Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1912-08-15
PUBLIC CAN ADVANCE
ONLYWITH ROOSEVELT,
SAYS ALFRED II. | EVILS


and salaries never earned-and still live
safe from the law lash.
Responsibility"
1t is the modern benefit Of clergy.
Today the thief has but to plead his
Responsibility and courts, juries. the
very law itself. grovel before him. No
officer lays hand upon his shoulder. No
| prosecutor presents. no grand jury in
diets, no court convicts, no chains clank.
no bolts shoot home For, 10, he is
respectable"
While the public is correcting those
! backmail evils of legislatures and con-
| crosses, against which Mr. Archbold
and the metropolitan daily have so
wailingy-and honestly-protested lit
should also demand the RECALL,
WhereWith to twist the recusan tails Of
| trust-owned judges and money ruled
district attorneys
! In his Confession Of Faith" Mr..
| Roosevelt sets forth THE right of the
people to rule" No one will challenge
this claim. And yet, correlated to that
! right to rule" is the responsibility Of
not only ruling, but ruling rightly. AS
a picture of popular power and the pub
! lies ability to command its own Off
GERS. Mr.. Roosevelt also uses these
words:
! Whatever | did as president I
was able to do only because l had
the backing of the people. When
on any point l did not have that
backing, when on any point l diff
fered from the people, it mattered
not whether ! was right or whether
was wrong, my power vanished"
Law Never suppresses Crime.
This last suggests a thought some
what aside from politics. The thought
is not novel, yet no less important. The
public has imposed upon it not only a
political duty. but a duty of sentiment.
Crime is never suppressed by effort Of
mere law. Men fear prisons less than
they fear infamy and loss of name and
friends And it is these last great pen
alties. as much as any failure of action
by judges and district attorneys. which
are peculiarly wanting in the cases of
our rich and respectable" scoundreIs.
Take the men who at these trials and
| investigations" nfessed-creature of
mire- born avarice and a morality OF
mud! There followed. as stated no iail
sentence But what was their social or
commercial punishment? Did they lose
place, or fall behind? Were they thrust
aside? Did they become outcasts as the
result of their discovered and admit
ted guilt?
Perish the thought! Nothing of dis
aster, whether of church, club draw
ing room or bourse, arose to overtake
their evil heels. The same friends
srasped their hands and dragged them
nome to dinner. They dealt with the
same banks, and their accounts were as
welcome and their money potent sigma
lures as deeply rejoiced over as of wore
AT night they repaired to the Same
cIubs, to encounter receptions. as warm
drink hlghballs as comforting, and NAV
bridge for dtime thousands with the
same Old respectable" gamblers and
sots with whom they had guzzled and
gambled for years.
Respectable" Til-Tappera
virtue is its own reward" SAYS the
moraltst. and Lord Byron adds in his
journal; And truly the poor Jade
ought to be damned well paid for her
trouble Virtue is its own reward,
That may be as it may. The fact re-
mains, however, that our respectable"
tlll-tappers of politics and money
know 80 little OF virtue that thew will
do naught, fail of naught, for its pale
and tasteless sake.
The Eskimo, Of dull, perverted palste
II offered his arctic choice between
cluster Of grapes and a dripping morsel
OF whales blubber, will seize the blub-
| Der. And so with our respectable"
! crime saturated rogues of trade and
! politics AS between virtue for virtues
dollarless sake and those rotund IL rot
| ten millions, they will never hesitate.
! They will take the rancid millions.
! finding for them and for themselves
! thereafter as wide and as ready an
acceptance as for whittier characters
and money much more clean.
Recurring to the political angle, and
! letting the moral sentimental go adrift
it is safe to say that publics are never
saved from the shore. They save or
sink themselves. Whether it were
! blackmailer in a legislature, or a trust
| tanned district attorney, not an evil has
been mentioned which the RECALL
wouldn't cure.
Hope Lies in Roosevelt
| How are you to get it? Mr. Taft is
against the RECALL. Mr. Wilson and
Mr.. Roosevelt profess to favor it. Who
! is the surer man in that recall con-
nection-Mr. Wilson or Mr. Roosevelt?
Mr.. Taft, by his own word, is out of the
| question. He is for the god of things
as they agree. To vote for him is but
TO confirm present conditions or retreat
to worse. OF the other two on whom
would you sooner rely to put through
| a RECALL-the man of action or the
man of alcoves? Frederick the Great
! once said: IF l wanted to punish a
province. I'd have it governed by phi
| losopher." Mir. Wilson is a philoso-
! pher.
! With a last word, it's all in the lap
] of no