Newspaper Page Text
EDITORIAL PAGE
THE ALANTA GEORGIAN
Published by THE GEORGIAN COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama Strect, Atlanta, Ga.
¥ntered as second-class matter at postoffice at Atlaula under Act of March 3, 1872
.
We Apologize to the
Laundrymen
They Do NOT Put in a Shirt as Many Pins as It Will Hold.
The shirt comes home from the laundry. The owner sits down,
like one before a picture puzzle, silently, sullenly removing pins
that the laundryman has put into the shirt.
Some of the pins are rusted in, and thumb nails are broken
getting them out.
Some pins seem to have a point only, no head. The patient
owner turns the shirt over and over, explores it inside and out,
rumples and musses it thoroughly, then solves each pin-head -
problem.
He finds nearly all of the pins. One or two find him after he
puts the shirt on—and that is life as the laundrymen make it.
We firmly believed and have publicly asserted that laundry- l
men hire compctent engineers to draw plans for putting into a
shirt as many pins as the shirt can possibly hold. We discover,
however, that this is not true; we retract the statement and apol
ogize to the laundrymen.
{ The man who makes a NEW shirt and sells it to you is the
"man who really has solved the pin problem and learned how to
put into a shirt more pins than any other living human being.
For instance:
! A man bought a new shirt, with all the qualities of a new
shirt. The sleeves were much too long, of course, and somebody
had to take a ‘‘tuck’’ in each. It was made so that if the wearer
ever happened to increase forty inches in his waist girth it would
still be big enough.
As regards pins, this new shirt was on the surface innocent,.
Not a pin to be seen anywhere, not an indented spot to indicate
that a pin was hiding.
The man held it by the collar, shook it gently. It did not
‘‘come out,’’ but remained a neatly folded shirt, arms, tails, all
firmly folded. There was mystery there, which was cautiously
probed.
We hestitate to mention the weight of the pins taken from
this one harmless looking new shirt.
And we can not enumerate in detail the marvelous proofs
of ingenuity that the pin engineer demonstrated.
'- You have seen the picture of some ancient holy man, with
his left hand against his left breast, his right hand against his
right breast, in deep contemplation. The shirt was pinned in that ‘
attitude.
The left cuff was pinned against the left breast, and the
right cuff pinned against the right breast. But HOW were those
cuffs pinned? There were the cuffs fastened, but the eye detected
no fastener.
You leaned your head sidewise, and forward, closed one
eye and put your finger cautiously inside the cuff, and found
nothing.
You started up the cuff, then came down, and the point of
one pin rewarded you.
You stopped and reasoned. It was a shirt with the cuffs fold
ing back. You went sidewise and slowly in between the two
cuff folds and you found the head of a pin. You stuck it in the
pin-cushion and that was done.
You went through the same operation on the other cuff, and
got another pin, Btill the shirt maintained its attitude of adora
tion or supplication. The little cuffs remained fastened against
the shirt breasts.
““What to do?’’ as the Japanese would say.
These two pins had nothing to do with holding up the little
shirt hands. They were just there to hold the cuffs together, as \
though glned. |
; Two more were there to hold the cuffs together. You found ‘
one; the other, like Kipling's ship, found itself. |
Btill the hands of the shirt were pressed against the bosom.
Underneath the bosom of the shirt, only to be unearthed after
you had first unpinned the shirt tails, you found the retaining
pins that held the sleeves to the chest.
Unpinning the tails of a new shirt is a task. When you pulled
the tail feathers out of an old turkey gobbler—unless he were
very thoroughly scalded—you were apt to deform the Thanks.
giving ornament.
Taking pins from new shirt tails without tearing those tails
from their foundation is much more difficult than picking an old
gobbler,
Each tail was pinned Up. Each SIDE of each tail was pinned
DOWN, because it was necessary to fold them over neatly.
Each shoulder was pinned to the back of the shirt in a
curious way.
* Because editorial space is so valuable we can not tell you
any more about the pins in that shirt. But a new game should
be started in the United States, and it should be called ‘‘UNPIN.
NING THE SHIRT.”
When a new shirt arrives the baby should be tied in his crib.
The family should sit about the table, under the warm glow of
the evening lamp, each member of the family having a soup plate
in front of him. Each should pick pins industriously for a lim.
ited time, say fifteen minutes.
At the end of that time the member of the family having the
largest heap of pins in his soup plate and the fewest pricked fin
gers should get a prize.
