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remove Sewall of Maine from the ticket, as
they had promised to do, and to marshal the
hosts of Democracy and Populism to the sup
port of Bryan and Watson.
Mr. Graves advised in vain. “Let the
Southern Populists go to the niggers where
they belong,” said the insolent Chairman,
James K. Jones. “We can get the votes of
the Western Populists without Watson, and
we don’t need the Populists of the South.”
Upon that fatal miscalculation, Bryan went
down in defeat when at the opening of the
campaign there were seventy-five points out
of a hundred in his favor.
Chairman Jones insulted Watson, bought
the Populist Chairman, Marion Butler, and
dawdled along to ruin, when common honesty
in keeping the pledges made to the Mid-Road
Populists would have elected Bryan.
These facts are now accepted everywhere.
That John Temple Graves was dead right in
1896, no one can now dispute.
Bearing this in mind, the position which
he took at the Chattanooga banquet—since de
fended by him with signal force in the New
York World —merits careful consideration.
When Graves advised Bryan to nominate
Roosevelt in 1908, Bryan himself did not scout
the idea. On the contrary his words “as at
present advised,” left him to be governed by
circumstances.
Since the Chattanooga banquet, the friends
of Mr. Bryan have declared that if Roosevelt
were renominated Mr. Bryan would refuse to
run.
When the New York World brought this
report to Mr. Bryan’s attention, he answered,
over his own signature, that he did not care
to discuss the matter.
Now, will some wise person please tell us
where we are at?
Think of the situation:
Graves publicly urges Bryan to nominate
Roosevelt. Bryan replies that “as at present
advised,” he cannot promise to do so; the
friends of Bryan put out the report that if
Roosevelt is nominated Bryan will not op
pose him; the New York World asks Bryan
whether this report is true, and Bryan refuses
to discuss it.
Queer kettle of fish, eh?
Suppose Bryan should nominate Roosevelt,
he would be elected without serious opposi
tion, would he not?
Politicians, generally, would so reason.
Then that would be the last of Roosevelt as
President, would it not? Surely.
Then what?
Bryan would be the logical, inevitable man
for 1912, would he not?
Politicians, generally, would so argue.
At all events, two things are reasonably clear
to this Publican?
First. John Temple Graves has been con
spicuously brave and consistent; and
Second. William J. B. might find that the
advice of Graves is his surest route to the
White House.
hum
The Modest Claims of the National
'Banks.
In Kansas City, Mo., the National Bankers
have been having a convention. Charles
Treat, Treasurer of the United States, was
present. He made a speech, of course. He
went there for the purpose.
Mr. Treat’s speech was just about such a
speech as was expected. He glorified the
National Banking System, as a matter of
course. He glorified the conduct of Mr. Cor
telyou in opening the United States Treasury
to the Wall Streeters when those speculative
worthies needed the use of the public funds
last winter. He said—Treat did—that this con
duct on the part of Cortelyou had gained for
that obliging official “the confidence of the
bankers of the entire world.” Tn other words,
the banking fraternity feel sure that, so long
as Cortelyou is in charge of Uncle Sam’s purse,
the kings of High Finance will always know’
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
where to go when they find themselves in a
tight.
Mr. Treat, like many other eminent speak
ers who have been sprinkling the thirsty soil
with eloquence recently, expressed his aston
ishment at the amazing prosperity of the coun
try. Mr. Treat declared that this marvelous
prosperity, when marshalled into figures, is
so astonishing as to almost excite incredul
ity !
Yet it seems that Mr. Treat thinks the Na
tional Bankers ought to have more. Clearly,
they were not getting enough.
They already have a practical exemption
from national taxation.
They already enjoy the Special Privilege
of supplying the country with currency—
based on national credit—thereby reaping
a net yearly revenue of nearly one hundred
million dollars.
They already have the use of the public
revenues collected by the Internal Revenue
officers and of those collected at the Custom
Houses—Collections averaging much more
than a million dollars a day.
They already have, as shown by the Treas
ury Report of May 22, 1907, the sum of $172,-
553,000 of public money, which they arc using
in their business free of interest.
But they are now claiming the right to
flood the country with their notes, to be used
as money, with no other security back of the
notes than the stocks and bonds of the corpor
ations.
Listen to Treat:
“The National Banks should be allowed to
issue 50 per cent of their circulating notes
based on other securities than those of the
United States.”
The modest bankers listened to this modest
demand, and were much pleased.
Currency based on other assets than United
States Bonds is the same old encroaching de
mand put forth by the famous Baltimore Con
vention of the Cleveland days.
Times may change and men change with
them, but the modesty of the bankers, never!
All that the National Bankers want is every
thing in sight.
