Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, November 21, 1912, FINAL, Image 20

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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 postoffice at Atlanta, under act ct March 3, I*7l Subscription Price —Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mall, $5.00 a year. Payable In advance. The Automobile Business Is Only in Its Babyhood r » r One Mau Is Making $600,000 a Month Out of His Part Interest in One Single Machine—That Is Only the Beginning. Who Will Be the Real Automobile Builder? Before long in this country somebody is going to manufacture 1,000.000 automobiles every year. Who will be that man? He and his company—it will be too big for one man, perhaps— will make a net profit, of $25,000,000 to $50,000,000 a year—and he entitled to it. A car will cost less than SSOO. perhaps less than S4OO. It will be sold for about SSO more than it costs to make. It will he a car built for strength and endurance, for sufficient, but limited speed. It will be made nearly entirely of metal, little of any wood about it, little of any upholstery. It will be arranged so that il can be used for a delivery wagon or mechanic's wagon all through the week, and a pleasure vehicle for the family on Sundays or in the evening. It will he arranged also—-and what inventor will give us this feature in a hurry—in such away that the owner will he able to utilize the power of the engine for work of all kinds. The farmer will jump into his machine, go out two or three miles or more to the piece of land that he is clearing, and then use the machine for power to run a stump puller. Or he will take his machine out to the fruit, orchard, jack up the two rear wheels, put the weight of his own body and half the weight of the car on a disc harrow, AND DISO HARROW HIS ORCHARD WITH THE BOWER OF THE MACHINE THAT TOOK HIM TO HIS WORK. He will go to another place where his truck farm needs irriga tion. The engine in his car will be hooked up to the pump, and the irrigating will he done. Who is going to manufacture a million cars a year? Where is the man big enough ? Some one, or some company, is going to do it. The car will be built TO LAST AND TO WORK. It will be busy all day. It will put out of business more than half a dozen horses—and a good thing. All the grass and hay and corn and oats that we can spare we need for cows to give milk, and for beasts to give meat. The more quickly the horses go. the better for the farmer and for the whole country. Who will supply the combination automobile? Who will give us the car to take the farmer and his hands to work, and when they get there supply the power to do the work? What car will take a sawyer off to the saw mill and then run the saw the rest of the day? What car will take the house cleaner to the big city house, and then run the vacuum pump to pull all the dust out of the house and send it down the sewer or burn it ? Let no one tell you that the automobile business is being over done. As great as the invention of the steam engine is the invention of the explosive gas engine that takes men at high speed and safely. The wonderful car at low price will come. And the wonderful car for a high price—-and worth the price will persist and increase in efficiency. Automobiles on wings will carry human beings through the air. Automobiles will carry men along the road, automobiles will carry mechanics to their work and help them DO their work when they get there. The man who gets $600,000 a month out of his automobile busi ness now is entitled to it—he gives the country a great deal more than the country gives him. But, unless he grows, he will be small compared to the man that one day will build a million machines each year, and make a fortune equal to that of John D. Rockefeller, by selling the best pos sible article AT THE LOWEST POSSIBLE COST. An Ample Navy and a Mer chant Secretary Meyer believes that, there has heen a distinct change of sentiment in the present congress which will he so much more favorable to a greater navy as to justify him in asking for three super-dreadnoughts. The appropriation for only one battleship by the congress which adjourned in August last left the United States as low or lower than the fourth rank among the nations. It will require at least three new dreadnoughts by the next congress to return our country to its original place among the na tions of naval strength. > There is every reason why congress should view this great question in a larger and more patriotic light than it has heretofore. The election is over, and the unfounded fear of the people's protest against appropriations has passed for a season. I he national convention of the Democratic party has expressed a strong demand for an ample navy. The president-elect has expressed himself strongly for an ample uavy. The Republican minority is on voting record in favor of a greater uavy. And the Hearst newspapers have prosecuted a vigorous, insist ent and untiring campaign for a naval equality, which has merited Tie thanks of the navy s friends everywhere, and which has had a powerful effect upon public opinion. The Democratic party, in power, must