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THE TRI WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
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THE TRI-WEEKT.Y JOURNAL, Atlanta. Ga.
A Slacker Congress.
FOR legislative delinquency and per
verseness there is hardly a parallel
in American history to the recoid
of the Republican-ruled Congress which Sat
urday dropped even its pretense of public
service and went home to play politics un
alloyed. Surely nothing in its session be
came it like adjournment. With opportu
nities for usefulness such as law-makers
rarely are vouchsafed, its majority ha,s done
little more than quibble, criticize and ob
struct. With responsibilities such as few
governmental bodies ever have faced, it has
shirked and slacked and muddled. The peo
ple are, if anything, worse off for its hav
ing met; certainly they would have fared as
well had the House and Senate never as
sembled during the last nine months.
A multitude of important matters which
it was Congress’ duty to dispose of remain
in suspense; and such measures as‘it passed
were with a few exceptions, either inade
quate or ill advised. It did next to nothing
toward a reduction of the burdensome cost
of living. Thinking ditizens did not wish
it to meddle with natural laws of supply and
demand or resort to socialistic expedients;
but- they did wish and expect it to remove
barriers to normal readjustment and to re
vise the tax laws which are notoriously re
sponsible for a large part of high prices.
This Congress, dominated by a naprow Re
publicanism. was so busied with efforts to
discredit the Democratic administration, that
it found no time for constructive acts of its
own and evinced scant sympathy with con
structive suggestions. Such helpful laws as
it did enact —the water power bill, for ex
ample—were really of Democratic origin ana
in substance were brought over from the pre
ceding Congress.
This is the record upon which the Repub
lican party must go before the country in
the coming campaign. This is the G. O. P.’s
evidence of trustworthiness in responsibility.
This is its proof of efficiency and statesman
ship. A party organization that has shown
itself so incompetent, so wanting in ideas
and ideals, so blind to national interests and
national honor, so positive a menace ( to the
public weal, deserves overwhelming repudia
tion at the polls. Grant that Democratic ad
ministrations have erred and that Demo
cratic Congresses have fallen far short of
what they should have been. Still, the
seamiest of their records is superb work
manship to that of the delinquent majority
now in control. »
Canning and Curing.
THERE is no timelier or more service
able form of enterprise in Georgia to
day than that which has to do With
preserving food crops. What the packing plant
has done for animal husbandry, the cannery,
the curing house, the brining station and kin
dred industries will do for truck farming ana
for special fields of agriculture which without
this sustainment could never develop—they
will create a dependable and profitable mar
ket.
It was the lack of just such facilities that
made Georgia’s path to crop diversification
at first so difficult and kept her fettered to
a tyranny of cotton when her natural re
sources called for production of the widest
and most versatile range. Cotton was pre
ferred despite the hazards and handicaps it
imposed not because was inherently more
profitable than food harvests, but because it
coUld be converted readily into cash or eas
ily used as a key to credit. The grower
simply hauled his ten or a hundred bales to
a reliable warehouse, took a receipt, or the
money if he was ready to sell,, and his re
sponsibility was at an end. But imagine
the straits of a farmer who five or ten years
ago would drive into the average town some
fine September morning with a hundred or
a thousand bushels of sweet potatoes. He
as well might have brought the sands of the
sea; not that his produce lacked value, but
that, having supplied the local and imme
diate demand, he could find no market for
the remainder and no adequate means for
preserving it. Little wonder that after a
single direful experiment in diversification
byway of the yam, he plunged back into
the all-cotton system, a standpatter never
again to be budged. But today, thanks to
the cannery and the curing house, there a
goodly market is developing for every bushel
of sweet potatoes which the sandy loam of
this and neighboring states will yield. The
Georgia Preserving Company quotes author
itative estimates that there is a sufficient
trade prospect to guarantee the disposal of
four million cases of canned yams, and the
demand steadily grows.
This is one among numerous food crops
which heretofore have been grown but
sparsely or fitfully in this region but which
with adequate means of preservation and
marketing will become staples of our agri
culture and add immensely to the State’s
productiveness and wealth. In a time when
the world-wide shortage of food demands
the utmost energy both in producing and in
conserving, this type of enterprise is special
ly valuable and should receive unstinted en
couragement.
THE ATLANTA TRI-WEEKLY JOURNAL.
'Che Cotton Association.
The American Cotton Association is en
titled to the support of the large business
concerns of the South in its movement to
raise a sustaining fund of $200,000 to tide
it over the formative period of organiza
tion.
