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THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1913.
THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA. GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter of
the Second Class.
JAMES R. GRAY, —
President and Editor.
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A Lesson From South America.
It is a noteworthy and cheering fact that the Gov
ernment recently sent Dr. A. D. Mtelvin, chief of the
Federal Bureau of Animal Industry, on an extended
tour of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay to study the
methods of cattle raising so profitably employed in
those countries and, indirectly at least, to encourage
beef trade between South America and the United
States. Dr. Melvin has returned, as our Washington
correspondent reports, with much interesting and
valuable information that should prove helpful to
American farmers. His inquiries mark a practical
step toward the upbuilding of live-stock interests in
this land, where the neglect of cattle production is
now sharply felt as a potent factor in the high cost
of living.
There are two means of reducing the almost
prohibitive price of beef in the United States, and
both should be applied. One is to take advantage
of the lower tariff recently put into effect and to
encourage the importation of beef from South Ameri
ca. Dr. Melvin relates that Argentina cattle “which
dressed eight hundred and twenty pounds sold for
?78.40 gold and that this grade of beef, which is of
a very high quality is selling in England from eight
to nine cents a pound wholesale.” When we reflect,
in connection with this fact, that United States pack
ers have successfully competed with South American
beef in the English market, it becomes evident that
high tariff duties have been measurably responsible
for-the high price of beef In this country and that
the reduction of these duties should open the way for a
reduction in prices.
This, however, is rather an indirect means of re
lief. The ultimate solution of the beef problem in
the United States must be the production of more
cattle at home. If the live-stock industry is profit
able in South America where prices are almost in
comparably lower than here, it will certainly be
profitable in the United States; and at the same
time its development will lower our cost of food.
The Government can render no service more
practical than in using its educational machinery to
encourage cattle raising. The Federal Bureau of Ani
mal Industry, is already doing excellent work to this
end. In Georgia, for instance, it is conducting a
campaign for the elimination of the cattle tick which
is one of the gravest impediments to the live-stock
industry in this State; and is also, in conjunction
with the Agricultural College, fostering interest in
the planting of alfalfa and other cattle food.
No part of the country i9 better suited than the
South to cattle raising. Soil, climate and, indeed,
every natural circumstance are ideally favorable to
this important industry. Southern farmers in general
and Georgia farmers in particular face a rich op
portunity in this regard; they should make the
most of it.
In Defense of the Crow.
An old lady who was so charitably disposed that
she would never believe ill of anyone was asked,
rather banteringly, what she could say in behalf of
the Devil. "Why,” she promptly answered, “I think
we would all do well to emulate his industry!”
In like spirit the federal Department of Agricul
ture seems determined to find good in everything.
Having exonerated divers birds and beetles that bore
unsavory reputations.about the farm, the Department
now issues an engaging defense of the crow. Far
from being the unmitigated rogue his enemies would
have us believe, the crow’ is really a guardian of
fiel(| and orchard against insect pests. That he will
eat corn, if no other fare is handy, is admitted but
he infinitely prefers grubs, grasshoppers and cut
worms; and being “a huge feeder,” as Irving said of
Ichabod Crane, his aid in patting down insect foes
is unlimited. The testimony of the Department’s
entomologists in this connection is noteworthy:
; “Npt long ago an* agent of the department
v.£s watching a crow feeding in a corn field. It
seemed that the bird was pulling the young corn
and carrying it to a nearby nest to feed its
young: After the crow had left the nest, the
agent climbed the tree and secured the young
bitds. An examination showed that instead of
young corn, the older bird had been feeding the
young ones with cut worms gathered from around
the corn plants.
There is, we are assured, but one danger from
he crow; and that lies in his love of a large family.
There is perhaps no other creature more devoutly ob
servant of Genesis 1-28. If the crow population can
inly be kept within the bounds of an insect food
supply it may well he enco iraged to remain on the
’arm. To determine precisely when the stock of
;rows is exceeding the stock of worms may require
some patience and skill. In all cases of doubt, how
ever, the benefit should he given to tlte crow. Such
is the happy vindication of this long maligned bird.
Truly, as W. S. remarked,
There is some soul of goodness in things evil.
