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EDITORIAL RAGE
The Atlanta Georgian THE HOME PARER
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Every Afternoon Except Sunder
By THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At *0 tun Alebeme St.. Atlanta, Oa,
Entered aa a*eond-r!aa» matter at poetofDce at Atlanta, under art of March 3, 1x73
Suherrlptlon Price- A>elhr*r*d by carrier It cent* a weak By mail, 16.00 a year.
Payable In Advance.
Poor Old England, Her Feelings
Are Hurt.
For a Big Country, With Big Men, She Does Some Small Things.
(Copyright, m> >
We shall soon have a big Panama Exposition in California.
More than twenty.five of the world’s nations have accepted the
invitation to show at that Exposition what they are doing and
what they have accomplished since the last great Exposition.
But England, our respected stepmother across the water,
sends word that she will keep her little dolls and toys at home
and will NOT exhibit.
Her feelings are hurt, if yon please, because we would not
arbitrate with Great Britain the question of her right to use IN
HER OWN WAY the Panama Canal, which we built WITH OUR
OWN MONEY.
We didn’t ask Great Britain to arbitrate with us regulations
concerning the Manchester Canal, which she built.
We don’t ask her to arbitrate her right to keep a lot of guns
perched on the rock of Gibraltar, thus controlling the Mediter
ranean shores. We ought to question that right, by the way, and
some day probably we’ll do away with it. But we are very nice
about it just NOW.
Poor old England, It seems as though we were always des
tined to hurt her feelings. We had to give her & thrashing in
1776.
In 1812 she had to have another.
Now, Britannia’s classical nose is out of Joint because the
United States has been so unreasonable as to decide that the
United States’ SHIPS can go through a oanal built with United
States' MONEY on terms different from the terms accorded to
the ships of England and all the rest of the world.
Well, dear old Lady Albion, stay HOME with your toys
and your exhibits if you must. We should like to have had you
come over, with your cocoa and your Manchester hardware, your
automobiles, your exquisitely funny so-called English accent
and all the rest of it.
But we always have an English exhibit in Amerloa, without
any special contribution to the Exposition In California.
If we wanted to be hard-hearted and cruel (whioh Provi-
denoe forbid I) we could set apart a little spot for England at the
Exposition ANYHOW, and have a nice little English exhibit of
our own, including:
The polo cup that England, with the pick of her whole army
of India and the British Islands, can’t seem to get—although
only a few score of American boys play polo regularly and sup
ply our ponies.
And we might have the yachting cup, that England, so-call
ed ruler of the waves, has been obliged to leave over here for a
considerable period.
We could have quite a string of cups representing the va
rious “English sports,’’ in whioh England always is second,
when she isn't third, fourth, fifth or worse.
We don’t want to be cruel, however. We shan’t have any
English exhibition, Bince England doesn’t want it.
The whole country, the entire United States, is as much of
an English exhibition as we want.
Here we show what a country does when England no longer
controls it.
Here we show by oontrast with countries that England rules
what it means to escape from English rule and to GOVERN
YOURSELF.
In California, and on every inch of soil from New England
to California, there is an exhibition of the results obtained by
the descendants of the men that knew enough to get rid of Eng
land's rule a good many years ago.
But, poor old stepmother, let us not speak unkindly of her.
Her feelings tf hurt. Let ns rather wipe her tears, and
while telling her firmly that she can not be permitted to boss the
Panama Oanal or other things American, and reminding her
gently that 1776 was some time ago, let us be as kind to her as
we know how.
There is no fun being an Anglo-Saxon old lady, a little stiff
in the joints, and to see the young folks among nations going
aasad and leaving you.
Adam Smith
By REV. THOMAS B. GREGORY.
O NE HUNDRED AND THIR-
TT-SEVEN year* *g«,
almost simultaneously with
the Declaration of Independ
ence. was published Adam
Smith's “Wealth of Nations,"
a work that was to do for
political economy what the
great Declaration was to do for
political liberty.
Of this celebrated work Buekle
wrote: “Adam Smith's 'Wealth of
Nations.’ looking at Its ultimate
results. Is probably the most Im
portant book ever written, and it
is certainly the most valuable
contribution ever made by a sin
gle man toward establishing the
principles in which government
should be based. This solitary
Scotchman has, by the publica
tion of a single work, done more
for the happiness of man than
lias been effected by the united
ability of all the statesmen and
legislators of whom hlatory has
preserved an account."
