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8 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 WILLIHMD. UPSHfXW, .... Editor A. E. RAITSAUR, - - - 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. We ■congratulate ourselves and our readers that The Golden Age has just about the prettiest corner at the big State Fair, running Oct. 10-20 in Atlanta. The booth is in the Woman’s Building, and is pro vided with piano and chairs for the entertainment and comfort of our friends, new and old, who wish to drop in and rest. We are “at home’’ to our friends. Come. “R. S. V. P.” Remember October 15. The Editor is indulging the hope that every reader of The Golden Age will remember that next Monday, October 15th, will be his birthday. Send “back dues,” send your renewal, send a new sub scriber ! Read the remarkable combination offer on anoth er page, saving you “lots” of money, and you and your nearest neighbor select your reading for the coming year. And remember that the Editor will never have another birthday during the first year of The Golden Age, for the first year will soon be gone. Remember October 15. The Battle is On. The recent race riot and the tragedies of various kinds which occurred in Atlanta have caused all thinking men and all loyal citizens to turn their minds and hearts to the searching out and remov ing of the causes which operated to overthrow law and order and create reckless and brutal destruc tion of human life. Every mind has turned to the saloons as being responsible, indirectly in one sense, directly in another, for the tragedies which all good men deplore. The enemies of the saloon and the friends of temperance all over the land are watching the efforts of the Anti-Saloon League and the ministers of the city, to see what effort they will make for the removal of the saloons entirely from the city. After careful and prayerful considera tion it has been decided best to defer for a short time the holding of an election on this question. At a recent citizens’ meeting held under the aus pices of the Anti-Saloon League, Dr. M. J. Cofer introduced a sane but ringing resolution which was enthusiastically agreed upon by the meeting, that an election be held in the early spring—this time having been decided upon owing to the fact that licenses already issued by the city will not ex pire before June. That election must be carried in the right way. It is a battle to the death. All friends of right: all lovers of virtue and truth: all who value the home and the family; every friend to righteousness and good citizenship should gird their loins for the fray and make their battle word, “For God and Home,” and spare no effort to see that right pre vails. The battle will not cease this time until something good is accomplished. And our readers at a distance can watch the battle from afar, for The Golden Age will give echoes from the con flict. It will be a battle on which the friends of temperance all over the nation will look with increasing interest from week to week. The Golden Age for October 11, 1906. While the recent race riots in Atlanta and other Southern communities have been unspeakably sad in their details, they are having, to some extent, their compensations. The best people of the South are waking to the fact that, as a whole, we have never done our Christian duty to the negroes at our own door. These awakened leaders of Southern religious thought and life are not inclined right now to bandy words with those who would inject sectional thrusts at such an hour. They get no comfort or wisdom by remembering Pana, 111., and Spring field, Ohio, and thus reminding our brethren of the North that they themselves have proven that the whole question is not one of geographical lines but of racial prejudice—a prejudice that thrives in both races by the power of SIN, and that is intensified at times by the unspeakable crimes of some negroes who receive no sympathy from the best of their own race. What then? It is nothing but this— SIN made more active by the presence of race prejudice—or race prejudice ridden down by the Black Horse of Sin! This takes the question out of the hands of the law or even those who make and enforce the law—except as they invest all that they do in the spirit of real Christianity. It puts the solution of the question in the hands of those who point all men alike to the Great Remedy for sin and carry in their hearts, on their lips and in their lives the Balm of Gilead. The following letter received by the Editor of this paper during the recent riot points briefly but truly to both the cause and the remedy. It ■comes from a young woman of rare culture and Christian consecration and should be a trumpet call to every Christian man and woman who reads her sad but faithful words: Dear Mr. Upshaw: I am not writing to you in your official capacity as Editor of The Golden Age, though if some ideas of mine can help to better some deplorable condi tions and right some awful wrongs, I am more than willing to have them used. The terrible riots now going on in Atlanta make me sick at heart especially when I realize that we Christian people are largely, perhaps wholly, to blame