Newspaper Page Text
THE HOME RARER
EDITORIAL RAGE
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
By THE GEOROIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta, Ga.
Entered aj eecond-class matter at poatofflce at Atlanta, under act of March 3.1873
Subscription Price—Delivered by carrier, 10 cents a week. By mail, $5 00 a year
Payable in Advance
The Demon of Ambition Is the
Champion Driver of All
the World
Lucky You, If He Is YOUR Driver, for He Will Give You No
Peace, No Rest, No Chance I o Be Lazy.
At the top of this page is a picture of the world's greatest
driver.
Lucky the man whom he harnesses and drives through life.
This wonderful little coachman, the Demon of Ambition,
is the champion driver of all the world and of all history.
Lucky you, if he is YOUR driver.
He will give you no peace, no rest, no chance to be lazy.
He will keep you going until you do something worth while
—working, running and moving ahead—until the last day.
AND THAT IS HOW A REAL MAN OUGHT TO BE
DRIVEN.
This little driver is the Demon that drove Columbus across
the ocean, that drove Napoleon over the Alps, that drove the
Wright brothers up into the air, that kept Washington fighting
when his soldiers ran away and every battle ended in defeat.
This is the Demon that works in our brains, that makes
the blood tingle at the thought of achievement and that makes
the face flush and'grow white at the thought of failure.
Every one of us has this Demon for a driver, in YOUTH
AT LEAST.
Unfortunately the majority of us he gives up as very poor,
worthless things, not worth driving, by the time we reach twen
ty-five or thirty.
How many men look back to their teens when they were
harnessed to the wagon of life with Ambition for a driver?
When they could not wait for the years to pass and for oppor
tunity to come?
How many remember the whip that Ambition laid on their
The Atlanta Georgian
Does This Little Devil Drive You?
Lucky You, if the Demon of Ambition Is Your Driver. He Will Make You Trot Fast. AND GET SOME WHERE.
backs?
And how many unfortunately remember the gradual death
of the driver and the cessation of effort?
It is the duty of Ambition to drive, and it is your duty TO
KEEP AMBITION ALIVE AND DRIVING.
Now in the summer weather especially you can test your
self and learn what you are apt to be in future.
If you are doing nothing, if there is no driving, no hurrying,
no working, YOU MAY COUNT UPON IT THAT THERE WILL
BE NO RESULTS, NOTHING MUCH WORTH WHILE IN
THE YEARS TO COME.
Those that are destined to be the big men twenty years from
now, when the majority of us will be nobodies, ARE THOSE
WHOM THIS DEMON IS DRIVING RELENTLESSLY, RE- j
MORSELESSLY, THROUGH THE HOT WEATHER AND THE
COLD WEATHER, THROUGH EARLY HOURS AND LATE
HOURS.
Lucky YOU, if you are in harness and driven as the man is i
driven in this picture.
And UNHAPPY you, if you sit at your ease with nothing to
drive you, with self-complacency and empty excuses as your ;
companions in idleness.
Still No Help for Our Merchant !
Marine
There are to-day only five American ships regularly in the
trans-Paciflc trade. They have to meet competition from The
Canadian-Pacific Steamship Company; subsidy, $218,000 a year.
The Nippon Yoseu Kaisha; subsidy, $238,000 a year.
The Osaka Shoshen Kaisha; subsidy, $605,000 a year.
The Toyo Tisen Kaisha; subsidy, $1,340,000 a year.
So that there is little chance of building up a merchant
marine in the great Pacific so long as Congress continues to neg
lect these interests; and there is every chance of losing the little
we have left.
Our merchant marine is thus vanishing, first, because it costs
more to build a ship in America than in Japan or Great Britain
or Germany, that extra cost being nearly all the extra cost of
labor under the American standards of living. Second, it costs
more to operate an American ship for precisely the same reason.
American industries on land are protected by tariffs. Why
not those on the sea? It is conceded that absolute free trade
would be ruinous to our industries on land. IT HAS RUINED
OUR INDUSTRIES ON THE SEA.
