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EDITORIAL 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.
How Long Will Atlanta
Continue to Dally
With Death?
Th® finance committee of council promises to take final action
this afternoon on the question of garbage disposal.
The Georgian ventures to breathe the hope that there will be
action and that it will be final.
The matter is one of vital importance not merely of great im
portance. but VITAL importance for it concerns life and death.
It has been a VITAL question for three years. And for
three years it has been dodged and postponed and considered
and reconsidered and referred and re-referred until it has become
a ghastly joke.
The phase of the question which has recently been the cause
of wrangling and delay is whether or not the city shall accept the
bid of the Destrncto Company. of New York, to erect a crematory
in accordance with the plans and specifications unanimously fa
vored by the hoard of health and recommended by Dr Rudolph
Hering, the sanitation expert employed by the city to devise a
garbage disposal scheme. This company offers to erect and equip
a plant for the sum of s4Kt.lMttl.
The finance committee of council has held up action for weeks
in the hope of securing a cheaper plant which shall be more or less
sat isfaetom .
Tim finance committee's well-meaning interest in economy has
broken out in the wrong place. The Georgian believes.
The finance committee has no special knowledge of modern
sanitary methods, and therefore has no fitness to reject the garbage
disposal plans which have been decided on bv unanimous recom
mendation of the hoard of health and of the city's employed ex
pert .
The one duty lhe finance committee has had lias been to at
tend to the business details of closing .in the most expeditious and
economical manner possible, the contract for erecting such a dis
posal plant as the board of health and the city’s expert have rec
ommended.
This duty it has not yet met squarely.
Immediate action is what the city needs.
Atlanta has been dallying with death long enough.
» ’ 1 ' ■ " ' ■
Woman Suffrage—-and a
Few Silly Falsehoods •
Buried
R M M
All Women Will Vote Soon—And an Excellent Thing It Will
Be for the Country and for the Human Race Generally.
When the steam locomotive, pulling cars on rails, first came be
fore (lie public, sad things were predicted.
Well-informed “scientists" declared that human beings would
be killed if they were draggd along for any length of time at such
l frightful speed as twenty miles an hour.
We know now that they can go one hundred miles an hour —
and without danger.
It was also said that spectators along tihe tracks when the train
went by would be killed by the frightful rush of air. and that it
would be necessary to build high stone fences along lhe railroad.
All that foolishness disappeared as soon as the railroad really
began to WORK
When the sewing machine was invented, it was said that worn
en would be put out of work; that where a hundred women made a
living with the needle, there would be work enough for only ten
with the sewing machine. The first man who invented the sewing
machine was persuaded by his wife to break up the model in order
not to ruin the poor women.
Rut with the sewing machine there are more women employed
at sewing than ever before—ten to one.
When the spinning jenny came along, and Arkwright, the in
vent or. added thousands of millions to the wealth of the world
and clothed the population of the world, fools declared that work
ingmen would be ruined and deprived of labor. It was necessary to
do the work inside of fortified factories to prevent ignorant work
ingmen from destroying the machinery.
Now. where one man was employed more than ten are employ
ed, and the wages are much higher.
This byway of preface to the things that idiotic opponents of
woman suffrage have been saying about the woman's vote.
We were told first that women would vote in a sentimental,
foolish way; that they would be controlled by fancies, not by com
mon sense.
We find, now that women actually ARE voting, that they vote
very much as the men do, except more conscientiously and more
thoughtfully.
they vote just about ®a men do. sanely, honestly.
H was said that after women got the ballot THEY WOFLD
NOT USE IT. The prediction was made that women wouldn't take
the trouble to vote.
But. now women ARE voting. And we find that in California,
for instance, in proportion to their numbers, more women than men
went to the polls. In other words, out of one hundred women and
one hundred men the percentage of women sufficiently interested
to vote was greater than the percentage of men.
|1 was mournfully predicted also that attendance at the polls
would be very degrading to the women.
It was said that rowdies and roughs, and the flower of rotten
political organizations, would insult the women, and that no re
spectable woman could go to the polls in safety.
But now women ARE voting, ami we find that their attendance
at the polls improves the tone of the voting place.
The fact is that women going to the polls are treated cour
teously by the voters, even by the attendants, usually representing
a pretty low class of political heelers.
