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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 poetoflice at Atlanta, under act of March 3, 1873. 6ubscrlr**'n Trice —Delivered by carrier, 10. cents a week. By mall. 15 00 a year. Payable In advance. A Chance For Every Boy and Girl MUM The Public Schools Are Opening. r ... ... This is the great week of the year all over the United States. It is the week of the opening of the public schools. Millions of children begin again the year of study, of mental work—a year of hope and opportunity. In the great city schools of iron and brick and glass the chil dren go in hundreds of thousands —a great procession blocking the streets at the morning and evening hours. In the country, on lonesome hillsides, the small schools are opening, patient women are ready for the work that means so little pay and so little gratitude, and a few children gather from far and near under the slanting shingle roof and the flag that, flies above it. No week means as much as this week of school opening to the people of the United States, and especially TO THE FUTURE OF THE UNITED STATES. At the opening of school fathers and mothers should talk to their children and impress upon them what the public schools mean. For ages human beings were ruled, they were miserable, op pressed and helpless, BECAUSE THEY WERE IGNORANT. Very slowly the people at the bottom moved toward the top. Slowly and painfully, in one country after another, they acquired the greatest of all rights, THE RIGHT TO KNOWLEDGE. In this country, more, than in any other, that right has been developed. Every boy and girl who will may learn. The wonderful art of printing and the knowledge of reading open all science, all history, everything that is worth while to the mind of every child. The boys as they go to school today look very much alike and act very much alike. The big boys tease the little boys, and the lit tle boys retaliate, when they dare. A spirit, looking down from above upon the children would see little difference. But the difference is there, and it is largely in the in which the opening of school is greeted. fry to make your children realize that school is 'l'll EIR OP PORTUNITY Make them feel that when the school doors open it means more to them than if the door of some great mine of Alad din’s wealth were opened before them. Wealth without knowledge is nothing. Knowledge alone makes possession worth while. Tell your boys and girls how the greatest success in the wbrld has been won by study, and usually by children who had little op portunity -except the chance to get knowledge. Make them understand how long it lias taken to establish public schools ami let everybody learn. Tell your lit th* boy that he has as good a chance today as any boy born in the country IF HE WILL TAKE IT Make your little girl feel that what the school teaches to her she will teach to her children in the future and do work as important as that of any man. Interest yourself in the school life of your children, in their studies, in their success, and especially in theih disappointments and school sorrows those sorrows are very real to little children. If you can do so. become acquainted with the teacher in whose hands your children are placed. Make the teacher feel that you ap preciate the work that the teacher does the greatest work in the world. Make your children realize what they owe to the teacher OBEDIENCE, RESPECT AND GRATITUDE. The public schools open, the door of knowledge is unlocked, the possibility of success is there it is the greatest week in the greatest country in the world. Chamber of Tariff Horrors Democratic orators are on the wrong track when they under take to argue before campaign audiences the abstract and theoretic issue between protection and free trade. That question has been . disputed to death for several generations in academic halls and around the sawdust box in country stores. The real question to be discussed just now is, How to get rid of the actual and palpable abominations of the Payne-Aldrich tariff. The right note is struck in the plan of the Democratic national campaign committee to set up in New York city and other localities fl visible demonstration of the outrages perpetrated upon the Ameri can people by the padded tariff schedules which enable American manufacturers to extort from home consumers prices vastly in ex cess of those got from foreigners for the same goods The idea of these “chambers of tariff horrors" is said to have been suggested by a clever Texas woman who took notice of the fact that she could buy a certain kind of American sewing machine in Mexico at a price forty per cent below what she had paid in Texas. There will be need of commodious halls to display samples of even half or quarter of the articles of ordinary use that are being sold by Americans to foreigners at a'fraction of the American price And. etuisidering the tortures that are being inflicted upon Ameri can < onsunieis by means of the Payne-Aldrich tariff, these exhibits may well take a name that recalls the barbarities of the rack, the S' <'W and the iron mask. The Atlanta Georgian ■ ■ i Wil!! t ~ ffllllllt'' :: When a Wife Forgives :: By WINIFRED BLACK. ((TXKAR FRIEND: Your article |i J in reference to a man's* wife deceiving him lias callefl to mind a different story. What if a man deceives his wife; does the same apply to him? "A bad woman, good looking, well educated, can break up a doz en homes. Say a man has a quarrel with his wife and floesn’t think he has been treated square, and he starts drinking, un i ts* a woman and does wrong oy the impulse of the moment, and after confesses his wrong's, should not his wife forgive him? Please answer. "W. S." No, my friend; I don't agree with you. Good looking women can not "break up a dozen homes," or one home, either; not if the homes are real homes, and not just places where poeple live and pretend to be happy. Good looks never held a man’s love in the world, and they never "broke up” a home worthy of the name, either. A bad heart breaks up homes, and a silly head, and both of them belong to the person who lives in the home. It Depends On Both. Should a