Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-09-06
Pro6hets En- PEASANT

w YdEN one grows 100 lazy W investigate
w or too Defuddled to think. one be-
comes either a philosopher or a
prophet, usually a prophet. SO easy it is to
mount the tripod and gaze impressively flu
tureward, instead of graphing the problems
and shouldering the loads of work-a-day
present! Be it far from us, however, to
discourage the ephemeral prophet, whether
Of street corner, or armchair, or inky sane
tum For though he add never a mote to our
knowledge Of things to come, he contributes
immensely to the gaiety of nations and
though his raiment be not of goat skins, nor
his food of wild honey and locusts, his voice
is certainly cry in the wilderness. Besides,
for at least three days of the week he is
ourselves.
Many a time we have thought what a di-
version it would be to collect the prophecies
of the hour on politics, on business, on things
civic social and bucoic, on the humors of
the town and the mysteries of the cosmos
collect them and lay them up for some ten
or twenty years, and then compare them with
A cold record of events. Well, the "Villager'
has outstripped us to that entertainment.
home were predicting that England, the
great trader, had come to an end; that Ger
many the great industrialst, was over and
done with; and that America, heir of BOTH
now would hold world trade and world
finance and world industry in the hollow Of
her hand-take a peep into the newspaper
files, if you have. forgotten these announce
ments 1t is only four years later now, yet
everywhere, on the trains, in the lunch
rooms, the clubs, the banking rooms, the
brokers' offices-oh. especially in these lat
ter places-one hears the same men earnestly
forecasting the cumulative distress of the
nations export trade. E. Steel, automobiles,
the great works will have to close down by
half?" And as for wheat-why, says the
business man acquaintance, back last week
from Russia, where he saw the sRussian
wheat crop, nothing like it has ever been
before. Enough to feed the world; enough
to make it best for our farmers to burn their
wheat and clear out of that business"
Parallels plenty are to be found in Geor-
gia. few moons gone we were listening to
prophecies of what a lean autumn this was
to be, as if fate had taken the form of a boil
weeviI giant who was to crunch our bones
and swallow us down, despite anything we
could do or Providence send. Well. here we
are on the third of sunny September, with
golden harvest home ahead, not so rich as
in some seasons aforetime, nor yet so poor
as in others, but far better off than many
wiseacre at the summers outset weened.
In at least one respect human nature has
not changed Since the year 1880, when John
Adams, then in Amsterdam, wrote to Benja-
min Franklin, then in Paris, Everyone has
his prophecy, and every prophecy is para
dox. They say that America will become the
greatest manufacturing country, and thus
ruin Europe. Then the sagacious Adams,
amused at this view, went on to offer his
own prediction, which was that America
E:sWEilE not make enough manufactures for her
Town consumption these thousand years."
This happy instance, for which we are be-
| holden to the "Villager," can te matched by
the reader, no doubt, with many another,
Nor we fancy, will it lack companions enough
J when the casual scribe of the year 1880
|comes to check up the soothsayings of the
solemnest statesmen and gravest journalist
| of today.