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EDITORIAL RAGE
The Atlanta Georgian
THE HOME RARER
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published by THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At M East Alabama Straat. Atlanta. Oa.
at paaofln at AtluU. oa<J«r at nt Ifarefc 1 llTi
The Value of Poverty to the
World
Ask Yonr Friend tThat He Would Do If He Had a Million
Dollars.
Aik your friend what he would do if he had a million.
A majority of men long for a great deal of money.
Each man will tell you that he is struggling along in uncon
genial employment; that if he had his way his life would be ar
ranged very differently. ,
Put to any friend this question:
"What would you do if you had a million dollars?"
You will learn that, first of all, he would get rid of the use
ful daily plodding that occupies him. Instead of living to work
he would live to enjoy himself.
A majority of men are usefully employed because they
must work to live.
If we all had our way we should do as we chose, and there
would be no progress. Fortunately, the wisdom of Providenoe
keeps the great majority of men poor and usefully busy.
This writer asked an able business man, who manages the
material success of a great newspaper, what he would do if he
had a million dollars. He replied without hesitation: "I would
go abroad and spend the rest of my life collecting artistic things
and enjoying them."
By his newspaper work, which helps to disseminate truth
and to fight privilege, this man renders the greatest possible
service to the world. He is the head of the commissariat de
partment of an army of righteousness. How fortunate that he
can not abandon his useful work to collect artistic trash that
would only make him useless and enrich a few unscrupulous
dealers!
Joseph Jefferson as an actor did great good for the world.
He filled hundreds of thousands of young and old hearts with
kindly sympathy. He set a good example to all the actors of the
world. He was truly a public benefactor.
If Joseph Jefferson had had a great fortune he would have
spent his life painting pictures, for he believed that he was
meant to be a painter.
He was not meant to be a painter; if his life had been de
voted to painting it would have been wasted.
How lucky that he was not rich enough to be able to waste
his life!
Often the world marvels that the sons of great and success
ful men accomplish so little.
The world is foolish. It should marvel that the sons of the
rich accomplish anything at all.
For genius has truly been called the capacity to take in
finite pains. It is the splendid fruit that grows on the tree of
hard work.
Infinite pains and hard work are distasteful to human be
ings. They are avoided by those who can avoid them. It is
lucky for the world that the number of those who can shirk is
limited.
Dryden tells you in four lines what the actual man would
amount to if he had his way.
"My next desire is, void of care and strife,
To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life.
A country cottage near a crystal flood,
A winding valley and a lofty wood."
Every man who could afford it would live for himself, to in
dulge some useless little tenth-rate part of his brain activity.
The world progresses because the wisdom of the universe
compels every man to work directly or Indirectly for every other
man.
If we had our way, if hard necessity did not compel us to do
the disagreeable work for which we are fitted, we should all live
for ourselves; we should all be mere human sponges, absorbing
personal gratification—the progress of the human raoe would
stop.
Let this fact console you when you contemplate with bit
terness the few who accumulate great fortunes.
You are a disappointed drop in a great ocean of useful
human beings. The interest of the whole ocean demands that
you and the vast majority of all other drops should fail to get
what you crave—
- The opportunity to be useless.
AFTER EAGLE FEATHERS
Don’t Believe in Fairy Tales, Girls
Dorothy Dix Warns Young Women Workers to Beware of Dreams
and Fiction Princes—Face Truth and Work Up With Man
in Own Sphere of Life Is Only Safe Plan
I F I could say on© word more
earnest than any other to
working girls. It would be this:
DON’T RELIEVE IN FAIRY
TALES. GIRLS.
The story of Cinderella and th©
Fairy Prince Is Action. It never
ha/ppens In real life. It never hap
pened to any girl. It assuredly is
never going to happen to you; so
get the silly Idea out of your head
and get down to the real business
of ILfe.
Do you know why th© working
girl eo easily falls a victim to the
•wiles of any wall dressed man?
It Is because she still believes in
fairy tales.
She really lives in a romance
that she makes up for herself. In
it some godlike male creature,
who Is a happy combination of a
matinee hero and a philanthropic
millionaire catches a glimpse of
her at her counter, or in her cash
ier's wicket, or over her sewing
machine, and he falls madly in
love with her, and marries her,
and takes her off to ltve in a
golden palace on Fifth avenue,
and she becomes a society queen,
and has her pictures in the news
papers every day.
That’s the stuff the working
girl’s dream is made of, and
she’s so anxious to And this Fairy
Prince that she fits his cap on
•very man she meets who looks
like what she considers a "swell.’’
He doesn’t even have to be a deep,
dark, subtle villain to deceive her.
