Newspaper Page Text
Ihe Golden Age
(SUCCESSOR TO RELIGIOUS PORUJT)
Published Ebery Thursday by the Golden Hge Publishing
Company (Inc.)
OTHCES: LOWNDES BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA.
WILLIXM D. UPSHXW. - - - - Editor
A. E. RAMSAUR, - - - Managing Editor
LEN G. VROUGHTON - - - Pulpit Editor
Price: $2.00 a Year
Ministers $1.50 per Year.
la cases of forettn address fifty cents should be added to eober
additional postate.
Entered at the Post Office tn fAtlauta, Ga.,
as second-class matter.
Please Read This.
The label on your paper will tell when your subscription expires.
Notice that, and when your time is out, send your renewal without
waiting to bear from us. The label on your paper will, also, serve as
receipt for remittances made on subscription; though if you desire
a receipt, we will send it.
If you wish a change of postoffice address, always give the post
office from which, as well as the postoffice to which, you wish the
change made. If you fail to give your former address in requesting
a change in the address, it will be impossible for us to make the
change. And always give in full, writing plainly every name and
postoffice given.
When requesting a change of address, or in making a remittance
on your subscription, please allow two weeks for the change to be
made on the label. If the change does not appear within two weeks,
please notify us of that fact.
Every subscription is considered permanent until we are notified
to discontinue it, but do not write us to stop your paper without at
the same time enclosing what you are due on subscription. You
ean easily tell what this is from the date on the label. The label in
dicates the date paid to.
Do not write us to stop the paper at any given time, for we have
no way of keeping such a record. When that time arrives notify us
and the paper will be promptly stopped, provided nothing is due us on
subscription. Otherwise, the paper will be continued until all ar
rearages are paid.
Remit by Money Order, Registered Letter, or Atlanta or New York
Exchange. Should you remit by local check please add 10 cents for
exchange.
Make all remittances payable to The Golden Age Publishing Co.,
Atlanta, Ga.
Fra TLlbertus—Alas!
The poor wretch who says “preachers always hear
the call where the biggest salary is” is “another
The
Roycrofter
Receives
a
“Jolt.”
New York in order to stay in Atlanta at much less
than half that amount. And this same preacher de
clined last week an offer of One Hundred and Twen
ty-five dollars just to speak twenty minutes! Think
of it! Surely he didn’t love money very much —or
certainly he loved something else far better than
money.
How did it come about? Well, one Mr. Elbert
Hubbard —“Fra Elbertus” —of Roycrofter fame,
being billed to lecture at The Grand on “Preach
ers, Lawyers and Doctors,” had asked that a mem
ber of each of these honored callings be invited to
reply to his arraignment “on the spot.” Dr. L.
G. Broughton, the famous Tabernacle pastor, was
invited to speak for the ministry —the managers
knowing of course that his acceptance would pack
the Grand Opera House. He at first was inclined
to accept, for the sake of the opportunity it would
give him to emphasize vital and sacred truths where
they are seldom heard. But on reading The Phil
istine he found that Elbert Hubbard had used lan
guage about the ministry and especially concerning
the birth of Christ that was blasphemous, and Dr.
Broughton said he determined not to be used sim
ply to help draw a crowd to hear such a man.
All lovers of the things of heart and home that
are sacred must applaud Dr. Broughton’s brave re
fusal.
And there is another man in Georgia who deserves
a crown and a monument. Prof. A. W. Van Hoose
of Brenau College, Gainesville, returned some time
ago and found that Elbert Hubbard had been ac
cepted by the lecture committee for one number on
the lyceum course. President Van Hoose immediate
ly wrote the lecture bureau, enclosing a check for
$l5O, the price of the engagement, saying: “I will
one.” He tells “what they make
soap out of.” We personally know
plenty of shining examples of the
falsity of this blind, gToundless
charge. We know a man in Atlanta,
for instance, who recently declined a
salary of Ten Thousand Dollars in
The (Solden Age for February 27, 1908.
just give you $l5O to keep Elbert Hubbard away
from my school.”
Prof. Van Hoose declared that a man who has
lived a life of open disregard for his marriage vows
was not a fit “platform star” to speak to three
hundred college girls.
And Dr. Broughton and Prof. Van Hoose are
right —bravely, gloriously right!
The Editor of The Philistine may know how to
promote a commercial scheme or an industrial col
ony, but when it comes to spitting blasphemy on the
white garments of Christianity or parading his
“free love,” affinity, immoral ideas and posing as
a teacher of social order, it is getting high time that
our platforms be closed against him.
We are sorry for the man —and we thank God
for such bravery as Broughton and Van Hoose have
exhibited.
*
The Tabernacle Conference.
It will begin next w 7 eek and continue until the
16th of March. We have published the list of speak
ers repeatedly and the program will be made known
in the usual thorough w T ay.
When Dr. Broughton inaugurated this Bible Con
ference, it was a thing untried in this country. Very
many were skeptical about it; many more were in
different, yet it has grown into a power of tremen
dous force and has swept away or absorbed well
nigh all opposition.
It is a Bible Conference.
Nobody has anything to do with it except those
who in heart and life earnestly believe the Bible.
It does not seem to be necessary that the speakers
should all be of the same mind as to what the Bi
ble teaches, but there must be no doubt among them
but that the Bible is the message that God has sent
to us for our instruction, guidance and salvation.
