Newspaper Page Text
f
• M
V
EDITORIAL
PAGE The Atlanta Georgian THE HOME RARER
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Exrept Sunday
By THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama St.. Atlanta. Ga.
Entered as seernd-Haas matter at postofnce at Atlanta, under act of Marra i.ist*
Subscription Price—Delivered by rarrler, 10 centa a week By mall. *6 0<i a year.
Payable in Advance.
Reciprocityls the Saving Grace
of Free Trade
Absolute Free Trade Is Impossible to Commerci.il Prosperity With
out Reciprocity Agreements in Reserve.
A Republican newspaper up East sounds an alarm on the
tariff question which is not one whit less an alarm to the entire
commercial and consuming republic.
The Republican paper concedes, as all concede, that the
Wilson-Underwood tariff bill will be passed and become a law by
the vote of a strict partisan Democratic majority. The Repub
lican Senates are not making exhaustive speeches with the idea
of converting anybody, but just to go on the record with a vague
hope of future reactions toward the protective idea.
But the honest belief of the thinking economist is that this
comparatively free trade tariff, if passed, will steadily move to
ward a full free trade policy in the near future.
It would be difficult to conceive a more definite commercial
calamity.
Free trade would be Just as distinct an evil in our national
policy as a high protective tariff. One is as bad as the other.
If protection builds a wall against our importations, free trade
gives away our markets without getting anything in return.
Absolute free trade is impossible to commercial prosperity
without reciprocity agreements in reserve.
Absolute free trade is as impossible and as impractical at
this time as disarmament and universal peace. Everybody would
like to see peace universal and the disbanding of armies. But no
nation can afford to disband its armies and strip its navies so
long as othei nations inorease armies and build new battleships,
which leaves our oountry at their mercy.
Everybody likes the sound of free trade, but this country
can not afford to batter down its tariff walls to universal trade
■o long as other nations hide behind tariff walls to prevent our
products having free passage to their trade.
There 1* no universal peace until the greater nations all
agree to disarm and arbitrate. There can be no free trade until
the greater commercial nations all adopt free trade.
It is only by tariff bars held in discretion that we can secure
the same trade advantages with other nations that they enjoy
with us. It is only by RECIPROCITY that the tariff bars of '
other nations can be lowered to our trade. As Mr. Hearst de
clared :
“If we maintain our protective fence we c»n say to
foreign countries: We will lower our b»rs to your
products if you will lower your bars w our products.
“But If we have no tariff fe» ce w ® can make no
such beneficial bargain. ’ ’ /
The common sense and commercial judgment of this
country will make a mighty fight before it surrenders the golden
principle of reciprocity m any tariff we may make.
The Georgian ws demonstrated how free trade on the seas
has destroyed merchant marine.
It is jus* as easy to see how free trade on the land will de
stroy the oquality and prosperity of onr markets.
TK tariff 1b not a sentimental question. It is a common-
8 en.^ commercial question.
THE TARIFF IS THE PRICE OF ADMISSION TO A
MARKET! Congress has no right to make our people pay a
higher price to foreign markets than foreign people pay to our
markets.
The threat of free trade is alarming. But it is not likely.
The common sense of the people will protect the country.
RECIPROCITY IS THE SAVING GRACE OF FREE
TRADE.
RECIPROCITY IS THE SAVING GRACE OF PROTEC
TION.
It is impossible to construct a more just tariff without the
reciprocity principle.
Too Late for Archbold
Mr. John D. Archbold must view with regret the plan for
Congressmen to vote by pressing an electric button instead of
shouting “aye” or “no’’ when the roll is called. For Mr. Arch
bold this ingenious invention came too late.
Before the Hearst newspapers ended his control of Senators
and Representatives through the judicious use of certificates of
defosit, the new scheme wuold have saved Mr. Archbold much
time and trouble. It would have been easy to install a switch
board in his offices at No. 26 Broadway, with a telephone con
necting with tne halls of Congress. And when the roll was call
ed the present master of Standard Oil oould have pushed enough
buttons to insure a safe majority for all the bills about whioh he
had been writing letters to his private Congressmen and Sena
tors.
But to-day the Archbold grip is broken, and it is doubtful if
any member of either House would venture to permit his par
ticular voting key to be operated from the offioes of the Stand
ard Oil Comnanv.
The Bubble Reputation
A
MEN WANTED
TH£ ARMY
DON’T (SO 'way
W Be. /a
503ER. - .
«/#.
GA
?
A,
V
u
A,
An Education at the Movies
THE LAOy
I OoeSMt LIKE
HIM.
WHAT THAT
•SAS POP 7
MAP
WHAT THAT
5AS POP 7
//
THATS MV IDEA V/
of a good father - ] /
n£vek (Tens riRto
OF teU-/w6 THE
30V THimS--S
TWI-S FIlw has been PASSED BY
THE NATIONAL $OARO OF
j CEWSOR1H IP ■
CeOv .
,■ ' HViVS-.v.-:
.-y. -
A'-'- a , .
• -vv-
Child Toil of
Present Age
Worst Ever
History Has Never
Known a Slavery So
Blighting as That of
the Young Victims of
Modern Commercial
ism—Money Spent in
Pure Kxtravagance
Would Soon Relieve
These Children from
the Grasp of Despair.
