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EDITORIAL PAGE The Atlanta
Georgian
THE HOME RARER
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published by THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama St. Atlanta Ga.
Entered as second-class matter at postofflra at Atlanta, undar act of March 3, 1171
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A Stupid Policy Toward a
Great Fair
It is useless to attribute the failure of England and Ger
many to provide for national exhibits at the Panama-Pacific Fair
either to the usual jealousy and hostility of England or to any
antagonism on the part of such an avowedly friendly country as
Germany.
The course of these foreign countries is largely due to the
Harrow and stupid action of our own Government in regard to
the great California exposition.
The appropriation by Congress for the exposition was only
$500,000.
California raised $17,000,000. Because California has done so
much the United States has decided to do so little.
Chicago and Illinois together did less to support the Chicago
World's Fair than San Francisco alone has done to support the
Panama Pacific Exposition.
St. Louis and Missouri together did less to support the St.
Louis International Exposition than San Francisco has done to
support the Panama Pacific Exposition.
But the United States Government did more for the Inter
national Exposition at Chicago and the International Exposi
tion at St. Louis than it has done for the International Exposi
tion to be held at San Francisco.
And yet this Panama-Pacific Exposition is of more impor
tance nationally and internationally than either the World’s
Fair at Chicago or the World’s Fair at St. Louis. The two
previous international exhibitions, great as they were, celebrated
PAST achievements.
This present Panama-Pacific Exposition will celebrate THE
IMMEDIATE CONCLUSION OF A GREAT MODERN WORK
WHICH NOT ONLY BENEFITS IMMENSELY THIS COUN
TRY, BUT CONFERS AN ALMOST EQUAL BENEFIT UPON
ALL THE COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD.
The completing of the Isthmian Canal is a marvelous
achievement, but it is an achievement from which all the com
merce of the civilized world will reap an advantage. It is a con
tribution to civilization, to the closer intercourse of nations, and
consequently to closer relations, better understanding and firmer
peace.
THE PANAMA PACIFIC EXHIBITION WILL BE THE
MORE TRULY AN INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION THAN
ANY EXPOSITION THAT HAS EVER BEEN HELD.
It is to celebrate an achievement which is most notable inter
nationally, most universally beneficial. It is not a San Francisco
fair, it is not a California fair, it is not a Pacific Coast fair. It is
an international exhibition in every sense of the word, celebrat
ing an international event.
In this international exhibition and achievement the United
States is primarily interested, and the whole of the United States
is interested, and yet the United States Government makes a
paltry contribution of $500,000 toward this exhibition. Such an
act is a pitiful confession of lack of understanding, lack of imag
ination, lack of enterprise, lack of patriotism and lack of ordi
nary intelligence. It is a sorrowful failure on the part of the
present generation to recognize the importance of an event
which future generations will always regard as one of the great
est achievements of all time.
When the United States itself is so stupidly blind to the im
portance of this occasion, is so entirely limited by sectional prej
udices and petty selfish interests that they can not see the
grandeur of this occasion and the necessity for a gigantic national
participation in this celebration, how can we expect foreign
countries adequately to recognize the importance of the occasion
and the exhibition?
To be sure, intelligent and imaginative countries, like
France, have appreciated the importance of this occasion, and
are preparing characteristically interesting and expensive ex
hibits for the Exposition. But more stolid and less observing
nations, like England and Germany, are disposed to follow the
stupid example of the United States and regard the exhibition
as a local fair rather than as an international celebration of the
world’s greatest achievement.
The National Government has an immediate interest in
making the Panama-Pacific Exposition an exhibition of the coun
tries of all the world. Especially is it the duty of Congress to
show to the millions of visitors from all nations and climes who
will flock to San Francisco what a wonderful country is the
United States, in resources, in energy, in progress and in
patriotism.
To provide, as it has done, an inadequate appropriation
without an added cent to house it is short-sighted and unpatriotic
and unprogTessive.
Thanks to the public spirit of California, the Exposition will
be the greatest of its kind ever given. But, to the discredit of 1
Congress, the National Government will have but little part in
its success
The Thinker at the Feast
VVliat would his thoughts I e as he observed the prodigal revels with which some greeted the birth of the
New Year? “As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool.”
The Hanging Committee
tTTLE green grape.
SwlKlng and sunning yourself on the vine.
What do you know of the stars and the shine?
What say* lire Wind as he brushes you by?
What are your dreams as you smile at the sky.
Little green grape?
Little green grape.
Heart of a girl with a soul half asleep.
Wfcat do you know of the trust you must keep?
What do vou know of the love that will come?
When sill you wske to this life and iu hum
Scrrf.** * <
STILL WATER ^
By CONSTANCE CLARKE.
Garrett P. Serviss
Writes on
Mysteries of Science and
Nature
Daylight and Sunlight Are by No Means
Identical. He Says—In Fact, They Differ
Almost as Much as Do Water and Wine.
Daylight Is a Mixture of Two Kinds of
Light, and Its Quality Is Continually
Changing.
By GARRETT P. SERVISS
S clear as daylight” ^x-
( 4 \ s clear as
presses, in ordinary lan
guage. a, maximum of
plainness and obviousness. Nev
ertheless, daylight is one of the
most complicated ifud capricious
ly variable of all natural phe
nomena.
Almost everybody you meet
will tell you that daylight and
sunlight are different names for
the same thing. They think they
know that much of astronomy,
anyway! But astronomy does not
teach anything of the kind.
Astronomy simply tells us that
the sun is the primary cause, or
source, of daylight, but it does
not say that daylight and sun
light are identical. In fact, they
differ almost as much as do
water and wine.
