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HKARSTS SUNDAY AMERICAN, ATLANTA, 0A„ SUNDAY, APRIL 27, 1913.
How Geor-
ia and the
.est 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
WAR DEVIL CAN BE PET TO FLIGHT ONLY BY 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.
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 tinder the present order of things in Washington.
In other words, that kissing in the national capitol for the
next four years shall go by favor—and that with Georgia more
or less out of favor I
The South IS conservative—Georgia distinctly is so
There can come no harm of admitting that, for the i on
servatiam of both is a conservatism of the healthy sort.
Neither the South nor Georgia is reactionary in the slight
est degTee, and when any man says either is, the wish is father
to the thought, or he is misinformed, woefully.
THE CASE OF GEORGIA.
Take the ease of Georgia, and let it serve to typify the en
tire Sonth, since Georgia is the very heart of the South, and as
she is, so, in its general aapeot, is all Dixie.
Georgia is rationally conservative, which means true pro
gressiveness, chaperoned hy the twin virtue*, of restraint and
poise. Georgia is anything hut reactionary, although the
charge—if charge it, be—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 il closes argument and shuts
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 rouI of Georgia
and the very vitals of its ambitions and dearest Hspirations.
Georgians have been Georgians for many, many years I
Their fathers and their grandfathers before them were
Georgians. Remember, 97.2 per cent of them arc “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 the weakest of the
“Original Thirteen” into the Empire State of the South, as
aforeaaid.
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 nobleat city build up from a shot-and-
shell riddled village of the 'fiO’s into the “Chicago of the South”
—and that is progress!
And yet, Georgia sometimes is dubbed by the loose think
ing, on the one hand, and the man with an nx to grind, on the
other, “reactionary!” How silly! How ehildlishly absurd!
The giant oaks of the forests ore the conservatives, and the
little saplings around nhd about, that bend this way arid 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 themselves, if they survive, and in their
turns come to be looked upon by the little fellows and the envi
ous as “reactionary” and behind the times!
In a white population of 1.481,102,
th# forelfn bom In Georgia number
18,477. In the cities, the proportion
rune heavier than In the country.
Atlanta has 4,410 foreign-born clti-
mene: Savannah hue 8,381: Augusta
haa 888; and Macon has 688.
The extreme lightness of Georgia's
forelgn-bom peroentago of popula
tion may be accounted for, porhapa,
In the fact that the State haa a negro
population of 1,176.987, and that haa
served to dlecourago Immigration. It
must be remembered, however, that
th# negro hae been eliminated as a
political Influence and held down to
Ilia place as a subordinate factor In
society, and hence the thought and
activities of the South find expres
sion only through the whites of na
tive persuasion.
Georgia And The Tariff.
What la Georgia's attitude to-dav
In respect, for Instance, 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 s but the simple truth to state
that Georgia Is viewing with raoro
or less repressed concern the present
tinkering of the tariff, and wonder
ing, In a conservative kind of way.
If after ali, a DEFENSIVE tariff
wouldn't be about the right answer
to the problem now agitating the
national mtnd—a tariff that would,
and preferably, go the limit down
ward. wherever the going down
awakened a going downward ten
dency In the other fellow, but that
wouldn't go an Inch downward un-
, as there was a response In kind
*rom outside the citadel.
In the matter of the free list, Geor-
«ia, here and there, already is be
riming to ask. In nnservatlve sort
of wa>. and In that degree of cau
tion (yLervatlsm invartbly engen
ders In a people, whether the
South Isn't going to Ihirnish most
of the free list glory, and If so, why?
It should surprise nobody If Geor
gla should arise to Inquiry, right out
loud In meeting, some of these days
—as conservetlve people do, now and
then—to know whether there Isn't
glory enough to go round!
Qusstions Te Be Asked.
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 WIU,
aak questions and demand satisfac
tory replies on occasions.
Georgia is conservative enough not
to relish being made the "goat" more
often than Is strlotly comfortable.
The signs of the times run large
to social unrest. There Is the prob
lem of the underpaid factory
hands, the girls sold Into slavery, the
degenerating negro—theeo are prob
lems that must be solved, and th
conservative South must play i
worth part In that work. It will play
such a part In this progressive en
deavor, for It is ambitious to be
right, and to lead In the pathway of
righteousness.
Can you And a city In all thlB na
tion where the work of uplift Is
more aggressively pursued, or more
abundantly backed hy the wealth
Intelligence, and manhood of the city
effected, than It Is right here In At
lamta. 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 Atlan^g?
Where (does the negro of Intel!!
BY ISRAEL ZANGWILL. I
I.
Copyright in the U. S. A. by the
American.
Winston Churchill has more than
once. In phrases .-tamped with gen
ius. expressed his sense of the fol
ly anil futility of the armaments
which he is doomed to organize
and amplify—against a practical
ly equal counterweight on the op
position side. Nor Is the other side
backward In handsome 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
rnished 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. Clv-
iltzatloj, like Laocoon, is strangling
In the colls of serpents, but (If ser
pents It has itself hatched from the
precious eggs of pedigree cocku-
trlcep,. Hitherto, these serpents, as
in the Trojan legend, were two—a
land serpent and a sea serpent.. But
we have now generated an air ser
pent, tiereer than the fabled gry
phon, direr thun the chirnnera,
whose breath was fire.
And while Laocoon strove to
throttle hhi 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 n desperate effort to dls-
entwine himself. Mr. Churchill
offers a truce, some reduction of
armaments, a Sabbatical year. But
it Is a forlorn hop*-. Germany can
no more disentangle herself than
England. The workmen are en
gaged, the dockyards must be fed.
