Newspaper Page Text
EDITORIAL PAGE
THE ATLAN EORGIAN
Pubdlished by THE O'EIC:!!.(;AIAN gKPANY
Bt Ao kg,
s evdradasciet copandoves ol e X nssa i 06
.
The United StatesNotOnly CAN
f But Does—
It Can Manage Its Own Properties, It Does Manage Its Own
Properties, It OUGHT to Manage and Own Its Railroads,
Telegraphs, Telephones and Many Other Things.
Recently it was asserted in England by authority of Lord
Kitchener that the British Empire must have a military institu
tion for the training of its officers equal to our American Academy
at West Point.
This is an interesting compliment to the efficiency of the
American Government in one of its great institutions. It also
has a significant bearing on a question which, sooner or later, will
command the exclusive attention of the American people. It is
one of the thousand answers which can be made to the charge of
the financial interests that the United States can not own and
operate its own public utilities as efficiently as the other great
nations of the world own and operate their public utilities.
It has been the principal contention of the gentlemen who
have made or hope to make large private fortunes by manipu
lating the railroads, and of those timid citizens who regard what
ever gentlemen of high finance say as gospel, that the United
States, for some unknown reason, is not as capable of operating
a great business as the other big nations of the world. But when
you compare the capacity of our national Government in the
things which it undertakes to do in competition with other coun
wies, we find that the facts show that not only are we worthy
competitors, but that we set an example to the other nations.
Some opponents of the public ownership of the railroads,
telephone and telegraph companies may say that England has
not proved a great military nation. It is true that her failures in
the present war have been humiliating and disastrous, but Eng
land is capable of recognizing a good thing when she sees it, and
her military authorities, well acquainted with the best European
military institutions, recognize our West Point as an eminent
example of efficiency.
On the other hand, England is regarded as the greatest gov
ernor of colonies the world has ever known. But the American
Government has successfully competed with England even in the
colonial fleld. The most efficint colonial government is the gov
ernment that does the most for its colonies. Not only does the
result of our occupation of the Philippines, of the Panama Zone,
~ of Hawaii, of Porto Rico and our temporary occupation of Cuba
compare favorably in its beneficent results with Britain's rule in
her colonies, but the facts are beyond doubt that our American
Government has wrought twice the benefactions in half the time
for our possessions that England under comparable circumstanoes
has wrought for her possessions.
~ If an American wants to feel proud of his country, he wants
to study the good we have done in the Philippine Islands, where
we have banished ignorance and disease and are bringing in its
place education and health; where we have been successfully
combating the poverty of a country without industry an da peas
antry without land. v
Thanks to the courage of Gifford Pinchot, the distinguished
and patriotic Progressive; Glavis, the fearless public servant, and
Louis D. Brandeis, the tireless “‘people’s lawyer,”’ the United
States Government has wrested from piratical hands of Wall
Street the great wealth in the public domain of Alaska and is
now opening that wonderful country to all the people by a Gov
ernment built and operated railroad and by other incidental
Government enterprises.
The whole world knows the story of the Panama Canal,
knows how, when all private enterprise had failed, the United
Btates Government, under the leadership of an army engineer
educated at West Point, conquered nature in one of her most
impregnable fastnesses, intrenched by tropical marshes, tropical
heat, insects and disease. The whole world recognizes that in
the building of the Panama Canal the United States Government
has performed the world’s greatest engineering feat. ’
The development of Hawaii, Cuba and Porto Rico under the
guidance of the United States Government is more wonderful
than the development of any colonies of England, for England’s
\ best colonies have grown by her neglect. &
Our Government in character is like a great many boys, It
needs to carry a load; it performs its biggest tasks best. The
fault of our Government is that it does not extend its functions,
and thus, by undertaking to do what other nations do for their
#wm people, compel itself to do its task well from the very size
of the task.
| A distinguished and thoughtful American citizen onoe said:
*“Of half tolerable evils the American people are the best natured
___and the most patient in the world, but of the wholly intolerable
have less patience than any other people.”’ If we were to
and operate our railroads, telegraph and telephons com.
