Newspaper Page Text
EDI*TORTA.E PAGE
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta. Ga.
Entered as second-class matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March S. IS7S.
Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail, Jo.oo a year.
Payable in advance.
W ilson’s Serene and Sober
Democracy
< Jovernor Wilson says he does not care to sit up all night on the
.•th of November to follow the fragmentary returns. He would pre
fer to go to bed—and read the papers in the morning.
Here is a significant point in the character of the Democratic
candidate. Whether he stays up to watch the ticker or not, his
friends will testify that he is not over-anxious. He does not strain
himself to be president. He is the least concerned of all the candi
dates.
This fact has an important bearing upon the quality of
■Wilson’s democracy. His eagerness for the power that other men
can bestow upon him is checked by his knowledge that a man's
greatest power is never given or taken away by majority vote.
Hi is the kind of a Democrat that would rather rule a cabin made
by himself than a kingdom that others have made for him. His
democracy is of the old stock. He hates arbitrary and adventitious
power.
Such power as he now possesses he has won by absorbing him
self in his own proper work. He can win more in the same way—
whatever happens on election day. He will never be out of a job.
However, there is no doubt that Wilson will be elevated, and
there is no doubt that he will plunge with enthusiasm into the work
of the presidency. Only the presidency must come to him as a
sequence to what he has always been doing, and as a thing in tin:
v course of nature.
Wilson’s democracy has the serenity of the old Virginia type
—of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. He is on their line. But he
has traveled with the age.
Wilson is by all odds the most progressive man in the presi
dential lists, because he understands—as none of the rest do—that
the energy of modem polities is in the organization of the working
world. He knows that the way to make private business more pub
lic in its aim and operation is to make public business more per
sonal. more matter-of-fact and businesslike.
He sweeps away the superstition that private affairs and public
affairs can be conducted on different moral planes. Since he per
ceives that it is impossible to maintain a higher moral standard in
public life than obtains in average industry and trade, he insists
that both standards must rise together. He is not going to knock
the brains out of big business; on the contrary, he is trying to put
brains into big business. ■
He is a terror to the bosses because he refuses to be one. They
lear him by instinct: but the whole measure of his menace to them
they simple souls!—do not yet fully comprehend. Wilson under
stands. of course, that bosses live on the corruption of commercial
ism. He will abolish the bosses by abolishing the corruption.
Seeing that a feverish politics swinging a big stick—can not
allay the fever of bad business. Wilson would restore the health
of economics and the healt h of politics by reviving the spirit of free
initiative aud local self-government—i. e., the Democratic spirit.
He would strengthen the structure of government from bot
tom to top—beginning with the foundations, where the people live.
A vote for Wilson is a vote for a cool-headed captain, who is
particular about his chart, his compass and his port. Be is a bold
sailor, but he is prudent. And he is Imperturbable in storms.
These are stormy limes—in Europe, in Asia and elsewhere.
News of the disasters to Turkey brings the great powers of Europe
to the verge of a wide vortex of war. Within the next four years
Europe is likely to exhaust its economic strength in devastating
military campaigns. A reaction toward militarism and absolutism
in Europe will leave the Great American republic standing where it
stood a century ago—the only competent and conspicuous cham
pion of political freedom and industrial efficiency.
Under such circumstances the United Slates may. within this
decade, achieve an earth-gripping power, a mastery of material
things, so sane and irresistible that it can dictate the peace of the
world and impose the methods of its own prosperity upon the be
wildered peoples of Europe.
That is the kind of role that the great Democrats have always
meant to play. It is the kind of thing Wilson cares about. He
would organize the creative forces of the United States so that its
science and industry should be more terrible to despotism than
any ■"army with banners.”
This is a great day for the trying-out of free government.
It is a day to sit tight in the saddle of Democracy.
Wilson sits tight.
i Dress Reform for Men
A German society for ‘‘the reform of male apparel” proposes
to do away with the many garments with which man adorns himself.