She deceives herself Into believ
ing that a street flirtation means
an overwhelming passion that she
has inspired in the man’s breast;
and that a few Joy rides and a
dinner or two at a restaurant, and
a summer excursion mean mar
riage in the end.
Many a girl has wakened up
from her dream of the Fairy
Prince to wish that she had never
been born, and to find that her
By DOROTHY DIX.
hero had Just been amusing an
Idle hour with her, and when he
had tired of her, had thrown her
aside like a broken toy, careless
whether he had wrecked her life.
Quit dreaming, girls. Wake up
and face the truth, and that Is
that men rarely marry out of their
class. They may And the work
ing girl pretty, and piquant, and
her very unconventionality di
verting, but when a man of fam
ily, and wealth, and tradition
marries he almost always picks
out for a wife a woman who
knows how to give dinners, and
run an establishment, and who
can add her fortune and her so
cial prestige to his.
Of course, there are exceptions
to this rule, but the average wont
ing girl has just as much chance
to be elected President as she has
to marry a millionaire.
Look with suspicion upon every
man above your own grade in life
who offers you attentions, girls.
Ninety-nine times out of a hun
dred he Is a wolf In sheep's cloth
ing, and he has exactly the same
intentions toward you as a hungry
wolf would have toward a de
fenseless little lamb.
Another great harm that girls'
artless faith in fairy tales does
is that in looking out for the
Fairy Prince, who never comes,
they only too often overlook the
honest young suitor who Is on the
ground, and who would make a
million times better husband than
any romantic hero. Naturally, If
you were expecting to suddenly be
snatched away from your daily
grind to a state of luxury you
would turn up your nose at the
prospect of a little flat built for
two.
That’s why many a girl turns
down the good, honest-hearted
young mechanic or clerk, who can
offer her cnlv the love of his heart
and the work of l^a hands and the
chance to build up In life with
him Her silly head is filled with
fool dreams about being a million
aire’s bride, and by the time ahe
wakes up from her dream her
chance of real happiness has gone.
Still another harm that believ
ing in fairy tales does girls is that
it paralyzes their effort. Every
employer will tell you that when
a woman gets down to business,
and gives her mind to it, she can
cut circles around almost all erf
her male competitors. Nobody
can find out as much about a sub
ject p.s a woman can when she
really sets herself to Investigate
it. Nobody can remember so many
details. Nobody Is shrewder than
a woman, or loves to bargain bet
ter. No man can be as fanatically
intent on one subject as a woman
can be.
All of the special sex peculiari
ties of women lend themselves to
success in business; yet, in spite
of these qualifications, women are
generally paid less than men In
business simply because their
•work is less.
And the reason ©f this Is that
few women think it worth while
to ever learn their business thor
oughly because they don’t expect
to follow It except for a little
while. They are depending on
somebody else to come along and
support them, and bestow upon
them the money they want. In
stead of earning It themselves
It*8 the fatal belief in Fairy
Tales again, and if the time ever
comes when girls realize that
there’s going to be no magic wand
business in theirs, and that the
only way that their serge suits
will be changed into spangled
robes, and their street car into a
limousine, is by their own good
work, then we shall not have to
pass laws securing a minimum
wage for girls. They’ll earn a liv
ing salary, with frills on it, for
themselves.
(The following article was printed in The Sunday American in June, 1913, and is reprinted
here to-day in place of the regular "Saturday Evening" feature, at the request of a Georgian
subscriber.)
By JAMES B. NEVIN.
Since sun-up Mellssi© Brow*
had been chopping cotton out
there in the field, burning hot, but
refreshingly threaded, neverthe
less, in regular lines with the
green of the growing plants.
The matter of chopping cotton
was merely an incident, however.
Melissie had chopped so much cot
ton in her life that she long ago
had reached the conclusion that
she would be chopping cotton un
til doomsday, perhaps—only she
had been thinking of other
things, as she chopped of late,
that might be scattered along her
monotonous pathway.
The truth of the matter was,
Melissie had been day dreaming a
good deal as the summer dragged
along, and, as it was exactly her
fourteenth summer, she had been
enjoying those dreams immensely.
They were as delicious, in parts,
as fairy stories to a 5-year-old—
and, indeed, Melissie suspected
they might be fairy stories, too!
Her brother, named, decorously
enough, Robert Brown some
sixteen years back, but known in
the vicinity exclusively as "Bud,”
was plowing in the next field, and
singing as he went.
"Bud” knew one song, and only
one. It came to "Bud” several
years back from a negro helper
on the little farm—before negroes
quit the farms entirely and flock
ed to the cities and towns—and it
ran this way:
Ah been working on the raiVt-V
road,
The mitrl-l-road, the raiV-Uroad!
