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THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLAWTA, GA., S JTOBTX FORSYTH BT.
Entered at th* Atlanta Postoffice a* Mail Matter of
. the Second Class.
JAMBS *. GRAY.
Pr.sidsnt and Rdltor.
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Twelve months
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R Atlanta. Ga. 1
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1 ' :=
THERE IS SOMETHING
ROTTEN IN DENMARK
Shall the public school system of Georgia be
turned into a shuttlecock for Governor Brown’s per
sonal spite?
Shall the State Department of Education be used
aa a checker board for his political game?
Shall laws be trampled and precedents defied
•imply that one man, who now chances to hold the
office of chief executive, may vent his puny spleen
or serve the special interests to which he is
beholden?
These are vital and practical questions. They
spring from conditions that are intensely real.
They touch the welfare of thousands of teachers and
homes and hundreds of thousands of children. They
demand an answer —and it should be final and com
plete.
x i. Governor Brown has arbitrarily removed, as
members of the State Board of Education, Profs.
Jere M. Pound and J. C. Langston, after they had
been legally appointed by Governor Hoke Smith and
duly confirmed by the Senate. With equal disregard
of the law, he has filled their places with two
appointees of his own, whom the Senate declined
even to consider. That he was unwarranted in this
highhanded procedure is beyond question. That the
effect of such a policy upon the State's school
system would prove ruinous, should it prevail, cannot
for a moment be doubted. But the Governor’s
I ulterior motive in thus overriding the law and the
Senate and imperiling the schools’ interests remains
to be disclosed.
Let us note briefly the facts tn this case. In
August, 1911, during the closing days of the Legisla
ture then in session, there was enacted a bill for
which the teachers of Georgia had been long and
earnestly striving. The purpose of this measure was
to reorganize the State's public school system upon
an efficient and truly educational oasis, to supplant
confusion with an intelligent and definite plan, to
remove old abuses, to introduce progressive ideas,
and to make every dollar of the school appropria
tion yield due returns to the taxpayer and the
P child. One of the most Important features of this
bill was the provison for a State Board of Educa
tion. to be composed of six members—the Governor,
the State Superintendent of Schools and four other
persons, apointed by the Governor, "two for two
years and two for four years, their terms of office
thereafter to be for four years each, or until their
successors are appointed and qualified.'’ This latter
clause is quoted directly from the law itself.
In compliance with this act. which was approved
August the twenty-first, 1911, Governor Hoke Smith
appointed the four members of the board whom it
was his duty to name. And. in keeping with the
spirit as well as the letter of the law, he was partic
ularly careful to avoid political partisanship and to
choose men who measured clearly up to that clause
of the law which reads: "No person who is now or
has been connected with or employed by a school
book publishing concern shall be eligible to member
ship on said State Board of Education; and if any
person shall become so connected or employed after
becoming a member of said board, his place on said
board shall become vacant." The gentlemen whom
- Governor Smith appointed were distinguished for
their ablity and their rich service to the school inter
ests of the State. They were Judge Thomas G. Law
son, since deceased: Prof. Jere M. Pound, Prof. J. C.
Langston and Dr. T. J. Wooster.
In accordance with the act, these members were
to serve “until their successors are appointed and
qualified.” And it is noteworthy In this connection
that the law specifically provides for the filling of
the vacancies and for ad interim appointments.
“Should a vacancy occur at any time in said board,”
says Section One of the act, “it shall be filled by the
Governor, provided that the nominations of the Gov
ernor for membership on the State Board of Educa
tion shall be subject to confirmation by the Senate,
and provided further that an appointment made
when the Senate is not session shall be effective
until the Legislature convenes and acts on the ap
pointment.”
After making these appointments, Governor
Smith resigned and was succeeded later In the year
by Governor Brown. In the light of the facts and ■
the law, It was clearly Governor Brown’s duty to
transmit to the Senate, at its 1912 session, the ap
pointments made by his predecessor for tiie Senate’s
approval or rejection. Instead of doing this, how
ever, he sent in certain appointments of bls own.
