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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. 187». • Subscription Price —Delivered hy carrier, 10 cents a week. By mall. 35 00 a year. Payable in advance. We Long For Immortal Im perfection—We Can’t Have It AH our longings for immortality, nil our plans for immortal life are based on the hope that Divine Providence will eonde scend to let us live in .mother world as we live here. Each of us wants to be himself in the future life, and to see his friends as he knew them. We want to preserve individuality forever ami over, when the stars shall have faded away and the days of matter ended. But what is individuality except imperfection? You are dif ferent from Smith, Smith is different from Jones. But it is sim ply a difference of imperfect construction. One is more foolish than another, one is more irresponsibly moved to laughter or anger—that constitutes his personality. Remove our imperfections and we should all be alike—smooth off all agglomerations of matter on all sides and everything would be spherical. What would be the use of keeping so many of us if wo were all perfeer. and therefore all alike? One talks through his nose, one has a deep voice. But shall kind Providence provide two sets of wings for nose talkers and chest talkers? Why not make the, two into one good talker and save one pair of wings? Why not. in fact, keep just one perfect sample, ami Jet all the rest plaeidlv drift back to nothingness? Or. better, why not take all the goodness that there is in all the men and women that ever were and melt it all down into one cosmic human being? The raindrops, the mist and the sprays of Niagara all go back, to the ocean in time. Possibly we all go back at the end to the sea of divine wisdom, whence wc were sent forth Io do, well or badly, our little work down here. Future punishment? We think not. One drop of water revives the wounded hero—another helps to give wot feet and consumption to a little child. It all depends on circumstances. Both drops go back to the ocean. There is no rule that sends the good drop to heaven and the other to boil forever and ever in a sulphur pit. Troubles beset us when we think of a future state and our reason quarrels always with our longings. We all want—in heaven—to meet Voltaire with his very thin legs. But we can not believe that those skinny shanks are to be immortal. We shall miss the snuffs and the grease on Sam Johnson’s collar. If an angel comes up neat and smiling and says, “Permit me to intro duce myseif—l am the great lexicographer,” we shall say, ‘‘Tell that to some other angel. The great Samuel was dirty and wheezy, and I liked him that way.” And children. The idea of children in heaven flying about with their little fluffy wings is fascinating. But would eternal childhood be fair to them? If a babe dies while teething, shall it remain forever toothless? How shall its mother know if it is allowed to grow up? Listen to Heine—that marvelous genius of the Jewish race: “Yes, yes! You talk of reunion in a transfigured shape. What would that be to me? 1 knew him in his old brown suntout, and so I would see him again. Thus he sat at table, the salt cellar and peppty easter on either hand. And if the pepper was on the right and the salt on the left hand he shifted them over. I knew him in a brown surtout, and so I would see him again.” Thus he spoke of his dead father. Thus many of us think and speak of those that are gone. How foolish to hope for the preservation of what is imperfect! How important to have FAITH and to feel that reality will surpass anticipation, anil that whatever IS will be the best thing for us and satisfy us utterly. A Woman’s Political Speech r »» r How Many Men Do You Know That Could Talk More Sanely and Usefully Than Jane Addams? Jane Addams. of Chicago—one of the millions of good wom en in this country hitherto disfranchised—has joined the Roose velt party because that party is pledged Io fair treatment of women—to woman suffrage. Those that are unintelligent will believe that women are in capable of understanding political matters, unable to discuss public questions intelligently In order to dispel this idea we print here conspicuously Jane Addams’ very short address in favor of Roosevelt and in praise of his convention. It is short It emphasizes that which is important. It proves intelligent knowledge of public affairs. How many men in publie life do you know that are capable of making a speech as short or as good” This is Jane Addams' speech: "Measures of industrial amelioration, demands for social justice, long discussed by small groups in charity conferences and economic associations, have here been considered in a great national convention and are at last thrust into the stern arena of political action. "A great party has pledged itself to the protection of children, to the of the aged, to the relief of overworked girls, to the safeguarding of burdened men. Committed to these humane undertakings, it is inevitable that such a party should appeal to women, should seek to draw upon the great reservoir of their moral energy, so long undesired and unutilized in prac tical politics—one is the corollary of the other, a program of hut an welfare, L the necessity for woman's participation W e ratify' this platform not only because it represents our earnest convictions and formulates our high hopes, but because it pulls upon our faculties and calls up to definite action. W , find it a prophecy that democ racy shall be actually realized until no group of our people—certainly not ten