As pointed out by Mr. B. F. McLeod, a
very successful Charleston business man,
who is a member of the finance committee
of the association, this was the plan used
by the Chamber of Commerce of the United
States in its formative period, and without
such a fund it is not likely that the or
ganization would have survived. Mr. Mc-
Leod is a former president of the Chamber,
and was not speaking without advice.
When the American Cotton Association
has built up a large membership through
out the Cotton Belt, its continuance and
success will be assured. In the meantime it
is obliged to have a fund of ample mag
nitude to finance its operations. It proposes
to invite the large business concerns of
Southern cities to take sustaining member
ships for a period of a few years to tide
it over this formative period. It began its
campaign with the business concerns of At
lanta, where the central headquarters of the
association are located.
No one questions the fact that the South’s
prosperity rests upon the prosperity of the
cotton producer. Whatever helps to make
him more prosperous and more contented
will help to make the South more prosperous
and contented. Whatever factors operate to
drag him down to a level approximating
economic slavery, likewise operate to drag
down the South.
The American Cotton Association is
neither radical nor visionary. It aims at the
improvement of the economic status of the
cotton producer, at the elimination of waste
in the cotton producing industry, at the sta
bilization of market conditions, at the de
livery to the spinner of a better grade of
longer staple cotton in a steady stream
throughout the year.
Mr. W. B. Thompson, a very successful
cotton factor of the city of New Orleans,
and a former president of the New Orleans
Cotton Exchange, who is a member of the
executive committee of the American Cot
ton Association, addressing the Atlanta
business men who met together to hear the
request of the association for sustaining
memberships, gave a clean-cut, concise and
comprehensive outline of its aims.
“The association,” said he, “is not a
communistic or socialistic organization that
proposes to take up any new . experiments
or indulge in any untried theories. The
association proposes to proceed on strictly
economic lines.
“In years past a tremendous wastage
has occurred in the growing, handling and
marketing of the cotton crop. The cotton
producer has suffered, the banker has suf
fered, the cotton merchant has suffered, and
all business interests of the South have suf
fered.
“Now, it id proposed by the American
Cotton Association not to come in and buy
a whole lot of cotton anA taka care of
‘distress’ cotton. It is not propoeM for the
association to be a dumping ground, but it
is proposed to create conditions which will
render ‘distress’ cotton impossible. It is
- 'or to educate and interest the farmer
to produce a better grade of cotton and a
better staple of cotton. It is proposed to
take better care of cotton on the farm, in
the railroad station, and at the gin com
presses. It is proposed to encourage the
building of warehouses and to carry cotton
in such shape that it will be ready convert
ible into money.
“Now, in order to do that, it is necessary
to have some sort of organization. We may
get up here and make speeches and have
conventions from time to time and advise
curtailment of acreage and the holding of
cotton and go back home, and we have ac
complished very little work. Sometimes
meetings of that kind do great harm. If
we are to accomplish results that will be
beneficial to the South and to the world at
large, there must be a permanent organiza
tion. Plans must be worked out that will
bring about the desired results, and men of
earnestness and enthusiasm must be con
tinually at work pushing these plans for
ward.”
These thoughts presented by a business
man of the successful record of Mr. Thomp
son are worthy of the serious consideration
of business men all over the South. From
its inception the most hopeful aspect of the
American Cotton Association has been the
support it received from business men dem
onstrating a willingness to co-operate in the
general betterment of the economic status
of the cotton producer.
There has been a great deal of scientific
education by agricultural colleges and
chools along the line of increased produc
er! and diversified crops, aqd all of this
•as needed and should be kept up, but
- h'” "ot been enough commercial edu
cation along the line of improved methods
of handling, storing, marketing and financ
cettou. Agricultural education is only
fifty per cent efficient if it makes the
•'armer a good farmer but fails to make him
a good business man. It is to be expected
that agricultural colleges and schools will
pay more attention to the commercial end
of farming.
Meanwhile, the farmers will benefit enor
mously by co-operation. All other ’lines of
business are organized. Why not the farm
ers? It is not sufficient to argue that the
job is too big and will take too long. Noth
ing will ever be accomplished unless a
start is made. And the American Cotton As
sociation proposes to make the start.
*
Business Men and 801 l Weevil.
