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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