Panies, as the other great nations are operating theirs, it would
‘ bosjoboftheaiuthnthomflm people always do well,
Lospause we should have to do our best. We know from our West
Engnt, our postoffice, our parcel post, our Panama Canal, our
& kin the Philippines, Hawaif, Cuba and Porto Rico, that our
flghumdummammmla
"THE ATLANTA (GEORGIAN
The Escapades of Mr. Jack -:- By Jimmy Swinnerton
By eit e
R ==
iy ‘ v N
S-AT S é
“l, P e ——— %,
e Lém
3.
‘ RIS
:, 1Y A 5
=
S _ LYe Colonial Inp ... -]
° =N
@ lr:.._ ’ —:—lggg;' i
=OO BEn - |
0 g
E—J][\ OLO| 8| 3
§ s=== == 2
U ~Ga\ o) 3 1
5 i ="~—.—.v
Wit
= 0
More Truth Than I
® Poetry @ l
By JAMES J. MONTAGUE.
THE AD AND THE MAN.
He saw the ad from day to day,
And muttered: “I defy it;
Their stuff may be just what they
say,
But I'm not going to buy it.”
As time wore on he made remarks
It would not do to mention,
For he was mad because that ad
Was sorted on his attention.
But in a week, or two, or three,
He said: “There's no denying
The way that ad gets hold of me
The stuff may be worth trying.”
For just about a fortnight more
He dared mere words to win
him,
And then the ad completely had
Aroused the spender in him.
Next day he drifted in a store ‘
And quietly expended 1
A few big iron dollars for
The stuff the ad corhmended.
He found it filled a long-felt need;
Its excellence surprised him,
And now he's glad because the ad
So deftly hypnotized him.
VALETUDINARIAN VERBOSITY,
Mr. Hughes has called Mr. Red
fleld a liar, but you never would
know it without sedulous refer
ence to a dictionary and a the
saurus.
SURE FIRE COUNSEL.,
Advice is usually little needed,
but we feel sure that the solemn
warning of the esteemed Chicago
Herald that political utterances
should not be taken seriously has
not been spoken in vain.
CRUEL AND INMUMAN TREAT.
MENT,
Benator LaFollette can not talk
' at State fairs in Wisconsin un
less he promises not to talk poli
ties, which means that Senator
LaFollette can not talk at State
fairs in Wisconsin at all
lonl CAN BE A TRIFLE TOO HU
MANE.
The lady who protests against
keeping trapped flies without food
and water would probably object
to catching sharks because the
hooks must hurt their sensitive
gullets.
o
Keeping Your “Best” Best |
MAN came home the other
day, so say the newspapers,
and found his children play
ing with his best hat, and got so
angry that he scolded them—yes,
regularly scolded his own chil
dren for destroying his hat. His
wife remonstrated with him for
being so harsh, and he scolded
her. Then he goth rather too ex
cited—it was only a hat, after
all—and he beat his wife. She
screamed, and it all ended by the
unreasonable man being locked up
in jail overnight.
Why will a man be such a
brute?
The neighbors were indignant.
In fact, everyone who heard of
the case was astonished to think
a man could, would or should get
into such a temper about a hat.
Poor man! 1 hope the police
men were kind to him while he
was going to jail. I hope the
the prison keepers fixed the cell
as comfortable as possible and
sald a few kind words when they
pushed him in. It isn't so hard,
perhaps, to be locked up over
night when you've had the satis
faction of actually doing some
thing to be locked up for. But,
oh, the disheartening mockery of
sitting in a cell and arguing with
just yourself all night trying to
come to some rational coneclusion
ip such a case as this.
This man had bought that new
hat with hard-earned money. It
had been a little extravagant, he
thought, but he'd planned to wear
it when he asked for a contract
that he knew would mean *“good
money,” and he needed to make
good money in plenty to keep the
wife and the babies.
