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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 «s secondiclass matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March 8. 18T8. Subscription Tilca—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mall. Io 00 a year. Payable In advance. The Smiles and Stockings of Atlanta » » r The Genuine Happiness of Christmas Lies in Bringing Happi ness to Someone Else. There's Nothing Easier Than That, Try It For the Next Week and See For Yourself. Once a year there comes an opportunity’ to make yourself happy. No matter whether you are a sour-faced, pessimistic, money-grabbing man. <>r a high-heeled, tight-laced, pleasure-lov ing woman, or a person very different from cither—the oppor tunity comes just the same. Os course, that opportunity is Christmas. And the m imine happiness of Christmas lies in bringing hap piness to some one else. There is nothing easier than that. Try it for the next week, and see for yourself. As you come down town tomorrow morning through the haze of smoke which is so effectually hiding Atlanta from the outer world, try to get that frown off your face. Notice the people around you in the car. See if they don’t look a bit more pleasant than you generally supposed. Try’ to find a pleasant word for the people with w'hom you come in contact. If you spend the day at work, don’t snarl and snap at your co-workers. Remember particularly the persons over whom you have authority. Probably their lot, in life is hard enough already. Don’t hurt, their feelings just, because you can. A kind word and a little forbearance might have a much better effect. If you are a woman, and have to spend several long and weary hours in the stores, remember the girls who wait on you. Keep it in your mind that the girls who wait on you have to stand there hours where you stand there minutes. A smile or a word of encouragement to one of them is worth a half hour’s rest. I-com now until the day after Christmas fry pleasantness. If you don't feel happier, and if yon don’t realize that, you have made others happier, you might go back to your old manners. Certainly you won’t do any one, even yourself, an injustice by be ing agreeable for a week. • * As to Christmas presents, every person must regulate the amount of money to spend on them. If. however, there is a skigle child in Atlanta who fails to find a generous stocking-full on Christmas morning, The Georgian will feel it has tailed in a work that, it. has carefully and con scientiously begun. ’1 he Georgian s Empty Stocking Fund was started with the idea of providing presents for every child in the city who other wise would know no Christmas. Don't think this number of children is trifling. There are hundreds of them. Some of them probably live within a stone's throw of your own home. The Georgian already has a list of gi gantic proportions. Every child on it will have a Christmas, but the kind of a • hristmas depends on the readers of this paper. As the subscriptions come in the money is spent as advan tageously as possible. Merchants and manufacturers have volun teered to furnish shoes and toys and clothes at cost prices, so that the largest amount for the money is being bought. \ package lor each child will be made up in The Georgian oiliee, ami they will be turned over to the mothers so that they van be Santa Claus to their own. THERE IS NO WASTE IN THE PURCHASE OK THE DISTRIBUTION. So try the smiles and the pleasant words for a few days. If you feel belter lor them think of the youngsters in your city you can make happier. Xo matter how small the contribution is. it will help. Ihe Empty Stocking Fund will do the rest. i I oo Late to Pull Down the | Flag A picture is often better than many words. I'hv earloon at the top of this page gives you the situation as regards the Panama canal. The American people built that canal with money from their own pockets We didn’t go begging to England for the eash. We paid it The canal is built ON AMERICAN TERRITORY. \\ e o\\ N that territory. It is just as much a part of the United States as Peachtree street in Atlanta. This country has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to give to aii the nations of the world a short cut from ocean to ocean. We shall with OPR canal save millions to the commercial fleets of all the Europ. au nations, and we shall add to the profits of Great Britain mor. than to the protits of the I idled States by far. We throw the canal open to the world, we make our own ocean going ships pay as much as the ships of other nations, so that all of the ships that cross the ocean use the canal on equal terms. We simply reserve to ourselves the right to let our coastwise steamers use the canal tree and that is no competition with foreign ships, since WC do m>t permit foreign ships to engage in coastwise trade AT ALL And we reserve the right to fortify the canal, which is simi.lv cominon sense. I lie canal is a quick road, a new door.'leading to our West. When we built that canal, it was as though a man had put a new **aor into his house. And when England objects to our fortifying that m w door, it is as idiotic as though a man should object to his neighbor putting a lock on a new door into his house. England > request to this country to pull down the American flag over the Panama canal, and allow the English to use that piece ot American territory as they please, is not at all new. A good many years ago. as early as 1776. the English objected to any kind <4 an American flag, or any kind of American territory, t took something of a struggle to make them give up the notion that the flag ought 1 me down then. England is w iser now And after a little while she will give up tie- toolish - tlort .