Thmbymthusmoofthstvhichhnowsh&rdduty
some sorrow could be taken out of life.
; We sarted this editorial to apologize to laundrymen and say
we were mistaken in our idea that they put into each shirt as \
MANY pins as one shirt can hold. They do not. For a winter's
'y of pins gets a new shirt, i
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
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CFTMAN
The best friend you will ever hagve is your bank book.
He may be rather hard to get acquainted with at first, but
after you know him a little while you will be interested in
watching him grow and develop. In case of trouble or
sickness he is a good fellow to have around.
MChildren Habits of Thrif‘fl
By Dorothy Dix.
RE vou ralsing your boy to
A be a spender?
Are you teaching your
girl to be a waster?
Are you.bringing up your chil
dren to throw money away, and to
think that the only use of a dol
lar is to blow it in as quickly as
possible?
Are you inculeating in your
children no idea of economy, and
no habit of thrift?
If you are, You are blighting
your children's lives. You are
handicapping their future,
You are raising up a man who
will be poor, and hard run, and in
debt to the end of his days. He
will be one of those men who,
with plenty of ability and energy,
never arrive anywhere, and who
at last get discouraged and qual
ify as members of the Down and
Out Club,
You are raising up a daughter
who will keep her husband's nose
to the grindstone as long as he
lives, and who will bar his way to
success by her mountains of bills.
FOND AND FOOLISH PARENTS
OFTEN STINT THEMSELVES
TO SPOIL THEIR CHILDREN.
The greatest fault in the Amer
fcan character Is extravagance,
and instead of trying to eradicate
it in their children, the average
father and mother cultivate it,
Go into any household that you
will, and you will be shocked at
the way the children are taught
to waste money. All day long
there Is a never-ending appeal
from Johnnie and Mamie and Su
sle for dimes for the movies,
nickels for ice cream and soda
water, and pennles for this or
that.
This is the case even among
people who have to toil hard for
every dollar they have, and who
live always on the ragged edge
of hard times. They are bound
that their children shall be in
dulged. Father will do without
the warm coat that he needs and
mother will wear leaky shoes that
Johnnie and Mamie may have
some ridiculously eéxpensive toy
upon which they have set their
hearts.
“We want our children to be
happy. We don't want them to
be burdened when they are little
by having to think how far a dol-
Your Best Friend
lar can be made to go, as we do.
They'll have to worry about mon
ey soon enough,” say these par
ents, in self-excuse of their folly.
A CHILD TRAINED TO EXTRAVA.-
GANCE IS FOREDOOMED TO
POVERTY ALL HIS LIFE.
To which one may reply that if
You Dbogin teaching children
thrift in their cradles they will
not have to stretch their dollars
g 0 far, nor will they need to wor
ry about money when they come
to their parents’ age. Nothing is
more certain than this, that if we
take care of our money when we
are young our money will take
care of us when we are old.
Any boy who grows up with the
belief that money was only made
to spend, and whose money
burns in his pocket until it burns
a hole through it, is foredoomed
to poverty. No matter how much
he makes, it all goes for nothing.
He can never take advantage
of opportunities that come his
way, because opportunity has to
be backed by a bank account. If
he gets sick or loses his job, he
becomes a burden on other peo
ple, and in his old age he is de
pendent on the charity of others.
He has got nothing to show for
his life's work just because he has
Inklings and Thinklings l
et
? By Wex Jones. .
Must be a Republican plot, this barber's strike. It can't embarrass
Hughes and Fairbanks.
Serbs take first line trenches.—Headline.
They never come back, eh?
Has anybody yet addressed Candidate Hughes as “‘Charlie?”
Jobs we don't want: National guardsman on border waiting for
his pay.
Sporting page mentions a fighter named “Irish Patsy Cline.” Surely
one of these three words is superfluous.
Suppose you were a spy—or suppose you were not a spy—and
somebody came up to you in a hurry and shouted at you, “Say ‘squir
rel,'" do you think you could do it in a manner to avoid suspicion?
And suppose-—or don't suppose—your wife asked you to say “squirrel”
when you got home at 3 a. m. from, well, from wherever you were,
When you are sitting on the doorstep of a cabin in the Ozarks with
twenty miles of scenery before you and a hound's head resting affection
ately on your knees, nothing much matters,—Bt. Louis Globe-Democrat.
