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HEARST’S SUNDAY AMERICAN, ATLANTA, GA., SUNDAY, JUNE 1, 1913.
GEORGIA, THE EMPIRE STATE OF THE SOUTH-By John M. Slaton
though, these refunding bonds will be taken
up right here in Georgia—every one of them!
The ability of municipalities to contract
debts is firmly limited by the Constitution of
Georgia, thus further guaranteeing those who
come here to live, as well as those who al
ready live here, against excessive and oppres
sive taxation.
Georgia is magnificent, in her good deeds
—she gives more for State pensions than any
other Southern State.
As the old Confederate soldiers grow more
and more grizzled and gray, as the weight of
years bears down upon them heavier and
heavier, Georgia remembers their heroic youth
and young manhood, and the great sacrifices
they made for the cause they believed to be just
and right.
What Georgian, true of heart and noble of
Governor-Elect Enumerates the Things Which
Go to Make Up the Greatness of the Com
monwealth—He Treats of Her Vast Indus
trial Progress and Natural Resources, as
Well as the Civic Virtues of Her Sons, in
a Clear, Concise and Interesting Manner.
JOHN M. SLA TON
Governor-Elect of Georgia.
G EORGIA is known as “The Empire
State of the South,” and rightly so.
Georgia IS the Empire State of
the South—supreme in her leadership in
Dixie, secure in her future, great in her
present, and glorious is her past.
I love to think of the things Georgia
has done, and to picture in my mind the
great things she yet is to do.
To me, she ever has been an engaging
study, and contemplation of her history,
her people, her achievements and her pos
sibilities never has disappointed me. In
deed, the more I study Georgia, and Geor
gia folks, and Georgia ways, the better
and more patriotic Georgian 1 become.
In 1802, Georgia ceded to thq United
States 88,000 square miles of territory.
She reserved to herself 59,479 square
miles, which is her.present area.
The Empire State of the South now is
the largest State east of the Mississippi
River.
In 1911, the value of the agricultural
products of Georgia was fourth in the
Union. Illinois, Texas and Iowa alone
exceeded her in this.
Nowhere on earth is a more vanted or
healthier climate to be found than Geor
gia boasts. She has every climate known
to man, save that of the frigid zones. And
I think she can very well dispense with
the latter, even if she does, therefore,
have to do without an annual crop of ice
bergs and polar bears.
I think every patriotic Georgian will do
well to study the State’s debt, and the
State’s businesslike methods of financing
»
the same.
I believe I am abundantly warranted in
stating that no Commonwealth in the
Union gives such ample guarantee for the
payment of its debt.
Georgia, to begin with, has a clause in
her State Constitution forbidding any in
crease whatever in the State’s bonded
debt. Such debt as we have may be re
funded, if the State likes, but it can not
be added to.
Her debt is approximately $6,600,000,
while she owns outright the great West
ern and Atlantic Railroad, which is easily
worth $20,000,000.
This within itself is sufficient to pay the
bonded indebtedness of the State
three times over and more, and it is
pledged, together with all the State’s
property, even including the Execu
tive Mansion, as security for the same.
I found in a recent trip East that
these facts have served to
give Georgia a quality of
credit among financiers
abroad second to no other
State in the nation, and
equaled by not more than
one or two.
Georgia has a clause in her
Constitution guaranteeing
the people against the impo
sition of a tax rate higher
than five mills. Taxation
therefore, can not become
excessively burdensome in
Georgia.
I believe that when we
come to refund $3,679,000 of
Georgia bonds, due in 1915,
we shall be able to dispose
of them most satisfactorily.
Georgia’s splendid reputa
tion for financial soundness
will stand her in good stead
then.
I find that Georgia’s will
ingness to back her bonds so substantially has
brought about a feeling of genuine and helpful
friendliness in the big money centers. I hope,
purpose, would have it otherwise?
But that is not all. Georgia, while ten
derly caring for her old soldiers, does not
neglect the boys and girls of the State,
upon whom rests the future greatness of
the State.
