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EDITORIAL RAGE The Atlanta Georgian THE HOME RARER THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published by THE GEORGIAN COMPACT At 20 East Alabama 8t.. Atlanta, Ga. Entered a* second-class matter at postofflce at Atlanta, under art of March 3, 1* 3 HFARST'S SI’M'IAV AMERICAN and THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN will be mailed to subscribers anywhere In the United States, Canada and Mexico, one month for $.60, three month* for $1.75; change of address made an often as fleefred Foreign subscription rates on application IT’S GRAND TO BE AN ENVOY! Atlanta Is Learning to Cele brate Christmas in the Proper Spirit * •? F In a Few Years We May Have an Opportunity of Declaring the Holiday “Perfect” in Every Respect Aside from the mere matter of the weather—which really does not figure necessarily in the make up of a safe, sane, happy and merry holiday season—Atlanta more nearly approximated the ideal Christmas this year than ever before in her history. People seem to be thinking more of others than of them selves this year, and this, of course, has produced most pleasant and significant results. Because of this, Christmas rowdyism was reduced to a mini mum in Atlanta, unnecessary and useless noises were suppressed, labor was laid aside, and sweet Charity was nobly enthroned, that she might scatter her largess with lavish hand! There never before was so much giving in Atlanta as there was this Christmas! Where a few years ago the day was made hideous with racket, senseless “boozing,” and disorderly conduct, this year it was characterized by quiet, good order, and closed saloons. Not that this Christmas was perfect—for it was not alto gether—but that it was a great improvement over last, and an amazing improvement over the Christmases of a few years ago. Behind this changed condition of things is A HEALTHY PUBLIC SENTIMENT THAT AUGURS MUCH FOR THE FUTURE! It means that in a few years more, maybe next year, indeed, we shall see in Atlanta the ideal Christmas—the genuinely merry Christmas of perfect sanity, perfect poise, and perfect pleasure! When Christ was born, it was heralded as a circumstance insuring peace on earth and good will toward men! And that never meant, and never was intended to mean, that Christmas in any degree might righteously be made a season of license and looseness! The Georgian felicitates Atlanta upon its recent happy and merry Christmas, and wishes for it many more—and even hap pier and merrier. Next year, with a little additional effort, Atlanta may make a complete success of the holiday season. The Next Step: Public Owner ship of Railroads? There is no reason for surprise or excitement in the fact that the Interstate Commerce Commission in its last report asks for powers which may empower it “practically to run the rail roads of the country.” That is merely the natural evolution of a situation which the railroads have created for themselves. An excited news paper, commenting upon the report, declares it advocates “a plan only a step from government ownership.' 1 Even that step may be taken, and will be taken, if such action is forced upon the public by railroad mismanagement. Probably recognition of the fact that the public is prepared for even such radical action has had much to do with the notable change in the demeanor of railroad managers toward public sen timent observable of late. In brief, the Commissioners say that they are tired of in vestigating and reporting upon the conditions leading up to mur derous accidents without the power to compel their correction. They ask that this power be conferred upon them. Within two months the New Haven road insolently proved to the Interstate Commerce Commission that it had not even the power to compel the road to hold intact, for examination, the cars that had figured in a recent fatal accident. The incident was but one of many in which this road manifested its contempt for the authority of the Commission. Naturally this attitude leads the Commission to seek the extension of its powers. Probably every extension of this sort every new step toward government ownership, has been incited by some such act of corporate arrogance. , It was the revelation by the Interstate Commerce Commis sion December 31, 1912, of the piratical raids of the managers of th^ New Haven railroad upon the property of its stockholders that led Mr. Hearst to reiterate this statement made by him on an earlier occasion: “It becomes necessary for the people of this country, in order to preserve their rights and opportunities and busi ness advantages, not only to regulate, but TO OWN and participate in the conduct of such public service monopolies as are essential to their well-being. * The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad situation