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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. sntered «a second-class matter at postoftice at Atlanta, under act of March 1. H7I. Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail, $5.00 a year. Payable In advance. George W. Perkins and the Roosevelt Progressive Partv R * r He Has Set an Example That Other Prosperous Men Might Fol low. The Country Needs Able Men to Take an Interest in Politics and Government. The Republican party spent SOO,OOO on Its Chicago convention. The Progressive party, managed by Perkins, spent $17,000 for exactly the same kind of a convention—and came back from Chicago $2,000 Io the good. Think about that! While Roosevelt was speaking to 30,000 men and women in Bos ton. some one in the crowd yelled, “Tell us about Perkins!’’ Roosevelt replied, “I'm glad you asked that question,’’ and then answered it. He said that Perkins, although a rich man, had joined the Pro pressive party and interested himself in politics BECAUSE HE HAS CHILDREN AND FELT THAT IT WAS HIS DUTY TO DO WHAT HE COULD TO MAKE CONDITIONS BETTER IN THE COUNTRY IN WHICH THE CHILDREN WOULD LIVE AFTER THEIR FATHER’S DEPARTURE. Mr. Roosevelt also said that Mr. Perkins had made all the money he wanted, and now wanted to do something really useful and worth while for the country at large. This country is glad to see men of ability come out in the open, work politically in the open, use their influence and intelligence in the open—instead of working in the old-fashioned “rich man’s wav’’ behind closed doors, using cash to buy those in office, or pro mote legislation. This country needs men of ABILITY in public affairs. Gov ernment means something more than getting offices and dividing them up, something more than collecting taxes and spending them extravagantly. This country needs all of the ability of its ablest men. It should have such men as J. J. Hill working for the nation, instead of working, however usefully, as railroad builders for themselves. The big rewards in this world attract the big and the able men. And the small rewards, outside of periods of great national excitement, attract the small and the feeble men. Our government has been offering small rewards to its em ployees, while industry, railroad building, great corporations and organizations of all kinds, have been offering great rewards. Therefore, men of unusual power and ability have been drafted into the industrial field and away from the field of politics and of government. It is a good sign when a man like Perkins, as able as any of the big organizers and managers, decides that it is more worth while to share in government than to make additional money. Agassiz, the great scientist, preached a whole sermon when he said. “1 am too busy to make money.’’ It would be an excellent thing f’rir America if more of the ablest men should tire of the money making game, as Perkins seems to have tired of it, ami should find themselves “too busy to con tinue money making.” too much interested in public and important affairs to continue working for private profit. The articles in the Hearst Magazine show us our collection of senators and other public officials acting as toadies, servants and handy men for the big geniuses of the industrial world. It is humiliating to see the representatives of the people and of the government accepting the pay of industrial organizers and act ing as the lackeys of those organizers. The country needs the work of such men as E. H. Harriman, powerful and strong enough to build thousands upon thousands of miles of railroad in a life that ended too soon The country needs the imagination and power of such a man as J. Pierpont Morgan, wasting his energies now in the accumulation of money that does him no good, ami spending the money in the accumulation of col lections that will do him no good—although they may be useful to the country in future. A man like Morgan, if he were interested in the United States, instead of beiue interested in .1 P. Morgan and Company, would give this country the canals, roads ami other facilities that it needs, and very soon give it the beginning of government ownership that it needs. The country ha«> been served too long and too often by men who went into politics and got places in government BECAUSE THEY WERE FIT FOR NOTHING ELSE IN PARTICULAR, or because of a hysterical, half-baked ambition that led them nowhere. One first class BIG man of the type that this country produces in its industries and its railroad building would keep half a dozen legislatures honest One such man as George Perkins, giving to the business of the people the energy and capacity that he has given to private busi ness undertakings, would be a good, new thing in politics, and a useful man in government. And the people are bound, until they have proof to the contrary, to assume that Perkins is sincere tn his advocacy of the new party—which has antagonized and is de nounced by most of the ineu rich and influential as Perkins is. A proof of the value of Perkins in a political organization was given at the Roosevelt convention in Chicago. Mr. Perkins directs the financial and practical