woman forgive a man who has betrayed her trust in him? That depends on the woman and on the man and on the way that confidence was betrayed. The best husband 1 ever saw had a foolish affair with a woman once when his wife was away. lie and the wife quarreled, and the wife had gone visiting to "her folks." The man was desperately miser able and so lonely and wretched that he was half crazy. Along camey the poor goose of a woman who thought she saw her chance for a good home and a decent man at last She made love to the man, cun ningly, carefully veiled love. Rhe pretended to be sorry for him— oh. so sorry and she cried with him, and she sang to him in what she was pleased to call the "gloam ing." and she flattered him and she coaxed him. and she made a great, big. stupid, credulous fool of him until one day the man got a letter from his wife, and the letter said: ‘Tm sorry; are you?" And the man packed his trunk and was gone, without one syllable to the “Consoler.” % And when he got home again with the woman h< really loved, at home in tie dear little house they had built together, at home with t memories md the hopes the sweet confidences, the man never tven remembered the other woman at al! But the other woman remembered the man. and sin pursued him day and night, and when he would not come back to her. or pay any at tention to her. .-bi went to the man's wife and tol l her al! about the wretched affair. The wife smiled and salt. "Yes, didn't you Know he told me ail “And Departing Leave Behind Us” Drawn By TAD. HURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1912 T about it?” which was really not true at all, and when the other woman had gone the wife and was broken-hearted. How They Settled It. But she thought it all over, and when her husband came home she said. "John, I was a fool to leave vou. and you acted like a fool while I was gone. Let’s both be sensible . after this," and John's white face relaxed, and his strained eyes grew natural for the first time in months, and he put his head down on his wife's lap and cried like a great big, sorry baby. The Slayers I By CHESTER FIRKINS. I 1 THEN first he saw the light S ' V v but. n - There was no light to see; < ? In darkness to the world he came— < < Darkness and misery. / A hole within the city's wall, i His home that was to he. ? Within the glorious city's wall — < J The city that had cried i 5 To all the poor of all the world ( To come unto its side < > And win to riches and to joy— ? ‘ His parents came—and died'. ? S They did not dib until he knew It>f hunger and of cold. And shivered, begging, on the street, 5 And oh. so young grew old; s There was no sin within his heart, S > But hunger makes one bold. ? ( ' > ? He lived upon the city street, J Among the outcast men, ’ Till, learning nothing of the good. < ) All dark things met his Ken; < jHe learned to wait the prison gate , S Till it stood wide again I And In that city of renown There walked a wiser few, I Who revelled in their hoarded gold ! Or shone in <*oats of blue. And he was proud that they should < come And tell him what to do. ' They were his kings; in hunger they < ( Would give him drink and food: ( s And those in blue thow well' he < I knew! ) Might kill him if they would. j Bight glad was he that he should be < ! Their messenger of blood'. ( And now they cry: "He killed a < J man!" ' They bunt him far and near; ? But, wiser, we can plainly ? 'Twas those who held his fear. ? J Who paid and sent him on his way— > J Twas these w ho’built the bier. S S His w as the hand that did the deed, > J But theirs the cruel heart. < Theirs was the cruel heart—but we, s i Had we no slayer's part?— ! W< who gave power to the weak. i To shield a murder-mart! And he thinks that his wife is made of gold, with diamonds for eyes and rubies for lips, and he wouldn’t look at the prettiest wom an alive if she should come right down out of Venusburg and make love to him. He has had his lesson —and he’ll never need another. Did his wife do right? I think she did. She saved a good man and she mended a broken life, and she had the good sense to see that the other woman wasn’t anything real'at all; she was just an opiate, like a dose of morphine. ; Yes, she’s happy—not as happy ! as she would be if het-husband had ! not had the affair at all, but a whole ! lot happier than she would be to ! day if she had taken her “rights” ’ before the law and divorced the [ husband and wrecked two lives. Forgive? Why not? Forget ? That is not quite so easy, but it can be done when it's i worth while. Are you worth while, my good > correspondent, for, of course, you [ yourself are the man in the case? Do you really love this wife you ’ deceived? Are you sorry and ‘ ashamed and really contrite? Or i would you go and do the very same > thing all over again on the very > first excuse? * There's a difference in men. you J know- —a very great difference, j Some are’ worth forgiving, and some > aren't even worth the trouble of > forgetting. Which kind are you? And the drinking now; do you think that is an excuse, really? How much of an excuse is it? Be ’ fair, now. How much of an excuse [ would you make it for your wife. 1 this very wife you have humiliated, i and deceived? and shamed, in the > eyes of this shameless woman who ; "lured" you from the straight and narrow path? Have you stopped drinking for i good? What have you done to show j your wife that you really are ! ashamed of yourself? Why should j she believe you? Have you always ( been straight with her before this? Wbat She Will Do. Forgive you? Yes. if you're worth | forgiving—of course, she will. Poor [ woman! She'll pick up the broken ; love and the shattered faith, and ' the cracked confidence she once had i in you, and she'll match them all together again, as women have been doing since time began. And she'll shut her eyes and say. “It's [ all there, whole, perfect, unharm ; ed. as good as new." And she'll brush the bitter tears > from her aching eyes, and she'll > smile. Oh. how she will smile, and ! smile, and she will go down into [ the Valley of the Shadow of Death ' for you, and come out smiling ; again w ith your child in her weak ; arms, and she'll try to