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*’ ’, 1 1 -■ •’>. EDITORIAL RACE i he Atlanta 1 THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday By THE GEORGIAN COMPANY At 20 Kant Alabama St . Atlanta, Ga Entered as second-class' matter at poitofflru at Atlanta. under act of March 3,1*■ Subscription Price Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. Hy mail, $6.00 a year Payable in Advance. T UNTERMYER. the Man Who Made Organized Money Sit Up and Answer Questions. Samuel Untermyer did useful work in persuading the big men of money to tell the PEOPLE of the United States some thing about the management and control of the MONEY of the United States. It was a good thing for the people to know that a dozen men controlled most of the big banks, and through them the lit tle banks. And it was enlightening to discover that big money man agers couldn't remember within “a few hundred millions” the amounts they turned over. Untermyer is the first man in the United States who has succeeded in letting the people know what happens to the money of the country—which is the industrial and commercial life blood of a nation. Among other public services rendered by Untermyer is the identification in a very simple way of the newspapers that or ganized money controls. Make out a list of the editors who have been attacking Un termyer ever since he compelled the big money men to answer important questions and you have a list of the editors and news papers that are controlled by organized capital, and not by their readers’ interest. The investigation and understanding of the organized pow er and concentrated action of money in this country is as im portant as any enterprise of the century. The work has only been begun. Untermyer deserves the credit for making the be ginning of the investigation EFFECTIVE. It is to be hoped that the attacks upon him by a highly or ganized capitalistic press bureau will not discourage him in fu ture work. There could be no greater menace to the nation’s material welfare than the concentration of money, AND THE ABSO LUTE CONTROL OF CREDIT IN THE HANDS OF A FEW MEN. Money is POWER If a nation—that is to say, the whole people—controls the nation's money, power is national, and prosperity is national. If a few individuals control the coun try’s money and extend credit only to a few favorites, then power is individual and prosperity will be only individual. It is a satisfaction to those who have viewed with appre- hension the control of the ablest lawyers by organized capital, to find such a man as Untermyer—at least as able as any man in the country—retained by the United States Government, and making a courageous and intelligent fight for the Government, regardless of the hatred of powerful men whom lawyers usually struggle to please—for big fees to come, It is amusing to see corporation newspapers that bow humbly before every corporation legal jackal attacking Unter myer because he has seen fit to crown his career by a conspic uous service to all the citizens of the nation in which his success has been built up. Untermyer is able to fight for himself, but in view of the attacks and false statements of which he has been the victim, by the newspapers that organized money controls, it is just as well to tell what kind of a man Untermyer is. He has been what is called a corporation lawyer.” And he probably will remain a corporation lawyer. Only corpora tions can pay the biggest lawyers the fees that they want. But Untermyer never organized or represented a corpora tion declared unlawful, or attacked by the courts. And long before he became the lawyer of the Government in investigating individual control of national finances, Unter myer was taking the side of honest investors against individual exploiters. It was Untermyer who, backed by the Hearst. newspapers, made the fight against the United States shipbuilding swindle. In that case he revealed the dishonorable scheming which in volved many of the biggest men in Wall Street, and which in ^ w ’E^^d among other things the revelation that all the stock was a voting trust held by John W Gates, and the stock \ \-r < one individual, for which he had not paid a dollar, • < ahead of all other stock. Kegi; EDi ,er was a leader in the fight for the policyholders irance companies against dishonest management. In ^iit, which improved conditions for all policyholders jughout the country, Untermyer spent nearly a quarter of a nillion dollars of his own money. We mention these incidents in Untermyer's career for the benefit of the young lawyers of to-day who will be the great lawyers” of to morrow. It is a good thing to know that it is possible as Untermyer has proved, to be one of the ablest and most successful lawyers at the bar. and at the same time to sympathize with and faith fully represent the public interest, as the Government s legal fighter. It is also a pleasure to give to the truths concerning Unter myer a circulation very much greater than that commanded by corpdration newspapers that lie about Untermyer. ir. order to curry favor with the arrogant rich, whose illegal acts he has ex posed. WHAT’S THE USE? Here he is. You kn says "It's all been done, ing your shins scramblin Do JUST ENOUGH to You know him, of cou other fellow, too, the one it’s all been done, and goe everything was new. Th than he’s paid for, who is ow him. The fellow who What’s the use of bark- g over the rough places? hold your job and get fat.” rse. And you’ve seen the who doesn’t know that s right ahead as though e fellow who does more on the job all the time, alive and trying. After awhile he goes ahead while the fellow in the picture stands still. Suddenly the lazy guy thinks, "Gee. there IS something in real work and real interest.” but by that time he’s miles behind. The hours and days that he wasted in moaning and grumbling don’t come back. Those hours and days are the WHITE HOPES of existence. THEY NEVER COME BACK.