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The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS FORUM}
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden Hge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OFFICES: LOWNDES 'BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA.
Price: $2.00 a Year
WILLIEMT). UPSHAW. - - - - Editor
A. E. RAMSAUR, - . . Associate Editor
LEM G. 'BROUGHTON - - - Pulpit 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 begin in this week’s issue a series of articles
from that popular correspondent, Alex W. Bealer,
which, for quaintness, originality and breezy pre
sentation will occupy a unique place in our litera
ture. In these articles, “Clippings From the
Ancient Press,” he imagines himself a reporter on
a big daily in Jerusalem or Jericho, or the editor
mayhap of a country weekly in ancient oriental
days, and these Bible stories are told very much
as an enterprising newspaper would have printed
them in those days.
A trust has just been killed in England by the
weight of hostile public opinion. Messrs. Lever,
Watson & Co., leading soap manufacturers of Eng
land, engineered a scheme whereby ten of the larg
est manufacturers were consolidated under one man
agement into the British Soap Trust, along the lines
of American trust management. They were going
to crowd out the smaller firms, grab the entire soap
rnaking business, and literally and figuratively
clean up the people, good and plenty. It was simply
an American trust as applied to English opportu
nities. The first thing the trust did was to reduce
the weight of the pound package to fifteen ounces.
Public protest brought about the restoration of
the missing ounce, and finally the trust disbanded
purely and solely by reason of public disapproval.
The short-weight graft is familiar in this country.
The tobacco trust. reduced the weight of its pack
ages to recoup for the war tax of 1898, and has
forgotten to restore full weight now that the tax
is removed. The beef trust and Standard Oil are
worse. There is a moral for our teaching in this
action of the English people; but we don’t know
what it is, until we have an opportunity to observe
English public opinion lined up against the real
thing in the shape of an American trust. Our
sympathy would be with the opinion, but ou'r
money, for reasons of economy, would go on the
trust. Either the British manufacturer has a more
sensitive hide than the American, or public senti
ment in England can be made a more formidable
engine for attack than here.
Samuel Spencer.
Every editor’s heart grows sick and his pen al
most “refuses to float ink” when he tries to fashion
words concerning the tragic death of President
Samuel Spencer of the Southern Railway. That
the beloved and honored head of a great railroad
system should find death on his own road under cir
cumstances of most painstaking care for bis safety,
simply emphasizes the fact that no plans can be
faultless, nor their execution absolutely assured
when the element of the human must be reckoned in
the account.
We sincerely hope that President Spencer’s death
will create a widespread determination on the part
of all railroad officials to guard the safety of hu
man life at whatever cost.
The untimely taking away of Samuel Spencer is
an irreparable loss to the commercial life of the
nation. A native of Georgia and a graduate of tihe
Stute University, Samuel Spencer never forgot to
The Golden Age for December 6, 1906.
love and work with special and commendable zeal
for the people of his own section. He was gen
erous, attentive to the sacred demand of the small
things, and glad always it seemed to give favor and
help to others. It is not every public man engrossed
with the acumulation of wealth and the cares of
business of whom this can be said, and we place
upon the bier of Georgia’s honored son, the nation’s
financial leader, a flower of tenderness bedewed
with sorrow’s tears.
A Wholesome Movement.
We know of nothing which is fraught with more
hope concerning the solution of the great problem
than the effort of Christian business men in At
lanta to put into actual practice the working prin
ciples of the Christian religion in dealing with the
negroes “every day and Sunday too.” The best
of the leaders among the negroes will co-operate
with these men in a most helpful way. In the
church and in the school room these efforts are
to be put forth, and we confidently believe that
great good will be the result. But we have this
suggestion to make to every man interested in
the movement. Let him be sure that he does not
becoi J’ a theorist only. Talking to a congregation
large or small will do a great deal of good in cer
tain ways but if each Christian man and woman
will try every day to be a spiritual blessing to the
life of every negro they meet it will not be long
till the threatening frown will leave the face of
the race problem and the shadows themselves will
lift and flee away. Reader, try it. Make it a rule
never to ride across town with 1 negro hackman
without trying to help his moral and spiritual life.
Put this spirit and this effort into your daily con
tact with the negroes whom you meet, whether edu
cated and law-abiding or ignorant and vicious, and
you will find ninety-nine times out of a hundred a
deeply appreciative heart, and you can thus begin
to see with your own eyes the practical solution
of the problem of the races.
Wake Forest-Mercer Debate.
The debate between the champions of Mercer
University and Wake Forest College, which took
place in Macon on Thanksgiving night, revived those
inspiring days of forensic splendor, which meant so
much to the higher life of our Georgia colleges a
few years ago. There should never have been any
abatement of interest in -these splendid contests.
