Justice--Uncle John, did you see what killed Sam's cow?Negro--Co'ose Uh shum.(Of) course I saw him.Justice--What was it, Uncle John?Negro--Dat black debble you-all(It was) that black devil you-allrunnin' tru we lan'. Nigga duh(are) running through our land. (A) nigger (fireman) hestan' deh, duh po' coal in eh stomach.stands there (and) he pours coal into its stomach.Buckra duh sit up on eh seat,(A) white man (engineer) he sits up on his seat.duh smoke eh cigah, an' ebry tahme(and) he smokes his cigar, and every timeeh twis' eh tail eh run fasteh. An'he twists its (engine's) tail it runs faster. Andeh screams dis lak uh pantuh. Ebenit screams just like a panther. Evenw'en eh git tuh de station, eh stan'when it gets to the station, it standstuh de station an' seh: "Kyan-stop!at the station and says: "Can't-stop!Kyan-stop!Kyan-stop!"Can't-stop!Can't-stop!"Sam cow binna browse down dehSam's cow was browsing down theretuh Bull Head Crick. Eh ram ehto (at) Bull Head Creek. It (engine) rammed itsnose innum, an' eh bussum wahdenose into it (the cow), and it busted him wideloose. Eh t'row eh intrus on deloose (open). It threw its entrails on thereyel on de cross-tie, an' clean-uprails, on the cross-ties, and clean upon de telegrampole.on the telegraph pole.
Mrs. Leiding (Harriette Kershaw Leiding), of Charleston, has done a fine service to lovers of Old Charleston, and its ways, in collecting and publishing inpamphlet form a number of the cries of the negro street vendors. Of these I shall rob Mrs. Leiding's booklet of but one example—the cry of a little negro boy, a peddler of shrimp ("swimp"), who stood under a window in the early morning and sang:
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An' a Daw-try Daw! an' a swimp-y raw! an' a Daw-try Daw-try Daw-try Raw Swimp.
While on the subject of the Charleston negro I must not neglect two of his superstitions. One is his belief that a two-dollar bill is unlucky. The curse may be removed only by tearing off a corner of the bill. The other is that it is unlucky to hand any one a pin. A Charleston lady told me that when she was motoring and wished to pin her hat or her veil, she could never get her negro chauffeur to hand her pins. Instead he would stick them in the laprobe, or in the sleeve of his coat, whence she could pick them out herself. Another lady told me of the case of an old black slave who lived years ago on a plantation on the Santee River, owned by her family. This slave, who was a very powerful, taciturn and high-tempered man, had a curious habit of disappearing for about half an hour each day. He would go into the swamp, and for many years no one ever followed him, the other negroes being afraid to do so because of his temper and his strength. At last, however, they did spy upon him and discovered that in the swamp there stood a cypress tree on which were strange rude carvings, before which he prostrated himself. No one ever learned the exact significance of this, but it was assumed that the man practised some barbaric form of worship, brought from Africa.
The country back of Charleston is very lovely and is rich in interest, even though most of the houses on the old estates have been destroyed. Drayton Hall, however, stands, and the old Drayton estate, Magnolia, not far distant from the Hall (which was on another estate), has one of the most famous gardens in the world. Seven persons touching fingertips can barely encircle the trunks of some of the live-oaks at Magnolia; there are camellias more than twenty feet high, and a rose tree nearly as large, but the great glory of the garden is its huge azaleas—ninety-two varieties, it is said—which, when they blossom in the spring, are so wonderful that people make long journeys for no other purpose than to see them.
In "Harper's Magazine" for December, 1875, I find an account of the gardens which were, at that time, far from new. The azaleas were then twelve and thirteen feet tall; now, I am told, they reach to a height of more than twenty feet, with a corresponding spread.
"It is almost impossible," says the anonymous writer of the article, "to give a Northerner any idea of the affluence of color in this garden when its flowers are in bloom. Imagine a long walk with the moss-draped live-oaks overhead, a fairy lake and a bridge in the distance, and on each side the great fluffy masses of rose and pinkand crimson, reaching far above your head, thousands upon tens of thousands of blossoms packed close together, with no green to mar the intensity of their color, rounding out in swelling curves of bloom down to the turf below, not pausing a few inches above it and showing bare stems or trunk, but spreading over the velvet, and trailing out like the rich robes of an empress. Stand on one side and look across the lawn; it is like a mad artist's dream of hues; it is like the Arabian nights; eyes that have never had color enough find here a full feast, and go away satisfied at last. And with all their gorgeousness, the hues are delicately mingled; the magic effect is produced not by unbroken banks of crude reds, but by blended shades, like the rich Oriental patterns of India shawls, which the European designers, with all their efforts, can never imitate."
