Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, April 27, 1913, Image 126

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6 E 11 EAR ST’S SUNDAY AMERICAN, ATLANTA, GA., SEND AY, APRIL 27, 1913 How Geor gia and the Rest of the Southland Make Haste Slowly With out Being Reactionary—and Why. The True Progressives of a Great Section on Its Great Problems. By JAMES B. NEVIN A STATESMAN high in the councils and the confidence of the President of this nation is reported to have said, just as the Democratic ship of state was getting under way in March, that the “trouble with the South is its marked con servatism,'’ and that “the trouble with Georgia in particular is its actual reactionary trend!” Indeed, this eminent person is said to have gone even fur ther and to have promised that Georgia, as a sort of negative reward for its old-fashioned and old-fangled view of things, should receive little, if any, consideration by way of Federal patronage under the present order of things in Washington. In other words, that kissing in the national eapitol for the next four years shall go by favor—and that with Georgia more or less out of favor! The South IS conservative—Georgia distinctly is so There can come no harm of admitting that, for the con servatism of both is a conservatism of the healthy sort. Neither the South nor Georgia is reactionary in the slight est degree, and when any man says eitherjs, the wish is father to the thought, or he is misinformed, woefully. THE CASE OF GEORGIA. Take the case of Georgia, and let it serve to typify the en tire South, since Georgia is the very heart, of the South, and as she is, so, in its general aspect, is all Dixie. Georgia is rationally conservative, which means true pro gressiveness, chaperoned by the twin virtues of restraint and poise. Georgia is anything hut reactionary, although the charge—if charge it he—that Georgia makes haste slowly is well founded. And there is a very good reason for this—a reason so il luminating and unanswerable that it closes argument and shuls off debate. It is a reason as old as the hills, as ancient as the stars, and as inevitable as the ebb and flow of the tide, moreover. The Empire State of the South—whose very “nickname” spells progress of the bravest and best variety—is, in its white population, 97.2 per cent of native parentage! When one stops to consider THAT, one stops to consider the circumstance about which centers the very soul of Georgia and the very vitals of its ambitions and dearest aspirations. Georgians have been Georgians for many, many years! Their fathers and their grandfathers before them were Georgians. Remember, 97.2 per cent, of them are “to the manner born.” They have seen the Commonwealth, from an inside point of view, grow and develop from a little handful of pioneers aggressively progressive, as becomes pioneers—into a proud and mighty State. They have seen Georgia evolve from tho weakest of the “Original Thirteen” into the Empire State of the South, as aforesaid. They have watched it come out of chaos and the awful aftermath of war to assume its righteous position in the splendid Union as a whole. A PHOENIX LIKE CITY. They have seen its noblest city build up from a ahot-and- shell riddled village of the ’fid's into the “Chicago of the South” —and that is progress! Aud yet, Georgia sometimes is dubbed by the loose think ing, on the one hand, and the man with an ax to grind, on the other, “reactionary!” How silly! How childlishly absurd! The giant oaks of the forests are the conservatives, and the tittle saplings around and about, that bend this way and that as the fancy of passing winds may incline them, no doubt think the old oaks distressingly conservative, and all that sort of thing; but the old oaks stay put—and. bye and bye, the saplings grow to be old oaks Ihemselves, if they survive, and in their tunis eomo to he looked upon by the little fellows and the envi ous as “reactionary” and behind the times! In a white population of 1,481.802, the foreign born In Georgia number 16.477. In the cities, the proportion rune heavier than in the country. Atlanta has 4,410 foreign-born citi- *en«: Savannah hae 3,338; Augusta has 888; and Macon has GSR. The extreme lightness of Georgia's foreign-born percentage of popula tion may be accounted for. perhaps, In the fact that the State hae a negro population of 1,176,987, and that has eerved to discourage Immigration. It muit be remembered, however, that the negro has been eliminated as a political influence and held down to his place as a subordinate factor In society, and hence the thought and activities of the South And expres sion only through the whites of na tive persuasion. Georgia And The Tariff. What is Georgia’s attitude to-day in reaped, for inatnnee, of the tariff —the “paramount issue' of the times, as Mr. Bryan would say, no doubt, if he ever said anything at all about the subject? It