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THE fRI-WEEKLY JOURANL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
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THE TRI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, Atlanta, Ga.
A Tech Tour of Georgia
vrr HEN the Georgia Tech Industrial Tour
\A/ of Georgia is launched some time in
February, the state should witness
beginning of a business and industrial re
vival of a more compelling and far-reaching
eharacter than any movement launched to
build up the South in the last twenty-five
years.
The tour is a home product, conceived by
Georgians, organized by Georgians and con
ducted by Georgian-, for the benefit of Geor
gians. Therein is a significant characteris
tic —that no outside influence furnished the
motive power, but that the realization by
Georgians themselves of their own industrial
weakness and their great industrial oppor
tunities led them to seek a practical and an
effective remedy for the situation.
The Georgians who will make the tour
have seen for a long time that their state,
though in resources a veritable treasure
house, was falling far behind other states in
reaping the industrial harvests. Our vast
water-powers, our rich coal and iron and
mineral deposits, even our immense produc
tion of cotton availed us little compared to
the splendid uses made of such assets in
Pennsylvania, Ohio and half a dozen other
states. Georgia, potentially one of the
Strongest industrial sections in America, act
ually was one of the weakest. It was a
condition that cost the state millions every
year and brought dire consequences in de
pendence on agriculture alone for our peo
ple’s main income.
The state’s foremost business captains,
seeing this distressful picture with unblind
ed eyes, decided to act. They went north
and east, to Pittsburg, where Georgia iron
ore was being made into steel which was
then shipped back to Georgia and sold at a
stiff profit; to Ivorydale, where Georgia
cotton seed was converted into toilet arti
cles and cooking oils for which Georgians
later paid fancy prices; to plants where
Georgia clay was moulded into beautiful pot
tery; and, most impressive of all, to insti
tutions such as the Mellon Institute and the
Massachusetts School of Technology, where
the research work was being done and the
men trained that enabled these industries
to wax mighty.
Now they have come home to Georgia
to preach the gospel of industrial salvation
taught them by their trip. The message
they will bear on the industrial tour in Feb
ruary is one every Georgian should take to
heart, for through it he stands to win for
himself and his children wealth, stability and
happiness denied him in great measure to
day. If the people of the state as a whole
can be shown what their fellow Georgians
saw, if they can be convinced of what their
fellow Georgians were convinced, if they will
likewise become disciples of the new indus
trial gospel, Georgia’s indu«trial future is as
sure as the rising of the sun. For the state,
enthusiastically united in a single effort for a
single goal, will bring to pass a new era
in its progress.
The first step in that progress is to build
around the nucleus of the present Georgia
Tech an institutio. comparable to the best
in the east of the same character—an insti
tution where business can bring its problems
for solution, where scientific research will
find new methods for old and valuable as
sets in products now considered worthless;
where the young men of the south, the fin
est raw material she has, can be trained for
the expert leadership that, by developing the
south’s resources, will guide Georgia out of
the wilderness into the land of industrial
promise that waits ahead for her.
A Good Sign of the Times
FEW omens of the time could be more
reassuring than the fact that in this
year of readjustment, with its inevi
table anxieties and doubts, the American peo
ple are buying ten billion dollars’ worth of
new life insurance. That they have so large
a surplus as the premiums on this sum rep
resent means much; it means more that they
are turning it to so wise and altruistic an
end.
Ten billions of new life insurance bear
witness to reserves of wealth and of charac
ter that appear the more impressive when
we note that this is twenty-one per cent
above what was bought in 1919, which was
itself a period of unprecedented increase.
Last year, although commonly? described as
one of headlong extravagance, saw a gain of
sixty-two per csnt over 1918 11 the amount
of new insurance taken; and this year, al
though put down as one of sharp retrench
ment, sees that vast investment multiplied
by more than a fifth.
The heart of the rank and file is usually
much steadier and sounder than those who
judge from the flutte of little groups sus
pect. A near-sighted tourist sees the froth
of Paris and pronounces the x rench nation
hopelessly frivolou® or decadent, being ig
norant of those deep, heroic tides which
found utterance in “They Shall Not Pass.”