surely vindicate Ameri can spirit—its regard for the honor, dignity and safety of the coun try by building agr ater navy and by re-wstablishinr the \meri can merchant marine The Atlanta Georgian Their Mingling in Japan Today Makes One of the Significant Sights of the World By GARRETT P. SERVISS. WE have here a photograph of the famous Admiral Togo, one of the greatest sea fighters of the age, an Asiatic, with no drop of Aryan blood In his veins, who has shown that he can handle a fleet of modern battleships, con structed, armed and manned on European and American principles, as well as a Farragut, a Dewey or a Nelson could do it. All the world admires and honors him as a hero, a patriot and a man of genius. We see him Just issuing from the gate of the palace of the Japanese sen ate in Tokio, where, with his col- who are following him, he has doubtless heen engaged in con sidering matters of vast importance to his great country. Nobody questions that Admiral Togo Is a man who must be reck oned with by the nations of the world. If any of them should think of making war upon Japan the im age of Togo and his fighting fleet would rise menacingly before their eyes. The bravest naval officer, trained in western schools and western methods of war, would steer his ships Into Japanese wa ters witli un anxious heart if he knew that Togo was there waiting for him. And yet, notwithstanding our re spect for this great Japanese, when we look at this phototgraph of him, a smile comes upon our lips. There is something about It which amuses our Occidental minds in spite of tl»e honor which we instinctively pay-tq the man. Our attention Is distract ed from him to his conveyance. He reminds us. irresistibly, of-a man taking u ride in a baby carriage. The Old Form Remains. it is the national vehicle of his country, the Jinricksha. It has heen used for generations. To the Jap anese eye there is nothing undigni fied about It. The ipan who is able to ride In a jinricksha is envied by his countrymen. It is as honorable a distinction in Tokio to be swiftly Irawn through the streets itj a glit tering Jinricksha by a running coolie as to ride behind a spank ing team of SIO,OOO horses in New York. But people usually judge things not by their suitability to surrounding circumstances, but’ by their accord with inherited ideas and prejudices. Foreigners who have ridden in these man-drawn vehicles all agree that, after they got over laughing at the funny spectacle which they thought they were making of ■themselves, they found the experience altogether de lightful. The motion is smooth and easy, and there is no danger of running people down in narrow, crowded streets. But observe now how the spirit of western Invention has affected even this characteristic and traditional institution of old Japan. The wheels of Admiral Togo’s jinrick sha are furnished with modern rub ber tires and braced with light steel spokes, like an American bi cycle. The folded leather top, which he can have put up in an instant to shield off the sun or the rain, is constructed after the plan of our best buggy tops. Only the old form remains; the materials and the workmanship are bor rowed from the western world. So, too, the palace, as far as we can see it in the picture. Look at SO the reincarnated princess isn’t a princess at all, and Rame ses come to earth again Is just a plain every day man, when he gets to the divorce court. Dear, dear, what a disappointment! They met in Egypt, he and she, in a dead king’s tomb. She was tall and svelte. I don't know what it Is to be svelte, but oh! how in teresting it sounds, and —and she had big eyes and a lovely ankle. He wasn’t so much to look at, but oh, what a soul for romance he had! So they fell In love, dead in love, so much in love that there wasn’t anything in the world so wonderful to him as the way she did her hair, and how she walked, and the manner she had of saying "really,” and looking so cunning' ' when he said she looked like Cleo patra. She was in love, too. His rather ordinary American features were transformed for her and the things she thought and said, too. in public at that, about his soul were too thrilling for words. And they were Just plain Cook’s tourists doing the Pyramids at so much a day guides, carriages and hotels all included. They Were Egyptians. They weren’t just honest, well meaning Americans with good plain names to keep straight, and nice plain old ideals to uphold; they were Egyptians, he and she. and Ancient Egyptians at that—rein carnated. Reincarnated to beat the band, as Dorothy Dix would say. She stopped wearing a perfectly good diamond with a chipped ruby on each side of it. and got a sar donyx with something mysterious written on it. She wouldn't look at an honest dog. though she had a perfectly dear Boston bull at home. She cultivated cats and wore green veils to make her eyes look the color of the Nile grass when the floods go down, and she bought an asp such a poor scared crawly lit tle asp —and kept ii in a green and reddish cage, and she tied dingle dangles al! over het clothes, and she never went anywhere but in a barge, oh. she was Cleopatra all right, as fat as she could b» The