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THE SEM’-WEEKLY JOURNAL
——N
ATLANTA, GA„ 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail
Matter of the Second Class.
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k 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 oyer the world,
brought b> special leased wires into our
office. It has r sta*f of distinguished con
tributors. with strong departments of spe
cial value to the home and the farm.
Agents wanted every postoffice. Lib
eral commission allowed. Outfit free.
Write R. R. BRADLEY, Circulation Man
ager
The onlv traveling representatives we
have are b’ F. Bolton. C. C. Coyle. Charles
H. Woodliff. J'. M. Patten. W H. Reinhardt.
M. H. Bevil and John Mac Jennings We
will be responsible only for money paid to
the above named traveling representatives
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS
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Addre« all orders and nottcee for thia Department to
BE BEMI WEEKI.I JOI KXAI- Atlanta. Ga.
The Journal’s Service Flag
In honor of the seventy-three Atlanta Jour
nal men who have entered the service of their
[ountry. The two white stars are in memory
■ -Captain Mereditb'Cray and Captain James
I Moore, Jr., Journal men. who gave their
Bves for our count! y in France.
I Ever mindful of the best interests of our
kaders. many of whom have been upon our
[ubscription books since the very first issue,
lie editors take this opportunity to extend
■e greeiings of the season, and incidentally
■ give assurance that plans for The Seml
k’eekly Journal for IS 19 comprise an exten
■on of service that will surprise and delight
Mr readers.
I Even as a daily newspaper must build its
■rength. its permanence, its reputation, and
L character upon SERVICE, so does the
Mwspaper issued semi-weekly depend upon
Ke quality of the SERVICE it renders its
Baders for its success.
Kpqr program for 1919 embraces an exien
■K of our aims that circumstances now per
il us to realize.
IWe shall retain all the favorites among our
Kass of contributing editors and department
Miters, and we will present additions that
kj, provide our readers with abundant en-
Kainment and instruction, and helpful,
Mfccticable aids in meeting the everyday
nblems of life in rural and town continu
ities.
Dr. Soule, Mrs. Felton, Miss Thomas.
Aunt Julia" and Bishop Candler will remain
a our staff during 1919. and new features
ill include “Home Education." by Jesse W.
hnistead. an Atlanta authority; “Tips to
tris at Home," by Miss Carolina Jewett, and
kers for whose services we are negotiating.
Our own editorial writers will be aug
•nted by Dr. Frank Crane, H. Addington
race. John Breck, Frederic J. Haskin, and
ie others who already number thousands of
tmirers among the Semi-Weekly Journal
Aden.
As heretofore. The Semi-Weekly Journal
11! present the new work of "Bud” Fisher.
Rube” Goldberg. Brewerton. Satterfield,
id other cartoonists, whose art has been en
ijred in these pages for years.
Perhaps the most important extension and
iprovement. however, will be found in our
tws columns. The editorial staff has been
llarged. the photographic department ev
aded, and we believe that no newspaper, at
price, in whatever section of the
ntry, will present a paper so brimful of
•cial features, pictures, departments, and
Rat-minute” news by cable and telegraph
i The Semi-W’eekly Journal.
This newspaper is a full member of the
leociated Press and the United Press, the
ro great newsgathering leagues whose cor-
Rpondents are stationed in every city, town
id hamlet In this country, and in every large
ty in the civilized world.
This news, carefully selected and epito
lied. in every issue of The Semi-Weekly
grnal, guarantees the reader an up-to-date
■vice.
For example:
Every issue of The Semi-Weekly Journal
Stains from 275 to 350 individual items.
The average number of individual items
a daily paper is about 110.
The policy of this newspaper is “Fairness
i the People." and we want you to feel that
» welcome every suggestion for the im- ]
ivement of the paper and we consider YOU
Hgntributing editor.
the great era of Peace and Prosperity
over the world, the South will be
Had in the foreground of this universal
■Merment. and The Semi-Weekly Journal
■pires to be the torch-bearer in the future as
■ has been in the past.
♦
Zs ilson in England.
MThe second phase of President Wilson s
■ft to Europe ba: been inaugurated with his
■rival in England to bring to the British peo
■e a personal message from America on the
Kpes and aims of the republic for permanent
Krld peace, grow ing out of the greatest con
■ct the world has ever witnessed.
