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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, IB7>. Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mall. $5.00 a year Payable in advance. Beating the English at Their Own Game Recently the city of Manchester, England, wanted steel rails for its roads. The contract was not a large one, but, when it was adver tised the bidding for it was sharp and bitter. Manchester is in the iron and steel district of England, and in a position to command the lowest price on the domestic product. When the bids were opened, however, it was found that an American concern, the Lorain Steel Company, of Johnstown, Pa., had made the lowest offer. In round figures the Lorain company would sell for $51,000 what, its English rivals demanded $55,000 for. The American company was prepared to manufacture the rails, pay freight and handling to the Atlantic seaboard, pay freight and handling by sea to England, and again pay freight and handling to Manchester, and still make a profit on its sale at nearly 10 per cent under the British price. And yet. in the face of such a showing as this, the stand-pat Re publican still maintains that the present tariff on steel rails is abso lutely essential to the prosperity of the industry in this country. The steel business is still for him an infant industry, even though it can go into the heart of Britain and win contracts in competition with hard-headed, close-calculating manufacturers of the tight lit tle igle. As it is with steel, so it is with a number of other products of our manufacturing plants, and with much of our raw material. Some day the American citizen will wake to the fact that he has been swindled by the tariff mongers who have fattened on his toil, and then the day of reckoning will come. We Must Build Our Own Ships The rider in the Panama canal bill granting free admission to American registry of foreign-built ships seems likely to have no practical effect whatever. Journals of the shipping interest report that no projects are afoot for the purchase of British or German vessels by American citizens. The accepted theory is that they are deterred from doing so by the fact that American sailors and marine engineers de mand high wages. But back of that fact lies the still more sig nificant fact that American shipowners have not been much moved by patriotic considerations in this matter; and they can own under foreign registry all the ships they care to own. This newspaper has always contended and still believes that America should take direct means, under the protective princi ple, to revive its deep-sea shipbuilding industry. The admis sion of foreign-built ships to American registry for foreign trade is bad policy. No good can come of it. We must build our own ships. We must breed a new race of seafaring men. The way to do it is to protect this industry as we have protected other industries—through a period of weak ness. We ought to understand that all-around greatness for any nation requires that it should be at home on the sea as well as on the land; and that the sacrifices necessary to produce that balance in social and industrial life and national character should be accounted light. A system of preferential duties in favor of home-built ships engaged in foreign trade would put new salt, and savor into the American people. Romance and the Vikings Romance is not. dead; it lives and breathes now as in the days of the bow and arrow. “Romance brings up the nine fif teen.” says Kipling. She does more; she sits at our shoulders waiting for us to see with individual eye her ever fresh con trasts. What could be more inspiring than the discovery of the lost descendants of the bold Lief Ericksen, who invaded the shores of Greenland a thousand years ago? Those thousand years have led Europe through the mazes of barbarism to Christianity, through the glories of the Renaissance to an enlightened civilization daily growing more wonderful. The same thousand years have led the descendants of the Ice land Vikings slowly backward. The daring that moved the sea kings of the flowing beard to brave unknown oceans in cockleshells lives no more in the hearts of the white Eskimos of the North. Saga and sea song stir them not. Safe to say. if some astral habitant could view. through rays that left this earth a thomand years ago, the landing of Lief Ericksen, he would predict the conquering of the world by people rich as his. SO. if this discovery teaches us anything, it is a lesson on our own littleness. Our boasled civilization is only an incident in the turn of the wheel. Lucky for us Romance remains to gild our