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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 second-class matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March 3, IST,
S ibscrlptioti Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail. ,5.00 a year.
Payable in advance.
The Garnishment Laws of
Georgia Should Be Revised
V * »
There Is Little Justice in Them as They Now Stand on cue
Statute Books and the Sooner They are Changed the Bet
ter.
The garnishment laws of the state of Georgia are fearfully
and wonderfully made.
They should be revised upon an equitable and common sense
basis; and only such persons should be held answerable to them
as may be brought within their scope in such wise as Io inflict
no unnecessary humiliation or hardship upon anybody .
As they stand today, they are little understood by the people
affected, and from this condition has grown a practice in Geor
gia that is thoroughly mean and reprehensible, and utterly with
out warrant in law.
Here in Atlanta, as elsewhere in Georgia, it has been the
common custom for a considerable number of creditors know
ingly to garnish the wages of persons clearly exempt, upon the
idea that they, rather than go to the annoyance and expense of
a lawsuit, and more especially to escape complications and em
barrassments with their employers, will settle the garnishment
in the creditors’ favor, often regardless of the real merits of it.
Technically, the law furnishes a measure of protection
against that sort of thing, in that it permits damages because
of illegal garnishment. But that protection is very slight, as a
matter of fact, because the amount of damages a prosecutor is
able to show generally is small, and the expense attending the
suit for recovery’ of the same seldom pays in results obtained.
That creditors do take advantage of these facts, to push
their garnishments illegally and most unfairly, is shown abund
antly in the records of such garnishments frequently brought.
There should be a heavy penalty, and one easily determined,
prescribed for the creditor who knowingly and deliberately
orings a garnishment against a debtor exempt, from the operation
of the garnishment law, and particularly when it is brought with
the evident purpose of embarrassing that debtor with bis em
ployer.
Honest debts should be paid but even honest debts ought
not to be capable of collection) through mean, illegal, and unnec
essarily humiliating process.
Long ago, people could be crushed, harrassed. and shamed
by imprisonment for debt. That time has ceased to be- and
ihere is no red-blooded, fair-minded, manly man nowadays who
s not glad of it.
Collecting debt through unworthy invocation of the gar
nishment laws should be. equally as impossible as collecting
them through imprisonment, or through threats of the same.
't he garnishment laws of Georgia should be revised, cleared
up. ami made absolutely definite. And then those who appeal
to them should be held rigidly accountable for their application.
How Do Men Think?
M M r.
What IS Thought—Life's Great Mystery.
We human beings possess just two things—this earth with its
material wealth and material forces, AND THOUGHT.
With the earth for a basis, and thought the developer and
improver, we have acquired all of our wealth.
We owe as much to that mysterious power called thought as
we do to the earth itself with all its wealth.
Put your thought upon THOUGHT ITSELF. What have you
got that you do not owe to thought?
The coal was in the mine. Only thought could get it out and
make use of it for power.
The ocean is full of water. Only thought could change it into
steam and run the engine that moves the train.
Thought changes the sheep's wool into the cloth upon your
hack, the cotton’s fleece into the shirt, or sheet.
Thought is a cannibal and lives upon thought. Your thought
is fed by other thoughts bound up in books.
Thought, breeds thought. The spoken thought of your friend
starts and stimulates your own thinking.
Niagara’s power. PLUS thought, is changed into electric light,
moving machinery, flying electric cars
WHAT IS THOUGHT?
We do not pretend and shall not try to answer that question.
It is as old as man.
J'be savage, thinking in a dull way. slept at night ami found
his dreams a mass of thought, distorted, strange, unreal. From
.hose thoughts came his ideas of ghosts and devils, and of innumer
able gods, kind or wicked—at least, so scientific men tell you.
In thought our minds see many divisions, many mental forces
. i work. In the great soldier we think we see the lighting force,
m the painter or poet, artistic thought; and Arkwright's brain,
that gave us the spinning jenny Io clothe our bodies, we call the
inventive thought.
