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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 postofflce at Atlanta, under aet of March S. U7» Subscription' Price—Delivered by carrier. 10 cents a week By mail. $6 00 a year Payable In advanc'e. Help For the Women Who Need Help When the restricted district of Atlanta was abolished a few weeks ago the keeper of one of the houses which had been closed went to the executive committee of the Men and Religion Forward Movement and handed them twenty-five hundred dolors to be used in the work of rescuing and reforming women. The Men and Religion Forward Movement had made the campaign which resulted in the closing of the houses. The woman was, i therefore, giving her money, practically her all, to the very agency that had broken up her business. The act was one of the most unexpected things that could have happened, and showed a change of heart complete and penitential. , To use the words of the woman herself, she desired her gift useii to found and maintain a “Martha’s Home.” Il was for this purpose accepted by the Men and Religion Forward Move ment, which has gone earnestly to work to raise the remainder of the sum necessary for the efficient carrying out of this work. When the men who had waged this campaign saw that the restricted district had been abolished and “the houses in our midst” closed, they realized that their work had just begun, for if this evil should be scattered over the city, as frequently oc curs after such action, the result would only be to confirm the idea that tolerated segregation is the only practical way to treat this world-old problem, ami the houses would soon be reopened. It was their duty to assist any woman who could be induced to quit the life she had been leading and reform to an honest, use ful. normal life. They went about this work and have cared for 118 of these women and girls. Os these 51 were, sent to their former homes, were placed in positions where they can support them selves, 20 were received and are being kept in private homes, and others nave been disposed of as circumstances seemed to jus tify and require. Os all only two have lapsed into their former mode of life, according to statements made by leaders of the movement. The majority of the cases now being handled by the agen cies of this organization are women who, after warning, have been arrested and are committed on probation. It is intended that the “Martha’s Home” be used for these, but it will be open to all who come. For the present the gift of $2,500 referred to, will be kept intact, and only the income from it used. It is, therefore, nec cseary to raise at once $5,000 to be used for rent, equipment, cloth ing and other expenses. Subscriptions to this fund will be taken at the morning service next Sunday, December 1, in all of the churches of Atlanta. Tn each case the plans for the use of the money and the character of the work will be outlined by the pastor or other speaker. The work is classified into these grades, and It is necessary to have three institutions. These are the Harriet Hawkes Home for young girls on the brink, but not yet quite over; the Mar tha’s Home for those committed by the courts on probation, or for any woman, no matter what her past, who may wish to come; and a third for the incorrigible, who can now only be sent with negro women to the county convict camps, where they are in charge of male guards. It is impossible to mingle these three classes, as all would sink to the level of the lowest. The present Florence Home is for babies. It is undesirably located in a negro district. Three thousand dollars is needed to remove this establishment to the Florence Crittenton Home, where there are seven or more acres, and building a permanent house for the work. Two thousand dollars is necessary to put h good condition the Florence Crittenton Home, which is prin cipally for maternity cases. Last year 90 women passed through it. Subscriptions will also be taken Sunday for these two insti tutions. The money subscribed for these three causes will be expend ed under the direction of the Men and Religion Forward Movement. The work will be directly under the supervision of a committee of experienced and capable women. The merit of this work is in no sense measured by the wis dom or unwisdom of segregation or the present policy toward the problem of the social evil in Atlanta. The work is needed everywhere, and is to some extent done everywhere. It should be better done in Atlanta, and will be better done if citizens will respond to this cause as they usually do to causes that are worthy, uplifting, helpful and meritorious. This work extends help to those in need of help, to those who can not take a step upward without help, but who with help are cases saved from a life the most unhappy. the most miserable, the most unfortunate of any class of human be ings in the face of the earth. Lightning and Forest Fires - According to an exhaustive investigation, embracing a five-year period and an examination of trees scattered over 200,000,000 acres, the United States forest service has been able to throw a good deal of light on the origin of forest fires. It explodes the old theory that lightning never strikes twice in the same place by showing that it often hits the same tree seven and eight times. Less common in the Far West than in the East, lightning is most frequent in Florida and Illinois. The tree is really an efficient lightning rod, and the popular supposition that most of the persons killed by lightning have met death while under trees is disproved. More than half of such deaths occur in the open and less than one quarter under trees. In Bumming up, the forest geographer savs that trees are the objects most frequently struck and the yellow pi ue the one which Buffers most, owing to the fact that it grows in open spaces. Che Atlanta Georgian “Be Good and You’ll Be Lonely” A Melancholy Fantasy Illustrating the Old Saying I I jg I <*«*** lifts/ * - ?