And instead of women being degraded by voting, the voting
place and the voting privilege are elevated and made better by the
presence of women.
Women are all going to vote. And when they all vote, those
■ - -e Continued in La.l
The Atlanta Georgian
THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1912.
. THE DEMON OF WAR
w ’ ■ * ■
L '-O' ' **
•MS - J -
- I
Ik
I -- - JaMMUF 'jl a
Copyrighted by Franz Hanfstaengl.
AS HE RIDES OVER THE BATTLEFIELD HE RIDES IN THE HUMAN HEART.
(One of a series of famous paintings by Kranz von Stuck that appear in the Cosmopolitan Magazine
for June from which this picture is, by permission, reproduced.)
By GARRETT P. SERVISS.
WITH the permission of the
Cosmopolitan Magazine,
thare is reproduced above
from Its June number, one of the
remarkable paintings with which
the great German artist, Franz von
Stuck, makes the world shudder at
Its own reflection. This picture Is
called "War.”
Over the awful "bloody angle" c..
some field where men, made in the
linage of God. have appealed to the
dreadful arbitrament of the sword,
rides a personification of the spirit
of murder, astride upon a beast
which is halt horse, half portent
and trampling down the broken
bodies and limbs of the fallen.
Erect, square-jawed, with deep,
merciless eyes, and out-thrust, un
pltying face, with muscles tense
and lance upon shoulder, the rider
moves straight onward, untroubled
by the agonies of that field of
slaughter, but gazing forward, with
fierce eagerness, to some other
Aceldama, which his prophetic vi
sion foresees.
Beast and rider are one. In them
the artist has embodied all the
great war-makers of all times Cy
rus, Cambyses, Alexander, Hanni
bal, Scipio, Marius. Sulla. Caesar,
Belisarius, Attila. Charlemagne,
Tamerlane. Napoleon and I hat
dread field of nameless torture is a
summation, a collective glimpse, an
integral of Marathon. Thermopylae,
Arbela. Cannae. Zama, Cynoscep
halae. Alesia, Pharsalia, Philippi,
Chalons. Crecy, butzen. Blenheim.
Naseby, Pultowa. Kunerdorf. Aus
terlitz, Jensa Friedland, Waterloo,
Gettysburg, Sedan.
All their "glory'' Is summed up
there! Does the pride of race thrill
you as sou look upon It?
It is no exaggeration of the hor
rors of war. Every soldier knows
that it is a faithful picture. It
shows what General Sherman meant
when he declared that "WAR IS
HELL"
This painting tells the story of
military glory as no words could.
It brings out elenlents that can not
be described in speech or writing.
It is a PICTCRE GOSPEL OF
PEACE, which should lie held be
fore th< eyes of 'evers rub an !
every people who are tempted to
invoke war to settle their cliff, r
one s
IS THE GREAT DECEIV
ER Tile svhole world shudders at
it when it is thus disclosed in its
tru. cliaract.-r but ss ill the |.',<
snub, learned? I nfijrtun ctcdy not
m our das * Es uybody knnssthat
11 will be tlirussn aside and fotgot-
ten the very next time —and that
time may he very near —that Is
heard the spirit-stirring drum, the
screaming fife, the thrilling call of'
the bugle and the thunder of guns
going into action. It will fade
away tn the blinding flash of the
bayonets, the flutter of the red
battle flags and the glitter of the
epaulettes, casques and flashing
swords. Was there ever such an
other deceptive demon hidden in
concealing flowers as this monster
WAR?
Rut consider the picture closely,
ponder upon it, and you will per
ceive that it is not merely a battle
field svliieh Is represented..lt is the
Inmost recess of the human heart
w hen maddened by the lust of blood
that Is there displayed. That dread
mount trample on in every soul
whore reason and mercy have made
place for the "fighting spirit”-—the
spirit which said in South Africa,
w hen greed of gain and of rule rode
down a peaceful people; "Waste no
time In listening, but FIGHT;"
which says today in stricken Mex
ico, when rival ambitions and dis
cordant ideas come into conflict;
"No argument! No words! Away
with logic! KILL! SLAY!"
The spirit of war will never be
The Dictagraph
Ry MINNA IRVING.
UTE dare not have a quiet game
I Os poker on the slv,
We dare not kiss a pretty girl
When not a soul is nigh. •
We dare not talk about our friends.