■British state men are unanimous in their
MAion that President Wilson, coming as the
of the nation whose weight
■d inhuence brought victory to the Allied
Kase, will have a tremendous effect on the
■tional thought and aspirations of the Brit
■l people as a whole. The remarkable re-
Kfta already apparent in France as the result
visit lead to the belief that the expres
of America’s aims by her chief executive
■ do much to unify British thought.
is entirely reasonable to suppose that the
same facility with which the French states- |
men and .he president have found a mutual
platform on which to stand in the settlement
of preliminaries to the peace conference will
be manifest in the discussions between the
British leaders and the American executive.
A careful analysis of the situation leads one
to believe that when President Wilson and
Lloyd George get together for a comprehen
sive canvass of aims and desires, it will bo
found that such a community of interests and
opinions exists, as to preclude the possibility
of a serious disagreement at the peace table.
President Wilson will get a heartfelt wel
come in England, for the Briton has proved
that while tradition insists that he is some
what undemonstrative, he can. when thor
oughly aroused, manifest as much enthusiasm
as any of the Gallic races.
Looking Forward.
EMERGING from the celebration of his
tory’s most joyous Christmas, Geor
gia and the South now turn their
faces to a future that holds, the promise of
unbounded progress and prosperity.
In the opinion of nearly all competent
and disinterested authorities the South to
day controls as never before the price of her
cotton. Regardless of what may be rhe
fluctuations of the so-called exchanges.
Southern farmers are not going to sell their
cotton until they are paid a price sufficient
to cover the cost of production plus
a reasonable profit. They have it stored in
warehouses, they are not obliged tn let it go
at a sacrifice, the world is obliged to have
it, and in the end the world will pay the
farmer his price.
Unless the farmers of the South become
i excited and plant the whole face of the earth
in cotton next year, they will be in a position
where they can go on controlling the price
of their product, year after year and season
after, season, growing cotton as a money
crop, growing other crops to sustain them
selves. putting their staple in warehouses
and using warehouse receipts to secure bank
leans when they need ready money, waiting
for the world to come to them and offer
;them a price that is satisfactory.
Diversified crops have at last come to be
the general rule of up-to-date farming in the
South, instead of the exception. The advent
of the boll weevil hastened the advent of
this vitally important change, and the great
advance in agricultural education paved the
way for it. Southern farmers are raising
more corn than ever before; are raising pea
nuts and velvet beans in their corn fields;
are raising much more winter grains than
ever before; are producing more and more
hogs and beef cattle; are producing pota
toes. peas, hay, forage of all kinds.
Especially is this widespread crop diversi
fication to be observed in the southern part
of Georgia, in southern Alai.'...a and
through Mississippi. Farm houses are be
coming better and better; wind mills, water
works systems, home lighting installations,
modern sanitary facilities, big touring cars,
surfaced highways—all these and many
other evidences of progress and prosperity
abound on every hand. The Southern farm
er is every year becoming more and more a
man “who lives at home and boards at the
same place.”
Agricultural schools and colleges are
going ahead by leaps and bounds. Farmers
are making special arrangements to send
♦ heir sons and daughters to these institu
tions where young men are taught the
science and art of agriculture, where young
women are taught the science and art of
home-making and housekeeping. The only
thing that holds back the agricultural
schcols and colleges is the lack of money in
state treasuries to let them go forward as
rapidly as they are ready to grow, and this
condition is steadily improving with increas
ed appropriations.
Country towns are paving their streets
with brick and concrete, are installing mod
ern systems of waterworks and sewers and
electric lights, are building better school
houses and better churches and better
homes, are establishing parks and play
grounds, are encou-’iging the organization
of civic societies and women's clubs and pub
lic-spirited activities of all kinds.
Added to ♦his tremendous and well-nigh
universal impulse of progress, which has
been slowly but surely developing in the
South for the past two decades, are innumer
able opportunities and advantages offered bv
the South to the investment seeker and man
ufacturer and home-owning farmer from
other sections of the country.
Good farm land is probably cheaper in
the South than good farm land in any other
section of the country. Manufacturing sites
and ample railroad facilities are abundant.
