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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, 1373 Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier. 10 cents a week. By mail, $5.00 a year. Payable in advance. Does Ingratitude Pay? It Did Not Pay in the Case of Bacon, Who Infamously Attacked His Best Friend. It Will Probably Net Pay in the Case of William J. Bryan, Who for Selfish Reasons Deserted and Attacked Champ Clark, Who Had Always Befriended Him. An able man was Bacon, called the greatest philosopher since Aristotle, and the originator of modern scientific methods. If it were possible to estimate accurately the greatness of men it would probably be found that Bacon was at least eleven thousand mil lion times as able as William Jennings Bryan, of Nebraska. Yet, in away, the men were alike. They were alike in ingratitude. Bacon betrayed and personally prosecuted to the death the >est friend that he ever had. He even showed especial vehemence In prosecuting that friend because he feared that their past friend ship might hurt him and wanted to obliterate the memory of it. Bacon was almost as ungrateful and selfish a type of man as William Jennings Bryan. We have not yet seen the end of Bryan’s career, although we are probably not far from it. But we do know the end of Bacon’s life, and it is some com fort for those who dislike ingratitude to know that Bacon died and for a long time lived disgraced, despised by men in spite of the great, ability which has given him a place in history. If Bryan gets his just deserts ami the punishment that should follow shameless ingratitude, he, too, will know the bitterness of public contempt and ostracism before he dies. An individual with an unusually dull mind publishes a por trait of Bryan and puts under it a line to the effect that Bryan was not fighting for himself, but for his party, at Baltimore. Bryan, at Baltimore—as elsewhere and ALWAYS—Bryan was fighting FOR HIMSELF, and for nothing else. He shame lessly betrayed Champ Clark, the friend who had worked FOR HIM during his entire career. He betrayed the voters that sent him to the convention to vote for Clark. And with such cun ning as he possesses and such provincial oratorical power as he exercises, he strove, with meanness and ingratitude, to undermine one man—his friend—while trying to keep back the other candi dates and make himself the candidate in the end. He failed, and it is a good thing that he did fail. Had he been nominated he, of course, would have been defeated. Three times the American people have expressed their opinion of his type of character. But it would have been a calamity for the Democratic party and a disgrace to the country had this master ingrate again received the nomination. He was beaten thoroughly and easily, and it appears in the case of Bryan, as in the case of Bacon, that ingratitude is not to be profitable. Very appropriately, Bryan, while stabbing his friend Clark in the back and planning also to eliminate the other candidates, was beaten by Woodrow Wilson, who, in a famous letter some time ago, expressed the desire that in some light and comparatively painless way “William J. Bryan might be knocked into a cocked hat.” Mr. Wilson’s question was. “How can we knock Bryan into a cocked hat?” and the question has been unanswered by Mr. Wilson himself. While Mr. Rn’an was trying to nominate Mr. Bryan at Bal timore Mr. Wilson stepped in and took the fat plum upon which Mr. Bryan's eye was fixed—and the knocking into a cocked hat was accomplished. It is not likely that anything much will be heard about Mr. Bryan hereafter as a presidential candidate. And it is quite prob able that from being a prosperous mower of profits in the Chau tauqua grain fields he will soon dwindle down into a pitiful “gleaner,” whose earnings will not amount to much more than those of the dutiful Ruth, when old Mr. Boaz gave orders to his servants to let her pick up a little grain here and there. Now that the convention dust settles and that the Old Man of the Sea, Mr. Bryan, is off the back of Sinbad Democracy, it is interesting to contrast him, not only with Bacon, who is dead, but also, for instance, with T. F. Ryan, of New York. Thomas F. Ryan is the man whom Bryan wanted to put out of the convention. He did not succeed, by the way. You have read enough about Thomas F. Ryan in these col umns to understand that this is not what you would call a Thomas F. Ryan organ. If. however, in the course of human events, we HAD to bo a Bryan or a Ryan organ, we should, after examining the work of the two men, find it rather difficult to take the Bryan end of the dilemma. Ryan and Rryan are both engaged, supposed to be engaged, in the transportation business. Ryan, as a street ear man, takes people to the places in which they