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The Golden Age
Published Every Thursday by The Golden Age
Publishing Company (Inc.)
OFFICES: AUSTELL BUILDING, ATLANTA, GA.
WILLIAMD. UPSHAW . . . Editor
MRS. WILLIAM D. UPSHA W . Associate Editor
MRS. G. B. LINDSEY . . . Managing Editor
LEN G. BROUGHTON . . Pulpit Editor
Price: $1.50 a Year
In cases of foreign address fifty cents should be added
to cover additional postage.
Entered in the Postoffice in Atlanta, Ga. t as second class matter
JOHN DONALDSON IS CROWNED.
Pontotoc knows “a good thing” and proves
her appreciation of solid worth and work by
re-electing Prof. John Donald-
Worth and son, Superintendent of Public
Work Schools for a block of five solid
Win In years. That fine old historic
Pontotoc. Mississippi town has shown a
type of judgment which we
commend to towns and school boards every
where.
The fact Professor Donaldson was called
back to Pontotoc after an absence of several
years and has “made good” so grandly during
the years since his return that the school
trustees should feel constrained to fasten him
for five years at a time, carries on its face the
highest possible compliment to the royal Pon
totoc superintendent to whom the editor of
The Golden Age is under lasting obligations
for knowing so well how to treat the visiting
lecturer; but the lesson for all school commu
nities is this : Back up your loyal teacher,
and pay him well enough and keep him long
enough to give time enough to work out his
educational ideals in the lives of your boys
and girls.
Lincoln McConnell back to Geor
gia.
Here is glorious news for our readers that
all of them will be “dee-lighted” to hear. Lin
coln McConnell has bought a big plantation
in Georgia. He will move back to Dixie to
stay. And Missouri loses a great and good
man’s moral and religious influence, while
Georgia gains I
The “old Respess plantation,” in Upson
county, was long famed in that section of the
State, and, for years before the war fur
nished corn for feeding for miles around. It
was a little Egypt. Also, several hundred
acres of the finest timber in the State is on
the place, and Lincoln McConnell is a “lucky
dog” to get possession of such a gentleman’s
estate. Fact is, he has been fortunate, lately,
in real estate deals in Birmingham, Ala., also;
but the purchase of this 600 acre plantation,
right here in old Georgia, is, as yet, his big
gest stroke of fortune.
Mr. McConnell will not give up his evange
listic work or his lecture dates, because of
this addition to his fortune. He will con
tinue to preach and lecture, we are glad to
state; but much of his “off days” will be
spent on “the old plantation home.”
He plans to leave Kansas City in the early
fall. It is a source of great pleasure to know
that Mr. McConnell will make Georgia the
center for his good labors, and we heartily
welcome him back, praying that Divine Prov
idence may spare him to bring forth fruits
yet richer and more abundant.
The Golden Age for May 11,1911.
One of the most mysterious editorial pages
on this mundane sphere is that of The Mem
phis Commercial Appeal. As a
Puny! complex proposition it is what
Pitiful! Mark Twain said of the ocean:
Powerless! “Boys, she’s a success.”
Personally, the editor of The
Commercial Appeal is a most charming and
companionable man. Aside from the delec
table fact that he doesn’t “chew, drink nor
cuss,” he is socially refreshing and an intel
lectual tonic. We like him. The truth is—
we covet him!
But having said this with a frankness and
honesty approaching the confines of enthusi
asm, we must declare that this brilliant Ten
nesseean who won his spurs as managing edi
tor of The New York American until he was
brought back to his native Southland as edi
tor-in-chief of the great paper on which his
fledgeling efforts were made—we must de
clare, we say, that this clear-headed metro
politan editor perpetrates more force, fog
and folly on his editorial page than most any
other editor we have ever known since Co
lumbus discovered America.
It has only been a few weeks since we took
him to task about “week-day business and
Sunday observance,” and now, so soon, he is
at it again. We are getting desperate about
his present and his future.
In a characteristic double-header editorial
entitled “Tighten Up,” The Commercial Ap
peal, justly commends Judge Edington for
sentencing to hang a red-handed murderer
who had been “recommended to mercy,” and
then this mystifying editor indulges in the
following glowing, glorious heroics on “clean
ing up the town.” Hear him:
“The result of this trial came as a tonic in
this town, a credit to the attorney-general’s
office, to the judges and the jury.
“It would be a good thing to make this
Fitzgerald verdict a starting point for a gen
eral checking up in this town.
