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WATSON'S OKI ALS
One Brabe Soldier Dolvn !
For reasons which will readily occur to you,
the name of the writer of the letter given be
low is withheld. He did not intend for me to
publish what he wrote. However, it is well for
the people to read a private communication of
this sort. It is a flash from the darkness which
reveals many things. No one can read these
lines and fail to realize what an up-hill busi
ness it is to fight the corrupt politicians and
the piratical corporations when the two pow
ers unite. I think that if the people half-way
understood the hardships and the discourage
ments which beset the Reformers, they would
not be so slow in coming to our support. The
writer of the letter is the Editor of a weekly
paper in the far West. He went up against
the local Gang, tried to have the law enforced
against well known criminals—and landed in
jail himself. By accident, I saw an account of
his misfortunes, and sent him some slight re
lief. Having my hands pretty full of my own
affairs, I made the effort to interest in the
Western Editor’s behalf a millionaire who him
self makes a national specialty of reform. In
this effort, T failed.
The letter tells the rest.
May 18, 1907.
Hon. Thos. E. Watson, Thomson, Ga.
My Dear Mr. Watson:—Yours to hand. As
to the Magazine, I have been offering it as
you say. If T am here any longer, I shall put
forth more effort to push it.
If it were possible that Mr. —'s man would
get here within a few days, I might be able to
make arrangements with him, provided that
they did not conflict with my convictions.
But, Mr. Watson, 1 fear it will be too late. It
is my opinion that under present conditions, I
cannot hold out, and that next week’s issue
will be the last for me. I do not yet know
whether it will be a suspension or a sale. I
have done what my intelligence and conscience
have dictated. I have no burnings in my con
science. I have nothing that makes me afraid
or ashamed, in my year and five months’ work.
Sen. P appears less sanguine since his
last return from New York. I believe he feels
that Roosevelt will be able to fool the people
and get another term. He goes to Lincoln
Monday to visit Bryan ; he may feel different
when he returns. He is certainly bluer polit
ically than I have ever seen him since 1900.
lam somewhat discouraged myself. The peo
ple here in this city have gone into a blind
deal, and agreed to be skinned by some Chi
cago “financiers,” alias robbers. I have stood
by the people; I have been right and have
labored day and night and at my own personal
loss. lamat my row’s end. I have had “of
fers” by which I might have benefited. I am
not afraid of eternity on my record in the
newspaper work. Even the brutal Kaufman
murder case, where a brewer's wife beat her
servant to death by inches, is being “post
poned” to clear her, and I am arrested for libel
for asking one of the attorneys who was sen
tenced to two years in the pen a few questions
the people of the street were all asking. It is
being sold out today. I may expose next is
sue.
But, pardon me; I must not take up the time
you need. I shall let you know the final turn.
. 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. J....,
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1907.
I enclose you two stanzas on The Rubaiyat.
For your great encouragement, many
thanks. Yours,
* * *
The Surplus Infamy.
In Great Britain, a short time ago, the na
tional treasury found itself in possession of
about thirty million dollars, over and above
running expenses. In other words, the Gov
ernment had a Surplus on its hands.
What was done with it?
Every dollar of it was paid out on the na
tional debt. Thus the burdens of the English
people were reduced. The Surplus came from
all the people, in the way of taxes collected.
The money went back to all the people, in the
way of paying the debt which the people, as
a whole, owed to the creditor class.
That disposition of the Surplus was sensi
ble. but not remarkably so. When an individ
ual citizen is in debt and is paving interest, he
generally feels like paying off the obligation
and relieving himself of the burden. If he is a
man of ordinary self-respect and prudence, he
wants to free himself of bondage to those who
hold the claims against him. Therefore, if he
is honest, as well as prudent, he will apply the
first surplus money that he gets his hands on
to the payment of his debts.
Among right thinking people, there are few
terms of reproach which imply a more discred
itable record than the saying, “He is a man
that won’t pay his debts.”
The disgrace commences when, the debt be
ing a just obligation, the man who owes it
has the money to pay it, and then refuses to
do it.
