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THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
By THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta, Ga. *
Entered as seeond-class matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March 3. ISIS..
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One-Thousandth of an Inch
Between Success and
Failure
r r r
How the Turning of a Screw Made Hundreds of Millions of
Profits and Freed Man s Speech From the Limitations of
Space.
We hear often that Bell, the great and useful scientist, “in
vented” the telephone.
Everybody knows what the telephone has done, is doing and
will do.
The magic carpet was supposed to carry a man instantly
from one place to another, no matter how far.
The magic telephone actually does carry the voice instantly
a thousand miles or more. And, inasmuch as the voice carries
the thought and as ihe thought is THE MAN. the telephone ac
tually carries a man a thousand miles in an instant.
The man of today, sitting at his desk in Atlanta, can work
and HE (’AN BE WITH HIS BRAIN IN NEW YORK IN BOS
TON, IN CHICAGO. IN BALTIMORE, IN PHILADELPHIA. A
HUNDRED CITIES. IN THE COURSE OF A SINGLE MORN
ING.
The telephone frees men's minds, allows the thinking spirit
to leave the bod} and travel thousands of miles in endless direc
tions.
Nothing has done so much to free men from limitation of
time and space as the telephone.
AND THE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS THAT THE TEL
EPHONE HAS EARNED AND THE FOURTEEN THOUSAND
MILLION TELEPHONE MESSAGESSENT IN THIS COUNTRY
LAST YEAR ARE ALL DUE TO THE FACT THAT BELL,
THE INVENTOR, TURNED A LITTLE SCREW ONE-THOU
SANDTH PARTOFAN INCH IN A CERTAIN DIRECTION.
It was the turning of the screw that made Bell the great
and deservedly popular man that he is.
But long before the days of Bell, Reis, the German school
master, was actually using a telephone of his own invention.
That old telephone, although it would seem queer to you,
and looks like no telephone at all. actually was to all intents and
purposes the telephone of this day, with its transmitter and re
ceiver.
Reis could whistle, sing and transmit other interesting
noises through his telephone. But it was impossible to SPEAK
through it. The voice could not be sent from the transmitter
to the receiver at the other end.
Reis’s idea was that the telephone must be arranged in such a
way that the electrodes did not quite touch. He wanted them as
near as possible, but he did not quite let them touch each other, lie
was sure that that was right, and therefore the little screw connect
ing the two electrodes kept them about one-thousandth of an inch
apart
Bell's idea, which gave him millions, which has enriched the
human race by thousands of millions in saving time and labor, was
that the electrodes MUST touch, but vcyy faintly.
HE TURNED THAT SCREW ONE-THOUSANDTH OF AN
LNUH AND THERE WAS AT ONCE THE TELEPHONE OF
TODA Y.
That turning of a screw one t housandth of an inch, that faint
distinction between success and failure, between inarticulate whis
tling and shouting and useful, distinct, clearly heard speech, that
turning of one thousandt.i part of an inch this way or that, is some
thing that happens in the lives <>f nearly all of us.
There are thousands of human beings in this world, millions of
them, with important messages for other human beings, with emo
tions, moral sense and character that need expression. But solhe
thing is the matter with the screw that puts the mind in touch with
the cmtside world And the message is never carried distinctly, it
never REACHES.
The German schoolmaster who worked and struggled in vain to
make his telephone anything more than a toy little t'hought that a
baby three years of age might accidentally have touched that screw
and made of his toy the most useful scientific instrument in the
whole of the world's history.
In all of us there is something that might at any time he done,
some effort of the will, some application of concentrated thought,
some new idea, some effort, some reaching out, horn of hope that
will not be destroyed ; some little turning of some screw in the brain
one-thousandth part or one-millionth part of an inch, that might
make of the man unheard, misunderstood, lacking the comprehen
sion of his fellows, a creature as far above the man that he was as
the telephone of Bell is above the useless telephone of the poor, dis
appointed German schoolmaster.
