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THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
By THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta, Gt
Entered as second-elass matter at postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March 2, I«7S
Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier. 10 cents a week. By mall. 15.00 a year
Payable In advance.
Whisky, Pistols and Christ
mas in the South
M «t •»
Let's Do Away With the Old Order of Things and Celebrate the
Anniversary of the Birth of the Prince of Peace Sanely and
as Good Folks Should.
"The South is beginning to realize the true meaning of Christ
mas. It is learning that a wholesale consumption of red liquor and
a carnival of crime is not the most appropriate way to celebrate
the birthday of the Christ who taught peace on earth and good
will toward men.”
So said < olonel Reuben Arnold in his address yesterday after
noon to the great audience at, the Empty Stocking benefit concert at :
the Grand. Colonel Arnold was making an appeal to his hearers
to give freely to the children of the poor. He might have said—
and doubtless it was in his mind—that, many of these children were
cold and hungry because their fathers had celebrated their Christ
mas with flask and pistol in the old. accepted manner now passing
rapidlj away.
I'ke records show that Georgia has more homicides than the
Uritish Isles, with their overwhelming population.” continued
Colonel Arnold. "And this is due. in a large proportion, to the
• ffeet of whisky ami pistol carrying. It is particularly sad that
we. a Christian people, should celebrate the birth of Christianity by
converting the anniversary into a day of hard drinking and brawl
ing, of drunkenness and homicide. lam glad to note that the news
papers of Atlanta are trying to lead their readers into realizing the
true spirit of Christmas—the spirit, of universal love.’’
Truly, it is a strange conception of Christmas that prevails in
many sections of the country. There are many men—and not all of
them ignorant, uncultured backwoodsmen—who look forward to'
the day as one which gives them license to drink themselves into
a state of irresponsible intoxication. And this, coupled with a lax
enforcement of laws which permits any man or youth to carry a
revolver without interference until he has used it—when interfer
ence is too late- has turned the Christmas holidays into a saturnalia
of riot.
\ isit the "whisky branches of the express companies today.
See how they are piled high with cases and jugs, while rows of
waiting wagons are bringing hundreds more. Watch the long lines
ot men, white and black, some barely of age, some white-haired,
blear-eyed old topers, waiting to receive their jug from the nearest I
"wet” city. The express officials will tell you that the whisky I
business is greater in the week before Christmas than in any two !
months of an ordinary season.
Look over the newspapers of the. day after Christmas in years
gone by and for the week following. You will find a record of
homicide, a tragedy staged in almost every town and village in the
state. You may count hundreds of wives left widowed, hundreds
of children left fatherless. And this is true simply because we have
not learned that Christmas is a feast day of love toward one’s fellow
man and not a high carnival of brutal passions unrestrained.
Do without your whisky this season.
Lock up your pistols—or, better still—make an offering to the
community by throwing them away.
Christmas will be better without them.
? “Brother! Brother of Mine, Answer
Me Then, Have I Paid?”
By LILLIAN LAUFERTY.
WHEN yesterday you passed me on the street my very soul went ?
leaping to your hand;
'/ I thought, "God bless the chance that makes us meet;" but now, 5
Imy brother, now—l understand. s
The well groomed dog that follows at your heel—l knew he snapped and s
bit in youthful days;
1 know he dared to forage and to steal: yet now he walks in quiet, well C
trained ways; ?
: And you—l think you stand to him as God—a kindly God who taught !
him to be kind.
J Perhaps 1 needed but the chastening rod. Well, yesterday we passed;
( And you—oh. brother mine—we met again at laat;
Brother! brother of mine, why were your eyes so blind;.’
. Sei ? years ago we loved in childish ways the silver atarlight and the mel- ■
i low moon,
> The sun agleam through our unshadowed days; December magic and the <
> lure of June.
< We tasted then of living; it was wine whose golden bubbles frolicked in $
| my brain
’ Til! I went mad. The frenzy seemed divine. Today the score stands
marked in figures plain:
tor all the tasted fruit of stolen sweet, where hungry lips and thieving '
hands were laid—
-1 meet my brother on the city street—he looks away—he will not know I
passed; ’
His -corn—my brother’s scorn—all through my life must last.
. Brother! brother of mine, answer me then, Have I paid?