Likewise in America a casual ob erver sees
flurries of folly from which he infers that
the whole country has turned prodigal, and
then sees fits of pennriousness from which
he imagines th public has swung to the
other extreme. But a look into the broader
currents of the lational life will reveal, as
do these remarkable insurance figures, that
In neither instance have the people lost their
taith or their common sense.
THE ATLANTA TRI-WEEKLY JOURNAL.
Making Sweet Potatoes Pay
THERE is a deal of discouragement over
the fact that this year’s sweet potato
crop amounting to upwards of one
hundred and five and a half million bushels
has sold at prices lower than any quoted
since 1914, lower indeed than any but the
most beggarly figures of the past. Does
this mean that uopes of building up an ex
tensive and profitable industry in the pro
duction of the sugary yam must be aban
doned? By no means, say those who have
studied the situation most discerningly. To
the contrary, they insist, one of the South’s
especially valuable opportunities still awaits
development in the efficient raising and ef
cient marketing of sweet potatoes.
Arguing to this effect in the Manufactur
ers’ Record, Dr. K. J. Horton, an agricul
tural specialist of nigh attainments who now
resides in Chicago, estimates that out of a
one hundred million bushels crop of sweet
potatoes, the availa- “prime quality” table
stock is only thirty-two million bushels.
Here, then, at the outset is a huge loss to be
reckoned with. Can it be reduced? His
answer, well buttressed by citations of fact,
is that losses from disease can be made neg
ligibly low; that losses in storage can be
prevented almos‘ entirely by properly built,
properly operated “curin’ ’ houses; and that
the proportion of “prime table” stock can be
doubled.
But of what use is all this, i‘ may be ask
ed, if the potatoes cannot be sold at profit?
The reply is that they can be sold, tens and
scores of thousands of bushels of them, at
goodly profits, if the marketing problem is
rightly handled. To show tha he is not
unaware of the formidable difficulties in
volved, Dr. Horton q> otes from one of his
recent correspondents in the South a para
graph which runs in this wise: “One and a
half cents a poun is the best the curing
houses are paying here, and they won’t pay
a profit to the gu er. Two carloads from
B— and one from I— were consigned to a
commission house in Chicago. Prices quoted
were from $2.25 to $-.50 per crate of about
60 pounds, a.id nette the growers five cents
per crate. One of the cars from R— has not
yet been heard .’rom —almost five weeks ago.
Is It not time to organize and co-operate?”
Discouraging |ndeed! Yet, at the very time
that letter was written “sweet potatoes were
selling in the chain stores in Chicago four
pounds for a quarter, and choice stock at ten
to twelve cents a pound.” Evidently, the
rag-tag and bobtail prices of which growers
rightly complained a result, largely, of
inadequate channels between the great body
of producers and the great body of actual or
potential consumers —that is to say, inade
quate facilities and inefficient methods of
marketing.
By why of remedy Dr. Horton suggests
four lines of irocedure: “First, convince the
Northern buyer that you have something of
greater merit than what is now on the
market, and something that can be sold for
the same price or a shade less, eocond, care
ful curing and grading; third, choice of varie
ties; fourth, strong marketing association.”
Due attention to these matters will convert
a disappointment and a loss into one of the
most far-reaching and most profitable in
dustries the South has known. The curing
house has made it unnecessary that any con
siderable portion of a sweet potato crop
should decay or deteriorate. The canning
factory can tur th culls to excellent ac
count; and if there be a residue not suited
for table use, it can be made into delicious
syrup, vinegar, flour, cattle feed and other
valuable products.
It only remains, then, to develop the mar
keting side f Le situation; but that must
be developed on an extensive scale and in
all its important particulars, from grading
and crating to salesmanship in the North.
If this seems a vast undertaking, let it be
remembered that a vast field of opportunity
is involved; and that what organized effort
has done to lift the Georgia peach industry
from a precarious and losing status to one
of steady and substantial profit, it can do
also for the Southern sweet potato crop.
<
Lives and Livings
IS America, in z. strenuous pursuit of
fleshpots, forgetting culture? Certain
ly there are whirlwinds and fires of en
thusiasm for the so-termed “practical” in ed
ucation and in life, while the call of the
humanities comes in a still, small voice. In
numbers of schools and colleges the upper
hand is held by “mater., -ists” and “fad
dists,” as President Butler, of Columbia,
named them in his recent recuke to those
who “have given up preparing a youth to
live in favor of preparing him to make a
living.”