ways. - A New Idea in Philanthropy Charity has assumed many forms, hut it is doubtful whether it ever assumed a more practical character than in lhe case of a man named Hawkins, in Philadelphia. Hawkins was a wealthy man. and diml at lhe ripe old age of 98 years. Among his possessions were eighteen houses, valued at about $4.00(1 each. H is now made public that prior to his death he paid off all liens upon the property, and in his will bequeathed the houses Io the tenants who had been paying him rent for many years. These houses were workingmen's homes, lhe kind that rent for about $25 Jt month, and the eighteen families that occupied them have by this means been put into possession ot homes ot their own, homt's that they have come to love from long years of association. This is a new idea in philanthropy, and one that could well be imitated. Think what a benefit to that tragic class, the middle-class pool, such a plan would be Os course, there arc some who would ♦mt benefit by it. but the majority would receive a lasting impetus towaid something better It is the start toward home owning ami home-building that is hard for the poor. If given a “leg up." as it were, the benefits,to the race as a whole would be incalculable. The Atlanta Georgian < Unhorsing an Emperor The Glories of Ancient Rome Reverenced by Its Animating Spirit of Today MU) ® / gi : \\ iSh'lM, ' '4l \W I ; IK /nKIF I H (®BU ; 7/ L: MflBK wag w \\m 'l r ft // * wSEra z / - * <4* | LOWERING THE BRONZE FIGURE OF THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS FROM HIS HORSE. By GARRETT P. SERVISS. EVERY visitor to Rome will re member the huge bronze statue of the Emperor Mar cus of Aurelius, seated on his bronze horse, in front of the old capitol. The pedestal was designed by the great Michael Angelo, but the statue is a far older work. This summer they have taken the old emperor down from his horse, which he had bestrode for centuries, and removed him to the Capitoline museum, where artists are going to "restore" him for the ravages of time have made sad work upon him. In the long run an emperor in bronze Is no more immortal than one in flesh and blood. It was a considerable undertak ing to unhorse Marcus Aurelius, as the photograph shows, but the op eration was successfully conducted, and for some time to come tourists In the Eternal City will see only a big wooden shed covering the ped estal from which he stretched forth his imperial hand with a gesture of command. With what some per sons will regard as a Cine si use of propriety, they hooded the emper or's face while taking him down, as if to prevent him from looking upon his own abasement. Rut the real reason was to save his finely molded features from damage’ ad ditional to that which time had already inflicted upon them. Os World-Wide Interest. This undertaking, had It oc curred in any other city, with any other old statue, would have been a matter of local Importance only, but it really had a world-wide in terest. partly because all nations have a certain pride in the an tiquities of Rome, yet mainly be cause it reveals, in a \ ry striking form, the grow th of the new spirit of nationality in Italy It is akin to the impulse which made the Venetians, when the tower of the Campanile of St. Mark fell, with a great crash a few years ago. im mediately set to work to restore it. after the old model. It is also aklr to the spirit which has produced the enormous monument of Victor Emmanuel in Rome, a work so vast and splendid that but for the prestige which covers them the other monuments of the ancient capital of the world would seem diminished in ;« presence. This spirit is now at work ev.ry. w here in Italy. It is pushing mi the excavations at Pompeii, as well as TUESDAY. SEPTEM BER 24. 1912. in the Eonttn. and in many other places where the glorie.fi of old Rome lie buried. But it is not al together a revival of the cultiva tion of art and history. It has produced a marvelous transforma tion in the plains and cities of Piedmont and Lombardy, where the traveler now sees long rows of smoking chimneys towering above the poplars, the Hower gardens and the cathedrals, and proclaim ing the reign of modern industry. Nowhere has electric power been further developed than in northern Italy. Nowhere are the latest re sults of practical science more promptly utilized. Italy is aw ake—wider awake than Five Points For “Five Points” Ed.tor The Georgian: Havu g noticed the spirit witli which you undertake, through the medium of your columns, needed reforms in our city. 1 am writing to suggest that you get behind sev eral changes which would work to the benefit of the city and