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] f I-1 EDITORIAL PAGE The Atlanta Georgian THE HOME RARER THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published Kvery Afternoon Except Sunday By THE OKURGIAN COMPANY At 20 East Alabama St.. Atlanta. G». , Entered as second-class mailer ni postoffice at Atlanta, under act of March J, 1*73 Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier. 10 cents a week lly mall, Js 00 a year. Payable in Advance. Strange Champions of Nature and States’ Rights The interests which have so far been able to prevent the city of San Francisco getting the right fr mi the Government to provide a water supply from the Hetch Hetchy Valley have been flooding the country with literature intended to appeal to na ture lovers, arguing against the alleged desecration of one of the great natural wonders of the West. From this literature it might be supposed that the city of San Francisco meant to take the mountain gorge, blow it off the map with dynamite and grind it up into concrete. Now, what San Francisco purposes doing in Hetch Hetchy is to substitute for the rough floor of the canyon a lake. It is not going to blow down any cliffs, or shut off any waterfalls or do anything else that would destroy or even lessen the beauty of this seldom visited, remote mountain fastness. It is not the beauty of the Hetch Hetchy Valley that the pump and water company that at present enjoys a moftopoly in San Francisco fears will be destroyed. It fears any interfer ence with the perfection of a monopoly of a city’s greatest ne cessity. It is from the same unselfish source that proceeds the agi tated torrent of indignation at possible national jurisdiction over a municipal utility. All the objections to the Hetch Hetchy Valley plan were fully met in the bill by which it was hoped that California Bay cities would get the supply of pure water that is so necessary to them. The most jealous guardians of States' rights scrutinized that bill and found in it no surrender of their principles. It appears, however, that the issue of Federal versus State jurisdiction is going to be raised again. It would be a calamity if such an issue should defeat or even delay the relief these cities require. When a private water company anxious to sell an archaic system to a city at an exorbitant figure, and a power company anxious to avoid any interference with its grip upon a rich fran chise solemnly fare forth as the champions of scenic beauty and States’ rights they are not convincing. San Francisco is not a vandal, nor has it any deep purpose of Federalism. It is merely a city that was well-nigh destroyed when its privately owned water supply failed at the critical moment, and it wishes to guard against the possibility of a repetition of that thing and provide itself with an adequate supply of pure moun tain water that now runs to waste during the wet season in Cali fornia. Your Work Is Your Brain’s Gymnasium (Copyright, 1918.) For "buyers” in big stores, For clerks in little stores, For office boys, For typewriters, reporters, car conductors, household do mestics, for all who are hired to work for others, this article is intended. There is no greater mistake than skimping your work BE CAUSE YOU ARE WORKING FOR ANOTHER, AND FEAR YOU MAY DO TOO MUCH. For your own sake remember that whatever you do in the way of honest concentrated work you do FIRST OF ALL FOR YOURSELF. Only one thing in the world can improve you and better your condition, and that thing is your own effort. You begin life with certain mental faculties, and with cer tain muscular faculties. Their development or decay depends entirely on yourself. No work that you do is worthless. It will NEVER pay you to neglect or slur the task that you have undertaken. You may be idle, in the thought that you are indulging yourself at the expense of your employer. It is a dishonest thought, and it is a stupid thought at the same time. You may rob your employer of the time that he pays for, but when you shirk your work you rob yourself first of all. You Never Can Tell When the Wife’s Away You may say that your employer pays you too little. Per haps he does. But that is no reason for hurting your moral character through dishonesty. It is no excuse for failing to de velop yourself. The store, or factory, or office in which you work is to your mind what a gymnasium is to your muscles. You enter a gymnasium AND PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF WORKING THERE. You do not say to yourself: "This gymnasium belongs to another man. The profits go to him, and so I’ll not work hard." On the