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Commentaries On The Week’s Nelvs
The Bryan-Beveridge Debate.
The second installment of the Bry
an-Beveridge debate on “The Problem
of the People” is in the April number
of “The Reader” magazine. Mr. Bry
an’s differentiations of state rights and
federal interstate authority are not as
satisfactory as he might have made
them. He answers Senator Beveridge
quite completely on the issues of state
police powers over the negro questions
in the south and the Oriental ques
tions on the Pacific slope, but he
yields too much in the matter of fed
eral power over state industries and
labor legislation. He rather leans to
the Knox-Beveridge doctrine that in
certain cases of general necessity pub
lic sentiment will sanction the doing
of things by the federal government
indirectly that it has no constitution
al power or right to do directly. If
Mr. Bryan is to prove himself an ac
ceptable champion of the Democratic
doctrine of state’s rights he must stick
to his last and not shape the shoe to
fit abnormal corns and bunions on the
feet of Federalism.
Bob Lowry’s Hired Views.
Col. Robert Jehu Lowry, a national
banker and accomodation Republican,
of Atlanta, has found space in the pal
ace car columns of “The Atlanta Geor
gian (and News)” to publish his views
on “how to save the nation.” Os
course, the awful pain-in-the-neck
that the "whole country has had for so
long a time waiting and rubbering for
these views of Col. Robert Jehu Lowry,
should now be soothed. The fault was
evidently due to the slowness of com
position or bad handwriting of the gen
tleman who supplied the views that
Col. Robert Jehu Lowry utters or
prints to the public.
For fear the aforesaid views may
have been surreptiously copyrighted
by the real author, we refrain from
reprinting any of them. Suffice it to
say that if anybody wants to walk into
the parlor of the Skin-’em-a-comin’-and
agwine Association he would do well
to get full directions from the article
which Col. Robert Jehu Lowry has
so boldly signed with his own driving
hand.
Has Them Coming Across!
Hon. Bowdre Phinizy went up
against a strong proposition when he
tackled the run-down and rotten con
dition of the Georgia Railroad. He
had to put in a lot of personal hard
work, walk the track, test the ties,
pluck up loose spikes and at the same
time furnish plenty of personal sand
to make good on his charges. But he
hit the delinquent managers on the
raw and they hiked up to the railroad
commission squealing to beat the
band. Bowdre Phinizy met them there
with the physical witnesses and the
commission decided to put an expert
on the case. In the meantime how
ever, Captain Scott, and not the coon,
came down out of the tree of self
complacency. That gentleman blew
his assembly call down the line and
the bed of the old Georgia Railroad
is getting a dressing up that is mak
ing the natives along its length smile
as audibly as Tallulah Falls.
The Unwritten Law.
A Virginia legislator will introduce
the following bill into the next ses
sion of the Virginia legislature:
“That in all criminal trials involv
ing a charge of assault and battery,
assault with intent to maim, disable.
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
President Phinizy Protests
A PERSONAL EXPLANATION I HAT WILL
BE CONSIDERED IN OUR NEX'I ISSUE
Augusta, Ga., March 26, 1907.
My Dear Mr. Watson:
I read a few days ago in the Weekly
Jeffersonian of March 21st an article
headed, “The Case Against the Geor
gia Railroad.” I, of course, presume
you wrote the same. I am very
much surprised that a man of your
genius and great ability should allow
his feelings and prejudices to com
pletely warp his judgment and lead
him into gross error.
Mr. Scott, general manager of the
Georgia Railroad is not a New Eng
land Republican, but a Southern man
born in Alabama and reared in that
state, and received his railroad train
ing there. He came to the Georgia
Railroad from a railroad in Alabama,
and, in my opinion, has made the
best manager the Georgia Railroad
ever had. If he has ever voted the
Republican ticket I am not aware of
the same, but in the event that he
has it was probably in the case of
McKinley, when a great many south
ern Democrats voted that ticket.
As to the charges made by Bowdre
Phinizy against the Georgia Railroad,
I have been over the railroad with an
expert and do not hesitate to say that
Bowdre’s charges are not in accord
ance with the facts and the opinion
of the expert.
There are some defective and un
sound ties in the roadbed, as you
will find in all railroads, but they are
being removed as this is the season
of the year for doing this work.
In regard to the engines’ using ker
osene lights, it is considered by com
petent and experienced experts that
disfigure and kill, or homicide, in
which it is proven that the person
upon whom such assault was commit
ted had been guilty of a wrong upon
the person of the wife, mother, sister
or daughter of the accused, the jury
shall be the judges of whether such
provocation was sufficient to justify
such assault, and may, if such assault
was justified, find a verdict of acquit
tal.”
That sort of an act would do some
thing to hold the spoliators of women
and safeguard home life and purity a
whole lot.
What Do You Think of Him?
Here is a Republican candidate for
congress in a Kansas district who
talks to his fellow-citizens in a tongue
that sounds very foreign to the doc
trines usual in his party. He says:
“I desire to be your representative
in congress as one who believes there
are things to be done which can best
be done by men who are given the
power and opportunity of congression
al office. I am oposed to corporation
rule —to trusts of all kinds —to unfair
tariffs. The man who can make the
strongest efforts to correct the evils
the people feel most should be the
nominee of our party. I hope to be
that man.”
