Newspaper Page Text
THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1913.
4
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.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE
Twelve months 75°
Six months 40c
Tnree months 25c
The Semi-Weekly Journal Is published on Tuesday
and Friday, and Is mailed by the shortest routes for
early delivery.
It contains news from all over the world, brought
% by special leased wires into our office. It has a staff
of distinguished contributors, with strong departments
of special value to the home and the farm.
Agents wanted at every postoifice. Liberal com
mission allowed. Outfit free. Write R. R. BRAD
LEY, Circulation Manager.
The only traveling representatives we have are
J. A. Bryan, B. F. Bolton, C. C. Coyle, L. H. Kim
brough, W. W. Blaokbum and J. W. Brooks. We will
be responsible only ’’or money paid to the above r.amed
traveling representatives.
*
NOTICE TO J? UBSCRIBERS.
The label used for addressing your paper
shows the time your subscription expires. By
renewing at least two weeks before the date on
this label, you Insure regular service.
In ordering paper changed, be sure to mention
you old, as well as your new address. If on a
route please give th© route number.
We cannot enter subscriptions to begin with
back numbers. Remittances should be sent by
postal order or registered mall.
Address all orders and notices fo this de
partment tp THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL,
Atlanta, Ga.
Men talk during courtship; women after marriage.
Let’s Manufacture Our Cotton
Encouraging statistics on the cotton manufactur
ing interests in the cotton-growing states are con
tained in a tabulation based upon figures relating
to the year 1909 and just completed and published
by the census bureau. If statistics for the present
year were obtainable, beyond all doubt they would
show even a greater proportion of cotton factories
in the south as compared with the total number in
the whole country, for within the past four years
the southern mills h:.ve increased measurably in
numbers.
A survey of the census bureau’s tabulation by
The Journal’s Washington correspondent shows
that Georgia ranked fifth in the nation In the man
ufacture of cotton goods, Massachusetts being yet
in the lead, and North Carolina and South Carolina
coming second and third, with Rhode Island fourth.
Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Connecticut and
Alabama follow In that order behind Georgia. The
survey shows that the percentage of increase in the
manufacture of cotton was decidedly greater in the
southern than In the northern states. The latter
employ more women than the former, but the
southern states employ more child labor than the
northern. t
Other interesting comparative facts are shown,
but the most important are those which bear upon
the increase in cotton manufacturing in the south;
for that is a phase of development upon which too
much stress cannot be placed from the viewpoint of
this section.
Why should we grow cotton in our fields, and
then ship it elsewhere to be manufactured in order
that It may be sold hack to us,? There is no logic
inherent in that proposition, and its fallacy is be
ing disproved very rapidly. We should manufacture
not -only more cotton goods than do the New Eng
land states, but we should manufacture very much
more than they. The fiber should go from our own
fields to our own factories. It should be grown,
made and bartered among us, and every part of the
enhancement In its value should accrue to our own
people.
Always there will he cotton manufactured In New
England and in European mills—yet that Is no rea
son why southern mills should not increase. With
the increase in manufacturing comes the increase
in demand for raw supply. The world must he
clothed, even as It must be fed. The catering is to
a limitless need. We of the south should receive
our' full share of the benefit. The real profit in
cotton, as in anything else, is in the finished
product.
He is truly a great composer who can set a hen
to music.
Prosperity in Georgia.
The picture of Georgia’s prosperity that is painted
by Robert F. Maddox, vice president of the American
National Bank in Atlanta, in a published Interview,
reveals that the "good times recognized by every ob
server in his own community form a state-wide con
dition, and that all of the southeast shares in them.
A remarkable change within the past ninety days
is commented upon by Mr. Maddbx. Collections have
become easy, nearly all of the five million dollars
which the Atlanta banks received from the national
treasury for moving the cotton crop has been repaid,
and the deposits in the Atlanta banks are now at
thejbighest mark in their history. This is indeed a
striking summary by a conservative authority. “Our
manufacturers are busy, our merchants are cheerful,
and therefore the bankers, are content,” says he.
ifflr. Maddox attributes this condition wisely to two
things—-tile economically raised cotton crop, resulting
from intensive cultivation which the farmers are
learning to apply; and the largest corn crop in the
state’s history, creditable largely to the work of the
Boys’ Corn clubs. He estimates the value of the cot
ton crop in Georgia this season at approximately
$200,000.00$, and quotes an estimate of 75,000,000
bushels on the corn crop.
