Newspaper Page Text
EDITORIAL PAGE
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta. Ga.
Entered as second-class matter at postoftlee at Atlanta, under act of March 3. 137»
Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier. 10 cents a week. By mall. $5.00 a year.
Payable In advance.
The Fanner’s Wife and the
Outcast Hired Man
s» t» r
’ It's an Old Story, But One Which Will Be Told and Retold Many,
Many Times.
lii ■
A middle Georgia farmer's wife. 35 years old, Ihe mother of
several children, a tireless church worker, begins to fee] sorry for
one of her husband’s hired men. lie is an outcast lie has done
nothing with his life, lie has no friend in the world
The woman has been accustomed to comforting others. Since
her marriage, when she was a girl of IG. she has been accustomed
Io making those around her happy. As a matter of course, she
sympathized with the outcast.
Before she realizes it she is lost. Her life’s great work—that
of being a good wife ami a good mother is blotted out. She is no !
longer eit her.
The one misstep leads Io a hundred others. Nothing is as easy
as back-sliding.
The husband whom she has worshipped for nineteen years is in I
the way. He is nothing more to her than an unromantic toiler.
To get rid of him would mean to collect the insurance on his
life and to gain her own freedom.
The more romantic outcast suggests the means. All the good
in her has been stifled and she agrees. She allows her husband j
to be poisoned. She watches his suffering and waits for his
death.
She thinks of this still faithlid. unsuspecting man as her life
partner and the lather of her children. For a moment the wife and
the mother in her triumph.
She knows the poison tha,l is killing him and she knows the
antidote. In an instant she has saved his life.
Then comes the limd struggle in her heart. It is brief. Months
of evil have left her pitifully weak, and the good impulse is quickly
crushed, t
All of her longing to lie rid of him returns. She hates herself
for having saved him. She allows the other man to follow him into i
the woods, snatch his gun away and shoot hfm to death.
There was never a more harrowing story. Every detail in it is
revolting; and yet. it is a story that must be told and retold.
The moral in it began with the world. Thousands of times it
has been re-enacted. Worse still, it will be re enacted thousands of
times again. %
A Bill Excluding Good Moth
ers From the U. S.
A bill forbidding the admission of immigrants to this coun
try if UNABLE TO HEAD IX SOME RECOGNIZED LAN- '
Gl AGE, has been passed by the House of Representatives.
Just what "a recognized language” is WE DON’T KNOW.
We do know, however, that the phraseology of this bill is as
foolish as it is vague, and that the bill is criminal and unworthy
even of the-men that passed it.
Are the congressmen who voted for this bill aware of the
fact THAT IT WOULD H.VVE KEPT OCT THE MOTHERS OE
MEN WHO HAVE ATTAINED GREAT PROMINENCE IN
THE UNITED STATES HAD THEY ARRIVED HERE AS IM
MIGRANTS?
i
Do the eminent congressmen realize that u hat w ■ need in
this country is GOOD men and women rather than educated'
men and women ’
Wo have plentx of worthless human beings over here able
to read and write, some of them in even mon than one “recog
nized language." We might well trade dozens of them for some
well-built strong woman of good chai-actor, good jfiirposes I'ond
of children. WILLING TO BEAR CHILDREN, able to contribute
something to this nation.
11 is to be hoped that this bill will be vetoed In the president
ot the 1 nited States, if it ever reaches him. It is a bill that
would exclude, for instance, more than three-quarters of the
population of Spain. For in Spain not one-quarter of the pop
ulation is able to read or write. This does not mean, how
ever, that we ought to keep out Spanish men and women of
good character because of lack of education.
On the contrary, we need their blood, their energy. We have
here the public school system, the greatest institution of this re
public. The children of the immigrants will read. And they
will make better citizens in many cases, because thev come of
parents LACKING IN EDUCATION, BUT WI TH I'HE COUR
AGE. ENERGY AND ENTERPRISE TO CROSS THE OCEAN
AND COME TO THIS DISTANT COUNTRY.
