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EDITORIAL PAGE THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Pv.*!*y Afternoon Except Sunday Rf THE GEORGIAN COMPANY At */0 East Alabama Si., Atlanta, Ga Filtered be second-class matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March 3, 1873. (Subscription Price—Delivered hr carrier, 10 rents a week Ev mail, 15.00 a year, payable in advance. No Man Is as Great as His Work In His Little Lifetime He Can Do Only a Small Part of Any Important Task. Then He Must Pass On and Leave Its Completion to Others. “You ran take it from me. young man. that neither Wall street nor the Standard Oil Company nor any other power on earth had anything to do with the building of this railroad. I built it with my own brains. They got me tlw money; they. got. me the men. It is a good railroad: one of the best in the world, and it is going to last for tnanx years as a monument to me. But bear in mind that I made the radroad . the railroad didn t, make me." This came from a pompous, iron-,jawed railroad president, as he scowled at an inquisitive reporter. The reporter duly set this speech down and somewhere in some newspaper it may be found, essentially as we have set it forth here. It isn't true, it isn’t just, it. isn't even common sense, but there can be no doubt that wnen the railroad president uttered it he. believed it. every word He fancied then, as he fancies now, that he was greater than his work, and that the railroad prac tically sprang from his brain, as we arc fold that lesser deities . sprang from the brain of .love, who was the head ol the family of deities worshipped by the thoughtful bill credulous people of early times. Now' this man, able as he was. merely put together that railroad. Centuries before he was ever heard of men dug iron ore from the earth, and thus provided the moans by which his track and locomotives and car wheejs could be built While the buffaloes wore still kicking up dust clouds along, his present right-of-way, Stephenson was tinkering at his tea kettle of a locomotive engine, thus beginning ONE BRANCH of the railroad business, of ALL Ob' WHOSE BRANCHES this man calls himself the master. Then other men improved the locomotive and devised meth ods of engineering and harnessed the lightning to the electric telegraph, and taught steam how to work in a steam shovel, and educated the public into ways of buying railroad stocks and bonds, and experimented with different kinds of rolling stock, until from the abundance of the work that they had produced it was possible to choose and arrange the materials for a rail road . And meanwhile the tough, sinewy pioneers who had crossed the plains with ox teams, fighting their way against Indians and wild animals and famine and blizzards, developed a new country «nd planted the wheat fields that made the railroad worth while. So the great railroad builder, instead of being greater than his work, was merely a small part of it. He took up the work of hundreds, even thousands, of other men. and, following the example of many other railroad builders, combined it all into a tolerably efficient railroad. Relatively he was about as much the originator of the great system that he brought together as the fourteenth coral insect in a reef composed of fourteen hundred billion coral insects is the originator of the reef. The world requires men like this man—men with imagina tion and nerve, who can sec its needs, and who have the courage to supply them, no matter whether their motives are purely phil anthropic—which is often -or wholly selfish. But the world can not. afford to let such men get conceited or to fancy that com pared to their own important personalities the work that they are doing is a mere incident. Several times in history big. able men have become possess ed with the idea that they were greater than all other earthly beings. The last of these was Napoleon, and he livi d to under stand, if not to admit, his mistakes. America has been more fortunate in its great men. Wash ington knew that compared to the cause he served his own per sonality counted for but little. There was never a time that he would not have stepped aside to let an abler man take charge of the Colonial army, had an ablet man been possible to find. Lincoln counted his country first and himself last. He had no vanity that his contemporaries were able to discover: he had no ambition other than to sec the country once more united and at peace. Great men were both of these, yet neither of them for a minute fancied that he was as great as the task that he had been set to do. The world that most of us know is a great workshop, in which each must find the job he is best fitted to do. and do it as well as he may. Education is hut studying what other men have done in iho world in order th.it wc max waste no lime in discovering