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THE TRI WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
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THE TRI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, Atlanta, Ga.
Golden Georgia.
A PTLY likening present-day Georgia to
the Golden West of 1849—a fron
tier glorious with opportunity—the
Telfair Enterprise adds that no shadow of
uncertainty lies on the path of the prospec
tor in the agricultural and business resources
of this Common'wealth. He is assured,
abundantly assured, of taking out gold “in
proportion to his energy, labor, capital, or
all three.” The very heart of the New
South, Georgia is at once a highly developed
and a 'wonderfully virgin field of. opportu
nity. Ranking fourth among all the States
in total farm output, third in' production of
meat, second in cotton, and first in the de
lectable peach, she still has more than half
of her fertile acres unplanted and unhar
rowed. A single Georgia acre, intensively
cultivated, has yielded as much as four thou
sand dollars a year; and, as the Enterprise
adds, “profits of three hundred to five
dred dollars an acre are rather common.”
If examples are wanted, consider these:
Georgia is, indeed, a field of oppor
tunity. As high as $4,000 a year has
been made from an intensively culti
vated Georgia acre. Profits of S3OO to
SSOO an acre are rather common.
A Colquitt county man began farm
ing ten years ago, when he was twenty,
with no capital. He now owns a 500-
acre farm, makes 200 bales of cotton,
50 tons of hay, plants 28 acres in.sweet
potatoes, supplies cream from 25 cows
to a creamery in Moultrie, sells 100
head of hogs to the packing plant and
15 beeves.- A Chicago man went to
Fort Valley a few years ago and went
in debt to the. amount of $7,500 for a
farm. Eight years later he wrote a
friend he had paid off the debt, pur
chased over $2,500 worth of live stock,
and had built farm houses and bought
implements to the amount of $2,000.
A Baldwin county farmer began a few
years ago as a farm laborer and today he
lends $15,000 a year to his neighbors.
Story after story of the wonderful
achievements of farmers who started in
Georgia -without anything at all could be
iecounted; some of them too glowing to
seem possible.
In common wjj.h a large element of the
daily and weekly press tire Telfair Enter
prise is doing the State excellent service in
drawing attention to opportunities of which
Georgians themselves are not duly ap.precia
tne. Whether measured in terms of agri
cultural, industrial or commercial resources
Georgia is one of the world’s richest re
gions. Let every available force of enter
prise and education be turned to her devel
opment. 1
fr German Science Wane*'
SCIENTIFIC research, once devoutly
followed and richly endowed in Ger
gaidv ?o? n ?n h S f Sid t 0 have fallen t 0 a be S
the war “ThP r Countl 7 since the close of
tne nai. The German scientist,” writes a re
cent observer, “always underpaid, finds it no
longer profitable to experiment on a mere
?ies a unrtPr S rn hat * in many private laborato
ries under Government patronage, work has
been abandoned.” It is added that the ever
ca?s in se?vp P t riC T ° n instruments and’chemi
and tn da ™ pen individual initiative
and to sharpen the pinch of the eiperiment
fL S PU 7k ’ rhese while good as
far as they go, can hardly account for the
°/- 1 an - lnterest which is nothing if
p£h? ear n ly lndGpenden t of the loaves and
fishes One cannot imagine Lister going on
a. strike’ because of the dearness of test
tubes, or Helmholtz leaving his laboratory to
cobwebs because of poor pay.
Is not the decline of science in Germany
to be set down more truly as an effect of th«t
general disappointment and depression which
followed the collapse of the nation’s puffed
up materialistic efficiency? German science,
unhappily, was so beholden to German im
perialism that when the latter lost its feet
the other lost its head and heart. Science for
its own sake is admirable; serving for hu
man freedom and progress, it is more ad
mirable still; but slaving for an oppressive
and evil order, it sinks to a mere black
art, destined to lose at last the way that is
truly scientific, the urge and the light of the
quest for truth. Science as represented in its
great evangels and explorers is no more
materialistic, in the darkening or deadening
sense, of that term, than reason and knowl
edge a?jd the high passion to know are ma
terialistic; on the contrary it moves as a
great emancipator of the human spirit. Co
pernicus, Gallileo, Newton, Lavoisier, Dar
win, James, Lodge—how marvelously have
they widened and enriched the outlook, the
inlook and the uplook of mankind!