Old and the New THE REINCARNATION FAD THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1912. f/K:- * JI MMbS*. Kew wk ■ " iw --'W \ 1 JK IS W R' H j I-’ ;x X J Hi “ 1/ l/vTYJ "■* YA J \ 1 $ T* WW \\»wLt rr JF »// Admiral Togo in one of the curious Japanese jinrickshas, and (the smaller picture) a portrait of General Nogi. the brick-laid gateposts with their • super-incumbent electric lamps, and the gilded bronze gates, which might stand before any pretentious building in any American or Euro pean city. Notice the modifications that have been introduced in the ; roofs, gables and windows of the building behind. Here we catcli the whole secret of Japanese success, a secret which has enabled them with vertiginous rapidity, to place their country in the forefront of modern progress, and to improve, in some respects, upon their models. It is the same secret which, according to the great philosopher-historian, Montesquieu, made Rome great. "Whenever the Romans," says Montesquieu, “found among the peoples whom they subdued any thing that seemed' to be an im provement upon what they had been accustomed to, they imme diately adopted it and turned it to their own use.” But neither the Japanese, nor tho Romans before them, ever thought of -wholly revolutionizing their own • By WINIFRED BLACK. ’ And he was Mark Antony, oh. yes! that’s who he was. He could feel it just as plain as anything. He couldn’t exactly remember all about the battles he lost or won, but he knew just exactly how Mark Antony felt that day when he help ed stab Caesar, and the minute he saw Cleopatra standing there with the Cook’s tourists in the tomb of the dead king he knew her just as quick as a wink, knew her in her short skirt and coat suit, knew her in her neat traveling hat, knew her in her perfectly good Boston boots. •* And all the rest of the time they were in Egypt she was Cleopatra and he was Mark Antony, and they didn't.care who knew It. Now They Are Divorced. And when they were married — odd they went through that silly ceremony, wasn’t, it. like ordinary Americans, but. they did?—when they were married they told the re porters all about the reincarnation and how creepy they felt when they glimpsed each other over there in the dusty tomb, and how fond she'd always been of cats, though of course she never realized It till he told her about Cleopatra and the sacred green-eyed ones. /What a glorious time they were going to have being ancient and weird and queer and rapturous! And now they are divorced, just plain divorced. She didn't find another Caesar either, or he another Flavia. They just didn't agree about the bills and whether to heat with hot water or with air, and who should answer the telephone when it rang late at night. Just ordinary common things like that. Poor Cleopatra, how she has fallen off—hasn’t she? Reincarnation ancient romance, dry-as-dust love affairs-—I wouldn’t give the snap of iny finger for the whole lot of them, from Cleopatra to Thais. They were just grass widows, these persons of such great ro mance, and they dyed their hair and wore rouev so thick you couldn’t see through it. and tjtey ate with • innate ideas. It is the idea that governs; the method must be bent to fit It. Mechanical improve ments can not change the heart of a people. Railroads, electric lights, rifled guns, automobiles, subma rines, aeroplanes, warships, tele graphs, telephones aun aerial com munications cause only an external alteration In Japan. They make her powerful, respected and feared, but they do not change her essen- • tial nature. She is at bottom As!- ‘ atic, and will remain Asiatic —an Oriental corner of the world illumi nated by the Occidental sun. The whole world had a lesson in that the other day when General Count Nogi, as great a Warrior on land as Togo is at sea, committed hari kiri, together with his aged wife, as a mark of respect to his dead emperor. Changed the Ships. The Japanese found that battleships were preferable to war junks, and they discarded the junks and adopted the battleships just as the American Indian drop ped his bow’s and arrows to learn to shoot with the white man’s gun. They find that automobiles are a good thing for fast journeys, and so they have automobiles; but they also find that the jinricksha is very suitable for their use, and they re tain the jinricksha, simply mak ing it over with Western tools and modern materials. And it is certain that Admiral Togo will continue all his life to ride in his “baby car riage,” while his countrymen will applaud and admire him wherever 1 he appears. • • their fingers and smacked their thjck lips, and swore like troop ers, and fought like them, too, and gloried in it, and had affairs with _ slaves of all colors. Faugh, if they were alive now we’d segregate them with the rest of the "unfortunates’’ and we’d call the places they lived in the Red Light district! Cleopatra was over forty when she had that famous affair with Antony, and he was probably bald and more than fat at that. Great sirens, these women. Great nonsense! They were clever wom en, and had love affairs because there wasn’t anything else for them to do. Love was a woman’s business In those days, and