< ollars. shirts, waistcoats and hats are the more important ele
ments of garb that will disappear if the society's program is carried
out. In their place will come a blouse or smock, knee breeches and
bare heads.
All of which is well enough. But when the tinal article of
progress is considered we find in it the seed of dissolution and
death.
Tim society plans that every man shall design his own clothes;
that he shall select its fabric and cut. ornamentation and color.
There shall be no tailors in the land to dominate the styles, for there
shall be no styles under the society's rule.
By this radical innovation the entire good program is spoiled.
There is not a man among us but would gladly banish collar but
tons and suspenders, starched shirts and high collars. But where
is the man bold enough or brave enough to design his own clothes,
who will spend the day in shopping for materials, or an afternoon
matching up buttons or braid’.’
It nmy be that man will discard long trousers aud give them to
his women folks to wear instead of the hobble skirt, but mere man
will go back to the breech clout rather than become his own dress
maker.
The Atlanta Georgian
The Price He Paid
Drawn By HAL COFFMAN.
§ w
ti
\ > Ti
; 5 ’Tk I'll® ; : a
M ■' ’■ f ' T
■ "7 2 !i ME
—u ft.) -gfc „
’ I F —- W> 'Or -1
■ SB ■ - ini/l i
A I Want I
• I
I
A..
THE OLD MAN Gimme a whisky. i
THE BARTENDER-Where's the price?
In real life the Old Man slinks out of the saloon, and the young men drinking there laugh
J at him. What the Old Man should say is this: • I;
'I have spent my youth, I haw spent my reputation, 1 have spent my prospects for whisky. ?
< I have spent everything I ever had. Haven't 1 paid the price.’” <
Then the young men might think. >
€ Writing Love Letters &
By DOROTHY DIX.
A< TNCINNATI professor advo
cates teaching the art of
writing love letters as a part
of the public school curriculum. He
thinks that the exchange of billet
doux between the pupils would con
stitute an excellent method of
teaching literature.
Well, did you ever! What makes
this gentleman, who must be highly
educated, suppose that love letters
are literature? They aren't. They
are plain, unmitigated slush. if
two great poets like Elizabeth and
Robert Browning simply went to
pieces and became maudlin when
they wrote love letters to each
other, what, in heavens name,
would happen when Mamie of the
seventh grade and Tommy of the
eighth grade tried to put their pal
pitating heart throbs on paper?
Ought To Be Taught.
Go to, Professor, you are old
enough to know better than to want
to encourage such folly. The only
love letters that have ever been
written in the whole history of the
world that any of us can read
without a feeling of deadly nausea
coming over us are those effusions
that have been addressed individ
ually to ourselves. And goodness
knows they weren’t literature!
The only possible Justification for
introducing a course of love-letter
writing into the public schools
would be to impress on children in
rheir early, formative years not to
write love letters at all under any
circumstances or provocation. The
danger of it might be taught along
with the danger of drink, and thus
prove of untold value to the rising
generation.
Little boys in knickerbockers
might have it drilled into their in
ner consciousness that they must
never, never write letters in which
they would describe themselves as
some female's "ducky daddle," or
"popsy-wopsy," and tell how many
million, billion kisses they inclosed
in the envelope, or how many years
and years it seemed since they saw
their “lamble-love," or words to
that effect.
Thereby would these little boys
when they grew to manhood and
became trust magnates sate them
selves from breach of promise suits
and from heating the ribald laugh
ter with which a cold and cruel
world greets the love letters of a
i ich old man to a chorus girl, ~»n
the) tin read in court. Also the
boy who ha« been taught in a hool
FRIDAY. NOVEMBER 1. 1912.
to regard a love letter as the ad- v
dor that biteth and the serpent I
I that stingeth, or any other peril
along the pathway of life, will be
preserved from leaving carelessly
in his coat pocket one of those vio
let scented, pink tinted missives
that wives go sleuthing for. and
i? i- '
| I
ffl X -Jy &
C* ll
DOROTHY DIX
that have resulted in Reno becom
ing such a favorite resort with
ladies.
