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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. 1879. How Far Back Can Aon Remember? You EXISTED Before Your Present Memory Began, Did You Not? A reader writes us: I argue pretty often with a man who call' himself an atheist. He lolls me that there is no such thing as heaven or future life. We argue late at night somt times. This is one thing he sa) sand 1 can not get around it. He sat s: “ Every thing you ever did you can remember. Von know that you were alive yesterday, and the day before, and last year. It you had been alive, in existence as an angel or in any other wav before you came into this world, yon would rememher that. wouldn't you? If you were going to live on hereafter, you uould know something about that. too. This atheist has a pretty good line of argument, and 1 wish you could tell me some things that I could answer him. He likes to talk with Christian people and make them sound foolish with his arguments. We advise our reader to talk to his “atheist friend’’ about as follows: To begin with, you are NO atheist. There is no such thing as an atheist. An atheist is supposed to be a man who denies the existence of God lie is in reality a man who makes HIM SELF his god. His god is usually his own conceit. He suffers from a more or less permanent attack of intellectual vanity, ami he wants to be able to explain everything for himself ami do everything for himself. Intellectually he is about on a par with the little child that can bardlv walk, and yet refuses to be hold by the hand by its mother. Occasionally a man calls himself an atheist when some great blow has fallen upon him. and when be thinks he has lost faith in eternal justice and wisdom. But that is not atheism, only passing discouragement. The professional atheist, who delights in undermining the religious belief of others, is morally on a par with a man who would delight in attacking the character of some man’s moth er. The respectable man treats a man's religious faith as he would treat the memory of a man's father or mother. As to this foolish argument about life, before or after this existence, it is hardly worth answering. But you might say to your atheist friend : How far back can .you remember in THIS life? ('an you remember when you were four years old. or three years old, or two years old" No matter how 7 far hack your memory goes THERE WAS BART OF YOI R LIFE THAT YOI CAN NOT REMEMBER AT ALL. was there not ' You can't remember when you were a baby biting your own toes and howling for your mother. You can’t remember when xon firs! began to creep along the floor, bumping your head against chair tegs and table legs. Yet you wore ALIVE at that time. Yon actually KNOW that you were alive, and you take the statement from others, having FAITH in what they tell you. How do you know that before this existence itself began you hadn’t others, and thousands of others, perhaps? How do you know that you haven't been coming to this earth over and over and over again, reappearing in different human bodies to do the work here? You can't remember your ini'ancy. Why should you remember former existences? What absolute know ledge of any kind have \on ? NOSE. You simply chronicle your little impressions. You live in a universe in which the least wonderful thing, the smallest blade of grass or grain of sand is entirely beyond your com prehension. Ever) phenomenon of life is mysterious beyond your grasp. You take ever.'thing for granted the warmth of the sun. the water and the air that you get free, the fertility of the earth, the regular seasons, the xvondcrful balane, of our pl-imt in its whirling journey. and all of cosmic wisdom and kindness. And vet x our foolish little intellectual vanity forbids vou to accept a power, justice, xvi.dom and benevolence infinite!) above that of the linx little creatures on this earth You ian sax to the atheist this: You are a mr-n> denial. Other.- it least are Ari'ing dimlx- to realize th w>-d >n> that guide- us Other at least look IT WARD, not downward They have gratitude, which > inspira tion. You haven't it The atbeist is a fooh hl va’n person who delights >n set ting his oxvn opinions ig.vnst those o* others, who makes a god of his oxvn trifling, foolish bttl< power. DON’T WASTE TIME ARGUING WITH HIM. © Night. Fall © By FRAM'I S TA RREI i.