Newspaper Page Text
WATSON’S EDITORIALS
What Senator Was This ?
The New York American says:
"The Seaboard Air Line, now owned by
Thomas Fortune Ryan, received from one Unit
ed States Senator alone sixteen tons of public
documents at the beginning of the weighing
period. They made two trips in sacks and
were then opened and sent as separate pack
ages to the Senator’s constituents. Thus this
matter, dumped at a time when it would do
the Seaboard Company the greatest amount of
good, enjoyed three separate weighings.”
You understand what that means, don’t
you ?
The government pays the railroads nearly
fifty million dollars every year for carrying
the mails, and the amount to be paid is as
sessed upon an average arrived at by weighing
the mail sacks, for a period of thirty days,
every four years.
Now the railroads always have some friend
OJi the inside who notifies them in advance
when the. weighing period will begin. Then
the railroads dump into the post offices every
blessed thing they can lay their hands on—
excepting feathers and lint cotton.
()h, how heavy the mail sacks do become
during the weighing period! Mail clerks sweat
and swear; postmasters tug and toil; the mail
cars arc crammed so full that the mice have to
get cut; and the averages which the railroads
arc trying to make swell like peas in a pot. By
the time the mail weighing period is over,
and those who are on to the rackef’cxchange
winks and sly jokes—while those who did the
lifting wipe the sweat off and cuss one last
volley—l ncle Sam has been brought face to
face with a fraudulent average which, during
the next four years, steals millions of dollars
from the tax payers.
Car-loads of the junk which goes to make up
this fraudulent average is supplied to the rail
roads by Congressmen. These public servants
enjoy the franking privilege—which means,
that their names, stamped upon mail mat
ter, carry through the mails, free of
charge, letters, papers, pamphlets, books,
garden seed and so forth. It is even
said that all sorts of merchandise wear
ing apparel, house furniture, musical instru
men s and provisions are sent through the
mails by congressmen who believe in getting
everything possible out of their chances ami
privileges. So far as I am informed, no states
man has. as yet, sent his horse and buggy to
W ashington and back by mail—but there is no
telling when even that will happen. Pianos
have been sent by mail, under the franking
privilege; and this fat fellow, TaTt, who is
running for President, sent his automobile from
Washington to San Francisco at public ex
pense, a few years ago—thinking he might
need it while there. He did not need it, as
it happened, and the automobile came back to
Washington, at public expense again, without
ever having been used.
A Senator or Representative who will frank
a few tons of junk, when the railroads want
it, so that it may be hauled back and forth
during the weighing period, enables the rail
road to make a fraudulent average and to rob
the people. Some Congressmen have become
notorious for their guilty friendship to the rail
roads. For instance, it is well known that
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN
A Newspaper De voted 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, JUNE 20, 1907.
the Southern Railroad can count on Lon Liv
ingston, of the Atlanta District, every time.
Put who is the Senator that belongs to the
Seaboard Air Line?
Os course, we knew that in a general way,
Tom Ryan, who owns the Seaboard, also owns
the two Senators from Virginia—but which
Senator gave him sixteen tons of junk to aid
him in working another one of his infamous
swindles?
Sixteen tons —32,000 pounds 1 And they not
only got the benefit of the weight once, but
three times!
\\ hy, that reminds me of the way in which
Hamp McWhorter and Jim Smith of Ogle
thorpe made so much money out of “Tea Cul
ture” in Georgia.
It is not every pair of Christians who could
succeed with Tea Culture in Georgia, but
Hamp and Jim did.
“Tea Culture” was a lot of tremendously
heavy books; and by shipping them up and
down the little Jim-Smith railroad, and charg
ing the Government full rates each trip, Jim
and Hamp made a brilliant success of “Tea
( ulturc” in Georgia—but it came mighty near
landing both of them in the Penitentiary.
But, once more, which one of Tom Ryan’s
Senators gave him the 32,000 lbs. of junk to
cheat the Government with?
Evidently, he is a Southern Senator—was he
one of the Senators from the state whose politi
cal power belongs to Ryan—Virginia?
Presumptively so, for everybody knows how
complete is Ryan’s mastery over the conglom
eration that calls itself “the Democratic Party”
in the Old Dominion.