-ven though it he encouraged by treacherous American newspapers ami American officials—to put American ter- St ritory and American enterprise under English control The Atlanta Georgian Says John Bull to Uncle Sam: “I SAY, PULL DOWN THAT FLAG, WILL YOU?” * J 2311® ty 11 iw 1 i" 1 "* **• - r n J ■ "■ « The Wreath Man & & By WINIFRED BLACK. HE'S here, the man with the J wreaths. Hurrah for him and the wares he carries! Oh, I know it isn’t the thing to make a fuss over In these days. Christmas has gone quite out of fashion, they tell me. It's proper nowadays to groan whenever you bear the name Santa Claras, ami it's the correct pose td wish the hideous holiday season were over and done with before it has fairly begun. We are awfully out of fashion, the little boy and I, hopelessly be hind the times. We love Christ mas; why, we can’t oven think of sleighbells without wanting to prance, and as for wishing It were over, we’d thank people with such wishes as that to keep them to themselves with their other gloomy • views of life. Such fblks don't know what fun It is to live at all, do they, little boy? I'll warrant they don't even like mince pie. and the very idea of a plum pudding would give every one of them Indigestion tor a week. No Foreign Stuff! What they want Is tea and toast, or zwiebach and mineral water, or, cocktails and caviar. Well, they * are Welcome to them for all of us. aren't they, little boy? We'll take eider, and eggnog, and roast turkey, and a round of beef, and mince pie with lots of raisins, and plenty of good, rich crust, and pumpkin pie, too, with old-sash-. ioty*d American cheese to go with it. None of your foreign stuff this time of year. Imagine Santa Claus speaking with a French accent! Nuts and apples, and elder, and or anges, big. yellow ones, and little fat. comfy. pincushiony fellows, reddish and easy to peel. Citron, too. candles and preserved ginger, and candy, sticks of it. red and white, and candy canes, and old fashioned chocolate creams with a little white button on top of them, and ginger bread with nuts chop- . ped up tn It, and raisins, too. Dear me. little boy, what a world full of good things it Is. to be sure! And I can smell them all whenever I look at the man with the wreaths, can't you? He's a funny little ma Hasn’t he? Sort of withered and ragged and tired-looking, and yet there's a * twinkle in his eye. I wonder If he knows Santa Claus and got those wreaths right from Santa Claus' own wreath garden. I shouldn't wonder, would you? Hello, there, wreath man. how did you leave the reindeer, and have the toy trees borne a good crop this year? What! Bette than ever! TLESDAY. DECEMBER 17, 1912. A Hurrah! and the candy bushes are • fairly bent down with glorious fruit, all colors and sweeter than ever. Snow! You’re surely going to have some of that by Christmas, _ aren’t you, wreath man? There may be a new sled, a regular sled with low runners and a screaming eagle on the side, and we’ve got to have a chance to try' that. Dollies are Prettier. Dolls prettier than ever this year, are they, wreath man? And soldiers, regiments of them. T-r-um, t-r-um, t-r-um—can’t you hear the drums, little boy? Hark! they are faint and far away, but drums for all that. Hurrah! Christmas Is coming. Christmas, the jolllest, happiest, gayest, kindest, most generous time in all the year. Hurrah for dear old Christmas and all that Christmas brings! Show us your wares, wreath man. That's a splendid fellow’ with the berries. I'll take that, and what a glorious green that holly is! One of those, please. Why’, we couldn’t eat a bite without a wreath in the dining room window and one for the light above the ta ble. Festoons? Well, yes, we’ll take some of that, too. Hurrah! We'll look like the very’ home of the blessed old Santa Claus, won't we, little boy? We like you, wreath man. and :: Night :: < By MURIEL GARFORD. L| through the J ) dusk s 5 On creeps the night. Pale stars like yellow birds s S Flutter with fright. 