The quarrel is not with vocational school
ing, nor with that which looks to developing
the resources of soil and stream and forest
and mine. The ranks of skilled workmen
should be multiplied; the powers of science
shbuld be mustered ever more vigorously to
bringing forth the treasures of the earth.
Civilization itsel. has been defined not in
aptly as “the utilization of nature.” From
the most liberal as well <is most common
sense point of view therefore, industrial
training should have its rightful place in the
country’s educational system. *
But when we assume that the unearthing
of treasure and gaining of money,
are the “be all” and “end all” of
individual or national life; when we treat
education as merely a short-cut to suc
cess reckoned in terms of vvealth; when, in
a word, we proceed upon the idea that man
can live by bread alone —then assuredly we
are forgettin; culture and are ceasing to
grow in what is most truly inman. Such in
difference and neglect are dangerous as well
as foolish, dangerous to nations no less than
to persons. “Materialism dominating educa
tion made Germany what she was,” says H.
G. Wells “and will make any other country
something like Germany.” To be mechanical
ly efficient, to be dominant, to be successful,
were the ambitions of “kultur,” rather than
to be serviceable and liberal and kindly. And
whoso follows Kultur’s path will reach its
goal and its fate.
The United State of Americ; is today the
richest of nations, and the most powerful.
But her place in history, if it be the place
of honor which patriotism covets, will not
be determined by power and riches but by
the heart and soul of her people. To the
extent that the. are truly educated, that
is to say, to the extent they are making
lives instead of mere livings, America will
progress and endure.
Editorial Echoes.
Russia wants a billion dollars’ worth of
American machinery and other materials for
reconstruction. If she pays for it in rubles
the .paper shortage will immediately end.—
Tacoma Ledger.
Sugar is down in price and so is flour, but
L has been revealed now that baked goods
are made of overhead expenses. Toledo
Blade.
The Chicago police have been forbidden to
swear at motorists. The pedestrian will con
tinue to exercise his natural rights.—Detroit
Free Press.
If some of those valiant fighters who in
sist that the United States take Ireland un
der her wing should go over to Ireland and
fight for her, it would do a lot of real good
—here, —Columbus Dispatch
THE ECZEMA PROBLEM
By H. Addington Bruce
ECZEMA, as the medical world long since
discovered, is both an exceedingly com
mon and an exceedingly puzzling skin
affection. Readily yielding in some cases to
simple treatment, in others it stubbornly re
sets the skin specialist’s ' est efforts.
Which suggests, of course, that eczema is a
disease having m. 7 causes, not all of which
are as yet reckoned with or fully appre
ciated. And physicians are today well
aware that this is the case, its causation
ranging from external irritations of the skin
to internal constitutional peculiarities.
Conspicuous among the latter, according
to recent researches, would seem to be a
special sensitiveness to certain foods. Even
the most wholesome of foods, there now is
reason for believing, may so affect sundry
persons as to be really poisonous to them,
with eczema as a possible symptom of the
poisoning.
In one series of eczema cases, for example,
studied by Drs. Howard Fox and J. Edgar
Fisher, of New York, nineteen out of sixty
patients gave skin-test reactions indicating
an intolerance for one or another of various
foods, stfch as oysters, pork, cheese, sweet
potato, turnip, cabbage, onion, cauliflower,
beans. In another series, Dr. M. A. Rami
rez found food intolerances in twenty out of
sixty-six cases.
Treatment by putting the twenty on a
modified diet —that is, a diet from which the
incriminated food was excluded—resulted in
a definite cure in six cases and great im
provement in nine. In the Fox-Fisher series
the, results were less impressive, possibly be
cause treatment by dietetic changes alone
was feasible in but a few cases.
“Our most favorable result of treatment
by modified diet,” they report in the Jour
nal of the American Medical Association,
“was in the case of . man who had suffered
for eight years from a severe eczema of the
back of the hands and wrists. He had been
a great eater of cabbage and sauerkraut, and
gave a double plus reaction to cabbage.
“After omitting this article of food from
his diet, he showed e most striking improve
ment at the end of a week. As he expressed
it, the eruption was ‘2OO per cent better.’
On eating cabbage one month later, at our
request, the eczema became worse.”
