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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, 1879. Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail, 35.00 a year. Payable in advance. Men Like Suffragettes M •? M Because They Admire Women That Can Think. The Clinging Vine Is Ornamental, but Does Not Last. Women must not he discouraged by the fact that the woman suffrage cause was defeated in Ohio. Some years must pass and the most intelligent and most earnest women will continue to fight an uphill tight before the mental slavery of woman shall disappear. BIG THINGS ARE ACCOMPLISHED SLOWLY, and the fight for woman’s rights is a very big thing. While waiting for victory, it may be some comfort for the earnest, thinking women, loyal to their cause, to realize that men worth while respect and admire the suffragettes. Needless to say, certain men do not care very much about the women able to think—and such men are not interested in suffrage. The savage wants a woman to obey orders, cook, dig and brash the flies from him while he sleeps. Certain kinds of “civilized” savages want a woman to lead the idle life of a lap-dog, wearing pretty colors and saying to her owner, “How can you be so great and wonderful ?” Igjiorant men, with the bigotry and brutality of ages ground into their dull brains, object to thinking and voting for their wwiasn on the ground that voting and thinking are irreligious or immoral. Feeble men like feeble women, and feeble women are not suf fragettes. The man worth while reaJizes that the best thing about any hu man being, man or woman, is the brain. And men ■worth while admire women that stand up for their rights, women with intelligence enough to demand the vote and use it when they get it, because such women have brains, character and the power to attract and keep the interest of thinking men. Superstition, tradition, bigotry, ignorance keep a certain class of women and of men hostile to woman suffrage. But time will end that, as time has ended the rack, the thumb screw and other brutali ties. Silly, foolish, characterless craving for second-rate admiration makes certain women oppose the suffragette movement. These women are usually between forty-nine and sixty-six years of age. And they are usually trying to look as though they were between twenty-nine and thirty six. They are lackadaisical, sim pering, thoughtless, would be “clinging vines.” They lack all power to control men through intellect and, therefore, try to control them through flatter}'. The anti-suffragette woman usually has a sad, woe hegone look, and folds her hands in ecstasy looking at some tenth-rate man as she moans, “I’m sure I don’t want the vote while 1 have a noble, god-like creature such as you to think for me and defend me.” And the foolish man says to himself. “That is a very fine woman”' —which she is not. The woman who wants to vote is the woman who thinks and who wants to use her brains. The woman who does not want to vote is the woman—with a few honorable, old-fashioned exceptions—unable to think, and, therefore, appalled at the idea of fresh demands upon the intelli gence which she has not got. The man who opposes woman suffrage is some kind of a sav age—usually rather a.weak man—MEN AKE ALWAYS WEAK ■WHEN THEY AKE AFRAID TO DIVIDE POWER. The man worth while and the woman worth while want to live together, think together, plan together AS EQUALS. The ballot will develop the minds of women and the character of men—and it will gradually eliminate the “clinging vine, dear me. I don’t want to vote, water-eyed’’ type of women and the egotisti cal man. Women will have the ballot everywhere. For the best women in the country are determined to have it. Defeats will not. discourage them—THEY WILL AVIN. Making Sense of the Panama Contract It is an established rule for the interpretation of contracts that they should be so construed as to make not nonsense, but sense. Thus it should be a sufficient confutation of the British view of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty’that it is a view that is inconsistent with American sanity. The British foreign office holds that we are precluded by this contract from treating our own Panama commerce as well as for eign countri - may treat their Panama commerce It holds that the English. French or German government is free, under the contract, to remit to its own ships any tolls that they may pay at Panama while we. who built and own the canal, are not free to do so! Th-- British foreign office, with all its foolishness, has at least the sense to perceive a plain fact that most American tories have overlooked, to wit the fact that taking tolls from our ships and afterwards r milting,them is precisely tin same thinu as not taking flieju at a 11. Perceivim; this point, lb- British have been driven, by the logic of their alisurdity. to claim that we have no right to offer subsidies or conc' . -itms to our Panama eomimrct in the shape of remitted toils i.