v.bat has already been discovered or in following paths that have he'en found to lead in no useful direction. There is no work so unimportant that it is to be despised, so long as it is wholesome; there is no field of human endeavor . that has been so fully cultivated that it will give no further re turn for labor The man who realizes that instead of being greater than his task he is infinitely small in comparison with I has a chance to do his best, and in doing his best he is reasonablv sure to be successful. Whether he gathers together a great fortune or not does not matter a great deal. Some men were not meant for for tunes. and are spoiled by them But whether or not be can justify Ins existence by being of use to those that are here and those who are to come mat ters a gr«u».t dual. Let him take hold of anv work that comes to hand, if he that he can do it. and after learning all that there is to know about what has been done upon it go courageously to work to do a little more if he cam He will soon find that as ho progresses the importance of his task becomes constantly greater in his eyes, and that as the years have passed by he has come to prefer it to anything else in the world. Whether it. is medicine, law. engineering or selling grocer ies. if he feels that it is a great and useful work he will find in it pleasure and satisfaction, and iinconsrioiish ho will become ne of the world's really valuable work ws. The Atlanta Georgian 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. By TAD 11 I II ■ ... i i PRIVATE . 1 X- Wyv.i ... ® » NO. 10. One of lite regulars in the corner saloon straightened Yum up and he left to see some good friends. Yum wanted to start all over again and be a right guy. He thought lie d lake a small beer lor luck before he started, but one of the gang told him (hat drinking Itecr wasn't right; whisky was the stuff. Drinking beer, bo said, always made him think of a fellow trying Io scratch his back without any finger nails. Yum took a few shots and went down to see an old friend. He sat in the hall. When the office boy asked for his name he said. “Just tell him that Yum is here; he’ll know.’’ The Working Man and His Money Save, Save, Save. The Future Will Care For Itself By THOMAS TA BREL’. (The following article is punted b;> p.'rmissjop from Mr Thom s Tapper’:: book just-published by■ .the Piatt ft Pool; Co.; New York, ami copyrighted by them, entitled "Youth and Opportunity.") 11l 1 us keep before us the at - age workingman, and bis money, ami let us ask what Ins money means, what its power is. and bow it may serve him now and in the future: forever,v man. who earns little or much, looks upon money almost hungrily as the one resource of safety. He wants the use of it now and t.he com fort of it in the future. Most peo ple get the one—the. use of it in the present but not the other, the. future protection of it. < 'an a man have both? It is a comforting fact to state that he can. Rut In order that, a workingman of any status, may have this two-fold use of money lie must begin the : tudy of two things: I. of the money he earn* of the time he possesses VTom these he -.mist get the two fold satisfaction he seeks-- present comfort and future instil anci'. How shall hr begin . As«uming :.i; he gives the \ y best there is in Jsi n for the money he oceives, it becomes clear that money 's only another form of the | best there -s in him Ilf thinks ain. works, is faithful to his task, n the end of the week the lu> tn elope GIVES HIM THESE y( AIJTIES BACK AGAIN IN ANOTHER FORM This money i a tiling he can exchange readily for other things. But before he be gins to exchange It he should pause a moment and say to himself: What He Should Think When He Gets His Pay. This envelope contains all the effort of my health, strength and thought for a week. I may or may not lie able to keep health, strength and thought up to the present pitch to the end of my life; hence this money should protect and guaran tee ni< protection later, when I may possibly be less so. Pursuing this line of reasoning, ins first deduction will be this. i's all evils against himself that hf commits the wasting of money if om of the most disastrous. for it is equivalent to wasting his own WEDNESDAY. .JUNE 12. 1912. The boy returned to tell Yum that his boss was out. Yum went to other offices, but they all seemed to be out. Einally he thougbt of the boy that drove the butcher wagon in the small town years ago. He came out and saw Yum. He thought perhaps that if his old pal was given a help ing hand he might get going after all. He told Yum to sec him the next day and that he'd rig him up with some new scenery ami give him a job. The world seemed a bit brighter tio'v. Yum had a slight chance at lasi. To Be Continued, powei of mind and body. The money lie earns should serve him faithfully, and he, in turn. mutt bf faithful to •himself in the use of his iuoik y. Up to the present moment lie lias perhaps saved nothing. The rule of his life has been a varia tion of “easy come, easy go." But ‘it has not pul him forward. He is no better off. has nothing in hand. He is. in fact, a little older and a little nearer the time when his efficiency may be less than it is , today. He Must Make Himself a Student of Money. If he can succeed in seeing him self in this light, he will begin :o be . a stifileut of money. The first riling he mttsi do is to study tn ordei the following subjects: 1. Appropriation." 