In other cases, to be sure, Drs. Fox and
Fisher, like Dr. Ramirez, found no improve
ment whatever resulting from dietetic treat
ment. So that in these cases here was every
reason to believe that the food poisoning was
at most only one factor in causing the ec
zema, and not the dominant one.
However, the knowledge that in some
cases food poisoning may be the dominant
cause is distinctly a therapeutic advance. As
is the discovery, likewise emphasized by re
cent research, that in certain cases eczema
may be the product of a singular sensitive
ness, not to foodstuffs or other material sub
stances, but to the mental strain of fear, wor
ry, etc.
To this little appreciated but truly most
important phase of the eczema problem we
shall return another day.
(Copyright, 1920, by The Associated News
papers)
THE HUMAN EQUATION
By Dr, Frank Crane
In the.recent disaster in a moving picture
theater in downtown New York six little chil
dren were killed and many more injured in
being trampled under foot because the door
at the foot of a stairway was locked, when a
frenzied mass of children and adults tried to
escape at the cry of “Fire!” Certainly no
exit of a theater should be locked and the
persons to blame should be punished accord
ing to law—but —
We notice, on reading further in the ac
count of the fire, that a certain woman with
her child went down the same stairway and
escaped before the mob descended because she
used the other door at the foot of the stairs.
In the hideousness of the panic—there
stood the unlocked door.
All of which causes us to observe that in
the final test it is the human equation that
upsets all calculations.
We may have all manner of contrivances
for safety and along comes some human and
throws into confusion the whole works.
The other day a man had his teeth X
rayed—one of the million or so who are
having the same thing done every day. Sud
denly he shifted his position—at the wrong
time —and he was electrocuted. Just his
peculiar shift had not entered into the cal
culations before that. Henceforward no
doubt we will be protected from one more
human quirk.
A window cleaner, we see in another place,
decided at the sixteenth story that he would
rather get to the ground inside the skyscrap
er instead of climbing down on the outside.
He pried open a window and put his head in,
to be caught by the great lead weight of the
elevator which was coming down full force,
jamming his body between it and the side
of the shaft. \
Could anyone be expectea to provide
against having the sixteenth story window of
an elevator shaft pried open at the exact
moment of the descending weight?
No. There’s where the human equation en
ters in, to baffle, to disturb, to incite to new
endeavor and achievement, to offer new op
portunity for human skill of inventiveness
against human ingenuity for bungling.
When severa nersons are plunged to death
in a railroad wreck, and in the Investigations
all the safety devices were found to be in
proper working order, we look to the man
in the cab for the reason. Perhaps he was
“star-gazing.” Stricken perhaps.
They call it “wreck due to man-failure.”
And so it goes.’ On through Society. Man
failure in the court, in miscarriage of justice,
in politics, in the “success” of the bad man
or “failures” of the good man, in battle, in
education, in marzi ge.
Wherever we look upon men grouped to
gether for mor* fruitful living, with the
ground well mid, the plans well-conceived,
we know th *■ before it all may come to
fruition there is a certain amount of “mar
failure” to be reckoned with.
It is the variableness of the human equa
tion that settles the account in the end.
In other words, where humans are gather
ed together “you never cp” tell.”
(Copyright, 1920, by Frank Crane)
WORDS FROM THE WISE
A secret is in my custody, if I keep it; but
should it escape me, it is I who am the
prisoner.
Arabian Pro' r ~rb.
A dinner lubricates business.
Lord Stowell.
A lawyer without history or literature is
a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he
possess some knowledge of these he may
venture to call himself an architect.
S. W. Scott.
The doctor sees a’ the weakness of man
kind, the lawyer all the wickedness, the
t' eologian all the stupidity.
Schoepenhauer.
Nothing is more terrible than to see ig
norance in action. Goethe.
Error of opinion may be tolerated when
reason is left free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson.
Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle;
old age a regret, Disraeli.
Around the World
Tri-Weekly News Flashes From All Over
the Earth.
Dalton voters are not yet ready for
woman in public office. This was clear
ly shown in the election last week when
W. M. Carroll, present clerk, defeated
Miss Mary Wheeler, who was opposing
him in his race for re-election. Carroll
carried all eight of the wards, for a com
bined majority of 427. His vote was
623; Miss Wheeler received 196. Not
only does Miss Wheeler stand well here,
but she was recognized as being fully
qualified to fill ’the office, and she had
influential people working for her.
