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PAGE EIGHT
the JEFFERSONIAN
PUBLISHED BY
THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON
Editors and Proprietors
T»mpl® Court Building, Atlanta, Ga.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: - SI.OO PER YEAR
Advertising Rates Furnished on Application.
Bnttrad nt Putifu, Atlanta, Ga., Januarf SI, SQO7, at ttctnd
clan mail mattir
Atlanta, Ga., Thursday February 20, 1908
dF
<'t« C WNcO
The Neal 'Bank Failure.
Consider the plight of the 9,000 vic
tims of the Neal Bank.
Here was a financial institution which
the state was in duty bound to periodic
ally examine and report on. Every pat
ron of the bank had the right to assume
that the state of Georgia was meeting its
lawful obligation, and that it was con
tinuing to find the bank solvent, well
managed, etc.
To strengthen the impression that the
Neal Bank was a safe concern to deal
with, the state put $200,000 of its own
money on deposit there. Nearly a quar
ter of a million dollars! That was cer
tainly a big sum to put in any bank, and
this fact, by itself, had much to do in
leading others to put their money in the
bank. People naturally thought that the
state was fullv aware of the condition of
the bank, and was putting its money there
because the Neal Bank was a safe bank.
One fine morning some fellow with a
check on the bank demands money. The
cashier refuses the demand. Offers some
Bob Lowry soap wrappers. The fellow
with the check scorns the Bob Lowry
stuff and sticks to his demand for money.
The silly cashier persists in his refusal
to meet this lawful demand. Thereupon
the man with the check goes along the
street denouncing the Neal bank—and
thus a run on the bank is started.
The bank was rotten through and
through, but nobody on the outside knew
it. The angels on the inside knew it, of
course, yet the silly cashier, living in a
glass house, insanely provoked a man
on the outside to throw stones!
The stones came along fast enough, and
the brittle structure fell into ruins.
Immediately, the usual statement was
put forth that everybody would be paid.
Asa Candler —whose specialty is love of
Coca-Cola, and hatred of demagogues —
declared lustily that every depositor
would get his money.
That was months ago, and nobody has
got a cent yet.
And the prospect, for those on the out
side, is mortal dim.
The angels on the inside are apparent
ly trying to trigger things around so that
THE JEFFERSONIAN.
the Bob Lowry crowd will get it all.
During the first weeks of the panic Bob
Lowry, who had $720,000 of our national
tax money in his national bank, decided
that he must keep the good money-for
himself and friends —the angels on the
inside. *
The goats on the outside must be sat
isfied with Clearing House Certificates;
therefore Asa Candler and Bob Lowry
(Clearing House cherubim) issued thou
sands of dollars of soap wrappers. For
the use of the Neal bank alone, they is
sued $200,000 of this illegal, dishonest,
polluting currency!
The goats on the outside had to use this
nasty stuff while Asa and Bob and the
other angels inside used the good money
of the people, the good money of the
state, and the good money of Uncle Sam.
The action of Bob Lowry and Asa
Candler in issuing those Clearing House
Certificates was a crime. In any state
where the laws are impartially enforced,
Asa Candler and Bob Lowry would be
sent to the penitentiary.
In Georgia, however, things are man
aged differently. Throughout the Union
they are managed differently. The poor,
the unpopular, the unfortunates who have
neither money nor influential connections
—these are the people we can send to
jail. We can not punish such violators
of the law as Asa Candler and Bob
Lowry. They are too big and strong.
They are too “well connected.”
Far from being in fear of punishment
for their criminal conduct during the
panic, they are now trying to scoop the
assets of the Neal bank in order that
they may lose nothing on those $200,000
of certificates which they issued in vio
lation of law.
In other words, the angels on the in
side, who resorted to crime, not only
want immunity, but a reward. They
coolly demand that they, the criminals,
shall take precedence, in the distribution
of the assets, over the 9,000 depositors.
Is there no shame in such men as
these? Is there no limit to their rapacity?
Do they hold themselves above the law?
Are they devoid of conscience? Have
they lost their sense of common decency?
On the seventh of December, 1907,
Bob Lowry and Asa Candler had more
than a million dollars of public money,
taken from the common people by taxa
tion, which the United States govern
ment had sent to Atlanta to ease the
panic.
Yet the angels on the inside kept the
people’s money away from the people—
compelling them to use the criminal cer
tificates !
And now when the rotten bank col
lapses because of the unlawful conduct
of the angels on the inside, Asa Candler
and Bob Lowry are trying to trigger
the assets so that the 9,000 depositors
will be robbed of their money.
It is a shameful spectacle.
To make matters worse, the state of
Georgia is asserting a preference over
other creditors. Neither in morals noi
in law is she entitled to any preference.
On the contrary, her own conduct in
giving this rotten bank a clean bill of
health —as she did by actions that spoke
louder than words —ought to put the
state’s claim at the rear end of the line,
for the state’s neglect of duty caused the
9,000 innocent depositors to become the
victims of the angels on the inside.
* « *
A Paper Which Is Doing Harm.
“The Appeal to Reason” claims to have
a circulation of several hundred thou
sand. If so, the fact is deplorable. Such
a paper does incalculable harm. Like
the “Rip Saw,” and like “Wilshire’s
Magazine,” it claims to be educating the
masses and appealing to the reason of
mankind, when, in truth, it educates no
body and appeals to no man’s reason.
Like the “Rip Saw,” and like “Wil
shire’s,” the Appeal to Reason seems to
be run largely in the interest of swind
ling quacks, medical pretenders and fak
irs of varying degrees of dishonesty.
It amazes us to see how blind are the
readers of these periodicals. If the Jef
fersonian were to publish a single one
of the fraudulent ads which appear in
every issue of these socialist organs, we
would have a thousand letters of protest,
by the next mail. If the ad. appeared a
second time, we would lose subscribers
by the hundred. Our readers would not
tolerate the debasement of the Jeffer
sonian to such uses.
In each issue of the “Appeal,” of the
“Rip Saw,” and of “Wilshire’s,” appear
the same old ads. of the same old frauds,
and the socialists never seem to catch on.
Those quacks, cheats, swindles and
humbugs could not, for love or money,
get their ads. into a respectable paper.
Yet in every issue of these precious peri
odicals the editors rail at the sins of
capitalism—and hold out an open hand
to the advertising knave. In every issue
they bewail the lot of the wage-slave—
and turn him over to the tender mercy of
confidence rogues.
The man who cures “Cancer of the
breast in a few weeks” by a mild home
treatment, stares boldly but benignly, at
you in these purity papers, week after
week.
The fellow who “cures all manner of
diseases with oxygen from the air,” has
his picture on a page where the social
ist editor raves and howls about the
“Conspiracy of Capital.”
At the bottom of the page the editor,
who has done his best to throw his read
er into fits, shows him how to cure fits
by using a $2.50 bottle of “fit cure,”
which will be sent “free.”
The ideal face and lovely mutton-chop
whiskers of the quack, whose ad. com
mences, “Free! Free! To the sick and
ailing everywhere, the cure for your dis-