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jGeorgia’s Most Beloved Mother-in-Law—“Best in World/’ Says Slaton
The Governor Frankly Adores Mrs. W. D.
Grant, Who Isn’t a Bit Ashamed of Her 75
Years, Can Talk of Constitutional Law and
Yet Plays Piano With the Touch of a Girl.
By TARLETON COLLIER.
THE mansion of Georgia’s Governor is
blessed with a mother-in-law. And over
at the mansion, they consider her ideal
—particularly does her son-in-law. who is Gov
ernor John M. Slaton.
Atlanta society agrees with the Governor in
his estimate of Mrs. W. D. Grant., She is
cheery, she is charming. The younger set holds
no party complete without her presence, for it
is plain that her soul has found the well of
eternal youth, and that she is as young and as
mewy as the youngest in spite of the fact, as
she will tell you without reserve, that she is
rounding 75 years.
Men of affairs coming into the Slaton home
ask first of all for Mrs. Grant. She can talk
to them and can interest them about constitu
tional law or the cotton crop, or about any
thing else as their predilections demand. And
with it all. she is the most gracious lady alive.
Rut the attachment most marked is that
which exists between the son-in-law and moth
er-in-law.
“She is the best mother-in-law in the world.”
said Governor Slaton yesterday.
His regard for her. it is widely known— and
be will admit it—borders on idolatry.
“Nobody can know her but to love her. Her
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charm of manner, her mental gifts, her bright
ness, her sweetness, all make her the most at
tractive person I know.”
The two frankly are lovers. Here is what
Mrs. Grant said about her son-in-law:
"He is the best son-in-law in the world. He
is a good man. Nobody can know him but to
love him. He likes tn have me with him.”
And then she commented, self-deprecatingly:
“As if anybody would enjoy the company of
an old woman who is nearly seventy-five I”
The dear lady. As if anybody would not en
joy her company.
She: met a reporter in the hall of her home
at Peachtree and Pine Streets, with a hand out
stretched in greeting, and with a gay laugh
that found its way into every word she spoke.
Her dress was white, the color of her hair; her
face was surpassingly kind, her voice and her
laugh were low-toned and soft, for Mrs. Grant
is a daughter of the old South.
“You don't want to interview me.” she "pro
tested. “I'm just an old woman.”
Which drew forth the declaration that she
was herself, nnd therefore to be interviewed,
as Georgia's most beloved woman and mother
in-law.
She was reconciled to the proposition of be-
HEARST’S SUNDAY AMERICAN, ATLANTA, GA., SUNDAY, JULY 6, 1913.
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Ing interviewed when informed that the subject
was her son-in-law.
“I ought to know Governor Slaton." she said.
“He married my only daughter, and the.v knew
each other as children. At the University of
Georgia he roomed with my son. John W.
Grant, and the two have lieen life long friends.
When I went to Jhe LaGrange Female College
in 1849. I knew' his mother as a college mate,
and I boarded with two of his aunts. Miss
Rebecca and Miss Caroline Slaton.”
So the Governor is more than a relative by
marriage to his mother-in-law. And she liked
him. she said, from the very first, when he was
a little boy.
He was a good boy, said his mother-in-law.
There were no cherry tree episodes nor days
of "hookey.” nor anything not circumspect that
she could recall.
And then he married her daughter, and came
to live with her in the Grant home at Peach
tree and Pine Streets. The lives of mother
in-law and son-in-law have been cast together
pretty much all the way.
Now a great trial has come to Mrs. Grant.
Her son-in-law has become the Governor of
Georgia, and he and his wife jierforce must
move into the mansion down town. The Gov
ernor is begging her daily to move with them
into the executive mansion. Her son is as ur
gent that she make her home with him, and
Law in the Southern States : : By Joseph E. Pottle
THE press of the country latterly is full of
so-called statistics and unwarranted in
ferences relative to the matter of law
enforcement in the South, as well as obedience
to and respect for the law in the same section.