100,000 Gangsters
The Rev. Percy Stickney Grant, of the
Church of the Ascension, New Y’ork, said re
cently in a sermon that there are 100,000
gangsters in New Y’ork City who must be ed
ucated and taught good citizenship.
Disastrous Earthquake
Twenty-five villages in the Albanian
district of Jugo-Slavia have been destroy
ed by an earthquake, according to Ameri
can Red Cross reports from Valona. The
tremors occurred in the Tepeline district.
A Family of Mayors
BANBURY, Eng.—The new mayor of
Banbury, J. Wawie, succeeds his eldest
brother. Their father was twice mayor
of Banbury.
Steamboat Hunters
Hunting deer by steamboat is the newest
Memphis sport. As the towboat Scott was
nearing Memphis Captain Frank Hyatt spied
a deer swimming across the Mississippi river.
He turned the ?row of the boat, gave chase,
got a rope around the deer’s body and haul
ed it aboard alive.
Wilson Accepts
President Wilson has accepted the Nobel
prize for 1919, it is announced at the state
’ department. The state department is cabling
an announcement of his acceptance to Christ
iania, which read:
“In accepting the honor of your award, I
am moved not only by a profound gratitude
for the recognition of my earnest efforts in
the cause of peace but also by a very poig
nant humility before the vastness of the work
still called for by this cause.”
Weather Forecasts
“Weather forecasts for months ahead will
be possible within a few years as a direct re
sult of solar observation, R. M. Stewart, as
sistant director of the Dominion Observatory,
recently told the Royal Astronomical Society
of Canada.
The sun has great • influence over varying
weather conditions on the earth, and recent
observations of it have led to the belief that
observatories will be able to predict with ac
curacy the general trend of weather for six
months or even a year ahead, he said. To
be able to foretell the amount of precipitation
and the general, temperature for several
months in advance may take fifty or even 100
years of observation, he added, but expressed
the confidence of the observatory that this
end would be reached.
Failed to Pedal Channel
Miss Zetta Hills, one of England’s
best-known women swimmers, recently
made a daring, but unsuccessful, attempt
to cross the English Channel on a water
bicycle.
Women Jurors Weep
A coroner’s jury of women at Erie, Pa.,
wept when they returned a verdict hold
ing Martin C, Cornell, city 'solicitor, re
sponsible for the death of William
Schultz, who was killed by an automobile.
Cornell’s defense was that he was home at
the time of the accident,
Magellan Celebration
Thirteen countries have accepted the in
vitation of the Chilean government to send
representatives to participate in the festivi
ties early in December commemorating the
440th anniversary of the discovery of the
Strait of Magellan.
Living Up In Australia
Owing to the increased cost of commodi
ties in Melbourne, Australia, Justice Clarke
of the Arbitration Court has granted bonuses
to 20,000 commonwealth public servants in
stead of permanent wage increases.
Spaniards Seeing America
Spanish-speaking people are in New
York this season than for many years. Pros
perity in Spain and South American countries
is causing the Spaniards to travel more ex
tensively.
Cheap Houses
Cheap lodgings for families with children
are being completed and rented both inside
Paris and in the districts outside the old
walls. These have been built with city and
government money, as a means of relieving
the critical congestion.
Separate wooden buildings nave been con
structed on the outskirts of the city and
somewhat temporary tenement buildings in
the city.
The first unit in Paris has thirty small
apartments and twelve single rooms. Another
unit will be ready in April. Progress has
been slow, but it is expected that next year
the building may be pushed, so as to have
some effect on the lodging shortage.
Harding Invited
Senator Harding has been invited by for
mer Senator George Sutherland to attend the
banquet of the New York State Bar associa
tion to be held in New York January 22.
Senator Harding took the invitation under
advisement. While Senator Harding is flood
ed with invitations which it is impossible
for him to accept, it is said that he may
make an exception in this instance.
Chilian Railroads
Railroad travel in Cuba is more expensive
than in the United States and far less com
fortable. Ordinarily, it takes about thirty
two hours for an express train to cross the
island between Havana and Santiago, and a
fifteen-hour delay is not unusual. From Ha
vana to the naval base at Guantanamo bay,
counting ordinary delays and an overnight
wait at Santiago, took tiree days.