Would men observingly distill it out.”
Prospects Brighten
For the Currency Bill.
Prospects for the early enactment of the currency
bill seem brighter than at any time since the measure
came from the House. The president’s recent confer
ence with Democratic Senators who were disposed to
delay was evidently fruitful. Washington dispatches,,
now incdicate that the members of the banking and
currency committee are Composing their differences
and that the bill will be reported by the first week of
November.
It is not expected that the ensuing debate Will con
sume more than thre weeks. No filibustering tactics
are likely, for Republicans as well as Democrats real
ize the country's urgent need of a more sound and
serviceable currency system. The points at issue con
cern matters of detail rather than of principle. The
measure will doubtless be discussed in a national, not
a partisan spirit.
The President has expressed himself as agreeably
surprised at the number of Republican Senators who
will vote for the hill without demanding fundamental
changes. In this respect tile currency question pre
sents fewer difficulties than did the tariff. In-the case
of the latter, there was a sharp division of party,
lines, a deep-seated difference as to governmental
policy. Banking and currency reform, on the contra
ry, is admitted by all parties to be necessary.
The main features of the pending measure are for
the most part agreed upon. Compromise must be
effected in regard to certain detailed provisions, such
for instance as the number of regional banks and the
membership of the federal board of control.
The committee, it appears, is now ready to adjust
such differences. There is the possibility of a unan
imous report. When the bill is once squarely before
the Senate as a whole, it will doubtless move speedily
to enactment. ' *
GLORY
BY DR. FRANK CRANE
(Copyright. 1913, by Frank Crane.)
A man never makes a bid for notoriety when he
does his duty.
Don’t y«u feel sprry for people who are so per
verse as not to like you?
New York’s New Governor.
Martin F. Glynn, now dovernor of New York, as a
result of William Sulzer’s deposition, has assumed
office in circumstances unusuually trying. For months
the State’s executive affairs have been demoralized,
almost to the point of chaos. This condition has ex
tended through various departments, so that the sim
plest as well as the gravest duties of administration
have been confused and hampered. Merely to restore
order and to set the wheels running smoothly again
will be no easy task. /
Besides this. Governor Glynn , succeeds a man
whom thousands of people regard as a victim of
Tammany, the most intensely and most justly de
spised political ring in the nation. His course will
naturally be watched with latent, if not active, sus
picion by all who pity Sulzer or hate the machine.
He will he expected to prove by extraordinary inde
pendence that he was not a party to the scheme of
Boss Murphy to overthrow a Governor simply be
cause the Governor defied the boss.
If we may judge, however, by the tone of New
York’s Influential and independent journals, the new
Governor will have the cordial support of right-
thinking citizens so long as he shows a sincere pur
pose to serve the State. Thus the New York Even
ing Post declares:
We have great hopes that Gov. Glynn, will
rise \o the opportunity before him. We cannot
forget that he made an excellent Controller,
whose administration of his office was free from
scandal. He has had a good standing within his
own journalistic profession, and in’ the main he
has spoken within his party for the better
things. During these months of impeachment
his bearing has been quiet, modest, and unas
suming. Had he desired to make a sensation,
had he sought to force himself upon the atten
tion of the State by storming the offices of the
Governor and using force, he would have em
bittered a situation already tense.' Tffiat he did
not; that he was content to await the outcome
quietly; that he showed such respect for the
quiet and orderly processes of the law—these
are the best assurances that he will prove an
executive not only law-abiding, hut in sympathy.
with the true spirit of our institutions. Finally,
it is a cause for thankfulness that we again
have a man as Governor against whose private
life no valid criticism has been uttered, even
in .the heat of biftfer political campaigns.
Governor Glynn himself made an assuring state
ment upon entering office. “I will not bn a fac-
tionist,” he said. “I will not devote the time which
I owe to the State to partisan politics, within or
outside of my own party. I keenly appreciate the
high responsibilities that it is my duty to meet and
to discharge, and I will try to give an administra
tion in keeping with the genius and the diginty of
the State.” If he lives up to this profession, he will
earn a measure of public support through which he
can accomplish in spite of Tammany those reforms
of which his State is in vital need. There was never
a time,, perhaps, when the people were so eager to
uphold a truly independent Governor nor so ready
to rebuke one who bows to Tammany.
