Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, May 20, 1912, HOME, Image 20

Atlanta Georgian., May 20, 1912, HOME, Image 20

About Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939 | View Entire Issue (May 20, 1912)

Page of 20

Prev Issue Next Issue

Text PDF JP2 (4.5 MB) Clip/Print Image

Page of 20

Prev Issue Next Issue

Return to Top

Newspaper Page TextEDITORIAL 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 postuffre at Atlanta, under act of March 3, 1879. —.— t “The Initiative” Means— The Beginning. “The Referendum” Means- Letting the People Decide. “The Recall” Means—-Per mitting Voters to Dis charge Unfaithful Serv ants. r r. ». A Good Many Citizens Haven't Taken the Trouble to Get Those Simple Words Clear in Their Minds—and More's the Pity. Every surveyor knows what you mean when you speak of a theodolite. Every engineer knows what you mean by the piston rod. Every chauffeur knows what you mean by transmission ami ignition. Every farmer knows what you mean by ensilage. Every tailor knows what a goose is. and that it is not alive. We all of us know the words, the terms and the peculiar mean ings referring to the particular thing which interests us. it is true and disgraceful that a great many American citizens do not understand the terms, simple ami plain, referring to public affairs FOR THE REASON THAT TOO MANY CITIZEN'S ARE NOT REALLY INTERESTED IN PUBLIC AEEAIRS. The distinguished Peter Dunne tells of a genial old Irishman who was quite content Io spend fifty years “voting for things that he did not understand.'' But be was absolutely determined not to vote for things that he could not PRONOUNCE, He referred to the initiative, the referendum, et cetera. Every American ought to understand thoroughly the words which express determination of the people to rule in a country, which IS SUPPOSED to be ruled by the people. Therefore, byway of beginning another series on the initiative, the referendum and the recall, we publish, ami we ask you to im press upon those of your acquaintance that are ignorant or indiffer ent. VERY SIMPLE DEFINITIONS OF THESE WORDS Desi nissions nos teenies. ’’ as a great man said. The people of the country want. THEY NTED. ami they will have the INITIATIVE, THE REFERENDUM AND THE RECALL. It is perhaps unfortunate that the two first words were chosen by men using the written language rather than the spoken language of the country It is sad. but it is a fact that such simple words as “initiative and referendum" appall and displease the minds of certain citizens. However, the words are HERE, they are going to star. AND WHAT IS MORE. THEY ARE GOING TO BECOME REALITIES. Therefore, it is the duty of you who understand thoroughly the principle, the idea. THE PI’BLIC RIGHT AND JI’STICE hack of the three words, “initiative, referendum and recall, - ’ to make those words plain to all near you. What about the “initiative?’’ This word comes from the Latin, initio, which means ‘‘to go into, to begin, to start." Somebody has to start new law-making. Somebody must go into the field where new laws are required, and begin, or initiate the new laws. Hitherto we have had our corporations, our big and selfish men, and our corrupt politicians enjoying a monopoly of THE INITIA TIVE, or BEGINNING of laws.’ It is time for the people TO INITIATE some of the law mak ing. It is time for the people to say “we want certain laws, we arc taking THE INITIATIVE in putting those laws on the statute books and we propose to have them there." The initiative means that the people shall be permitted them selves to START the making of laws, to initiate or begin new thoughts in legislation. The initiative means that the people shall have the power of framing, voting for and establishing laws, in stead of leaving this important task to the gentlemen so often elected by the people, onlv TO REPRESENT THE CORPORA TIONS. The “referendum" is a word simple enough to the man who has read about the referee in a prize fight, or the umpire in a base ball game. Referendum comes from the Latin, refero, which means, “1 carry back.’’ With the referendum in existence, the gentlemen in the legis latures making laws or proposing laws would bo compelled to refer them. OR CARRY THEM BACK TO THE PEOPLE Under the referendum, the people could keep to themselves, as they should do. the right to pass upon laws started in legisla tures or in congress. And the laws “referred" or “carried back’’ to the people would be passed upon bv the people, AND THEA’ WOULD NOT BECOME ACTUAL LAWS ON THE STXTUTE BOOKS UNTIL THE PEOPLE UNDER THE REFERENDUM IUD GIVEN THEIR APPROX’ XL. In other words, with the referendum the people SUPPOSED to govern, to own the nation and the government, would do for themselves exactly what the owner of a big factory would do for himself. A man owns a factory and has a lot of men hired to work for him. These men have various ideas, plans, suggestions, notions, rules and so forth. They work out their plan, write it out clearly, explain it thor oughly. and then the owner of the f.ictorv savs. “REFER TH XT TO ME. AND I’LL PASS ON* IT." Until it has been referred to the head of the firm, until it has been passed on by the head of the firm, it isn’t a law in the factory. The United States is a big factory, AND THE PEOPLE ARE OR SHOULD BE THE HEAD OF THE FIRM. 