Haven't you known of dozens
of homes where about the only
real impression you got to carry
away with you waswaste? 1
have, and I've wondered how a
man's nerves could bear the
strain.
THEIR CARELESS WIVES,
Some men work really hard, all
day, and they glory in It, not for
the joy of work alone, but for the
comfort of feeling that they are
~ providing for the present and fu
| ture of the wile and the chil
2. — "
/\KW\ |
“’é// {‘:‘é )
e &i% &
Ju b
e, L S
i ) ==/ Q__
D) D B
4 SwNneREN-
By Winifred Black.
dren who are the pride of their
hearts.
Why is it these men so often
get such qareleus wives?
The kitchen machinery seems
to work only to grind up dollars
to put in the garbage pail. The
house gets marred and torn for
the benefit of the repair men.
The clothes get the “new off”
discouragingly soon, just as if
they were working for the dry
goods men.
The shoe man seems to have a
death grip on the family through
some mysterious machinations.
And the only way the one who
earns the money to pay for all
this can make sure of having
~ anything to wear himself is to
have his own closet and lock his
- own clothes in it, against that
- Say.
‘ When I was a little girl I didn’t
~ even know where rather kept his
~ best hat, and the abiding place of
i my own was a matter of confi
dence between me and my mother
—a sort of sacred place where I
could go on Sundays and holi
days and take it off the peg—it
and the little flower-splashed
muslin dress with the dainty rib
bons on it. How I loved them
both and how proudly happy I
was in the wearing of them!
OUR CHILDHOOD DAYS.
If I had a little girl in to play,
I could, by asking permission,
take her to gaze rapturously at
the hat and the gown. But we
never touched them-—oh, no! We
had our dolls to dress and ou~
little cakes to eat, and the game
of “I spy” to play in the garden.
There was so much to do we
didn't want to disturb the dress
and hat. And father had worked
80 hard to buy them for me!
But nowadays people who
haven't a bit more of the goods of
this world than we had then seem
_ to take the having of them much
more lightly. They act as if there
was a great storehouse on the
roof, with chutes leading into
every single apartment—all full
of everything heart could desire
or fancy picture—and as If all
that was necessary was to wish
for an article, press the electric
button, and down it would come
joytully through the tube to greet
you.
5.
K
Q 7 A SR
g\'r 4
el
e
|
Letters From the ||
® People ® |
|
GEORGIAN EDITORIALS HELP
FUL. ‘
Editor The Georgian: |
From time to time editorials
from The Georgian have been ex
ceedingly helpful in impressing
upon our salesmen common-sense ‘
principles of proper living and
business philosophy as these prin
ciples have been outlined in your
editorial columns.
One in particular has met with
much response on the part of our
salesmen. It was relative to the
salesmanship of Captain Koenig,
of the Deutschland, and referred
to the quality of persistence and
intelligence necessary to reach
the buying head which this Ger
man mariner demonstrated in
bringing to the American mar
ket a cargo of materials at the
present time in tremendous de
mand in this country.
I mention these facts to you
merely as a tribute of apprecia
tion, as I know that the greatest
satisfaction in the day's work of
an editorial writer is to know
that the expression of his
thoughts and theories is “getting
. Oveß™
| It is my hope that the readers
- of The Georgian will be favored
with more editorials of a similar
‘ nature shortly.
CHARLES C. MULLALY.
Savannah. 3
“ :-t In-Shoots :-: "
l Envy is sure to shrivel the soul.
s 2N
Honest opinions often invite
hard knocks.
. . -
Love is blind to the things that
any fool ought to see.
K - -
The reformed villain without
his war paint is usually a very
tame cuss.
- . v
We can usuaily see the fine
points that are missed in the
other fellow's game.
- - -
Lots of six-cylinder fellows
have failed on account of deficits
in the gasoline tanks.
- - .
The man who leads the simple
life generally has 4 good appetite
in the morning.
» . .