Another remarkable garden, though not the equal of Magnolia, is at Middleton Place, not many miles away, and still another is at the pleasant winter resort town of Summerville, something more than twenty miles above Charleston. The latter, called the Pinehurst Tea Garden, is said to be the only tea garden in the United States. It is asserted that the teas produced here are better than those of China and Japan, and are equal to those of India. The Government is coöperating with the owners of this garden with a view to introducing tea planting in the country in a large way.
The finest grade of tea raised here is known as "Shelter Tea," and is sold only at the gardens, the price beingfive dollars per pound. It is a tea of the Assam species grown under shelters of wire mesh and pine straw. This type of tea is known in Japan, where it originated, as "sugar tea," because, owing to the fact that it is grown in the shade, the sap of the bush, which is of starchy quality, is turned chemically into sugar, giving the leaf an exceedingly delicate flavor.
From the superintendent in charge of the gardens I learned something of the bare facts of the tea growing industry. I had always been under the impression that the name "pekoe" referred to a certain type of tea, but he told me that the word is Chinese for "eyelash," and came to be used because the tip leaves of tea bushes, when rolled and dried, resemble eyelashes. These leaves—"pekoe tips"—make the most choice tea. The second leaves make the tea called "orange pekoe," while the third leaves produce a grade of tea called simply "pekoe." In China it is customary to send three groups of children, successively, to pick the leaves, the first group picking only the tips, the second group the second leaves, and the third group the plain pekoe leaves. At the Pinehurst Tea Gardens the picking is done by colored children, ranging from eight to fifteen years of age. All the leaves are picked together and are later separated by machinery.
Summerville itself seems a lovely lazy town. It is the kind of place to which I should like to retire in the winter if I had a book to write. One could be very comfortable, and there would be no radical distractions—unless one chanced to see the Most Beautiful Girl in the World, who has been known to spend winters at that place.
On the way from Charleston to Summerville, if you go by motor, you pass The Oaks, an estate with a new colonial house standing where an ancient mansion used to stand. A long avenue bordered by enormous live-oaks, leading to this house, gives the place its name, and affords a truly noble approach. Here, in Revolutionary times, Marion, "the Swamp Fox," used to camp.
Not far distant from the old gate at The Oaks is Goose Creek Church—the most interesting church I have ever seen. The Parish of St. James, Goose Creek, was established by act of the Assembly, November 30, 1706, and the present church, a brick building of crudely simple architecture, was built about 1713. The interior of the church, though in good condition, is the oldest looking thing, I think, in the United States. The memorial tablets in the walls, with their foreign names and antique lettering, the curious old box pews, the odd little gallery at the back, the tall pulpit, with its winding stair, above all the Royal Arms of Great Britain done in relief on the chancel wall and brilliantly colored—all these make Goose Creek Church more like some little Norman church in England, than like anything one might reasonably expect to find on this side of the world.
The interior is the oldest looking thing in the United States—Goose Creek ChurchThe interior is the oldest looking thing in the United States—Goose Creek Church
Countless items of curious interest hang about the church and parish. Michaux, the French botanist who came to this country in 1786, lived for a time at GooseCreek. He brought with him the first four camellias seen in the United States, planting them at Middleton Place above Drayton Hall, where, I believe, they still stand, having reached a great height. A British officer known as Mad Archy Campbell was married at Goose Creek Church during the Revolution, under romantic circumstances. Miss Paulina Phelps, a young lady of the parish, was a great beauty and a great coquette, who amused herself alike with American and British officers. Campbell met and fell desperately in love with her, and it is said that she encouraged him, though without serious intent. One day he induced her to go horseback-riding with him and on the ride made love to her so vehemently that she was "intimidated into accepting him." They rode to the rectory, and Campbell, meeting the rector, demanded that he should marry them at once. The dominie replied that he would do so "with the consent of the young lady and her mother," but Campbell proposed to await no such formalities. Drawing his pistol he gave the minister the choice of performing the ceremony then and there, or perishing. This argument proved conclusive and the two were promptly wed.
When Goose Creek was within the British lines it is said that the minister proceeded, upon one occasion, to utter the prayer for the King of England, in the Litany. At the end of the prayer there were no "Amens," the congregation having been composed almost entirely, as the story goes, of believers in American independence. Into the awkward pause after the prayer one voice fromthe congregation was at last injected. It was the voice of old Ralph Izard, saying heartily, not "Amen," but "Good Lord, deliver us!" There is a tablet in the church to the memory of this worthy.