| ,pi| r the lacl that all other nations xttll hate an tin doubted right to do that ven thing I here i'l be a day of awakening in which >•> ’ln»h will -..«■ that to, the, i, . s |,., !,| not h- referred t v The Hague. I but iu a comuiifebiu di iuuutieu uujuirtudo. I The Atlanta Georgian i BILL! He goes nut to get the Blues, and he gets them. But it might havp been worse. Copyright. 1912, International News Service. < ! Bill IHt f 'll ft o ' ®liT ni>.on x comeon bill* AH Fokthe loveof'. ARE running. Fine AnY Aaore Boat races timEToC<ooutani>l% mike cant You let I want You to Come I I must nt get this suit a Man 'sleep 1 A—— i OOWN ANDqo FISHING BWFS-QET UP! __ IHI / I ilJh />jr i US qo IN 1 DohtA if UE J! of) ; [out MYMNM4C. I tfctr J.tTLLc I LI KE WS 5 Mother slu- THE BLUES ARE BListtMO } KrePOHMWiwqj ( CARY CHICKENS ) JUST BEQINNINC To Nr —--sz Z < SHE y I <'V |z z ’ < * ~ '' '"’SU ) ( MIIMWY) ( YES |ME QoT'THL BLUESA ? ' \ Do You GET ME? / ’ ( /< BL.UE.SjI /' ; ■ .... A 1 N, ~ -- $ S' —I >, y T'.N / .'ll ■/ I ’> WSl&tr JI 1 _ V I < The Matter of Age A MAN who is forty years old, yA and who is going to be mar ried, asks this question: "What should be the difference between the ages of a husband and wife, taking into consideration their happiness and the good of the children that may be born to them?” To answer the latter part of this question first, it may- be said that, as a general thing, the healthiest and strongest children are usually the offspring of women who are in their twenties and early- thirties. That is the ideal time for mother hood. because then a woman is at iter prime physically, and she is old enough to have intelligence enough to take care of iter children properly, and jet young enough to be in sympathy with them. Tlte children of an over-young and undeveloped mother are nut to be weaklings, and they are almost sure to suffer in the rearing from her lack of knowledge and expe rience of life There are few sights more pitiful than that of a sickly little child-mother wrestling in competently with a sickly little ba by. and the man who possesses such a combination has smalt chance of anything but misery. On the otlie 1 hand, the too-old mother is apt to have children who are "queer." ami to be overly indulgent and fussy ribout them, or else to raise them inhumanly according to •.ome -y stem she has dug out of a book. No Regular Law. <>f course, there are many excep tions to this title, but, speaking by and-larg--. it will tie found that the most normal children ire the chil dren o', youthful, but not too ymting, mothers Nor can any hard and fast law b< laid down as regards the dif ference between the ages of hus band and wife It depends upon the temperament and personality of the ■■to o Nothing is t ally t re so .■ h th in t-' measure <ge to year.-, because there are • people who ait sstule tn the cradle, TUESDAY. SEPTEMBER 10. 1912. By DOROTHY DLX. and others who are children at four score years. The consensus of matrimonial ex perience of the ages is that it is best the husband should be older than the wife, but this only mat ters when there is any great dis parity of years. Formerly it was held that a woman at the same age as a man was really much older than he, but this is no longer true. In these strenuous times when men work so hard, and live so high, and when women take such good care of themselves, and devote so much thought and consideration not only to preserving their youth but to keeping themselves mentally alert and fresh, it is a question if they are not really younger at the same age than men are. There Can Be No Objection. Certainly there can be no ob jection to a man marrying a woman of, his own age, so far as her look ing as young as he does, and being able to keep step with him in his pursuits and pleasures. Nor does a year or two more of age on the woman s part make rtn insurmount able barrier between them. It is. however, a suicidal thing for both of .them when the woman is fifteen or twenty years older than her husband. Such marilages are invariably unhappy, whereas marriages in which the husband is that much older than the wife are generally most successful. There are many reasons why, l "what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander" in the mar riage- proposition. One is that the man who marries a woman almost old enough to be his mother is in variably ashamed of her. no matter bow brilliant, and charming, and handsome she may be. He knows that people laugh at him behind his back. And the elderly wife is even more . secretly ashamed of her boy hus band. and more sensitive to the rid icule she knows her choice excites. More than this, it is not in human nature so- a grizzled, fat old wom an not to be frantically iealous of a young husband H« may be as faithful a the house <a-. but -he never see, him with a beautiful. lissome, fresh girl without