Some men are like roosters;
they make a lot of noise when
there is nothing to crow about,
THE HOME PAPER
If You Could Live Seventy
Times 21,000 Years—
You Would See the Winter and Summer of the Earth.
The other day we referred to the arrangement for the pur
chase of the Danish West Indies. The United States under that
arrangement gets the Danish West Indies now belonging to Dey.
mark. Denmark gets any rights that we may have in Green.
land.
It was pointed out that some time from now—ten or fifteeq
thousand years—Greenland will be very much more valuably
than the Danish West Indies, more valuable than the State of
New York. We promised you at that time to get from the learned
astronomer, Professor Garrett P. Serviss, an account of that ex.
traordinary movement of the Pole, which revolves once in abouf
twenty-one thousand years, causing a shifting of the N orth and
South Pole ice toward the Equator. Intelligent readers will be
deeply interested in the following statement and explanation by
Professor Serviss:
By PROFESSOR SERVISS.
UMAN life is too short—not
H for making money, or for
becoming a ‘“great man”
temporarily, but for getting a
practical knowledge of the Great
Year of the Equinoxes, and en
joying the swing of the earth’'s
poles as they circle around the
poles of the ecliptic. This motion
of the poles, combined with the
squirming around of the earth’s
orbit in space, periodically revo
lutionizes the climates in the
northern and southern hemi
spheres. :
“But one would have .o live 21,-
000 years in order to go through
a single cycle of the vast changes
which are produced in the course
of this superyear, and if a man
could survive 60 or 70 of these
periods as he survives the same
number of common -years, he
would .probably reckon histery by
the successiorn of genial and gla
cial epochs instead of by that of
ordinary winters and summers.
Here is the whole thing in a
nusthell: The earth turns on its
axis once in 24 hours and gives us
the succession of day and night;
it revolves around the sun once in
365 days and gives us the yearly
changes of season; its poles re
volve around the poles of the
ecliptic once in 26,000 years and
give us the superyear, whose
length, as measured by its ef
fect on the seasons, is cut down
to 21,000 years by the creeping, or
squirming, of the orbit. But this
last cycle is known to us only by
virtue of our intelligence, since
our life {s but an insect's span in
comparison with it.
To understand this let us first
recall that the ordinary changes
of season are due to the fact that
the axis around which the earth
rotates does not stand upright to
the plane of its orbit around the
sun (which is the plane of the
ecliptic), but is inclined about
23 1-2 degrees from a perpendic
ular position. That being under
stood, the next thing is to remem
ber that the earth’s axis, although
inclined, is nevertheless fixed in
position, i. e, it always points the
same way In space, so that, as
the earth travels around the sun
first one end, or pole, of the axis
leans toward the sun, and then,
when the earth has gone halfway
Tound {ts orbit, the other pole
leans toward the sun.
We call one end of the earth’s
axis the North Pole and the other
the South Pole. TWhen the North
Pole leans sunward the South
Pole leans away from the sun,
and vice versa.
But when either pole inclines
sunward the sun rises high over
the hemisphere to which that
pole belongs, and so summer pre
‘vails in that hemisphere, while it
is winter in the other hemisphere,
because there the sun runs low in
the sky. These conditions are re
versed once every twelve months,
each hemisphere having a sum
mer half and a winter half of the
year, spring and autumn being
simply transitional periods.
The two halves of the year
would he exactly alike in each
hemisphere if the earth’'s orbit
around the sun were a perfect cir
cle, with the sun in the center.
But, in fact, the orbit is an ellipse,
or oval, with the sun situated in
one of the foci of the ellipse, about
1,500,000 miles to one side of the
middle.
One result.of this is that the
distance of the earth from the
sun, about 93,000,000 miles on the
average, changes to the extent of
8,000,000 miles in the course of
every six months. The nearer it
is, of course, the more heat it
gets. At present the increase of
heat at “perihelion” (the nearest
point) is about 6 per cent above
the amount at “aphelion” (the
farthest point).
