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6 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