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EDITORIAE PAGE
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
By THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta. Ga.
Entered as second-class matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March 3, 1873.
The Titanic Wreck and In
vestigation Appear Hu
morous to Certain
Englishmen
•> r M
Perhaps Verdicts for Damages Rendered by American Courts
Will Make the Titanic Murders Seem Less “Funny” Even
tually.
Certain British newspapers began their comment on the
crime of the Titanic by complaining of unfairness on the part of
the American investigating committee. There was complaint that
our senators investigating “lacked technical knowledge of the
sea,.”
That sounded highly appropriate, com'ing from spokesmen of
• steamship company that had just drowned sixteen hundred
persons and brought one shivering, pale-faced Ismay safe
ashore.
It would seem that Englishmen might be modest in their
tone within a few days of murdering sixteen hundred men,
women and children in an accident that certainly emphasized
the stupidity of some English sailors and the cowardice of
ONE English manager.
Certain Englishmen—a minority, fortunately—have a choice
capacity for self-approval, and they have now reached a state of
mind in which it seems to them shameful tn criticise the blun
dering. reckless incompetents to whom the lives of thousands
are entrusted at sea.
Some of the more degraded among the English newspapers
even find cause of mirth in the Titanic disaster and in the in
vestigation of that crime. They are rehearsing “choice, funny
bits” in the evidence given before the commission.
Americans, whose fellow citizens were murdered in hundreds
by stupidity, incompetence and cowardice, do not see the humor
of the Titanic achievement. And Americans hope, before they
have done, to make the whole affair seem less humorous to the
Englishmen who now joke about it.
The collecting of a few millions of dollars damages from
the White Star Line would do good and make unpopular the
kind of seamanship that kills passengers and runs away.
We believe that the courts of the United States will find a
way Io establish responsibility, with due regard for international
law. and fix damages that will make the killing of so many
Americans seem quite serious when the day comes to pay the
money.
Unlike Ismay—saved with women and children —the White
Star Company can not run away. It must face and meet court
decisions here, for it has property here. Its big ships MUST
come here—and they can be held to make good American court
decisions, sad as that may seem to English owners.
The courts will have abundant facts proved thanks to an
American investigation which did not whitewash.
Knowing that they were among icebergs, the captain of the
ship and the managers of the line were going at top speed and en
joying an elaborate banquet the night of the disaster.
The captain was not on the bridge. The man in the lookout
had no glass.
No general alarm was sent by wireless until too late—al
though one of the ship’s builders on board declared that the boat
would sink within an hour.
The bulkheads were not closed, and COULD NOT be closed,
and the ship was not fit to be sent to sea.
Passengers were not told truth, and no intelligent effort
was made to save them.
More than five hundred steerage passengers were locked be
low in a ship known to be sinking, and THEY were murdered.
There were not life boats enough for one-third the passengers
and crew. Such as there were had no lights, no compass, no wa
ter. Two or more had plugs out of the bottom and sank at once.
While the British seamen in charge of so many lives were
rushing to destruction, blindly and stupidly, at least one other
British sea captain was within reach AND MIGHT H AVE SAVED
EVERY HUMAN BEING ON THE TITANIC HAD HE NOT
BEEN TOO MUCH OF A COWARD TO RISK HIS LIFE IN THE
ICE NEAR THE TITANIC.
So we have one British seaman killing hundreds of Ameri
can citizens because recklessness or orders from Ismay, who want
ed a record, induced him to run his ship at full speed among ice
bergs—KNOWlNG that the ice was there. And we have another
British seaman getting signals of distress from the sinking Titanic,
and refusing to go to her aid because he feared the ice.
A nice choice British seamanship offered to travelers on that
disastrous day. *
One British captain, reckless to the point of insanity, rushing
his passengers to destruction.
And another British captain, cautious as only cowardice can
make a man. refusing to help a sinking ship lest he might damage
his vessel.
■And English newspapers complain because this country ven
tured to investigate the killing due to these two types of “British
seamanship.
When these facts are put before our courts in suits for dam
ages. we have no doubt that our British cousins will see less humor
in the disaster than they see at present.
And when the public realizes that White Star ships are un
safe —a fact that we shall be charmed to emphasize at intervals —
and when trade shifts to the German and other ships that are
NOT manned by captains reckless or timid, and to companies that
are not managed by an Ismay with the automatic self-saving brain
—falling dividends and fading prosperity will make the English
realize that killing “blasted Yankees" costs money, ami does not
pay.
