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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 postcffice at Atlanta, under act of March 3. IS7> Subscription Price —Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mall, $5.00 a year. Payable in advance. The Open Secret of Wilson’s Success When Dr. Samuel Johnson said that it is better to make a little grass grow than to be a politician, he had reference to the fact that politicians, as a class, are likely to diminish the grass-acreage by drawing men's minds away from productive enterprises and en grossing them in fruitless questions of abstract justice. It is true in this time and country, as in other times and other countries, that the typical politician has provoked such vehement discussions about the right division of the good things of life that he has absorbed and wasted a vast volume of social energy that should have been expended in the production and delivery of the goods. Thus it is prophetic of the dawn of a new kind of politics when a public man is lifted up to the most conspicuous and powerful place in the nation because he has shown himself strong to rally the lat ent and hesitant forces of creative enterprise. That is what has happened to Governor Wilson. The people of America have re sponded with a great cheer to his manifesto of economic emanci pation. His dominant note is the release of the productive forces of so ciety. He would unshackle the minds and the limbs of all kinds of workers, and would fling wide open to them the gates of oppor tunity. Both the Taft campaign and the Roosevelt campaign ran on lines of hereditary politics—the kind that Dr. Johnson scorned. They held out no credible promise that two blades of grass should grow where one has grown. They confined themselves to the old head-aching problem of the division and apportionment of pros perity. Mr. Taft invited us to be content with the apportionment that we have, lest a worse fate befall. And Mr. Roosevelt urged us to undertake a new apportionment. The Taft campaign was a propaganda of mental repression and fear; it made its futile appeal to the timidity of the voters. The Roosevelt campaign was a propaganda of accusation and reprisal; it offered some people a fighting chance to get. even with other people. Mr. Roosevelt had nothing to say for the widening and deepening of the channels of enterprise. There was no thought in his mind to increase the volume and current of prosperity, le contented himself with his intricate sum of long division. He wanted to divide prosperity up. Now. there is no reason to suppose that the Wilson ad ministration will be any less concerned than Mr. Roosevelt is with the establishment of economic justice between man and man. But Wilson understands that the road to justice lies through the cultivated fields of industrial expansion, lie un derstands that the way to get “social justice” is to compel the people with boots and spurs to dismount from the hacks of the people with saddles and bridles on. He is determined to dou de the productive power of the country by unbuckling the har ness and taking it off. Wilson is right in insisting that what we want is more pros perity—and that the way to get it is to give more men a chance to put their ambition and intelligence into the building of the cities and the subduing of the earth. He understands that the right way to divide prosperity is to equalize opportunity. This is the secret, of Wilson's success. It was shown on Tues day that the American people agree with the president-elect that the golden eggs of prosperity can not be got at in bulk by the summary dissection of the goose. William Howard Taft To William Howard Taft history will be kinder than the times in which he lived. He was not framed for a great executive. That fine judi cial mind and temper balancing the even sides of great ques tions was prejudicial to swift decision and vigorous execution. He would have made an ideal justice of the supreme court of the United States. And to this high and serener station all his desires and ambitions moved—rather than to the presidency. Theodore Roosevelt and another influence led his unwilling feet to the white house at a time when they might have car ried him to the bench. But William Howard Taft is an honest, great-hearted man and an unselfish lover of his country. And this meed of praise —with the responsibility for some' great measures which will surely live—must be the present epitaph upon a political ca reer which is evidently closed. He has occupied for four years the highest office in the world. And he leaves it without a stain. Theodore Roosevelt In the cable message sent by Mr. Hearst to Colonel Roosevelt after the Milwaukee shooting are t%ese words: "Every thoughtful American realizes how great a force you exercise throughout our country In support of popular rights and political liberties. All must hope, as 1 do, that neither this regrettable accident nor any other occurrence will ever Interfere with your effective and essential work along these progressive and patriotic lines." This is a fair epitome of the mission and motive of the redoubt able American of Oyster Bay. \\ ithin these lines Colonel Roosevelt serves his time usefully ami effectively. He is the antidote to apathy in our public affairs. The waters of public opinion will not grow stagnant while his vigorous mind ami will agitate the current. With astonishing vigor and consummate skill, Colonel Roosevelt has builded a new political party. It will not die. Eor the next four years the new party will live as a perpetual challenge to our tri umphant Democracy to fulfill its pledges and make good. It remains now for < 'oloncl Roosevelt to do as he proposed to do, ami to lake possession of the Republican party for such reformation and reinvigoration as he may be able to infuse into ils_ broken and diseouragetl followers The Atlanta Georgian The Cringing Coward Drawn By HAL COFFMAN. Bfe. ■- - « -y—— ■ a 'JIT-i s. - —=_r"T- c sSSW w Kuuijri,fU‘- J, . ■ ' N. —-t- j ■■ - —— ■— l - bS? IK x t\ W.JsKy > " J <3 - ■ ■ -■ = ‘i'M. r ; ■ ■ hrA & ■ .. 