I am not one of those who believe that the
law is altogether as well and impartially en
forced as it might be in our State and section,
or that there is such universal reverence for
the law and the courts as the welfare of the
people demands. Things might be better—yes;
but they also might be worse.
I am writing this solely for the reason that I
confess to a feeling of some resentment and
more or less indignation at seeing my State and
section constantly exploited as the chief of
fender against the law, and our people held In
invidious comparison with sundry foreign na
tions.
It is declared, for instance, that in Rlrming
ham, Ala., and Atlanta, Ga., typical modern
Southern cities, a far greater number of homi
cides is committed in a single year than in
the city of London, with her seven million pop
ulation: that while in Great Rritain and Can
ada 80 per cent of those indicted for murder
are convicted, less than 20 per cent are pun
ished here. And the conclusion drawn is to
our very great discredit, both as to law obedi
ence and law’ enforcement.
In making these discreditable comparisons,
all sight is lost of the conspicuous, all-impor-
Goevrnor and Mrs. Slaton with Mrs. W. D. Grant, “the best mother-in-law in the world.” Below is another view of Jlrs Slaton and Mrs. Grant.
she can not decide.
“The Governor and my daughter have lived
with me all the time,” she said, outlining the
argument that has worried her exceedingly of
late. "It is hard to lose them, and he likes to
have me with him."
Then her own son's invitation is alluring.
He lives just next door to her, and she argues
that if she takes up her residence with him
she will not have to close her own home.
She is proud of that home, and it is likely
that the last argument will win.
“Isn’t It a shame to close a house like this?”
she said wistfully, yesterday, switching on the
lights in the dainty parlor. “We have made it
a home.”
There was pride in her voice. Her home is
dearer to her than the prestige of the State's
mansion.
In the center of the room was a quaint grand
piano. She touched it lovingly.
“Rut don’t interview me,” she said. “Sit
down, and let me play something.”
She opened the piano. She did it herself.
Later, when she went out, she put on her rub
bers herself, scorning the proffered help of a
maid, and admitted that she scorned it. Inde
pendence is one of her chiefest glories.
And so this lady, who insists that she is near
75 years old. opened the piano, and with a touch
as sympathetic and as varied and as true as
tant consideration that the criminal element in
Georgia and Alabama is made up largely of
that class of our population the members of
which notoriously, since the war. feel very
lightly the restraining influence of the laws of
Got!, of self-respect, and the laws of the land.
It is no exaggeration to say that in both the
States named, and I do not doubt that the
rule holds good in the other Southern States,
the percentage of indictments for homicides of
negroes to whites is as 85 to 15.
I have lately taken the trouble to go over
the record, insofar as my judicial circuit is
concerned, (the Ocmulgee) for the past ten
years, the period of my incumbency of the of
fice of Solicitor General of that circuit. This
circuit, located in Middle Georgia, is, I think,
fairly typical of the large majority of the other
Georgia circuits.
In seven of the counties composing the cir
cuit (the Eighth. Hancock, not being included
because until recently it belonged to an adjoin
ing circuit), the number of homicide indict
ments for the past ten years has been 245, or
an average of 24 1-2 per annum —an average
annual homicide of about 3 1-2 to the county.
The counties average, in round numbers, 19.-
000 population, or an average annual homicide
roll to the county of about 1-50 of 1 per cent.
Again, of these 245 homicides in the period
referred to, 151 were either not tried or were
acquitted, and the remainder of 94 were con
victed, that W, of those indicted at least 65
that of any conservatory girl, played a rippling
opera.
"Do you know,” she remarked, with her laugh,
when she had finished, “I haven't seen the
notes to that opera for forty years. They were
burned then, but they seem to live in my mem
ory. It’s an old opera, called ‘Norma,’ and I
suppose you have never heard It before. Pretty
good for an old woman, don't you think?”
Pretty good from any one, and doubly charm
ing as she played it. This wonderful mother
in-law.
She played another bit of old opera.
“Remember.” she said, "I have not said any
thing that would do to put in the paper. I
have just played you a little music. Let that
do for an interview.”