contrary, you realize that the owner of the gym nasium gives you the chance to develop your muscles, and you thank him, although he makes you pay for the privilege. And you do your very best, on the trapeze, rings, parallel bars, or in any other direction. Act in your work as you do in your gymnasium hours. There is no kind of work that can fail to make you a better and more successful man if you work at it honestly and loyally. If you sweep an office, sweep it well. And begin punctually each day, remembering that punctuality acquired in sweeping an office may be used later in governing a city. Train your mind through your work, whatever it is. Study the lives of those who have succeeded. You will see that they did whatever they did as well as they could. Edison was an ordinary telegraph operator. But he was not content with merely working as others worked. He worked very hard, devised means to make more valuable the instru- jnents of his employers. Soon he was an employer himself, and ” rhat is far better than being an employer, he was a creator of ew ideas and a benefactor of the world. i-'I/iTX & rr’5 DEAR. BUT rrs worth nr > SAY, CAT, DO YOU REMEMBER ONE WIGHT LAST WINTER WHEN I CAME HOME-! -LATEI? THAN USUAL AN TAKING PARTICULAR PAINS HEAH KITTY, KITTY, KITTY! -5ITINNIN MY KNEES an ankles on CHAIRS AN' 7H' LIKE An 1 not wakin' her V0U GOT UNDER MY Eoor SOMEHOW AN' SQUEALED ON ME 1 CONCERNING THE HEALTH MARRIAGE BILL Editor The Georgian: A few days ago I noticed that the Senate Committee on Hygiene favorably recommended the so- called health marriage bill. This bill prohibits the ibsuing of a marriage license to anyone until he has passed a successful physi cal examination and presents a certificate of good health from some reputable physician. It lias been argued by some that hygienic marriage would tend to stem the great tide of the divorce evil. This argument is the weakest they have, for the fact that a man and woman are in a good state of health is cer tainly no guarantee of happiness, for nothing will insure happiness but love, and should this bill be come a law, it will certainly put a ban on love marriage, which would tend to increase divorces rather than to decrease them. FOSTER D. SMITH. Greensboro, Ga, Ella Wheeler Wilcox Writes on Knowledge Time Devoted to the Study of the Lives of Famous Personages, Great Deeds and Epoch-Making Periods in the World’s History Broadens the Mind and Develops an Education Beyond Value. Written for The Atlanta Georgian By Ella Wheeler Wilcox Copyright, 1913, by Star Company. “Y OU say to give up all study of history w'ould be to some of us the keenest deprivation and it would rob travel of its most nubtle pleasure, and to give up contem plation of old works of art would be crucifixion. “Now, let me see. Because the wheelbarrow was the first inven tion, or the means of transporta tion to a great extent, would you travel In it to-day, or would you rather move In an auto or electric car or railway if you had to go somew'here far off? The libraries are already stocked with trash, and if anyone wants to go there and sit and waste his life away on some old history he can do so —no one will stop him. But we will all become greater when we learn not to bother so much about the past, but the future. “READER.” No time is wasted which is used in opening up the mental realm to a larger field of knowl edge of the human race, and in sowing the soil with information about great lives, remarkable eras and wonderful deeds. Worth Pondering On. No one can read the story of Joan of Arc without becoming reverent toward the Invisible Realms and full of awe at the thought of the unfathumed depths which lie in human soultv That an ignorant peasant girl of 17 could become a great war gen eral and free her country is a sub ject worth pondering on. and “Re'ader” could spend his time to no better advantage than to read Mark Twain’s story of Joan of Arc. even though she lived 500 years ago, There is no education mor« broadening to the mind than travel and contact with various nations and races. But travel loses two-thirds of its value and pleasure if the traveler does not know history. There was a woman who spent a fortune in touring the world and stopping at expensive hotels and wearing elaborate gowns purchased in various capitals of the earth. She spoke of Rome as a terri bly dull place, from which she fled after a few days of boredom. “Why, you could not buy a de cent costume there,” she said, “and even the tailors and dress makers did not know wnat was up to date in Paris.” All the wonderful epoch-mak ing history of that marvelous