Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, April 30, 1913, Image 20

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THE HOME RARER e-nn\ EDITORIAL RAGE he Atlanta Georgian THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published Kvery Afternoon Except Sunday By THE GEORGIAN (’oM p ANy At 20 East Alabama 8t., Atlanta, Ga. Entered as second-class matter at postofhrM at Atlanta, under act of March 3.1*73 Subscription Prlc<* Delivered by carrier, 10 Lents a week. By mail, ? '» 00 a year. Payable in Advance. | President Wilson, These Ought to Be the UNITED States The States and the President They Elect Should Be UNITED, Not Opposing Each Other to Oblige Some Foreign State Copyright, 1918. If this country SHOULD get into a war with Japan, would not President Wilson feel part of the responsibility resting upon him? The people of Japan are intelligent and they are not going to fight this country while the country is UNITED. But if they get, as they must get, from President Wilson the idea that the country is NOT united, that California in defend ing herself has not the approval of her sister States—then Ja pan will feel inclined to take advantage of the condition of a nation NOT UNITED. Mr. Wilson's public condemnation of California- a State in which conditions are absolutely unknown to him—is a mis fortune to California, and more of a misfortune to the whole country. This nation has prospered and developed as a united nation. We have let the outside world know that the interest of one part of this country was the interest of the whole country. We have not felt that any one of the States in legislating for itself, defending itself against undesirable population or harmful land ownership, would lack the support of the other States. Mr. Wilson and his Secretary of State, Mr. Bryan, have an nounced to the world that California is out of sympathy with the rest of the United States, and that her acts, perfectly legal and proper to those who understand California conditions, are not approved by the President of the United States, and, as he puts it, NOT APPROVED BY THE CITIZENS OF THE COUN TRY IN GENERAL. If some English or French or German or other ruler had , lectured California, as Wilson has done, the people of the conn try might understand it. But the people of this country do not understand that the President of the United States, who represents California as he does every other State in the Union, should publicly, emphati cally and repeatedly side against California, allying himself with the unjustifiable demands of Japan, and encouraging the belligerent attitude of Japan and her hostile and critical tone toward this country. Those who know conditions as Mr. Wilson could not pos sibly learn them in his study at Princeton are aware of the fact THAT CALIFORNIA MUST PROTECT HERSELF AGAINST ASIATIC LABOR AND ASIATIC LAND OWNERSHIP. This continent, and especially that part of it facing on the Pacific, will remain either European in its population or become Asiatic. It cannot be half and half. The Asiatic population and the European populations do not mix and have never mixed. Where the Asiatics have been invaders, since the days of Attila and before, the Asiatics have been overwhelmed and de stroyed by those whom they invaded. Or the invaders have overwhelmed the invaded and made their territory Asiatic. The Pacific Coast must be kept European in its population, or we must consent to its becoming Asiatic. Mr. Wilson, we presume, will admit that it will be better for this country to keep conditions as they are, to keep the popula tion of the Pacific Coast a population progressive with the stand ards of the United States and not change it for a population with the standards of Japan or of China. Californians, our frontiersmen of the Pacific, have a hard task; they have done it well, and they have acted temperately. THEY CAN NOT PERMIT ASIATIC INVASION, THEY MUST NOT PERMIT IT, AND THEY WILL NOT PERMIT IT. : Nothing that Mr. Wilson can say, and nothing that his Sec retary of State, Mr. Bryan, can spout will change the attitude of California. The men who live out there, who created that State and de veloped it, OWN IT AND MEAN TO CONTINUE IN OWNER SHIP They will not, to oblige Mr. Wilson or his theories, and they mil not, to oblige Mr. Bryan or his fallacies, turn over to Japan or any other Asiatic nation the land that they have cultivated, fought for and won. All that Mr. Wilson can do will not change the determina tion of the Californians. But Mr. Wilson can continue along his present dangerous path, encouraging Japan in her warlike attitude, justifying the complaints of her citizens apparently, whereas they have NO just complaint. These are the UNITED States. California is one of the United States. Wilson is the President of all of the United States. And his public utterances should never fail to give the impression that these States ARE UNITED, united against Japan, against China, against the whole world if necessary, wherever the interests of one of the States are involved. Mr. Wilson has studied history very deeply, so it is said. He ought to know that the great original objection to a union of the States was the fear on the part of weaker States that their interests would be forgotten in the selfish scramble of bigger and more powerful communities. Mr. Wilson is now justifying that fear which filled the minds of the smaller States among the original thirteen when he makes it appear that theories prevailing in Washington or theories pre vaiiing in Lincoln. Nebr.. will use the power of government to in terfere with the rights and the vital interests of one of the States in favor of an alien Power, , Hunting the Bungalow DR. PARKHURST JON AH-S BUNGALOW This is the season of sunshine, pure air and pleas ure—in the country and at the seashore. It’s your duty to get away from the paved streets and city dust, out into the country or seashore, with your wife and babies. As we said in a recent editorial: “Get out where