Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, October 24, 1912, EXTRA, Image 14

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EDITORIAL PAGE THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday Bl THE GEORGIAN COMPANY 20 East Alabama St . Atlanta, Ga. Entered as second-class matter at postofflce at Atlanta, under act of March S. IS7J Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier. 10 cents a week. By mall. 15.00 a year. Payable In advance. I'he Depth and Breadth of Wilson’s Democracy When Governor Wilson said in Carnegie hall in New York, “I don t want to be the ruler of the people; I want to he the spokesman of the people,” the great audience cheered, and then cheered and cheered again. The speaker had intended to say more. But there was no need. He stopped short. He had uttered the most intimate word of that Democratic faith that binds him to the electorate. In Wilson the Democracy of Thomas Jefferson revives and breathes again. Wilson is thorough. He goes to the root of the matter. He refuses to believe that some men are born saddled and bridled, and others booted and spurred. Democratic government, according to Wilson, is not an elective despotism, tempered by a time-limit. It is the organized energy and intelligence of the whole people. It does not abide in capitols; it pervades society, like the nerve-system of the human body. The Democracy of Wilson would make every school house a center of governmental power. Wilson insists that this campaign is a life-and-death struggle for real Democracy—that we stand at the parting of the ways. He insists that Taft and Roosevelt both draw toward an undemocratic kind of government a government that assumes to take care of the people. He insists that that kind of government has always—with the best intentions in the world—enslaved and impoverished the people. Wilson understands that this age is different from the age of Jefferson that the supreme question now is the question of economic liberty, in face of the tariff and the trusts. Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt seem to live under the illusion that tariff privileges and trust monopolies can be made innocuous by be ing kept under the eye of wise and good rulers at Washington. Wilson insists that privileges should be utterly abolished and tha) private monopolies are absolutely intolerable. »» ilson says he is not striving “for free trade or anything that ■ im iviy ri -.ejublvs free trade." because it is impossible to do away with imposts io long as the expenses of the Federal government inu.-t lie raised by indirect taxation. He does not object to the prol■■ctioii that makes life easier in America, but only to the tariff privileges that make life harder. He would (dean the tariff sched ules o' all he lobby larcenies and the subsidies of cunning and sloth. A ilson is no enemy of big business—the kind that grows big be vaie ig men are behind it. He abhors the kind of business that is flatulent and dropsical with fraudulent finance. lie thinks—and thinks rightly—that there are many businesses in this country that are big because the men behind them are little ami have not scru pled to do pusillanimous things. Mr. Wilson said in Pittsburg that some of these small nu n should be forcibly secluded, so that they may have leisure and quiet to think larger thoughts. This, too. was a true word of the spokes man. The regulation of competition, for which Mr. Wilson contends, means that a sharp distinction should be made between two very different kinds of competition. Lt is all right that private persons should compete with each other for power to serve the public; it is all wrong that they should compete with each other for power to tax the public. Governor Wilson is speaking a language familiar to the Ameri can people when he reminds us that the fluent and on going life of democracy depends upon the ceaseless competition of all individuals Io excel in the service of the commonwealth. It is not to be inferred from this principle that vast, highly or ganized and efficient business concerns—when they arise in the natu ral course of industrial evolution—are to be broken up into warring factions. On the contrary, the true inference is that such concerns should be treated as if they were in practical effect public insti tutions. I hey should be recognized on such a basis that their directors and managers can find increased profit and personal promotion only in improving the services they render to the public. I'he system of legalized monopoly proposed by men like Mr. George \\ Perkins is an offense and peril to democracy, because it would leave the gigantic industrial organizations private in their motive and private in the method of their operation. They would have an o t crest adverse to the public interest, and they would have a power that no public power could permanently withstand. This newspaper has steadily maintained that where prices cease to be regulated by competition they should bo limited by law; that when business risks have been eliminated dividends should be cut to the current cost of working capital, and that when a corporation ceases to be competitive it must cease to be private, for the only kind of monopoly that is tolerable in a free country is a public monopoly. T his is the logic of Wilson s democracy. It is also the prevalent purpose of the American people. In carrying this purpose into effect Wilson will act, not as the mast, r o j the people, but as their lucid and indissuadable spokes man The Atlanta Georgian The Suffragette Outrage in Wales rraißi < Hr -wswarv maßtw '"' V VW 'T WgfiT.