Water power is being constantly developed
and sold very cheap. Banking facilities are
becoming more and more adequate, while the
Federal Reserve system insures ample ac
commodation of agricultural credits. The
climate of the South is not to be equaled, all
things considered, anywhere else in the
United States.
Thousands of young men trained in South
ern cantonments have had the advantages of
this section impressed upon them in a last
ing way. They like the climate of ' e South,
they like the people of the South, they per
ceive the manifold opportunities of the
South, they want to settle here. -As pointed
out by Hon. Hal M. Stanley, the Georgia
state commissioner of commen e and labor,
Georgia and the South ought to put every
encouragement and assistance in the way of
these men. They are the cream of the Na
tion's young manhood, every one of them a
“Selectman” in the truest sense of the word.
They will make splendid citizens. The South
needs only a mixture of “Yankee” enter
prise with Southern enthusiasm to make her
the greatest section of the western hem
isphere.
Today as never before the eyes of the Na
tion are turned toward us; as never before
in the history of any section of any country
have world events conspired to bring us op
portunity. Let us meet the future with con
fidence, with a serious mind f< - its respon
sibilities as well as its promises, and more
than all, with the fires of patriotism brightly
burning.
A POEM FOR TODAY
TO A WILD VIOLET
i
Today they found you in the wood.
Sweet violet without cloak or hood,
While winter’s blast blew cold and drear,
And not one mate of yours was near;
Why came you there? They say you’re wild
I call you Nature’s orphan child.
11.
They said that in that wood so bare,
You were the only flower there.
You. with your loveliness and grace;
Surely God’s hand had placed you there.
To make the dark place bright and fair.
111.
For very beautiful you are
In your own way, as is yon star
Which in the sky I now see shine.
In beauty glorious and divine;
Ah, violet! let them call you wild.
It matters not—you are God’s child.
IV.
What though they found you in the wood,
Cold, lonely, withcut cloak or hood,
You dear, sweet, lovely orphan share
As much in God’s love and His care
As yonder star in heaven does,
And should be just as dear to us.
—CHARLES W. HUBNER.
LANTA SFMT-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA. FRIDAY. DECEMBER 27. inis.
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TEACHERS’ PAY
—o
By H. Addington Bruce
FEW teachers anywhere are paid any
thing like the salaries teachers ought
to be paid. Still worse, those teachers
who ought to be paid the best salaries—
teachers of very young children—are, as a
rule, the most scandalously underpaid.
This doubtless is the result of a singularly
myopic view common among -chool authori
ties. They say to themselves, in effect:
“The younger the child, the easier it is
to handle. The younger the child, the less
the knowledge that has to be imparted to it.
Therefore, the younger the child the less
the teaching experience required, and the
lower the teacher’s pay should be.”
One tremendously important thing these
school authorities forget.
They forget that lasting mental habits |
are formed early, and that their formation
depends chiefly on the influences with which
the young child is surrounded. Among such
influences the teacher of the young child
has a foremost place.
Often—l might truthfully say, usually—
the child comes to its teacher from home
surroundings adverse to the forming of right
mental habits. •
No effort has been made in the home to
train the child to use its mind to good pur
pose. Its parents have done all its think
ing for it. They have allowed it to “run
wild,” or at all events to spend its time in
play that makes no systematic lemands on
its mental powers.
As a result, the child has already acquir
ed habits of mental inertia, looseness, hasti
ness, dissipation of energy. These have to
bo broken down, and in their stead habits of
efforts, accuracy, thoroughness, concen
tration, have to be established.
Suppose, now, the vhild falls into the
hands of a teacher, not merely inexperienced I
and unskillful, but further handicapped in
giving her best by personal worries due to
poverty. What is the outlook so- the child?
Will it be adequately inspired and helped
to form the new and better mental habits
it needs?
Or will it rather be confirmed in its old
habits, and pass from childhood into youth
with its mind sealed against later corrective
action?
Common sense and the experience of
many generations leave no dou'H as to how
these questions must be answered. Yet
school auth. rities continue to be content
with “inexperienced” teachers for the very
young, and to keep their pay more than pro
portionately low.
Then they wonder why teachers of higher
•grades find it difficult to get good results
from their pupils!
Some day all this will be changed. Some
day more will be demanded of teachers of
the young than of any other teachers, and
their pay will be at the top instead of the
bottom of the salary scale.
