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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
Temple Court Building, Atlanta, Ga.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE - oo PER TEAR.
Advertising Rates Furnished on Application.
Entarad at P»tt»fict, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, IQO7, at stctnti clatt mail mattar
ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 1907
The Case Against the Georgia 'Railroad.
Mr. Bowdre Phinizy, a citizen and tax pay
er of the State of Georgia, had the awful im
pudence to criticise the present management
of one of our corporations, to-wit, The Geor
gia Railroad.
This state corporation, by the bye, is one of
those which was created by state powers,
state exemptions and state privileges. The
land which it uses as road-bed was mostly
given to it, and for more than two generations
it was practically exempt from taxation.
We favored it, in all sorts of ways, as a
home institution. For several decades it was
a home institution.
Then all at once, Wall Street gobbled it up.
Since that time, the road has been managed
by a New England Republican—-named Scott,
and called Colonel—and this Northern Re
publican has managed the property with an
eye single to the gratification of the North
ern capitalists whom he represents.
Now the awfully impudent Bowdre Phini
zy, moved by the instigation of the devil and
the evil imaginings of his own wicked mind,
has dared to criticise the management of this
imported Mister Colonel Scott, saying, alleg
ing, declaring and by positive averment as
serting that said management of the imported
Mister Colonel Scott is not management at
all but is gross mismanagement.
Actuated by evil promptings, as aforesaid,
the said Bowdre Phinizy offers to prove that
the management of the Georgia Railroad:
(1) Uses rotten crossties.
(2) Uses kerosene lamps —or was it tallow
candles?—for head-lights, instead of equipping
itself with up-to-date electric lights.
(3) Uses light-weight rails.
(4) Fails to ballast the track where such
ballast is necessary to safety.
In support of the charge that rotten cross
ties are to be found all along the road, evi
dence is offered of numerous places where the
iron spikes can be pulled from the ties with
the naked fingers; also of places where the
ties underneath the rails have been crumbled
up in the hands; also of places where, upon
being removed from the road-bed, the ties
fell to pieces, being too rotten to be handled
and piled; also of at least one instance where
a spark from a passing locomotive had set fire
to the rotten crossties in the road-bed!
Mr. O. S. Lee happened to be traveling
the dirt road which parallels the railway at
the place where the tie was burning, saw the
blaze, went to it, found the crosstie on fire,
and put it out!
In another place the rotten crosstie in the
road-bed caught afire, burnt outward and ac
tually carried the fire to a pile of new cross
ties!
One would suppose that the manager sent
down here by the Wall Street gang which
gobbled our road would be civil, if not con*
ciliatory, in coming before the public and the
Railroad Commission to defend himself.
The indictment against him is serious, and
the array of evidence against him is formida
ble.
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. >
the general line of conduct pursued
by the managers of our Georgia railroads,
since the Northern millionaires scooped them,
has been so contemptuous of public opinion,
so disregardful of the comfort and conven
ience of the patrons of the road, so scornful
toward those 'who complained of mistreat
ment, that the railroads in Georgia haven’t
got any friends outside of the patriots whose
names ornament the pay-roll.
So far as Good-will is concerned, the cor
porations in Georgia get what they are able
to buy—and no more.
Therefore it seems to me that the imported
manager, Mister Colonel Scott, made a mis
take when he adopted the policy of bluffing
Bowdre Phinizy. Just how easy that gentle
man may be to browbeat I have no means of
knowing.
Mister Colonel Scott’s lawyer, Maj. Jos.
B. Cumming, must have felt that Bowdre’s
case needed to be given a black eye at the
earliest moment, for the usually suave Major
had hardly got before the Commission' ere
he damned Bowdre and his case by roundly
denouncing the Petition for its “slush and
rot” and “appeals to prejudice and false
hood.”
That kind of talk before the introduction of
evidence on either side, was must unusual,
if not improper. It is surprising that the
Commission allowed it. There is an appear
ance of the purpose to browbeat and intimi
date that self-respecting tribunals find it hard
to tolerate.
Corporation lawyers have had powerful
sway in Georgia, as in other states. Their
success has, in many cases, filled them with
pride and self-confidence.
But it seems to me that Maj. Cummm?
has chosen a mightv poor time to indulge in
what might seem to be a disposition to brow*
beat.
Corporation lawyers who seek to bulldoze
citizens and tribunals for their effrontery in
questioning the management of our public
roads are simply throwing fuel to flame.