management of the Roosevelt party--LUCKILY FOR THE PARTY. The Roosevelt convention hired the hall occupied previously by the Republican convention. It had the same bands; it printed ’.he same finely engraved tickets. And the Roosevelt convention cost all together in Chicago $17,060, whereas the regular Republican convention, managed by the old-fashioned grafting politicians. COST MORE THAN NINETY THOUSAND DOLLARS. hi other words, under old-fashioned political management, a Republican convention cost about seventy-five thousand dollars, or 500 per cent, more than exactly the same kind of a convention managed by a man used to business undertakings. It would be interesting to know who got the $75,000 difference In the cost of the Republican convention. The fact may also be mentioned that the Roosevelt convention no* only cost only $17,000 as compared with ninety-odd thousand for the Republican convention, but the Roosevelt convention sold tickets of admission took in $19,000 in eash from the public which was really interested in the birth of the new Progressive partv. And i non the convention was over, the Progressive party, tinaii c ally managed by Perkins, had two thousand iu cash more than it Continued in L ast Column. The Atlanta Georgian TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1912 A GIRL'S VIEW OF POLITICS •*!**■' Aw til p rW/Sf ! r : TjA ? litl - aW /X Ji '■ - - . A” <. ~ vx-.iA'W'yb ''Va \ » X-y GvLmjUm I This cartoon was suggested by Nell Brinkley and drawn by Tad. It shows that woman's touch can make even the prosaic beautiful. SOMETHING has already been said about the value of small sums of money saved regu larly. To eite one instance again: Five cents a day amounts in ten years, at four per cent compound interest, to a trifle over Two Hun dred and Twenty Dollars. But there is absolutely no way in the world of making a man prefer to have Two Hundred and Twenty Dollars ten years from now, at the cost of five cents a day, as against the remembrance of having swal lowed three thousand six hundred and fifty glasses of beer. The choice of this is, you see. entirely up to the man. Some savings banks have tried to encourage thrift by printing tables that show the growth of money regularly deposited and left at in terest. Few of them, however, take the trouble to rub in the principal fact hard enough. The principal fact is this: When you deposit money at In terest you must also deposit Time. For Time is that which per mits interest to get moving, to create a momentum, and finally to work up a good total for you. Any one can build a fortune, ac cording to his status in life, if he will begin early enough In life and give time a chance. Even men of 40 and 50 can begin to save small sums for a pension at 70, for there are 30 or 20 years available for in terest to do Its work. Difficult at Forty. Rut it is hard for a man of 40 or 50 to accomplish this, and for this reason: It Is difficult to establish a new habit, that demands regularity, so late tn life. But if a man of 50 has a job. and is in fair health, and is scared to death lest he be in want at 70, he may be able to brace up and give time a chance to work its wonders for him on his nickels and dimes. 11. Much old age poverty and want are due to waste in early years. We complain of taxes. But the willingness with which we pay taxes of our own assessment is amazing. We pay willingly for countless things we do not n.eed. When want pinches. In later years, we grumble at the times, at hard luck, at never having had a chance. And yet few of us are such fools as to believe the lying reasons we give for our own poverty. Baek of countless old people who have nothing stretch years of Im providence. So it is true, as one writer says: 'Society suffers more from the waste of money than from the want of money." To be well to-do is the result of self-denial and daily economy. Self-denial and economy are common sense applied to everybody's money transactions. A man with a little extra change in his pocket can buy a lot of things he does not need. If he does buy them, he has paid a tax on his habit of waste. He may be skilled in earning money, but he is a flat failure in governing his own use of it. The man spoke truly who said: "If every man who sports an auto mobile only by having mortgaged his furniture and his wife’s furs hud to state that fact on his li cense number plate, there would be HOW TO BUILD A FORTUNE No, 7.—-Taxes By THOMAS TAPPER. fewer of them in the streets.” This is paying taxes on vanity. Many a man at Ten Thousand Dollars a year is farther behind in the game than the economical la borer who puts a dollar or two a week aside from his wages. An unwise man. with a love for dis play, can be awfully foolish on Ten Thousand Dollars a year, and a man on Fifteen Dollars a week’can be very wise. It all depends on W’hether self-government has been set up and the man knows how he stands every night. 