Newspaper Page Text
PAGE TWELVE
ISN’T THIS WHAT MR. WATSON WAS
HOOTED FOR SAYING MANY YEARS
AGO?
(Continued from page 9.)
years, it was once out of power for twenty
four years consecutively, to win in the end one
of the most brilliant victories in its career. No
political organization in the history of repub
lican institutions has *hown a more amazing
vitality.
Yet when The World, accused of not being
THE BROWNSVILLE INVESTIGA
TION.
The Senate committee’s investiga
tion into the Brownsville incident has
contributed very little to public
knowledge of the riot in the town.
No new evidence of any particular
importance supporting one conclu
sion or another was brought out. The
evidence as a whole points convinc
ingly to the conclusion that the ne.
gro soldiers raided the town, but it
has not disclosed the individual per
petrators. This was what the earlier
army investigation of the outrage de
veloped. The effort to show that the
people of Brownsville fired the shots
in the town in order to discredit the
negroes and induce the War Depart
ment to send them to another station
failed completely. The suggestion
was preposterous on the face of it,
and not a scintilla of evidence was
adduced in support of it.
The motive for an attack by the
negro soldiers on the town was made
perfectly clear. They had been dis
criminated against by the white
townspeople and tradesmen. Their
patronage was repulsed at certain sa
loons, and at one of them, Tillman’s,
a “Jim Crow” bar had been set up
for the soldiers. There had been
street brawls arising from race prej
udice. A negro soldier had been
knocked down by a white man named
Tate for jostling a white woman in
the street. These were the motives,
and the raiders apparantly, amid a
lot of indiscriminate shooting, bore
the soldiers’ grievances in mind. Till
man’s saloon was riddled with bul
lets and its bartender shot dead at
the door. The house next to the one
in which Tate lived was fired into, a
few of the raiders making a detour
from the sectio nchiefly raided to
fire upon this house apparently under
the impression that it was Tate’s
residence.
Strong direct evidence was brought
out to the effect that the raiders were
negro soldiers. The party was seen
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Democratic itself, asks “What is a Democrat?”
there is no answer. Even the acknowledged
leadei of the party, who has twice been its can
didate for President, is unable to frame a def
inition which distinguishes a Democrat from a
Republican.
If The Word’s question is unanswerable,
then we must conclude that the old barriers
between the parties have been broken down,
that the parties have merged in all ex
cept name and organization, and that
them; that the issue now is not of meas-
close at hand by a considerable num
ber of Brownsville residents. All
agree that they wore the khaki uni
form. Some witnesses who heard the
voices of the raiders near by testified
that they were the voices of negroes,
and other witnesses who were clos<>
enough to distinguish the color of the
raiders swore that they were negroes.
Some witnesses saw shots fired from
the barracks toward the town, and
also saw the negroes jump from the
wall surrounding the fort and run
into the town, shooting as they went.
The raid took place at only as hoit
distance, about four city blocks, from
the fort, and it would have been per
fectly possible for the raiders to re
turn to the fort and form in line
with their companies who were call
ed to arms. The lights in the fort
were extinguished, and in the confus
ion it was possible for the raiders to
return unobserved. The white offi
cers were under the impression that
the people of Brownsville were mak
ing a demonstration against the ne
gro soldiers and were firing upon the
fort. So no watch was kept to de
tect straggling raiders returning to
the fort, and no inspection of the
soldiers’ rifles was made until the
following morning to see if any had
been in use. At that time they were
all clean. They could easily have been
cleaned after the raid, provided that
the negro sargeant having the keys of
the gun racks was privy to the raid.
None of this dirqpt evidence was in
any way impeached. No motive was
shown which would explain thirty or
forty Brownsville residents perjuring
themselves to put the blame of the
raid upon the negroes. Several of
these witnesses who swore that the
raiders were negro soldiers were per
sons of the highest standing in the
community. All of this direct evi
dence and the clearly established mo
tive were met by the denial of the
negroes that they had any knowledge
of the raid. The substance of the
whole case is this: The natural—in
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
fact, the only conceivable —explana-
tion of the raid is that it was per
petrated by the negroes. This pre
sumption is made a certainty by the
volume of direct, unprejudiced testi
mony that the raiders were negroes
from the fort.
The Senate investigation merely
sought the facts, and natura’ly did
not go into the question of the pen
alty. On the necessity of the dis
missal \we have already expressed
our opinion, and no subsequent de
velopment has caused us to view dif
ferently the need of preventing the
development in the army of a “sys
tem” which puts privates “on hon
or” to conceal their comrades mis
deeds from their superiors.—New
York Tribune.
THE COAL TRUST WILL BE
SMASHED.
The government of the United
States has decided to prosecute the
criminal Coal Trust.
That is the greatest news of the
week —the most important to every
American citizen.
It is important for three reasons:
First —It,promises to end a great,
cruel, greedy and lawless combina
tion that has made living more costly
to millions of people.
Second —It demonstrates that there
is a sure way to attack and break up
other greedy and lawless combina
tions that otherwise make life more
costly.
Third —It proves that against these
combinations nothing is really needed
but patient, persistent fighting, based
upon the plain letter of the law.
This newspaper congratulates the
people on this memorable victory over
the criminal trusts. It congratulates
itself that it has been able to be of
service to the public that has sup
ported it and to which it owes its
success.
All the evidence upon whrh the
Government bases its action against
them, that the issue now is not of meas
ures, but of men; not of principles, but of per
sons ; not of conflicting policies of government,
but of conflicting administrators.
Republican and Democrat thus become inter
changeable terms, except in matters of lead
ership, unless there is a conclusive and accept
able answer to The World’s question.
If this be the case, then there can be only
one issue in the next Presidential campaign—
shall the John Does or the Richard Roes have
the offices? —New York World.
the criminal Coal Trust was ob
tained and supported by W. R.
Hearst.
The record of the almost five years’
fight that has ended in this decision
ortght to be interesting and instruct
ive.
It is instructive to us because it
shows that in a fight for right there
is nothing to be discouraged at. The
contest may be long, and it may be
often delayed or temporarily defeat
ed. But it will win in . the end.
The struggle began in October,
1902, when the miners’ strike was in
progress in the anthracite region.
That, you may remember, was a
strike for higher wages which was
afterward found by the National
Strike Commission to be justified.
While the strike was on, the price of
coal advanced greatly until it reached
<s2l a ton, and, as a result, -schools
were closed, factories shut down and
general distress was imminent.
Mr. Hearst, realizing that the pow
er of the railroads which were really
responsible for the high prices of
coal, as well as for the trouble in the
anthracite region, lay in their com
b:nation, determined to expose and
destroy the Trust agreement by which
the railroads operated together and
were control the situation.
He employed attorneys, sent agents
and investigators the country
and speedily gathered conclusive doc
umentary evidence that the Reading,
Jersey Central, Erie, Lehigh and Sus
quehanna railroads had formed a
trust, were pooling freight rates,
throttling competition by diserminat
ing contracts, and blacklisting inde
pendent dealers.
On October 4, 1902, he opened the
battle by filing a sworn petition with
Attorney-General Knox, of the Fed
eral Government, and by writing to
the President, offering to produce the
evidence to substantiate his charges.
Attorney General Knox replied
the hext day, suggesting that the evi
dence he laid before United States