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12
WATSON’S GREAT SPEECH.
(Continued from page 5.)
of raw cotton would advance as the
demand increased. That is the only
natural and permanent way to get bet
ter prices for cotton. Why talk such
childish nonsense as that spinners are
going to voluntarily give you a bet
ter price for your cotton this year,
or that temporary circumstances
might arise by which some such sort
of arrangement might be made? You
don’t want a higher price of a cent
or two to be doled out to you as the
gift of the cotton spinners. You don’t
want any other class to give you any
thing. What you want is your rights
under the law; what you want is just
treatment under the law; what you
want is a square deal under the law,
and if you will go after the matter
right, you will get an advance in the
price of cotton, not as the gift from
the cotton spinner, but as a result of
unwritten, but irresistible laws which
he can no more disregard than you
can. Now, of course, when you lower
the tariff the manufacturer will not
make a profit of 28 per cent upon $lO,-
000,000,000. But he has no right to
have laws so framed as to take your
property for his benefit in order that
he may earn such unnatural and un
just profits. Why, in the year 1900,
the manufacturers could have taken
out of their net profits for that one
year a sufficient amount of money to
have paid oft the national debt, to
have dug the Panama canal at its es
timated cost, to have run a railroad
from ocean to ocean, and then would
have left to themselves a net profit
of more than any ordinary, unpro
tected, unprivileged man made upon
his money. Such a situation is just
simply intolerable, and if you don’t
fight it to the death, you are untrue
to yourself, to your wives and your
children, to you country and your God,
and future generations bound down
to a hopeless serfdom, chained ever
more to a heartless plutocracy, will
curse your memory for the cowards
that you were.
Let no man believe that I am oppos
ed to banks as such —for I am not.
They are useful. They multiply the
capital of the country, and therefore
they multiply the number of industries
and enterprises. Let no man suppose
me narrow and bigoted enough to op
pose railroads. I do not. To the full
est extent I realize their importance
as factors in the developing of every
material interest of the country, agri
culture, mining, manufacture. Let no
one suppose for a moment that I am
opposed to manufacturing or to min
ing profits. lam not. To the fullest
extent I realize the importance of pro
ducing in this country everything
that is necessary to our comfort, and
which the law of nature seems to say
that God Almighty intended that we
should produce here. The point I
make, is this: in our great American
family Uncle Sam has had too much
favoritism. He has glutted every
other interest at the expense and at
the sacrifice of the most important in
terest of all, the agricultural interest.
I do not clamor for a sweeping away *
of all profits in banking, but I do con
tend, as Jefferson and Jackson and
Benton and Calhoun did. that the gov
ernment should take back to itself
the sovereign power of issuing money;
that the banks should be confined to
legitimate banking—discounts, ex
change, loans, etc. —and that their
profits should bear some reasonable
proportion to the actual investment of
money.
As to the railroads, I consider, like
wise, that as long as the government
stupidly allows private corporations
to exploit public franchises and pub
lic highways and tax the life out of
every other industry, the gentlemen
who engage in it with their money,
their time, their intelligence and ener
gy, are entitled to a fair return and
reasonable profit, but I say that this
profit should be declared upon actual
investment and not upon fabulous is
sues of watered stock. The $10,000,-
000,000 represented as capital invest
ed in railroads in 1900 was very much
more than one-half watered, represent
ing in honest dollars not nearly so
large an expenditure. The same thing
was true of the bonds. My honest
opinion is that the railroads at the
present time are taxing the people for
net profits of at least $7,000,000,000
of fictitious and fraudulent values. In
like manner as to manufacturers. I
concede their right to a fair and rea
sonable profit upon the actual invest
ment, but I do say that it is unreasona
ble, unjust for the government to
pass laws giving to the manufactur
ing industries special favors, special
privileges, enabling them to make
more than 28 per cent net profit on
a ten billion dollar investment at a
time when the legal rate of interest is
one-third lower than that, when pri
vate concerns seeking a safe invest
ment cannot get one-fifth of that;
when the railroad itself grabs less
than one-fourth of that, and when the
vast army of agricultural workers are
not making any net profit at all.
Study these questions profoundly,
act upon them independently. As in
dividuals do what you think is right.
Let no subsidized editor mislead you
into fighting against your own home
and fire side. Let no wily politician
pacify you with his lies and intimi
date you with the party lash. Laws
are not going to be changed so long
as you leave the job to your rivals and
your competitors in business. When
the laws are changed, it will be be
cause you yourself have brought to
bear upon the law-makers the irre
sistible pressure of public opinion.
If you will make up your minds to it,
you can govern this country. Seven
hundred thousand manufacturing pro
prietors organized themselves into a
class corporation and are now ruling
congress. You represent at least
twelve million of men, and will you,
the twelve million, continually bow
your head to the yoke of seven hundred
thousand manufacturers? You need
not do it, if you don’t want to do it.
You can rule this country if you will.
It is indeed high time you were doing
it. Our protective system has built
up the most heartless aristocracy the
world ever saw. De Tocqueville, the
Frenchman, studying our institutions
more than seventy years ago, pointed
to this protective system as the door
way through which aristocracy would
enter upon the American people and
became a danger to democratic insti
tutions.
In the days of slavery, the sick
slave and the old slave, as well as the
infant slave, were taken care of. The
child was fed until it should be able
to work. The sick were visited, every
care used to restore them to health.