live. And Bryan has adver tised himself as one that would take the Democratie party to Washington and the White House. As a success in the transportation business we prefer Ryan to Bryan considerably. Ryan at least does take the people somewhere WHEN HE TAKES THEIR FIVE CENTS. If you get on one of Ryan’s street ears or subway ears or elevated cars YOI’ GO SOMEWHERE. After a reasonable time you get off at your destination. You don't get off just exactly where you got aboard. With Bryan's political trait of ears it is otherwise. You board that train, you pay Mr. Bryan his price, which is quite con siderable, considering the goods delivered, and after your journey YOI' HAYE GONE NOWHERE. You get off .just where you got on. Bryan took hold of the Democratic party at about the time that Ryan took hold of the street ear system in New York. Both of them made a good deal of money each out of the par k Continued in Last Column. The Atlanta Georgian Yet It Might Have Been Worse By TOM POWERS. Copyright. 1912, International News Service. > Iw j Mb J w ms I VJISHVOU WOULD KAKE N f OH 1 THE NANC't LEE L. ft I A&ATHINQSUIT FoRM'/COOk) feijsßOk she NT To SEA |\ (gil THIS IS THE SIZE / \ MND/W SAILORLY WASAMONqTIiE CREVM \\ ll 7==x ' HE WAS FRIED FOR A FEED. PC-VX 1 (Ml?) ABOUT E4ISB dya CANNIWLSWEED \N I VD- BUT I KNOVf HIS HEART WAS TRUE ' ' 4/f 0r 3 r wb I ==sl TRA la LA LA LA LA M " 'MA ' . T'-mi s . s h tgir -m I \ ; (CAPi 'l "" f 111’ BE LEAMINCjXous Mum \ AJ LZJ | WATERS Too COL D J i\ I v wA - t v AW ' I ■ JS BjLl -<CN |GlOOM~) ~~~ I t A SLAVES OF FASHION MEN are always deriding women for being the slaves of fashion, and declaring that the sex that has no pockets has no business with the ballot. Nothing that their harshest crit ic could say on the subject would half do it justice. The dress of the average woman, particularly if she is inclined to be a little stout, is a collection of Implements of torture that would put the rack and the thumb screws of the Spanish inquisition to shame. Lace a woman in a straight front in which she can not take a long breath or make a free movement to save her life, and that pushes her stomach up under her ribs and dis poses of the balance of her anat omy In unnatural places; perch her up on two-inch French heels that make every step an acute agony; pin on her head four pounds of false hair with 47 hair pins that dig into her scalp at different an gles, and you have before you a creature who is undergoing tortures that make the sufferings of the early Christian martyrs look like a picnic. Yet this is the manner in which fashion decrees that a woman shall rig herself up when she goes forth to enjoy herself. Furthermore, fash ion, that demands its toll of life and death, orders women to starve themselves to be thin; to strip oft their petticoats and go insufficient ly clad to appear slimmer; to wear thin slippers and silk stockings in cold weather, and to appear with bare necks and throats when the thermometer is hovering around the zero mark, and women meekly obey though they kill themselves by doing so. When you contemplate the offer ings of life and comfort and health and happiness that women make on the altar of fashion, it does look as if their brains were cut on the bias, and frilled in the middle, and hobbled around the bottom, and that the tit home of the entire sex was the institution for tie feeble minded. You can't wonder that men gird at them for being the slaves of fashion, and rail them fools and MONDAY, JULY 22, 1912. By DOROTHY DIX. idiots not to assert their own in dependence by dressing in a ration al and comfortable way, until you take a look at men themselves. Then you perceive that women are not the real abject slaves of fashion. Men are, for women, at least, show some glimmer of re bellion against the autocrat occa sionally, while men follow the lead er blindly. A woman, for instance, conforms to the general mandates of the ty rant who decreed that dresses shall be tight or loose, and hats small or large, but she has enough origin ality to try to make her own gown or hat different from the others, and expressive of her individual taste, whereas a man would die be fore he would put on a pair of trousers that wasn't a duplicate of those worn by every other man in the street, and he would as soon be accused of committing murder as of having appeared in public in a hat with a brim a quarter of an inch wider or narrower than that of Brown or Smith. A man may have the courage to lead a forlorn hope, or to try’ to break the aviation record or drive an automobile 90 miles an hour, but he turns pale and faint at the mere suggestion of dressing differently from his neighbors. Old Dame Fashion has got him under her thumb, all right. Men boast of the superior com fort of their style of dress over that of