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WATSON’S EDIT OKIALS
Il
Holv Long Shall We Submit?
Our Northern friends are smarter than we
are. The Yankee is naturally keener in bus
iness than the easy-going, unsuspicious man
of the South. From the very first meeting of
Congress down to the last, the long-headed
New Englander has been on deck, running the
governmental machine for the filling of his
pocket. ' * ' ii !
With enormous national bounties and pre
miums paid to the Yankee manufacturers,
bleak New England was made rich at the ex
pense of the South and the West. The Tariff
confiscates what the agricultural producer
makes. To the extent of countless millions of
dollars, this tribute has been collected from
the consumer, and handed over to the Yankee
manufacturer. They called the system Pro
tection, which sounds better than Legalized
Robbery, but is not so accurate a term.
Very soon the keen-eyed Yankee saw the
possibilities of the Railroad. Freight and Pas
senger rates are just so many taxes. Those
who have the power to levy these taxes have a
tremendous advantage over those who must
pay them. If these freight rates and passenger
rates are fixed upon the greedy, tyrannical
principle of “all that the traffic will bear,” then
you can see at once that those who have the
power to levy those taxes can confiscate with
out mercy the portable property of those who
must pay.
The Yankees saw this before we did. The
people of the South and West slept over their
rights. They put up the contributions of land,
cash, privileges, exemptions and powers which
created the railroads, and then allowed the
Yankees to make off with the property. Ever
since the cruel Civil War closed, the Yankees
have been confiscating Southern and Western
property to the limit of “all that the traffic will
bear.”
Just how many thousands of millions of dol
lars have been squeezed out of the victims, and
appropriated by the North, can’t be estimated.
We gather some faint conception of the colos
sal proportions of the robbery when we recall
that the railroads are carrying at least six thou
sand million dollars of watered stock. Some
authorities say $8,000,000,000!
At last the victims of this almost incredi
ble rapacity are beginning to rebel. The situ
ation is more galling than flesh and blood can
bear.
The states of the South and West are inter
posing to protect their citizens from the ra
pacity of the Northern corporations. Southern
and Western Legislatures are rousing them
selves to resist the confiscatory Yankees.
But what do we see? The Northern Cor
porations, working through venal lawyers,
judges and Congressmen, are arrogating to
themselves the right to nullify state laws.
Think of the impudence of these plundering
corporations in“holding up” sovereign states
of the South and West! Think of the inso
lence of these Yankees that come down here
to fight our laws!
Think of the intolerable humiliation to the
states of being halted with a piece of paper,
when they seek to exercise the sovereign power
and duty of protecting the citizen from having
his portable property confiscated by the levy-
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN
A Newspaper Devoted to the Advocacy of the Jeffersonian Theory of Government.
published BY SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: SI.OO PER YEAR
THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON, Advertising Rates Furnished on Application.
Editors and Proprietors ■ -
ny t> . Entertd at Pottoffice, Atlanta, Ga., January n, IQO7, at ttcind
Temple Court Building, Atlanta, Ga. dan mail mattar.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 1907.
ing of freight and passenger tariffs on the op
pressive principle of “all that the traffic will
bear.” z
The greatest shame is, that so many South
ern and Western lawyers and politicians are
willing to enlist under the banners of the
North to raid the fields and towns of the South
and West. The Yankees hire our own men to
fight us.
During the cruel Civil War, the North hired
tens of thousands of foreigners to fight us.
There is no need to draw from Europe now.
Apparently, the rich Yankee corporations can
hire one-half the South to rob the other half.
Southern judges are found who prostitute their
powers to the evil purposes of Northern Cor
porations.
Some of these Southern Congressmen were
such faithful States Rights men that, in Con
gress, they voted against the regulation of
railroad rates by the Federal Government; yet
when they came home they sued out Injunc
tions against their own mother-states to pre
vent the states from regulating these same
rates.
Ah, the disgrace of it! They sell out to the
Yankees and aid them in robbing their own
people—could degradation sink deeper?
How long are the people of the South and
West going to submit?
