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THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
( ATLANTA. GA., 3 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter
of the Second Class.
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The Semi-Weekly Journal is published on
Tuesday and Friday, and is mailed by the short
est 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 postoffice. Liberal
.cmmission allowed. Outfit free. XS rite R. R
RADLEY. Circulation Manager.
The only traveling representatives we have
are B. F. Bolton. C. C. Coyle. Charles H. Wood
liff. J. M. Patten, W. H. Reinhardt, M. H. Bevil
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only for money paid to the above named travel
ing representatives.
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■jKl. * * * * a i- • '■!
ftivAvXWJ I
" The Journal’s Service Flas
In honor of the sixty-one Atlanta Journal men
who have entered inc service of their country. The
one white star is In memory of Captain Meredith
Gray who gave his life on the French Battlefield.
Strangling the Pirates
Much more important than the spectacular Ü
bcat raid along the North Atlantic coast is the an
nouncement from Washington that Allied and
American naval forces have destroyed sixty per
cent of all German submarines constructed. This
good work has gone forward without fanfare or
boastfirlness. Few of its incidants have been pub
lished, though they comprise, we may be sure, a
wealth of sea romance. But its effectiveness is
witnessed not only in the heavy toll that has been
taken of the Prussian pirates but also in the com
parative safety whch is heng secured for ship
ping. The loss of Allied vessels has been cut in
half, and is continually being reduced. While this
is due partly to vigilant convoys, it is largely a
result of aggressive war upon the U-boats. What
with destroyers, depth bombs, hydroplanes and we
know not how many other devices, all engaged in
the hunt, the seas become more and more dangerous
for the German sharks. It is a mild statement of the
cgse to say that sixty per cent of all the submersi
bles thus far ecr.structcd by the Central Powers
have been destroyed, because the present rate of
destruction is far higher and is constantly mount
ing. Indeed there is good reason to suspect that
we are now sinking U-boats far faster than the
Germans can replace them.
At the same time we are building merchant
ships faster than the Germans can sink them. In
April alone England and the United States pro
duced forty thousand tons more shipping than the
enemy destroyed, while accelerated methods of re
pairing damaged craft added some five hundred
thousand tons a week. American ship launching
in May set a new record; seventy-one hulls total
ling more than three hundred and forty thousand
tons were put into the water, thirty-nine being steel
and thirty-two wood. Deliveries were proportion
ately large. An idea of the speed with whch we
can fabricate ships, now that our facilities are fair
ly organized, may be had from the case of the
Tuckahoe, a fifty-five hundred ton steel merchant
man built at Camden, N. J. This ship was laid,
launched, completed and delivered to the Govern
ment all within thirty-seven days. Commenting
on this performance, the St. Louis Globe-Demo
crat remarks that if the other seven hundred and
twenty-nine shipways in the United States do half
as well the new dead-weight tonnage for the year
will reach seven million, three hundred thousand
“or more than twice the conservative estimate of
a few weeks ago and twenty per cent more than
Mr. Hurley’s most optimistic promises." We are
reminded furthermore that Mr. Schwab has prom
ised two ten-thousand ton ships a day by October;
and Mr. Schwab is not a man of light words.
Ttiis nt?ady thwarting and strangling of the
submarine is of the utmost importance in its effect
upon German morale as well as in its bearing upon
the purely military and naval aspects of the war.
With all 'her swaggering pretense. Von Tfrpltz and
his colleagues in Frightfulness cannot conceal their
alarm over feeling their sole sea weapon gradually
• crumble to impotence. The German people cannot
forg«t the words of their Imperial. Chancellor
spoken two winters ago: “We stale's all (referring
to unrestricted submarine warfare) and we shall
win.” Nor can they forget the Kaiser’s own sol
emn assurance than in six months at the longest
England would be starved into submisson and
would surrender to a U-boat blockade. Nearly
eighteen months have elapsed, and instead of that
triumphant blockade there is an ever lengthening
roll of U-boats that never .come back; there are
* ever increasng numbers and power in the Allies’
merchant fleets; and there js an ever swelling tide
of man-power from America rolling to the fields
of France, with the doom of Prussanism ringing
from its human waves.