The Atlanta Georgian
It’s the Way You Look at It
By TAD.
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IN the year 1899 there was or
ganized at Austin, Texas, a
society knowns as “The Jo
vian?.” It was simply a local or
ganization of men who were en
gaged in the business of harnessing
electricity.
The particular excuse for found
ing the society was to entertain a
convention of manufacturers and
Jobbers that was to meet in Austin.
The charter membership was 44.
These men were more or less in
competition with one another, but
they said: "For the time we will
sink our prejudices and fears of
one another and get together and
take care of the visitors.”
They Got Together.
And so when the men got to
gether and looked into one an
other’s faces, and laughed and
joked, they really liked one an
other first rate, and they discovered
that, although men may be in com
petition with one another, yet if
they are working in the same line
of business, there is something
which they have in common that
makes for respect and confidence.
Especially is it true that after you
have played with a man you can
not go away and He about him nor
defame him.
And, lo! there were other Jovian
societies founded in the immediate
vicinity. Wherever there was a
central power plant it was suggest
ed that there should be an associa
tion of the Jovians. And so the
idea has gradually spread until the
Jovians now number in the United
States over 8,000 members.
Any man engaged in the busi
!!• ss of generating electricity, sell
ing the current, contracting, con-
MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1912.
Getting Together
By ELBERT HUBBARD.
Copyright 1912 by International News Service.
' structing, or dealing tn electric
supplies, is eligible.
The motto of the Jovians is, "All
together, all the time, for every
thing electrical.”
The order of Jovians is purely
social, but there is no doubt that
every member is inspired to a little
better work and in a little bigger
and more generous way than ever
before. He gets rid of his whims,
his prejudices, his fears and his
doubts.
Good fellowship is an asset; also,
it is an education. The Jovians are
essentially democratic.
The boys who string wirei are
eligible. Also all central station
men, employees of street railways,
heads of departments, office, sales,
factory forces and members of job
bing concerns. Also most telephone
interests march proudly under the
Jovian banners.
:: Quiet Street ::
By KATHLEEN D. CLOSE.
AS you wandered through the city, did you come to Quiet Street,
The place where all is peaceful, and where storms no longer beat?
Each house there has a window* looking backward through the years.
But those who view the distant scene are past the time of tears.
They have borne the toil and trouble, of the noonday stress and heat.
And now their work is over—they have come to Quiet Street.
If ever, in the gloaming, you should come to Quiet Street,
You will catch a strain of music that is faint and far and sweet.
And the people pause and wonder in their passing tt> and fro
For they think they hear a melody that sounded long ago.
They could not stay to listen in the days when Life was fleet,
But time is very tender to the folk in Quiet Street.
If In summertime or winter you should come to Quiet Street,
In the sunlight or the shadow, there’s a lady you may meet.
They say her name is Memory; I know her gentle face
Is lovely with the sweetness of a long departed grace.
You will not often find her, for she walks with noiseless feet,
But 1 think she knows the secret of each heart in Quiet Street.
5* Thomas A. Edison, George West
inghouse, C. A. Coffin. Dr. Stein
metz. Samuel Insul. Elihu Thomson
and other human motors of high
voltage belong to the Jovians.
Just Getting Acquainted.
The idea of electricity binding
the world together in a body of
brotherhood is something we did
not look for a few years ago. Elec
tricity occupies the twilight zone
between the world of spirit and the
world of matter. Electricians are
all proud of their business. They
should be. God is the Great Elec
trician. \
Men are surely getting acquaint
ed and getting together as never
before in history. All together, all
the time, not only for everything
electrical, but everything human—
why not?
I am a Jovian.
THE HOME PAPER
DOROTHY DIX
Writes on
Women’s
Desire to Vote
’ft ft
Their Mental Superior
ity, or Deficiency, Can
Only Be Shown by
Allowing Them the
Opportunity to Sat
isfy Their Own Curi
osity.
By DOROTHY DIX.
A SCIENTIST has been labori
ously explaining that woman
stands on a lower plane in
evolution than man does, and is,
therefore, physically and mentally
his inferior. He says that structu
rally woman is closer akin to our
great-great-grandpapa, the baboon,
than man, and that she also betrays
her nearer relationship to the mon
key by possessing the superabun
dant curiosity that is characteris
tic of the simian tribe.
