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m i THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Atlanta and the “Mystic Shrine" Convention 1A.! ips a f i JL he Atlanta Georgian THE HOME PAPER Editorial in The New York American of Wednesday, April 23. The typical and now historic “Atlanta Spirit’’ is well illus trated in the way the Georgia capital has prepared to capture the Imperial Council of the Mystic Shrine for 1914. The Imperial Council of the Shriners is one of the great convention prizes of the American years. Gathering from 8,000 to 10.000 Shriners—the very flower of Masonry—it is in num bers, in quality, in spectacular splendor and in social and fra ternal importance scarcely inferior to the quadrennial conven tion of the two great political parties. The greater cities of the country eagerly seek the honor of entertaining these princely Masons. Before the great Council, which meets in Dallas in May, Atlanta is going to press her cor dial invitation to the Shriners to be her guests in May, 1914. Atlanta discovered that it would require $60,000, raised in advance, to assure the Council of her preparedness to entertain. Atlanta prepared to do it. Her committees were appointed, the famous “Atlanta Spirit" was invoked to raise the required sum before sunset—in a single day. By four o'clock on the day appointed Atlanta had raised, not $60,000, but $75,000, and was going on toward the $100,000 mark when sunset came. The great social order of the Masons could not do better than accept the hospitality of the brilliant and historic capital of the New South. Atlanta is the Phoenix City of the Old South. It was leveled to ashes by General Sherman in 1864 and left with only 3,000 population. Thirty years later Atlanta banqueted General Sherman in splendid spirit upon the scene of his battle, in a city of 70,000, and now houses nearly 200,000 people in one of the most beautiful, brilliant and hospitable cities in all the country. The destruction of Atlanta broke the backbone of the Con federacy and really had much to do with bringing a conclusion to the Civil War. The Atlanta Spirit " and the Atlanta men, from Henry Grady to John B. Gordon, have been great factors in the re-es tablishment of good feeling and the obliteration of sectional prejudice. And Atlanta itself has more to offer in historic interests, in easy access, in splendid hotels, vivid entertainment, and in charming hospitality than any other city in the South. t It “The mystery of the oats schedule ’ has not yet been solved. It has not been explained— by Congressman Harrison or anybody else—why the new tariff bill should make a free gift to Canada of our oatmeal and rolled-oats business. That is what would happen without a doubt. For to lay a heavy tax on raw oats and let the milled oats come in free IS SIMPLY TO AR RANGE TO HAVE ALL THE MILLING DONE IN CANADA. But the mystery of oats is only’a detail of the wider mys tery that shrouds the Underwood bill in all its bearings upon our trade relations with Canada. For example, FLOUR is made free and WHEAT dutiable. This would destroy all our flour mills or drive them into Can ada. Perhaps not QUITE all. For the case of flour is a little different from that of oatmeal—since only A FRACTION of the oat crop goes into oatmeal, while substantially ALL of the wheat crop is turned into flour. The certain effect of the Underwood wheat and flour sched ule would be to drive most of our flour-miliing business into Can ada and to compel our farmers to market much of their wheat there. THE CANADIAN PRICE FOR THIS WHEAT WOULD FIX THE PRICE OF THE WHOLE AMERICAN CROP. That price would certainly be lower than any price our farmers have been accustomed to. They would lose money. And the wheat acreage of this country would shrink. With American wheat prices Anally adjusted to the lower Canadian level, some part of the flour-milling business of the United States might continue to be done in this country—though IT IS PERFECTLY POSSIBLE THAT OUR DOMESTIC PRO DUCTION OF BOTH WHEAT AND FLOUR WOULD BE PRACTICALLY ANNIHILATED. The Underwood bill puts a 10 per cent duty on SHEEP, but no duty at all on sheep PRODUCTS—wool, skins and mutton. This provision is perhaps intended to protect the American sheep-farmer. But the American sheep-farmer does not under stand how it will prosper him—and this newspaper office does not. Taken all in all, THE NEW TARIFF BILL PROPOSES TO GIVE CANADIAN FARMING AND MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISES A TREMENDOUS BOOM—AT