The story is told, also, of an old gentleman, a member of the congregation in Revolutionary times, who informed the minister that if he again read the prayer for the King he would throw his prayer-book at his head. The minister took this for a jest, but when he began to read the prayer on the following Sunday, he found that it was not, for sure enough the prayer-book came hurtling through the air. Prayer-books were heavier then than they are now, and it is said that as a result of this episode, the minister refused to hold service thereafter.
The church is not now used regularly, an occasional memorial service only being held there.
Charleston is a hard place to leave. Wherever one may be going from there, the change is likely to be for the worse. Nevertheless, it is impossible to stay forever; so at last you muster up your resignation and your resources, buy tickets, and reluctantly prepare to leave. If you depart as we did, you go by rail, driving to the station in the venerable bus of the Charleston Transfer Company—a conveyance which, one judges, may be coeval with the city's oldest mansions. Little as we wished to leave Charleston we did not wish to defer our departure through any such banality as the unnecessary missing of a train. Therefore as we waited for the bus, on the night of leaving, and as train time drew nearer and nearer, with no sign of the lumbering old vehicle, we became somewhat concerned.
When the bus did come at last there was little time to spare; nevertheless the conductor, an easygoing man of great volubility, consumed some precious minutes in gossiping with the hotel porter, and then with arranging and rearranging the baggage on the roof of the bus. His manner was that of an amateur bus conductor, trying a new experiment. After watching his performances for a time, looking occasionally at my watch, by way of giving him a hint, I broke out into expostulation at the unnecessary delay.
"What's the matter?" asked the man in a gentle, almost grieved tone.
"There's very little time!" I returned. "We don't wish to miss the train."
"Oh, all right," said the bus conductor, making more haste, as though the information I had given him put a different face on matters generally.
Presently we started. After a time he collected our fares. I have forgotten whether the amount was twenty-five or fifty cents. At all events, as he took the money from my hand he said to me reassuringly:
"Don't you worry, sir! If I don't get you to the train I'll give you this money back. That's fair, ain't it?"
By no means all the leading citizens of Atlanta were in a frame of mind to welcome General Sherman when, ten or a dozen years after the Civil War, he revisited the city. Captain Evan P. Howell, a former Confederate officer, then publisher of the Atlanta "Constitution," was, however, not one of the Atlantans who ignored the general's visit. Taking his young son, Clark, he called upon the general at the old Kimball House (later destroyed by fire), and had an interesting talk with him. Clark Howell, who has since succeeded his father as publisher of the "Constitution," was born while the latter was fighting at Chickamauga, and was consequently old enough, at the time of the call on Sherman, to remember much of what was said. He heard the general tell Captain Howell why he had made such a point of taking Atlanta, and as Sherman's military reasons for desiring possession of the Georgia city explain, to a large extent, Atlanta's subsequent development, I shall quote them as Clark Howell gave them to me.
First however, it is perhaps worth while to remind the reader of the bare circumstances preceding the fallof Atlanta. After the defeat of the Confederate forces at Chattanooga, General Joseph E. Johnston's army fell back slowly on Atlanta, much as the French fell back on Paris at the beginning of the European War, shortening their own lines of communication while those of the advancing Germans were being continually attenuated. As the Germans kept after the French, Sherman kept after Johnston; and as Joffre was beginning to be criticized for failing to make a stand against the enemy, so was Johnston criticized as he continued to retire without giving battle. One of the chief differences between Joffre's retirement and Johnston's lies, however, in the length of time consumed; for whereas the French retreat on Paris covered a few days only, the Confederate retreat on Atlanta covered weeks and months, giving the Confederate Government time to become impatient with Johnston and finally to remove him from command before the time arrived when, in his judgment, the stand against Sherman should be made. Nor is it inconceivable that, had the French retreat lasted as long as Johnston's, Joffre would have been removed and would have lost the opportunity to justify his Fabian policy, as he did so gloriously at the Battle of the Marne.
Though Atlanta was, at the time of the war, a city of less than 10,000 inhabitants, it was the chief base of supply for men and munitions in the Far South.
"When my father asked him why all his effort and power had been centered, after Chickamauga, on the capture of Atlanta," said Clark Howell, "I rememberthat General Sherman extended one hand with the fingers spread apart, explaining the strategic situation by imagining Atlanta as occupying a position where the wrist joins the hand, while the thumb and fingers represented, successively, New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk. 'If I held Atlanta,' he said, 'I was only one day's journey from these chief cities of the South.'"
In spite, therefore, of the assertion, which I have heard made, that the prosperity of Atlanta is "founded on insurance premiums, coca-cola, and hot air," it seems to me that it is founded on something very much more solid. Nor do I refer to the layer of granite which underlies the city. The prosperity of Atlanta is based upon the very feature which made its capture seem to Sherman so desirable: its strategic position as a central point in the Far South.