The writing of love letters, how
ever. is a feminine and not a mas
culine vice, and if the public
schools, beginning with girls in the
kindergarten, could inoculate them
w ith a sufficient horror of commit
ting this supreme folly to prevent
them from doing it. then, indeed
would a great reform have been
accomplished. To teach a girl how
not to write a love letter would do
her more good than to make her
mistress of all the arts and
sciences.
Foolish Women.
The mania that women, and es
pecially young girls, have for in
criminating themselves on paper is
one of the things that nobody can
explain. They don’t even know why
they do it themselves. But set a
woman down at a writing desk
with plenty of good white paper
before her, and a pen that doesn’t
scratch, and a man to write to,
and she goes on a kind of Ink jag.
and writes things that she never
intended to. that she doesn’t mean,
and that she blushes to remember
the longest day she lives.
Tb< most modest woman, the
shyest and most reserved. the worn-
!• an who wouldn’t think of telling a
man she loved him if she was face
to face with him, will write him the
most sickening love letters. And
she'll pour forth all of these mushy
expressions, and put down in black
and white' all of this die-away af
fection. not because she is con
sumed with an overwhelming pas
sion for him, but because she thinks
it sounds grand, and poetical, and
toman tic.
if any course of study could
make girls see what folly it is to
write such letters, how they cheap
en themselves in a man’s eyes by
doing it. and how idiotic and ridic
ulous these poor little missives
seem to other people, let us not
only introduce it into the public
schools, and every other school and
college in the land, but make it a
compulsory’ course at that.
An Old Story.
it' would save a lot of paper and
ink. and future tears, if Mamie in
her school days could hear the silly
gush she has indicted to Tommy
read aloud by the teacher, and have
its washy poetry and mixed meta
phors kindly but effectually dis
sected. Take it from me that Ma
mie’s hankering for writing love
letters and slopping over a half a
quire of paper with burning words
of devotion, would be slain in that
moment, and that when she was a
grown woman her communications
with all young men would be by
word of mouth or a picture postal
card.
She would be like that admirable
heroine in one of Rhoda Brough
ton's novels who was a great flirt,
but who was wont to boast that,
no matter what she might have told
a man, she thanked God that there
was not one scrap of handwriting
in the length and breadth of Eng
land.
There is an old story about a lit
tle boy who wrote an essay about
pins, in which he declared that pins
had saved millions of lives by not
being swallowed.
If the Cincinnati professor's the
ory of Introducing the writing of
love letters into the public schools
can be guaranteed to work in the
same way it will be a long step
toward the higher education, par
ticularly of women otherwise it
will merely confirm fools in their
folly. \nd they arc plenty foolish
as they are.
THE HOME PAPER
WINIFRED BLACK
Writes on
Modern Woman and
Economic Conditions
The Last, She Says, Is a Most
Convenient Phrase and Is Likely
to Mean Most Anything—Even
Wages That Some Fol ks Can’t
Get.
DR. HENRY MEADE, nerve
specialist and scientist in
general, says that the new
kind of American girl is fine for the
men, but the worst sort of thing for
the children.
“The clever, brilliant, self-suffi
cient, independent girl of today is
m'aking over the men,” says Dr.
Meade. “Men aren't the boyish
animals they were a generation
ago. They can’t be and keep up
with women. But where are the
children coming in? These clever
women don’t want to stop being
clever to have children until they
are about 35, and then it is too
late.’’
A Convenient Phrase.
AU over the land Indignant “mod
ern women” are rising to deny,
with sound and fury, the impeach
ment he has made of them, and in
tlie nine hundred and ninety-nine
replies I have read the one real
thing the clever women say is—
“economic conditions.” "
“Economic conditions!” Where
have I heard that phrase before?
Oh. yes! It’s what they say when
they want to tell why a woman
kills her husband and runs away
with another man. It’s the phrase
they use when they explain why a
man robs the man who pays him a
salary. It’s what they say now
adays when a little girl tells her
mother to mind her own business
and she’ll mind hers.
“Economic conditions!” What a
convenient phrase it is, to be sure!