Congressmen and senators that pass lulls to keep good men
and women out of this country are like dogs in the manger, un
able to utilize one-tenth of the possibilities that the country
possesses, yet unwilling to let others come in and share.
What are we ALL but immigrants or the d< seendants of im
migrants? How many of the men in congress are descended
from immigrants able to read.' NOT ONE IN TEN.
Inability to read does not mean lack of character. lack
of usefulness, bul simph LACK OF OPPORTUNITY. This
country calls itself the country of opportunity.
• What a disgrace to shut out those most in need of our op
portunity, those that have been depr:ved in their childhood of
the chance that the public schools offer to all children here!
We beg to U-ll the congressmen that it is not READING that
makes useful citizens. Bl T THINKING. And many a man ami
woman in Europe, unable to read, but able to think, and long
ing for opportunity in a free country, would make better citi
zens for America than the man with all possibilities within
himself and no energy to make him utilize it.
You may be sure that the peasant mother of Leonardo Da
Vinci could not read. But if we could bring one hundred thou
sand such women to this country we would elevate the country
considerably. You may be sure that the tanner’s daughter
who became the mother of William Ihe Conqueror was unable
to read. But SHE WAS ABLE TO HAYE A PRETTY GOOD
SON And what this country wants from women is not so much
ability to read as a combination of the ability to think ami to
raise children
Ihe s nate can not too quickly send to the waste basket the
The Atlanta Georgian
Rapid-Fire Gunning on a Warship
ft ~ '
I' ' . '
'"Will
I; ’ wl
, - >ii
Man’s Gallantry and Love of Lucre
M MAX who is violently opposed
AA to.woman suffrage has writ-
ten me a letter in which he
says that the reason wxmien have
to stand up in street nus is be
cause they want to vote, tor men
will never show any chivalry to
women as long as women demand
their rights.
This is an ancient argument of
the antis, and it always strikes the
funny bone of a person with any
sense of humor. It is easy to an
swer it by pointing out that if
women had the ballot it wouldn’t be
necessary for men to give them
their seats on the street cars, be
cause the women cotdd pass laws
that would force the street car
companies to put on enough cars to
carry everybody comfortably, in
stead of herding people together, as
is now done 1 , in ears that are pack
ed worse than c attle cars.
c'f course, men. having the
weapon of the ballot in their hands,
could institute that reform right
now if they would take the trouble
to do it. They don’t, however.
Perhaps they don’t object to being
packed- like sardines in a box. Per
haps they don’t mind standing, or
they don’t mind seeing women
stand, or they don't object to hav
ing their clothes half torn off thens
by their follow victims pushing and
squeezing and climbing oyer them
as they try to get out at a station.
Her First Reform.
But women's - lines are not built
lor standing in; women's clothes
cost a lot of money and are ruined
by being pawed over, and women do
object to having s3o hats knocked
out of shape by being squeezed Into
the' market baskets of the women
next to them. So about the first
thing women would d|> If they had
the ballot would be to enact laws ]
that would secur to every pas- ]
sengcr the decent transportation 1
that he or she pays for on street 1
ears
It is also to laugh when a man
g lively assures you that men will
n ver show chivalry to women as
long .is women demand their rights.
What sort of chivalry is it that de
nies a woman her rights? It’s
rather a contradictory statement,
isn't it?
Plain, simple justice would give
to woman her rights, and chivalry
is supposed to go a step beyond
justice, and give to a woman some
thing more than her rights—her
’rights with frllis on them, so to
speak. How absurd then to deny a
woman what is honestly and justly
coming to her, and then have the
nerve to talk of chivalry in the
same breath!
In reality there is nothing in the
world so absurd, and so utterly
untrue, as the’ way people glorify
the chivalry of the men of the past,
and hold them up cis models to the
men of the present, who are ae- ’
cased of being brutal and ungal
lant to women "Look how men
t eat women! Chivalry is dead."
they cry.