The oldest inhabitant will have to search a long
time for his weather dates.
Autumn tourists would,do well to postpone their
aeroplane excursions until warmer weather.
The State Fain
By every report, ti e State fair which opened this
week at Macon is a credit and encouragement to all
Georgia. The agricultural displays are unusually
varied; the attendance has been largfc and widely
representative from the outset; all the elements of
a successful and useful exposition are presept.
The material for an interesting State fair was
never more abundant than this • autumn. Through
spring and summer almost every natural circum
stance was favorable to good crops. More than that
the farmers of Georgia have applied more earnestly
and more broadly this year than ever before the
principles of scientific agriculture; they planted a
wider diversity of crops and worked with more busi
nesslike methods. . ?
The State fair reveals the wonderful result of
this progressive thought and endeavor. Its influence
should be stimulating as well as educational. The
fact that it presents more than five hundred canning
clubs exhibits i.nd nearly a thousand corn club ex
hibits is particularly significant.
It is coming to the point where Huerta will have
no friends except perhaps Hepry Lane Wilson.
And Tammany is got to be a Republican—that is,
Tammany is now sailing argosy in which the cargo of
the ex-G. O. P. is ventured. There never was another
political society like Tammany. It was the invention
—in a political way—of Aaron Burr, and named for a
chief of the Delaware Indians who whipped the devil
himself in a fist fight that beat that of Corbett and
Sullivan, or Fitzsimmons and Corbett, all hollow.
To our politics for more than a century Tam
many has been a political machine formed after the
order of the Prussian guards. It is like the southern
negro in this—it has no malice for personal injury,
and it has no gratitude for. personal benefit. It is for
Collona, or Ursini, as fortune decides. It is a boss-
ridden community with no eye for anything but spoil.
Its history is a fascinating chapter. Its wars against
DeWitt Clinton might have postponed the building of
the Erie canal a generation.
• • •
And, by the way, DeWitt Clinton was a powerful
personality. Had he been gifted with a tithe of the
sublime patience that the good God' gave Abraham
Lincoln he would have been president of the United
States. But he could not wait, and thus got beat in
1812. His uncle, old George, was the greatest of the
“war governors” of the revolutionary period. Subse-
Quently he was twice chosen vice president, and he
would have shone as chief magistrate of the republic.
To show you what a “Jackson-of-a-man” DeWitt
Clinton was, I may be pardoned for the relation of agi
anecdote. One time he was called to * vae fiieiu wj:
honor” by a Mr. Van Ness, possibly the second 01 Burr
in the duel witn Hamilton. Be that as it may, Van
Ness was a follower of Burr. As they took their
places Clinton grimly muttered to nis second, *i wisn
I had his principal thq^e,” meaning Burr. A shot was
exchanged and Clinton slightly wounded his antago
nist, who asserted that he was not satisfied, and de
manded another shot. The second shots were fired
and again Van Ness was slightly wounded and Clinton
unhurt. A third and fourth exchange of shots were
had and each time Clinton hit his man without being
himself • harmed. Then Clinton’s second advanced and
demanded of the second of the adversary if his princi
pal was satisfied, to which the response was the same
—that he demanded another shot.
Then Clinton threw down Lis pistol with the excla
mation: “Then, let him go to hell for his satisfaction;
I’ll give you no more!” And he walked off the field.
• o •
DeWitt Clinton resigned a seat in the United States
senate to be mayor of New York when that town was
yet comparatively a village. He was elected governor
of New York and forced the construction of the Erie
canal. He died in 1828, I believe. Had he lived he
might have been president.
He was a man after the order of Benton. The lat
ter was the real author of the railroads across the
continent and it was Clinton who poured the rich har
vests of the then “Ureat West” into the lap of New
York City, making it our metropolis, and the state of
which he was governor “Empire.” As a practical con
structive statesman he scarce has a superior in *our
history.
