Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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. Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail, $5.00 a year. Payable in advance. One Six-Year Term in the Presidency—-A Foolish Suggestion » » It Six Years Would Be Too Much for a Bad Man; Not Enough for a Good Man. Tho gentlemen who are planning to change our presidential system, making the term six years—WlTH NO SECOND TERM ALLOWED —moan well, but they don't know and they haven't thought. Those that have really thought about the question—beginning with Thomas Jefferson, whose strong argument, written in 1805, SQttles the question definitely up to the present day—realize that the. four-year term, with a second term as a proper reward for good service, is the right system. The president ought to be nominated by the people—although this does not always happen. A good many presidents have been nominated and elected by money—the money in the hands of a very few men. With a corporation made president in office, with only one term permitted, and with the. president realizing that he can expect nothing more from the people—HOW MUCH GREATER WOT LD BE THE INFLUENCE OF THE CORPORATION THAN THAT OF THE PEOPLE! At the end of six years the people could do nothing more for their president except say, “Thank you No matter how faithful he might be to the people, they could not reward him—not even with a second term. But if the president had proved faithful to the corporations, they AT THE END OF HIS SINGLE TERM COULD REWARD HIM IN MANY WAYS. They could give him. for instance, a very large income from an insurance company or a bank and make the job seem most hon orable. They could take care of his relations. They could tell the next president they owned to put their faithful ex-president on the supreme bench. If it were possible for the people to arrange matters SO THAT CORPORATIONS COULD NOT REWARD MEN FORMERLY IN OFFICE, that would be admirable. But if the people should legis late so that the president after one term could have nothing to ex pect from them, yet with all of the usual rewards to expect from corporations—the corporations would rule even more hilly than at present. There is a constant effort on the part of special isterests. and of all those that really object to government by the people, TO HAMPER AND LIMIT THE PEOPLE IN THEIR POWER. If this is to be a republic permanently, why not legislate to in crease the people's power rather than to diminish it ? Mr. Elihu Root, the ablest legal representative of the biggest dishonest men in the United States, is in favor of only one term for the president. . . Os course he is. He knows that with only one term in office possible, the trust candidate, once elected, would not be tempered to forget his trust friends in the effort “to curry popular favor’’ and get a second term. Thomas Jefferson, before he had time to think about it thor oughly, was inclined to favor only one term for the president. But deliberation made him see th' 1 thing more clearly, and this is what he wrote on January 6. 1805, to John Tyler: “My opinion originally was that the president of the United States should have been elected for seven years, and be forever in eligible afterward. I have since become sensible that seven years is too long to be irremovable, ami that there should be a peaceable way of withdrawing a man in midway who is doing wrong.’’ All of those who feel that the people are really not capable of self-government, who believe that a special class of wise and good and powerful men should rule, are constantly inventing new hobbles ’ to hamper and hold the people. All the specious talk about one term for the president of six years and no re-election is simply another set of hobbles to hold the people down. If a man proves himself incompetent, give the people the right to get rid of him at the end of four years, or, better still, to get rid of him at once by a properly safeguarded expression of public opinion. If a president is competent and faithful, let the people elect him again, to prove their gratitude and secure his valuable serv ices. If somebody will invent a law to keep Mr. Elihu Root's friends from nominating presidents and electing them, and renominating, them when that is thought advisable, the law will be welcome. But nf*w laws to limit the people's power are not needed. The constitu tion as it stands attends to that task sufficiently. An Ode to .Indigestion \ By PERCY SHAW. SUMMER poets, as you linger. Inky spots on cheek and finger. Looking blankly at the view. Why not cut the "brook entrancing" And the "winds like nymphs a-dancing For some theme a ’rifle new? There are books on inspiration. On the charms of green creation. On the heather and the lea; There are volumes on the breaking. Roaring, calm and gentle waking Os the much belettered sea. I propose, without a notion Os a fee, that there’s emotion In a more persuasive lore; Try an ode on indigestion; There is food in this suggestion Never fully tried before. Ah. I see your fancy gleaming With a fitful burst of dreaming, As you think of apple pie; As you picture short-cake, very Deeply studded with strawberry, To attract the greedy eye. This is not a full prescripitlon, But a meekly made description Meant to help you as you write; When the midnight moon is glowing Then your verse should issue flowing With an unalloyed delight. Give sensations as you feel them, Make no effort to conceal them. And the last result will be, If you know ybur indigestion, Something odd, and without question Something worth* our w hile to see. The Atlanta Georgian Worlds in the Making * * By Garrett P. Serviss NEW STARS FLY OFF LIKE SPARKS FROM A FLINT WHgN DEAD SUNS COLLIDE IN OUTER SPACE • our eyes as, in rotating on their i ■*' — , axis, they turned first their dark - sides toward us and then the sides that had been set aflame by the collision. As long as. the heat pro jMßaMMnk duced by the collision continued to . produoe a glow upon them they would appear as variable stars. Not Mere Fancy. ■cjj The reader may ask: 'ls not ail this purely fanciful?" No. it is not ' S ' < fanciful, for many new stars have - ■ s suddenly made their appearance in ’9Bg £*•’ the heavens where nothing was vis- ' • Ible beforehand not only does their appearance correspond with the < -.iJ-, i theory that they have been caused ' 1 ' ' ==J ' ' —• ..