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EDITORIAL RAGE
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Perhaps Peter the Great
DID Have Brown Eyes
He V*as Not a Really Great Man Anyhow. No GREAT
MAN Has Had A- ything But Blue or Gray Eyes. We
Are Sorry for J. M. P.
(Copyright. ISIS.)
The great men of the world are and have been men with
blue or gray eyes.
The only exception is the man with so-called hazel eyes, so
light that they are included in the category~of “light-eyed men.’’
Brown eyes and black eyes often belong to meritorious indi
viduals. They are the eyes very often of honest men, capable,
energetic men.
But of the world's GREATEST MEN concerning whom we
have definite knowledge, EVERY ONE WITHOUT EXCEP
TION HAD LIGHT EYES.
Respectable gentlemen with brown or black eyes dislike the
light-eyed theory, but they must in some way accommodate them
selves to it. The simplest way is to hope that the next time they
come to this earth they will have evolved into light-eyed men.
Observe these FACTS. The greatest of all musicians was
Beethoven—gray eyes.
And the next among musicians was Wagner—gray eyes.
The three greatest fighters were Alexander, Caesar and
Napoleon—all with light eyes. And the men whom they
thrashed, pursued and conquered were brpwn eyed as a rule.
Vercingetorix, the Gaul who made the best fight against
Caesar, was blue-eyed.
General Lee was gray-eyed and General Grant was blue
eyed; so was Lincoln, bigger than Grant.
Greatest of all writers, Shakespeare, had light eyes, and the
next man to him in modern days, Goethe, was a blue-eyed man.
Dante, greatest of the writing Italians, had gray eyes.
And that was true of Michael Ange’o, the greatest artist.
The biggest living American inventor, Edison, has blue eyes
that would suit any young baby.
Blue-eyed also were Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin.
In fact, the rule holds good on every page of history.
One young man, Mr. J. M. P., is very earnest and rugged,
and with a few thousand years of evolution on this planet he will
be a great man—this young person dislikes the blue eyed theory
—he possessing very nice liquid, honest brown eyes. So he
writes in substance as follows:
“I have busted your blue eye, brown eye theory. Study
ing the life of Peter the Great of Russia, I find that his eyes were
very dark. Yen can’t deny that HE was a great man, and so
your blue-eye theory falls to the gTound.’’
On the contrary, the theory stands up admirably. Perhaos
Peter the Great DID have black eyes, although we doubt it in
view of his race.
But Peter the Great was not by any means a great man. He
was only PETER the Great. He was remarkable for his day, for
his courage, for his will power.
But if he had been the right kind of a great man he would
not have killed dozens of seamen, on the theory that he could
gradually teach them to drink salt water safely. He would
not have been so needlessly and inconceivably brutal. Cruelty
is ignorance.
Some day we shall know why it is that the man with the
light hair and light eyes is ahead of the dark-haired, black eyed
man. That it IS so we feel instinctively. Even our young friend
J. M. P. will admit this. He could not imagine a Viking of the
old days sailing the sea and conquering the south except as a
big broad shouldered man with fair skin, yellow hair and blue
eyes.
He could not imagine black or brown eyes in the place of
Napoleon’s gray eyes, piercing through men big and little, find
ing a great marshal in the son of a small lawyer, discovering the
ridiculous weakness of the kings that he kept waiting in his
ante-chamber.
We know that this is irritating to our brown-eyed brothers.
But let them remember that a man can be very successful, very
useful, and a great deal of an American, even if he has brown
eyes.
It is true that Rockefeller, Carnegie, and the modern DOL
LAR conquerors are blue-eyed. Morgan and Harriman had
blue eyes.
But that need not cause despair. Brown-eyed friends, DE
SERVE success, and you'll find joy in deserving as great as the
joy of possession.
My Sister of the Factory
By LILIAN LAUFERTY.
I ’M fnr away in woodlands green.
While she is shackled down
With chains and gyves ami links afire
That hind her to the town.
With rust and lust of customs old
Tin* treadmill of the town
r’till holds my little sister fast,
Tale-cheeked while 1 am brown.
I breathe the oj>en spaces vast.
Fill full my lungs with air.
Nor care that she may come at last
To walk with gaunt despair.
I talk of knowing your own place,
I say (iod called us there,
i prate of sbt rs all but site
Knows well I uo not care.
She toils through long gold summer days,
Where wheels of commerce turn
Her youth into a golden stream
My Summer joys to earn.
So in the whirling factory.
Pale-cheeked while 1 am brown.
Her pain buys joy o’ life for me—
/ bind her to the town.
— — '
The Rising Sun of Suffrage
I
tj' f ^Ol tCTl OH
im GRAFT
Tired little girl of the tenement,
Climbing into the gloom;
Bringing the sleeping baby
Back to the cheerless room.
Tired little girl of the tenement,
Toiling through sultry days;
Whst but a true Madonna,
With her brave little mothering ways.