He fought Tammany like th e lion that he was and
beat it; but Tammany has more lives than the cat. It
flourished when the constitution of the United States
was formed and it may survive it.
y"' • • •
And Tammany, in 1913, looks to the Republican
party for victory whence a hundred of its former vic
tories came. We hear the canting and hypocritical cry
that there is danger that Tammany will seize the
state as it has the city, m fifty years it never got
the city without Republican help. If its candidate
shall be elected this good year of 19 io his majority,
or plurality, will be made up entirely of votes lent it
by the G. O. P., “the party of Great Moral Ideas.”
Tweed was kept in place by Republicans, and in
1868, when Tweed gave the Napoleonic order that Sey
mour’s majority in the state over Grant for president
should be 10,000 a month before the election, the elec
tion officials returned precisely 10,000 for Seymour,
and it Is statistically and historically that. His Re
publican henchmen gave him license to do that.
A chapter on Tammany would make mighty inter
esting reading. If - aid not have to grind out other
stuff daily for food and raiment I’d venture to Write
it—impertinent as it may seem.
Washington, October 20.
W,hat mankind wants most of all is glory#* It
means the deed, the word, or the state'of being, which
shines.
The real hell of men and women is dullness, dry
ness. humdrum.
The old painters put a line of light about the heads
of saints. It was called a halo. It meant there was
something in the nature of. these superior souls that
shone.
Moses’ face shone when he came down from Sinai;
Jesus’ whole form shone on the Mount of Transfig
uration, and there is a legend of an Irish saint who
when praying in his lonely hut filled it so with light
that luminous rays were seen issuing' from the cracks
of the wall. Buddhist lore is full of shining ones.
All chis is an expression of the deep conviction of
the race that the highest state of naan is when he
shines.
For this -cause also anything tljfft takes one “out
of himself” has always been regarded by primitive peo
ples as something supernatural. This is why the
Greks worshiped Bacchus and imagined the toxic
effect of wine' to be divine. And to this day men go
to the bottle to get that semblance of uplift, to pro
duce that illumination of the senses. A slang phrase
suggests the truth of the matter, when it is said of a
drunken man that he is “all lit up.”
So the savage tribes everywhere have looked on in
sane persons as God's own, as sacred.
There is A great truth behind all these gropings. It
is that the spirit of man graves something that will
make it gloW.
What we ask of you, poet, is to give us this. We
care nothing about your w6rd-juggling. Give us the
luminous word.
Wflat the cnild asks of the- teacher is this; not
facts and precepts, but that something that shall make
the young mind burn.
What we ask of the preacher and prophet is not in
struction; we know a deal now more than, we can prac
tice; but to make our souls “burn within us by the
way.”
What we ask of the novelist is not a clever plot
nor' perfect literature, but the torch, the electric shock.
The soul that giows does not live; it vegetates, as a
cabbage. It is an apple with no flavor, a dinner of
chemical compounds without savor, a drab rose, an
odorless lily, bread without butter, potatoes without
salt, an unlit candle.
There has been much said of Dove, but the real rea
son why we make so much of it is that it makes life
shine. It puts a halo on a common face, it makes
drudgery divine, it touches poverty with a fairy wand
and makes it alive and rich.
In a word, love has that thing for which all human
creation is hungry and thirsty^—glory.
If I wer e a g od fairy I should ask no greater gift
than to have some flower juice, as Puck had, to squeeze
on mortal eyes, so that the common things on earth
would gleam like things of heaven.
The G. 0. P. Tammany’s Hope
By Savoyard
Any fool can ask questions that will make a wise
man hack pedal.
So far no revolutions have greeted our ex-presi-
dent and Bull Moose in South America.
.‘(OUAJTRY 7
;fjOME tppkS
CmPOCTED WJIUS.UHJTLTOI
UNPROTECTED WOMEN IN HOTELS AND DODG
ING HOUSES.
The violent death of a refined and intelligent young
lady in a Thomasville, Ga., hotel jarid the mystery sur
rounding the tragedy calls for public attention to the
protection of women in hotels and authorized sleeping
places for lodgers. The young woman’s mother and
sister were in a nearby room on the same floor of tlie
hotel, yet this violent death occurred in a stone’s throw
(or much less distance), and the mystery is unsolved
and. the public in doubt as to whether it was a ca&e of
suicide or plain murder.