THE EX PENSE OF THE INDUSTRIES OF THE UNITED STATES. IT OFFERS CANADA ALL THAT WAS OFFERED BY THE TAFT RECIPROCITY BILL WITHOUT EXACTING ANY CANADIAN CONCESSIONS IN RETURN. The arrangement is grotesquely lopsided. It is reciprocity running on one leg. Under such an arrangement Canada could do what she pleased in OUR markets, while allowing us to do only what she pleased in her markets. She could sell to us at the highest rate of profit and buy of us at the lowest rate of profit. She could, for a time at least, maintain the highest scale of wages and the highest standard of living in the world, while driving us to a lower scale of wages and a lower standard of liv ing than we have ever known. In view of the complete one-sidedness of this tariff plan, and its immeasurable advantage to the Canadians over the plan for Canadian reciprocity that was wrecked two years ago, there is something satirical, if not sinister, in the news that Mr. Wal ter Scott, of Regina, Prime Minister of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, is in Washington “urging a revival of the Taft reciprocity plan.” Is it possible that this far-journeying statesman has not read the Underwood bill? Or may it be that, in a secret rapture of hope, he is seeking to accelerate the passage of the Underwood bill by an ostenta tious effort not to notice it? It is thus that a skillful horse-trader cheapens the real ob ject of his desire—to wit: by paying marked attention to the I negligible merits of -ome other horse. Plenty of Water on This Wheel—Always. Elbert Hubbard Writes on This is the wheel that keeps the machinery p,o- ing in great factories. This wheel grinds out fortunes for a few rich men and sorrow for thousands of others. This is the wheel of the child labor factory, and the children are the water that goes over the wheel and keeps it turning. Once the water goes over that wheel it can not be used again. There is always more water coming down, al ways more children to keep the wheel turning. Avoid Debt as You Would a Harmful Drug Endure Any Hardship Rather Than Buy Comfort at the Price of It Bv ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. I T Is interesting to me to find how much more logical and discriminating men are than | Women, and it is always gratify ing to me to he set aright by a man when I make an error of judgment or an untrue statement. t m several occasions in this column I have expressed my in born and cultivated horror <*f debt; I have said it was kin to disgrace, and urged mothers to Impress their children with this idea. Now comes the good, clear headed critic, in the form of a business man, who writes me as follows: “Debt for purposes of comfort, c iso ->i* pleasure, is to be con demned. but debt in a legitimate transaction, not for speculative purposes, but for real business, shows that a man has confidence’ in himself, respect for his own ability and determination to suc ceed. “Your article is helpful, com mendable, wise, but you do not want it to limit any man’s legiti mate ambition or opportunities. Taken literally it might do so." I realise the truth of his words and see the distinction that should be drawn between differ- « :.t kinds of debt. Hut the trouble with most young people, unless they have heei. carefully educated to re gard debt with aversion, is in the ease with which they can argue that a speculation or a desired pleasure or comfort is a legiti mate business. Were my son living on this earth (instead of a celestial sphere), I am sure I would urge him to live, as John Crabb did, on 84 cents a year until he saved enough money for “legitimate business." rather than run in debt for that purpose; because 1 have seen so many young men (and women, too) form the deadly debt habit, for business purposes, and never accomplish anything and never pay their debts. When We Realize Its Value. Unless the moral nature is well developed and the ideals high, and self-respect and a fine sense of honor are th? accompaniments of ambition, it is a dangerous thing for a young man to find himself able to start on the road to business or fdueation on monev he has borrowed. Only when we have earned money, or are accustomed to the thought that it belonged to us by inheritance, do we realize its worth or understand its import ance. Even when it comes by inherit ance it is not always appreci ated. for parents are prone to hide from their children the strain and stress through which they passed to acquire the com petence which their offspring enjoy. i reva . one young girl