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6 THE ATLANTIAN Who Shall Govern? There is growing up in this country a school of thought which • believes that the country should be governed by the men of prop erty—the so-called “business men.” This error is so profound and t far-reaching, so fundamental, in fact, that it is time it was being dealt with before it works too much harm. Nothing could be far- ■ ther apart than the money-making faculty and the governing fac ulty. If the history of the world shows one thing more than an other, it shows this to be absolutely true—that the poorest qualified men in the world for public administrators are the so-called “busi ness men.” It is not necessary here to enter into any minute detail as to why this is so. It is a fact known of all men who have paid even the most cursory attention to history. Take our Revolutionary history. Of all the men who figured in that period, the only three who could be classed as thrifty men in a business way were Wash ington, Schuyler and Benjamin Franklin. Washington and Frank lin were both capable men of affairs and good financiers. Schuyler inherited a large landed estate which he took care of, and the rise in values made him wealthy. Look at some of the others. Nathaniel Greene, Anthony Wayne, John Sullivan, Henry Knox, Benjamin Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, James Munroe, James Madison, Alexan der Hamilton, Daniel Morgan, Elijah Clark, Thomas Sumter and others too numerous to mention, who were leaders in that day of hardship, were not money-savers. Some of them, indeed, could make money—but none of them were money-savers. Other things seemed more important to them than the mere accumulation of pelf. Take any age, any nation, and it will be found that the great men of the world whoso deeds arc recorded in history have never been money-savers. Henry the Great, the greatest king that France t-ver knew, was in financial straits during his whole life—and yet lie left the French people better off than they had ever been at any period of their history prior to his time. Who thinks of Oliver Cromwell as a money-mayer? And yet he put England on a pin nacle which it had never before occupied. Once in a great while there is an exception to this rule. The first Duke of Marlborough was one—he was a great general and a miser. Frederick the Great of Prussia was a great soldier, a great statesman, and a miser. But the exceptions are so few as to be very conspicuous. The men who are willing to give time and thought to the study of govern mental questions, the men who have the foresight to see what a given course of governmental conduct will lead to, have never as a rule been money-makers—or if money-makers, certainly not money-savers. Benjamin H. Hill, that great statesman of Georgia, whose earning power as a lawyer was fabulous, left to his family a home and a ten-thousand-dollar life insurance policy. And so the long list grows. The bare statement of these facts ought to sat isfy the people that it is not safe to trust the destinies of the coun try, or of the State, or of the city, into the hands of men merely because they are rich. Again. The association of business interests with government have always and everywhere resulted in corruption. The man whose time and thought are given to the making of money comes to the point where the making of money seems to him to be the greatest thing in life. Put him in a position of power in government—and the temptation to him is irresistible to use that position for financial gain. The history of the last forty years in this country ought to be enough to satisfy anybody that all political corruption grows out of the alliance with business interests. Who, then, should govern ? There is but one answer by the man who believes in Democracy: All the people—not any one class. And the man of wealth should carry no more weight in the gov-, c-rnment than his hired bookkeeper or his gardener. This will sound like rank heresy to some of our good people who bow down to wealth as to a fetish. But it is sound Democracy, and in the application of this sound Democratic principle lies the safety of the Republic. Consider lui- a moment tins great city of Atlanta. What has made it? The rich men? Not a bit of it—it has been made by the laboring men of the town, who have made the city great and made ihe financial men big. It is their profit upon the labor of the small men that has made them prominent figures -in the civic life. Why, then, after they have profited so much by their citizenship in the community, should the government of it be turned over to them i” order that they may profit more? Have they not had enough of the good things? Must they have everything? Atlanta is used as an illustration. The same spirit is cropping out in many places. The United States Senate has been filled of late years with rich men—and the people are waking up to a realization of the fact that it has been a tremendous and costly mistake. Let us take a minute to see why it is not good for the rich men to rule. Whenever we hear any talk about the “burden of taxa tion,” it is the rich men who are doing the talking—and yet not one of them has to bear the burden of taxation. The owner of tin- splendid (ffice building, of the great store building, or the tenant houses of the community rents them out. His tenant in the office building or in the store building add the rent as a part of their expenses, and pass it on to their customers, the ultimate consumer. The tenant in the small dwelling house pays the rent out of his small earnings. The landlord is merely the collector through whose bands passes that part of the money that the government exacts -as the price of government. He does not pay it—his tenant pays it; and all above his taxes and the necessary upkeep of the property goes into his pocket as profit—and it’s enough. But not satisfied with that, he is always a strenuous defender of low rates of taxation. Put him in power, and he will pauperize your schools, impoverish your police department, and cripple your fire department, if these things are necessary in order to keep taxation low—for, notwith standing his profits, he grudges that small share of them which goes to the maintenance of public order and the public credit. These things are known of all men, and there is no reason in the world why anybody should for a moment be deceived by the cry that the so-called “business men” should be trusted with the government. One of the pleas advanced is “efficiency.” It is a very superficial observer that does not know that a man may be very efficient in the accumulation of pelf for himself—and very inefficient when it comes to the management of other men’s affairs, especially along govern mental lines. A good banker is not necessarily a good police chief. An able merchant is not necessairly a good fire-fighter. An able manufacturer is not because of his ability as a manufacturer, a good manager of the health department. These things are obvious—and it is exactly because they are obvious that it is necessary now and then to drive them into the thick skulls of the people. For our skulls are thick, and it takes a lot of hammering to get and keep in them even the most obvious facts - BERNARD SUTTLER, THE LITTLE, THIN TEACH ER. Two men were seated at a table in a downtown restaurant last night, when a little, thin woman, wearing an "N. E. A.” ribbon, took a place oppo site them. She ordered some butter ed toast and coffee, says the Denver Post. In fifteen minutes she was through. She paid a dime to the cash ier and went out. One of the men looked at the other and smiled. "She didn’t eat very much,” replied the other. “She’ll never die of extravagance," came from the first. “Ten cents for dinner. Say, she’s worse than Russell Sage ever was.” The other man was quiet a moment. Then he said: “I know who she is, although I’m not acquainted with her. She teaches school in a little town in Kansas. In all, she works seven months a year, and gets $35 a month. She probably saved all year to take this trip to Denver. The man who had made fun of the little, thin school teacher coughed. “I wonder,” he said, “why it is Den ver’s baseball team doesn’t win more games.’’