These the Senate very properly refused to consider,
holding that, under the record, there were no vacan
cies to fill, but simply a list of appointee* to be con
firmed or set aside. Thereupon, at the Senate’s re
quest, Governor Brown transmitted to that body the
list of Governor Smith’s appointments to the board,
and they were duly confirmed
Tet, in the face of throe circumstances. Governor
Brown, waiting until the Senate had adjourned,
summoned his own two appointees to the Capitol and
went through a mock performance of "swearing
them in” and reorganizing the board. We say
"mock” performance advisedly. For he took this
action in the absence of State School Superintendent
Brittain —designedly so, no doubt—and without noti
fying Dr. Wooster, another member of the board,
that a meeting was to be held.
As The Journal has said before, we make no crit
icism of the two gentlemen whom Governor Brown
illegally substituted for the qualified members of
the Education Board. Indeed, their personality does
not enter Into the case. The vital fact is that the
Governor has violated law’ and precedent and has
thrown the education department of the State into
grievous confusion. He has played selfish politics
w’ith one of the people’s greatest interests, and it
behooves the people to ascertain just what was his
underlying motive for so doing.
Certain it is that an act so flagrant and, we may
add, so suspicious, should not be suffered to go un
rebuked. If Prof. Pound and Prof. Langston con
sulted only their personal wishes, they would doubt
less ignore thia incident. But, as leaders in the
cause of education and as representatives of the
teachers of Georgia, they cannot afford to let this
assault upon the interests of the schools go unchal
lenged. It is their duty, not merely to themselves,
but to a principle and to a cause, tto maintain the
integrity of the State Board of Education and, as a
means thereto, to appeal to the attorney general or,
If need be, to the courts to vindicate the legality of
tnelr membership.
They are duly appointed members of this board.
Upon them rests the duty and the grave responsi
bility of preserving, as far as it is within their
pow’er, the integrity of this board and the underly
ing principle of independence of political factions
that brought about its enactment. They cannot
escape the duty and responsibility they owe the
schools of the state even if they desired to do so.
They should at once, as duly appointed members of
the board, appeal officially to the Attorney General
and, if need be, to the courts to vindicate the legal
ity of their membership and to condemn the Illegality
of Governor Brown's political play..
Furthermore, It is the obvious duty of Superin
tendent Brittain, as the responsible head of the
Department of Education, to call upon the Attorney
General for an opinion as to the legal status of the
tWb members whom Governor Brown has sought to
remove, and of the two he has sought to force in
over the Senate’s will. 4
Upon Superintendent Brittain, as the practical
head of this department, rests the responsibility of
its welfare. If it is to be rent with illegal appoint
ments made for political purposes, the system con
templated by the law will be an absolute failure.
Mr. Brittan owes it to himself and to the school in
terests to have the confusion created by Governor
Brown cleared away. He should at once appeal to
tho Attorney General for an opinion and, if neces
sary, to the courts for such action as will preserve
the integrity and usefulness of this Board. As mat
ters now stand, the State Board, of which he is
a part and to which he must largely look for guid
ance, is in chaos; and so it will remain until the
question of its membership is officially determined.
Hon. H. S. White, author of the Education law, has
declared that any action which might be taken by
the two gentlemen whom Governor Brown improp
erly appointed would be "absolutely void;” and this
view he has supported by convincing citations from
the law and the Constitution.
Certainly, the Department sis Education will re
main hamstrung until this matter is settled, and
settled conclusively. The interests of the teachers
and of the schools and of the public are thus vitally
involved. And it is to Superintendent Brittain that
all these interests look for efficient action in this
crisis. With the partisan politics of this affair ho
has no concern, but be is immediately and tremen
dously concerned with the welfare of the schools.
No man worked more earnestly than he for the en
actment of the new Education law. No man under
stands more clearly the need of keeping his depart
ment severely free from the entanglements of
personal politics and the dictation of special inter
ests. Let the Superintendent act at this crucial
moment in accordance with the duties before him, in
accordance with his own luminous record of public
fealty, and the people of Georgia will have cause to
thank him anew for the service he has rendered
them.