With that crowd, the Bible is the only Book.
In fact the Tabernacle rostrum is a pretty free
forum. Strict Calvinism and outspoken Arminian
ism are both heard with gladness by those who ac
cept them, but nobody ever hisses a doctrine that he
does not like. The American spirit of free speech
prevails.
But possibly the most significant thing about it
is that for ten or twelve days there will be in that
house from 8:30 a. m. to 9:30 p. m. from one
to four thousand people eager to hear men who
study the Bible, tell what they have learned from
it. No infidelity can prosper in a community where
an institution like that is flourishing.
Other Conferences have been established at dif
ferent places that employ the same general plan.
They ought to succeed, and we hope that they will
succeed everywhere.
Gobemor Vardaman as 'Editor.
The announcement that Mississippi’s retiring
Governor, James K. Vardaman, has re-entered the
field of journalism where he
Mississippi’s
Picturesque
Statesman
Descends
and
Ascends.
monwealth, published at his thriv
ing home town, Greenwood, and as a platform ora
tor of signal ability, he made himself felt in the
political affairs of Mississippi, climbing steadily
by the route of legislative honors and the life
of a fearless publicist to the executive chair. Dur
ing his four years as governor everybody agrees
that James K. Vardaman sought to do his dutv
to Mississippi honestly and fearlessly. His spir
ited tilts with the President and his vigorous ut
terances on the negro question brought him into
national prominence, and while many good people
believe that he has been extreme in his anti-negro
position (an opinion with which the editor of this
paper frankly agrees), nobody doubts, or has ever
doubted, that the picturesque Mississippian is a
patriot, striving to serve his country in “the way
that seemeth best.”
This impulse toward public service and his old
time penchant for the pen finds expression in his
“won his spurs” before entering
the Governor’s mansion, will hold
nothing less than national inter
est. For Governor Vardaman him
self has become a national char
acter. As Editor of The Com-
return to journalism and the first number of his
stirring new weekly, The Issue, which appeared
last week, assures the student of statecraft as well
as Mr. Bryan’s “average man,” that there will be
“something doing” in that journalistic vicinity
wffiere Vardaman wields the pen. But if he can
be pungent, like Tom Watson, he can also be ten
der, and his personal salutatory is so full of the
quality of tenderness and rings so true with pa
triotism that we give it to our readers in full:
“Retiring from public office and being drop
ped from the official pay-roll does not, in the least,
lessen my love for, and interest in. the people of
Mississippi.
“Every foot of land in the dear old state is
dear to me, and every living human soul within its
borders has a legitimate claim upon my heart.
“To serve them is the highest purpose of my
life —to promote their well-being, the motive of
my every act, the inspiration of my every ambition
and the substance of my every deed.
“My life has been devoted to public affairs for
the past twenty-five years. The last four years I
have occupied a coign-of-vantage where I might
see and know what is best for the state.
“For four years no thought entered my mind, no
questions engaged my attention, except those touch
ing the public and private lives of the people of
Mississippi.
“It occurred to me on retiring from public of
fice that I might serve my country best through
the medium of a newspaper —therefore, you have
The Issue.
“In the management of this paper, I shall en
deavor to do right—not only for myself, but for
others.
“The truth regarding public affairs shall be
told —men in public life will be treated as public
questions, measures shall be dissected, analyzed
and presented in all their phases as my sense of
duty to the public may lead me to do.
“The Issue will not be a local publication for
the city of Jackson or the State of Mississippi,
but it is my purpose to make it a national Issue.
“I shall endeavor, to deserve the confidence and
respect of all the people.
“If I succeed in that, I am sure the people will
encourage and sustain me with their patronage.
“With a heart full of love and charity for all
and malice toward none, The Issue begins its
journey upon the rough sea of journalism.”
We like, too, Editor Vardaman’s unique drop
ping of the Editorial “We.” He says: “I
think”; “I contend”; “I know” —and the varia
tion is refreshing. '
We count it highly appropriate that the first
number of The Issue contained the full text of Gov
ernor Vardaman’s last message to the Legislature
of Mississippi.
The Chattanooga Times declares that whatever
mistakes Gov. Vardaman may have made in the
past are forgiven in the real greatness of this mes
sage which must take its place among the notable
state papers by American governors.
Much of this farewell message may be charac
terized as both a classic and an epic and it should
be preserved in every home in Mississippi. The
truth is, we believe the picturesque Mississippian
is growing both in real statesmanship and in the
love of the people.
Mark the word —James K. Vardaman is yet a
young’ man. With the fire of his genius tempered
by time and the mettle of his spirit mellowed by
years he will illustrate Mississippi by his stalwart
statesmanship and wear worthily yet higher hon
ors upon his ample shoulders.
e rejoice in the fact that Governor Vardaman
has always been an ardent prohibitionist, standing
like a temperance gladiator, with sword in hand,
protecting the home against the saloon. Gov.
Vardaman’s paper will be widely read, North and
South; as he descends from the Governor’s chair
into private citizenship and ascends again the edi
torial throne, we offer him the hand of fellowship
with peculiar friendship and heartily wish him bon
voyage with a cargo of widening usefulness on the
journalistic sea.