Travelers from the states who want to
see the inland must put up with many dis
comforts, not the least of which is the task
of trying to buy sleeping car reservations. It
is almost impossible to buy them at tariff
rates.
Coming over from Havana on a hurried
trip the other day a correspondent was in
formed by a ticket seller that he would have
to wait two or three days for a lower berth
There was nothing in stock, according to
the agent, but he did not add the informa
tion that reservations could be ontained eas
ily and quickly from hotel porters, usually
at pn advance of $5.
Motors 300,000 Miles
Tn her eightieth year Mrs. H. .T. Lutcher,
of Orange, Tex., recently completed more
than 300,000 miles of automobile touring.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1920.
AMERICA LEADS IN CRIME
>
By Frederic J. Haskin
WASHINGTON, D. C„ Dec. 10.—Wash
ington has about three times as
many homicides as Liverpool. In
New York more people are murdered in a
year than in all of England and Wales put
together. In a typical American city there
are several times as many burglaries every
year as there are in London, in proportion
to population. Ovef 5,000 automobiles were
stolen in New York in 1919, while 290 were
stolen in London and ten in Liverpool.
These are a few typical samples, chosen
at random, of the statistics presented by
Raymond B. Fo.d.ck in his book on Ameri
can police systems. They show that the
United States leads the world in crime, not
by a small margin, but by several hundred
per cent. It is perhaps the most lawless
place on earth which pretends to have a
civilized government.
Mr. Fosdick occupies a unique place in
this country as an expert on crime and po
lice work, who has studied all the principal
police systems of Europe, as well as that of
his own country. During the war he was
placed in control of the commission on train
ing camp activities, which was certainly one
of the most creditable of our war time ac
tivities. His book is not of a popular nature,
and appeals chiefly to students and profes
sionals. It therefore seems worth while to
give the gist of his remarkable facts and
arguments here.
Far more interesting than proof of Amer
ica’s world leadership in the production of
all kinds or crime is his acute analysis of
the reasons for this. His viewpoint here is
that of a cosmopolitan rather than a typi
cal American reformer. He does not see the
cause of our crime-ridden state primarily in
the fact that we do not all go to Sunday
school, nor in the movies, nor in the dime
novels, nor in the foxtrot, nor in short skirts,
homebrew nor cabarets. He does not be
lieve that a great wave of moral reform
could sweep all this crime away, nor that
a multiplication of laws would solve the
problem. On the contrary, he makes out a
strong case for the view that what we suffer
from is too many laws, which attempt to
regulate personal conduct instead of to pre
vent crime, law; which are fundamentally
unenforcible, because they are not sufficient
ly supported by opinion, and which have had
the effect of making all law ridiculous, ana
of giving social sanction to much law-break
ing.
Causes of Crime
True, he sees other causes for our nation
al criminality. He shows that our aston
ishing mixture of unassimilated racial ele
ments presents a unique police problem. He
shows that the absurdity of our administra
tion of criminal law is an encouragement to
to crime. He shows that almost any crimi
nal who can hire a lawyer has at least an
even chance to escape conviction, and that
one with plenty of money, or with political
pull, is seldom convicted. This is painfully j
true, and has been pointed out before. But
Mr. Fosdick’s analysis of the national mind
is the most original and arresting thing he
has to offer. He shows that none but the
Germans of the period before the war were
ever so ridden by laws designed to make of
men a regimented mass, rather than a group
of free individuals.
"The willingness with which we under
take to regulate by law the personal habits
of private citizens is a source of perpetual
astonishment to Europeans,” he writes. “In
no country in Europe with the exception of
Germany, is an attempt ever made to en
force standards of conduct which do not
meet with g< - al public approval, or, at the
behest of what may be a minority, to bring
a particular code of jehavior within the
scope of criminal legislation. With us, how
ever, every year adds its accretion to our
sumptuary laws. It suits the judgment of
some and the temper of others to convert
into crimes pra tices which they deem mis
chievous or unethical. They resort to law
to supply the deficiencies of other agencies
of social control. They attempt to govern
by means of law things which in their
nature do not admit of objective treatment
and external coer itn .... The views of
particular groups of people on questions of
private conduct are made the legal require
ments of the state. We are surrounded by
penal laws whose only purpose is to enforce
by threat certain standards of morality. . . .