No agency of the State’s government touches the
citizen and the home at more vital points than does
this Board of Education. It is clothed with large
power and responsibility. It has jurisdiction over
more than eight thousand 1 schools and more than
thirteen thousand teachers. It has to do, In one way
or another, with the spending of four million dollars
for the state's common schools; and during the
last scholastic year this sum was increased, through
local taxation, to some five million dollars. The
State Board of Education is furthermore empowered
to select the text-books used by over half a million
children and paid for by parents In every nook and
comer of the commonwealth. And it Is soon to
employ this power. Hence it was that the framers
of the law wisely provided that “No person who is
now, or has been, connected with or employed by a
school publishing concern shall be eligible to mem
bership on said State Board of Education.”
Is there any department of our government that
should be more jealously guarded against political or
selfish influences? i
Is there any province of the public’s interests
that should be more scrupulously protected by the
law?
We repeat that when Governor Brown trampled
upon the law and defied all precedents in order that
he might substitute two of his personal appointees
for those legally named and duly confirmed by the
Senate, he provoked questions that are very serious
and far-reaching.
What could have been his motive for this high
handed procedure?
Is it probable that he would have gone such
lengths of usurpation merely to ggptify his individual
spite? 1
If that were his sole incitement, then certainly
he is unworthy of the office he holds. If otljer
motives lurked behind hia unprecedented course, then
the public is entitled to know them; and If it is
within The Journal’s power to do so, they shall be
brought to light.
It looks very much as if, back of this entire
transaction, there is some secret Blue Beard chamber
yet to be unlocked. Certainly, in the light of the
facts thus far revealed, Governor Brown’s action
appears as illogical as it was illegal. It needs no
ghost to walk the night to let us know there’s some
thing rotten in Denmark. The air Itself is messen
ger enough.
' In behalf of the common school system of Georgia
and all that it means to the homes and to good citi
zenship, let us have the innermost and thus far hid
den truth of this disgraceful affair.
THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1912.
Disappearance of the Servant
By Dr. Frank Crane
If you had said to Pericles or to Caesar that slav
ery one day should be abolished he would not have
believed you; he would not have been able to under
stand how the world could get
r — —n
I
■k-- p -j*.
v
along without slaves.
If you should say to the most
intelligent modern man that one
day there should be no more
servants, he would hardly be
lieve you; or if you should tell
a wealthy woman, mistress of a
large establishment, that some
day there will be no more serv
ant problem for the reason that
there will be no more servants
she would doubtless think you
crazy.
For all of that, domestic serv
ice is going to disappear in time,
just as slavery has disappeared.
Slavery had to go because it
was Inconsistent w’ith the new
moral tone that Christianity
brought; domestic service is doomed because it is in
consistent with modern ideas of citizenship* and ra
tional human relations.
Domestic service, like the United States senate
and the vermiform appendix, is a relic of an outgrown
condition of things, of a time when the aim of life
was to be waited upon, and a man’s importance was
gauged by the number of those who waited upon him.
The democratic ideal is quietly curing this morbid
idea. Our notion of the greatest man la coming to
be the man who serves the most and not the one with
the most servants.
At the close of the twentieth century the cardinal
element In every child's education will be to teacli
him how to wait on himself.
Already we find It difficult to “get good help."
The maid of all work becomes more and more ex
acting, demands more and more pay, and often It is
impossible to procure one at any price.
We have tried every domestic. We have chosen
races which we call inferior. But even the negro is
being “spoiled” by education and consequent self
respect; and while the Chinaman is an Ideal domestic
he knows it, inwardly despises whom he serves, and
charges so much that he will always remain the lux
ury of the few.
In South Africa some progress is being made tn
training baboons to farm work, even to run locomo
tives; possibly they might learn housework.
Attempts at communal life have been made in the
effort to solve the servant puzzle. Apartment build
ings and groups of cottages have tried common
kitchens.
More and more food is being prepared and sold
from the grocery “ready to eiat.”
The only place where there is no servant problem
is the home of the poor, where the wtfe does her
own work. And women are showing a growing lis
'laste for entering into a marriage that implies that.
