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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 SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: SI.OO PER TEAR Advertising Rates Furnished on Application. Entered at Postoffice, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, iqoy, as second class mail matter. 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