of poor family, whose absorbing life of knowledge and whose indomitable will made her successful, bor rowed. without security, one thou sand dollars for educational pur poses. She graduated *from a four years’ college course. and by .teaching during vacation season was able to pay interest on her debts; at the end of four years she obtained an excellent position in the Far West as teacher, cleared her books of debts* and began a brilliant career as a suc cessful educator. Hut 1 know a dozen other young women and men who have gone in debt for seemingly worthy purposes and have lost all sense of responsibility, even self-re spect, by enjoying the privileges of unearned dollars. So the»whole question eeetns to rest upon the moral character of the borrowers. A man with a quarter of a mil lion may borrow two million with far more impunity than one with five dollars a week may borrow a hundred. We are all more or less influ enced by our personal experiences, and it has been my misfortune in past times to lend money to those who seemed deserving of such as sistance, and to see (with the ex ception of three people) all be come “leaner*” without any real sense of the responsibility they had incurred or obligation which rested upon them to liquidate the uebt. Great Inventions He Tells How Some of the Most Useful Things Have Been Invented Almost by Chance by Men Who Had Imagination and Were In dustrious. By ELBERT HUBBARD Copyright. 1913, International News Service. I have seen one whom I had be lieved in the direst straits, and whose needs It had seemed a priv ilege to supply, u?e the loan in extravagant ways, which would never have occuired to me—in carriages, where walking would have sufficed; in telegrams and long-distance telephone messages, where letters and postals would have answered, and in hotel bills, where dairy restaurants would have sufficed. The Lending of Money. Not once only has* such an ex perience been mine, but at least a score of times, and I have grown to regard the lending of money as an injury to nineteen people out of twenty. I have grown to think that debt is like a drug, and that he who lends to his friends Is like one who applies the hypodermic needle. Personally, I would rather en dure any amount of hardship than purchase comfort at tho price of debt. I have known what its burden and sting meant and have realized afterward that I could have succeeded better had I avoided the path of temporary de pendent upon other peoples money. Yet, as my critic says, there are distinctions to be made in the ways and wherefores of debt, and I give his ^definition that those who are contemplating any ven ture upon borrowed money may analyze their purposes and decide whether or not they are wise to go on. A N epoch is a pivotal point, •omething that changes old methods, cleans up the slate and starts the game of life afresh. In the lives of individuals there .are pivotal points. Doss, calami ty, grief, may be pivotal points— times when an issue bravely met adds cubits to our stature. Great successes are usually those where victory it* snatched from the jaws of defeat. And the old idea of the Indians that when they killed an enemy they absorbed his strength into their own is poetically true. The greatest invention of mod ern centuries is the steam engine. Rigged Up An Engine. The principle of the expansive power of water under heat was known to Pythagoras, who lived 600 years before Christ. However, the value of steam as a producer of power was of no avail until we had a receptacle that would contain it. The rolling of iron plates was the thing that made the steam engine practicable. It was the steam boiler and not the steam engine that ushered in the Age of Steam. Robert Fulton said his job was to make a boiler to hold the steam—the engine was easy. Stephenson rigged up an engine and boiler on a wagon, ran a chain over the hub, and this chain ran around the flywheel of his engine. With this steam wagon he could travel on a good road way at the rate of four miles an hour. Four miles an hour is the speed of a traction engine. Stephenson found that when he increased the speed of his wagon it jarred his engine so that it was impossible to manipulate it. The wheels of a wagon hit the ground and every' inequality caused a shock. Driving horses on a stone pave ment faster than five miles an hour is not practical. I once rode to a fire with Chief Hale, in Kansas City, at the rate of ten miles an hour. We certainly did make the sparks fly. We swung from curb to curb, and the