Watson's weekly Jeffersonian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1907, May 23, 1907, Page PAGE NINE, Image 9

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fight against the trial and conviction of Hay wood & Moyer. Watson is courageous and honest, but labor will not love him for that statement.” If Brother Tobin can produce any word of tongue or pen that Mr. Watson ever uttered, or wrote, sustaining the above statement, we will send him, collect, a brand new set of Shakespeare, upon which the Southern Ex press Company in Atlanta made one of our innocent, but well meaning employes pay $2.50 express charges, byway of condition precedent to taking it out of the Express Office —the set usually (sells for $2.25, and is not dirt cheap, even at that. What Mr. Watson did say concerning the Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone case was, in sub stance, this: ‘ That the revolutionary Socialists —the fel lows who rave at all private ownership of prop cry, tote red flags, parade the streets howl ing the Marseillaise and jabbering in foreign languages, hiss the mention of the name of the flag of the Union, tear it down and tread upon it —had taken possession of some Labor Or ganizations in the big cities of the North and West, and had committed these Unions to the lawless proposition that the accused officials of the Western Federation of Miners should not be put to death, even though the evidence might prove that they were guilty of one of the most deliberate, most cruel, most brutal, and most cowardly murders known to the an nals of crime! Mr. Watson contended that those Labor Unions who had allowed the flag-trampling Socialists to commit them to a lawless propo sition of that kind had gone wrong. Don’t you think so too, Brother Tobin? The truest friend to the working classes — and Mr. Watson has always been their friend —will tell them when they go wrong, just as he will fight for them when they go right. There are but two classes of men who never, under any circumstances, give to the honest, law-abiding working.men the inestimable ben efit of wise, candid, fearless advice —the dema gogues and the cowards. Mr. Watson hopes he does not belong to either class. HMM Homeric Nodding. In the course of a masterly editorial against the Pittsburg millionaire, Corey, who has re cently bought himself a new wife at an ex pense of some four million dollars, one of the most brilliant editors Atlanta ever had allud ed to Napoleon’s marriage “to the Prussian princess.” And then I fell off my chair, in convulsions. What is it that gets the matter with us sometimes, anyhow? Are there moments when our faculties take a perverse pleasure in teaching us our own limitations? What imp of aggravation holds back the name which you need to recall —a name almost as familiar to you as your own? Why is it that the line of poetry which you have been reciting for years, in private, eludes you when you would seize it in public? Did I not see one of the most brilliant of Shakespearean schol ars cover himself with ridicule and confusion in an abortive attempt to quote that wretched doggerel, the Epitaph? Did I not myself once immortalize myself by standing up in a public Spelling Bee, and spelling the word “victuals” phonetically, like the kitchen boy in “Our Mutual Friend”? Was I not present one morning in New York when the host, an elderly man, received a familiar young lady friend, kissed her fond ' Iy, and then on turning to introduce me to her, had to ask her, “What is your name, my dear?” Did not the great Napoleon himself forget that it was he who gave the order which sac rificed his cavalry at Waterloo? But even when I consider all these exten uating circumstances, my inclination is to deal WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. harshly with any editor who makes Napoleon marry a Prussian princess. Why, to do that is to miss the historical sig nificance and psychological interest of the whole business. Prussia had but recently been the mere Marquisate of Brandenburg. The Kings of Prussia had but recently been Marquises. They were but of yesterday—• these Hohenzollerns. Neither they, nor heir little new-made kingdom, appealed to the imagination of anybody. But there was “The Holy Roman Empire”; there was the Emperor; there was “the Daugh ter of the Caesars,” —these were materials for the firing of the oriental imagination of the “Corsican adventurer,” Napoleon Bonaparte. The Austrian alliance attracted him as a student of history, and as a conqueror bent upon founding a dynasty. In a shadowy way, the Emperor of Germany had been the suc cessor of the imperialism of Rome. The Aus trian House had held the sceptie which, in form, had been handed down to modern Eu rope by the Caesars. Therefore, in the mar riage with Maria Louisa, Napoleon dreamed he was uniting the Present with the Past, his newly erected throne with that which had been longest established, his plebeian blood with that of a long line of kings. Enveloped in considerations like these, the greatest man the world ever saw took