They seem to suspect that, the man is marrying io
obtain a housekeeper to whom he need not pay honest
wages.
The solution of the difficulty is in two directions,
which are co-ordinate. One hope is In the inventive
genius of man; the other in his growth in democracy,
spiritual simplicity and greatness.
In the electric house a hundred years from now
there will be little hand work to do. The house then
will be as far ahead of ours now as the present day
steam heated, electric lighted and vacuum cleaned
apartment is in advance of the house where Which'
was a boy. The home of the future will be servant
less.
But at the same time people will learn gradually
the dignity of helping themselves and the pettiness
of being helped. .
Society has invented football, tennis, golf, boxing,
cakewalking, bear dancing, fcfid automobiling to keep
people from dying of fat and atrophy.
The simplest and most scientific form of exercise
is taking care of yourself.
Tolstoy says that to teach our children to pick up
their own scattered toys and generally to look after
themselves is absolutely necessary if we would ha/e
them understand the meaning of "brotherhood.”
Herbert Spencer says the same regime is necessary
in education. , .
It’s all In the way you look at it. A man who
thinks it no disgrace to lie! on h* B hack in the mud
under an automobile and get grease on his hands and
up to his armpits need not -think it beneath him to
fry some eggs and bacon.
And a woman who can tftand lour hours at a re
ception or travel 20 miles an afternoon in an art gal
lery need not 'think she is lowering herself by comb
ing her own hair, putting together her own spring
hat. and buttoning her own gown—also having her
gowns made so -that she can button them herself.
Fashion determines all. Fashion is being forced
toward simplicity. And if we only thought so ’t
might be qblte as much the thing for a gentleman to
polish his own shoes as to steer his own auto, and
for a lady to make her own shirtwaists as to em
broider castles and duck ponds on canvas.
"When Adam dolve and Eve span,
Who was the gentleman?”
Saving and Investing Talks
WHAT IS A BANK?
BY JOXST M. OSKXSOM.
The first bank was some trusted man’s pocket. A
neighbor said to him:. •
"Sir, I know that your house is safer than mine.
Therefore, take my two pieces of
gold and keep them for me.”
After a time, when a number
of his neighbors had also come
to him and asked him to care
for their gold, the man said:
“ Sinca all of you are not likely
to ask for the return of youi
money at the same time, and
since I have need of money in
my business, I will not merely
put your money into one of my
chests, but I will use it in my
business. I’m sure that I shall
be able to pay back to those ot
you who want It whatever sums
you ask, and meanwhile make It
r .-1
earn a profit for myself. So we shall both benefit.”
When that occurred, competition among men with
strong boxes sprang up. Some claimed to be able to
take care of money who were, in fact, not fit to he
trusted. Bankers acquired a bad reputation among
the people because of the defaults of such incompe
tent and dishonest men. Community—or government
regulation was deemed desirable, and so national
and state banks, run according to rules laid down by
the state, came into being.
In some of our states, like Illinois, very primitive
banking practices are still tolerated. More than 500
private banks, which do nbt Have to make reports
to any community authority, are doing business there.
It Is a situation which has led a Chicago banker
to say;.
"Anybody can start a private bank if he gets a lot
of furniture and brass railings and selects a name
and opens up for business.” These banks are failing
at an alarming rate—one went under In Chicago late
ly and left assets of exactly >2OO to satisfy depositors
of more than >25,000.
There is no real need for the unregulated private
banker today. Banking is a semi-public function, and
it should be overlooked by the state.
Has Heard No Roosevelt Talk
SAVANNAH, Ga., Aug. 17. —All of the Democrats
whom I have heard express opinions seem very well
contented with Governor Wilson. I am unable to
learn of any sentiment for Roosevelt and his party tn
the south. ’ ALEXANDER R. LAWTON.
Railroad President and Lawyer.
FIE topics
. TKE LATE ELECTIOM OB FBIMABY.
