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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*. ,