WAYNESBORO’S business men have
offered rewards aggregating six
hundred dollars for the capture
of boll weevils. This liberal and sagacious
piece of enterprise comes as a climax to
Burke county’s preparation for war upon the
gathering insect hosts. So fertile a region,
its planters argue, must not fail to produce
its portion of a cotton crop that bids fair to
fetch unprecedented prices. But with the
production cost of cotton as excessively high
as it is this season, the grower stands no
chance to profit, but in peril of disaster, un
less he stops the all-devouring weevil ad
vance.
If Dr. Holmes was right in his theory that
the time to begin a child’s education is five
generations before it is born, assuredly the
time to start a boll weevil’s conquest is, say,
a thousand generations before its advent.
For, like most things pestiferous, this para
site multiplies with amazing rapidity. Let
a boll weevil Adam and Eve be placed in the
paradise of some tender leaf tip in early
June, and by August billions of the great
great-great-great-great - great - great - great -
great-great-great-great - great - great - great -
great-great-great-grandchildren will be gorg
ing themselves on cotton bolls and farmers’
hopes.
Hence it is that Burke county’s business
men are joining the campaign to eradicate the
weevil as far as possible ere its propagation
gets beyond control. Their stake in the out
come, they is scarcely less vital than
that of the growers themselves; the commu
nity’s interests being involved, community
effort must be mustered. This good spirit
of co-operation between town and country is
gratifyingly on the increase in Georgia. May
it spread and thrive until ’ there is State
wide co-working for all common interests.
TOXIC INSANITY
By H. Addington Bruce
rp HAT serious mental disease may at times
be caused by intestinal self-poisoning
is a fact that is being more and more
impressed upon the medical profession.
Indeed, cases are now on record which sug
gest that even when a mental disorder would
seem to be of wholly psychic origin it may be
necessary to take the possibility of self-poi
soning into account in order to effect a cure.
Impressively illustrative is the experience of
a certain young woman afflicted with suicidal
melancholia.
This young woman had been working hard
at college and had been worrying about her
work. Shortly before examination time she
became moody and irritable, and began to
suffer from sleeplessness.
So stubborn did the sleeplessness become
that she sought medical advice. A diagno
sis of nervous breakdown was made, and she
was ordered to cease all study and take a
complete rest.
Rest did not bring the expected relief. She
continued to sleep badly—despite the use of
sleep-producing drugs—and developed delu
sional ideas. These took the form of delu
sions of persecution, leading to a profound
melancholia.
Soon it became evident that the unfortu
nate young woman designed doing away with
herself. Her father was advised to commit
her, for her own safety, to an institution for
the insane.
At this point chance brought him into con
tact with a specialist, who believed that in
testinal self-poisoning might be at the bot
tom of the deplorable mental condition.
“We know,” he explained, in effect, “that
worry has a disturbing influence on all the
bodily processes. It is conceivable that in
jour daughter’s case it may have caused an
intestinal weakness that has poisoned her
whole system, including the brain. 1
“This might be aggravated by the hyp
notics she has been taking, with the result
that all her tissues are doubly laden with
poison. Let us put her on an intensive treat
ment that will eliminate whatever poisons
may be present.”
The course proposed was adopted, with a
suiprising outcome. To summarize in the
specialists s own words
n forty hours the entire as-
f th the ! CaSe - had changed for the better.
Sh i? clearing out of the system and
cells thpm!n V d e stimnlation of tbe glands and
bid cloud d Came ° Ut frOni Under its mor '
“The girl’s depression and melancholia
were replaced by a cheerful optimism. Her
seif Her naturally sunny disposition reas
serted itself. Her confidence and trust in
her relatives and friends was restored.
After a short period of unpoisoning treat
ment, and then a few weeks devoted to
physical reconstruction, the young girl was
taken home, absolutely.sound, physically and
mentally.” J
Possibly this is an exceptional case. Yet
it may be typical of many. Time and expe
rience alone can determine.
Certainly, at all events, it seems to offer
new hope for some of the numerous mental
wrecks whose sad plight is of puzzling cau
sation.
(Copyright, 1920, by the Associated News
papers.)
WAIT A LITTLE LONGER
By Dr. Frank Crane
■When you stop to think of it, we are not
doing so badly. Os course, we are in a de
plorable mess. The dirtiest type of politi
cian seems to be in control and determined
to humiliate the nation by deserting and in
sulting our late allies; the labor agitator has
the industry of the country by the throat;
and the blatherskite and mischief-maker are
abroad in the land. All of these play into
the hands of the reactionary and pave the
way for his return in triumph.
