Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

EDITORIAL PAGE THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday By THE GEORGIAN COMPA NV * At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta, Ga Entered as second-class matter at postofTice at Atlanta, under act of March 3, 1873. Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail, $5.00 a year, in advance. I “Money Goes to Money” Said the Old Peddler r «e He Left His Little Fortune to Rothschild. Money DOES Go to Money, and Those That Are Richest Can Buy the Cheapest. w - ■■■■ ■■ We have told you of the old peddler—-dead, in the city of Nice. His will simply said. “Money goes to money,” and left all that he had to the great Rothschild, although he never saw him. In life everv day, as well as in the will of the eccentric old peddler. MONEY GOES TO MONEY. Mrs. J. J. M. writes asking how it happens that, with the price of coal increasing, “the well-to-do people should receive a special letter, quoting the price of coal 25 cents cheaper on the ton than prices quoted to ordinary working people.” Mrs. J. <l. M. says that the prices quoted come from the big rest coal concern of which she has any knowledge. It is not true, however, that, the coal companies maliciously sell more cheaply to the rich than to the poor. When they deal with men that buy great quantities of coal, they are dealing with successful men. cunning and resourceful, able to get. the best prices and the best bargains. And in order to GET the business from the big and intelli gent men the companies make them lower bids. They do this to get. the business, and they do it also because it is much cheaper to deliver coal in great quantities than in small quantities. The rich family buys eoal more cheaply than the little fam ily.' The quotations sent out today in the suburbs of a, big city quote a certain price on coal, and then add, “You must add 25 cents a ton to this price if you order less than four tons at a time.” • Four tons of coal means more than twenty-five dollars in New York. The little family can not afford to order twenty-five dollars’ worth of coal at once. Therefore THE LITTLE FAMILY WHICH REALLY CAN NOT AFFORD TO PAY THE MONEY. PAYS TWENTY-FfVE CENTS MORE THAN THE RICH 1 FAMILY WHICH CARES NOTHING AT all about THE EXTRA TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. The lady who writes us probably buys her coal one ton at a time—and the richer woman in the neighborhood buys four or five tons, or an entire earload, and gets it much cheaper. < But there are others in worse plight than the woman who writes us. They are the hundreds of thousands that buy their coal during the winter season. ONE PAILFUL AT A TIME. The very rich person buys stove eoal now by the carload. And the smaller citizen buys the same coal from the same dealer one or two tons at a time and pays more. Rut THINK OF THE VERY POOR PEOPLE COM PELLED TO BUY THEIR COAL BY THE PAILFUL, AND TO PAY SOMETHING LIKE TWENTY DOLLARS A TON FOR IT. So it is with ice. and with everything else. If you are prosperous you can buy flour by the barrel and ice in quantities and coal and other things in quantities and save money. “Money goes to money.” And if you are poor and must hu,\ in small quantities you must pay more because you ARE poor. It isn’t done, dear Mrs. J. J. M.. because the rich coal companies hate the poor and love the rich. The coal companies do not hate anybody or love anybody. They arc simply bent on making as much money as they possibly can. And they can make more money selling four tons of coal at a time to one person for tweny-five cents less per ton than they can in selling the same eoal in small quantities at a bigger price. One man and one pair of horses with an automatic eoal wa gon attached can haul and dump four tons of coal for just, about what it costs to dump and haul one ton or two tons. Hauling and the handling make up A LARGE PART OF THE COST OF COAL. An ice wagon can deliver a ton of ice to a corner saloon and make money selling at a low price. But if that ice wagon must deliver a few pounds of ice at a time along a hot street, up many stairways, carrying small lumps, letting the ice melt, waiting to make change, then the ice costs more, the deliverv costs more AND THE POOR PEOPLE PAY MORE The great is not so much in the heartlessness and extortion of the big seller, although extortion does play an im portant part. Ihe trouble is in the lack of organization among the many. Many thousands of poor families buy separately a certain amount of ice and get a certain amount of refrigeration. If they had organization, if they were united in the keeping of their food or the arrangement of their dwelling, they could have twice as much refrigeration for less than one-half the quantity of ice, and buy that ice for one-quarter of what they pay now. Then, the rich