Behind these substantial factors lie other condi
tions. to which Mr. Maddox gives credit and which are
recognized generally. First of these is the south’s im
munity from tariff change. This section has had very
little protection heretofore, he points out, and there
fore was not so greatly to he affected as were perhaps
other sections of the land. Second is the confidence
with which the south awaits a sane and wise cur
rency law under President Wilson’s guidance, and
awaits a sure and safe solution by the president of
the Mexican problem. Uneasiness found in some
other quarters of the country on these points is not
shared here.
This confidence, and Georgia’s and the south’s
production of two big staple crops, lay a foundation
for prosperity which is not to be shaken.
i
I
Huerta Nears the End.
The hours are growing short now for Vlctoriano
Huerta, last dictator of Mexico. With his treasury
practically empty save for the remains of an unwar
ranted loan by a British syndicate, and that hardly
sufficient to run him until the first of December;
with the banks of the republic panicky and trem
bling; with uncertainty and apprehension every
where about him, he faces deposition just as cer
tainly as though the combined armies of the world
wore tlosing in on him. He is going down to defeat
before circumstances more powerful than force.
The surmise among newsgatherers at Washing
ton is that the United States government has given
Huerta until Monday night ’to reply to its latest
note. Then will come the next move by. us. Ob
servers in Mexico City are said to speculate that it
S
will be neither intervention by our forces nor recog
nition of the constitutional forces, but a note to the
powers that hereafter the United States will regard
Mexico as a non-existing nation and will repudiate
all her acts, whether allegedly legal or otherwise.
And that is what Is feared most by Huerta and his
gang.
Huerta’s legal counselors who advised him that
the way for him to become president was to declare
the recent elections void and so to hold indefinitely
his grip on the throat of the republic, reckoned
without the United States and the powers of the
world behind it. When the constitutional congress
elected in Madero’s time had convened on September
16 and was about to impeach Huerta as the man
responsible for mysterious disappearances among its
members, the dictator surrounded them with a
battalion of troops and threw the whole business
into jail. There the survivors are yet. In that act
the dictator terminated any chance that he may
have enjoyed previously to become real president of
Mexico. Now he may be as bold and as desperate as
he pleases, for within a few days his rule will cease.
If one seeks confirmation of the belief that Huerta
has grown quite desperate, he needs to look no fur
ther than the news of Monday and Saturday. The
dictator Is alarming his friends by his propensity
| toward hard drinking in the public cafes and else-
; where. The other night he drank until a late hour
while his henchmen, fearing that he might commit
, some rash act to pull their hopes down about their
( ears, besought him to go more soberly. Monday
j comes the news that he is conspicuous in the cafes
; until long after the midnight hour. - Huerta has lost
his poise. Brandy and wine will make short work
of what remains to be done for*his destruction.
. Indeed, Marriage Is Too Easy.
John R. Wilkinson, the county ordinary, is right
when he says that marriage Is too easy. The ordi
nary declares that far from contributing to the re
puted "affinity" evil, which the grand jury scores,
the marriage laws go to the other extreme and are
too lax altogether. In a measure, they constitute
an evil in themselves. They encourage offhand mar
riage by making it possible for callow youngsters
of both sexes to get married quick, day or night.
They furnish the grist for the divorce mill that
shames us.
As matters stand now, according to the ordinary,
the only exaction is the price of a license. A
friend can get that document by swearing that both
parties have attained the legal age. There is no
safeguard against the wedding of mere girls and
boys. There Is nothing to prevent a farce being
made of society’s most solemn obligation.
Marriages In haste have become too common, par
ticularly in Atlanta. So-called-.“romances” are every
day matters, and the more foolhardy the venture the
more romantic it is supposed to be. The unthink
ing young folks, having learned their lesson at a
heavy price because the community would not inter
pose Its own wisdom to regulate the affair in the
first place, all too frequently re-appear sooner or
later at the courthouse to ask that the irrevocable
mischief be sundered.
And right there enters the twin evil—divorce.
As marriage is too easy, so also is divorce too easy
in our local courts. As marriage may be sanctioned
by the price of a license, so also may divorce be
sanctioned by the price of a lawyer. The Georgia
laws tie the hands ot conscientious Judges, and di
rect the verdicts of juries. Divorce should be made
even more deliberate than marriage. *The grounds
upon which it max he obtained should be limited to
two or three, and rigid adherence to those limita
tions should he exacted. When divorce becomes
difficult, marrlaga will be more serious.
