Newspaper Page Text
swiped, eloigned, jugulated, disembowelled, smoth
ered. strangled, parboiled and otherwise scandalous
ly maltreated.
“Shout this loudly, from Habersham to Glynn,
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 a champion Prohibitionist."
Papers, papers, can Smith stand for this.’ —even
from the man who less than two years ago failed
to see the hypocracy that is so apparent today ’
Will he not be compelled to answer Mr. Watson?
We think he will. Our readers will be amused at
the fun we're going to have.
Mr. Watson does not only find a belly-full of
hypo.craey in Smith now, but he has discovered also
an attempt on the part of the governor to steal his
followers and bury him, and ask Smith pointedly
if he did not tell a Rape Circular politician named
J. Sid Turner that. “We've taken Watson's fol
lowers away from him and now we are going to
bury him and get rid of him."
lie begs to remind the governor that he has no
followers—which is true as he sold them out to the
Republicans in 1904—but that it will be a bad day
for Jeffersonian Democracy and Georgia when he
and plotters succeed in burying him.
Very poor, dear old Democracy! Poor dear old
Georgia !
An Innovation in Georgia Politics and Railroad
Economics.
By Evad Reyd.
Score one for the State of Georgia.
1 lard-hearted and envious newspaper paragraph
ers have oftentimes poked fun at her Capital City,
which they characterize as the only champion im
itator of New York to be found south of the Mason
and Dixon line.
Atlanta may be lacking in fecundity when it
conies to starting things new, but that part of Geor
gia lying outside of Fulton county (and there are a
few Atlanta folks who will admit, if pressed, that
their town does not overspread the whole State)
may be depended upon at all times to make good in
any of the few lines in which Atlanta is deficient.
This time our hat lies upon the floor in enthus
iastic salutation to Richmond County, whose capital
city, the peerless Augusta, becomingly and with
great modesty wears the honor of being the only
American city, the streets of which John D. Rocke
feller has the nerve to traverse without his accus
tomed guard of six detectives. Besides, John I),
still lives to tell the story.
As everybody knows, the railroads all around us
have been put hard to it since the panic has been
on to make ends meet. There can be no denial of
this assertion, because the railroads themselves made
it. and persistently declare it to be true. As proof,
they point out that they have abolished many jobs
and consolidated others. Where two clerks former
ly flourished they have made one do. In territory
where three telegraph offices used to be kept open
for train order service, they have closed up two, and
now offer rewards to countrymen for any authentic
information regarding the whereabouts of trains,
news of this order to be ’phoned or sent in by courier
on horseback. Farmers’ boys are said to turn a
pretty penny taking over this sort of work as a side
THE REASON
line to chopping cotton, while at the same time de
veloping a keenness of perception and a strengthen
ing of the intuitive faculty for locating articles lost,
which may stand them in good stead should they
decide to adopt sleuthism as an avocation.
Having been for a long time understocked with
presidents, first, second and third, fourth ami up to
the 'steenth vice-presidents in the cases of some
roads, and general managers ami superintendents
and assistant superintendents and assistants to as
sistant superintendents, and passenger and freight
agents an I assistant passenger and freight agents,
it was found inexpedient to spare any of these
employes. Every single available man of their class
of labor was clearly unsparable to the service of
safe-guarding the lives and limbs of passengers n
midnight rides through the forests and jungles and
rice fields, for be it remembered, the son of the stur
dy yeoman finds it more than difficult to spy out
from his vantage place at the apex of the Georgia
pine, after night has fallen over the surrounding
country, the exact position of a railroad train wlr h
has been cut off from communication with its guide,
the dispatcher, for several hours. Here is where the
official comes into utmost usefulness. Who, for n
stance, would inspect the assistant superintendents
if the superintendents were abolished ’ What would
then* be for the superintendents to inspect if Hie
assistant superintendents wort 1 sent about other busi
ness, and how would nomadic trains ever get safely
through without these inspections’
But let's not go astray. Richmond County is die
text, and should not be neglected in this discourse
in any discourse, for that matter. She is the se-ne
of the most admirable, as well as pre-eminently
unique departure in railroad economics yet reported
from any quarter of the globe. Yet the move inaug
urated by the Georgia Railroad Company to rut
necessary expenses to an irreducible minimum is so
simple, so wise, so natural, one is prone to wonder
why it was not thought of before.
The proposed innovation is just a plain merge] of
two jobs, or. to be more exact, a consolidation of
three jobs (two railroad and one State-comp- n
sated) commonly worked by two men, into one .job
to be looked after by one man. It is this way: As
stated above, the railroads have got to saw oil their
pay-rolls. As a general rule, transportation com
panies have been in the habit of maintaining separ
ately their operating departments, their departments
of legal representation in the courts and their sub
division for activity upon the floors of State ami
National legislatures. Not infrequently the forces
of the two last named sections have been combine I,
but not for publication. But there is no record upon
which to predicate a precedent for tin* determina' <>n
on the part of the Georgia Railroad Company to
openly combine Hie functions of its treasury and
legislative spheres. 11 is not asserted, of course. t it
these branches have been strangers to each other
heretofore in any considerable portion of the coun
try, but it is usual to treat the subjunction as a ten
der and sacred affair of hearts and. therefore. of not
sufficient virility to stand public exposure.
Possibly upon the hypothesis that “Faint heart
never won special privileges, ’’ the Georgia Railroad
Company proposes to discard flowers and bonbons
and midnight serenades under a silvery summer
moon, in laying siege to its affinity, and will adopt
strongarm ami big stick methods in its wooing.
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