Or tell a joke, or laugh,
Because it may be lurking near -
The tattling dictagraph.
No lurks behind the teacher’s back
Nor mischief in the school.
Nor gossip at the sewing club
Where gossip is the rule.
For any place though it may lie
Not big enough by half.
To hide a mouse, may yet conceal
The truthful dictagraph.
When night lets fall its starry veil,
And way retire to bed.
No more beneath i> do we search
For burglars grim .and dread.
But in a fuller me asure yet
The cup of fear we quaff;
We look behind the picture frames
To find a dictagraph.
I d like to speak my mind about
The man who lit st conceived
This eonseieiKa> in a collar box.
This spy that has me peeved
I’d like to meet him in the dark
And have an oaken staff,
I'd like but hush! It may be tuar,
Tlie tell-tale dictagraph-
subdued until it has first been over
come In the individual minds of
men. I saw it flaming up but the
other day in a city street, In the
shadow of a great public school.
Two boys, Just from
their books, were disputing. Their
elders and GROWN MEN gather
ed about them—to separate them?
To advise them to reason over their
difference? NO! TO URGE THEM
TO FIGHT IT OUT. Men did that!
Men, some of whom had children
of their own. They formed a ring.
They cheered on the fight. They
laughed when blood was brought.
And the two boys, mere Infants,
rolled in the gutter, striking, bit
ing, tearing at each other with
demoniac faces, until, exhausted,
they rose, with bleeding cheeks
and ruined garments, to go Jjome
in shame and tears to their
waiting mothers. Some day, per
haps as a result of that experience,
they will go to a broader and blood
ier field, never to come back.
Tn the hearts of those men urging
on the battle of the innocents the
ugly figure of the painting on his
nameless beast was trampling over
the slain and the dying! They were
doing their best to breed new vic
tims for war by encouraging the
spirit of fighting instead of the
spirit of peace and of reason.
It is education that accomplishes
all things in this world, but, educa
tion works with disheartening de
liberation. The race has struggled
painfully upward during countless
centuries, and still the grip of the
war demon is strong upon its neck.
We preach peace, but the hunter
of blood rides steadily on first in
our hearts, then over the field of
slaughter.
We talk of the pacifying influence
of preparedness for war. and we are
right. The age still demands that
preparation. But we must not lose
sight of the treacherous nature of
that with which we are dealing. It
is a poison which only the greatest
skill and caution can safely handle.
The necessity for Its use must be
slowly, wisely eliminated. Wc can
not yet dismiss the demon, but we
can minify his influence by strip
ping him of his deceptions. We can
teach our children and our chil
dren's chilrren the true horror, the
ABSOLUTE STUPIDITY of war
and fighting. We can exorcise the
demon. IF WE WILL In the mean
while. this great, terrible painting
of Stuck's will be for all who study
it a LESSON OF PEACE and a
herald <>f tht wished for time
“when the nations shall learn war
war no more."
THE HOME PAPER
The Annual Tragedy
There is something else to talk about except politics. The late oold
snap is reported to havq seriously damaged the Georgia peach crop—
Darien Gazette.
By HOMER KNOTT.
THE melancholy days have come,
The saddest of the year.
The annual slaughter now is on—
Dear friends, let's drop a tear!
The good old peach crop, once again
Must be laid in its grave.
Oh. kick it firmly in the slats;
No one its life may save!
For years and years, it’s been this way—
Each spring we kill the crop.
For years and years it will go on—•
• Naught can its fate estop.
Though some things live for centuries,
And some things die —well, never!
The good old springtime peach crop dies
Forever and forever!
NEVERTHELESS—
Gentle reader, lift your eyes,
And these sage words remember:
Peach crops that die in budding spring
Come back in sweet September!
The Eternal Longing
By BEATRICE FAIRFAX.
IT is quite the fashion of late to
say that the life of the spinster
is happier than that of the wife.
There is almost a revolution on
lhe question of marrying. Some
generations ago it xvas said of a
girl-child: '‘When she marries.” It
is now said: “If she marries," and
it is quite the thing in circles re
garded as progressive to imply a
doubt that she will, and a hope
that she won’t.
all this agitation, this new
way of thinking, can never change
the fashion ordained when the
world began.
And that fashion was to love, tn
marry, to bear children and to have
a home.
