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, IS7J Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week By mail. 35.00 a year Payable in advance. A National Platform on Poverty M «t M Some of the Problems Political Conventions Fall To Solve. , __ ——-m— — For two weeks this country has listened to the talking and planning of the two great parties that pretend to provide na tional welfare. In Chicago and in Baltimore those supposed to know what the country needs have met and fought and intrigued and "dickered." They have written their platforms and denounced what they considered the great evils. One set denounced the high tariff because it makes living expensive. And the other set. denounced the suggestion of free trade because it would destroy the workman's opportunity to get good wages. Gigantic trusts, great organizations, monopolies, the modern dinosaurs and mammoths, received attention. One single state in this Union could provide for the needs of all the people in the country—and for many more—if the state were cultivated properly and the products properly distributed. The manufactured products of another great state in Amer ica have increased in a Short period FOURTEEN HUNDRED PER CENT; the production of wealth of valuable needed manu factured articles of that state has increased TEN TIMES AS RAPIDLY AS THE POPULATION. That is the state of New York. Yet, while the production of wealth has been ten times more rapid than the production of human beings, the happiness of the people has not increased. Wealth multiplied by a percentage ten times greater than the increase of population should mean the multiplication by ten of wellbeing and general happiness But that does not happen. The added wealth goes to the accumulation of wealth, goes constantly to increase the store of those that have TOO .MUCH, and little, if any, of it goes to make happier the lives of those that carry the burden of TOO LITTLE. This is the real problem of the world, the distribution of wealth and the increase of happiness. And it is the problem about which, although they may talk of it and think that they plan to remedy it. the so-called big politicians and statesmen feel nut at all. Their plans for those that have enough. They try to pro tect the man fairly well to do against the man very well to do. ritey are deeply interested in the mechanic who has five dollars a day and in the manufacturer who needs five millions to in crease his business. But not one of them thinks or plans sufficiently for the man who lih*. a dollar or a dollar and a half a day. for the children whose playground is the gutter, whose only knowledge of govern ment is the policeman with his duh telling them that they must not play and must not be happy. We have a nation in which men are kept down because wom en compete with them in their labor, glad to work for starvation wages. And. each competing with the other, the men are kept too poor to marry, and the women are kept 100 poor for happi ness and health. And nobody plans seriously to change that condition. What shall be the tariff on steel and on lumber’ How shall we punish that combine to change five millions nf profits into fifty millions by freezing out competitors? What shall we do to the railroads that give better rates Io one company than another? These are the questions that our conventions and our “states men" deal with. But they do not deal with these other questions. What shall we do to prevent forty thousand children in one year. IN ONE SINGLE CITY, being infected with the taint of tuberculosis? What shall wc do to protect the health of children and of mothers that see rhe children die unnecessarily? What shall we do to arrange the distribution of the earth's products so that a fair day’s work by those willing to work will give a decent living to a wife and her children? What shall we do to protect those that are horded in tene ment houses, living without light or air—and dving unnecessar ily? What shall we do to make life worth while to the vast num her of human beings to whom it is only a worry, a curse, a sorrow and a discomfort ? The f cw have TOO MUCH, the many have TOO LI TTLE— yet there is PLENTY for both, if it were only distributed. What party, what convention, what gathering of wise men will work earnestly to solve that problem—THE INCREASED DISTRIBUTION OF THE WEALTH OF THE WORLD, now that the problem of PRODUCTION has been solved absolutely? Slowly the problem will be solved, and the dreadful contrast become a thing of the past. But the change will come vary slowly. For it will come only as men are lifted up as a whole, not lifted in classes, as one might lift the roof of a building and leave the foundation low. Education, intelligent voting from below, unselfish tetion from above, the use of machinery as the slave of all the people, and not merely as the profit earner of a few. will settle the ones tinn in time A LONG TIME. I Ali Hail the Army Mule Attempts by sordid innova ors to tear down one of the most sacred institutions has failed, temporarily, a! least. The avari emus hands of commerce have been stayed, and those who love the old-time idols of the Republic can sleep in peace. Colonel Getty, who has been making tests as to the compara tive value nf the automobile as compared with the good old army mule has reported in favor of our long-suffering four footed friend. An exhaustive experiment has been made bv the provisional regiment which Colonel Getty commands, and his finding is that it would be unwise and unsafe—unsafe, mind you. ♦hereby meaning that the very fabric of the Union would be in danger— to substitute benzine buggies for mules. | Glorv be' Let us hope that that faithful long-suffering and F pt'-mresciue element of army life will remain with us forever. wages. The Atlanta Georgian A SUMMER DREAM By HAL COFFMAN. Av lifßl 7w' LI" JI W These are the days that we'd like to go There’s something nice in unlimited ice Up in the snow with the Eskimo. And the