Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1911-09-19

The material prosperity of the south
is very great already, and it will be far
greater with every advancing year. The
value of it's farm products runs zip into
billions OF dollars annually, and it's
manufacturing Industries grow daily In
numbers and IN prQhtableness.
The completion Of the aPnama canal
will quicken still further the progress of
our section of the republic. The currents
OF Oriental commerce. will bring to our
shores gains beyond the expectations of
the most sanguine, and trade will flow
TO us from the, west coast Of South
America which will be scarcely less prof
liable.
But material prosperity is never with
out its perils to the higher interests
Of civilization. The beginning Of the de-
cay of the powerrof Spain was when that
country entered an era of unprecedented
prosperity following the discovery of
America. Riches gathered from the new
world corrupted the springs of national
life and enfeebledss the forces which
make for national greatness.
Human nature Is much the same. al
ways and everywhere. We too may have
our ideals of virtue lowered by excessive
wealth and the luxurious living to which
1t gives rise. AS men get gold they
are prone to set aside all the moral
principles which stand in the way Of
their getting more gold, and to exchange
goodness for gain. Moreover their pros
perity draws to them multitudes of 9TH
ers of like mind who join them in order
to share with them their gains, and who
help to lower all the moral standards of
the communities into which they enter.
California has not yet overcome the de-
liberalization which came into the state
with the adventurers who went there
more than fifty years ago in the days Of
the gold fever"
Already the south is feeling the effects
of immigration from southern Europe,
and in some places concessions are being
made to the lower moral standards of
foreign immigrants in order to profit
by their trade and their labor. But this
is paying too high price for suck
things. 1888
Inc south has a race question of long
standing; and II now this element of i'm
migration from southern Europe be ad-
ded, the situation will become far more
perplexing and periIous. To solve the
problems arising from such complicat-
ed situation will require the utmost wis
dom, self-restraint and sobriety upon the
part of all concerned. 1t behooves us,
forces among us that make for righ-
teousness and peace Temptations to vio-
lence and disorder must be removed as
far as may be possible, and the strong-
est religious influences must be brought
to bear upon all classes. y
The saloon is a menace to any commu-
nifty, aud It is ipossitHvely ruinous to
people such as the southern people are
with all the race problems and problems
of immigration which confront us. Even
with homogeneous population it so de-
thrones reason and excites passion that 1t
breeds lawiessness and, vice OF every
kind: but with a population such as ours
is becoming It can not be endured at all.
The old time southern whites and the old
time southern negroes understand one
another we'll. enough to get on peaeeably
together; but when thousands OF foreign
ers have come to live in the south and
a new generation of negroes has grown
up the most explosive conditions VIII
have come to pass. To allow the exis-
tence of open saloons amid such condl-
lions will be to invite the most danger
Gus outbursts. We can not entertain the
thought without a shudder.
Yet these foreign elements will clam
our for thefopen saloon and the disor-
DERBY elements among the Negroes Will
do likewise. II, therefore, we would
avert this menace to our civilization. we
must put the saloon away now when
the native Southerners are in the major
ity, and we can do so. If we can not
put II away now. it can never be put
away until 1t has ruined our section
by making 1t a region in which good
people will fear to risk their families and
lives. Another thing that must be done
is the firm fixing of the observance Of
the Sabbath in the South The kind of
Sabbath to (which our people have been
accustomed has almost disappeared from
the United States except in the South.
It has not vanished before a progressive
enlightenment; but it has been over
thrown by foreign immigration. OF which
our section has had little hitherto, and
by a greedy commercialism to which our
people have not heretofore yielded. 1t is
of the last. Importance that the day OF
worship be maintained as we have known
it, The very. moral life Of our people
Is dependent upon it's maintenance. 1t is
not fanatical puritanism to demand this,
but it is fanatical liberalism to seek the
overthrow of cur Sabbath.
For the overthrow of the saloon and
the maintenance of the Sabbath we must
look In the main TO our country people.
There are elenaents in the cities who for
mercenary reasons wish to retain the