the recent outrages committed by ne
groes in the vicinity of Atlanta, it is but natural
that many extreme measures should be advocated
for the suppresson and prevention of this class of
crimes. The Atlanta papers have properly begun a
crusade against the dives and low drinking places
in certain quarters of the city and are insisting
upon a more vigorous enforcement of the vagran
cy laws as one step toward the desired end. The
movement to secure an enlargement of the county
police force is also a good one. But beyond this,
some very unwise plans have been advocated. It
would not be amiss for ladies to learn to handle
fire arms and that a weapon be kept in every house;
but it is not probable that any considerable num
ber of women will ever so far overcome their fear
of fire arms as to be able to be more dangerous to
an assailant than to themselves when it becomes
necessary to discharge them. The most radical
and deplorable suggestion has been one to estab
lish aku klux klan to safeguard the homes. This
organization in its very nature is illegal and would
inevitably evolve into a terror and scourge to the
innocent blacks whose presence is needed in our
midst as laborers.
Probably this organization would cause the re
moval of the better class of negroes from our midst
and a race war between the whites and the worse
element of blacks. In no sense can such a plan
be greatly advocated or endorsed. There should be
no more discussion with this purpose in view.
The problem is one that demands wise and ear
nest consideration. Laws are now in existence mak
ing the crime of assault a capital one. They have
in many instances been enforced. In other instances
capital punishment has been meted out by mobs,
and the number of crimes does not grow less. The
most conservative thinkers on the situation believe
that the solution of the problem will come from
within the negro race itself. The better class of
The Golden Age for September 13, 1906.
negroes are opposed to the commission of the
nameless crime by members of their race and are
willing to do all in their power to aid the whites.
They will do what they can if away is pointed out
to them. It should be put up to the better class of
negroes to drive out the element that furnishes the
criminals. They will become more active in their
efforts when they realize that upon the proper set
tlement of this question depends their residence
among the whites and their very citizenship and
protection under the law in the South.
A Negro’s Sensible Words.
Among the gratifying results of an unpleasant
state of affairs in regard to recent crimes from
negro outlaws, have been some of the words and
deeds of the best element of our negro leaders.
These multiplying outrages of the “unmentiona
ble crime” have caused a meeting of strong pro
test on the part of the negro ministers of Atlanta,
and in our daily papers some brave, sensible'words
have been written by the leaders of the race.
Here is an extract from a letter from G. A. Bal
lard, a negro teacher, of Jacksonville, Fla., who is
visiting in Atlanta. It appeared in the Atlanta
Constitution, and is the kind of utterance which
will commend itself to the readers of The Golden
Age, both North and South:
“I believe that the law-abiding white man is
going to stick by and protect the faithful and law
abiding negro. He has done so in the past; I believe
he will do so in the future. Let us trust him.
“I am not posing as a race leader. lam only
a humble teacher. I am a graduate of Clark Uni
versity of Atlanta, a school which I attended for
ten years. While there I was under the instruction
of both white and colored teachers and not one of
them ever taught me social equality or race dom
ination. They taught me righteous principles; they
taught me that honesty is the best policy and igno
rance and crime are a reproach to any people.
These principles I have been trying to impress upon
the hearts and minds of all the negro children who
come under me for instruction, and I shall continue
as long as I remain in the school room, so help me
God.
“But that class of brutes who are assaulting wo
men are that class who never go to church, who
never attend school for any length of time, who ;
never read the newspapers, who have never heard
such a sermon as Rev. Proctor preached last Sunday
night, W’ho have never heard such advice as Booker
Washington gave to his people last night. They
are the unreached. Let every law-abiding person
do his duty in seeing that they are reached; that the
young be given proper instructions, and the harden
ed criminals be put where they will not affect hu
man society.”
The Advertising Question.
Since the first issue of The Golden Age a notice
has been printed at the head of the editorial page
that no harmful advertisements would be admitted
to its advertising columns. During the first part
of the present year The Golden Age Publishing Co.
purchased the good will of an established publica
tion and assumed its contracts of all kinds. Some
of the contracts assumed have just begun to ex
pire, and still others have some time yet to run
before their expiration. The publication of cer
tain of these advertisements has moved a num
ber of our friends to write us criticising the char
acter of the commodities advertised. As stated
above, in some instances we had assumed contracts
which we were forced to carry to their expiration,
and were not free to exercise such discrimination
in the choice of these advertisements as we would
probably have done had they been offered to us
as original contracts.