German science has lost for the nonce its
lance and plume largely because it essayed
to be GERMAN science, rather than simply
science. Fettering itself to chauvanism, to
pride and prejudice and greed, to a theory
of life as bigoted as false, it inevitably miss
ed the reach and vision with which science
at its best is endowed. Maybe we were over
estimating the stature and stamina of Ger
man science in the years before the war, when
we looked with wonder upon its mechanistic
achievements and its impressive recipes for
“efficiency.’’ Laborious and prodigiously pa
tient in research it unquestionably was, and
its fruits from these virtues alone have made
the world its lasting debtor. Originative it
rarely was, nor spacious of mind. Its chief
deficiency, perhaps, was the chief deficiency
which those qualified to speak lay to Ger-
man education in general—an overlooking
and undervaluing of the human element.
‘The Germans,” wrote a keen observer years
ago, “know more about psychology than any
other people on earth, and less about human
nature.”
Was it not this same hard formalism, this
exalting of the letter to the impoverishing of
the spirit, that marked Prussianism through
and through, making even its military talent
of an Inferior order? From Von Moltke to
Hindenburg and Ludendorff, German gener
als, with few exceptions, trusted implicitly
to plans and hardly at all to inspirations.
Not one of them true to his type could have
testified as did Foch, who said at the con
flict’s close:
“I do not call it a miracle, but in a
supreme moment clear vision is some
times given a man compelling him to
certain measures of transcendent impor
tance. I believe I had such vision in the
battles of the Marne, on the Yser, and on ’
March the 26th. 1918. The victorious
decision came from the supreme divine
Will.”
Efficient thinking, it has been said, depends
upon knowledge about the subject in mind,
persistence in following paths that promise
results, readiness'to abandon them when
they become mere ruts, and, above all, . a
certain discernment or divination in lighting
upon the problem’s salient feature or clue.
Os these essentials the first is most easily
acquired and the last most distinctly a gift.
It was the great gift of Foch, as it was of
Stonewall Jackson; and as it has been ol
all the world’s leaders and lifters, whether
in action or in art or in science. It is a gift
that thrives on liberty and on taith in
things not seen; tyranny and materialism
are its Sahara.
May we not expect, then, that the Ger
many of tomorrow, if she grows in freedom
and insight, as we all trust she may, will re
vive her zeal for science, a more generous
zeal and a more fruitful science than ever
her past has witnessed?
Let Road tffork Continue.
* Sa means of curtailing non-essential
industries in the hope of diverting
*•labor to the farm, Daniel Willard,
president of the Baltimore and Ohio rail
road, is credited with suggesting to Secre
tary of War Baker the advisability ot sus
pending the construction of public highways.
It is hard to believe that Mr. Willard means
to classify road construction as among non
essential industries; yet if he is correctly
reported, no other conclusion is possible. It
would be almost, if not quite, as appropri
ate to suggest the suspension of railroad
work of all kinds as to urge the suspension
of highway construction, or even its curtail
ment.
The importance and advantages of good
roads aj-e so obvious and so generally ap
preciated that it is superfluous to dwell
upon them. Every intelligent person knows
that the farmers require improved highways
to get the products of their farms to the
cities, and everyone realizes that without
this aid the transportation system of the
country would collapse. Improved highways
are the rails and roadbed of vehicles other
than railway cars and engines. Without
them these modern and highly useful agen
cies of transportation would be rendered
practically worthless.
“Those who kept in touch with the le
markable services "ot this nature during the
war period and the days of railroad conges
tion and the recent railroad strike, all real
ize that highway transportation proved it
self a most helpful auxiliary to the railroads,”
remarks the Manufacturers’ Record, of Bal
timore, in discussing Mr. Willard’s reported
suggestion to Secretary Baker. Furthermore,
with the farmers being urged to increase
production it is obvious that better high
ways will be required for the movement of
his products to the markets, and “for this
"reason alone it is vitally important that road
building should not in the least be inter
fered with, but should, on the other hand,
be stimulated to the greatest possible de
gree as one of the most essential undertak
ings in the country.”
The railroads, as every one knows, are
wholly incapable of meeting present day
traffic needs. They cannot perform nor be
expected to perform the impossible. The
country is confronted by a transportation
crisis that is becoming more evident every
day. The country must turn more and more
largely to highways and waterways in the
years ahead. Instead of curtailing road
work throughout the country, every possible
facility should bj> used to aid and speed up
highway construction arid river improve
ment.
Road building has been developed to a
scientific basis in this country. The day is
gone when only common labor, such as is
adaptable to the farm, is used in highway
construction. Skilled labor, for the most
part, is required to build the permanent
roads that are gaining favor in the United
States, and if Mr. Willard’s reported sugges
tion were adopted we seriously doubt whether
it would accomplish the end for which it is
urged. Relatively few of the men engaged
in road-building would return to the farm.
