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WATSON’S LDIT ORIALS
Labor Leaders Going Wrong.
Like the rest of us, the men who are placed
at the head of industrial organizations are hu
man. Labor leaders make mistakes, just as we
all do.
At this time, it seems to The Jeffersonian
that the men who are in control of certain la
bor unions are making very serious blunders,
and are piling up against themselves an
amount of resentment that will count heavily
in the day of trial.
For example, what possible excuse can those
labor leaders of Macon give for throwing
themselves on the side of the New York mil
lionaires in the struggle which the Farmers’
Union is making to have passenger rates re
duced?
Why should the local union of Macon butt
in, and try to head off a benefit to the whole
state? What patriotism can there be in such
a course? What fraternal spirit actuates any
such narrow and selfish line of conduct as they
have chosen to pursue?
Upon the unsupported statement that their
wages will be cut down if passenger rates are
lowered, they take their place beside the New
York corporations and against the people of
the South. Upon a bare fear of injury to
themselves, they turn against the common
people and enlist under the banners of the mil
lionaires. Instead of making common cause
with the toilers of the towns and the fields,
these labor leaders of Macon virtually declare
that they don't care a continental . how
much the plutocrats oppress other workers,
so long as good wages are paid to themselves.
If this position of tire Macon labor leaders
meets the approval of the Labor Unions gen
erally, The Jeffersonian would like to know it.
For some years the leaders of the city Un
ions have been making friends with the Farm
ers’ Unions. We have heard much talk about
brotherly love, mutual interest and fraternal
co-operation. Farmers’ Union delegates pa
raded with Labor Unions on Labor Day, to
emphasize the alliance between the two rep
resentative organizations of the toilers.
Leaders of the Farmers’ Union were warned
to be careful, were told that some of these
Labor Union leaders were as selfish a set of
men as could be found anywhere, and that
these men would work the Farmers’ Union
for all it was worth —giving nothing in re
turn.
The action of the Macon Laboi leaders is
therefore significant.
In January, 1907, the Labor leaders came to
Atlanta and asked the great Farmers’ Union
convention to endorse their “Eight Hour
Day.” The Convention did so, and the La
bor Unions got the benefit of that strong en
dorsement.
Yet, within three months afterwards, these
same Labor Leaders are found, in public, on
the side of the Beneficiaries of Special Priv
ilege and FIGHTING THE FARMERS’
UNION LEADERS, who are asking our rail
roads of the South to do what many railroads
of Western and Northern states have already
done —give the people lower rates. Why
should not the State of Georgia have a Two
cent passenger rate as well as Nebraska?
Why should Pennsylvania enjoy lower rates
than we can get? If Missouri, Wisconsin and
WATSON’S 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.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, MAY 2, 1907.
half a dozen other states can succeed in wrest
ing concessions from the Wall Street corpora
tions, why should we be powerless to do it?
Virginia has just been given a 2-cent rate on
trunk lines —why not Georgia?
In Nebraska, the Labor Unions did not
declare war upon the common people. In
Pennsylvania the leaders of organized labor
did not put themselves in a position of selfish
antagonism to the toilers in other fields of
industry. Nowhere, excepting Georgia, have
the railroads been able to get the labor leaders
to stoop to the work of raking chestnuts out
of the fire for the railroads.
Wages arc in no danger, and everybody
knows it. Wages are going up in obedience
to natural laws. You could no more reduce
wages, now, than you could put down the
price of heart-pine lumber.
They Wall Street railway king, George
Gould, is against the proposed reduction of
passenger rates, just as the Macon labor lead
ers are, but George Gould puts his opposition
upon solid ground. He says he is unaltera
bly against the Two-cent rate, BECAUSE IT
WOULD LESSEN DIVIDENDS.
There you have the secret. High freight
and passenger rates have enabled such men as
George Gould to earn dividends upon fraudu
lent issues of stock. The manner in which
Gould watered the Western Railroad of Mary
land was precisely similar to the methods that
J. P. Morgan employed on the Central of
Georgia. By these stock manipulations, such
men as Gould and Morgan steal millions of
dollars from the public. To make these wa
tered stocks salable, it is necessary that div
idends be earned upon them, and consequent
ly high rates must be charged.