The doctrines of Smith soon
found their way into the House
of Commons, and from there
worked their way out among the
people. Gradually the great truths
forged ahead, and slowly, but
swely. the revolution In political
economy was assured.
As soon as It was seen that
gold and sliver are not wealth,
but merely the representatives of
wealth; that wealth Itself consists
In the value which skill and labor
can add to the raw material; tha;
In the absence of monopoly the
heneflts of trade must be recipro
cal; that these benefits arise sim
ply from the faculty with which a
nation export* those commodities
It can produce the most cheaply,
and Imports those whleh It can
produce only at great expense,
but whleh the other, from the
bounty of nature or superior skill
In production, can afford to sup
ply »t a lower rate, the great
problem was solved.
When • gr*at thinker arises
who happens ai*o to have a liv
ing realisation of that universal
Justice which holds for all men,
he is sure to be listened to in the
long run. He makes no noise, his
voice is not heard in the din of
«he street, but in the solitude and
the silence he formulates the
ideas that are to govern the ages
Such a thinker waa Adam Smith,
the author of the "Waaith ef Na
tion?."
In the Movies In Real Life
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Buried Treasure His First Shave
s s THE WELL-BORN s
By ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
Copyright, ma, by AmeHc&a-Jmirnil Examiner.
O many people—people—in the world:
So few great souls, love ordered, well begun.
In answer to the fertile mother need!
So few who seem
The Image of the Maker's mortal dream;
So many born of mere propinquity—
Of lustful habit, or of accident.
Their mothers felt
No mighty, all-compelling wish to see
Their bosoms garden-places
Abloom with flower faces;
No tidal wave swept o'er them with Its flood;
No thrill of flesh or heart; no leap of blood;
No glowing Are, flaming to white desire
For mating and for motherhood.
Yet they bore children.
God! how mankind misuses Thy command
To populate the earth
How low is brought high birth!
How low the woman; when, inert as spawn
Left on the sands to fertilise, *
She Is the means through which the race goes on!
Not so the first Intent.
Birth, as the Supreme Mind conceived It, meant
The clear imperious oall of mate to mate
And the clear answer. Only thus and then
Are fine, well-ordered, and potential lives
Brought Into being. Not by church or state
Can birth be made legitimate.
Unless
Love In Us fulness bless.
Creation so ordains Its lofty laws
That man, while greater in all other things.
Is lesser in the generative cause.
The lather may be merely man. the male;
Yet more than female must the mother be.
The woman who would fashion
Souls, for the use of earth and angels meet.
Must entertain a high and holy passion.
Not rank, or wealth, or influence of kings
Can give a soul its dower,
Of majesty and power,
1 Great love to that great hour.
DOROTHY DIX
Writes on
Parental Authority
There Is a Limit to
It, She Declares.
Grown Children,
She Says, Should
Have Right to De
cide for Them
selves.
By DOROTHY DIX.
H OW far does parental au
thority go?
To what extent should a
grown-up man or woman sacrifice
his or her liberty of action, and
possibly his or her success in life
in order to gratify the whim or
prejudice of an old father and
mother?
I have a letter from a young
woman who puts this question in
a very pertinent fashion. My cor
respondent writes that her parents
are well-to-do, even rich, country
people, and that she prepared hep-
self to be a milliner, and is an ex
pert hat trimmer, capable of earn
ing a good salary. Her father and
mother refuse, however, to let her
go and take a position in a shop
where she could make the money
to gratify her desires for good
clothes and innocent pleasures, and
they also refuse to provide her
with the money for these luxuries.
They give her nothing but her
board in return for the work she
does about the farm, and she has
to make the money for the few
clothes that she has by taking in
iil-paid sewing and trimming hats
for the neighboring farmers’ wives.
This young woman wants to
know if she would not be justi
fied in assertingj her own inde
pendence and going away from
home and accepting one of the
many offers she has had to make
her living in the way that is most
congenial to her and best paid.
There Is a Limit to the
Authority of
Parents.