get it further from the "has-been" class changes w hich are in force In any of the larger well rim cities of the country but not. as a rule, used in the "down-at-the-heels" towns. (If Having the traffic squad (•quipped with traffic whistles. A flourish of the hand is well enough for a village street, but in a crowd ed thoroughfare it Is ridiculous. It iiriy mean "Go ahead," “Stop." or. nothing. (2> Preventing the starking of everybody’s and anybody's machine along the street, thereby reducing the usable portion of the street to the width of the car tracks. Peach tree is narrow enough, and yet in other ..cities of size such a thing as allow ing one to "loom and board' his machine all day long along the main street would be unheard of. Preventing the individual whose sole occupation is loafing to practice his profession just where the streets are narrowest and the crowds greatest. This, too, is a leave over from the days when At lanta was in the class of some of our neighboring cities and not when it is pushing its Eastern rivals for civic honors. It * Having in the center, between the tracks, a small refuge such as is seen in the greater cities, where by the pedestrian who is crossing may escape the flow of traffic and Whereby the traffic i evenly di vided into definite streams. <■> Enforcing and 3 civic PRIDE. it has been since the days of Cae sar. Indeed, one is tempted to think that, somehow, the spirit of that wonderful genius now inspires the descendants of his legionaries, so long apparently submerged by the influx of foreign blood which came pouring in from every side after the fall of the imperial power. That some, at least, of the Ital ians now dream of Caesar, as many' Frenchmen do of Napoleon, is cu riously shown by an incident con nected with the unhorsing of the statue of Marcus Aurelius. Now that the statue Is down, the "Young Nationalists” have demanded that, instead of replacing it on its pedes tal, after it has been "restored,” it be sent to some less conspicuous place, w hile the statue of Caesar be set up in its stead, on the plaza of I the capitol. Mari us Aurelius was a philoso pher. He < ould fight, and he did tight, when he had to—and he fought well—but bls was not the spirit of a conqueror. He was mild and gentle in his thoughts and manners. He put conscience above everything else, and Ills true glory, for centuries, has consisted in his book of "Thoughts," one of the greatest moral treatises in exist ence. This type of man does not fit in very well with the ambition of those who want to restore the mili tary glory of Italy, to make her a great European power, with formid able fleets of battleships and armies that must be taken Into account when the nations go to war. But < aes.tr was p. man after their own heart. Seated on his bronze war horse, in front of the capitol, he would, they think, better represent the Italy that they dream of—an Italy to be feared as well as ad mired. Peace Must Be Preached. So, there are three aspects of the new Italy that are revealed by these recent events; first, the aspi ration toward art and the cultiva tion of history; second, the deter mination to keep abreast of the modern world in practical scientific advance, and third, the desire to make Rome once more a name of power because of the weight of her mailed hand. Evidently war. the charmer, has not yet lost its potency over the human spirit. The gospel of peace will have to be preached still for many centuries before it lias alto, gether banished its uanooheu TTHE HOME Thomas Tapper Writes on The Educa tion of the Voter I & The Vice-President, a More or Less Obscure (.7 en 11 ema n, Wh o Never Has a Vote in the Senate Unless It Is a Tie. i By THOMAS TAPPER. WHEN the inauguration serv ices are over, the president moves into the limelight for four years, and the vice president sits in the senate cham ber, a more or less obscure gentle man. The constitution did not origi nally state the qualifications for the vice presidency, though it implied that they should be the same as for the president. But, in the twelfth amendment, it is clearly stated: "No persons constitutional ly Ineligible to the office of presi dent shall be eligible to that of vice president of the United States.” The duty of the vice president is to preside over the meetings of the senate. He can not appoint com mittees, nor can he vote save in the ease.of a tie. Five times in our political his tory the president of the United States has died during his term of office and the vice president has succeeded to the presidency. This possibility warrants the careful se lection of. men for an office that is generally looked