city was a sealed book to her. And all Its glorious art was lost upon her fashion-blinded eyes. Anyone who will read Watson’s History of France, Gibbons or Carlisle, or any of the great his torians, will rise from the reading with new aspirations for the world as It Is to-day and new hopes for the race. Wise Not to Bother. There Is no doubt in the writ er’s mind that America is to be k the home of the greatest school of art the world has ever known. The foundation of it is already begun, and after a few genera tions the geniuses will be born who shall make it Illustrious. But this great Art Birth • will result from the study which has been given for half a century to the art of the Old World. It is wise, indeed, not to “botn- er about the past” by regretting it or by a pessimistic idea that all greatness existed in the past and that the future has nothing better to offer us. But it would be a world-wide calamity to shut out from human minds the knowledge of what has been, and to direct it only toward what is to be. There is inspiration in know ing what great souls have done in ages gone, in seeing what they have achieved, and reading what they have written. And in understanding through what difficulties they toiled and over what obstacles they climbed. Hours spent in gaining such in formation are tenfold more bene ficial to the receptive mind than hours spent in vain self boasting or self satisfaction. A True Futurist. The true “Futurist” is he who knows all about the past; who reverences its greatness, pities its weaknesses and respects its achievements, and then sets forth to make a future greater in every way than any past has ever been. And such a future will come in time to America. It will give us, after its season of mere comjnercialism and ma terialism has passed, the great est art, music and literature the world has known. And the greatest altruism. How We Are Injured by Insects Selected by EDWIN MARKHAM. N OW that the year has swung around to vacation time, it Is worth while to note what Dr. Woods Hutchinson has to say on the pests of country life. From Dr. Hutchinson’s book, “Common Diseases.” sent out by the Hough ton Mifflin Company, I gather the following for you: “In most parts of the United States, during the season in which the weather permits one to sit out of doors with any com fort, life la rendered & burden by flies, gnats and mosquitoes un less behind the protection of screens. “The real battle of the human species for the possession of the earth—nay, even for the right to exist upon its surface—must be fought, not with mammoths, but with mosquitoes; not with lions and tigers, but with flies and gnats; not with behemoths, but with bacilli. “Our instinct to kill insects at eight is perfectly sound. Out of the quarter of a million species now known to science, a mere handful are even remotely help ful to man. and most of these only by their power of living upon other and more dangerous insects. On the other hand, thou sands of species are actively hos tile to man, to his food-plants and to his domestic animals. Whole tribes of men have been swept out of existence by the at tack of insects carrying bacilli— as within the last two decades in Central Africa, by the dread ‘sleeping sickness’ carried by the tsetse fly. Whole nations have been weakened and crippled and w’hole civilizations retarded by another insect-borne disease, ma laria. “Closer study of the habits of the mosquito during the past five years has brought out the curious and at first sight incredible fact that the majority of these in sects which carry disease, such as the malarial mosquito, the yellow fever mosquito and the house fly, can live and multiply, apparently, only In the immediate neighbor hood of human habitations. Ir. other words, they are literally do mestic animals and part of our farm stock. This is absolutely true of the house fly and the yel low’ fever mosquito, neither of which is ever found more than a mile or tw’o, and usually not more than a few hundred yards, away from human habitations. “Dangerous and deadly as the mosquitoes are, they are only 'middlemen.* distributors, com mon carriers of evils which they have picked up from outside sources. For the most part these outside sources are diseased or dirty human beings. So that we have really ourselves to thank for most of the damage they do.” Pertinent Paragraphs “Not yet, but soon,” would ap pear to be Cavalieri’s attitude on that engagement report. Exercising its “Divine Right," the Coal Trust goes into the pock et of the consumer for that 54,- 000,000 tax levied by the State of Eetuuiylvania.