5 Gold moon her amber tree ? Quickly withdraws; > Who would see topaz buds > Crushed by black paws? • S C Close by the city wall ( Crouching it lies, i Rats like swift eyelids glide c Over its eyes. s Shadows are round its throat, r S Collar and bars, S Holding ft lest it spring J. Wild at the stars. > Ah! see it forward rush > Out of Its lair. J Hear all its broken chains Fall through the air. < Deep is the thunder growl. Mad with delight. God! hear the City gasp J’nder the Night •• we love the thoughts the sight of you brings to us. Happy thoughts, tender thoughts, generous thoughts. How is the little sewing woman who yvorked so hard to get daugh ter ready’ for school this fall; how Is it going to be with her Christ mas? Lives all alone somewhere, doesn’t she, on the top floor that is none too warm? Invite her and her best friend to dinner at the best restaurant in the • neighborhood. You can't be there? Well, what of that; she can be your guest just the same, can't she? Go and see the restaurant man about it, hava a table deco rated, and send the little seam stress to dine In style for once. Won’t she be proud to show’ her friend what fine friends she has up there in the big world where people wear real furs and ride in real au tomobiles? What has become of the old French teacher who used to say "bonjour” so cheerily’ every time he came Into the house? He looked a little pale the last time you saw him? Why not send him a bottle of French wine and a Merry Christmas to gladden his heart? What a time it is, what a time! No one can possibly be offended at any sort of kindness now. The stiffest ramrod on earth must bend a little In the wreath season, the friendly season, the joyous season. Isn’t it a good thing it comes once a year, anyhow? Let Me Help You Up. Isn’t it fine to get all the queer kinks out of our queer kinked-up brains, and remember only that we are all human, all sick and sorry sometimes, all foolish and stupid once in a while, all lonely and sad when our turns come, all brothers and sisters, all one big. kindly, hop ing. fearing, striving, stumbling family, all to be laid alike in the brown earth some day? Come, sister, you have stumbled there, on that rough bit of road; come, let me help you up. I came near to slipping there myself—what a gasp of the breath it gives me to think of it, even now. Here, brother, things went badly with you there at that turn in the dark. I had a friend went over the bank in that same place last year. See. the lights are shining down there, all along the road, the gay lights, the friendly lights of Christ mas. Let's all hurry and stand to gether among them. % just a little while before we start on again alone on the hard, puzzling journey along the dark road. He's here, the man with the wreaths. Hurrah for him and the wares he brings! THE HOME PAPER Garrett P. Serviss Writes on The Heavens 1| Deceptive L Its Wonders, Forty Trillion Miles Away, Can Not Be Truly Measured Because of Their Re- moteness. But the Inspiration Awakened Is True Astronomy, Not the Prediction of Eclipses or Mathematics That Treats the Uni- W m , .re verse as a Soulless Machine. By GARRETT P. SERVISS. THE other Sunday night, at 4 about 11 o’clock, I glanced out of my window and could not restrain an exclamation of de light mingled with wonder. Vast shadowy buildings rose high on all sides of the broad inner court across which I was looking, and screened off the light from the street lamps, so that the view w-as like that from a huge square crater with steep, irregular walls all around and a perfectly black skj overhead. In the midst of this square of sky, glowing and scintil lating like a hundred Kohtnoor dia monds pinned upon a screen of black velvet, were the stars of Orion, the most magnificent of the constellations that make up the universe as we see it from our earth. It was veritably a sight to make one gasp! I think I have never seen Orion so brilliant. Those far away suns seemed to have drawn nearer, as if the great constellation were actually descending from the sky. Below, toward the left, blazed the immense star Sirius, its rays flickering with every color of the rainbow. At this sight the mighty truths of astronomy burst upon my mind with an intensity of meaning which I have seldom known equaled. The Earth Dwindled. As I gazed the earth dwindled to the Insignificant point that it really is, and Sirius grew and grew before me until it became supernal in its splendor, and in the sense of bound less power that its ceaseless flash ings conveyed. Space and time vanished, for the moment, and I seemed to be standing in the imme diate presence of that mighty star. In its light familiar facts assumed a new and grander significance, as if my human intelligence had been lifted to a higher plane. Then, in imagination, I returned and seized our sun tn my hands to fling it out into the depths of space yonder. When it started it was an all-enveloping blaze of quenchless Are, which swallowed the world, and licked up the planets like motes of inflammable dust. But as it I spun away, it began to shrink like the receding light of a steamer speeding out of a harbor at night: and when it had arrived at the dis tance of Sirius it was but a twink ling point, 40 times less brilliant than the great star flaming beside it. Although it had made day when near the earth, now it could not cast the tiniest shadow with its microscopic beams! Distance had revealed it in its true dimensions and stripped from it the false pre dominance with which it dazzles our nearby eyes on the earth. It had become but a tiny star in the <. :: Henry Heine :: By REV. THOMAS B. GREGORY. IT was 92 years ago—December • 10, 