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THE
Weekly Jeffersonian
A Newspaper Devoted to the Advocacy of the Jeffersonian
Theory of Government.
PUBLISHED BY
THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON
Editors and Proprietors
Austell Building, Atlanta, Ga.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE - . $r oo PER TEAR.
Advertising Rates Furnished on Application.
Entered at Pnttoflicr, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, IQO7, at second clan mail matter
ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1907
The Georgia Legislature.
We bad a great battle for Reform in Geor
gia last year, and the people won a glorious
victory.
In June, the new Governor, Hon. Hoke
Smith, will be inaugurated, and the new Legis
lature begin its session.
That Governor Hoke Smith will exert ev
ery energy he possesses to redeem the cam
paign pledges of Candidate Hoke Smith, there
isn’t the shadow of a doubt. He is in dead
earnest, and means to do things.
I hit he can not do a great deal, unless he is
supported by the Legislature.
To this support he is entitled for the reason
that the members of that body could not have
been elected had they not been understood to
be committed to the Georgia Democratic
Platform adopted at Macon.
After the publication of that Platform, ev
ery’ nominee who remained in the race and
was voted into the Legislature is conclusively
presumed to have ratified the action of the
Macon Convention.
Therefore, the next Legislature of Georgia
stands pledged in honor to support Governor
Hoke Smith in his efforts “to make good.”
It is but fair to assume that the individual
members of the next Legislature are honora
ble men and will faithfully discharge theii
duty to the people.
Assuming this to be so, nrcat things are
going to be done —things which will injure
no legitimate business or profit but which
will bring manifold blessings of the most prac
ticable kind, to the people at large.
(i) We want a two-cent passenger rate;
and if the Commission has not in the mean
time given it to us, the Legislature should.
(_’) We want decent accommodations for
passengers at way-stations. We want waiting
rooms lit up at night, and heated when the
weather is cold. We want toilets for men
and women, blacks and whites—always nec
essary, and more so now than ever in this
era of delayed trains.
(3) The delaying of a local train out of
Atlanta. Augusta. Savannah, etc., for three,
four, five and six hours in order that a through
train shall make connection should be prohib
ited. It is not fair that every traveler in
Georgia should be inconvenienced and injured
to serve the convenience of a comparative
handful of through passengers.
(4) The Attorney General —a capable, hon
est and fearless official—should be authorized
and directed to institute legal proceedings to
break up the fraudulent, law-dodging devices
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
by which our Constitution has been trampled
under foot by the two Wall Street robber
combines—the Southern Railway and the Lou
isville and Nashville Railroad.
It can be done.
The Lease of the Georgia Railroad to the
Coast Line and the L. & N. can be annulled.
The sham arrangement between the Central
and the Southern can be smashed.
Let us restore that competition between the
various lines which our Constitution declared
should never be killed.
But it has been killed. Let the Legislature
sound the trump of resurrection by directing
Attorney General Hart as aforesaid.
Not only can he break up the existing law
dodging combination which throttles competi
tion but he can forfeit the charter both of the
Central and the Georgia Railroads for mis
use of the franchise.
(5) We should compel our state lines to
adopt the automatic block system and to abol
ish the grade-crossing.
(6) It should be made a misdemeanor for
a train or any part thereof to back on the track
in any town, village or city without a flagman
going before it to warn off the track any per
son who might be hit by the cars backing.
(7) No additional issue of stock and bonds
should be valid without the consent, previously
obtained, of the Railway Commission and the
Governor.
(8) The Railway Commission should be
given power to compel the Railroads to spend
a sufficient amount of their earnings upon the
property itself to keep it in first-class condi
tion.
(9) It should be made a felony for any rail
road to refuse cars to independent shippers
when they are supplying cars, in the same ter
ritory, to a T rust. The manner-in which the
Central Railroad, acting in the interest of the
Cotton Seed Oil Trust, refused to supply cars,
in Augusta, to the independent buyers, the
Daniels Bros., is a case in point. The facts in
that case are of record- A more high-handed
outrage was never committed by a Corpora
tion —not even by the Standard Oil Company.
The Charter of the Central can be forfeited
because of that Misuse of the Franchise.
(10) We should have power vested in the
Governor and the two houses to clear the
capitol building of the swarms of Lobbyists
that gather therein to pester and mislead, de
ceive or debauch the members of the Legisla
ture.
The Lobbyist should be excluded. His p”r
pose always is to defeat the will of the people.
His employer is always some corporation tlur
wants to kill good legislation or to secure
some favor which it ought not to have.
None of these reforms go a step beyond
what is reasonable and just.
If the Legislature proves true to the people
—as I assume that it will—every one of the
moderate changes necessary to the safety of
the traveling public can be speedily brought
about.
Ami if the Southern Railway and its L. &
N. ally shall send its Hamp McWhorter Bri
gade into the halls to defeat the will of the
people, 1 hope that the Georgia Legislature
will do what the Legislature of Pennsylvania
did two weeks ago—j’eer and deride those hire
lings of the corporations.
For God’s sake! let us have one Legislature
in Georgia that can not be McWhortered,
Tom Feldered, Harry Fishered, J. T. Hanson
ed—or MORGANIZED!
•t H *
The States Can Defy Wall Street
It has been the constant practice of the
railway corporations to make light of the pow
er of the states. Every time the state has tried
to shield its citizens from railway mistreat
ment, the corporation has invoked the princi
ple of Interstate Commerce and demanded the
protection of the Federal Courts.
But did it never occur to them that in the
long run the,deadly animosity they were thus
arousing in the states would some day have
its inning?
Did it never occur to them that every Char
ter they held was granted bv the state and
could be annulled by the state?
Did it never occur to them that the noto
riously systematic way in which they were
Misusing their Franchises gave the state the
absolute legal right to forfeit the charter?
It would seem not.
So contemptuous of state rights have been
modern railway methods that this danger
point appears to have been overlooked en
tirely.
In fact, the separate states have the Wall
Street combinations at their mercy, if the peo
ple will elect Governors and legislators who
can be trusted to do their duty.
There isn't a state in this Union that can
not put Wall Street out of control of its rail
roads if the people determine to have it done.
No Wall Street combine can resist the unit
ed people of any state. What the people need
is to rouse themselvs to action.
We can break the Wall Street despotism if
we try.
•t
How could any of the Railroads that gave
rebates to Standard Oil and thus built up that
huge monopoly defend itself when arraigned
for Misuse of Franchises?
What plea could it make?
Even at Common Law, such a flagrant
breach of duty on the part of the Common
Carrier would have worked a forfeiture of
Charter. ’
Under our Statute law, there can be no
doubt whatsoever that discriminations syste
matically granted a favored person to the ruin
of the person discriminated against, is precise
ly that Misuse of Franchise which the law for
bids.
Where is the Railroad whose charter cannot
be forfeited for Misuser of Franchise?
In one way or another, all of them have mis
used their powers.
IT IS IN THE POWER OF THE
STATES TO FORFEIT THESE CHAR
TERS AND TO TAKE POSSESSION OF
THE ROADS.
Just compensation must be paid-for all the
railroad’s property, excepting the Franchise.
That, h aving been forfeited by wilful and
continued Misuse, need not be paid for at all.
The road-bed, depot buildings, etc., would
be comparatively worthless without the Fran
chise; therefore, the state could either pur-