make her- self believe that you never gave i her on* moment's sorrow! And i some day. when you are both quite ! old. maybe she’ll succeed—if you ; are worth while. Are you? THE HOME PAPER Dr. Parkhurst’s Article on The Mob—A Crowd That Has Been Hypno tized Into Losing Its Reason and Conscience. Written For The Georgian By the Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst WHEN a lot of pekple be come massed together un der the influence of some mind that hypnotizes them or some idea that influences them, the con dition of each separate member of the crowd becomes revolutionized. Each ceases to be a distinct in dividual and becomes simply a piece of the mass, like a bee lost in the swarm, like a sheep merged in the flock, with no separate idea** of his own, no moral perception that is his own special property, and swept forward by an impulse that works in him with the thoughtless push of blind instinct. This is what we mean by a MOB, which is the name we give to a crowd that has been hypnotized to the loss of its reason and the sus pension of its conscience. This tendency to relapse into the gre garious condition of the mere ani mal and to go buzzing with the bees or bleating with the herd, is limited to no age of the world and to no nationality. Easy to Hypnotize Supposedly Cool Men. Even Americans, cool-blooded and equably tempered as we imag ine ourselves to be. are able to fail into a hypnotized state on slight provocation, and while it does not take us as long to recover our selves to a normal condition as it might a* crowd of inflammable Celts, either of the French or Irish type, yet we too know how to dis encumber ourselves of some of the more human features of our nature and to become momentarily obliv ious of our brains and forgetful of our consciences. A striking instance of this oc curred on the occasion of Admiral Dewey's return to this country aft er what some of us, perhaps, con sider his unfortunate success in the Philippines. Our entire population continued for a number of days in a condition of absolute lunacy. Without at all disparaging the wonderfulness of the victory which he gained, it is nevertheless the fact that it so upset the mental equilibrium of us all, and so para lyzed that department of our being where our reasoning processes are conducted, that the reason why no one pronounced us insane was be cause there was no one left that was sane enougli himself to be qualified to adjudge us to the asy lum. In New York we filled up our streets with inexpensive but daz zling architectural fireworks, and it was only the general prevalence of theistic convictions that pre vented the erection of altars and the prostration of ourselves in wor ship; and after a few days when, as we remember, there came a re- :• School’s Begun L By PERCY SHAW. 'T'HERE is quiet on the street; A Almost every one yon meet Looks at every other one. And there’s something queer in that. Here's the secret—-School's begun. Where’s the racing pit-a-pat? Where the rush of children's feet? Pray behold the dozing eat In the chair where Harry sat. Look at mother's face: she feels No one tagging at her heels; Now the breakfast things are done, She can sit and think awhile; She has even time to smile. Joe’s not pulling Mary’s hair; There's a stillness in the air; Sort of pleasant not to call: “Give your sister back her ball.’’ With a half an hour to spare Seems like heaven everywhere. Here s the reason—School ’s begun. Wonder why it is? Yon know, After the first day or so. That the hours pass kind of slow? W hat s the reason that you look At the clock ami leave your book? What's the reason that you kiss Forty times the babbling miss? What s the reason that you fold Naughty boy and fail to scold? When everything is said and done - lere s the reason—School ,s begun. vulsion of sentiment, we tore down the plaster shrines in as much of a spasmodic hurry as we put them up. We arc not often silly as a peo ple, but we are liable to be. We lose our heads, become bo vine just frequently enough to con vince us of our possibilities, and to persuade us that to whatever height we have built ourselves up in point of intelligence we can, un der the mob impulse of some fiery incentive, throw off several of the upper stories of our being and bring it down to almost an asinine level. A funny little exhibit of the same thing, where enthusiasm, excited to a high pitch and participated in by a rather motley crowd, works a large volume of stultification and reveals man with most of his up per lights extinguished, is afforded by tile prolonged howling of a nom inating political convention that will stand upon its feet by the hour and belch forth its Republican or Democratic delirium with a per tinacity of vocal eruption to which very few of the inferior order of animals would show themselves equal. The phenomenon is an interest ing one—we might almost say an impressive one. One is curious to know what an intelligent visitant from some other sphere, where such nominating con ventions are not in vogue, would imagine to be the real genius of the occasion; what singular impulse it could be that would engender such an inundation of inarticulate disso nance, and why so many creatures of such seeming ferocity can be al lowed to be collected within a sin-- gie inclosure. It Is Proof of Our Feeble Progress. It shows how comparatively fee ble is the progress we have as yet made in our intellectual develop ment. that we can consent, at so slight an Incentive, to resign our prerogative of self-control, throw ourselves upon all-fours and run with the herd. People are not to be criticised for thinking alike, pro vided only such unanimity is not due to their not having thought it all, but to their having let some one think for them, or to their hav ing so allowed themselves to be flattened out under some hypnotic touch or bewildered by some in calculable infatuation as to throw their individual powers of thought and decision out of commission. In the presence of such condi tions argument is as much a waste of time as though thrown in the faces of the bewitched and bedev iled swine that Scripture relates to have rushed down a steep pla< < into the sea.