is peculiarly favorable to governmental action of this kind. It is within the immediate powder of the State of Massachusetts to take over the Boston and Maine Railroad and conduct that corporation under State ownership This is the way to reach the root of this monopolistic evil, and there is no other way worthy of the attention of the earnest and intelligent citizens of this country." The Interstate Commerce Commission, tired of vainly recommending to the railroads corrections in equipment and methods which will contribute to the safety of passengers, now asks for authority to compel those corrections. Perhaps this is the next step to government ownership. It all depends upon the way in which the present railroad managers receive this most reasonable request. Telei ilionop hoi bia===A Curious Mental Disease By GARRETT P. SERVISS H ERE is a story of the strange • effects of the telephone upon the nervous system and mental state of a woman. From this story it is possible to learn, or guess, a great deal about these curious bodies of ours, with their five limited senses and their im prisoned minds, for whose in finite needs a thousand senses would not suffice. I get the story at second hand from two French physicians. A young married woman, 25 years old, physically rather deli cate, but mentally very intelli gent and very cultivated, has developed a singular form of what the physicians call “telephono- phobla." Not New. •Whenever the telephone bell rings she is taken with a kind of mental anguish, resulting from the state of uncertainty into which she is immediately thrown as to who the person can be that is calling. She becomes so par alyzed by this state of mind that usually she is unable to answer the call. In case she does take up the receiver and put it to her ear slip is seized with a violent oppression in the head and a flut tering of the heart. Her voice fails her. or. if she succeeds in making any response to what she hears over the wire, it is in al tered tones, and in broken, dis connected words. This results from the fact that her mind is continually distracted by thinking about the person at the other end of the line, and wondering what that person really thinks of her. Physicians accustomed to study the mental aberrations of their patients will And nothing very wonderful in this story, which simply offers one among many examples that might be cited of the curious ways In which new inventions react upon the human organism. It is not unusual for people to be nervously disturbed by the sudden ringing of a tele phone bell, which is a sound hav ing a character peculiar to itself because of the associations that it awakens in the mind. Those as sociations have a certain element of mystery about them. For many persons, perhaps the ma jority. telephoning is still a kind of scientific magic, and the voices of th£ wire vibrate strangely on the nerves of the hearer. Kvery invention that comes into general use has some effect of this kind, and thus becomes an element in the development of the human race, for man, by the ex ercise of his inventiveness, is constantly changing his environ ment and thereby directing the course of his ow n evolution. Natural Evolution. We can see what one result of this self-induced evolution will probably be when we notice the- fact that the nervousness inspired by telephone calls, rushing auto mobiles in the street, and other striking phenomena resulting from the progress of modern in ventions, usually develops a more or less complete paralysis of the will power. The nervous person who sees an auto speeding to ward him is seized with hesitation and indecision. He can not move, or he suddenly moves in exactly the wrong direction, because his perceptive faculties and his men tal activity are loo weak or too uncertain to enable him on the instant to form a sound judg ment of the situation and decide what should be done to meet it. The consequence must be pre cisely what has occurred again and again in “natural evolution” —that is, evolution based only on the slow changes produced by na ture’s unaided forces. That con sequence is the gradual elimina tion of the unfit, and in this case the unfit are individuals of weak wills and slow or muddled per ceptive power. The humanity of the future, just by virtue of its inventions calling continually for more and more rapidity of men tal action, will be characterized by firmness of will, quickness of decision, clearness of thought and freedom from mysticism, and these qualities will be largely the indirect gifts of the telephone, the automobile, the aeroplane, wire less telegraphy, and the hundred other concrete forms in which human intelligence has crystal lized itself. The world spins, faster and faster; it is already going at a dazing speed which daunts the faint-hearted and the slow of thought, but those who ride with it in future will have to think faster still and hold the reins with heart and will of iron. LOUIS AGASSIZ By Roy. Thomas B. Gregory. 