'The people, the owner of this national factory, employ many men in congress, in the white house, in the various legislatures and boards of aidermen. And these hirelings of the people are put there to make suggestions, to think up good new laws, or abolish bad old laws, to invent new ideas, and work them out carefully ami present them plainly TO THE HEAD < >F THE FIRM. WHICH IS THE PEOPLE. If you owned a factory, you wouldn't permit anybody under vou to make rules governing that factory UNTIL YOI HAD AP PROVED. Continued in Last Column. The Atlanta Georgian What Is Life? By Garrett P. Serviss PROF. STEPHANE LEDUC HAS MADE THIS QUESTION MORE PUZZLING THAN EVER BY PRODUCING IMITA TION LIVING BEINGS ■KHKuv/i 9 -x I Hi Some take the form oi branch / /•' ;'4 i ''’FySz ing corals. t _ \\ y Zs ,',\y WHAT do you think of the photogiapha reproduced on this page? No doubt, if you simply trust your eyes, you will take them for pictures of real plants, animals, shells and corals. In fact, they are PHOTOGRAPHS OK PHANTASMS. A phantasm Is something that appears to the eye and the imagination to be what it is not. “Phantasms of the Living,” an English scientific writer has called them. But the strangest thing about them is that they were not made by hand, or drawn by pen or pen cil, but THEY GREW into tho forms which you see. Nature made them, as she makes actual animals and plants. Rut she did not do it In her regular way. Man inter fered with the cunning devices of chemistry, and caused nature to be come AN IMITATOR OF HER OWN WORKS These marvelous creatures for creatures they are. whether they really have any kind of life or not -imitate living things not only in form, but also in growth, in de veloping according to organic law, in absorbing nourishment, in move ment, and in ‘'irritability,” which, in a scientific sense, means re sponding to excitement, or provo cation. like a caterpillar which rolls Itself into a ball when it is touched, Some imitate mushrooms, others worms. Some grow tall and put out leaves like grasses or flowering plants. Some take the form of branching corals, or of sea shells. Some crawl over solid objects like spreading moulds. Yet none of them were born from seed, or from roots, or from eggs. All. as far as we can see, are composed of inani mate, or non-living, substance. Professor Stephane Leduc produced most of them by simply putting fragments of calcium chloride (a well known chemical, a kind of salt, which is often used for drying pur poses) into a solution of water sat - • mated with carbonate, or phos phate of potash, and bringing the dissolved substance into contact with a membrane composed of parchment, or some similar mate rial, through which it passes by means of "osmosis.” which is the scientific name for the strange property, or tendency, of fluids of different kinds and sensities to be come diffused through a membrane rhe Pbse of Helplessness By H'/N[FRED BLACK SHE’S a dear. sweet, innocent girl—but t less oh, very ~ helpless. So utterly ignorant of the ways of the world, so absolutely unable to take care of ht rselt'. She has a friend - such a good, devoted, unselfish friend —not a thing wrong with him—only he’s married \nd he has wiltfen to me al! about it. Here is part of what the man says tn, his le’ter 1 fear for her inherent weak ms: , or let us s.iv the inability ’o take care of herself. She can net stand alone. I think it wa- that eb’inent of dependence that attract ed my interest in the first place, and also my world's knowledge of the men whom we both know. Please don't imagine I am taking a 'halo' position. I am trying to be strictly honest. I never had de signs on the girl, even if she had evidenced a. wish for anything oth er than what we were, which site did not. I may have 'thought' things, but there was no encour agement. I know she is as true a girl as one coaid find. R X. L." Tut. tut. my dear sir. is it possi ble that you can so deceive your self. and really make yourself think that the thing you want to do is the right thing, no matter who i> hurt or forsaken when you do it? Helpless, indeed! I've seen lots of that sort of "helpless" girls, ami many, many of tin same sort of "helpless" full-grown women. They are never o "helpless" that they can't catch 'their "helpless” hands into the coat of some good, able-bodied man and make hint be- MONDAY, MAY 20. 