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EDI TORIAL 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 8. 187». Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier. 10 cents a week. By mail, 85 00 a year. Payable In advance. It’s Tod Easy to Kill in Atlanta Two men of respectable families fight in a disreputable place. They don't fight like men, with their fists. They use knives and one is badly cut before they arc separated. The one that is more seriously wounded subsequently returns and cuts the other to pieces. ' The slayer is held in bail ludicrously small. For months he has been free. The district in which the killing was done is now wiped out. Praotically all the witnesses against him have been driven out «f town. The chance* are he will nover be tried. Here 1* another oaaet Two policemen quarrel. One draws a revolver and shoots fbe other in th* back. This time the slayer is tried in a few TH* jhmy haan all the evidence, asks the Judge on whom ft* burden of proof rests, and decides that the slayer is not fuflty. There is no presumption here that he is guilty. Neither is <b«re any presumption that the man who killed the other in the dbreputabl* place la guilty. These eases are cited merely to show that IT IS TOO EASY TO KILL IN ATLANTA. This newspaper is against capital punishment. It is also against the man whose one idea of attack or defense is to shoot cut some one. A newcomer here has deduced that he would probably get a heavier jail sentence if he stole a loaf of bread than he would ts he killed the baker who made it. Maybe he is right At any rate .the ease with which slay ers escape is the main reason why Atlanta stands as the* fifth city in the Union in it percentage of homicides. One coward in jail is of more use to the community than twenty at large with knives and pistols in their pockets. ? - —— _ Wilson for a Maritime America “Today our commercial development, outside the United States, is at the convenience and at the dictation of our riv&ls. As long as that is true we are going to be at a hopeless disadvantage. We have got to develop a merchant marine, or else keep within the con fines of our domestic development.’’ These words, spoken to the business men of Omaha by Gov ernor Wilson, bear upon a political issue so vast that it can not b* oomprehended without an effort of the imagination—so iin portaßf. that ft is apt to be overlooked. On the sea the United States is a serf-nation. It is a depend ant province exploited by foreign satraps. The spoils of Amer fanua oversea commerce are carried in triumph to all the Euro pean eapftab. We pay a humiliating and extortionate tribute of millions «f dollar* every year to a foreign shipping supremacy that has driven our own ships from the sea. Wilson’s administration may be expected to introduce a new ara of commercial independence, through the establishment of re ciprocal tariffs with European and Latin-American countries, and through the restoration of our old-time commercial navy. The tradition of the Democratic party is a maritime tradition. Ths Federalist party was scattered and dissolved in 1816 beoause it had opposed th* war with England that vindicated the sea-rights of the new republic. In that war thirteen hundred British ships were captured by American privateers. These privateers were armed merchant ships. They numbered 517 and carried 2,893 guns. The years from 1817 to 1825 were the golden age of maritime America. They were the years of a triumphant Democracy, master of land and sea—the years of the Monroe administration, “the era of good feeling.” In 1825, 92 per cent of our commerce with other countries was carried on by American ships. Today the American ships that cross ♦he Atlantic may be numbered on the fingers of a hand. The time has come for a new era of commercial liberty on sea and land. Thomas Jefferson said: “For a navigating people to-purchase its merchant ships of foreigners would be a strange speculation. Such a people would always be dependent on foreigners. We must build our ships for ourselves.” The recent legislation of congress permitting the American reg istry of ships bought by Americans from foreign builders is futile and fatuous. We must, indeed, build our own ships. We must raise up a new race of sailormen. We must put boldly out to sea.