1 - T was just 40 years ago that Agassiz died, and the sorrow born of the tidings that the great scientist and incomparable man had passed out from the ways of men is still keenly felt by the hearts of those who knew and loved him. \gassiz was an extraordinary man in many ways His very make-up was such as is but sel dom seen in great men. There are plenty of men with big brains, there are plenty of men with big hearts, and there is no dearth of men who possess winsome per sonalities. along with a keen ap preciation of what, for want of a better term, we call the spiritual but it is only now and then that a man combines within himself all of these gifts They were com bined in Agassiz. He could think straight as the i>ath of a cannon ball; :ie could love as tenderly as a child; he could astound by the profundity of his scientific acu men, and. without the least ef fort. and apparently without any consciousness of what he was doing, he could make everybody who came in contact with him love him like a brother. The name of Agassiz is immor tal. His labors In paU ontology, in ichthyology, in geology and ti other fields will keep his memory - forevo • green: but high above even bis splendid fame as a scien tist looms our recollection of him a* a Man. QUESTIONS ANSWERED LORD NELSON. .1 J.—Horatio (Lord) Nelson was born at Rarnham. Thorpe. Norfolk. September 29. 1758. He died on October 21. 1805. in the midst, of his splendid victory at Trafalgar His remains were con veyed to England and interred in St. Paul’s on January 9, 1S06. HONEYMOON AND CHIVALRY. C. R.—The word honeymoon owes its origin to a custom of an ancient Germanic people who wore in the habit of drinking mead mingled with hones for :>') days after a wedding took place. Chivalry comes from chevalier, which is just a cheval—ier—a horseman, from the fact that the knights-errant rode on horseback. APELLES’ MASTERPIECE. J. H. R.—The masterpiece of Apelles was the Venus Anadyo- mene. "Venus Rising From the Sea.” The falling drops of water from her hair form a transparent silver veil over her form. It cost 7121.500. and was painted for the T< mple of Rsculapius at Cos, and afterward placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicated to their illustrious patron. Julius Caesar. Part of the famous pic ture was injured and no one could be found to repair iL The=Mother=in=Law and the Wife Answer to a Woman Who Says She Is Un happy in Her Son’s Home—It Is Sug gested That She Pack Pier Trunks and Move Away Immediately. T O MY mind the moat tragic thing on earth is the tm- ' necessary trouble that we poor, foolish mortals make for our selves. It would seem that there are enough unavoidable griefs— death, sickness, poverty, loss—to tear like vultures at our hearts without our going out of the way to manufacture for ourselves a million torments that flay us alive. But no. We court sorrow, and out of conditions of life that should be fllled with nothing but joy and gladness we make misery and tears for ourselves and those nearest to us. The best illustration of this un accountable human weakness is to be found in the relations-in- law problem, where people who should dwell together in peace and amity seem to take a fiendish delight in quarreling and bicker ing. although by so doing they ruin their own happiness and make life a hell on earth for all about them, It is literally true that not drink, nor gambling, nor im morality, nor any vice whatso ever, brings a thousandth part of the misery to humanity as does the inability of relations-in-law to be friendly, or even treat each other with decent politeness, for pitiful and petty as a family quar rel seems somewhere in it there is alVays a broken heart. In the course of a year I get thousands of letters from women on this subject. Sometimes it is a daughter-in-law who is victim ized by a selfish and tyrannical and quarrelsome mother-in-law who feels that she has a perfect right to run her son’s home and who Jealously resents her son’s affec tion for his wife and the money he spends on her. The Mother Who Has Spats with Her Son’s Wife. More often the letter is the piti ful wail of some poor old mother who is made to feel that her daughter-in-law begrudges her the very bread she eats, or a daugh ter-in-law who sets herself deliber ately to wean her husband from the mother who bore him. To-day I have another such letter as this. It is written by a lovely, cultured, gentle lady, full of tact and kindli ness. who asks for help in solv ing a problem to which no wis dom has yet found the key. This woman has a son to whom she is devoted and a grandchild that she adores. She would glad ly love her daughter-in-law, too, but the