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THE ATLANTIAN
the idea of expending a vast sum of money at one stroke. For this
reason there is promise of success. On the basis upon which he is
acting, his bill, if concreted into law, would in ten years revolu
tionize conditions as to country roads all over the United States—
and we know of no work more needed to be done, and no work
which has in it larger possibilities for good. The new Congress
man who can strike out for himself along practical lines is a man
to be encouraged. On all the great public questions now before the
country, Mr. Howard is strictly progressive, and if he maintains
his position a few years longer will easily be a leader in the Georgia
delegation.
W. Zode Smith
In the recent election, Mr. W. Zode Smith, present General Man
ager of the city’s Water Works, was elected over Colonel Park
Woodward by a vote of nearly three to one. We do not take this
vote to be any reflection on Colonel Woodward, but rather an
endorsement of Mr. Smith, whose services in this responsible position
have been both intelligent and faithful. We believe that the people
of Atlanta felt that it was more important for them to retain a
man who had given satisfactory service, than it was by their votes
to “vindicate” Colonel Woodward—and we think Colonel Wood
ward made a great mistake in entering the campaign.
However, “all’s well that ends well,” and Mr. Smith has the
satisfaction of knowing that the people are not always unmindful
of fidelity to duty.
C. Murphey Candler
The recent changes in the State Railroad Commission resulting
in the promotion of the Honorable C. Murphey Candler to the
Chairmanship, is in line with that progressive movement in Georgia
which has had such a hard road to travel during the last few years.
Mr. Candler has been a leader in that movement. He stands like
a stone wall in favor of the interests of the whole people, rather
than as an agent or attorney for a small part of the people. He is
a Democrat in the best sense—and he is also “progressive” in the
best sense.
An able, thoughtful and patriotic man, his elevation to the im
portant position which he now fills means much for the future
effectiveness of the Commission and for the future welfare of the
State. The State of Georgia is to be congratulated upon the fact
that she has in this place so strong and true a man.
State Commissioner of Labor
The last General Assembly provided for a Bureau of Labor, and
the first Commissioner to have charge of that bureau is to be elected
in the forthcoming election.
Several men have offered themselves as candidates. The repre
sentatives of the labor interests of the State have, we think wisely,
decided to hold a convention for the purpose of selecting a can
didate for this position. In this way, a hard and strenuous cam
paign is averted, and by coming together and canvassing the matter,
they can easily select either from the avowed candidates or from
outside these candidates, a thoroughly competent man to organize
this new department. The first election is of special importance,
because the department must be organized from the ground up by
the first Commissioner—and unless he is a wise and farseeing man,
the usefulness of the department might be seriously impaired.
We cordially congratulate the laboring people of the State on
the wisdom of providing for a convention to select the candidate.
Prohibition
By BERNARD SUTTLER
Civilization is but another name for restraint. The end to which
civilization tends is a race habituated to self-control, and which has
learned to subordinate ill-regulated passions and prejudices to reas
on, justice, truth, temperance and kindness. The real vital differ-
lence between the savage and the civilized man is the law. But law
always means either the curtailment or the abolition of what the
savage man considers a natural right.
As civilization cannot exist without law, we get back to the
proposition that civilization means restraint. ■ .
Jefferson laid down the doctrine that man had three inherent
rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
But if one man murders another in a civilized state, we take the
life of the killer; if one man steals the property of another we de
prive the thief of his liberty; and if in the pursuit of happiness
one man runs his automobile at reckless speed we fine him in a sum
of money to teach him not to endanger the lives of pedestrians.
We see, therefore, that these inherent rights are all alienated in
a civilized state by those who contravene the laws of the state.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, our natural rights thus
become subject to the rights of others, and we are allowed to retain
and make use of these natural rights just so long as we do not con
travene the rights of others. Our rights therefore are relative and
not absolute.
Man in a civilized state has practically no absolute rights, for even
his hard earned property may be taken by the state under the law
of eminent domain or in the national defense without his consent and
with no offense committed.
This brings us to the liquor question.
I have a right, in the pursuit of happiness, to drink rum, whiskey,
brandy, wine, cider, beer, buttermilk, coffee, tea, water—indeed any
thing drinkable, just so long as my drinking these things does not
interfere with other people’s rights, or work injury to the common
wealth. But if my drinking results in the maintenance of places
where criminals and paupers are manufactured to the detriment of
the state, then clearly my drinking has overstepped bounds, and
the state can step in and say: “Hereafter your drinking must be
done in the privacy of your own premises, for you are setting a bad
example and helping to maintain places where criminals and pau
pers are made.”
“Individual liberty” is the shibboleth under which every kind of
evil gains countenance.
Perhaps you will say that these statements I have made are ob
vious and that is true, but a lengthy observation has convinced me
that it is precisely the obvious that needs to be beaten into people.
Formulate a new creed which begins nowhere and ends in nothing,
plaster it over with mysterious hodge-podge, and high-sounding
shibboleths which mean nothing, and you will find people running
over each other to get into touch with the new ’ism. The practical
the sensible, the obvious, the useful, do not get fair treatment at
the hands of the animal man. He loves humbug.
Let’s get back to our mutton—the liquor question. There is no
other one thing about which so much rotten humbug is talked.
Chargeable to the liquor business is every evil that the mind of man
can conceive. To its credit it has not one good thing. And yet, a
lot of men who consider themselves good citizens will try to find
excuses for this infernal traffic—because if it is not an infernal
traffic, there is no use for the word “infernal” in the English dic
tionary—certaintly it must have been born of the infernal regions.
It has been shown time and time again that the liquor business is
not a. helpful adjunct to business. It has been shown again and
again that it is the cause of greater economic waste than any other
one thing in the world. It has been shown countless times that it
wrecks men and women and families; that it is responsible for half
the crime in the world; that the catalogue of its iniquity is so great
that if each case were written out in detail, all the libraries in the
world would not hold the books. And yet men find excuses.
There are several classes of men who make up these defenders.
One is the individualist—the fellow that wants to go liis own way
and let everybody else go their own way—and the devil take the
hindmost. He often poses as a “good citizen.” He is sometimes
even a church member. But boiled down, you couldn’t make a good
citizen out of such a man, measured by the standard of Christian
ethics, in a thousand years! He is too miserably selfish to be any
thing but a beast of prey or to sympathize with beasts of prey.
Another is the fellow whose skull is so thick that no demonstra
tion convinces him when it comes in contact with his appetite. He
too, is hopeless.
Then there are a lot of people who are not really in sympathy
with the business, but who think they are “conservatives” and don’t
like changes, though the things sought to be changed are admitted
evils. Our fathers had it, why shouldn’t we?
Now, these are the men we must reach; for when you can once
turn one of these conservatives by reason and argument into the
path of progress, he makes a good soldier.
If the experience of mankind up to the present demonstrates one
thing in the world more than another, it is that the liquor business
will never be handled by moral suasion any more than burglary can
be. They are both absolutely on the same line, and it.is entirely
useless to try and deal with them by moral suasion. The liquor