Now we come to something of
the highest importance to us who
live in the northern hemisphere.
It happens at present that the
earth is in perihelion just at the
time when the North Pole leans
away from the sun, and in aphe
lion when it leans toward the sun,
The consequence is that we have
winter when the earth is nearest
the sun and our summer when it
is farthest from the sun. This
naturally tends to diminish the
effects of the Jdifference in the
amount of heat received at the
two seasons. Our winters are
less cold than they would be if
they occurred with the earth in
aphelion, and out summers less
hot than if they occurred with the
earth in -perihelion.
But there is still another thing
which favors us for the time be
ing, and that is that, since tha
earth travels fasters in its orbit
when it is nearer the sSun and
slower when it is farther, our
winters are about a week shorter
than our summers. So our
hemisphere is now in what may
be called the genial half of the
great equinoctial year. Of course,
the opposite condition of affairs
prevails in the southern hemi
sphere, but we will deal with that
later.
Now comes the effect of the
revolution of the poles, which will
upset our happy condition. The
statement that the earth’s axis is
fixed in position, while true enough
when we are dealing with ordi
nary periods of time, is not true
when we consider epochs of thou
sands of years. It can be likened
to the peg of aspinning top which
is inclined out of a perpendicular,
The end of such a peg revolves in
a circle, with a motion much
slower than the spin of the top.
In a similar way each end, or pole,
of the earth’s axis revolves in a
circle, with one of the poles of
the ecliptic for its center of mo
tion.
The result of this revolution,
which takes about 26,000 years, is
to produce, once in 13,000 years,
a complete reversal of the direc
tion in which the earth's axis
points. Just now the North Pole
of the axis leans in the direction
of the perihelion end of the or
bit, so ‘hat the northern hemi
sphere has its winter when the
earth is in perihelion. But in
13,000 years the North Pole will
lean in the direction of the
aphelion end of the orbit, and
then we shall have our winters
when the earth is in aphelion,
and when it is traveling slowest,
so that the winters will be both
colder and longer.
But, if you are going to under
stand the whole of this wonderful
business, I must next explain the
swinging round of the earth’s or
bit which has the effect of dimin
ishing the length of the ':great
year.” The revolution of the
poles is caused by ‘what astrono
mers call the precession of the
equinoxes, and the motion is
from east to west, an entire rev
olution taking 26.900 years.
The turning round of the orbit
in space is called the motion of
the apsides, the apsides being
the perihelion ang aphelion
points, and this takes place from
west to east. A complete revolu
tion of the apsides—if the mo
tion were constant, which it is
not quite—would require about
115,000 years. Combining the etf
fects of the precession of the
equinoxes and the motion of the
apsides, we find that, since they
swing round toward one an
other, they bring about an entire
reversal of the slope of the
«arth’s axis with reference to the
,apsides in 10,500 ysars, or 2,500
years sooner than such a reversal
would oceur through the action of
the precession alone. In about
10,000 years, then, we shall have
long, cold winters and short, hot
summers in our part of the
earth,
A word about .our neighbors
south of the equator.. They at
present have the long, cold win
ters and the short, hot summers
that the future promises to us,
but they suffer less from them
than we shall do because their
hemisphere is emphatically a
water hemisphere and a well
known effect of an oceanic cli
mate is to mitigate the results of
extremes of temperature.
At the same time the southern
hemisphere shows the effect of
its long and bitter winters in the
vast accumulation of ice in the
Antarctic, far greater than that
in the Arctic regions. Some as
tronomers and geologists are in
clined to ascribe the great gla
clal ages of the past to . these
changes of the pointigg of the
poles which at certain epochs,
much longer than those with
which we have been dealing, are
made more effective by varia
tions in the eccentricity, or oval
ness, of the earth’s, orbit. But,
whether we have a true glacial
epoch 10,000 years from now or
not, it is certain that our ol
mate will be far less genial and
agreeable than it is now, a fact
that will lead some of us to put
up more willingly with its pres
ent caprices. 4