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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 of March 8. 1878. Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail, J 5.00 a year. Payable In advance. The Curse of Poverty Poverty Is Slavery. Keep Out of Debt if You Would Be Happy. Young men and old men. fight, poverty. Ask the old around you, and they will tell you that poverty is flic great, widespread 1 curse. Not wealth is necessary to happiness, hut. freedom from the poverty that grinds, poverty that worries, poverty that makes a man the slave of any man that has a dollar—THAT is necessary to happiness. Keep out of poverty—keep out of debt. Remember that the dollar you spend so quickly today, and the other dollar tomorrow, and the day after, might mean later in dependent manhood, power to control your own time, direct your nwn career. Money enough—though it lie but ten cents a day more than you spend—means freedom, independence, the right, to look any man in-the eye as his equal. And poverty, debt, the spending of ever so little more than you actually have, mean' slavery now’, anxiety, humiliation in the futur< Poverty deprives children of education—and so it means igno rance. Poverty deprive?, children of rare and good food—and so it means disease. Poverty takes away men’s courage, drives them to despair, makes them seek relief wherever it can be found—and so poverty' means drunkennes. Whereier you find men miserable, poor and underpaid you will find ignorance and drunkenness. Wherever you better conditions and lift the weight of pov erty. drunkenness and ignorance diminish. Whatever your age or habits, or condition, there are two things that, you can do—-you can better yourself, or you can make things worse. If you are .a young man or woman starting out in life, or one young enough to have many good years ahead of you, it is abso lutely in your power to make your life dignified, independent and satisfied. However old you may be. or discouraged, it isn’t too late to fight against the curse that weighs on millions of men, the curse of present poverty, and that other curse, almost as great, the dread I of poverty in the future. It is in your power to be free if you will do it. Spend less than you make, and you will find spending less means, in al most every case, earning more. If a man puts into learning and thinking the hours and the vitality formerly devoted to frivolous spending he will soon find his power Io earn increased. You must remember, however, that if the majority of men are w orried, hard up, living along from day to day, it is because going in debt is very easy and keeping out of it is difficult. Every day the temptation comes to spend this and to spend that. On a certain day everybody must have a now hat, and he gets it; In thinks he must spend as much as anybody else does—there goes one chance of saving. Each man thinks that he must dress as well as somebody else does. And a million young fools think that they must take a drink when it is offered to them—and also that they’ must buy a drink in their turn, which is idiotic. And tens of thousands of married men are kept poor because they imagine that they must do as well as somebody else does—and 100 often their wives help them to keep poor. Try to bear in mind that a few years from now it won’t make much difference to you whether you got a new hat on September 15. 1913, or not—but it will make a very big difference at that time whether you have a few thousand dollars saved up or a few dozen men trying to collect bills from you. Remember that when you are well off, when you can say truly that you owe no man a dollar, people always like the way you look. They find no fault with your dressing. Remember that all the varnish, all the fine clothing, new hats, new shoes, can ’t do you a bit of good when you and everybody else know that you can’t afford those things It isn’t easy to save and be independent. If it were every one would be prosperous and independent. But it is possible to keep poverty away . It is possible to be a free man. afraid of no one, controlled and bossed by nobody . Many a man will see this article today’ who. if he could see it again twenty years from now. would wish with bitterness of heart that he had paid attention to it and realized that it was in tended for him. Few live happy, independent, free from the control of other mm—and a great majority live with poverty of hands always above them, in fear of the future, pinched and anxious in the preseyf. But you can he free if you will. It is in your power to sav to yourself: "1 may not he rich but 1 will never be poor. I’ll earn all that 1 can in the present and 1 11 save so much of every dollar for the days that are to come.” >nd ninety-nine out of a hundred know what poverty means, bill •more the knowledge. I hey know perfectly well that if they can not save and begin get ahead today ther. i- no . artlily reason why they should later day—yet they ignore that knowledge. The Atlanta Georgian He’s the Limit 5 Copyright 1912 by International News Service. < ! ——J I 1 k •' ' ’ I ■ ” r.Zir-'’XT , -- Qjtßb HEN f ! I Jr & I I < twwrr C mvA,/ - Loorinq Fo * A MATCH ' S '“ 7 HtT JUstaawaent) ~~— —— - car , that (tU Little Fißu L - > O ~o - ! gentleman JHERE, 6°SS?J ' ? IV' ‘ ' (15 HAILINUME I '' f ‘-Tv. \ i L $ dr i L ! €’>J(@lv)’ == I Tag {jSsr ? fe* us j wAMTa> * ucht ] r l : tt 7 n h— 7 r ll? SPEAK I A p=yjjir'«=— Bo Wl?k_ /1W ■ IhM.) // WH. if I SV *** " * CA- -- ~ Gossip and Gossipers AN Indiana woman, with a be draggled past, was going to be married to a nice young man. She heard that some of the episodes of her unsavory life had been discussed by a neighbor wom an. and so she went-to this other woman’s house and shot her down dead before her little children’s eyes. The murderess has been sen tenced to prison for life, and from her cell she exclaims: "Oh. what a terrible thing