.May it not be that there is only ONE kind of thought. ONE
great thinking force, complex, infinite in power, which works
through us human beings here, producing certain little results
here, and greater results through glorious intellects on greater
planets, or on great suns?
The problem of the engineer who uses the electric current is
to .MAKE BETTER MACHINES through which that current may
act. He has the perfect current in quantities unlimited. His ear
may' go ten miles an hour, a hundred or a thousand miles. The
power will do it if the machine he right.
Humanity is the engineer, whose, business it Is to utilize here
lhe earth’s power of thought, the cosmic force that regulates the
universe. .
Is it not our task on this earth to produce better brains. BET
TER THINKING MACHINES, through which the perfect power
of force may’ work?
Nothing could be more inspiring than the thought that man
kind is to work out its problems through affection, through good
ness. creating through the highest conceivable moral human rela
tionship the perfect brain through which perfect uniiersal thought
may act.
The Atlanta Georgian
Diogenes Enlists—For a Few Moments
( ' Copyright. 1912. International News Service. <
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Nearly lands important bunch of coin. Again queered by Honest Mon! scene fol- |
lows! Again philosopher beaten up! Also gets black eye!
Woman Asks Equal Standard of Morality
»
woman's cry is the •
I loudest thing in the world
today,” said T. P. O'Con
nor; “yes, and the most notewor
thy.”
Hkd the Irish genius of observa
tion pursued the subject he would
doubtless have added that, like the
infant’s, the woman’s cry would
not cease until she had obtained
that for which she cried. “What is
the trend of feminine psychology?”
demanded a lawyer. "Men know
that the entire sex is in a state of
unrest and disquiet and dissatis
faction. but we don’t know what is
in their minds because they won't
tell us. They don’t seem to want
us to know.”
That eminent lawyer is further
from the truth than he has ever
been in all of his long and brilliant
career. A woman may not choose,
when she is in the sulks, to tell her
husband or father or brother that
she craves a new hat or gown. Per
haps she has learned, through many
household scenes, that the subject
is a sore one. Or she may not con
fide in him the secret that she has
quarreled with her neighbor, and
her reticence is justifiable, for such
mistakes and tumults of soul belong
to the sacred reserves, if she wishes
there to place them. Men do not
vaunt their weakness nor advertise
their mistakes, and if Mrs. Brown
does not wish to tell that she has
had a back-fence argument with
Mrs. Smith, that is her own affair
Idea Is Overworked.
But the idea that women are sub
tle and secretive, that they are be
yond understanding and past find
ing out. has been overworked. In
trivial matters, the purchase of a
purple flower for her mother's bon
net. or adding to the allowance of
her son at college a few dollars
from her own, she may be a bit se
cretive. Granted, for sake of argu
ment. that woman is something of a
magpie in hiding secrets of this
sort, usually they are of no more
consequence than the bits of col
ond/ghuis the non-committal bird
places In a dark < orm and ■ overs
11mu prying eyes.
lit aalii to th< ug» t'S . > of
FRIDAY. NOVEMBER 8, 1912.
By ADA PATTERSON.
• her life a woman wants to be frank,
and is. The woman’s cry, that
threadlike soprano piercing the
chorus of all the other cries of the
twentieth century world, is for a
larger, more rounded and useful
life. The sum of all her demands
is to be an individual of more
worth to her family, more value to
society and more satisfaction to
herself,
A Woman's Wishes.
To the end of this desired state
her cry is for a full right to her
own property, whether she has
earned it by her own effort or
has earned it by helping and urg
ing her husband to save it, or
whether it has been hers by the
accident of inheritance. She re
bels against the right which exists
in some states in this otherwise
glorious Union of a husband who
may have subsisted upon her prov
idence«all their married life to pre
vent her withdrawal from the bank
of her own savings account, or her
sale of the' house she has builded
by her own efforts, or to bequeath
his unearned half of the increment
to his own relatives or friends, or
even the woman for whom he has
given her cause for jealousy , if the
possibility of it still exists in the
heart long before emptied of all
love of him. Such instances, not
uncommon, add volume and poign
ancy to the cry of woman.