-A- z x ■ 1 \ '■ . < y F ■MaMF 1 « - •• •>' •WM (Too Picture).—Two approaching dark stare- distorted and about to graze; (Center Picture). —The two stars passing out of impact and formation of a new world or body. (Bottom P^ture).—The two stars passing on, leaving the new star behind them. IN the pictures which accom pany this article three steps in the creation of a new star are shown. In the first are seen two great "dead suns" —which may be larger than our sun, but which have faded and gone out in conse quence of the cooling caused by ex cessive age—and these huge black masses are rushing together with a combined speed of a hundred miles per second. But before they crash together a strange thing happens. You will observe that each of them is be ginning to glow with light on that part of its surface which is turned directly toward the other; and also that both of them are a little drawn out in form, or elongated, like two dogs tugging at the same bone. And, in fact, these two dead stars are pulling against one another, and both the kindling light and the dis tortion of shape are due to the strain of that tremendous pull, arising from their mutual attrac tion'. This seems one of the stran gest conclusions of science, but it is perfectly easy to understand. If a dark body of immense mass should approach the earth, the lat ter would not only be torn from its orbit by the attraction, but its globular form would be altered, and it would swell out into an el lipsodial figure, with its longest diameter in the line of attraction. The mighty ribs of the globe would give way under the strain, the solid rocks would melt, molten fire would gush out and in a little while the round earth would be pulled Into the shape of a football and *the pointed ends would blaze with in coni eivable heat. Just What Occurs. That is what happens when two extinguished suns are about to col lide in open space. But they are hundreds of thousands of times lap s' • and more massive than the earth, and the effects of their at- MONDAY, MAY 27, 1912. traction upon each other are pro portionately great. Even if they should not actually meet they would set each other afire through the enormous force of their at traction. Then, if they came very close, without striking, they would swell out, like,stretched bladders, and immense masses would be flung off from them. If they met head on they would swallow one another up in a cloud of flaming gas and vapor, or be turned into a gigantic whirling neb ula. This would result from the sudden transformation of the en ergy of motion, of- the mechanical energy involved In their swift flight through space, into the energy of heat, which would suffice to vapor ize them almost in an instant. But, probably, in most cases, these immense bodies do not meet head on. A grazing collision is far more likely to occur, and what then happens is shown in the second pic ture. A portion of each of the meeting masses has been scraped, or torn off at the point of impact, as the iceberg tore out a part of the bottom of the Titanic, and the flaming substance thus thrown into spay> between the -two colliding masses becomes an independent body, ablaze with heat and whirling swiftly upon its own axis, until, in the course of time, it turns into a star. This new-created star may be carried oft in the wake of one or the other of the original bodies, and may. as it cools, continue to revolve around it as a' planet re volves around our sun. Or. in certain circumstances, il lustrated by the third picture, the filing bodies which were in partial collision may pass on. leaving the smaller star, which their Impact as brought into existence, behind them Not only one, but a large number of small stars might thus be created by the glazing collision of two immense, dark bodies. The latter would go their way, alter nately brightening and fading to by the violent collision of great dark masses, but some of them have actually been seen to turn into nebulae (that is, clouds of glowing gas), and all the phenomena which they present accord with the hy pothesis that they are the result of the sudden transformation of the motion of flying masses into heat— heat- so intense that at least a part of the meeting masses has been vaporized. More than that, by the aid of the spectroscope—an instrument which enables astronomers to detect the substances of which the stars are composed, and also to measure the velocity with which they are mov ing—the speed of the colliding bod ies in such cases has been meas ured, and the presence of two, and sometimes three or more, bodies has been demonstrated. Occasion ally the spectroscope shows that one of these bodies is moving earthward, a hundred miles or more per second, while another is going in the opposite direction. They are not separately visible because they are thousands of billions of miles away, but yet the magic spectro scope proves their existence by the shifting of the spectral lines in the light by which they shine. If they are approaching the lines are shift ed one way. and if they' are retreat ing they are shifted the other way. the amount of shifting determines the speed. It is also known to astronomers that there are many dark bodies, or extinguished suns, in space, for many have' been found revolving around other suns, which, like ours, are still brightly' shining. It is an interesting question how these suns, which have dark companions, fell into their gloomy’ company, and a satisfactory answer has not yet geen found. But every star, whether it'- is dark . and invisible, or brilliant, is known to be in syvift motion, and these motions of the stars are in all conceivable direc tions. so that meetings could eas ily' occur. Our own sun, carrying the earth and other planets along with it, is moving in a northerly directly with a speed but little short of a millions miles per day. It is no stretch of the imagina tion then to say that the time may come when this beautiful solar sys tem in which we dwell may become the victim of a gigantic collision between our sun and some huge wandering body in space. But the chance of such a collision is very small, and if it were going to hap pen astronomers would probably become aware of it some t!m4 in advance, through the effects of the attraction of the approaching body upon the sun and the outer plan ets THE HOME PAPER Dorothy Dix Writes —OF— A Woman Who Wants to Marry .