For these reasons he thinks that
orangoutangs and women should
not be permitted to vote.
Oh, I don’t know.
When a man wants to offer a
blighting criticism on femininity
he always makes a few scathing re
marks about curiosity, yet curiosity
is the beginning of wisdom, and
the hall mark of an active mind.
If it hadn’t been for the curiosity
to see what W’ould happen when you
put two and two together, we
should pot now be enjoying the
sum of countless experiments that
make up civilization.
The First Man,
The first cave man noticed
that when he rubbed two sticks
together the friction produced
warmth, and who had the curiosity
to keep on rubbing the sticks to
gether, gave us fire. The first wom
an who had the curiosity to see
what would happen when you put
raw meat on the fire gave us cook
ing.
The first man who was curious to
know what lay beyond his imme
diate neighborhood blazed the trail
that has led other men to the north
pole.
If Newton had not been curious,
he would never have discovered the
law of gravitation. If Jenner had
not been curious, he would not have
found out about the circulation of
the blood. If Fulton hadn't been
curious, he would never have both
ered his head with the wild idea
that a steamboat could be made to
run up a river at a speed of four
miles an hour.
If Edison wasn’t one of the most
curious men in the world, we might
not be able to sit at home and listen
to Caruso sing out of a little box
in the corner, or to speak to our
friends across the continnent over
a dinky little wire. All of those
doctors who spend their lives in
laboratories searching into the ped
igree of germs, and, in grafting the
bones and the organs of dead peo
ple onto live ones, are all insatiably
curious men.
And let it not be forgotten that
the first of all these original re
searchers was a woman. It is our
first mother, and not our father,
who began the investigation of the
whyness and the wherefore of the
things about her, and it was this
quality that she bequeathed her
sons that has sent then! out to dis
cover the uttermost parts of the
world, and wrest from nature her
secrets.
10
■■ wjijHßy
* Curiosity is the dividing line be
tween ignorance and knowledge.
The people who have no curiosity
concerning the things about them,
but who accept everything without
comment or question, are invariably
those'of limited ‘ intelligence, and
who are heavy and loggy in mind.
Therefore, curiosity is to be ac
counted untb its possessors as a
virtue, and not a fault.
This Quality Needed.
The contention that women are
more curious than men is an alle
gation that can not be substan
tiated by fact, but if it were true ii
would be no reflection on the femi
nine character, and certainly- no bar
to their enfranchisement.
Indeed, there is no other quality
that is more needed in voters of the
present day than a large, robust cu
riosity in good working order.
The majority of men are too busy
and too much engrossed in their
own business to have time to look
into public matters much, but
women have more leisure, and if
they spent part of it in prying into
public affairs many abuses that
now exist would be remedied.
■Perhaps the fear of woman - cu
riosity in such matters is the rea
son the machine politicians are the
most determined opponents of
woman suffrage. They are like the
janitor of the school who. when he
was asked how he liked the woman
who had been elected to the school
board, replied: “Aw, away wid her!
She hadn’t been on dat board a
week before she was snooping
around in the cellar and made me
clean it out, and me that had been
here fifteen years with never no
man on the school board even look
ing in at the door!”
Certainly it would do no harm if
somebody had the curiosity to look
into the records of candidates and
saw that only decent men were pui
up to represent decent people. Xo:'
would it be inimical to the welfare
of the general public if a healthy
curiosity were directed to finding
out why the man who is elected on
one platform with a specific p.'ow.-
ise to do certain things forgets Ins
obligation as soon as he gets Into
office.
Curiosity and Politics.
It would be a good thing to have
somebody curious as to where t *
money goes that is appropriated for
certain public improvements, nd
why it costs the city or the gov
ernment so much more to hav- »
job done than it does an individual.
It would be a good thing to hav»
somebody curious about why some
laws are enforced and others are
not, and how men holding small f
flees with small pay are enabled t
accumulate large fortunes and llvo
like princes.
Oh, there are a lot of things
it wouldn't hurt us to be cu,i ; -
about, and if women bring thia
quality into politics they will fl *
long felt want. There'll have to be
some better reason advam
against giving woman the voie
than her desire to know thing’