But was it? **
Let the New York American be more explic
it, and tell us which Senator disgraced himself
and his state by colluding with Ryan to de
fraud the tax-pavers.
* *
Rebolt Against Railroud Control.
When Young George L. Sheldon left his
farm and began to stump his state on the prop
osition that the railroads must be driven out
of Nebraska politics, no .doubt the railroad
gang—editors, lobbyists, special counsel, local
attorneys, dummy committee-men, professional
politicians, and so forth—assured their Wall
Street bosses, Harriman. Jake Schiff & Co.,
that the ranting of Sheldon would amount to
nothing, and that Nebraska would continue to
be a docile sheep which Wall Street could reg
lilarlv shear, to the end of time.
When Norris Brown, of the same state, left
his office of Attorney General and began a
speech-making tour for equality of taxation
between the railroads and other property own
ers, declaring that there should be an end of
railroad domination in Nebraska politics, the,
laugh of the railroad gang may have been less
spontaneous: even the bought-and-paid-for
crowd may have realized that if they succeeded
in keeping the lid on they wotdd earn all that
their Wall Street task-masters paid them.
The truth is, as I have frequently pointed
out. this mercenarv brigade of corporation
Hessians is never hard to whip. They thrive
on corruption and bluff. They burrow under
the ground, and they beat loud drums on pa
rade RUT THEY NEVER MAKE GOOD
IN A PITCHED BATTLE.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: SI.OO PER TEAR
Advertising Rates Furnished on Application.
Entirtd at Pottoffice, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, 1907, at tetand
dan mail matter.
And the reason is plain: They know that
they deserve defeat. In their heart of hearts,
they despise the Wall Street rascals, whose
money they take. Conscience makes cowards
of them; and when the champions of Right, of
Law, of Justice force them to come out into
the open and fight, they just can’t face the bay
onet.
In Nebraska, the Western boodlers who had
sold their people to Wall Street went down in
utter rout. Young Sheldon was elected Gov
ernor, and Norris Brown was chosen United
States Senator —in Nebraska, mind you, where
a few years ago a Pacific Railroad lawyer,
Thurston, beat W. J. Bryan, in a fair, square
fight, for the same office.
In Georgia, the Southern boodlers who help
Northern corporations loot the South “got
theirs” last fall; and now in Virginia the same
revolt against the foul domination of foreign
plunderers is on. •
The same conditions prevail there which
caused the fight in Nebraska and in Georgia.
The railroads, owned outside tHe state, exploit
and control the state. Tom Ryan, of New
York, has been carrying Virginia in his pocket.
The two Virginia Senators lodge politically in
Ryan’s vest pocket. Neither Daniel nor Martin
would dare to sneeze until they had seen Ryan
take snuff. The Democratic Executive Com
mittee is stuffed with Ryan and Ryan’s railroad
lawyers. Democratic Delegations to National
Conventions are hauled thereto in Ryan’s pri
vate car—he being concerned in their safe de
livery and not being willing to take any chanc
es of their getting away.
State Senator A. F. Thomas, of Lynchburg,
has issued an “Appeal to the People” against
this condition of things in V irginia.
Mr. Thomas shows how the foreign owners
of the railroads have controlled the state
through three classes:
“Ist. Their own paid attorneys holding le
gislative offices.
“2d. The timid and conservative legislators
who see no virtue in any corrective measures
which do not rest upon a line of precedents
extending from King John to the present.
"3rd. That larger class who would do some
thing if they knew what to do and how to do
it. Not having these qualifications they are
easily led to support many measures which
they would bitterly oppose if they realized
their true character.
"You will readily perceive then that the rail
roads have controlled your government not by
wholesale graft and corruption as many sup
pose, but by playing upon the character of
the men you elected to represent you.
"So long as you continue to fill your legis
latures with men unable to cope with these
complex problems you will continue under
the domination of aggregated wealth which
always commands the best available talent.”
Mr. Thomas charges that railroad property
to the extent of $148,000,000 now escapes tax
ation in Virginia—a situation precisely sim
ilar to that which exists in every state in this
Union.
We bid Mr. Thomas God Speed! Let him
take the case to the people. Let him keep the
facts to the front. Let him explain the situa
tion to the common folks so that every citi
zen can grasp the issues. Let him ignore