The cry of woman is for an equal
standard of morality "for the sexes.
She is tired of fractional decency’
of living. She does not want to
bear alone the white banner of
chastity. She wants to see the man
of her affection marching beside her
in the path of purity. She wants
to wreck the foolish old traditions
of license in conduct for the other
sex, to overturn all the barricades
of privilege and prerogative by
which he has defended his dal
liance along the broad way.
Her cry is for simplified living,
that she may have time for mental
growth. She welcomes the de
vices that make housekeeping a
briefer and easier task. Sin wants
v
housekeeping to become not an ab
sorbing, exhausting occupation, but
■' a pleasant, daily incident. She
wants the kitchen to be a subor
dinate element, not the hub around
which the household revolves. She
wants plainer eating and better
thinking. She cries for this because
it will give her more time to read,
time to reflect, time to talk with
her family about more vital mat
ters than beeksteak and fried po
tatoes.
She wants a half hour or more
every day for contact with other
minds. She cries for the stimu
lus of association with other wom
en who are doing home work and
World work. She wants to develop
the new art for women, self-reli
ance. She begs the right to think
instead of to echo the thoughts of
others.
She wants sex to be subservient
to mind. Siie wants to so regard
it that she may become a friend
of another woman, not look upon
her with savage enmity as a possi
ble rival in the interest of some
male human. She wants to be a
friend of women, not only in the
collective but the individual sense,
and to do this she declipes to long
er honor sex as supreme.
She wants to remain single if she
thinks she is against matrimony,
and this without odium or the fear
of poverty in old age. She wants
to earn such wages as will enable
her to make provision for her old
home.
Wants to Be Comrade.
If she marries she wants to be
treated as a comrade and business
partner, instead of a plaything or
household servant. She wants her
opinions to be treated with respect,
not tolerance nor ridicule. She
wants to be a leader for her chil
dren. not an awed follower in their
educated steps.
She wants to extend her house
keeping talents into the world's
housekeeping, for the world's good.
She cries for the right to be
guided by the trained mind, instead
of tacking to the Impulses of the
vagrant heart.
The woman's cry is to bo allowed
to transmute the clean, lint-, high
ideals of womanhood into the reali
ties of the world
I
THE HOME PAPER
Dorothy Dix
Writes on I
Playing With [ /,
Fire
Thoughtless Girls,
She Says, Are the WL 1
Ones Who Amuse z
Themselves by 7 I
Flirting With
Married Men to
Annoy T heir
Wives. — _ |
By DOROTHY DIX
NOT iong ago 1 heard a pretty -
and foolish young woman
boasting of her flirtations
with married men and laughing
over what fun it was* to make
their wives turn pea green with
jealousy.
"You should just see the wives.”
she gurgled with delight; "fat
frumps or skinny skeletons, with
grizzled hair, and no complexions,
and so mad that they could have
bitten a tenpenny nail in two when
I walked off with their husbands to
look at the moon or sit in a palm
sheltered corner, or something. My,
but 1 wouldn’t be one of those men
when gets him home, and
have to hear the things he’s got to '
listen to, for a house and lot. But
that’s the fun of flirting with mar
ried men. Outwitting his wife puts
ginger into it, and, anyway, I al
ways fascinate married men, so I’m
not to blame.”
Paints Distress of Wife.
Not to blame for doing her best
to entice a married man away from
his home and family? Girls do
plenty of wrong and silly things
that can be excused by their youth
and inexperience, but nothing on
earth condones the crime of the
woman who encourages a man in
being faithless even in thought to
his marriage vows.
As for a young girl finding
amusement in watching the help
less suffering of a wife who sees
her husband ' being enticed away
from her. the women of old who
diverted themselves by watching
wild beasts tear people to death in
the arena were no crueler than she.