1820—-that Heine gave to the world his first piece of signed writing, “Gedlchte,” and thus began one of the most mar velous literary careers that the world has ever known. Do you know Heine? if you do not, you have missed the acquaint ance of one of the brightest intelli gences that was ever robed in flesh. The "brightest," remember, not the greatest or the noblest. In intel lectual brilliancy there has hardly been another like him. There is but one Heine. Marvelous was the light that shone forth from the little man of Dusseldorf, even if it was. to a cer tain extent, a baleful light. Tlie spirit of the world Beholding the absurdity of men— Their vanity, their fears—let a sardonic smile F'or one short moment wander o'er her lips. That smile was Heine. It was not a venomous smile. The matchles irony was tempered with compassion; the masterful sarcasm was mingled with a genuine sym pathy. No man, not even Shake speare, ever saw more deeply or unerringly into the follies and weaknesses of mankind, but while he gibbeted them as they were never gibbeted before, he did so with real pity in his soul. Heine's wit was quite equal to Swift's, but it was not bitter, like Swift's. After taking off the masks of the hypocrites who disgusted him, Heine would say to them as they stood exposed and trembling 4. sky. a satellite of the giant Do K 1 Star. Then I bethought me. that ever. Sirius imposes upon us witli un warranted pretensions. It LOOKS the mightiest sun in the universe, but it IS- not. It, too, derives a false advantage from relative near ness. Its distance is only about forty trillions of miles, but I knew that before me there were stars so far that THEIR REMOTENESS CAN NOT BE MEASURED with any means at our command. We know that their distance can not be LESS than a certain unthinkable amount, but how much GREATER it may be we can only guess. It Looks the Mightiest. Thereupon, I glanced back a: Orion, and fixing my attention upon the bright star Rigel, on the uplift ed foot of the pictured giant, below his sparkling “belt,” I once more in fancy, seized the sun and flung it away into these profounder deeps. Smaller and smaller it again be came, as it swiftly receded, until at last it was not even a visible sa. It faded away like a spark swal lowed up in the darkness. In my imagined omnipotent I had imparted to the flying sun 1 speed of a thousand million miles per second, but I now saw that I had been too moderate, because in my night watch I could not wait for •its arrival in the presence of Rige! it would require TWO WHOLE MONTHS, even at that frfghtfu speed, to reach the destination that I had intended! And w'hen It ar rived T knew that It would find itself In the withering presence of a sun at least TEN THOUSAND TIMES more brilliant than itself What goes on in that region where Rigel reigns; where even tin mighty Dog Star, that makes oui sun seem but a jack-o’-lantern would be as insignificant as a tal low’ dip beside a ship’s searchlight’’ In that part of the universe are ai energies grander than here, in pro portion to the stupendous magni tude of the suns that illuminate it? Mysteries Abash Us. We can not doubt that there are living creatures, and intelligent there, but could we comprehend them if we met them? In th : presence might not a Newton hie self feel that he was less than a lit tle child? These things abash us, and yet. at the same time, they stimulate ’ = There is a deep meaning in the ii - .splration that every human behi feels when he contemplates te heavens. That Inspiration witli 1 thoughts which it awakens is t. true astronomy—not the prediction of eclipse or the mathematics that treats tlie universe as a soulles ? machine. before him: “Gentlemen, I am so : for you.” And he meant every word of it. Heine was a pessimist, but he was perfectly honest in his pes- • mism. Looking out upon the "ex cellent foppery of the world." he blistered it out of a sense of duty is deep as that with which the C ;• sader of old turned his face tor. the sepulcher he would rescue fr n the hands of the infidel. Sup-fll cially a mocker, Heine was at r a profoundly serious man. venerat ing every real sanctity—ft. - truth, love and justice. He claimed, in all seriousnes- u’ be a "Knight of the Holy Ghor and the claim was a sound on I was not his to tell men what true —he did not know what v. J true, and for that matter w he. he who does?—but he could, did, tell them what was false; owi he who tights to down a LIE i ing as "holy” a work as he 'ho battles in the cause of a truth But Heine’s real greatness seen, not so much in what he w . brilliant as his writings were, ■ the way he stood up under his f> ' - ful sufferings. For more than s-.vtil years prior to his death he lay up v what he called his "mattres* grave,” suffering continuous!? b most excruciating pains that eve.’ racked a mortal frame—and yet was during those terrible year' that he dhl his finest literary - r It was the grandest victory of over matter, of will power over i and misery, that the world has evet j witnessed. Heine died in 1856, at 57. an. race will have to wait a long' ti‘ ue before his equal appears.