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THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At W East Alabama St., Atlanta, Ga.
Entered as second-class matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March S. 187*.
Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail. J 5.00 a year.
Payable In advance.
A “Disturbance of Big Busi
ness" Might be Useful
i in One Way
j It Might Put Some of the Really Big Men to Doing Construct
ive Work, Instead oi Merely Grafting on Established In
dustries.
With a president who has promised to “DO SOMETHING,”
with a senate and a house Democratic, and with the tariff the chief
point of attack, we may see some very big gentlemen considerably
disturbed before this administration goes out of power.
It isn’t, likely that the country as a whole will be disturbed.
But it is quite conceivable that some of the “big men ” who have had
very pleasant, times dipping money up by the bucket will have to
change their methods
Perhaps, in the long run, it. would be a good thing to give
something of a shock to present conditions.
A good many big and able men in this country are wasting their
time. If they found it impossible to continue the simple method of
making all the money they want by forming monopolies and charg
ing more, they might go into some kind of useful work.
There Is no doubt that J. Pierpont Morgan is a very powerful
and able man. If ho were compelled to do it, he could build up in
dustries, create new property and new values and add something
to the country’s wealth.
Thus far he has been able to make all the, money he wanted
merely by taking three or four businesses, putting them together,
giving them a new name, issuing so many pillions or hundreds of
millions of stock AND LETTING THE PUBLIC PAY SO MUCH
MORE AFTERWARD FOR MATERIAL CONSUMED.
Os course, the old-fashioned way of getting rich in a hurry was
attractive. Where you had five men working for the public, each
trying to sell cheaper than the other, the people got goods cheap.
Along came one big man, put the five men together, paid each
of them twice as much as his business was worth, AND THEN
'MADE THE PUBLIC PAY DOUBLE WITH THE POWER OF A
MONOPOLY.
That has been done in gas, in coal, in iron, in sugar, in many
lines.
The men that have arranged these organizations and monop
olies have been powerful men. The work that they have done has
been thus far very useful work. Monopoly, when it, overcharges
because it is a monopoly, when it uses the power of organization to
rob the public, instead of using it to serve the public, is a very
bad thing. But, at the same time, it is a good thing.
The monopoly that robs the public today WILL BE CON
TROLLED AND OWNED BY THE PUBLIC TOMORROW.
The lesson that the organizers teach to the public when they
prove that one single man can run the whole industry in a nation
will be learned by the public, which eventually wWI make it clear
that the nation itself can run that industry.
The work that the big men have done in combining many busi
nesses into one, and making the public pay tens and hundreds
of millions of profits in a few years or months, has had its good
as well m Its bad side.
Now, if that thing could be checked, if monopolies could be
compelled to run on a basis of fair charges—regardless of the
amount of stocks and bonds that the gentlemen in charge may have
ran off on their printing presses, and if the very big men of the
oountry could be put to w’ork at producing instead of combining,
the country might he better off.
In any case, we are going to see some interesting changes. A
decisive vote such as that of November 5 must be followed by
action of some kind. And whatever it is it will be interesting and
full of meaning.
1 r
What Will Happen to At
lanta When a Half-Million
People Live Here?
*»».*!
Records of Underground Construction Work Are Now Woefully
Lacking in Number and Practically Without Value.
The argument between Edwin I’. Ansley and Captain Clay
ton. head of the department of construction of the city, has
‘brought out many interesting things.
First, and most important, there are not enoiurii records of
the things that lie two feet under the surface of the streets to
a man that be could dig a hole anywhere in the city with
i out encountering a gas pipe, a water pipe or a sewer.
The Georgian dot's not intend to take the part of Mr. Ans
ley or Captain Clayton.
However, just at present Atlanta L growing faster than any
city of its size in the country The civic development already
has been outgrown by the population.
The citv has not been run as a business concern. The rec
ords of what lias been done, which would be invaluable when
th? work which will have to be done is started, have not been
kept.