having her heart torn with the bitter knowledge that youth calls to youth, and without suspecting that "he regrets his bargain. On the other hand, the old hus band’s vanity stands him in good stead when he marries a young, wife. He thinks any- girl ought to be glad to have gotten him, no mat ter what age he Is. Even seventy year-old millionaires never suspect that girls of twenty do not marry them for themselves alone. Naturally, fifty- or sixty years, or even thirty, between a man and woman is a chasm that only- gold ever bridges over, but twenty years is not an insurmountable obstacle at all. Indeed, those twenty years in a man are sometimes just the gilding that gilds gold, and that gives him a little touch of paternal tenderness toward his young wife that makes him the best, the ten . derest’and the most considerate husband in the world. Perhaps as good a rule as could be formulated in the matter of ages would be to say that the man should be from eight to ten years older than his wife. This would fulfill the convention that the hus band should be the elder and have w the wider experience or life, but it would still keep them in the same class, and give them a chance to develop along together, to settle into the same ruts of age, with the point of view of the same gen eration. A Matter of Temperament. The young woman whose feet still ache tot the dance, who wants to laugh, and make merry, and to go about, can have no happiness if she is married to an old man who only wants to sit in the chimney corner and nurse his rheumatism. Neither can the young man who loves pleasure and society, and w bo is keen about outdoor sport, find a weary old woman a congenial com panion Rut these thing.- are a matter of temperament and not age. and the y ears are not to be considered when one find, ones affinity-^-the one of whose society one never tires, and "ho has the same tater and ways of looking at things as ones own. THE HOME PAPER MRS. W. L. PP3EL Writes on The Rule of the Expert KaJ Let Atlanta Take in the W hole of Fulton County, She Says; Plan For a r ; ; Greater and Better City. 7 By MRS. W. L. PEEL AN article entitled "City Sense" by Frederic C. Hoxve in a late The Outlook might be read with great interest by At lanta just at present. Mr. Hoxve begins by saying: "It was a rude shock for four score business men from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago. Denver, Seattle, and a score of oth er cities, to be entertained last summer by councilmen xvho were business men like themselves in the city halls of Manchester and Liv erpool. It was an even greater shock to be received with the dig nity and ceremony of ambassadors by the most eminent bankers, man ufacturers and professional men serving as city officials in Paris, Brussels, Dusseldorf, Frankfort, Berlin. Munich, Vienna. Budapest, Prague and a half dozen other cities on the continent of Europe. It was a transition from the unabashed democracy made up from all na tions painfully finding its way to seif-government in the -deities of America; to the most efficient, most finished, and most highly or ganized municipal life in the mod ern world.” He goes on then to speak of the rule of the expert. While English cities are governed on much the same ]Han. the German municipal ity is considered ideal. When they want a mayor they advertise for one, and experts from all over Germany compete for it. It goes without saying that the qualifica tions for/oftice read something like this: Qualifications for Office. First. High character, position and integrity which is naturally expected of the head of any kind of enterprise. Second. Judgment and ability as manifested by his personal success in life. Third. Expert knowledge of mu nicipal affairs. The burgomaster is elected for twelve years, lias a large salary, and at the end of that time he, if satisfactory, is re-elected for 25 years, and finally pensioned. • Back of the burgomaster is the city council, elected by districts, as is our own. It is made up of eminent business men. of lawyers, doctors, and, in the university towns, of professors as well. Mem bers of the couheil are paid no sal ary, but they devote a large part of their time to city business. It is a distinguished honor to serve on the council, and men aspire to it as an honorable career. Service, too. is obligatory, for a man who is elected can be punished if he refuses to serve. But the directing spirit of the city is the burgomaster, although the council members, who enjoy considerable permanency through a six years term, have the same kind of pride and enthusiasm in their work that the burgomaster himself possesses. The burgomas ter lias a number of expert as sistant.