Still, we used to be worse off, and a glance
at the past shows we are improving.
Still, we used to be worse off, and a glance
at the past shows we are improping.
Bad as Trotzky is he is beeter than the Czar
and all he stood for. And the worst ex
cesses of the revolutionists in Germany do
not contain anything like the seeds of uni
versal ruin that lay in Kaiserism.
We’re getting on. Slowly. But we’re get
ting on.
We must remember that progress is not
by grown-ups, but by children. It is only
the new crop of human beings that advance.
In other words, real progress is not by
politics, nor economics, nor churches, nor any
other institutions composed of people who
have had their day, but by education, or by
people who have it in their power to make a
new day
This is about the first generation that can
read and write.
A string of four or five generations, a line
of grandfathers only a few times removed,
could stretch back to the days of absolutism,
tyranny, and cruelty well established all over
the earth.
We have got rid of kaisers, czars, slavery,
torture, the inquisition, Louis XIV, the Haps
burgs, the oppression of the masses ana the
divine right of the privileged few—all only
a while ago.
Don’t be in a hurry.
Come back in a hundred years or so and
we’ll show you quite a world.
Gigantic forms of justice are being
brought forth, and parturition is painful.
After a while, when the children of these
times grow up, we shall be glad of them.
There are being born justice to the la
borer, justice to the woman, justice to the
child by removing the peril of alcohol, jus
tice to the world by the formation of all na
tions into a league for the prevention of
war, universal commerce, the era of science
replacing humbug, and a better grasp of the
spiritualities.
Give them a chance to grow up.
(Copyright, 1920, by Frank Crane.)
QUIPS AND QUIDDIES
He’d bought a house. It had been such a
bargain that he couldn’t risk waiting till his
fiancee saw it.
But she was delighted to hear the* news,
and questioned him eagerly about it.
“How many clothes closets are there, Hen
ry?” she demanded.
“There are six,” replied the man, proud
ly.
“But that’s hardly enough, Henry.”
“What do you want with more than six
closets? That’s enough to hang your clothes
in, is it not?”
“Yes, dear,” replied the maiden, firmly.
“But you’ll want part of one for your clothes,
won’t you, Henry?”
Feebly his wavering feet bore Reginald
home. There had been one or two good
fellows in the club. Isn’t that enough to ex
plain to our enlightened readers why Regi
nald’s feet were wavering?
Into the front garden he staggered and
sank to rest, with his head in a bed of daf
fodils and his feet, on the gravel path.
But his wife had been wakened by the
noise of his approach. Now she opened a
window and shouted wildly;
“Who’s there?” •
CURRENT EVENTS
Announcing the award of con
tracts for the purchase of 5,200,000
barrels of fuel oil the navy depart
ment at Washington intimated that
it was the intention of the govern
ment to go into the business of re
fining oil on its own account.
As a result of the contract the
navy will receive as a by-product 15,-
792,000 gallons of gasoline, which
is expected to meet the demands of
the navy and other government de
partments, at a price approximately
the cost of manufacturing and trans
portation. By this arrangement the
navy will obtain gasoline at prices
ranging from twenty to twenty-two
cents a gallon, making a saving of
gasoline alone under the contracts of
$1,580,000.
By a modification if its specifica
tions the navy h'.s been able to avoid
decreasing the amount of American
oil available for commercial pur
poses by utilizing a large amount of
crude Mexican oil hitherto regarded
as unavailable.
x’he high cost of timber and news
print paper is due in no small meas
ure to decimation of the forests of
the east, Secretary Meredith Os the
Interior informed the senate in
transmitting a report of the forest
service.
“Scarcity of timber in the east
ern states is by no means the only
cause of high prices,” said the sec
retary’s letter. “But the facts re
main that three-fifths of the original
timber of the United States is gone
and that we are using timber four
times as fast as we are growing it.”
The report estimated that 2,215
billion feet of timber is left in the
United States, and that there had
been no marked chance in the con
centration of timber ownership dur
ing the last ten years.
Secretary Meredith indorsed the
position taken by the forest service
that the fundamental is a na
tional policy of reforestation, with
enlargement of the national forests
on a wide scale and legislation which
will enable the forest service to co
operate effectively with the states in
stopping forest fires.
Mayor Cornell Schreiber’s move to
make Toledo, Ohio, a city of tents to
take care of the hundreds unable to
find homes has met with a reverse
due to refusal of the government to
supply the tents.
