Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

EDITORIAL RAGE The Atlanta Georgian the: home paper THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published by TH 1C GEORGIAN COMPAKT At 20 Kant Alabama St, Atlanta, O* Fntrred ns second-claR* matter at pontofflc* at Atlanta, under act of March 3, II. 1 UKARST’S KI’NI »AY AMERICAN and THK ATLANTA GEORGIAN will be mailed to *ub*cr here anywhere In the I’nlted fctaten. Canada arid Mexico, one month for $ <*,0 thr-'f monthK for $1 ”6, kIk months f"t 13.60 and on« year for 17 00 change of address made aa often a* desired. Foreign subscription rata* on application. _ Government Ownership of Tele phones and Telegraphs l)e- | sirahle and Inevitable Eight years ago almost to a day, Representative William Randolph Hearst introduced in the Fifty ninth Congress "A bill to enable the United States to acquire, maintain and operate electric telegraphs,” etc. The bill very carefully provided a specific method of fair, legal purchase of "any or all existing lines,” and their operation for the benefit of the people as the postoffice is. Rates were to be adjusted to provide a reasonable profit to pay off the government bonds issued at popular subscription to buy the telegraph or telephone systems. A stand pat Republican Congress regarded Mr. Hearst's bill as dangerous, if not revolutionary. It was neither dangerous nor revolutionary, nor impractica ble, but only NEW—like the Panama Canal, election of United States Senators by direct primaries, income tax, and so many other things that Mr. Hearst advocated long in advance of their realization. Mr. Hearst s bill of EIGHT YEAR8 AGO was reintroduced in substance in the Sixtieth and Sixty-first Congresses. TWO YEARS AGO, Postmaster General Hitchcock, a Re publican, recommended it in a report to President Taft and to Congress. TO-DAY a Democratic Postmaster General makes the recommendation the principal feature of his annual report. President Wilson approves it in principle, although he has not passed on any bill in detail. Representative Lewis, of Maryland, to whose energy and persistency we owe the parcel post law, is at work on the bill for early presentation to Congress. It will first be submitted to the Democratic caucus. WHETHER APPROVED THIS WINTER OR NOT, IT IS SURE TO BECOME LAW. The telegraph, the telephone, the mail, owned by the gov ernment, all operated together, united in one system. The United States has thus talked government ownership for eight years, but England has—since Mr. Hearst’s bill was in troduced in Congress—actually accomplished it. The method adopted was substantially that suggested in the Hearst bill. The Government of Great Britain took possession of all the telephones last year. Competition is impossible between telephone companies. There is no more excuse for two telephone or two telegraph companies in the same place than for two postofflees side by side. Duplication of offices is wasteful. The telephone now reaches more remote and more numerous places than the telegraph. The postoffice is even more universal. Every postoffice can be the communicating nerve center of every community—with the choice always at hand of the slow mails, the quicker telegraph or the telephone capable of annihilating both time and space. This combination is inevitable. Its realization is much more difficult now than it would have been when Mr. Hearst first advo cated it, because much more expensive. Representative Lewis estimates the cost at NINE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS. Where will the money come from? All the money centers of the world could not furnish so great a sum at the present juncture, even for the richest nation of the earth. The development of the telephone has been pushed in the past decade by men of great genius who have spent more than $500,000,000, and made it as easy for the New York business man to sit at his desk and talk to Chicago, Kansas City, or Den ver, 2,000 miles away, as to the man in the next room. The chief telephone system now has 50,036 stockholders, and the stocks and bonds outstanding amount to $637,500,278. The independent telephone companies not identified with the American Telegraph and Telephone have stocks and bonds amounting to $322,966,588 more, according to the Census figures. The total, $1,010,556,836, of the telephone securities alone (ex cluding all telegraph lines) exceed the total present bonded debt of the United States, which on December 1 was $966,823,490. The rate charged for telephones in New York City ($48 minimum for private house or office) is more than in London (£6 or $30), but is LESS than in Paris (400 francs, or about $80). London and Paris telephones are now both under government control. The problem of administration is as certain to be overcome, in time, as the obstacle of first cost. Our fleetest battleships are those built by the government, not by the private shipyards, and our Panama Canal could not have been finished under private engineers, even at government expense. It took a government engineer to do it. The government can employ or train another VAIL or BETHEL, and it will in time, for government ownership of all telephones and telegraphs is BOTH DESIRABLE AND INEVITABLE. A Suspicious Plan for Panama - - - The report that Secretary Garrison has determined upon a form of government of the Canal Zone and has determined upon a man to fill the delicate post of governor is disquieting. It is true that nothing in the Secretary’s utterances indi cates that the man he has in mind is not Colonel Goethals. But it is reasonable to suppose that if the Secretary contemplated an appointment so thoroughly in compliance with the public de mand he would not hesitate about announcing it. Until a few months ago the Canal Commission was very efficiently guarded against politics, but the appointment as com missioner of a Nebraska politician, the editor of Mr. Bryan's ’ Commoner,” awakened apprehension that this condition would not long endure. Commissioner