-, elected by the council, who form the magistral. They, too, are permanent trained men. About one-half of them are sal aried; the other half are not. The council is a taxpayers’ and not a people's council. That would seem to leave the control of af fairs in tiie hands of the rich. But behold what is tile result? Filth, disease and poverty have been wiped off tile map. No crowded tenements. They expand. In the environs of the cities are plant ed colonies of xxorking people, with up-to-date sanitary city houses, vx'ith flowers and parked streets and nothing unsightly or unwhole some. The fit st care of these city . fathers is the welfare and pros perity of the laboring class. Baek of the German city, therefore, are the business men. the bankers, the merchant (lasses. The German city lias no charter and is free and independent. In the matte of corporate towns it is the exact reverse of the American city. 1 But we have s habit here in Arnerica of getting what we want by indirection. Rarely do we frankly face a problem and ior reet it by reforming the evil it self Our reforms have away of < oming in through the back door. Milwaukee has dL-covered a means of securing the city expert without regard to residence, polit- icai affiliations, or relation tn the city. Milwaukee has organized a Bureau of Economy and Efficiency. It sent to the state university for Professor John R. Common), who organized a municipal clearing house of experts. When the city wants advice en a« paving, health, engineering or harbor problem, tne bureau makes a study of the sub ject with the co-operation of the best experts that can be found in the country, and reports its find ings to the city. Such studies hate been made on garbage disposal, the incineration plant, on a harbor, on health and hygiene, on pure mill;, as well as on a variety of other subjects. Standards of coat have been established and departmental efficiency secured by letting In rhe light. Expert Ability Available. We have the same expert ability that Germany and England com mand. But it is excluded from city politics. And as iong as questions of policy or partisanship are de termined at the polls we can not hope to displace the political mayor by the trained official. Tltc .Xlil xvaukee plan for a permanent bu reau of experts offers a means of securing that which our cities have heretofore lacked. But the reform that has done most to simplify our municipal ma chinery is the commission plan of city government. It is a short cut to efficient, to responsible admin istration. It sweeps away the com plexity of Hie long ballot and the confused chatter, and enables the public to locate responsibility It reduces the number of elective of ficials to three or five. Through the initiative, rcfeiendum and recall, it. destroys the power of the boss and tlte privileged interests behind the boss. The commission plan may not be the final form that city gov ernment will assume, but it will enable our cities to establish them selves in the confidence of the peo ple, and that is what we most reed just now. Il was impossible to de velop a city sense so long as the city was distrusted, so long as the public felt it should be shorn of power and limited in its activi ties. A healthy municipal life could not exist under this distrust. This gives but an idea of Mr. Howe’s delightful article. ! Rule Applied to Atlanta. Now. if we had any experts in Atlanta, selected by taxpayers to say what should go with their money, does anybody think they would have discarded our garbage plant for which we had ju t paid $39,000 for one that cost over $300,- 000? No. An export told me he would have recommended that our plant run day ami night (it lias only lun by day) and that well-to do people be required to consume their ov. n garbage. The up-to-date plan is very uimple—a little gas arrangement in the kitchen which eats up anything from a dead dog to its own ashes. When we get our $300,000 crematory. It will take SIOO,OOO for an outfit to haul the garbage, which must now be bi ought from Brookwood and Westview and Kirkwood anti ’he end of Marietta street—nty! Talk about congestion. Wiien this cara van takes the streets people will all have to sell their automobiles! Let’s turn oxer a new leaf right now. Let’s get a clean, live, suc cessful. up-to-date business man for our burgomaster. And then left* away with our little old antiquated charter, and our little old anti quated methods. Let tiie city take in tiie xvholc of Fulton county and compel every landlord to furnish decent housing for his tenan’.s, black or white. No wonder we rank third in the typhoid cities of America when we think of the thousands of human beings in this cite* herded like cattle. When we know that the servant in • the house eomeS to us from these loath some .dens shall we not in the name of .humanity demand a ~ change? Tiie lilt of Trenton. N. J. has tried >h» commission form of government lor one year. Although heaxily handicapped by a debt nearly as large as Atlanta's will be next >ear. left by the outgom? administration the' announce 'hat tlic-w have already’ saved up ward of $ ino non of the taxpayer*’ money.