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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 3, 187» Subscription Price —Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail, <5.00 a year Payable In advance. Christmas and Crime and the Ending of the Pistol Era Atlanta Enjoyed a Holiday More Nearly Ideal Than Ever Be fore in Its History. Christ mas in Atlanta this year approached the safe and sane tn a most gratifying extent. Compared with other years—even with last tear —Atlanta enjoyed a Christmas more nearly ideal than ever before in its history. Drunkenness, rowdyism, unnecessary noise, and breaches of lhe peace were reduced nearly 50 per cent under the record of 1911. The police court reports show this. Last year, the arrests on Christmas day totaled around 350. This year they numbered 224. This showing, while not yet what it should—and eventually will—be. nevertheless is indicative of a greatly improved situation, and induces genuine optimism as to the future. Tn 50 of the arrests made, pistols figured in one way and another. This, under the law against carrying concealed weap ons as it stands now. is about as much as we can hope for. The authorities should he congratulated, therefore, upon hav ing reduced the number of arrests in Atlanta for that specific cause to a practical minimum. It can be reduced still further, however, if not wiped out entirely, by legislative enactment prohibiting absolutely the sale of pistols, save where both the purchase and the sale are made public records, subject to immediate investigation in case of trouble. The Atlanta Chamber of Commerce proposes a law requir ing every would-be purchaser of a pistol to secure from a pre scribed authority a permit to buy. If with this proposal is coupled another requiring the seller to return the permit, indorsed with his name as the party selling, a complete rec ord will be established that will safeguard thoroughly the pur chase and sale of pistols. That within itself would hold down" the use and misuse of pistols to a definite and precise point difficult of evasion. Judge Broyles also has a good suggestion, namely, to make the license for the sale of firearms so high that dealers can not afford to handle them. , Atlanta experienced a fine Christmas this year. It may be that next Christmas will be even more satisfactory, so far as safetx and sanity are concerned. Indeed, few will doubt it, if in the meantime the legislature gives ns a law restricting rigidly the purchase and sale of pis tols. , X ( an There Possibly Be a Money Trust? Does a money trust actually exist? Is it possible for a money trust to exist ? These arc two very different questions. The former question has not yet been answered by the Pujo committee or by any other public authority The latter question has been too eagerly and rashly answered by Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. Mr. Morgan hastened to assure the country the other day while testifying before the Pujo committee that a money trust is an im possibility. that “all the banks in Christendom” could not estab lish such a thing; that in the world of finance power depends wholly upon ”personality. ” Mr. Morgan’s idea seems to be that control of credit can be exercised only by spotless and incorruptible individuals in whose personal character the public has unlimited confidence, and that when a trusted financier dies, retires or forfeits this confidence, all the financial power centered in him must, in the nature of things, be utterly dissolved. It is hard to believe that this is really Mr. Morgan s deepest thought on the subject of financial monopoly. If it is. Mr. Morgan has not troubled himself to think about these things at all—or has ceased to think about them. There may be no such thing in America as a single all-embrac ing money trust. There may bo. instead, just a number of financial combinations that are more or less loosely related. But there can be no doubt of the possibility of private monopoly in credit There can be no doubt that such a power could conceivably be built up on a scale as comprehensive as the existing monopoly in petroleum or tobacco. L uder modern conditions credit or capital is bought and sold in the market just as oil and cigars are bought and sold. It is. on the whole, easier to monopolize the credit market than it is to monopolist the oil or tobacco market—because the transactions in tin buying and selling of credit are relatively few and large. When the projector of a practicable railroad or factory goes into the money market to buy capital in exchange for proposed issues <»i stocks and bonds, it is immensely important to the general welfare of the community that the market should be an open mar ket 1-or it there is no competition in lhe wholesale market for stocks and bonds it there is only one possible buyer or “under writer. or it there is only a small group of possible buyers actin" ii a community of interest -then no large project will be iinauced unless it mortgages its profits in advance and pledges its control to the banks that furnish the capital. thus independent private enterprises on a large scale inav where be brought to a standstill. The whole industry of a eon !i. nt may be made tributary to the private fortunes of’a few i'ankers ' ' ■ > anything like that exist m the I niteil States? ' ls ll " 'lllation that the I’ujo committee was appointed io The Atlanta Georgian Wouldn’t It Make You Mad?