Metcalfe very promptly signalized his acces sion to office by recommending a commission form of government for the Zone in place of the present one man power. A less self- confident person would perhaps have waited until he had learned his way about the Isthmus, and the difference between Culebra Cut and Gatun Dam before undertaking a plan for its govern ment in opposition to Colonel Goethals. Mr. Metcalfe was, however, so prompt in recommending a plan wholly at variance with the views of Colonel Goethals that many people suspect that he was sent there to do precisely that thing. The people know Goethals and admire what he has done. They already look with suspicion upon the hasty and immature activities of Metcalfe. If the Secretary of War is incubating a plan for the aggrandizement of the latter, or for the displace ment of the true builder of the Canal, he had better get ready Two Views of Christmas Shopping In the first picture, above, you see the woman who is tired out after buy- lazy and heartless to shop early. The late shopper tires herself and crushes ing her own few presents. In the other picture you see the shopgirl, the Atlas the salesgirl, of the Christmas burdens, bent under the load imposed on her by all those too Samuel Johnson By REV. THOS. B GREGORY. HFCN Dr. Samuel Johnson died 129 years ago Eng land and the whole world lost one of the soundest intel lects and one of the finest pieces of manhood that the earth ever saw. Every one. every young man and woman certainly, should own a copy of Boswell's Johnson. No library is complete without it; without a thorough knowledge of that book no education can be complete, lloswell's work is the most perfect biography in the world—an almost perfect mir ror of one of the most interesting personalities known to us. Samuel Johnson had his fall ings. and realized the fact; but his failings were more than bal anced by the great basic virtues that lie at the foundation of all real worth and excellence. Samuel Johnson respected him self and made everybody else re spect him. Ills independence was rock-ribbed. He would die before he would “sponge;” he would die a dozen times over be fore he would brook any kind of condescension or any form of in sult to his personal dignity and honor. Nothing finer was ever written than his famous letter to Lord Chesterfield. Every one should know' that Jetter by heart and be steeped in its spirit. Samuel Johnson saw straight— straight and clear. Nobody could fool Samuel Johnson. The va rious tricksters of the world, big and little, liv^and prosper by ap pealing to human ignorance. They live on ignorance as the buzzard lives on carrion; but nobody ever fooled Johnson. He was wMse. He had facts—and the facts made him the master of the whole army of jugglers and de ceivers. To read the story of Johnson’s life is to be thorough ly convinced of the fact that the tirst condition of real progress, personal and general, is clear headedness. The quacks can do about as they please with a fool, but the man with the clear brain is proof against their most sub tle wiles. But great as Johnson was in intellect, knowledge and individ uality. he was even greater in his sterling honesty of heart. He had his failings, but he deeply and sincerely regretted them, and kept at it until, in most cases, he made them the stepping stones to something better. He never surrendered to his faults, but fought them and conquered them. A wonderful man was Dr. Sam uel Johnson, as Boswell photo graphed him for us in his immor tal biography. Mysteries of the Heavens Explained The Indian By GARRETT P. SERVISS I F two smokers sitting in oppo site chairs blow each a cloud of tobacco smoke toward the other, the clouds will meet and mingle, forming a little model of the starry universe, as it is rep resented by some of the latest investigations of astronomers. The particles constituting each of the clouds have a common movement in the direction in W'hich they were blown, so that when the clouds are combined two opposite motions appear, one set of particles traveling one w f ay and another set just the contrary way. In addition to this the particles have individual motions inside each cloud, so that, aa the clouds penetrate one another, going in opposite directions, their respec tive particles do not all travel in perfectly parallel lines, or with equal velocity. There are strag glers among them, and some w’hirl around in eddies. But, as a whole, each of the original clouds retains its general direc tion of movement. No account is taken of the resistance of the air. Now, to make this cloud of smoke with its oppositely moving particles present a striking image of the universe, as astronomers are beginning to see it, it is only necessary, In imagination, to scat ter its particles more widely and to make every one of them shine like a miniature star. Two Great Streams of Stars Pass Through the Sky. For the latest studies of stellar motions show that there are in the heavens two vast star streams, moving in nearly opposite direo- itons and apparently including, in GARRETT P. SERVISS. motion along with our sun is one of the chief reasons why the double set of star currents was not discovered long ago. We will not stop to inquire what could have been the reason for the meeting of two clouds of stars or what was the condition of those clouds before their encoun ter. for there are other strange facts to be considered. To understand these we must recall that astronomers have been one or the other of their almost innumerable hosts all the shining orbs, great and small, that the eye or the telescope beholds in the immensity of space around us. Our own sun is one of these flying particles, belonging to one able to tell the relative ages of the stars by analyzing their light. Such analysis shows what sub stances they are composed of ar.d in what state those substances exist in the different stars. It is generally considered that stars containing helium are the younger or the most recently formed. As more and