I was too unwell to go out of my house last Wed
nesday, and have waited for the newspapers to give
me information. I have lived a long time and have
seen or been acquainted with many elections, but 1
have rarely seen or heard of one which gave mere
general dissatisfaction to the average citizen. Per
haps I can explain what I have to say by follow
ing statement: The Baptist minister in our town,
speaking from r his pulpit yesterday, said: "I was
told by a responsible and reliable gentleman that ths
election of Wednesday was positively carried by the
us< of liquor and money,” and the preacher further
remarked that such lawlessness grew out of the gen
eral decline by lack of appreciation or reverence for
the church; that even the membership had grown into
the habit of criticising both preachers and churches
until that main bulwark of society was breaking
down.
A white primary was instituted to keep the negro
out of Georgia politics. It was applauded as the
best and only means to allow good men to run sos
office, and to prevent the election of bad men by the
common use of money and liquor.
It has reached a place in Georgia that big money
“rules the roost,” and when the friends of a candi
date put up big money it means only one of two
things: they aim to get their money back, or they
aim to vote the man they elect in return for their
money.
One venerable gentleman, remarking on these con
ditions, said: "Our elections are now controlled by
railroads and priests.”
It is plainly to be seen that present methods will
not last long. They will break down by their own
weight. We need two strong parties in Georgia,
without the use of the negro votes, or liquor bribery,
or big money spent by interested people to elect their
own men. Where money works, either in a primary
or general election, there is something rotten. There
seems to be no liquor prohibition in Georgia on pri
mary days or on election days. It means eventual
ruin.
SHOULD SHE LEAVE KXMf
A very intelligent woman, with only one child, a
daughter, who has struggled to support a thriftless
and disagreeable husband ever since their marriage,
asks my advice in regard to delivering her child and
her home of a no-account, disagreeable man, who
does not earn a penny, and who sits down and waits
for her to upport him with her outside work, besides
making her life a torment with coarse profanity anJ
sneers and neglect. She says it grows more and more
intolerable every day. and she asks me as to her duty
to this half-grown daughter.
It is a difficult and delicate question which con
fronts this woman. The man is idle and, of course,
always unpleaant where the woman must earn he/
wages, besides supporting the home.
Those two made a contract many years ago. She
has kept her part of it as well as conditions allowed,
while he has made life a terror to an educated and
refined woman. Her child hears nothing but coarse
and vulgar language, and gets nothing from the father
but bad manners and vicious surroundings and con
stant abuse of her mother. I would advise her at
least to live apart from him for her child’s sake *f
not her own. The conditions are certainly hard for
a decent woman to put up with.
WOMAX SUFFBAGB.
Everybody is after it now. The aiew Progressive
party declared for it less than a month ago, and now
Mr. Taft has a squad of women on the warpath for
him, and Mr. Wilson has signified his acceptance of
political women’s efforts. What a change, we all de
clare!
My position has not been changed. I have always
believed a woman has the natural right for every
thing that her son is given. He can’t be any greater
person, the same advantages being given, than his
mother. She has as many rights as he.
Even a negro woman who was free in slavery
time could give freedom to her offspring. A slave
mother made the child the slave. A free-born mother
gave freedom to her negro child.
Nobody is going to force any woman to vote
against her will, but I am not going to deny to any
woman her natural right to select her own represen
tatives. It looks to me as woman suffrage is com
ing to the front, wearing seven-leagued boots.
BARE OLD OOXMS AGAXM.
J. R. Smiley, of Bow, Ky., has valuable old coins.
Mrs. J. W. 'Malone, of Abbeville, Ala., has old coin
made in 1842; a 3 cent silver coin, 1852, and dime of
1834 coinage. Mrs. J. S. Clayton, of Acworth, Ga.,
has 5 cent silver, 1838, Spanish half dollar made in
1774.’
Mrs. Florence Mitchell, Rome, Ga., has half dime
of 1850, small penny of 1862, and a quarter of 1877.
Care Miss Daisy Allen, Rome.
Mrs. M. H. Cook, Washington, Ga., fias collection
of old coins.
S. T. Hammond, Wayside, Ga., is a coin collector.
Mrs. Bettie Smith, Pearson, Ga.. wants a list of
good books suitable for girls and children.