Showing Dixie io New York.
AS an agency for advertising and pro
moting the development of the South
the Southern States Industrial Expo
sition, which opens in New York City on
July 15th and continues through September,
merits the full-hearted encouragement it is
receiving. The exposition will be held at
Bronx Park. This attractive show place, we
are told, will be converted into a veritable
Dixie Highway along •which will be grouped
in classified order the best of the staple and
manufactured products of the Southern
States. The holding of such an Exposition
in the nation’s metropolis w’here Southern
resources will be displayed for the inspec
tion and information of six million people,
is a great dnd seasonable enterprise offer
ing a rare opportunity to Southern indus
tries.
New York City being the central market
place of the earth, it is hardly necessary
to stress the importance of an exposition of
the South’s resources and activities woven
into a fabric of impressive achievement for
the inspection and study of thousands of
men from all parts of the world who are
seeking locations for industrial plants and
others who are looking for new trade con
. nections.
It is understood that many progressive
Southern concerns, equipped to handle na
tional and foreign business, have arranged
for displays at the Southern Industrial Ex
position. They regard the exposition as an
unusual agency for effectively advertising
and displaying what the South grows and
makes. Unquestionably, the enterprise of
fers a fine opportunity for pointing the way
to new and greater business advantages for
Dixie.
In an American election we count the re
turns. ■' In Mexico thej’ count the remains.—
El Paso Herald.
As Roosevelt’s political descendants, in
title, Johnson and Wood are apparently en
gaged in heir-splitting.—Norfolk Virginian-
Pilot.
If the waste product from sugarcane mills
can be utilized for making newsprint, how
much will that increase the price oj sugar?-
Boston Globe.
HAITUAL OFFENDERS
By H. Addington Bruce’
MORE and more as research into crime
and criminals extends it becomes certain
that physical or mental ill health is
a dominant factor in the making of many a
delinquent. Particular!) is this true in the
case of so-called habitual offenders.
In fact, so frequently has .disease been
found a determining element in the develop
ment of the habitual offender that persistent
delinquency should be regarded as a signal not
for summary sentencing to longer prison terms,
but for ordering a rigorous examination by
physicians and medical psychologists.
The habitual offender may be a normal man
or woman, fully responsible for the offenses
committed. But the chances are all in favor
of abnormality of some sort being present, and
usually abnormality of • sort calling for ex
pert curative or. custodial treatment.
In especial the habitual offender is likely to
be found mentallj defective. Let me cite a
few facts recently assembled by the national
committee for mental hygiene: . '
“Twenty-seven to 30 per cent of the inmates
of state prisons throughout the country have
been found to be feeble-minded. Thirty per
cent of the inmates of training schools, re
formatories, workhouses, house of refuge and
the like have been found feeble-mnided.
“Os three hundred habitually immoral women
examined by the Massachusetts vice commis
mission, the mental defect of So per cent was so
pronounced as to warrant their legal commit
ment to an institution for the feeble-minded.
“Reports of studies of various groups in
connection with the municipal court of Boston
showed that 58 per cent of the chronic and
habitual drinkers were found feeble minded; 25
per cent of the individuals arrested for lar
cepy were found feeble-minded; 30 per cent
of vagrants were found feeble-minded.
“Os 502 cases studie 4 by the psychopathic
laboratory of the police department of New
York, 58 per cent were reported to be suffer
ing from some nervous or mental abnormality.
“In a study of mental defect in Georgia, 34
per cent of -the inmates of the county jails
examined were found feeble-minded; 17J4 per
cent of the male inmates of the state prison
were found feeble-minded, as were 42 4-5 per
cent of the women inmates of the state prison
farm.”
Also it has been established that in numer
ous cases habitual offenders are the victims
not ot mental defect, but of< mental disease
and functional nervous disorders of a character
impelling them to anti-social behavior. Others
suffer from physical ailments markedly affect
ing their power of self-control.
Even such a seemingly trivial trouble as
dental disease may have a pernicious effect on
the behavior. Several cases are on record of
habitual drunkards —one a man arrested ninety
times for drunkenness—cured of their dipsoma
nia by the extracting of abscessed teeth.
So that it is the part neither of justice nor
of social wisdom to dispose of habitual offen
ders by the easy method of hurrying them
back to jail. Always they should be given the
benelifof physical and mental examinations. .
And 1 am happy to be able to add, this is
becomin'- increasingly the rule. Though it still
is far frqni being the universal rule.
