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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 eecond-class matter at postofflce at Atlanta, under act of March 8. 1873. Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail, 85.00 a year. Payable In advance. How to Have Good Luck Always M « M You Will All Read This. Although You Know, or You Ought to Know. There Is No Such Thing as “Good Luck.’’ GIPSY LUCK. A bit o’ tdbrer to cross me palm Than put a white stone into yer • • • pack. So • • • now to East’ard turn ye An’ turn It three times over. An’, for day or night, for storm or calm. An' last, ye must wear som» ragged The Gipsy Duck I’ll learn ya. thing. An’ etill be barefoot goin', Tell need a staff from a yaw-tree Ar ye count, nine nights, in a fairy lopped, ring. Where one ye loved be lyin’: The first nine stars a-showln’. An’, to stick In yer cap, a featbe’ dropped Then, though all earth an' heaven From a Mnd above ye firin'. above Sends none to -help or h»ed ye, Hex’, sling yer old shoes over yer Just ask what ye list, or seek yer back love, An’ carry a four-leaf clover; An' the Gipsy Duck’ll lead ye. We are all interested when somebody talks of "hick.’’ Probably ten thousand individuals have told bow they "al most’’ sailed on the Titanic, and how hick saved them. ‘‘Luck’’ did nothing of the kind, of course. They simply did not SAIL. Almost every human being has superstit ion ' Gamblers are made, up of superstition, because gambling re quires no real effort of the intellect. Ignorance is made up of superstition, because superstition re places knowledge in the mind as weeds take the place of grain in an abandoned field Ninety nine out of one hundred nf those who see this newspaper will at least begin to read this editorial, because it. talks about "hick.’’ If we should proceed to toll what is lucky and what is not lucky, if we should describe the wonders of lucky stones, ill luck charms and so on, readers would go through to the end, not believ ing. perhaps, but still interested. If this article were to change and talk about “How to be healthy,” instead of “How to be lucky,” half, at least, would stop reading it. Yet it is easy for the average man or woman to be healthy if he or she will. There is such a thing as good HEALTH, and he or she can get it. There is no such thing as good ‘‘luck.’’ What a pity so much talk, emotion and time are wasted on luck that does not exist and so little devoted to health and knowledge, so easily obtained. In the old days when the plague—probably a form of Asiatic cholera—devastated England thousands had tattooed on their arms the mystic word "abracadabra.” Those that had it got the cholera and died the same as anybody else. If. instead of tattooing “abracadabra” on their arms, they had drunk water carefully boiled and eaten only food not. exposed to contamination, they would have been safe. You have to SWAL LOW the cholera in order to get the cholera. ‘‘LUCK’’ has nothing to do with it. Yet in the East today the natives fight the cholera with charms and incantations and religious appeals. They bathe in the Holy Ganges, where putrefying corpses spread the disease, and the bath ers swallow it. Or they go to Mecca to pray near the Holy Stone on which "Mohammed stood when he went up to heaven,” and come in con tact with the disease down there and catch it. When European scientists, among the miserable inhabitants along the banks of the Ganges or among the ignorant Mohamme dans, try to replace magic and heathen religious nonsense with actual knowledge, the natives tight the scientists, denounce them and accuse them of murder. Yon realize, however, when you read such verses as those which we reprint at the top of this column, what a hold superstition and the “lucky” idea have upon the mind. That is due to the fact that only yesterday—as time goes in this world, a few hundreds of centuries at the most —everything was attributed to hick or magic, to good or evil spirits. Our savage ancestors went about loaded down with charms • o different kinds to keep off evil. And they hired magicians to take evil away from them and unload it on their enemies. The thunder in the mountains, the lightning in the clouds strange noises in the cave were all attributed to evil spirits And there was always some cunning individual, even among the ignorant, ready to invent an explanation, ready to create a re ligion, ready to name the evil spirits and quiet them for a fixed price. If the postoffice authorities would allow it a man could readily build up a great fortune in the I nited States today by advertising the sale of “lucky stones” or other talismans. But if a man should announce the distribution of real knowledge, of facts in regard to health, education and work that will actually give the results that luek NEVER gives, he might starve to death. He would, at least, arouse little interest. That teaches us that we are still very near to our ancestors that saw the demon in the holes in the hills, that believed in fairies and goblins and gnomes, that imagined one god or many gods will ing to be bribed on a cash basis. We are far still from the real civilization and knowledge which are our destiny. The Atlanta Georgian A GIRL’S VIEW OF POLITICS Ife ' J T ■ 07'A- - f This cartoon was suggested hy Nell Brinkley and drawn by Tad. It shows that woman's touch can make even the prosaic beautiful. HOW TO BUILD A FORTUNE No. 7.—Taxes £-5 ' i.M ETHI N< I h.: already bcori said about the value of small .sums of money saved regu larly. To cite one instance again: live cents a day amounts in ten years, at four per cent compound interest, to a trifle over Two Hun dred and Twenty Dollars. Rut there is absolutely no way in the world of making a man prefei 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. Hut ft 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 In life But If a man of 50 has a job. and Is in fair health, and Is seared 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 di inc*. H Much old age poverty and want are due to waste In early years We complain of taxes. Rut the willingness with which we pay tuxes of our own assessment is amazing. We pay willingly for countless things we do not need. 