Is gossip! Let this be a warning to all women to re frain from talking about other women who have things In their lives that they are ttying to forget, and have other people forget.” Did you ever hear anything to equal the nerve of that? It seems to me that the shoe is on the other foot, and that the lesson in the case is not against gossip, but against doing the things that give people the right to gossip about you. The men and women who con duct themselves properly, and who live decently, and honestly, and cleanly, never have cause to com plain about gossip. They never lose any sleSp fearing what their friends and acquaintances are say ing about them. When the Cap Fits. It is only people who have some thing shameful to hide who worry about the gossiping proclivities of their neighbors. They are hard and bitter about the old cats, of both sexes, who talk about their failings. Yet. when you come to think of it. what right have we to expect that our neighbors will be more discreet with their 'tongues~'than we are in our conduct, or that our friends w ill enter into a conspiracy of silence to protect us from the results of our evil deeds? Mrs. A., for instance, is a frivol ous married woman, who receives attentions from other men in her husband’s absence, and neglects her home and her children while she gads about. She also hns clothes and jewels far beyond what her husband’s modest means would provide. Th< neighbor talk TI’ESDAY, DECKMBKR 24, 1912. By DOROTHY t)IX • • her goings-on, s and there are tears ’ Ln her eyes as she tells you what a terrible thing it is to have to live among such a lot of long-tongued gossips. Mr. 8., with a quiet little wife ' and half a dozen children tucked away in. a suburban home, is met out. time and again, by his neigh bors at some lobster palace, where lie is buying champagne for a cho rus girl young enough to be his daughter, and spending money as if It grew' on trees, while it’s well known that he is in arrears in his payment to the butcher and baker at home. Mr. B. says things that no respectable newspaper would print when he hears fragments of the gossip that floats around among his commuting acquaintances. Scorns Conventions. Pretty Sully C„ young and fool ish. and mad for pleasur. ami the admiration of men. scorns the con ventions of society, and drinks cocktails and smokes in public res- , ' i urants, and pi ances with strange men. and flirts with married men. and writes com promising love letters to Tom, Dick and Harry. And her little heart is broken when she finds out how the cruel world is talking about her, and that her reputation is irretriev ably soiled by gossip. 'Pom D. gets into bad company and drinks and gambles, and loses money he can't afford, and robs the cash drawer, or falsifies his books, or holds back on his collections. To keep him from going to prison his people mortgage the home and pay him out. and the matter is hushed up as much As possible. Hut some inkling of it leaks out, and people talk about it. and remember it and repeat it as long as they live. And Tom curses tip gossips to the day of his death. None of these people seems to re flect that the fault is their own and not the gossips. If the married woman had been the right sort of wife and mother, gossip would have found noflling to ray about her that she would object io hearing. If she didn't choose to run straight, what rig!' l i.td she to demand .that 1 • / V other people should take better care of her name than she took of it herself? If the married man had spent his evenings by his own fireside, and his money on his family, gossip would not have found him an in teresting subject of discussion. If he didn't want people to talk about his taking Tottie Coughdrop out to supper, why did he' do it? There's no law to keep observers from re marking on what they see. Greatest Moral Influence. If a girl doesn’t want people to comment on the mud on her skirts, all that is necessary is to keep them clean. If a man doesn’t want gos-_ sip to recall the sins of his youth, all that he has to do is to hold him self above reproach. And if we don't care enough about our own honor to protect it ourselves, su>h we have no right to loolv to the gen eral public to perform that servii • for us. We ’talk a lot about the sin of gossip, but as a matter of fact gossip is tite greatest moral in fluence in the world. It’s literally the hangman's whip that keeps th. trembling wretch in order. It’s the dread of what their neighbors’ eyes will see and what their tongues will tell that keeps thousands of weak and wavering brothers and sisters from straying off the straight and narrow path. They have no real sense of right and wrong, of honor or dishonor, but they stand in terror of being pointed out as the hero or heroine of some scandal, of being talked about, laughed at, shrugged at. If it were possible to do away with gossip and people united to cover up the slips and weaknesses of their fellow creatures, It would mean the total demoralization of society, for it’s old Dame Gossip, with her hundred tongues—and not high, moral principles—that holds the curb on temptation. Gossip is a good thing. Those who behave themselves need not fear being talked about. Those who misbehave themselves deserve all they get when the; ar. talked I about. I THE HOME PAPE R Garrett P. Serviss Writes on — w The Energy of the Earth Equal to 270 Million Billion |L Billion Horse Power Per IL J" Second—-If Man Could Utilize This Power He Would Drop His Present Petty Occupations. By GARRETT P. SERVISS. LIFE Is a constant search for 4 more power, and progress ' depends upon the amount of new power that is found. Since man is still a mere baby as far as the development of his men tal capacity is concerned, the me chithical power that he has man aged to get hold of is so insignifi cant that his greatest engines aro only pitiful toys. He has discov ered one substance