Doomed to Baldness
If you could open your eyes suddenly five hundred years
hence you would sec many strange things, but perhaps the one that
would cause you the most regret would be the universality of bald
heads. For. according to Dr. Wells, brain specialist, both men
and women will be without a hair on their heads in that highly
developed era. and more than that, baldness will be fashionable.
This will be due to the brain activity of the American peo
ple. who. with the French, already take the lead in the number
of hairless heads. As the brain power develops the supply of hair
lessens. Within three centuries the male sex will have smooth
pates, aiid two centuries thereafter a single hair on a woman's
head will be a sign of lack of mentalitv
The Atlanta Georgian
BRIBERY
By HAL COFFMAN.
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Making Food in the Laboratory
Js the Time Near at Hand When Chemistry Will Supply All the Essentials of Life?
z | HE basis of physical life is a
substance called protoplasm.
The word protoplasm means
"the first formed,” and the idea un
derlying it is that this substance
represents the first step from unliv
ing matter to living bodies, such
as plants and animals. Everything
that contains protoplasm is alive,
an-1 without protoplasm there Is no
life.
That eloquent paladin of faience
Thomas H. Huxley used to charm
big audiences with his lecture on
protoplasm. He told his hearers
how the activities of a living ani
mal gradually’ use up its supply of
protoplasm, and hwtv it is compell
ed to renew it by eating other crea
tures, either animals or plants,
which possess this precious sub
stance, for an animal can not
MAKE protoplasm; it must find it
somewhere and take it READY
MADE. The only living things that
can make their own protoplasm out
of the raw materials of nature are
plants. We know what chemical
elements protoplasm contains, but
nevertheless we have not discover
ed the secret of putting them to
gether In such away as actually to
form protoplasm. Plants possess
that secret.
We get protoplasm either by tak
ing It at second hand from animals
which, in their turn, have taken it
primarily from plants, or we get it
more direejy by- ourselves eating
the plants. We start in life with
a certain amount of protoplasm,
which has been supplied to us at
birth by our parents, but as we use
it up we are compelled to replace
the waste by eating something
which contains it.
Professor Huxley used to illus
trate this process very amusingly.
He said;
“My protoplasm will be distinct
ly less in amount at the. end of this
lecture than it was at the begin
ning. By and by 1 shall probably
have recourse to the substance
commonly called mutton for the
purpose of renewing the supply.
Now , this mutton'was once the liv
ing protoplasm, more or less modi
fied "f another animal —a sheep. A
singular inward laboratory which I
isissess yvill dissolve a certain por
tion of the modified protoplasm;
the solution formed will pass into
my veins, and the subtle influences
to which it will then be subjected
will convert the dead protoplasm
into living protoplasm, and thus
trans-substantiate sheep into man.
Nor is this all If digestion were a
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1912.
By GARRETT P. SERVISS
thing to be trifled with, I might sup
upon lobster, and then, were I to
return to my own place by sea
and undergo shipwreck, the crusta
cean might, and probably would,
return the compliment, and demon
strate our common nature by turn
ing my protoplasm into living lob
ster.”
Now’, if we could make our own
original protoplasm, as plants do,
we might live, like the grass and
the trees, wherever soil and air
and sunlight exist. It is true that
they are enabled to do this because
they’ are fixed In place, but we may
imagine the process carried on by
creatures capable of moving about
On a Diet
By N. P. BABCOCK.
TIMES were when we weres,
. stricken ]
With an ailment or a pain. \
) They gave us drugs that sicken,
By the teaspoon or the grain. \
> They’ all were somewhat nasty
; When prescribed for any case. ■
j And the taste was very lasty,
! And it made you make a face.
But 'twas nothing to the portion
< Os the woes you now must bear,
1 Since the docs have added caution
I To your other stomach care.
< You seek some pang to quiet
| That you've never felt since birth.
I Whereupon they order “diet!”
s Which is simply hell on earth.
