Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-03-09
A WONDERFUL PLACE AND
A MARVELLOUS PLANT
BY BISHOP WARREN A. GAMBLER

contemptuously of colleges in which
such studies are pursued. Your practical
man" is generally a man of narrow iGno-
rance He does not know that he does not
know.
A college graduate invented the cotton
gin-that matchmaking device which
gives to the southern states their great
natural monopoly. A graduate OF Gottln-
gen University devised the rotary furnace
which revolutionized the manufacture or
iron and steel, and reduced the cost Of
all things made of these substances from
a hair-pin to a battle-ship. The cotton-gin
and the rotary furnace alone, not to
speak of any other inventions devised by
college graduates, have produced more
wealth in the last one hundred years than
all the little peddlers who boast of being
practical men have produced since the
beginning of time But the peddlers. full
of pride and pratling always of being
very practical" do not know this, and
they are too conceited to understand il
when they are told of it. Ignorant egotism
is a hopeless thing of which nothing can
be made. A botanist can turn a worthless
shrub into a valuable article of COM
merce, but who can make anything of
fool King Solomon gave up hope of him
above twenty-five centuries ago, and
wrote in the Proverbs, Though thou
shouldest bray a fool in a mortar anons
wheat with a pestle, yet viii not his fool
ishnes depart from him"
But to get away from the fool and back
to the factory. 1 remind the reader of
these lines that in this age of machin-
cry requiring betting and era of electric
ity requiring all sorts. of insulating SUBJ
stances, this discovery of a new source
of rubber is the greatest significance. 1t
can not fail to make the owners of the
secret immensely wealthy.
An American company owns the rub
| Der factory in Torreon. In fact Torreon
! is as full of Americans as is Laredo
Texas, or Eagle Pass. The presence of
citizens of the United States in every
part of the Mexican republic is working
a silent but certain revolution socially,
commercially, politically and religiously
No man can foresee the final outcome,
but it means good for all concerned IN
the end.
; Since December, 1923, when James Mon
roe in his famous message to Congress
| formulated what is now known as 1.-THE
Monroe Doctrine" our country has ex-
ercised an influence over all the nations
of the Western hemisphere which has
| tended constantly towards moral equi-
poise and steadiness of political move
ment. The proclamation of that doctrine
was made in logical and necessary Sc
quence to the recognition of the indie
pendence Of Mexico by the United States
IN 1922. and now that the two nations
are more friendly and intimate than ever
in their history, it is a mighty force
I working for the peace and prosperity of
| all the peoples who are inhabiting the
New World Indeed it vitality affects the
| freedom and well-being of all mankind
| 1t behooves us to lay to heart our
grave responsibility arising from our
leadership among the nations of the
Western hemisphere. They are our
neighbors to be respected, loved, and as
sisted in working out the mission set be-
fore them, and we may not look upon
/ them as lands to be exploited for our
/ own enrichment without mourning the
| displeasure of the God in heaven who
| laid upon us the weighty obligations of
the position we occupy and the relations
which we sustain to these neighboring
republics. We must not only guard their
| freedom, but we must guide them in
those paths of intelligence and virtue in
which men must walk in order to be fit
| for freedom. w. A. GAMBLER
Torreon, Mexico. February %, 1908.