- We must become once more a seafaring people. The words of Woodrow Wilson, spoken in Omaha, are an invo cation to a regenerated Democracy. We should expand to the width x of a wide vision; we should rise to the height of a majestic opportunity. Our present estate upon the sea is a starveling to what our estate has been. But our past estate —proud and magnificent as it was —is no measure of the future. In the new era of commercial liberty, in the coining days when we shall reconquer the domain of the seven seas. New York should become so rich in the wealth of the world, so tense with universal life, that history can furnish no example -from Rome, or Carthage, or Constantinople, or any city of the storied past—of the largeness k and splendor that shall be achieved. The Atlanta Georgian The Grafter’s Wife / By HAL COFFMAN. hi # Ilf V4’/ U I ' h W wif w i =i &i Hi i • nui 'iiiiri ™ 'It I ''' ’ftl £ 4 if'l 11 •’ Ini''' ■ .Jlr Llli 'i _L_M' | r Bbl - J B i*li tlf H - wlfM'WW™* The grafter’s wife may live in a luxurious home, but every time the telephone rings it may be an announcement of her husband’s arrest. The grafter and his family live under a suspended Sword. The Constitution of the United States Can’t Turn Country Into Garden of Eden THE old colored man and his wife were sitting on the door step, sunning them selves. The cabin was made of logs, the chinks between filled with clay. The chimney stood at one end, rickety and leaning. There was a little corn patch at the side of the cabin. The old couple were prob ably worth Seven Dollars or so—in things they could sell if they had to cash in; but they looked to be worth One Hundred Thousand Dol lars in general contentment. Near the cabin a hound dog was crouching in the sunshine and yell ing as If he owned One Hundred Thousand Dollars’ worth of unhap piness. “What is the matter with the dog, unde?’’ "Oh. nothing, suh. He's just a low-down, ornery hound dog.” "But, uncle, he must have a mis ery of some sort, or he wouldn’t yell so.” "No, suh, he ain’t got no misery. He’s jest naturally indolent.” He sure looks indolent, uncle. Does he yell like that all the time?” “No, suh, jest part of the time.” “Don't you think, uncle, he has a misery, after all?” “No, sub; you don't appear to understand that hound _dog. He ain’t got no misery. You see, it’s this a-way: He comes out with me and the old woman here, and goes to squat down in the sun. Being jest a fool hound dog. he goes and lays himself in a bed of stinging nettles. And they is a-hurting of him some. But he's naturally too lazy to get up, so he yells because they keep on a-pestering him.” “How long will he keep it up, uncle?” "Till we-uns call him in for sup per. Hey, Mandy?” “Uh, uh.” said the old woman, "that’s right.” 11. The only place that seems to • have been constructed in a satis factory manner from the beginning was the Garden of Eden. But the population of that dele-table spot, falling to obey the ordinances, lost MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1912. By THOMAS TAPPER. the privilege of roaming in its sun light glades. From the moment the gates closed upon them, down to the present day, we have had to get things by the sweat of the brow (not counting a few who get it by the sweat of some other man’s brow). The constitution of the United I Jr I jr* j3T -dllSiH THOMAS TAPPER. States and the statute laws are powerless to turn our glorious country into a Garden of Eden. Even if ( this power were invested in them, somebody would be-devil the situation and we should be turned out. Constitution and laws are not impersonal things. It is because so many of us think they apply to the other mar and not to us that our. Garden of Eden is so mussed up. If'we had enough sense (not a few of us, but every one of us) to know that citizenship and prosper ity are not only worth having, but are worth ail the sweat ot the brow • they cost, then one party would not need to curse the other for our misfortunes. No president, in his inauguration speech, has ever had the nerve to promise all citizens a pass-book to the savings bank. But this coun try of ours offers every man an opportunity to own a savings bank book if he wants it. A lot of us, however, do not want it as much as we want some other things. The constitution, the, statute laws and the president have no power to make a man choose be tween saving his money and giving It to the barkeeper. They have no power to make a man choose to earn his living by useful labor as against taking a‘handful of dirty greenbacks for shooting four or five holes into another man. It is not until the Constitution and the law cease to be imper sonal and become EVERY MAN'S PERSONAL CONCERN that a city like New York will be purged of underworld scandals. For these un derworld scandals sometimes thrust themselves up into other worlds and make us take notice. Then for a few days we stop bragging to stran gers about how line a town New York is. “Greatest place on