Age of True Gallantry.
X’c nsense. Women were never
treated so well in the whole history
of the world as they are today Men
were nwei so truly knightly, and
as for chivalry being demi, why.
Just any ordinary business man
could make the whole of thf Hound !
Table look like pikers when it 1
conus to showing true gallantry ;
to a woman.
The chivalry of the past! Con-
<tl
MONDAW DECEMBER’ 30, 1912.
By DOROTHY DIN.
• wider it. please. No woman could
walk alone on the streets without
danger of being insulted by 'every
man she met. She had to be kept *
locked up in her father's house, as
in a jail, to protect her. Now any
decent, well-behaved girl, who will
keep her eyes before her, can walk
the city unmolested at midnight,
and travel from one end of the
country to the other without re
ceiving anything hut kindness and
consideration from every man she
meets.
Southern Laws Worse.
The chivalry of the past! It was
so very tender to a female that it
robfied her of e\ ry cent she had. A
father left all of Ills money to his
sons, with a vague understanding
that they would look out for their
sisters, which they generally failed
to do. When a girl married every
dollar of her property went to her
husband, and ho might drink it
away, or throw it away, or spend it
on other women. She had no con
trol over a nickel of it. and couldn't
help herself.
When it comes to a fight be
tween money ,and the idealities,
money is mighty apt to win out,
and the gallantry of man hasn’t
been wholly able to triumph over
the love of lucre yet. The married
woman still gets a cold deal about
her property In most of the states,
but men are getting more and more
gallant all the time, and every year
better property laws for women are
enacted.
It’s significant to note in this con
nection that in the South, where
men have the reputation of being
the most gallant, the laws for wom
en are the worst, and bear the hard
est on them. In Louisiana and
Texas, for instance, a married
woman is nothing but a chattel,
and her husband owns even her
clothes. If she is a wage-earning
woman, he can collect her salary
and spend it as he pleases, and if
she owns propertj she can not even
j :: Realism in Art :: I
By MALCOLM DOUGLAS.
Mike angelo m cann
Was a famous painter-man;
His works, agreed the.critics, were ideal; <
Just an humble onion grew
With a skilful touch or two ' s
On his canvas till it actually smelled real.
< ;
He would paint a bosky dej S
With a stack of hay so well
'That the cattle Io his easel close would stray;
If Mike Angelo McCann
Krom his picture frightened ran, ,
Thev were alwavs sure to lick from it the hav.
He would paint a spray of tiow'rs
So that in a few short hours <
A swarm of bees to all the petals dung. ?
And Mike Angelo would beat s
An undignified retreat I
From his studio for fear of getting stung.
1 . '
A still-life he would make
Os a juicy, well-broiled steak.
[Sliced tomatoes, and of radishes a bunch. )
And his wife was not at fault
When with pepper and with salt
She would serve it to the familv for lunch!
j
C&) (Sa C&)
''T'HIS photograph shows <
A the modern way of sight- j
ing a quick firing gun on a (
battleship. ?
On each side of the gun s
is an arrangement resent- <
bling greatly a pair of huge S
opera glasses, while out on (
top of the muzzle is a finder ?
similar in appearance to !
those used on cameras of <
certain types.
A platform for the range- <
finder to stand on is placed )
on each side of the cannon 5
near the base.
The platforms swing with
the gun while the sighting is (
going on.
This form of sighting ap- 5
paratus allows a gunner to <
become as proficient with a )
cannon of this size as with J
a hunting rille, and has re- S
suited in some wonderful S
shooting records. (
C'Xp
!• rent a house without taking to the
agent a written permission from
iter husband.
In Tennessee a man takes full
possession of his Wife’s property on
the wedding day, ami may spend it
as he pleases, and if the wife ap
plies for a divorce, no matter what
the husband has done, the court
will only allow her what it sees fit
out of her own property.
Now, it takes the real, genuine,
bona fide brand of chivalry to make
a man willing to legislate himself
out of a soft snap, yet the modern
man has proved his gallantry by do
ing this very thing and passing
laws that give women their own
rights to their own property.