Ah been working on the rail-l-
road,
For seventy-five cents a day!**
Melissie didn’t fancy that song
particularly. "Bud" never had
worked on a railroad, and she
thought he never would. All he
ever had done was to plow, and
chop wood, and take the mule to
water, and go rabbit hunting now
and then, and things of that kind.
There wasn’t any railroad for
miles and miles of "Bud’s” home,
either; and Melissie could not un
derstand how anybody ever might
be permitted to work somewhere
other than pretty near home.
Once upon a glorious time Me
lissie went to town, some fifteen
miles away, and there she had
heard a nattily dressed young fel
low sing a song much more to her
liking—just as the fellow, In a
way, was much more to her liking
than was "Bud.”
That other song was about how
the fellow used to live "down
on the farm,” and how he used to
sing In the village choir.
He must have been a versatile
youngster, too, for, according to
the song, he used to
Sing a little tenor-r~r,
Sing a little baritone,
Also
sing
a
little bass!**
That was a song and a singer
after Mellssie’s own heart, and
every time she heard "Bud” sing
ing about how he used to work on
the rail-l-l-road for 75 cents a
day, she thought of that nattily
dressed "candy kid,” as the show
pictures called him—Melissie nev
er had heard his real name—she
saw one glorious day in town, and
then the rainbows came down and
festooned themselves about Melis-
sie’s far-away day visions—and
while she chopped cotton she felt
a queer sort of satisfaction in her
work, notwithstanding!
Old "Buck,” the mule "Bud” was
plowing, looked upon Melissie
with kindly eyes. He approved of
chopping cotton. If everybody
would chop cotton, old "Buck”
wouldn’t have to plow, and that
would be fine.
What old "Buck” didn’t know
long ago had been torn out of the
original animal books. He con
sidered himself a final authority
on worldly wisdom. He never had
been more than ten miles from
home In all his mulish life, and so
he thought the jumping-off place
was only ten and one-half miles
away. He some time since had
©eased to shy at bicycles, and even
automobiles nowadays made him
only slightly nervous. As for that
rail-l-l-road thing "Bud” was for
ever and eternally yodling about,
old "Buck” never had seen one,
and was pretty sure there was no
such animal, anyway. Old
"Buck's” education, therefore, was
complete—as far as he could see!
So when “Bud” presently re
versed the order of old "Buck’s”
temporary progress and started
him down another furrow, old
"Buck” mentally extended his
good wishes and the assurance of
his most distinguished considera
tion to Melissie, and resolved then
and there that little girls, in faded
calicoes, chopping cotton in the
white fields, threaded rhythmical
ly In green, were a blamed sight
more interesting and worth ^tnl©
than hlckory-shlrted and patched-
pantsed male parties, steering
plows and forever singing about
mythical things that nobody ever
saw. anyway.
Melissie Brown was Brown In
name and brown in nature. De
spite the kindly shade of her big
gingham sunbonnet, her girlish
face was colored like a hickory
nut, frost-loosened from Its hull
and dropped to earth many
weeks ago. Her arms from her
elbows to her hands were of like
persuasion, and her bar© legs
were similarly inclined. She was
a "nut brown maiden" in very
truth—there in the white field,
burning hot, and threaded pleas
antly with green—standing not
yet "where the brook and river
meet,” but full in the glare of the
fierce July sun, chopping cottonl
Melissie Brown was not dissat
isfied with life. She was very
young, for one thing, and al
though chopping cotton was hot
and tiresome work, and often
gave her queer and disquieting
little pains about her shoulders
and back after the long day’s
task was finished, she generally
awoke fresh and happy next
morning, with a hearty appetite
for breakfast, and she didn’t
mind particularly.
To-day, to be sure, Melissie had
been dreaming, and in her alert
mind had been to town many
times.
She remembered a lot of
things she had seen in the big
store up there—the big store that
sold groceries and hardware on
one side and dry goods and “no
tions" on the other, and Melissie
had been pretty much carried
away with the dry goods and
"notions” side.
Whenever Melissie found her
self thinking of that nattily-
dressed person who “sang a little
tenor, sang a little baritone, and
also sang a little bass,” she in
variably fell to wondering If she
might not look a little better in
stockings, and a new calico dress
—and ^perhaps a hat with a
feather on it!
In the back of the farm maga
zine her father had been taking
for many years there was a fash
ion department, and the young
girls in the pictures Melissie saw
there wore neat and attractive
costumes, and Melissie wondered
If the time wouldn’t come, some
of these days, when she, through
chopping cotton, might dress up a
bit. And, anyway, she hoped that
nattily-dressed fellow In the pic
ture show, if she ever saw him
again, would find her costumed a
little more to her liking than she
was that glorious day in town.
She resolved "never to go to town
barefooted again,” at least!