-Gll 1.. Within, the heart's unrest, the strife of brain I, Out there the fall of < wiling n .11 The veil of noiseless, elosi . persist 1 11’ rain: Above. unspoiled by any (<• ir. One golden spate in all iliM wasti- of gray; And. somewhere, one untroubled bird. Sang on her thankful song for night or day; Whereat the low wind, list'ning. stirred The dusk with some heart known refrain Then all things were as voices blent The rain that knew it had • tall. The wind that answered to the rain. The bird so sure of love thro all To bring, in all its lull intent. The meaning I had missed ail day Something hid the turmoil ceas. Things stayed, and yet had pas-ed away, And in my soul was peace.' The Atlanta Georgian FRIDAY, MAY 24, 1912. I HE NEVER HAD A CHANCE That Is What Nine Men Out of Ten Who Are Failures Say. Look Out That You Don’t Say It Yourself. I By TAD I, W A 1 H1 SiSs I - i SI sAy I'? ** Ik? t% ■ No. 3. Ymn xv,is quite a success at baseball, but the money end of it bothered him and soon he started to figure the softest, wax to get coin. He could have helped the groceryman or worked in the dry goods store, as the other lads did. but then that would lie taking up 100 much of his time, so he turned fight manager. He found a young lad in the neighbor hood who was quite a scrapper, and took him around to the little fight clubs, where he got half of the F> earned by his demon. (To be continued.) DOROTHY DIX WRITES OF The Man Who Admires Fat Women By DOROTHY DIX. OEIGINALLY the genera; pub lit has c c<mt sympathy with the woman who brings a bin a< h of promis l 'Hit against the man who has promis- I to marry h A r end then welched his bargain. H fills us with disgust and repul sion to think of a woman exhibit ing h .i t wound' to the cal lous gaze of the public on the < of g> tting a f*=w dollars damages for lv r injuries, and we t’\at am ono could !»• so 1 b’Fing in every of delicacy that sic would be able m d’\ag to riif altar the man who had tired of ind who was tyving to bi ak a 'vp v Put < ircumstanct s alter cases, and i b'-ac 1 ? o promise case is now to *the f ,>r e in v hi' h th**- '* Oman's loss, through the perfidy of her t.i’'hires swain, is so great, so over whelming. so uttevlv irreparable t hat all ordinarv opinion in such matters must be revey and the woman's actions condoned, if not justified. Th< case in question is ’hat of Miss Yaud Mitten, who is suing < -ifin 'i Powe hf Chicago, for s">o.- i"»n f-m breach of promise. It is said that Colonel Power is a rich mine ■ '•'VDcr. but that is an insignificant h t m unworthy of consideration. Cbm Man. at Least, Who Adores Fat U-lonel Power'? money is the Ic.ist "f his desirable assets What mak. s him the pearl of price, the ir.' omparable. the greatly to be de s-rcrl above all other men, is that he .■•hni <s fat on the ftminine f:ame. 11. ■ you get that, suffering sisters? H - fit -not plumpness, but r it—and in the mon than fourteen hundred sizzling love U tters which I he wrote Mis. Milton within the | sp.ue of two years, and which form ■ xhibits A. ami B, and <'. etc., etc. is e\ni. nee fn her suit, the gallant ■ olonel uses the word ' fat" contin ■ u.iily. as <n adjectix. of adulation I )nst>■■ui of .is an epithet of oppro- Yum met the ca) fellow's then. His ohe ambition was to rig himself with a set of swell scenery and then get a diamond ring and pin. “You don't need any schooling tg be a manager.'' he said. Half the managers never read anything except a bill of fare and Ihe “Entries for to morroxv." and the) haji nothing on Yum. The money was east and his time was his own. brium. as is the common custom among men. <>ver and over again in these let ters,he calls her "my beautiful fat .Mitten," ".My darling far kitten," "My lovely fat girl," and so on, ringing ’he usual lover's change? on her perfections, but always striking the high note of his praises with the magic word "fat." She is. in turn, referred to as beautiful, ador able, fascinating, wonderful, but each of these terms of flattery is buttressed and bulwarked and crow ned, and pinnacled, so to speak, with fat. $50,000 Too Little for Such a Man. Is it any wonder that a lady who loses a njtan who adntires fat on a woman tries to get him back by process of law, or any other way that she can" Is it to be marveled at that, having been deprived of the pr p and stay of the affection of such a man. she seeks what poor consolation $50,000 xvou’.d give her? Hers is no common loss. An or dinary man with ordinarv views on the straight front subject, may be fasiit replaced if he wriggles off th<? mat Timonin! hook md wo ma,v scorn the woman who is so poor a sport that she asks to be paid for the fish she did not have skill enough tn land, but the man who adores fat women, whose love is of the elastic variety that spans a 28- jnrb waist and who thinks there can not be too much of a good thing, is of another breed. He is the treasure that only once in ten million times may the fisherwoman hope to bring up. in her net. and when he is lost there is no balm in Gilead for her wounds. Why fat and love should be as inimical as oil and water nobody knows. It is merely a fact. In po etry and romance the heroes are all tall and slender, and the heroines living skeletons. No woman falls in love with a fat man. No man even thinks of failing in love with a fat woman That is why women tor ture themselves to keep thin, and w hy, w hen one woman wants to be catty to another, she says, "My dear, how well you ar«> looking! You've gained at least twenty pounds since I saw you last, haven't you?” , Only women who go through the flgonj of starvation and of being flayed alive by mnsseursy and who exorcise to the point of fainting w ith fatigue, in order to keep down their adipose tissue, know what luck has happened to a fat woman when a man condescends to notice her, much less to fall in love with her. and onlv women will know how to estimate the misfortune one has sustained in having lost a lover who prefers curves to angles, and a comfortable, well fed appearing lady to a female who has a lean and hungry look. With the present mania for gcrawniness in women it is gener al!'