Help the Farmers,
The people in the cities and towns of Georgia
have proven their patriotism by selling Liberty
Bonds, raising money for the Red Cross, and do
ing their fine, enthusiastic part in various other
movements to help' win the war.
Now comes a time when they van show their
devotion to their country in a task devoid of pomp
or glory or brass band concerts or the waving
of flags.
Georgia farms are short of labor. The short
age can not be supplied from other states, because
all others are precisely in the same situation. It
can not be supplied by sending soldiers back from
the training camps, because the nation must put
its power on the battle line.
Every community must secure emergency farm
help by emergency methods—by forcing all va
grants to find employment; by stopping all work
that is not essential to the conduct of the war:
by sending schoolboys as volunteers in the great
“Working Reserve” which the Government is
forming; finally, by calling on town people to lend
a hand in the periods of stress when a few days
determine the difference between success and fail*
ure of the crops.
There is nothing spectacular in this movement.
It is a plain piece of work without any frills, a
piece of work that will blister the skin and bend
the back and fatigue the muscles. But no piece
of work in the whole war program is more impor
tant at this time.
Thousands of farmers in Georgia today need
a few days’ work by a small force of hands to
rescue their cotton and corn and other crops from
the grass. It is out of the question to attempt
to hire the hands they need in the open market.
They may be able-to hire a few, but they can not
get enough to tide them over.
Every board of trade and chamber of com
merce in the state can render a service of tre
mendous value to the nation by taking this mat
ter up at once in a systematic way and mobilizing
the available man-power in their respective com
munities.
Let them call on their business men, profes
sional men and all other men in the towns and
cities to arrange their affairs in such away as to
permit a few hours of work every day for a fort
night or such a matter, to tide the farmers over
the crisis.
This plan has been launched with- remarkable
success in practically every section of the country.
It is officially sanctioned by the United States De
partment of Agriculture. The farmers have re
sponded nobly to the Government’s appeal for in
creased food production, but they can not travel
without help. The prosperity of ever}' town and
city in the country is dependent In large measure
upon the success of the farmer with his crops.
Hence this movement is one where self-interest
and patriotism both appeal to the people of the
towns.
“Excessive cold wave hits Germany.” Cold* feet,
probably.
The Conquest of the Tractor.
While American guns are raking the Boche,
American tractors are winning a closely related and
truly decisive battle here at home. At least one
hundred’ thousand of them, the Waycross Journal-
Herald informs us, “are chugging away on Ameri
can farms, doing the work of not less than two
hundred thousand farm hands and eight hundred
thousand horses." What an invaluable economy of
labor and time! The dearth of farm help is dis
tressing enough as it is. but conditions would be
incomparably worse were it not for these efficient
labor-saving machines. Last summer. Government
reports indicate, there were.hardly more than forty
thousand tractors in use in this country. By the
end of the present year, it is expected, upwards
of two hundred thousand will be in use.
We are doing what the British did earlier in
the war when the future looked particularly threat
ening to their food supply. Thousands of tractors
were imported from the United States; they were
equipped with giant head lights so that they could
work by night as well as day; they were set going
across great expanses of land which had remained
ur.tilled for lack of labor; and by the next har
vestide English fields were fat with plenty. Sim
ilarly gratifying results were obtained in the same
way in France. The tractor was a mighty help in
beating the U-boat scheme in a season of peculiar
stress. Its part in the future of American agricul
ture, particularly that of the South, is incalculably
important. - As it is helping to win the war, so will
it extend and enrich our empire of the soil in the
peaceful years to come.
General Crowder is an extremely efficient of
ficial. Ask any man between 21 and 31.
