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EDITORIAL PAGE
THE HOME RARER
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
B> THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
A! -’0 East Alabama St Atlanta. Ha
Entered as second-cla•-* matter at pogtnfflre at Atlanta, under act of March 3.1873
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I Goods Brought to This Country
In American Ships Should Have the
Benefit of a Discriminatory Duty.
The tariff bill goes to the Senate looking like an intoxicated
orator with a mouth full of phrases about universal love. It is
a tariff bill windy with academic doctrines and prodigal with a
charity that begins abroad. It was drawn with one eye on the
text books of Stuart Mill and Adam Smith and the other upon
the ferule of the White House.
WHAT REMAINS IS FOR THE SENATE TO WHIP
THIS THING INTO REASON AND SENSE.
It is foolish for a man to buy things he doesn ’t want. And
it is foolish for a nation to trade where there is no gain.
A tariff bill should be drawn so as to encourage trade where
trade is profitable, and to discourage trade where trade is dam
aging. There is neither virtue nor wisdom in trading every
thing with everybody. Free trade—as a direct object of devo
tion—is no better than free love.
A proud nation, like a fair woman, should be discriminating
about its trade—as about everything else.
What we want of this tariff bill is the opening up of new
trade relations along the particular lines that will help to make
life more livable for the people of the United States. The tariff
bill as it stands is not at all particular about the United States.
The House has sent to the Senate a tariff bill that reads like
a missionary document in the interest of the unknown and the
unborn. It takes care of all that is irrelevant and unrelated to
us. BUT IT IS RECKLESS OF RECIPROCITY.
AND RECIPROCITY—THE LAW OF GIVE AND TAKE
—IS THE LAW OF ALL REAL POWER AND PROGRESS.
It is a law that will not yield to legislatures and will not submit
to be defied. ,
The American people voted overwhelmingly last Fall in
favor of the principle of protection. Congress ha3 no mandate
to tear down the walls of trade-discrimination. It has no call to
flood the country with bad bargains. The American people be
lieve in trade that strengthens the industrial organization of
the nation—not in trade that weakens that organization.
The point is that THE FREE LIST SHOULD BE FREE TO
NATIONS THAT GIVE US NEW COMMERCIAL FREEDOM
AND EXPANSION. AND SHOULD NOT BE FREE TO NA
TIONS THAT DON T.
As a part of this same policy the people look to the Senate
to confirm and establish the principle that American ships are
worth more to us than foreign ships, AND SHOULD HAVE
CORRESPONDING CONSIDERATION AT OUR CUSTOM
HOUSES.
GOODS BROUGHT TO THIS COUNTRY IN AMERICAN
SHIPS SHOULD HAVE THE BENEFIT OF A DISCRIMINAT
ING DUTY.
If existing trade conventions with foreign countries stand
in the way of this sensible arrangement, they should be put out
of the way.
FOR IT IS NOT A LITTLE MATTER, BUT A MATTER
OF ENORMOUS IMPORTANCE, THAT THE UNITED
STATES SHOULD CEASE TO BE A SEA SHY NATION— !
SHOULD GET ITSELF SHIPS, AND SHOULD BECOME
ONCE MORE, AS OF OLD, A MIGHTY PRESENCE UPON
THE WATER AS WELL AS UPON THE LAND.
T. ft V-
A brave man has lost a
game fight. For a week some
millions of people will talk of
it with wonder apd admira
tion. Then the name of B.
Sanders Walker, of Macon—a name unknown outside of Geor
gia till ten days ago—will fade from the public memory, and
the tongues of men will wag about other affairs.
Walker, like many another man whose fame never reaches
the public ear, knew how to fight death smilingly and to meet
defeat without a whimper. There was no battle to be fought
for his country, no glory to be gained, no martyrdom to be en
dured that the world might be bettered for his suffering.
Accidentally poisoned, he declared in the face of his doctors
that he would not die. For more than a week he kept up a de
termined struggle—the most cheerful of the circle that sur
rounded him, the bravest and best comforter of his sorrowing
wife and wide-eyed, troubled little boy.
The newspapers carried the story to the country, and the
country, quick to sympathize, became absorbed in the fight. Be
cause Walker was a man ot finer fiber than common, because he
was Ipown and loved in his own community, the interest in him
was intensified. From one end of the nation to the other came
messages of hope and encouragement. Noted physicians em
ployed the telegraph wires to advise the medical men in imme
diate charge of the case. Every day came crowds of the dying j
man's fellow townsmen to ask alter him—came, and were wel- j
corned to the sick room, where the patient's demeanor seemed to 1
belie the doctors' assurances that there was no hope. Then the |
end came, and after a few hours of generous tribute the coun j
try will turn to other affairs, and the story of this brave man !
will soon fade into the mists of yesterday.
And yet it is a story that ought to be remembered. Not !
often do such heroic struggles against fate become known. I
When they do, their memory becomes a tonic to humanity. All !
over this land are men and women fighting mortal maladies ■ I
not for themselves, for such men are not afraid to die; not for
glory, for there is little glory in dying by inches—but because
they do not want to leave destitute those deoendent on them, or
sadden them by the thought that death soon must break the ties
that so long have seemed unbreakable.
Looking death in the face with a smile, knowing how dcs- 1
perate rre the odds yet never once yielding to panic or to
despair, such men are real Americans. In war they would be
sfceror Why we they any less rn because they dir without,
i-rt’i the "rapture of the fight but only its long, cruel bit
terness ?
Brave Fight of a
Real American
The Atlanta Georgian
The Reason Why By HAL COFFMAN
These men do not see the reason why they are p assed over while others ar e promoted. But you
can see it clearly enough. The reason is in their own hands.