you can see the sun in the day time and the stars at night, where your children can grow up, noticing the change of the seasons, real izing that such things exist as Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.” :=: History Supplanting Fiction • • • • By GARRETT P SERVISS. T HE very important state ment is made by superin tendents of great public libraries that books of fiction are losing in popularity as compared with works of a more solid and instructive nature. Books on science and history are said to be particularly in demand. The habitual novel reader may stick at that. He thinks that 11E uses his imagination when he reads Ms favorite stories. But usk him to construct a clear men tal picture of anything outside the conventional scenes of the novelists and he will tlutter like a bird that has never learned the use of its wings. Knows Little of History. You will usually find that he is incapable of understanding the real working if any of the great mechanisms that have trans formed tin* life of the modern world. He sees the outside, but he lias not imagination enough to bring the inside before hts mental vision. lie gets his idea of a great aeroplane from a sketchy story by Rudyard Kipling. Instead of dealing with the great characters ami scenes of history* for himself, and recon structing them in his mind, he reads fanciful “historical novels” in which facts are distorted, fa mous men and women carica tured, and false scenes presented. He fancies that he is USING his imagination when he is only rid ing on the wings of some other man’s imagination. He might grow very wise about the world of men and women amid which he lives if he would study THEM, but he studies only the more or less foolish repre sentations of them made by nov elists. Let every intelligent per son imitate what the conscien tious novelist himself does by ex ercising his imagination directly upon the scenes of daily life, as presented by his own observa tions and by the newspapers, and • he will quickly develop mental powers that will surprise him and he will also discover that his fa vorite authors have miseed. or disregarded, or falsified, many of the most important -and interest ing things. An illustration of the real use of the imagination may be wit nessed any afternoon in front of a newspaper bulletin board, w here a telegraphic picture of the strug- gl< s on the baseball grounds is presented The imaginative boy in su li a situation is almost as well placed as it he were sitting 1 on the bleachers, lift SEES the twirled ball shoot over the dia mond; he SEES the wild grab of the catcher; he HEARS the swat of the bat, and SEES the runner speeding from bag to bag, and he cannot restrain his clarion voice when a run is scored by his fa vorite player in the glowing field of his imagination-. * Later he READS the history of what he has already SEEN, and renews his joy In memory. If he were ‘.imply reading the story of an Imaginary game it would be somebody else's picture that he would have before his mind, and he would feel the essential false ness of the representation. The scenes of this world are enormously interesting, if only we will fill them out with the imag ination and use for the purpose our own and not some other per son’s imagination. This applies to the history of past times. It is no advantage to us to see General Washington in a novel, but it is an immense advantage to see him wdth our own minds’ eye. The reason why history is not a more favorite study is solely because most ptrsons h ive not learned to use the imagination independent ly. To a properly trained mind the accounts of Nero by the Ro man historians is a thousand times more interesting and vivid than Slenkewicz’s fanciful pic ture ot Gim in Quo Yadi%” cause the thoughtful reader of the histories uses his own imag ination untrammelled, and fills in the outlines in the way that seems to him the most probable and pleasing. The plainest facts are full of the deepest romance if only we educate the mind to get out of them what they contain. Historic Heroes Interesting'. The country boy who when the spring thaws have started minia ture rivers flowing from every snowbank follows those streams through the fields, wondering at their roaring cataracts, noting their sudden bends, observing where they issue into plains and spread themselves into lakes, and animating their shores with im- aginarv cities, finds a higher pleasure and a better exercise for his imagination than in read ing ’ Robinson CTusoe.” He makes a whole world of his father’s farm, with its mountains. Its prairies, its great capitals, and its warring nations The day is too short for him. The life of Galileo, or Napoleon or Peter the Great, or Isaac New ton is more interesting than any story that was tver written. The accounts of the spectroscope, the telescope, wireless telegraphy, aviation, far exceed, in genuine 1 int- rest, tu» Umg of the “Arabian Writes on Concentrated Wealth If the world’s riches were divided per capita, he says, Progress would he instantly suspended. Written For The Georgian By the Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst S HORTLY after the celebra tion of the late Cyrus Field’s golden wedding I happened to meet him somewhere downtown and our conversation naturally turned upon the public event which had just transpired, and which had meant so much to him, especially because of the large number of cablegrams which he received from notable people in England congratulating him on his success in laying the first oceanic cable. Obstacles He Encountered. He went on to speak of the ob stacles which he had encountered in the course of that achievement, the large amount of money which had been required in order to car ry it through, and wound up with the emphatic declaration that it takes a great deal of money to accomplish large results and that even then the undertaking will be a failure unless the large money is at the disposal of a single mind and is principally the contents of one man’s