; All meats they call the red ones.
j And all pastry, cakes and sweets,
!' Are appetizing "dead ones,”
In the schedule of your "eats." '
The frying pan’s aroma
May no more your sense delight j
A gustatory coma
s Is the only state that's right.
I Did any vegetable
Hold a special joy for you.
You must declare you're able
Just that one now to eschew.
All sauces that are pleasant
Are a sort of devil’s broth;
i You stare like starving peasant
i At a foodless table cloth,
i And misery completing
j Is the rule that's understood:
; “Be regular in eating.
; But eat nothing that tastes good.";
at will. In that case an army on
the march would never have to
trouble itself about Its wagon
trains. When we went for a day in
the country we should not need to
load ourselves with lunch baskets.
We could dispense with our broad
fields of wheat and corn, our gar
dens full of vegetables, our or
chards of fruit trees. We could
abolish forever the nuisance of the
stock yards, checkmate, once for
all, the cornerers of foodstuffs and
put an immediate end to the high
price of living.
But science has tried in vain to
manufacture protoplasm. Never
theless, something has recently
been done in Germany which seems
to offer the promise that, if we
can not actually make protoplasm,
we may be able to turn the corner
by making food which will do its
work. Dr. Abderhalden has suc
ceeded in manufacturing in his lab
oratory a chemical food on which
young dogs have been brought up
strong, healthy and lively—appar
ently just as good dogs as If they
had been nourished upon their nat
ural food.
Dr. Abderhalden has arrived at
this result by first studying the
transformations that take place in
the course of digestion. Finding
that, during this process, certain
peculiar acids are formed, which
act a controlling part in the subse
quent transformations, he set to
work to make these acids artifi
cially, and he says that he has suc
ceeded, and proves his assertion
by the evidence of his dogs. I
have not that he has, as yet,
tried his chemical food upon man,
but that would naturally be the
next step. It would not be worth
w hile to strain all the resources of
chemistry simply for the benefit of
dogs.
In fact, animals would, if they
could comprehend the subject, very
gladly lend themselves to such ex
periments. the ultimate result of
which is to free them from the fate
of being killed and eaten by their
masters. Who knows but that
when chemical foods have been
perfected they may be 4e'iclous
and so easily digested that any
guormand would turn up his nose
at the most succulent turkey or the
most skillfully cooked lobster?
Seriously, this is a very impor
tant matter. Man, who has so
amazingly emancipated himself
from nature's limitations in the
field of mechanical energy, owes
it to himself to attain a similar
emancipation in regard to the
maintenance of his vital energies.
And, sooner or later. HE WILL DO
IT.
THE HOME
Dorothy Dix
Writes on
1
Women on
Juries
'I
Justice, She Says, |
Would Be Surer t
With Feminine
Counsel and '
Help.
By DOROTHY DIX
AFTER a recent very flagrant
miscarriage of justice in a
murder trial in which a
woman was the defendant, the trial
judge expressed the opinion that It
would be necessary to have women
juries to try women criminals, be
cause if’ a was young and
good looking it was practically im
possible to get men to convict her,
no matter how strong the evidence
was against her.
Judge Mary Bartelme, the first
woman ever honored with a call to
the bench in Illinois, who will sit
as associate judge with Judge Mer
ritt C. Pinckney in the juvenile
court, takes the same view of the
necessity for woman jurors. She
believes in mixed juries, and se.ys;
The Metamorphosis.
"Women on juries will change
, lots of things for the better. You
will find that lawyers must depend
on the legitimate facts If they hope
to impress mixed juries. Women
will puncture a good many bal
loons that prove good for dizzy
flights in the courts nowadays.”
Undoubtedly both of these dis
tinguished jurists are right. There
is not only room fcr women in the
jury box, but there is a crying need
for them there. Our greatest two
pieces of national humor have been
that in a democracy one-half of the
people had no voice In government,
find that in a trial by jury, which
guarantees to every one a trial by
his peers women were tried by
men.