1912. v’V ' i >ti' W \vv / / fe • V V \\ / / . \\ !J ‘ x . u \ \ n J 9 i " F Th F ILMS' w \ JIP MgjrTJrTlF\L '-i/ / Some grow tall and put out leaves like grasses or flowering plants. separating them. He calls them “camotic growth." but neither he nor anybody else knows exactly how or why the thing occurs. To see these apparently living forms grow and develop , out of a chemical solution must be one of the most amazing and startling sights that could be imagined. If Professor Leduc had lived a few hundred years ago and done that he would either have been burned at the stake as a wizard, of wor shiped as a god. But science is not -superstitious. When it sees some thing unknown before it, it ex plains it if it ca.h. anti if it can not, it waits for the explanation, and in the meantime tries experi ments. At present most men of science decry Professor Leduc's conclusion that THERE IS A LOW FORM OF lieve that it is his duty in the sight of Heaven to take care of them— until they find another man with more money or a greater knack of spending it Helpess!" A girl like that HELPLESS, innocent true! Hark ye my poor good sir There never yet lived • woman, old or voting, who didn’t have sense enough to know just one thing, no matter how helpless and innocent she may be or be pleased to seem to be. And that thing is that she has no claim, and <an have no claim whatsoever on any other woman s husband. Divorce the faithful woman who ’■a- borne you children and marry this Hitiging "Innocent" if you dare and then watch her being "help less" when you see another "help less” person who appeals to your sense of chivalry. "Helpless!"- tshe will soon show you arni th, other woman, too, how weak and defenseless she was when it came to a question of her own comfort and pleasure. If she's the sort of girl w no will step off over the precipice because you. a married man. show her that you a-e too busy at home to con cern y out self with her absurd lit tle affairs, do you imagine for one moment that a plain, every-day man like you ,-an keep her in the straight and narrow path? Why? How ? She show.- no -ach great princi ple where you air concerned: why should you think sht would bt - hay.- differently under my other circumstances" No. I'm not a bit sorry for the "helpless girl, nor for you. either. LIFE about these things. Still, they can not explain them, beyond saying that they are "curious re sults of chemical action.” Their discoverer, however, is bolder. Dei daring that these "phantasms" ex hibit the power of nutrition, of as similation (the utilizing of imbibed substance), of elimination (the re jection of useless substance), and of irritability, he goes on to specu late on the possibility that they are related, in some way. to actual life. If only he could make his myste rious creations REPRODUCE THEMSELVES, he would probably establish his contention, for then he would have, in addition to the other characteristics of living be • ings, which he professes to have found in them, the one missing es sential needed to make them really alive. You are old enough to have some plain, every-day common sense. You must be, or you couldn't have grown children. You've earned your own way in the world for years; why don't you use some of the practical principles that have taught you success in business, right here in this absurd case of y ours " Os course, a < lerk might take money from the till at your ftiend's shop and ttnn out to be a model of hot,, sty and trustworthiness for you—"but what art the chances in tile case? This gbi is a. selfish, calculating voting person who has found your weak point—an over-weaning be lief in your strength of influence "ii others -ami she's making a plain, every-day goose of you. that's all. ~ Look at her as she is. for once. And for goodness sake, my friend, lock at yourself, as you are. You are no romantic. high-souled Lancelot, willing to die for an ideal; you are just a man who's being used by a designing girl—and you ar m love w ith her. that's all. Eal! out of love as fast as you can. Run home and ask that good wife of yours to forgive you, and be a man and not a self-deluded hypocrite. You are at the "dangerous” age and you were bound to fall in love with some one. Well, you've done it. Now get done with it and be decent. That's the only way on earth you i .in ev. r be happy, and it's the only way you tan ever make the woman who !i i; gone down into th, y.illey of tin shadow of death for your sake happy, either, and that's real ly worth while, isn't it? THE HOME PAPER The Bottle By WILLIAM F. KIRK. GT ’VE seen some pizen critters.’’ said my Arizona friend. 