man buys a first-class icebox, in which the ice does not molt. And he saves the .'ost of the icebox the first year through economy in ice. And the poor man buys a cheap icebox, in which the ice melts very rapidly And because he has hough) a cheap icebox he must buy a great deal inure ice than he would buy with a GOCH) icebox. And because he buys ice in small quantities’ he must pay three times as much, or even five times, what the corner saloon keeper pays—and so it goes. ‘ “Money goes to Money.” One ven rich woman, who was formerly a Mrs. Vanderbilt, remarked that life was really verv easy, because she always sent her washing from Newport to be done in New York—the express company carried it for nothing, because her husband. Mr. Vanderbilt, didn't have to pay anv oxfng t*> the express coinpant. aer horses and carriages and so on went back in the same way—transportation cost nothing. That was another ease of “monej goes to money." H was cheerful for her, but not. so cheerful for the washerwoman at Newport.-who did not get the washing' to do Don’t imagine that things are worse than they were in the past. They are not worse, but BE I I'ER. At least, poor people now ACTUALLY HAVE SOME ICE \ND SOME COAL You doo‘l have to go back more than the lives ot three old men to Continued in Lest Column. The Atlanta Georgian FRIDAY. JUNE 21. 1912. OH! THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY!! By T. E. BOWERS. Copyright, 1913, by International News Service _ . T o Ai?) I I£TS THE. MM /OH SEE THE BEAUTIFUL. COW') _ IhTHE touNTRY J OH SEE THE BEAUTIFUL TREE' ; i -Gr—® £ * nFUL ' -T—-- -y / I I " I fIH 3 i •) M i A kJ vJWMU j TkyFv* cott'jAi.EjaiHT JoN ( OH SEETHE BEAUTIFUL.')i foH SEE THE BEAUTIFUL?) k INN JL I CAFE— — Y* nnn IHM ** X7A A PoP J • M TLiggmr LY/v n Wf OH SEETHE beautiful") fTHATS AUQ ON YOU! 1-- DICE BOX \ ~ L : .... | r Tim mrn o h X, ————————————— Laying Giant Steam on the Shelf His Fast-Coming Rival Is Neater, Trimmer, Less Expensive and More Efficient. AREMARKA'BIJE picture of Jack the Giant Killer on the title page of HEARST'S MAGAZINE for June forms a sug gestive commentary on an article in the same magazine on the com ing of the “steamless steamship.” Many of tire generation which is now on the declining slope of life's highway will recall George W. Cut ter's "Song of Steam,” which we used to learn and recite with thrill ing effect on school exhibition days. The boastings of the Giant Steam then seemed prophetic, of ages of unchallenged domination. 'l've no muscles to weary, no brains to decay. No bones to be laid on the. shelf. And soon 1 intend you may go and play. While I manage the world myself. But harness me down with your iron bands. He sure of your ci/rb and rein. For I scorn the.strength of your puny hands As the tempest scorns a chain." A Better Workman Than Steam Is Crowding. Less than two score years ago that seemed the proclamation of a new reign which might endure as long as man himself. But already preparations are being made to lay the boastful giant on the very shelf that he scorned. Every automobile that'darts through the streets an nounces the end of the reign of steam. A better workman than he is crowding him out. It is no longer-given to his powerful’hand alone to drive the piston tfaat makes the w heels of progress spin. And even his right-hand partner, old King Coal, sees a rival growing up to push him from his throne. The new Diesel engine, which you will find succinctly and clearly described in the article referred to, uses oil for its fuel instead of coal, and derives its motive power from the expansive force of the burning oil, and the recoil of com pressed air. If o. to be sure, not the first “oil engine" to be invent ed. But In it a new principle has By GARRETT P. SERVISS been introduced, which vastly in creases the efficiency of the ma chine. 1 shall not here repeat the interesting story of how this, has been accomplished, but I would supplement it with some thoughts on the meaning of such an tion. A Motto Which Involves Whole Spirit of Progress. The simple fact that the new engine is not altogether new is full of significance and of endless promise for the future. It empha sizes the necessity of what was dwelt upon in an editorial in last Sunday's American, viz.: NEVER LET WELL ENOUGH .ALONE. There is a motto which involves the whole spirit of progress. The Chinese let well enough alone, and. as a consequence, until very re cently, China lias been more than a thousand years behind the age. If inventors had regarded steam as “well enough. " the giant's rule plight have continued for millen niums to come instead of ceasing and giving place to something bet ter within a hundred years after he first put on his harness. If Dr. Diesel had thought that the older oil engines were well enough, wc should not now be opening our eyes at the