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WATSON’S EDITORIALS Mi* Ben Butler's Old Clothes. In the year 1884, the New York corpora tions ran Grover Cleveland for President. By working the name “Democrat” for all it was worth, they elected him. The consequence was that the country had a President who was less of a Democrat than any who had filled the position since the Civil War. In the year 1884, Benjamin Butler “also ran.” This cock-eyed person from Massachusetts was a marvelous mixture of good and bad, greatness and littleness, genius and quack ery. Previous to the Civil War he was a Dem ocrat. lie attended the Charleston Conven tion, where the great historic organization of Andrew Jackson went to pieces. When the war broke out became a soldier. Picturesque rather than effective as a soldier, he was about to be dismissed from the service when he boldly went to Gen. Grant and had a pri vate conversation with the Commander-in chief. What passed will never be known, but the cock-eyed man was not dismissed. At New Orleans he won infamous notori ety on account of his order authorizing his soldiers to treat as a common prostitute any white lady who should behave offensively to a soldier, in speech or manner. This was probably the most odious and disgraceful order ever issued by a command ing general. But, at the same time, Gen. Butler showed New Orleans how to keep clean and healthy; therefore, even at New Orleans, he mixed the good with the bad. After the war. he again took his old place at the head of the American Bar. and did ar immense practice. His revenues were .prince ly and he spent them like a prince. Warm hearted, open-handed Charity never had a sincerer devotee than “Old Pen Butler.” After awhile, he ran for Governor of Mas sachusetts—and, oh, : liow the Boston aris tocracy did throw fits! Calling the rag-tag and bob-tail to his ban ner —as Jefferson and Jackson :had done — Gen. Butler unhorsed the blue-bloods of Bos ton, and wallowed them around in the sand bed “scandalous.” As soon as he had been sworn in. Governor Butler began to uncover frauds, rascalities, barbarities and what not that had been in practice under his predecessors. Yea, verily, there was a high old stir and crash in the bric-a-brac department while this irreverent bull was in the china closet. My recollection is that Butler overhauled a charitable establishment known as the Tewksbury Almshouse. The evidence, as I recollect, tended to show that this Almshouse bad been run on a svstem of inhumanity which made Dickens’ pictures of Do-the boy’s Hall and similar institutions in Eng land appear quite heavenly. Unless my memory is playing me a mean trick, one of the things Butler proved was that human hides had been tanned for use as leather in this New England Charity shop. All of the foregoing merely goes to show that Butler was a man of wide human sym pathies. He was a man of the people. He WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN A Newspaper Devoted to the Advocacy of the Jeffersonian Theory of Government. published BY SUBSCRIPTION PRICE -. SI.OO PER TEAR THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON, Advertising Rates Furnished on Application. Editors and Proprietors Temple Court Building, Atlanta, Ga. Enttnd at I9 ° 7 '" '“' nd ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 1907. took the part of the under-dog. When the whole country was frothing at the mouth against the alleged Chicago Anarchists— Parsons, Spies, etc —Butler was not afraid to declare that they had not had a fair trial; and he pleaded their case before the Supreme Court of the United States. He was a Union Labor champion in the days when Union Labor was in its babyhood. It is grown, now, and sometimes abuses its power—prone to forget its fearless friends in time of need —but Gen. Butler threw the whole of his strength to it from the first, as Wendell Phillips did. So, in 1884, he ran for President on a peo ple’s platform. The laboring classes urged him to present their case at the bar of Amer ican Public Opinion, and the great lawyer consented. What was Ben Butler’s platform in 1884? One of its most prominent planks is that upon which Roosevelt now stands, and which Bryan thinks he originated. Butler’s platform denounces both the Dem ocratic and Republican parties for those poli cies which have sanctioned and permitted the establishment of monopolies. What monopolies? Railroad nonopoly, money monopoly and other gigantic monopolies. Said the Butlerites: “We demand such government action as may be necessary to take from such monopo lies the powers they have so corruptly usurped and restore them to the people TO WHOM THEY BELONG.” Again, “We demand Congressional regulation of Inter-State Commerce.” So declared the Butlerites in 1884. Yet, President Roosevelt is gravely ac cused of stealing political raiment from Mr. Bryan! Where was Theodore Roosevelt when Gen. B. F. Butler was addressing monster mass meetings in New York in favor of smashing monopolies, restoring to the people what the corporations had usurped, and demanding na tional rate regulation? Why, young Roosevelt had just been serv ing as a Republican delegate to the National Convention which nominated Blaine. Young Theodore, ardent and enthusiastic, may have been one of those who widely cheered Bob Ingersoll’s famous “Plumed Knight” speech. Why “Plumed Knight”? Because Blaine had made such gallant speeches in Congress against “Rebel Briga diers” and other similar “defamers of his country I” Wherefore—endless cheering for Blaine. Doubtless young Teddy whooped with the rest, long and uproariously. And where was Bryan in 1884? Trying to practice law in Jacksonville, 111, and not making a success of it. In 1884. all the odds were against Butler, but he made a good fight. Had he been given a fair hearing there’s no telling what his vote might have been. But he didn’t get a fair hearing Pioneer reformers rareh do. Only the politicians who reap, where the minority advance-guard sowed, ever get a fair hearing. Butler’s meetings were broken up, wher ever it could be done. Democrats and Re publicans dropped their academic differences when it came to howling him down. Such dangerous doctrine as his must be knocke out of the ring, at all events. Vainly did he appeal to the country on < platform which declared: “We denounce stock-watering, discrimina tions in rates and charges, and demand that Congress correct these abuses.” He was howled down, knocked out, run over. But where is Roosevelt NOW? Standing on Ben Butler’s platform of 1884! And where is Bryan? Riveted to the Ben Butler platform! But Mr. Bryan, oy continual reference to “My Madison Square Garden speech,” evi dently has brought himself to believe that he said something fierce in that speech—some thing that was very advanced and radical, in deed —because he expressed himself as favor ing “ultimate Government ownership of the railroads.” Why, that is in the Ben Butler platform of 1884. Listen: “We demand that Congress shall cortect these abuses, even if necessary by the construction of national railroads.” ' r hat is the same principle, of course. The moment the Government should begin the construction of national railroads, the privately owned railroads would go down on their knees, praying: “Don’t, for God’s sake, don’t build national roads competitive to ours; BUY OURS, and let us out!” Anybody can see that. n Therefore, the literal truth is that the Mad ison Square Garden platform of Mr. Bryan does not go a step further than that of the great Massachusetts lawyer, who stood ’forth for the same principles in 1884. Both Roosevelt and Bryan are wearing Ben Butler’s old clothes. Here is a paragraph from Bro. Tibbie’s paper, The Investigator: “Watson’s support of Hoke Smith in Geor gia is proving to be the act of .wise states manship. Governor Smith made a speech in Cincinnati the other day that sent terror to the hearts of the Southern Plutocrats. It was not long after Tom Watson and Hoke Smith got after J. Pierpont Morgan that that old railroad, steel trust and bank pirate began to sniff trouble in the air and he hied himself down to Washington to see the President. Georgia is going to throw off the Morgan rule and the work will begin as soon as the Watson-Hoke Smith legislature assembles in June.” M M H A taunt flung by a king of France at a king of England was the cause of a bloody war be tween those two nations. It is well known that an insulting gibe of Frederick the Great at Madame de Pompa dour was the motive which inspired that en raged Mistress of the Bourbon King when she prevailed upon her royal lover to thrust France into the Seven Years War. 1