The Road to Victory
The duty of the American navy, says Secretary
Daniels in alluding to the recent U-boat raid, is to
keep open the way to France for the movement of
our troops and supplies, and “this great task will
be accomplished at all hazards.” That is the whole
nation’s Judgment. The haphazard incursion of a few
Prussian pirates against our coastwise merchant
men will not divert us from the all-important busi
ness of augmenting and maintaining our forces at
the battle front. As long as this three-thousand
mile line of communciation continues unbroken,
submarine forays off our coasts are of no conse
quence. Our cause will be lost or won “over there.”
The real frontier of American freedom is not now
on this side of the Atlantic but on the other side,
where Allied arms hold off the Hun. If we drive
this common enemy of civilization back across the
Rhine and there crush him to defeat, our shores
and homes and liberty will be forever secure
against his threat. But if he trumphs there, it
will be merely a matter of time when ho will be
hurling all his Frightfulnes against our gates—not
simply a U-boat raid hut a vast onpouring of brutal
hordes like those that sacked and tortured Bel
gium.
Realizing this grim truth., Americans think and
act solely with a view to victory where taeir troops
and their Allies are at grips with the Boches. They
have no apprehension for things over here save to
the extent that things “over there” are involved.
They are not to be alarmed into calling home naval
units that are doing effective service in European
waters, or into remitting the all-important work
of keeping men and supplies moving constantly
across the Atlantic. The maritime road we have
built to France shall be maintained, as Secretary
Daniels says, “at all hazards,” for it is the road
to victory.
Nearly
JOURNAL. ATLANTA. GA. THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 1918.
il' ar Savings Stamps.
The Treasury Department’s plan to raise
$2,000,000,000 during 1918 by the sale of War
Savings Stamps has taken the side track for va
rious other patriotic campaigns of more imme
diate and pressing urgency, it could afford to
give them the main line because they were short,
intensive campaigns, while it had a year to reach
its goal.
But the time has now arrived when the Treas
ury Department can wait no longer to push the
sales of War Savings Stamps. It has been deter
mined to sell tbe whole amount, yet remaining
unsold, in a great one-day drive to be held in
every community in the United States on the same
day at the same hour.
June 28, the day for the drive, has been offi
cially proclaimed by President Wilson as "Na
tional War Savings Day,” and the President’s proc
lamation calls on the people throughout the na
tion to assemble in mass meetings in their respec
tive communities and sign their subscriptions
pledging the purchase in regular installments dur
ing the balance of the year of sufficient amounts
of War Savings Stamps to cover their quotas.
These mass meetings in the main will be held in
schoolhouses, which are well distributed and con
venient to reach.
War Savings Stamp quotas are figured on a basis
of S2O per capita, including men, women and chil
dren. Georgia’s quota is $57,500,000, of which a
comparatively small amount has yet been sold. The
quota for any given community is easy to figure,
being S2O per capita of the local population.
Six thousand mass meetings will be held in
Georgia at 2 o’clock on the afternoon of June 28.
There will be approximately one mass meeting
for every school district in the state. Governor
Dorsey is preparing to issue a proclamation sup
plementing the proclamation of the President.
The whole body of the people are summoned to
lay aside all other business and attend the mass
meetings prepared to sign subscriptions pledging
the purchase of War Savings Stamps to the limit of
their means.
A question as to whether the people of Geor
gia will respond to this summons can not be enter
tained for a moment. They know what War Sav
ings Stamps are, a government security paying a
better rate of interest than Liberty Bonds, and
purchaseable in very small amounts, ranging as
low »as the 25-cent Thrift Stamp. They know the
amount they are asked to buy. They know the
day and know the hour when they are expected
to sign their subscriptions. They know that thou
sands must take more than the minimum allot
ment of S2O to make up tor those who can not
buy or will not buy at all.
Georgians have sounded the everlasting death
knell of slackerism and copper-headism by the
splendid manner in which they rallied to the Lib
erty Loans, the Red Cross drive, the Y. M. C. A.
war funds, and all the other patriotic movements.
Georgia boys are now on the battle front, fighting
with a fierce and impetuous courage that is des
tined to win the war and make America the mas
ter of ceremonies when peace terms are signed.