sight of a large ocean going ship driven by the new mo tive power. AVe should not have had before us the prospective of steam, and smoke, and huge bunk ers full of dirty coal about, to be driven from the sea and the land, and in place of these things the de lightful promise of clean, cool, easy working motors, and compact, manageable liquid fuel. “It is es timated that the Diesel engine would drive a ship as fast and as far with 100 tons of fuel as the best steam engine would with 350 tons of coal." In that single sen tence you have an inspiring glimpse of what tlie tireless spirit of in vention and contempt for the lazy, "good enough" principle can do. No human invention has ever been perfected at a stroke or by a single drain. After Edison had proved that an electric current could be "sub-divided" Indefinitely and made to cajise thousands of brilliant lamps to glow through the "resistance" of little loops of car- bon. unprogressive minds may have thought that the invention was completed. But it was not. Other brains set to work upon the problem SEEKING IMPROVE MENT. Then came the various metallic filaments for lamps which have produced wonderful results. .First, the forests of the whole world were ransacked for a vege table fiber that would furnish the best carbon loops. Then chemis try took hold of the problem and sought for a" metallic substance or combination that would do better still. The telephone was not the sole invention of any single genius. Every improvement suggested an other—and the end is not yet. Wireless telegraphy is not a com pleted thing. It would be foolish to think that it can not and will not b<> pushed far beyond anything we now' know of it. Human Progress Result Os Cultivation. Human progress is the result of combination. A hundred pushing shoulders make the wheel roll fas ter than one, even if some of them arc ineffectively applied. Two heads are better, than one. and no where more so than in invention. One head sometimes gets all the credit, but each helps in its degree. The greatest inventor would fail if he did not have aids and sugges tions. and if others did not follow him with improvements. When the w hole world takes up a new thing it begins to grow like a snowball. This is the secret of "the psychol ogy of a crowd*' The orator finds a wonderful inspiration blown to him from his interested listeners, and the inventor Is stimulated by the focussing of many minds upon his work. If an invention fails to attract attention, it dies; if it gets the attention of the world, thou sands of minds set to work to im prove it. and it rises into a marvel. When it reaches Its limit something else will take its place and a new giant will arise. The lesson Is never to believe that we have the best thing possible. THE HOME PAPER Dr. Parkhurst’s Article on The Recall as a Parallel to Divorce Capital and the Labor I Unions Written For The Georgian By the Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst DIVORCE is in essential par ticulars similar to what is known in politics as the “re call,” and the two can properly enough be considered as illustrat ing each other. Marriage and election are both of them to some extent a leap in tile dark. A man never knows the woman he marries till after he has mar ried her and the courting days are over. Neither does a voter know his candidate till after the canvass is completed, the polls have been closed and the elect has gone about discharging the duties for which he was chosen. The two kinds of courtship, therefore—the political and the matrimonial —require to be con ducted as studiously and thorough ly as may be. that the unknown elements in each of the two varie ties of candidacy may be reduced lo a. minimum, t-tnd <fisappointinent obviated if possible. It is unfortunate on the whole that such a thing as divorce is pos sible, for while the prohibition of it would in particular cases'work hardship and injustice the harms made possible by divorce are in general severer than those that re sult from strict monogamy—one many and one wife apiece. One resulting harm is that it converts courtship into very much of an amusement and reduces it to the low grade of a matrimonial experiment, the lover —that Is to say the man who imagines himself a lover—relieving himself, in view of the uncertainties of the ulti mate outcome, by the reflection that if the first wife proves dis appointing he has learned enough by his first trial to make a follow ing experiment more probably suc cessful. With the matrimonial door thus widely and variously open, his courtship becomes an easy-going affair, and in this way careless courtship engenders divorce and facility of divorce engenders care less courtship. A necessary result of all of which is that marriage ceases to he a human, a dignified or a holy thing. The "recall" in politics is all the way througli