is but the simple truth to state that Georgia is viewing with more or less repressed concern the present tinkering of the tariff, and wonder ing, In a conservative kind of way. If sifter all. a DEFENSIVE tariff wouldn’t be about the right answer to the problem now agitating the national mind—a tariff that would, *nd Dreferably, go the limit down ward, wherever the going down swakened a going downward ten dency In the other fellow, but that wouldn't go an Inch downward un- a»» there was a response In kino from outside the citadel. In the matter of the free liet, Geor gia, here and there, already is be ginning to ask, in a conservative sort of way, and in that degree of cau tion conservatism invaribly engen ders in a people. whether the South isn't going to furnish most of the free list glory, and If so. why? It should surprise nobody If Geor gia should arise to Inquiry, right out loud In meeting, some of these days —as conservative people do, now and then—to know whether there isn't glory enough to go round! Questions To Be Askod. There's hay, for instance, and cot ton—but more will be heard of this by and by, perhaps Anyway, Geor gia is conservative in that it WILL ask questions and demand satisfac tory replies on occasions. Georgia is conservative enough not to relish being made the "goat" more often than is strictly comfortable. The signs or the times run large to socinl unrest. There Is the prob lem of the underpaid factory hands, the girls sold Into slavery, the degenerating negro—these are prob lems that must be solved, and the conservative South must play worth part In that work. It will play fuch a part In this progressive en deavor, for It is ambitious to be right, and to load In the pathway of righteousness. Can you And a city in all this na tion where the work of uplift Is more aggressively pursued, or more abundantly backed b>^ the wealth; Intelligence, and manhood of the city effected, than it is right here In At lanta, the very hub of the conserva tive South? Can you name a city wherein the demand for a fair wage for working girls is more vehemently and more rationally expressed than it is right here in Atlanta ’ Can you name a city wherein the demand for Justice and honest help for the negro is more sincerely in sisted upon than It is right here in Atlanta? Where, does the negro of intelll- WAR DEVIL CAN BE PUT TO FLIGHT ONLY BV GOD OF LOVE, SAYS ZANGWILL ISRAEL ZANGWILL, 1 famous the world over as an apostle of peace, an author and a friend of the oppressed. grance and L>rcsif?ht look for the rain bow shot athwart the horizon of to day? BY ISRAEL ZANGWILL. I. Copyright in the U. S. A. by the American. Winston Churchill has more than once, in phraHca stamped with kcii- Ium. expressed hi« sense of the fol ly and futility of the armaments which he is« doomed to organize md amplify— against a practical ly equal counterweight on the op position aide. Nor Is the other side backward in handaome acknowl edgments of futility and folly. And yet. as in a ghastly trance, con scious of everything, but unable to stir hand or foot, the peoples of Europe see themselves slowly- crushed under masses of iron and steel, annually growing more mon strous and gigantic. When the twentieth century opened, England's naval expendi ture was some thirty millions; It is now approaching fifty millions. Our education budget is just about one- fourth of our fighting budget, t’iv- ilizatlo i, like Laocoon, is strangling in the coils of serpents, but of wer- pents it has itself hatched from the precious egg.s of pedigree cocka trices. Hitherto, these serpents, as in the Trojan legend, were two—a land serpent and a sea Herpent. But we liar now generated an air ser- l*-nt, fiercer than the fabled gry phon, direr than the chlmaera, whose breath was fire*. And while Laocoon strove to throttle his serpents, we are fatally' compelled to fatten ours, to strengthen the sinister muscles that enfold us, to inject into the fangs the venom that beslavers us. Once a year, in a desperate effort to dis- entwino himself, Mr. Ohurehill offers a truce, some reduction of armaments, a Sabbatical year. But it is a forlorn hope-. Germany can no more disen .angle herself than England. The workmen are en gaged, the dockyards must be fed. Nations are made for navies, not navies for nations. Would you throw' cut of gear the great indus try of Death—that staple of Life! II. The Peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers, runs toe war devil’s beatitude. But even his minions and marionettes must observe that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the ‘ trong. Size is not safety # The nation whose 9,000 sea dogs, aided by the elements, scattered the 28,- 000 Spaniards of the Armada, Rhould least of all put its faith in auto matic arithmetic. One would imagine that Germany and England could play the war game like cards, that Mr. Churchill could deal a destroyer and be trumped by a Zeppelin, that Ad miral von Tirpitz could lay down a twenty-knot cruiser to be taken by a thirty-knot cruiser, or that England has only to show a suffi cient hand of super-dreadnoughts for Germany to crv. "I pass!’ III. Some War Teachings. In this nightmare of civlllzatldh. two comforting theories have found eager ears. Mi* Bloch taught that war is now impossible, since it can only result in stalemate. Mr. Nor man Angel] teaches that war is economically unsound, that it can not pay. But it would now seem that it is peace which is impos sible. that it is peace which does not pay. Mr, Winston Churchill has told us there is no finality even In super-dreadnoughts, that each invention hap barely the dura tion of a Lord Mayor, and that every year the perfections of last year must be scrapped; that there is not an item of equipment but has to be constantly revised, be it dockyard machinery or telegraphic apparatus, be it searchlights or torpedo tubes, range finders or gyro-c«%mpasses, or this new plague of airships. For the devil is a good paymaster and the cunningest brains in the world are at work in hi- smithies anti laboratories, ever destroying the instruments of destruction by bettering them. IV. Yet Another’ Device. The war devil. has yet another device. For the price of Peace is paid not only in hard cash but in honor The fear of the Lord is the beginning of W isdom, but the fear of the war devil is the begin ning of Madness. Worse than war is the death of the soul of a people. For if there Is i peace of God that passeth all upderstandlng, there is a peace of the 'devil which passeth all endurance It is a peace pur chased by sacrificing to security every high national ideal, every generous instinct. Such a peace we enjoy to-day. The baleful shadow of Bismarck looms like a Brocken-specter over Europe, and in her terror England has thrown hertelf into the arms of Russia, sinking perforce to the level of her barbarian swain, the more massive her armaments, the more mouselike her action, the larger her dreadnoughts, the greater her dread. We have all the cost of greatness, only no great ness. And the name spiritual blight has spread over the bulk of Europe. Hampered by their coats of mail, the nations can scarcely move a finger. The Balkan States rush in, where the Great Powers fear to tread, and, when at last United Europe nerves itself to demonstrate, it is against—Montenegro! Here, is tho war devil’s opportunity to whisper, is Peare worth the price? What profits it to guard the husk of a I*»ople ? V. As to Arbitration. The favorite alternative to Arma ments is Arbitration. But even at The Hague let u* beware lest the war devil he not’lulling and gull ing uf. Since The Hague Confer ence was established some of the bloodiest wars in history have been fought. Outbuilt at sea, Germany takes to the n1r. France calls on her citizens for Napoleonic sacri fices. Nay. British Colonies, long ns Thomson's “Castle of Indolence.” are now .ringing his “Rule Britan nia,” in rag-time: they have em braced conscription and are build ing battleships. Pleasant as it is to recall the successes of The Hague, the ubi quitous Peace bodies, and Peace agreements and Peace convention*, the Peace Congress and the Peace Celebrations, and the hundred and three economists now preparing erudite international essays out of the interest on Mr. Carnegie’s two millions, let uk not forget that four armament-firms in Britain alone have a capital of twenty- three millions, on which Interest must be earned. VACATION Recreation under guiding supervision is the boys who attend Riverside Naval Academy. vacation planned for the He looks to tile South—the con servative South, ami he looks will optimistic eye. A wise negro not long ago incisive ly said, and simply, that it is not — and nover has been—“the Jim-crow South” that held tho negro back, so much as It Is and has been the “jlm- erow negro himself!" Ponder that thought—be fair witn it—for it carries a world of meaning and significance! Stripped of their quotation marks, "conservatism" anti "progressiveness" are grand and glorious words. They should be friends ever, comrades in endeavor frequently. They need never be set the one against the other, and urged to dissensions and dis putes, for they were fashioned for partnerships and noble work. Conservatism furnishes the light of experience, and progressiveness goes forward as conservatism gives it the light to see. Georgia, with its 97.2 percentage of native white population, is obliged to be conservative. It doesn't know how to be anything else -doesn't w ish to be anything else. It stands to-day and looks back ward over a glorious history—It looks back through its own family records to the beginning of things under Oglethorpe, and it traces that record on down through Treutelln, and Crawford, and Jenkins, and Stephens, and Toombs, and Hill, and the elder Brown, and