Newspaper Page Text
Vol. 41
Lloyd George A Single
Taxer?
When the aristocratic land owners of Eng¬
land grouped themselves under the name of
“Conservatives” and agreed among them¬
selves, without consulting the masses, that
Lloyd George must go, they did a dangerous
thing for themselves and for the British Em¬
pire, and time will teach them a valuable les¬
son, because Lloyd George has appealed his
case to the people and he tells the land grab¬
bers and public plunderers that his sword is
in his hand.
Unlike William E. Gladstone, who put
through a secret session of Parliament a bill
by which the Prince of Wales beat his credi¬
tors, Lloyd George has not been willing, du¬
ring his many years of service to the people oi
the empire to lick the boots of members of the
royal household in order to retain himself in
office.
He has been a progressive during his en
tire public life, and he has not counted favor
at the hands of the rich, while-at the same
•time, he has shown himself big enough, and
broad enough, to treat all classes alike, equal
rights to all and special favors to none. public
On account of his liberal views on
questions, the Prince of Wales snubbed the
Little Welshman at a polo match, at the Pane
leigh club, in London, years ago.
It was during those vears that Lloyd
George proved himself a’fighter; he did not
permit the royal snhb, coming from the Prince
of Wales, who, a few years later, became King
George to discourage him, and he
his fight against the House of Lords, then
powered to veto finance bills passed by
Comraons. He waged war on the High-ups of
the British government, and he won his fight,
and that body, the House of Lords, no longer
has any control over the nation’s budgets. -
He didn’t stop there; he championed the
graduated jncome tax laws, broke up lieredi
tarv estates, land monopolies, by taxing those
large estates ' beyond ' their ability to keep
afloat
By ffilTpolIey, the eno'rmbuT estates wofe
subdivided and the masses given an opportu¬
nity to own homes. Little
This policy brought down upon the
the royal household, and we are told, by the
daily news coming to this country from troll¬
Died London, that the personal intercourse,
during the last six years, between the Premier
and the King has not been cordial, and that
when Lloyd George appeared before the King,
a few days ago, to hand him his resignation,
the ceremony was brief and no tears lost du
ring the performance. Empire handed the
The Big Man of the
Little Figure-head, King George, a piece
paper on which was written a resignation
pregnant with trouble for the trembling
and his tottering empire.
, Lloyd George is now leading the
the Progressives, the Single-taxers, in
words, the people, and he will win the fight in
a walk. The people of the British empire
hear his message, and that message, unless all
signs fail, will produce a verdict, the tones
which will be heard throughout the
world.
For centuries, the people of Great Britain
have been oppressed by the land monopolists,
just as the people of this Country are being
oppressed by the land-grabbers, dirt hogs, men
whose greed for acres overshadows every¬
thing, until it has actually reached the point
even here in America that it is impossible for
small home owners to exist.
. The railroads have been permitted to grab
millions of acres of our richest lands.
The Roman Catholic Church is today one
of the biggest land owners in these United
States, and the Church does not pay a dollar
of taxes.
Your public servants in Washington have
permitted the Romanists to capture some of
the choicest tracts of property in the District
of Columbia, and Church property is sacred,
no tax-gatherer puts his hands on it.
In nearly all the big rities of this country
#
the Romanists own millions of dollars worth of
real estate, and this property is listed on the
inventories of the Pope.
Where will it stop?
When will your public officials.assert them¬
selves and tax church properties?
How long will you, the people, stand for
(Continued on Page Four.}.
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'(The love of Nature was so keenly developed, it shows in all of his earlier works• A
“ walk in the woods’’ was not simply a walk in the woods. It was the means of bringing to
life such prose poems as this. — A. L. L.)
The day is drowsy: insects by the million
make their subdued, silvery music in the fal¬
low field; louder sounds have somehow, gone
into the distance; infinite quietude falls upon
nature, and upon you.
Intensely green is our much-scorned but
marvelously beautiful, short-leaf pine, luxuriant
of plumage, endless in variety and grace of
symmetry; and against its seried ranks of un¬
broken green stands the yellowing poplar, and
the sweet gum turning to bronze. Notice how
the vine of the poison oak wreaths its scarlet
ribbons through the maple and the pine; see
it run, like streams of blood, down the tree.
You drink in the scene, as a Bacchanal
would sip the nectar of the gods; and then you
stroll down to the creek, and rest on the rock,
by the little cascade.
' You fall to watching the bubbles,
1 he surface is covered with them, always,
but no combination, however cunningly ar
ranged, can remain so.
Not for an instant.