(Copyright, 1920, by the Associated Newspapers.)
THE DEAD HAND
By Dr. "Prank Crane
I on’t ask others to follow me, but I wish
to state some radical conclusions which rea
son and experience have brought me. As you
think and think of things, sometimes you see
bottom, you feel that you have found ulti
mate rock. One of these bottom and rock
truths that for the last few years has been
steadily rising from obscurity and taking
form and substance in my mind is this, al
lowing, of course, a certain per cent of error
alloy to be found in every generalization:
“That all endowment, except that of the state
itself, is wrong.”
There may, as I say, be error, in this state
ment, but, so far as I have been able up to
the present time to follow the theory into
its particular bearings, I have found no place
where it breaks down.
Os course, we exclude any consideration as
to whether or not it is practical to abolish
endowments, for no reasoning can be honest
that is tainted with any consideration of use
fulness or expediency. When we think we
must as konly one question: )What is true?
It is only when we do that we ask: What is
possible?
Pure reason, therefore (and that always
means in the end the firmest justice and the
kindest humanity), it seems to me, strikes
right at the root of the question, and de
mands that no man have the right to control*
money or property of any kind after he is
dead.
This would abolish, first, inheritance.
All your economics, your capital and labor
wrangles, and your other efforts to bring
about any semblance of justice among men,
are mere scratchings on the surface. The
central, fundamental and root of injustice is
or one child to be born into the world to
privilege of any money kind. The only an
swer to this that seems of weight is that it
will take away the motive of energy from
men, because now men work for their chil
dren.
To which the reply is, that to work so that
one’s children have an unearned (by them
selves) advantage over other children is an
unsound and unrighteous motive. It is a
variation of personal egoism. It is anti-al
truistic, hence immoral. The very basis of
any true state is that each child born shall
have an equal chance with every other child.
It may be visionary and millennial and all
that, but it’s true, and it makes no differ
ence to a truth whether it is used now or in
a million years from now; it remains true
all the time. *
Americans think oldiworld hereditary cas
tles, kingships, and nobilities are cruel and
wicked: they think aright; they don’t half
realize how rightly they do think till they
go to the Old World and see; but Americans
have only half removed the curse as long
as they legalize the w’orst and most potent
form of irrational privilege, the control of
money by the dead hand.
(Copyright, 1920, by Frank Crane.)
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES
“What do you think about my engage
ment to Harold?” asked Gwendolyn.
“I think,” replied her father, “that I am
getting to be the senatorial branch of this
family. My advice and consent are consid
ered only when it’s too late for them to
make any difference.”
And to think that these costly pommes de
terre were carelessly spoken of in other days
as “spuds.”—Boston Herald.
Perspiration rolled down his brow as he
desperately chewed his pencil and stared va
cantly down at the blank sheet of paper be
fore him. It was the final examination of
his senior year at college. To fail in it
meant that he could not graduate; that he
would be disgraced; that his whole life would
be ruined. Shudders involuntarily passed
through him as he realized that he was a
rank failure.
The paper of the man on his left lay in
vitingly before his eyes. But he did not
glance at it. One could plainly see that he
was struggling valiantly against temptation
and, though the effort was heartrending, he
would sacrifice everything for the sake of
honor.
No, he would not copy from the man on
his left. The man on his right knew more.
WHO WILL FILL
THESE BIG JOBS?
By Frederic J. Haskin ,
NEW YORK, May 19. —Wanted
by» Big Business: Young men
who are capable of earning
from $15,000 to $35,000 a year.
While this announcement hag not
yet appeared in the classified col
umns of our prominent dailies, it is
an idea which Is advanced at every
large business convention occurring
here, and one that is being given
wide circulation by rotary clubs.
There is a demand for resourceful,
enterprising men,'capable of .striking
afield and the sky is the limit in
salary.
The truth is that Big Business is
in a pathetic plight. Never before
has it suffered from such an acute
shortage of high-priced experts.
Never before has the top of the
American industrial ladder been so
empty of eligibles. The gap is so
large, in fact, that it is even pre
dicted that our industries will have
to stop expanding unless the brains
and executive ability needed to de
velop them are somehow produced.
In its terror of such a calamity,
Big Business has recently approach
ed the universities and offered to
endow whole sections of them if they
will only turn out the kind of
ability that is needed. Just what
this ability is has been only vague
ly set down, but it is understood
that various industries are collabor
ating in the compilation of a list of
specifications for the types of men
needed, and this will be distributed
among educational Institutions.
