Newspaper Page Text
PAGE mu
a b r (Cnuingtnn N ? nt s
Published E ery Thursday.
Official Organ of Newton County and City of Covington, Georgia.
FRANK REAGAN, Editor and Publisher.
A . S. ADAMS, Superintendent.
Entered as second-class matter I>e ember 2. 19o*. at the P*«t Office at tov
iTisrtcrti. Georgia. under the Act of Match 1879.
COVINGTON, GEORGIA, NOVEMBER 2, 1916.
Recently Governor Harris has surprised the newspapers
with an innovation.
He has made a rule that he will not be interviewed any
more by representatives of the press. But he has provided a
daily bulletin on which his secretary will write the news origi¬
nating in the Governor’s office a«d there the newspaper men
may read “all the news.”
Most of the daily newspapers have resented this as an
affront administered indiscriminately against them all for
some offense one or two of them may have committed against
the Governor.
For our part, we think it is one of the wisest things Gov¬
ernor Harris has done during his term of office. He surpris¬
ed some who thought he knows nothing of business, when he
established some business methods in several departments
which had never been conducted in a business-like manner be¬
fore.
For this is a business like procedure and puts the furnish¬
ing of news on a business-like basis.
Just because a man represents a newspaper gives him no
justification for taking valuable time of the people, dedicated
to the people’s use by one of its public servants, in their end¬
less efforts to secure some “scoop” by becoming a nusiance at
the door of such a public servant.
The public has more important services for its officials to
perform than giving his time in assisting some resourceful
reporter to score a “beat” with a little piece of news.
The “bulletin” way, in w’hich all must walk, enables the
Governor to give all the new T s once for all.
And we have seen no news from the governor’s office less
interesting since the bulletins began than we had before.
♦Some papers in their comments say that Governor Harris
should be kind to the papers, because they have been kind to
him. A few have, but as a whole they have shown him no
great favors and some have dealt with him very unjustly.
They say that the governor’s office belongs to the people
and so all information concerning the office and its doings be¬
longs to the people and the newspapers, as representatives of
the people, should have free access to such news' head and
source, the governor himself.
It is probable that since the people selected the governor,
they feel that he is more their representative than some vo¬
ciferous newspapers.
And again, whatever kindness w'as shown the governor
by the papers must have been shown by them as “represent¬
ing the people,” and not a personal matter on either side.
With some papers it seems to be a favor to the paying
people for the news to be provided for them and at the same
time a favor to Governor Harris that the news about his do¬
ings was given to the public.
So that, no matter at which end you start or stop, the fa¬
vors always come from the news dispensers- •
This is payin-up time with people generally.
With bulging barnes and bales of precious cotton, our
farmers are attempting to reach the point where they “owe
no man anything.”
And this brings us to call attention to the fact that pay¬
ing up time for many of our subscribers is fast approaching.
Some of the subscriptions are falling due now. But~a"
great many become due on January 1, 1917.
Because of the almost prohibitive price of paper and the
almost impossibility of securing it at any price, we have had
both to raise our subscription rate to one dollar and a half per
year and to stop every man’s paper just as soon as his time
expires, unless renewal payment is made, adopting the rule
of strictly cash in advance.
In addition we have had to cease the former practice of
giving away single copies of the paper and charging for them,
just as merchants selling other commodoties expect return in
cash for their goods.
It has been nearly two months since we ordered a ton of
paper which we have not yet received. The sellers recently
wrote us that it will probably be three weeks more before they
can get it to ship to us.
So we write now to request that all whose subscriptions
are expiring will please renew promptly.
By noticing the date on the label which is pasted on your
paper, you can see what time your subscription expires. The
hrst figures shows the number of the month and the last
figure the year when your subscription expires. If there is a
middle figure it shows the day of the month when your sub¬
scription expires.
We are now revising our list and eliminating the middle
figure, marking every date from the first of the succeeding
month.
For example: 1-1-17 means your time expires on January
1, 1917; and 1-17 means the same thing. If vour date has
read 1-15-17, or January 1, 1917, in the revision it would be
changed to read 2-17, or February 1,1917.