At this distance, remembering she was near an in
telligent mother and sister, it strikes me as a suicide
case, despite the suspicious circumstances which sug
gest murder, for suicide appears to be a raging epi
demic from whicn culture and family solicitude often
suffers the most, and which se^ms most unexplainable
in the light of reason or provocation for self-murder.
But the fact remains that women who seem best
situated to care lor themselves are often the victims
of violence in hotels and other places where guarus
and inspectors are or should be always on duty. No
hotel worth the title should ever be without a night
watchman, nis trips around the halls should be accu
rately accounted for with a time clock for the service
rendered. Every hall or corridor should be sufficiently
lighted to see from end to end at a single glance, and
there should be som©j automatic signals which would
notify everybody on duty early enough to have all
places of egress promptly closed. The locks on doors
should be so arranged as to make it next to impossi
ble for burglars to enter at any time, especially in
the nignt time.
• * V
THE PASSING OF MR. SULZER.
I heard considerable talk about Governor Sulzer
when I was spending a few days in New York City
last spring. A gentleman and his wife (chance ac
quaintances) who had known the governor since his
boyhood gave me a brief story of his rise in politics,
and they said lie was a true product of Tammany pol
itics, that he had begun life in the slums (which was
likely an overdrawn story) and had been a true Tam
many disciple until he entered the White House at
Albany last winter.
They predicted a collapse in his fortunes, but they
did not anticipate the sudden fall that came so soon
thereafter. It would be unkind to say a word in re
proach, now that he is down'and out, but the trouble
grew out of campaign contributions and the snare
that lurk behind them. There is a law in Georgia
and other states that every candidate shall return to
the proper authority a statement of the full amount
of money that is spent in furtherance of his campaign
success, and when I first read about this require
ment I said to myself: “What a lot of white lies
now ar e going to be told!” I call them “white lies”
because these candidates, when so inclined, can say to
their managers: “Don’t tell me anything about what
you are doing. If I know nothing, I am not required
to set down what I know nothing about!” Don’t you
see?
For instance, Mr. Thomas Ryan contributed $35,000
to Mr. Oscar Underwood’s presidential campaign, and
Mr. Underwood did not schedule that amount because
Mr. Bankhead did not tell him about it. Therefore,
Mr. Underwood didn’t know enough to put it in his
list of campaign expenses. Mr. Sulzer’s downfall grew
out of his obtuse understanding of what his managers
did for him, and his failure to schedule certain large
amounts of campaign money. I was not disappointed
in this law. or rather the workings of the law requir
ing candidates to tell where the campaign contribu
tions came from. You might as well expect that you
would or could work the truth and the facts out of rail
road lobbyists and other disbursers of graft money.
The law is good enough, per so, but it is the human
nature part of it that is defective unfortunately. Mr.
Sulzer ran upon a snag and lost the governorship.
• • •
POISON TRAGEDIES.
There is not a single week that our daily newspa
pers d6 not give us a story of a tragedy in which poi
son plays its part. Sometimes it is a husband who Is
accused of poisoning his wife, and quit e as often it as
the wife who* is placed on trial for poisoning the hus
band.
There is a trial now progressing in Massachusetts
where a read admiral of the United States navy died
very suddenly and his wife Is violently accused of
poisoning him. We in Georgia are familiar with the
McNaughton and Barron cases, both of recent date.
It affords an opportunity for violent and false accu
sations as well as subtle and secret murders. Th® in
nocent have to suffer and perhaps some who are guilty
escape.
Since the days of the Medici, those notorious Ital
ian poison murderers, there has never been more of
such tragedies than at the present time. Like suicide
there seems to be a prevailing mania for poison trage
dies or poison murders.
It is so easy to accomplish that it is popular. When
a drop of hydro-cyanic acid can kill as quickly as a
pistol shot, the self-murderer will perhaps choose the
acid rather than the pistol.
By the same token, those who propose to kill will
prefer a poison dose to gun play, because ft can be ap
plied in secret or in the dark and the chances for dis
covery are less or more difficult to prove.
But we should never forget that poison experts are
human, and a mistake in th© autopsy may send an in
nocent person to the chair or the gallows tree, and
thus may inflict the cruelest injustice.