Georgia ‘ men and women and children, backing
them up on the battle line at home, are determined
that nothing shall go undone to provide the Gov
ernment with everything necessary to make them
the most efficient and successful fighting force the
world has ever seen.
Having done her part in all other movements
and done it with that magnificent whole-hearted
generosity which marks the southern people when
fully aroused. Georgia will certainly not fall short
in War Savings Stamps.
SECESSION
By Dr. Frank Crane
The vast, centuries old agony of mankind is the
working out of the inborn desire to get together.
Universal brotherhood is not an academic the
ory, a prophetic dream; it is a deep instinct.
All our ills come from isolation, provincialism,
individualism, sects, classes, parties, antagonisms;
the cure is in the breaking down of partitions, In
coalescing.
Underneath the sordid ambitions and the pride
of Rome was the idea of one world, one govern
ment. one humanity; and although the effort broke
and the organization was shattered, the feeling re
mained. to come up again in due time.
Nations are getting together, in advance of the
systems they superseded. United Italy replaced the
quarreling Italian states; so the France of today,
the Germany, Great Britain, and United States of
today, each represent a unification of small prov
inces.
Individualism does not pay. It costs too much
struggle to keep alive. One spends too much time
fighting other individuals. Competition must go.
It is too wasteful. Only in co-operation do we
eliminate wars,
When we get through with the present war, and
look back upon it from fifty years of progress, we
will see that it, too, was a struggle toward world
unity. Germany is emphasizing its individuality.
It wants to secede from the world. AS e are fighting
to make it come in with us. It must obey inter
national law, accept the universal code of morality;
it must also be human, not German.
The revolt of Germany from civilization has
powerfully unified the world. All other nations
instinctively unite to oppose her.
Never has mankind been so fused as today;
never has there been such a coalition as that formed
by Great Britain, France, Italy, the United States,
and their allies.
We are to be one. We are to have one law, one
civilization, one morality, one world government.
Not by the devices of man, but by tbe will of Goa.
Destiny is pounding out the perfect world unity
upon the anvil of war.
By labor unions and business trusts it is .orglng
CC °”n^heCrucible of time it is melting all religions
into one faith.
We are in the grip of an elemental tendency, as
profound as evolution, as irresistible as gravitation
slow, perhaps, but as certain as tbe procession of
the equinoxes.
Secession is doomed. We are bound for
Ono God. one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event
To which the whole creation moves.
(Copyright, 1918, by Frank Crane.)
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES
"Do you object to having German taught in the
schools?"
"I don’t exactly object," answered the man of
mild inclinations. “But it doesn’t seem exactly
practical. How is a student going to keep his mind
on his lesson instead of losing his temper?”
A countryman was one day working for an old
lady. At tea time the man came for his tea; there
was butter and jam set before him. He took some
jam and not butter. The lady noticed this and
said some people like jam better than butter, and
others like butter better than jam.
"Begorra, mam, I like better butter," said the
countryman.
AMERICANS ON EVE OF BATTLE SEE STARTLING
AIRPLANE STUNTS
By Herbert Corey
JUST BEHIND THE SOMME FRONT, April 22.
After two days of hiking we have reached
another town. Now ’the guns sound so near
tne window panes almost rattle and the
night sky is lighted by the flares from the fir
ing line. We did not come straight toward the
front from our last camp, but progressed in a line
roughly parallel to it. The regiment is being held
ready for action. It may be sent in at one of half
a dozen different points. This town is a good
jumping-off place.
Except for the guns and the airplanes one
would not think this pleasant country is so near
the tidal line of war. The fields are well culti
vated, the gardens are flourishing, the horses are
huge and kittensh, and the cows are fat. In. the
back of one’s mind remains a consciousness of that
unceasing thumping over yonder, but superficially
the land presents the aspect of a country at peace.
If one stops to think, of course, one sees that the
fields are being worked by old men and by the
women. Today a one-legged man drove a team of
two cows and a donkey to the work of ploughing.