Then things will be as they ought to be,
and our educational system will be infinite
ly more effective than it is at the present
time.
(Copyright, 1918, by the Associated News
papers)
LAUGH AND GROW FAT
“I was endeavoring,” says the teacher of a
night school in a country town, “to instill
into the minds of certain of my pupils some
notions of ambition.
“ ‘Do you know,’ I asked of a disreputable
looking lad of nineteen, ‘that every boy tn
this country has a chance to be president?'
“ ‘ls that so?’ asked the boy, reflectively.
Then he added, ‘Say, teacher, I’ll sell my
chance for a quarter.’ ”
A commercial traveler, on leaving a cer
tain hotel, said to the proprietor:
“Pardon me, but with what material do
you stuff the beds in your establishment?"
“Why,” said the landlord, proudly, “with
the best straw to bo found in the country." .
“That,” returned the traveler, “is very
interesting. I now know whence the straw
came that broke the camel’s back.”
The late Professor Lounsbury, of Yale, was ;
a foe of the purist and pedant. On a summer i
vacation in the Adirondacks he gazed across I
the lake one gray and sultry afternoon, and
remarked:
“It looks like rain.”
“What looks like rain, professor?” chuck
led a pedant in a rocking chair. “Ive got
you there.”
Professor T ounsbury tuned a cold eye
upon the critic and answered, “Wat.y,”
A FABLE BY AESOP
THE BOY AND THE WOLF
A boy, who kept watch on a flock of sheep,
was heard from time to time to call out,
“The Wolf! The Wolf!” in mere sport. Scores
of times, in this way, had he drawn the men
in the fields from their work But when they
found it was a joke, they made up their
minds that, should the boy call “Wolf" once
more, they would not stir to help him. The
wolf, at last, did come. “The Wolf! The
Wolf!” shrieks out the boy, in great fear,
but none will now heed his cries, and the
wolf kills the boy, that he may feast on the
sheep.
, One knows not how to trust those who
speak lies, though they may tell one the |
truth. \
CUPID STILL DOING BUSINESS
—o —•
By Dr. Frank Crane
I Dan Cupid has lost none of his ancient ef
ficiency. Time was when he shot his arrows
into young rhepherds as they wheezed upon
their oaten pipes on the plains of Greece.
Judging also from the frescoes in the d’Este
palace at Tivoli, the Medici palace in Flor
ence and various and sundry other ducal hab
itations in Europe, Dan was a lively boy also
during yesteryears.
And from the latest reports from the news
papers we conclude that even in these dull,
drab commercial times his eye is not dim nor
his natural force abated.
For the entrance of the gentle sex into the
lists of business has not robbed their smile
of its sweet barb nor their eye of its honeyed
! poison
When the male waiters struck in New York
hotels their places were filled by females,
who. with the low cunning of their sex, were
guilty of doing the work better than the men.
The hotel keepers and restaurant proprie
tors laughed. But their glee wa. short-lived.
Everything human has its law.
Managers of eating places now are keeping
“casualty lists,” indicating startling losses
among their women employes. Among the
5,000 waitresses in the American metropolis
the chief casualties are caused by our old
friend cupid. Five hundred waitresses quit
work every month. According to Patrick
Kyne, a veteran hotel man, 300 of these are
married, following dining r.om acquaint
ances, an average of about ten a day. Mr.
Kyne is thu quoted in the news column:
“Entirely too pretty! It seems to me that
the so-called homely girl has passed from ex
istence. Girls now know how to dress neatly
and ‘do’ their hair to suit their facial contour
The result is that bachelors enjoying their
meals and being attended by these ‘darned’
pretty gii'ls lose their hearts and their free
dom at the same time. The courtships are
usually rapid and romantic, too.”
Human nature is about the same, whether
in the hills of Thessaly or the corridors of
the Biltmore. Nature will have her way. We
can go on building skyscrapers, employing
women as stenographers, elevator conductors
and waitresses, hut Dan Cupid is doing busi
ness at the old stand.
He doesn’t care a whoop in Halifax for our
profit and loss, for our efficiency systems
and modern trends. He and his mother in
tend that young people shall meet and gig
gle, hold hands and sigh. Nature, with a big
N, is interested in the twenty-first century
and does not propose that her plans shall
fall for lack of material.