Somehow, Melissie felt that
chopping cotton was not particu
larly broadening to the mind—
and she thought it certainly must
be hard on the complexion, al
though she never had bothered
much in her life about complex
ions and things until of late.
Then, too, Melissie suspected
that she hadn’t received as much
schooling as she should have had,
although so far as the pleasure of
the thing was concerned, she
couldn’t say that schooling was
much of an improvement on
chopping cotton.
Melissie knew that it was, in a
way, necessary that she chop cot
ton, even If she had to give up
school because of it. The cotton
had to be chopped, and the ne
groes wouldn’t work on the farm
any more—her father and mother
both assured her of that.
Besides, Mellssie’s mother had
chopped cotton when she was a
girl, when the negroes were more
In evidence about the farms, and
Melissie suspected that she would
be chopping, anyway, no matter
what happened.
Melissi*e Brown felt sorry for
her mother, and she was glad
that patient, always tired, up-at-
sunrise-to-bed - at-early - candle
light (person didn’t have to chop
cotton, even if she had the time—
which Melissie kn#w, good and
well, she didn’t!
Melissie never saw her mother
when she wasn’t at work, doing
something—cooking, nursing the
baby, sewing, sweeping, feeding
the pigs or the chickens, milking
the cow, getting up In the morn
ing or going to bed at night. Me
lissie didn’t know how old her
mother was, moreover. She
thought, somehow, her mother
couldn’t bo very old; but she cer*
tainly was thin and bent, and—
Melissie feared and hesitated to
entertain the thought—"ecraw-
nyl“
Melissie feared, too, that soma
of these days she was going to be
like her mother—or might be like
her. All little girls who chopped
cotton up to 15 or 16 years and
more probably went that way.
But Melissie was young, and
she didn’t tread that pathway
through the shadows very often
or for any considerable distanoa
True, the cotton field was white
and hot, and chopping was rather
wearisome work, even the
patch was pleasantly threaded
with the green of the growing
plants, but Mellssie’s heart was
one of optimism and hope, and
she wasn’t going to worry.
And so her mind went hack to
the big store in town, and she
pictured herself in that new calico
dress, with stockings on, and that
entrancing hat with the feather
in It was upon her dark hair,
perched Jauntily Just above her
eyes of blue—and presently down
th© primroae way of her youthful
imagination there came again
Prince Charming, who used to
"sing a little tenor, sing a little
baritone, and also sing a little
bass” in the village choir, back
home, "down on the farm!”
Old “Buck,” guided by the
faithful and vigilant hand of
"Bud,” made many trips back and
forth thereafter, but Melissie nev
er noticed.
“Bud” vociferously vocalized
the delights of working on the
rail-1-road for the munificent re
muneration of 75 cents per diem,
and still Melissie chopped her
way, up and down the rowe of
growing green, and dreamed her
dreams, undisturbed and alto
gether unafraid.
The field was hot and white,
and the green rows were long in
the scorching July sun—but her
heart was young, and as yet her
limbs were supple and strong
with the vigor of budding woman
hood, not nearly yet abloom; and
she saw only the rainbows and
the sweets of life, which was
right, of course!
That night It was a very tired
and a very weary little girl that
crawled into bed back home in
the grove of scrubby oaks, and
the katydids had the hardest kind
of time lullabylng her to complete
rest—but all through the pleas
ant twilight borderland of slum
ber Melissie could hear a strong
young voice, owned and possessed
by a nattily-dressed young fellow
who used to live "back on the
farm”—and the song he was sing
ing had nothing to do with work
ing on the rail-l-l-road for 75
cents a day.
What the voice was chanting in
Mellssie’s ears as she finally
dropped Into deep and refreshing
sleep was—
“Sing. a little tenors,
Sing a little baritone,
Also
sing
a
little
bass !**
By WEX JONES.
Paterson is turning out silk suits tor men. What’s more impor
tant, Paterson is also turning out men game enough to wear ’em.
Speaking of heroes, has any one ever heard of a wireless operator
deserting his post?
Continuous vaudeville: Villa and Obregon.
One of our best little diplomatic agents is the slide in the Culebra
Cut. Can always depend on it when we want to keep the fleet In the
Atlantic.
Life’s mysteries: Automatic cigar lighters.
Esteemed contemporary says. “Reply will be a friendly refusal."
Ever get a friendly smash on the nose?
Supreme Court Justice refuses to allow a society to be incorporated
under the name of Daffodil Club. Maybe the worthy Jurist hates daffo
dils as much as we do parsnips.
Pittsburg Gazette is anxious to learn why Mrs. Noah allowed a
mouse aboard the ark. Probably the mouse strolled aboard while Mrs.
Noah was on the roof holding up her skirts. ;