111. Don’t pay useless taxes, but tax today for tomorrow. By following this rule you can not remain poor. It braces up tj»e mind, and the re- Sirius By ILLA WHEELER WILCOX. Copyright, 1912, by American-Journal-Examlner. ("Since Sirluj crossed the Milky Way, sixty thousand years have gone." -Garrett P. Servlss.) OINCE Sirius crossed the Milky Way. K -' Full sixty thousand years have gone, Yet hour by hour, and day by day. This tireless star speeds on and on. Methinks he must be moved to mirth By that droll tale of Genesis. Which says creation had its birth For such a puny world as this. To hear how One who fashioned all Those solar systems, tiers on tiers. Expressed in little Adam’s fall The purpose of a million spheres. And, witness of the endless plan. To splendid wrath he must be brought By pigmy creeds presumptuous man Sends fotth as God’s primeval thought. Perchance from half a hundred stars He hears as many curious things: From Venus. Jupiter and Mars. And Saturn with the beauteous rings. There may be students of the Cause Who send their revelations out. And formulate their codes of laws. With heavens for faith and hells for doubt. On planets old ere form or place Was lent to.earth, may dwell—who knows"— A God like and perfected race That hails great Sirius as he goes. In zones that circle moon and sun. Twixt world and world, he may see souls Whose span of earthly life is done. Still journeying up to higher goals. And on dead planets gray and cold Grim spectral souls, that harbored hate Life after life, he may behold Descending to a darker fate. And on his grand, majestic course He may have caught one glorious sight Os that vast shining, central Source From which proceeds all life, all light. Since Sirius crossed the Milky Way Full sixty thousand years have gone. No mortal man may bid him stay. No mortal man may speed him on. No mortal mind may comprehend What is beyond, what was before. To God be glory without end. Let man be humble and adore. sult of that is that you will get on better in life, for the mind is the motive power. Don’t believe in influence, in pull, in better days to come unless you make them come. Be your own banker, and account for all that comes and goes. A man earning Ten Dollars a week, or Five Hun dred and Twenty Dollars a year, is an investment representing 5 per cent on Ten Thousand Four Hundred Dollars. That is, if ho should die his family would need this sum to keep on as they had been going. This show’s how necessary it is for a ten-dollar-a-week man to be a banker, and keep joint accounts with present and future. THE HOME r-APER Dorothy Dix Writes on Doing Things Well I HAVE received a letter from a young woman, who says: ‘‘l am a working girl. It is absolutely necessary for me to earn my own living. I have had several good places since I left school, but I have lost each one because my handwriting is so bad. What shall I do?” Learn how to write, little sister. Get you a copy book, and pen and ink, and sit down at a table and never get up until you have mas tered the art of chirography. Spend hours, and days, and weeks, if necessary, acquiring a plain and legible handwriting. Eat pot hooks; dream upward slants and downward slants, and curves, and curiecues. Give every particle of intelligence you’ve got, put every ounce of determination in you to learning to write, and, my word for it, you will soon have Jim the Penman looking like a carver of Egyptian hieroglyhics. You’re not going to sit down be fore an ink pot and pen, and give up, are you? You’re not going to admit that you have so little in telligence that you can’t learn how to write decently, are you? You haven’t so little ambition that you are going to be a quitter the first time you strike a real difficulty in life, are you? When we find out what is our handicap in the race for success there is just one thing to be done, and that is to over come that particular drawback. There's just one way to get on in the working world, little sister, and that is to do good work, and the sooner you master the fact the bet ter it will be for you. There are plenty of good places for the com petent, but there's no room for the clerk whose sales ’ slips look like chicken tracts, or the bookkeeper whose ledger won’t balance, or the stenographer who can’t spell. Therefore It’s up to you to decide whether you are going to be one of those Invaluable employes who climb up to situations of trust and honor and profit, or whether you become one of the shifting army of incompetents who are always look ing for a job. Why They Fail. People who fail in life always lay the blame on circumstances, or fate, or the state of politics, or heredity, or some other convenient scapegoat. This lets them down easy, and gives them a chance to sniffle, and cry’, and make a bid for sympathy when they strike us for a loan. But the truth is that we make our own luck, little sister, and we are the architects of our own misfortunes just as much as we are of our own fortunes. The drunkard and the beggar on the street are self-made men, just as much as are Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Carnegie. It doesn’t make a bit of differ ence what we choose as a life work If we do it well. Success or fail ure in any line depends upon the kind of handiwork that we turn out. and this is something that w’o men have yet to learn. I know’ dozens of girls who have chosen stenography for a profes sion, who blandly’ say, “I