upon the earth that he can utilize, very wastefully, to obtain power, and, like a child that has found a dish of candy, he is devouring it as fast as he can, blissfully unconscious that there is no more candy, and that he will need something else when he grows up. It may be true that man is watched over by some parental in telligence which supplies his needs as they are developed, but he would be wiser if he assumed that he will have to depend upon his own Intel ligence and that the gods will help him only if he helps himself. Look at the situation! We boast of our progress, but what are we doing? WE ARE BURNING COAL, that is about all! We have found out that we can turn heat into me chanical energy, and since there is not much else left to burn besides coal, we burn that, and from it, at the expense of frightful waste, we develop steam and electricity, and with them we make our engines go. Mechanical Energy of Nature. We know perfectly well that na ture is full of mechanical energy all . ready made, but we are content to take a little power from the water falls, and still less from the winds, and a trifle from the tides, and al most nothing from the free sun shine, and even when we utilize sources of power we still be have like children, for we take only what is put Into our laps and thrust under our noses. If man WILLS TO DO IT he can have power practically unlimited. But he must use his brains to get It. "Every breath of air .that a man takes into his lungs contains, locked up in its atoms, enough energy to drive all the. workshops in the world.” Just sit down and think over that sentence. Ponder on ft. If you can think of any possible way to get at that energy, try It. or ask some one else to try. Study science and see what investigators have already done in tile effort to unlock this energy of the atoms and turn it to useful account. Experi ment yourself if you have the op portunity. If you succeed you will be the greatest man 1n the world’s history, and SOME TIME SOME ’ ONE IS GOING TO SUCCEED. Have you ever reflected upon the fact that we are living on a tre mendous flywheel w-hich is posi- . i j Z Z :: The Reason :: By GENE BUCK. | Y ' think I m gettin stingy. Yon fellers ought to know T never had compunction in biowin' in my dough. I here s a reason for my-savin' a dollar now and then— An object in refrainin' from spendin’ five or ten. B ♦ ~T . " ■ < “I never was a tightwad, I never want to be>— I' e spent my money freely like a sailor home from sea; If you will only listen I'll tell you why it is, The reason 1 am drinkin' beer instead of silver fizz. ' hristmas time is comin . and it gets here once a year— And with it comes a teelin’ full of kindliness and cheer. 1 sort a-like to enter the spirit of it all— And feel about its coinin' like I did when I was small. “I used to save up pennies, and hide ’em all away— On a shelf up in the closet, and I d count em every dav. At Christmas time I d take em from where they all were hid. And purchase little presents, just tokens from a kid. “I couldn't buy ’em jewels, or expensive things like that— But 1 got each one somethin’ and placed 'em where they sat, And I recall how proud I felt givin’ those little things— -1 think I tasted all the joys ot which the poet sings. ’ “That was many years ago. Still. 1 never will forget Ihe teelin that was in my heart—it lingers in there vet. So that is why 1 'm savin', savin' as J can be. I> •»«<! < hristmas Dav. here s hopin- you're all as happy as m> f tively almost bursting with ener gy? The earth weighs six sextil ; lions and turns with a speed of I nearly 1,500 feet per second at the equator—as fast as a cannon ball! A rapid calculation, in round num bers, shows that the energy devel oped by the rotation of the earth on Its axis is equivalent to a con stant supply of two hundred anil seventy million billion billion horse power per second. If you multiply or divide that number by a billion it will not make much difference as far as the power of the mind to comprehend It is concerned. Centrifugal Force of the Earth Did you know that the centrifu gal force of the earth’s rotation makes the Mississippi river flow thousands of feet uphill? If the earth stopped turning the waters of the Gulf of Mexico would rush up the Mississippi valley and Inundat' Canada! A man who weighed 191 pounds at the North Pole would weigh only 190 pounds at the equa tor, the difference being produced by the "throw" of the spinning earth. If the speed of the rotation were increased about seventeen times, bodies at the equator would have no weight at all, for the cen trifugal force would balance grav ity. Now, what have we done to util ize this stupendous store of me chanical energy in the earth? If we lived OUTSIDE the eartk then, by putting a belt around ft, or con - necting cogs to it, we could employ its power. But we live UPON ft and hitherto have been as helples: to utilize its force as would be a fly spinning around on the circumfer ence of the flywheel of an engine. That this may not always be so is, perhaps, Indicated by something else that our brain power HAS en abled us to do. Living on the earth we have, by observation and calcu latlon. found out that it DOES turn on its axis, although we can not feel It turning. We have found out that it has other motions also. Earth Flies With the Sun. It goes round the sun and it flie wlth the sun through space, in a tremendous journey among tl < stars, the speed of which we have ascertained. We know when it I s slowing up and when it is going faster, and we know the reason so these changes. We have discov ered and disentangled these thing- , because we have brains and MIND POWER. But the human brain is only In Its infancy, and since we are aware of that, we have good reason to hope that in the future we shall not merely know that the earth is full of power, but shall make that power, in some way. v serve our uses.