-- ' Copyright 1912 by International News Service. ! ' i rouLATfcß.y | Yllll ll 11 fEVHOT just) a ~ I t j KUI \AT PRESENT M at 1 ] [ | ;11 L™ Y- - < /Hl leave mY' v - w Vl» 1 dpo tAE A FAVOR, wp QUIT W i Wil kSII i -AWPotJ Y<?UP. RETURN You HAD SLIPPED You COULDKT SHAKE THE. <mtc THE House BY The BACK £ooß ABovE-MENHONIEJ) yzOijVDwT To ESCAPE THE AFoRESAIP RAVEIS,— IT GF\Q UC H YOO ? Men and Women Should Behave Better By DOROTHY DIX WE hear a great deal about the horror of divorce, but nobody says a word about the horror of a life being ruined by a vicious or foolish husband or wife. What virtue, or what sense is there in a woman submitting to be dragged down ami down through long years of misery by a drunken husband? What good is accom plished by a man suffering his whole existence to be made a hell on earth by a woman’s shrewdish temper and tongtie? My own belief is that if divorce were commoner than it is. and that if men and women knew they had to behave themselves properly and be reasonably agreeable and pleas ant at home in order to keep their husbands and wives, we should see a marvelous reform in 'domestic manners and morals. People who want to hold on to their jobs de velop an amazing self-control. One Case In Point. Life is hard enough for all of. us. at best, when we play the game as wisely and well as we know how. and nobody has a right to queer our calculations and con demn us to lose out because he or she happens to be our husband or wife. Here's a case in point: • A splendid young fellow of my acquaintance is honorably anxious to get on in the world. He is a poor boy, but he Is capable and industrious and thrifty, and will some day be a rich man if he is not held back from success by’ his wife. Ever since this hoy began work he has made It a rule to save something out of his wages every week. At first he could only- spare 10 cents a week to go Into the sav ings bank. Then it became a quar ter. Then 50 cents and then a dollar. Then several dollars. Ail was going well when he ntar rjed a few months ago. He picked out for a wife, as such men have Ute knack of doing, a pretty, friv olous. wasteful extravagant girl, who belongs to a family that is perpetually in debt to everybody that will trust it. The young man. who is generous and openhanded, promptly turned over to his wife his salary envelope, only keeping out the amount that in- had de cided was the proper proportion of bis earnings for him to save. What he gave her was ample to maintain them comfortably In tli. it station of lit But th.- girl was furious Ix caus- sila didn't get it all io spend. She couldn't be mail, to -e< wliy ni\ iiioii- > should l>-> put FRIDAY. DECEMBER 27, 1912. Tin the nasty old bank when thei> *r were so many- things one could buy in the stores. Although she had far more to spend than she ever had before, she reproached her hus band with being a miser and tight wad, and took her grievances to her ne’er-do-well family. They decided with her, of course, and she fir 7 wer- DOROTHY DIX announced her ultimatum to her husband: Either he was to give her every cent he earned and save nothing, or else she would go back home. Fortunately the lad had enough sense and backbone to stand by his bank book, and let the selfish little creature go. but he is grieving his heart out for her, and wants to know what he shall do. Just Let Her Alone. If he takes my advice, lie will let her alone and let her stay where she is until she begs to be taken back, and before lie does it, he will put the reverence for a bank ac count into her soul, so that she will be as anxious to save as he is. And if she doesn’t come back on those conditions, he will offer thanks to Heaven that lie was mercifully de livered from her before she bank rupted him. There is no reason why any man should let an extravagant woman ruin his life. and. if lie has the courage of a fly , lie won’t no it. There are plenty of men who, when they are young, are full of ability , full of ene gy. full of ini tiative. full of ambition. They ex I pcci t” be not king 1- I i|| |l|g • manufacturers, owners of their own business; rich at 50. They marry extravagant and wasteful wives, who spend not only avery cent they can lay their hands upon, but a little more. When the year’s work is over, no matter how hard the men have toiled, nor how liberally they have been paid, they have not a dollar in the bank; they are not an inch ahead on the road of pros perity. Foredoomed to Poverty. A man married to this kind of a woman is foredoomed to poverty all Ids days. He is tied to his coun ter, to his bookkeeper's desk, to his route as a drummer, because he is always just one lap ahead of the wolf at the door, and he dares not give up the position that he has on the chance of bettering himself. When opportunity knocks at his door with a chance to get an in terest in a business, or buy some stock in the company he works for. he can not open the portal because he hasn’t got the golden key that unlocks it. His fool of a wife has frittered away his chance in life over the’bargain counter. There if nothing for him but 'to just go on in the same old rut. getting less and less pay until he gets to be an old man and is crowded out alto gether. The difference between freedom and slavery, the difference between a happy and independent old age and a miserable, dependent one, is tlie possession of money. The man who doesn’t save when he is young is bound to be a pauper when he is old. There is no way of whistling money hack to you that has once passed from your hand. If you will have it you must keep your grip on it. Women know this as well as men, and tile woman who really loves tier husband is more anxious to save ami help him get on in the world than he is to do so himself. Witli the right sort of a wife, this problem of saving does not arise. And when it does arise with the wrong sort of a wife, a man is jus tified in settling it in a high-hand ed way. He should i efuse to become the victim of tlie selfishness of a wom an who regards him only as a cash register. He should refuse to let any woman make a slave of him, and condemn him to spend his life toiling to gratify her whims, and it siie refuses to listen to, reason' and moderation, and it comes to a choice between her and tlie saving-, bank book, lie is wist to choose the savings bank book. It will be i'l r-i friend - him in -is ob' a-..