LIKEABLE MEN
Heading this list, undoubtedly,
will be personality. This is the
principal requirement in a high
priced man, and most of the trouble
lies in the fact that there is not
nearly sufficient personality to go
around. The man of great personal
magnetism, with the ability to make
others like him and to exert an in
fluence over them is the man for
whom American industry is now in
the market. •
“The ability to handle men,” said
John D. Rockefellei' some years ago,
“has become just as “much a market
able commodity as is sugar, and I
will pay higher for it than anybody
else i nthe world.” Well John D.
was a pioneer but today finds him
self surrounded by competitors, all
bidding high for the same qualities.
Another urgent requirement of in
dustry is technical skill, supplement
ed by creative ability. It wants
technical men, with ideas; men who
are capable of improving upon old
methods and of developing new proc
esses.
These are the principal needs, but
several others will doubtless be sub
mitted to the universities, .which
have announced themselves willing
and anxious to co-operate with in
dustry in supplying the kind of
training it wants. This arrange
ment was discussed and agreed up
on at a recent conference held in
Philadelphia under the auspices of
the Technology Clubs associated,
which was attended by representa
tives of more than a hundred corpor
ations throuhout the country and of
more than three hundred educa
tional magnates been so chummy. It
was at this conference that Dr.
Hollis Godfrey, president of Drexel
institute, conceived the specifica
tion idea.
SPECIFICATIONS WRITTEN
“Educational waste has been go
ing on for centuries,” he declared,
“because there never has been a
definite statement or specification
written by industry of the specific
knowledge required to meet Its needs
The colleges and industry have been
working along different lines. It Is
here proposed to carry out a plan of
co-operation to eliminate that waste
by giving industry an opportunity
to state its needs’ and the colleges
an opportunity to state their capaci
ties te meet these needs.” .
This challenge was eagerly ac
cepted by many of the corporation
magnates present, who immediately
began pouring a mournful account of
their unobtainable requirements into
Dr. Godfrey’s sympathetic ear.
“First of all,” complained the pres
ident of a great shipbuilding corpora
tion, “the colleges do not teach a man
how to sell himself. Too often tney
turn out sliding rules rather than hu
,man beings. Their graduates are
highly trained technicians. They
know their own jobs, but they don’t
know how to handle men.
- “Not a thing is done in the col
leges, for example, to teach a man
whom to slap on the back, whom to
take by the arm when he meets him
in the corridor or walks down the
street with him. I believe that this
ability represents about 99 per cent
of- what is necessary for the success
of an executive, and knowledge of
detail represents the other 1 per cent.
Sell Yourself
“It all simmers down to the ability
to sell one’s self to the head of the
corporation to get a job, and to the
men working under one, to hold it.
The maintenance of proper relations
with subordinates makes all the dif
ference in the world. If one knows
enough about human relationship to
make men trust him and believe in
him, they will work for and with
him. This personal co-operatiqn may
mean a difference of 10 per cent in
production and this may turn losses
into handsome profits. All the tech
nical training in the world will not
do it without a knowledge of men
and human beings.”
In a word, what is needed in the
colleges is a course in human rela
tionships, or- possible, one on the eti
quette of back-slapping. In addition
to knowing the technique of his pro
fession, (he college graduate of the
future must cultvate the art of good
fellowship. In order to gain his
diploma in this course, he must pass
the personality test.
A brief glance at the great indus
trial and commercial world which
centers about New York does seem
to show that all of the top-notchers
have well developed this essential
ability to handle men. Among our
personal acquaintance, for example,
is a man who is holding a $30,000-a
--year job in a large steel plant. Be
fore the way he was an office execu
tive earning $3,000 a year. While
holding this position it was noticed
by his colleagues that he did very
little work, and they used to “rag”
him concerning the ease with which
he drew a “pension.” One day, one
young man, waxing more mirthful
than usual over the situation, suc
ceeded in arousing the office execu*
five’s wrath.
The Power of Direction
“If you were a man of any percep
tion whatsoever,” he declared coldly,
“you would realize that it requires
a great deal more ability to make
people work for you than to do the
work yourself.” X
The potency of this remark was
proved a short time later when
American industry began its tremen
dous war expansion, during which
the demand for trained office execu
tives became clamorous. This man
was quickly grabbed by a shipbuild
ing concern at a salary of $7,500 a
year, and since then he has been
fairly leaping up the industrial lad
der.
