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Many Editors Differ from U. S. District Attorney, Gregory.
WHY NOT PROSECUTE ALL?
The prosecution of Thomas E. Watson for pub
lishing obscene matter in The Jeffersonian is
more in the nature of a persecution than a desire
to suppress crime.
The daily press of the country is more guilty
than Watson of the offense with which he is
charged.
Some of his publications are.objectionable, but
the daily papers carry stories which reek with
indecency.
Let a crime be committed and its details are
told in the language of the gutter. Then pictures
are daily printed that are unfit to be hung on
the walls of a place of shame.
'We believe in a clean newspaper but it is
unfair to make a scapegoat out of Watson because
two religious sects want to get rid of him.
The homes of the. country will never be pure
as long as they are flooded with unclean literature.
The prosecution of Watson in other States into
which his publications has 'been mailed is the
result of his fight against Leo Frank and the war
he has waged upon Catholicism. It is an eyort
to throttle him and will result in a Protestant
upheaval. Nothing could be done that would stir
up more resentment against the two sects behind
the prosecution of Watson in States other than
Georgia.
The prosecution will figure largely in the next
presidential campaign and seriously embarrass
the Democratic Administration in the election.
The people believe in fair play and will not
stand for making fish-flesh of one man and fowl
flesh of another.
Suppress all indecent publications and do not
allow the two sects to dictate that the axe shall
fall only upon the one man they hate.
An upheaval can be projected that may amount
to a revolution. —Meriwether Vindicator.
A DANGEROUS PROPOSAL.
Thomas E. Watson, the fierce-tongued Georgia
politician and editor, is threatened with a trial
outside Georgia for the publication of articles
which are alleged to have incited the lynching
of Leo M. Frank. The Government prosecutor
who proposes to bring the case does not believe
he can get a fair trial in Georgia, and takes the
position that a prosecution can be commenced at
any point where a subscriber receives a paper
containing an offending article.
'lrrespective of Watson’s guilt, the precedent
which it is sought to establish is dangerous.
If endorsed by the Federal Courts, it would pave
the way to the trial of a publicist in a community
inflamed against him, as easily as in one which
is merely free from hostility.
Watson calls attention to the rebuke admin
istered by the courts to former President Roose
velt when he sought to bring newspaper men to
Washington for trial for alleged offenses com
mitted elsewhere. The case against him is only
a technical variation of that which he cites in
the Roosevelt administration.
To show the absurdity of the contention
brought forward by the Government prosecutor,
it is only necessary to observe that he bases his
charge upon the reading of the article by a given
man in a given community outside the State of
Georgia. If Watson’s article did incite the lynch
ing of Leo Frank, the inciting occurred within the
boundaries of Georgia. Subscribers living outside
the State were not incited.
Watson’s guilt, if he is guilty, arises by virtue
of the printing and putting into circulation of the
offensive articles. He should be tried where the
deed was done.
If Watson can be tried in lowa, or Massa
chusetts, or any State where his weekly circulates,
for inciting the lynching of Leo Frank, then it
would have been possible to try Horace Greely or
William Lloyd Garrison in Georgia or Louisiana
THE
for inciting the slaves to rebel. This is enough
to indicate where the course planned with respect
to Watson leads. It points straight to judicial
tyranny.—Des Moines (Iowa) Evening Tribune.
LOOKS BAD FOR GEORGIA.
There is talk of indicting Tom Watson, the
Georgia editor, on a charge of sending obscene
matter through the mails, in some other S'tate
than Georgia. Government officials claim that
Watson cannot be given an impartial trial in
Georgia, and for that reason they want the trial
in some other State.
Os course the proposed move has raised a
great hue and cry. It is denounced as tyrannical,
and a violation of State’s rights and the Constitu
tion as well, and it is all of that.
But back of it there looms up the question:
Is the law administered fairly and justly in
Georgia? Why should Government officials make
the claim that it is not? Is there ground for the
claim?
Georgia’s record of recent years is too fresh
in the public mind to require much comment.
Things have been going from bad to worse over
there. It will be a sorry day, and a day full of
danger, when the rest of the country loses con
fidence in the power or inclination of a State to
administer justice, to give accused persons hon
est trials. It looks as if the higher officials of
the Government—and under a Democratic Admin
istration—have about reached that attitude as
to Georgia. It is-a pity, but it is true.