T he development of a city underground is of as much im
portance as the development of the city above the surface.
It is time a systematic, thorough record of all that lies un
der the streets of Atlanta should be started.
There should be a complete record of every pipe and everv
sewer. Thousands of dollars have been wasted and millions
more will be thrown away under lhe present system.
On many jobs started now. thre- or four grades have to be
followed because the men who are digging has. no idea of what
obstacles they will encounter.
Every year the contliiioiis will bee >m< wins and evers s ear
kthe troubles <», Captain • iayton will b>- .-i.sed until under
Atlanta is explored.
■
The Atlanta Georgian
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What Comets Are Good For
ACORRESPON DENT w h o
writes a good hand asks me
“What are these new com
ets that I read about in the news
papers good for, anyway? They
seem to be popping up all around,
and a great fuss is made about
them, but I haven't got a telescope
to look at them, and probably 1
couldn't tlnd them if I had. They
are neither good to eat nor to look
at; they can't lower the cost of liv
ing, or put money in anybody’s
pocket, so what's the use of bother
ing with them'.' You astronomical
sharps remind me of the old 'phil
osopher' who stared at the stars
until he fell into the ditch."
There may be a considerable
number of persons who feel like the
writer of that letter. The world is
full of people who never look over
head, and who think that a dia
mond on the ground is worth in
finitely more than a star in the sky.
It is for them that tills article is
written.
Won't Get Much Attention.
It is true that the two new com
ets which are now cleaving the
deeps of space around the sun will
probably never make enough dis
play in the heavens to attract gen
eral notice. \< :y likely they haven't
got tts much substance in them as a
Broadway skyscraper. If their
heads were composed of gold nug
gets or diamonds nobody could lay
hfinds upon them, unless they
should strike the earth, and then
they would be turned Into vapor
and fly away. From our point of
view a comet Is worth absolutely
nothing EXCEPT AS A PRO
VOKER OF THOUGHT, but tor
that purpose It is more valuable
than a library full of books.
All jtrue knowledge comes from
observation, of nature. Every one
of our great achievements on the
e.fith is due to that alone. Books
teach us nothing but what other
men have thought or done. If we
want to make an advance, and find
out something new, we go to na
tu.e Naturally enough we confine
our attention principally to the
phenomena of nature which are
dose about us. things which we
can touch and handle. But if no
body had ever done anything more
than that humanity would be no
better than a collection of brute
animals. „
The great distinctiot; between
• icn and sn ,p is tuai t.ie latter
ER I DAY. NOVEMBER 15, 1912.
The Victors
Drawn By HAL COFFMAN.
By GARRETT P. SERVISS.
•• think only of the grass, while the
former think also of the stars. In
thinking of stars man thinks of
his higher nature. When he sees
that there are a hundred million
suns instead of one, he begins to
comprehend at the same time his
physical littleness and his intellec
tual greatness. When he sees a
new comet come sailing out of the
depths of space to visit his sun, and
reflects" that the inhabitants of
other worlds and other systems
may have gazed upon that comet
long before his race began, he feels
as the inhabitant of some lone
island does when a ship with
strange sails comes into sight over
the horizon.
At Home Anywhere.
When he analyzes the light of
the stranger, and finds that it is
made of similar substances to thosß
which exist on the earth, he feels
that he would not be altogether lost
no matter where he might wander
in space. He would be at home on
the utmost verge of the universe!
AnJ. feeling this, lie feels, at the
same time, that he is more than
an inhabitant of the little earth—lie
is an inhabitant of a vast Cosmos,
and may live, by turns, in many
worlds.
Comets are the ships of space.
Some of them are limited in the
range of their voyages: tl’.oy skirt
tht shores of our'solar system, and
pass among the planets as little
Last Love
By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
'T'HE first flower of the spring is npt so fair
; *• Or bright as one the ripe midsummer brings.