Mrs. Leila. Smith, of Abbeville, Ga., is anxious to
find relatives living in Texas.
Miss Carrie Smith, of Gainesville, has tine collec
tion of Columbian half dollars, and some other not
very old coins.
KOBE BARE COX3TS.
Mrs. Samuel Weldon, of Albany, Ga.. has a silver
half dime coined in 1829.
Mrs. Robert Adams, of Marianna, Fla., has a num
ber of rare old coins, which she might sell.
i Mrs. R. W. Nichols, of Fort White, Fla., has a
coin of 1856, 25, cents, two half dimes, one coined in
1835, and the other in 1839.
All these coin owners are readers of The Semi-
Weekly Journal, and I am delighted to give their
names and postoffice, to notify rare coin collectots
where to find the owners.
Ihe Ragtime Muse
COST OF LIVING.
Father lived in a cottage of brick
And heated that cottage by fireplaces:
The light w’as a little oil lamp with a wick;
We pumped the water to wash our faces.
I live in a flat with electric light.
Steam heat—all modern appurtenances;
Piano and such things are mine by right—
I’m a “man in moderat circumstances.”
Father would seldom go to a show;
To church he rode in the family surrey.
I keep an auto —thus one must go
To keep abreast of this age of hurry.
Father raised most of his kitchen truck.
And he kept pigs and a cow and chickens;
Such stuff I buy. and it’s nip and tuck
To meet the bills —they cost like the dickens!
We had new clothes just twice a year,
And paid heed to comfort and not to fashions
A hint of that now and I’m called "near”—
Economy throws my wife in a passion!
Two thousand a year had father then,
Spared some for saving and some for giving.
But I can scarcely make out with ten—
Because of the “higher cost of Jiving.”
THE MEXICAN SITUATION '
ll.—The Attitude of the United States.
By Frederic J. Haskin
In its handling of the difficulties growing out olj
the revolution in Mexico the American state depart
ment has been criticised by almost every Interest as-
adBSSIIk
a zone of neutrality ought to be establish- «
ed and maintained by an American army patrolling
the frontier.
• • •
These people also criticise the state department
for its attitude toward those who h»ve been the vic
tims of shells and balls crossing the international
boundary line. They assert that they are entitled to
protection from the gunfire of the Mexicans, and that
if they are damaged it is the duty of the state de
partment to right their wrongs for them and to do it
promptly and efficiently. And this, they assert, has
not been done. It is their contention that our gov
ernment has failed to do its duty when it has not
protected them from such injury, and that there is
neither reason or justice in the attitude of the state
department in refusing to press their claims.
• • •
Meanwhile the state department answers that it
has been trying to follow those lines that would best
promote the interests of all concerned. It points out
that the Mexican government has created a channel
through which these claims may be brought up, adju
dicated. and settled. This is in the shape of consular
investigations. For instance, the Mexican consul t*t
El Paso is empowered to investigate the claims grow
ing out of the damage inflicted in El Paso by tl.e
guns of the contending forcea His recommendations
will be taken as a guide for payment by the Mexican
government
•• • \
The department contends that it was not for it
to refuse to recognise the methods of satisfaction pro
vided by the Mexican government, but simply to
that justice is done. So long as the method chosen
by the Mexican works, it contended, there waa nu
reason for other methods to be invoked, but that it
would have invoked such other methods as mign
have been necessary had the plan adopted by the
Mexicans failed to afford adequate relief.
• • •
This contention has been answered by the senators
from the states bordering on the frontier with the •
statement that it is scarcely to be expected that the
Mexican consuls, having in mind the bad financial
situation of their country, and objecting to its as
suming responsibility for damages inflicted by rebel
troops, will be over-liberal with the American citi
zens living on this side of the Rio Grande. Senator
Fall, for instance, concedes that it is the duty of
(hose Americans who live in Mexico and have «us
tained injuries there to exhaust their remedies in
that country before appealing to Washington. But
it is contended that the people injured on the Amer
ican side have an entirely different status. So long
as they have stayed at home and there have followed
the pursuits of good citizens it is for the government
at Washington to protect them and not for them to
protect themselves. Hence, their contention that the
state department has erred.