'w BEAUTY vs. DUTY WELL, well, Vida Faulkner • Page, so ft’s a sign of mental deficiency to be fat! You said so right out in meeting, your meet ing at a big hotel in New York. Also you said: "The woman who is indifferent to her looks ought to be sent to an Insane asylum.’’ Good news, all this, isn't it, sis ters?—cheer.',-, early morning greet ings—but w hisper, I don’t believe a word of It. Do you, May Irwin: do you, Fay Templeton; do you. Marie Dressier; do you, Mrs. Cornwallis West ? Mental deficiency! That's good. Why, some of the cleverest people 1 know are fat, and good and fat at that. And some of the stupid est are little, scrawny, half-starved creatures, who look as if they’d break in two if you gave them a good hug and an old-fashioned kiss. “A woman who doesn't care all the time how she looks ought to go to a sanitarium,” so you think, eh, dear Miss Page? Well, then, most of the women who amount to a row of pins in this world ought to be shut up in dark cells, padded at that, and never let out again. They Don’t Have Time. "Care all the time how she looks?” Do you know what that would mean to most women, dear lady? Do you realize that the av erage woman has Just about as much time to devote to manicuring her nails as the average dock la borer? Manicurist, hair dresser, com plexion specialist; why, you might as well say gold dust from Mars to the average every-day woman—not the women crowding to your funny little meetings, but the women who count, the women whose work amounts to something, the women who help the world along every day. all day. and sometimes half the night, too. What time has a woman with six or seven children to give to her complexion? If she gets the time to take a good bath every day, that is about as much as she can even hope to accomplish, and mosily she’s too busy for that. Abut hour shall she have her MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1912. Bv WINIFRED BLACK. •* bath—before breakfast, and keep father waiting for his coffee? After breakfast? Who’d get the girl and the boy off to school, lunch eon packed, buttons all on. pencils in their case, books in the strap, hair combed and faces washed? Before noon? Who’d make the beds, air the rooms, sweep the din ing room, order the food for the day, luncheon on the stroke of twelve? It's Worth the Trouble. After lunch? Little Bobby is home from kindergarten, his finger is hurt and he has to be petted a while; Jane has torn a hole in her skirt; there’s a rent in the hall.rug; those curtains need rehanging. Who’s that at the phone? There's the door bell, ladies canvassing for the church supper; yes, she will give one of her fine chocolate cakes, and a cranberry pie, too. What. 5 o’clock, and half the mending not even looked at? John will be home in half an hour or so, and he does hate to come in and not see the table set for dinner. Hurry, hurry; there, dinner's ready to the minute; just what John likes, too. Os course, those corneakes were a bit of trouble, but look at John's face when he catches sight of them. Eight o’clock —just a minute for the evening paper. Nellie must have some help with her arithmetic first, though. Oh, the ribbon is half off the hat and the stockings must be darned. Ten o'clock, they are all in bed asleep, all but mother. She’s laying out the little clothes to be put on in ; the morning, folding the ribbon carefully that Mary left where ft fell, opening a window- here, shut ting a door there. What, going to bed without a complexion treatment! No beauty rub tonight! Look at those hands of yours—who would want to kiss them; and that hair, you ought to get if brushed at least l<io strokes a day. Well, well, you poor foolish good for-nothing half-wit, you’ll have tc go to a sanitarium tomorrow, you • haven’t even thought of your looks since you w-ashed your face and combed your hair this morning. And you are not a slum dweller, either, by a long ways, or even a very poor woman. Well-to-do they call you down in the little village you came from. Just an average, rather better off than, most Ameri can women, and you ought to go to an asylum because you didn’t sit in front of a glass half the day mak ing faces at yourself and thinking that that would keep the old man with the scythe away from your door. Thirty-five, and you look it. What an outrage! What a sinh Why, your crime against your sex cries to Heaven. Don’t you know that it is a woman's first duty to be beautiful? Children, husband, work, duty? Pouf! whistle them down the wind; what you w-ant is a complexion even if you have to get it in a box. What you want is shiny hair and a figure; that’s the way to keep your husband. You are away behind the times, really, you’re hopeless, quite hopeless. He Certainly Has Spells. And yet, do you know, little rom an, that I believe you are more than half right? I don’t believe your husband, John, is such a fool as these beauty cranks would try to make us all believe. I believe John cares something for such women as you without the complexion a.td the shining hair. He certainly has spells of acting as if he did. And as for the rest of us, do you know that the w hole American na tion is held together by just such woman as you, the plain, unassum ing. hard-v. orking little mothers In the little homes all over this great soft-hearted, hard-headed country of ours? I do hope Miss Page and her fol lowers will not hear about you and have you all sent to asylums—just yet. Not till all the little children are grown up and all the hungry, hard-working men are fed. and al! the lonely hearts are comforted. I’m afraid we should miss you, just a little THE HOME PAPER Elbert Hubbard Writes on Middlemen and Menials ii Civilization, He Says, Is a Great System of Transfers. Each One Does the Thing He Can Do Best and Works for the Good of All. By ELBERT HUBBARD Copyright, 1912, by International News Service rj'sECHNICALLY, a middleman • I is any one who stands between the producer and the con sumer. Most of the people who use the expression regard a “middleman” as an animated example of lost mo tion, a specimen of economic slack. Edward Bellamy declared adver tising to be an economic waste; and he explained