Neither in Atlanta nor in any other part of Georgia is General Sherman remembered with a feeling that can properly be described as affectionate, though it may be added that Atlanta has good reason for remembering him warmly. The burning of Atlanta by Sherman did not, however, prove an unalloyed disaster, for the war came to an end soon after, and the rebuilding of the city supplied work for thousands of former Confederate soldiers, and also drew to Atlanta many of the strong men who played leading parts in the subsequent commercial upbuilding of the place: such men as the late General Alfred Austell, Captain James W. English, andthe three Inman brothers, Samuel, John, and Hugh—to mention but a few names. The First National Bank, established by General Austell, is, I believe, Atlanta's largest bank to-day, and was literally the first national bank established in Georgia, if not in the whole South, after the war.
Woodrow Wilson was admitted to the bar in Atlanta, and, if I mistake not, practised law in an office not far from that meeting place of highways called Five Points. Here, at Five Points, two important trails crossed, long before there was any Atlanta: the north-and-south trail between Savannah and Ross's Landing, and the east-and-west trail, which followed the old Indian trails between Charleston and New Orleans. When people from this part of the country wished to go to Ohio, Indiana, or the Mississippi Valley, they would take the old north-and-south trail to Ross's Landing, follow the Tennessee River to where it empties into the Ohio, near Paducah, Kentucky, and proceed thence to Mississippi.
In the thirties, Atlanta—or rather the site of Atlanta, for the city was not founded until 1840—was on the border of white civilization in northern Georgia, all the country to the north of the Chattahoochee River, which flows a few miles distant from the city, having belonged to the Cherokee Indians, who had been moved there from Florida. Even in those times the Cherokees were civilized, as Indians go, for they lived in huts and practised agriculture. Of course, however, their civilization was not comparable with that of the white man. Ifthey had been as civilized as he, they might have driven him out of Florida, instead of having been themselves driven out, and they might have driven him out of Georgia, too, instead of having been pushed on, as they were, to the Indian Territory—eighteen thousand of them, under military supervision, on boats from Ross's Landing—leaving the beautiful white Cherokee rose, which grows wild and in great profusion, in the spring, as almost their sole memorial on Georgia soil.
As Georgia became settled the trails developed into wagon and stage routes, and later they were followed, approximately, by the railroads. After three railroads had reached Atlanta, the State of Georgia engaged in what may have been the first adventure, in this country, along the lines of government-owned railroads: namely, the building of the Western & Atlantic, from Atlanta to Chattanooga, to form a link between the lower South and the rapidly developing West. This road was built in the forties, and it was along its line that Johnston retreated before Sherman, from Chattanooga to Atlanta. Though it is now leased and operated by the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad Company, it is still owned by the State of Georgia. The lease, however, expires soon, and (an interesting fact in view of the continued agitation in other parts of the country for government ownership of corporations) there is a strong sentiment in Georgia in favor of selling the railroad; for it is estimated that, at a fair price, it would yield a sum sufficient not only to wipe out the entire bonded indebtednessof the State ($7,000,000), but to leave ten or twelve millions clear in the State treasury.
At Roswell, Georgia, a sleepy little hamlet in the hills, not many miles from Atlanta, stands Bulloch Hall, where Martha ("Mittie") Bulloch, later Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, mother of the President, was born. Roswell was originally settled, long ago, by people from Savannah, Darien, and other towns of the flat, hot country near the coast, who drove there in their carriages and remained during the summer. After a time, however, three prosperous families—the Bullochs, Dunwoodys, and Barrington Kings—made their permanent homes at Roswell.
Bulloch Hall is one of those old white southern colonial houses the whole front of which consists of a great pillared portico, in the Greek style, giving a look of dignity and hospitality. Almost all such houses are, as they should be, surrounded by fine old trees; those at Bulloch Hall are especially fine: tall cedars, ancient white oaks, giant osage oranges, and a pair of holly trees, one at either side of the walk near the front door.
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., and Mittie Bulloch met here when they were respectively seventeen and fifteen years of age. A half sister of Miss Mittie had married a relative of the Roosevelts and gone from Roswell to live in Philadelphia, and it was while visiting at her home that young Roosevelt, hearing a great deal of the South, conceived a desire to go there. This resulted in hisfirst visit to Bulloch Hall, and his meeting with Mittie Bulloch. On his return to the North he was sent abroad, but two or three years later when he went again to visit his relatives in Philadelphia, Miss Mittie was also a guest at their house, and this time the two became engaged.