Judge Wilkinson suggests a reform which would
make it difficult for young people under age to
secure their licenses in this state. .That is well and
good. The law that fixes a minimum age should be
observed inflexibly.
But reform need not stop there. It could go a
step further, -and discourage hasty marriage by men
and women of any age.
One way to do this would be to require thu pub
lication of all applications for marriage license for a
j period before they are granted.
The burden should be placed upon the minister
| or civil officer who performs the ceremony to know
| that the requirements have been met fully.
Encourage marriage, by all means. It is a sane,
] normal, instinctive relation. But in order that it
i may be as happy as possible, encourage it as a de-
j liberate and solemn contract, not as a flippant and
; evil escapade.
Ear marks don’t make a genius.
Don’t Spend It All.
There is much sound wisdom in the advice offered
| by the assistant agricultural commissioner of Georgia
| to the farmers, that they should not allow the pros-
j perous year just past to draw them into extravagance.
| Bank the surplus, says Mr. Hughes. Make next year’s
| crop on practically a cash basis.
If that advice is followed by any large proportion
| of the state’s farmers, nothing can hurt Georgia,
j When the plague of the boll weevil descends upon us,
as it will in due time, they can laugh at It and go on
| raising their early-maturing cotton and their food
| crops as though it did not exist.
The congressman these days is under a sort of [ Following the announcement of Miss Elkins’ en-
eight-hour-a-day regulation like any other working gagement, comes that of Vicent Astor. We may now
man - j return to the Thaw case and the Mexican situation.
THE FRIEND
BY DR. FRANK CRANE.
(Copyright. 1913, by Frank Crane.)
A friend is a person who is “for you,” always, un
der any suspicions.
He never investigates you. <
When charges are made against you, he does not
ask proof. He asks the accuser to clear out.
He likes yotf just as you are. He does not want to
alter you.
Whatever kind of coat you are wearing suits him.
Whether you have on a dress suit or a hickory shirt
with no collar, he thinks it’s fine.
He likes your moods, and enjoys your pessimism
as much as your optimism.
He likes your success. And your failure endears
you to him the more.
He is better than a lover because he is never jeal
ous.
He wants nothing from you, except that you be
yourself.
He is the one being with whom you can feel SAFE.
With him you can utter your heart, its badness and Its
goodness. You don’t have to be careful.
In Ins presence you can be indiscreet; which means
you can rest.
There are many faithful wives and husbands; there
are few faithful friends.
Friendship is the most admirable, amazing and rare
article among human beings.
Anybody may stand by you when you are right; a
friend stands by you even when you are wrong.
The highest known form of friendship is that of
the dog to his master. You are in luck if you can find
one man or on© woman on earth who has that kind of
affection for you and fidelity to you.
Like the shade of a great tree in the noonday heat,
is a friend. ^
Like the home port, with your country’s flag flying:,
after long journeys, is a friend.
A friend is an impregnable citadel of refuge in the
strife of existence.
It is he that keeps alive your faith in human na
ture, that makes you believe it is a good universe.
He is the antidote to despair, the elixir, of hope,
the tonic for depressipn, the medicine to cure suicide.
When you are vigorous and spirited you like to
take your pleasures with him; when you are in trouble
you want to tell him; when you are sick you want to
see him; when you are dying you want him near.
You give to him without reluctance and borrow
from him without embarrassment.
If you can live fifty years and find one absolute
friend you are fortunate. For of the thousands of hu
man creatures that crawl the earth, few are such stuff
as friends are made of.
“Wilson and the Currency Bill”
Currency legislation is one of the subjects about
which the president does not assume to possess all
knowledge in existence. Moreover, he cannot but
recognize the danger to both the country and his admin
istration from enactment of an ill-considered measure
which vitally concerns every corporate and personal
interest in the land. If an object lesson pointing the
need of care in detail were required at all, it has been
found already in the blunder which has brought the
new tariff law into direct conflict with existing
treaties.
What the president objects to is not careful con
sideration or advantageous amendment, but unneces
sary delay. We do not suppose for a moment that he
anticipates final action upon the bill in the few re
maining weeks of this session, but his insistence that
no time be lost serves an admirable purpose in keep
ing the subject wholly alive and in evoking discussion
which cannot Tail to b e enlightening and beneficial to
an exceptional degree. The attention of the country
is now riveted upon a nation? 1 necessity which hither
to has been recognized but vaguely and timorously—
and that in itself is no mean achievement, for which
President Wilson deserves undivided credit and un
stinted praise.—The North American Review.