We have been striving to produce a paper to please you
and we trust you will every one. show by your prompt pay¬
ment in renewal that we have succeeded in some measure at
least.
We are grateful to every one for your patronage. We
hope that our relations of editor and reader will last for
many years longer.
tbm mtSGtas vews «tibsdav, November 2, 19m.
The election to be held Tuesday is very important in more
N>
respects than one.
Of course the re-election of Mr. Wilson as president
seems to us the most important thing to be accomplished in
that election.
We have for sometime published much matter in Wilson’s
interest. We believe now he will be elected to succeed him¬
self.
But we wish now to discuss matters of interest to Georgia
to be passed on in Tuesday’s election. We refer to the pro¬
posed amendments to our State constitution.
The general assembly has proposed these amendments.
It cannot pass them and make them law until the people have
voted for them at Tuesday's election.
And we wish especially now to consider that proposed
amendment “to authorize the General Assembly to exempt
from taxation ships and vessels engaged exclusively in foreign
commerce, owned and operated by Georgia citizens or Georgia
corporations-”
Now what is that for, you may properly inquire.
In a word it is robbery made law, if it is ratified by the
people and the legislature then passes the law authorized by
the constitution as so amended.
Even Satan makes good argument to make his most evil
projects appeal to his prospective victims. And his human
cohorts have adopted the same means to gain their nefarious
ends, often deceiving even the very elect.
And so those who fathered this proposed exemption se¬
cured the necessary majority in the general assembly by the
most appealing argument. They showed how even Georgia
is suffering more from the unsolved problem of distribution
than from a problem of production, which has been solved al¬
ready ; that we need markets, and markets for an abundance
far beyond our present yield of field and factory exists beyond
the waters; that we lack vessels to convey all this abundance
to those markets beyond the seas; the present supply of ves¬
sels is so far below the demand of the world ane even of the
remainder of our own country, that Georgia must offer some
special inducements to shipowners, so that their vessels will
turn away from other burdened ports and bear away the bur¬
dens bursting our own wharves with their weight.
Their very method is writing a most sensational chapter
in the acts of the apostles of Satan.
His way always with his “wicked wiles” is to appeal to
some vulnerable spot in a man’s armor, some little weakness
of will or wish, and show the victim how it is right to indulge
that weakness and yield to it, and that now is the time and
the opportunity to realize his desire.
So the legislature thinks that for the commercial good of
Georgia it has speeded that amendment as far on its way as it
can do so until the people take it yet another step toward ac¬
complishment.
Of course, the good of Georgia should be every legisla¬
tor’s chief interest. But what is the greater good, her com¬
mercial or her intellectual and spiritual good ?
Why, you probably remark, the answer is so patent that
it makes the mere asking of the question seem foolish. Yes,
ordinarily so, we readily admit, but^iot with the Georgia leg¬
islature.
For this body of law-makers ignored and even rejected
the intellectual and spiritual good (from the view point of the
man who believes at all in exemption) and considered and pro¬
vided for the State’s commercial good.
This legislature defeated a proposed constitutional
amendment to exempt from taxation all college endowments.
For ourselves we are opposed to every kind of exemption
as a matter of principal, whether the object be worthy or un¬
worthy.
And right here is one of the reasons why the very idea of
exemptions is vicious in its tendences: Bishop Candler, in his
perfectly proper protest against including all kind of amuse¬
ment features in the church building erected for the worship
of God, says that the church can never meet and complete
successfully with the worldly affairs; if it would have games
and athletic exercises to draw people to the house of God, the
world can provide more appealing ones to draw the people
away from such places of worship.
And so with exemptions: for exemptions obtained from
the government are always a sell, the taxing power must
have the taxes or something in their place which can be con¬
verted into cash greater in amount than the taxes lost by ex¬
emption.
The exemption being merely material, and not in the
higher or spiritual things, the substitution of something in
return of greater value, must also be material and measur¬
able in dollars and cents.
So always in such trading the material interests will have
the advantage over the intellectual and spiritual.