that the cost of advertising was always counted in and added to the value of the ar ticle, and was paid for by the ul timate consumer. He then made his calculation that by eliminating advertising tiie cost of the article to the consumer would be much reduced. It Gives Information. To this argument we make no exception, but to the assumption that all advertising is economic waste a demurrer must here be en tered. Advertising is telling who you are, where you are, and what you have to offer the world in the way of service or commodity. If nobody knows who you are, or what you have to offer, you do no business, and the world is the loser through giving you absent treatment. Life is too short for the consumer to employ detectives to ferret out merchants who have the necessities of life to sell. People who want to buy things do not catch the seller, chloroform him and cram the or ders into his pocket. Parties who want milk should not seat themselves on a stool in the middle of the field in hope that the cow will back up to them. We are part and particle of each other, but a little of the kindly glue of human brotherhood is needed in order to fasten us together. Work and Appreciation -By JEAN CABELL O’NEILL. CONFRONTING every ambi tious male and female clerk is the oft propounded query, “Does it pay to work hard? Does an employer appreciate faithful service?’ Answers for or against are regu lated more by temperament than by experience, for some workers believe fully that no matter what the effort it Is never appreciated— and to this class it is impossible to extend even hope. So sure are these unfortunate* of their premises it is a w-aste of time to try to change their point of view. But to the more open minds who are not sure whether or no their labor receives the proper meed of applause there is some chance of missionary work. Granted the negative side of the question, all of us know how much easier It is to win to the sound of shouts of encouragement—how hard the lone battle is. "Your boss doesn’t know you are on earth” is depressing certainly, but the pay master knows, and you regularly receive your stipend. Possibly the boss thinks your best effort is nominated in the bond that placed you on the pay roll. Look from his side of the question—he pays for good service, he doesn’t promise you praise for doing well what he has purchased of you! Why blame him? Do any of us throw appreciative comments at the devoted heads of our domestic servants? We may wish to do so, but fear the cook or maid will be so inflated by praise she will raise her wage on us, or become spoiled by the idea she can not be dispensed with. Would we consider these domes tics entitled to go about sulkily be cause. though their wages were paid promptly, they were not con stantly told how well they were doing” Now. we stand to our employer The policeman who keeps tbe crossing clear and at the same time informs us as to the location of the First National bank, no doubt, in one sense, is an economic waste. On the other hand, he is an eco nomic necessity. He is a necessary middleman. He relieves the con gestion of traffic, and, granting the hypothesis that he does not misdi rect us, he speeds us on our wav He Is Necessary. The musician who entertains us the lecturer who informs us, the writer who inspires us, and the lawyer who shows us how to keep out of trouble, all are middlemen. We say that food is the primal need. Next to this comes love. People who are not properly nour ished bicker without ceasing; so Love flees and stands aloof, naked and cold, with finger to his lips. Granting that food is a primal need, food then must be cooked and served. The very simple service of the cafeteria, where you flunky for yourself and pocket your own fee, is a necessity. A System of Transfers. Somebody must cook and some body must serve. Otherwise all of us would have to do the thing for ourselves, and then all of our ef forts w’ould be taken up In the search for food and we would be reduced to the occupation of tbe cave man. Civilization is a great system of transfers. Each one does the tiling he can do best and works for the good of all. It is all for each and each for all. There Is Just one way for us to abolish the working class, and that is to join it. So any man who does a needed service for humanity should be hon ored. There are no menial task:- The necessary is the worthy, and the useful is the sacred. much as our servants stand to us. If we understand human nature we will praise when praise is possible, and as quickly as we are in the habit of blaming some one when things go wrong, for appreciation of the efforts of man, horse or dog stimulates to greater endeavor. Still It only makes for persona: unhappiness to bear a grievance on the soul, and the clerk who gives time to thinking he is not valued 1> giving himself unnecessary sorrow If you do not think you are fairly treated move on to another sphere of usefulness, or If you know- you can not get a better place put dis quieting thoughts as to how the "boss” regards you out of yoaff mind. After a little practice yofi w-Il! find you have ceased to worry yourself about the matter, and your fellows will notice you are doing better work. It is, of course, easier to work finely if we know our superior offi cer is watching with ready smile for our success; we are ready to burst a blood vessel for him, silly a.” this would be, as he wants highest efficiency, not a crippled enthusi asm. But suppose the "boss" doesn’t know you are on earth, what then .' Can you shirk or slight your task just because no vote of thanks goes with the accomplishment? If you are better than an “eye servant" you will do your very best forth" glory of a duty performed. "Work is worship,” and those who work "with their might as unto the Lord,” as the practical St. Paul ad vised, find the labor Is sweetened, and an enthusiasm for the task is engendered that lifts one above the fret of whether any one knows you are working well. Try the plan, we so rarely can have what we want, so let us de termfne to want what we have. It certainly will ease nerves, sweeten temper and make the hours fly