- ’ ' i't 11 >lll \\ j 1, THE HOME PAPER WINIFRED BLACK Writes on Made Thief by Bad Company Pcß That’s What His Wife Said, But 3^J She Was More to Blame Than Anyone Else. ————— >1 -x■ ■ By WINIFRED BLACK. SHE sat before me the other day • —the wife of the Thief. She had come to ask for mercy for tier husband, who had been caught stealing. She was young and she was pretty, and her black eyes shone from under a hat of late design, and she wore a coat of fine cloth, and the shoes on her small feet were good, and the gloves on her little hands were not cheap. “You see,’ - said the wife of the Thief, “it's this way: I was away and he got lonesome and wanted me to come home, and he was out of work, and he got into bad com pany, and he Is not strong-minded, and they made him think it was all right. And that's how he got into trouble —bad, company—that's the whole thing. I hope you won’t prosecute him.” His Salary Was SSO. “What was your husband’s busi ness?” said I to the wife of the Thief. "Bookkeeper.” “What does he get a month?" "Fifty dollars,” said the Thief's wife. “You make your own clothes?” The Thief’s wife'swept her mod ish dress with the tall of her dark eye and laughed a little, like a mischievous child. "Who, me?” she said. “I can't sew." "You do your own washing, then ?” The Thief's wife looked down at her little white, useless hands. She looked as if she didn’t know' wheth er to laugh or frown. She chose to laugh. “Why, no,” she said; “I never did that kind of work.” “How do you get on with the cooking? You do that, of course.” The Thief's wife smiled this time, and what a dintpie she had, to be sure. "That ain’t so hard,” she said. “There's a delicatessen store, and I get everything, or almost every thing. from there. I don't know how to cook.” Fifty dollars a month the Thief made, and his wife does not cook, can’t sew, and would not wash for anything, and she says he is in trouble because he got into bad company'. I didn’t say a word to the Thief’s wife about the company. I went to see the thief. He was locked up—as a thief should be. He sat on the edge of his cot and he looked ifs If he had been crying, and he told me about the trouble. "I lost my job,” said the Thief, "and my wife went home on a visit. I had to give up the flat and I couldn’t pay- my room rent, and I owed the laundry people, and the delicatessen man was after me, and I went into this flat you’ve heard about and took what I could see.” FRAGMENTS By WILLIAM F. KIRK. T WONDER if you think tonight. Ag I am thinking, of the dreams That made our years of love so bright— The hopes, the plans, the sweetheart schemes; The wondrous home we wore to build. iThe play in which you might have played. Tour melodies forever stilled; The poems that I might have made. Whore have they gone, those bits of things! , Oh. had we known before they wont The grief a shattered vision brings. The hopelessness of prayer's cement. Poor fragments, each a son-x pari 01 what was Love and now is Ru»! I hug them tn an aching heart Y “How did you lose your job?’ "1 don’t know,” said the thief I' “They just let me out. that’s all.’ “Do you know who took your place ?” A Different Sort. "Yes. A fellow that lives tn the same house where our flat was.' The new bookkeeper’s wife waan at all like the thief’s wife. I went to see hep and found out. She isn’t as good looking as the thief? w-lfe, but she is sweet faced am rosy and her eyes are bright ano true and loving, her hair is pretty and her neat little houae dress wa. well made and hung right. She made it herself, she told me makes an her own clothes, oh, yes, indeed. She could not afford to hire them made. Her hats, too, she trims, ano the laundry welt, the collars, she sends them, but the rest she does herself. The delicatessen shop; ! s there one near by? She didn’t know. She does all her own cooking. It is cheaper so, and better, and her husband does not like ready cooked things. Picture shows? Oh, yes. once in a while, but they are paying for the home things now, and there's a lot they want to get-so much down and so much a month—so they don't go very often. r went to see the man who pays the bookkeeper's salary. Ves, we let him out,” said he “No, nothing definite against hin you might say, but he and his wifi were picture show fiends, went »•- ery night, and once I saw then there and the wife was dress better than my wife. I caw*? se where he got the money forth; hat. He handled money for in. sometimes and I didn’t think it wa fair to put him under such a strain, so 1 got a different sort of man.” “A different sort of man?” It Was His First Offense. "Well, no, not exactly. I mean a man with a different sort of wii It amounts to the same thing. Don you think so?” Bad company, that’s what g - the poor, weak chinned thief into trouble. There's no doubt about that. The worst kind of company, a silly , vain, selfish, lazy, wastefii wife. A foolish girl, who marries poor man and then will not wash, will not iron, will not cook and will not sew. Bad company, indeed! Poor, silly thief! Bad company. Indeed! He Is out of jail now. Is the thief We asked the judge to be lenient with him, as It is a first offense •r I wonder if It will be his last