She gives more from the State treasury
than any other Southern State to her pub
lic schools. Indeed, very few States of
the Union give so much to the cause of
educating its children as does the Empire
State of the South.
The University of Georgia is the oldest
State university in the United States.
And as astonishing as that statement
may be to some, it is even more remark
able that Wesleyan College, in Macon, is
the oldest female college in the world.
In the matter of good roads construc
tion, Georgia has performed wonderful
things. In 1911 she gave, including the
value of her convict labor, just about
$4,500,000 to the cause of good roads.
In this she was exceeded by one State
alone—-New York, the Empire State of
the North.
Georgia’s great port of Savannah
shipped more cotton in 1911 than any oth
er port in the United Slates, save one.
Not only has the State the magnificent
port of Savannah, hut amazing work is
being done in and near Brunswick, and
at other points along her seaboard. If
her possibilities were exhausted along
that line of endeavor, the result would
astonish the world.
Georgia distributes her products with
prodigal hand in many directions.
Her factories are supplying overalls to
workmen in Panama. Her marble quar
ries furnished recently the material from
which was fashioned the beautiful new
capitol of Minnesota. A magnificent
municipal building in Philadelphia was
erected a short time ago, and into it went
Georgia material almost to the exclusion
of all other. The mountains of granite
are paving the streets of many cities of
the nation—paving them with material
that outlasts that to be found anywhere
else on earth.
Her kaolin mines are supplying crock
ery manufactories everywhere—it is of a
quality unsurpassed.
Georgia's cotton is a tremendous fac
tor in preserving the international balance
of trade in favor of “Uncle Sam,” and
with it she is clothing a tremendous pro
portion of the world’s people.
Her Sea Island cotton is unequaled in
quality, and is approached by that of
Egypt alone. It is utilized in producing
the finest of textile materials.
Georgia’s splendid agricultural colleges
constitute one of her greatest and most
thoroughly approved glories. They are
revealing, more surely every year, to the
farmers the possibilities of their all im
portant calling, and by means of their
scientific instruction they give promise of
multifold production in Georgia fields.
Her Technological School has rendered
Georgia independent of engineering and
scientific skill from other sections, and she
now can and does call upon her own to
solve those problems which heretofore
have required foreign talent.
In Georgia, in the city of Atlanta, is
located the second largest mule market
in the world. The one market that is
larger is that of St. Lonis.
Georgia believes in justice to her citi
zens. She accords them the rights of
property, life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.
In her courts, no citizen,, however hum
ble or poor, is denied the right of initial
justice or revierw on appeal.
But better and braver than all, perhaps,
is the spirit of optimism and hope that
prevails in Georgia hearts, and the de
termination and grit that continuously are
growing and expanding in Georgia minds.
Georgia is in heavy majority a State of
native-born population. Georgians have
been Georgians many, many years, and
they love their State with a love that can
come only of long residence, and for gen
erations.
In Georgia there breathes not “th« man
with soul so dead, who never to himself
hath said, ‘This is my own, my native
land!’ ”
Her people are sure of themselves, sure
of their past, sure of their future.
It is that feeling among Georgians
which has caused me to believe so firmly
and so unswervingly in her glorious des
tiny.
To me, Georgia’s seintillant star beams
ever more brightly than any in all Old
Glory’s constellation, for Georgia is my
native State, and Georgia’s way always
seems so eminently the right way.
Georgia constantly and rapidly is in
creasing and extending its railroads and
facilities of transportation.
Georgia’s factories are multiplying by
leaps and bounds every year.
Georgia merchants are enlarging their
fields of activity and reaching out more
and more all the time.
Georgia has high ideals of citizenship,
and lives up to them.
Her social life, her business energy, her
foresight and prophetic confidences in her
self, her superb educational institutions,
her churches for every creed and every
kind, her every consideration of spiritual
helpfulness and worthy commercial ad
vancement—these, and all the other things
I have set forth, warrant her abundantly
in accepting without question the title
conferred upon her by admiring sister
States, “The Empire State of the South!”
In Dixie, Georgia surely and in unfal
tering confidence leads the way!