Mayor Mitchel, Age 34. '
John Purroy Mitchel, thn mayor-elect of Greater
New York, began his public service in 1906.
In seven short years he has risen to the executive
office of the world’s greatest city. Last July he was
34 years old- He is to be the youngest mayor that
New York ever had, and in other regards also he
gives fair promise to he remarkable.
His comparative youth and the rapidity of his
rise furnish an interesting commentary upon the
times political. No so many generations ago, when
warfare was not frowned upon as it Is now and when
it and disease together elim.nated men so fast that
few achieved middle age, young men by stress of cir
cumstance ruled tho world. Today the young man Is
rising again to power in the active affairs of nations.
Mayor Mitchel, age 34, exemplifies the new spirit.
It is true that peculiar conditions insured his
election to the mayoralty of Greater New York. Had
not Chief Murphy of Tammany Hall lost patience
with Governor Sulzor and decreed his ruin, Tam
many would not have been exposed as It was to at
tacks from all sides and very probably it could not
have been defeated. Put Mr. Murphy did lose his
patience, and Tammany did go out into the open to
fight—and thereupon the fates wrote that the man
who opposed Tammany should win. That man hap
pened to be John Purroy Mitchel, invulnerable in pri
vate and public character.
With becoming modesty, Mr. Mitchel seems to have
recognized that fact. He says the victory was not a
personal triumph, as Indeed it was not. The indica
tions are that his head will not be turned at all by
his elevation to high office, and that he will make a
mayqjj so efficient as to be called yet higher. The
•esteem in which President Wilson holds him puts
j a stt.mp of approval upon Mayor Mitchel which the
| whole country will recognize.
The Panama Highway.
The movement given impetus by the LaGrange
chamber of commerce at its banquet Thursday night,
for a highway to connect a number of Georgia and
Alabama cities with the Gulf of Mexico, is a most
commendable enterprise and merits the enthusiasm
which was spoken in its behalf at that gathering. The
Panama Highway Development Association, already a
fact, was given increased dignity, and the attainment
of its purpose seems now well within the scope of
probability.
The construction of trunk highways is to be en
couraged. Being itself a pioneer in that field, with
the New York Herald, The Journal can speak from
the viewpoint of one with work accomplished and re
sults at hand. The National Highway between New
York and Atlanta, extended later to Jacksonville, is a
big monument to the enterprise of the communities
through which it courses the thirteen hundred miles
of its length, and its perfection is now but a matter of
a few years. The Lincoln Highway and others are
applying the axioms which the National Highway
has proved.
Therefore the Panama Highway is no haphazard
venture after unknown possibilities. It has a definite
end in view. The timeliness of its purpose, on the
eve of the Panama canal’s opening, will sound a pe
culiarly effective appeal, for it will help just so
much more in the preparation of the south for the
opportunities that are coming.
A Schoolmaster of 1637
M R. Charles W. Bardeen, of Syracuse, has reprinted
Charles Hoole’s “A New Discovery of the Old
Art of Teaching School,” four “small treatises’’
ui ms, originally published 1659-1660, but written
about 1637. We have here, then, a system of educa
tion just about coeval with the beginning of Harvard
college, then not much more than the ‘‘Petty School,”
which is the title of one of this Caroline pedagogue’s
\racts. Looking With bulging eyes at the heroic* cur
riculum he prescribes, we can’t but be grateful that
our “wise and pious ancestors” escaped from England
and found refuge in Jamestown, Puddle Dock of Ply
mouth, Trimontaine of Sliawmut, which is Boston,
Manhattan Island and other coigns of vantage or dis
advantage." It was, then, not their religion or their
hope of bulldozing that of other people; it was not
commerce, thirst for gold, desire of adventure, new
Indies, new world dreams, that drove the imigrants
westward. It was the frim resolve to get away from
schooL
We haven’t heart to begin with the poor little devil
who began Latin at seven or less and "forasmuch as
speaking Latine is the main end of Grammar,” and
especially after a school quarter each boy “should
either learn to speak in Latine or be enforced to hold
his tongue” (O barbarous penalty!), and every day
in the week “some Declamation, Oration, or Theme”
must be pronounced, a preparation for “any solemnity
or coming of Friends into the School.” Here 1637 and
1913 kiss one another. Odious friends detested pa
rents and relations, accursed pompous, patronizing com
mitteemen and visitors! Hard is a school boy’s lot
even in this milder age.
