Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

EDITORIAL RAGE The Atlanta Georgian THE HOME RARER THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published by THE GEORGIAN COMPANY At 20 East AlabarnH St. Atlanta, (la. t lflterad as ae^ond-class matter at pom office at Atlanta, ind»*r act cf March 3,1173 ubscrlptlon Price—Delivered by carrier 10 enta a week By mall, 36.00 a year. Payable in Advance. The Filipinos Will Welcome Any Transfer After Harrison Waste It? Catch Up Now and Look Out for Spider Webs ot Laziness. (Copyright. 1913.) Summer is over. What did it do for you? • Did you get enough rest to make you WORK better? Did you use the time of rest to build up strength, health and character for the work ahead? Outside of your vacation, were you one of those sensible enough to work and keep hard at it while others were doing nothing—although they might be pretending to work? Are you going to try now, no matter what has happened in the past, to catch up with those that are ahead? Are you de termined to get started and keep going? It is fair weather and sunshiny now- But soon the wipd win be cold and it will be snowing. Life is young now, everything seems easy—but soon old age will come and the wind of anxiety will be cold AND IT WILL BE SNOWING Look out for idleness and its effects Look out for the habit so easily formed, so hard to lose Every lasy animal that has lived on this earth is hidden away in your body, inherited by you during past thousands of centuries. The sloth hanging head downward is in you. The turtle sunning himself on the log is your ancestor, spiritual if not physical. Even the fearful spider, feigning to sleep, but so wakeful in his web, is your direct ancestor, according to the scientists. AH the animals that have spent their lives on this earth, rest ing in the sun, idling, working only when they MUST, are repre sented in you. Your brain has got to fight all of these animal influences. Your hope is the will power, the capacity for thought, which has caused the topmost joint in man’s backbone to swell out into the skull in which man’s brain thinks and rules the world. How much time do you spend thinking about others, adnur mg what they do or watching what they do? How often do you think about yourself, and question your sell, AND CRITICISE YOURSELF, as we all ought to do? Have you let the spider web spread over you during the summer, when everything seemed so easy and comfortable? If you have. BREAK it and get to work You can do it now, yon won't do it later. Don t wait for January first to find yon looking back mourn fully and making the usual solemn resolutions that will be for gotten before Washington's Birthday. Gel out of the web and work There are still plenty of changes fcAvorkera. Look Out for That Spider Idleness In every quality necessary to the administration of the af fairs of the eight million upward struggling Filipinos, Francis Burton Harrison is conspicuously and superlatively lacking. Yet by grace of a President whose duty it is to aid these simple people in their plodding progress out of savagery, Francis Bur ton Harrison has been made Governor General of the Philip pines. What Wilson reason there can be for this astonishing ap pointment can only be conjectured by the multitude whose hearts will go out in pity to the childlike inhabitants of our insular pos sessions. Pressed on all sides by exploiting promoters, the Filipinos sorely need protection. Harrison is as little fitted to protect them as a child is fitted to protect a huddling flock of sheep against the onslaught of a pack of ravening wolves. Struggling toward citizenship they need the guidance of one well schooled in the art of government. What murky ideas of government flit through the Harrison mind were gleaned from the teachings of Charles Francis Murphy, of New York City— who holds that government should be by, for and of the corpora tions most zealous in contributions to the Tammany chest. In the fight for standards of civilization the islanders need an example. Harrison supplies only an example of the organiza tion tool, too subservient to be a distinct leader, too futile to be permitted in municipal office, too vacant to be granted any or ganization favor save a seat in Congress bought by a campaign contribution. Opportunities knocked often at the Harrison Congressional door. The only one he welcomed in was the opportunity to con tinue a nonenity. The positions were flung to him as pay for the one service he knew how to render—abject obedience. To these positions he brought neither industry nor ability, and they atrophied under his listless hand. The one conspicuous achievement attributed to him—bolt ing his party and helping Uncle Joe” Cannon masthead the re actionary flag over the House of Representatives—was not Har rison’s achievement at all, but Murphy’s, for Murphy gave the order that sent Harrison hurrying to Cannon’s help. Harrison's single adventure in celebrity was getting hnn self barred from the White House at a time when his constituents could profit most through White House favor. Such a man, whose equal in unfitness for the task he has been set could scarcely be found in public life, has been intrusted with the destinies, the fortunes and the lives of eight million de pendent human beings. Why? Is it because Harrison, by reason of seniority, stands between Wilson’s friend Mitchell Palmer and the House leadership, soon to be relinquished by Underwood ? Or is it part of a Wilson Bryan plan to hand the Philippines over to the Japanese and make any sort of a transfer welcome to the