It is the eternal longing In every
heart that Is truly feminine. And
because It is the eternal longing,
and a desire planted there by na
ture, and which no new order of
thinking can entirely uproot, I ask
sympathy for the girl who writes
me the following appeal:
"I am twenty years of age. and
very, very discouraged. 1 live In
the heart of the East Side, where
none but foreigners abide. I am
perfectly Americanized, having re
ceived a good education, and I now’
hold a very good position. But I
have very little chance of meeting
nice young men to my liking. Most
of those with whom I come in con
tact are foreigners who are none
too refined, and It appears that I
am destined to be an old maid,
which I very much dread, as my
one aim in life is a home of my
own. with everything that goes with
it in. the way of blessings. What
am I to do?
"DISCOURAGED BUSINESS
GIRL.”
I can hear in fancy the voices of
those who advocate the new order
of things saying in very strident
tones, "You can thank heaven you
are free, and have no man to tyran
nize over you!”
Doesn't Want To Be Free.
But the girl doesn't want to be
free! She is free now, to come and
go as she pleases. She is free to
spend her money without quibble
or question She is free to her own
opinions. She is free to dress as
she desires, without disturbing
thoughts of the money being need
ed for flour or bacon. She is free
to indulge her longings for the
beautiful without hampering mem
ories of the needed prosaic.
She is free for all these joys, and
more. But she doesn't enjoy her
freedom.
Woman Suffrage—and a
Few Silly Falsehoods
Buried
Continued From First Column.
that hit in office WILL BE COMPELLED TO THINK OF WOM
EN AND THEIR NEEDS AND THEIR OPINIONS.
Those in office will Realize that woman’s first thought is of the
children, and the children will fare better.
Women will destroy the vice in the great cities as rapidly as
that can be done. »
Women, for the sake of children, will tight child labor and
kill it.
Women, for the sake of children, will improve the parks, in
crease the playgrounds, see that the streets are clean- and poli
ticians, knowing that these are the things that women demand,
WILL GIVE THEM EAGERLY.
Do what you can to hurry along votes for women.
Tell the woman who opposes female suffrage that she is simply
like the very dullest among the negro slaves before the war— they
didn't want liberty, they wanted to stay and be treated kindly by
“n|<l Massa."
Tell the men who oppose woman suffrage that they are to be
pitied the class of women with whom they have associated have
evidently been of a rather poor kind-
Sh® prefers the obligations of a
home. She would be. happier know
ing she must bo home at 5 to get
dinner for a husband than posses
sing the income and the time to go
where she pleases and eat in a res
taurant when it suits her.
She longs for the joy found only
in sacrifice and obligation. She ts
the kind of a woman who is hap
pier in serving and loving a hus
band than in going through life
with less cares and more freedom
without one.
To “Discouraged Business Girl,"
therefore, I would NOT say:
“Tut, tut, child, you don't know
when you are well off. Put thoughts
of men out of your mind and do
something for the world!”
I would not say that to the girl.
She is lonesome now. How much
more lonesome she would be If she
started out with this longing tn her
heart for a little nest of her own
crushed by the. newer fashioned
ambition to save the world!
What She Should Do.
I would counsel her to keep her
Ideal, her hope, her ambition and
never let the newer fashions
change it.
I would suggest that she become
interested in some church or so
cial organization on the West Side,
where she would meet young men
of her own nationality.
I would urge that she guard her
ideal sacredly, and that until the
man who fits it comes along she re
fuse to take any.
And I would ask her to know
that if the prince of her dreams
never materializes, being an old
maid isn't such a terrible fate.
There atY happy old maids; there
are useful old maids, and there are
old maids who have built. *or them
selves happy homes, without any
man to help or hinder.
I would ask her to remember
that, while slib wishes “a home and
all the blessings that go with it."
one should know al) are not bless
ings.
One who becomes a wife must
know that it isn't to be all sunshine.
I would ask "Discouraged Business
Girl” to remember that.
And, at the last, I would urge
her always to bear in mind that
happiness is independent of the
marriage ring. That little gold
band doesn’t secure it. and neither
does it keep it out.
If a woman is happy, useful and
content: if her life is made up of
more than moans because she can't
change her condition, depends sole
ly upon HERSELF. It does not de
pend upon having a husband.