Nations are but collections of individuals,
and the same rules of common sense, common
honesty and common justice which apply to
the individual citizen should apply to the na
tion. When a nation can pay out of debt, the
failure to do so is a national disgrace.
Great Britain’s huge debt grew mainly out
of the wars waged by the English aristocracy
against the democratic movement of revolu
tionary I'rance. All the long, bloody, expen
sive struggles to compass the overthrow of
Napoleon had their secret motive in the settled
purpose of Kings and aristocracies to check
the progress of “the Principles of the French
Revolution.”
Those dreaded principles were simply the
democracy for which George Mason and
Thomas Jefferson stood.
Burdened with this tremendous debt, the
English people pay it off as fast as they can,
It is not often that they have a surplus but,
when they do have one, it gives them no em
barrassment whatever. To reduce the debt
with it is such a logical, common sense propo
sition, that it is adopted as a f matter of course.
How differently we do things!
When we have a Surplus, we give it to the
National Bankers, and allow the public debt to
run on.
When Mr. Cleveland was President, it is
true, the Surplus was applied to the bonds.
But the bonds were not due, and the world;
was amazed to see the Democratic President
make a gift of sixty million dollars, in Prem
iums, for the privilege of paying 4 per cent
bonds that were not due.
The money should have been disposed of in
one of three ways: It should have returned
to the people, as the surplus was returned in
the days of President Andrew Jackson; or it
should have been loaned out at interest until
the bonds fell due; or it should have been used
to buy the controlling interest in trunk-line
railroads.
Congress could just as easily have author
ized either of these statesmanlike methods of
getting rid of the surplus as it did authorize
that gift of $60,000,000 to the bondholders.
But if the Democratic President, Cleveland,
was most unwise, unjust and undemocratic in
making a donation of a huge Premium to the
favored few, when he took the Surplus into
the market and bought bonds that were not
due what shall we say of the Republican Pres
ident. Roosevelt?
The disposition which is now being made of
the Surplus is the most shameful misuse of
public money that has ever been known in
the history of our Government.
Year in and year out, the National Banks
keep and use an average of more than one
hundred and fifty million dollars of the peo
ple’s money. For the use of this they pay no
interest at'all. THE GOVERNMENT SIM
PLY TAXES THIS ENORMOUS SUR
PLUS OUT OF THE POCKETS OF THE
TAX-PAYING MASSES AND MAKES A
GIFT OF IT TO A NON-TAX-PAYING
CLASS!
The national banks, practically, pay no na
tional taxes whatever, yet the money of those
who do pay the taxes is taken out of the treas
ury to the extent of $150,000,000 and given in
perpetual use, free of charge, to these pam
pered pets of the Government.
Can there be any law for taxing 85,000,000
people for the benefit of 5,000 national bank
ers?
The question answers itself. Yet that is
just what the Democrats, under Mr. Cleve
land, did on a small scale and what the Repub
licans, under Mr. Roosevelt, are doing on a
large one. Cleveland gave the pet banks, con
stantly, some forty million dollars: Roosevelt
has simply increased the donation.
But the ugly feature of the Roosevelt sys
tem of favoritism is this: Bonds are now fall
ing due, and we have the money to pay these
debts, but in spite of that fact he proposes to
renew the note (refund the bonds) and let the
debt run on at interest, instead of taking a por
tion of that $171,000,000 which the pet banks
are using and paying off the debt with it.
Thus the people will be burdened for an
other term of years with an interest-bearing
debt, while a few pet banks continue to use,
without interest, a huge Surplus, one-third
of which would pav off the maturing notes.
IT IS A SHAME!
n * *
Quote the Poet Correctly, "Brother Tobin.
'l'he Indiahoma Union-Signal is a most in
teresting and ably conducted paper, but its ed
itor, like the rest of us, sometimes jumps at
conclusions too hurriedly.
For instance, he writes an editorial para
graph to this effect:
“Tom Watson says that labor is making a
great mistake to put up such a determined
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