Mr. Watson is guilty, or he is not guilty. A
Georgia jury should be able and willing to decide
the case just as fairly and as honestly as a jury
from any other State. And if all had been right
in Georgia within the recent past the question
never would have been raised. —Anderson (S. C.)
Daily Mail.
PERSECUTION, NOT PROSECUTION.
The prosecution of Hon. Thomas E. Watson
by the Federal Government for an alleged viola
tion of the postal laws by sending obscene matter
through the mails is beginning to be looked upon
as an act of persecution rather than prosecution.
Having failed in its effort to convict him at the
last term of the United States Court in Augusta,
some of the enemies of Mr. Watson have informed
the Attorney-General that the Government cannot
get a fair trial in Georgia, and he now proposes
to indict Mr. Watson for the same offense in
another State and force him to trial there. The
very suggestion is a base infringement upon our
boasted “State rights” and is a stench in the
nostrils of every man, woman or child who loves
home and freedom. It is a glaring insult to the
integrity and honesty of every loyal and patriotic
Georgian; a sanction and endorsement to the
flagrant slanders which have been heaped upon
our State during the past few months; an insinua
tion, despite the solemn oath to give a fair and
impartial verdict in cases in law, that Georgians
are not to be trusted.
The sting which comes from such a foully de
livered blow is all but insufferable, and the infer
ence from such a stated proposition is that the
dignity of our State would be spat upon by mere
outsiders to gratify a few personal animosities;
the culmination of hatred growing out of political
disagreements in years past and gone.
It is, however, with a feeling of pride that we
can point to Georgia Congressmen and Georgia
Senators, who have, irrespective of party preju
dice and personal feelings toward Mr. Watson,
made a vigorous protest against such an unfair
proceedure, and declared it to be an unwarranted
reflection upon the name of our “Georgia,’’ our
laws and jury system.
We think our Congressmen and Senators did
the right thing, and their action is. strongly en
dorsed by both people and press of the State.
The esteemed Macon News in an editorial has
the following to say on the subject:
“Mr. Watson has repeatedly declared that he
would never run for another political office in
Georgia, but if the Government persists in its
endeavor to convict him, willy-nilly, the result
will be the making of a martyr of him and then
no power on earth can keep him out of any office
in Georgia that he desires. His influence is al
ready an important factor, and his personal equa
tion will be increased all the more if the idea
becomes well founded that he is the special object
of a persecutive prosecution.”—Laurens (Dublin)
Citizen.
SIMPLE JUSTICE VS. OPPRESSION.
The threat to carry a citizen of Georgia to
another State for trial for publishing an article
in a paper published in Georgia, deeply concerns
every man in Georgia that loves right and justice.
This threat comes from a Democratic Admin
istration and it must be sanctioned by a Demo
cratic President.
Georgia has the proud distinction of being
“rock ribbed” in the Democratic faith, but if thia
Administration thinks for one moment that we
will kiss the hand that smites us, they are mis
taken. It is not a question of who the party is
that the United States Government seeks to crush,
it is a question of principle and this principle
outweighs any party. This principle is as sacred
as life, for no life is worth living that shall be
compelled to surrender all that is sacred.
Surely the Attorney-General did not say that
Mr. Watson was guilty and that he could not
secure a jury in Georgia that would so find. Who
authorized the Attorney-General to make such a
statement? The fact is that no prosecuting offi
cer, even if Watson was on trial, that properly
regards his oath would make such a statement
but would leave it where the law places it: to-wit,
to upright and impartial jurors.
If the Attorney-General said that we did not
have upright and impartial jurors in Georgia, he
ought to do like some others in Wilson’s cabinet
—tender his resignation at once?
Every citizen in Georgia is entitled to a trial
in the county or district in which the crime is
alleged to have been committed. This is simple
justice and less than this is oppression under the
form of law.—Schley County-News.
Bethany, by Thos. E. Watson. A Romance
of the Civil War, with vivid pen pictures of
plantation life, before the war. Bound in
cloth. Price. SI.OO, postpaid. The Jefferso
nian Publishing Company, Thomson, Ga.
Watson’s Magazine
for
MARCH
will contain
Mr. Watson’s Thomson
Speech in Full.
Magazine now on the press.
Order from your dealer. 10c per copy.
$1 PER YEAR.
Jeffersonian Publishing Co.,
Thomson, Ga.
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