the exact parallel of this. It renders an electoral canvass merely an experiment, and be cause felt to be an experiment, and to be an experiment that can easily “Money Goes to Money” Said the Old Peddler Continued from First Column. find conditions in which the poor people never dreamed of using ice or coal. and. as a rule, had no shoes- —even in Winter. En tire populations wrapped their feet up in rags or in straw. En tire populations lived year in and year out without tasting a mouthful of meat. They were not allowed to kill the rabbit's and the deer that ate their crops’. They were not allowed to shoot the pigeons that took their seeds out of the ground. Conditions are belter—partly because the French Revolution made them better, partly because our American Revolution made them better, and especially because human intelligence, improv ing reducing the cost of obtaining supplies, has made life easier. You pay $6.50 a ton for your coal now -because you haul it from Pennsylvania to some great city thousands and thousands of tons at a time, one panting, huge engine hauling the load. If the eoal hail to be hauled as in the olden times by horse power—those that complain of the high price of coal now WOULDN'T HAVE ANY COAL AT ALL. AND C(»l LDN'T THINK OF HAVING ANY What the world needs is ORGANIZATION. It has already organized PRODUCTION. The system of creating wealth, the system of mining eoal. of manufacturing iron- all that is under stood. Wonders have been accomplished because the ablest men have studied ORGANIZED PRODUCTION OF WEALTH. But the brains of organization have not yet been devoted Io the great problem of DISTRIBL TION. I hat is the problem of the future. That problem in time will be solved also partly by greater intelligence, partly by unselfishness on the part of the men of power, partly because some of those whom we now denounce, thoughtlessly at times, our great industrial organizers have shown the way and blazed the path. Meanwhile, it is not amusing to be poor in a civilization which charges the poor man for the little that he needs more than the rich man pays for what he wants. CivilizatifMi will he improved by making men of power and ability lake a greater interest in the welfare of the maioritv less able. That will be brought about chiefly by the natural improve ment called social evolution and largely also by a displav of greater loyalty on the part of the majority of the peope to those that really serve them. The ereat corporations and trusts never forget those that, do them favors. The people ,DO forget. enough be tried over again, if the first one fails, is dealt with only semi-seriously and with no anxious concern as to whether it turn put well or ill. It cjonverts into play the most, serious of 9JI civic functions and in proportion as the office to be filled is more critical and respon sible —like a position upon the bench, for example—the greater the dignity and the graver the belittlement that is practiced. If one will read the sixth plank of the Rochester platform, and in every ease when the word recall occurs will substitute divorce (along with one or two minor changes), it will be found how nearly alike the two vices are and how closely resembling each other are the results of the two vices; also how earnest and critical a truth it is that in both domestic and civic matters "the fundamental consideration is that candidates shall be soberly elected rather titan carelessly elected and then cash iered.” • • • Although claiming that working men should have secured to them file right of unionizing themselves, yet that right, like all rights, in volves certain obligations, and ob ligations which workingmen do not always discharge, and their failure in this particular is one of the rea sons for the prejudice which capi talists have against unions. , Capital organizes itself and by act of incorporation legally com mits itself to tlic fulfillment of its corporate engagements. A union, unincorporated, enters into a compact with capital, ob serves its contract so long as it ap pears to be to its advantage to do so, and then is legally free to re pudiate its covenant. Os course, it is morally holden, but being morally holden does not render It legally accountable, and if the union is destitute of moral respect for its pledge, capital can have no redress. That puts in the hands of union ized labor an advantage not pos sessed by the other party to the contract. We are not saying that unions generally will avail of this advan tage, but they do sometimes, just as we are learning at the present moment; and every time they do they hurt themselves and their cause. Mon who have not the conscience to deal on the square should so have the leash of the law thrown over them that they will have to deal on the square. That is what law is for—to hold up virtue that is toppling.