Atlanta Constitution

“ In 1912, the provisions of the Constitution recommending the establishment of justice courts in each militia district were amended so as to allow such justice courts, the office of justice of the peace, and of notary public, ex-officio justice of the peace, to be abolished in certain cities in Georgia by the establishment in lieu thereof of such court, or system of courts, as the General Assembly may deem necessary. Such courts have been established in Atlanta and Macon. The territory, jurisdiction, and power of these courts are set forth in the act creating them. ”

“ Until Atlanta surrenders, Decatur will be our headquarters, and every consideration of interest to our cause requires that no one inimical to it should remain within our boundaries established by conquest.”
In reply to these charges, I said:
“Gentlemen, I have not been misrepresented, so far as the charges you mention are concerned. If I were a man, I should be in the foremost ranks of those who are fighting for rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. The Southern people have never broken that compact, nor infringed upon it in any way. ”

“ On that day the convention met in Atlanta. Its business was not completed until the middle of March in the following year. The constitution which it framed more than met the demands of the Reconstruction Acts. A single citizenship was established for all residents of the state, in language borrowed from the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution. [91] Legislation on the subject of social status of citizens was forever prohibited. [92] The electoral right was given to all male persons born or naturalized in the United States who should have resided six months in Georgia. ”

“ Some of the real colonels have been objecting to the paper kind, and the "Constitution" has bravely backed up the objection.
The liveliness of journalism in Georgia does not begin and end in Atlanta. The Savannah "Morning News" has an able editorial page, and there are many others in the State. Some of the small-town papers are, moreover, well worth reading for that kind of breeziness which we usually associate with the West rather than the South. ”

“ We, the students of the Atlanta University Center, are driven by past and present events to assert our feelings to the citizens of Atlanta and to the world.
We, therefore, call upon all people in authority — State, County, and City officials; all leaders in civic life — ministers, teachers, and business men; and all people of good will to assert themselves and abolish these injustices. We must say in all candor that we plan to use every legal and non-violent means at our disposal to secure full citizenship rights as members of this great Democracy of ours. ”

“ Grady on the right side of this question, and regrets that prohibition failed to carry the day in the election.
The colored people held the balance of power. We praised them last year when, using that balance, they carried the city for temperance. We regret that this year they have used it against temperance. There is no use of concealing the fact. Ignorant people cannot be depended upon to take the right side of any question. It will be a mere happening if they do. The election in Atlanta gives additional emphasis to the necessity of our work in the South. ”

“ Applicant Julia Shields is a duly qualified Atlanta voter. Both applicants claim that their constitutional and statutory rights are abridged by the exclusion of potential candidates for local offices who cannot afford the filing fees fixed by an Atlanta municipal ordinance of August 26, 1969. They challenge the ordinance on the ground that fees sought to be exacted violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. ”

“ No city on the continent has survived such destruction. No city has twice attained prominence with such rapidity. Atlanta’s foundation reaches back to the forties, and far-seeing men recognized it then as the place of promise, destined to be an important railroad-center and a seat of commerce. This conception of the new city had been accepted as a true one when it was destroyed by fire, and since its new birth in reconstruction days the old spirit arose and lighted the new path of Atlanta to a greater destiny. ”

“ Whatever local interests may clash, the good of Atlanta is always a rallying cry. The Atlanta spirit, which has accomplished so much in the upbuilding of the city itself, is happily contagious, and has much to do with making Georgia the Empire State of the South. The spirit of new life has spread from this to other Southern States which are the most active in the development of their resources, and the spirit of the Southeast is the spirit of Atlanta. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Prohibition—has been very successful in Atlanta, Georgia in the past 18 months. It is well enforced. The wealth of the city has increased; property has advanced in value; the laboring classes are more prosperous; the schools are better attended ”

“ The town charter of 1843 changed the name to Marthasville, in honour of the daughter of Governor Wilson Lumpkin; and the city charter of 1847 changed this to Atlanta. The population in 1850 was 2572; in 1860, 9554. Manufacturing interests soon became important, and during the Civil War Atlanta was the seat of Confederate military factories and a depot of supplies. In 1864 it was the objective point of the first stage of General William T. Sherman’s invasion of Georgia (see American Civil War) , which is therefore generally known as the “Atlanta campaign.” ”

“ The negroes greatly predominate in the southern part of the State, in some of the counties outnumbering the whites four to one. In the mountainous portion north of Atlanta the ratio is reversed in favor of the whites. Among the negroes the females outnumber the males by about 1500. The State contains 19 places with a population in excess of 4000, constituting 13.9 per cent. of the total population. Four cities contain a population exceeding 20,000: Atlanta, 89,800; Savannah, 54,200; Augusta, 39,400; and Macon, 23,200. Atlanta is the capital. ”

“ The City of Atlanta, belonging exclusively for warlike purposes, it will at once be vacated by all except the armies of the United States and such civilian employes as may be retained by the proper departments of the Government.... At a proper time full arrangements will be made for a supply to the troops of all the articles they may need over and above clothing, provisions, etc., furnished by Government, and on no pretence whatever will traders, manufacturers, or sutlers, be allowed to settle in the limits of fortified places ”