Those interested have doubtless noted the ab
sence from our last issue of certain advertisements
which for a time have had position in our adver
tising columns. It is our purpose to refuse the re
newal of certain other contracts which expire in
the near future, and after that time we will hope
to publish only such matter as will be beyond the
criticism of all fair-minded readers.
We do not hope to secure the approval of every
one. We may be fully convinced of the reliability,
for instance, of a remedy, and some of our readers
will have what they consider just and valid reason
for considering it a fake, pure and simple. Ob
viously we cannot personally test all of the medi
cines advertised in our columns. We pass on them in
the light of every-day common sense, and if the indi
cations are that the remedy is good and its promoters
honest, we accept their advertisement. It goes
without saying that we would not accept an ad
vertisement of a medicine which was known to con
tain alcohol in so large a per cent, that it was used
as a beverage, nor would we advertise a remedy
which was known to contain a dangerous per cent,
of “dope” in some form. However, the difficulty
of discrimination comes among the other class of
remedies. A man may have decided that he had
dyspepsia, and had been moved, therefore, to try
a dyspepsia remedy. If his trouble happened to
be other than dyspepsia and the remedy failed to
cause improvement, instead of blaming his diagno
sis, he condemns the remedy and its makers. We
must be allowed to be the judges of acceptable
advertisements, and we promise to make all reason
able effort to ascertain the reliability of the goods
■we advertise.
It is probable that we will be criticised from
time to time, however much we expurgate the ad
vertising section. As an illustration, we may men
tion that we have recently received one letter criti
cising us for publishing a ginger ale advertisement.
This criticism was based upon two grounds, first,
that the ginger ale contained some alcohol, and,
second, because there was a picture of a pint bot
tle of ale in the upper left-hand corner of the
advertisement. Another reader criticised a phono
graph advertisement, terming the phonograph “a
device of the devil,” because, at times, it was used
to reproduce operatic and vaudeville music. The
fact that our critics are subscribers to The Golden
Age is an evidence that they are our friends, and
their taking time to write us showed that they
are striving in the right direction, and we accept
their criticism in that light. But we do feel that the
two friends referred to carried their objections
too far.
So we are doing our best to live up to our an
nouncement. We are willing to bear the financial
loss that this policy will entail, believing that such
. policy is in keeping with the purpose of The Golden
Age, and with our own ideals. We ere obliged to
publish advertisements, and being human, we will
probably err in some instances, but we mean well.
The Cost of Conversion.
A New York newspaper recently published some
statistics purporting to be a reasonably accurate
statement of the amount of money expended by
churches and other religious organizations in their
efforts to secure conversions. The Salvation Army,
it is said, is indirectly responsible for the statement
that the amount of money expended averages for
each individual conversion recorded as follows: In
Cincinnati, $9.75; in Buffalo, $7.54; in Indianapolis,
only $1.50. In New York the outlay for turning
one sinner to better ways is $25; while in Chicago
the estimate ranges from $5 to $1,500. The lowest
estimate made is Atlanta, Georgia, which is placed
at twenty-five cents.
There is no very satisfactory method of arriving
at the accuracy of these statistics, though it is prob
able that in the main they are correct. It is but
natural that an Atlanta paper should desire to take
advantage of the low rate of expenditure required in
Atlanta, to say something good about the city, and
to get a little more inflation into its “Atlanta
spirit”; but a gloomy suggestion creeps in that
this may be accounted for on the general basis of
supply and demand. In other words, the unconvert
ed must exist in teeming abundance in order that
the expense of the individual conversion should come
so low. It is true that there is a business
side to the establishment and maintenance of a
church; to the sending of missionaries and to the
conducting of a revival; all these cost money and
perhaps it is not wrong to figure results at so much
per; but this point of view can be carried to a point
where the real source of conversions is ignored.