The Golden age. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1906-1915, September 27, 1906, Page 5, Image 5

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young man came down, and told the story of his singular adventure. “He had been out hunting, he said, and late in the afternoon, had gone into the water of the Sak arang to bathe. On returning to the bank to dress, he was seized by the arms by an orang-outang, who made him follow her into the ravine. They arrived at the foot of a tall tree, which the youth "was forced to ascend until he had reached the animal’s nest, where he found himself a prisoner in comfort able lodgings. Day after day, he remained there, the orang-outang graciously supplying him with fresh fruits and vegetables, and even bringing him water in a cocoanut.” It is not a question of what you think, or what I think about this story. You know, and I know, there are just as strange cases of abduction going on around us every day, especially among our girls. I had a thousand times rather find them in the woods, wooed and charmed by an orang-outang than to see them tied up with some, even resepecta ble looking and appearing men; or even keeping business or social relations with certain men. There are men in this city, some of them in this presence, some of them prominent in business and social life, whose influence is more damnable than all the wild animals of Barnum’s circus. Oh, the wreck of their charming! God only knows how in that hidden world of secret sobs, wails are going up at all times, because of a failure to flee before the charmer became too charming. Young women, would you be saved, and keep saved? Then, in the strength of God, through Jesus Christ, your sure salvation, break that power that will lead to wreck and ruin. Be your best self. Let the world about you see, and know, for a fact, that your mission is too sacred and your life too priceless to be stained and stunned by deeds of sin. Won By Her Song. I was talking with a friend of mine from the city of Cincinnati the other day, and he gave me this story, which I wish to give to you. He said in his city there was a pretty young girl, a member of the church, who, on one occasion, was invited by a friend to accompany him on Wednesday eve ning to the theater. It was nothing new, but some thing’ whispered, “0, don’t go, Jennie!” That peculiar something continued speaking to her, “0, don’t go.” She wrote him a letter, and said: “I can not go to the theater tonight. There is some thing that tells me not to go.” There came a let ter saying, “It is an excellent play.” She wrote him another letter saying she would go. Then, she dropped down for an evening nap. She dreamed that the angels came that night, and found her in the theater. She got up, and wrote, “I am sorry to tell you, but I shall have to break my engage ment. I cannot go.” That night Jennie found herself in the church. She had been going to the theater on Wednesday eve ning. The pastor walked up to her, and said, “Jen nie, I am so glad to see you at prayer meeting. I feel that the Lord has something for you to do tonight.” She said, “I tell you, I have made up my mind I am not going to another theater. I do not believe it is right.” The pastor congratulated her upon it. In the course of the service, the pastor said: “I am going to ask Jennie to sing. Jennie, what will you sing?” Said she, “I believe I will sing ‘Jesus Lover of my Soul.’ ” And she came, and stood at the piano, and sang sweeter than she ever had. Her heart was set on fire. The congregation was dis missed, but there was a young man who lingered about the door, and the stranger said: “That was the sweetest singing I ever heard. It carried me back to my boyhood days, when mother used to sing it to me. lam a bad boy, but I have made up my mind I am going to accept Christ right now.” This is what a woman can do when she sets the power of her influence against that which is wrong, and yields her life to the service of Christ. A single bank in Naples receives half a million dollars a year sent out of the United States by tem porary Italian residents. The same bank has re ceived from Italians in Argentina and Brazil $828,- (OOQ and $450,000, respectively, in one year. The Golden Age for September 27, 1906. J T A f 'T’J-JTJ CIT V. A Protest Against the Pros- 1 -A-/C/ CV-Z-X 1. V JL JTJI 1 j L j/Y I • titution of the Bryan Badge The following communication was given to The Atlanta Georgian by the editor of The Golden Age at the same time it was prepared for this paper, in order to give it immediate circulation in Atlanta. It is needless to say that Mr. Bryan de clined to wear the badge that connected his face and name with a liquor advertisement.—Editor. I am not looking for clouds on a beautiful day, and I experience no pleasure in finding “spots on the sun.” But I am sure I saw one on the other wise “unclouded day” of the William J. Bryan reception. And lam just as convinced that I ought to warn the people against this moral danger as Mr. Bryan was convinced that he could not be true to his conscience and his countrymen without speak ing his honest convictions concerning ultimate rail road ownership. I believe in wholesome enthusiasm. I like music and mirth, badges and banners. And so, while “the band played on” and enthusiastic Americans jostled each other in the arcade of the Piedmont, a friend handed me a pretty little Bryan badge, all enameled and shining, decorated and glorified with a dainty American flag. I took it eagerly and pinned it on my coat and felt a quicker pulse-beat of genuine patriotism. Suddenly an other friend stood before me and said: “Do you think it is quite right for us to be wearing those badges?” “‘Why not?” I answered. “I am 21 years old and a free-born American citizen—of course, I ought to wear it!” Then he looked at me significantly and said: “Ask the revenue officer.” I snatched the badge from my coat and read to my startled senses the pet advertising phrase, known all over the land, of a prominent liquor house in Atlanta. And there I .was—unconsciously acting as a walking advertise ment