Flow many more Governors are going to
have their Sovereign States reduced to impo
tence by RENEGADES, CORRUPTION
ISTS, AND JUDICIAL USURPERS?
The question is vital, and the issue is upon
us.
Most people—whether white, black, brown
or yellow—abhor foreign rule. Most men
would rather die than submit to it. •
We of the South used to be proud, brave,
independent; but today we bend slavishly be
neath the yoke that the North has fastened
upon our necks.
Why is this so?
Because the foreign tyranny is disguised.
Southern men seem to be in control of all
these robber corporations and the people gen
erally do not know the actual fact that it is
by the use of these figure-head Southern ren
egades that the Yankee corporations are plun
dering the Southern States, every year, of
more wealth than was taken from us by the
marauding hordes of Sherman, Stoneman, and
Sheridan.
HOW LONG WILL WE SUBMIT TO
IT?
ft ft ft
John Sharp Williams.
The above-named gentleman is making
speeches to the people of Mississippi in the
interest of his candidacy for the Senate.
Naturally, he now reminds himself that, dur
ing his long career as Representative in Con
gress, he has been one of the most toil-worn
friends that the people have ever had. Stim
ulating his creative faculty by reflections con
cerning the things which he could and should
have done for his constituents he has appropri
ated to his own use the achievements of other
and more faithful Congressmen—achievements
with which John Sharp Williams had nothing
more to do than he had with the original
grouping of the Milky W*ay.
Some two years ago, John Sharp made a
speech in Congress in which he claimed for the
Democratic Party the credit for the present
Rural Free Delivery of Mail, because it was
put into successful operation by William L.
Wilson, the Democratic Postmaster-General.
When he was making that speech John Sharp
was under the disagreeable necessity of pay
ing some attention to the facts. Glaring mis
statements, made in the hearing of Congress
men familiar with the record, would have call
ed down upon his own head exposure jfind dis
credit.
Therefore, when he made that speech in
Congress, John Sharp advanced no claims for
himself as father of the R. F. D. system. Talk
ing in the hearing of colleagues who would
have bounced him had he prevaricated, he was
forced to admit that Mr. Watson of Georgia
had secured, Feb. 17, 1893, the first appropria
tion that this Government ever made for the
free delivery of mails to people living outside
of towns, cities and villages.
Nor did he dare to say then, in that presence,
that my amendment to the P. O. Appropriation
bill was in ans>“ way defective. He did not
dare to say that the language used in my
amendment left it optional with the Govern
ment to use the money or not, as it saw fit.
Such an allegation, then and there made,
would have been answered and refuted by a
production of the record, where my amendment
stands in the most positive, mandatory form of
legislative will.
The words are, “the sum of SIO,OOO SHALL
BE applied under the direction of the Post
master-general to experimental free delivery in
rural communities OTHER THAN TOWNS
AND VILLAGES.”
How much stronger could I have written
it? lhe so-called R. F. D. of John Wanamak
er was confined to incorporated towns, and the
purpose of my amendment was to extend the
benefit to people who lived in the country.
And my words were, “Shall be.” There was
nothing optional about it.
President Cleveland simply refused to obey
the law.
Then Congress repeated the appropriation
twice more, in the same language, and,at
length the administration obeyed the law.
It would seem from a letter published in an
other place in this week’s Jeffersonian that
John Sharp, talking for votes and to people
who cannot be supposed to know the facts,
has been fabricating the facts upon which he
is erecting his claim for credit.
Watson’s law was not written right ; there
fore Watson’s law amounted to nothing. The
world had to wait until John Sharp got hold
of the matter ; then the law was written right,
and the people got Rural Free Delivery of
Mail. J
According to my correspondent, that is the
way in which John Sharp is stating the case to
audiences in the interior of Mississippi, where
he thinks he is in no danger of contradiction.
Such a statement is false, and no man knows
it better than the man who is alleged to be
making it. To get votes upon such a plea is to
obtain goods under false pretenses.
And I ..make- this prediction—Mr. John
Sharp Williams will not dare to repeat
those statements on the floor of Congress.