The mayor received a reply re
cently saying that the government
has no canvas that can be used In
such a manner.
The mayor has appealed to own
ers of vacant rooms to throw them
upon the market.
Word reaches us from Ottawa that
after an all-night debate, parliament
voted by a majority of 25 to reject
an amendment to the budget bill
calling for substantial reductions in
custom duties on necessities of life,
machinery and implements. The
amendment was supported by the
old. line Liberal opposition and the,
cross-benchers,” representatives off
the farmers’ party who recently left
the ranks of the Union Coalitionists.
Because of “bad grammar” Presi
dent Wilson vetoed a bill to make
the interstate transportation of im
moral motion picture films a felony.
The president in his veto message
said the transposition of a phrase in
the bill made it ambiguous.
The house on receiving the veto
message conducted an investigation
and found that an enrolling clerk
had transposed the phrase. The bill
as “corrected” by the president was
repassed tonight by the house.
Military arrangements for the re
opening of the plant of the National
India Rubber company have been
completed. The disposition of the
500 National Guardsmen who have
been on duty here since Governor
Beeckman declared the town in a
state of insurrection will provide a
guard on all streets leading to the
tactoi*’.
Inquiry at various steamship of
fices in Paris, revealed that there
will not be more than 40,000 Ameri
can tourists coming to France ia
the next three months, because of
lack of accommodations, although
first estimates placed the minimum
at 100,000. The government has
promised to give to the Paris hotel
owners four or five hotels occupied
by French and Allied missions, by
July 1, to help take care of the
summer rush.
The tourist agencies believe the
senate will ratify the chamber of
deputies measure appropriating
30,000,000 francs for the erection of
hotels in the devastated regions and
otherswise facilitating tours to the
battlefields. A conference of gov
ernment officials, bankers and hotel
owners will be held next autumn to
arrange for new hotels to be finan
ced by joint co-operation of the gov
ernment and bankers.
After 7,000 waiters and waitresses
in 1,200 small restaurants and
lunch rooms in the city of New
York, had struck for a nine-hour
day, William Lehmann, business
agent of local No. 1 of the Hotel and
Restaurant Employees’ International
Alliance of America, asserted that
4,000 of the strikers had won, 1,000
were still negotiating and 2,000 more
expected to win before the end of
the week.
“So far,” said Mr. Lehmann, “we
have not tried to tie up any of the
hotels or leading restaurants in the
Broadway theater district. The
matter of getting the waiters and
waitresses in these places unaer our
wing is something we are going to
take up after we have finished the
present strike.
“The 2,000 still on strike are from
restaurants on Broadway, Lenox and
Sixth avenues and in side streets on
the west side.”
According to a message from
Washington, favorable report on a
bill prepared by the joint congres
sional committee providing increases
in the salaries of postal employes,
aggregating $33,000,000 for the first
year, was ordered by the senate post
office committee.
When Senator Townsend, ’Republi
can, of Michigan, chairman of the
committee, presented the bill in the
senate, he gave notice that he would
ask for its consideration at the pres
ent session of congress and would
endeavor to hold the senate in ses
sion nights to discuss it.
An attempt to get immediate con
sideration was blocked by Senator
Thomas, Democrat, of Colorado, who
refused unanimous consent and
forced the measure over for one day
under the rules.
On motion of Senator Kenyon, Re
publican, of lowa, the senate recon
sidered, without a roll call, its action
in passing the Nolan minimum wage
bill, setting a minimum wage for
government employes. *
Senator Kenyon and other senators
said they thought some changes
should be made that the bill might
not work hardships on inmates of
old soldiers’ homes and on several
other classes.
The bill probably will be presented
for passage with amendments later.
The $20,000,000 to be paid for in
creased teachers’ salaries has result
ed in a jump in the 7 direct tax rate
of from $1.06 for every SI,OOO of as
sessed valuation to $2.69, the highest
in thirty years. There must be $35,-
000,000 raised by direct tax this year,
as compared to $14,000,000 last year.
Announcement of the new tax was
made by the state tax commission
after a meeting of the state tax
equalization board.
The total assessed valuation of
property in the state is $12,989,433,-
000, an increase of $321,000,000. The
avera’ge percentage of property as
sessed was fixed at 85.93, a consider
able reduction for the five counties
in New York city. This is done for
the sake of apportioning the state
tax. In the Bronx, where the per
centage of assessment was 95, the
reduction will be $57,000,000; in
Kings, where the assessment percen
tage was 94 per cent, will be
$166,000,000; in New York, 95 per
cent, $494,867,000; in Queens, 89 per
cent, $21,908,000; in Richmond, 89 per
cent, $3,849,000.