Foch is a great general, also Pershing and
Diaz, but they must take a back seat in the
presence of General Cupid, who, despite his
boyish looks, is some 6,000 years old, lively
as a cricket, more merciless than the fright
ful Hun, —yea, and whose arrows are just as
sharp todaj when he is potting baldheaded
bachelors at the tables of the Knickerbocker
as they were when he was at work with
Daphnis and Chioe, or with Aucassin and
Nicolette.
(Copyright, 1918, by Frank Crane.)
A HERO EVERY DAY
—o—
The navy department has commended
j Daniel Douglas Arden, Jr., seaman, second
I class, U. S. N. R. FL. attached to the U. S. S.
Atlantic, for his gallant conduct in jumping
into the swift current at Paris Island dock,
South Carolina, about 8 p. tn., November 3,
1918, and saving a drowning man who was
terror-stricken and who would undoubtedly
have lost his life but for the quick courage
of Arden.
Daniel Douglas Arden. Jr., enrolled in the
service December 14, 1917, at Savannah, Ga.,
, and his father, Daniel Douglas Arden, lives
l in Statesboro, Ga.
♦
“I should like a porterhouse steak with
mushrooms,” said the stranger in the Lon
don restaurant, “and some delicately brown
ed toast with plenty of butter.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted the waitress
“are you trying to give an order or just re
miniscing about old times?”
FREDERIC J. HASKIN’S ARTICLE
-r w r ASHiNGTON, D. C., Dec. 22.—The fact
\A/ that many discharged American sol
’ ’ diers, sailors and war workers are loaf
ing about the streets of the large cities, with
out jobs or even prospects of jobs, has arous
ed the government to the need of a special
employment system to take care of a situa
tion that is rapidly developing into a serious
problem.
After several conferences, the federal em
ployment service of the department of labor,
the Council of National Defense and the
United War Workers have combined to form
a sort of employment net through which it
will be next to impossible for any soldier,
sailor or war worker'inadvertently to slip.
Take the case of the soldier. No man will
be permitted to leave a demobilization camp
without thorough instruction and advice as
to the employment opportunities awaiting him
on his return to his home town. First, a rep
resentative of United War Workers will ex
plain them to him. talk over his abilities with
him and attempt to guide him to a congenial
job. Second, a representative of the United
States employment service will talk to him; go
over the list of employment opportunities in
his particular section of the country with
him, and try to fit him into one of them.
Suppose that before the war a man has
been a plumber in Milwaukee. His natural
inclination would be to go back to Milwaukee
and plumbing. But the employment service
agent may know that Milwaukee has all the
plumbers it can possibly keep busy, and his
duty therefore is to advise the man either to
accept some other form of employment in Mil
waukee or to go to some other town which
is desperately in need of plumbers.
But how, you may ask, does the emploment
service agent obtain this detailed knowledge
of what is needed in various cities? The
answer is that the employment service of the
department of labor has kept its finger on the
pulse of Industry for the past three years,
and knows accurately what the opportunities
for employment are in all sections of the
country. Such information as it does not
happen to have it is now gathering. It has
over 1,850 community labor boards, composed
each of one representative of employers, one
representative of labor and one representa
tive of the service. It also maintains 850
employment officers, and has a staff of vol
unteer agents in various places. In addition
to these facilities, it is now opening bureaus
for returning soldiers, sailors and war work
ers in every city and town in the United
States.
These bureaus are under the direction of
the community labor boards, wherever there
are such boards, and under the direction of
the community council of defense where there
is no community labor board. Each bureau
is to have a bureau manager and working
staff, Its luty Is to canvass its locality for
employment opportunities and to tabulate
them. This information may be furnished the
employment agent at the demobilization camp
whenever he writes for information, and in
return the employment agent may furnish the
bureau with the army record of applicant,
whose name has been submittea for a posi
tion. In this way the bureau Is in direct
touch with both. It has its forces working
on every soldier in camp, and esually strong
forces working on the employers in the man’s
home town. All the man has to do is to ap
ply to his local bureau for returning soldiers,
sailors, sailers and war workers when he
goes home, and he is almost certain to find a
job waiting for him.
This much the government has done. The
rest must be done by each community and
each family. A certain responsibility rests
upon the community in the matter of employ
ing men who have gone to war to insure its
peace and prosperity.