-’ : ■Ci iMI - . * >■ I i-Sxcv itere is a group of startling .pic tures taken during the recent dem onstration against the suffragettes in Wales. The top, left-hand pic ture shows a woman being protect- TiyiNGJNA WORLD OF IDEAS IX wh;n kind of a world do you live? By w hat ideas is it peo pled '.' We say of this person. How (.•harming she is," arid of that. "What a disagreeable man." We mean. "In what a hopeful, happy .vorld of ideas site lives." or "By what morose, selfish thoughts is he companioned.” Surrounding this earth is atmos phere, about five miles in extent. In that atmosphere we can live and breathe and work, perforin the hu man functions of’ loving and mat ing. of hoping and developing and worshiping. But should :tn ambi tious aeronaut pass beyond the at mospheric limit he would reach a stratum of rarefied air. in which he would soon die. This atmosphere is the world's envelope, inescapable, indispensable. Every person has his atmosphere, indispensable and in escapable. It is the world of ideas in which he has his existence. Radiating Cheerfulness. One person attracts us. another repels. Unless we have the habit of analysis we are puzzled by the fact that two persons of apparently equal gifts and amiability should so differently affect us. We know that we would like to know one of them much better, and we would he glad if we never had to see the other. Yet there is no real mys tery about it. The thought world in which one lives pleases us. The thought atmosphere of the other displeases. Magnetism and personality are terms for which philosophers have gone set king to profound depths and at dizzy heights, yet whatever the terms they have given to their more or Itfss valuable discoveries they us back to the starting Till <?SI)AY, Os TOKER 24. 1912. ed from the mob. Tile policeman has put his hands over her head to keep her from being struck by canes, one of which can be seen in tl;e upraised hard in the center of the illustration. The picture on the Bv ADA P.\TTERSO\. • point. What kind of thoughts do • these persons think? This worn tit rodiat; s a pervasive ehet t fulness, that man high hope and supreme courage. \\ c say to them. "This half hour I have spent with you has done me good. It lias made me better and brighter and braver. I don't know why." But we do know why. They have tinged our pale, anemic thoughts with the vivid colors of our own. Our weakness has borrowed from their strength. Our mental atmos phere has absorbed some of their own electric quality. Ynur Sphere of Ideas. "She is tin most ebennii g wom an I ever knew.” we hear enthu siastit r.ljy spoken of some one who seenis to us plain, insipid, com monplace, until we come within range of her personality. We may not even have a chance to talk with her. We may only catch the flash of her smile, or a glance of het eye. But by these we have had a glimpse of the real woman that un derlies the unburnished exterior. Brief as it was. we have made an excursion into the world of her ideas, and found it good. In what world of ideas do you live? Is it tilled with principles and truths, or crowded by perem alities? Is It your habit to come home, after a day of shopping, and say: "That was a magnificent sun set on the bay," or "That is a won derful device for ventilating pas senger cars 1 saw demonstrated this afternoon. This is the way I understand it works?" or do you say. "I never was so mad in my life as I was at that red-headed "ien . nie Jones. I’ll never shop with her again if I live to be a hundred. She right shows a policeman endeavor ing to get mother of the women away from the mob, while the bot tom illustration shows two suffra gettes being led away, one of them evidently being in some distress. • giabbed a lace bordered hafidker chief 1 wanted, right under my nose," or "1 met Sallie on the ave nue. anil Sallie said to me; then I said Sallie." it i. well to be interested in per sons. Such interest satisfies the hunger for human contact. We need it to keep us harmonious, and mentally well rounded, but this is a topsy-turvy world we'live in. if it is filled with personalities. To keep poised and sane, we must fix the eyes of the mind on some truth that is mighty, on principles that are changeless, as mere human na ture can not be. I» it n little world or a big Ideas need not be few and small because we live in a village, or in a back street, or a tenement. Our ideas need not he narrow because our lives seem to be. In these days of reading matter, both good and cheap, our thoughts may rove the eartii and be as wide as the uni verse. though we live in a hall bed room. We may live in a world of pigmies or of giants according to our tv ill. View Rosy Side of Life. What is the color of the world you live in? Is it black with gloom, or gray with passive acceptance of things as they are, but which you might make *hetter, or is It rosy with the rays of undying hope? That color depends upon you. What is the climate of the world you live in? Is it damp, with cul tivated despair? There are persons whose atmosphere is as moist and chill as a frog’s slipper. Or is it full of the moving airs of hope and courage and good will? Persons who live in ruch worlds are tonics us a breeze from the sea. THE HOME PAPER Thomas Tapper Writes on Spending Money Earning Money Is a Necessity and Spend ing It Is an Art Few of Us Learn, as Each Insists Upon Being as Lavish as His Neigh bor. WHEN we find that the price of roast turkey has risen in the best hotels until for a half portion you pay seventy cents. It seems certain that few people can have turkey away from home. Did you ever see such a half por tion ? A lot of dressing, three or four little pieces of dark meat, each about the size of a walnut, and two slices of white meat, cut amazingly thin. And all for seventy cents. The poor can not afford to eat turkey at this .price. And yet it makes us wonder whether the rich have grabbed it all, or whether a