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EDITORIAL PAGE THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published Every zXfternoon Except Sunday Py THE GEORGIAN COMPANY At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta, Ga. Entered as second-class matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March 3, 1371. Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier. 10 cents a week. Ry mail, $5 00 a year. Payable in advance. The “Mi(l(Ile-( 'lass” Manilas Always Been the Fighter, the Real Revolutionist He, and Not the Man at the Bottom of the Heap or at the Top of the Heap, Has Worked for Progress in This World. Our distinguished and able fellow citizen, Victor Berger, who represents the whole Socialist party of the I'nited States in the I’nited States congress, comments interestingly upon the Roosevelt program and party in a letter which he sends to The New York Times. Berger sees in Roosevelt a man who will create Socialists and develop socialistic theory and socialistic voting. Mr Berger says that Roosevelt “appeals to the restive middle class, not to enlightened labor.'’ Nobody knows better than Victor Berger that nothing is so powerful in this world as “a restive middle class.” Berger knows that the great changes in the world have come from the restive middle class. It is not the roof or the foundation of the social structure that, has done the work and brought about the changes. CROMWELL belonged to the restive middle class he changed England and all of Europe. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE belonged to tin* restive midfile class His mother was a middle class woman, almost as broad as she was high and with good business instinct. DANTON, ROBESPIERRE, MARAT, all belonged to the restive middle class. And MIRABEAU, who started the great French wheel revolv ing. took the stand that ho did because prejudice and dislike pushed him down from the nobility and compelled him to ally himself with that restive middle class. The restive middle class followed Caesar in Romo, and de stroyed the power of a patrician senate. A restive middle class in this country represented by George Washington and Jefferson and men of this type threw ov#r the Eng lish power. The aristocrats of that day in America, as in England, wanted no change. And the masses al the bottom of the heap de manded no change. Ts Roosevelt can lead the restive middle class, or can ride se curely along on a wave of middle-class restlessness, he will travel far. The man who ha.s any power in our day raises himself into the middle class EASILY. He may not roach the top. I'nusual intelli gence or unusual dishonesty or good luck is necessary to put a man among the first few. Bui in our day real ability gets into the middle class readily. And when real ability finds that it hasn’t a fair chance, that it lacks justice, it, becomes restive here in America, or in the England of Cromwell’s day. or in the France of 1790, or in Rome before the ' Christian era. Workingmen feed the middle class, workingmen supplv the ablest individual to all of the classes so called “above” Ihe labor 1 class. But the great work is nol done in political, revolutionary or i other great movements by working-class individuals. And as that is historically true, it may as well be frankly acknowledged In Ber ger and others. In the whole of the French revolution there was never one single uneducated workingman that ever reached any position of power or influence. It was “restive middle-class” work. ' Stanley Report Muddles the Trust Question "The control of corporations by the Federal government, as rec ommended by Mr. Carnegie. Judge Gary and others, Is not ap proved. • • • Such a control, seml-soclalistlc In its nature. Is be yond the power vested In the constitution In the Federal congress.” In the foretyointr words the Stanley committee of the house of representatives—which has spent many months trying to find out what should be done with trusts in general and with the Steel Trust in particular reveals its mental incompetency for the task. There is not even an appearance of cogency in the theory that congress has no constitutional power to regulate the great indus trial trusts For it is perfectly plain that if the combinations in steel, oil, tobacco and so on are permitted to do an interstate busi ness. that business must fall under the head of interstate commerce. And since congress has the settled and unquestionable right to reg nlate the common carriers of interstate commerce, its right to reg ulate the interstate industrial concerns that employ the common car riers is equally unquestionable. If the Stanley committee had the courage to go to the logical conclusion of its narrow and reactionary theory of “state rights.” it would recommend that each of the states should refuse TO RE( OGNIZE I HE EXISTENCE of any industrial corporation that was not of its own chartering. It should be plain, even to the Stan ley committee, that manufacturing corporations must either be kept wholly out of the field of interstate commerce, or else must be made amenable to the interstate power at Washington. It is not tolera ble that interstate “industrials'- should be permitted to live in a twilight zone—beyond reach of the individual states, and outside Ihe constitutional compel, nev of congress It may be conceivable that the states of the Fnion should be made entirely foreign to each other, so far as industrial corporations ar? concerned. It may 1 < cot < vable. for example, that a New York industrial corporation ought not to sue or be sued in the state of Pennsylvania, or to have any properly rights or legal existence there. But it is NOT eoneeivabl tfi-j such corporations shall «n on LIVING A NATIONAL LIFE WITHOI T KESPONSIBn ty TO THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT h.ii.im The Stanley committee has put itself i(1 a preposterous posi tion with reference to the powers oi congress and the rights of th., states. But that is not the bottom of its follv Its fundamental error is a complete failure to understand the law of the . volution of modern business and the inevitableiiess of the world-wide t. denc.y toward industrial combination The Stanley committee underrates the power of congress in its relation to the states But it also overrates th. power of ron gress in its relation to the mighty modern tr. nd toward industrial combination and co operation. The Atlanta Georgian DOES IT PAY? 1 j Copyright. 