by the hand the Daughter of the Caesars, led her to the throne which his own genius had created—and thus fell into that “abyss covered with flowers” into which his stupid, disloyal, shamelessly immoral Aus trian wife never dropped a tear. < n n Editorial Notes. The Business Magazine, of Knoxville, Tenn., wanted to know what harm the Steel Trust is doing. Will its editor please sit up and pay atten tion while that debate goes on between the Steel Trust magnates and the Railroad bosses? The latter allege against the former that the lack of competition in the making of steel rails explains the recklessness with which the Trust sends out defective rails to be laid on the road bed. These defective rails cause enormous loss of human life. They are carelessly, hurriedly made, because there is no competition, because the Trust has a monopoly, and because of the greed for dividends upon that immense amount of water which Morgan, Carnegie, Frick, Schwab, Corey & Co. poured into the Trust stocks at the organization of the Trust. * What a diabolical situation! The Railroads, in a mad rush for dividends, buy rails from the Steel Trust which is also in a mad rush for dividends, with the result that they together are strewing the earth from sea to sea, from Lakes to Gulf, with the wounded, the dying, and the dead—just as though armies were on the move, fighting a pitched battle every few weeks! The world never saw such an era of barbar ity in business, favoritism in legislation, outra geous wrong-doing in the name of Govern ment. It Corey, President of the Steel Trust, bought release from his wife, bought an engagemnt with an actress; bought a preacher to tie the knot, and then skipped out to Europe to have a good time. It cost the President of the Steel Trust about four million dollars to shuffle off the old wife and hook up with the new one— but what does he care about the price? lie cleared thirty-nine million dollars, in three months, in net profits, by making the best use of the Special Privilege which your Congressmen allow him to keep, and which not one of them, even now, proposes to take away. The preacher who was bought for about SI,OOO to perform the ceremony of “marry ing” Corey to his actress, got ashamed of his share in the transaction, after he realized that he was a ruined man, unless he repented, and returned the bribe. He did repent and he did return the bribe. The Judas money became hateful to him. But he can no more undo consequences than Judas could. •t Honor to Governor Hughes of New York! In spite of all that the corrupt Republican boss, Raines, could do; in spite of the treach erous aid which Democrats like Grady and McCarren gave to Raines; in spite of the cold water which Hearst and his papers threw up on the reform measures—Governor Hughes has won out, gloriously. Hereafter, the Pub lic Service Corporations in New York will have to walk the chalk. Shouldn’t wonder if Hughes were President, some day. * Mr. Schwab, one of the magnates of the Steel ! rust, stated that steel rails could be sold at sl2 per ton, at a profit. The Steel Trust ex acts $39, per ton. Taking as true Mr. Schwab's statement that the rails could be made here for ST2 per ton at a profit, you may readily see what a robbery is involved in charging $39 per ton. No wonder the President of the Trust can afford to spend four million dollars to get him self a fresh young wife. tt “Investigation shows that the watering of railroad stock was abandoned many years ago.” So sayeth The Jonesboro Enterprise. In the New York World, Democratic, under date of May 16, 1907, we find a special from Albany, New York, stating that “Since Jan uary 1, 1907, when the first work of drafting the Utilities bill was begun, the railroad cor porations have received the consent of the C ommission to issue stocks and bonds aggre gating more than fifty million dollars. The greater part of this represents issues of stock approved within the last month.” In other words, the Hughes Public Utili ties bill is intended to put a stop to the evils of stock-watering; and the railroads were fill ing up with water before the bill could be made a law. Yet here is a newspaper, in Georgia, telling the people to be quiet and let the railroad rob bers alone because “the watering of railroad stock was abandoned many years ago.” * M H PAGES FROM MY SCRAP BOOKS. Ever since I was a little boy it has been a habit of mine to clip out, from newspapers, such articles as were particularly interesting. Therefore, at fifty years of age, I find myself in possession of a dozen or so well-filled Scrap- Books. Many of the clippings lost their inter est with the passing away of the men and the episodes to which they related, but a consider able number are as valuable today as they were when they were selected. How would the readers of this paper like to take a ramble through these old Scrap books? I think you would like it well. So sure am I of this that, hereafter, from week to week, you shall have a series of re-published articles, under the headline of “Pages from My Scrap- Books.” PAGE NINE