In old age, when too enfeebled to
work, they were cared for with hu
mane treatment. That was the slave
aristocracy which was so hateful in
the eyes of New England. Today, New
England has an aristocracy of her own
tenfold more hateful than anything ever
seen in the south. The children per
ish in the great tenements for lack of
fresh air and food. Thousands die
like flies, and the plutocracy takes no
account of it. The weaver may fall
faint at the loom, may be carried home
to linger for weeks upon a bed of sick
ness. New England plutocracy takes
no account of the sick. Another hand
is put in the place of the one w’bo has
fallen by the wayside. If the sick
recover all right; if the sick do not
recover, away with them to the Pot
ter’s field. Plutocracy takes no ac
count of the too old to work, the too
sick to work, the too young to work.
In fact, the modern slave system takes
the child almost out of the cradle and
grinds up its little bones into divi
dends.
By the law of nature, New England
was sterile. No wealth by any natur
al process was ever intended hers. On
the other hand, the south and the west
received at the hands of the Creator
boundless sources of natural wealth.
The traveler coming to this country
one hundred years ago and inspecting
New England, would have said, “New
England is condemned to perpetual
scarcity, if not perpetual poverty.”
The same traveler examining the con
dition of the south and the west,
would have said, “‘Here is the seat of
the empire of wealth. Here the hand
of nature has been absolutely opened
out prodigally and every bountiful gift
bestowed.” Yet today, if we could
picture the same traveler returning,
we could understand his amazement
when he saw that New England had
gathered into her own lap almost ill
the wealth of the south and west; and
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
that the soujh and the west had sim
ply become tributary provinces, roll
ing up to New England every year
royal tribute, making her rich “be
yond the dreams of avarice.” As a
southern man, my blood boils with in
dignation when I consider the injus
tice of these conditions, and the con
sequent poverty of the south. The
poverty of the south is law-made. The
wealth of New England is law-made.
Those who wrote the statutes deliber
ately intended to confiscate the prop
erty of the one class and the one sec
tion and give it under the forms of
law to the other class and the other
section.
Farmers of the south, rouse your
selves! Shake off the apathy of dis
couragement. Look upward to the
high purpose of making the future re
deem the past. Once upon a time the
country home was the delight of
American life. Make it so again. This
going to the cities has not been done
of your own free will and accord.
Conditions drove you to do it. Change
those conditions. Make it possible to
live safely and happily in the country,
and let the cry of the future be, “Back
to the country home!”
What is the dream of the prosper
ous man of the city, who has grown
rich in the city, and who looks about
him to see how he shall enjoy his
wealth? Is it not to have an ideal
home in the country?
Your Rockefellers, your Goulds,
your Vanderbilts, each and every one
of your millionaires dream of the ideal
country home, and no matter how
lavish may be their expenditures in
their city palaces, it is the loving
touch that they put upon their coun
try homes. Why can’t you now, with
out going to the city to get rich, have
the ideal country home? What is
necessary in order that you may have
it? To get a fair price for the prod
ucts of your toil and to receive from
the law-making power a square deal.
Given these, and the anxiety, the wear
and tear, the squalor and the misery,
the strain and struggle will pass away
from the farmer’s life and into it will
come some of the ease, the leisure and
the comfort which would make the
south the happiest country in the
world.
I cannot bring myself to believe that
the glory of the south is a thing of
the past. It is impossible for me to
abandon the hope that there is life
in the old land yet.. We have had
farmers’ movements in the past which
promised great things. They did not
entirely succeed. They fell apart and
died away. That is no reason why you
should not rise and come again. Let
your failures in the past teach les
sons that will insure you success in
the future. To the extent of my power
to aid you, count on me. Heart and
soul I am with you. You shall never
be embarrassed by my candidacy for
any office. I have no axe to grind.
When a younger man, the ambition for
place and power was natural to me,
as it is to most young men. All that
is gone. There is not an office which
I would accept. There is not one
that I could afford to accept. My work
calls me and keeps me in a different
field. Loving that work as I do, it
will not be abandoned. There is not
money enough on this earth, nor a
position so high as to make me lay
down the pen. My mission for the
future is to wield a good influence
upon public opinion to the end that
better conditions be brought about.
To the extent of my ability I want to
help you to better your conditions. I
want to help you make strong and
useful men out of your boys. To the
extent of my ability, I wish to hold
up before the eyes of your daughters
that standard of living, that standard
of conduct, which made their mothers
and grandmothers the purest, sweet
est and truest type of womanhood
that ever graced the earth. The only
reward which I expect, the only re
ward which I hope for, is that the
worthiness of my effort may be recog
nized, and that my name shall be
held in kindly esteem by those whose
cause I have so long served.
We are told in the books that the
original peoples of China held agri
culture in such high esteem that once
a year the emperor himself was com
pelled to come down from the throne,
put on the garments of the plough
man, take hold of the handle of the
Davison
and
Fargo
COTTON FACTORS
AUGUSTA, GA.
LARGEST AND FINEST WARE
HOUSE IN THE CITY. PROMPT
AND CAREFUL ATTENTION
TO ALL BUSINESS.
GEORGIA RAILROAD BANK.
Augusta, Ga.
Capital $200,000.00
Undivided Profits $298,000.00
We Give Attention to Small as
Well as Large Accounts.
|| BMi
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L C. SMITH
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Is in Line of Progress
See Our 1907 Models
H. M. ASHE CO.
Ground Floor Y. M. C. A Building
ATLANTA, - GEORGIA
Bell Phone 1541 & 1896
Standard Phone 296
We have 88,000 worth of
our competitors’ standard
machines which we will
sell at less than half price.
REAL ESTATE.
Those desiring to move to South
Georgia, the most prosperous section
of the state, can secure bargains in
city property, farm lands, saw mill or
turpentine sites, by writing to
C. C. TYLER,
Box 272, Moultrie, Ga.