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Senator Thos. E. Watson’s Speech On The
Proposed Liberian Loan.
DELIVERED IX THE UNITED STATES SENATE, SEPTEMBER 12, 1022.
Mr. President, if there ever was a time when this
Gen eminent Intended to put a stop to the unconstitu
tional mid unbusinesslike way of becoming the money
lender of the v.hole world, it seems to me we have
reached that lime. During the war there was a state
of feeling throughout the country which was naturally
different from that which existed prior to the war and
which should now exist, after the war has been over for
so long a time.
The President of the United States said that the
Government and the people should come back to nor¬
malcy. No doubt he meant that they should: but, when
are wo to come back to normalcy -today, tomorrow,
next year, or 10 years from now? Have we the consti¬
tutional right to tax our people in order to lend money
to every nation on earth that wants to borrow it? From
what source do we got such authority? What line of
the Constitution authorizes it? Among the purposes of
taxation, who will say that we have been given power
to take the tax money of the people, which in our
custody is a trust fund, and misappropriate it by lend¬
ing it to nations that we know will never pay and
that never intend to pay?
Much talk has beeu indulged in here about moral
obligations. Do Senators on this floor owe no moral
obligations to their ov u constituents? Do they owe no
legal obligations to them?
This appropriation of $$0,000,000 for the recla¬
mation of arid lands in the West has been linked by
the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Borah) with the Liberian
loan, and you can not consider one without thinking of
the other. At this time the one can be defended as
easily as the other, in my judgment.
How often have we heard the Senator from Idaho
(Mr. Borah) say that the expenses of the Government
should be reduced; that the Army should be cut down;
that the Navy should be cut down; that all the ex¬
penses of the Government should come down? In ev¬
ery one of those positions I have taken my stand with
him, because 1 honestly believed that during the war
period our Government almost ran mad with exirava
ganed; but everybody expected that when the war was
over the expenses of the Government would be reduced,
that the burdens of the taxpayer would he lightened,
and the door of hope opened to the people who were
alnaos.t in despair on account of their financial condi¬
tion.
1 hope 1 will not he understood by the Senate or
the country as having any feeling of hostility to the
great West. Frpm my very childhood that part of
our country has held me with a fascination which still
holds good. But there should be some sanity, some
reason, some moderation, some wisdom, in our expend¬
iture of the money which is placed in our control. If
there is any one thing of which this country has a
superabundance now it is cultivatable land, land
(
ready for the plow land ready for the man who can
cultivate it, the man with the means to operate it.
There is the abandoned farm in New England
which says so. There are abandoned farms In New
York which say so. There are abandoned farms all
over the South which say so. At this time we do not
need to have any swamp lands drained, Give us the
wherewith to till the uplands which are already in
cultivation and the lowlands which have already been
drained, What is true of the South is true of other
sections. There is land enough for every man who
wants to put his hand to the plow or lo the hoe and
make crops.
The irrigated farm is the rival and the menace of
the farm thV is not irrigated. T,et the Government
furnish its money, empty the treasury onto the
lands of the West, build colossal clams, send out
gating ditches, and let the farmer have moisture when
ever he wants it, not too much and not too little but
just enough: and in the long run that farmer will be
the ruin of the farmer who has to depend upon the
Da sains: cloud", and the uncertainties of climate. These
irrigated (arms are the rivals of the East, the North,
the Middle West, and the South.
Not on that account would I vote against any
reasonable proposition for the reclamation of avid lands.
but here at the heel of the session, when we have
toted money with it recklessness which lias astounded
conservative observers, when we have taken more than
half a billion of dollars a year in taxes off the richest
people off the people who made billions of dollars out
of the blood of our soldiers who were fighting abroad,
w hile villi a tariff bill which will soon come back here
we are placing almost unbearable burdens on every
necessary of life, it seems a. crime against our people
and recreancy to our trust to he putting out $20,000,
000 more to irrigate arid lands.