To protect our industries on the sea a 5 per cent discrimina
tion in the tariff in favor of imports brought in American ships
was put into the Underwood Tariff bill. This clause should be
put back into the bill, passed, and put into rigid operation; and
wherever there are treaties blocking its operation, those treaties
should be terminated as soon as possible,
The cash cost of neglect is A MILLION DOLLARS A DAY
paid to foreign shipowners for carrying American commerce,
or just about ENOUGH IN ONE YEAR TO PAY THE ENTIRE
COST OF THE PANAMA CANAL! /
July Evening
Growing Old and Out of Fashion . * # Selected by EDWIN MARKHAM
How to Measure Motions
of the Stars
By EDGAR LUCIEN LARKIN.
D R. WOODS HUTCHINSON,
in his book, “Common
Diseases.” published by
Houghton Mifflin and Company,
entertainingly discusses old-age
conditions that will come to each
of us If we live long enough.
"If we are going to do -any
thing to cure the disease of old
age, we must begin before birth.
Indeed, as Oliver Wendell Holmes
wittily remaiked on the preven
tion of disease, ‘we must begin
with the grand-parents.' The so-
called senile changes are changes
which have been going on ever
since we began our individual ex
istence.
‘ The time when we begin to feel
old. the particular period at which
we begin to ‘show our age.' is
merely .that period at which these
internal changes have reached
and shown themselves upon the
surface; in which, so to speak,
these microscopic alterations have
finally become visible to the naked
eye.
"It Is nothing short of absurd
to say that a man becomes old,
or senile, or Incapable of further
development or incapable of the
conception of new ideas at, or
after, any special or particular
age. There is no one period of
life in which we grow, and an
other in which we decline. Both
processes are going on side by
side in every part of our body
from the day we are born. Just
as the life of the body means the
death of certain of its cell**, so
the growth of e\* v y power and
faculty means the sacrifice and
the decay of others. Every prim
itive cell of the embryo lays down
part of its life to become a mus
cle-cell, a neurone, a blood-cor
puscle or a bone cell.
“The process has no limit, any
more than It has beginnings. Life
is just that, one-third dying that
two-thirds may live, whether it be
the single cell or the hugest and
most elaborate body. While in
such gross matters as mere avoir
dupois and stature, and the actu
al horsepower of our muse’ . we
reach a limit, a period of wnat we
are pleased to call maturity, at a
comparatively early age; yet In
other and more important re
spects we continue to grow and
develop steadily, to a very much
later period—fifty-five, sixty, and
even seventy years. New and
valuable achievements, master
pieces In every realm of human
activity and interest, have been
produced hundreds of times in
every decade, up to and including
the ninth.
"It is obvious then that there
is no hard and fast ‘dead line’
which can possibly be drawn, be
yond which no further growth, or
fresh creative effort, or new en
terprise. or Improvement is pos
sible. In fact, by living a health
ful. active, happy life, and keep
ing up all our interests, we can
grow and develop and adjust our
selves, and feel that we are grow
ing until we are one day sud
denly dead without ever realizing
in any distressing or painful way
that we are growing old at all/V
4 4^AEEING that you answer
scientific question in The
Georgian, I take the lib
erty to ask you the following
question: How do .astronomers
assign proper motions to the
stars?”
A.—By long and accurate trig-
nometrical measures of distances
of a suspected star from a num
ber of adjacent stars. When we
attach a micrometer—small meas
ure—to a telescope and look in,
we see a system of crossed, fixed
and movable spider threads. In
some micrometers the lines are
all movable. One Is turned until
it is In the celestial equator and
the other In the celestial meridian.
Then, at intervals the distance of
the star east of the meridian or
right ascension Is measured with
great accuracy and recorded;
likewise its distance north or
south of the equator declination
•s measured with extreme care
and recorded.
Detecting Changes.