2- Equipment of himself is a . worker. 3. The daily leisure he n.ioys. l'_. appropriation i meant this: ts he is a family man. c rtain fixed items of expense mu i he met reg ularly. II- should sit down and make out. an accurate list of these. He should study, thi- list until ho is positive Unit it is right, that it repro<ehts only those things that are Herts ary to himse' and to Ins fa mil;. <m< of tin ce results will he befo v nim. (1 • The appropriation is beyond the amount he earns, CD or it is equal to ft. leaving no mar gin, (3} or it is below it and ac tually does leave him a margin. If hr- finds that he is living be yond his income or even within it, | his duty is to begin again and re apportion his expenses so as to leave a margin, for the future is only secure when a margin exist*. It may be ever so small, but it pos itively must exist, or he is skating on ice so thin that he Is in con stant danger of breaking through and drowning himself and his loved ones. There is required of him noth ing less than actual courage, brav ery of the highest kind, to give up things he has perhaps been accus tomed to. and to establish the mar gin he must have; but if he is se rious and manly he will do it. His position now is this: He earns a definite amount. Every time the contests of the pay envelope is dis tributed there is something left for the savings bank, or for life insur ance. or for both. He h;t now pm hi. financial <t- f.-irs in order It has occurred to him that anything a man can not afford is really a waste, and waste is the most expensive of all habits. Extravagance is exceptionally ex pensive. Earnest men are unani mous in their denunciation of it. Mr. Theodore Roosevelt has .said: "Extravagance rots character; train youth away from it. On the other hand, the habit of saving money, while it stiffens the will, a’so brightens the energies. If you would bo sure tiiat you are be ginning right, begin to save." hive cenfT, thrown away for a thing one does not need is all the money a dollar err, earn ip twelve mouths, invested a; five per cent. Bin five •■ei.t- placed in the sav ings bank daily, amounts in fifty years, to nearly S3iUOO. A dollar bet on a game and lost cannot be earn il as'interest in one year on a. sum less than >ju. Small sums’ saved daily even, for -o short a time as ten years, accumulate im pressively Ti n cents .led daily for ten years amounts, at four per eent, to nearly $l3O. ime dqilar a w<ck placed In a saving: batik contlmtally for fifty •years amoums to over SB,OOO. These illustrations should give one faith in the powei of a little money to teach considerable sums, 11' IT IS CONSTANTLY SET ASIDE. John Wanamuker, who is said to have started in life on a ten-dollar-a ■ week salary, says: Difference Between Spending All or Saving a Part. "The difference betw eeti the clerk who spends all of his salary and the clerk who saves part of it. is the difference, in ten years between th" owner of a business and the man out of a job." And Andrew Carnegie, whose success in accumulating money is known to everybody, thus speaks of the losses that the improvident man must suffer: “The failure of the man who does not save his money is due not only to the fact that he lias no money with which to take advantage of the opportunities that come in the way of every man. but also, and particularly, to the fact that such a man is not able or fit to avail himself of these opportunities. The man who can not and does not save money. can not and will not b,. anything fine worth while." THE HOME PAPER Dr. Parkhurst’s Article on Civilization in Man Is Not Lasting -—and—- Our Reversion to Former Types Written For The Georgian By the Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst rp HIS is the time of the year I wiren a good man;- people are leaving home, or, it had better b? said, arc leaving the place where they are accustomed to stay, for in some cities there is not very much of the home idea left, and what is called home is for the most part .simply the part of the low 11 where one sleeps, where oiw takes his meals and where one keeps hi- trunks preparatory *o going into the country or going abroad. And even those who arc so cir cumstanced as Io be unable to ab sent themselves for any consider able time, stay away