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About The Columbia sentinel. (Harlem, Ga.) 1882-1924 | View Entire Issue (July 18, 1921)
Vol. 39 As every one knows ; there is a postal de¬ ficit' of $50,000,000—the outgo exceeding the income to U*et vast amount. Two weeks ago, there came before our Committee on Postoffices and Postroads the Steenerson bill, which increases the deficit by at least $6,000,000 a year. bill merely put It was contended that this into effect a law enacted by the last Congress; therefore, no opposition to it was heard, ex¬ cept from one member of the Committee. ' Senator MoKellar, of Tennessee, declared that salary the law of of the last Congress in the had Knoxville ^reduced the one employee bill should Post Office, and that the Steeuerson be amended so that this one man should not re¬ ceive less than he had heretofore received. Of course, the point was made that other employees holding similar positions should be protected. question asked, 1 How such The was many men hold similar places? five,” * t Only four or was the answer. So much time had been consumed in the consideration of the case of the Knoxville citi¬ zen, that our Chairman, Senator Townsend, fi¬ nally ended the discussion by suggesting a fa¬ vorable stood, leaving report it on to Senator the Steeuerson MoKellar bill to as.it offer in the Senate a separate amendment covering the Knoxville case and similar cases. Now, mark what happens: Wednesday morning at the beginning of the session, when much confusion usually prevails in the cham¬ ber, Senator 'Moses, of New Hampshire, se cures the recognition of the Chair; and, in a voice which eanutft be heard on the Democratic side, he thrusts the MoKellar amendment be¬ fore the Senate, and the Senate yets the idea that the Committee reported it. Senator MoKellar was not present, nor was Chairman Townsend. Senator Moses seemed to be sneaking for the Republican Committee, and my protest against what I regarded as trickery was over¬ borne by Republican votes. of the Knoxville How much did the case man add to you postal deficit? Six hundred thousand dollars! That sum is the estimate: in actual opera¬ tion, the increased expense of the 1*. O. service will probably be a million. And that’s the way we Democrats reduce taxation! Senator Watson Opposes Federal Control Of Public Roads . Congressional Record, June 30, 1921, Mr. WATSON of Georgia. Mr. i‘resident, having asked a legal question of the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Kellogg), I can not al ' low his answer to go unchallenged. I chal¬ lenge his answer. 1 say that it is not good law. Mr. President, the Federal Government has a perfect right to lay out a post road, hut, after haying done so, the Federal Government must maintain it. It has no more right to lay out a post road and tell the State to maintain it than it has to select a post office aud tell the State to keep the building in repair. The Fed¬ eral Government has a perfect right to lay out military roads; nobody disputes that; but, having exercised that power, it must maintain the road. It has no right to unburden itself of the upkeep and place it upon the State. In \ like manner the Federal Government has con stitutional authority to open up interstate¬ 's commerce roads, but, having done so, it must | maintain them. It has no right whatever to come into Alabama or Mississippi or Tennes¬ see or Georgia and arbitrarily select interstate commerce roads and then say to those States, “You must maintain them forever.” On that proposition I am ready to- meet any lawyer in this body. Mr. President, I am fond of the democracy of the open jjoad. is It equal is one of the the prince; few places where the pauper to one of the few places where title, wealth, social position, color, race, previous condition of ser¬ vitude make no difference between man and man, woman and woman. The only piece of Walt Whitman’s poetry that I ever understood was bis Open Road. We call them big roads down in the South. We love them. Along those roads every man travels on a footing of abso¬ lute equality. He camps by the side of them at night if he wants to; lie takes his meal victuals from his basket or liis lunch paper if he wants to. He is as much at horn^ there as V if , l 1 * i - - V \' ' f Price $2.00 Per Veer Editorial Notes From The United States Senate. The Republican leaders who have charge of the Soldiers’ Bonus Bill, call it “adjusted compensation”: nevertheless, it proposes a lx U nus, because'anything given, over and above a contracted price, is a bonus. I regard the pending measure as a subter¬ fuge, a piece of legislative legerdemain, a specimen of insolvent statesmanship, a cow¬ ardly makeshift. It does not pay the soldier a single dollar! It promises to pay him $50., a year from now, and does not provide the means of meet¬ ing the obligation. Prior leins on the Treasury may deprive the soldier of what the bill proposes. If the