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W . - - 'THE 1— ' J| _<S& #~~^gjgM N THE STATE# VOLUME ONE. NO. FORTY-TWO . WHAT WE THINK OF SEE The town of Longview, Texas, with seven thous and inhabitants, is advertising for sale a strong, good-as-new calaboose. It is a steel structure and. is in good working order in every way. Reason for sale: the city doesn’t need it since prohibition was secured. A band of about fifteen boys In a Pennsylvania town some weeks ago, formed themselves into a Jesse James club, and assumed the war path for the purpose of robbing and shooting. The fathers were plain, and, perhaps, unimaginative men, who did not cotton to the James renaissance, and ex pressed their disapprobation through the medium of hickory withes. The band disbanded. Mr. Jpel Chandler Harris achieved the affection of all the world of childhood, both young and grown-up, years ago, but now Uncle Remus has had real greatness thrust upon him. It has come with out warning in the shape of a song written by N. Nathan, entitled “A. Health to Uncle Remus.” There is no reason alleged for the perpetration except the fact that Uncle Remus has a birthday on the 9th instant. The trustees of the Charlton Public Library of Worcester, Mass., have placed Mark Twain’s book. “Eve’s Diary,” on the library’s index expiwgato rious—that is, they have cut it out. The text of the bock is in no sense objectionable. The trustees were shocked by one of the illustrations of Eve in the garden, which was considered suggestive. They are alleged to consider the appearane of Eve real im modest. Those Massachusetts people are no re specters of person. Southern people wouldn’t talk about a relative that way, even if she were only dis tantly related. Mr. Oscar S. Strauss, the new cabinet appointee, has been referred to on several occasions as “the first Jew to hold a position in an American cab inet.” As a matter of fact lie will be the first Jewish cabinet member of the United States, but not in America. Students of history will recall the existence some years ago of a government in this country called the Confederate States of Amer ica, and that in the cabinet of its president, Judah Philip Benjamin, a Jew, was successively Attorney General, Secretary of War and Secretary of State; and his work honors his memory. Senator Ben Tillman was recently scheduled to deliver his lecture on the negro problem in Chicago. As the senator has acquired a reputation of calling a spade a spade, and insisting upon its being a spade it was feared that his utterances anent the race problem would stir up trouble. There were threats made against him by the negroes of Chi cago. In view of this, a nice sum was offered him to forego the lecture; but not much. He just had to go and speak. He said just what he pleased, and as many times as he wanted to say it, and there ATLANTA, GA., DECEMBER 6, 1906. was some little tension in the situation, but no bad results of any kind. Senator Tillman has been criticised for making the lecture and some papers have expressed the opinion that it did much harm; but the senator should not be blamed. Self preser vation is the first law of nature. Some people have to talk or “bust.” A news item states that a coal company at Aber dare, South Wales, was fined recently for selling overweight coal. The court in assessing the fine exercised no leniency whatever in consideration of the fact that the overweight was caused by a defect in the scales, and was not intentional. Nothing but the fact that this item was printed in a most reliable publication gives us the courage to repro duce it here. We cannot ourselves quite believe that any cause, providential or otherwise, would bring about the sale of overweight coal by a com pany dealing in that luxury. We are investigating and will later publish the results. The people of Georgia have been enduring to the point of nausea, the spectacle of counsel tak ing advantage of technicalities and subterfuges to prevent the hanging of a man whose utter and horrible guilt of the crime of murder could not be questioned. Even the attorney’s client disowned any desire on his own part for pardon or further hearing before the courts. Old man Rawlins has finally been hung—and judged by all accepted standards of legal justice, a good day’s work it was; after his counsel had dragged himself and client through all the courts of the land in a series of grand-stand plays. We are weary of it, but find consolation in the reflection that it may serve to bring about reform in practice that will mark a limit to the number of times that a case can be appealed, without visible or assignable reasons. President Roosevelt’s trip to inspect the work on the canal at Panama was characteristic of the man and his methods. The digging of the canal being the greatest undertaking now before the adminstra tion (save, perhaps, the selection of the next Re publican candidate for president), he naturally felt that a sight of the spot itself and the work that was already accomplished in preparation for the digging, would enable him to act more intelligently. And he was quite right. He has been criticized because he broke a precedent set by the earlier presidents of the United States; that of not going beyond the boundary of the country during their occupancy of the office of chief executive. Even a casual observer would be impressed by the fact that times and conditions have changed slightly since the days of George Washington—-blessed be his memory. Now we have the electric telegraph, the marine cable, wireless telegraphy, transportation is fifty times as rapid and accessible as then; in brief, President Roosevelt was not to all practical intents and purposes as far from home while at Panama as :he earlier presidents would have been had tv y gone over into an adjoining state. We want our president to know that we, for one, like him, and some of his ways. But suppose we didn’t —suppose nobody did—that would not trouble him a little bit. In a recent wreck on the Southern Railway near Lynchburg, Virginia, Samuel Spencer, president of the system, was killed. His death removes from the country one of the leading railway presidents, and leaves one of the largest American railway* sys tems without a head. Mr. Spencer was a Georgian, and his life-work has been in connection with rail ways. He began in an humble engineering position and rose to the presidency. Given a few years more of activity he would probably have become the most prominent and powerful railway manager in the world. He began his work only a few years ago with an unimportant railroad, and before his death had built a great system. His watch-word has been “economy,” and “reduce expenses,” was the keynote of his administration. Owing to this, probably, is the fact that out of the 92,000 people killed or injured last year by the railroads of America, the Southern Railway’s share was largely out of proportion to its relation in point of size to other roads. Economy and reduction were push ed too far, perhaps, though the blame for the wreck has not yet been definitely placed. There has been much space devoted by some of the leading newspapers of the country recently, to discussions of the age, health and mental alertness of Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy (to give her all her name), the founder of Christian Science. One New York paper notably, has played matter of this kind in a sensational way, and has prac tically charged Mrs. Eddy with being a charlatan; in every day talk, a fake. It will be gratifying to many earnest people to learn that McClure’s Magazine has at present the manuscript and will soon begin the publication of a careful, complete and unprejudiced history of Mrs. Eddy and Chris tian Science. The history has been written with the careful regard for accuracy and adherence to unimpeachable documentary evidence which charac terized Ida M. Tarbell’s “History of the Standard Oil Company.” This history should be sufficient to settle, for those whose minds are open on t-he sub ject, just how much of Mrs. Eddy is seer and how much is fake. If she is a money-seeking charlatan, there are several hundred thousand honest and earn est people in this country who should be taught their mistake. If she is right, all of us want to know it. Read in the right spirit, the history should secure for Mrs. Eddy complete justice; reward and respect if she is honest; condemnation and punish ment if she is an impostor. That the history will deal in anything like a satisfying way with the various problems and psychic manifestations in volved in Christian Science and the new thought movements can hardly be expected. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR. FIVE CENTS A COPY.