Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, December 23, 1912, FINAL, Image 16

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EDITORIAL PAGE 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. a, !“* ' 1 ' y ~-I.r/.. ■ »■■■—■—, .. y. —*■' ’’v «*•■- -we - r~~~ 1 —~~~ - 'AXY~.. . - - ->*■?- -Apr — I j B ' v T T—~ ~T~rw '.-■yr 1 ‘ •*-- - I—2 Z 2- ~~~~ ' ■ -- / tzz ; - -o I > -"-."—A 1 ‘ ..._ --..-, I ■ ‘ '-<( gee ru. BEV \ j! . 11. >-— ■ - ■ SJLA » ’A f THAT COAt.6 ! M 1.1 zltL- |1 i 1 In’ z ißi 4 : J _i I TT -w ; i lifcglWMO. fgW-rrT- I if i : R II I* - ? swlillh IlfißP JMHmI - jju 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’