The moral of the whole subject lies in the necessity
for handling strong medicines with great care, and for
withholding Judgment until the last effort has failed
to save the accused.
The inside of a human stomach is not often ex
posed until after death and decay has intervened.
Death and consequent decay will alter appearances
very quickly. There should be no accusation without
proof.
9 m 9 /
THE DANCE QUESTION.
Just like the card playing question, there will al
ways be those who disapprove and those who approve
or commend. Dancing, per se, cannot be sinful be^
cause it is exhillrating exercise performed with music,
but it has its excesses, its voluptuous dance halls, and
its tangos and bunny hugs that provoke unfriendly
criticism. These are fascinating and oftentimes vi
ciously alluring to the young and giddy. In these ex
cesses lies the harm and therein lies the blame or con
demnation of the dance question.
There may be sections where girls had rather dance
with other girls than with the other sex, and there
may be communities when men and boys prefer to
dance with each other rather than with their best
girls, but such sections and communities are exceed
ingly rare, if they can be discovered at all.
This feature alone condemns the seductive dances
that have become so popular in various towns and
cities, and it is the sex allurement which contributes
to their popularity, and therein lies their danger. It
is not supposable that a young man and woman would
ever promenade the streets or go up church aisles as
they go together in ball rooms and at dinner dances.
The outside public would hardly tolerate such em
bracing with even bride or groom in outside places.
The public would kick on it just as it kicks when a
woman dons men’s apparel or men dress up in petti
coats and appear in public places. The ball room is
emphatically a public place, and yet these young wom
en bare their arms and shoulders and then accept men
partners who clasp them in their arms and they fling
themselves around together for perhaps an hour at a
time in a well-frequented ball room. Each might be
willing to delay a tennis play or golf contest to dance
a little, but I doubt if it would occur often with out
door costumes. But the ball room must have accesso
ries of decollete dressing and arm clasps to be popular.
Yes, I hear you say: “Mrs. Felton is an old fogy!’*
Maybe so, but I do not like thos© hugging dances.
FOR PURER FOODS
By Frederic J. Has kin
“The bureau of chemistry will fail of its mission If
it does not bring to the people of the United States a
purer and better food supply, just as the department of
agriculture would come short of its opportunities if it
failed to give them a more abundant food supply.”
* . • »
•
Thus speaks Dr. Carl L. Alsberg, who succeeded Dr.
Harvey W. Wiley as the chief of the bureau of chem
istry. He declares that the man who adulterates and
misbrands foods and drugs deserves all the punishment
that can be inflicted upon him, and that the work of
ferreting him out and visiting upon him the penalties
of the law will continue unabated. But at the same
time he realizes that there are other kinds of food reg
ulation with which the bureau can concern itself which
will do vastly more for the public health than the mere
prohibition of misbranding.
* • •
According to Dr. Alsberg, the worst food that can
reach the consumer is that which carries disease-pro
ducing germs, and that is usually the kind that is han
dled and eaten raw. Milk, oysters, and some of the
vegetables are the worst offenders, and they are very
frequently—in fact, usually—beyond the power of the
bureau of chemistry. Food cannot be reached by na
tional law under the federal constitution until it crosses
a state line. Then it gets into interstate commerce,
and the bureau of chemistry can control it. As a rule,
however, the bulk of loose foodstuffs is consumed with
in the states in which it is raised, and it is only the lit
tle fringe of territory contiguous to state lines that is
aftected principally by national food laws.
...
The remainder must be reached indirectly, and the
bureau of chemistry has chosen two .methods of han
dling it. One is co-operation with state health agen
cies, and the other a nation-wide campaign of educa-'
tion. Constructive co-operation with all health agen
cies will take the form of an attempt to co-ordinate all
these forces and to induce them to work in a haripo-
nious way toward a common end. To this end a meet
ing of all of the food and drug officials of the country
has been called to assemble in Washington in Novem
ber. At this meeting an effort will be made to frame
a common policy which all of these agencies can pursue
and under which they can co-operate. Then the bureau
of chemistry, when it finds a condition within a stale
which it cannot reach, can ad vise the food and drug
officials of that state and through them get the reme
dial action desired. Likewise, when a state official
finds a situation which he cannot touch because It In
volves Interstate commerce, he will tip off the bureau
of chemistry, and it can bring the offenders to book.