Republicans refuse to levy a pro¬ gressive income tax on the billionaires; if they refuse to confiscate to the use of the pub¬ lic a moiety of the ungodly gains which the Monopolists have exacted from the consumers; if they refuse to compel the Dollar-a-year ras¬ cals to disgorge what they stole,—then the Government won’t have the .cash to pay even the paltry fifty dollars, a year hence, to the men who faced firing lines, while these satunic profiteers were fattening on blood-soaked bat¬ tlefields, three thousand miles from home. Alternative features of this “adjusted com¬ pensation” measure, provide that the soldier may have an insurance policy, or a piece of land where it never rains, or a vocational training, minus a job. We already have several million men and women who have vocational training, but no employment. ‘ How will.it help matters to vocationally train another million or so, and then leave them jobless? Why not divide among the ex-service men the $102,000,000 Greenbacks which the laws of 1862-3 authorize the Government to issue bight now f Why not donate to them the $1,000,000,000 of fr-ee gold, lying idle, useless, ominous, in the U. S. Treasury? 300,000,000 Why not compensate them with the $2, gold reserve, which the victories of our soldiers enabled the Government to ac¬ cumulate. England, France, Belgium, and Italy forced Germany to pay: why shouldn’t our if lie owned it, because he, as much as any¬ body else, does own it. The place which he then and there occupies is his, and it is his un¬ til he passes on and surrenders it to one who comes after him. Do Senators understand what the Town¬ send bill, even as amended, proposes to do" Let me express my profound respect for our chairman. I have it, aud that respect mingles very much with affection for him. He. will bear testimony to my labors on that committee as I bear testimony to his and to the splendid impartiality with which our chairman presided over the meetings of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads. But we honestly differ as to some detail of liis bill. I do not believe, Mr. President, that there should be heid over a State a tempting bribe, no matter how large it is, as a price for the surrender of her sov¬ ereignty. Speaking for the State of Georgia, which I in part represent, I say here and now that the Federal Government has not enough money to bribe us into a surrender of our sovereignty. The imperial crown of Rome was sold, once, on the ramparts by the Praetorian Guard, but Georgia’s crown of sovereignty will never be sold here at any price while her representation is what surrender it is at present. We are not going to our sovereignty. IMPORTANT NOTICE. All communications relating to the Columbia Sentinel should be addressed to the Thomson, Ga. Office, Box 393. All communications for Senator Thos. E. Watson, Mrs. Lytle or Mr. G. C. Edmondson, Should be addressed Room 129, J. 9. B., Washington, D. C. Thomson, Ga., Monday, duly 16, 1921 Government demand that those European debtors of ours pay over to us what Germany pays to them as fast as Germany pays it? By indulging those European debtors who borrowed ten billion dollars from us, we vir tually finance their imperialistic, designs in Europe, in Asia, and in Africa. If this Morganized Administration would take as firm a stand for repayment, as the triumphant Powers took against German}", we’d get at least the interest on our money. But Morgan and his confederated bandits want Europe to pay them, first; and as the Morganites are controlling this pledge-busting Administration, your taxes will not be reduced, your burdens will not be lessened, your sol diers can suffer and wait! And now come a number of petitions from Georgia, requesting me to support the Smitli-Towner bill. The headings of these petitions are all in the same language, typed apparently on the same type-machine, and mailed out from Washington, or New York, to my fellow doo¬ dles in Georgia. We Georgia doodles can’t do anything worth mentioning, until the type-machines get to going in Washington or New York. This is very sad. Every one of these typed petitions is signed by Susan Dusanberry, ‘‘Teacher;” or by Josephus Whackum, “Teacher”; or by Professor Lankshank, “Principal”; or by some lady Superintendent who has no more idea of what the Smitli-Towner bill would do, than she knows about anything else that she doesn’t know. Not a single parent of children* has asked me to support this negro-equality bill! Not a single school-boy or girl has asked me to do it. Not a single college student, male or fe¬ male, lias signed any such negroid petition. The Smitli-Towner hill would inevitably evolve complete Federal control of our schools! Wherever the Federal Government comes offering aid, it means to eome again demand¬ ing control. blatter We have seen that Roads: illustrated, in the of our Public the Federalists first said*‘We want to aid you, and leave you the control”: they now say they must have We are not going to give up our dirt roads or any other kind of roads; wo are going to con¬ trol them. We are going to say where they shall be, from the farmer’s home to his market town, from one town to another, and from the town to the city. Talk about expending all this enormous amount of money on laying out othcr^routes for limousines from Detroit to Miami. That is all rigid. But let the limousine people pay for them. Do not let them come down and select their route from Detroit to Miami or from New York to Augusta and then say to the State of Georgia, “You take what we choose and you beai . t } 1( . expense of it forever,” without regard to the convenience of the people who want to go to our county fairs; without regard to the convenience of our people who want to visit one another; without regard to the innocent sports which carry groups of young people from one community to another; without re¬ gard to church meetings, educational meetings, political meetings, or any other kind of meet¬ ings. Tell me, Senators, why should this bill ask that Army officers be detailed to supervise our roads? Why should naval officers be de¬ tailed to do it! What business have the Army and tile Navy in onr “big rogds” in time of Issued Weekly absolute control, and they are striving for it in the Townshend bill. This Administration- like that of Wood row Wilson—believes in social equality bc tween the races. Lincoln Johnson was invited to dine with President Harding, at your White House. A white Republican warned Link not ro accept that invitation, and Link bad sense enough to heed the warning. But Link has been nominated to be Re corder of Deeds, where lie will have thirty white girls under him. 'The appointment has not yet been con firmed. But your ex-service men will tell you how social equality was forced upon them in the army; and you can see it any day here in the Civil Service, on the street cars, aud in the parks. Do you want your children put in the same schools and classes with black children? .. If Do SO, BOOM THE SmITH-ToWNER BILL.? you want negro Supervisors, superin¬ tendents, and teachers forced into your public schools and secular colleges? If so, BOOM THE SMITH-TOWNER BILL! Some well-meaning folks have favored this bill because the Roman Catholic* pretend to oppose it. I don’t know whether their seeming oppo¬ sition is a Jesuit trick or not—and I don’t care: but I would be unfit to hold my place in the Senate if I should allow Catholic opinion to control my own. Professor Lawton B. Evans, is one of the ^ signers of the typed petitions. How much influence has Professor Evans ever tried to exert, in favor of free text-books for the children of the poorf Who has ever heard his voice raised in remonstrance, as M. L. Brittain has gone on, from year to year, putting obstacles in the, path of the boys aud girls who wanted to learn how to spell, how to read, how to write, how to use grammatical English, how to do simple sums in Arithmetic, so that they might be able to keep their own accounts when they became of age? I know what the Smitli-Towner bill, threat¬ ens to the South, and I’m against it. peace? With what authority will they come? The bill does not specify. In this bill we create an office to which may be assigned a salary greater than that drawn by the President of the United States. It is unlimited. Do you want that kind of officer at the head of a roads system, enthroned here in Washington City, where everything is coming, with an imperialism that is appalling? Are the States to have nothing ah all except the privilege of paying the expenses of the most costly imperialism the world ever knew? Are the States to be mere provinces, sending up annual tribute to the imperialism—militaristic, financial, despotic—enthroned here in Wash¬ ington ? Mr. President, I say that the present; road law goes far enough. It gives satisfaction. My people are satisfied with ijt, and we have heard, from various States all over the Union, the same comment of approval- We are doing well. Why not let well enough alone? Why embark upon a new system when the present system is giving satisfaction? We have adjusted ourselves to it. When they first came down from Washington City proposing Federal aid they used the alluring cry, “We come to help you, not to control you.” In less than five years they are back there saying, “We are going to control you and put upon you the main expense of main¬ taining our control.” . low Senators, he careful you do that. You invite a revolution of the road system when you do it, and the people will not approve it. Surely New England does not want to give up the sovereignty of her States; surely the great West prizes the sovereignty of her States; surely the North prizes the sovereignty of her States; and I am absolutely certain that there is not money enough on this earth to buy th* sovereignty of the Southern States, , , . ... No 40