million of them so badly in need of reassurance—shall fail to bear the responsibility of self-government and that no class of evils shall lie be yond redress. "The new party has become tne American exponent of a world-wide movement toward juster Social conditions. a movement which America, lagging behind other great nations, has been unaccountably slow to em body in political action. "1 second the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt because he is one of the few men in our public life who have been responsive to modern movement Because of that, because the program will require a h:id< r of invincible courage, of open mind, of democratic sympathies, one endowed with power to interpret the common man and to identify himself with the common lot, I heartily second the nomination.” The Atlanta Georgian “Gee, It’s Great to Meet a Friend From Your Home Town” \ By HAL COFFMAN. I ’ ' ct, j fy s /Y.J - II I M M J - »» * C?*- —Ls I! ■ b —A L—J'-_ _ Wi : \ t ItfiXU-- Y I l ' Jit I I'LL, . . iNHE iKkS v Bill | r ,<BK _JWI STAGE STRUCK AT FORTY SHE'S going on the stage, my friend of forty. She has a pretty town house, a rather stunning country place, a good husband, two grown children, a circle of friends, a good cook, five new frocks every season, a fair* automobile, two pet dogs, a thumb ring, five sets of dangling earrings, a rather decent figure, good eyes, a voice like a peacock, well manicured hands, a fad for actors and about as much ability’ to act as—as, oh, as to cook a good dinner, and if her cook should leave her you'd starve to death rather than dine at her house. Rut for ail that, she’s going on the stage. "I have the temperament, the physique, the face and the am bition." she said when she told me about it. “I'm tired of this empty life of teas and bridges and auto trips; 1 want to live, to breathe the higher air; I want to express my soul." “What piece have you selected for your debut?" I ventured to ask. “ 'The Vampire,’" site replied promptly. “They are dramatizing it for me. It's a glorious part.” and the woman of 40 looked at herself in the mirror, settled her hair, nipped in her waist, made eyes at the looking glass and laughed "lightly," like her favorite heroine in her favorite book; I Couldn't Stand It. I couldn't stand it a minute long er; 1 really couldn't; so I went home. on the way home I met the actor I know. I told him about the wom an of 40 He threw up his hands "Save us,” he said, "what is the stage coming to! They are all there at the stage door, the women of 40. The girls have all got some other fad these days It’s the women who drive us mad now. What is she going to play—'The Vampire?”’ “How did you know?" I asked. "Have you met her?" The actor laughed. "Not this one." he gurgled hysterically. “I didn't nave to. they are all going to play that 'The Vampire' or 'Zaza.' or 'Camille.' They all fan cy themselves sirens, the poor things of 41', who are going on the stage. "One pursues me night and day trying to get me to put her on in something rather sensational, don't you know, where my face and figure would be the thing.' and if I had my way I'd put her in an old ladies home and get her to knit tidies for the parlon chairs. "What on earth has got hold of them? Who is it that is telling them they can act, and why, oh, why, do they want to be vampires, and sirens, and ladles who lure? Scarlet frock in the first act, black and spangles in the last act, cigar ettes all through. That's the way good old ma laid it all out for me the other day, and the only place in the world that good, kind wom an would look like herself is out in the kitchen making jam. FRIDAY. AUGUST 16, 1912. Bv WINIFRED BLACK. "Crazy—every one of them—cra zy as bats. Think they can go on the stage and fascinate the public after they’ve brought up all their children and got father comfortable at the club. It’s really too bad.” And. really, do you know, I be lieve it is too bad. I wonder what on earth it all means'? What has become of all the good comfy women we used to know — women who were forty and glad of it; women who let out their cor sets and put on loose shoes, and tied their hats on with a rubber, and let it go at that? All gone—disappeared, vanished into the beauty parlors to be made over into twenty. I wonder why? Forty Is the Fine Age. Forty is the fine age. the most comfy age in the world, if we'd only live it. No more weepy hours because "he danced oftener with that CREATURE than with me,” no more miserable nights trying to figure out just how to manage to make over the old frock so your dearest friend wouldn't know it. You had a struggle of It that first year or so. but the business is set tled now, and things are going pretty well. Fat? Os course you're fat. You ought to be at forty. You know what to eat and how to eat it; you know when to rest and how to en joy it; you can pick out the kind of book you like at one >glance; you can tell the summer bore with one look, and you understand just The Restaurant Habitues By JOHN D. WELLS. A DULL, monotonous life we live. With no reward and with none to give— We breakfast, dine and sup. and then We breakfast, dine and we sup again. And the world wags on. nor knows nor cares How one of the Host of the Lonely fa res, Nor spares the pity that might atone For sitting here at our bread —alone. No heads to bow in a fervent grace, No sunny smiles in the baby's place, No table chat of the blessings wrought Or love and cheer that the daytime brought; No soft caress when the day is done, No evening hour for romp and fun— No word or smile from our loving own. For us