Tired little girl of the tenement—
Ah, doesn’t her mothering show
There’s a Mary-spark in all women—
And lucky for men it’s so!
Mysteries of Science and Nature
The Electrical Voice ofTime—ItCanBeHeard All Over Western Europe andNorthern
Atrica, Speaking in the Language of Radio-Telegraphy From Eiffel Tower.
By GARRETT P. SERVISS
S INCE July 1 time signals, giv
ing the exact hour as deter
mined by astronomical ob-
I Bervation, have been radiating
j through the air from the lofty Eif-
j fel Tower. In Paris, speeding in all
I directions with the velocity of
| light, and all that people who want
! to keep their clocks and watches
regulated in accord with the
steady motion of the earth on Its
axis have to do is to capture these
Hying signals with a wireless tele
graph receiver attached to a tele
phone.
Away off In Africa, In Algiers
and Tunis, the invisible electric
waves are caught with perfect
ease, and ships at sea, oft the
• French coast, can take them at
i will, and thus regulate their ohro-
| nometers and ascertain their po-
1 sltion with an accuracy hitherto
| unattainable.
It is Like Watch Wheels
Gear ad to Rotating
Earth.
This Is truly scientific magic.
| Just think of it! You want to
1 know the true time to the fraction
: of a second, and all you have to
; do in order to get it is to open
your electric ear to these sounds,
which seem to drop out of the sky
I as if Old Time himself were speak-
I lug to you!
It is very much as if the wheels
of your watch were geared for a
moment to the rotating earth in
order to correct their rate, for the
whole thing is done automatically.
The pendulum of a special clock In
the Observatory of Paris—a clock
whose running is kept accurately
in accord with the rotat’on of the
earth—periodically closes a cir
cuit, which instantly actuates the
wireless apparatus in the Eiffel
Tower and thus sends forth un
electric voice, traveling with a
speed which would suffice to carry
it seven times round the earth in a
single second, and which says in
radiotelegraphlc language, TO
a. m.” or "midnight,” as the ease
may he.
For hundreds of miles around, in
every direction, this mysterious
voice drops out of space and c :i
be heard In any telephone attached
to a wireless receiver. Beginning
three minutes before the automatic
transmission of the hour is made,
a set of warning signals is sent
out, by listening for which the re
ceiver may be prepareJ to note
with great accuracy the di Terence
between the time indicated by his
watch and that given by the ob
servatory clock. A practiced ob
server can make the correction to
the tenth cf a second.
Even home-made wireless re
ceivers suffice foi picking up these
signals. Within the confines of
Paris and its suburbs the signals
are so distinct that an ordinary gas
pipe may be employed for an an
tenna to catch the electric waves
and a water pipe to form the con
nection with the earth, while the
detector may be of the simplest
form, such as any electrician can
make. Persons near the Eiffel
j Tower may employ their own
j bodies as antennae, merely press
ing between two fingers the ter
minal of a wireless receiver. Simi
larly. the wire connecting the elec
tric bells in a house may be used
for an antenna.
On Cloudy Nights Signals
Are Flashed Around
by Wireless.
If a cloudy night prevents astro
nomical observations in Paris, cor
rections for the master-clock are
received by similar wireless sig
nals sent out from a series of ob
servatories, as at Algiers. Mar
seilles. Nice and Besnncon. It Is
almost impossible that cloudy
weather should prevail simultane
ously at all these places, but even
if that should happen, provision is
| made for keeping the clock regu-
I lated by the aid of a number of
| other very accurate clocks called
“time guards,” which can be de-
, pended upon not to vary more
than a small fraction of a second
in the course of several days.
As the means of sending out
such signals improve, so that they
can be transmitted across the
whole breadth of all the oceans,
from properly chosen central sta
tions, navigation will attain a de
gree of safety hitherto unknown.
At present the officers of a ship at
sea have to depend for the accu
racy of their calculations of longi
tude, or distance east or west of
Greenwich, upon the more or less
true running of their chronome
ters.
Such a System Would
Definitely Locate
the Titanic.
They can ascertain local time
and their latitude by celestial
observations alone, but such ob
servations do not give the longi
tude unless the true Greenwich
time is also known. This the new
system of wireless transmission
will supply with a degree of uni
versality and accuracy that is truly
marvelous. If such a system had
been in operation at the time of
the wreck of the Titanic there
might have been no such uncer
tainty as was actually shown in
the calculations of the positions of
the various ships that played a
part in that terrible tragedy of the
ocean.
Elbert Hubbard
Writes on
“John Barleycorn”
plgg
As a Study in Psychology,
He Asserts, jack Lordon’s
B
Story Is a Classic and Will
Be New a Hundred Yean
From Now.
I I
By ELBERT HUBBARD
T HE man who strikes a now lit
erary vein is like the man
who invents a new dish, and
is pretty nearly as unique as one
who discovers a new dimension in
space.
Jack London has done a new
thing in his treatment of J. Barley
corn.