earth, sir; take it from me!” HI. “What's the matter with the av erage citizen, uncle?” “Oh, nothing; he’s jest naturally lazy.” “But, uncle, lie has £ome sort of a misery, hasn't he?” "No, suh; he ain’t got no misery.” "But what has happened to him, uncle? He seems to be yelling as if he had a real misery.” “No, suh; he ain’t got no misery. He’s just a-crouching in a bed of stinging hetties, and he's that lazy he won’t get up. He just yells be cause they keep a-pestering him.” “Well, unde, DID. YOU EVER THINK OF PULLING UP THE STINGING NETTI.ES?” “Who, me?” "Ulf. uh," said the old woman, “that's all right, he means you.” THE HOME PAPER WINIFRED BLACK Writes on The Race Not Decadent SiM We Rise and Our Children Will Rise After Us, Higher and Higher Out of the Mire of Sei fish Brutality That Bore Us. cause of the decadence of the human race is not hard to find,” said a lectur er the other night “Marrying for love has done the work.” The lecturer was a dried-up, mincing little person with large round spectacles, enormous ears, and hands and feet that really—it was plain tv see that no one would ever eiG>ouragi‘ him to help the human race to deteriorate. “There is only one thing the mat ter with the human race today,” announced a woman I know that same evening, "and that’s the cig arette. Wipe them out and we'll be all right.” “We’ll never pull ourselves to gether as a race again until we stop the baseball craze and the turkey trot fad,” writes a holier than-thou evangelist. And so ride, gallop, trot, pace, walk, the hob bies all go marching by. It’s tobacco, it’s whisky, it’s too much starch in the food, it’s too much work, it’s not work enough, it’s the bachelors, it’s the married men, it’s the babies. Over and over, and round and round, and under and about, and through and past, they talk, and write, and preach, and tell what it is that makes us so decadent, and all the time I keep on wondering whether we really are decadent at all or not. I can't see that we are. Can you? Where Is the Blame? Was your mother a failure in life compared to your grandmother? How would grandma do if she had to live as you do now? You take a bath every day, grandma was considered a trifle fussy if she wanted more than one complete bath a week. In your grandfather’s time the preacher used to come to the log rolling and go home the worse for liquor, and no one thought any the less of him for it, either. Have you ever seen the rector of your parish ever so little under the weather? Forty years ago if you were a Democrat and lived in a Republican community you might expect to wake up and find your barn burned and your stock set loose as a gentle hint to you to go where you were welcome. If you were a Republi can you never even dreamed of try ing to live in peace with Demo crats; you knew it was. no use. Don’t you think we’ve gone a lit tle ahead of that sort of thing? When I was a little girl, not so awfully long ago, people used to give a litter of kittens to the chil dren and tell them to go and drown them, and when we cried at the idea the grown people laughed. Any one who would ask a growing child to do a cruel thing like that today would be sent to the juvenile court for investigation, and quite right, too. When my grandmother died the neighbors came and sat in the room with her and watched every symptom of her agony with a kind of grewsome interest, and went home and told the children all about it. Civilized'.—they weren’t even partially so. The Last of the Incas By REV. THOMAS B. GREGORY. ATAHUAIjLPA, the last of the -1 Incas, was executed by the scoundrelly Pizarro August 29, 1533. Than the condemnation and execution of the Peruvian king there is no blacker crime in the whole course of history. Many times have men been infamously unjust, but never to a greater extent than the Spaniards were in the case of Atahuallpa. Twelve charges were brought against the Inca, every one of them trumped up for the occasion and, from beginning to end, outrageously false. Convicted as of course he was sure to be by the packed tri bunal, the prisoner was sentenced to be burned alive. When informed of his fate the Inca, turning to Pizarro, exclaim ed: "What have I done, or my children, that I should meet such a fate? And from your hands, too, you who have met with friendship and kindness from my people, with whom I have shared my treasures’, and who have received nothing but benefits at my hands." Villain as he was, Pizarro was visibly affected, and, conscience smitten, turned to the Friar Vicente de Valverde to know what he should do. As ndght have been expected, the friar, without hesitation, voted for the Inca’s