more of the chemical elements appear in a star its age increases. In human life we have infancy, youth, young manhood, full manhood and old age; so in the stars there are four or five distinguishable ages, the first of which, stellar infancy, is represented by the condition of the helium stars. Now' (and this seems very strange) It hag been found that the velocity of the individual stars moving in the tw r o great’ streams of the tw'o great intermingling stellar currents of which the vis ible universe consists. The fact that we ourselves are in swift or currents varies with the age of those individuals. The Older the Star Is, the Swifter It Moves. The older the star the swifter its motion. Here is a decided de parture from the human simili tude that we have used for illus tration, since among us agility de creases instead of increases with age! The helium stars move very slowly; those of the next older class more swiftly, and so on. And then the mystery deepens, for the helium stars, and their younger brethren, show a decided preference for one of the two great star streams, and the old er stars exhibit an equally strong tendency to confine themselves to just the opposite stream! So the two mysterious currents consist, broadly speaking, the one of young, slow stars, and the oth er of old, sw r ift stars. Why do they keep apart? And why, among the stars, is youth dashed with grav ity and age inspired with nim bleness? Primordial Matter Is Subject to No Motion. Although it would seem futile to try to answer such questions, even if put in a scientific form, yet Professor J. C. Kapetyn, one of the original discoverers of the streaming of the stars, has point- ew out facts which may even tually clear up these mysteries. He show's that the sluggishness of the helium stars is an indication that they have been formed di rectly cut of something w hich he calls “primordial matter” and which is probably identical with, the substance of the huge nebu lous cloud in the constellation Orion. This primordial matter seems to be subject to almost no motion except that of the great current in w'hich it lies. As it condenses into stars, gravitation begins to act more and more strongly upon it, and thus the stars, as they grow- older and denser, acquire an increasing motion independent of the general movement. In confirmation of this, the fact is pointed out that the Orion Ne bula possesses precisely the move ment characteristic of the helium stars, and so may be regarded as a birthplace of such stars. * ^ THE TRAVELLER at at BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX Revnntrd M p*rnjl«*lon from Magazine for IVoembrr. Ctopynffht, 191S, by Hearat Magarin*. B RISTLING with steeples, high against the hill. Like some great thiaOe in the rosy dawn It stood; the Town-of-Christian-Churches, stood. The Traveller surveyed it with a smile. “Surely.” he said, “here is the home of peace. Here neighbor lives with neighbor In accord; God in the heart of all. Else why these spires?” (Christmas season, and every bell ringing.) The sudden shriek of whistles changed the sound From mellow music into jarring noise: Then down the street pale, hurrying children came, And vanished in the yawning factory door. He called to them: “Come back, come unto Me.” The foreman cursed, and caned him from the place. (Christmas season, and every bell ringing.) Forth from two churches came two men, and met, Disputing loudly over boundary lines. Hate in their eyes, and murder in their hearts. A haughty woman drew her skirts aside Because her fallen sister passed that way. The Traveller rebuked them all. Amazed, They asked In indignation, “Who are you, Daring to interfere In private lives?” The Traveller replied, “My name is CHRIST." (Christmas season, and every bell ringing.) By EDWIN MARKHAM. T HE most notable series of boys’ books that Is now coming out is Dr. Francis Rolt-Wheeler’s U. S. Service Se ries, issued by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company, of Boston, a queue of books based upon actual work by our Government Bureaus of Forestry, Fishery, Ethnology, etc. The latest book, “The Boy With the U. S. Indians,” takes up with the eyes of youth the drama of the Red Man of forest, plains and desert, depicting enthusiasti cally and authentically the va rious tribes In their strange modes and moods of life. I quote the author's fine foreword: “The haunting presence of the Indian is the one great glamor that remains of early America. The great highways of modem commerce follow the trail he made; the streams that now bear mighty ocean-going craft were first explored in swift birchbark canoes, and where are now the waving w'heat fields of the West the tepees of the buffalo hunt ers stood. There Is scarcely a. square mile of all this land that does not bear some memory of the Indian, and every American- born citizen shares his birth place with generations of copper skinned braves who occupied the land Defore him. And, withal, the Indian glamor holds a full meas ure of bravery, manliness and courtesy; of a splendid obedience to ideals that knew' no shrinking w'hen put to the supremest tests. “The Bureau of Ethnology and the Bureau of Indian Affairs com bine to show the Indian as he really was and is, and the Indian citizen as he is and will be. The richness and variety of Indian languages, the wonder and beau ty of Indian literatures, the char acteristic and peculiar contribu tion of Indian art and music and the sublime symbolism of Indian religion are but recently perceived to constitute in American tradi tion a heritage not less precious than ‘the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.’ ** ... In=Shoots No wonder there’s a holler, when that sterling immigrant, th W Irish potato, is excluded. • * • English suffragettes are going on a sleep strike. They’ve al ready murdered sleep for En glish officials. • * * Pennsylvania miner put dyna mite in his neighbor’s coffee Neighbor probably complimented his wife on the unusual quality of his morning cup.