for them. We have neglected our duties, we have not taught and prayed for these ignorant negroes, but we have often, if not shown, then countenanced violence when we should have used Christian charity. I wonder how many people have prayed earnest ly over the present distressing situation. Os course it will take years to lift the negroes as a people out of their depraved condition, even by the most constant, most faithful and earnest Christian teaching; but it does seem that Chris tian people should do some immediate work to quell the bad white element, to bring about gen uine, beautiful peace and harmony. Let us all pray for wisdom and strength and the constant remem brance that these negroes are creatures of God as we are, and that Christ died for them also. L. K. Truth, Lord—and many of us have been trying to tell it. but SIN, SIN, SIN has kept so many men and women from applying this vital Truth in all its aggressive and saving power. The Atlanta Constitution has been preaching with awakening eloquence along this line forth? past week. A strong letter from Mrs. M. L. 11. of Bibb county told The Constitution of a large plan tation before the war where the owner and his daughter taught the eager negroes the Bible from Sunday to Sunday, and then, as on countless other plantations in the South, there was no race prob lem. The Constitution says: “Therein lies the problem and the great oppor tunity for the churchmen of the South. The send ing of missionaries to Africa is a nohle work. But there are eleven million people in this country, with minds and souls in a half-plastic state, waiting for the ministrations of the white mon they know’ and trust. Mental education? Yes, it is an ex- Only Remedy. cellent thing* We hear it offered, numerously, as a panacea. Have we not tried it? Are not the white people of Georgia now contributing their money in this cause? Are not northern millions enlisted in the same cause? Have these combined efforts mitigated the problem? WE KNOW THEY HAVE NOT! “For the simple reason that education without religion, is nothing more nor less than galvanizing into life a race of Frankensteins. A sense of moral responsibility must be there to balance the educa tion—or we have an anomalous creature, capable of infinite mischief. Moral responsibility comes on ly with the development of real spirituality. Our Southern legislatures and Northern philanthropists may spend millions in cultivating the mind of the negro. Unless the white churchmen of the South— the only men who know the negro and whom the negro trusts—are willing to develop his soul— money and energy invested otherwise is a waste— it may be a dangerous weapon of the future.” And now Ridgway’s, the stirring new weekly, says: “Yes, it is all right for The Constitution to preach religion as a remedy but we think the doc trine of hard work is a good and necessary ac companiment.” Yes, Mr. Ohl, you are right—and yet— The right kind of religion will produce the right kind of work in both white and black. The Editor of this paper has tried to teach this truth for years, and he makes it a rule never to ride across town with a negro hackman without talking to him about his soul. And alas, that appreciative hackman oft en says: “Thank you, sir—thank you, sir! Mighty few white men I haul ever talk to me like you have done today.” Hear it, men and women everywhere—Christ in the heart is THE ONLY REMEDY for the prob lem of the races! Encouraging Words. Editor The Golden Age:— I-have several times thought I would write and express my high appreciation of your paper, but neglected it through so much other corresponding, until your last week’s paper came out and so many good and timely things said to women, that I can no longer keep silent. Your paper stands true to its motto, and is filling a place no other paper can. As much as I love Monroe College, I told my husband I believed you had done the right thing to broaden your work there by editing such a paper as yours. I want to dp all I can to spread its circulation. The Golden Age and Georgian aire fearlessly diving into dens of vice that no others have the nerve to do and such high standards can not fail to accomplish great results for good. Dr. Broughton’s sermon to women was fine; your editorial on the buttons and advertising of whiskey, also the editorial on nude pictures should be read and followed by every one; and women, true women, can do more than any one else in revolu tionizing the whole world. For many years I have refused to let calendars and advertising pictures, such as you describe, come into my home and deco rate my walls. With best wishes for your success, and the spreading influence of your paper, Respectfully, Mrs. A. IT. Strickland. Bowersville, Ga. A New Story. Next week we will begin a beautiful new story in four numbers, “How East End Was Redeemed,” by Odessa Strickland Payne. Mrs. Payne is the author of that charming story, “Psyche,” and tells an inspiring story with a graphic power equaled by few writers in the South. We direct special attention to the address of Mrs. E. C. Cronk in this issue. The language is graphic, the argument is cogent—it is a spiritual classic.