Moral Laws
“Indeed, this presents one of the strange
anomalies of American life: with an intoler
ance for authority and an emphasis upon in
dividual rights more pronounced, perhaps,
than in any other nation, we, of all people,
not even excepting the Germans, pre-emi
nently are addicted to the habit of standard
izing the lives and morals of our citizens.
Nowhere in the world is there so great an
anxiety to place the regulation of morrl af
fairs in the hand of the police, and no
where are the police so incapable of carry
ing out such regulations.
“Our concern, moreover, is for externals,
for results that are formal and apparent
rather than essential. We are less anxious
about preventing a man from doing wrong
to others than in preventing him from doing
what we consider harm to himself. . . We
attack symptoms, rather than causes, and in
doing so we create a species of moralistic
despotism which overrides the private con
science and destroys liberty where liberty is
most precious.”
There is little anyone can .d~ to that
paragraph, but Mr. Fosdick goes on to de
scribe some of our laws.
Unenforcible Laws
“Often the laws are such as to defy en
; forcement even if they had behind them a
substantial body of public opinion. Thus
there are laws against kissing, laws against
face powder and rouge, laws against ear
rings, laws regulating the length of women’s
skirts, laws fixing the size of hatpins
One would have to scan the ordinances pub
lished by the police president of Berlin to
find any parallel to the arbitrary regulations
in regard to private conduct with which
American citizens are surrounded. . . .
“It is estimated that ther" are on the av
erage something like 16,000 statutes —fed-
eral, state and local —applicable to a given
city. To enforce them all . . . is of course
.... utterly impossible. With ten times
the number of policemen it could not be
done.”
In a word, much of our law in the United
States has become a tissue of absurdity,
which grows in both size and absurdity ev
ery year. Personal liberty in this country
is impossible without lawlessness. What
we have produced, therefore, with all our
laws is the most lawless nation calling it
self civilized on earth.
One Is an Elegant Sufficiency
The King of Siam after refusing to take
over the harem selected for him, has chosen
a wife for himself. The king is a wise boy;
if he can manage one, he is a genius.—Tif
ton Gazette.
Perhaps he took the high cost of main
tenance into consideration. Any man with
sufficient sense to hold down a kingdom
should think of that.
Enforce the Law
Strict enforcement of the law hurts no one
except the law evader; laxity in law enforce
ment hurts all, innocent and guilty, and un
dermines the foundation on which our gov
ernment is built.—Tifton Gazette.
No man who does right need have any fear
of law enforcement.
> You ’Em t Johnny, You Know
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
The Moving Picture
Problem
Copyright, 1920, by the Wheeler Syndi
cate, Inc.
A YOUNG woman writes me that she
works hard all day doing her cook
ing, washing and sewing, and that no
man comes, home at night to a neater
house or a better-cooked dinner than her
husband. The husband has to work at
night until about 11 o’clock, and it is her
habit to spend her evenings at the moving’
pictures.
Her husband and her family object to her
going frequently, and she wants to know
how often I think a movie fan has the right
to indulge in hit or her favorite diversion.
lam sure I don’t know. If I could answei
that question, and draw the line betwee.,
the psychological place where the cinema
ceases to become a stimulating amusement,
and turns into a deadly dope, I should solve
one of the great problems of the day; for
there is no denying that no other influence
in the world is so powerful, and reaches so
many people, as the screen.
To answer my correspondent’s question in
detaU, I should say that it is not good to go
to any one place every night, not even to
church. The tendency of too much of any
thing is to upset people’s mental balance,
and to obsess them with a single idea. It
makes fanatics of them. Their minds run
along a single track that in time gets to be
a narrow-gauge road with no pleasant by
tracks, and no way stations or stopping
places, and they are lucky if they don’t bump
into a padded cell at the end.
We need variety in our amusements and
occupations to keep us mentally healthy, just
as much as we need variety in our food to
keep us in bodily health. That is .vhy all
crazes, whether they are crazes for dancing,
or roller-skating, or crazes over now religion,
or crazes over certain phases of literature,
or moving picture crazes, leave wrecks be
hind them. People who overdid always have
to pay the price.