If the places are different, the
star has moved—perhaps. But
the motion may be that of both
base lln*s, meridian and equator.
They both slide around the en
tire celestial vault from east to
west in a mighty period of 25,878
years. This mysterious motion
must be computed, and added to,
or abstracted from, the measured
motion of the star under ex
amination. Aberration of light is
another harassing correction. Re->
fraction of light In our atmos
phere must be measured and al
lowed for also. The retrogra-
dation of the equator and meridi
an affects all stars alike; then,
to detect absolute motion of any
one star, keep measuring dis
tances from it to others adja
cent.
Suppose that five pets of tri
angles were made from our sus
pected star to five others, and
many sets from these five to each
other to-day. Then, in a year or
two, let the triangulations all be
made again. If the angles from
star to star show no change, they
are known to be at such stupend
ous distances that their real mo
tions are insensible. But if all the
five angles leading to the wander
ing star have changed, the
amount of change can be meas
ured; but In angle only. The dis
placement in miles cannot be told
until the star’s distance from the
earth is first found.
It took 120 years of hard study
to find the distance of the near
est star, 25 trillion miles. Since
the invention of the micrometer
proper motions have been detect
ed in all directions in the celes
tial vault. These are mostly
very small in angle, but very
great in miles. The most rapid
motion of any star known for a
long time was that of the star
numbered 1830 in Astronomer
Groombridge’s catalogue, given in
between 7 and 8 seconds of arc
annually. But Astronomer Kap-
teyn discovered on a photograph
of the stars a small one having
the most rapid proper motion
known, 9 second of arc per year.
There are 1,296,000 seconds in a
circle, which would make the
time required for one circuit of
the sideral universe 144,000 years.
Our Sun’s Neighbor.
The > nearest neighbor our sun
has, the sun Alpha Centauri,
moves 3.7 seconds per year, while
the gigantic sun Arcturus tra
verses 4.3 seconds. The angular ]
diameter of the moon is 1,920 j
seconds, so the time for Arturus j
to move over a sky space equal I
to the angular diameter of our I
moon is 450 years. The majority ]
of suns having proper motions 1
move with rates of from 10 to 12 1
seconds per century. These rates |
require hundreds of thousands 1
of years to change the conflgura- 1
tion of the constellations of the |
stellar structure.
These movements were all de- |
tected and measured by means of |
the micrometer. But suppose a j
star to be coming on a straight !
line toward the earth, or going I
away on a straight line. The mi- ]
crometer is useless in these cases, j
But one of the most wonderful |
achievements of human hands
and mind was the discovery that 1
a high-power spectroscope could I
solve this apparently insoluble |
problem—-.the measurement In I
miles per second of approach oi I
recession in the line of sight,
Any center emitting light sends \
out waves of light-energy. In
white light there are an almost
infinite number of shades or tints,
merging together. A prism sep
arate into seven well-defined
groups; the shortest waves ars
violet in color and range 63,000 in
one inch, while dull red waves j
are 33,000 to the Inch. But the
fact was discovered that if the
light is approaching the waves
are compressed, and the band oi !
colors shifts sidewise toward ths
violet; and if receding, the waves
are lengthened and the band
shifts toward the red.
Speeds of the Stars.
Years of arduous research has
revealed that the stars nearly all
move with specific speeds of from
10 to 30 miles per second; pui
star, the sun. moving about 13
miles per second. But the rapid
stars, those having large power
motions, say of 8 or 9 seconds ol
arc per year, are flying at such
terrific velocities that they form
a class by themselves. Their
speeds are between 100 and 500
miles per second, the latter be
ing that of the huge sun Arc
turus. The attraction of the
quanitity of miles in all suns,
that is, bodies that are visible
to the eye, or to photographic
plates, is totally unable to cause
these immense velocities. This
shows that the quantity of in
visible matter is far greatre than
in the 100,000,000 visible bodies
The quantity of matter able to
impart a speed of 100 or 500
miles per second is far beyond all
Imagination.