Filipinos? Summer Is Over. Did You Fewer Marriages Because People Think Cold Logic Has Displaced Sentiment and the Mating Instinct-Intel ligent Persons Now Glance Into the Future. By DOROTHY DIX X rKW YORK CONSERVATION COMMISSIONER E. E. RiT TENHOUSE asks: "Why are there more than seventeen mil lion unmarried men and women in the United States?" "Never,” he says, haa a nation been so prosperous or so within reach of the comforts and luxuries of life. Yet people do not marry. There Is something wrong. What is It?" There are many reasons why people do not marry. One Is the high cost of living, for while the nation is undoubtedly prosperous, the golden stream doesn't wash by every man’s door to an extent that enables him to support a family in any decent comfort The main reason, however, that there has been what Mr. VVegg called a decline and fall oft In mat rimony Is because people have be gun to use their heads Instead of their hearts In deciding the matter. Cold logic has superseded the mat ing Instinct In dealing with the problem. Men and Women Wed Formerly Merely as a Matter of Sentiment. In former times men and women married simply because they were attracted to some member of the opposite sex Whether they could feed or clothe a family, or whether they were likely to bequeath some terrible Inheritance to their off spring, did not enter Into their cal- relation. They went It hllnd, wlth- cur regard to consequence, to ihemselves or any one else. Now Intelligent men ami women cons.ti er before marriage whether they have a right to marry and bring Into the world deformed and dis eased children, or children that they will have to sell Into child slavery because of poverty. Also men and women are becom ing afraid to marry. They see that nine-tenths of the marriages in the world are failures, so far as bring ing any happ'lness to either hus band or wife, and so they decide that Btngle blessedness is better than double wretchedness. Only a few days ago a brilliant young physician, who has already achieved success, said to me that nothing on earth, after what he had seen of matrimonial misery through the practice of his profes sion, could ever induce him to marry, He recognized that the ideal marriage was the happiest lot on earth, but the chances against it were too great. He was play ing no hundred-to-one shot at hap piness. And the same theory holds good at the other end of the social line. The other day a large manufac turer sent me a letter that was as curious and interesting a human document as were the letters of Grace Brown. This letter had been written by a little untaught mill girl, who whs only seventeen,.but who. In some strange way, had fathomed the depths of the philoso phy of modern life. It was written to her sweetheart, breaking off her engagement to him, and It fell Into the manufacturer's hands through on* of his itenograpff-'rs having written it for the girl on the type writer, and a carbon copy of It having been left lying about. The letter In part is as follows: 1 have wanted to tell you that I can not marry you, and you know the reason. I hope you will not think hard of me, and will under stand why under the circumstances I must refuse. We both have our living to make, and you know we could not get along on what you make now, the way living expenses are. It was different when our fathers and mothers married: peo ple then were satisfied with less, and there were not so many things to see. and go to, and to buy. “I know you think you could do without some things, and I believe you would try, but after a little while you would begin to wonder if you are getting enough to make up for what you had given up. You know our friends are not all mar ried, and they would still be able to go and do things when we could not. You and I would still be young folks, although we were married, and I think we would both feel bad when we saw the good times our single friends were hav ing, and which we used to have, and could not have any more. Why can not we still be good friends and sweethearts, and wait until you can get Into some little busi ness where I could help, and we would have more to work on? "I am writing this to you so you can not Interrupt me until T am through. 1 know you love me. and It is nice to be loved, and I think you know 1 love you, but can Very Pleasant is Leisure and Ease, until THE HABIT is Formed. A very light Web at first, it gets Heavier. (See editorial.) not many now. It would make us both miserable.’’ In this letter you have the rea son why most of the seventeen million men and women in this country who are unmarried don't marry. They love. They would like to marry, but they have faced the fact that It takes bread and butter as well as sentiment to keep a house going. The girl at work can make a decent living for herself. The man at work can make a decent living for himself, but the man doesn’t make enough to make a decent living for the girl and himself both, and the children that they may have. So they stay single. Increase in Number of Bachelors and Spin sters Explained. Also the standard of living has been raised. As the little mill girl says, “When our fathers and mothers married people were satis fied with less, and there were not so many things to see and go to and to buy.” It’s folly to ignore this, ami to talk about going back to the simple life. We can’t do It. We can't go back to tallow dips after electric light, or ride on a stage coach after we are used to steam cars. It’s unromantic, but true, that It’s easier to do without a husband or wife than it Is to do without the comforts to which