Ac to this Liberian loan, who expects that it would
ever be paid? I really would like to see what Senator
on this side or the other would venture to rise in his
place and say that he honestly expected that Liberia
would ever repay that loan, Nobody over expects 't
to be repaid. What is more, Liberia will not get
enough of that, money as, invested iu bacon, would make
a frying pan smell across this Chamber.
Of what does Liberia consist? In a book which 1
lent for yesterday and got from tire Library, chapter
55, page 13$, it is said:
The approximate total coast population of
civilized Liberia, mostly Christians, and of mixed j
American and indigenous negro races, amounts
to 50,000. |
!
We are going to lend or give $5,000,000 to 50,000;
negroes in Liberia. 1 would rather give it to the -no-1
froes in Washington City. I would rather give it. to the
Degroos in Alabama or the negroes in Georgia, whose;
needs for it arc much greater. In Liberia the
loes not have to wear anything in particular, except;
perhaps, a pleasing expression of countenance, He can
live on the natural products «of the soli, I-Io does not
save to build a house to live in unless he wants to put
in style. He can live on the broad bosom of naturo
ind draw his nourishment from it as a child would
’rom the bosom of its mother.
I,-«vo million dollars to bo given to 50,000 negroes! j
That is a hundred dollars apffcce for every negro man,i
svevy negro woman, and every negro child in Liberia,;
end what, in the name of God. could they do with the'
tuonoy if they got it? Suppose of live; a pe$io there family would iu be U j
beria. consists of an average a
THE COLUMBIA SfcNTiNfcL, lHUMbON, OhORCHA.
gift of $500 to every family. Oh, what a jubilation
there would be in Washington City if we made a pres¬
ent pf $500 to every negro family in the District of
Columbia. We would doubtless have to submit to the
affliction of serenades for a week or bo.
Mr. President, I think there has been a general
misapprehension about the origin of Liberia. In the
report of the committee apparently an attempt has been
mad* to impress the Congress and the country with
the idea that Liberia was founded by the Government
of the United States; that it is a kind of au adopted
child of this Government; that we hold it by some sort
of trusteeship or guardianship; that we are responsible
for its maintenance.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Libsyia
was a dream of philanthropists long before the Civil
War. Those men who dreamed that if the free and in¬
telligent negro were just taken away from the cor¬
rupting contact with the white man and given a gov¬
ernment of hip own, given land of his own, given free¬
dom which nothing but the horizon bounded, he would
achieve a civilization, established Liberia. The coloni¬
zation societies of this country and of England seni
over the freedmen, selected the most intelligent, the
men of the highest character. Henry Clay lent to that
scheme and that dream the marvelous power of his
eloquence in this very Capitol.
From that day to this there never has been a time
when Liberia could stand alone. There never was a
time when she could support herself. She was always,
from year to year, supported and maintained by tlu
colonization societies, and when the societies, in de¬
spair, exhausted in patience and in funds, ceased tc
send money to Liberia, she went into debt to Europear
nations and to American financiers, and the real es
sence of this so-called Liberian loan is to pay off he;
debts and to pay them to American and European ii
nanciers.
If we set this example it will become a precedent,
anti every lawyer here knows that a precedent, onct
set, has almost the power of a statute. If we begin it.
we will never end it. Liberia will be our tar baby, wt
will never get loose from it.
Mr. President, if it had been proposed to lend Li
beria $5,000,000 out of what England owes us, the
proposition might have been more attractive. If it had
been proposed to lend to Liberia $5,000,000 out oi
what France owes us, then the proposition might have
been more warmly welcomed. But England has not
paid us a cent and apparently is not making any mo
tion like a nation that intends to pay its honest debts.
During the Revolutionary War, when our strug
gllng colonies were maintaining against overwhelming
odds a long struggle for the glorious privilege of being
independent, we wer,e loaned money by Holland, France
and Spain, and almost before the smoke floated
away from the last gun that was fired we had paid
those debts. In 1917-18 our money and our man saved
England, and France. The war has been over since
November, 1918, and not one dollar that crossed the
seas has recrossed them. We paid the freight on the
soldiers who went to England’s relief and wo probably
paid the freight on the gold that we loaned her, and
she has not paid the freight either way.