“ The people of the State wanted neither change. But all that Congress prescribed to be done was done. Congress then assented that the instrument should go into effect, and it is in virtue of that assent that it did go into effect. The constitution of Georgia is, therefore, an act of Congress, and it has, accordingly, all the validity of such an act. Now there is no doubt that Congress may if it please pass a law impairing the obligation of contracts, [7] though the States may not. ”

“ Comparison with other cities, by various barometers of trade and industry, indicates that Atlanta does more business than any city of [Pg 24] 100,000 population in the United States. As a newspaper center it is phenomenal. The receipts from second-class mail matter at Atlanta were $55,658.83 during the year ending June 30, 1903. This shows that on newspapers and periodicals Atlanta pays the Government more than Brooklyn, Baltimore, Buffalo, Washington, Omaha, New Orleans, Louisville, or Indianapolis. ”

“ The entire population of Atlanta, as well as the Governor of the State, and many others, take sides with the Mayor and his brother. JOHN A. CALHOUN, a wealthy and influential citizen of the city while, as might be expected, HOOD'S disinclination to leave elicits the approval of his army and the Richmond authorities, and, of course, by those citizens of the Southern Confederacy not interested financially within the range of Federal Cannon. ”

“ What was he to Atlanta? More than any other man, he built this city which he rightly loved as he loved no other. Although the feudal independence of the old Southern life was distinctly promotive of individualism—yet it was reserved for this young leader—but one remove from that past generation, to give to our common country the finest and most conspicuous type which American citizenship has yet produced of that high civil virtue—public spirit. ”

“ One is not surprised, therefore, to find this man writing to General Hood on September 7th, 1864, that he “deemed it to the interest of the United States that the citizens now residing in Atlanta should remove.”
In the midst of a region desolated by war, their [Pg 369] fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, in the army hundreds of miles away, it was “deemed to be in the interest of the United States” that the helpless women and children of Atlanta should be driven from their homes to find such shelter as God gives the ravens and the beasts of the wood. ”

“ Mr. SCHURZ. If such a construction be given to this clause that it invests the Legislature and the State government of Georgia with the authority at their own pleasure, by their own arbitrary act, to continue themselves in office, then I myself say that this would not be a republican constitution. ”

“ Thus we see diminishing with amazing rapidity that rural population that is the strength and the safety of the people—slow to anger and thus a safeguard, but terrible in its wrath, and thus a tremendous corrective power. No greater calamity could befall any country than the sacrifice of its town and village and country life. I rejoice in Atlanta’s growth, and yet I wonder whether it is worth what it cost when I know that her population has been drawn largely from rural Georgia, and that back of her grandeur are thousands of deserted farms and dismantled homes. ”

“ In spite of a somewhat lower scale of valuation for suburban real estate, the assessor’s report for 1903 showed realty valued at $49,728,034, and personalty $13,628,201. This value was created in thirty-nine years, for Atlanta came out of the Civil War naked and desolate.
By census taken in 1900 the population of Atlanta, by wards, was found to be as follows:
Since then the population has increased to 105,600. ”

“ It would be extraordinary to suggest that in such statewide elections the votes of inhabitants of some parts of a State, for example, Georgia's thinly populated Ninth District, could be weighted at two or three times the value of the votes of people living in more populous parts of the State, for example, the Fifth District around Atlanta. ”

“ All the varied wealth of the country for hundreds of miles round pours into Atlanta, which in turn distributes it to all parts of the world. This conglomeration of bricks and mortar is not attractive{256} in itself, but is most interesting in its early history, its gradual growth and marvellous development; all within the city limits is full of the stir and bustle of commonplace life, its surroundings are simply lovely and most romantic. ”

“ He saw the hand of God in the favor that had blessed him, and in acknowledgment of the Divine providence dedicated his life to the cause of truth, and the uplifting of humanity. Atlanta was his home altar, and there he poured out the best libations of his heart. That thriving city to-day has no municipal advantage, no public improvement, no educational institution, no industrial enterprise which does not either owe its beginning to his readiness of suggestion, or its mature development to his sustaining influence. ”

“ If that usurped government brings against it a force that it cannot withstand, what then is its remedy? To come to a court of equity to ask them to enjoin the advance of the hostile force; to say to the commanding general, 'You shall stop your march; we hold that you are not the rightful government; this other is?' Certainly not. The Constitution contemplates exactly that state of things. If the existing State government of Georgia, which the opposite counsel represent, is the legal State, it will remain the legal State, notwithstanding these laws. ”

“ Out of this beginning grew the Atlanta Civic League. Knowing that race prejudice was strong, Mr. Hopkins sent out 2,000 cards, inviting the most prominent men in the city to become members. To his surprise 1,500 immediately accepted, only two refused, and those anonymously; 500 men not formally invited were also taken as members. The league thus had the great body of the best citizens of Atlanta behind it. At the same time Mr. Proctor and his committee of Negroes had organised a Coloured Co-operative Civic League, which secured a membership of 1,500 of the best coloured men in the city. ”

“ Let the emigrant to Georgia feel and realize that his business and social position result from his own industry, his merits and his virtues, and not from the accidental place of his birth, and soon the great advantages of climate, soil, minerals, timber, etc., etc., will fill up your country and make Atlanta one of the most prosperous, beautiful and attractive cities, not alone of the South, but of the whole continent, an end which I desire quite as much as you do. ”