1 “I watched a pal near Tombstone till I knowed it was the end. A scorpion bit him on the thumb while he was clawing sand Looking for w’ater. maybe, in a maybe-water land. I handed him my liquor and he drank about a third— You should have heard that little flask, the way it purred and purred. Yes. and it kept on purring till my old pal’s soul was free— A bottle always seems to purr." said Phoenix Phil to me. “Another time,’’ said Phoenix Phil, “I mind w’hen Jim was drunk, And got his elbow' nibbled.by a hydrophobia skunk. The skunk was like the scorpion—lie didn’t want to fight. All pizen things give warning just before they sting or bite. I handed Jim my liquor, too—the poor boy drank it all. ’lt tastes good. Phil, he mutters as he flops agin the wall. It sounded good, it murmured, like a kitten full of glee. A bottle always seems to purr," said Phoenix Bill to me. I hat s w r hy lin scared of liquor, " said my Arizona friend. I here s something in the red stuff that a guy can’t comprehend. It don t fight fair and fearless like the other pizen things I hat crawl around this ball of mud w'ith all their fangs and stings. A rattler sounds rattles when he hears a fellow's feet. It's easy dodging reptiles if you’re only half discreet. A bottle, though, is different, and that’s why f let it be—- A bottle always seems to purr,” said Phoenix Phil to me. “The Initiative” Means—The Be- ginning. “The Referendum” Means—Letting the People Decide. “The Recal ’’Means—Permitting Vot ers to Discharge Unfaithful Serv ants. ■ -u- -s*- ■III L 1.11.- ip»i !■ W « n. , _ | I m H| | Continued From First Column. You that do the voting OWN the United States, you hire all the employees of the country from the president down to the do? catcher. Why not make those employees in the national factory refer their ideas for approval to the owner of the factory the voters, the people? That is all there is to the referendum—very simple. As for 1 he recall, that is so simple that it is hardlv worth while to talk about it. A firm sends a young drummer traveling on the road to sell goods. It has hired the drummer and fixed his salary, thinking that he would work The firm discovers that the young drummer is playing poker and drinking cocktails instead of selling goods THEN THE FIRM RECALLS THE YOL'NG GENTLEMAN AND PUTS SOMEBODY ELSE IN HIS PLACE That is all there is to the recall. The public hires a man. puts him on the bench tn act as judge puts him m the governor 's chair, puts liim m the white house, or puts him in charge of the public pound where they take the stray mules and pigs. This judge, president, governor or pound keeper is hir«d by that big firm, THE PEOPLE, to do certain work. As things are now, when the public official hired is unworthy, dishonest, useless, drunken, corporation-owned, or otherwise unfit’ THE PEOPLE CAN DO NOTHING UNLESS THEY CAN PROVE FACTS IN A COURT OF LAW. But we all know haw hard it is to prove in a court of law that a judge has done something that he ought not to do. Judges hang together, as doctors hang together, and as others do. 'I he idea of the REC ALL is that the people who hire a judge should have the right to recall him, just as the man who hires a chauffeur or a drummer or a gardener has the right TO RECALL such an employee when he doesn't do his work properly. Do you. say that the judges are above the people, a.nd that the people are not FIT to recall a judge? Then, you also say that the people, are not fit to govern. The child is unfit to discharge an engineer or an architect BUT A CHILD IS NOT \LLOWED TO HIRE AN ENGINEER OR AN ARCHITECT A baby in arms is unfit to discharge its nurse—but the baby doesn't hire the nurse. If the people of this country are babies, if the public as a whole is an infant unfit to discharge a faithless employee, then the public also is unfit to HIRE an employee. It is preposterous to suggest that the people have sufficient in telligence and honesty to put a man ON the bench, anfl that they have NOT intelligence and honesty enough to take a man OFF the bench when they find him unfit. At this moment we see in the case of Judge Archbald, of the court of commerce, a gentleman who put men in jai] when they were poor, and let them off when they were rich—that was in the smuggling ease And he dismissed with trivial fines big rich men convicted in a trust case. Xnd now. because he happened to he extremely foolish and fur nished the information to convict himself, he is being kicked out of office in a slow and deliberate way because while he was passin--’ on matters affecting the Erie railroad, his partner was buying prop? erty from the Erie railroad for a tenth of its value AND DIVTD ING WITH THE JUDGE We can’t always wail until a judge goes as far as this distin. guished Judge Archbald. And we can’t always wait for other public officials to make it absolutely plain that they are rascals before getting rid of them The people must have the recall, so that when they find that they have made a mistake in electing a man to office they may have the power to put him GUT of office. That’s all there is to the re ca 11. The INITIATIVE, which permits the voters to start legislation- The REFERENDI'M, which compels the hirelings of the peo ple to carry back or refer important legislation to the people; And the RECALL, which gives the people the right to dis charge those that they have hired when they find the hirelings un worthy. Every sane man in Hie country who understands these three simple terms, who really believes in democratic government who demands no special privilege for himself and who wants honest goxernment. MUST BE IN FAVOR OF THE INITIATIVE Tirr REFERENDUM AND THE RECALL Impress that on your friends, please.