And this latter joke is given a
further point by the fact that men
frankly admit that they don’t un
derstand women and are not up to
the tricks and manners of even the
smallest girl child.
It has been said that the strang
est thing on earth is how twelve
intelligent men can get together
and act like one old woman. The
next strange thing is how twelve
hard-headed, practical business
men dissolve into a sentimental
mush when they get in a jury box.
Apparently they don’t weigh evi
dence, nor take probabilities into
account, nor use any common sense
in judging character and motives if
they are trying a woman. All that
the defense has to do is to talk
platitudinously about “home and
mother,” little children and angel
wings and wronged innocence, and
the jury will file solemnly out and
bring in a verdict of “not guilty,”
no matter how clearly it has been
proven that the murderess had
committed a cold-blooded and de
liberate crime.
The Loophole.
Their theory’ is that perhaps she
didn’t do it. and if she did do it she
probably had good reasons for do
ing it. and the other party ought
Ao have been killed anyway, and,
anyhow, they are not gping to send
a woman to the electric chair or to
prison for life, especially if she is
good looking.
An American jury dealing with a
woman criminal is gallantry gone
to seed, but it doesn't make for
justice, and it does make it per
fectly safe for any lady with golden
hair and a willowy figure to go out
and shoot any man against whom
she gets peeved. Also, it makes it
ptofitable for other tender young
creatures with blackmailing tend-
encies to bring breach of prom i Be
suits against wealthy men.
It would have a most restraining
influence on both of these types of
the woman criminal if they knew
that they were to be tried before
juries of women Instead of juries of
men. For a woman knows that
while she may fool a man she can
never deceive a sister woman. A g
woman jury will not care two raps
whether a murderess Is pretty or
ugly, or be moved thereby. A wom
an jury will assay at their true
value her tears, and know whether
she is weeping for effect or because
her heart Is torn with grief. And a
woman jury can tell by a thousand
Intangible signs, as no man jury
ever can, whether a woman wit
ness Is speaking the truth or not.
There Is a freemasonry of sex of
which only the members know the
grips and the countersigns.
Nor will women juries accept, as
men do, the pathetic tale of how
she has been deceived and wronged,
that a middle-aged woman with a
hard painted face gives as her Jus
tification for killing some mas,
whom she has taken away from hie
wtfe. Neither will they feel called
upon to shed many tears over the
broken heart that asks money to
heal it.
The woman will need a cause to
be just who goes before a woman
Jury, but, on the other hand, there
are matters involving as nice a
judgment as that of Solomon In
which women’s sympathy and In
tuition will make for mercy as well
as justice.
Advantages.
Certainly the cases that come up
In the children’s court, in which the
relation between parents and chil
dren and childish misdemeanor*
must be settled, should be Died be
fore juries on which there are
mothers, with a mother’s knowl
edge of children, and a mother’s
heart to feel for other mothers.
Also, It is nothing but fair that
all divorce cases, and cases that In
volve the relations of men and
women, should be tried before
mixed juries. No woman Is capable
of understanding men any more
than a man Is capable of under
standing a woman, and It needs the
eombined wisdom of both to strike
the just mean in such cases.
Another good reason why women
should be on juries is that they
have both time and Inclination for
It, whereas men seldom have either
It is notorious that men will go
to any length short of perjury' t 0
evade jury duty, whereas women
would like it.
In every community there are
numbers of women of intelligence
of good sound judgment, of irre
proachable character, who hare
ample leisure, and they might make
a. valuable contribution to the state
by giving their services as .D '
women. Women’s counsel and h<
are considered valuable every" 1
else —why not in the court roo
Finally, the proof of the puuding
is in the eating, and we have
only theories but facts to g" u l’° n
Women juries have been trie<
several of the states where "
have the franchise, and the Ju<-g
speak with enthusiasm of ti
and fair verdicts they ha't re
turned.