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WATSON'S EDITORIALS
Molding Public Opinion.
The Northern millionaires who are robbing
the South and West by turning the Railroads
into mere exploiters of the public, arc at work,
very systematically, trying to deceive the vic
tims, and to stave off the day of reform.
Already, certain Labor Unions have been
lined up on the side of the corporations, and
from Macon, Ga., certain labor leaders have
gone forth as champions of the Northern rob
bers who plunder the people of Georgia.
Whether the “Press Bureau” of the Wall
Streeters has yet landed on the “Religious
Press,” as it invariably seeks to do, we cannot
say, but the “country press” is being lassoed,
beautifully.
There is the Jonesboro, Ga., Enterprise, for
instance, whose Business Manager, we are in
formed, is a Southern Railway lawyer. Lis
ten to the warblings of this melodious, cor
poration mocking-bird:
“Investigation shows,” says the Enterprise,
“that the watering of railroad stock was
abandoned many years ago.”
Reader, what do you think of the morals,
or the intelligence of a Georgia newspaper
that will print an editorial statement of that
description ?
Is it not a shame that the splendid privi
lege of “freedom of the press” should be de
graded into the circulation of deliberate false
hoods, intended to deceive the people and to
aid the greedy, lawless corporations? Is it
not a shame that citizens of Georgia should
publish such statements in behalf of the
Southern Railway, which a few years ago
plundered the stockholders of the Central of
Georgia, and which now controls the Central
in violation of the Constitution? Stock water
ing abandoned many years ago! What a
brazen declaration !
Yesterday (May 10) the newspapers were
full of the news that Harriman had watered
the Hock of two of his lines, to the amount of
one hundred and eleven million dollars. Three
or four weeks ago, James J. Hall watered the
stock of his main line to the amount of sixty
million dollars.
Within the last six months, the various
stock-waterings of the railroads have run be
yond $400,000,0000!
How an honest editor can gain his consent
to say for the railroads that they stopped the ; r
stock-watering rascalities “many years ago,”
is something that we will understand better
when- we find out how it is that a Labor I n
ion will side with the corporations against the
people on an issue of two-cent fares.
In the same strain, the Enterprise says:
“Since the railroads have been amalgamat
ed into large systems all money raised by new
issues of stock has been put into the roads
with a view of equipping them in a manner
handle the enormous volume of business. Tn
this manner thousands of miles of double
track, side track, new steel bridges, etc., have
been .constructed.”
Would that this were true! Rut it isn’t.
Three years ago, the Coast Line Railroad
watered, its stock thirty per cent, and not a
dollar of the proceeds was snent in double
track, side track, new steel bridges, or other
wise. The corporation had made net earnings
to the extent of 30 per cent upon
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 16, 1907.
tion, and it merely watered the stock so that
thereafter the paper capitalization should be
larger, and the dividend apparently smaller.
The net earnings, on actual investment, con
tinued to be 30 per cent. The watered stock
was divided among the stockholders, and if
any of it was sold, the individual seller pock
eted the money.
Where are the double tracks, and the new
steel bridges, and the new terminals of the
Central of Georgia which represent the out
lay of the forty million dollars of water
poured into its stock?
But listen to the mocking-bird, once more:
“Further investigation of the railroad ques
tion has brought out the fact that rates are
based upon existing conditions and are made
with an eye singular to moving the traffic
and not with a purpose of realizing a profit
upon capital invested.”
What a well trained mocking-bird, to be
sure!
Where, oh, where! was that “further inves
tigation” made? Did the writer of that mar
velous statement imbibe too much Chambcr
of-Commerce champagne at the banquet, and
mistake the speech of President Finley, or
President Emerson, for a “further investiga
tion”?
Railroad rates are not fixed with a view to
dividends, “but with an eye singular to mov
ing the traffic.” The Enterprise affirms that
the railroads are not charging freight and pas
senger rates “for the purpose of realizing a
profit upon capital invested.”
Is it possible! How cruelly these good peo
ple have been misunderstood. How complete
ly their benevolence has been made to resem
ble greed. Their own lawyers have been
shockingly in error as to the true intent and
purpose of their clients.