women, but between the misery’ of a straight front corset and a high, stiff linen collar that looks like a section of sewer pipe, heaven knows there is little to choose. One chokes you about the waist and hips and the other around the neck, and which is the most uncomfort able and the most unhealthful no body knows. The collar has no justification on earth. It is a harsh and hard abomination that cuts off the blood supply from the brain and holds the head in a vise, and that adds 20 degrees of temperature to the body in hot weather, yet no man dares defy fashion and go down to busi ness in a cool, comfortable Dutch neck, such as women wear. As a further proof of man’s ab ject slavery to fashion, consider the way he dresses in summer. Even on the most tropical days he at tires himself as if he were going on a north pole expedition. He puts on a woolen suit, a stiff starched shirt, a three-ply stiff starched collar, a thick silk neck tie. Every layer of clothes means that much more heat to be endured, but while he mops the steaming perspiration from his brow he dons the coat and vest that will put him in danger of perishing of heat apo plexy before he gets home. A few years ago a philanthro pist. seeking to mitigate the suffer ings of his fellow man in the dog days, tried to induce men to leave their coats and vests in summer and wear shirtwaists, as women do. The idea had everything to recom ment it. It was comfortable, clean ly. hygienic and even picturesque. Abstractly, men were enthusias tically in its favor, but when it came to putting the theory into ac tual practice they were so com pletely dominated by fashion and custom that they- hadn’t the brav ery to do it. In view of all these facts men have no right to ridicule women for the folly of their dress, or for being slaves of fashion. We are all tarred with the same brush. If men point the finger of scorn at women's straight front, women can retaliate by calling attention to their choking collars, and if women show their laek of sense by wearing too little clothes in winter, men show their deficiency of intelli gence by wearing too many in sum mer. As a matter of fact women have a better excuse for being slaves of fashion than men have, because women dress to please men. They'd be giad enough to be loose, and fat, and comfortable, and would tro about in flowing mother hubbards, except that men demand trimness and slimness in woman, and so women have to sacrifice comfort to that masculine ideal. But women will take men how ever they can get them, so men have nobody but themselves to please and no Justification for their slavery to fashion. THE HOME PAPER Dr. Parkhurst’s Article The Increase of Ourßail- IF road Accidents -and— The Real Reason Why ||H||i They Occur Written For The Georgian By the Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst NOT many people are suffi ciently interested in figures to be willing to study sta tistics, even though they relate to matters that are of vital popular concern. It sometimes results from this that problems that wait upon pub lic action for their solution are left unconsidered and unsolved to the sacrifice of the general advantage. One of the features of our times is the large and, we are authorita tively informed, increasing number of railway accidents and horrible railway disasters. So accustomed are we becoming to such events that they are now no more than a 24 hours’ sensa tion. except to those who are im mediately concerned—that is to say, the wounded, and the rela tives and friends of the slaugh tered. The showing we mA.te is an un favorable one as compared with the situation in Great Britain, where, in 1906, for instance, the number of passengers carried was greater by four hundred million than in ‘the United States, and yet only 40 per cent as many were killed as here, and only ten per cent as many injured—a proportion all the more surprising from the fact that density of conditions in Great Britain would naturally render traffic both more difficult and more liable to accident. Many Accidents Due to Negligence. By one who has been for 27 years in railroad service, and during all that time a careful observer and student of conditions, the published assertion is confidently made that a-t least 75 per cent of these fa talities are due to the negligence of employees. If this is in the case, Is there anything for an endangered and an unnecessarily endangered public to say or to do in the premises? This negligence is certainly not due to the failure on the part of the railroad management to issue a program of service and to con struct a rigid system of rules and regulations. The root of the dif ficulty lies in the laxity of en forcement, and that laxity is due to two causes, the first of which is that an American Is rarely willing to do