Nothing C%ULD matter in the Ozarks.
When an opportunity comes for an investment where
you can better yourself and you need some money quickly
he won’t turn YOU down if YOU have treated him right.
Better start that bank account to-day.
never learned to save when he
was Young.
The wickedest woman on
earth is no more a curse to her
husband than is the good woman
who is wasteful and extravagant.
No man can make any headway
against a wife with a spending
mania.
She makes of her husband a
slave who is sold into bondage to
milliners and dressmakers, and
grocers and butchers. Many a
great career, many a great man’'s
life is sacrificed to a woman's
having the bargain counter habit.
All of these catastrophes could
be prevented by parents teach
ing their children habits of thrift
when they are little. If every
child was taught to save instead
of to spend; if it was taught that
a collection of nickels is far more
interesting than a collection of
marbles or dolls, that one of the
most exciting things in the world
is to watch a bank account grow,
we should do away with nine
tenths of our failures and loafers,
and half of our divorces.
Nor is this as difficuit a thing
as it seems. Foolish spending is
simply a bad habit, It's merely
the gratification of a passing
fancy.
Most of the things that children
waste money on they don’t want
the second after they have got
them, as is proved by the clutter
of toys that every child possesses
that he never plays with-—useless
toys that often total up into the
hundreds of dollars,
If the child was taught to at
least Jut half of all the money
given him in a bank, and shown
how this money grows, and how
it represents some big thing he
wants, while the money that he
spent has gone forever, he would
soon become as interested in sav
ing as he is in wasting.
SAVINGS BANK ACCOUNT AP.
PEALS TO A CHILD AS FEW
OTHER THINGS DO.
Every child should have a say
ings bank account started in his
own name. He should be permit
ted to go personally to the bank
with his little deposits, and he
will soon come to feel that it's a
far more interesting experience
than a visit to the candy shop,
and that the sense of pride in
having a real bank book to show
the olher boys is a more exhila
rating feeling than exhibiting a
new bat or ball.
I have seen the bank account
experiment tried on numerous .
small boys and girls, and I have
never seen a child yet that didn’t
respond enthusiastically to it, nor
one who didn't get so interested
in it that he or she didn't soon
begin to let mother and father
and uncles and aunts know that a
check was the most acceptable
of all presents on birthdays and
holidays.
You can get a child interested
in saving for a definite purpose——
a bicycle, a motor boat, a trip—
anything that is a big desire, and
in so doing you have taught him
one of the great lessons of life,
to sacrifice the impulse of the mo
ment for a greater pleasure later
on, to do without the little things
that he may have the big thing.
Teach your children thrift
when they are little. It makes
them good citizens, good hus
bands, good wives. It assures
them of independence and pros
perity. Don't be afrald of mak
ing them care too much for mon
ey. The people who care most for
money are those who haven't got
it, and who feel the need of it at
every turn.
Don’t raise your children to be
spenders. =
THE HOME PAPER
B an Ringin
etter than Ringing
: Bells .
o Pooe:Bells -.8
Do You Know That These Little Talks on Advertising Are
Attracting Attention All Over the South? Why? Read
Them, and Maybe You Will Understand. One
Every Tuesday—in This Place. -
A piano manufacturer recently made a house-to-house can
vass. He's one of those men with an absurd fear of the ‘‘waste
circulation’’ bugaboo—can not get away from the haunting
thought that only 10 out of every 100 readers of a newspaper
may be possible buyers of his goods.
So he refused to advertise, and went a-canvassing—inviting
people to come to his piano recitals.
Then he wondered why they DIDN'T come.
This is why:
He WASN'T reaching the people.
His canvassers rang every door bell in town. They talked
to someone in every house.
But one in every household isn’t enough—particularly if it
doesn’t happen to be the right person. And, asa rule, it
WASN'T the right person—it was a servant or a child. The
woman of the house was seldom seen; the man of the house,
never,
Now, if the piano-maker had placed an advertisement in the
newspaper, it would have reached thousands, where the canvas
sers could reach only hundreds. s
And even though only 10 per cent. of the readers are actual
piano buyers, this does not mean that the advertising read by
the other 90 per cent, is vasted. Advertising talks, not only to
the prospective buyer, but also to his wife, his grown-up sons and
daughters, his mother—even his mother-in-law. Their coaxing
will help to convince the head of the house—and pretty soon
there’ll be a piano in that home.