never could learn to spell,” and it never seems to occur to them that their w’hole future success depends upon their George W. Perkins and the Roose velt Progressive Party Continued from First Column. had when the convention opened—something quite new. as politi cians will admit. The country needs to get rid of political hacks and professional candidates. It wants to interest in politics and in government the ablest men that the country possesses. Wherever big work has been done in a country, it has been done by men of power-—and usually by men that have proved successful in something else besides politics. George Washington was a good soldier—and about the richest man in the country, when he did his great work for this republic. Nobody suggests that he ought to have kept out of politics becauss he happened to be rich. Jacques Coeur was the richest man in Europe when his power of organization and his great capital were put at the service of France in a crisis brought on by incompetency in government. Disraeli, who did so much for England—more than any other man, perhaps, except Pitt—was a man of great power, and would have been a man of vast wealth if he had thought it worth while to make money. He made millions for England in his purchase of the Suez canal bonds, and hundreds of millions in other ways. If other men, having proved their ability in the big industrial work of the country, will follow the example of Perkins and take a share in government and a place in politics, they will do much to in crease efficiency in government affairs. And they need not abandon their big undertakings—if those undertakings are legitimate. A man should be a builder as well as a talker and a lawmaker. The ablest men in government have been unusually able in practical affairs. The wonderful fight that Voltaire made against oppression and vile injustice did not prevent his building up a prosperous com munity and making himself a very rich man. Necker was a great business man, as well as a great statesman. Colonel Roosevelt should not seem to apologize for having Perkins with him. On the contrary, he should be proud of having started a progressive movement that can attract successful men. and not merely attract the hacks and the failures of other political parties. By DOROTHY DIX learning to spell, and that they can find the whole art of how to get there in the dictionary. I know cooks who have cooked for 40 years without ever learning how to make bread, or boil a potato properly, and will still wonder why they are al ways changing place®. I know dressmakers who admit that they are bad fitters, yet they go on ruining people’s cloth year after year, and complaining about the fickleness of customers who never come back. These women know where their fault lies, but they are too lazy and too Indolent to correct it. And they are always poor and ill paid for there’s just one kind of work that commands a high price in the market, and that is first-class w«rk If you can do that you can write your own price tag for it. Why can one dressmaker get $75 for making a gown while another can only get $5? Because one woman turned out sloppy work and the other turns out a perfect job. " hy can one cook command a salary of SIO,OOO a year while an other can only get $5 a week” Be cause one has raised the art of cookery to a science, and the other never takes the trouble to learn even the rudiments of it. Willing To Pay. Why can one stenographer com ntand a high salary while the town Is overrun with girls who are al ways advertising for a job? Be cause busy men are willing to pay for expert work that is always right, and nobody wants to pay for bungling, blundering work that is full of ill-spelt words and erasures, and that can never be depended upon for accuracy. It pays to learn how to do things well, little sister. It pays to be on the job, and if you know wherein you fail to make good you’ve got a signboard pointing you to the ways of success. Just correct your faults and make of your weakness your strength. Don’t say you can't write, or you can't spell, or you can't add up fig ures. or you can’t cook, or you can’t sew, because you can if you want to. Any girl with ordinary intelligence and a particle of back bone in her body can make herself an expert in any of these lines if she will give it half the time and trouble and serious thought that she does to the way she combs her hair. Os course, girls are like boys, they succeed best In the occupation for which they have a natural apti tude. In selecting one's lifework it is important to pick out some thing for which one has a turn and a liking, and w’hich one enjoys do ing, but having once made this se lection. stick to it and learn to do that thing supremely well. That's the open sesame to suc cess. little sister. It’s just doing things well, and whether it's learn ing how to write a legible hand, or singing grand opera, it’s up to the individual. If you have the deter mination and the energy, and the courage to work, and work, and w’ork until you conquer your dif ficulty, and learn how’ to do that particular thing just right, you will succeed. Otherwise you will be a failure. It’s all up to you.