of liquor. I confess to a feeling that bordered on horror. Two thoughts stirred me—my honest wish to honor the Christian character and the moral grandeur of a great American citizen had been im posed upon, and a sacred occasion of high and beau tiful patriotism had been prostituted to worse than mercenary ends. And then when their attention was called to it, I saw such men as that grand old Christian soldier, General Clement A. Evans, tearing the whiskey badge from his coat; Judge Beverly D. Evans, that astute Christian jurist, kept the badge, but efface 1 the distiller’s device; Mr. J. J. Maddox, Atlanta’s beloved Christian patriarch, said he never dreamed what the badge had on it besides Bryan’s picture, and he speedily threw it away. And Judge W. A. Covington, whose keen wit and magnetic eloquence electrified everybody at the Bryan banquet, found himself caught for a time in the same way, and he declared with a vigor almost vehement, that such a thing was “nothing less than a shame!” Out at the auditorium at Ponce de Leon these badges were being handed out by the thousand to those who crowded through the door to hear the great Commoner speak. I saw them shining on the dresses of hundreds of ladies even in the vast audience who had been attracted only by Bryan’s picture and the United States flag, not seeing for the moment the distiller’s words between. And I’ll venture the assertion that they—these fair women, some of whom have suffered in heart and life too much from the debauchery of loved ones —never dreamed until they reached home and their husbands or sons or brothers or sweethearts told them—that they had been caught on a wave of pa triotism and made to advertise liquor. Os course, the enterprising distiller counts it a great joke, and if it were not so serious in its bale ful effects, we would all be inclined to laugh at the clever trick—but alas! I believe in my soul it was “a trick of the devil.” “Oh,” says some one, “don’t be harsh!” I am not. Many otherwise good men are often tempted of the devil. My own nephew, a youth of fifteen, came up to me on the grounds “sporting” one of these badges, and when I called his attention to it, I expressed myself in rather vigorous English. “Don’t say it,” said a bystander, “that distiller is a clever fellow, has a legal right to do what he is doing, and has more friends than almost any man in At lanta.” “So has the devil!” I answered. All day long the conviction lived with me that it was my duty to call the attention of at least to this danger through the daily press. But the “con servative” answered, “This has been a great day for the Great Commoner—don’t point to an cloud on the sky.” That night at Iho banquet where the Christian salesman was honored by the Young Men’s Dem ocratic League by having neither wine nor “strong drink” at his board, I sat face to face with these same distillers and enjoyed delightful converse with them. Personally, the father and the son are charming men. They had the legal right to seize upon the presence of Mr. Bryan to advertise their goods. And their enterprise was worthy a better cause. But I believe they had no moral right nor the right of “the proprieties” either. I believe it was a prostitution of a high and splendid occasion to put the face of a man who never drinks on the badge with a whiskey advertisement. I believe it was a patriotic outrage to put William J. Bryan in a whiskey barrel and lift the “Stars and Stripes’’ over his devoted head. In the name of his Chris tian character, in the name of the wife of his bosom, in the name of the children of his loins, in the name of the youth of Georgia, in the name of the homes and the citizens of America whose President we hope he will come to be, and in the name of the beautiful American flag, to which Mr. Bryan paid that wonderful tribute in his Ponce de Leon speech—the flag that ought to be the emblem only of Light and Liberty and never drenched in the barrel and bottle of debauchery and death—in the name, I say, of all these sacred things, I lift my voice—the voice only of a. plain American cit izen who has tried in a humble way to help homes and inspire youth—and enter my solemn and des perate protest against this distiller’s insidious and dangerous seizure upon the presence of William J. Bryan! True, the name of the liquor house did not ap pear on the Bryan badge, but a daily paper revealed what everybody knew, the name of R. M. Rose Company. This news item declares that “R. M. Rose Com pany made a great hit and added greatly to the enjoyment of yesterday’s memorable occasion by giving thousands of Bryan buttons, etc.” Yes, IT WAS A HIT! It hit the heart of many a mother’s son who learned the awful lesson that liquor, en thsiasm and patriotism, ought to be poured into the same cup and lifted to the lips of American youth. “I am not mad, most noble Festus.” I speak forth the words of truth and soberness. I am sane—if I ever was—and like the man described in the Bible, “sitting, clothed and in my right mind.” But I protest. Thousands of others who THINK and FEEL will do Ihe same. And advertising like this, with the liquor songs they are sending out, inducing young women in their parlors, like sirens of old, to sing young men to the shores of ruin, will only hasten the day, pray God, when our own Capital City with her “Atlanta spirit,” and our own great Georgia, with her purity and her progress will arise in their righteous wrath and sweep the legalized liquor traffic from the face of our fair commonwealth. WILLIAM D. UPSHAW. Atlanta, Ga., September 22. P- S.—This letter was written Saturday morn ing—before Atlanta’s awful horror and sorrow. To day all saloons are closed because they are a menace to the community’s peace at such a time as this. Isn’t it a shame, 0, men of Atlanta, that you should allow any place in the city that must be closed in order to prevent rioting? Hear me, ye friends of the saloon, the time was never so ripe for’ respectable citizens to rise and free Atlanta of every place that is the natural rendezvous of rioters and the hotbed of crime. W. D. U. September ’ 24th. 5