death. That settled it, and Atahuallpa was led forth in chains to be executed. On the way the friar worked hard to convert the Inca to Christianity, but the monarch, straightening himself, replied in haughty tones: "Your God died on a cross, at the hands of His own creatures, but my God (pointing to the sun) rides in glory and majesty through the heavens, and is beyond the power of any man to kill. Never will I for- By WINIFRED BLACK. t was only fifty years ago th the insane were locked in , llaw and, starved and beaten by their own families. Forty years ago vou could whip a horse to death in ti e streets of the biggest cities of the world, and no one could do a thing to make you stop your wanton cruelty, so long as the horse w a . yours. Forty years ago they used to take little helpless children out of asylums and farm them out for drudges to people who worked them to death, and if you had dared to make a fuss about any such case you would have been laughed at for your pains. And Folks Were Cruel. We do some of these same things today, but we’re ashamed of them, anyhow. Our grandfathers were not at all ashamed of them, and would have given you a good deal to think of if you had tried to make them so. “Decadence of the race!” Stuff and nonsense. We are not deciding, we’re rising slowly, slowly. Mj se . ably slow, faltering, not sure >f the strange ground, slipping back every now and then—but rising, rising, in evitabiy, irresistibly. Dominating the beast, conquering the animal, beating down the brutal impulses, higher, higher we rise, we rise, thank the good Giver of hon est endeavor and true-hearted de sire to be better. Decadence of the race! Go to the old countries just for six weeks, See some of the old prisons that pol lute the free air of heaven, even to stand there empty. Go through some of the old castles we think -o romantic. See how the noble lords and ladies lived, like dogs in a ken nel, w'ithout air, without light, without clean water. Step into one of the cages they used to hang in the court yards. Pretty things, those cages. They were made just big enough to hold a man crouching, and he crouched there in the rain and the snow and in the beating, blistering sun, and starved. And the women and chil dren came to see him and laughed at his moans. When a child of high degree fret ted his lady mother took him up ta the courtyard and let him watch a starving man writhe in his agony. And then some troubadour wrote verses about her illy hands and heavenly eyes, and she hadn’t had a bath for a year and w ore her coarse under-linen till it dropped off. We Don’t Deteriorate. Grand gentles, these, fine sprigs of nobility! The plainest clerk In the humblest shop in our city today wouldn’t sit at the same table with one of them any more than he would dine with a growling, mum bling, bone-cracking, paw-biting monkey. No, no—we do not deteriorate, we rise, we rise, and our children will rise after us, higher, higher, out of the mire of selfish brutality that s bore us. Higher, higher, see the star shines in the far, far East, the long night of sleeping conscience is al most ready to break into rosy dawn. Let us be on our knees to welcome .. it. sake my god for yours.” But, later on. in presence of the stake that threatened to consume, the Inca's mind weakened (as well it might), and he was “converted In consideration of his conver sion. the form of death was kindly changed from burning to strang ling; and after being baptized un der the name of "John," in honor of John the Baptist, on whose "day the event took place, the unc••ttenc ing king was choked to death 5 the cold-blooded twisting of a rope about his neck. History is full of irony, but would be hard to find anysher* • more bitter piece of irony than t,a given in the words of the chronicler, Xerez: "Thus he < huallpa) paid the penalty of hie « ’ rors and cruelties, for he wo .. greatest butcher that the “ . ever saw!” All of which Is a He. made up for the express ' pose of covering up one of the infamous crimes that was et' r> l mitted by the strong against We A a ß \ character, Atahuallpa head and shoulders alr t , , to be found among his Handsome, of magnifh • ■n. ' gentle and refined turn. ; nor and just, he was inflnit . • J h j S to the brutes who desr oi _ u kingdom and took away h - alor ,g for Pizarro, he will ever .-tai d. with Torquemada, A l '-' fron | Second, and others, in line of the world’s worst „ It is really refreshing to d that Pizarro flnaUy got » rjelt y his own medicine; that i • cume home to him; a ni! _ third fore he had reached his f> ■ « year his own head was _ one of his rivals in the blood and plunder.