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■nw ■ • U E* -————- jrj B’A A£/ ~ l ' ll ' nglll3^xuflm UN ’ V £nS/J\. J| X .. ( l, brary) <Ws|gTY IN CZMn THE STAT&A 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.