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EDITORIAL PAGE The Atlanta Georgian THE HOME RARER THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday By THE GFdR'i AN COMPANY At 20 East A la bam i St Atlanta, Oa. Entered as second-class matter at post of flee at Atlanta, under act of March 8, 1*73 Subscription Price—Delivered bv earlier 10 cents a week By mall, $6.00 a year Payable in Advance. A Poet’s Preaching to the Rich It Will Interest You for a Change—Although Prcse Is Usually Better Than Poetry in Our Day. (Copyright, 191S.) The most tiresome of living creatures—and that is saying a good deal—is the prosperous man or woman who lectures the poor on their shortcomings. A woman, very comfortable in her well-padded automobile, with a footman to open the door and a maid waiting when she gets home, will say to some unhappy woman with a half dozen children and a worthless husband, "You might at least keep your house CLEAN; surely, water does not cost anything.” And you will hear her tell the mother of the children that she could at least teach the children to be polite, for politeness also "costs nothing.” She goes away, giving or not giving some trifling sum as the humor seizes her. And the successful man, excited with his business, full of eager interest, busy every hour of the day, conquering other men—you see him solemnly preaching total abstinence to some poor devil who has nothing in the world, perhaps, to keep him from insanity or suicide but the momentary forgetting of anxie ty and poverty that drink gives to him. Prosperous stupidity refuses to recognize the fact that it is POVERTY THAT CAUSES DRUNKENNESS, not drunkenness that causes poverty. The days of useful poets, in our opinion, are gone. Poetry is childishness, an aid to memory, a substitute for thought that relies upon no fancy trimmings for its power. But occasionally, as we are still children, a thought ex- , pressed in rhyme is pleasing. For those that dislike the solemn preaching of the rich to the poor, we print to-day some lines from John Masefield's "The Everlasting Mercy.” Masefield tells of hypocritical, ignorant charity as it is in England. It is not very different in any big city. The rich and prosperous know as little about the miserable poor as the elephant knows about the insect that he crushes as he walks along. Luckily the human race need not depend upon charity, or the silly advising of poor men by rich men. What charity can not do, KNOWLEDGE WILL DO. What solemn advice from self satisfied prosperity can not accomplish, JUST LAWS TAXING PROSPERITY CAN AC COMPLISH. Here are the lines from Masefield. You will like them: And you whom luck taught French and Greek Have purple flaps on either cheek, A stately house, and time for knowledge, And gold to send your sons to college, That pleasant place, where getting learning Ts also key to money earning. jUt quite your damnedest want of grace Is what you do to save your face; The way you sit astride the gates By padding wages out of rates; Your Christmas gifts of shoddy blankets That every working soul may thank its Loving parson, loving squire Through whom he can’t afford a fire. Your well packed bench, your prison pen, To keep them something less than men; Your friendly clubs to help 'em bury, Your charities of midwifery. Your bidding children duck and cap To them who give them workhouse pap. 0, what you are, and what you preach, And what you do, and what you teach Is not God’s Word, nor honest schism, But Devil's cant and pauperism. The New Agriculture By REV. THOMAS B. GREGORY. T HE “New Agriculture," which 1b working such wonders all over the civilized world of to-day, may be aafd to have had Its beglnn’ng fifty-four years ago this month with the publication of I iebig's “Letters on Agricul ture." As Is the case with the planted seed Ideas* must wait for their fruitage, and consequently Lie big’s teaching* did not at once real! e the‘r harvest, but with the blr h of the twentieth century we began hearing of the great things that were brine done at the "ex perimental stations" of the State and National Governments—how they were tickling the earth and mak'ng her laugh with harvests that were little short of the mi raculous. Spurred on by these reports, individual farmers began to prick no their ears and to look for bet ter results from their labors. In quiries b°gan pouring into the stations, the a*ents of the Gov ernment went out to meet the farmers, and as a cons^G ,,Pnf 'e agriculture ail over the country Is undergoing a radical change for the better. Before I.Iebig’s day the chem istry of soils was but poorly un derstood, and scarcely any one knew the way In which plant/ were nourished; but the great German, by throwing daylight upon the matter, laid the sure foundation for one of the most Important revolutions of history. The present-day achievements of agriculture surpass In wonder fulness the tales of the “Arabian Nights,” and the end is not yet. Steadily the wonder grows. Every day, aided by the science of or ganic chemistry, for which we must largely thank Liebig, the farmer is working miracles upon his land. The one-time widely accepted doctrine of Malthus. that the hu man race was rapidly encroaching upon the producing power of the earth and that by and by people must starve to death, Is now shown to be sheer nonsense. We are assured, by the actual achievements of present-day scientific agriculture that Mal thusianism was never more than a dream. In the Movies In Real Life Parents, Make Your Children Respect You And Begin While They’re Young, or Your Task Is Hopeless---Ances tor Worship Is Not Half So Dangerous as Child Worship. ~~ By DOROTHY DIX A CHINESE scholar, who re cently lectured In this coun try, says that a great deal of the late progress In China