great multiplicity of causes are at work to put up prices. In a few years the population has increased twenty millions. Maybe fewer turkeys are raised than formerly. Perhaps it costs more to raise them, now that the young men are leaving the farms and coming to the cities. And yet some politicians tell you, glibly and without blushing, that if you vote right they will fix the tar iff and prices will be down again. Who pays the tariff on hotel turkey? You. Can a politician alter that? Not unless he calls personally on the hotel man and points out the injustice, to the purchaser, of tur key at seventy cents per half por tion. And. speaking of restaurant food, I have before me the prices charged in 1904, eight years ago. Compare these with the prices charged in the same restaurant in 1912. In 1904. In 1912. Roast Beefs .40 $ .50 Mushrooms on Toast 1.00 1.25 Mutton Chops4s .50 Lamb Chops4s .60 Sirloin Steak... 1.10 1.50 Astrakhan Caviar.... 1.00 1.50 Fish (Pompano)7s .90 Potatoes, friedls .20 Cucumbers4o .30 Frog Legs7s 1.25 Chateaubriand Steak 1.50 2.25 Double Sirloin 1.50 2.25 Os course, it is cheerful to note that the price of cucumbers has gone down, but it is impossible to economize through them very much because therti is a limit to cucum bers as a steady diet. Now. these restaurant prices merely reflect the prices in the market. Many a family has had. gradually, to stop buying the bet ter cuts of meat, because wages are insufficient. Even the secondary cuts have gone up in price until they are as :: A New Race :: I By ELBERT HUBBARD. Copyright, 1912, International News Service PR OF E S SOR STEFANSSON • reports the discovery of a tribe of Esquimos in MacKen zies Land who have red hair. These people have no history that they can recount. There are about two thousand of them. They have a degree of intel ligence which the regular Esquimos do not possess. They have red hair, blue eyes and a tendency to argue about religion. Some of them are artistically freckled. Many of their names beglp with Mac, and they have away of ad dressing each other with something that sounds like “Hoot Mon!” Oats grow farther north than wheat. Whether these Esquimos are fed on oats or not Professor Ste fansson does not say. But the world will not rest easy on Professor Stefansson's report until we find whether haggis and oatmeal have played their parts in the hirsute color scheme of this tribe of Esquimos. who not only have red hair, but are red-headed. Evidently Professor Stefansson has never heard of Macpherson Macgregor, who was lost off the New Bedford whaling ship, Mary Ann, in Bafiins bay z - , am vaK ,^2- jftfcK , 1 Kn I Ob’ N„ 1 It I I i jfy Jal •II By THOMAS TAPPER. ’ high as luxuries used to be. Ten years ago a pound of "chuck” steak cost about one-third of its present price. And yet the best restaurants are so crowded with guests that if you have the 70 cents for a half portion of turkey, and a little extra for a boiled potato and the waiter, you may have to stand around a half hour before you can sit down and begin to give up the money. 11. But back of all these high pricea there Is a solemn fact. We are a wasteful nation Every man is as good as any other man, and everybody wants grape fruit for breakfast. And there is another solemn fact. Very few of us have even an ele mentary knowledge of how to spend money. Earning money Is a necessity Spending money is an art that jnany. of us never learn. And a good many people are be ginning to think that we are poo hands at making what we buy <0 as far as possible. I have mentioned turkey tn this article, for this reason: I saw a man order a half portion While the waiter was in the kitchen getting ft the man picked up the bi!' of fare and discovered that he had signed away 70 cents without knowing it. It made him mad When tha waiter came back with the whfta meat and the dressing, the man be gan to argue with him about the ridiculous price. But, of course, the waiter could not deliver the goods for less than the C. 0 D, price. Then the man called the hotel steward and argued with him. He, too, was powerless to reduce the cost of living, on that occasion, be cause he had received his orders from “upstairs.” The “upstairs” man had not yet returned from Europe. Even If he had, tile angry diner could not have accomplished much; for he would have been referred to the market man, then to the next man. and so on down the line until he reached the man that had raised the turkey And he, the turkey-raiser, would probably dodge behind the hay stack, and refer him to the presi dent of th& United States as the one cause of the whole trouble. Which is, of course, unfair to the president. Meanwhile, the half poiiion on the table is getting cold. T has nothing to do but to go back and partake of it. And the price on th” cheek j be 70 cents, just the same With ten cents added, in some !• places, for bread and butt'' Doctor Kane, in his wrr ltd"’ esting memoirs, tells bow tlii> drifted on an Ice floe and finttW reached the mainland. Doctor Kane found Maegreit |, r ,D Uppernavik and offered to take back to civilization. The Scotch man declined the invitation, am explained that he was headed MacKenzies Land, where he posed to start a Utopian co .nt a ' lead the Ideal Life That was the last reliable Infor mation that the world had o pherson Macgregor, of ford, formerly of Glasgow. If there Is any conm-r’i' tween Professor Stefansson - 1 eovery and the last tldines pherson Macgregor. let th" assume it. Stefansson is a great noiti. ! he seems to lack the poetic nation, as well as being ~ perspicuity and perspicacity And in any event. Profess cy Shaw, the noted bi"logi-i. portune in his remark when claims: “Esquimos In Ma" l ' Land with red hair! Will. ■ color hair would you expect the* have?'