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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.) PAGE NINE