- conceded that fat is the unpar donable sin, and that for a wife to permit het self to grow stout is suf ficient cause for her husband tn pension her off on alimony and get a new and stringy mate. Think, then, of the blighting disappoint ment of this woman, who has just missed getting a husband who liked fat and who would have loved his wife better as the years went by and she pulled down the scales at a heavier and heavier notch. Happiness of Being Able to Eat All You Want. Picture the happiness and the calm peace of mind of a woman who could sit dov n to a good din ner and eat all she wanted, untrou bled by the thought that everything she liked was fattening and that she got fat at her peril. Could any money pay for the loss of such do mestic felicity as that—an Eden into which, the serpent of obesity had never entered? The fair plaintiff in this case has a just cause, and one that will make an irresistible appeal to the sympa thies of her sex. If she is wise, she will demand to be tried by a jury of her peers—a jury of fa 7 women— and what they will do to the de fendant will be a shame. THE HOME PAPER Ella Wheeler Wilcox Writes on AT T- I'* A Letter r rom an Italian —and— The Practice of Chang- 1 M mg Names Written For The Atlanta Georgian By Ella Wheeler Wilcox Copyright, 1912, by American-Journal-Examiner. AN Italian lady by the name of Colombo writes to know why the name of her illustrious countryman. Christopher Columbus, was changed. Here is her letter: ■'l had in my house Germans. Spanish and French people, and I am Italian. We al! discussed about Christopher Columbus, and I said that the spelling is not correct. The name is Cristoforo Colombo. The Spanish and French said the name is Cristoforo Colon; then, of course, the American said no. the family name changed, and they believed Columbus was right. Now, I was always taught the family name never changes, and I am sure the great discoverer's name is Colom bo, as is my name. So I will be obliged to you if you will explain xx hy they change the Colombo name.” The lady is quite right in think ing that the family name should re tain its spelling and its pronuncia tion, through change of country, and during all the passing of the centuries. But this law is not followed, for any length of time, in any land. Without doubt, the changes occur in order to oblige the inhabitants of tlie adopted country. The Italian ‘ ‘ Giuseppe' ’ Becomes Joseph. The handsome Italian boy who looks like his debonair name. Giuseppe,” after a few years in America, becomes JOSEPH. That most unromantie of names ill be fits him; but, still, to Americanize himself, he makes the change. At a little seashore resort, a Spanish cavalier, whose eyes and deportment are in keeping with his ancient lineage, has adopted the commonplace name of White in or der to make his little shop more popular with the people whose cus tom he seeks than he feels would be accomplished were he to use his Spanish cognomen. Over in France our good George Washington, were he alive, would never respond to the name they use Antarctic Continent an American Discovery By GARRETT P. SERVISS ' ONE of the prettiest examples of the well-known British I practice of appropriation, ex- ercised on every possible occasion, in all quarters of the world, has re cently been exposed by General A. W. Greely. in January, 1821, Captain Na thaniel Brown Palmer, a Connecti cut man, only 21 years of age, com manding the sloop Hero, of 44 1-2 tons, then on a sealing- expedition to the South Shetland islands, dis covered the northwestern part of the Antarctic continent in about latitude S. 68 degrees, longitude W. 59 degrees. Like Columbus, he did not know that it was a continent he had found, and. like him, too. as General Greely points out, he was robbed of the honor of having his name attached to the nyt£ land which he had been the first to visit. While the fleet of sealers to which the Hero belonged was en gaged, late in 18-0. in capturing seals at the South Shetlands, an other sharp-eyed Yankee. Captain Benjamin Pendleton, saw from his lookout, on a volcanic crater, snow capped peaks far in the south. Captain Palmer determined to sail in the direction of these peaks in search of new sealing grounds. The