The amount of these reductions,
aggregating more than $700,000,000,
will be distributed among up-state
counties.
The increase in the assessed val
uation of real property in New York
city is $156,975,480.
A dispatch from Rome gives out
this information: Reports published
recently that A. J. Balfour, formerly
British secretary of state for foreign
affairs, had proposed the admission
of the Vatican on the League of Na
tions, are denied in an official state
ment printed by the “Osservatore
Romano,” organ of the Vatican.
It is also said that “no other
person” has made, any such propo
sals. >
TUESDAY’, JUNE 8, 1920.
DOROTHY DIX’S TALK ON
JUDGING A GIRL BY HER CLOTHES
The World’s Highest Paid Woman Writer
BY DOROTHY DIX
A RICH old lady recently died, |
and in her will she left a be
quest of ten thousand dollars
to the woman who had been
her faithful friend and companion
for many years.
The rich woman’s children there
upon brought suit to annul the will,
alleging that the companion had
gained undue influence over their
mother by means of flattering her,
and telling her that she was still
beautiful, although she was afflicted
with the bodily infirmities of age,
and this so wrought upon their moth
er’s vanity that she was not of sound
and disposing mind, etc., etc.
“I did tell her she was beautiful,”
said the companion in her defense,
"but I had no ulterior design in say
ing so except to make her happy. I
bought lovely, soft negligees for her,
and when I would put them on her,
and arrange her hair prettily, she
looked like a picture of beautiful and
serene old age, and I would tell her
so, and the light would come into
her eyes, and her cheeks would flush
like a schoolgirl’s.
"Sometimes, hours afterwards, I
would find her still with a smile on
her lips, and I know that she had
been happy, living over again the
days of her youth, when she was a
famous beauty, and when all of her
little world burnt incense at her
feet.
“It took something of the sting out
of age to feel that her charm wasn't
entirely gone—that there was some
thing still left in her to call forth
admiration and a tribute of praise,
even if only from a woman who was
her companion.
“They say I flattered her. Well,
I did. but I did it through love, and
to make her happy, afid I’m glad of
every compliment I paid her, and
only wish they had been more, and
that I had made them gorgeouser
and gorgeouser, as Alice in Wonder
land would say.”
I’m for the companion against the
children who, you may be sure, do
not have to reproach themselves with
even having handed out any jolly to
mother. She deserves her ten thou
sand for having spread the velvet
that made the last lap of the jour
ney soft and pleasant for the old
lady’s feet, and I hope she gets it
with interest.
More than that, she deserves it for
the lesson she has taught the bal
ance of us, for we are conscience
stricken as we realize how cruel we
have been in assuming that praise
is the sole prerogative of the young,
and that the old have no self love
to be pleased or hurt, no vanity that
hungers for a few words of appre
ciation now and then.
Yet we know that the love of ap
probation never dies. It is as strong
at seventy as at seventeen, and our
store teeth are just as much a sweet
tooth as our milk teeth. Only we
feed candy to babes, and forget that
grandma and grandpa are starving
for the sweets we are too stupid to
offer them, and which their pride
and their dignity forbid them to ask
for.
If you don’t believe this try tell
ing grandmother that she is better
looking than her sixteen-year-old
granddaughter, and still has a come
hither look in her eyes. She will
tell you to begone, and not make
sport of an old woman, but she will
give unmistakable evidence of being
far more pleased with the compli
ment than Miss Sixteen would, if you
swore to her she was the living im
age of the Venus de Medici.
And how should this be otherwise,
human nature being what it is? It
is not possible that the woman whi
THE BEAUTIFUL CHLKANG-ONG
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN
CHICAGO, 111., June 3.—The rise
of the Chicago river, figuratively
speaking, has been almost as spec
tacular as the rise of some of the
barefoot boys who grew up on its
banks. But in all fairness it must
be admitted that it belongs not so
much to the class which has achieved
greatness as to the class which has
had greatness thrust upon it. It
has nearly always been in the public
eye, either as a civic problem or an
advantage, and now the attention of
the whole country is turned toward
it again, this time because the two
million-dollar Michigan avenue bridge
over it has just been completed.