a very coarse kind of business you would find it, too. I’m thinking, if we knew all about it.. The only way a woman could be somebody in "dem days,’’ as I’ncle Remus says, was by "luring" men, and all the elever women went to work and "lured or made people think they were “luring," and all the time I suppose they had the backache and the headache, and their feet hurt, and they didn't know what on earth to do for the neuralgia, same as the elderly si rens of today. With a True Heart, Fudge, I’d give more for one good decent, honest love affair be tween a clear-eyed ureaming girl of twenty, born and bred right here in America, and a man just old enough to appreciate her, than I would for all the liasons of all the passe si rens of history put together! If I ever get the reincarnation fad I’m going to reincarnate into sweet sixteen with all my dreams fresh in my innocent heart. And I hope the reincarnated man 1 fall in love with will be a nice broad-shouldered American just out of college long enough to know what a fool he is. with a true heart and a decent way of life, and a good job somewhere, and a little house to take me to. after they’ve thrown all the old shoes and rice in town after us. That’s the kind of reincarnation I want, and If I can't get it 1 shan’t plgy incarnation at all. so there. THE HOME PAPER Why Destroy the Old Cre matory at All? K M « Dr, J. T. Floyd Asks Some Rather Pointed and Pertinent Ques tions Concerning the Disposal of the City’s Garbage. Editor The Georgian; WITH reference to the contro versy- that is now going on between the health board and certain members pt the alder- manic board relative to the build- ing of a new disposal plant or cre matory for the disposal of the city’s refuse and the present plans of the health board to demolish entirely the present crematory, the only one the city has, before the new build ing is even begun, I beg to say that as the health of the city is of para mount importance and should be considered first and above all oth ers, whether financial or political, the removal of the present crema tory and the depriving of this city for any length of time of a plant in which to dispose of its garbage is nothing short of a crime. I am reliably informed that the present crematory Is capable of burning 60 per cent of the city’s garbage and was doing this at the time it was shut down by the board of health, and that w-ith slight re pairs and intelligent handling, can burn practically all of the refuse. I think it would be well for the citi zens as. well as the city officials to consider carefully the plight the city Will be in if they permit the present crematory to be wrecked. And in the Meantime? First, what is to be done with the garbage, while the new plant is in course of construction? Dr. Gil bert says it will be" dumped around the outskirts of the city and prop erly fumigated. What does Dr. Gilbert mean by the outskirts of the city? As a matter of fact a part of it is being dumped in the valley between the end of Forrest avenue and the west end of Wil liams Mill road and within a few hundred feet of the houses of citi zens who, while they can not live on Peachtree street, are citizens and pay taxes just the same and death to them or in their families is just as much a bereavement as it is to their more favored neighbors, the refuse from whose homes is dump ed at their doors. I call attention to this particular dumping ground, as I know it personally. There must necessarily be numerous ones like this about the city and they must be worked overtime if the crematory is demolished. Are these dumping heaps being fumigated? Go and see. Only last Sunday one of them caught fire out near Eighth street and filled the neighborhood so full of foul smoke that it was necessary' for one of the citizens to come to the city at midnight Sun day' night and get permission for the fire department to go out and extinguish this Are. Where was Dr. Gilbert and his fumigating out fit? Second, there has been a good deal said by those interested in building this new disposal plant about the danger of dumping the city's refuse about the city' next summer. Now, assuming that this new disposal plant is ready to dis pose of all the refuse by next May, for which we have no guarantee, what is going to become of this garbage that will accumulate In the time intervening between the de struction of the old plant and the completion of the new? Is it going to rot and disappear during the winter months, or is It not going to be in just about the proper fondi tlon to rot and putrefy and breed The Crematory and City’s Editor The Georgian: I desire to offer my approval of your very sensible and patriotic ed itorial on the subject of how, when and why Atlanta should be provid ed with new facilities for destroy ing the garbage of the city. It seems to me strange that any man, pretending to be sane, and at the same time patriotic, should ob ject to the retention of the old cre matory plant for usage while.the new is being built. The record shows that this plant, now under arbitrary condemnation’ performed more work than was promised under the building guar antee THE DAY BEFORE IT WAS LABELED “NO