As a “pure food” Republican, isn’t he
a peach?
Gray of Delaware.
Uncle Henry Gassaway Davis, who
pattered along behind the impossible
Judge Parker of 1904, now chirps up
and says that Judge George Gray, of
they are much safer than electric
lights. To give an example, the fact
that the electric lights on the statue
of Liberty in the harbor of New York
have been removed and kerosene sub
stituted for the reason that the sea
men objected to the electric lights. It
is stated that the electric lights while
brighter are only good for throwing
the light a greater distance. The elec
tric light is very confusing and very
dazzling.
As to the weight of the rails used
by the Georgia Railroad, there are
more than sixty miles of eighty pound
steel rail, and the balance sixty-five
pound, which are in good condition and
heavy enough for the traffic. There
will be about thirty miles of eighty
pound rails laid this summer.
xThe road is ballasted for 130 miles
with cinders and rock, leaving about
forty miles of the main line to be bal
lasted; this is a good record for the
present management. When the road
was leased there was practically no
ballast.
Now as to what you say about Ma
jor Cumming. This gentleman is too
well known throughout the state for
me to attempt to defend him. I feel
satisfied that you know him as well as
I do. I do hope you will carefully
look into these questions and get right
on the same. Yours very truly,
JACOB PHINIZY. .
(Editor’s Note —We believe in fair
play, and therefore publish Hon. Ja
cob Phinizy’s letter. In the next is
sue of The Jeffersonian President
Phinizy’s letter will receive some edi
torial comment.)
Delaware, is the proper man for the
Democrats to put up for the presiden
cy in 1908. Uncle Hen is too rich to
be committed to a looney-ass-ilum, but
his friends ought to muzzle him. If
he doesn’t know that good Democrats
know that Judge Gray is one of the
salaamites to King Belmont and a
pot-boiler for plutocrats, then he is In
his second childhood. Judge Gray is
even more impossible as “the candi
date of a Democracy” than was the
Swimmer of Esopus!
They Are Coming South.
Recent statistics show that 200,000
northern people have come into the
southern states for permanent resi
dence during the twelve months of
1906. The high price of corn and
wheat lands in the north and west is
driving the small farmers ‘down south”
and this sort of immigration and in
such volume seems to make all our
assisted European immigration look
like the traditional thirty cents along
side a bushel of gold double-eagles.
Their Books to Be Opened.
The president has determined that
the interstate commerce commission
shall have experts examine the ac
counts of the railroads of the United
States and get at the truth of their
Investments, values and the true In
come they should be allowed to earn
by freight and passenger rates. There
will be some splendid kicking done
by the railroads before they submit
to that sort of police searching and
Bertillon measurements!
Cummins Stands Four-Square.
Governor Cummins, of lowa, ex
plains that he has not abated a jot
or title of his devotion to tariff re
form. He says he omitted mention
of it during his recent re-inauguration
because weightier matters of state
railway and corporation legislation
demanded his attention. He still be
lieves that the tariff furnishes too
many broad shelters for trusts and
that revision of these special bounty
schedules is absolutely a paramount
issue of our current politics. Evident
ly, from the tone of his letter, he is
going to make oodles of trouble in the
Republican camp before the June
round-up of next year.
Doctored School Books.
The Tampa Evening News charges
and shows by comparisons that the
same northern publishing house issues
two sets of school books, one for
northern and one for southern schools.
It exemplifies that the full text of
even the geographies are full of sneers
and slanders on the climate, soil, peo
ple and manners of the south, and that
such statements are merely cut out
of the second edition and the mutilated
product sold to southern school boards
for the children of this section to
use.
Galusha Grow is Dead.
Hon. Galusha Grow, of Pennsylva
nia, is dead of old age. He was first
elected to congress in 1857 and was
elected speaker of the house in 1861.
After the war he lived some time
in Texas and was one of the builders
of the International and Great North
ern Railroad in that state. His last
term in congress was served only a
few years ago.
He Withdrew His Case.
A Florida negro who appealed his
case against the “Jim Crow” car law
in that state to the United States
supreme court, has suddenly with
drawn his appeal. He refuses to give
his reason—but it is thought Senator
Foraker knows why. Was he afraid
of the court?
The Greene-Gaynor Case.
The argument in the Green-Gaynor
case, for conspiracy to defraud the
United States in Savannah harbor
work, was begun in New Orleans on
Monday. They were convicted before
Judge Speer in Savannah.
Paper Fortunes Uncertain.
At the dinner of the Massachusetts
Real Estate Exchange, a statement
was made by one of the speakers that
“two presidents of large railroad cor
porations, dying within 20 years, left
large fortunes in stocks and bonds,
which fortunes were wiped out of ex
istence by foreclosure and reorganiza
tion.”
What Ernest Crosby Says.
Our senators could at a single ses
sion break up the steel trust by reduc
ing the tariff, the express trust by
establishing a parcel-post, the tele
graph and telephone trsuts by adding
these analogous services to the post
office. They could thus go a great
way toward diverting the flow of
wealth from the pockets of the people
into those of the monopolists. Why
don’t they do it? Because they are
the servants, not of the people, but of
the monopolies. Away with the oli
garchy! Let the people elect their
senators. —The Cosmopolitan.
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