ALL DAY SINGING IN DIXIE ■ ■ By Janies B. Nevin
G EORGIA rural newspapers nowadays are
carrying modest and brief notices of
numerous proposed singing conventions
here and there throughout the State, although
the papers do not call them singing conventions
exactly, the anciently approved “all-day singing"
being generally preferred.
This sort of thing happens every year, pretty
soon after the dogwood, the wild honeysuckle,
and the sweet shrubs perfume and glorify the
spring woods of Dixieland.
I do not know whether these all-day singings
are common in other sections of the nation, but
down South they are annual institutions of the
most approved kind, and they serve a great and
far-reaching purpose moreover.
They are unlike camp meetings in that the
singing is emphasized almost to the exclusion of
the preaching; and they rarely continue more
than one day at a time, whereas camp meetings
as a rule run for a week or more.
Then, too, at camp meetings the singing is
an incident to the proceedings, and takes its
place far in the rear of the vociferous exhorting
and the praying.
It is no uncommon thing to see five or six
hundred young people gathered at one of these
all-day singings, and generally the girls come
in their best bibs and tuckers, the while the
ysuth and rustic chivalry is there in its most
gorgeous and fetching plumage.
They do say—wise old dames, who have
watched these all-day singings for many calm
and quiet years—that there has been more hon
est marriage and giving in marriage fashioned at
all-day singings than in all the city parlors ever
dreamed of in anybody’s philosophy!
And, somehow, I suspect these dear old grand
mothers are right about that thing—these all
day singings have served no doubt most often
to make one heart beat where merely two beat
before!
Theoretically, anyway, the maiden reared in
the farmhouse is quite as uncertain, coy and
hard to please as the maiden of urban per
suasion. Moreover, they are as wise in their
generations, and know, altogether, as well as
their city sisters those mysterious ways along
which to move their wonders to perform.
It may be that there is no sentimental design
in the glory of fried chicken, in the substantial
majesty of the stuffed eggs, or in the piquancy
of the lemon tarts laid out in sylvian shades to
tempt the masculine appetite at dinner time—
but I doubt it!
Yea, verily, I doubt it with a big D that will
not be denied!
Grand opera is not immensely popular with
the country folks, no matter how much Atlanta
may revel in it. Caruso and Amato jnay be all
right in their way, but they weigh mighty little
to Sally Jane’s way of thinking, when Bill is
warbling tenor and Bob is warbling bass at an
all-day singing conducted in the neighborhood of
old Sardis or Mt. Zion Church!
These rural people know a trick worth two
of grand opera—and the expense attaching lo it
is nothing in comparison.
As a rule, there are three sessions of an oil-
day singing—if sessions is the right word-
and each grows in interest over its predecessor.
Along about 9 a. m. the first round opens,
and it is all by way of getting together that one
might ask.
The “tunehlghster” generally is the most
prominent citizen of the vicinity—maybe the
justice to the peace longest in commission, the
local school superintendent, or in some cases the
county judge—but always he must be a singer,
and a good one!
One need not suspect for an instant that these
singings are not in the hands of singers—real,
hearty, clear-voiced singers, who understand a
good deal more of the technique of music than
the average city, person may think.
The leader of the day’s singing, having care
fully distributed his trusted lieutenants at dis
creet points of vantage throughout the congre
gation, the singing begins—and it is singing that
surely make happy the heart of the Master, if
any form of praise does, for it is crowded with
real melody, real religious fervor, real enthusi
asm, and sureness of purpose!
The parson, who is there, realizing his rela
tive unimportance for the day, perhaps, but sure
of his welcome, nevertheless, looks on, and
beams.
These are his people, and the children of his
people—he knows all their mothers, and fathers,
and brothers, and sisters; he has rejoiced with
them in their happiness and grieved with them
and comforted them in their sorrows, and he
knows that the day immediately stretching be
fore them is to he one of sunshine and roses and
laughter and song.
J; is a day w herein religion is to be praised
as a thing of love and beauty, with no vehement
suggestion of hell fire and damnation and the
terrors of the world hereafter, awaiting sinners
and evil-doers.