—TAD. On the Trail of Mr. Suburbs S> By FERA. , TH1E HOME RARER • * Garrett P. Serviss Writes on Might and Mystery of Radium Source of Pove^r Which Enables It to Hurl Projectiles a Hun dred Thousand Miles Per Second Explained. “I 1 ■HAVE often wanted to*asrk you to tell ub something about radium in a special article. I mean, tel) us in suth manner as a lay mind can und^er- stand. No encyclopedia does. What, for example. Is the mean ing of its power; whence derived?' What is radio-activity? What are4 these emanations so much dwelt on and how do they act? Please tell me, are these emanations a disintegrating of the countless particles composing a particle of radium? If so. how are,they es pecially powerful fn any particu lar instance? If so. is it because the compression in the particle is so great, so imponderable, that the molecules beginning to es cape—“emanating,” as I imagine —can continue to escape or to emanate for years and years and years with no sensible diminution of the particle? Won’t you kindly resolve the whole theory and make It plain as possible? How Is it powerful for anything in particular? Would a particle of gold t or some other metal give off emanations, if emanations be what I imagine, namely, disinte gration? J. M. W. By GARRETT P. SERVISS. T HE answer to these ques tions mu«t be almost as compressed as the inquirer supposes a particle of radium to be. Radio-activity is a recently dis covered property of the atoms of matter which causes them to send off continuously, and of their own accord, streams of radiation, some of which consist of almost In finitely small particles (very much smaller than average atoms themselves), while others are, apparently, only vibrations in the ether, in which respect they re semble waves of light and of I electricity. One result of radio activity is that the atoms of mat ter affected by it gradually disin tegrate or disappear. Only a few substances are known to be radio-active, but it has been conjectured that all sub stances may possess this property in a degree at present impercep tible to us, and thus the universe may be slowly dissolving. Known Radio-Active Bodies. The known radio-active bodies are the substances called “uran ium” and “thorium." together with certain elements derived from them, the most famous of which is “radium.” All of these substances are remarkable for their great atomic weight; in fact, they are the densest, or heaviest, in existence—heavier than lead, gold or platinum. Three kinds of rays are given off by these substances. Those called “Alpha" rays consist of par ticles of about the mass of an or dinary atom of hydrogen (the lightest known atom), and mov ing with a velocity of about 20,- 000 miles per second. Those called “Beta" rays also consist of particles, but much smaller than the others, and moving with velocities of more than 100,000 miles per second. The third kind are called “Gamma” rays, and these appear to be not streams of particles, but vibrations, resem bling the X-rays, and propagated through the ether in the same manner as light. All of these penetrate solid matter in varying degrees. The Alpha rays have the least pene tration, being stopped by a sin gle sheet of paper. The Beta rays have about a hundred times more power of penetration, while the GAMMA RAYS ARE SO PIERCING THAT THEY HAVE BEEN SENT THROUGH A foot of solid iron: In consequence of the disinte grating effect of radio-activity, a bit of radium, left to itself, grad ually disappears, but so minute are the particles shot off. and so great is the proportion of them that simply hang together in the atom without immediately escap ing. that it has been estimated that about 2.500 years are re- • quired for the complete breaking up of an atom of radium. Yet the energy set free by this slow process is so great that a single gram of radium compound emits, in one hour, sufficient heat to raise its own weight of water from the freezing to the boiling point: If we could get unlimited supplies of radium, instead of having to be content with the one or two grams that exist in all the laboratories put together. we might look with perfect indiffer ence upon the rapid exhaustion of the coal fields. Now. whence comes this mys terious energy? It haa been found that the heat is probably derived from the internal bombardment of the radium atom itself by the Alpha particles. The only answer possible, at present, is that there is a gigantic store of energy locked up. in some unknown way, in the atoms, and is held In sus pense there until the automatic disintegration of the atoms sets It tfree to act In other ways. It then ^sndg the particles flying, and tnlpir collisions produce heat. As faw as potential energy is con cerned the mightiest explosive ev€*r Invented by man is pitifully weala compared with the explosive force* contained In everything aboat!us! Energy j Implies Motion. The problem of the origin of the inter-atAmic energy Involves the whole question of the nature of matter. Suppose we look at It tn thte wey: Matter la energy tn a par ticular form, but energy Implies motion, or the ability to produce motion To create an atom of matter energy must be locked up. Apparently It disappears tn the atom. As long as the atom ex ists as such, the Imprisoned en-. ergy Is imperceptible to us. Some think that an atom resembles a minute solar system. In which Infinitesimal particles are In swift revolution around the renter of the atom as the planets are In revolution around the sun. Something, in the case of radio active substances, interferes with the regular motions of the parti cles. or electrons, and the atom goes to pieces, or is transformed into a new atom of a different kind, and a great amount of en ergy is released. More slowly, the same process may affect all the matter In the universe, and, in the course of time, every world now in existence may dissolve, but the energy locked up in these worlds reappears in the formation of new ones. The "emanation” given off by radium appears to be something different from any of the three kinds of rays that have been men tioned. Some regard it as being a kind of gas. it has the power of imparting the property of radio activity to any other substance that happens to be near a bit of radium, as. for instance, the hands and clothes of the experi menters. But this imparted radio activity does not last long One of the most wonderful things about the emanation is that it has been found to change, of Its own accord, into helium, an element entirely different from radium, as 1f nature were giving us a hint that the dream of the ancient alchemists that base metal might change into gold was not without foundation. The tendency of all things to give off emanations, of one kind or another, is not a new discov ery. There is probably nothing that does not thus affect Its sur roundings, In ways unguessed. Living beings radiate emanations upon everything around them. THE DOG FOLLOWS HIS MAS TER THROUGH ALL THE IN TRICACIES OF A CROWD. ON ACCOUNT OF HIS PER CEPTION OF SOME EMANA TION NOT PERCEIVABLE BY HUMAN SENSES. Emanation Unperoeivable. Dr. LeBon has suggested that the power of some animals to see in the dark is due to the exist ence of emanations. Thus the cat sees us in the darkest nights by virtue of some halo produced around our bodies by vital action, and photographs made in the dark are similarly explained. What was once known as "odic force," pro ducing an alleged luminous nim bus around a human being, would, by this hypothesis, be accounted for as the result of an emanation. When this subject was unuer in vestigation many years ago it was remarked that relatively few per sons exhibit the phenomenon in visible form. They are like gold, which shows no perceptible radio activity. although the property may exist in it, while those who exhibit the nimbus resemble ra dium. which pours out an abun dance both of rays and of radio active emanation. r < t t <■