upon as of small importance. At the great conventions dele gates get so out of breath yelling for their presidential candidate that his running mate slips in dur ing a profound silence. Plans to Increase Power. It has often been suggested that the possible succession of the vice president to the higher office war rants his receiving an increase of power and importance. Two plans have been put forward —(1) to make the vice president a member of the cabinet; (2) to give him a vote as a member of the senate. The purpose of this increase of power is to assure the nomination of men of high caliber, and to erase from the popular mind the impres sion that any one will do for the tail of the ticket. The salary of the vice president is $12,000 per annum, less than one-sixth of the amount paid to the president; and the same as paid to the members of the cabi net. The vice president, like the president, may be impeached, but this has never happened in the his tory of the United States. Presi dent Johnson escaped conviction in an Impeachment trial by one vote. The constitutional convention of .1 787 had been in session four months before any one suggested the office of vice president. One Tootle of Tattnall! (Tootle, of Tattnall,, who will be a member of the next legislature. ■’ a good fellow, all right.—Darien, Ga., Gazette.) By HOMER KNOTT. Now. into a world that is sordid and sad, , Now, into a universe groping in gloom, Comes Tootle, of Tattnall —oh, blest be his name! For Tootle, of Tattnall, good people, make room! Oh. sighing of south winds, and singing of birds, Oh, babbling of brooklets through sylvian dells, Oh. music, Calliope—listen! Old girl. What lilting in Tootle, of Tattnall, dwells. Cease, whispering of lovers 'neath silvery moon! Jubilant nightingale, silence—be mute! Before this climaxic concordance of sound. Tootle, of Tattnall! All sing it! Toot! Toot! 1e Smiths, and ye Johnsons, and Jones and Browns, 1 oo long have ye vexed us—-ye commonplace folk. Toot! Toot! Comes now Tootle, of Tattnall! Toot! Tootl tomes Tootle, of Tattnall—and Tootle's no joke. I ootle. of Tattnall! Good follow? Os course! hy. how could a person named Tootle he mean? There s the song of a siren in “Tootle" —ah, yes! But naught of the siren in Tootle, I ween! Hail. Tootle, of Tattnall—and come Into camp! Haii, surcease of sameness In cognomens trite. Tvmt'anum tickler of Tattnall! Tintin- Nabulating old Tootle is surely all right! j r wy I c' - '-Jgwl; I member of the convention d. . i ai such an office to be unnecessary. This office, created in strenuous times and limited as to its -cope, has been a source of trouble. In the national conventions the nam ing of the vice president may ere ate no interest; or political bosses may use the office as a hole | n the ground in which to hurt a man who promises to be a popular lead er of strong convictions Roosevelt was selected for inter ment in this political graveyard. But In the course of events ths sound of the resurrection trumpet fell upon his ear and he has coms, if not into life everlasting, then into everlasting life. You Never Can Tell. By gambling on the chance that the vice presidential office would effectually bury the gentleman from Oyster Bay, the first step wai taken in a direct path to what is now being affectionately called the Bull Moose .party. You never can tell what will happen when von have made your nice little plan work out just as you want it. You. as a voter, can help elect ths vice president, but not the sena tors over whom he presides. Each state has two senatom, elected for six years. Cases on rec ord show that some senators have served for five or more consecutive terms. The term of office of one-third of the senators of the United States expires on March 4 of every odd year. Hence, whatever the convic tion and policies of new senators, two-thirds of the body are retained to warrant the benefits of expe rience. Must Be Thirty Years Old. A senator must be at least 3 1 ) years of age. and a citizen for nine years of the United States. He must, further, be an inhabitant of the state which he desires to repre sent. If the methods by which 1 senator has secured his election are open to the charge of dishonesty, he is tried before his fellow sena tors and acquitted of the charge, or his seat is declared vacant, case of Senator Lorimer is an i n ’ stance. A senator receives an annual sal ary of Seven Thousand Five Hun dred Dollars. In addition to this, he has an annual allowance of One Hundred and Twenty-five Do for newspapers and stationery. Clerk hire is provided, and mile age, at twenty cents per mile, be tween his home and Washington.