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8 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