ds long as they can and do not return till they have to. .. It may be Paris, it may be Coney I: land, w e all remain where we be long as little of the lime as we can. Ry constitution, we dwellers in great cities are all tramps. Even people who have elegant homes Io live In and comfortable bods to sleep on will lock their doors, for sake their beds and go rushing out into the woods for th p fun of camp ing out. Difficulty of Living Down Inherited Impulses. It is a reversion to the original mode of living when our ancestors roamed through the forests and dwelt in tents, huts and caves. It is difficult to live down the im pulses that have descended to us from the habits of centuries ago The original savage keeps creep ing out in us. We are constantly on the verge of becoming wild men of tlie woods again. A few centuries of civilization have bard work battling against the hundreds of thousands of years that our race lived through before it .struck civilization. It takes old momentum a long time to wear out. It requires con stant struggle to keep from drop ping back into the hole that man kind lias crawled out of and that it is homesick to fall back into again. It is the same with nrtii as w ith ! brute beasts. 1 met on the cars the other day a man who had along with him a Siberian dog. The ani mal was gentle and could be safely played with by a little child, "but,'' said the gentleman, ''there are spots of wolf-in him, and w ere I to let him run wild in the woods for six I months all the savageness belong ing to his ancestry would break out in him. and he would have to be shot or caged.” In man or boast civilization is not a permanent quality. It is against nature and becomes extinct unless constantly renewed. We are kept respectable by restraint: tS) Shirtwaist Days t>?o , ■ By CUES! ER ET RKT NS. IITHETHER pink or white or blue. VV Whether prim or peek-a-boo, Here’s a welcome unto you, Pretty waist! Os all summer comers blest, You’re the brightest and the best. Every wintry clothing pest You've effaced. Oh, but aren’t we glad to be From those "ladies suits" set free. And the ugly, crochet\ Pony coat! As the May-time flowers save Country glade from Winter - grate, So you give the city pate Summer's note. I ' Mr It is for that reason that going off in ihc summer and breaking loose from our accustomed sur roundings involves an amount of risk. We are likely not to come back in as good moral trim as we were in when we went away. There Is a sense of wild liberty experienced by any man when he feels that he. is looked upon by people that do not know him. Human Beings Held in Place Like Bricks in a Wall. Like bricks In a wall ne are held in position in part bj the hu man bricks that we are wedged In between. It Is unpleasant to fall below the expectations that others have concerning us, and those tn whom we are. total strangers have no expectations regarding us on* way or the other. They will not be surprised, there fore, if we behave well, nor any more will they be surprised If we behave badly. People who are good Christians when living among Christiana easily turn reprobates when let loose among people of the othe? kind. It is true to creed, that "once « saint, always a saint,” but it does not always seem quite true to fact. Clamp a steel spring and ft will retain its enforced shape so tong as the clamp is on, but remove the ciamp and It will fly back to the form that it was in originally, even after a thousand years it will fly back. There is a great deal of efficacy, therefore, in clamps. Going away from home and from usual sur roundings and people is, therefore, dangerous, for it means removing some of (he clamps. Much of what we commonly sup pose to be our virtue is simply the unnatural and enforced shape in which we are held by external pressure.- There has recently been published the story of a person who had been dead for five min utes. but wh'o was resuscitated by mechanical pulsation. Goodness Not Altogether A Matter of Artifice. That show s w hat forces-operat ing from without will do for the body. They will do somewhat the same thing for the inward man and create in him a condition of arti ficial goodness. That docs not moan that good ness is altogether a matter of ar- ■ tifice. but only that goodness a.t its best is more or less infirm, and is much more dependable when ex isting in circumstances that are of a kind to encourage it and to keep it itt good spirits. Trim and dainty, tried and true, You are, democratic, too. For the Many, like the Few, flail your fame. At her factory machine Sadie wears you; Fashion s queen In her gleaming limousine Does the same. tn Welcome, little Summer Waist! Though they say you’re not straight laced, Let such pedantry bo placi d I Out of view Chic and charming, new and neat. " ''at has Earth that's half so sweet •Srivc the goo who bless the street, wearing vmr>