You would have convert a legislative body into an eccles¬
iastical body before you would have the legislature prefer
exempting a college for its return to the State men of intel¬
lect and piety rather than exempting a business in exchange
for the increased business to be brought to the state in place
of the taxes remitted.
If it were not for the utter impossibility of their having
a fair chance as against material interests on a material
plane, we would favor apd urge, with all the ardor of our be¬
ing, exemptions of college and church endowments.
Exemption from taxation is taking from one subject a
sum of money and giving it to another. For money in a cer¬
tain sum must be raised by the government to pay its ex¬
penses. If one subject pays no taxes, the subject who does
pay must pay more in order to raise that fixed sum. And the
man exempted is receiving all the benefits of the protection
of the laws and society for which the man not exempt is pay¬
ing.
Until mankind really makes the Holy Spirit himself to
dethrone heart, the in almighty (?) dollar from rule in the individual
men the aggregate as a legislative body will exempt
that power stronger in the good graces of the money Mon¬
arch rather than those powers close by the throne of the Mon¬
arch of the eternities.
We ought next Tuesday overwhelmingly to defeat this
proposed amendment.
THE DIRECT LINE TO
Memphis and the West
Leave Atlanta 6:1ft p. inToriniirnTm
Arrive Memphis 7:35 a. m. or 7:50 p. m
Train leaving 6:25 a. m., runs through
to Kansas City.
Through Trains Carrying
Coaches, Sleeping Cars and
Dining Cars.
CONNECTIONS MADE FOR ALL POINTS W EST
I’or Complete Information Write
R. L. BAYLOR, D. P. A., Atlanta Ga.
SOUTHERN RAILWAY
11-9, 4.
'T N HE man who Kyi,,,... 1
** travels appre¬
ciates the style supre¬ ill
macy, comfort and l§l
serviceability of clothes Hi
tailored to order by Born.
serving His opportunity what other for men ob¬ i m
wear convinces him that A
smarter clothes are not to
be had—that clothes are
not made better — that
Bom Tailoring costs less
by the year, than any
other clothes, ready made
or made to order.
•‘"U* 1 U
*r.ntt *, a i'
When have UW i yy
may we a
chance to convince you?
m Kail Ip* a—8 u ■
(Resident Porn Dealer),
E. H. MOBLEY
Covington, - Georgia
Real Estate
For Sale:
One store room and two cottages in Oxford.
9 room home and lot in Mansfield. Can sell you on easy
terms.
One 5 room Bungalow on Washington street in Cov¬
ington. This is a bargain. ,
6 room house on Thompson Avenue with water and
lights.
r-> acres of land 1-2 mile from Oxford. This is a fine
dairy farm. /
62 1-2 acres in Rocky Plains District. This place can
be bought cheap, see me.
6 room house on Monticello street can be bought- Worth
the money.
156 Acres 1-2 mile from Starrsville. This is one of the
best cattle farms you will find. Will sell on easy terms.
415 acres in Leguinn district. Four good hopes and
barns. One hundred acres of good river and creek bottom
on same Also fine pasture.
7 room house on Washington street with a nice large
lot. Can sell you—worth the money.
One nine room Bungalow on Floyd street with all the
conveniences of water and electric lights. Lot 200 by 400
feet.
8 room house with water and electric lights. Also
good barn and out houses in Oxford. This can he bought
at a bargain. with
80 acres 2 miles from Mansfield, extra good land,
two tGnatnt houses on it. This is an ideal small farm and is
worth investigating.
129 acres of good land three miles from Covington on
main highway from Covington to Atlanta, with a nice 6 room
home w ith good barns and one tenant house and a fine pas¬
ture. Can arrange terms.
360 acres of good land in DeKalb county, 90 acres of as
good rreek bottom as you ever saw, 1 1-2 miles from Lithon
ia. This is one of the best farms you will find anywhere and
is worth investigating.
507 acres in Rocky Plains district. Six good houses,
two good barns. Fine pasture. Over one hundred acres ot
fine river bottom. This place is worth your investigation.
Let me show it to you.
J. T. SWANN
Real Estate and Loans
Covington, : Georgia