In the Washington Post of Sunday, September 10,
1922, there appeared a leading article signed by the
writer whose nom de plume is "Ex-Attache.” Ife speak:
of the almost unlimited wealth of France. He says
that France today is paying a pension to the King ot
Sweden, the lineal descendant of Bernadotte, who be
tfayed Napoleon, led armies against France, and stood
guard around the scaffold while the head of Queen
Marie Antoinette was being struck , off „ by t lv the guillotine
rr there is any debt that might be confiscated or de
I c,arefi obsolete and no longer binding, especially upon
this generation, that seems to me to be one of them—
! and there are others equally farcical. The other debts
that France i s paying are given by the writer ot the
article. Then he goes on to tell how rich France is,
what are her assets, and said:
Yet those assets are enormous, in many re¬
spects incalculable. Thus, what can one say of
the colossal phosphate resources of Algeria and
Tunis?
How did France get Algieria and Tunis? By con
quest. Every square mile of the land which France
wrested from those natives was soaked with the blooo
of natives who were defending their independence just
as our ancestors defended ours.
Again:
Of the apparently inexhaustible potash fields
discovered last year in Morocco, which properly ex¬
ploited are in themselves sufficient to pay off the
entire national debt of France.
What, do you think, Mr. President, of a country
that inspires a special writer to toll the whole world
that her potash beds in Morocco would pay off her en
tiro national debt, when she will not pay one single
franc on the enormous dtebt. of principle and interest
that she owes us?
is this the time to take more money out of the
people's Treasury and give it to a foreign country,
white or black, little or big? What will they say to us
back home? What excuse can we give when we go
back to those who sent us here and tell those who have
in their houses little to eat , and in whoso wardrobes
there is little to wear, and in whose soul there is little
hope for the future? What will they say to us when
’.ve tell them that one of the last things we did was to
give $20,000,000 to bring in some more desert lands on
the other side of the continent and give $5,000,000 to
lot of buccc.aneering financiers, European and Ameri
cans, who loaned money to Liberia?
--
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A Letter to Senator Watson and
Senator Watson's Reply.
There is so much in the letter attached to
this introduction that has been used by so
many people, it seemed a good thing to pub¬
lish the letter, entire, and Senator Watson’s
reply:
i
Dear Sir: I noticed in the Atlanta
Constitution of August 26tli that you had
come out against the bonus bill and was
going to vote against same. Have you
forgotten that Georgia furnished 102,786
soldiers in the World War and that over
50,000 arc now registered voters and do
you know that every soldier can control
one or more votes besides his own? Have
you also forgotten your platform pledge
of 1920, when you stated that you favored
a bonus? And you did not say that it
would just exactly have to suit you before
you would support it. You say Tom Hard¬
wick has broken every pledge he made.
What have you done? 'The soldiers elect¬
ed you to the high office you are now hold¬
ing. if they did not elect you directly,
they did indirectly, for that was your sole
argument in behalf of the ex-soldiers.
Have you forgotten, or do you think we
don't need it! If you think we don’t need
it you are badly mistaken.
Arc you afraid it will cost you a few
cents in taxes? The people were taxed
to finance the war and are still paying
same, and a few cents more would make
no difference so long as we have some¬
thing to pay with. Have you forgot a
while back when you were telling in your
paper about how many homes had been
sold for taxes? Well, Sir, there arc going
to be a lot more sold and maybe *the sol¬
diers’ bonus would save a lot of these
homes. I know of some right here at
home it would save. Were you not elected
to the Senate to represent the people and
not yourself? What about the tariff bill?
You made no particular fight against it.
You did nothing to get the tariff off any¬
thing that was most needed by the com¬
mon people. You did not try to get pot¬
ash oa the free list. You did not try to
get arsenate on the free list, which is so
much needed to fight the boll weevil. I be¬
lieve it went on the free list, but I don’t
think you had anything to do with it.