Sincerely we hope that for every third-class passenger locked
The Atlanta Georgian
THE THREE CHAIRS
By HAL COFFMAN.
gOp | J
// J !■ /. / ■
Bv AV ILLI A As F. KIRK.
r VHE first chair was tiny—a high chair—
-1 A baby was tied in the seat;
A fat, hungry child, he crowed and he smiled,
While waiting for something to eat.
A mother kept watch o'er this diner
For fear he might make the chair fall.
And now we are done with Chair Number One,
The first little chair of them all.
The second chair, thirty years later,
Held a boy who was handsome and strong;
In a gilded case, with roysterers gay,
He let the swift hours slip along.
below and murdered by the White Star Line suits
for heavy damages will be brought, aud won. by
surviving relatives. We trust our courts to teach
the White Star Line that even third-class people
can not be cheaply killed where our courts have
jurisdiction.
For every person killed in that disaster of blun
ders and of cowardice the highest possible damages
should be awarded—especially to the impoverished
steerage survivors and the relatives of the dead
steerage passengers.
There should he lawyers to take up each case and
obtain the highest possible damages against the
shamefully mismanaged, technically incompetent
and idiotic White Star Line, that drowns its first
class passengers through ignorance and negligence,
and murders its third-class passengers by locking
them below the decks.
The English declare that this collection of in
competent and reckless ship managers has been
treated unjustly in this country.
THEY HAVE BEEN TREATED FAR TOO
GENTLY. WITH FAR TOO GREAT CONSIDER
ATION.
If the English admire a man like Ismay,
whose third-class passengers are locked below the
decks while be runs to safety, if they hold up as
an example of British technical skill and courage
a gentleman who saves his life while women and
children drown, they are welcome to the national
pride that they feel in such a person.
But this country prefers to take him. and ex
amine him. get the truth out of him if it can, and
through him and others to discourage murder by
neglect, murder by recklessness, and deliberate
murder on the sea by locking men and women and
children below the decks in time of danger.
One lesson of the Titanic disaster is this:
No man should be fool enough to trust him-
THURSDAY. MAY 9. 1912.
A waiter kept watch o'er this diner
For fear he might make the chair fall,
And now we are through with Chair No, 2,
The merriest chair of them all,
The third chair was back, of a barroom
In a corner all dingy and dark;
A man worn and thin had pleaded for gin,
Because it was cold in the park.
No soul kept a watch o'er this outcast—
They knew he had met with his fall,
He was sleeping, you see, in Chair No. 3,
The last little chair of them all.
self to a White Star ship until convinced that the
company has changed methods and managers. Try
a German ship.
The Germans are sane and level-headed—not
reckless destroyers of human life, not cowards in
time of disaster.
AVhile the English captain and the English
manager of the White Star Line in blind reckless
ness were running their ship to death on the ice
bergs, the German captains were turning south
and saving their passengers. The German lines
are manned by trained seamen. The Germans do
not send a great floating city out into the ocean,
commanded by an individual indifferent to ice
bergs in the path or put above that individual an
Ismay, whose life any insurance company would
probably glatlly insure for a nominal considera
tion against risk based on self-sacrifice or cour
age.
We invite the excited and indignant British
editors and shippers to bear in mind the fact that
the boats that they operate carry American pas
sengers principally. And these passengers and
their government are entitled to protect their lives
against reckless captains and against steamship
company managers of the Ismay type, exceeding
in capacity to protect their own individual safety.
We control these American ports and the docks
that make the British steamship lines profitable.
We take the view, however offensive it may be
to British prejudice, that the lives of American
citizens are more important than the technical sen
sitiveness of British seamen.
And we propose to show these British seamen, if
necessary, by cutting their carrying trade down
to a minimum in favor of more careful lines and
more competent nationalities, that killing first
class passengers by neglect and carelessness, and
murdering third-class passengers by locking them
below the decks, can not be permanently profitable.
THE HOME PAPER
Dr. Parkhurst’s Article
on
1 he Socialistic Tempest
That Is Brewing
—-and
CoffmaPx’s Clever Car
toons m This Paper
Written For The Georgian
By the Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst
IT is indiscreet to put excessive
emphasis on the dark side of
things, and there is just as lit
tle discretion in throwing upon the
dark side a light that is artificial
and, ostrichlike, to thrust our heads
into the sand and argue that be
■ cause there fs no enemy immediate
ly in sight, therefore there is no en
emy.
Because there is peace in our
homes, and the machinery of social
life continues to run without jolt or
jar, we easily become insensible of
and therefore indifferent to the
tempest that is brewing.
