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FREE SCHOOL BOOKS AND FREE UNIFORMS
THOUGHTFUL CITIZEN OF BROOKS COUNTY, GEORGIA, BELIEVES THE STATE SHOULD THUS ENABLE EDUCATION TO
BUILD CITIZENSHIP.
Editor Golden Age:
Having given thought for the past several
.years to education and future citizenship and
knowing you to be especially interested in the
moulding of citizenship, I appeal to you to use
these ideas and treat them with editorial com
ment.
I favor the state’s furnishing the school
books absolutely free of direct charge. Other
states do it; why not the Empire State of
Georgia? It has “empired” down to within
three Or four of the foot of the educational
class —why not redeem itself at some cost? I
favor the state’s furnishing the books because
I know that book buying is a real burden to
thousands of poor people. And I also know
that free books alone would not have the full
effect claimed by some of its advocates and
therefor'p I favor she (state’s raising our
schools to a higher plane of dignity and a
more economical one also, by adopting a stand
ard or regulation uniform made of a dignified,
substantial and yet inexpensive material and
require every child that enters our public
schools to wear the same grade and make of
uniform.
A FEARLESS, RIGHTEOUS JUDGE
A GLOWING TRIBUTE TO “TOM” PARKER, WHOSE JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN A MORAL TONIC TO A GREAT
SECTION.
N_
EW YEAR’S day Judge Thos. A.
Parker of the Waycross judicial cir
cuit retired from the bench of his
his own will and accord after eleven
years of unique and inspiring service. He has
made for himself a statewide reputation for
judicial efficiency.
Judge Parker comes of righteous stock—
of a good old Liberty county family.
He began his legal career in Appling coun
ty, where he is still loved by friends and neigh
bors for his sterling manhood.
Always on Saturdays Judge Parker’s law
office was closed from 11 to 12 o’clock when
it was church conference day in Baxley. He
counts it an honor to be the teacher or super
intendent of his Sunday school. He has been
often called upon to conduct the services when
his church was pastorless.
Such a man coming to the bench at such a
time in the development of southeast Georgia
was specially fortunate. He promptly an
nounced that he would open his court with
prayer. Some smiled, but for eleven years
the courts of the Waycross circuit have been
blessed with a praying, virile judge.
Frequently years ago “roughs” and
“toughs” in many places, not remote from
county sites, would break up public worship.
A few vigorous sentences soon demonstrated
the serious criminality of such conduct. Now if
a Primitive preacher “gets in the dark” and
halts in his sermon waiting for light, as it once
happened during Judge Parker’s administra
tion, there is not a wag from St. Marys to
Douglas and from the Altamaha to the Okeefe
nokee Swamp, Suwanee, that would dare as
say to furnish celestial light with a profane
THE GOLDEN AGE FOR WEEK OF JAN. 29, 1914.
That would go farther than any other one
thing possible toward eliminating the embar
rassed, cramped feeling and unshackling the
brains, hearts and consciences of the poorer
children and allowing them to develop normally
as they should.
I know from experience, and any educator
will tell you the same, that a cramped, em
barrassed child does not advance and develop
as he should. I know that there are thou
sands of children out of school today for no
other reason than poverty, pride and the fear
of being 4 ‘picked at” —just a lack of books,
clothes and proper dignity.
These the state could furnish more economi
cally than the individual citizen can, the state
could furnish every school book needed in
Georgia, with what is now being spent on
schools and still save thousands and thousands
of dollars to the state’s citizens.
The state could furnish the uniforms at cost
of manufacture and distribution; this would
not entail undue financial burden on the state,
and instead of putting a burden on patrons
and pupils, it would save them thousands of
dollars, besides unshackling their minds and
terrestial match.
The hog industry received his kindly at
tention, in a notorious hog-stealing district a
citizen convicted of attempting illegally to
transfer ownership of a sordid swine was ad
monished to desist from his pristine vocation
to the tune of SSOO and court charges. An
other in the same section soon learned that
Judge Parker is the friend of the gentle cow
as well as of boys, or the thief did not find
it profitable to cut his steak from a SSOO cow.
To the vender of John Barleycorn he shows
no favors; he gives swift and adequate jus
tice. On whiskey in every shape or form he
wages a truceless war. He has demonstrated
that a judge that is honest enough to appoint
honest, upright jury commissioners, can get
jurymen in “dear old Georgia” who will act
ually convict on credible evidence whiskey
devils of every ilk. And then he has dem-
*/
onstrated that striped clothes and good
heavy fines have great deterrent virtue when
dispensed by a righteous, fearless judge. These
striped offenders believe that “prohibition
prohibits” in this section.
Many a criminal has cringed as this right
eous judge, with wholesome words, has ad
monished him to amendment of life. Many
have feared this quite as much as the sentence.
Judge Parker has probably accomplished
more for the uplifting of his own southeast
Georgia in eleven years than any of his com
patriots. He has stood for righteousness in
county, city, state. He has refused to use li
quor in his campaigns, choosing rather to suf
fer defeat if necessary; he has made the law
respected; he has condemned lynchings; he
has opposed our disgraceful, wholesale divorc-
conscience, and endowing them with that dig
nity which begets social confidence akin to
brotherly love or “the brotherhood of man.”
The state furnishes the teacher —the ex
pounder and dispenser of knowledge. Why
not furnish the books —the congealed knowl
edge? And why not furnish the uncramped
opportunity for assimilation of knowledge to
the child?
Yes, I am heartily in favor of the state fur
nishing these —thus making the opportunity of
education easy, economical and within inspir
ing reach of the poor. Then if there are any
considerable number that refuses to avail them
selves of the opportunity of education which
means citizenship to the state, let the state
compel them to it. But do not give us com
pulsory education until we have first made
education easily obtained.
Civilization and citizenship demand educa
tion, but let’s first make education as available
as possible and I don’t believe we will need
much compulsion.
Sincerely yours,
J. GORDON SIMPSON.
Quitman, Ga.
ings; he has opposed the degradation of Sou
thern womanhood; he has demonstrated that
a Georgia judge may be as incorruptible as
Samuel and as gentle as Mary, the sister of
Lazarus; he can refuse to commute the death
sentence of a murderer of a good family and
influential connections and sing with tearful
face “Some Mother’s Boy.” Judge Thomas
A. Parker has honored the bench from which
he retires, Cincinnatus-like, to private Life.
May the palmettoes and the pines produce
more of his like. M. 0. CARPENTER.
Waveross, Ga.
BEAUTIFUL LETTER FROM ALABAMA.
(Continued from page 3.)
protector and sight bright, sweet children lost
a fond father; but Heaven gained a useful cit
izen.
May God spare you many long years. I be
lieve you are doing the greatest work of any
man in our faith Southland for the uplift of
humanity. Sincerely,
MRS. CHAS. P. JOHNSON,
Collinsville, Ala.
P. S. I rejoice to renew my subscription to
The Golden Age. I love the paper doubly be
cause my husband loved it so. We used to
read it together every Sunday afternoon.
MRS .J.
Editor’s Note: This beautiful piettre of
home-reading brings to the editor’s heart a
sense of satisfaction which can only be under
stood by any conscientious editor who puts his
heart in his work. It is our dream and pur
pose to make The Golden Age the weekly in
spiration of one hundred thousand homes.
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