This and dozens of similar cases might be cited to show that
“‘waste circulation’’ is an empty bugaboo, and should deter no
one. ;
Take the motor truck. It can be sold only to large firms. Yet
motor truck manufacturers are successfully advertising in daily
newspapers. They realize that they must reach, not alone the
managers of the concerns that require trucks, but also their di
rectors, their foremen, their head machinists and even their la
borers.
IT IS FOUND IN ACTUAL PRACTICE THAT THIS AD.-
VERTISING RADIATES IN A THOUSAND DIRECTIONS,
AND AGAIN CONVERGES MOST ASTONISHINGLY TO IN.
FLUENCE THE HOUSE THAT HAS MADE UP ITS MIND
THAT HORSE-TRUCKING IS TOO COSTLY AND INEFFIL
CIENT.
The Conquering Smile
By Ada Patterson.
LAST evening I needed post
age stamps and postcards,
and the branch mail sta
tion in the neighborhood being
closed, went into a drug store to
buy them. The tired cashier be
hind the railing that is so like a
bird cage sold me all the aids to
correspondence left in the stamp
box.
Just then a sweet thread of a
voice, coming from somewhere
about the ground at our feet,
said: “My mamma wants two
postal cards, please.”
“Haven't any. Just sold the
last ones.” The cashier was tired.
A long, weary business day takes
the sweetness out of a woman's
voice. It had put the steeltrap
qua!lty into hers. A crowded,
walting desk called on me and I
was hurrying to it as a mother to
a crying child. But we both no
ticed something.
It untied the tired muscles in
the cashier’'s face. She looked ten
years younger and far prettier. It
held me to the spot as though I
had grown there. The call of the
desk was forgotten,
That something was the child's
smile, She was a little creature,
“Seven-and-a-half,” she said, with
evident pride in the extra six
months, that, when she is older,
she will be glad to forget. She
lived just around the corner.
Mamma wanted the postcards so
that she might write the laun
dress to call a day earlier for the
clothes, and the woman who
cleaned house to change her day
to Tuesday. Mamma would be
disappointed. While she was tell
ing the little household story she
looked up first at the cashier, then
at me. Her eyes were wide and
trusting. They were brown,
Brown eyes that are well trained
and can do a great deal with a
glance. They are linguists.
They speak the everyday lan
guage of commonplace things, but
they speak also the language of
sentiment. The brown eyes that
1 slave known best ask for love
and always receive It.
The child smiled on The cash
fer's face looked less and less
tired. 1 had thought her face a
little hard. 1 saw now that it
was tender,
I watched the child's smile,
Analyzed, as a chemist analyzes
a liquid in his laboratory, it was
made up of one part trust, one
part sunniness of nature, one part
interest in all persons and things
that crossed its line of vision.
With those eyves upon me and
that conquering smile curving the
child’'s lips, I opened the package
and handed her two of the postal
cards. What if I needed them to
forward addresses? What did
much weightier things matter if
that child would only keep om
smiling?
She accepted the postcards, in
sisted upon paying the two pen
nies for them, and thanked me.
We watched the little figure trot
around the corner, the little hand
gripping tightly its purchase,
The cashier and 1 looked at
each ‘other and understood. The
same thought was in our minds.
It was in that of Epictetus, the
Greek slave philosopher, when he
wrote:
“What could Perseus, a single
person, do? What does the color
purple do for a garmwent? It 1s
beautiful and gives to everyone
who sees it the message of
beauty.”
That is what a smile does. A
real smile that is no mere crack
ing of the face, no mere showing
of the teeth by a perceptible ef
fort, is a megsage that tells of
the beauty of life. It tells of life's
gentleness, its flluminations, its
exaltations, its joys.
When that child goes to school
her smile will win her teacher
and fellow pupils. When she
grows into the sweet, short estate
of maldenhood it will win for her
a man's heart. If she concludes
to walk life's way with him, the
smile will be his beacon. If chil
dren come to them, her smile will
heal their childish hurts. When
the brown hair, with its red ribe
bon bow, has turned silver and is
worn in a stately crown on her
head, her smile will reassure
those who fear, encourage those
who are dispirited. When she has
gone into the shadows, that final
ly encompass us all, the smile will
be remembered. It will have
smoothed the difficulties from her
way and that of others. Whoe
knows how many others? All, fne
deed, who saw it. It was the con~
quering smile, 3 -,