who sit at our bread—alone. And yet. there's tears in a passer’s eye, He quickens his pace as he hurries by; He cherishes closer the visions of The home that waits and the arms of love; His smiles new hope and his thanks express, That's stirred by us and our loneliness! Then who shall say we no mission own. Who sit in the shadows and live alone? exactly how to get rid of him. Tanned? Pooh, what do you care! You can throw back your veil and love the wind and the sun and glory of all outdoors, while poor lit tle Sweet-and-Twenty has to swad dle herself in gauze to keep that complexion that is the only thing she has. x Friends? Hosts of them —all the sort you want; you’ve learned how to get rid of the other sort. Enemies? Not one in the world. You have found out what a nui sance it is to stay awake nights and hate anybody on earth. Moonlight, music, love, and flow ers—you’ve had them all, and have them yet if you amount to any thing; and you can wear your old shoes out into the moonlight and be comfy. Forty is the glorious age, the comfy age. the age of reason, the age of delicious understanding, the time of quiet friendships and help ful companionships. Why, you can speak to the lone some young fellow in the train at 40 and say something to comfort hitm At twenty you would have to bridle if he even looked your way. Life, life, life—full, rich, abun dant, friendly, open-eyed, sane, joyous, understanding life—that's what 40 means at its best. Who would give it up for the longings, the wonder ings, the uncertainties, the anxieties, the sad hopes of twenty—who but my friend who is "going on the stage?'’ Poor thing, what a miserable time she’ll have when she wakes up from her fool ish dream! , Get the chance? Why. of course she will. She has money, and some one wants some of it. She’ll get the chance, all right—in Peoria, or Metuchen, or anywhere where the sad. sad spectators sit some wretched night and gaze at each other, and wonder what it all means, and what she is trying to do in the red frock in the first act and the spangles in the second, and the cigarettes all through. All Ashamed of Her. And husband, and the boy in col lege, and the girl at home from boarding school? Poor things, they'll all be ashamed of "Mama,'’ and when all her money is gone, and all the spangles are off the black dress, and the scarlet frock is in the pawnshop, she’ll telegraph home to husband and he’ll take the first train and go after her and bring her home from Podunk, or Saskatchewan. or somewhere — home to common sense and com fort and kindness. And maybe, some day. she’lf see what a goose she’s been, and she'll tell husband all about it. and he’ll pat her shoulder and say. “There, there, it’s all right: they didn't appreciate you, that’s all.” And then maybe my friend will look at the good man she humili . ated and the children she deserted, and be a little. Just a little, ashamed—but not too much; "tem peramental" people don't seem to know very much about that sort 1 of thing, do they? THE HOME PAPER Garrett P. Serviss @ Writes on The Search For the Soul We May Find It When ' We Find the Origin of Thought Bv GARRETT P. SERVISS. A FRENCH writer of reputation, Henri Bordeaux, has just been visiting a school for blind deaf mutes near Poitiers, and his astonishment over what he saw leads him, in one of the great Paris newspapers, to a characteristic outburst of sentimentality. But out of the bushel of literary chaff which he offers, one can pick a few grains of very interesting facts, which are well calculated to in spire reflection. We will take simply his account of a young girl named Marie (Mary) Heurtin. She was born blind, deaf and mute., She has never seen the world around her, nor heard its voice, nor been able to communicate with it in any other evident way than by touch. She comes of an humble family, ignor ant of all the higher studies, by means of which we imagine we at tain an intellectual elevation that must be incomprehensible to crea tures less fully endowed than our selves. Her relatives could do nothing for her or with her. Having themselves al) the ordinary faculties of human they thought that she, who seemed to lack everything, was doomed to pass her life in dull, blind ignorance, without wish, or thought, or aspiration—eating, drinking and sleeping; incompara bly more helpless than a brute animal. Perhaps they thought she had a mind, but they believed there was no way to reach it. But a good sister of charity found the way. I do not know the details of her operations, but they can not have differed essentially from those practiced in the cases of Helen Keller and Laura Bridg man, whose histories are so well known in America. Under that dull exterior, which presented to the outer, world but a single nar row avenue of approach—the sense of touch—was found a human soul as full of possibilities as that of any person possessing all the senses. Marie Heurtin had only one of the three senses which we are accustomed to regard as the most important, but with its sole aid she has learned so much about the world around her that she sim ply amazes her visitors. She un derstands what light is, although she can not see it; what sound is, although she can not hear it. She has been taught to compre hend the ideas of POVERTY, AGE AND DEATH. Fond of Reading. She weeps when she is informed of the death of a friend. She wept when she read with her fingers, on the types that are furnished for the blind, of the putting out of Samson's eyes. She pitied him, and she did not want him to become like herself. She is very fond of reading— which