Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, June 08, 1912, HOME, Image 28

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I UL ,B-.. . J-r. . m ■„., . , „ —— - ■. - -- -- - .. ■■■!■ Keep at Your Work, and It Will Keep You WELL, EIfOVGJf L— -~__LFA VF ' HIM 6 '-° Nf 1 \-^gr-_ = _ , £ t. '" ' ~ -—— ' j ’-' _~~ -~ •■<;]** \--..'bgu .-•• 7 w ; aJ9KW - * ■■ ■"' -«wggSg~ <—- r •■■■ ■/ •> x ' . 3 ~ -y: - , - jt '’ ' 7> '' '/.c ■■ fl JlxJ bw W1 Iv■ , \ ~ L.. j( ' I '■'■ '"‘ l ' TZ^ ?^ WOBnuilK . ...J . IIIJLL-1. L_ __J- 4. 1- -■. im I ! r ■ ” WEHWMWMMBIMIK Ml I—■■■■! II 1 Keep Away from the “Let Well Enough Alone” Crowd. Old “Well Enough” Is the General of Calamity, Disaster and Disappointment. There Is no Such Thing as “Well Enough.” No Matter How Good a Thing Is, Work to Make It Better. For That You Were Put Here. g' pounded solemnly the foolish saying, “Let well enough alone.” This editorial, with the picture of old MR. WELL ENOUGH, is intended to counteract some of the harmful talk about being satisfied with little. Never be SATISFIED with anything. And don't teach your children to be satisfied—keep their minds free from the dull, discouraging talk about “well enough." To be satisfied, contented, approving your self and approving conditions, is a sign of smallness. Men become great because they are not sat isfied, because the more they get oi knowledge, wealth or power the more they strive to get. Columbus was not satisfied with the long sea voyage to India—although others had been satisfied for centuries. And because he was not satisfied Columbus discovered America. Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton were not satisfied with the fairy stories about a flat earth and all the hosts of heaven revolving around our miserable little planet. And be cause they were DISSATISFIED they gave us our wonderful knowledge of astronomy and our glimpse into the infinite—the greatest thing that we possess. t .• * The inhabitant* of this country in 1776 f T is true, strange and sad that you hear all of the FOOLISH things very often and so rarely hear the wise things. Everybody has heard re peated over and over and ex- were not satisfied. The Tories, the friends of King George and the English Government, ad vised the people of the United States to let well enough alone. The Tories reminded the American colonists that England would pro tect them, England would make them great, England would do everything. But the colonists were not satisfied to be taxed without representation, and because they were dissatisfied this country is a nation instead of being, like Canada, a colony gov erned from across the sea. * # « Dissatisfaction is the only great motive power in individual life, in national life, in com merce, in politics. Millions of years ago the creatures that in habited the ocean, the only living things on this planet, got dissatisfied and crawled up on the land—hideous serpents and lizards— dreadful things to look at they were at first. BUT, LUCKILY, THEY WERE DISSAT ISFIED. Some of them became birds and learned to fly. Some developed wings with hooked joints and gave us the bats and all the pterodactyl family. Others developed into mammals, and moved all over the face of the world, and event ually man appeared in his turn to begin his long career. He appeared because the wisdom of Nature had transplanted dissatisfaction, struggle and ceaseless effort throughout all animal life. And man from his first day began HIS career of dissatisfaction and struggle. Be cause he was dissatisfied and because he would never consent to let well enough alone, he struggled through the stone age, and the age of bronze and the various primitive ages of ignorance, brutality, superstition and cruelty to his present degree of partial civilization. And because man is and always will be dissatisfied, his growth will continue until he shall develop into a race worthy of this planet, worthy of the wonderful possibilities that the human race inherits. a * « Never let well enough alone. You might as well be dead as contented. You were put here to work for yourself and for others, and especially for those that are to come after you. The man who is letting well enough alone and not trying to do better might as well be off the earth and give his place to some one willing to work. He does not deserve the noble work done here BY THE DISSATISFIED before he was born. Only when man is very old, when his life is practically all behind him, has he the right to rest and think and, having finished his days, look back on the past. And even then, on the last day of his last year, the right kind of man will preach wise dissatisfaction and ambition to the young and go into his grave dissatisfied with himself for not having done better. ♦ .* * We might all be using hieroglyphics now. But dissatisfaction gave us our alphabet, and the written book and then the printed book and shorthand and the typewriter and the phonograph. We might all be travelling across country, with a backache, on a camel’s back like the Queen of Sheba, if we had been satisfied with camels and had not invented the two-wheeled cart, then the four-wheeled wagon, the stage coach, the steam engine, the express train, the rubber-tired automobile and the flying machine. To-day the Queen of Sheba would call King Solomon up on the telephone, make an appointment for that afternoon and be home in time for dinner—all because the kings and queens and the ordinary people that have fol lowed her were dissatisfied. She too, was dissatisfied, poor lady. She had heard about Solomon in all his glory and was bound to go and look at him. Probably travel was improved somewhat by her orders when she came home aching all over. « « « Be dissatisfied with your work especially, for it is what you DO that counts, not what you think about yourself or what you imagine you will do in future. Be dissatisfied with your supply of infor mation and try to get more, no matter how much or how little you may have. The libra ries are open and the knowledge is in them. Be dissatisfied with what you do for those that depend upon you or that have a right to depend upon you. Old Well Enough is a sleepy, harmful, dis mal humbug. Don’t have him in your neigh borhood. NEVER LET WELL ENOUGH ALONE—MAKE IT BETTER.