Another case in point Is the head
of a large automobile corporation
here, who declares that he does much
less work now at $50,000 a year than
he did when he was struggling along
for $5,000. And to listen to his con
versation you would imagine that he
earns his salary by having as good
a time as possible. It gives you the
impression that his chief occupation
is playing golf, lunching at the Lotus
club, and dining at the Plaza and
Biltmore with the firm’s employes,
and the rest of the time he apparent
ly passes in consultation with his
tailor, adding to the ever-increasing
grandeur of his appeal.
In fact, to a newspaper person who
has to make himself agreeable to all
sorts of cranks, it sounds delight
fullv simple—this business of filling
a $15,000-job—but there must be a
great deal more to it than appears on
the surface: otherwise, the colleges
would not be so bewildered as to
what it is that American industry
and commerce want.
“You look very sad, little boy,”
said the old lady. “Can I be of any
help to you?”
The little boy who had been read
ing stories of the kind usually found
in “penny dreadfuls.” struck an at
titude and exclaimed:
"Hist, woman! Thou canst be of
signal service to me, an’ thou wilt.
See’st yon tobaccy store across the
way? Take this bronze coin and bid
the scurvy knave within to supply
thee with two cigarettes and a
match! Be secret and betray me not
or thy life shall pay the penalty! I
.will await thee here. Begone!”
DOROTHY DIX’S TALK ON
Parental Vanity
The World’s Highest Paid , Woman Writer
BY DOROTHY DIX
THE ultimate expression of hu
man vanity and egotism is
the desire parents have to
make their children replicas
of themselves in body, mind and
soul.
If you want to hand out a choice
tid bit of flattery to any father and
mother, all that you have to do is
to tell them that their little Johnny
and Mary are heir living images.
They simply gulp it down and ask
for more.
Father will puff out his chest, and
beam with joy as he opines that he
guesses that Johnny is a chip off
of the old block, and mother will
bridle and smile ar;d say that Mary
certainly does look like her baby
pictures.
Yet father may be bald-headed, and
knock-kneed, and bay-windowed and
homely enough to stop the clock, and
mother one of the sandy-haired,
freckled-faced, pug-nosed, slab-sided
ladies who are hard on the eyes, and
constitutionally unfitted for the vamp
business. •
You would think they would sue
any one for libel and defamation
of character who would accuse their
helpless son and innocent little
daughter of even remotely resem
bling them, and that the least that
the slanderer of defenseless infants
■would get off with would be assault
and battery.
But nothing of the kind happens.
Instead of the ugly and malformed
hoping and praying their children
will look like anybody else on earth
but themselves, they are tickled to
death to have Johnny inherit their
spavined legs, or rabbit upper lip, or
protruding teeth, and for Mary to
have wished on her invisible eye
brows, and a sal eratus biscuit com
plexion.
Parental self-conceit even goes a
step farther, and gloats over chil
dren reproducing their very faults
and vices. How often you will hear
a father boast that he can’t control
Johnny because Johnny takes after
him in being determined to have his
own way at any cost! Or mother will
say with pride that Mary has a
quick temper just like she has!
If the children copy their parents’
weaknesses all is forgiven them. It
is only when they strike out on
original sin lines that father and
mother bring them to book.
It is to parental vanity that we
owe the perpetuation of hideous
Christian names, generation after
generation. If father had parents
who were cruel enough to saddle him
with some name that makes him
shudder every time he hears it—he
doesn’t say this outrage shall go no
farther. I’ll stop it right here. No.
He brands his oldest son with it,
and never forgives his daughter-in
law if she refuses to continue the
curse on her first born.
How any man or woman could af
flict a poor little, helpless infant with
their own harsh, hard, ugly, unmelo
dious name just to gratify their van
ity is something that passes compre
hension.
They do it, however, and no prob
lem is more difficult for a humane
young couple to settle than how to
protect their offspring from being
christened Heprebiah, or Maria, or
Ephriam, or Jeremiah without mortal
ly offending the grandpa and grand
ma whose egotism demands that the
baby be sacrificed on the altar of
their vanity.
It is parental self-conceit that is
responsible for nine-tenths of the
friction between fathers and moth
ers and children. Parents are de
termined that their children shall
have the same outlook on life, the
same tastes and desires and ambi
tions that they have. Unfortunately,
nature doesn’t always run a family
in the same mould, and it not infre
quently happens that instead of be
ing little understudies of their papas
and mamas, Johnny and Mary are
cast for exactly opposite roles.
CURRENT EVENTS OF INTEREST
The cost of food up to May 1 had
risen to 145 per cent above the pre
war level, and there is a prospect
of its going still higher, said Charles
A. McCurdy, minister of food, in an
official statement issued in Lon
don.