Save that the Bulloch furniture is no longer there, the interior of the old Georgia residence stands practically as it was when Theodore Roosevelt and Mittie Bulloch were married in the dining room. Through the center, from front to back, runs a wide hall, on either side of which is a pair of spacious square rooms, each with a fireplace, each with large windows looking out over the beautiful hilly country which spreads all about. It is a lovely house in a lovely setting, and, though the Bullochs reside there no longer, Miss Mittie Bulloch is not forgotten in Roswell, for one of her bridesmaids, Miss Evelyn King, now Mrs. Baker, still resides in Barrington Hall, not far distant from the old Bulloch homestead.
An army officer, a man of broad sympathies, familiar with the whole United States, warned me before I went south that I must not judge the South by northern standards.
"On the side of picturesqueness and charm," he said, "the South can more than hold its own against the rest of the country; likewise on the side of office-holding and flowery oratory; but you must not expect southern cities to have the energy you are accustomed to in the North."
As to the picturesqueness, charm, officeholding, and oratory, I found his judgments substantially correct, but though I did perceive a certain lack of energy in some small cities, I should not call that trait a leading one in the larger southern cities to-day. On the contrary, I was impressed, in almost every large center that I visited, with the fact that, in the South more, perhaps, than in any other part of the country, a great awakening is in progress. The dormant period of the South is past, and all manner of developments are everywhere in progress. Nor do I know of any city which better exemplifies southern growth and progress than Atlanta.
My Baedeker, dated 1909, opens its description of Atlanta with the statement that the German consul there is Dr. E. Zoepffel. I doubt it—but let us pass over that. It describes Atlanta as "a prosperous commercial and industrial city and an important railroad center, well situated, 1030-1175 feet above the sea, enjoying a healthy and bracing climate." That is true. Atlanta is, if I mistake not, the highest important city east of Denver, and I believe her climate is in part responsible for her energy, as it is also for the fact that her vegetation is more like that of a northern than a southern city, elms and maples rather than magnolias, being the trees of the Atlanta streets.
Baedeker gave Atlanta about 90,000 inhabitants in 1909, but the census of 1910 jumped her up to more than 150,000, while the estimate of 1917 in the "World Almanac" credits her with about 180,000. Moreover, in the almanac's list of the largest cities of the earth, Atlanta comes twentieth from the top. It is my duty, perhaps, to add that the list is arranged alphabetically—which reminds me that some cynic has suggested that there may have been an alphabetical arrangement of names, also, in the celebrated list in which Abou Ben Adhem's "name led all the rest." Nevertheless, it may be stated that, according to the almanac's population figures, Atlanta is larger than the much more ancient city of Athens (I refer to Athens, Greece; not Athens, Georgia), as well as such considerable cities as Bari, Bochum, Graz, Kokand, and Omsk. Atlanta is, in short, a city of about the size of Goteborg, and if she hasnot yet achieved the dimensions of Baku, Belem, Changsha, Tashkent, or West Ham, she is growing rapidly, and may some day surpass them all; yes, and even that thriving metropolis, Yekaterinoslav.
As to the "healthy and bracing climate," I know that Atlanta is cool and lovely in the spring, and I am told that her prosperous families do not make it a practice to absent themselves from home during the summer, according to the custom of the corresponding class in many other cities, northern as well as southern.
Atlanta is one of the few large inland cities located neither upon a river nor a lake. When the city was founded, the customs of life in Georgia were such that no one ever dreamed that the State might some day go dry. Having plenty of other things to drink, the early settlers gave no thought to water. But, as time went on, and prohibition became a more and more important issue, the citizens of Atlanta began to perceive that, in emergency, the Chattahoochee River might, after all, have its uses. Water was, consequently, piped from the river to the city, and is now generally—albeit in some quarters mournfully—used. Though I am informed by an expert in Indian languages that the Cherokee word "chattahoochee" is short for "muddy," the water is filtered before it reaches the city pipes, and is thoroughly palatable, whether taken plain or mixed.
Well-off though Atlanta is, she would esteem herself better off, in a material sense at least, had she a navigable stream; for her chief industrial drawback consistsin railroad freight rates unmodified by water competition. She has, to be sure, a number of factories, including a Ford automobile plant, but she has not so many factories as her strategic position, stated by General Sherman, would seem to justify, or as her own industrial ambitions cause her to desire. For does not every progressive American city yearn to bristle with factory chimneys, even as a summer resort folder bristles with exclamation points? And is not soot a measure of success?
Atlanta's line of business is largely office business; many great corporations have their headquarters or their general southern branches in the city; one of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks is there, and there are many strong banks. Indeed, I suppose Atlanta has more bankers, in proportion to her population, than any other city in the United States. Some of these bankers are active citizens and permanent residents of the city; others have given up banking for the time being and are in temporary residence at the Federal Penitentiary.