1912, by International News Service O .b’ -■ I i kWHxtbHn ■ ’ f' l '! l U'l-T! IBM I I v—- -wMv" / R'-WP K'' wZ, ’ lIVV V’Mwz u ml_ W jsf I i it i Bliri : ; ” fiil I I F EL ° NY ' I I » apt J i f br ERRoR ' jwlr 'it 1 w > T h r wMMii BQ Vi 1 X 1 f <' _ -nrwwn~y~ ' V-'-XOtkr- fflf ip, I iff ~ 111 :< ALLS HIMSELF A MAN By BEATRICE FAIRFAX. ONE who undoubtedly classes himself as a sample of "the Lord's noblest handiwork — Man,” writes tile following letter: "I am 25 years of age and have been keeping company with a girl three years my junior for a year and a half. 1 had been earning sl2 a week, but lately an uncle died and left me a sum of money which I feel 1 ought to enjoy while it lasts. "Rut my girl friend doesn't care to dress as T would have her dress. She says she can't afford it, but if she wants to travel with me she has to have some class So I have given her up. She seems heart broken. as site loved me dearly. Did Tdo right or wrong? L. H. N. U.” The men have claimed since the first man was made that their sex lacks every element of conceit. They have taken to themselves all wisdom. They are the truer, the finer, the nobler, the braver sex. and If there exists a man who doesn't say It, it is becau.se he seeks a reputation for gallantry. Down in his heart he thinks It. This "L. H. N. 1’.,” whom we nil! .•all Alphabet for short, believes that he is a prize. He was sure of it when he got sl2 a week, but the world didn't know it. Xow that he has inherited a few dollars from an uncle, the world, he thinks, is finding it out. Not Good Enough. The girl who was good enough for him when he got sl2 a week is not good enough for him now. An oft-told tragedy, as many wives have found. She must have some class if site wants to.travel with him! I rejoice in the level-headedness that leads her to decide to discontinue the journey lam proud of a girl who refuses to spend more on clothes than -h< .an afford, in order to k* ep the so-called love of a man. I am delighted to find that such a girl exists, and if she win refuse Io ■ til’-- Alphabet man enter her I' l ' -■ io • agam. my delight will t>< bey ond i ypi. slou WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1912. He wants a girl on high heels who paints her cheeks to match his increased income, and whose "class” will match his own. And that class is of the swagger, imi tation order. It is a class that no good, sensible girl cares to enter. It is a class that decks itself in cheap adornment and that delights in all that is flashy and tawdry. Those who affect that style are not the kind of people who yvill Questions in Science * By Edgar Lucien Larkin t Q "You have slated in The Georgian that two balls of equal size but ope weighing twice as much as the other, if dropped from the same height at the same time, would strike the earth at the same time. Please explain the reason w hy the heavier one does not strike the earth first?" A. Newton 'made th. capital discovery that action and reaction are equal. And by his law of gravi tation. its attraction between any two bodies is directly as the prod uct of their masses. From this It is clear that if the mass of any body increases, the force of attrac tion also increases at the same rate, and also its specific speed, in a vacuum, free from friction of air. all bodies, whatever their respective masses, obeying the attraction of universal gravitation. fall through the same distance in the same time. Q. —"Will you answer the ques tion whether there Is more timber in a mountain section of land than on a section down on the plains* the trees being spaced the same?" A —This is similar to the picket f< nee problem. Let one square mile be set with rows of trees, as in an . apart. Take another square mile with a hill inclosed. On the plain let the trees be ten feet apart in a row from north to south; then there yvould he 528 trees Let a tow run ning over the hill contain 550 trees; then thete would be as many ihore trees on the rough section as there are rows haying this excess of 22. True ,>f any ex<-e-< stand wear, any more than their tawdry attire yvill stand a storm. They are showy and fickle. If they have one good trait it is hid den under ignorance and conceit. If they have a little success they turn that success into failure by letting it turn their heads. If they have a little money thay become the prey of all the unscrup ulous. Their conceit is so blinding they lose the power of recognizing the true from the false, and good friends in their humbler days are abandoned for flatterers. The End in Sight. This man's inherited yvealth will not last long. His letter tells a story that ends in financial ruin. He wants to "enjoy it while it lasts,’ and his manner of enjoyment is such that it yvill not last long. This is not the greatest misfor tune; he will spend it in such a way he can never again be con tent with the simple enjoyments he found in his twelve dollar income. That was earned by hard, honest labor. He could not afford any ex travagant joys with it. but a pleas ure doesn't have to cost much to be a pleasure when one loves, and is yvith the object of one’s affec tion. He can’t go back. He thinks in his present moments of puffed-up idleness that he doesn’t want to go bttck. But the day will come when he w ill curse his little inheritance, his own asinine conceit and stu pidity, and the day he was born. He says the girl loves him. That may have been true when he got twelve dollars A week. She knows him so much better now. I am sat isfied her feeling for him is largely a pitying contempt. , He is going up like a rocket that yvill