/ w 4 ■ B ▼ I ■s Jg|. I . Vra% i wk ■ t W' f*l ||L ANEW nation has had its birth, and if is is not stifled in its cradle by' the crowd of its would-be nurses, not one of whom lias any very friendly feeling to ward the infant prodigy, it will grow up to take an important place in "the concert of European pow ers." There are several of those nurses who could not be trusted alone with this vigorous Bulgar child. They would gladly drop poison in its milk bottle of smother it in the dark W'ith a pillow. Fortunately for the infant, its birth has not been an ob scure one. and too many' eyes are watching it to make chlld-inurder safe in this case. Witli every possibility that this new nation will be a lasting one. the question becomes of universal Interest. "What blood” runs in its veins, and what is its inheritance?” Child of the Slavic Race. It is a child of the Slavic race. It is akin to the Russian, the Pole, the Bohemian, and the Slovac. Its immediate parents are Bulgar and Serb, but precisely what name it will bear as it grows up remains to be seen. Perhaps it will be chris tened for the country in which it is born, and be called the Balkan Empire. That might dispose of any jealously' between its Bulgarian father and its Servian mother. Luckily it will not have to learn two different lanuages. The Bul gars and Servians, and the minor people of the Balkan peninsula while they have their dialects, ail speak the Slavic tongue, which is one of the reasons why Russia would be the head nurse, and the sole one, for the infant nation, if she could. But notwithstanding her blood relationship, even Rus sia could not be trusted alone with the child. Blood is not “thicker than water" when 'a great inheri tance is in question. Constanti nople is a gem that the mightiest monarch would be proud to wear on his crown. It would be his chief mark of distinction. The Slavs have never yet played the first fiddle in tiie orchestra of tile nations, but they believe them selves capable of bundling it. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1912. The New Nation of Europe By GARRETT P. SERVISS. r Their origin is lost in the obscur ity of ancient time. Ethnologists say that they are an offshoot of the great Aryan race, to which we be long, and which some aver had its origin in Asia, while others declare that it began in Europe. At any rate the first historic records of tiie Slavs place them in central and eastern Europe. Brought the Bulgar Name. Those branches witli which we are now’ particularly concerned emerged from the southern stem of the great Slavic family, the Servians and the Croatians first and the Bulgarians, who came from a region farther east, a little later. The Croatians I ecame dif ferentiated from the Serbs, and were gradually absorbed into Hun gary, while the Serbs set up an independent nation in the western part of the Balkan region, and retained their independence until they were conquered by the invad ing Turks in the fourteenth cen tury. The Bulgars came from the out skirts of Russia, pushed across the Danube as early as the Sixth cen tury, and occupied the eastern part of the Balkan peninsula. In the ninth and tenth centuries they maintained an extensive empire, fighting with the Roman Byzantine empire on the south and the Ser vians on the west. In the seventh century a body of Turks or Tar tars from the valley' of the Volga descended upon them, and ultimate ly blended with them. These in vaders brought with them the Bul gar name. As a separate unit they were swallowed up, but the mix ture of their blood apparently had some effect upon the character of the people who assimilated them. The Byzantine Romans found them to be fierce and savage enemies, witli a tendency to sensuality which made the name Bulgar a by-word in Constantinople before the Turks came to carry off that crown of dishonor. During the centuries o's their presence in the Balkan peninsula the Bulgars have experienced many intermixtures of foreign blood, but, | says Professor Niederle. the ethno)- *l* ogist of the University of Prague, “in general it may be said that the Bulgars Xvere always Slavs.” Both the Bulgars and the Serbs are predominantly’ a dark-hued people, although there are a few blond complexions among them. They’ are medium stature, and gen erally vigorous constitution. They are by choice herdsmen, farmers and gardeners. All the world has heard of the rose plantations of Bulgaria, where the precious attar of roses is distilled, and the plains of Servia are rich with grass and grain. From 80 to 90 per cent of the Servians are farmers. The Bulgarians have developed silk cul ture on a considerable scale. The Montenegrins are also Slavs, closely allied to the Serbs. Inhabi tants of a country which has won the name of the “Black Moun tain Land” (monte, “mountain” and negro, “black”), they are noted for their activity, large stature and courage. No Immediate Changes. The entire population of these countries probably dees not ex ceed about 8,000,000. But if they should now absorb the population of European Turkey- they would make a nation of perhaps 15,000,- 000 souls. Give them free access to the sea and they might double their population and quadruple their wealth. Thei% is undoubtedly an inter mixture of the Slav element in Greece also. But it is probable that Greece, while willing to enter into alliance with the Bulgarians and Servians, will always prefer to maintain its national independence, through pride in its glorious past, if for no other reason. It is not likely that the names of Bulgaria, Servia and Montenegro will immediately disappear from the map of Europe, although their boundaries will be changed. Theie are too many dynastic prides and prejudices in tiie way to permit of an immediate absorption of all un der one head, but the new nation will stand forth in spirit if not in name, and eventually it will be united, for in unity only is strength, and combination is tiie order of the day THE HOME PAPER DOROTHY DIX Writes on A -.IW ■ ! Matrimony T. J| B ()verw»>rke(l 11 us x band.