The first faint note the forest warbler sings
Is not as rich with feeling, or so rare
As when, full master of his art, the air
Drowns in the liquid sea of song he flings
Like silver spray from beak, and breast, and wings;
The artist's earliest effort, wrought with care,
IThe bard's first ballad, written in his tears.
Set by his later toil, seems poor and tame.
And into nothing dwindles at the test.
So with the passions of maturer years.
Let those who will demand the first fond flame.
Give me the heart's last love, for that is best.
coasting vessels travel from port to
port, without venturing out upon
the vast ocean beyond. Others ap
pear to come from afar, across the
boundless deep. They have seen
strange sights; they have visited
wonderful suns; they may have
traversed the marvels of the Milky
Way, and looked upon the riches of
the great star-clouds and sun-clus
ters!
Trip of Comet Astonishing.
What voyage so astonishing as
that of a far-traveling comet! Sup
pose you could embark upon one,
and. endowed with endlessness of
life, visit with it a hundred or a
thousand suns, suns of various
magnitudes, with infinitely diversi
fied systems of planets revolving
aroufld them! The suns exist and
the comets exist, but man, in his
present form, as we know him, can
only follow them in imagination.
But what is the meaning of that
gift of imagination which enables
him to follow them? Is it nut the
greatest of our faculties, as far as
w< have learned what our faculties
are" Reason is weak, but the wings
of the imagination never tire. AVars,
elections, high prices, huge har
vests, good times and panicky times
do not constitute the true life of
mail; they concern him for only a
few short years which fly by and
vanish like morning mists. The
comets and the stars teach him
what he really is. if only he will
ponder upon their message.
THE HOME PAPER
Dorothy D i x
Writes on
Men s Interest /
in W omen’s
Views '
Vs. i
Most Men Want L
to Tell Their [
Troubles to Wo- 1
men, But Few ot
Them Care to
HearOtherFolks’
Troubles.
A YOUNG woman who is en
gaged to be married and who
is, therefore, contemplating
man at arm's length, so to speak,
instead of from long range, has just
discovered a masculine peculiarity
that has. greatly puzzled her.
It is her sweetheart's lack of In
terest in her point of view, except
as it affects himself, and the fact
that he grows distrait and bored
when she tries to talk to him about
subjects that are of importance to
her alone.
She says she listens joyously and
is absorbed while he discourses by
the hour about his life, his hopes,
the people lie knows and the suc
cesses he makes, and the compli
ments he gets from his employers,
but that when she starts in to tell
him something about herself, her
business, her plans and hopes and
successes he yawns in her face.
He Does Love Her.
She knows it isn’t because the
man doesn’t love her, because he
does. She knows it isn't because
they are not congenial, because
they have the same tastes, and he
Is keenly interested as long as the
conversation keeps to topics in
which they are mutually concerned.
It's only when she talks of things
that belong to herself alone that his
attention wavers and he begins to
look at his watch.
The girl wants to know why this
is thus, and if this attitude on the
part of her sweetheart indicates
any lack of affection in him.
Certainly not! And It Isn’t an
eccentricity of her particular man.
It’s a sex characteristic- All men
are biqlt that way, and there Is no
other jar in life that a woman gets
that so completely knocks her ego
tism into smithereens as the knowl
edge that no man ever loves her
enough to want to know the real
woman inside of her—the woman
that Is made up of her past life and
her innermost thoughts and feel
ings.
Decline of the Turk
By RtlV. THOMAS B. GREGORY.
THE Turkish power never re
covered from tho blow that it
received at the siege of Vien
na, in 1683, at the hands of So
bieski, of Poland, and when on the
back of that disaster there came to
it, Jn 1717, the loss of Belgrade, it
was already as good as settled that
its doom was sealed. It might lin
ger for generations, but its virility
was gone. It was no longer a se
rious menace to the white man’s
rule in Europe.