GOOD'* by the health board. Competent engineers say that for $3,000 it can be put in such repair as to make it do the work it did when first built. Think! In the face of these bold, undisputed facts, the board of health has passed an order of con demnation that has caused the old crematory to be shut down, while the garbage of a city of 175,000 peo ple is being planted—yes, planted for germ-breeding by-and-by— waiting on the building of the new. Did any factory or business in stitution ever close down the old while a new plant or occupation place was being built? Could any business expand under such a senseless rule? It is contended that the contract has been made to build on the old site, and it is a legal contract, and the honor of the mayor pro tern is • flies during next summer? Why should Dr. Gilbert and the health board frame an ordinance and have the city council pass same to screen against the infected fly and then conduct a campaign of education against this infected fly, and then the following summer Dr. Gilbert and the board of health make plans and conditions ideal for the hatch ing of millions of these disease carrying flies? “Barn Door” Clause. Third. We are told that this new plant w’ill be ready to operate next May. Does any intelligent man who has any conception of the un dertaking believe this? If the board of health believes it, why did they not name this date for completion in the contract, instead of allowing a year of working days with a "barn door” clause about freezing and rainy days that will allow the completion of this plant extended indefinitely? Is the contracting company or any one else ready to put up a forfeiture guaranteeing that the proposed plant will be in operation by next May? Fourth. Why destroy the old cre matory at all? Suppose the com pany contracting for this new cre matory should delay the completion of It for more than a year, which they can do under their contract, or suppose the new plant would not do the work that it is supposed to do, or assume that it does work, but some of the intricate machinery breaks, would not the old crema tory, properly repaired, be a "god send” to this city, with its moun tains of refuse, already piled up about its vacant lots? While wait ing for this new experiment to be completed, or even if this new- plant should be a "howling success,” is it not a good plan to have dupli cate or relief plants? We have them for our lights, our water serv ice, etc., to' prevent a total shut down in case of an accident or nec essary repairs, and why not for our disposal plant and our health? Gentlemen, you are simply giving us another dose of muddy water as the water board did some time ago in order to put on the city a broken pump. The citizens do not want a plant built or bought under this kind of coercion. The “Joker” Power Plant. I might say a great deal about the amount of money to be paid for this new plant, and the JOKER power plant that is to be attached, and how this council proposes to spend our $50,000 bond money yi such away that succeeding coun cils will be obliged to pay the bal ance or get no disposal plant at all. Or I could make some re marks about Dr. Gilbert and the board of health arbitrarily shutting down the present crematorj' in the midst of its usefulness on the pre text that "because it needs a few repairs” it is absolutely useless, but I am Interested at present in pre venting its being destroyed and In having it put back in commission, and I believe that if the citizens will wake up to what they are be ing led into and to their duty, this crematory will never be destroyed, and if they will make a little in vestigation into this matter, they will find that the old cremators' is in the way of the new one in more than one way. Yours very truly, DR. J. T. FLOYD. • 324-5 Candler Building. Health struck on the breast by no less personage than he himself, while the defy is thrown down, begads, that the old crematory, worth $30.- 000, must be razed TO THE GROUND, SIR. ’TIs true, City Attorney Mayna says, the contract Is legal. "I’b true, Engineer Benjamin says, t. ■> is room enough on the city's prop erty to build the new while the o’- is retained for necessary garbage destruction. ’Tis reported that t • proposed plant will cost Atlanta SIOO,OOO more than a similar plant cost Milwaukee. 'Tis alleged tii ■' this contract is so excessiv, < ■ profit that the Destructor Comi has offered $30,000 to have it financed. , These things are of small • n cern—for Judge Candler is insist ent that the contract is a lega one—and that Attorney Ma> t,: and Engineer Benjamin need to look again. But Judge Candler has spolo-i. and before his potential ipse dixit the honor view of all other mem bers of council must yield. And the health of Atlanta, in a ( fever-laden summer, that is sure to follow this reckless, unbusiness like plan of doing without pr'■ tion until a protectorate is built, to pay the rueful cost —and on ad captandum argument of J 1 ■■ Candler, which, whatever his v will not please, I opine, people think and discriminate. Which is the more import..nt Judge Candler’s legal view or t - health of the people? BENJAMIN M. BLACKBURN. Atlanta, Ga.