OPINION
PAGE 4 - HOGANSVILIAS HERALD - MAY 27, 1999
THE HOGANSVILLE HERALD
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Busm-Ess MANAGER
2k (6rin6 ttblkatign Phone {7o6) 846-3188- Fax (706) 846-2206
Mlllard B. Grimes, President P.O. Box 426
Oi¢'iul Ieg, l thwart. ( "i'o! thamvdh.
Chalybeate Springs
For those who enjoy the
:dea of an obscure event we
are about to celebrate the cen-
tennial of the first and pre-
sumably the only serious
effort to mine iron ore in
Meriwether County.
The Meriwether Vindi-
cator, in its issue Of June 3,
1899, reported that shafts
were" being sunk for the iron
mine at Chalybeate and it was
expected that the mine would
yield over 160,000 tons of iron
ore with a 60% iron content.
We do not know exactly
what happened but apparent-
ly the mine did not turn out to
be as lucrative as expected
and disappeared into the
pages of obscurity.
The existence of iron ore
and its related deposits must
have been well known in that
area for some years.
Chalybeate was one of the
earliest settlements in
Meriwether County and
someone who named the set-
tlement must have been con-
versant with geology and
ancient history.
The word "Chalybeate"
has come to mean impregnat-
ed with iron salts when refer-
ring to water and thus
Chalybeate Springs was
water that had a large iron
content.
The name is derived from
the Chalybes, an ancient peo-
ple of Pontus in Asia Minor,
now a part of Turkey. The
Chalybes were skilled as
workers in iron.
At one time the word
"Chalybean" meant metal of
a superior quality. Also from
Pontus were the Amazons.
From the time Chalybeate
Springs was settled around
1831 until the mine shafts
were dug almost seventy
years later, the residents had
always tried to use the natu-
ral treasure of the iron
deposits.
The first way was to get
people to come and take the
water as a tonic. They called
it lithia water and it was adver-
tised as having the highest
iron content as any spa in the
world.
Chalybeate Springs was a
spa community. From 1870
until 1924 the resort there was
in operation although its glory
days declined after the turn
of the century.
In its heyday the Grant
House could accommodate
500 guests in the hotel or in
guest cottages.
There was a skating rink,
constant band music at a pavil-
ion; carriage rides on top of
Columni00
the mountain and extensive
swimming pools.
A Chalybeate Springs was
established in Texas in the
1840s and there is a
Chalybeate, Mississippi but
ours seems to have been the
first. In 1908, Chalybeate
Springs was doing so well they
had the town incorporated.
That beat Manchester by one
year.
The date when the town
charter was surrendered may
be known to some but it is dif-
ficult to find in the records.
If they had reflected on the
future as they began to dig
their iron mine one hundred
years ago, those enterprising
men doubtless would have
been disturbed to know that
one hundred years later their
mine would be gone and for-
gotten as well a the bustling
spa and all its activities.
Not only gone but vanished
without almost a trace.
The dream of developing
this region for tourism never
disappeared, however, and
there are still those who think
of all of the wealth of advert
ture which still awaits in the
water and beneath the ground.
Still there waiting on the
next pioneers with vision to
make something of it.
If nothing else there are
still those carriage rides on
the mountain, there is unpar-
alleled beauty, and there is
community--items which are
more difficult to find than iron
ore in our day and age.
THE HtmASSWU.E HEta is published weekly by the Star-Mercury
Publishing Company, a division of Grimes Publications, at 3051 Roosevelt
Highway, Manchester, Georgia 31816. USPS 620-040. Subscription rates by
mail: $15m Meriwether, Talbot or Harris Counties; $20 a year elsewhere. Prices
include all sales taxgs. Second class postage paid at HogansviUe, Georgia 30230.
Fen strascmPnoNs call (706) 846-3188 or write to Circulation Manager,
Star Mercury Publications, P. O. Box 426, Manchester, Georgia 31816.
: Send address changes to P. O. Box 426, Hogansvine, Georgia
30230.
Publisher and Advertising Director ................... . ...................................... Mike Hale
Associate Publisher and Editor ...................................................... John Kuykendall
Managing Editor and Technical Director ........................ ;....:..Marion (Ted) Smith
Business Manager ............................................................................. Lee.Ann W'flbert
Assodate Editors .............. Billy Bryantfralbotton, Michael Snider/Harris County
Dan Stout/Hogansville, Caroline Yeager/Greenville
Advertising Sales ..................................................................................... Linda l.ester
Photography i ........................................................................................ Michael Snider
Features ...................................................................................................... Lani A. Pike
Composing .................................................................... Valinda Ivery, Melissa Pierce
Legals ....................................................................................................... Valinda lvery
Receptionist and Classifieds .................................................................... Cleta Young
Pressroom .............................................................. David Boggs, Wayne Grochowski
Com, oaw Ovcv.ns
President ............................................................................................... Millard Grimes
Vice President ............................................................................... Charlotte S. Grimes
Secretary ................................. : ..................................................... Laura Grimes Cofer
Treasurer ................................................................................... Kathy Grimes Garrett
Legal Counsel and Assistant Secretary .......................................... James S. Grimes
Strikes Should Stop for Everyone's
After over two months of
NATO air strikes in Yugoslavia,
it seems that allied and con-
gressional support for the air
war is ending, partly because
of an increasing number of
bombing blunders on hospitals,
embassies, ethnic refugees and
rebel fighters.
