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He knows that his hide would be taken off,
neatly, completely, expeditiously, if he ventur
ed to make there assertions so notoriously at
variance with truth.
X * X
The Telephone and Telegraph Companies
Along the public roads, you will find the
poles and the wire of these public service cor
porations.
How did they come to have the authority
to enter upon your land, dig holes in your
ground, and set up their poles and wire?
The Legislature said th°y might do it. '
But where did the Legislature get the au
thority to give away your land + o these North
ern corporations?
The Legislature has no such power. The
Constitution forbids the taking of private prop
erty for public use, unless just compensation
has first been paid.
The land over which the public road runs,
remains your land. The road-bed, itself, is
yours. The public has nothing but the right
to pass over it, with horses and vehicles. The
public enjoys the Easement of traveling
through your land.
In that right, the Legislature and the courts
can and should protect every citizen.
But what has the Easement of travel
do with digging holes and putting up Tele
phone and Telegraph wires?
Nothing.
When the Legislature assumes to grant such
a right, it exceeds its authority, and the cor
porations know it.
Nevertheless, with confident arrogance, born
of successful bluff, insolence and usurpation,
those Northern corporations have taken pos
session of the public roads of Georgia, without
saying “Turkey” to the owners of the land. In
most cases, not a penny of compensation has
been paid.
Therefore, these poles and wires have no
legal right to be on the public road which
runs through your land. If you were to take
your axe and cut down every one of those
poles, you would be doing precisely what you
have the legal right to do. These corporations
are Tresspassers upon your land. Their poles
and wires are there by Trespass. It is you
lawful privilege to remove the property.
AND THEY KNOW IT.
They invaded your land and trampled upon
your rights for the simple reason that they felt
sure they could bluff you, AND THAT WAS
A CHEAPER WAY TO GET YOUR LAND
THAN TO PAY FOR IT.
XXX
'Railroad Diplomacy.
Wise in their generation are the Northern
millionaires who are plundering the South.
AUnost without exception, these foreign own
ers of the corporations which are robbing us
so unmercifully have been shrewd enough to
buy up Southern men to put in charge of the
job. This makes it more difficult for the South
to resist the Northern marauders. The South
ern Sepoys who have sold themselves to the
service of our Yankee oppressors naturally
know better how to manipulate Southern in
fluence than any foreigner could learn to do
it. Each one of these sold-out Sepoys is an
able" man, else he would not have been worth
buying. Being a man of capacity, and having
his personal connections, and being familiar
with the locality in which his service is to be
rendered, he can make himself worth his price,
and can make the task of the honest reformer
difficult.
Consider, for instance, the case of Hamp.
Os course, I mean Hamp McWhorter. This
very smooth article is one of the most valu
able of the assets of the Northern corporations
that are plundering the South. With a natural
tact and diplomacy seldom surpassed, this man,'
who was a commonplace lawyer, and a mighty
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
poor judge, has developed into a strictly first
class Lobbyist and Corruptionist.
Having demonstrated his fitness for corpo
ration service Hamp became a corporation
fixture. The » Southern Railroad would no
more think of trying to get along without
Hamp than it would think of discarding the
air-biake and the sand-pipe. Hamp “stays
put.” He is there to stay.
Feeling certain of this, Hamp located him
self in Athens. In the language of the sol
dier, Athens is a strategic position. On ac
count of several things, Athens is the best
place for Hamp, and Hamp’s work.
Among other advantages which the position
offered was that of being the Home of our
State University. To this great school, flock
every year hundreds of the boys of the best
families of Georgia and her sister states. From
this school will go forth the y ung men who
will hcieafter exert powerful influence over the
public opinion of their day, over legislation,
over judicial decisions, over governmental pol
icies.
What could better answer the purpose of
the able and far-seeing Hamp pitch
his tent in Athens where he could come in
personal contact with these important young
men? Think of the seemingly innocent ways
in which a man of Hamp’s tact and diplomacy
and RESOURCES, can make himself popular
aomng the school-boys! Think of the atten
tions, social and otherwise; the adroit flatteries
and blandishments; the numberless little cour
tesies and favors extended; the golden
opportunities for pouring into the ears
and minds of unsuspecting college students the
subtle and unscrupulous suggestions of the
permanently-employed lobbyist!
Verily, the Yankees acted ’cutely when they
bought Hamp; and Hamp acted ’cutely when
he settled in Athens.
As an example of how such a man gets in
his work, see how Hamp managed to import
a railroad lawyer—of the Southern Railroad, at
that—to make the Commencement speech for
the State University this year!