It is very often the case that in
nature the sky Is for a long time
full of sunshine, even after a storm
of great fury has begun to develop
near the horizon. -•
Certainly to the observant, eye
the signs of tempest are already in
the air, and to one who looks across
the world with a glance that takes
in the whole collective scene it is
not easy and it is not reasonable to
maintain one’s self in perfect se
renity of mind.
It. is not simply that there is
more or less of skirmishing going
on in our own country, as among
the miners and the textile workers,
or that Socialism is asserting itself
on American ground with a tone
that is increasingly distinct and de
termined.
The more serious thing to consid
er is that what we listen to here is
but a few notes of the general con
cert of discontent that prevails both
sides of the sea, and that that dis
content is everywhere declaring
itself in tones that are increasingly
confident and bold.
And. so far as appears, nothing
essential is being done to stay the
forward march of dissatisfaction.
Mutterings of Another
Civil War Now Audible.
We had civil war half a century
ago. and the mutterings of another
civil war of an economic kind are
distinctly audible.
And In some respects the war
that is threatened now is of a lower
grade than that which we expe
rienced in the sixties, for while that
was waged over a principle, this is
war over a dollar.
This struggle, into the edge of
which we are already entered, is
simply a quarrel over the division
of the spoils of labor.
There is not a redeeming feature
nor a touch of nobility in the whole
business.
It is like the snarling of two dogs
over the division of a bone.-
This is not saying that there is
not involved a question of rights—
rights on both sides.
But in the last analysis the entire
scrimmage reduces itself to this,
that one side or the other—or both
—wants more than belongs to it.
It is simply the case on an en
larged scale of two boys fighting
over a bag of marbles, each trying
to see how many he can get, with
out much caring how many or how
few will be left for ’the other boy.
The Average Income /
By A. G. CHITTICK. /
THE average income Is sorely tried (
In the struggle to make ends meet— .
To pay the wages of those who help, , /
And the bills for the food we eat. )
• . !
For butter is up, potatoes are up,
And meats were never so dear; /
But the average income just stands still, (
Or else grows smaller each year. J
The cook in the kitchen asks for more.
And so does the serving maid;
And then, perforce, as a matter of course,
The increase must be paid.
We are told that coal is about to rise—
The gas bills are twice as large—
And for every strike which threatens the land
The consumer must pay the charge.
So. what are the people going to do,
And how are they going to live.
When the average income is stretched and strained
Beyond what it’s able to give?
K L.
It is a disgrace to Christendom
that after 4,000 years of civilization
and 2,000 years of Christianity the
progress of the world has to be
blocked. institutions imperilled,
quietness and assurance destroyed
by leaping at one another’s throats
over a matter of five cents a day.
This Is not saying where that five
cents belongs. •
It may belong to the employer, It
may belong to the operative.
That is not the point.
Dog With Biggest Teeth
Gets the Bone.
The point is that the prevailing
condition of mind and tone of
character is such—notwithstanding
the age of the world In which we
live—that humans have to go at
one another dog-fashion in order to
effect the settlement of their rela
tions and the adjustment of their
differences, and that the dog that
has the -largest capacity of howl
and the biggest capacity of teeth
and claws Is the one that gets
away with the bone and the five
cents.
• • •
cartoons are a fea
ture of The Georgian. They
are both clever and high-toned.
There is in them a certain power
of appeal that makes a paragraph
fst wish that he were a cartoonist—
so much more can be said by a
stroke of the brush than by a stroke
of the pen.
There is a sermon in that work
•of his, depleting the comradeship
of the boy and his father:
"Hand in hand through the woods
they go.
The father and little lad;
Happy are all the youngsters who
know
That a boy’s best chum is his
dad.”
If all fathers would look at that
picture and absorb the gentle, f ia
clous meaning that is In It it would
make them better fathers and the
boys truer and manlier boys.
Application of Principle of
How to Help Others.
The lesson told by it is a special
application of the principle that in
order to be a means of benefit to
others we need to be not only our
selves, but also the person that we
would uplift.
The man must be also a boy and
have the feelings of a boy if he
would make the boy a man. The
freeman must have a sense of what
it means to be a captive if he would
help to enfranchise the captive.
The teacher must be able to real
ize in himself the limitations of his
pupil if he would be effective in
releasing the pupil from those lim
itations.
This fs just a part of the evan
gelical conception of Christ, that
while remaining divine He had also
to become a man in order to redeem
man.
The truth depicted is a great one,
and Coffman has done it apprecia
tively and well.