The broad slopes are barred here and there by
savage bands of wire. Across the lush bottoms
may be traced the half overgrown lines of trenches,
long prepared against a possibility the kind world
hopes may never come. . •
And there are always the airplanes. I do not
know how many aviation fields there may be near
here—l only know of three, but there must be
others, for at dawn and dusk the sky is filled with
these birds of battle —but I am told they are
scattered about behind the cover of wooded hills
in many a level prairie. It is not an exaggeration
to say that at times the sky is filled with the fliers.
They wheel to and fro in unending evolutions like
swallows over a barnyard, or like great fish play
ing in a tank of illimitable blue. Sometimes they
seem to miss each other by inches only. Always,
between parades and inspections and close order
drills and the other exercises that keep soldiers
from getting lonely, the streets are lined with neck
tired Americans in khaki all gazing up.
GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH
It is not that the exploits of the flying men are
new to them any more, but that the show is per
haps the most marvelous ever seen on earth. The
French inhabitants of these parts, weary and sad
dened and resentful after almost four years of
war. join the strangers in the skygazing. One can
see their tired faces light up as one after another
their aerial defenders do their incredible stunts in
the upper air. One man almost flew in my bed
room window’ as the sun was rising this morning.
Another seems to use the pointeji steeple of the
little old cruciform church as his target and darts
strikes at it untiringly for an hour at a time, al
ways sheering off just when It seems that he must
be impaled.* w
HOW THE NAVY PLAYS —By Frederic J. Haskin
WASHINGTON, D. C., June 7. —So much has
been written and said about keeping the
fighting man amused the impression * s apt
to get abroad that he is Incapable of amusing him
self. Os the navy especially, this would be un
true. For while the tars are keenly appreciative
of all the shows and lectures and magazines ana
concerts and movies which have been P ro y}^
them by a generous government, and a still more
generous public, they are by habit to a great ex
tent independent of these things. . This
commendable movement for keeping the ™emit
amused is comparatively new, but the navy has
long since solved the problem of how to have a
good time, no matter where it is.
For while the sailor’s days of leisure may be
spent in London or Paris or Hongkong, they as
often occur when the ship is at anchor off some
coaling sation among a population of nati ' e ®' °
in a port that is quarantined. Hence the nawy
has formed the habit of depending upon its own
resouJcS for diversion. And the new recruits
have quickly caught the idea.
An old tar. looking over a roomful of nava! re
serves. remarked: "Throw- a Jucketful of salt
water into that room, and the whole blooming lot
will be seasick in a jiffy.”
And he may have been right at the time. But
•these men not only got used to of the
waves, but also to those of the jolly men that
sail them. For the navy has a traditfon of cheer
fulness The happy grin is its insigne. The navy
has been decorated with a smile for learning how
to have fun under trying conditions.
The fundamental principle of the navy ®
method of amusing itself is that a shipload of me
will include, by the law of averages, ma
ferent kinds of talent. This talent is.sought
with systematic care, developed, and used for all It
is worth.
A belligerent Irish recruit, when asked what
he could contribute toward the general joy fund,
replied: ‘I can’t dance and I can’t sing, but I can
lick any d —d man in the crowd.”
He soon had a number of chances to prove
his assertion, for boxing is one of the navy’s stand
ard sports, and it has developed some men who
would show to good advantage in the profession
al ring if they chose to enter it.
Baseball is another game that stands high in
the estimation of the sailor man. At a training
station near Washington, there are a dozen base
ball diamonds laid out side by side, and all of
them are kept busy most of the time. Here the
naval recruit with an aptitude for the national
game gets into trim to uphold the honor of his
ship against the teams from other vessels. His
athletic instruction is as systematic and thorough
as that in his profession, for the navy is abundant
ly supplied wtlh athletic directors, rhe Jack al
ways knows what is going on at home in the
world of sport, too; for the wireless summary of
news that goes out from Washington day to
ships and naval stations in all parts of the
world includes the baseball scores.
Rowing is a naval sport which is more In line
with the professional duties of the participants,
but which is nevertheless entered upon in a sport
ing spirit. When races between the rival crews
of the big warships are pulled off, there is wild
enthusiasm and strong betting.
