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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
Ministers $1.50 per Year.
In cases of foreign address fifty cents should be added to cobei
additional postage.
Make all remittances payable to The Golden Age Publishing Company.
WILLIAM D. UPSHfXW, - - - - Editor
A. E. RAMS A UR, - - - Managing Editor
LEM G. BROUGHTON - - - Pulpit Editor
Entered at the Post Office in Atlanta, Ga.,
as second-class matter.
To the Public: The ad ▼ertising 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.
Mr. Ben S. Thompson.
We welcome into The Golden Age family circle
Mr. Ben S. Thompson, our new business manager.
He comes from active commercial life, having been
connected writh the large firms in Atlanta, Ogles
by Grocery Company and Albright '& Pryor, who
recently consolidated. Mr. Thompson is a man of
engaging personality, making friends and holding
them wherever he goes. He is Secretary-Treas
urer of the United Commercial Travelers of Amer
ica and is immensely popular with that splen
did class of our citizenship, known to some as
1 ‘ drummers, ’ ’ and to others as “ angels of com
merce. ’ ’
Mr. Thompson brings to his new duties two qual
ities highly valued by us, and all the world besides
—that dynamic force known as “hustle,” and that
radiant and imperative foundation stone, Christian
character.
It is good to be associated with such a man and
we are sure that the pulse-beat of his presence will
be felt in the wide and widening constituency of
The Golden Age.
A New Kind of Hero.
There is some slight evidence noticeable here and
there that times are changing. Time was when the
heroes of the books and the plays were “poor but
honest.” They had to be. They had no attention
paid to them otherwise—and, sometimes, in the
best plays and books, they were “the only support
of a widowed mother.” As a matter of fact such
persons are found to exist in actual life these days,
and there is no romance attached to them as they
tread the boards or play their part in a “best
seller.” What we want in our heroes of fiction is
something that can’t be found in this country;
something that we have to strain ourselves to im
agine; something that only the oldest inhabitant
has ever seen—and that must have been away back
before the Indians were carried off. Since the rich
men of New York, Chicago, Ohio and St. Louis
have been indicted and others are soon to be, per
haps, isn’t it a gorgeous imaginative stunt on the
part of the novelist to create a “rich, but honest.”
hero? That would be pure fiction, unadulterated
romance. Give us that in future.
The Battle in Terrell.
The battle now being waged in Terrell holds in
terest for the whole country. It furnishes an object
lesson and is fruitful of study. Seven years ago
thirteen barrooms were run out of the county and
four dispensaries took their place. From a finan
cial standpoint the Terrell county dispensary has
been a success—if any dispensary ever was—and
Terrell has had the questionable honor of leading
a number of other counties in Georgia, and perhaps
other states, into the awful snare.
How much money does Terrell make from her
legalized petted and pampered dispensary? Let us
see. In round numbers the dispensary sold last
The Golden Age for January 24, 1907.
year one hundred and twenty thousand dollars
worth of whiskey, paying into the county treasury
about twenty thousand dollars. And the friends of
the dispensary throw their arms around it and cry
out: Save the dispensary to us and for us! It is
our financial darling. It pays all our county taxes,
educates our children, makes our trade better, is
the very life of our commerce, and—hurrah for the
dispensary!
And to support this position purchasable negroes
are having their back taxes paid and are being reg
istered “to beat the band.” Left to the white
people, Terrell county would go dry two to one.
These whiskey men know that the debauchery of
the nego ballot is their only hope and by “ways
that are vain” this debauchery is going on. It is
generally understood that the wholesale liquor deal
ers are pouring money into the hands of the dis
pensary sponsors while the few white men in Daw
son and elsewhere who are fattening on this slavery
of the negro are turning loose their own coin freely
to save their “darling’s” life.
Think of the basis of contention: Terrell county
paid out $120,000 last year in order to get $20,000.
At that rate her people have spent $840,000 in seven
years in order to get $140,000 back in taxes. What
governmental folly! Leaving out every moral con
sideration, does not every sane man know that
nearly a million dollars left in the hands of the
working, drinking classes would have produced a
far better, a far healthier, state of business than
to have had this enormous sum consumed by de
bauched labor or sent into the coffers of wholesale
liquor dealers from Dan to the gates of sheol?
The editor of The Golden Age accepted a joint
invitation with Judge S. A. Roddenberry, of Thom
asville, to hold a “joint debate” like that recently
reported at Whigham, but after arriving on the
scene we decided that instead of one of us throw
ing up a hat for the other to shoot at, w’e would
let the liquor men themselves furnish the target
and both of us would take dead aim and fire. The
crowds, both Saturday and Sunday, were immense
and the interest intense. Judge Roddenberry’s
speech was declared to be the most powerful ar
raignment of the liquor traffic since Henry Grady
died. The man is nothing less than a wonder when
the batteries of his mind and heart are on fire
against the liquor demon. The writer “submitted a
few scattering remarks,” enjoying peculiar inspi
ration in the fulfillment of the long-cherished op
portunity to strike the fattest, sleekest dispensary
in all the line of legalized devilment in Georgia.