Inasmuch as she says that she
is twenty-seven years old and has
arrived at years of discretion, if
she is ever going to get there, I
should say that she has a perfect
right to follow her own judgment
and inclination, and as long as she
does only those things that are
true and honorable and of good
report to live her own life in her
own way.
There is a limit to the authority
; of parents, and while the sacred
obligation to honor your father
and your mother never ceases,
I there is no reason why the pros-
| pects of the young should be
blighted by a blind yielding to the
tyranny of the odd Just because
they happen to stand in a certain
relationship.
When their children are very
young parents assume the attitude
of oracles to them. They are wiser
than the babe, more capable of de
ciding its little problems than it
is, and the trouble is that this en
genders in most fathers and
mothers a conceit that makes them
believe to the end of time that they
still are wiser than their children
and perfectly capable still of set
tling every question that comes up
In their offsprings’ lives.
Nothing In the world Is further
from the truth than this. Nature
plays strange pranks in families,
and many a dull, commonplace
man and woman begets children
that are brilliant, mercurial, rest
less, full of strange talent, and no
more like their progenitors than
champagne is like dishwater.
How are such parents able to
decide anything for such children?
How are such parents to know
what Is best for such children?
What folly for such children to be
bound down by the narrowness
and prejudice of • such parents,
their ambitions thwarted, their
careers ruined because a stupid
father and mother will not consent
to a gifted son or daughter doing
something which they never want- 5
ed to do!
Yet we all know men whose
lives have been ruined because
when they desired to be doctors or
lawyers their fathers forced them
behind grocery counters. We have
known girls that God himself made •
actors, or singers, or artists, whose ,
genius was lost to the world be
cause their provincial parents
thought that a woman's “sphere"
was in the kitchen.
The Parents of To-day
Are Unfitted to Direct
Children.
We have all known miserable
men and women whose parents
hud. separated them from the wo
men and men they loved and mar
ried them to somebody they didn’t
love because the father and mother
were so certain that they knew
the kind of a husband or a wife
that Mary and John needed better
than Mary and John knew them
selves.
The truth is that there hare
been so many changes in the con
ditions of life and the point of
view in the last twenty years that
the parent of to-day is absolutely
unfitted to decide the problems of
life for the young man and woman
of to-day. This is particularly the
case with women, because the
whole economic and social position
of woman has been revolutionized
since mother was a girl. Things
that were considered bad form
then are good form now. Senti
ments that were daring then are
commonplace conventions now. An ’
amount of education that made a
girl a blue stocking then renders
one only moderately well informed
now. •
Mother will not consent to her
gifted daughter going on the stage,
where she could make name and
fortune, because in mother’s nar
row prejudice the stage and im
morality are synonymous terms,
when the modern view is that
morality is a matter of morals and
not of environment. Mother doesn't
think that her daughter should g*
Into business because when sh#
was young the working woman was
looked down upon, when now it Is
just as much a matter of courss
for a woman who needs money t#
work as It Is for a man.
Men and Women H&v®
the Right to Decide
for Themselves.
Mother thinks that her daugV
ters should marry to please he%
instead of gratifying their IndV
vidual tastes in husbands, and She ‘ (
forgets that it is the daughters
who are going to have to 11 v* with
the men, not she.
All of this makes It utterly Im
possible for parents to judge tor
their children, and it is not right
that the old should lay restrictions '
upon the young. Therefore, It
seems to me that, after a girl or
boy comes to man’s and woman's
estate, they have a right to decide
things for themselves.
Whatever mistakes are made,
they must pay for them, and they
should at least have the privilege
of trying to do the things they
want to do.
Age does not always bring wis
dom. It just as often augments
and confirms stupidity and pig
headedness.
PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS
The actions of the late allies
must make the Sultan feel like
doing the turkey trot these days.
• * V
When a man begins to feed on
flattery comoliments become the
necessities of life.
• • •
As a rule we prefer to make
intelligent people the targets for
criticism.
• • •
Good intentions often Inspire
th* fivau of lue Laockar.
What our octogenarians seem
to need most is not old-age pen
sions, but easier divorce laws.
• • •
Veneruela’s army Li sent to
capture Castro. Horrors! Sup
pose he’s armed?
• • •
John D. Rockefeller says h«*s
still a boy at 7JL Wonder if he’s
"kidding?"
• • •
Autos and airships make a cy
clone cellar doubly pernwaan>
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