When we lower the rates, these watered
stocks lose their dividends, and are no longer
salable.
They ought not to be salable. They rep
resent nothing but greed and ink and paper
and the Special Privilege which enables the
few to rob the many.
Now, when George Gould declares himself
against Two-cent fares, giving as his reason
the prediction that a Two-cent rate would les
sen dividends, his position is rational. From
his point of view, he is right. The Usurer al
ways objects to Interest Laws; and the Faro
bank expert hates the statute against gamb
ling; and the thief would probably vote
against all punishment for Larceny. When
Mr. Gould attacks the Two-cent rate, he frank
ly says, “I am against it because it will keep
money out of my pocket, WHICH OTHER
WISE I WOULD GET.”
Mr. Gould makes no threat to reduce the
wages of his men. He knows better. His
father went through the horrors and the
crimes and the losses of one great strike in
his Southwestern lines, and George, the son
of Jay, hasn't the slightest idea of treading
any such wine-press himself.
No! Wages will not suffer; they arc safe;
they arc up and will stay up. The Dividends
on inflated capitalization is what will suffer—
and they deserve it.
Let the leaders of Union Labor range them
selves. CONSISTENTLY, on the side of the
general public in this world-wide struggle
against Special Privilege.
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Enttrtd at Poitoffict, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, IQO7> at ttcond
tlau mail matttr.
" We Must Obey the Lalv.”
To this effect spoke M. E. Ingalls, acting
Chief of the Big Four Railroad system. Mr.
Ingalls was speaking to his brother railroad
men at a meeting in Pittsburg. These things
are particularly significant:
1. Mr. Ingalls’ admission that the Railroads
have not been obeying the law.
2. That they must get at it, right away.
3. That not a single railroad man present
rose to remark that the railroads have been
spraining their loins trying to obey the law.
4. That Ingalls admitted the right of the
public to control the management of the roads,
and the further issue of stocks and bonds.
5. That Ingalls boldly declared that here
after the railroads must realize that they were
engaged in a public business for the benefit of
the public, and that therefore the property
must be managed with reference to the rights
of the public.
6. That nobody present ventured to quote
from President Finley's Memphis address to
the effect that the capitalization of railroads
was none of the public’s business.
7. That most of the metropolitan dailies are
singing rapturously, as though the Millen
nium was at hand, just because one railroad
President gives it as his opinion that “we
must submit to the Law.”
If the people greet with such shouts of ap
plause a railroad president who says that his
crowd ought to quit their wickedness and
live in obedience to the laws, what sort of
Roman Triumph would we give to the rail
road President who would actually practice
what Ingalls preaches?
mum
Holv Trusts Could Be Destroyed.
One cf the platforms of the Farmers’ Al
liance declared:
“We demand the removal of the Tariff tax
from the necessaries of life which the poor
must have to live.”
I his is precisely the principle announced
by Thomas Jefferson, who declares that the
taxes should be so laid that the luxuries of
life would bear the burden of government, and
that his ideal was a system in which the poor
would be entirely relieved from the crushing
weight of taxation.
Furthermore, the Alliance said that “legis
lation should not be so framed as to build up
one business at the expense of another.”
If these principles were enacted into law,
there could be no such thing as a Trust in the
United States.
In order that the people should become the
victims of such tyranny as that exercised by
tlie Trusts two things are necessary: For
eign relief must be made impossible, and do
mestic relief be made impracticable.’
. 'The Tariff wall keeps the foreigner from
interfering; the railroads and the national
banks supporting the Trusts, make it impos
sible for domestic dissatisfaction to assert it
self effectively.
II the people should put upon the free list
hose articles which are made the subject of
the I rusts, the foreigner could at once invade
the market and destroy the monopoly upon
which the Trust is based. F
If the Populist principles of finance and of
Il