The character of commerce carried on, naturally brings to Atlanta large numbers of prosperous and able men—corporation officials, branch managers, manufacturers' agents, and the like—who, with their families, give Atlanta a somewhat individual social flavor. This class of population also accounts for the fact that the enterprisingness so characteristic of Atlanta is not the mere rough, ebullient spirit of "go to it!" to be found in so many hustling cities of the Middle West and West,but is, oftentimes, an informed and cultivated kind of enterprisingness, which causes Atlanta not only to "do things," but to do things showing vision, and, furthermore, to do them with an "air."
The office buildings are city office buildings, and are sufficiently numerous to look very much at homeThe office buildings are city office buildings, and are sufficiently numerous to look very much at home
This is illustrated in various ways. It is shown, for example, in Atlanta's principal hotels, which are not small-town hotels, or good-enough hotels, but would do credit to any city, however great. The office buildings are city office buildings, and in the downtown section they are sufficiently numerous to look very much at home, instead of appearing a little bit exotic, self-conscious, and lonesome, as new skyscrapers do in so many cities of Atlanta's size. Even the smoke with which the skyscrapers are streaked is city smoke. Chicago herself could hardly produce smoke of more metropolitan texture—certainly not on the Lake Front, where the Illinois Central trains send up their black clouds; for Atlanta's downtown smoke, like Chicago's, comes in large part from railroads piercing the heart of the city. Where downtown business streets cross the railroad tracks, the latter are depressed, the highways passing above on steel bridges resembling the bridges over the Chicago River. The railroad's right of way is, furthermore, just about as wide as the Chicago River, and rows of smoke-stained brick buildings turn their backs upon it, precisely as similar buildings turn theirs upon Chicago's busy, narrow stream. I wonder if all travelers, familiar with Chicago, are so persistently reminded of that portion of the city which is near the river, as I wasby that portion of Atlanta abutting on the tracks by which the Seaboard Air Line enters the city.
A reminder of the Chicago River—AtlantaA reminder of the Chicago River—Atlanta
Generally speaking, railroads in the South have not been so prosperous as leading roads in the North, and with the exception of the most important through trains, their passenger equipment is, therefore, not so good. The Seaboard Air Line, however, runs an all-steel train between Atlanta and Birmingham which, in point of equipment, may be compared with the best limited trains anywhere. The last car in this train, instead of being part sleeping car and part observation car, is a combination dining and observation car—a very pleasant arrangement, for men are allowed to smoke in the observation end after dinner. This is, to my mind, an improvement over the practice of most railroads, which obliges men who wish to smoke to leave the ladies with whom they may be traveling. All Seaboard dining cars offer, aside from regular à la carte service, a sixty-cent dinner known as the "Blue Plate Special." This dinner has many advantages over the usual dining-car repast. In the first place, though it does not comprise bread and butter, coffee or tea, or dessert, it provides an ample supply of meat and vegetables at a moderate price. In the second place, though served at a fixed price, it bears no resemblance to the old-style dining car table d'hôte, but, upon the contrary, looks and tastes like food. The food, furthermore, instead of representing a great variety of viands served in microscopic helpings on innumerable platters and "sidedishes," comes on one great plate, with recesses for vegetables. The "Blue Plate Special" furnishes, in short, the chief items in a "good home meal."
This is, perhaps, as convenient a place as any in which to speak of certain points concerning various railroads in the South. The Central of Georgia Railway, running between Atlanta and Savannah, instead of operating Pullmans, has its own sleeping cars. This is the only railroad I know of in the country on which the tenant of a lower berth, below an unoccupied upper, may have the upper closed without paying for it. One likes the Central of Georgia for this humane dispensation. The locomotives of the Western & Atlantic carry as a distinguishing mark a red band at the top of the smokestack. The Southern Railway assigns engineers to individual engines, instead of "pooling power," as is the practice, I believe, on many railroads. Because of this, engineers on the Southern regard the locomotives to which they are regularly assigned, as their personal property, and exercise their individual taste in embellishing them. Brass bands, brass flagstaffs, brass eagles over the headlight, and similar adornments are therefore often seen on the engines of this road, giving the most elaborate of them a carnival appearance, by contrast with the somber black to which most of us are accustomed, and hinting that not all the individuality has been unionized out of locomotive engineers—an impression heightened by the Southern Railway's further pleasantcustom of painting the names of its older and more expert engineers upon the cabs of their locomotives.
