Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, September 13, 1913, Image 12

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EDITORIAL. RAGE THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Pubbvhwl by THE GEORGIAN COMPANY At DO E»f< Al»b«n-, M Atlanta. On. . „ «« Mi-ond clast matt.-r a ; poctofr iilan'a n<1*r act of ■uhaariptlon Price—Delivered by carrier 10 on; * v.cek By mall, $6 00 a year. Payable In Advance. The Filipinos Will Welcome Anv Transfer After Harrison mf In every quality necessary to the administration of the at furs of the eight million upward struggling Filipino*, Francis Bnrton Harrison is conspicuously and superlatively lacking Yet by grace of a President whos< 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 tor 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 session*. Pressed on ail 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 ♦ions most zealous in contributions to the Tammany chest. In the tight, tor 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 lie 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 ol Representatives was not Har rison’s achievement at all, but Murphy’s, for Murphy gave the »rder that sent Harrison hurrying to Cannon s help. Harrison’s single adventure in celebrity was getting him 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 fortiyies and the lives of eight million de pendent human bemgs Why? Is it because Harrison, by reason oi 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 Waste It? Catch Up Now and Look Out ior Spider Webs oi Laziness. (Copyright, 11*13. > 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 0 Are you de termined to get started and keep going? It is lair weather and sunshiny nov, But soou the wind will 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 TT WILL •E SNOWING Look out for idleness and its effects Look out for the habit so easily formed, so hard to lose Every lazy animal that has lived on this earth is hidden away in your body, inherited by you during past thousands of oenturies. The sloth hanging head downward is in you. The turtle canning 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. All the animals that have spent their lives on this earth, rest ing in the sun, idling, working only when they MUST, are repre sen ted in you Your brain has got to tight all of these animal influences. Your hope is the will power, the capacity for thought, which has caused the topmost joint m 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, admir ing what they do or watching what they do? How often do you think about yourself, and question your, self, AND CRITICISF. 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 non. you won’t, do it late; Don t wait for January first to find you looking back mourn fully and making the usual solemn resolutions that will be for gotten before Washington s Birthday Get out of the W eb and work Theee ar» still plenty of chance. t or worker* The Atlanta Georgian THE HOME RARER Look Out for That Spider Idleness Ella Wheeler W ilcox Very Pleasant is Leisure and Mase. until THE HABIT is Formed. A very light Web at first, it gets Heavier. (See editorial.) 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 N '-MW YORK CONSERVATION ( OMMI8SIONER 15. E. U1T IKNHOUSE as!,.: 'Wli.v are there more than seventeen mil lion unmarried men and women tn | the United Slates?” ''Never, he save, “lias a nation I be- n so prosperous or so within reach of the comforts and luxuries j of life Y'ot people do not marry, ! There is something wrong. What j is iff Their are many reasons why people do not marry. One is the high coat of living, for while tho nation is undoubtedly prosperous, the golden stream doesn’t, v ash b) every man's door to an extant that, enables him to support a family tu any decent comfort. The main reason, however, that there has been what Mr. YVegg called a decltne and fall oft in mat rimony is because people have be gun to use their heads Instead of their hearts In deriding 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 tormer times men and women ; married simply because they were attracted to some member of the opposite sds Whether (he> could feed or clothe * family or whether ! tb*> were likely to bequeath some terrible inheritance to their off- | spring, did not enter into their cal culation They went it blind, wtth- «”• "sward consequence* to themselves or any one else. Now , I intelligent men and women consid er before marriage whether they j have a light to niavrv and bring i into the world deformed and Uis | eased children, or children thgt ! i they will have to sell Into child j ; slavery because of poverty Mso men and women are becoiu- | mg afraid to marry. They see that. : nine-tcntbsiof the marriage* in tli* world are failure*, so far as bring, in* any happiness to either bus- band or wife, and so they decide that single blessedness is better i than double wretchedness. Unly u few days ago a brilliant young physician, who has already achieved success, said to me that nothing on earth, after what ho 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 ou eanh, 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 thfe 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 was only «evente#n, but who, in some strange way . bail fathomed the depths of the nhiloeu- phy of modern life It was written to her sweetheart, breaking off her engagement to him, and It fall into ■he manufacturer s hands through me o? his stenographer* haring written it for the girl ou the type writer, and a carbou copy of It having been left lying about. The letter in part is as follows: "1 lmvc wanted to tell you that I can not marry you, and you know ♦he reason. 