“There are gamblers in Memphis who are
not content with their own nefarious way of
making a living. It is charged that several
of them have been preying upon young girls.
This charge ought to be investigated to the
bottom, and if the men are caught, the law
enforcing officers should make the fight of
their lives to convict them.
“There are young and old loafers in this
town who hang around the streets and ogle
women. Women are often compelled by their
work to remain in offices or stores after
nightfall, and they can not walk two blocks
without being insulted by some of these
wretches.
“A few nights ago, about a half dozen boys,
ranging from 18 to 22 years of age, boarded
the 2 o’clock car. They were all more or less
under the influence of liquor, and two of them
were beastly drunk.
“About the most idiotic as well as the most
disgusting thing in the world is a drunken
youth.
“As a matter of fact, there ought to be
some sort of curfew law in this town to com
pel boys under 21 years of age to be home
before midnight.
“This probably sounds extreme to you, but
if you had worked for a few years on a morn
ing newspaper what you would see would
convince you that something of this sort
might be a good method of keeping young
boys straight.
“There are too many prize fight clubs in
Memphis. As a matter of fact, one club
would be one too many. The fighters them
selves do not create much trouble, but they
are usually attended by a large crowd of
hangers-on who are vagrants, who would not
hesitate to steal or hold up or do any unlaw-
WISE AND OTHERWISE AN
ful thing that will get them money.”
* * * * * * * *
Well, did you ever in your life? Surely the
“kingdom” in Memphis is near at hand.
Bear in mind now, gentle reader, that we
are dealing with the problems of citizenship
and good government. The Commercial Ap
peal makes a very un-commercial appeal for
the suppression of certain forms of devil
ment—for all of which we rejoice. And mark
well that this great paper which fights the
principle and practice of prohibition at every
“dropping of the hat” (and often takes pains
to “drop the hat”— this paper advocates the
prohibition of gamblers and their wicked
Mighty Good
Prohibition
Doctrine.
night’s holy hour”; it declaims for the pro
hibition of prize-fight clubs because “they
(Continued on Page 5.)
are usually attended by a large crowd of
hangers-on who are vagrants—who would
not hesitate to steal or hold up or do any un
lawful thing that will get them money.”
Whew! ladies and gentlemen, what a ter
rific arraignment! What cruel denunciation!
Could a “fanatical prohibitionist” do better
than that? And yet our heroic editor-re
former never tried to prohibit a whiskey
shop in his life (we mean The Commercial
Appeal never did) while he knows that a sa
loon produces loafers, encourages gamblers,
is the friend of prize-fight clubs and is con
ducted by men who will steal any ballot-box,
buy any vote or “do any unlawful thing that
will get them money.”
The saloon is the hot-bed of crime, the
trysting-place of anarchy, the companion of
the brothel and the gateway to hell!
The Commercial Appeal knows and even
acknowledges this horrible truth; and yet—
and yet listen to the puny, pitiful, powerless
surrender in the following concluding para
graphs in an otherwise wholesome, forceful
editorial:
“It is no use attempting the impossible in
the present form of the public mind, and for
that reason there is no use in demanding
that the saloons be closed every day in the
week, but one thing is possible, and that is
to keep them closed on Sunday.
“So far, the police officers have been fairly
successful in this. If it were possible for
Judge Kelly to give some of the Sunday vio
lators a session on the rock pile, there would
be no liquor sold on Sunday.
“Let’s try to conduct the affairs in this
town so as to save the young boys and the
young girls. The older people ought to have
sense enough to save themselves.”
***** * * *
Now doesn’t that make you want to put
crepe on your hat ? It makes us think of the
story in the old “Blue-back Speller” about the
cow that gave a fine bucket of milk— and
then kicked it over.
What’s the use of demanding prohibition
laws for all of these devilish things that are
the “appurtenances appertaining unto” the
saloon and then leaving the “gin mills” run
ning to grind out more grist of the same hor
rible kind ?
Why not lay the axe at the root of the
tree?
“No use attempting it * * * in the
present form of the public mind.”
But when will the “present form
O For of the public mind” be different as
Patrick long as the daily press of a de-
Henry! bauched and defiant city runs up
the white flag of surrender before
the black flag of the saloon? In the lan
(Continued on Page 5.)
wiles; it calls for the prohi
bition of loafing, because of
its attendant evils; it preach
es the prohibition of street
walking minors after “mid-