Where the fault lies for these
mistakes is not clear.
Senate Majority Leader
I?ent Lott says the air war's mis-
lakes are unfairly blemishing
the U.S. military which has been
ent on a mission that air power
alone cannot win.
Pres. Bill Clinton says NATO
s more unified now than when
the bombing began on March
24, although not without differ-
ences.
He says that while there may
be differences in domestic cir-
cumstances, cultural ties to the
Balkans and ideas on tactics,
there is no question about unity
on goals and the will to prevail.
Secretary of State Madeline
Albright says that the air strikes
would eventually force
Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic to agree to NATO's
peace terms.
Still, allies and some con-
gressional leaders have clearly
become edgy in recent weeks
as incidents causing civilian
casualties through mistaken
attacks continue to pile up.
Thirteen incidents have been
claimed thus far by Yugoslavia
or admitted by NATO.
Seven were in May with as
many as 312 people being killed,
including ethnic Albanian civil-
ians and members of the rebel
Kosovo Liberation Army.
NATO says there have been
over 26,000 flights over
Yugoslavia with over 15,000
bombs dropped or missiles
fired, and that its mistake rate
is less than one percent.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles
Wald says that NATO will do
verything it can to make sure
e targets identified are valid
military targets.
The big question being
tossed around now between the
leaders of NATO countries con-
ceres the use of ground troops.
Sen Lott says Congress should
Bob
Tribble
Former
Publ00
continue to ,support the air
strike decision since it has been
made, but he is not in support
of sending in ground troops to
"fight their way in there.
The president has repeated-
ly told the American people that
we would not use ground troops
in a combat mode there," he
said.
A German Foreign Ministry
official Ludger Volmer says
ground troops are not a topic
for discussion but British
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook
indicated that bombing was not
enough saying that NATO must
prepare to deploy troops, with
or without resistance from
Yugoslav security forces.
So, here we are involved in
a militar
that we might should
gotten involved in that
resulted in the deaths of
dreds of innocent people.
Military minds
things are going to happen,
we must accept
when we become
such actions.
Let me assure you
mind is anything
itary, but I haw
if we had any business
ing involved in the air
in the first place.
No doubt the air
worked in Desert Storm,
thus far we haven't had thatl
cess, it seems, in Yul
Maybe the two
are entirely different.
My prayers are that we
bring this air war to a (
sure for the benefit of all €
cerned, and that
will not be a topic for
discussion.
If you feel led, I invite i
to join me in this endeavor.
Polio Can't Stop Roosevelt's Career
(Part three in a series)
Poliomyelitis is an age-old
disease. Scientists have found
that it existed in the pre-
Christian era.
But the first written records
of this disease that leaves
between half and three-quar-
ters of its victims with some
degree of leg, arm or trunk
paralysis appeared in 1835 in
Great Britain.
Several epidemics occur-
red there, and in the United
States in the 19th century. The
disease is caused by a virus so
small that its discovery td'
come until the first decade o(
this century, when it was also
first proved in a laboratory that
the disease is infectious.
In 1916 the disease broke
into the American public's con-
sciousness and became a dread-
ed scourge. In that year, the 20
states that kept records of infec-
tious diseases reported 27,367
cases and 7,179 deaths.
In New York City alone there
were 9,023 cases and 2,448
deaths.
One student of that epidem-
ic estimates that, when unre-
ported very mild cases of polio
are taken into account, it is like-
ly that almost every New York
family was affected by the 1916
outbreak.
Polio was, in the first part of
the 20th century, mostly a dis-
ease of the middle classes. The
virus is found in untreated
sewage, and the infection comes
from unclean food or water,
introduced into the body
through the nose or mouth.
The very poor commonly
came into contact with the virus
as infants in their unsanitary
slums.
At that stage of muscular
development, the virus' assault
on the brain and nervous sys-
tem did no damage.
It did, however, give the
infant a lifetime immunity to
polio.
Franklin Roosevelt, even
more than the average member
of his class, was shielded from
the infectious diseases of infan-
cy and early childhood.
His childhood diseases came
late. He had scarlet fever at 14,
mumps and measles at 16, prob-
ably because he didn't start
school until late. Roosevelt was
the sort of individual for whom
a crippling disease represent-
ed a special tragedy.
Although he was never an
outstanding athlete -- he was cut
from the freshman football
team at Harvard -- he was an
enormously energetic and phys-
ically active individual.
He liked to swim, ice boat,
sail, fish, ride, play tennis and
golf. He even liked calisthenics.
Even more to the point, in his
professional life he liked to go,
to see firsthand and close up the
people and problems he had to
deal with.
His whole personality
'seemed to depend on that move-
ment, that energy. It was cen-
tral to what is now called
'image'.
"He would leap over a rail
rather than open a gate," one of
his sons said of him.