Between the insurrections of Ja
nissaries and Mamiliikes at home
and the batterings from French
men. Englishmen and Russians
from the outside, the Turks were
forced to witness the slow, but
steady and inevitable decline ot
their once tremendous power in Eu
rope.
Piece by piece the sultan’s Euro
pean territory was taken from him,
and by 1854 it would have been
easy for the powers to have put a
quietus for good and for all upon
the troublesome importation. The
"Sick Man" was completely at the
mercy of the quartet of nations—
France. Russia, Austria and Great
Britain —but, instead of doing their
duty, they resolved that the alien
institution which had for so long a
time disturbed Europe should not be
ended.
The document in which this
hypocritical and foolish agreement
was set forth is known as the
“Treaty of Vienna." which was
signed by the diplomats April 8,
1854.
Few proceedings more infamous
ever disgraced the pages of his
tory. For hundreds of years the
' Turks had been breeders of dis
cord among the peoples of Europ*’.
Religious fanatics, polygamous in
their domestic life, and in pretty
By DOROTHY DIX
A man is contented with a sur
face view of a woman. He takes
her at what she Is, or what he
thinks she is. He has no desire to
know what has made her what she
is, and no curiosity about what ex
periences she has passed through
unless he suspects them of having
been evil ones.
Doesn’t Want to Hear
He doesn’t want to hear any sto
ries about her childhood, or her
school days, and if she tries to tell
him about the time when she was a
little glr! in pinafores with her hair
in pigtails, or relates to him the
thrilling adventures she had a s
boarding school, he Is sure to re
member a pressing engagement
that calls him away from the talk
fest.
On the contrary, there is nothing
under the sun that has ever ha.o
--" pened to the man she loves that ie
not of burning, throbbing heart In
terest to a woman. She will sit up.
spellbound, by the week while her
sweetheart monologues along about
the time when he was a little
freckle-faced boy with warts on his
hands, and of how he used to go to
the old swimming holes, and snare
birds, and so on. She wil! thrill
over his college escapades, and aim
Ply sit up and beg for more while
he maunders on about his busi
ness, and what he said to the book
. keeper and the bookkeeper said to
him.
She is Flattered.
No man hesitates to take up the
time and attention of any woman
friend by telling her of his troubles
or of his achievements, and the
woman Is flattered and pleased by
this evidence of the man's confi
dence. And she's Interested, too.
but no woman would be foolish
enough to expect any man, who
wasn't her lawyer or her doctor and
paid to listen to her affairs, to give
ear for more than five minutes to
her tale of woe, or to rejoice with
4- her in any success.
nearly every respect the very oi
posite of Europeans, they had beei
a thorn in the side of the conti
nent from the day on which thej
had squatted upon its soil.
Not only so, but, predisposed by
their fatalistic faith to look will
contempt upon all modern progress
they acted the part of the dog h
the manger, doing nothing them
selves and unwilling that, others
should do anything for them.
There Is a chance now forth«
"powers” to atone, in part at leas;
for their silly and unwarranted ac
tion in 1854. Once again the “Sic 4
Man” is in their hands, and it they
will they can permit him to dio
It looks as though, conscience
smitten in their thought of the past
they" were going to do just thai
thing. The gallant little nation;
who have most severely felt th*
Turk’s atrocities have about driver
their ancient enemy to the wall
and the opinion is abroad that th*
big nations are going to permit th*
victors to reap the full reward oi
their valor by driving the Turl
hack to his old stamping grounds
in Asia.
By the time this appears in print
Constantinople may have fallen
and, after a period of four hun
<lred> and fifty-nine years, passe*
back again into the hands of th*
Eastern Christians. And then I
wilj appear whether the diplomat
have or have not outgrown thei;
old-time hypocrisy and greed.
If they have, it will soon appea
that the day of the Turk in Eu
rope is over, if not, then the oli
farce will be repeated, and war
and rumors of wars, wounds am
bloodshed and trouble genera l !.'
shall continue over a matter tha
should have been settled genera
tions ago.