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The Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS PORUM)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden Hge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OTTICES: LOWNDES BUILDING. ATLANTA, GA.
Price: $2.00 a Year
Ministers $1.50 per Year.
In cases of foreitn address fifty cents should be added to cobet
additional postate.
Make all remittances payable to The Golden Ate Publishint Company.
WILLIAM D. UPSHAW, - - - - Editor
A. E. RAMS A UR, - - - Managing Editor
LEM G. VKOUGHTON - - - Pulpit Editor
Entered at the Post Office tn Atlanta, Ga.,
as second-class matter.
Our Vacation Week?
This is our vacation week!
Last Saturday night the managing editor left
for a ten days’ outing on the coast. He took ad
vantage of the discount sales which are now on in
Atlanta, purchased two or three pairs of white
shoes, several outing suits, a Panama hat, half a
dozen red ties, a dozen pair of silk hose, packed
them all in a full leather suit case and with two
boxes of cigars and a kit of fishing tackle hade us
all adieu and left on the vestibule for the place
where the breezes blow and the white caps break
continually.
Our managing editor is the man who writes the
bright paragraphs which appear on our first page
from week-to-week, and, as our readers know, he
is a genius in his line. He well deserves the rest
which he is getting, and I am sure that we all wish
him a happy time.
On the same night the editor-in-chief left on a
visit to the southern part of Georgia. He had just
returned from a trip to East Northfield, Mass., and
stopped en route long enough to eat a sandwich
and make inquiry concerning the progress of prohi
bition in the South, and then with scarcely a hand
shake he, too, left for the section of Georgia where
they grow sugar cane and the big red watermelon.
He is not on a vacation, but we are sure he is hav
ing a good time, for every day is Sunday with him
when he is away from home.
Before leaving they both —the editor and the
managing editor —got out accumulated manuscripts
to the amount of an ordinary cart load, and then
said to me: “We think that you can find enough
acceptable matter in all of that to enable you to
get out the paper next week without much trouble.
Read it, select the best, and make the next issue the
best in its history. We leave it with you.” And
with that they were gone.
I have spent two days and nights reading the
manuscripts they turned over to me, and I am not
through yet. I found all sorts —some good and
some worse. I would read a manuscript and then
I would say: “I’ll use this.” I’d read another
and I’d say, “No, 1’1; use this one.” I read
and worried over the matter until my brain got
all agog, and I threw up my hands in despair. 1
finally decided that I wouldn’t use any of them,
lest I might give offense to some of our bright con
tributors and cause them to “fall out” with the
editor.
So, instead of the heavy articles, which you
have been accustomed to, I decided that I would
use the scissors and give you this week some
thing more in keeping with the season.
Notwithstanding the weather is warm and the
dog-days are on, it remains true that there are a
certain class whose minds, in spite of these things,
turn to poetry. Therefore we give you this week a
whole page of poetry. Some of it is good and son e
of it isn’t, but that which I think is not good some
one else will think is good, and so each selection will
find admirers among our host of readers.
But, lest any of you think poetry too heavy for
this season of the year, I have prepared for you
on the very next page a full page of nonsense. No
The Golden Age for August 29, 1907.
doubt this page will suit the most of us —it- always
pleases me, and I never tire of reading the funny
things. I have purposely refrained from putting
on this page any thing that would be calculated to
cause one to laugh too heartily this hot weather,
for I love our readers and do not want any of them
to suffer any kind of physical injury.
I confess a very strong temptation to change up
some of the departments for this week, but resist
the temptation lest I might shock the sense of fit
ness which both our readers and our contributors
have. I trust you will make due allowance for the
little change which I have made, and credit it to my
ignorance of how to get out a paper in the regular
manner. And if you don’t like this issue, please
do not tell the editor —tell me; but if you do like
it, tell him. Sincerely yours,
The Office Boy.
ft
A Negro ’s Sensible Letter.
We have always felt that that Negro who lifts
himself into a life of success and usefulness through
circumstances that have kept down so many of his
race, ought to receive the hearty handshake and
encouraging “God bless you” of every true friend
of humanity.
The Editor has just received a letter from such
a negro, whose publication, we believe, will do good
in more ways than one. Six or eight years ago the
writer of this letter came to Forsyth to teach school.
He walked in the footprints of some of his race,
both teacheis and preachers, whose unfaithfulness
made it hard for him to start. Both races naturally
locked on him with suspicion. But, to all human
eyes —and we believe, to the eyes of God —he has
lived as honest and as clean a life as any white
teacher or preacher in the town. At the Forsyth
Normal and Industrial School he has been teaching
negro boys and girls to be industrious and true—
true to each other, to mankind and to God. And
his influence upon his race has been wholesome in
deed.
And now this wise and faithful leader of his peo
ple needs help to enlarge his work of usefulness.