Yet see what a sixth form school boy of 1637 had
to insert into his noddle, and rejoice in our hearty
ycung ignoramuses. It is the “constant employment”
of the sixth form: %
“To read twelve verses out of the Greek Testament
before breakfast; to repeat Latine and Greek Grammar
Parts and Elementa Rhetorices every Thursday morn
ing; to learn the Hebrew Tongue on Mondaies, T”es-
daies and Wednesdaies for morning Parts; to read
Hesiod, Homer Pindar and Lycophron for forenoon les
sons on Mondaies and Wednesdaies; Zenophon (sic),
Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes on Tuesdaies
and Thursdaies; Lauregois’s ‘Breviarium Graecae
linguae’ for afternoon parts on Mondaies and Wednes
daies; Horace, Juvenal, Persius, Lucan, Seneca’s ‘Trag
edies,’ Martial and Plautus for afternoon lessons on
Mondaies and Wednesdaies, Lucian’s select ‘Dialogues’
and Pontani 'Progymnasmata Latinitatis’ on Tuesday
afternoons, and Tullie’s ‘Orations,’ Pliniefs ‘Panegyr-
icks’ on Thursday afternoons, Quintilian’s ’Declama
tions.’ Goodwin’s ‘Antiquities’ at leisure times (“leis
ure times” is good); their exercises for Oratory should
be to make Themes, Orations and Declamations Lat
ine, Greek and Hebrew, and for poetry to make- Verses
upon such Themes as are appointed them every week;
and to .exercise themselves in Aragrams, Epitaphs,
Epiihalamais, Eclogues, A^rosticks, English, Latine,
Greek and Hebrew.”
In short, bring up a child in the way he should go
and no damned nonsense of athletics about It Under
the system of the admirable Hoole “in six (or at the
most seven) years time iwhich children commonly
squander away, if they be not continu 1 at the schools
after they can read English and write well)” they will
have enough Latin, Greek and Hebrew to fit them fpr
future studies at the universities. How much Latin,
Greek and Hebrew would a Hoolean sixth-former run
across in a university of today? Still, we venerate
and thoroughly approve the Hoolean course and recom
mend it to other people’s children. Think of all those
Greek and Latin old fellows in that day of crabbed
ard corrupt texts. Think of boys reading the estima
ble Lycophron, whose style may be compared to a
Delphic oracle mixed with the speeches and writings
of Mother Shipton, Paracelsus and Oliver Cromwell,
and all the time tables in the world thrown in for the
sake of additional clearness. How lazy the twentieth
century boys are by the side of those Caroline Hoole-
gans.
Master Hoole, teacher of a private grammar school
In Lothbury Garden, London, was not, feruliferous.
For discipline give him:
“A good sharp blchen rod, free from knots;
(for willow wands are Insufferable and fitter for
a Bedlam than a Schoole), as it will break no
bones nor endanger any limbs, so it will be suffi
cient wherewith to correct those that deserve it in
the lower forms and for the higher Scholars that
will not behave as they ought to do without
blowes, a good switch about their shoulders would
(in Quintilian’s judgment) seem fittter than a rod
elsewhere.”
A humane Hoole; more humane than some moderns;
doesn’t believe in shutting children up in dark rooms
or cutting off their meals. Wants little use of the
rod; three clement lashes at most; but never would
allow an offending boy to “go from him with a stub
born look or a stomachful gesture, much less with a
squealing outcry or mutttering to himself; all which
(he says too confidently) 4 may be easily taken off with
another srhart Jerk of two.”^
In Hoole’s time many schools began at 6 a. m.,
but 7 was “the constant time” in most. Colonel New-
come comes to memory In the direction that every
scholar present shall say “Adsum;” if absent his next*
fellow is to say “Abest.” Scholars were dismissed at
11 every forenoon; in the afternoon at 5 on Monday.
Wednesday, Friday; 4, Tuesday; 3, Thursday. “It were
good if there were hour glasses in the Schoole.” There
shall never be more than one play day a week. “The
master should do well now and then to send a privie
spie who may truly observe and certifie him how every
scholar spendeth his time abroad." Whenever the
children “go out about necessitous business" (a beau
tiful phraSe of Puritan or English prudery) “be sure
they say at least four words of those which they have
learnt and let them always carry their Vocabulary
about with them, to b e looking into it for words.