By GARRETT P SERVISS
I B' one-half the energy that Is
wasted upon Impracticable
schemes of social reform and
one-tenth of the money that Is
thrown away In pure extravagance
were concentrated upon the solu
tion of the problem of enfranchis
ing the children of the so-called
civilised nations from their bond
age to iliant Despair, irhoee dun
geon* echo to the pitilces grinding
of the money-making machine*,
there would go up, within a year’s
time, such a paean of rejoicing
childhood ns would warm the
cockles of the world’s great heart
—for the world has a heart, if you
can but reach It!
I have just been rending an arti
cle on "Children In Bondage,” In
the Good Housekeeping Magaame,
which ought, in Itself, to start a
revolution. And It has recalled an
experience of my own bearing upon
this great question of child slavery.
Some years ago I went on a lec
turing tour In the South. I stopped
one night in one of the busiest of
those Industrial cities which have
sprung up within a couple of dec
ades In that wonderful part of our
country.
Chief Promoter of Lec
ture Showed Writer
Thro’ His Mill.
The next morning the owner of
a great mill, who was one of the
chief promoters of the local lecture
course, and who took great satis
faction In his connection with so
commendable an enterprise, and
gladly spent money to keep it go
ing, invited me to visit his mill.
It was near noon wfien I ap
proached its formidable walls, and
was admitted within Its guarded
gates, and I stopped amazed at the
first sight of human life that my
eyes fell upon there.
It was a long row of little boys
nnd girls, pale-faced and haggard,
and clothed In the flimsiest and
poorest garments, with tin palls
on their arms—waiting In line to
carry their dinners to their broth
ers and sisters who were haltered
to the treadmills within. Some of
them glanced quickly about, at the
least sound, with a seared expres
sion, as If they expected a lash!
Evidently there was no time in
that busy place for human beings
to stop to eat, otherwise than as
the overworked dray horse stops
at the edge of the pavement to
have a bag of meal hong over his
neck, with his nose thrust into It!
My Interest in the sights that
the mill might have to ofTer was al
ready chilled, but, nevertheless, I
went In. I remembered how de
lighted the owner had been to see
so many of “his people” listening
to a lecture on astronomy the
night before!
I shall not try to describe what
I saw. No doubt It was a sight
that ought to have made me thrill
with admiration for the practical
application of the great principle
of "efficiency” which I saw before
me, but In fnct It only made me
sad and depressed.
Pale Paces Obliterated
Thought of Marvels
of Machinery.
I could not admire the marvelous
machinery, could pay no attention
to the wonderful statistics that
were poured Into my ears about
the incredible number of this, that
or the other things that could be
turned out In a single minute, for
I really saw nothing but pale,
drawn faces, bent over the ma
chines, not daring to look up for a
moment, and white, bony fingers
doing perilous feats with the dart
ing shuttles, and I heard only the
inhuman hum of the mechanical
monsters that were devouring those
young lives!
I have always regretted that
there was an occasion when I had
not the courage to say what I
thought. But we all meet many
such occasions. One reason why
the world does not improve more
rapidly is because we are too often
moral cowards. However, I never
think pleasantly of the name of
that town, although it had listened
very flatteringly to what I did say
—but that was about the stars and
when you talk about them you can
hurt no man’s “business.”
Such Conditions Prevail
Throughout the En
tire Country.
Of course such things are hot
confined to the South. In fact it is
to be feared that New England
taught the lesson. Rend the arti
cle to which I have referred if you
want a host of other facts about
this nefarious business of killing
off the young of the race, killing
them soul and body, in order to
swell the bloated carcass of Mam
mon! Then think seriously about
what you have read, and, having
thought, act; for modern civiliza
tion is doomed unless this unholy
thing be destroyed!
The Toss of a Stone
By REV. THOMAS B. GREGORY.
O
NE hundred and elghty-one
years ago a young man
threw a stone at a tree. If
the stone had missed Its mark the
most thrilling page of human
history might never have been
written.
Jean Jacques Rousseau was at
the time loafing around the coun
try estate of a rich French wom
an who had taken a fancy to
him, and on the day in question
he was strolling through the
woods feeling greatly depressed.
He made up his mind that he
was worthless, and that the best
thing he could do would be to
commit suicide. However, he
would gamble a little on it. So
picking up a stone and fixing his
eye on a tree some little distance
away he resolved that should he
hit the tree he would brace up
and live. He hit it and lived—
and the result of his living was
the social, political and economic
revolution of France and. indi
rectly, of the whole world.
In 1762—thirty years after he
threw the stone at the tree in the
park at Chambery—Rousseau
gave the world the Contrat So-
ciale (Social Contract), and the
Contrat Sociale made the French
Revolution. For the political stu
dent Rousseau’s book is one of
the most curious in the world.
’’Historically it is null; logically
it Is full of gaps and flaws:
a piece of reasoning *1 1*
wretched failure: but it did
work. It carried the multit
It made the revolution that rr
a new France, a new Europe
a new humanity.
It was Rousseau, as John I
ley well put it, who first in
modern time sounded a
trumpet note for one mor e of
great battles of humanity,
makes the poor very proud,
was truly said: "It was in R<
seau that polite Europe
harkened to strange voices
faint reverberations from ou
the vague and cavernous si
ow in which the common pe
move. The race owes sometl
to one who helped to state
problem, writing up in letter
flame at the brutal feasts of k
and the rich that civilizatlo
as yet only a mockery, and
furthermore inspire a genera
of men and women with the s
resolve that they would ra
perish than live on in a w
where such things can be.”
If Hamlet Is right when h«
dared that “there is a sp<
providence in th« fall of a s]
row,” then surely we are mlgt
tempted to feel that all the pr
dences were directing the s
that Rousseau threw at the
in Madame Warren’s park
Chamber*. ,