daughter-in-law repulses her at every turn. She is not even civilly polite to the mother- in-law, but criticizes her and sneers at her. and maintains toward her an attitude that is a covered insult in itself. The man loves his wife, but he loves his mother also, and he is made so miserable by his wife’s conduct toward his mother that it has seriously affected his health. The mother fears that he will die in the atmosphere of such an un happy home, and she asks what I think she had best do. My advice to her is to pack her trunks and leave her son’s house immediately. Fortunately, this woman has plenty of money, but even if a woman had to go to the poorhouse from her son’s house I should still urge her to go rather than stay in a home where she was a bone of strife and the source of discord. This may seem a hard saying. But when does motherhood ever flinch from the cross when, by sac rifice, it can secure the good of those it has borne in travail of body and must so ofteu cherish in travail of spirit? By DOROTHY DIX And it is the wonder of ]<y,e that that which we give m, keep. The woman who stays in her son’s home, making perpetual friction there for him, may lose some of hiB reverence and affec tion, but the mother who sub- limely renounces all for Ms hap piness remains forever a revered saint to his vision. It may see.m j hard to her to go away from one : she loves so dearly, but in an- | other house she will be nearer to | him than she would be under the i Me roof with him, with a spite ful daughter-in-law always inter, posing her watchful suspicions be tween them. Mother-in-Law Should Eliminate Herself from Home. Unhappily, there is no panacea for changing a selfish, narrow, jealous daughter-in-law into a broad and noble woman who is capable of appreciating the fact that next to her own mother her husband’s mother is the woman whom it is her duty most to love and cherish. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, nor can you convert a stingy, venomous little woman into a big and generous one. So the only thing the mother- in-law can do under such sad cir cumstances is to eliminate her self. That saves her son, at least, from perpetual nagging from his wife, and the sorrow of seeing his mother suffer from humiliations and insults from which he is pow 6rless to protect her. Sometimes when the friction of daily life to gether is removed it is possible to establish a truce with the daughter-in-law, so that it mat it possible for the son to visit his mother in peace and without pre cipltating a family row. But al ways it is best for the two worn en not to dwell under the same roof, and wise are those who never make the foolhardy experi ment. There are two strange things in this antagonistic attitude that so many women take toward their husbands’ mothers. The first is the incomprehensibility of any woman having so little sympathy toward a fellow woman as to want to separate her from the child that she has suffered for, sacrificed for. and who is the very bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh. “Yet you see mothers with sons of their own treating their husbands’ mothers as they pray God no other woman may ever treat them. Wives May Lose Love of Their Husbands by Nagging. The second thing that is strange is that any woman could be fool enough to take such a risk of alienating her husband from her as to be cruel to his old mother and drive her out of her own son’s house. A man would have to be the lowest dastard on earth not to resent that with every fibre of his being, and though he may. for the sake of peace, let his mother go in silence or sit in silence while she is mistreated, it is something that he never forgivps his wife. She has laid the axe to the root of his respect and affec tion for her. Remember that, you yonn* wives, when you make your hus band’s mother unwelcome in your homes. Ten million beautiful sirens could not wean your hus band from you so quickly, and so effectually, as your unkindness to that poor old gray-headed woman going with wet eyes and an ach ing heart from her son's door. STARS AND STRIPES ^es. gentle reader, the carabao s strictly a water buffalo. cup The Might call the America defender something like Newest Nail. Experience al*) teaches us a lot of things that are of no par ticular use. * * * It may be that the Administra tion has given Government own ership the cold shoulder on the ground that it would violate its rule of only one ship a year. If a trust is just a trust It's loved and-trusted. But if a trust does good, it must Be busted. * * * It is reported that the Swiss Government is studying the n« val policy of Congress as admira bly adapted to the needs of that country. * * * Ex-President Taft say.- i’’ r Panama Canal is due to Hann< Spooner and Roosevelt. Haven we heard something of a man named Goethals?