Among less strenuous amusements, singing
holds first place in the navy. Upon every man-of
war there are a number of men who can sing,
some who can play instruments, and few who do not
attempt one or the other. And music is an aid to
work as well as a means of passing spare time.
When a ship is being coaled the band usually
plays and the fuel goes overside in a jiffy to the
rhythm and swing of some tune that every man
can sing.
Quartettes are as common in the navy as cor
net players in a country town. Wherever twenty
five saiiors get together, a quartette is sure to be
evolved, and new recruits often form these impor
tant organizations before they get to the train
ing stations. Not long ago a group of naval of
ficers of high rank w-ere being entertained, and a
quartette from one of the vessels formed a part
of the program. The skill of these singers -was
surprising. After they had finished, a gentleman
went to the leader, explained that he had been in
the show business, and wanted to know where
these men had acquired such unusual attainments.
"We were in vaudeville for three years,” the
sailor admitted. “We enlisted in a body."
“Isn’t that fine?” exclaimed the old showman.
“Maybe so.” said the minstrel-sailor, "but we
never worked so hard before in our lives. Once
the crew found out what our business was, they
started us singing, and we’ve been singing ever
since.”
John Philip Sousa has been especially success
ful in finding and developing musical talent among
the sailors. At the Great Lakes training station he
organized a band of three hundred pieces that is
praised by the knowing, and he now has over a
thousand naval recruits on the lakes organized
into bands.
The Great Lakes recruits further distinguished
themselves by staging a sailor-written and sailor-
I have been in many aerial areas during this
war, but nowhere have I seen flying by so many
virtuosos as one sees here. No one bothers to
look at a flyer who merely loops the loop here
abouts. It is understood that he is only a pupil,
or perhaps a master flyer limbering himself up for
the hour of vivid life he is soon to find twenty
kilometres—ten minutes—distant from his hom
ing place. The others slip sidew'ays or do back
ward dives or come down in the breadth stopping
vrilles—the flutter of a killed bird, w’hich is in
tended to deceive the antagonist into believing
that the flyer has a mortal hurt —and ever and
ever pivot on wing tips or dart at each other Ake
sparrow hawks. The simulation is that of a true
fight in the air, but if either were to lose control
of nerve or muscle for the fraction of a second two
planes would crash, so close is the play.
LIKE THE CROWS
Hardly does the sun get above the horizon
than one hears the deep humming of their engines.
Some have the true organ note in tertain winds,
and others thrash and grind through the air angrily
and still others ar; noiseless in the slanting wrinds,
and seem to float almost motionless in the pearly
blue. The great black crows of France select
this hour for their morning flight, too,
and at times the man-made birds are hardly dis
tinguishable from the others when the crows are
nearer and in the eye of the sun. The fighting
men swoop and dive for a moment and then are
off for their w’ork of death. The others rise and
descend in ever changing squadrons. Sometimes
a call comes from the front, and one sees long
strings wheel away like wild geese for a distant
haven. At night, too. they come wringing back,
and sometimes after dark has fallen one sees a
bomb flash high in air and then landing lights
flare up on the flying fields for the homecomers.
There is another sign, too, that this land is
not as peaceful as one would think w’hen one fiut/
view’s the dancing horses and the great white
oxen and the self-centered ducks that w’addle etern
ally across the roads from the noisome pools that
abound in every village. At times one sees wa
gons on the roads, piled high with the movable
effects of those who have been driven from their
homes by war. TLe men—always old or crippled
or too young—are silent and morose. The wom
en do not weep, tut sit high throned among their
pathetic goods, packed in with the feather pil
lows and the deep carven wooden beds and hold
ing babies in their patient arms, and stare for
ward tow’ard a future that must seem compact
of misery. Now and then it is a little cart, drawn
by one or more of the great dogs of Flanders, per
haps aided by man or boy. It is when the Ameri
can soldiers see such as these that they realize
what the German has done.
played musical comedy, which achieved a genuine
popular success in the Chicago theaters, and even
won words of praise from the professional critics.