racket, the friction, the pound ing were terrific. I vowed that if I ever got out of that red wagon I would never climb into such a vehicle again. Gave Him a Sulky. The Invention of the rubber tire made the automobile possible. And .if rubber tires had been in vented before iron wheels were utilized, the railroads would never have existed. When Stephenson discovered that it was impossible to make speed on a roadway with an iron wheeled vehicle, he laid wooden rails and covered them with strips of iron, thus getting a compara tively smooth surface. When I used to jog horses with my neighbor. Ed Geers, the Silent Man, I realized, in driving a sin gle block over a macadam pave ment from the barn to the track how' impossible speed was on any road excepting one specially pre pared. The race track was made up of loam and tan bark. Here was a soft footing for the iror.shod feet of the ‘horses, and a yielding pavement for the iron tires of our sulkies. One fine day someone sent to Ed Geers a present of a little low wheeled sulky. The wheels were evidently those taken from a bi cycle. At that time I had never heard of ball-bearings. But I soon un derstood that the ball-bearings shift tlie friction from one place to a great many. The little low-wheeled sulky was laughed at, then admired. Finally Ed Geers hitched a horse to it. Two turns around the half-mile track and his horse was used to the contrivance. It ran as silently as Ed Geers himself, and with so little friction that it seemed to be chasing the horse and pushing him along. And I saw- that the horse was draw- ing the sulky by the reins, and not by the traces. And so we came down the home stretch, neck and neck. And then Ed Geers drew out in front of me very easily and went under the wire three lengths ahead. We tried it again, and the Silent Man delivered himself thus: “It means about ten seconds on the mile.' Then he dived into silence and pulled the silence in after him. A few days later Ed Geers drove to this little low-wheeled ball-bearing sulky in a race at Buffalo. When he drove out to warm up he got the laugh from the grandstand. But he walked away with the race just the same He had just ten seconds leeway over the rest. Had a Solid Tire. The next year on the Grand Circuit not a single high-wheeled sulky was seen. The bicycle tire and the ball-bearing axles were here to stay. As Emerson’s shoemaker car peted the earth with leather, so has the pneumatic tire paved the roadway with rubber. Fifteen years ago the principal use for rubber was in making gum shoes for politicians. The gum shoe is not now’ so much in demand as it was then. Dr. B. F. Goodrich was a prac ticing physician at Tarrytow’n, N Y., when the high bicycle came in It had a solid rubber tire. One day Dr. Goodrich just took a piece of garden hose and fastened it on his high wheel with the aid of wires. He found that this lessened the bumps, but the hose soon flattened. Then he put a smaller hose in side of the other. And the third move was to blow* the little hose that was inside of the big one up with air—and the pneumatic tire was born. Curiously enough, a man by the name of Dunlop, in England, did the Lame thing at about the same time. It was very much like the in vention of the telephone. Gray, of Oberlin; Dolbear, of Tufts Alexander Graham Bell, of Bos ton and Thomas Alva Edison, of the round world, turned the trick at the tame time. Everybody now agrees that it is the rubber tire and the pneu matic inner tube that make the automobile possible. With the iron tire we would still be hitting the pavement at five miles an hour and no more. How Can You Sing? By LILIAN LAUFERTY. C AN the heart Bing of joys it docs not know? Tour city’s streets have never room for flowers; But buildings crowd with tall sky-pointing towers. And giant winds snarl by—w’.iile zephyrs blow. On gloomy days your gray horizon lowers; Before the gusts your raln-whipt city cower*. Wind, rain, or sun—each element’s your foe. Yet. still of country Joys you make your song: Our rippling brooks, our shady trellised bowers. Our warm, sweet-scented rains whose gentle showers Bring nodding blooms in rainbow-colored throng. You sing—and every country heart must long For all those humming, droning, warm-pulsed hours Of brook and field—the country’s thrice-blessed dowers. And all your grim, gray city life seems wrong. How can you sing? I think you never knew My hills, my streams, my forests and my sea. But still you fling o’er all the sodden view A speii o' dreams—the country’s here with me!