-AND- Some Ways to Man By DOROTHY DIX A CHARMING and attractive unmarried woman who has reached the place of the old maid’s home falling jjeross her path, frankly admits that she would like to marry and have a home and husband of her own. More: She has her eye on the particular man that she would like to see sitting across the table from her. Unfortunately for her. this wom an is not one of the women that attract men, and, worse still, the individual man whom she would like for a husband evinces no de sire to have her for a wife, and so this bachelor maid asks for some rule for husband-catching, with specific directions about how to proceed In the case of this especial # man. Alas, there is no formula for the proceedings that one may offer her with any certainty it will work out. The women who are the most suc cessful fishers of men are a selfish lot, and never tell what sort of bait they use. Perhaps they don’t know themselves. Probably they use less conscious effort to please men than the women do who never succeed in pleasing them at all. Certainly it Is not beauty alone that attracts man to a woman, as witness the homely married ladles all about us. Nor is it intelligence, which is ever a handicap instead of a help to a woman seeking a hus band Wit in a woman Is an athema to a man, talent he abhors, and domesticity he praises and urges h Is friend to marry. Women Still Guessing About Qualities Men Like. It is a bromide that the better fitted a woman is to make a good wife the less chance she has of be coming one, and so, when all is said and done, women are still left guessing as to what qualities men admire in women and what line of conduct to pursue in order to make a hit with them. Doubtless, the old Scotchman sized up the situation when he said that it wasn't things that wom en did. or failed to do. that cap tured men, but it was the “come hither look” in a woman’s eye that did the business. A'nd this look is a gift of nature. Os course, other things help along. For instance, the woman who wishes to marry should show herself willing, but not too willing. • Husband-hunting is not an occupa tion to be carried on in the open. It must still be done under cover, and woe betide the woman who is clumsy enough to let a man per ceive that she is on his track and chasing him down. On the other hand, it is equally fatal for her to be too difficult or too retiring. It’s very well for a woman to give the impression that she ''is a timid dove, or a shrink ing violet, but it is likewise well to remember that the bird that- flut ters around handy is the most like ly to get caught, and the only vio lets a man ever sees are those that are so Erectly under his feet that he stumbles over them. Undoubtedly the best weapons to use in husband-hunting are tact and the jolly. If properly primed and loaded these seldom fail to do the deadly w«*. Lu if they misfire a woman had as well take her empty bag and go home. Men don’t like blunt women, nor plain-speaking women, nor women -who tell them the truth, dr who argue with them, and you will geny erally find that every old maid has one or the other of these char acteristics. No man expects any other man to flatter him and tell him that he’s the wisest, and handsomest, and most wonderful thing in the world, but he is con vinced that woman's mission In life is to appreciate what a supe rior creature he is, and burn In cense before him. and the lady who can do this most discreetly, most naturally, and with the most real istic air, as if she meant it, is the boss head hunter of the husband -tribe. But there is no hard and fast rule for capturing a husband. No - woman can run fast enough to >8 overtake the man who is running f from her. No woman can flatter or cajole a man Into loving her if i she has no attraction for him. In ' the end the thing that draws a man to a woman is a matter of personal magnetism, and that is a gift that the gods bestow or with hold at their pleasure. If a woman has done what she can In a ladylike way to win a man's heart, and he is still indif ferent to her. she may well con sole herself with tho thought that it Is a thousand times better to be z an independent srtoeter than it is to be an unloved wife. Indeed, the lot of the old maid in these days * Is not one that calls for pity, but provokes envy. Statisticians who have studied the marriage and the divorce prob lems declare that there are proba bly’ five marriages out of a hundred that are really happy. That there are ten marriages out of a hundred that are endurable, and that the balance are a purgatory on earth for both. One’s own observation confirms this statement, and, this being the case, it is difficult to un derstand why any sensible woman should embark in the dangerous sport of husband-hunting. - If love comes her way, well and - good. If the right man asks her £• to marry him. take him if wants him, but, for her own safety, let her forbear from trying to cap ture some unwilling victim that she will have to hobble to keep at home, and whom she can never thor oughly domesticate nor tame so that he will eat out of her hand. Don’t Realize That Love Is Only an Episode. And that’s the only kin<l of a husband there’s any real comfort in. The trouble with women is that they put too much stress on love, and feel that they are bound to be unhappy unless they are mar ried, when the truth is that love is only a small episode in life and that marriage brings misery often er than happiness. ‘ When women realize that they will 'cease to bother their heads about husband hunting. but will fill their days with other interests than sentimental ones, and, as the old fairy tales used to say, ''live happily ever aft erward."