GRANDMA’S GARDEN
“Grandma's garden” is the name given
to a corner of Manito Park in Spokane.
Wash., which is devoted to the growing of
the old-fashioned flowers that our grand
mothers loved.
All of the old favorites are there. Prim
little pyrethrums lift their precisely frilled
heads importantly between clumps of sweet
alyssum and forget-me-nots. Velvet pan
sies with the colorings of stained-glass win
dows in their thoughtful faces grow in dig
nity next to theii merry little cousins, the
small johnny-jump-ups—which have been
laughingly termed “uneducated pansies.”
FREE AS THE BIRDS
By John Breck
IT seems to be the settled conviction of
those people who rebel against conven
tions that only the human race is cir
cumscribed by them. Possibily this is so be
cause the human race is given to treasuring
so many which are outgrown and outworn,
whose reasonableness does not make Itself
instinctively felt. Yet conventions in them
selves are only the code which should per
mit the greatest individual freedom consis
tent with tie safety of our social life. To
say you wish to be “free as a bird” means
simply that you do not realize how binding
are the conventions by which all nature is
ruled.
Conventions of the wild are usually found
ed on the safety and welfare of the creature
who obeys his especial law. They are found
ed on the racial habits by means of which
his race lias survived, modified by his sur
roundings and the materials they provide
Yet this does not completely explain the con
stant. almost unnoted variations between
those of the same race in the same environ
ment.
If birds are so utterly free, why, then, do
I find the three kinds of hummingbirds who
nest about me building habitually in a dif
ferent manner? One makes a tiny nest quite
near the ground, like a little white sponge
of plant down, held together with spider
webs. Another uses shreds of plant fibre,
encased wit* a camouflage of bark, gray
lichens, and leaves. The third simply mats
together a wee snuggery of feather (nst hers,
necessarily, for they are more apt to be the
tawny plumage of a sparrow or the gleanings
from the chickenyard), wol’• and vari-col
ored lichens. The foot supply of all three
varies as w-ell, but not in away to furnish
a clue to their particular fashion in nests.
It is easier to understand why a hawk
never picks up a stick from the ground. He
dives down on some tall dead stick that lifts
in the air, trusting that hig weight may
wrench it free, and flies off with his booty
while the ground may be littered with fallen
branches nicely broken to his use I fancy
that the fallen wood is likely to be infested
with woodlice, who prefer moisture and shel
ter to being exposed to the weather on a
limb. Or, perhaps, that is only a convention
of theirs.
No human is more hedged about with
taboos than the sociable birds like crows
and ducks, but for the pattern of innate pro
priety commend me to the wrens. They even
try to inflict their ideas on other folk. Ven
ture into what a wren considers his own
front yard, and see whether you think a
prickly iron fence would guarantee him
greater privacy. Even the other birds re
spect it. ’ L
“It is the duty of every community,” says
the department of labor, “to see that every
possible opportunity is given to them to get
jobs—and the best jobs for which they are
qualified. These men gave up their work at
the country’s call without hesitation. To
seme of them their old positions are open;
with others, such is not the case. Still others
have acquired new purpose and strength and
in many cases new skill, which fits them for
better work than they did formerly. It is
both a national and a community duty to see
that, as they come back, everything is done to
enable them to return to the position in which
they can do the most effective work.”
A certain responsibility also rests upon a
man’s family, whic’t should encourage and aid
him in getting work. The government,
through the Woman’s Committee of the Cous
cil of National Defense, is seeking the sup.
port of ever}- mother, wife and sister in this
important phase of reconstruction. For ex
perience has shown that it is hard for a re
turning soldier to settle down to the routine
of a working life. After the Civil War many
men were out of work for two or three years,
and some men who had made particularly
good soldiers absolutely refuses to accept
civilian' jobs.
Psychologists inform us that a certain
amount of difficult} in settling down to work
is to be expected of a large proportion of our
discharged soldiers and sailors. When a
man is in camp or aboard ship he lives a re
latively irresponsible existence. While he is
called upon to work hard, and must sleep, eat
and amuse himself according to army regula
tions, he is relieved of the responsibility of
providing for himself and family. He does
not even have to decide what proportion of
his income shall be meted out to his wife.