There is a picture of him in
the National Archives as
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
that shows as well as anything
what polio claimed.
FDR is shown, dapper and
slim, aloft in the rigging of a
ship on an inspection tour. You
look at that picture and think
that to take away that man's legs
would be an ironic punishment
of Greek, almost Biblical, inten-
sity.
Yet he overcame that blow,
denied it, actually, and con-
vinced the world to do the same.
The story of the attack is a
well-known bit of American
lore. It took place at the family
retreat on Campobello Island
off the coast of Maine, where
Franklin Roosevelt had spent
The
Squire
of Warm
Spflngs
summers since 1883, the year
after he was born.
As an adult, his stays were
often brief. The family had gone
without him in 1916, during the
polio scare. Franklin, Jr. had
been born there ".In 1914, .....
In 1921, pfter eight busy
years in Washington, Roosevelt
was able to get away for an
extended vacation at
Campobello for the first time in
nearly a decade. His aide and
political adviser, Louis Howe,
was also going to vacation here.
Roosevelt thought he would
run for governor of New York
in 1922.
He had become a nationally
known Democratic leader in
1920, when he was his party's
vice presidential nominee onthe
losing James M. Cox ticket.
He could even reasonably
dream and plan on a presiden-
tial nomination in 1924, though
he would be only 42 years old,
and though no wealthy aristo-
crat had won the Democratic
party's presidential nomination
in modem times.
Roosevelt joined his family
at Campobello at the beginning
of August after a yacht trip up
with the Baltimore financier
and publisher Van Lear Black.
He threw himself into the
vigors of a Rooseveltian vaca-
tion, though he said once he
could not shake the feeling of
tiredness he had brought with
him.
On August 19 he spent a par-
ticularly wearying day, sailing,
fighting a brush fire, taking two
swims. The next morning he had
trouble getting out of bed.
n ess and paralysis in
legs.
DrEben Bennett, the
clan from nearby Lubec
had delivered Franklin,
thought it was j
on the following day,
could not stand, Eleanor
Louis Howe and Dr.
find a specialist in one of
many nearby
They found Dr. W.W.
of Philadelphia. He
Roosevelt, diagnosed his
dy as 'a blOOd "Cl0t'i
spinal cord., ...... ' .......
massage,
wrong treatment for
affected muscles at
stage. Later, he sent a bill
$600, a shock
often expressed outrage
Not satisfied with
diagnosis, the family
down another renowned
eialist, Dr. Robert
Boston orthopedist. He €
Campobello on August 25,
immediately diagnosed
Both he and Dr. Bennett t
Roosevelt i
Dr. Lovett's prognosis
in retrospect, a
the effect that ff Roosevelt's
to be active was
he should
legs.
To the Roosevelts, at
time, the words: must
seemed more optimistic
the doctor intended.
Dr. Bennett
mistic still " "
ily and Roosevelt that',
"be all right."
Dr. Lovett
that Roosevelt go tO a
for further
merit. On September 13
after he was stricken
York City's
Hospital.
(Continued next week).
'Chill Out With Books' at Hogansville
"Chill Out With Books" is the
theme of Hogansville Public
Library's Summer Reading
Club for 1999. "Primary pro-
grams are scheduled for chil,
dren ages three to seven.
Intermediate for children ages
eight to eleven.
Special incentivesprograms
are planned for young adults
ages twelve and older. Ages for
the programs are recommend-
ed; anyone is welcome any time.
Everyone who signs up receives
a certificate.
June 3 is COOL TREAT sign-
up day. Come in and sign up
between 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.
and get a cool treat. On June 10,
stories from snow and ice coun-
tries are featured.
Frankie Wiggins presents
the Primary Program at 10:30
a.m. and Yvonne Bledsoe pres-
ents the Intermediate Program
at 1:30 p.m.
Magician David Ginn, pres-
ents his program of "Frozen
Magic" on June 17 at 1:30 p.m.
in the Senior Center. The com-
munity is invited to a program
for all ages.
Arctic Animals is the topic
on June 24. Jean Crocker pres-
ents the Primary Program at
10:30 a.m. and Carol Cain pres-
ents the Intermediate Program
at 1:30 p.m.
On July 1, Pat Gay, story-
teller from LaGrange Memorial
Library, invites the community
to a program for all ages at the
Library news
Jane tham GottshL
Brarch Manager
Senior Center at 1:30 p.m.
Yvonne Bledsoe presents:
Chilling Stories about Famous
Americans on July 8.
The Primary Program is at
10:30 a.m. and the Intermediate
Program is at 1:30 p.m.
On July 15, storytener Akbar
Imhopet, returns this year per-
forming a program for all ages
at 1:30 p.m. at the Senior Center.
The community is invitetL
July 19 is the last
in completed book list
awards.
Recognition and
programs are scheduled
July 22 including door
and refreshments.
The Primary.
scheduled at 10:30 a.m. and
p.m. ' '
All
to attend our Summer
Club =
July.
Our "Pre-School
for ages three to five
Hogansville Public
scheduled to begin agailt
August.