We heartily wish that every one who reads his let
ter would send him something, however small, to
help him pay for the farm so necessary to the prac
tical training of the negro boys and girls of that
section. We know enough of the worthiness of
the work to prove our confidence by personal invest
ment. Every dollar thus invested in helping a real
helper of his race will bear dividends for the pros
perity and happiness of both races in the immediate
present and through the years to come. Note these
sensible words: “I am not deeply concerned in the
question of Disfranchisement. I believe we can
afford to wait the voting, but the TRAINING is
absolutely necessary and is needed now.”
But read Hubbard’s letter and prove by a check
and a letter today your practical friendship for the
heroic and far-reaching work he is doing:
Mr. W. D. Upshaw, Editor The Golden Age, At
lanta, Ga.
My dear Mr. Upshaw: It is a blessed thing to
live in a country among a God-loving and God-fear
ing people, with opportunities for imbibing the in
fluence of their great Christian characters. It was
my good fortune during my earlier life to come in
touch with some of the best people of your race,
whose influence had much to do with my salvation.
Especially do I love to remember that great and
good but now lamented Dr. E. AV. Warren of Ma
con. I shall always strive to honor his memory by
earnest efforts to live a life consistent with his
teachings.
You know a little of my efforts here. I believe
many of the perplexities that now confront us will
find a peaceable solution through a practical Chris
tian education. To develop more successfully the
moral side it is necessary to deal with the practi
cal, the real! Progress for my race as well as other
races cannot come from the abandonment of physi
cal labor, but rather in the development of physical
labor, so it shall represent more and more the work
of the trained mind in the trained body. Especial
ly should the negro be trained in agricultural pur
suits. For this I am making the effort with one
hundred acres of land purchased and partly paid
for. The farm is worth $3,000, $1,750 unpaid; $750
must be paid October 15, or this very important
side of the school work will have to be abandoned.
I would regret very much to see this done. I must
turn to the white people, our best friends, and ask
for a little help. Knowing your very deep interest
in the welfare of human souls and remembering
how broad-hearted you have proven yourself by
helping me before, I come to you pleading for this
cause.
If I can raise the $750 needed now all will be
well. I can then manage the balance. I ask for
your help and influence in raising this amount for
which I will be ever grateful. lam not deeply con
cerned in the question of Disfranchisement. I be
lieve we can wait the voting, but the training is
absolutely necessary and is needed now.
I congratulate you and the good people of Geor
gia on your noble work which has so gloriously tri
umphed for the Prohibition cause in the State.
Thanking you for whatever consideration you
may find possible to give us, and assuring you of
my profound gratitude, I am, sincerely yours,
W. M. Hubbard, Principal.
Forsyth, Ga., Aug. 9, 1907.
ft ft
An old colored man recently addressed a temper
ance gathering in Weldon, N. C. One point he
made is worthy of all acceptation: “When I sees
a man going home wid a gallon of whiskey and a
half pound of meat, dat’s temperance lecture enough
for me, and I see it every day, I know everything
in his house is on de same scale —gallon of misery
to ebery half pound of comfort.”
ft ft
Professor S. H. Clark, of the University of Chi
cago, says: “In spite of innumerable exceptions
the educated man, by and large, is the moral man. ’ ’
Owing to the interesting fact that the number of
educated men is limited to a great degree, and fur
ther that the exceptions to the proposition are
“innumerable,” we fail to find much point in the
Professor’s statement. Is he really meaning to
knock the poor educated classes, or is he faithfully
trying to compliment them, and at the same time
stay within hailing distance of the truth? There
is still another possible explanation of it: the Pro
fessor may be a humorist. We just can’t tell.
Our experience in printing what we thought were
funny little things in this paper, has shown us
that our mind is not just what it once was. Per
haps there is no need to worry trying to puzzle H
out. It is only a minor note in the great harmon
ious output of the University of Chicago.
ft ft
A friend of ours in a Georgia city was accus
tomed to loafing around with a brother lawyer of
his who was an Englishman. He had had his edu
cation in this country, but he had not had quite
enough. It so happened that this friend and his
English friend had offices in the same building but
not on the same floor. The elevator service in this
building was the limit. It was as slow as pension
pay-day. Coming up in it one day the American
said to his English friend, “This elevator is so
slow. I do not see how it could be improved upon,
but I believe that a good thing for us to advocate
would be that the elevator be made stationary and
that the building be moved up and down to ac
commodate visitors.” The Englishman did not see
it. He looked at our friend and said calmly, se
renely and without any kind of show of amusement,
“Why, how could you arrange that?”
ft ft
The contest in Kentucky is between the demo
cratic and republican candidates for governor. As
a general rule social reforms are not best presented
when championed by a candidate for office. The on
ly conspicuous social reformer that ever triumphed in
the United States before the people was Abraham
Lincoln. His victory was the result of democratic
division and the contemporaneous opportunity to
bring together, especially in the North, the aboli
tion sects of all sorts and the fragments of the old
Whig party and all of those who had inherited the
sentiments of the Federalists. These elected Lin
coln.