Some cities are like lumbering old farm horses, plugging along a dusty country road. When another horse overtakes them, if they be not altogether wanting in spirit, they may be encouraged to jog a little faster for a moment, stimulated by example. If, besides being stupid, they are mean, then they want to kick or bite at the speedier animal going by. Some cities are like that, too. If an energetic city overtakes them, they are not spurred on to emulation, but lay back their ears, so to speak. Again, there are tough, sturdy little cities like buckskin ponies. There are skittish cities which seem to have been badly broken. There are old cities with a worn-out kind of elegance, like that of superannuated horses of good breed, hitched to an old-fashioned barouche. There are bad, bucking cities, like Butte, Montana. And here and there are cities, like Atlanta, reminding one of thoroughbred hunters. There is a brave, sporting something in the spirit of Atlanta which makes it rush courageously at big jumps, and clear them, and land clean on the other side, and be off again. Like a thoroughbred, she loves the chase. She goes in to win. She doesn't stop to worry about whether she can win or not. She knows she will. And as the thoroughbred, loving large and astonishing achievement, lacks the humbler virtues of the reliable family carriage horse, Atlanta, it cannot be denied, has "les défauts de ses qualités." For whereas, on the side of dashing performance, Atlanta held a stock fair which, in one year, surpassed any other held in the South, and secured the grand circuit of races, on the other side she is careless about hospitals and charities; and whereas, on the one side, she has raised millions for the building of two new universities (which, by the way, would be much better as one great university, but cannot be, because of sectarian domination), on the other, she is deficient as to schools; and again, whereas she is the only secondary city to have an annual season of Metropolitan grand opera (and to make it pay!) she is behind many other cities, including her neighbors, New Orleans and Savannah, in caring for the public health.
I am by no means sure that the regular spring visit of the Metropolitan Grand Opera Company may be taken as a sign that Atlanta is peculiarly a music-loving community. Indeed, I was told by one Atlanta lady, herself a musician, that the city did not contain more than a thousand persons of real musical appreciation, that a number of these could not afford to attend the operatic performances, and that opera week was, consequently, in reality more an occasion of great social festivity than of devout homage to art.
"Our opera week," she told me, "bears the same relation to the life of Atlanta as Mardi Gras does to that of New Orleans. It is an advertisement for the city, and an excuse for every one to have a good time. Everynight after the performance there are suppers and dances, which the opera stars attend. They always seem to enjoy coming here. They act as though they were off on a picnic, skylarking about the hotel, snap-shotting one another, and playing all manner of pranks. And, of course, while they are here they own the town. Caruso draws his little caricatures for the Atlanta girls, and Atlanta men have been dazzled, in successive seasons, by such gorgeous beings as Geraldine Farrar, Alma Gluck, and Maria Barrientos—not only across the footlights of the auditorium, mind you, but at close range; as, for instance, at dances at the Driving Club, with Chinese lanterns strung on the terrace, a full moon above, and—one year—with the whole Metropolitan Orchestra playing dance music all night long!"
With the whole Metropolitan Orchestra playing dance music all night longWith the whole Metropolitan Orchestra playing dance music all night long
Another lady, endeavoring to picture to me the strain involved in the week's gaieties, informed me that when it was all over she went for a rest to New York, where she attended "a house party at the Waldorf"!
Of all Atlanta's undertakings, planned or accomplished, that which most interested my companion and me was the one for turning a mountain into a sculptured monument to the Confederacy.
Sixteen miles to the east of the city the layer of granite which underlies the region stuck its back up, so to speak, forming a great smooth granite hump, known as Stone Mountain. This mountain is one of America's natural wonders. In form it may be compared with a round-backed fish, such as a whale or porpoise, lying on its belly, partly imbedded in a beach, and some conception of its dimensions may be gathered from the fact that from nose to tail it measures about two miles, while the center of its back is as high as the Woolworth Building in New York. Moreover, there is not a fissure in it; monoliths a thousand feet long have been quarried from it; it is as solid as the Solid South.
The perpendicular streaks of light and dark gray and gray-green, made by the elements upon the face of the rock, coupled with the waterfall-like curve of that face, make one think of a sort of sublimated petrified Niagara—a fancy enhanced, on windy days, by the roar of the gale-lashed forest at the mountain's foot.