dripping seal has a cool appeal. But business calls from the skyscraper wall* Leaving the heat ol the baking street, That the Eskimo has his pile of show. Dusty under the shutting feet. . But we must bustle a pile of dough. The New Fashion of Smiling in Face of Ad versity-Growth of Feminine Optimism Beatrice Fairfax Thinks We Are Becoming Nation of Optimists and Learning to Look on Bright Side of Things *1 find earth not Ray but rosy. Heaven not grim but fair of hue. Do I stoop? I pluck a posy. Do I stand and stare? All’s blue.” Browning IS the world becoming more philosophical? Teats are no longer a daily sight, and 1 re fuse to credit 'their absence to in difference. There was a time when preacher and player alike had an easy ,time reducing an audience to tears. In these days, the tear is seen as little in the church as in the theater. There may he a choking of the throat, a feeling as if the tears must come, but they are sup pressed. I' is no longer in as great evi dent e at funerals, and Is seldom seen at weddings, though there was a day when tradition and custom demanded that the mother of th«> bride cry during the cere mony. Misfortune and Sorrow Faced More Bravely. It .war the compliment the w orld expected he> to pay the departing daughter Whatever rite occasion, there is a growing disposition to meet it with a smile. .Disaster, sickness, sorrow, disappointment, ami death Itself, are all met more bravely than a few generations ago We have become wiser, and that means that we have become more cheerful. "Do we stoop?" It is not to find a thorn, but a posy Do we stand and stare” tt Is not to see signs of a storm, but to no'e the blue that is left In the sky MONDAY, JULY 8. 1912. L- BEATRICE FAIRFAX. We are becoming a nation of op timists. and I claim that this is largely due to the growing influ ence of woman. Always the one to find the bright side in her home, her influence has spread beyond het four walls. She is the one who finds when there is a financial wreck that there Is enough of the debris for a new beginning. Women Have Acquired An Optimistic Feeling. She Is ’he one who. when her husband comes home with a brok en limb. <» grateful that it isn’t his neck She is always looking for the posies when she -loops, and for the blue In the sky when she stands and stares. This optimism was not always natural to her. She acquired It when confronted with the task of cheering up father, husband and son. It Is a good habit. Tt is a good habit to get early. No davg are ns dark ar youth paints them. With the despera tion of youth much, is sometimes done rashly that would not have tome to pass had the girl been a wo man. Cowper gives just two liner f want younger girls to remember: "Beware of desperate steps; the darkest day Lived till tomorrow will have passed away." Commit these lines to memory and act upon them No one dare fell a girl whose trouble is great that she has no trouble, or that It is not as great as she thinks. Time, and time alone, has the right to tel! her that. It can prove that If a trouble is "lived till tomorrow” It will have passed a wa y. That is all. Don’t act rashly to day. Wait till tomorrow, arid with tomorrow always comes wisdom. If not, then wait till another to morrow. There once lived a woman who had a great sorrow. The day be fore that set for her wedding day her lover was killed. How did she live through It? ”1 always said every morning.” she once told a friend, "that my friends had troubles w hich I must consider before my own. "I will go to them and help them.' 1 would say. and when tomorrow comes I will give way to my own grief.’" And so she lived her days till they became weeks and months and years, always devoting TO DAY to the sorrow s of others, and putting off the giving way to* her own sorrow till TOMORROW. Tomorrow never came! And her life was spent in a devotion to others that was far better than a devotion to her grief. Not a bad idea, was it? Tt is the only kind of procrastination of which the gods approve" A pro crastination of tears. It is a procrastination the whole world is acquiring. For the smile is a newer, finer, nobler, braver fashion I want my girls whose troubles seem great to try this new fash ion. Urges Downcast Ones Io Put Off Tears. Look for the posies when you stoop, and for blue when'you stand and stare. There may be much to weep about, but let’s put off the tears till tomorrow. THE HOME PAPER The Strongest Man on Earth Like Socrates, Luther, Wesley, Lincoln and Other Great Men in History, It Is He Who Has the Courage to Stand Alone HOW often it goes unexplained Why it was that Athens kill ed Socrates. It really is no wonder why they killed him; that flat-nosed, awk ward, barefooted inquisitor, forever poking his flat nose into other peo ple's affairs, showing them that the wisdom they claimed to have was but. foolishness. Yet a Socrates is indispensable to every community—a man who will force you to understand your self, to examine your own thought, and see that your wisdom is fool ishness. We think that we are thinking, but even a Socrates is needed to show us where we'stand. We have today a Socrates’ with us. The dramatist Henrik Ibsen is a direct descendant of Socrates, and has inherited his right to make us think of the foundations of our knowledge. Ibsen never claimed to be more than an interrogation point; he has no philosophy ot views of his own to systematize. His work is to make you think of the truth or falsity of your own thoughts. And of al! his plays, the one of which he him self is the hero is the most strong, simple and direct, the drama "An Enemy of the People." The Secret Os Strength. The hero. Doctor Stockmann, the man who has been so ready to tell the people ot his town where'in they are wrong, when defeated in his purposes, boycotted, and eVen be sieged in his home, comes at last to the declaration that he made to his wife. "I have discovered that I am the strongest man on the earth —the man who stands most alone." "Trust