* * n
An Imperial Brute.
The most offensive type of the ruler by
“Divine Right,” is the brutal despot who now
struts his brief hour upon the stage as Em
peror of Germany.
The great Teutonic nation is to him “my
Empire.” The magnificent German army is
“my army.” The navy is “my navy,” and so
on.
To his youthful recruits he says: “Your
oath binds you to me; you must obey me
blindly. If I order you to shoot your own
father or brother, you must do it.”
Discipline, you see. A great thing is discip
line. To give the German private the proper
conception of the word, the German officers,
aping their Emperor, affect the utmost con
tempt for the mere common soldier. It is not
uncommon for the public to witness the spec
tacle of an officer kicking the shins of a private,
slapping his jaws, spitting in his face. Where
the men are being drilled, one may see such
sights almost daily in Germany.
Every year we read of women and girls,
boys and men, being sent into imprisonment
because of alleged disrespectful remarks about
the Emperor, or some member of his family.
Last week, this “Me and God” tyrant was
out airing his majesty in an automobile. He
passed a group of men who were at work.
One of these men—so they claim—“put out
his tongue” when the Emperor rolled by.
For this alleged mark of disrespect, the
workman was hauled up before some poor lit
tle judicial puppet of tyranny, and this pup
pet-judge sentenced the man to nine months’
imprisonment.
To sav nothing of the crueltv this inflicted
upon the workman himself, think of the conse
quences to his family. Within that period
the >vife and children, deprived of their bread-
winner and protector, may be sucked into the
infinite ocean of want, and be lost in the hor
rors of beggary or crime.
K at n
Editorial Notes.
The Special Joint Committee appointed by
the Florida Legislature to investigate the
Drainage-of-the-Everglades question has made
a favorable report. This is a triumph for
Governor Broward.
The Sun, Tallahassee, Fla., comments with
enthusiasm upon the Report and mentions, as
an example of what the Drainage will accom
plish, the fact that on one acre of ground
which was under water before the canal was
cut, the Committee found a luxuriant crop of
tomatoes of the estimated value of S7OO. The
Committee figured the cost of reclaiming this
fruitful land at the comparatively small sum of
fourteen and one-third cents per cubic vard
for the rock and dirt removed m "Utting the
canal.
Our brilliant young friend, C. Frank Stroud,
late of Hickory, N. C., has removed to Sevier
ville, Tenn., where his paper, The Hornet, is
as lively as ever. Frank hasn’t been in Ten
nessee long but he seems to have learned lots
already. Says he: “Tennessee girls are deceit
ful above all things, and desperate kickers.”
Perhaps after Frank has performed quaran
tine and been in Tennessee long enough to be
come climatized, he will have better luck with
those “desperate kickers.”
Brother Tibbles of The Investigator jolts
little old New England thus:
“According to Raymond of the Chicago Tri
bune, all the little provinces down by the sea
are ‘forninst’ Roosevelt, his policies and his
candidates, and they will send delegates in
structed accordingly to the Republican nation
al convention. The people down there, espe
cially in Massachusetts, where Raymond now
is, have always been ‘forninst’ anything that
was for the public good. They wanted dear
money and a high tariff. The result of the
first was to shut down their factories, and the
result of the latter is now causing them to
howl all night long to the moon like a forsak
en dog. What is the use of paying any atten
tion to them?”
The unrivalled paragrapher of the Washing
tion Post gives us a pop call, to wit:
We want immigrants from Missouri with
long ears and lively heels,” says Tom Wat
son’s Weekly Jeffersonian. Is this prepa
tory to a revival of the Populist party?
Answering which we ask:
Whv should the People’s Party need mules
from Missouri, when it is driving such a pair
of spankers as Teddy and William J.?
The Socialists, worsted in the debate as us
ual, have found another antagonist who
“dees not know what Socialism is.”
This time it is Tibbles, of Nebraska, a vet
eran reformer who has devoted a lifetime to
the study of political, economic and sociolog
ical questions.
Whenever some antagonist who knows how
to handle these absurd Socialists knocks the
breath out of one of their champions by hit
ting him with a chunk of Common Sense, they
immediately raise the whine, “You don’t know
what Socialism is.”
Gaylord Wilshire actually had the cheek to
say that to the great English scholar, Mallock,
who devoted some time last winter to the
puncturing of Socialist hot-air bags.
“Nothing doing!”
Is that slang? I thought it was until last
night when I came upon the words in Dick
ens’ Dombey & Son.
Tn Chapter TV, old Sol Gills is explaining to
his nephew Walter why the shop must be
closed and the business abandoned.
“You see, Walter,” said he. “in truth this
(Continued on page 12.)
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