has been due to the respect and affec tion In which young men hold their mothers, and that It Is not sur prising that Chinese children hon or their parents, Blnce they are taught to do so by means of the First Reader. • 1 wonder if It would be possible to borrow any of these Chinese First Readers for use in American schools ar.d homes? Here’s a Chance for China to Teach Us a Needed Lesson. We have spent a lot of effort and money In sending missionaries over to the so-called heathen Chinee. Here's a chance for China to repay the debt and send over some First Readers to hood lum America. While the good ladies in China, however, are holding oyster sup pers and church fairs and sewing bees to raise the money for their missionary enterprise for our bene fit, it may not be amiss for Amer ican parents to take note of the fact that the volume that is found so efficacious in instilling respect for parents In the youthful breast is the FIRST READER. It is not the Differential Calculus, or Kant on Pure Reason, or any of the high- browed literature that a man pe ruses In his mature years. Which is to say that if you want your child to treat you with reverence and respect, you must instill those sentiments in him while he is young and not waft for him to acquire them when he comes to the years of discretion. Conduct is nine-tenths habit. Un consciously we go on treating peo ple the way we have always treat ed them, and the son and daughter who have run roughshod over their parents in their childhood continue to run roughshod over them in their manhood and woman hood. We Americans are very scorn ful because the Chinese worship their ancestors, but ancestor wor ship ts a much less dangerous religion than the child worship that prevails among us. It does a great-grandfather’s spirit no harm to be prayed to, but it everlast ingly ruins the child for Its parents to kowtow and knock their foreheads before it. How other godllngs act we do not know, but it fills the American brand with an Insufferable self- complacency and self-esteem, and makes It a grinding tyrant who tramples its slaves into the dust. The modern car of Juggernaut ts the perambulator, and millions of American parents cast themselves before It and let it crush out all of the comfort and happiness of their lives. Practically In every family you know the children are the Ones Who Must Re Obeyed Their will is law. Their opinions decide mat ters They have the best clothes. They go to places of amusement while the parents stay at home The father and mother are merely upper servants to look after the children's wants. And the children repay this at titude of their parents Just as you would expect. They are Insolent and overbearing, and selfish and disobedient, because they have been taught to be They have been brought up, tacitly at least, to look down upon their parents and despise them. They have never been made to consider their parents, and it never occurs to them to do so. The other day- a prosperous look ing man entered a street car with a much dressed up little boy about six years old. There was only one vacant seat and the child made a dart for it and got it The man said: ‘‘Son, let father have that seat and you can sit In his lap.” “Huh,” responded son, “1 got it first, and I'm going to keep it.” And he did, while the man hung on to a strap. Children Raised in That Way Are a Curse to the Community. Everybody round about looked balefully at the child and as If they'd give five dollars to have him turned across their knees in a good slapping position for about five minutes, but 1 thought there should be some sort of a commission appointed to commit such parents to the asylum for the feeble-minded. For that man, and parents of his ilk, are not only raising up their children to be a heartbreak to themselves but a curse to the com munity. It is these children who are brought up without any respect for their parents, or regard for others, and who are greedily In tent on getting the best for them selves, who make countless thou sands mourn by their inhumanity. Of course It seems to the ador ing parents that it's cute for a tiny tot to defy them. They make a hundred excuses when Johnnie is impertinent to them, and Mary talks back when they dare to re prove her. They even think it funny when their child openly criticises their ways, because they are so sure that when it grows up it will appreciate all they have done for it and the sacrifices they have made. It is a fallacious hope. Unless you have established an authority over a child befpre it is three years old. unless you have bred respect and reverence in it from Its very cradle, you will never get anything from that child but con tempt. And it's really all you de serve, because you had your chance and you threw it away. The Chinese are an older and in many respects a wiser people than we. That's why the child's lesson In Its duty to Its parents begins in the First Reader. There is no other feature in American life that is so pathetic and so altogether wrong as the relationship that exists between parents and children, and the fact that In the average family the father and mother are so afraid of their children that they dare not call their souls their own must make angels weep. Often the parents have given the children, at incredible sacri fices to themselves, advantages that they never had In their own youth, but instead of the sons and daughters being filled with grati tude and appreciation they are ashamed of their father and mother, and correct them so often about their grammar and their manners, and their way of dress, that the poor old people go trem bling before them. It is for these young upstarts, without reverence for age or re spect for their parents, that we need a hundred shiploads of Chinese First Readers. There can be no better education for boys and girls than to he taught to honor their parents, and the only time In life in which this lesson can be thoroughly learned is in early youth. And this is something for par ents also to remember—if you want your children to reverence you w-hen you are old. you must : make them respect you when they 1 are young. WINIFRED BLACK Writes on Deceiving Your Wife 4 You Can Make Her Believe You Are Wise When You Are Not, but You Can’i Make Her Believe You Are True to Her When You Are Not. By WINIFRED BLACK. < (T LOVE my wife,” said the Jl man who is In love with another woman, “and 1 don’t want her to know anything that will hurt her. I protect her from her own foolish fancies. I believe it is my duty to do that.” And then he went and sent his wife a box of roses and went to dine— with the other woman. 