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PAGE EIGHT
THE JEFFERSONIAN
PUBLISHED BY
THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON
Editors and Proprietors
Temple Court Building, Atlanta, Ga.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: - - SI.OO PER YEAR
Advertising Rates Furnished on Application.
Entered at Petteffice, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, IQO7, at second clan mail matter
ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1907
Lawlessness in High Places.
Certain well-meaning readers of the Jeffer
sonian who are not aware of the fact that Mr.
Watson himself is a Director and part owner
of a state bank, appear to have taken up the
notion that he is prejudiced against banks.
Not at all. Banks of loans and discounts well
managed, are of immense benefit to a com
munity. They multiply -capital, stimulate en
terprise and cut the time-price system which
is risky for the merchant and ruinous to his
customers.
But the Jeffersonian is against wrong-doing
anywhere and everywhere. This thing of re
fusing to pay a depositor his money when he
needs it and calls for it in the customary way,
heats the old man’s blood.
What! A poor man puts his savings into a
bank, to have it where he can check it out as
he needs it, and then, when the larder is
empty, or the hearth cold, to have his check
turned down, his demand for his own money
refused and a nasty little Clearing House Cer
tificate forced into his hands 1
IT’S A BURNING SHAME. More than
that, IT IS A CRIME.
The money of depositors is not the property
of the bank. What right have I, as a banker,
to keep what isn’t mine?
Does being a banker give me the right to
take away from my neighbor that which is
his, without his consent?
Have I got the right to say to Smith and
Jones and Brown, “It is true that you trusted
me with your money, and it is true that I still
have it in my hands, but, if I let you have it
you will hoard it, therefore I will keep it AND
HOARD IT MYSELF”?
To say that such a banker ought to be giv
en a nice new suit of striped clothes, and put
to work in the penitentiary, is to state the case
with great moderation.
The bankers who have taken this lawless
course contend that they are acting from patri
otic motives; they are holding money which
does not belong to them to stave off a panic.
But the very line of conduct which they
have adopted is the best possible method that
could have been adopted to destroy all confi
dence.
How can you ever again trust your money
to one of these bankers who refused to let
you have your own money when you most
needed it?
Flow can you ever again put any confidence
in a banking system which has to beg the Gov
ernors of States to declare a legal holiday, so
that no legal demand can be made for money
which the banks have no legal right to keep?
These nasty little Clearing House Certifi
cates are the badges of a nation’s shame.
They are the written proof of national bank
infamy.
They are the highest and best evidence of
the slavish submission of a brave, intelligent
people to the organized rascality which uses
the political machinery of both the old parties
to plunder the inert, unorganized masses.
And the President in his message to the Six
tieth session of our corporation agents recom
mends that both these old parties be allowed
to put their hands into the national treasury
and take out enough of the money of the vic
tims to pay the Campaign expenses!
WAWON 1 ® W®BKLY JBFFBRIUWA'K.
Z
Good God!
Wouldn’t it be a sight for gods and men to
see that Indiana gambler, Tom Taggart, help
ing himself to public money to pay the expens
es of the Democratic camp-followers?
Wouldn’t it be an inspiring spectacle to
see the Tammany crowd squatted around the
naional treasury, helping themselves to pot
tage ?
Wouldn’t it be glorious to see the Repub
lican managers take off their coats and begin
to lift out sacks of dough for the stand-pat
ters ?
Thus the system which now sucks up all the
surplus wealth of the country for the benefit of
the Privileged Few, is. to be perpetuated by
allowing the two parties which are committed
to the system to maintain themselves, forever,
at public expense.
Os course there is no constitutional author
ity by which Congress can do anything of the
kind, but who cares for the Constitution?
What’s a little thing like that, between two
such good friends as the two old parties?
*5 H H
A Progressive Postmaster General.
The country will be gratified to learn that
Post-Master General Meyer intends to in
troduce a number of improvements which will
modernize our antiquated Postoffice Depart
ment.
In many respects we are the foremost peo
ple on earth; in many others, we are the hind
most. In applied science, in improved agri
culture. 111 all kinds of mechanical pursuits,
in muting and manufactures—we are well up
to the very best standards which civilization
can boast. In many things we excel all other
nations. Yet, it is an astonishing thing to
consider in how many ways we have allowed
special privilege to fasten its own vested in
tersts upon our system of Government, and
thus clogged our own advancement.