Mr. McCurdy, however, declared
the price of food in England was
still lower than in France, Italy and
Sweden, and still it was not much
higher than In the United States.
According to a statement issued
from Budapest, Hungary’s new
money, which will bes Issued soon by
the Austro-Hungarian bank, will be
the most beautiful in Europe. It will
be washable and durable, and it will
be almost impossible to counterfeit.
Bills of larger denominations will
be printed on silk paper closely imi
tating United States money, the fab
ric for the bills being obtained from
silk wall paper stripped from old
palaces throughout the country. In
view of the lack of precious metals,
the government proposes to issue
small bills, which will be printed
on tanned pigskin.
The $104,000,000 legislative, execu-,
tlve and judicial appropriation bill
was passed unanimously by the
house at Washington after it had
been redrafted by the appropriations
committee to meet the objection that
led to its veto by President Wilson.
The president, in his veto message,
held that congress s<mght by a •rider
to interfere with executive functions
in giving the joint congressional
committee on printing supervision of
government publications. The bill
now goes to the senate.
One thousand cases of whisky,
said to be worth $125,000, was seized
by Federal officers at Delaware,
near Columbus, 0., and brought to
Columbus. Drivers of seven motor
trucks on which the liquor was load
ed, exhibited papers purporting to
show that the whisky had been
shipped from Frankfort, Ky., to Sum
mit Hill., Pai Investigation of the
papers is to be made here.
Many lives are reported lost and
millions of dollars damage done to
property in numerous outbreaks in
China because the soldiers have not
received their pay, according to a
London Times dispatch from Pekin.
Japan has ceased to furnish funds,
and the Chinese government com
plains that it is without resources
to pay the troops.
Draped with the American flag.
154 coffins containing the bodies of
soldiers, sailors and marines who
died overseas, arrived recently on
the navy transport Nereus, which
docked at the Supply Base, foot of
Thirty-fourth street, Brooklyn, N.
Y. The bodies were those of 102
sailors, twenty naval officers, thirty
enlsted marines and two marine of
ficers.
Syracuse newspapers recently pub
lished the following announcement:
“On account of a shortage of print
ers the three Syracuse newspapers
are compelled to issue editions great
ly reduced in size.
“A newspaper’s' first duty is to its
readers, and therefore the aim is to
publish all the news and features.
By necessity all display advertising
must be eliminated. The newspapers
will publish onlj' classified adver
tising now standing in type, death
notices and legal advertising.”
The shortage of printers is due to
the fact that they are quitting their
posts after their demand for a week
ly bonus of $8 was refused. They
are bound by contract not to strike.
After providing for an appropria
tion of $40,000,000 for the army air
service, an increase of about $13,-
000,000 over the house bill, the sen
ate military committee, at Washing
ton, ordered the annual army appro
priation bill favorably reported to
the senate.
As finally agreed upon, the bill
carries $418,919,141, an increase of
$42,153,317 over the house measure.
No changes were made by the com
mittee in the house provisions relat
ing to the national guard. An appro
priation of $10,210,000, an increase of
$2,000,000 over the house bill, was
provided for the ordnance depart
ment. The appropriation for the
military intelligence bureau was in
creased from SIOO,OOO to $400,000.
Then you hear wild lamentations
about ungrateful and unflllial chil
dren, and children who are disap
pointments to their parents, and par
ents beat upon their breasts and cry
out that their hearts are broken,
while, in reality, it is only their van
ity that is wounded.
Father simply can’t stand it that
Johnny won’t go into the hardware
business when he had planned for
Johnny to be a hardware king ever
since Johnny was in pinafores. He
tiftnks Johnny a young idiot and r.u
account because the boy hasn’t inher
ited his head for trade, and the fact
that Johnny has talents of his owu
doesn’t in the least atone for his
lack of business ability. “If my son
isn’t a rubber stamp of me, he’s
bound to be all wrong” is the conclu
sion that parental vanity offers to
the average man.
And when you hear a mother sigh
and say that her daughter has been
such a disappointment to her, nine
times out of ten all that is the mat
ter with the girl is that she isn’t the
exact counterpart of what mother is,
and mother’s self-conceit is hurt.
Perhaps in her youth, mother was
a fluffy ruffles girl, whose mind was
cut on the bias and ruffled in the
middle, and whose idea of bliss was
unending parties with pink chiffon
dresses, and beaux two deep hanging
around her. , .