1 hope you will not think hard of me, and will under stand w hy under Ihe circumstances T must refuse. We both have out living to make, and you know we could not get along on what you make now-, the way living expenses arc. 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. "1 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 gottlng enough to make up for what you had given up. Y'ou know our friends are not all mar ried, and they would still be able to go and do things when we could not. Y'ou 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 move. Why can not we still be good friends and sweethearts, and wait until you can get Into some little busi ness where 1 could help, and we j would have more to work on I am writing >his to you so you can not interrupt me until ( aru through 1 know you love me. and it is nice to be loved, and i think you know T love yi>n (,ip ,-s, not marry now. It would make ns 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 bouse going. The girl at work cazt make a decent, living for herself. The man at work can make a decent living for himself, but tha man doesn't make enough to make a decent living for the girl and himself both, ami 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 thie, and 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 stesm cars. It's unromantic, but true, that it’s easier to do without, a bu d,and or wife than it is to do without the comforts to which we ar- accustomed All of which makes it rough lor Cupid, but it explains the ever- increasing number of old maids and old bachelor* Writes on Motherhood The Duty of r Wife to Her tin bom Children Is Clear-Cut Maternity Should Be the Hol\ Thing It Is Meant to Be. Written for The Atlanta Georqian Bv Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Copyright, 191X) THE UNWED MOTHER TO THE WIFE [ HAD been almost happy for an hour, Lost to the world that knew me tn 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 l sat alone on the public bench; You with your lawful husband rode to litate And when your eyes fell on me, and my child [hey were not eyes, but daggers, poison tipped God: how good women slaughter with a look;. 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 thorns 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 pain And then it seemed as if each bird and breewe Took up the word, and changed its syllables From Mother into Magdalene; and cried My shame to all the world. It was your eyes Which did all this. But listen now to me (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 ski And jeopardized his name for your base ends). I know how you have sunk your soul in sens* like any wanton; and refused to bear The harvest of your pleasure planted seed; I know how you have crushed the tender buo. Which held a soni; how you have blighted it -And made the holy miracle of birth A wicked travesty of God’s design; Tea, 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 yon dare Call me a sinner, and yourself a saint; And all the world smiles on you and its door* Swing wide at your approach. I stand outside Surely there must be higher courts than earth Where yon and I will some day meet «n«t 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 derided to ask whether you would be so kind as to ad vise ua, 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 subject Thanking yon very kindly to advance, I ana, 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 onbora 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, aud take on mortal form - and if she prevents its reaching maturity she docs a criminal act. Girl Who Has Erred Is To Be Pitied by All Humanity. The girl who through lack of right training and right know! edge, or who through loving uu wisely, lieeoines a mother with out marriage ties, is to bo pitied; she hss brought sorrou on tier self and ,i n h»r child for life. But sb* Is far lew of a atoner tha* the mature woman, who in tha shelter of a home, and with tha full sanction of church and so dety to be a mother, deliberate ly destroys her unborn child, to order to eecape the trouble ant expense of maternity. The girl’s Bin is the sin «f weak human nature; the von an sins sgatost nature and against God’s divine laws. Motherhood, to be the holy and happy thing It is meant to be— the greatest privilege given t* woman—need* the blearing of Jaw and love. Society Condoning the Act Doesn’t Lessen the Crime. But marriage laws, however they protect a wife from tbs eoe damnation of society, can $evw make abortion anything lean than a crime. Women criminals of this ordes are to be found in every church, and to high social droJes; and they are accepted and their con duct is overlooked because they are married. But that does not lessen the crime. Their acts are deliberate and premeditated and done through selfishness and a desire to escape the responsibility of motherhood. The erring girl’s fan Is unpre meditated, and usually the result of lack of proper training ai home; proper maternal teach tog; for no girl who is the close companion and Intimate friers: of a wise, loving, sympathetic mother, ever goes wrong. Read your New Testament ant, ■ee how of all sinners mentioned Christ gave the deepest compae sion to the fallen woman, a of: then look about you and try t», (trd one oe itIm reue disciple*