, Excellent, if too much expecting Hoole o’ the
Schoole! If we leave him with small regret, having
never learned to love school masters, we thank him
for reminding us again that boys will be boys, no mat
ter how much Lycophron you serve to them; “are apt
to sneak home or struggle from the rest of their fel
lows;” also apt to play with vulgar “townies,”
“muckers;” froward boys that “are under little or no
command” “will be very subject to brabble and fight
with scholars."—New Y^ork Sun.
The principal ingredierft in luck is common sense.
RURAL CREDITS
VI.—THE GERMAN SYSTEM.
Bx FREDERIC J. HA6KIN.
It has oeen seen from the somewhat too brief out'
line of tna rural banking system proposed by Senator
Fletcher that it embrace^ Doth personal and realty
money lending, the one based upon short-term cred
its tfnu the other upon long-term loans, By an inter*
linking system of local banks tied together in » state
wide Dank, and ‘these state-wide banks In turn united
in a great central rural bank situated in Washing
ton, a nation-wide financial system of rural credits Is
established. Jn this the author of the bill has bor
rowed broadly from the experience In Germany, the
home of rural credits, This fact makes It of great in
terest to see how the German system works, and what
it has. meant to the farmer and to the financier in the
Fatiierlands.
• • •
When a Britisher throws bouquets at anything Ger
man it may b© inferred that they ar© deserved, and
so, when J. R. Cahill made his report to the British
board of agriculture and fisheries in which he started
out by declaring that Germany leads the world in
taking care of the farmer’s financial interests, it may
be assumed that he was not giving the Germans more
than their due. He declared that in no modern coun
try does organized effort for safeguarding and promot
ing the economic interests of agriculture appear to
have been so persistent and eo successful as in Ger
many, more especially in providing the farmer with
facilities for obtaining credit, for acquiring the ma
chinery of production, and for the advantageous dis
position of his products.
• • •
The German landowner is able to secure mortgage
loans through a variety of special institutions for
mortgage credits, and today there is outstanding in
this direction obligations amounting to some $2,000,-
000,000. These institutions are able to take mort
gages and convert them into gilt-edged securities, both
in respect to their safety and to their easy conversion
into ready money, and the result is that they come to
stand high in the general security market. Seventeen
years ago the Prussian minister of finance declared
that the goal of the German financial system was to
have a co-operative loan Lank in every community in
the empire, and that time is now reached. There are
some 17,000 such banks In operation, having a member- 1
ship of mor© than 1,600,000 farmers, with an annual
business of nearly $1,600,000,000, outstanding loans ef
$500,000,000, savings deposits of $500,000,000,000 and
accounts current of $50,000,000. In sixteen years only
nineteen of these societies have been involved in bank
ruptcy proceedings, and it is th e boast that no deposi
tor ever lost a mark. The number of failures among
commercial banking institutions in Germany was over
fifty times as great-as among the rural co-operative in
stitutions during the same period.
• • •
At the bottom of the German co-operative credit
system are the town banks, known as th© Schulze-
Delitzsch banks, and the country banks, known as the
'Raiffeisen banks. The town banks are practically in
dependent units, but they do band themselves together
into a sort of provincial union which meets for the
discussion of provincial topics and the formation of
provincial policies. These provincial unions, in turn,
are members of a national union, which meets once a
year and discusses national banking problems. But
these unions are comparable only to our own national
and state banking associations, and do not figure in
the business of actual banking; rather they are sim
ply forums for discussing banking Ideas and banking
progress.
* • •
The country banks are of two general types, on©
which mixes other forms of co-operation with co-op
erative credit, doing the several kinds of business un
der one head and another which keeps Its co-operative
business in banking entirely separate from co-opera
tive buying, selling and producing- Each is thought
to have its advantages.
• • »
The two forms of credit recognized ill the German
co-operative banking system are the long-term, se
cured by mortgage; and the short term, issued on per-
nai security. The representative organisation of the
former class Is the LsCndschaften, and the typical or
ganization of the latter class is the Raiffeisen bank.