The bubbles form, the bubbles break, the
bubbles reform, and again they break. Al
wavs, there are the bubbles, but never there, to
stay, are the bubbles at which you gaze. Al
ways coming, they are always going; always
combining, they as quickly dissolve.
Bubbles of yesterday—where are they?
Bubbles' of Tomorrow—what will they be?
The stream is eternal, like the hills:bub
j files come, bubbles go, but the stream sings the
old, old hong of the Biook.
Is there any symbol of life more complete,
more striking, than we have hero in these bub
hies on the stream?
Consider the family- can its relations be
made to endure? It is different today from
what it was yesterday—different in its own
members, different in its touch with the outer
world. - -
Even your own little household, is a group
of hubbies on the cver-ruhning stream of life.
Where are those who sat around the hearth,
in the years gone by?
Where will tomorrow" leave those who sit
around it now?
The stream will flow on, to its appointed
purpose in the unfathomable plan of the Mas¬
ter; but the hubbies—ab, they come and they
go.
THE CRIMES OF VOLSTEADISM.
You will not find one word in this editorial
against prohibition and temperance. We are
told by good authority to be temperate in ail
things, and if it requires National
laws to enforce temperance in the use of liquor,
then we must, for the sake of the public good,
favor such laws.
But there is a broad distinction between
prohibition and Volsteadism.
This Volsteadism is itself criminal, and it
is rotten to the core.
The American people have always respect¬
ed their laws, and they have always had the
greatest respect for officials representing the
constitutional authority of the government.
Our people have always felt pride in their,
courts of justice, even their Justice’s courts.
But Volsteadism is breaking down this feeling,
and it is tearing to shreds the good opinion our
people once had of their officers of the law.
Why is this true?
The answer is easy to give, and the facts
bear out tlie statement: tile prohibition enforc¬
ers are violating the sacred rights of the peo¬
ple, forgetting all laws except the Volstead
misnomer, and utterly ignoring the safeguards Republic.
guaranteed by the highest law of this
They seem to think that the Prohibition
amendment, especially since the Vblstead en¬
forcement Act was passed by Congress, wipe's
out entirely every Constitutional right and
every principle of law. The enforcers take
the position that prohibition enforcement
means more to good government than all the
laws of the Republic and all the sacred rights
of its citizens.
One of the first amendments demanded by
the people was one protecting their homes and
effects from unlawful searches. The enforce
ers pay no attention to this amendment, they
Thomson, Georgia, Monday, Nov. 13, 1922.
BUBBLES ON THE STREAM
By Thos. E. Watson.
Even as we clasp the hand, it is cold. Even
as we kiss the cheek, it fades.
Then consider that larger circle—your
friends. See the bubbles change. Yesterday,
your enemies were your friends: Tomorrow,
your friends will be your enemies. No tie can
fasten these human hearts of ours. Gratitude
is a dream. Loyalty is the unattainable. Un¬
der the feet of Selfishness, of Envy, of Jeal¬
ousy, the ennobling affections are trampled
with remorseless tread. No fair Italia, of
kind offices and gentle words, can stay the ruth¬
less march of Attila and the Huns. So it is
that the circle of friends is just as a larger
group- of bubbles on the pool, ever changing,
never staying, ever combining, now falling
away, now coming together again. Alas, the
heart-break of it!
Then look again, and contemplate the larg¬
er stream of town-life, of State-life, of na
tional relationship, of world-wide alliances.
What are these but vaster collections of
bubbles on the stream?
You hear people say, “Politics make
strange bed-fellows.”
It means that the bubbles have changed.
They had to. It was the law of nature.
In the commercial world, in the domain
of religion, in all industrial callings—every¬
where we look, we see the bubbles breaking,
and the bubbles forming. Nothing endures.
Each great nation is not only composed of
ever-changing bubbles—each a scene of per¬
petual breakings up and re-alignments—but
the family of nations is never the same, for a
single year. They change their attitude to
each other, while you look. Friendly today,
any two of the Powers may be at war tomor¬
row.
Poor mortals that we are! Each bubble
of us fondly believes that he lias come to stay.
And we never can bring ottra.-ives “to real
ize that, in the immeasurable limensions of the
Universe, we are no more than bubbles on the
stream,
“Down and out!” laughs the cold stream,
as it hurries away with the breaking bubbles.