result of his enterprise has already been mentioned —he found the cor ner of the Antarctic continent which projects farthest toward Cape Horn. The distance from the South Shetland islands was about 70 Captain Palmer rmted that the land was mountainous and covered with snow. He entered several bays and found sea leopards, but no seals. On his way home he met a Russian exploring expedition under Captain F. G von Bellings hausen. and communicated to him full information of the- discovery which he had just made. For about ten years, until 1831. ft'e name of Palmer Land was at tached to the young captain s dis covery. One of his fellows on the expedition. an English sailor, George Powell brought out a map of the South Shetland islands, on which he loyally charted ' Palmer Land.” and this nomenclature was promptly adopted by French offi cial publications. Then the usual thing happened The Enderby brothers Englishmen, one of them an influential member of the Royal Geographical Society.” fitted out an expedition, command- there in speaking of him. "Geeorgg® Vashingtbne " But unless the traveling Ameri can learns to pronounce this Ameri can name in the French fashion he will never be able to male, the eab drivers understand where he wishes to go. if his destination is “Rue George Washington.” There are certain sounds peculiar to each language, and when a child is brought up from the cradle to speak only that language it is oft entimes a physical impossibility for vecal organs and lips to form sounds which pertain to other lan guages without a long course of study. This necessitates changing those words, when possible, to the native tongue of that person. French Can’t Pronounce “W" and “Th’’ Easily. The French man or woman can not, without a course of training, say W or TH. There are no such sounds in their language. The English and American can not speak words containing the French U so that they can be un derstood. Were a Frenchman and an Eng lish-speaking man to refer to a lady named Ursula, neither would know of whom the other spoke, so dif ferent would be their pronunciation of the name. Speak of Paris, in France as we call it here, and no one knows xvhat you are talking about. Speak of going to “Paree” here, and no one understands. Up in Flanders there is a most interesting city which we in Amer ica spell and pronounce “Ghent.” A lady traveling rushed to a ticket office in Brussels and asked for a ticket to Ghent, and lost her train before she was able to find any one to translate her word into the GANS, by which name the city was known to its oxvn people. And the pronounciation of Gans was wholly unlike its own spelling according to our rules. — 5 ed by John Biscoe, a retired mas ter tn the royal navy, whereupon, in the high British fashion, the name of the discoverer was sum marily thrown out and that of the "First Lord of the Admiralty” substituted, and so Palmer Land, by order of “the mistress of the seas," became "Graham Land.” in the usual way, also, British writers have discredited and ig nored the work of their country man's predecessor, preferring even to give the honor to the Russian Bellingshausen rather than to al low it to be retained by an Amer ican. to whom it justly belonged. The Encyclopedia Britannica, pub lished in 1875. "mentions neither Palmer nor charts his discoveries.” Jts new edition. "Americanized for the United States,” "admits in two lines that Nathaniel Brown Palm er discovered the mountainous archipelago (?) which now bears his name." and then “proceeds to give a column regarding John Bis coe. “whose explorations resulted in the ousting of the true discov erer. An honorable .exception should be made in the case of Dr. Hugh Robert Mill, who says that, as a matter of historic justice. Palmer's name should be retained Captain Wilkes, the American discoverer of the Antarctic con tingent (as a continent') and who”"'" gave it that name, j> as suffered in irr a similar way from British jealousy, misrepresentation, ap propriation and belittlement in order that his rival Captain J. C. Ross, may have all the b.cmor. Says General Greely. The dis crediting of Wilkes by standard English authorities has been bold ' c-n and persistent for seventy years, although occasionally tr late vears some able, impartial expert like the Scottish s. xntist, Sir John Murray has expressed Hf f ip V-> i rr» All this, it must be confessed is not calculated to create much genera! sympathy for the uncon cealed disappointment of the Brit ish geographers in the fair beat ing out of their champion, Cap tain Scot*, by the brave Nor wegian. Amundsen in the race for ’he south pole The British formula in such cases never va ries and it is again illustrated bv ’h- - attacks m London on the American investigrt -, n of the Ti tanic horror. Eve"', thing is • ig nnranr.-. 'bocrishnes-- an{ j ‘backwoods manners' that does no’ come out of the tight littlo is!'?.