...
In carrying out the campaign of education the bu
reau of chemistry hopes to place the knowledge it
gathers in the hands of every housewife in the country,
in such a way that shfe can apply it in her everyday
life. For Instance, the bureau Is determined to eradi
cate and destroy the popular impression that the label
"Guaranteed under the Pure Food and Drugs Act’’
means that the government guarantees the food. Dr.
Alsberg declares that the government Is In no sense
the guarantor, and that the label Is put there by the
manufacturer, not for the purpose of guaranteeing the
product to the consumer, but for the purpose of pro
tecting the retailer from loss in case the article does
not come up to representations.
• • •
The label “Guaranteed under the Pure Food and
Drugs Act” on a package means no more than If 'a
maker of a hat guaranteed Its quality to the retailer.
All sorts of frauds are resorted to under that label,
and the confidence it inspires in the buying public is-
not justified. Dr. Alsberg' wants the country to know
that food or drugs wearing that livery may be just as
bad and Just as dangerous as those bearing no label at
alL Of course, this is not generally the case. Most
manufacturers who guarantee their products live up to
their guarantees, but some do not, and the bureau of<
chemistry wants everybody to understand that the’
guarantee is that of the manufacturer, and not that
of the government. ,
Sometimes the bureau finds the label "Guaranteed
under the Pure Food and Drugs Act” In unexpected
places. One purveyor of a notoriously immoral and
criminal preparation put on the packages the usual
guaranty phrase, and when it was brought, to the at
tention of the bureau it was powerless to stop the
making of the preparation. It had to go to the post-
office department for means of suppressing It—by de
nying the manufacturer the use of the mails and pun
ishing him for sending Immoral preparations by post.
• • •
The principal weapon with which the bureau is go-
ing to fight the man who violates the law is prompt and
adequate publicity. The fines that have been Inflicted
In the past have constituted no serious deterrent, but
now, the minute action is taken the wheels of public
ity begin to turn. As soon as a seizure Is made the
newspapers of the vicinity In which it occurs are noti
fied and the day final Judgment is rendered the newj
is promptly and fully given out. A list of all the food
and drug journals is supplied with all this informa
tion and now the effort on the part of offenders Is to
avoid the publicity that follows conviction. Fifty
thousand news letters are distributed among the crop
correspondents of the country, which contain informa
tion as to all seizures of insecticides and patent medi
cines.
The Joy of Self-Mastery
Shakespeare says: “Assume a virtue if you have
it not”
One of the rarest virtues in the world is to be able
to hold oneself so perfectly in hand and have such
complete control of oneself that nothing; can ruffle
him or disturb his equanimity. I know a young busi
ness man who never loses his temper or self-control’
under any circumstances, no matter how trying or
provoking, and yet he is sensitively organized. He
says that he has gained this self-mastery by years of
practice in self-control. He early made up his mind
that he could not control others if he could not con
trol himself. His wonderful mind poise seems co u*
largely acquired, for he says he was very quick tem
pered in his boyhood. He has become a leader of
men, and he says that no one who has not experienced
it can have any idea of the great satisfaction, the ad
vantage of being able to stand any kind of insult or
abuse, and still keep a perfectly poised mind. He
says it is an immense advantage to be able to say
just what he wants to, the wisest, most prudent thing
in a perfectly calm manner when the other man has
lost his head completely and does not say what his
wisdom might suggest, but what his prejudices, his
spleen, his love of Revenge, his innate desire to “get
square” with the other fellow dictate. The man who
loses his temper and cannot say what he ought to or
wants to until the fit of anger has passed or until
the hot temper has cooled has a great respect for the
man who can stand calm and unmoved amidst his
storm of abuse—Orison Swett Marden in November
Nautilus.
In October
October on a thousand hills
Has lighted all her beacon fires,
And in the twilight tide the winds
Are as the sound of many lyres.
And as we divine within the heart
A longing which we may not name.
A something with a pulse of song,
A something with a pulse of flame!
—CLINTON SCOLLARD, in New xork SUB.
The best cantaloupe is as hard to select as the
best automobile.