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EDITORIAL. RAGE The Atlanta Georgian “> r ^ * - THE HOME PARER THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published by THR OKOnaiAN COM PA NT At iO Rant Alabama St Atlanta. <ii Fntered aa second-eta** matter at p< stnfflee at Atlanta, ,nder apt ef March 3, 1*73 HRARST'S Sl'M'AY AMERICAN and THR ATIiANTA GKOItr.IAN will h# mailfnl to ? I"T« ;inv'viicr« in the TTiited Stnt*"-. Gnriaria and Mexico, one month for $60 three months for $1 T*. *lx months fot t' f»0 and one year for $7 00, chance .if address mode tin often as de red. h iiign subbcnytlon rater on application. Government Ownership of Tele- phones and Telegraphs De sirable and Inevitable Eiffht 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 hill very carefully provided a specific method of fair, legal purchase of "any or all existing lines." and their operation for 1ho benefit of the people as the post,office is. Rates were to he 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 pal Republican Congress regarded lYJr. Hearst * 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 ad /auce of their realization. Mr. Hearst's bill of EIGHT YEARS 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- j emment, all operated together, united in one system. The United States has thus talked government ownership j 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, j There is no more excuse for two telephone or two telegraph companies in the same place than for two postoflices side by side, j 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 postofflee 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 $600,000,000, and made it as easy for the New York business man to sit at his desk and talk to Chicago, Kansas City, or Den- j 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 $637,590,278. The independent telephone companies not identified with the American Telegraph and Telephone have stocks and bonds amounting to $322,965,588 more, according to the Census figures. The total, $1,010,555,836, 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 4 ‘ 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 dona. They already look with suspicion upon the hasty and immature activities of Metcalfe. It the Secretary of War is incubating a plan for the aggrandize..lent o the latter, or for the displace ment of the true budder of the Canal, he had better get ready ^tor a storm. HOW HUNTER STREET COULD BE IMPROVED, BY GRADING fT'KAFFIC congestion In tho I downtown district has be come bo serious a prob lem that ways and means of solv ing It are of paramount Impor lance. The grading of Whitehall street between Mitchell and Gar nett Is an Improvement the Im portance of which will be ap parent to everyone sa soon as the work has been completed. Now comes a suggestion from John L. Ryan for the grading of Hunter street, between Central avenue and Forsyth street He submitted the accompanying dra wing to Illustrate the Idea. Of tills play ho says: ‘‘It will open a level street from Madison avenue to the rapidly growing business section on the east side of Whitehall, causing a great portion of the business which now seems to be so confined to the vicinity of For syth. Broad and the intervening streets on the west side of White hall to spread toward Central avenue. ‘Tt can not. but help the prop- ertv owners who are within the blocks graded, as It will give them one or I wo more floors on the same land, and will afford the four large stores on the cor ners a Hunter street entrance as well as an entrance on Whitehall street. ' "Owing to the lesser frontage value on these two blocks It should not cost the city any thing for damages which may occur during the process of con struction to business. The pub lic comfort feature Is of great importance to the welfare of the citizens, and Is one that should not be overlooked. "As the new- courthouse is now being completed, nothing could give a more imposing effect than a level street on these two blocks.” MYSTERIES OF THE HEAVENS EXPLAINED—By Garrett P. Serviss | F two smokers sitting: in oppo- I 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 which they were blown, so that when the clouds are combined two opposite motions appear, one set of particles traveling one way ami another set just the contrary way. In addition to this the particles have individual motions inside each cloud, so that, as 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 whirl 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 ar© 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 lik© a miniature star. For the latest studies of stellar motions show that there are in the heavens two vast star streams, moving in nearly opposite direc- itons and apparently including, in 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 st irs 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 hum^n 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 has been found that the velocity of the individual stars moving in the two great streams of the two 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 the swifter its motiom 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 sjowly; 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 ^ THE TRAVELLER .j» BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX __ Jiepeinted b* permission from Hearst', Maiaaina for December. Cop>rt«tlt, ISIS, by Herat RISTLING with steeples, high against the hill, Like some great thistle 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. hnrryiDg children came, And vanished iu the yawning factory door. Miginaw jj e 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?” Th« Traveller replied. "My name is CHRIST.” (.Christmas season, and every bell ringing.) consist, broadly speaking, the one of young, slow stars, and the oth er of old, swift stars. Why do they keep apart? And why, among the stars, Is youth dashed with grav ity and age Inspired with nim bleness? 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 shows that the sluggishness of the helium stars is an indication that they have been formed di rectly cut of something which 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 seem* to be subject to almost no motion except that of the great current in which it lies. As It condense* 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.