purse, and not an ac cumulation of pennies collected by passing around the hat among a crowd of the impecunious. There is among us a rather widely prevailing feeling of an tagonism toward those who are immensely rich, and that feeling is very often thoroughly justi fied. It is Justified when their wealth has been accumulated by dishon orable means and is the sum total of what has been overbearingly extracted from the pockets of those having small holdings. And He Was Right. It is justified also when the money &hich has been accumu lated—whatever the process in accumulation, hone3t or dishon est—is employed and expended in accordance wdth the unchristian principle that a man may do what he will wdth his own. But the feeling of antagonism is not justified on any such ground as that a. man has wealth and a vast amount of It, for we never should have reached our present stage of civilization if we had not had such men and a great many of them. Cyrus Field was right. His doctrine is guaranteed by his own achievement. He made it possible for people to talk to each other across the sea without their communication being subject to the delay of go ing by sailing vessefl or steamer. He was able to do it by means of the concentration of capital sub ject to his own disposal and mode of expenditure. If a man wants to go West he is no longer obliged to go on foot or to be transported in an emi grant caravan. The reason why such tedious method of travel has ceased to be necessary is that certain aggressive pioneers have had the control of enough money to track the continent with iron roadways and equip them with steam carriages. We aTe all of us every day en joying advantages that have been, put within our reach by men that were immensely wealthy. If we are of a Jealous disposition it may maks us uncomfortable to realize how dependent we are upon what has been done for us by those who are infinitely more favorably circumstanced than we. If eo, the best -thing w-e can do Is to get over our jealousy and not convert our blessings into curses by being soured by the way in which ©nr blessings, many of them, have come to uj. Good in Use; Bad in AbiuJe. We ought rather to be grateful that there aje so many in the world who have honestly acquired large money and who are making so considerable a part of it accrue to public advantage. Were we all of us to throw our entire property Into one huge melting pot and then divide up per caipita, everything In the shape of progress would be In stantly suspended and the suspen sion would be continued till some progressive spirits were able to rise above the dead level of finan cial equality and set the wheels of progress to rolling again. There is nothing in the forego ing that contradicts the fact that concentration of capital may work to public disadvantage; hut that is only in keeping with the principle that whatever is good in the use may become bad in the abuse. Getting Advice From “Successes” By JAMES J. MONTAGUE I DECIDED to he a lawyer. I thought it would be pleasant to sway juries like reeds and to move even the grim, gray judge to tears as I pleaded for the life of the innocent boy before him— the pallid victim of circumstan tial evidence whose untimely tak ing off would mean the serious annoyance of his aged mother. I went to Judge Bunker, there fore. and told him of my purpose. He scowled. "Nonsense!” he said. “Go into any profession but the law. There are three hundred lawyers to one client now. You’d starve." I ventured to suggest that Judge Bunker himself, padded out with three hundred pounds of avoirdupois, looked anything but a “starveling.” “Yes,” he admitted, “I’ve been moderately successful. But I had —er—some native ability, and to that I have added unremitting study, privation, self-sacrifice, la bor such as the slave in the gal leys never dreamed of in his most laborious hours. NO, young man, you must not try the law.” Plumber’s Lament. Giving up the law, therefore, I cast about for something else. I found a plumber sitting on the • doorstep of his unpretentloushouse reading the evening paper and puffing a very good cigar. It oc curred to me that since I could not be a lawyer, a plumber’s life would suit me reasonably well. I confided to the plumber my ambi tions. “Not a chance." he said, kindly. “Any other business, yes; mine, no. Kicks from customers, burn ed fingers from gasoline furnaces, ,, jokes in the newspapers—profits, nothing. The bnslneas lg over crowded. Go to dootoring If you want to get rich. Book at this fellow Friedmann, selling medi cated turtle soup for a hundred dollars a cani I wish Td thought of that when I started out In business.” I didn’t want to be a doctor. I have an aversion to .night work. So I applied to a policeman. "Sir,” I said. “I would like to he a hero like yon. to best with ear stick on the pavement and com mon the reserves and then lead them on a thrilling and anooeer- ful attack on a squad of taodeah bandits. How can I go about «T“ “Don’t," said the policeman. "The business is overcrowded. Wot with the newspapers knock in’ ye with wan hand an’ forget- ting to tell of the good ye do wKh the other, the game Is no good.” Painter’s Special Talent Apparently there was no hope on the force. But I had to live. On the corner was a painter, pa tiently massaging a house, his at tire. considering his vocation, neat; his face a picture of con tentment. I asked his advice about joining his useful profes sion. He leaned on his brush, lit his pipe, frowned, and said: “Any business but this. It’s overcrowded. Besides, it’s hard work, arid there’s few can do It right. Yes. I stuck, of course, but I got a talent for this business. You can’t go Judging yourself kg me.” Now, It was apparent by this time that nobody was going to advise me to go into his own profession. So I made up my mind to shift my tactics. I did. I asked a college professor what he thought of deep sea fishing as a vocation. He enthusiastically ad vised me to embark upon it. And some day, perbgps, I shall.