The government decides it for him. This fact
that nearly every action he performs is in
obedience to military orders, is apt to prove
destructive to. individual initiative. When
thexnan is discharged, and there is no longer
a higher authority to order every detail of his
existence, it is apt to become disorderly, or,
at least, without plan. This swift trans
formation from excessive discipline to abso
lute liberty has turned many a hard-working
man into a careless idler in the past.
But. however natural this attitude of the
discharged soldier, it is a bad thing for every
one concerned —for the man himself, for his
family, his community, and for the nation. It
tends to social disorganization. Thus the
government is seeking the co-op oration of
everybody in helping every returning soldier
and sailor get back to work.
After making an elabor: te canvass pf the
situation, the department of labor is inclined
to take an extremely optimistic view- concern
ing labor opportunities. It believes that there
will be a job for everybody. The transition
from a wa: to a peace basic in industry is
going forward so gradually that there is lit
tle H anger of hard times. Moreover, many of
our non-essential industries, curtailed and
suppressed during the war, are enjoying re
newed prosperity. It is Interesting to note,
for instance, that since the signing of the
armistice, more women’s evening dresses have
been sold in New York than during the whole
period of the war.
The next four months, of course, will be
the most critical period. After that the need
of labor on the farms will take vare of any
labor surplus.
Furthermore, the government is determin
ed that there will be no hard’times—that
the men who were taken from their jobs to
fight will get those jobs, or jobs equally as
good, back again. If necessary, the govern
ment and the states will undertake public
works to supply the necessary jobs until in
dustry regains its normal condition.
AT HOME AND ABROAD
There is the old-fashioned, striped ribbon
grass, wide-eyed daisies and dainty fox
glove. Tall spirals of pastel-tinted Can
terbury Bells and graceful lily plants rise
in the background near those staid old
maids—the holly hocks. Os course, there
are roses and bachelor buttons of blue.
Next to the freckled, tiger lilies are the
great glowing driental poppies, whose
smoldering Hack eyes provide the fire for
their flaming petals. They are all there —
the flowers that grew in thousands of gar
dens fifty years ago, when there was more
room for gardens in American cities and
more time to tend them.
NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY
It happened in the City of Brotherly Love,
where so many good things happen, in the
80’s, when the first phonographs were on the
market.
Bowers believed they were humbugs. To
convince him of their genuineness his friends
arranged that he should hear one. In those
days records could be made in a few minutes,
and one was prepared for his benefit.
So when he entered the room where the
phonograph awaited his coming it shrieked at
him:
“Hello. Bowers! Glad to meet you!”
And Bowers shrieked hack: “Gosh, the
darned thing knows me!”
Secretary Lansing was contrasting Ger
man brusqueness with French courtesy and
illustrating the latter recounted the case of
the French government official whose duty
it was to issue passports for those who
wished to go from one town to another.
In accordance with regulations it fell to
him to make out a passport for a rich and
highly respectable lady of his acquaintance,
who, unfortunately, had but one eye.
Not wishing to hurt her feelings, the gal
lant Frenchman in filling out the descrip
tion inserted the following:
“Eyes brilliant, brown and expressive,
only one is missing.”
The captain of the steamer took on two
men. One had a written character of his
honesty and good behavior, the other had
none. They were not long at sea when they
experienced rough weather. The man with
the character was crossing the deck with a
bucket in hand and got swept overboard.
The other saw what happened and sought
out the captain.
“Do you mind yon man with the fine
character you engaged the other day?”
“Yes, what about him?”
“He's away with your bucket,” he replied.
Two men sitting in the corner of the
railway compartment became engaged in an
animated controversy, and their loud voices
attracted the attention of all the others In
the somewhat crowded car.
Suddenly one of the men arose and said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I appeal to you
to decide the disputed point. My friend here
insists that not more than three people out
of every five believe they have souls. I take
a more cheerful view of humanity than that.
Will all of you w-ho believe you have souls
raise your right hand?”
Every hand in the car went up.
“Thank you,” he said with a smile. “Keep
them up just for a moment. Now, will all
of you who believe in the hereafter raise
your left hand? Thank you. And while
you have your hands raised,” he added,
drawing two revolvers from his pockets, “my
friend will relieve you of whatever valuable
articles you have. Look lively, now, ■
Jim; we’re nearing the <