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 a to believe the lying reasons we give for our own poverty. Rack 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 witli 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 b> 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 bis furniture and his wife's furs bad to state that fact on his li cense number plate, there would TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1912. 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 whether self-government has been set up and the man knows how he stands every night. HI. Don't pay useless taxes, but tax today for tomorrow. By following this rule you can not remain poor. It braces up the mind, and the re- Sirius By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, Copyright, 1912, by American-Journal-Examiner (“Since Sirius crossed the Milky Way, sixty thousand years have gone. -Garrett P. Servins.) Sirius crossed the Milky Way. *•—' Full sixty thousand years have gone, Yet hour by hour, and day by day. This tireless star speeds on and on. Methinks he must he 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 forth as God’s primeval thought. Perchance from half a hundred stars He hears as many curious things: From Venus. Jupiter and Mai’s, 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 mat see souls Whose span of earthly life is done. Still .iourneying 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 eaught 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 hid him stay. No mortal man may speed him on. No mortal mind may comprehend What is beyond, v what was before; To God he glory without end. Let man be humble and adore suit 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 he should die his family would need this sum to keep on as they had been going. This shows 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 PAPER Dorothy Dix Writes on Doing Things Well I IAVE rcccivcH a letter from a young woman, who says: "I 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 Mo?’’ Learn how to w rite, little sister. Get you a copy book, and pen and ink, and sit down at a tabic 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 w rite, and, my word for it, you will soon have Jim the Penman looking like a carver of Egy pt ian hieroglj hics. 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 t-he 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 wo men have yet to learn. I know dozens of girl? who have chosen stenography for a. profes sion. who blandly say, "1 never could learn to spell,” and it never seems to occur to them that their whole future success depends upon their Vastness of Stellar Depths By EDGAR LUCIEN LARKIN. GO dig a hole in the ground and set a post five or six feet high. Nail a stick across the top. Tie a fine string to a ring three inches in diameter and sus pend it from the end of the stick. Break up a diamond—if you make the error of wearing one and centering your mind on the useless bauble rather than upon na ture and her majestic laws; select a minute fragment so small that if spherical 71 side by side would make a row one inch long, and sus pend the tiny globe by means of a line fiber of silk in the center of the ring. Then walk away on a straight line 9.31 miles, turn around and look back. The ring would be in visible, and it would require the keenest eye to see the post, if in deed any could sec it. Get a good telescope and you By DOROTHY DIX learning to spell, and that they . ln find the whole art of how to get there in the dictionary. 1 | inw cooks who have cooked for 40 yr d - f without ever learning how to make bread, or boil a potato properly, ar ,- will still e wonder why they are < . ways changing placer. T know dressmakers who admit that they are bad fitters, yet Lo go on ruining people’s cloth y, after year, and complaining abmi the fickleness of customers w in, never come back. These women know where th 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 wok If you can do that you can write your own price tag for it. Why can one dressmaker get Jt;r, 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. Mhy can one cook command t 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 otlu never takes the trouble to learn even the rudiments of It. Willing To Pay. Why can one stenographer com mand. a high salary while the town is overrun with girls who arc ways advertising for a job? Be cause busy men are willing to i i> for expert work that is alwaj right, and nobody wants to pay f<> bungling, blundering work that * full of ill-spelt words and erasu < - and that can never be depone upon for accuracy. It pays to learn how to do thing* well, little sister. It pays to be on the job, and if you know wherein you fail to make good you’ve go signboard pointing you to the w. j of success. Just correct your fault - and make of your weakness \ strength. Don’t say you can’t write, or yri 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 y<■ > want to. Any girl with ordina ' intelligence and a particle of baG. bone in her body can make her e ' an expert in any of these lines ' she will give it half the time an-: trouble and serious thought that she does to the way she combs h. r hair. Os course, girls are like bo = they succeed best in the occupation for w hich they have a natural ap '- tude. In selecting one's lifewmk it is important to pick out som thing for which one has a turn aG a liking, and which one enjoys do ing, but having once made this s- - lection, stick to it and learn to <i" 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. " singing grand opera, it’s up to th individual. If you have the det. ’ mination and the energy, and I courage to work, and work. air work until you conquer your dif ficulty, and learn how to do th.i particular thing just right, yo-i will succeed. Otherwise you wil be a failure. It’s all up to you might just see the ring against sky on a white background: the diamond would be invisible. Come up here, get the 16-ii telescope, try it and the diarm sphere could not be seen. Go g< 40 or 60-inch telescope, still diamond would not come into ' 1 Then get a 3.000,000-candlepo' electric arc searchlight, and means of a big lens concentr the light on< the diamond; thet much smaller telescope would veal it. Go to ttoe giant star-sun. Sir the dog star; take a very large escope with you, turn around look back this way. Then the orbit of the cart 1 ' ring 186,000,000 miles in diam would appear to be as three in in diameter viewed from miles. And the sun as the l of an inch in diameter.