But in addition to these there ar© many other organ
izations which play in part a collateral and In part an
auxiliary role. Among the mortgage credit lnstltu*
tions other than the Landschaften are the state, pro
vincial and local mortgage credit banks, whose main
mission is to finance the breaking up of large landed
proprietorships into small holdings, and to furnish the
money with which the small holdings may be equipped
with the necessary farm buildings. They then act a©
a sort of agent for the owner of the broken-up estate,
collecting principal and interest .from the small buy
ers, in his behalf. As these are public institutions th©
object of their existence is not profit but service.
There are also a number of similar institutions, and
t»*e imperial insurance funds have been. made availa
ble for the use of the farmer who would improve jhisl
farm.
• • •
The savings banks of Germany are cast along line*
somewhat similar to those in the United States, al
though they have to compete with the co-operative,
non-profit-seeking credit institutions, and, therefore,
are lorced to give as liberal terms to borrowers a*
their situation will allow. They cannot give as long
a credit as th e land- mortgage banks, but they do
give rather a longer credit than similar Institution*
in the United States.
• • •
The one thing that has enabled the farm mot-
gage in Germany to become a gilt-edg d security,
holding its own even more persistently than govern
ment bonds themselves, and selling at par When gov
ernment bonds a?e listed at a discount, is the fact
that there is a uniform and safe system of title reg
istration in Germany, a thing that cannot be done in
the United States until many of the states iso
their land title laws. But much progress in this di
rection already has been made by the work of the com
mittee on uniform laws of the American Bar associa
tion, and the Fletcher bill provides for hastening th©
day of uniform title registration by providing that no
r rtgage loans can be made in states where title law
does not measure up to tne national standard.
Thaw having been ordered back to the asylum,
the next thing Is to keep him ther^.
(Honore Willsie in Harper’s Weekly.)
The demand fpr canned food is a natural one.
Canning has left the home and gone into public life
quite for the same reason that bootmaking and weav
ing and tile other fine old home activities have become
public utilities. Canning as a nondomestic industry
is another manifestation of the new economy that is
making of women breadwinners instead of bread-
makers. *
It is still not uncommon to hear a housewife say
with pride, “I put up all our vegetables and fruits. 1
never buy a can of anything!"
Hers is a fine, yet mistaken enthusiasm. Even
though she counts her time and labor worth nothing,
a woman cannot can and preserve her vegetables and
fruit, using the best of materials, and compete in price
with the best of the great canneries. Moreover, you
will observe that she admits the necessity of canned
foods yet she fails to see that it was division of la
bor that begot them and that she is failing to accept
her division. She is only setting her back against
the current of the times which tends to lift from her
the burden of domestic hand labor and give her an
opportunity for specilization, regardless of sex,
that the new century demands.
Canned goods are here to stay. But in enforcing
the economic side of the Food and Drug act we are
by no means realizing the full relation of the canning
and preserving industries to our new life.
Huerta, unfortunately for him, has no cotton crop
to rely on.
The Prussian government, in its effort to provide
tho co-operative banks with facilities for marketing
their securities, organized a great central bank, whiett
was to serve more as an equalizer of funds in the va
rious communities than as an agency for Securing ad
ditional funds from the outside. This institution tried
to extend its aid to the town banks, but they an
nounced that they were well able to stand alone, and
the result was that its activities were limited, to a
large degree, to transactions with the country banks.
Recently this central bank was required to go Into
liquidation by the government, upon the ground that
it had been engaging in some unsound financial opera
tions. It had relations with a large majority ot tha
rural banks of Germany, and it was feared In some
quarters that its liquidation would fall as a rather
heavy blow upon the rural banks. But the latest ad
vices from Germany indicate that the rural banks will
not suffer seriously as a result of its liquidation.
• • -
The failure of the Prussian central bank is looked
upon in some quarters as a blow at any national rural
credit system, but the friends of rural credits point
out that it means only that that one bank had an un
sound system, and that tuis does not in tne slightest
affect the general principle of rural credits, which,
they assert, finds conclusive testimony of its merit-a
in the success that has attended its application in
every \country to which it has extended.
Summed up, Germany is the world’s model for co
operative credit, and the most encouraging feature o<
the success, of its system is that co-operation in credit
has begotten every other form of co-operative effort
among the farmers, thus giving them opportunity tq
improve their methods of production and dis rin Mill
a way surpassing every other country. Started by thg
farmers themselves, these credit organizations hav{
been promoted by the government, and safeguarded In
a way that has made their names the very synonym o(
confidenoe.