I do not believe that Mr. Phinizy is the man
to be hectored or bullied, but even if he were,
the case against these railroads would not be
dropped. The people of Georgia are aroused
and they mean to wrest the control of our
public roads out of the hands of Wall Street
robbers!
They mean to have our roads run in the
interest of our home-folks and not of a gang
of New York Swindlers.
•tn*
The "Brothers Who Abenged Their
Sister.
In Virginia good red blood still runs in the
veins of manly men; and when Viola Stroth
er—the sweet little sister, youngest of the
household, the pet and the pride of the familv
—was deliberately hunted down by a heart
less seducer, made to suffer tortures worse
than death, and was about to be abandoned to
her grief and her shame, the brothers of the
ruined girl killed him.
They shot him like a dog.
In just that way, he deserved to get it.
The Law does its best to put itself in the
place of the wronged, and to measure out jus
tice accordingly.
The whole theory of Civil and Criminal
law, so far as the redress of grievances is con
cerned, is based upon that principle.
The Law steps in to punish the man who
has done you a wrong—denying you the right
to do so. If you were allowed to avenge your
own wrongs, riot and disorder would ensue.
Private wars would be waged. Feuds would
rend the community. The Vendetta would
usurp the orderly procedure of the Law.
But in all the books- which treat of the ele
mental principles of Jurisprudence this Ex
ception to the Rule stares you in the face:
“There are cases where the Law, by reason
of its imperfection, or the slowness of its pro-
cedure, can not do to the citizens that imme
diate justice which the situation demands.
In such instances the citizen is justified in
taking the law into his own hands.”
• This principle is as old as the hills, and as
solid as a rock.
Why are you justified in killing the assail
ant who is trying to kill you?
Because the Law can not save you. It is
too slow. You must take the Law into your
own hands, and save yourself.
To keep your house from being burned, to
save your wife from outrage —nay, to balk
the raid of the horse thief —you may shoot,
and shoot to kill.
Why? Because the Law is unable to give
you, in such cases, that immediate justice to
which you are entitled.
You are entitled to protection for self, fam
ily, home, property of all kinds. When the
Law can give it to you, apply to the law.
But when, from the very nature of the case,
the law can not give it to you, then you must
give it to yourself.
The milk-sob, asinine; and mollycoddle
doctrine of non-resistance has no place in the
souls of manly men.
Let such warped fanatics as William Loyd
Garrison declare that he would not by force
interfere to prevent his own wife from being
outraged.
Such a man may in some abnormal condi
tion of things be able to toss a torch into a
powder house, bring on an explosion, and thus
be remembered as one of the inciters of the
in sanest war in history: but that’s about all
he’s fit for.
For any constructive or preservative pur
.pose he is less than worthless.
Let such editors as Villard, of the New
York Evening Post, denounce the Strother
brothers, describe their deed as inexcusable
murder, and lecture the South about “law
breakers” and “judges whose spirit is that of
a lyncher.”
It is safe to assume that Villard would nev
er shoot anybody about his sister.
He has a sister, by the way, and this sister
alleges in a court proceeding that he took
from her certain money left her by their fath*
er.
A man who would denounce the Strother
brothers for killing the destrover of their sis
ter, is none too good to rob his own sister;
and it would seem that Villard’s sister brings
that identical accusation against him.
I can not bring myself to believe that anv
considerable number of Northern men en
dorse the cold-blooded principles of such writ
ers as Garrison and Villard.
The whole social world will be purer when
it becomes a well-settled fact that no judge or
jury will punish the citizen, who, in good
faith and in consequence of that degree of
natural human passion which is supposed to
be uncontrollable, slays the black-hearted vil
lian who has done him intolerable wrong —
such a wrong as the law, from the very na
ture of the case, CANNOT ADEQUATELY
REDRESS. *
Protection to Sea Island Cotton.
Congressman Lamar, of Florida, is seeking
to have Tariff duties placed upon foreign
long staple cotton for the purpose of “pro
tecting” the home-grown product.
A few thousand Americans grow Sea Is
land cotton. Comparatively little of this
grade of cotton is produced anywhere. The
object aimed at in “protecting” the Ameri
can crop with a Tariff duty is to give to the
growers of Sea Island cotton a monopoly of
the American market.
Thus 80,000,000 people will be taxed in the
interest of a few thousand.
There is no justice in it.
The vicious system of “Protection,” which
supports one man’s industry at the expense
of another’s, is all wrong. No class should