exactly as he Is told. He has such a conception of the sufficiency of his own judgment that he re gards every ordinance promulgated for his observance as something to be more or less literally interpreted and applied just according to the impulse of the moment. It cuts across the grain of the American temperament to obey—to do ABSOLUTELY AS HE IS OR- Does Ingratitude Pay? Continued From First Column. ticular thing in which he was engaged. Each of them made, un doubtedly, AS MUCH AS HE POSSIBLY COULD. But in the results that each achieved there was considerable difference. Bryan took hold of the Democratic party sixteen years ago, and earnestly and energetically year after year tore it all to pieces. He nominated himself and was beaten three times. He lectured be tween times, turning into cash the notoriety of his office seeking— and that made him rich. But it didn’t do the Democratic party much good. Ryan also made plenty of money, and turned the street cars into cash—a great many millions of it. But he found the street car system antiquated—horses pulling dirty old cars lighted with oil lamps. He left the street car system—he has not been connected with it for some time, having made way for Morgan and others a very different proposition, and certainly much better than he found it. Bryan has a big voice, and Ryan has a small voice—he doesn’t earn his living with his voice. When he wants voices he hires them—Elihu Root, et cerera. If Ryan had had a voice like Bry an s voice at Baltimore he might reasonably have got up in hit seat when Bryan attacked him and replied:* “What right have you to attack anybody? What did you ever do to earn the money that you get from the Democratic party ard the people in general? What do you do for those that support you? What have you done for the Democratic party but lead it from one failure to another? “While you have got rich, what has happened to your follow ers? What have you done in law-making, what have you w-r built? What will there be to show for you when you disappear? I, at least, have built the street car lines and employed some tens of thousands of workers. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” With all of Ryan's shortcomings, whatever they may be. it ’ s a fact that, compared with Bryan, he looms up as a man who has actually done something that he undertook to do; whereas Bry m is and has been a mere cave of the winds—luckily for him, able to chsrgc 2 gGw price for the noise that the wmti makes. DERED. The average man among us, of whatever kind or description, has just intelligence enough to im agine that it covers more ground than it can naturally stretch itself over. Hasty Judgment vs. Regulations. That is the occasion of much mischief on the part of men occu pying a subordinate position, and, in the case of railway employees, results in substituting a hasty and risky judgment of tlreir own in place of regulations that have been carefully thought out by men who have a wider grasp and a keener sense of contingencies. A second cause of lax enforce ment lies in the fact that railway labor organizations have now be come so strong that in many cases the railway management stands more in awe of the unions than the unions do of the management; so that when a locomotive engineer, for instance, has been guilty of an accident through violation of one of the rules of the road, the union rallies to his defense. The grievance committee, strong in tiie consciousness of the strength of the union, fights it out with the management, weak in its fear of an impending strike, and the probable Issue will be that by the time the killed and wounded are in their graves or under treatment in the hospital the engineer Is back on his seat and the long-suffering and helpless public stands bj- wondering when the next derailment or colli sion will occur. We have had three of them re cently. It is all a matter between the management and the unions, and the poor public can either walk or take the cars and ride to their graves. Mr. J. O. Fagan (the au thority referred to in the earlier part of this article), in his recent ly issued work on railroad manage ment, quotes a railroad superin tendent as saying: "With a free hand we could put a stop to this killing in a week.” Seek to Elevate Morale of Class. Nothing need be said antagonis tic to labor unions so long as they work within their own rights and do not seek to exercise those rights In a spirit contemptuous to the rights of the general public. It would be much more to their credit If, instead of using their power as a means of escaping the just penalty for their shortcomings, they would seek to elevate the morale of their class and to ani mate It with a spirit prompting to a finer and more generous loy alty toward the public that it is its privilege to serve.