And so, by and by, along about 11 a. m., the
parson gathers his clans together^ and he
preaches them a brief sermon, all brightness and
joy—and then comes the second session of the
day’s singing, and after that the dinner!
One knows exactly what that dinner is to be
composed of-*—only one never could find a din
ner like it in any city restaurant known to mortal
man!
In all that wilderness of gustatory delight
spread before those hungry, happy countryfolks,
there will be not one cold-storage egg, not one
dab of near-butter, not one slice of canned meat,
and not one fragment of aniline-dyed pickle.
The strawberry jam scattered around in prod
igal profusion will be real strawberry jam, and
not a neat combination of glucose, bluegrass seed
and chemical color!
The eggs perhaps laid yesterday, the* butter
churned this morning, and the ham Just out of a
long and honorable period of gentlemanly incar
ceration in some neighborhood smokehouse.
There w ill be pie “like mother used to make,”
of course. Who ever heard of an all-day sing
ing without some of mother’s pie?
The champagne that goes with this feast
comes sparkling and cool from a spring just
back there in the woods. It is minus ice, but
that is nothing to its discredit. It “frosts” the
inside of your glass, nevertheless.
And that is why, no doubt, in all-day singings
Jill surely knows her business In the gentle art
of cooking fine and dandy things to eat—and the
way to Jack’s heart having been discovered in
the country no less surely than it may be dis
covered by designing Jills in the city, why, then
—well, there is a good two hours’ interval be
tween that dinner’s conclusion and the final
singing session of the day, and if in that interval
Jill does not do the rest, she’s a strange daugh
ter of Eve—which she isn’t at all, never fear!
And that is why, no doubt in all-day singings
—particularly those dear old grandmothers
aforesaid—Insist with one voice that the final
afternoon session invariably is the grandest and
most inspiring of all, and if you have to miss part
of an all-day singing, for goodness sake do not
miss the climax of the afternoon!
Remember, these all-day singings are not
jumped-up affairs. They do not happen of a
moment's notice. On the contrary, they are
planned carefully months ahead, and in all their
various detail.
Every Jack knows his very onliest Jill will be
there, and every Jill generally knows, in that in-
stinctiye feminine sort of way, Just about how
artful the day’s angling must be in order to
make Jack see the point, and still not suspect
he is being shown!
Here at these all-day singings, there gather
the flower of Dixie’s rural manhood and love
liness. Here healthy girls, with rosy cheeks and
hearts as pure as the sparkling w'ater from the
spring back there in the woods. meet the man
hood and the gallantry of their own environment.
There isn’t any turkey trrotting. and skirts
are not built so tight that the girls cannot sit
down—no, and patent leather shoes and sflk
socks are few and far between. But moat of the
manhood and womanhood present is pare gold,
and mighty well worth while!
It all is more or less simple, and to some ft
may seem more or less primitive, in a way, but,
after all is said and done, It Is tremendously
appealing and it makes for optimism and hope
and a belief in the inherent goodness of man,
particularly when left to the calmer and more
quiet pathways of life.
Far be It from me to decry the city and Its
ways. I love the city. I love its noise and con
fusion, its passing throngs, its white lights a£
night, its theaters and its grand opera now and
then. I truly believe there is more goodness
than wickedness in the city, and that he who
seeks may find.
But I sometimes wonder if we in the city do
not pay too dear a price for what we get—for
what we get by way of righteous pleasure, of
religion, and of helpful occupation?
I wonder If it is possible, really and truly, for
a gathering of city folks, running largely to
youth, to enjoy itself as genuinely and as whole
somely as do the country folks at these all-day
singings?
I presume so—Yes! And yet, there is some
thing in these iural newspaper notices, appear
ing with regularity nowadays, citing the faith
ful to assemble here and there for all-dav sing
ings, that leads me to renew my belief that the
country folks are, in many, many ways, singu
larly blessed in this Dixieland of ours, and that
there is much they may be truly thankful for—
much that is unknown and unrealized in the city.