t'obb, and Gor don, and Crisp, and Turner, all flesh and bone of its bone, and Georgia accepts the records at their face value, and sees in the statesmanship of these illustrious sons the good that Is to he seen there, and applies it as Georgia thinks they would ap ply It in these more modern days and in the changed circumstances of the present. And the answer? o conservatism that is far-seeing and sure, that rare ly may be led astray, and that com bines with the sanity and wisdom of yesterday the hope and optimistic promise of to-morrow! If Georgia's traditional attitude to ward men and things ever is changed radically and rapidly and “to stay put," it will be changed by the over whelming of that 97.2 percentage oi native population. It will be changed not by changing those who are within, or their poster ity, but by the introduction of aliens and foreign-born—by the injection of an element, for better or worse, that knows no Georgia of yesterday, and concerns itself with the Georgia of to-morrow exclusively. Somethin,; of the sort last sug gested has happened in South Caro lina, where the establishment of hundreds of cotton factories has broken down the percentage of na tive-born population, anil wrought i revolution in political Ideals. Georgia has conservative Joseph Mackey Blown—a son of the State's famous “war governor" as Chief Mag istrate, and has honored him by re- election. Apparently, Georgia is well satisfied. It's 97.2 percentage of white population, native-born, finds in Brown exactly the kind of executive it most admires. South Carolina has Coleman Liv ingstone Blouse—to whom tradition and the past are nothing—as Chief Magistrate, and has honored him by re-election, apparently. South Caro lina is well satisfied, its depleted native-bor.. population finds in Blease exactly the kind of oxecutlv > It most admires. The one typifies a cautious and careful merging of the old with the new. the conservative trend of pro- tress, The other typifies a bold breaking away from the old, and a confident plunge Into the new! Each Is an effect the cause of ( which is easily to be traced. Georgia is native-born in 97.2 of Its whAc j population. South Carolina is large'-, ' dominated by a newly imported oiti- 1 xenship. The one ts largely the South as it j was and is, the other is the experi- ment watched jealouslv, to-daj, and to-morrow ; the other is the em- ' bryonic South of to-day and to-mor row-, if the experiment succeeds. i Riverside is located on the bank of the Chattahoochee River, as it winds its way “out of the hills of Habersham, down thru the valleys of Hall,” and is in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Just outside of Gainesville, but connected by trolley, it has a combination of advantages to offer which has won for A AVAL ACADEMY Water ami mountains afford opportunity for aquatic and woodland sports, the cleanest, healthiest exercise possible, and that which instills in each boy that courage, agility, strength and determination which mould the Character of after years. Out-of-door sanitary camp life furnishes one of the chief claims of Riv erside Naval Academy. Out in the open, they are drilled, and slept; but there are also ample accommodations in the magnificently equipped military dormitories for those preferring barrack life. Summer and swimming are synonymous to every boy, whetner it be the “old swimmin’ hole," or the bosom of the broad Atlantic. At Riverside, every boy is taught to swim. A graduate naval instructor is In charge of all aquatic sports, which include all swimming strokes, plain and fancy diving, life saving drills, rowing, sailing and motor boat driving. Lake Warner forms a splendid body of water, free from treacherous currents and eddies. Constant water patrol robs the aquatic sports of all danger. In addition to the aquatic diversions, there are lawn tennis courts, a baseball diamond with class and company teams, horseback riding, trap shooting and mountain climbing. Life in dry floored and water proofed tents is one of the health fill and picturesque features of this school. Riverside’s perfectly equipped dining hall is daily supplied with North Georgia's famous fruits, vegetables and fowls. All play and no work Is a vacation wasted. At Riverside mental progress keeps pace with physical development. The faculty works out a course of study which makes up those deficiencies the boys are anxious to overcome before re-entering school in the fall. It also makes advanced standing possible, thus assuring earlier gradu ation. He will be better off, mentally and physically, for a Summer spent at Riverside, under careful physical and men- ^ tal supervision, free from idleness and out in the open. Sum- i^^"'’V tuer course of eight weeks including naval instruction and ' A class work, $100: uniforms, $20. A 7 o extra*. Summer session *3^ begins June 20. _ __ For Catalog Address: Gainesville, Ga.