Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-02-27

RIDA4 ) mail brought letter from an
n old friend which read thus:
81 sending you a book entitled
| Uncle Reuben in Washington Read it, if
you please, and then do me the favor to say
little something about it in The Journal.
IF you can't say something good say some
thing bad, but say something, if you please
Your friend
&C. s. BARRETT"
From almost anyone else that invitation
might be taken as a pleasantly, humorous
bid for cordial treatment. From Charlie Bar
rett 1T meant exactly what it said.
1t was my privilege to meet Charlie Barrett
nearly twenty years ago. l a cub report
er and had been sent to "coYer" what the city
editor regarded as "some sort of gathering of
farmers at William House No. g." Williams
House No. was place on South Forsyth
street at the corner of Trinity where one
could obtain a room for % cents a night. 1t
was clean and decent as the phrase went, but
hardly RitZ-Carlton.
Barrett was the leading figure in this gath
ering of a dozen or so farmers real farmers
wearing brOgan shoes and whiskers and COM
pleXiOns that bore witness to the fact that the
MONDAY sun and the winter wind have a re-
action on the human skin not unlike tannic
acid on a cowhide. They were getting the
Georgia division of the Farmers Educational
and Cooperative Union of America under
way. Barrett was elected national president
that year and has been national president
ever since.
That day was the beginning of personal
interest in, and observation of, Charlie Bar
rett that has grown with the years. 1t reached
a degree of intimacy two years ago when Bar
rett, at the earnest pleading of this writer,
undertook to organize the Georgia Cotton
Growers Cooperative association. The thing
was regarded as a preposterous undertaking,
so impossible that to attempt it were absurd.
1t WAS preposterous, impossible, absurd.
But it was accomplished, and there are some
fifteen thousand GEORGIA
their stars it was done.
The point is this: Charlie Barrett, himself
doubling the possibility of putting the thing
over believed it was what ought to be done.
And at time when no one else who had any
of the necessary qualifications was willing to
take the risk, he assumed the responsibility
himself The chances of failure were very
high If Barrett took hold and failed, as was
likely, his own prestige would have been very
seriously affected.
You know how that sort of thing goes
Somebody would say, well, Charlie Barrett
is losing his sense. He took up some sort o
Wind-jammin' scheme to make the farmers
rich and got a lot of So membership fees and
the whole thing has blown up, just like any
body oughter known it would" And all of
the wise folk from Dan to Bersheeba would
have passed it along, adding to it at each tell
ing.
Nothing succeeds like success, but nothing
Dleases 90 per cent of the people like spec
tacuIar failure.
IL ever one had any doubt that Charlle Bar |
rett was unselfsbly devoted to his fellow |
farmers and was willing to go through the |
mill for them, even at the risk of his own !
standing, his decision to attempt to form
the cooperative cotton marketing association
should have ended the doubt.
Barrett's book is from the press of the |
Farmers National Publishing company, Inc |
One of the big New York editors wrote Sc
ries of editorials last year how Americans
should patrOnize United States shipping lines
When he had finished his eloquent advice, he .
engaged passage for himself and family on a
Cunard liner. Barrett is unusual in that he 4
practices what he breaches. His book is
tastefully bound and is we'll printed, on 2I8
pages of good paper, in clear, readable type,
with only a few typographical errors.
Best to describe it in a sentence, perhaps