Puzzle: Find Mr. Suburbs’ Chickens .J, By FERA
_J !■
Garrett P. Serviss
Writes on
The Tragedy of
Life on Mars
In I hat Planet, Which Seems to
Have Reached Last Act in
Drama of the World, Life
and Intelligence Are Pitted
Against Inanimate Nature.
By GARRETT P. SERVISS.
N O stage was ever set for such
a tragedy as the planet
Mars presents.
The first act in such a drama
consists of scenes from Chaos.
The huge plan-*t Jupiter offers us
a spectacle of that kind, in its
streaming belts of thick clouds
and its whirling vapors, glowing
like steam above a furnace.
The second act is represented
by the earth, with its fertile crust,
its cool, invigorating atmosphere,
and its life-sustaining seas that
give birth to the clouds which,
condensing on the mountains,
furnish the rains and set the
rivers flowing.
The closing act is the role of
Mars, where the seas have van
ished. the atmosphere has thinned
out. the river? have disappeared,
“the continents have turned into
deserts, and life, driven into a
corner, is battling against final
extinction.
That there is yet intelligent life
on Mars is the universal belief of
all the observers whom Mr. Lo
well ha? gathered about him at
his Flagstaff Observatory, where
the extraordinary , phenomena of
that wonderful planet are studied
as nowhere else in the world.
Superior to Us, They Say.
More than that, they tell us.
with ever increasing emphasis,
that the people of Mars, compelled
by necessity, have developed a
command over natural forces
which would seem miraculous if
exhibited upon the earth.
With them it has become sim
ply a question of BRAIN POW
ER AGAINST THE INANIMATE
POWERS OF NATURE.
They have nights and days of
the same length as ours. They
have seasons almost precisely
corresponding with ours, except
.ha V hey are each twice as long.
But their oceans are dried up. no
rains fall (though there may be
dews), and nearly all the atmos
pheric moisture is alternately
locked up in one or the other of
the polar snow caps.
In such a situation no vegeta
tion can flourish unless artificial
ly stimulated by a gigantic sys
tem of irrigation. And without
vegetation, which build? up the
protoplasmic elements of life out
of mineral substances, animal ex
istence is impossible.
But whence can the inhabitants
of Mars derive the water needed
for irrigation? Th<^answer given
is that they get it periodically
from the melting of the polar
snows. Being without seas and
rivers, they have no other source
of supply.
On Mars the reign of universal
peace must have begun ages ago,
introduced not by moral or sen
timental considerations, but by
the necessity of uniting all the
engineering skill, all the inven
tive powers, and all the physical
forces of the entire population
of the planet in a common battle
for life!
There fleets of battleships (if
they ever had any) lie like the
bones of prehistoric monsters,
w hitening in the sun* blaze on
boundless deserts that were once
seas.
Metal of Thin Iron.
The metal of their cannon has
been turned into enormous en
gines for pumping water and for
dredging ditches. The only
thought of their inventors is of
improved means for controlling
the slowly lessening supplies of
moisture that, once in about two
of our years, ruay be drawn away
from one of the poles, while the
summer sunshine is dissolving
it9 thin snows.
This universal concentration of
mental energy upon a single aim
is conceived as having developed
upon Mars a knowledge of the
hidden forces of nature, such as
has. up to the present; merely
been dreamed of on the earth.
They would need such knowledge
to enable them to achieve the
superhuman works which the
telescope appears to reveal.
WE have just begun to learn
how to use electricity in the me
chanic arts, but THEY may have
unlocked THE SEURET FORCES
INCLOSED IN THE ATOMS OF
MATTER which our science has
recently assured us exist without
showing us how to utilize them.
Only by such suppositions can
the “canals," hundreds of miles
wide, and thousands of miles
long, be accounted for. if. as the
Flagstaff observers Insist, those
objects are really of artificial ori
gin. It should be said, however,
that in .Mr. Lowell’s opinion th«
bands vailed canals are, in fact*
irrigated belts.
Real Canals Within Them.
The real canals within them
art. invisible, w hile the progres
sive darkening of these belts, as
the polar melting increases, is due
to the growth q,f vegetation,
stimulated by the water.
After the world lif£ drama
closes there is left an empty stage,
and this is represented by the
moon. The lunar world has lost
all its water. Its tragedy is fin
ished. The actors are all dead.
Millions of years ago there may
have been a battle for life there,
like that which now appears to
he raging on Mars. And millions
of years in the future the stag**
of the earth will probably be set
for a similar tragedy. For. to
the eyes of the overlooking gods
(to change a little Shakespeare's
figure):
“All the sky’s a stage,
And all the*worlds and suns are
merely actors.”
THE DISAPPOINTED
By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
T HERE are songs enough for the hero
Who dwells on the heights of fame;
I sing for the disappointed—
For those who have missed their aim.
. I.sing with a careful cadence
For one who stands in the dark,
And knows that his last, best arrow
Has bounded back from the mark.
I sing for the breathless runner,
The eager, anxious soul.
Who falls with his strength exhausted,
Almost in sight of the goal.
For the heart? that break in silence.
With a sorrow’ all unknown,
For those w ho need companions.
Yet walk their ways alone.
There are songs enough for the lovers
Who share love's tender pain;
1 sing for the one whose passion
Is given all in vain.
For those whose spirit comrades
Have missed them on their wav,
1 sing, with a heart o'erflowing,
This minor strain to-day.
And I know the Solar System
Must somewhere keep in space
A prize for that spent runner
Who barely lost the race.
For the plan would be imperfect
Unless it held some sphere
That paid for the toil and talent
* And love that are wasted here.