This bridge is really the greatest
honor that has been paid to the
river so far. It is the first double
level bridge for pedestrians as well
as traffic to be built in this coun
try, if not in the world, and marks
a new step in the handling of con
gested city traffic in America. The
river may well flow more proudly
under such a structure, and Chica
goans walk more proudly over it.
For it is a monument to progressive
citizenship as represented by the Chi
cago plan commission.
The Chicago river seems always
to have been somehow involved in
the destinies of men. In fact it is
the reason why there is any Chicago.
Years ago it was used by the Indians
as a canoe route, as it furnished a
waterway from Lake Michigan which,
with a mile's easy portage, connect
ed it with the Desplaines river, and
thence down the Illinois to the Mis
sissippi. It was called Chi-Kang-
Ong by the Indians, a name which
means River of the Wild Onion.
After it was discovered by Joliet and
Marquette a trading post was estab
lished at its mouth and that was
the beginning of Chicago.
Was a Menace
It had always been a sluggish and
weak-willed stream flowing feebly
into Lake Michigan, and before the.
day of the drainage canal it became
a real menace to the lives of Chica
goans. For nine or ten months of
the year it had no current at all,
and, as the drainag-e of the city was
emptied into it, the result was ex
tremely unpleasant not to say in
sanitary. So after thirty years of
agitation and work the drainage ca
nal was completed, and the obliging
river turned around and flowed back
wards into the Desplaines, carrying
quantities of purifying lake' water
with it. This canal also made it
more valuable to commerce.
But it is not its rise as a useful
factor in Chicago life that has be<X
so spectacular. It is its rise as an
esthetic influence. It is the Cinde
rella among rivers, and at last it
seems to be coming into its own.
Once considered by all to be a loathly
stream, to be used for drainage, and
to bear huge ungainly barges loaded
with coal and iron upon its back, Wit
to be ignored by all nice people, it is
now painted and etched and sung by
almost every artist and poet for
miles around. If you are an advanc
ed Chicagoan you will no longer blush
and apologize when visitors mention
it. You will rather lead them to it
impressively, and point with pride
to its swirling green waters reflect
ing old warehouses, dark red barges,
little white puffs of smoke, from the
tugs, and dipping seagulls. Swarms
of art students from the Art Insti
tue and the Academy of Fine Arts
have been descending upon it of
late and clinging all over its bridges
and wharves busily preserving its
beauty in crayon and paint. Young
poets moon along its bridges at twi
light and watch the first red and
yellow lights pop out on the boats
and send long lines of brightness
down into its violet waters, the while
their bosoms swell with appropriate
sentiments. It is not known exactly
who first discovered the innate love
liness of this much maligned stream
but it is generally conceded that Carl
Sandburg, unofficial poet laureate of
Chicago, was one of the first to find
poetry in it. So he was asked to
explain its sudden charm for the
cultured.
Now Inspires Foets
“Well,” said Mr. Sandburg cocking
his stogie at a meditative angle, “I
guess you might say that the rea
son we are beginning to appreciate
the Chicago River is that we are
just growing an artistic -conscious
nes of our own. You see we’ve been
too busy growing commercially un
til just lately to give much time to
beauty, and so we got our art ready
made. F’rinstance, take the lions on
the Art Institute steps—if we’d had
any sense of the relation of art to :
life we’d have buffaloes on those I
steps and a lot better looking ani
mals they would be too. But we got 1
has been a beauty in her youth, and
who has been flattered and toasted,
could ever reach the place where she
realized that time had robbed her
of her looks entirely, or be recon
ciled to being passed over and neg
lected. There may be cures that
take away the craving for alcohol or
opium, but there Is none that ban
ishes the gnawing hunger of vanity.
Grandpa may seem to you a fat,
bald-headed, tottery old gentleman
whose thoughts should be centered
on preparing for his heavenly home,
and properly disposing of his real
estate here below. You’d never dream
of his liking to be jollied a bit about
having been a devil of a fellow
among the women in his youth, and
still being a lady killer. But just
tease him a bit about some buxom
widow, or accuse him of being the
best dressed man in the family, and'
you will see his chest swell out witfi
pride, and his sagging old shoulder
straighten up, and ten years of ag?
drop away under the miracle of your
flattery.
And grandfather will be even more
pleased if you ask his advice some
time, and defer to his judgment, and
quote his opinion. For you see it
is bitter hard for the man who has
done things, and been at the head of
big affairs, to be relegated to the
rear, a hasbeen with none so poor as
to do him reverence. You think he
doesn’t care, that he accepts It all as
part of the penalty of age, and that
when he retired from business he
locked his vanity up In his safety
deposit box along with his other as
sets.