1 wonder If that man believes himself? I wonder If he thinks that any one else on earth believes him when he says that. Why, you poor, blind, foolish fellow, you are lle- ing to your wife not to protect her, but to protect yourself. You find her convenient—a comfortable ap pendage, a good thing to have in the family—that wife of yours—- and you don't want to let loose of her, that’s all that makes you lie to her. Why Not Let Her Choose? You want to keep her—and the other woman, too. Well, then, why don’t you look yourself In the face and see what a coward looks like, a coward and a thief. Why don't you give your wife a chance to choose her life? If she knew she might leave you. Pre cisely-why not? Why not let her leave you—is that the sort of bargain you made —a bargain that binds her and looses you, whenever you feel so inclined? Why don’t you tell your wife the truth wnd let her choose? Don’t you owe her at least that fairness? Why not? What is it about a woman that makes it fair for you to cheat her, and then say you do it to “keep her from worrying?" What if your partner did that way? What if lie stole from you and then said he didn't tell you ubout it because he didn't wu*t you to worry? What kind of un excuse would you cull that? Would you pay much attention to It—you, the same, reasonable, business man? You would not. You would call him what he was, a coward and a thief. Why aren’t you just those two tilings, exactly, when you deceive your wife and then don’t tell her, “to protect her ?’* Nonsense, man alive, stuff and uonseuse! That sort of argu ment might hold water fifty years ago; It won’t do now. That wife of yours Is something besides your wife. She's a woman, a human being, with a human be ing’s right to choose. If you are worthless, unfaithful, a fickle fool, with your eyes everywhere but at home, why not let her know the truth and do as she thinks best ubout It? Maybe she wouldn’t leave you. After all, some women are like that. Maybe she would cling and cry and beg and make you wince. Well, you know you aren't tbs first to pay the piper. Would you get all your Joys for nothing? They aren't worth much if you can’t pay the price, are they? Give Her a Chance. Maybe she would give yon the liberty you think you want. Just to see you beg for ber charms again. Maybe she Is Just waiting for an excuse to get away from you her self. She may not be so dead In love with you, after all. I’erhapa she Just stands you for the aame reason that you deceive her, to pro tect you. Why don’t you tell her the truth and be done with it, once and for all? (live the woman a chance, give her a show. You demand that much for yourself, why not give It to her, you who are so brave, so noble minded, so kind? What? Send her away where she is “safe.” Put her where she can’t, make you any trouble, and where she won’t hear anything to mnke her un happy? Why, you poor fool, every word you speak, every look you give, every tone of your voice, ev ery turn of your hand tells her what you try to conceal “for her sake.” She may not know that she knows, but she knows all the same —and all the lies you can tell won’t deceive her, really, at all? What are you thinking of? You ca’n’t compete with a woman In af fairs like this. Love Is a woman's business. She knows it from be ginning to end, backward and for ward- -Id and out. You're Just an amateur at the game, you, or the wisest man who ever lived You just play at off hours, she makes it her whole life. You can make a woman believe you are wise when you are a fool; you can make her believe you are rich when you are poor; you can make her believe you are noble when you are mean, but you can never, as long as the sun goes round, make her believe that you are true to her when you are not All the time she knows, don't for get that-—Mr. Amateur—you're playing her game, when you play at love—and you’re playing It pret ty badly, according to her stand ards. too. You Can’t Fool Them. “Protect” her. If you will. Tell her all the elaborate tales you can —if she be ignorant as a Russian peasant—that one thing she knows, better than you, with all your wisdom, will ever dream of know ing. And the Other Woman know* she knows, no matter what she tries to make you believe, for she, too, is a woman, and to her, too, the game is life itself. What a fool you are to try to deceive either of them—when you try a fling at It—In your bungling amuteur way. Ey LILIAN LAUFERTY. H AIL! radiant Summer, ’mid vistas of gold, Luring to promise of joy untold! Flaming with sunshine, With color ablaze— Hail! brimming, pulsing Summer days. Hail! langurous Summer of shimmer and gleam, Of whispering grass-blade and murmuring stream! Silvered by moonlight, Ferfumed with flowers— Hail! care-free, love-lit Summer hours. Hail! lingering Summer of softness and glow, Of purple-clad twilight reluctant to gol Caressed by the Autumn, Bewitched by Frost’s spell— Hail the Summer—Hail and Farewell!