But the degree of difference
varies. Daylight is a mixture of
two kinds of light and its quality
is continually changing, as every
body who has ever had anything
to do with photography knows.
The proportions of the two kinds
of light that make daylight are
not tlie same from hour to hour,
and hardly from minute to
minute.
In clear weather, under an
open sky, with the sun high in
the heavens, daylight, says Pro
fessor Nichols, of Cornell, is al
most entirely sunlight. A white
surface exposed to an unobscured
sky receives directly from the
sun 85 per cent of the light that
illuminates it, and only 15 per
cent from other parts of the sky
dome.
This Other Part of the
Illumination Is Called
Skylight.
This other part of the illumi
nation is called skylight, and it
consists of light, nearly all of
which came originally from the
sun, but which has been changed
in quality by reflection from the
earth, from the clouds, and from
dust and vapor in the air. Many
of the rays that characterized
the original sunlight have been
absorbed by \ the reflecting sub
stances so that what remains is
no longer the same tiling ns be
fore.
On a completely overcast day
there is no sunlight, properly so
called, but only skylight Wheth
er the sky is overcast or not the
intensity of daylight varies with
the hour of the day and with
the season. This is due to dif
ferences in the elevation of the
sun. These variations in the in
tensity of daylight are surpris
ingly great. The intensity is, on
the average, ten times as greal:
in midsummer as in midwinter,
but this average comes far from
expressing the utmost difference
that can exist, for investigation
has shown that between the
clearest summer day and the
darkest day of winter the ratio
l of intensity of daylight may be
as great as ,‘500 to 1.
Besides, the quality of daylight
is continually changing on ac
count of the variations in the
relative amounts of the different
rays of the spectrum that are
mingled in it. The spectrum of
light is a gamut of vibrations,
atid the result of the selective
action exercised by the sub
stances and vapors, from which
the light has been reflected and
through which it has passed, is
to produce variations of color
and of intensity of color, as well
as of the quantity of invisible
radiations present, and these va
riations are not the less real ami
important because the eye is no!
always fully aware of them.
The Eye Can Bear Great
Changes in Intensity
of Light.
In fact, one of the most aston-
ishing things about the human
eye is the vast extent of its sen
sibility to light combined with its
ability to bear enormous changes
of intensity without losing its
power of seeing. On a cloudless
midsummei day the light Is 8,000
or 9,000 times as intense as the
illumination that the eye needs
in order to read ordinary print,
and yet the eye is not blasted by
this excess of light. Yet it ap
proaches the danger limit.
The eye, says Professor Nich
ols, must serve us not only at
miifday, but also in the morning,
in the evening, indoors, and dur
ing the night. It is never nor
mally exposed to a more intense
light than that of full day, and.
consequently, we find that the
extent of its sensibility is such
that full daylight represents the
extreme limit of intensity that il
can endure without danger.
As to pure sunlight, we never
see it on the earth. The light
that arrives to us from the sun
has neither the color nor the in
tensity that it possesses before ii
enters the atmosphere. The ultra
violet rays especially are almosl
completely screened off by the at
mosphere, and if they reached us
in their full force it is probable
that life as now organized on
this planet would be destroyed
by them.
Every Different World
Has a Daylight All
Its Own.
Every different world has its
own daylight, although ail may
be illuminated by the same sun.
Not only does relative distance
affect the intensity of daylight
on different planets, but the con
stitution of their various atmos
pheres has an equally great ef
fect. Venus has a daylight twie#
a s intense as ours; Mars one-half
as intense. On Jupiter the in
tensity is 1-25 of that on the
earth: on Saturn, 1-90; on Nep
tune, 1-900.
But each of these planets ha*
an atmosphere peculiar to itself,
and thus the differences of day
light upon them are made still
more remarkable. This is one of
the first things to be taken into
account in all speculations about
the habitability of those other
worlds.
Questions Answered
WHITE AND NEGRO.
M. P. T.—By natural increase
the white population about triples
itself in 40 years, while the black
doubles itself. Hence the latter
must form an ever-diminishing
fraction of the whole population.
The following figures (the num
ber of negroes per thousand of
the whole population) will tell
the story:
1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840
193 189 190 184 182 168
1850 I860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910
157 141 127 131 119 116 113
ETHICS OF DUELING.
F. R. G.—Civilized folks of to
day are of the opinion that no one
has the moral right to challenge
another to a duel, but sentiment
was different a hundred years
ago; and it would not be fair to
judge the public men of that time
by the ideas of to-day. In the
early years of the country some
most excellent men fought duels,
and thought they were doing
right.
AMERICAN TARIFFS.
T. C. G.—The first tariff act
was signed by President "Wash
ington on July 4. 1789. The new
Government had just been organ
ized, and the object of the law
was to put some money into the
empty treasury of the young re
public. Alexander Hamilton wa*
the author of the measure, which
was modeled on the 5 per canv
import duty that the Congress o
the Confederation had t**ieh in
vain to impose. This first ia w
imposed specific duties on 4* art’,
cles, and ad valorem rates on fou
commodities or small groups T n “
unenumerated goods were com
pelled to pay 5 per cent.
BRITAIN’S ACCIDENTS.
T. H. X.—For a long ti™*
Great Britain was wonderfully
free from railway.accidents and
the British pai>ers had much to
say of the carelessness of Ameri
can railway management, but oi
i.itA ♦ i>i. I,.,□ h..ati furnc* 1
late the table has been turn**
and railway accidents are becom*
ing almost as frequent and
fatal as they have been in
United Elutes,
mm
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