The best men of the county are working like
beavers. The church bells chime every day at noon
—the women calling the people to prayer—and all
over Georgia and in countless hearts beyond the
ardent hope is singing that the sun of February 7th
will go down on Terrell county redeemed!
The Curse of Commercialism.
During the latter half of the Nineteenth Century,
a period which has been termed the very Rennais
sance of American prosperity, power and high pur-*>
pose, there grew steadily and strongly an ever
darkening cloud on the national horizon—a cloud,
which, as it came nearer and nearer, was slowly
recognized as being that of “Greed,” “Graft,” or
“Commercialism,” according to the “eye of the
observer.”
In the very senate chamber of the nation, in mu
nicipal and civil courts, in all the learned pro
fessions, in the business world and even within
the sacred precincts of the Church itself, there?
was noted a mad rush for the conquest of “The
Almighty Dollar.”
That this should have been true of our national
life was depressing and deplorable enough, hut
that it should, also, enter into our institutions for
religious observance is debasing and belittling. It
strikes at the very root of all ethical life, and ef
fectually stops all spiritual development.
Yet it is »a fact that from the time when the
Savior himself rebuked and dismissed the money
changers in the temple—from the very foot of the
altar, beneath the sacred rays of the ever-burning
light, until the present day, there has always been
a growing tendency toward commercialism in the
churches. This tendency is plainly seen in the in-
fluence of salaries on the pastors of various de
nominations; in the importance and pomp which
tacitly surrounds moneyed members; in the high
pew rents and the persistency with which the col
lection-plate is passed in every service held within
the sacred edifices.
Is not this spirit of commercialism surely and
slowly divorcing from the church that element of
spirituality which should be the mainspring of its
usefulness?
We know, too, that many a man feels that if he
has met these financial obligations and contributed
his share to the support of his church, his
mere presence at worship or the tendering of his
personal assistance at meetings or services is of
secondary importance. If this is true, there must
be a great lack in our church system somewhere, for
contributions toward church maintenance should be
the result of a deep personal desire to offer compen
sation for a rare and valued privilege, rather than
to meet a tax levied to support an institut on whi h,
in many instances, offers but little to the indi
vidual.
We note, however, a ray of light breaking through
this cloud which has rested too long on our national
and spiritual history.
Already the pean of reform has been sounded
by the indignation and condemnation which has
been recently turned on the curse of commercial
ism whenever it shows itself by an illicit use of
place and power for monetary ends, either in the
senate chamber, in the halls of civic justice, or in
the realm of business or the courts of commerce.
Why not, then, in the churches as well? The
people of America have never hesitated to cham
pion ia cause or to lead a reform once it is recog
nized as a national need, and we believe that the
Christian people of the world have but to realize
the grave dangers of the age as applied to church
government and church management to give the
broad subject the benefit of a wholesome investi
gation which must result in a wholesale reforma
tion.
Capt. W. A. Davis.
The death of Capt. W. A. Davis, of Macon, re
moves one of the distinguished men of the state
and one of the most famous Masons in the SoHith.
It was rather remarkable that although Capt. Davis
confined himself almost exclusively to a commercial
life, he yet became known as an orator of power,
and at Masonic gatherings and Confederate reun
ions especially, he was sought after as a speaker.
But above all he was a Christian man. Since his
conversion when a boy of eighteen he had loved
the church of God and had proven that love by
loving his fellow man. And as a natural conse
quence he was widely loved in turn.
The writer had glad and grateful reason to love
and honor W. A. Davis. In his treasured family
circle it was a privilege and blessing to be counted
a friend.
Never can I forget how, when a dozen years ago,,
I went to Macon to meet a future untried and a
world unknown, this prominent, busy man volun
tarily left his office, and in company with Col. Hope
Polhill of generous-hearted memory, -went over Ma
con and actually sold tickets to my lecture at the
Academy of Music, trying in every way possible
to make a signal success of my first appearance
at a big opera house in a big city. That has always
been a lens through which to look at a great heart
—for none but a heart that is great and a soul that
is kingly could do a deed like that.
W. A. Davis not only thought his friendship—
he acted, it out in things both large and small.
Verily, “after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.”
On the birthday of his great chieftain, Robert E.-
Lee, the Captain of his salvation, called him Home,
and as I looked beyond the tears of those who loved
and wept over him and saw the casket, flower
laden and beautiful. I thought of his three score
years of work and worth, of trial and triumph, and
then there came those restful lines of Faith and
Victory:
“All the heart’s wild lone-ings ended—
All life’s varying struggles past,
And the wayworn body resting
’Neath the sweet spring flowers at last.”
William D. Upshaw.