And, as Stevenson said, “The world Is
so full of a number of things” that are
pleasant to do, it is a pity not to nibble at
them all. Certainly it is more than a pity
not to alternate evenings spent in reading,
and in converse with one’s friends, with at
tendance at the picture houses.
As to how much footage of a film is the
proper allowance per week for a woman, she
must be her own judge. A good test for her
to apply to herself is to keep tab on her
thoughts, and see if the screen is becoming
the most absorbing interest in her life, and
if she goes through her days waiting impa
tiently for her nightly debauch of pictures.
If she is, then it is time to cut down her
dope.
Also let ter honesty search her soul and
ascertain what effect the pictures she sees
I have upon her. If she is filled with envy
of the snakelike vamp, with long green
eyes, and jade ear rings, and practically
nothing else on, if, as she washes her dish
es, and chops the meat for her Irish stew,
she loathes and detests her homely task and
feels as if she were a martyr because she is
not one of the sirens at whose feet men
dump bushels of diamonds in the pictures,
and who never do anything more laborious
than recline in a real lace aegllgee on
oriental divans, and puff cigarettes; then
she’s had too much of the movies.
And if, as she looks at her good, kind
hard-working husband, she finds that she i.
contrasting him unfavorably with some ox
eyed, lily-handed movie hero, with a thirty
dollar permanent wave in his hair; and il
she catches herself wondering how she hap
pened to marry a plain business man, even
if he does bring home the bacon, instead of
a picturesque, film robber; and if she
ceased to registe. a thrill when her John
gives a bread and eggs peck on the cheek
when he starts to work of a morning, in
stead of pulling the cave-man stuff as they
do in the movies, then let her beware!
She’s drugged up on lurid romance, and
she is in just as much danger of wrecking
her life as she would be if she had acquired
the opium habit. She’s got to have the
nerve to give it all up until she get’s back
to normal.
The real secret of enjoyment of anything
thing is to take it in moderation, but if
there are some women who have been hurt
by an over-indulgence in the movies, there
are millions upon miLions of women who
have got nothing but good out of them. They
have been saved from themselves, saved
from themselves, saved from becoming mor
bid and disgruntled, and cross, and unen
durable to live with, by the genii of the
films.
I can think of no other one thing that
has done as much to brighten the life of
the great mass of womankind as moving
pictures have done. It is only the fortunate
few women who have money enough to go
to the theaters, to have automobiles, to
spend their afternoon at tea parties and
luncheons, and in other forms of more or
less expensive amusement, because a woman
must have proper clothes for these diver
sions, as well as the price thereof.
Thus for the majority of women there was
nothing but the dull, monotonous round of
work, with no fun thrown in, no amuse
ment, nothing to stir the imagination, or
rouse the emotions, nothing new for a wom
an to think about as she made her beds, or
sewed long seams.
Then came the movies, and opened up a
new world to her, full of romance and ad
venture, sentiment and laughter. It was a
world to which the price of admission was
so cheap that she could go and take the
children along with her, and it gave the
whole family something of mutual interest
to talk about instead of quarreling with
each other.
So, taking it bj and large, the moving
pictures have been a benefaction to those
who needed help the most; and a woman
can have far worse faults than to be a movie
fan, and spend her evenings far less profit
ably than in getting a little sip of romance,
a little laughter and fun, and a deal of solid
information r.t the movies.
For one thing your woman who is a film
fan is never a back number. She’s always
strictly up-to-date, and knows just exactly
all about the last big thing that happened
in the world. For she has seen it with her
own eyes.
(Dorothy Dix articles will appear regular
ly every Monday, Wednesday and Friday
in this paper.)
Why Boys Lie
Judge Ben Lindsay, who gained fame for
his work as head of the juvenile court of
Denver, Col., is delivering a lecture on “Why
Boys Lie.” We have not heard the lecture,
but we suppose the principal reason why boys
lie is that they are the sons of their fa
thers.—Valdosta Times.
At least that is what their mother says
in offering an explanation.
Newspaper Man for Ordinary
Ben Hardy, the well-known Barnesville
newspaper man, is running for ordinary of
the new county of Lamar. He will make
a good one and his friends throughout the
state trust he will be successful in his race.
—Griffin News and Sun. <
Hardy has made good as newspaper pub
lisher, banker and trustee of the Sixth Dis
trict Agricultural school and would doubtless
make an efficient ordinary.