The Faculty chose, for the Orator of the
occasion, one Alfred Thom. General Counsel
for J. Pierpont Morgan’s corporation.
Had anybody ever heard of Thom as a pub
lic speaker? Was there any demand for Thom?
From what quarter came the whispered sug
gestion that Thom was the man to fill the bill
—Thom who lives in Washington City—Thom
who is General Counsel of the law-breaking
robber-combine known as the Southern Rail
road—Thom the immediate superior-officer of
Hamp McWhorter?
I do not know that Hamp worked the rabbit
foot in this business, but I have no more doubt
that the procurement of that invitation to
Thom was the result of Hamp’s machinations
than I have of the fact that Hamp McWhorter
and Jim Smith of Oglethorpe are the only two
men who ever made money on “Tea Culture”
in Georgia.
Chancellor Barrow manfully took upon him
self the sole responsibility for the selection of
Thom as Commencement Orator, but he did
not explain how it came to pass that his mind
fixed itself upon Thom as the fittest man to
speak to the boys on that occasion.
X
Well, Hamp’s diplomacy worked out all
right, and Thom came down to Athens and
made his speech.
He talked “shop,” of course. A man of that
stamp never has any better manners. Most
gentlemen would have respected the proprieties
and avoided “shop.” But Thom’s whole speech
was “shop”—that is, he lugged in his side of
the Railroad Question, the side that he is
hired to talk, at so much per year.
Naturally < Thom was severe on the Dema
gogues. Men who sell themselves to the cor
porations, are prone to be severe on the Dem
agogues. I have noticed this before. When
one of these Yankeeized railroad lawyers gets
through denouncing the SourfUem Dema-
gogues who are standing up for the law as it
is written, it is a wonder to me how the poor
Demagogues can consent to continue to live.
I am surprised that the last single one of them
does not take Rough on Rats, and go off and
die.
After Thom had slewed and slaughtered
and fearfully mangled the m last dad-blamed
Demagogue in sight, he bent all the powers
of his mighty mind to eulogizing Sam Spencer.
Spencer was the President of the Southern
Railroad who refused to obey the law and fix
up his road as the statutes of the land and the
dictates of common prudence required.
And it came to pass, in the mysterious prov
idence of God, that Sam Spencer was ONE of
the thousands of men who fell sacrifice to the
greedy, shameless, heartless, law-defying mis
management of the Southern Railroad.
Having slain all the Demagogues, and hav
ing exalted Spencer to the skies, Thom pro
ceeded to speak of the great men of whom the
State University was proud.
And the blundering ass put at the head of
the list—who?
ROBERT TOOMBS.
The last and grandest public work done by
General Toombs was that single-handed and
splendidly courageous campaign against tax
dodging, law-defying, corrupting and plunder
ing corporations which, according to Thom’s
paid-for logic, elevated Robert Toombs to the
infamous height of CHIEF OF THE DEMA
GOGUES!
XXX
Isn't This What Mr. Watson Was
Hooted Tor Saying Hany Years Ago?
That great Democratic daily, the New York
World, has been trying to find out “What is a
Democrat?”
Os course this question involves another,
“Is there any material difference between the
Democratic and Republican parties?”
Populism sprang up as a protest against both
these old parties, alleging that there was no
substantial difference between them, and that
both of them were committed to the Hamil
tonian, rather than to the Jeffersonian, theory
of Government.
In pursuing its inquiry, the World has
sought information from Mr. Bryan, with re
sults neither enlightening nor satisfactory.
Why?
Because with all his readiness and ability,
Mr. Bryan cannot Create a difference which
does not exist.
Both the old parties .are committed to prin
ciples and policies which make for Plutocracy,
and are utterly destructive of Democracy.
Read for yourself what the New York Dem
ocratic papers are saying, and then recall that
for saying the same thing in 1890, Mr. Wat
son was hooted on the hustings and hounded,
finally, from public life:
IS THERE NO ANSWER?
Tn a leading editorial discussing Mr. Bry
an’s letter to The World the Globe says:
“Mr. Bryan may be a superman, but he is
not yet superhuman—is not possessed of su
pernatural power. So he is not to be greatly
blamed for his non-success in answering The
World’s question ‘What is a Democrat?’ As
to some things the doctrine of the Unknowable
prevails. If Solomon were alive he would
doubtless add a fifth to the four things he said
were past finding out.”
But is it past finding out?
Here is a great political party with more
than a hundred years of unbroken history, of
uninterrupted tradition. It has fought twenty
seven Presidential campaigns and has won
fourteen of them.
It survived nullification; it survived seces
sion ; it survived slavery; it survived silver.
Although it has now been out of power for ten
(Continued on page 12.)
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