A similar show was put on at the Ceiltury theater
in New York by the men from the Pelham Bay
station. It went over with a biff-bang—which
was the name of the play.
The navy seems to be rich in Jazz band talent,
and, strangely enough, Boston the highbrow
city, is especially prolific of jazzers, for it recent
ly sent out as a recruiting stunt a navy jazz band
that literally made the whole country yell with
delight. It played four weeks in vaudeville dur
ing the last Liberty Loan, and wherever it appear
ed the rrfoney simply poured over the footlights.
Its last appearance was at Keith’s, in Washing
ton, D. C., during the final week of the drive, and
it caused such excitement and enthusiasm that
this house was able to set the world high water
mark for Liberty Loan subscriptions received in'
a theater.
The value of music In the navy is fully ap
preciated by its. officers. One captain when asked
recently if he could use any more men on his ship,
replied: "You might send me a couple of ukelele
players, second class.”
ENEMIES OF THE WILL
By H. Addington Bruce
ASTRONG will is one of the most desirable of
possessions. But to maintain strength of
will is not always easy. *The will has many
enemies.
Conspicuous among these is bodily weakness.,
Anything that lowers the muscular and nervous
tone has a tendency to lower the will power.
For this reason it is imperative, in order to
keep or gain a strong will, to put into practice the
principles of mental hygiene.
Thus many men weaken their wills by eating
too much, by exercising not at all, by sleeping too:
little, by denying themseives a sufficiency of fresh
air.
All these hygienic indiscretions affect the diges-.
tion, circulation, etc. This means that they impair
the quality of the brain’s nutrition. As a conse
quence the will, in common with the reasoning'
power, is harmfully affected.
Inactivity, physical or mental, is another potent
enemy of the will. The idler is inevitably weak|
willed, if only because he is an idler.
For effort, energetic effort, is indispensable tO'
continued well-being of the whole organism. And
energetic effort is precisely the thing most disliked:
by the indolent.
Wherefore wealth must be listed among the
forces that often undermine will power. As more
elaborately stated by the observant Dr. Robert 6.1
Carroll:
"Wealth, plenty, the unwise provisions of an
cestry have removed from the lives of too many
the necessity for special effort or sacrifice; and so,
in the midst of affluence and surrounded by thei
richest of opportunities, many will-less, spineless
imitations of manhood and womanhood develop. ,
"Absence of effort means absence of will, and
the absence of will too frequently makes impossible!
the effort directed by reason, and thus a vicious
circle may be established.”
Also there are distinctly psychic enemies of the
will. Fear is one of these.
Through unwise training in early life many
people are continually beset by fears of all kinds.'
They allow themselves even to fear irrationally,
and in the grip of their fears are absolutely incap
able of exerting will power.
Such people need special treatment as truly as
those physically ill. They need treatment to banish
their haunting dreads and give reason an oppor
tunity to open the door for the will development
they so painfully lack.
Self-pity, too, is a dire enemy of the will.
» When a man begins to pity himself —whether
for bodily maladies, financial reverses, or what
ever it may be —that moment he puts a blight on
his will power.
For the attitude of self-pity is essentially the
attitude of surrender. And with surrender effort
ceases.
Lastly, self-indulgence must be rated among tha
worst of all enemies of the will.
The self-indulgent scracely know the meaning
of the word "sacrifice.” Yet without sacrifice will
power cannot be maintained. Again I call on Dr.
Carroll to bear testimony:
"The whole story of human and personal prog
ress is an unmitigated tale of denials today—de
nials of rest, denials of repose and comfort and ease
and pleasure—that tomorrow may be richer.”
Accordingly, for the development and conserva
tion of will power this formula may be suggested: .
Practice personal hygiene, keep actively at
work, think courageously, avoid self-pity and self
indulgence, practice self-denial. Thus you most
surely can safeguard your will against its many
enemies.
(Copyright, 1918. by the Associated Newspapers.)
To German braggarts: Tell it to the marines.
