Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1911-04-11

Most curious OF all our elements OF
population, you can depend upon the
farmer, sooner or later. riding II rough
shod over and neglecting and often abus-
ing many of the men trying hardest to
help him.
If you're going to help the farmer,
you must be prepared for this develop
ment; not once-for you never get vac
cinated from the tendency of the farmer
10 lambast those nearest to him-but time
and again.
If he knocks you breathless-get up
and begin to fight for him again. If he
sits down hard on you in meeting. take
your medicine and wait until another OPP
portunity comes to help him. II you
think your local is pursuing the wrong
course, reason. pray. prevail with its
members.
KEEP SINCERITY FIRM.
But il You don't succeed, that doesn't
mean that you've got to get out and de-
sert the cause. 1t only means you've
got to tackle from new standpoint, and
work and fight and labor as long as you
have energy left, and the sincerity OF
your purpose is undated.
1 have known valuable men to leave the
organization for the most trivial OF rea-
sons. Some get into a hum, because they
were not elected to some petty office.
That was wrong. Maybe the man elected
in their place did have less ability, less
unselfshness. That didn't excuse them
for deserving a cause that is bigger than
any one man or any mans ambition.
Some have quit because they put a
dollar or two in a union enterprise which
failed, or from which dividends were slow
i'm coming. That was wrong. They
should have gone in and found out why
the enterprise failed, or why dividends
were delayed, and worked to relieve the
cause at the root. They should not have
been so unreasonable as to forget that
the history of trade and commerce and
endeavor is punctuated with failure. And
they should not have saddled the prin-
ciples of a great, far-reaching move
ment with the penalty for their own
petty loss or folly.
Some have quit because members may
have outvoted them on some question
of policy-possibly even insulted them In
open meeting The many who can't cul-
tivate patience, who isn't wiling to stay
on with a movement even when his views
are not accepted who must put his
loneliness of feelings before his instinct
of loyalty and self-control, has no place
ina farmers organization.
Why the contrariness of members have
driven some OF their unself1sh leaders
into asylums for the insane. And I've
known some of those self-same leaders
to be so absolutely devoted to the good
of the men who misunderstd them, that
after their minds had cleared and their
reason was restored they went right back
to work for these same people.
LOYALTY OF LEADERS.
1 call that loyalty; I also call it 10y
atty when leaders, broken down in health
by chickering's. misunderstanding and dis
agreements, have recovered their heath
and then offered themselves again a
free will offering to tn cause.
We have plenty of men OF that type
in the union today. We have in the
rank and file the very salt of the earth,
who may be depended upon to bring the
organization through every crisis because
they have the unselfshness to endure
anything and everything to bring Its
splendid gospel into effect.
And If the farmer is quick to crush
and condemn, he is also sure to repent
and show appreciation for the leaders
with the patience and the endurance to
bear with him.
4 do not speak idly. I've had plenty of
such experiences in my own career.
Numbers of times I've had just prov
ocation to abandon work for the farmer
forever. Perhaps in I hadn't known all
along what to expect from him, first and
last. Just how badly he needs unset
fish help and just how keen he appre-
ciates it in the ong run. 1 might have
abandoned it.
The man who is looking for the hard
est task and the noblest in our day and
time, will find it lies in work to ele-
vate the farmer
HELP FELLoW-MEN.
After all, helping our fellow-men is
the greatest thing in life, in its real
meaning.
The man too mice" too intelligent"
too busy. or too Indifferent to get down
and do his share isn't fit to associate
with human beings-he ought to return
to the balloons from which 1t is likely
he sprung.
II YOU think the farmers in your COM
munity are not as quick and up-to-date
as yourself-that's the very reason you
ought to jump in and help them get on
your plane.
You may think you are secure in your
superior intellect and your supply OF
this worlds goods--that you can afford
to be Indifferent to the lot of the man
beside you or next to you.
The man who holds these views is
candidate for hell-ire!
There's no such thing these days as
..every man for himself and devil take
the hindmost"
we are too close together. too insep-
arabic.
It's a case either of rescuing the "hind-
most" from the devil or going to the
devil with the "hindmost."
Maybe you are too proud, too intelli-
gent. too we'll fixed to want to associate
with that poor clod-knocker in your COM
munity who would respond so readily to
your helping hand.
What about your children and his chill
dren7
Can you ever tell if your daughter
and his son, or your son and his daugh-
ter are going to be brought together,
are going to marry, are going TO con-
taminate each other?
TURN OF THE WHEEL
Can you ever tell If the one, with a
bitter sense of wrong, visits harm upon
your children when the turn of the
wheel that is so comomn in America
comes his way2
If you're thigh up" in the communi-
ty, it means that you've got the sense
to see how sad is the need of bringing
up the level of every farmer round
about
If you see that need and deliberately
and selfishly ignore it-what can you
expect by way of gratitude from your
children, after you are dead and gone.
and the penalty is visited on their heads?
If you grind down the poor man, or
onnress the LITTLE iackIeg fellow on your