Honorable John Temple Graves did a great favor
for the college life of Georgia when he launched
the Inter-collegiate Oratorical Association, and it
was unfortunate that any circumstances whatever
should have caused the death of this association.
Debates, of course, like the one between Mercer
and Wake Forest, and like those between Emory
and Trinity and Athens and Chapel Hill, may take
place any time the colleges may select, and we
heartily hope that more of our Southern colleges
will arrange for these tournaments of brain and
tongue. A man in college who spends much of his
spare time in the library digging out the facts of
history and the richness of literature, and who
knows how to weave these facts into powerful ar
gument so as to overcome an intellectual antagonist
is, to our thinking, better educated than the fellow
who can kick a. football over the fence.
These thoughts are naturally inspired by the story
of the inspiring scene at the great debate in Macon.
The champions of both institutions did their part
nobly, and the debate on the enforcement of the
Monroe doctrine seemed not to be falling from the
lips of college students, but from young states
men, indeed. The fact that Wake Forest won the
decision, naturally reflects great honor upon the
stalwart young collegians, Messrs. W. H. Weather
spoon and F. F. Brown, who came as “strangers in
a strange land” to do battle against the institution
whose standing in college debate had never been
lowered until Wake Forest was met last year at
Raleigh. N. C. But two successive victories for
Wake Forest do not necessarily mean two defeats
for Mercer. Messrs. Griner and Wells, at Raleigh
last year, find Copeland and Jones at Macon this
year, proved foemen worthy of the Carolinians’
steel.
Mercer has to her credit a long line of victories
in debate and oratory with many battles yet to lose
before she ceases to be a leader in the speaker’s
art among the colleges in the South. And the
fact, of these splendid victories only adds luster
to the present prestige of the great North Carolina
college. No institution in the South has given
greater men to the world than have been given by
Wake Forest, and her representatives, whether on
the platform or on the athletic field, have always
exemplified the highest standard of college life.
Mercer, nothing daunted, is beginning to plan al
ready to break Wake Forest’s line of victories in
the third of this series of debates in Atlanta next
year. This honored Georgia institution is pulsing
with new life and rejoicing in an enlarged student
body under the magnificent leadership of President
Jameson, and the lovers of thought and speech
may expect a battle next year in the capital city
of Georgia that will be an inspiration to the cofeges
of the South.
More Advertising Talk.
We are just in receipt of a letter from an un
known friend who signs his communication, “A
Reader,” and renders us therefore unable to reply
directly to him. We are presuming that our friend
is of the masculine gender, although, as there is
no female form of the word “reader,” we cannot
be certain. The letter consists of a suggestion
to the Editor that before beginning a crusade
against drink the ginger ale ads be cut out of the
advertising section of The Golden Age. It is fur
ther suggested as follows: “Let’s advertise some
thing good to eat, and not something that ‘giveth
its color in the cup’.” From time to time friends
of this publication have written to us making sug
gestions along this and other lines and affixing their
signatures at the end of their letters. All such
have received courteous replies and their sugges
tions have been given consideration by the manage
ment of this paper. It may not be amiss to say in
this connection that any one attempting it, would
doubtless find great difficulty in meeting the en
tire approval of every one—however friendly they
might be to the enterprise in question and however
sincerely they might mean their criticisms. In this
instance we yield the right to every person everv
where, to make us suggestions as to the proper man
ner of conducting our business; but we at the same
time claim the right to an opinion of our own.
That is of necessity, after due consideration, the
final arbiter as to what we shall or shall not do.
We have never heard anyone—physician, minister
or layman—young or old, allege that ginger ale was
harmful. We consider it an innocent drink. We
believe, however, that humanity could get along
beautifully without a single soda fountain drink.
Our grand fathers did it and most of them were
hardy and lived to a good age. As an illustration,
we venture to assert that coffee and tea are more
hurtful than ginger ale; and the tobacco habit (not
inluding cigarettes) works more harm than ever
ginger ale did. M e have never heard ginger ale
called a dangerous drink and we say in entire hon
esty that we do not consider it so. We believe that
those who want to accomplish real good for their
fellows, have a warped sense of proportion when
they waste time fighting’ such thing’s as this when
there are so many terrible enemies to our life and
happiness which should engage all our attention.
To show the spirit in which we have written, we
will add this: We would not for any consideration
publish an ad\ eitisement of whiskey, beer or other
drink known to be alcoholic and prepared for use
as a beverage. We have refused advertising con
tracts for other drinks known as “soft” and
“harmless.” “non-alcoholic”; but which we had
reason to believe were harmful; and will continue
to refuse. Further we pledge our unknown friend
Ibat we will discontinue ginger ale advertising
immediately upon being convinced that it is a harm
ful drink, and our minds are entirely open to con
viction. What more can we do? If you have
grounds for your objections, “come, let us reason
together. ’