Never were you more mistaken.
He yearns for the plaudits of his
fellowman just as much as he ever
did, and its inhuman of those about
him not to realize this, and let him
feast now and then on a mess of
flattery.
The old are like children. They
are pleased with little things. They
are made happy by trifles, and it is
to our shame that we so often for
get this, and through carelessness or
selfishness neglect to do and say the
small things that would make their
last days bright and full of cheer.
And the pathos and the tragedy of
the situation lies in the fact that we
could so honestly give them the lit
tle compliments they crave, for most
of us admire and reverence our par
ents.
We are filled *with pride when we
think of the fight that father has
made for his place in the sun. We
could bow our heads to the ground
before him when we consider the
shining goodness of him —the state
lessness of his honor, the faith and
loyalty he has shown in every rela
tion of life,
Why then should we not tell him of
our admiration? Few young people
realize it, but there is no other flat
tery on earth that is so sweet to
parents as just to know their chil
dren look up to them as patterns of
what humanity should be.
And why not tell mother she is
beautiful? In our eyes no other
face is so lovely as the one that
bent above our cradle; no sculptor’s
model of hands so perfect as those
that have known no weariness in
toiling for us; no vampire’s eyes
hold the magic of the eyes in which
we have seen the light of a death
less devotion glowing.
Why not tell her so? And make
her happy instead of bottling up all
our admiration to carve in marble on
her tomb.
One of our neglected duties is
jollying the old. Let’s turn over a
new leaf, and omit' no opportunity of
paying the very choicest compliment
we can think of to every old man
1 and woman we know.
those lions because there was a
European precedent, for lions. It’s
the same way with the river. There
wasn’t any precedent for exalting a
dirty old river so we despised ours,
all during the Victorian era. Then
realism got to be fashionable, peo
ple began to realize that lots of
things that aren’t pretty are beauti
ful, and our young artists discover
ed the Chicago River. Os course the
fiver had been beautiful all the time,
but we hadn’t grown up to it.”
Will Hollingsworth ,art critic and
instructor at the Academy of Fine
Arts, has just finished a series of
water color sketches of the river
which are now on exhibition here.
“To my mind,” said Mr. Hollings
worth, “it is the most beautiful place
in Chicago. It is beautiful, I sup
pose, because it is genuine, makes
no pretensions to being anything but
its picturesque and dirty selrT It
has been let alone, and the smoke
that has been the bane of the city
has done its work nobly. They will
probably begin to ‘beautify’ it sooner
or later, the river I mean, not the
smoke, and then the only painting
ground for miles around will be
ruined. What I really get out of it
is Something psychic and h<3.rd to ex
plain. It is the one part of the city
that sems to have background, if
you know what I mean. Did you
know, incidentally, that Andres Zorn
said it was the best etching place in
the world?”
Great Artist Draws It
The last remark of Mr. Hollings
worth’s referring to Zorn, settles the
question of the prestige of our river
beyond all shadow of question. If
Zorn, probably the greatest etcher of
our times, whose work is classed
with Rembrandt’s, approves of its
aesthetic possibilities, it is a made
stream artistically. No wonder Miles
Sater has made it famous in his se
ries of Chicago Beautiful post cards.
No wonder Otto Schneider .another
well-known Chicago painter, rides
back and forth on the elevated over
it just to look at it.
“It is a wonderful river to me,”
Mr. Schneider hastens to add his
words of praise, “because it is so
busy. It expresses life as we live’it
here, it expresses the very spirit of
our energy.”
Walter L. Moody, managing direc
tor of the Chicago Plan Commission
is another warm admirer of the
river.’ Chicago is potentially richer
in the possession of its river than
any old world city, according to Mr.
Moody. The geographical strategy
makes it open to intensive develop
•ment as well as beauty. Chicago
hasn’t begun to use its possibilities.
But the Chicago Plan Commission
has many ambitious intentions to
ward this stream and when they get
through with it it will hardly recog
nize itself as the humble wild onion
river of yorq.
BAMBOO'S MEDITATIONS
1 PAHSON AX ME FUH A
LIL H_EP DIS PAWNIN'-
HE SAY HE NEEt>
'Bout ten dollars
But lawdy ! he ain't
lookin' fuh hep r HE
LOOKIN' FUH 'SISTANCe!,
Copyright. 1920 by McClure Newspaper Syndicate