- and Wives OS! ■ nvariably Prove | the Stumbling ' Block to the Happiness of Each Other. IN frank moments we are bound to au.ni that matrimony, as a general practice, is a pretty dreary affair, and that most hus bands and wives, if they told the truth, would confess to wondering wily they let themselves in for a thing that has so many more kicks than ha’pence. The average wife complains that she is nothing but a domestic slave. She spends her days in a dull round of monotonous duties and in prac ticing petty economies. She cooks and sews and cleans and walks the colic-suffering baby and binds up cut fingers and pares and skimps and saves, week after week, month after month, year after year. For reward she has the grum bling of a husband who Is never quite pleased, who takes all of her labor and lier sacrifices without thanks or praise, and who doles out the money for the necessary family expenses with remarks about her extravagance tiiat blistei' her very soul. On his part the average married man says that lie is nothing but a beast of burden. That he spends his life slaving to support a family that can never have enough, and that all thaf he gets out of his la bor -are the wo: st clothes in the family and tiie bony parts of the chicken, and the privilege of being bossed by a wife who makes the czar of Russia look like a liberal ruler. For reward he gets complaints and nagging at home and the con versation of a wife who is always reminding him of August Perkins, whom she might have married and who has since made a million. Lot of Either Is Dreary. Also, Iw’s fully informed concern ing all the good clothes that other men’s wives have, and that his wife does not have, and would like to have. Now, it is only too true that the charges of botli the husband and wife are justified. Neither one has overstated the dreariness of liis or her lot. It takes money to gild the gingerbread of matrimony, and in a family where the pocketbook is al ways lean and empty married life is stripped of all the gew-gaws and tinsel that dazzled its victims be fore they got a good close view of it. For the poor man and His wife married life is one eternal round of self-sacrifice and privation. Doing liousework and nursing babies IS dull and monotonous. Doing with out pretty clothes and amusement and gayeties that all women crave IS a privation. It IS hard and dis couraging to a man to see every dollar that he earns swallowed up by family expenses and to know that he can never get ahead in the race of life because of the weight he carries. It IS hard on a man— bitter, biting hard—to know that he must deny himself every diver sion and that he can not even stop and rest, because lie must keep the pot boiling on the kitchen range. Nothing can be done to alter the dread situation that tens of thou sands of married couples face every day, but it is worth while calling their attention to the fact that the only thing that can lighten their burden is the spirit witli which they meet it. It is the point of view that makes tilings easy or hard, and if only Bv DOROTHY DIX. husbands and wives could put i< v enough into their hearts there J would be no further coinphan; about what their hands had to do. Every young 4nan, when he be seeches tiie girl lie Is in love \vi? to marry him, does not think of ii being an intolerable hardship » have to work and support h'-? On the contrary, there is a po-uiiw sweetness to him in the though: that his strong right arm will st;.: : between her and the world, uud that lie is going to be able to save her from the roughness and th: hardship that every woman must undergo who has to earn her own living. Nor does tiie giri in love sion-r away from matrimony because of the burdens she knows that i: wife of a poor man must bea 1: fills her with’joy to think of mak ing him a home with her <> i hands, of saving for him. of hn iug him rise in the world. A Cause for Unhappiness. It is because they lose tills illu 1 minating thought and purpose th. ' marriage becomes' a failure to i-o many people. Just as long as tiie man works for his wife because he loves her, Just so long is his daily toil not a drudgery, but a glorious opportunity to prove his devotion in as chivalrous a manner as ei > . did a knight of old. As long as a woman is in !■> < witli her husband every sacrifice 1 is robbed of its bitterness. She r ‘ | joices, instead of complains, that she lias the privilege of doii.r something to make tiie life of .; adored one softer and easier. It |s because husbands an wives put no love into what ih< do for each oth< r that marriage bi comes the irksome bondage that 1: is. In which two unwilling i::rti<- *tre forced to extend begrudg'i sacrifices and labor to each otiu . This being the case, is it re: possible for disgruntled couple.- . - go back and get the old, roniant view, which was the larger ar. truer view, of married life? C: r they not breathe the breath of if once more into the fire of love that has burned down into ashes ci their hearthstone, and put !nm their work and sacrifices for eaeii other that spirit which alone can make marriage wortli while” For wo get back again what wf give, and tiie bread we cast upon the waters of matrimony returns to us in angel’s food. Let the wife show her husband that she joys in her ability to make his home : place of peace and rest, and that she would rather be, his wife arc wear homespun than be any other man’s wife dressed in silks and sat ins, and that man will not feel that he is an object of public sympathy because he. has to spend his mom ' on his family Instead of in a poker game. Should Be Appreciative. Let a man show that he still takes some interest in holding his wife’s rough, knotted hand and she will cheerfully work it to the bon for him, nor will she ever utter complaint about not being able t buy a $3.50 hat if she feels that . grieves him because he can’t give her a dozen $l5O ones. It is tiie spirit in which we m a thing that makes It work or fun and the difference between the hap pily married and the unhappily i; just a question of whether they love each other enough to get th<i’ pleasure out of doing oomethlnß each for the other.