Nations are made for navies, not
navies for nations. Would you
tbrow cut of gear the great Indus
try of Death—that staple of Life!
II
The Peacemakers.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
runs t.'.e 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
strong. Size is not safety. The
nation whose 9,000 sea dogs, aided
by the elements, scattered the 28,-
000 Spaniards of the Armada, should
least of all put its faith in auto
matic arithmetic.
One would Imagine that Germany
and England could play the war
game ‘ike curds, that Mr. Churchill
could deal a destroyer and he
trumped by a Zeppelin, that Ad
miral von Tirpttz could lay down
a twenty-knot cruiser to be taken
by a thirty-knot cruiser, or that
England has only to show a sufil-
cient hand of super-dreadnoughts
for Germany to crv. "I pass!'
III.
Some War Teachings.
In this nightmare of civilization,
two comforting theories have found
eager ears. M. Bloch taught that
war is now impossible, since it can
only result in stalemate. Mr Nor
man Angeli 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 has 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-oempassea. or this new plague
of airships. For the devil is a good
paymaster and the cunningest
brains in the world are at work
In his smithies and laboratories,
ever d' -troying 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 Wisdom, 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 a peace of God that
pngseth all understanding, there is
a peace of the devil which passeth
all endurance. It Is a peace pur
chased by sacrificing to security
every high nauonal ideal, every
generous instinct. Such a peace we
enjoy to-day.
The baleful shadow of Bismarck
looms like a Brocken-spe, ter over
Europe, and in her terror England
has thrown herrelf Into the arms
of Russia, sinking perforce to the
level of her barbartan swuin.
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 mall,
the nations can scarcely move a
finger.
The Balkan Slates 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 the
war devil’s opportunity to whisper,
is Peace worth the price? What
profits it lo gu-.rd the husk of a
people?
As to Arbitration.
The favorite alternative to Vrma -
ments'is Arbitration. But even at
Th< Hague let us beware lest the
war devil be not lulling and gull
ing u*. Since The Hague Confer
ence was established some of the
bloodiest wars In history have been
fought. Outbuilt at sea, Germany
takes to the air. France calls on
her citizens for Napoleonic sacri
fices Nay. British Colonies, long
as Thomson’s “Castle of Indolence,”
are now singing Ills “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 ua not forget that
four armament-firms In Britain
alone have a capital of twenty-
three millions, on which interest
must be earned.
gence and foresight look for the rain
bow shot athwart the horizon of to
day?
He looks lo the South the con
servative South, and he looks wit l
optimistic eye.
A wise negro not long ago incisive
ly said, and simply, that it is Pol
and never has been—“the Jim-crow
South" that held the negro back, so
much as it is and haa been the "jim-
crow negro himself!"
Ponder that thought -be fair with
It—for it carries a world of moaning
and significance!
Stripped of their quotation marks,
onservatism’’ and "progrossiveness''
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 progressive ness goes
forward as conservatism gives it *he
light to see.
Georgia, with Its 97.2 percentage cf
native white population, is obliged to
be conservative. It doesn't know how
to be anything else - doesn't wish 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 Cobb, and Gor
don, and Crisp, and Turner, all flesh
and bom; of its bone, and Georgia
accepts the records Ht thetr face
value, and sees in the statesmanship
of these illustrious sons the good
that is to be 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'.' a 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 anil optimistic
promise of to-morrow!
If Georgia's traditional attitude to
ward men and things ever ts changed
radically and rapidly and "to stay
put," Il will be changed by the over
whelming of that 97.2 percentage ol
native population.
It will be changed not by changing
those who are within, or their poster
ity, but by the introduction of aliens
oml foreign-born—by the injection of
an element, for better or worse, that
knows no C; :gta 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 establlehment of
hundreds of cotton factories has
broken down the percentage of na
tive-boni population, and wrought i
revolution In political Ideals.
Georgia has conservative Joseph
Mackey Brown- a son of the State’s
famous "war governor*’ as Chief Mag
istrate. and has honored him by
election. Apparently. Georgia is well
satisfied. It's* 97 2 percentage of white
population, native-born, finds
Brown exactly the kind of executive
it most admires.
South Carolina has Coleman LI
Ingstone Blease—to whom tradition
and the past are nothing as Chief
Magistrate, and has honored him by
re-election, ippurently. South Caro
lina Is well satisfied. Its depleted
native-bor. population finds I
Blease exactly the kind of evocutiv
11 most admires
The one typifies a cautious and
careful merging of the old with the
new, the conservative trend of pro-
rest The other typifies a bold
breaking away from the old, and
confident plunge Into the new !
Each Is an effect the cause of,
which is easily to be traced. Georgia i
is native-born in 97.2 of its white
population. .South Carolina is Iarg.■ y i
dominated by a newly Imported cltt- j
son snip.
The one is largely the South as it
was and Is, the other is the experi
ment watched jealously, to-day. und '
to-morrow: the other is the em
bryonic South of to-day and to-mor
row, if the experiment succeeds. i
Recreation under guiding supervision is the vacation planned for the
boys who attend Riverside Naval Academy.
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
/NAVAL ACADEMY
the title of the “Culver of the South.”
Water and 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, whether It he 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 ts one of the health
ful and picturesque features of this school. Riverside's perfectly equipped dining hall
is daily supplied with North Georgia’s famous fruits, vegetables and fowls.
Ail 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 fail. 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
mer course of eight weeks including naval instruction and
class work, $100; uniforms, $20. No extra*. Summer session
lie gins June 26.
For Catalog Address:
RIVERSIDE NAVAL ACADEMY
Boa Gainesville, Ga.
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