It does not take any imagination
to paint the agony of the middle
aged wife who sees her husband
Ijeing fascinated by a younger
woman, who compares her dull
eyes with the girl's bright ones;
her heavy figure with the girl's light
grace: her faded, cheeks with the
girl’s fresh roses; her dead hair 1
with the girl’s glossy locks: her
weary and jaded spirit with the
girl’s effervescence of youth, and
who realizes, above all, that the
girl has the allure of the new and
unknown while she has grown as
tedious to her husband as a twice
told tale.
Very likely the woman has burn
ed her beauty out over the kitchen
stove cooking for her husband. Very
likely her hands have grown knot
ted and coarse working to make
him comfortable and to help him get
a start in the world. Very likely her
eyes have grown dim nursing his
children. Very- likely she is frow
sily dressed because she is trying
to save his money; but women
know with pitiless certainty that
men seldom remember what a wom
an has done for them. They only
know how she looks at the present
moment, and so no wife puts any
faith in her husband's gratitude to
her keeping him faithful to her.
That is why it is so easy for any
young girl to make a middle-aged
wife jealous.
It's Poor Sport.
But it’s poor sport, girls; as poor
sport as to shoot the broken-winged
dove that is hovering over its nest.
If you want to amuse yourself bv
making anybody jealous, play in
your own class. Pick out a rival as
young and good-looking as you are,
and try to get her admirers away
from her. Then yc.o will, at least,
have a toemun worthy of your
- steel. You won't be taking candy
away from a sick baby.
Os course, the husband who
waiting around for some pretty girl
to make eyes at him, and who
jumps up and follows the first .
who looks over her shoulder at him,
isn't really worth his wife’s worry
ing over.
Don't Be Responsible.
However, such as he is, he is all
that she has got. He is the father
of her children. He is the fnan she
gave her young heart to and that
she’ll see through a rosy mist of
illusions as long as he lives. Sh<
bears his name, and his disgrac
will be hers and her children’s. Hi
presence and his earnings keep th
roof over her head and her babie
and therefore she grows desperat
at the thought of his being entice
away from her.
Don’t you have a. hand In break
ing up this home, little sister. Le
the woman keep her poor make
shift of a husband. Don’t have
another woman’s tears, nor the
black sin of having had any part it
rendering little children fatherless,
on your soul.
Don’t forget that retribution nev
er fails. Some day you, too, will'
marry. Some day you, too, will
grow middle-aged, and homely, and
see younger and fairer women hov
ering about your husband, and then
you, too, will suffer pang for pang
the misery that you inflicted on an
other woman.
Also bear this in mind, that the
girl who flirts with a married man
plays with fire. Sometimes she,
hurts her own heart worse than she
does the wife’s, for the man who is
married to one woman dnd makes
love to another deals dishonorably
by all women. In a worldly sense
he is "safe," as being married lie
does not have to marry the girl, nor
can he be sued for breach of prom
ise. Furthermore, the girl hersGf
has broken down the wall that
man’s chivalry has erected about
the innocent and modest young gi. l,
and so what started as a flirtation
is xjery apt to pass into something
which spells disaster for the girl.
Chickens Will Come Home.
And don’t forget this, either, you
girls who think it fun to flirt with
married men. The girl who en
gages in that pastime cuts her own
throat, socially and matrimonially.
You may laugh at the jealous
wives, but it is the wives who issue
the invitations to balls and parties
and who give the house parties,
and once let a girl get the reputa
tion as being fond of married men,
and her name is dropped from
every invitation list. Wives no
more encourage a flirtatious girl
around their homes than a shep
herd does a wolf around his sheep
fold.
Nor do young men, the right sort
of young men, want to marry the
girl who has affairs with marries
men. She is a little too wise. Sl.e
is too sophisticated. Always ai
inevitably the smell of seam! -
hangs about her skirts. It may b"
undeserved, but it’s there, and y
can't argue with an odor.
Therefore, girls, in humanity
other women, and In Justice m
yourself, don’t flirt with other wom
en’s husbands. The man may be
very fascinating. It may be trie
that his wife doesn’t appreciate
him, but just remember that y
don't hold the office of public com
forter Thus shall you save you,
seif and your sister woman much
trouble.