is done only with her fingers, remember—and she has two favor ite authors —Bossuet, whose grave discourses on religion hold her at tention and. stir her moral senti ments. and (remarkable to relate) Alphonse Daudet, the teller of vi vacious stories, in which light, color and description of beautiful landscapes always play a conspic uous part. If the pictures formed :: First Prohibitionists :: By REV. THOMAS B. GREGORY I ONE hundred and seventy-nine years ago, the governing body of Georgia, by a unanimous vote, prohibited the use of rum in the province. Thus it will be seen that this action of the Georgia authorities antedates that of Neal Dow and the Maine people by one hundred and twenty-nine years. So far as our country is concerned, the king’s trustees in Georgia were the orig inal prohibitionists. While as yet Maine was an unorganized wilder ness, untenanted save by the In dian and the bull moose, the Geor gia temperance decree was on its way across the Atlantic for signa ture by the king and the comfnons. The royal signature was obtained, and tor ten years the Georgians had to get along without rum. It may be well to state in this con nection that nearly all of the Geor gians of that time were Germans and Scotchmen. As long ago as the time of Taci tus we read of the "thirst" of the Teutons, and from time immemorial the men of the heather have been accredited with being very fond of their "toddy." But the trustees of the crown meant business, and for a decade Georgia was "dry." But in those days, as is the case in our own time, there were power- in her imagination as she reads are not exactly those which we see, they are none the less true and charming to her. SHE- WRITES —!n ordinary characters, although she can not see what she writes. In her let ters she says to her friends; "I am glad to SEE you.” She has a cheerful soul, and she laughs and claps her hands when she is pleased. She knows exactly what she lacks in physical endowment. She knows that she is poor, and that her friends are poor, and she wishes that she could gain money. She has learned that money is pow er in this world, but she appreci ates its limitations also. And all this has been gained sole ly through her hands. M. Bor deaux is quite right to call it the "Miracle of the Hands.” But to many it will appear to be far more than that—it is the MIRACLE OF THE SOUL. “Souls in Prison.” It proves that something is born in us which does not depend upon mere physical senses. The senses are simply instruments. They act through vibration. Sight depends upon the vibrations of the ether; hearing upon the vibrations im parted from solid objects. If we had a hundred physical senses would the nature of the soul be changed? Do we distinguish be tween the ideas of right and wrong by virtue of our senses? If none of us had been born with any more senses than poor Marie Heurtin has. would not those ideas still have existed in our minds? Her education has been an education in the true sense of the word (e-duco, to “lead cut”). The ideas were not created for her by her teachers: they existed already, and only needed to be taught a form of expression. It is this whyh gives its high philosophical interest to the teach ing of deaf, dumb and blind mutes. They are, as another French writer has aptly and eloquently said, “souls in prison.” We are all pris oners of that kind, but not in the same degree. We all FEEL that we are prisoners, for there is no in telligent person who is not con vinced that his five senses are not enough to place him in complete touch with nature. Just as the French girl has been led to recog nize the fact that she lacks many things which other human beings possess—although, even with her imperfect physical organization, she is able to show that she com prehends their highest ideas—so every one of us, who carefully ex amines himself, knows full well that he has impressions, ideas, as pirations w hich do not depend upon sight or hearing or touch, and to which language can not give ex pression. Is it a very extravagant supposition, then, that there may We beings, far more perfectly endowed than we are, who take in us an interest similar to that which we take in the Helen Kellers, the Laura Bridgmans and the Marie Heur tins, striving to cause us, to com prehend things which lie beyond the range of our narrow prison, with its five pitiful little windows? * But here we touch the frontier of the domain of speculation. ful "interests,” and the "interests” decided that prohibition in Georgia should cease. The Lumber trust sent its agents to England with a "tale of woe.” and the parliament, on July 14. 1742, repealed the prohibition law of the province. The lumber dealers ex changed their lumber in the West Indies for rum, which article they sold to the colonists at a big profit, and in consideration of this "profit” the parliament voted to overrule the trustees and make Georgia "wet” again. Os the founder of Georgia, James < iglethorpe. John Fiske does well in saying "his name deserves a very high place among the heroes of ear ly American history,” I'iske plight hate added that in that history no name stands high er. Ihe associate of royalty and the companion of nobility, he was at the same time a sterling demo crat and plain man of the people. He desired, above all else, to pro mote the happiness and virtue of bis fellow men. For that purpose he founded the state of Georgia, and but for the disturbing influ ences of the mercenary ami unprin -1 ipled agents of Mammon he might have succeeded beyond all the other fathers of American common wealth.’.