Some freak of fate has made this
canary bird hatch out an owl. Her
daughter cares nothing tor looks, or
clothes. She loathes parties, and
she was elected an* old maid in the
cradle by the unanimous vote of
every man she ever meets. Her only
interest is in serious things. Her
happiness in study and work.
An admirable girl. A model char
acter. Yet her mother could forgive
her every frivolous sin easier, than
she can the girl being different from
herself. For to mother’s mind the<re
is but one perfect type of what a
young girl should be, and that is to
be the sort of a gh’l she was.
And what is all of this cry about
children not taking their parents ad
vice, except that father’s and moth
er’s bump of conceit has gotten hit.
Every father and mother feels per
fectly capable of settling their chil
dren’s fate for them. They would
do this by the simple rule of having
their sons and daughters do as they
did, notwithstanding that they have
made no conspicuous success of lite,
and have not been distinguished for
the soundness of their own judg
ment. ■ ~
The reason sons are so seldom
willing to wonk for father or go in
to business with him is because
father’s vanity will not let him ac
cept a suggestion from his-own child.
The reasons mothers and daughters
in-law fight like cats when they try
to keep house together is because
mother will not agree to any new
methods. She is so supremely and
egotistically sure her own way ot
doing things is the only infallible
W Parents make their vanity a stand
ard ethics. They decide conduct by
their own inch rule personal meas
ure. Mother doesn’t know what
girls are coming to when they do
things she never did and wear
clothers she never wore when she
was a girl. Father is sure, all the
boys are headed for perdition be
cause he didn’t act as they do
when he was young.
And mother and father forget m
their self-complacency that they
do not know it all —that to each
generation comes a new standard,
and that, as a matter of fact their
children do not admire them quite as
much as they admire themselves, and
would not b£ exactly like them ii
they could. . ~ .
“Vanity—of vanities, sayeth the
preacher, all is vanity. And there is
no vanity so monumental, so com
plete, so’ all encompassing, as the
vanity of the old.
Dorothy Dix articles will appear
in this paper every Monday, Wed
nesday and Friday.
The Rev. George Jones, of Camer
on Terrace, L. 1., one of five men
still Hving who took part in the
charg -> of the Light Brigade at
Balaclava in the Crimean war, told
his recollections of Florence Nightin
gale in a talk at an observance of
the centenary of Florence Nightin
gale at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
The Rev. Mr. Jones, who is 85
years old, said that he was ill in a
hospital near Balaclava when he first
met the famous nurse. She took care
of him, prayed for him and convert
ed him to Christianity. It was under
her influence, he said, that after the
war he became a preacher.
“She went from cot to cot with a
word of cheer for each soldier,” he
said. !‘She wrote uetters home for
us. She prayed with us. We often
wondered when she got any sleep.
She was worshiped. The men would
kiss her shadow on the wall. I have
her picture on my desk and I often
take it down to gaze on it. I shall
neve* forget her.”
The board of estimate accepted the
proposal of Mrs. Isaac L. Rice and
family, of New York, to erect and
present to the city a million dollar
stadium,' athletic field and play
ground to be the Isaac L. Rice Me
morial in honor of Mrs. Rice’s late
husband. To overcome objections of
persons who are opposed to the
erection of buildings on park prop
erty the board decided to acquire
for the city a site adjacent to Pel
ham Bay park, the original proposal
having been to erect the memorial in
that park.
The board named Comptroller
Charles L. Craig, Henry Bruckner,
president of the Borough of the
Bronx, and F. H. La Guardia, presi
dent of the board of aidermen, as a
committee to confer with the Rice
family regarding plans.
Henry B. Herts, architect of the
memorial, said he believes enough of
the memorial can be completed to
make it feasible to open it to the
public next Labor Day.
Seizure by internal revenue agents
of all material “designed to be used
in the manufacture of alcohoic
liquors” has been ordered b S. R.
Brame, Federal Supervising Prohibi
tion Agent for the Southern division
at Roanoke, Va.
Mr. Brame’s orders stated that
"not ony are materials such as
sugar, grain, molasses and malt in
gredients to be seized, where suf
ficient reasons exist for the belief
that they will be.used in the produc
tion of illicit alcoholic iquor, but
that suspicious shipments also are
to be detained.”
HAMBONE’S MEDITATIONS
'LOW HE hate
|T' PREACH A WEEK-El>
■MANS FUNE'AL , CASE HE
CAINT SAY MUCH Good
BOUT 'IM z BUT DEY S
SOME FOLKS HITS JES'
A PLEASURE T' PREACH
dey fune'al!! /
A \\ V -
i&W
Copyright, 19?j»i;y McClure Newspaper Syndicate