As an interview it did pretty well, revealing
the charm and the variety of accomplishments
and the naivete and the camaraderie of her.
She was yet unconsciously to reveal another
charm —that of her youthfulness.
"Everybody is very good to me," she said,
discussing the dilemma that confronts her ns
to making her home with the Governor and the
Governor’s wife, her daughter, or with her son,
John W. Grant. “Everybody is good to me,
the young people particularly. I love them.”
Then she talker! about Atlanta’s young peo
ple, the women particularly, in away to prove
that she loved them.
per cent were convicted of some grade of
homicide.
When it Is remembered that it is almost
the universal practice in Georgia for grand
juries to indict one charged with murder with
out anything like thorough investigation of the
facts. It will not, I think, be justly contended
that this apparently small percentage of con
victions justifies the sweeping generalization
that our people are careless and indifferent
In the law’s enforcement.
The statement above that grand juries, as a
rule, prefer indictments for murder on slight
evidence, involves no criticism of them. They
usually take the view, and in my opinion it is
the JUST view to take, that a case of that
gravity should be investigated by the trial jury,
if there, is any evidence to justify the belief
that the defendant might probably be guilty.
Os the 245 homicides tried in the Ocmul
gee circuit in ten years. 225 were negroes and
20 were, white. So it will be seen that of the,
in round figures, 150,000 population in the
seven counties, two white persons per annum
were indicted for murder, or 2-7 per annum in
each county.
The white population of the seven coun
ties is, say, 70,000. So it will l>e seen that in
this representative judicial circuit the percent
age of homicides by white persons to the white
population is for ten years 20 out of 70.000. an
average annual percentage of 2 out of 70,000.
So, after all, the record does not show that
"Now there are the people you should go to
for your stories,” she remarked. “Go to the
girls and young matrons of Atlanta. They have
the Southern culture and refinement that girls
had fifty or seventy-five years ago. And added
to that they have the advantages of education
and of new thought. Worlds have been discov
ered since I went to school, Huxley and Dar
win and great poets have lived and have done
their work. With all this, I think the Southern
girl of to-day ought to be the most attractive
person in the world. They have had wonderful
advantages and a wonderful environment. I
think with their advantages I could have writ
ten a book, or have done or said something
worth while.”
Instead, she has become the Ideal mother-in
law. She has become a hostess whose charm and
graciousness men and women of every section
of the United States have praised warmly. She
has become a beloved woman.
This wonderful mother-in-law.
She would not dare tell what It takes to be
a perfect mother-in-law. In fact, she Insists
that she Is not that. But there is the word of
others that she is. And there is the evidence
of her own life that the prerequisites of perfect
mother-ln-lawhood are independence, an infinite
variety of thought to fit every mood and every
circle, the charm of graciousness, and always
a smile.
our folks are so bent on murder, and so thirsty
for each other’s blood.
It is, of course, infinitely regrettable that our
negro population occupies our courts and fills
our jails in such disproportion to their relative
numbers, but I do not believe in the justice,
fairness or expediency of arraigning an entire
section because of so unfortunate a condition,
and as a citizen of this State and of the South
I want to deny that the record authorizes the
popular and much exploited conclusion that the
white people, the Anglo-Saxons of the South,
are one whit worse than any other peoples on
this earth, either in their respect for the law,
their obedience to the law or their tearless and
impartial enforcement of the law.
I know one thing with absolute certainty, and
that is that in the counties composing the Oe
mulgee Circuit, in Georgia, there is practically
a universal disposition to enforce the law
against all lawbreakers of every class.
In my long term of official service there have
been few verdicts of not guilty which, parti
san prosecutor (in a sense) as I was, I did
not thoroughly approve.
The much flaunted law’s delays, frivolous
technicalities, easy escapes from criminal
charges, have shown themselves but little in
this representative and average circuit.
I believe I do but simple justice to the jurors,
the judges and the bar of the other circuits of
the State and throughout the South when I ex
press the opinion that, in the main, the same
Condition exists there also.
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