• • •
Congress finally has accepted their view of it
and has provided that the assessment of damages
shall be made by American army officers, and that
the Washington government will undertake to see
that restitution is made. It is to be explained that
the state department feels that the Mexican aituatioa
is a dangerous one, and that It needs to be bandied
with the utmost care if we are to avert complications
that might prove of the utmost seriousness. It occu
pies much the position that President McKinley occu
pied before the Spanish-American war, seeking to
avert any incident that might inflame public opinion
at home or «tir up trouble in Mexico.
• • ■
Meanwhile incidents have happened from time to
time that might, under other conditions, provoke in
ternational trouble. .The government at Washington
permitted Americans in Mexico to import arms for
self-defense. These were taken from them by the
revolutionists with the declaration that since the
United States has refused to allow them to import
munitions of war from across the Rio Grande that is
their only chance to get them. They assert that the ja
Madero revolutionists were permitted to get all the
arms and ammunition they needed, but that the
Orozco people are denied the right that was granted
the former revolutionists.
■ • •
Likewise Americans have been treated so bru
tally in some cases that there is probably ground
for the assertion that such treatment has been meted
out for the purpose of forcing intervention. In one
instance a prominent American colonist’!''' wife fell ill
and died. Her relatives in New Mexico were notified
and made the trip in an automobile. At the interna
tional boundary line they were told by the Mexican
consul that they did not need a passport. When they
arrived at their destination the man whose wife had
died waS torn from the death chamber and taken out
and hanged by Mexican soldiers for permitting their
relatives to come to his house without a passport
• • •
Perhaps the people hardest hit by the revolution
have been the Mormons. President Diaz was always
anxious to get as many farmers into Mexico as possi
ble—farmers who would break up big tiaxflendos into
small farms and till them after the American way.
Dozens of Mormon settlements were established in
many sections of Mexico. Traveling along the Vera
Cruz and Isthmus railway one crosses broad prairies
with here and there settlements of Mormon farmers—
men who have transformed idle soil into wealth Pro
ducing plantations. The same has been true in north
ern Mexico. These people went down there, taking
their all with them, and establishing farming dis
tricts and rural towns which remind one of prosper
ous sections in lowa or Illinois. None of the things ’
one sees in those states were wanting to tell the zt<>ry
of thrift, energy and prosperity; in some of the towns
were three-story school buildings, built according to /
the best standard in the United States. Their schools
had as extensive courses of study and as good teach
ers as those in this country.
Virginia Is Loyal
RICHMOND, Va.. Aug. 17.—1 f Colonel Roosevelt
ha-s succeeded in securing any Democratic votes in
Virginia he has used such gumshoe methods that the
fact is not known to those who are supposed to be
alive to the political situation. As far as this state
is concerned he is not a factor in any sense of the
word. There are three well-known Democrats in
Richmond classified as cranks who have declared they
will vote for the Bull Moose, but even these three
votes are not securely anchored.
It Is my opinion that Woodrow Wilson will receive
the largest vote Virginia has ever given a president.
Even the few negroes who are qualified to vote in
this state are coming out strong for Wilson, showing
that the political wind Is blowing a black hurricane
toward Democracy. Virginians laugh with Roosevelt,
enjoy his spectacular stage settings and mechanical
effects, but they demand a safe and sane man for
the White House. , /y
ALLEN POTTS.
Managing Editor The Times-Dlspatch.
fected. The people who ha'’S
gone to Mexico from the United
States complain that the atti J
tude of the government at
Washington is not positive!
enough to protect them in their a
rights under international law.
The people who reside on ths
American side of the Mexican
border contend that they have
a right to demand protection
from the flying missiles of
battle from the Mexican side!
and to insist that the United
States shall compel tho war
ring factions in Mexico to fight : ,
their battles on grounds and
to aim their guns in directions
that will not kill and malm
people and damage property on
the American side. They as-
