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0 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 postoflice at Atlanta, under act of March 3. 1873. Subscription Price- -Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail, |5 00 a year. Payable In advance. The“Middle-Class”ManHas Always Been the Fighter, the Real Revolutionist * * E 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 United States in the United States congress, comments interestingly upon the Roosevelt j 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. CROM WELI; belonged to the restive middle class—he changed England and all of Europe. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE belonged to the restive, middle 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 he 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 Rome, 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’ over the Eng lish power. The aristocrats of that day in America, as in England, wanted no change. And the masses at the bottom of the heap de manded no change. If 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 has any power in our day raises himself into the middle class EASILY, lie may not reach the top. Unusual intelli gence or unusual dishonesty or good luck is necessary to put a man among the first few. But 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 supply the ablest individual 1o all of the classes so called “above" the labor class. But the great work is not done in political, revolutionary or other great movements by working-class individuals. And as that is historically true, it may as well be frankly acknowledged by 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 emmended by Mr. Carnegie, Judge Gary and others, Is not ap proved. • • • Such a control, semi-socialistic in Its nature, 1s be yond the power vested In the constitution in the Federal congress.” In the foregoing words the Stanley committee of the house of representatives—which has spent many months trying Io 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. I'or 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 ulate 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 slates should refuse TO RE< tHiNIZI', 1 HE EXISI EX( E ot any industrial corporation that was not ot 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 ot interstate commerce, or else must bo made amenable to the interstate power at Washington. It is not tolera . ble that interstate ‘ industrials should bo permitted to live in a twilight zone—beyond reach of Ihe individual states, and outside the constitutional competency of congress. It may be conceivable that the slates of the Union should be made entirely foreign to each other, so far as industrial corporations —N<s~ rt ’ It may be conceivable, for example, that a New if iork industrial corporation ought not to sue or be sued in the state F of Pennsylvania, or to save any property rights or legal existence > There. But it is NOT conceivable that such corporations shall go - on LIVING A NATIONAL LIFE WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY TO THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. <he Stanley committee has put itself in a preposterous posi tion with reference to the powers ot congress and the rights of the states. But that is not the bottom of its folly. Its fundamental error is a complete failure to understand the law of the evolution of modern business and Hie inevitableness of the world wide ten d'*ne\ toward industrial combination. •he Stanley committee underrates the power of congress in u its relation to the states. But it also overrates the power of con gross in its relation Io the mighty modern trend toward industrial com lunation and co-operation. The Atlanta Georgian : DOES IT PAY? Copyright, 1912, by International News Service I '' I/? IwmßHl W/ ■ i Arrest I LI J, 11 I I £LOMY ’ Wi HR fyk I 11 error 1 . ® I * I •' >iv \ 1 vWf n W> =T - \ iliV d n Ull' nf’• > • : I I \ VI w /1U '%y/A i | HE CALLS HIMSELF A MAN By BE A T RIC EFA IR FA X. ONE who undoubtedly classes himself as a sample of "the Lord’s noblest handiwork— Man," writes the 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. I had been earning sl2 a week, but lately an uncle died and left me a sum of money which 1 feel 1 ought to enjoy while It lasts. "But my girl friend doesn't care to dress as I 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 1 have given her up. She seems heart broken. as she loved me dearly. Did Ido 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 because he seeks a reputation for gallantry. Down In his heart he thinks it. This "L. H. N 1’.." whom we will call 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. -Now 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 she wants to travel with him! I rejoice in the level-headedness that leads her to decide to discontinue the journey. 1 am proud of a girl who refuses to spend more on clothes than she can afford, in order to keep the so-called love of a man I am delighted to find that such a girl exists, and if she will refuse to let this Alphabet man enter her presence again, my delight will be beyond expression. 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 will Questions in Science By Edgar Lucien Larkin Q. —"Yofi have stated in The Georgian that two balls of equal size, but one 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 the 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 sfpaced the same?" A.—This is similar to the picket fence problem. Let one>square mile be set with rows of trees, as in an orchard at equal distances 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 would be 528 trees. Let a row run ning over the hill contain 550 trees; then there would be as many more trees on the rough section as there are rows having this excess of 22. True of any excdls. stand wear, any more than their tawdry attire will 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 they 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 bumbler days are abandoned for flatterers. The End in Sight. This man’s inherited wealth 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 will 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 joy's with it, but a pleas ure doesn't have to cost much to be a pleasure when one loves, and is with 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 back. But the day will come when he will curse his little inheritance, his own asinine conceit and stu pidity, and the day he was bqrn. 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 will flash across the sky. and he thinks the flash will 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 rible fate of becoming his wife. THE HOME PAPER Dr. Parkhurst’s Article ° n Interview With Mme. t A| Sarah Bernhardt —and— . The Uplift ■of Pulpit and Stage Vr!H||P 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 failed to answer. She had told me, that any In quiry tvhich I might make of her she would reply to, but in one in stance she was evasive, and very much to my regret, for I felt that her answer to that particular question would reveal a good deal to me as to the moral and reli gious attitude of her own mind. The inquiry to which I failed to receive a reply was this: "Do you give your preference to the pulpit or to the stage, considered as means of human uplift?” Change of Opinion Toward the Theater. She is too bright and too expe rienced a person not to have a rather definite opinion upon a ques tion of that kind, lying so close as 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 opinion, or at least of usage, as to ward the theater. Whether the truth of the case is to be stated by saying that change of sentiment induced change of usage, or change of usage Induced change of sentiment, is a question about which opinions might differ. We know that tn 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 our 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 i By SLOANE GORDON. ; T Y tE'RE Wvlng down by the sounding sea— The sad, the ceaseless, sobbing sea.— ’ < Where the water's wet and the air Is free, 5 By the soulful, singful, sighful sea. And there’s plenty of fog and sand and sky— I ( And the sand flea rages and fish are shy. i < The grocer, of course, is on the job, • > I And that’s why the sea and the victims sob; J < But the water’s wet and the air Is free, > ? And It costs you nothing to see the sea. > { •< Out in the grass and through the wood | The chigger chigs as a chigger should; t He burrows Into your trusting hide J And seeks to emerge, on the other side. O For energy, push and ceaseless toil I 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 i Gets happily into the Summer game. > He nips an ankle or nips a nose, ? And loves the open-work style of hose. He sings his way through a peek-a-boo, ) < And al) men envy him—wouldn’t you? j S As soon as the chigger's day Is done The Skeeter's shift is at once begun. But, still, we re down by the sounding sea; And the water’s wet and the air is free! The crafty crab and the cooing clam ( For which no fisherman gives a—continental! ''an be procured for the price of meat. ? If one must sordidly stop to eat. '>r one may fatten on beans and pork shat are tinned and labeled In old New York But the water's wet and the air is free, { And it costs us nothing t o see tlie sea! ’ “ | z .. v i i —J that which the theater has to offer —assuming, of course, that it is untainted—undoubtedly 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 tn their morals or finer in their piety by the theater there Is no reason to believe. And tt is easy to suppose that Madame Bernhaxdt’s conviction of that fact ts 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 predicable of dramatic exhibition. The whole thing is conducted in an unsubstantial atmosphere of Ac tion. A successful actress, who consulted me tn 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 met "That which you say to 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 tion, without a single member hav ing his heart permanently softened Into a condition of finer altruism. Theaters Have Large Mission to Fulfill. Tears wrong 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 deal* 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 tt a function which it is inherently incompetent to per form. '!