Men have also shown their gal
lantry by opening up th > doors of
gainful occupations to women, so
that a girl can make a living for
herself If she needs to, instead of
being forced into the legalized har
lotry of unloving marriage, which
was the only way a poor woman had
of avoiding starvation in the past.
Height of Gallantry.
The chivalry of the past! Don’t
mention it in comparison with the
chivalry of today. Every man who
gives a woman honest work to do
and pays her an honest price for
doing it, who treats every woman
he meets as he would want some
other man to treat his sister, and
who deals fairly by his own wife,
could put Sir Galahad in the gal
lantry kindergarten class.
And in ten states where knight
hood is really in flower the men
have given the women an equal
share in government with them.
The man who talks about women
killing chivalry by demanding their
rights doesn't know what the word
chivalry means. It means more
than giving a woman a seat in a
street car. Give us the ballot, and
we’ll attend to the street car busi
ness ourselves. And we'll see that
you get a seat that you don't have
. to give up to anybody. Mr. Man.
the: home paper
Garrett P. Serviss
Writes on * ;
The Earth’s Earliest
Men Artists jL
Not Only Did They Carve
Pictures on Tusks, But |H
They Modeled in Clay
AgesS Ago.
—
By GARRETT P. SERVISS.
ONE of the most surprising dis- ••
coveries ever made about
p: e-historie man ir that ot
Count Begouin, made fast fall in a
cavern in the foothills of the Py
renee mountains near St. Girons.
Pushing his way into the heart of
the hill, accompanied by his two
sons, who ahi him in his archaeo
logical explorations, Count Begouin,
after traversing a long upper gal
lery in the rock, and after being
compelled to break a passage
through stalagmitic pillars, formed
by the dripping of lime charged
water for uncounted ages, came
upon a recess, where he saw, to his
amazement, two clay statues, rep
resenting. respectively, a male and
a female bison, each something over
two feet in length, and modeled so
that the difference of sex, as well
as the species of the animal, was
unmistakably indicated.
They were true statuettes, in a
walking attitude, the male follow
ing the female. They stood on a
slope of clay talus, to which they
remained attached. A third unfin
ished figure, the nature of which
could not be -made out, was found
in the same place. Around them,
and elsewhere in the galleries com
posing the ancient cavern, were the
footprints of the men who had made
them, or had seen them made, and
these were superimposed upon the
footmarks of cave bears which had
•evidently inhabited the cavern con
temporaneously with the human
beings, or immediately before they
took possession of it as a dwelling
place. Skeletons of the cave bear
were also found and from these the
canine teeth had been removed.
Man’s Contemporaries.
The significance of this discovery
lies in the fact that it proves, for
the first time, that some of the very
earliest representatives of our race
had learned to model In clay. These
men belonged to what is called the
paleolithic age. which means the
Old Stone Age. from Hie Greek
words palaios (“ancient”) and
lithos ("stone"). At that time the
weapons and utensils shaped by
men were made of stone. They had
not yet learned to employ metals.
Afterward came the Bronze Age,
and later the Iron Age. The enor
mous antiquity of that time is
shown by the single fact that then
reindeer, cave bears (a species long
sinc<» extinct), the bison, the mam
moth and other animals that have
vanished were contemporaries of
man in southern Europe.
It had been known for a long time
that the men of that age were en
dowed with artistic instincts. They
carved the figuies of animals on
the tusks of mammoths, and they
made rude paintings on the walls
of their caverns, but now we know
that they had also learned to shape 4
Bismarck’s Great Mistake
By REV. THOMAS B. GREGORY
—— 1_
ONE of the worst mistakes ever 4
made by a really great man
was when Bismarck, in a
speech in the German parliament,
28 years ago, declared: "Germany
does not want colonies.'"
It is said that Homer sometimes
"nodded." and it is as certain as
anything can be in this world that
the great chancellor was in the
midst of one of the most terrific of
nods when he delivered that now
historic speech.