Several generations ago it may have been a
desirable thing to gran the franchises which
are now exploited by such corporations as the
Express Companies—one of which recently
divided twenty-four million dollars in net prof
its among its few stockholdrs —a 1 dividend
of 200 per cent. But it will readily be seen
that such charters are no longer to be toler
ated. The Postal Department should be en
larged. just as it has been in Europe, until
the Government applies to the transportation
of small parcels the same principles and privi
leges which are extended to letters and news
papers.
Again, we are far behind the world in allow
ing the telephone companies and the telegraph
companies to monopolize the transmission of
messages. In Europe, it is recognized that
messages sent by the telephone and telegraph
are practically the same as communications
sent through the mails. When one cannot wait
for a letter to go and a reply to come, one tele
phones. or telegraphs. Consequently, the very
purpose for which the Postoffice System is es
tablished requires that the patrons of the of
fice should have the privilege of communicat
ing by wire, or over the telephone, with their
correspondents, when the time is too short for
communication by card or letter.
Again, we are far behind the world in the
matter of Savings Banks. It is universally
recognized that there should be some place
where the savings of the people can be safe
ly deposited. It is not wise to hoard these
sums in private houses. The money of a peo
ple should be placed where it is most acces
sible, not only to the owner, but to the busi
ness world. To hide it away in private places
is to lel ire it from circulation, and to defeat
the purpose for which it was created. Every
diamond, every pearl, every ruby on earth
might be hidden away in a cavern, and the ex
istence of the cavern become a lost secret- —
yet the world would not miss the loss of all
that useless treasure. It ministers to pride
and vanity, but it answers no indispensable
need of the human race. Moi :y, on the contra
ry, is made to circulate; the? very purpose of
its being is that it shall be a worker; its duty
is to move and keep moving, circulating like
the life-blood in one’s body. Under our pres
ent system, we put our cash in bank, and on
the day that we most need it we cannot get
it. The wife may wring her hands because th’e
rent is due and the landlord is insistent; the
hungry child may cry for food; winter may
be coming and there is no cash with which
to buy fuel; installments become due; fixed
charges become due; taxes become due; the
butcher’s bill knocks at the door; and
the banker who has the wage-earner’s cash
tells him that he cannot get it. Instead
of his own money, to which he is enti
tled in morals and law, the depositor must
accept a nasty little Clearing Blouse Certifi
cate. With this paper credit, which is issued
011 another paper credit, which in turn was
issued upon still another—he may or may
not be able to keep starvation from his door
and a roof over the head of his family. Shame
upon these Clearing House Certificates! They
are a disgrace to our financial system and a
crime against the depositor.
It must be perfectly apparent, therefore, that
we need a system of banks of deposit which
will absolutely guarantee to the depositor that
he can have what is his whenever he needs it.
No ocher system will fill this want but the
Postal Savings Banks. Think of the advant
ages. First, it gives to every citizen a place
to put his surplus money, whether that sur
plus be laige or small —which is just as strong
as the Government itself. In the second place,
this savings bank will be as convenient as the
postoffice. In the third place, it will check
that ruinous concentration of money in the
great financial centers, and will inaugurate a
new system of distribution which will im
mensely benefit the entire country. In the
fourth place, it loosens, if it does not break,
the financial despotism now exercised by the
great metropolitan banks and trust companies.
In the fifth place, it makes accessible to the
Government, reserve funds which would tide it
over in sudden emergency, without the neces
sity of calling upon the metropolitan banks, or
of issuing bonds.
Let us hope that the Sixtieth Congress will
co-operate with our public-spirited and pro
gressive Post-Master General, and carry into
effet some of his magnificent plans.
* M H
What Does It He an ?
Commenting upon Judge Newman’s decis
ion in the Central Railroad case, the Atlanta
Journal seems to take the position that this
Morganized concern has the legal right to earn
dividends upon the forty odd million dollars
of water whiefi Pat Calhoun’s gang and J. P.
Morgan’s crowd poured into it when they stole
it from the old stockholders, some years ago,
If we understand the Journal correctly, it
now abandons the purpose of freeing the peo
ple of Georgia from the annual burden of
being taxed to earn dividends upon fictitious
capitalization. If this is now the position of
the Journal, we should be glad to know why
it has changed its tune.
Last year we were told in a considerable
number of very mournful numbers that this
thing of burdening the public with fraudulent
issues of stocks and bonds was robbery.
If our memory serves us right, the aid of
arithmetic was called in tp show us how much
the annual robbery amounted to—just as
arithmetic was called in to prove that Hoke
could have been elected as easily without Pop
ulist help as with it.
If we were being robbed by the Central and
Southern and Georgia railroads last year on
watered stock, when did the robbery stop?
Guyt McLendon figured it all out in a splen-