“Down and out!” is what the epitaph
means, whether written on the monument
which defies Time, or, briefly traced in the
memory of the few who knew when the bubble
disappeared.
forget that it exists, and they go ahead and
search the homes of people, all classes,
sionally the highest but nearly always the
homes of the poor, without warrant of law and
in utter disregard for the feelings of the
and the women of these households; they
their vehicles at the dead hours of
just as highwaymen do, and flash
lights into the eyes of drivers, and go
these vehicles, hunting evidence on which
fasten a Volstead indictment; they
into the dirt the protests of innocent
who demand the right to see a warrant;
use brutal authority, they browbeat both men
and women, they seek to terrorize the
and cause onr people -to dread the very name
a prohibition officer.
How long will such a state of affairs
in this free Republic?
What is the result of this lawlessness?
The result is, that the Volstead law,
Volsteadism are laughed at from Maine
California, and there is today more
in all sections of the country than ever
during the days of open saloons. The
were bad enough, but this bootlegging of
key is the worst calamity ever put upon
country on earth. It. is doing more harm
all other intemperances combined, and it
driving to the grave millions, slowly hut
ly; it is driving people insane, leading them
crime and pauperism; it is destroying
public institutions, and creating in the
of people everywhere in this land a feeling
Volsteadism is the rottenest sore ever
upon a people. •
It breeds official corruption, and you
find bribery in almost every walk of public
The pc'”ile have no faith in the honesty
,(Continued on Page Four A,
Issued Weekly
Political Notes On State
And National Affairs
Politics in the State having been adjourn¬
ed for another two years, it is well to com¬
ment on the results.
The Macon Convention, it is good to note,
put itself on record as favoring a number of
policies in which the people are deeply con¬
cerned.
Foremost among these, Free School Nooks,
That is a principle advocated throughout
•the life of the late Thos. E. Watson; it is com¬
mendable of every support.
How many of us regret having bee made
to study in our youth. The only regret is that
we were not made to study more.
But what of the thousands of our coming’
generation who, hampered ihrqugh poverty
and ments want, of knowledge are unable to obt^&»eyeu the rudi¬
? ,
not, Whether the first provided duty of for everyBtatc in^Aebtlouslitution should be
or
the education of its citizenry. Fortunately,
however, the framers of our Georgia Constitu¬
tion realized the importance of this duty of the
State, and did not shirk the responsibility.
It is there; lias been since 1777 when Geo:r
gia was first established as one of the common ¬
wealths of our Government. And the pity of
it is that those whom we have entrusted the
affairs of State, have not seen fit to carry it
out.
The Book Trusts and the Grafters bav
fought this duty to the people for over a hun¬
dred years,—fought it with the cupidity of
personal and private gain. They will con
tinue to fight it, charging that it will cost the
State thousands and thousands of dollars in
taxation.
What if it cost millions? Value is well
turned.
That Nation serves its people best which
serves them with their needs.
Free school books is not the end; it is
merely the beginning. First we should pro¬
vide every child with text hooks, and ultimate¬
ly the State or National Government should en
fablish free' institutions, capable of accommo¬
dating the thousands and tens of thousands of
our boys and girls who are unable to obtain
the benefits of education otherwise.
Already has our National Government es¬
tablished two such institutions: West Point
and the Naval Academy, hut those schools have
limited accommodations, and are for the pur
pose of training young men primarily for our
national defense.
Soon it will he recognized that the pur¬
suits of Agriculture, Medicine, apd the other
vocations are as highly important to our life,
if not more so. For in teaching men the tac¬
tics of War, we dwell upon destruction; where¬
as, in other subjects our theme is construction.
Let Georgia set the Nation a good exam¬
ple by taking one of the first steps in this
great progress that is to come.
The people should see to it that their rep¬
resentatives in the State assemblies givo their
just needs: Free Books is the stepping-stone
to Free Education, which means greater en¬
joyment and greater progress in life.
The Macon Convention also demanded the
repeal of the iniquitous “tax equalization”
law, which has been .so signally repudiated by
the people after a fair trial.
This is a highly commendable feature of
the Convention, and one which we hope will bo
carried out. It should be substituted with
some law imposing equal burdens upon the
people, and at the same time drawing upon
those hidden holdings which heretofore have
escaped the diligence of our tax assessors.
Our representatives should inform them¬
selves in advance on our State fiscal system,
making a study of the question with the view
of giving the people the benefits of a just law.
The taxation power of the Government is
one of its highest functions; its administration
should bo carefully performed. ,
It was indeed gratifying to note in the re¬
cent Senatorial primary, to fill the unexpired
term of the late Senator Watson, that the sub¬
ject of Foreign Alliances and the League of
Nations is a dead issue in Georgia.
Not one of the several candidates who en
tered the race was willing to revive that issue
in his platform. 1
How different from 1920.
In that year there were only a few news
papers in the State that dare ’to come out
.(Continued on Page Three.),
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