flash across the sky. and he thinks the w ill last. He doesn't realize that no one looks for the burned-out stick that falls to the ground. Did he do right in giving the girl up? Yes. a thousand times yes! For he has saved her from the ter ribb- fate of becoming his wife Dr. Parkhurst’s Article ! • on . Interview With Mme. t I v Sarah Bernhardt —and— | The Uplift of Pulpit mHb and Stage Written For The Georgian By the Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst IN an interview which it was my pleasure to have with Madame > Bernhardt a year or two ago, ;■ one question which I asked her she J failed to answer. She had told me that any In j quiry which I might make of her j she would reply to, but In one In- J stance she was evasive, and very j; much to my regret, for 1 felt that ! her answer .to that particular < question would reveal a good deal to me as to the moral and reti s gious' attitude of her own mind. The inquiry to which T failed to \ receive a reply was this: "Do you j give your preference to the pulpit ; or to the stage, considered as means i of human uplift?” Change of Opinion Toward the Theater. She is too bright and too expe j rienced a person not to have a } rather definite opinion upon a ques ! tion of that kind. lying so close as j it does to the line of her own in ! terest and pursuit. I have always w'ondered why it ! was that, communicative as she proved to be upon all other matters to which her attention was called, ! she was so reticent upon this. Even among distinctively church ! circles there has been, during the > last 50 years, a decided change of j opinion, or at least of usage, as to > ward the theater. < Whether the truth of the case is f to be stated by saying that change of sentiment induced change of usage, ob change of usage induced f change of sentiment, is a question about which opinions might differ. We know that in such matters people sometimes alter their cus toms and habits first, and then ad just their opinions to match. It is rather commonly the case that we shape our doctrines to fit aur behavior rather than our be havior to fit our doctrines, and, having learned to allow ourselves modes of living and doing that conscience would at one time have forbidden, turn around and fix over our doctrine in away to satisfy the necessaries of our altered and per haps deteriorated, behavior; for we do like to keep ouv conduct and our creed somewhere in sight of each other, whether by prodding the one or by curbing the other. This is not. however, to be taken as a critique upon the theater, for :■ Down by the Sea By SLOANE GORDON. ■t V tE’RE living down by the sounding sea— \/\/ The sad, the ceaseless, sobbing sea— Where the water's wet and the air is free, By the soulful, singful, sighful sea. ? ( And there's plenty of fog and sand and sky And the sand flea rages and fish are shy. < The grocer, of course, is on the job, J And that’s why the sea and the victims sob; But the water s wet and the air is free, ? And it costs you nothing to see the sea. i > Out in the grass and through the wood J The chigger chigs as a chigger should; He burrows into your trusting hide $ And seeks to emerge’on the other side. { Eor energy, push and ceaseless toil j The chigger's the insect Standard Oil; I The wood-tick dallies along the way, > But the chigger chigs till the close of day. > The songful skeeter of Jersey fame ( ? Gets happily into the Summer game. He nips an ankle or nips a nose, < S And loves the open-work style of hose. J H<j sings his way through a peek-a-boo. ? And all men envy him—wouldn't you? > As soon as the chigger's day is done S The skeeter’s shift is at once begun. ( But, still, we're down by the sounding sea; 5 And the water's wet and the air i free! { The crafty crab and the cooing clam 5 (Eor which no fisherman gives a—continental) Can be procured for the price of meat, 5 If one must sordidly stop to eat; J Or one may fatten on beans and pork That are tinned and labeled In-old New York But the water's wet *(nd the air is And i ts us not gto Sts- - . ..., • THE HOME PAPER that which the theater has to offer —assuming, of course, that it is meets a le gitimate demand in that it minis ters refreshment, that it is rational without being mentally, wearying, and that it is diverting without being sensuously debasing. That except in rare instances peo ple are made any better in their morals or finer in their .piety by the theater there is no reason to believe. And it is easy to suppose that Madame Bernhardt's conviction of that fact is what explains her ret icence in reference to the question which she evaded. A man is not morally or religiously bettered by any influence that does not tend to some sort of moral or religious action, and that is a result which, judging from observation, is not predicate of dramatic exhibition. The whole thing is conducted in an unsubstantial atmosphere of fic tion. A successful actress, who consulted me in regard to certain matters that touched closer to the line of actual living than those that were traversed by her own dramat , ic experience, once said to me: "That which you say is probably true, but I have lived so long and so constantly in the realm of the unreal that I am not able to dis criminate between what is true and what is false.” A whole audience may be brought to sob with tender emo ll tion. without a single member hav ing his heart permanently softened into a condition of finer altruism. Theaters Have Large Mission to Fulfill. Tears wrung from the eyes by fictitious sin Or fictitious sorrow neither spring from the heart nor soak back into the heart in gra cious irrigation. Nevertheless a theater that deals in what is intelligent or even in What is emotional has a large mis sion to fulfill in these days of suf fering and weariness. We need more diversion, not less. Only let the friends of the the ater be content to credit it with just so much service as it is con stitutionally fitted to render and not claim for it a function which it is inherently incompetent to per form.