It looks to me like you have proved
yourself a traitor, but hold your temper
and don’t get mad for you have called so
many other people a traitor that you
ought to know how it sounds and wluit it
means. If the extra tax is the reason you
are lighting Hie bonus, you should not
worry, for you made enough money in
1917 when your Jeffersonian was stopped
to pay your share as long as you live
which 1 hope will be many years yet to
come. You promised in 1917 that if your
paper was stopped you would refund the
money paid in for subscriptions or con¬
tinue the paper when you set up again.
But you did neither one and 1 don’t care,
but you can always accuse some one else
but not yourself.
Yours truly,
John T. Hopkins, Ex-Soldier.
Carnesville, Ga., R. F. D. 1.
Sept. 12, 1922.
Mr. John T. Hopkins,
F. D. No. 1,
’arnesville, Ga.
Dear Sir: Your letter of recent date re
reived.
ff you receive this letter from the R. F. D.
‘arrier it will he by virtue of a law which I
had Congress to adopt in February, 1893.
As long as you pin your faith to what you
tee in the daily papers you will always he mis
n formed.
The Congressional Record, which is official
and indisputable, shows that I was one of .the
first of the Senators who spoke for the sol¬
diers bonus, and that I have made four or five
Afferent speeches since in the same cause.
I even had a debate with Senator Borah
m the subject, and cited the authorities which
bowed that Washington as well as the very
first Congress favored a bonus to the ex-sol¬
ders of the Revolutionary War.
The scheme 1 voted against was not a
soldiers bonus. It was a bill for the land
speculators who wanted to take out of the
Federal Treasury three hundred and fifty
million dollars of the people’s money in order
that irrigation works should be extended in the
far Western States where, in the course of
five or,ten years there might be farms open¬
ed up to those Georgians who wish to leave
the South ami take their chances on a far
Western farm without money to equip it, or to
operate it.
Another part of this so-called soldiers bo
nub against which 1 voted was the so-called
sales tax, which had it been adopted, would
have caused an additional tax to have been
placed on every commodity that goes into the
markets and the stores, l'r this manner, the
last man who bought a hat, a suit of clothes,
or a pair of shoes, would have paid the accu¬
mulated previous taxes paid by others as the
articles passed from hand to hand.
Of course, this tax would have compelled
the ex-soldiers, their kindred and their friends
to have pa i the bonus instead of compelling'
the war profiteers to pay it.
The speech which 1 nuuL against f hi s
monstrous proposition shows that I opposed it
upon those very ground s.
This speech is in the Congressional Re¬
cord, taken down word for word, just as 1
spoke it to the Senate.
The bill passed the Senate but, when it
went to the conference committee those fea¬
tures which 1 had opposed were stricken on!
and the bill will now come back to the Sonar ,
stripped of those features which no Ion oft
friend of the ex-soldier, or of the tax payer
could possibly support.
Therefore, when it comes uj> again, J will
vote for it in its changed condition, because
it comes nearer to being a bonus bill, although
it is far below what ! proposed, namely: that
the Government should reissue and pay direct¬
ly to the ex-service man the two billion dollar,
which the Federal Reserve Board lias called
in and destroyed since October, 1920,
You are equally misinformed as to my
position on the tariff bill. The Record wil
show that 1 voted for lower taxes in every in¬
stance, and that 1 voted for free potash and
for everything else that went upon the free
list.
The Record will show that I denounced
such taxes 'as those upon sand, suit, cement,
brick, and so forth, and that 1 voted against
the Republican bill in its final shape.
I do not know where you got the informa¬
tion that my record is just the reverse of wlmt
it actually has been.
As to the subscribers to my paper in 1917,
the Government destroyed it, and ! lost in the
suppression of my magazine and paper eleven
years hard work, and $75,000 that I had in¬
vested. 1 did not feel at all responsible for
what the Wilson Government had illegally
done, and had 1 undertaken to repair the dam¬
ages done in the name of the law by Wilson
and Burleson, I would have bankrupted myself,
whereas the subscribers lost only a few cents
without fault on my part.
I regret to say that you are the only man
who has ever charged me with bad faith in
the premises.
Respectfully,
Thomas E. Watson.
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