The "German Colonization socie
ty” had been organized but a short
Mme before at Frankfort-on-the
Main, and as is now proved were
wise in their generation, and it was
in the attempt to throw cold water
upon the plans of that organization
that the Man rtf Blood and Iron
uttered his famous obiter dictum.
Only a little more than a quarter
of a century has passed since Bis
marck made that speech, and addle
pated indeed is the German who
■does not realize most keenly that
Germany’s one great pressing need
today is colonies—colonies where
white men can live and prosper.
The situation in Gel many i> rap
idly becoming a most serious one.
The German people must soon
reach <lf they have not alreldy
reached) the critical point where
the population begins to overbal
ance the means of subsistence,
when the mouths to be fed and the
• figures in clay, an achievement
which has always been regarded as
marking a much later stage in hu
man progress than they were sue.
posed to have attained. As Profes
sor George Grant MacCurdy ie
tnarks: “The clay figures found by
Count Begouin are unbaked, to be
sure, but they prove that only t
accident of firing stood between ti e
Magdalenian races and one of tne
great inventions, of all time."
It is easy to picture in the imag
ination the feelings of the discover
er of these statues, which had been
hidden away in the depths of the
hills so long that it is Impracticable
to reckon their age in centuries, or
even in periods of thousands of
years. They so far antedate all the *
nations of history that Chaldea and
Egypt and Rome seem but things
of yesterday in comparison. The
history of those times we shall
never know. But the mark of hu
man genius was put upon the earth
even then.
They Were True Artists.
Here is a fact which science will
be called upon to explain, if it cam
Those early men were artists. They
lacked skill, they had only the
rudest kind of tools, they could not
produce masterpieces, but they had
the gist of the matter in them.
They were no mere animals. They
possessed the supreme gift of im
agination. Why did they model
those figures of bisons in their cave
and leave them there!
It is not likely that they were
idols. They saw those animals
about them and knew what they
were, knew that they were Inferior
to themselves. They modeled them
in clay because to do so was to ex.
a talent of which they were
proud.
The makers of those images may
have been looked upon as we look
upon great artists today. The fig
ures themselves may have excited
as much admiration as the bronzes
of Rodin do among us. Sparkling
eyes, gazing out of hairy counte
nances, saw with wonder these
products of human art, gleaming in
the faint light of the cavern fires.
. The simple fact that they were
carefully preserved, to remain un
touched for perhaps tens of thou
sands of years, until Nature herself
took a hand in their preservation
by covering their hiding place with
a screen of limestone, proves the
regard in which they were held.
But the mystery behind it all is
the question: "Whence came this
i artistic instinct, this inborn desire
to MAKE THINGS—not merely
things that would appeal to the im
agination and surround life with
purely ideal creations of man's own
hands and brain!
All subsequent human, progress
was foreshadowed in those clay im
' ages
j" bodies to be clothed are too numer
ous for the capabilities of the soil,
and unless an outlet is provided foi
tjie threatening human surplus, the
most dire consequences are inevi
table.
• An Illustration well describes the
situation in which Germany finds
itself. The area of the whole Ger
man empire is 208,00 square miles
and its population is nearly seventy
millions; while the single state of
Texas has an area of over 265,000
square miles, with a population of
some three millions.
If this does not prove that Ger
many wants colonies, then it would
he difficult io say what it does
prove. Germany wants colonies
and wants them badly. She has
considerable territory in Africa, bin
it happens to be territory such is
can not be permanently and profit
ably occupied by German peopl’
The climate is against them, and
against them in away that can not
be helped by German science. A
law greater and stronger than the
best science has decreed that i' l
certain parts of the earth the white
man can live only at his peril—a
very great peril, too, and one that
is sure to come if invited.
Verily, the statesmen of the "Fa
therland” have a tremendous prob
lem before them, and it does not
yet appear, even to the most di
cerning minds, how it is to b*
solved