Here is the Enterprise telling us (“and
Brutus is an honorable man") that rates are
not fixed with “the purpose of realizing a
profit upon capital invested,” and yet we see
the railroad lawyers rushing to the Federal
Judges in Alabama, in North Carolina, and in
Virginia, and suing out Injunctions against
the States themselves, to stop the operation
of the law 011 the ground that if the two-ceir.
rate is put into effect, the holders of railroad
stock cannot realize a profit on the capital in
vested !
“Rates arc made with an eye singular t >
moving the traffic.” So? Then why doesn’t
traffic move? Memphis grain dealers are
forced to quit selling carload lots of corn to
a Thomson dealer, because no cars can be had
for the moving of the corn.
Granite quarrymcn of Lithonia are ruined,
and their workmen turned adri’t. because thev
cannot g;t C'us. From every important
terminal, we hear the cry of “Congested Traf
fic” —which cry can have no earthly meaning
other than “too much of the earnings of the
road paid out in dividends on watered stock
and not enough for competent employes, not
enough for freight cars, not enough for dou*
ble tracks, not enough for terminal facili
ties.”
Freight can never become congested, for
?nv considerable length of time WITHOUT
GUILT IN THE MANAGEMENT.
But the work of molding public sentiment
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in favor of the Wall Street robbers necessi
tates much queer doing just, now, and there
fore, we cannot wonder at the Jonesboro En
terprise.
All the railroad lawyers must chip in. Free
pass editors must make good. “Special coun
sel” must get busy laying conduits, arranging
the wires, and oiling up the varied machin
ery of Lobbyism. The Georgia Legislature is
about to meet. Hoke Smith, the man, will
soon displace Joe Terrell, the figure-head.
Consequently, public opinion must have its
fur smoothed the right way, and the people
soothed into a state of purring acquiescence.
In fact, if we may believe the Enterprise, the
day has already been won for the benevolent
corporations.
Viewed from Jonesboro, “the storm of hos
tile agitation against the roads” has about
passed over. The heavens are resuming their
normal cerulean blue. There is every pros
pect that the sun will set clear. For in the
apt and eloquent language of the Jonesboro
Enterprise, “the storm that has waged for
some three or four years is rapidly subsiding
and reason is beginning to reign in its stead.”
Amen! Amen! AMEN! !
H H H
The Steel Trust and the Parmer.
The Business Magazine, of Knoxville,
Tenn., .takes up the statements made by Mr.
Watson in the March number of The Jeffer
sonian Magazine, and endeavors to show that
while these statements may be true, they do
not establish the proposition that our laws are
so framed as to enable the privileged Few to
rob the unprivileged Many.
Last year the Steel Trust cleared, net prof
its, the huge sum of $156,000,000.
During the first three months of this year,
it has cleared, net profits, $39,000,000.
The Steel Trust is just one of the scores of
specially privileged corporations which dic
tate laws to guard themselves from competi
tion. These favored few manage legislation
in such away that they always have a monop
oly of the Home Market wherein 85,000,000
people must be their customers.
The Agricultural classes are, in the main,
“unprotected.” The laws cannot be so framed
as to give to them the benefits of Special Priv
ilege. Our country is so naturally the land of
food products and of cotton that we always
produce more than the Home market can take.
Hence, we have to go abroad with the surplus.
The farmers get no Protection from the “Pau
per Labor of Europe.” The farmer has to
compete with the ryot of India, the fellah of
Egypt, the mongrel of South America —yet
the farmer is expected to do this cheerfully
and successfully and. at the same time, pay
monopoly prices to the Manufacturing Class
while that class is selling cheaper goods to the
very foreigners who are competing in the
world’s markets with the non-protected Amer
ican farmer! •; 1;
Tn the year 1900, the official statistics of tho
United States Government revealed the fact
that about ten ami one-half million people
were engaged in agricultural pursuits.
The sum total of capital invested was twen
ty and one-half billion dollars.
The entire product Fold for less than four