I wish I was quite positive that I
know just exactly what it means.
It can’t be that it is just the wages
that people get—can it?
1 wonder just how much wages
have to do with the “no children
at our flat” fad just now? Not so
very much, in my opinion—not half
so much as some people seem to
think.
You can't stamp out a great
primal instinct with a mere matter
of wages. As a matter of fact, the
poorer people are the more children
they have.
Mary Is Lonesome.
I was talking wrth the finest old
lady I know about it this very day,
and she said:
“Well, I used to think the woman
who didn’t want children was un
natural, but I’ve been visiting round
among my daughters and sons and
I feel different about it.
"There’s Mary, John’s wife, the
sweetest girl I know—or was when
she married my son John four years
ago. What Mary is now is a lone
some, neglected woman, with a
mouth turned down at the corners
and a disposition turned down all
around. I don’t wonder at it —I
A Ballade of Fate
By WILLIAM F. KIRK.
THERE was a man who died too young—
A handsome fellow, rich and gay,
\ Loved by the men he walked among,
Ever a winner, fight or play.
They put him in the ground today
While crying comrades stood apart;
They did not know and could not say.
The Master has it on His chart.
There is a man forlorn, unstrung,
Hopeless and homeless, bent and gray ;
Who. when the sparrow’s song is sung.
Leaves the park bench and limps away.
Dreaming, perchance, of some old May
That makes a tear unwelcome start.
His course through life he can not stay;
The Master has it on His chart.
There was a girl by sorrow stung—
A girl who could not whisper nay.
She listened to a lying tongue
And has her little debt to pay.
What is the sentence? Tell me. pray—
You with your sharp and slanderous dart.
O’er Love and Life we hold no sway.
The Master has it on His chart.
ENVOY.
Kismet. 0 Kismet! Though we stray
Until the ceasing of the heart,
Or join at once the vast array.
The Master has it on His chart.
By WINIFRED BLACK.
did till I visited her, but now 1
don’t.
“Mary has two children, lovely
little things, and that’s all she has
got—that and a man to pay the
bills. She hasn’t any husband, not
what I call a husband, at all. John
belongs to three clubs, says Mary
is so busy with the children all the
time he has to have some com
pany, and he has it—at the club.
“Mary’s little John had the croup
when I was there, and Mary and 1
sat up with him till 4 o’clock. John
came in about 11 from the club,
looked sorry for awhile and then
said he’d have to get some steep, as
he had a big deal on the next day.
That deal wasn’t big enough to
keep him at home resting, I noticed
—just big enough to leave the lit
tle boy to us all night.
“ ‘What do you do, Mary, when I
am not here?’ I asked, when little
John was breathing easier and
looked as if he’d drop off to sleep in
a minute or so.
“ *Oh,’ said Mary, T fight It out
alone.’ Then I knew what made
her look so down in the mouth all
the time.
"Fight it out alone! Most of the
new kind of mothers seem to do
that, and when I was young being
alone was considered a kind of
lonesome business —maybe it’s dif
ferent now.
Brought 'Em Up Together.
“What's the matter with maij
riage nowadays, anyhow? When I
married we expected to be together
—that's what we married for. My
husband didn't go somewhere elsa
for his fun; he took it home or
took me with him.
"Who would want to stay at
home with the children while hus
band goes out playing golf or beat
ing some one at some champion
ship billiard thing or other? it
takes two to bring up a family, oi
it did in my day, and those two
have got to be close together all the
time.
"I had eight children and my
husband and I brought ’em up to
gether. We had our fun at home
with the children, and every child
we had was that much more fu»
for us all.
"If he’d been this new kind rd
man that’s got to be ‘amused’
the time like some fretful baby j
wouldn’t have wanted any suc|
family as that, or any family at all
"What do they want the women
to do —be the old-fashioned
while they don’t come within a
mile of being the old-fashioned fa
ther?”
I wonder If there’s any truth in
what the good old grandmother
said. There can’t be—there wasn’t
a word about "economic conditions”
. in her whole discourse.
-