thyself,” says Emerson, “every heart vibrates to that iron Atring.” So then, that is the se cret of the foundation Os strength. The great men of the ages who have stood most alone aYq* the men of whom we are ndw the’ most proud. LutheY stands for the geat institution of Protestantism. Fox for Quakerism. Wesley for Method ism, and Lincoln for the great na tion which he saved. In the’ case of Lincoln, in par ticular, it is impossible to account tor his greatness unless we remem ber that he did stand alone. After he had reached the age of 49 he had absolutely nothing in his life that had been successful, but he stood; so that when he was called to the highest office that the peo ple could give he was ready to take it and make that power which was given to him the power that should save the nation. Courage and Faith are the foun dations of the victory. The hedge hog sees a movement an inch from A Valuable Possession By EDWARD LUCIEN LARKIN. TAKE a bar of hard steel, mag netize it. and the adjacent space will be in a very pe culiar state; and this space is called a magnetic field of force; for short, magnetic field. And the energy is supposed to exist in lines, or flow in lines from the north pole of the magnet backward through the neutral line, the equator, to the south pole, and thus complete the circuit. The flow of energy is sup posed to be very rapid. To magnetize the bar. it must be touched by another magnet—or by lodestone, the magnet made by na ture. We imagine that gold and dia monds are valuable, but a mag netic field Is at present the most valuable possession of man. Thus three great standard fundamentals —heat, light and power—can be, and-are, incessantly taken out of It. And several billion dollars are now invested in one little apparently trivial act, namely, that of mov ing masses of meta) in this most wonderful field. No moving metal must touch another, the motion is in space without contact; the mov ing molecules of metal must cut or pass through the invisible lines of force. Lay a straight bar magnet on a table with end projecting over. Take a wire, hold it at right an gles to the end of the bar. you have two pieces of metal apparently useless. Move the wire, and one of the most extraordinary events within the entire range of human Bv Dr. C. F. Aked. the end of his nose and cries that the world is coming to an end. There are these hedgehogs in ev ery’ line of life. The Man Who Stands Alone. Lord Acton, when aslked what ths greatest single event of the centur wtfs. answered that it was the sink ing of the trial steamer of Fulton in the Seine, for its perfection under the government of Napoleon would have changed the history of the world. And the hedgehog people in New York stood on the deck and declared "it will never go.” but ft did go, and Fulton's stand alone was gloriously Justified. In the church, the charge i s made that evangelicalism is dead. It is not even dying. It can never die, for it is founded on the living faith The world is waiting for a new incarnation, a religion that shall be as good for the polling place as for the prayer meeting; as good for swapping horses as for saying prayers; as good for the primaries as for the presbytery. The gospel of today is a gospel of service. We may be thankful for the promise of mansions on high, but what we need is more decent homes on earth and more decent people tn them. Religion is not a thing of the stars: it is a thing of'the streets. In the drama referred to the hero declares that in a democracy the majority rule: that the majority of the people are fools; therefore, the democracy is ruled by fools. How far can we go In this? Where is the fallacy? In this: The majority does not rule; it never did and never will. The minority rules; ideas govern. It is your strong men who stand alone whose strength is in brain and heart. These sit on'the thrones of the ages, and sway the majori ties to their will. It is your Wesleys, yobr Luthers, your Cromwells and your Lincolns who make and mold the mighty forces with which empires have had to deal. Then, the majority is not so given to foolishness after all. In the long run you can trust the in nate sanity ot human nature. De mos is not a. child of Chaos, it is a child of God and the outgrow th of the Christian spirit. Democracy is the expression of the highest of the teaching of Christ. What is the manifest destiny of the American people in the growth of this democracy? America has years of glory behind her: she is young and daring. What is her mis sion ? It is this: To build up life on truer, juster foundations that th* Old World ever laid; to evolve » nobler manhood and womanhood. This is the destiny of America. experience -will occur—electricity will appear in the wire. The liner of magnetism being cut by the atoms of the metal generate elec tricity. Move the wire up and dow n fast er, it will begin to develop warmth faster still, it will become red hot, white hot and melt. Instead of allowing the wire to be destroyed, connect the ends by means of another wire; then a new event appears—a flow of electricity is set up within. Move the wire up and the electricity will flow' in one direction; move down, the flow "111 stop during a minute instant of time and al once flow in the oppo site direction. The name of the ap paratus is magneto look closely into this matter we have a straight bar of steel whose atoms are saturated or endowed with magnetism, totally unknown to us. A short piece of thick wire, whose ends are connected by a third w ire to complete a path or circuit for electricity: motion, and a series of rapid changes in direction of motion. An additional name may now n» added—‘'alternating current mag neto.'’ On the face of this matter, the word alternating is superfluous because all magnetos set up or gen erate alternating currents, or mo mentary Impulses succeeding each other. To secure direct currents all flowing in the same direction, externa! devices called commuta tors must be added.