The idea of turning the mountain into a Confederate memorial originated with Mr. William H. Terrell of Atlanta. It was taken up with inspired energy by Mrs. C. Helen Plane, an Atlanta lady, now eighty-seven years of age, who is honorary president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and president of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association. Mrs. Plane presented the memorial plan to Mr. Samuel H. Venable of Venable Brothers, owners of the mountain, and Mr. Venable promptly turned over the whole face of the mountain to the Memorial Association. The exact form the memorial was to take had not at that time been developed. Gutzon Borglum was, however, called in, and worked out a stupendous idea, which he has since been commissioned to execute. On the side of the mountain,about four hundred feet above the ground, a roadway is to be gouged out of the granite. On this roadway will be carved, in gigantic outlines, a Confederate army, headed by Lee and Jackson on horseback. Other generals will follow, and will, in turn, be followed by infantry, cavalry and artillery. The leading groups will be in full relief and the equestrian figures will be fifty or more feet tall. This means that the faces of the chief figures will measure almost the height of a man. The figures to the rear of the long column will, according to present plans, be in bas-relief, and the whole procession will cover a strip perhaps a mile long, all of it carved out of the solid mountainside.
A considerable tract of forest land at the foot of the great rock has already been dedicated as a park. Here, concealed by the trees, at a point below the main group of figures, a temple, with thirteen columns representing the thirteen Confederate States, is to be hewn out of the mountain, to be used as a place for the safe-keeping of Confederate relics and archives.
Two million dollars is the sum spoken of to cover the total cost, and one of the finest things about the plans for raising this money is that contributions from the entire country are being accepted, so that not only the South, but the whole nation, may have a share in the creation of a memorial to that dead government which the South so poetically adores, yet which it would not willingly resurrect, and in the realization of a work resembling nothing so much as Kipling's conception of theartist in heaven, who paints on "a ten-league canvas, with brushes of comet's hair."
Until the Stone Mountain Memorial is completed, Atlanta's most celebrated monument will continue to be that of Jack Smith. The Jack Smith monument stands in Oakland Cemetery, not over the grave of Jack Smith, but over the grave that local character intends some day to occupy. Mr. Smith is reputed to be rich. He built the downtown office building known as "The House that Jack Built." As befits the owner of an office building, he wears a silk hat, but a certain democratic simplicity may be observed in the rest of his attire, especially about the region of the neck, for though he apparently believes in the convention concerning the wearing of collars, he has a prejudice against the concealing of a portion of the collar by that useless and snobbish adornment, the necktie. Each spring, I am informed, it is his custom to visit his cemetery lot and inspect the statue of himself which a commendable foresight has caused him to erect over his proposed final resting place. It is said that upon the occasion of last season's vernal visit he was annoyed at finding his effigy cravated by a vine which had grown up and encircled the neck. This he caused to be removed; and it is to be hoped that when, at last, his monument achieves its ultimate purpose, those who care for the cemetery will see to it that leafy tendrils be not permitted to mount to the marble collar of the figure, to form a necktie, or to obscure the nobly sculptured collar button.
In journalism Atlanta is far in advance of many cities of her size, North or South. The Atlanta "Constitution," founded nearly half a century ago, is one of the country's most distinguished newspapers. The "Constitution" came into its greatest fame in the early eighties, when Captain Evan P. Howell—the same Captain Howell who commanded a battery at the battle of Peachtree Creek, in the defense of Atlanta, and who later called, with his son, on General Sherman, as already recorded—became its editor, and Henry W. Grady its managing editor. Like William Allen White and Walt Mason of the Emporia (Kansas) "Gazette," who work side by side, admire each other, but disagree on every subject save that of the infallibility of the ground hog as a weather prophet, Howell and Grady worked side by side and were devoted friends, while disagreeing personally, and in print, on prohibition and many other subjects. Grady would speak at prohibition rallies and, sometimes on the same night, Howell would speak at anti-prohibition rallies. In their speeches they would attack each other. The accounts of thesespeeches, as well as conflicting articles written by the two, would always appear in the "Constitution."
Of the pair of public monuments to individuals which I remember having seen in Atlanta, one was the pleasing memorial, in Piedmont Park, to Sidney Lanier (who was peculiarly a Georgia poet, having been born in Macon, in that State, and having written some of his most beautiful lines under the spell of Georgia scenes), and the other the statue of Henry W. Grady, which stands downtown in Marietta Street.
The Grady monument—one regrets to say it—is less fortunate as a work of art than as a deserved symbol of remembrance. Grady not only ought to have a monument, but as one whose writings prove him to have been a man of taste, he ought to have a better one than this poor mid-Victorian thing, placed in the middle of a wide, busy street, with Fords parked all day long about its base.
Says the inscription:
HE NEVER SOUGHT A PUBLIC OFFICE.WHEN HE DIED HE WAS LITERALLYLOVING A NATION INTO PEACE.
On another side of the base is chiseled a characteristic extract from one of Grady's speeches. This speech was made in 1899, in Boston, and one hopes that it may have been heard by the late Charles Francis Adams, who labored in Massachusetts for the cause of intersectional harmony, just as Grady worked for it in Georgia.