we are accustomed. All of which makes it rough for Cupid, but It explains the ever- increasing number of old maids j and old bachelors, ^ Ella Wheeler Wilcox Writes on Motherhood The Duty of a Wife to Her Un bom Children Is Clear-Cut— Maternity Should Be the Iloh Thing It Is Meant to Be. Written for The Atlanta Georgian By Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Copyr'ght, 1918.) THE UNWED MOTHER TO THE WIFE T HAI) been almost happy for an hour, Lost to the world that knew me In the park Among strange faces; while my little girl Leaped with the squirrels, chirruped with the birds And with the sunlight glowed. She was so dear. So beautiful, so sweet; and for the time The rose of love, shorn of its thorn of shame. Bloomed In my heart. Then suddenly you passed I sat alone on the public bench j You with your lawful husband rode In state; And when your eyes fell on me, and my child, They were not eyes, but daggers, poison tipped. God! how good women slaughter with a look j And like cold steel, your glance cut through my heart- struck every petal from the rose of love And left the ragged stalk alive with thorn*, My little one came running to my side And called me Mother. It was like a blow Between the eyes; and made me sick with pata. And then It seemed as if each bird and breeze Took up the word, and changed its syllable* From Mother Into Magdalene; and cried My shame to all the world. ' ’>* It was your eyes Which did all this. But listen now to tas (Not you alone, but all the barren wives Who, like you, flaunt their virtue In the face Of fallen women): I do chance to know The crimes you think are hidden from all men (Save one who took your gold, and sold his skill And Jeopardized his name for your base ends). I know how you have sunk your soul In sense Like any wanton; and refused to bear The harvest of your pleasure planted seed; I know how you have crushed the tender bud. Which held a soul; how you have blighted it: And made the holy miracle of birth A wicked travesty of God’s design; Yea, many buds, which might be blossoms now And beautify your selfish, arid life, Have you destroyed because you choose to keep The aimless freedom and the purposeless Self seeking liberty of childless wives. I was an untaught girL By nature led. By love and passion blinded, I became An unwed mother. You, an honored wife Refuse the crown of motherhood; defy The laws of nature; and fling baby souls Back In the face of God. And yet you dare Call me a sinner, and yourself a saint; And all the world smiles on you and Its doors Swing wide at your approach. I stand outside. Surely there must be higher courts than earth. Where you and I wtll some day meet and be Weighed by a larger Justice) A' FTER discussing "The Un wed Mother to the Wife,” poem in. the August Cos mopolitan, the girls In the office have decided to ask whether you would be so kind as to ad vise us, through The Georgian, whom you consider the greater sinner, and why? I consider the wife the greater sinner, but the girls do not agree with me. They seem to think when a woman Is legally married she has the right to accept or refuse God’s most wonderful blessing—children. We would all appreciate a little ar ticle on this eubject Thanking you very kindly in advance, I an, One of your many girl-friend readers, BESSIE HERMANNS. The poem quoted above, from the August Cosmopolitan Maga zine. Is In Itself an answer to this query. A woman who is legally mar ried has no right to destroy her unborn child. She has the right to refuse motherhood if she Is conscious that her children would be liable to inherit vicious or diseased tendencies. That is, she has the right to decide she will not plant a harvest of tares. But once the germ of life is planted, that moment she has In vited an immortal soul to come into being, and take on mortal form; and if she prevents its reaching maturity she does a criminal act. Girl Who Has Erred Is To Be Pitied by All Humanity. The girl who through lack of right training and right knowl edge, or who through loving un wisely, becomes a mother with out marriage ties, is to be pitied; she has brought sorrow on her self and oil her child for life. But she Is far less of a sinner thai the mature woman, who In th< shelter of a home, and with thi full sanction of church and so ciety to be a mother, deliberate I.V destroys her unborn child, li order to escape the trouble an/ expense of maternity. The girl’s sin is the sin ®i weak human nature; the worn an sins against ’ nature ami against God’s divine lass Motherhood, to be the holy ani happy thing it is meant to be- the greatest privilege gl-ren to woman—-needs the blessing oi law and love. Society Condoning th< Act Doesn’t. Lessen the Crime, But marriage iiws, they protect a wife from the oca» demnation of society, can neve make abortion anything less that a crime. Wouqen criminals of this ordes are to be found In every church and In high soda] circles; and they ere accepted and their eon duct Is overlooked because they are married. Bqt that does not lessen ttx crime. Their acts are deliberate and premeditated and done through selfishness and a desire to escape the responsibility ol motherhood. The erring girl’s fall is unpre meditated, and usually the result of lack of proper training at home; proper maternal teach ing; for no girl who Is the close companion and intimate friend of a wise, loving, sympathetic mother, ever goes wrong. Read your New Testament anc see how of all sinners mentioned Christ gave the deepest compas sion to the fallen woman. And then look about yon and try t«- flud one of His true dtadplaa