Rousseau’s “Confessions” and
De Quincey’s “Opium-Eater” are
classics, and a classic is a thing
that never grows old.
“John Barleycorn” is a classic.
Strong drink has cursed the race
since the very dawn of history, and
to-day it is the one big blot on civil
ization’s ’scutcheon. Solomon,
writing on the subject a thousand
years before Christ, passes out a,
few' things that are just as true to
day positively as when he uttered
them: “Wine is a mocker, strong
drink Is raging, and whosoever is
I deceived thereby is not wise.”
.Tack has written a confession.
| At least he would have us think so.
Literature a Confession.
In one sense, all literature is a
j confession. We confess the things
| w r e have done; also the things we
j might have done: and we occasion
ally confess things that we have
thought about, but never dared do.
There must be a certain amount
of truth in Jack's fine phrases.
How much, it would be indelicate
to ask. Nevertheless, the whole
thing has both grip and punch.
If you read it you find it is on
your nerves. You’re thinking about,
that boy of seventeen who con
tracted the habit of indulging in
strong drink.
Now and again, as the years
pass, he broke away and did not
touch the stuff for days, weeks and
months. But we find him going
! back to it.
He drinks rum, beer, absinthe,
whisky, cocktails. At first one
cocktail suffices to set his brain
a-ttngle and his thoughts a-jingle.
Soon he needs more.
He is at peace with the world,
i with himself, with the universe,
i with one beautiful woman.
We find him living in sweet
j cameraderie with a worthy woman.
He helps her wash the dishes. He
has had one drink. That is not
enough. He sneaks away from the
woman, and dishonestly puts in an
extra one, unknown to her. It
makes you think less of the man;
and yet. here lie is confessing it—
and how dare you blame a man
j who lays his soul before you!
He disarms you by his frank-
j ness.
Habit Is Upon Him.
When a friend calls, In pure so
ciability they have a drink to
gether. And then the biographer
gumshoes away to the kitchen and
has a couple of drinks by himself.
At first the man drinks only
when his day’s work is done. But
there comes a time when the morn
ing opens dull, hazy, foggy, damp.
Thoughts are opaque, and refuse to
flow. And so he takes an eye-
opener.
The habit is upon him If ho
breaks away from it for a few days
the thought is still in his mind of
the mad, snd, bad days in Hono
lulu and San Francisco, when good
fellows met together and youth had
its fling.
Jack view’s the subject from
every standpoint. He is as analyt
ical as Herbert Spencer, and a
thousand times more entertaining.
He is so human at times that he
is uncanny.
This man drinks and struggles
with drink, and fights John Bar
leycorn—not to a finish, but to a
draw. And one is tempted to the
belief that if a man can drink as
this man says he can, and still has
the brain to analyze the situation
and put the whole thing on pajter
and sell it for a princely sum, as
this man evidently hes—then how
can it be that strong drink is whol
ly bad?
The Inference.
This man is bigger than drink.
Jack does not say so outright, but
he leaves us to make the infer
ence.
He explains to you that friend
ship and conviviality are the base
of the drinking habit, and that
were it not for saloons, banquets
and meetings, with song and ban
ter and wit and play and fancy
and mad riding of the senses and
flow of soul, John Barleycorn
would be out of the game.
As a study in psychology, “John
Barleycorn,” by Jack London, is
a book that will be new a hundred
years from now. It is a book upon
which an author could safely found
a literary reputation. It is a monu
ment to the man who wrote it.
Big things in literature have no
violence of direction. This story
hasn’t. Each one who reads it
will read into it his own experi-
* ences, and he will extract from it
any argument that he wishes to.
Each one of us imagines that
he is bigger than Fate; that he is
an exception to the rule. And out
of the sadness we distill a kind of
joy on account of the fact that we
are alive. In the pains of others
there is a certain satisfaction, and
we mentally are congratulating
ourselves on the fact that the trag
edy is none of ours.
Neither For Nor Against.
Jack isn’t writing any Sunday
school tract. He is neither for
nor against. He is stating the
simple facts of temptation and
falling from grace; of the inw’ard
clutch of conscience, and of sin
ning and repenting.
If the whole thing xvere a tem
perance tract Jack would have ex
plained that he had quit the game
once and forever. But instead of
this he frankly explains that he is
a drinking man still, and will con
tinue to drink to the day of his
death.
The horse is running away with
him, but he maintains that he is
able to keep the mad animal in the
middle of the road, and thus is
master of the situation.
Can he? That is the q*e3tion.
The Bathing Suit ::
By MINNA IRVING.
T O GET herself a bathing suit
Miss Mary Miller went.
But left her pocketbook at home,
And did not spend a cent.
She called at half-a-dozen stores,
The biggest on the map,
Secured the best material.
But never bought a scrap.
When done it was a dream of style,
Of supple satin black,
Adorned with gold and scarlet braid
And buttoned up the back.
The sleeves were short, the neck was low.
The skirt was far from ample;
She was no kleptomaniac,
And made it from a sample.