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THE JEFFERSON IAI
Vol. 111. No. 19.
GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN NOTES.
The Jeffersonian innocently inquired
whether there had been a secret con
ference between Guyt McLendon and
Gov. Smith, on the one side, and the big
bugs of the Southern Railroad on the
other. We had barely finished the ques
tion before Guyt came tearing back with
the queerest denial that ever went on
record. The denial closely read, is an
admission that such a conference was had
at the time and place stated. Guyt re
jects the word “secret,” but inasmuch
as the conference was held in his pri
vate room, in the hotel, its privacy was
sufficient to be secret, for the fact of the
meeting escaped all the reporters.
People who have been wrought up to
the point of frenzy by being told, in
stump speeches, that the railroads were
chasing Hoke Smith with cleavers, bush
hooks, pitchforks, meat-axes and things,
will be immensely relieved when they
learn how chummy and comfortable are
,the Governor’s relations with the big
bugs of the Southern Railroad.
Here’s a conundrum:
If Guyt McLendon is so ready to pub
lish to the world the interesting things
he has learned as Chairman of the Rail
road Commission, why was it impossible
for us to get a list of those fellows who
had been riding around on free passes?
In his full-column denial-admission,
Mac said that Mr. Watson could learn
many things by simply coming to him
for the information.
All right, Guyt, here’s Mr. Watson:—
Now give us the list of the fellows who
were riding on those dead-head tickets.
*
General Robert Toombs, after several
years of arduous labor in the Courts, col
lected about half a million dollars of
back taxes from the railroads and estab
lished a principle which was worth mil
lions to the state. The General got a
fee of $40,000.
Boykin Wright, Hoke Smith and oth
ers collected less than $400,000 of back
taxes from the Georgia Railroad, and
Boykin Wright’s own fee was $60,000!
Our able Attorney-General, John C.
Hart, had as much to do with winning
the case as any one, but the others got
the reward.
The suggestion that Boykin Wright
was worth $60,000 to the State, in one
case, seems monstrous to one who knows
him.
A Weekly Paper Edited by THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON.
Atlanta, Ga., Thursday, May 7, 1908.
“I’ve never had a secret conference
with Mr. Finley or anybody else.”
So said Guyt McLendon. Then he
went on to say that he and the Gov
ernor had a private conference with Fin
ley and somebody else. And the privacy
of said conference was so great that the
secret didn’t leak out until a week af
terwards.
There’s only one performance of the
Yea-and-Nay sort that equals Guyt’s de
nial-admission of the conference at the
Majestic, and that is, Hoke’s Yea-and-
Nay statements concerning the use of
“light wines and beer.”
We regret to learn that Chairman Mc-
Lendon of the Railroad Commission is
hampered in the discharge of his duties
by rheumatism. Such a disease is a
dread affliction and we sincerely pity the
man who is its victim.
At the same time, we would be glad
to know what is the matter with the
other four commissioners. What do they
do, these days?
We naturally suppose that they draw
the four salaries, but what else do they
do?
Callers at the Executive office in At
lanta are blandly informed by the negro
door-keeper that the Governor is out of
town.
By a lucky chance, the high officials of
the Southern Railroad happen in Atlanta
on the same day when the Governor hap
pens to be there. This is fortunate for
all concerned!
How would it do to swap around, for
a change?—let the nigger make the ex
cuses at those railroad conferences, and
let us have the Governor at the Execu
tive office. “Ride and tie,” you know. Let
us have more of the Governor, and the
Southern Railroad more of the nigger.
*
Here’s a recipe for becoming a Cham
pion Prohibitionist:
(1) Hang on to your interest in a
profitable bar-room until it is shut up by
a law which you opposed;
(2) Flop, to Prohibition, when you see
that the Prohibition bill has already se
cured a sufficient number of votes to
override a gubernatorial veto;
(3) Write a dispatch for the Associat
ed Press which, after all the erasures,
interlineations and loop-holes are elim
inated, favors a law which would permit
the use of “light wines and beer” as
food;
(4) Loudly declare that unless you are
kept in office the Prohibition law, which
was passed in spite of you, will in some
mysterious manner, be scooped, swip
ed, eloigned, jugulated, disembowelled,
smothered, strangled, par-boiled and oth
erwise scandalously maltreated.
(5) Shout this loudly, from Haber
sham to Glyn, until the welkin rings, the
teacups dance on the table, the dogs bark
as they run under the house, the children
fall off the fence as the excitement tears
along the road, —and, the first thing you
know, you will be the Champion Pro
hibitionist, while such life-long heroes of
the cause as Hughes, Edenfield, Cofer,
Sibley, Poole, Jones, Hill, Wright, Cand
ler and dozens of old vets of the cause
will either be forgotten or will look
like slick dimes.
A little bird brought us this:
“We’ve taken Watson’s followers away
from him, and now we’ll bury him and
get rid of him.”
Did a certain Governor say that to a
certain Rape Circular politician, named
Joe Sid Turner?
If so, we beg to remind them that Mr.
Watson has no “followers” and never has
had any. The principles for which he has
stood since 1889, through all kinds of
weather, have had “followers,” and still
have “followers.”
As long as the stars shall twinkle in
the sky and the blossoms shall open their
beauties to the sun, those principles will
have life, will have followers, will have
devotees who are willing to fight and die
for them.
In this band of men who stand by
their convictions and who would scorn
to bend a knee to get an office, or to
court popularity, Mr. Watson has long
stood, and will ever stand.
When the Atlanta plotters succeed in
“burying” the man whom all the ring
sters hate, it will be a bad day for Jef
fersonian principles in Georgia.
Now that Governor Smith feels it nec
essary to stump Atlanta, ward by ward,
we guess he wishes that, while he was
kicking somebody out of the Railroad
Commission, he had kicked Obe Stevens
instead of Joe Brown. It’s an awful
thing to kick the wrong man. In fact,
among the men who indulge in the lux
ury of kicking other men we have always
thought it was well understood that the
(Continued on Page Thirteen.)
Price Five Cents.