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VOLUME ONE.
NO. FOETY-FIVE.
WHAT WE THINK OF WHAT WE SEE
RESIDENT Roosevelt is up against it
again. That man simply can’t keep
out of a stir of some kind. He lost one
vacation settling the Russo-Japanese
war; he arningied matters in Cuba, he
ran down to Panama and settled the de
tails of the digging of the Canal, and
we all felt that he was entitled to a
rest. But just at this critical moment
P
Miaria Storer comes along and lugs out her package
of old letters. Fie, fie, Maria! Let Theodore alone.
Some congressmen are trying to get their wages
raised; but the Hon. John Wesley Gaines has gone
off at a tangent and wants to create a law to de
duct a day’s pay every day a member is absent.
This is absurd. It is reverting to the old fallacy
that a man ought to be on the job in person in
ordler to collect pay. We are open to conviction,
but at this writing, we regard such a law in the
nature of a hardship. It is enough to ask that the
members be on hand to sign their pay checks. They
have other business of their own to attend to and
can’t be hanging around the Capitol all the time.
There is an old saying that “The world owes
every man a living.” It is true, too—in this way:
It owes it after he has hustled and earned it—not
before—and not long after, for it pays promptly.
Another thing is guaranteed us on this planet and
that is that Opportunity is going to knock at least
one time at the door. Some people have failed to
hear her knock, for they were themselves too bus
ily engaged in knocking. Moral—Don’t knock. Lay
your hammer away during the good year 1907, and
at its close, if you have allowed it to lie quiet and
get rusty, you will be most happy to see how much
better the world looks as you face it; and you will
be finding springs of human kindness where you
once thought there was only gall.
The Hon. James M. Griggs, Representative from
Georgia, better known to that host who love him as
“Jim Griggs,” and sometimes called “Grim
Jiggs,” is member of the House committee on post
offices and post roads. He tells a good story of a
letter received by an official of the postoffiee depart
ment. The letter was from a postmaster of a cer
tain small town in the West, giving notice that the
office would be closed on and during a certain day.
In substance it was as follows:
“In accordance with the rules of the department,
I write you to inform you that on next Saturday
I will close the postoffice for one day, as I am going
on a bear hunt. I am not asking your permission
to close up, and you can discharge me if you want
to. But I will advise now that I am the only man
in the county who can read and write.”
The postmaster went hunting, killed a bear, and
was not dischaiged. Which goes to prove that a
monopoly on knowledge is as good as any other
monopoly,
ATLANTA, GA., DECEMBER 27, 1906.
Now is arrived, the season for giving up our vices
and making good resolutions. Os course we will
quit smoking and drinking and swearing; we will
resolve to tell the truth; to treat our mothers-in-law
kindly; and we will lump a goodly number of prom
ises together—but not least of all should the heart
be set upon living among our fellow men according
to the dictates of that greatest of all virtues—
Charity. Some years ago a great novelist wrote a
book called, “Put yourself in His Place.” It is
not as great a book as some of Charles Dickens ’ but
it teaches a lesson worthy of all consideration. Just
as the Christmas Carol should be read as a Christ
mas sermon, this book should be turned to as a key
note for New Year resolutions.
We could make the world so much better and
brighter and kinder a place if we only regarded the
failures and misdeeds of our fellow men with
charity. We cannot know what caused his acts;
we cannot sometimes understand all the forces that
governed him and the circumstances that drove
him out of his course. Let us, by looking at all
things charitably and by putting ourselves in their
places, learn to sympathize with the sorrows of
others. Let us give sympathy instead of condemna
tion. When the sun is shining it is easy to be
kind; let us seek the rule of life that will enable
us to be cheerful when the clouds come low.
There is one advantage about a weekly paper
as a medium for the expression of opinion upon cur
rent topics. One has ample time to wait and hear
both sides. Enough has been said, as a matter of
fact, about the discharge from the service of the
negro companies at Brownsville,- Texas. But we
have not said anything, so we hasten to speak be
fore it is forever too late. It is our duty to let the
administration know that they did just right in dis
charging the negroes. There has been a grievous
and most disgusting slop-over of sentimental rot
about discharging along with the guilty some men
who were known not to have actually participated
in the killing and shooting. But any one who is at
all familiar with the system connected with the
quarters of troops and the keeping of the arms and
ammunition, knows well that a few members of a
company could not possibly secure their rifles, dis
charge them, clean them and replace them in the
racks, without all the other soldiers occupying the
same barracks being cognizant of the facts. So
those who assisted in shielding the guilty were
themselves just as guilty.
There will be a courtmartial to inquire just
why two officers of the regiment did not learn more
about the occurrence. They could at least have
learned whose rifles had been discharged had they
not waited until the next morning to inspect the
arms. It is difficult to understand why they failed
in doing several things that were perfectly obvious
under the circumstances. Such negligence as this
occurring in the Russian service would have
been charged to vodka—which the same is the Rus
sian form of spelling “booze.” The blame will be
placed where it belongs.
There is a remarkable little lizard yclept chame
leon, which is said to possess the rather unusual
ability to change his color to suit his environment,
thereby being now brown, now black, now green,
and eke spotted like the leopard, also being able
to make change, which the leopard can’t. Recent
events occurring in Atlanta, Georgia, in connection
with the movement to suppress the saloons has
called the methods of the chameleon prominently to
mind. A number of good people have decided that
a prohibition election should be held in the early
months of the new year, and are advocating that
course. Others want high license and restricted sa
loon territory, which they feel will muzzle the evil
until there is practically no danger. The point
made by the latter people is that drinking done in
a really nice, respectable saloon has no terrors like
that done in the dives; and that the safest plan is
to approach the situation guardedly, cutting out the
dives, raising the license for the sweller joints, and
finally, well, finally, we slhall see.
The matter of the granting of licenses and the
price fixed therefor being in the hands of the Coun
cil, they have been approached by citizens favoring
prohibition and urged to various possible actions.
What seemed to be the really sincere prohibition
element didn’t expect much, and on that account
did not besiege councilmen to any great extent.
Some shuddered at the hardship that would be
wrought upon the small liquor seller if he had to
pay more for the privilege of conducting his busi
ness. In the main, however, it was up to Council
to do something looking like a step favorable to
prohibition. The daily papers stood together favor
ing higher license, and finally it was given the pub
lic to understand, by Council, that such an ordi
nance would be passed. At the meeting, the com
mittee of Council recommended a rise, but not as
much as was desired by the public. By motion
the matter was tabled, and the meeting practically
dissolved. Four members of Council left; where
upon remaining members immediately took the
matter off' the table and passed it, at the originally
contemplated high figures. This went to the Mayor,
who vetoed it with alacrity; and presto! the Coun
cil came out at the same hole they had entered and
nothing is done. They can override the veto of the
Mayor, but they are net hastening to do so. There
are some good men in Council; they may all be
good men, but some of them have the chameleon
habit, and the poor, deluded people feel like they
have been handed a fine specimen of the con game.
We do not favor a higher license alone. That
means simply throwing a sop to the prohibition ele
ment and gives an excuse to the less earnest prohi
bitionists to delay the final battle to the death.
This paper believes that no worse thing could be
done than the raising of license and restriction of
area. What we want is PROHIBITION. Let ev
ery man who IS a PROHIBITIONIST work for an
election that means business and do all that is with
in his strength to see that right triumphs at the
polls.
TWO DOLL AES A YEAE.
FIVE CENTS A COPY.