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WATSON'S EDIT OKI ALS
Chancellor Barrolv 9 s Invitation Not
'Broad Enough.
The Atlanta Journal deserves great credit
for its outspoken censure of those who turned
the State University Commencement into an
opportunity for a Railroad lawyer to make a
Railroad speech.
Every word which the Journal said was
criticism at once timely, moderate and just.
When our College Commencements are pros
tituted to the selfish and sordid interests of
the Trusts; when the Commencement orator
is nothing more than the hireling of monop
oly talking shop; when the day and the occa
sion are surrendered to the paid attorneys of
Special Privilege who can exploit the oppor
tunitv without'fear of challenge and contradic
tion —then the sooner the Commencement
orator is abolished the better.
If the Chancellor Barrows are going to
make a habit of furnishing intelligent public
audiences to corporation lawyers who other
wise could not get them, it will not be long
before college management will be asked to
give an account of itself to the people whose
taxes support the college.
When a Syracuse institution of Higher Ed
ucation puts forth its Chancellor Day to fugle
for the corporations, eulogize the Trusts, and
mangle the remains of the crucified Dema
gogues, we understand what it means well
enough. We know that Chancellor Day is
kept up by Standard Oil money, and we class
him at once with the oxen and the asses, that
know their master’s crib.
But in Chancellor Barrow’s case, there can
be no such motive. We acquit him of all but
this —that he allowed himself to be imposed
upon. He was victimized. A familiar cor
poration scheme was worked upon him, and
he innocently helped Hamp McWhorter and
the Southern Railroad trump a trick.
We do not insist that any considerable dis
aster has been the consequence of the Chan
cellor's mistake. Thom’s address was a self
evident corporation speech—partisan, narrow,
defiant of actual facts and of law and of pub
lic opinion, as expressed by governing bodies
throughout the Union; therefore, it has done
no particular damage.
Thom, a somewhat crude citizen, overdid
the thing, and gave himself away.
But the Jeffersonian offers a suggestion to
Chancellor Barrow.
The next time he decides to call for a cor
poration lawyer to make the Commencement
Address, let him invite some of the poor, God
forsaken Demagogues to be present. Divide
the time between the corporation flunkey and
the Demagogue. The Jeffersonian thinks it
knows quite a number of Thom’s Demagogues
who would enjoy the opportunity to take the
hide off just such sordid brain-sellers as him
self. Divide the time, and let the audience
hear both sides!
Just as Chancellor Barrow's invitation
should be broadened as to the speakers, so,
also, it should be broadened as to audience.
The next time the General Counsel of the
Southern Railroad is invited to Athens to de
liver a railroad speech and eulogy on Sam
Spencer, let the Faculty of our State Univer-
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN
A Newspaper Devoted to the Advocacy of the Jeffersonian Theory of Government.
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ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1907..
sity make some special efforts to secure the
attendance of the men, women and children
who were stockholders in the old Central
Railroad and who were reduced to poverty
by Pat Calhoun and Sam Spencer.
A more sweepingly outrageous robbery
than was committed upon those people whose
fathers, Guardians, Executors, Administrators
and Trustees had put their estates in Central
Railroad Stock by authority and encourage
ment of the laws of this state, was never
known.
Two of the guiltiest criminals engaged in
that monstrous offense against morals and
law were Pat Calhoun and Sam Spencer.
If such characters are to be eulogized in
Commencement speeches made to our young
men—if such characters are to be held up
as models to be imitated —broaden the au
dience.
Let the victims of the commercial robber
be present to emphasize the fitness of the eu
logy which his hirelings and partner in crime
pronounce upon him.
Thus the unities will be preserved.
But there is one difficulty:
The stockholders of the old’Central were so
completely fleeced that they have not enough
left to buy railroad tickets to Athens.
Would Thom and his new boss, Finley, be
willing to furnish transportation to the af
flicted?
If so, the results might be curious.
In such a case it might require the com
bined gall and cheek, the cultivated and mer
cenary effrontery of at least a dozen of the
Sam Spencer lawyers to deliver the Sam Spen
cer eulogy in the hearing of the Sam Spencer
victims.
•SUM
Our HarVie Is Back A gain.
You may have noticed that I have been
dreadfully nervous here of late, and you may
have wondered why. I was anxious about
my Harvie, your Harvie, our Harvie, Hoad
ley’s Harvie,. Lon Livingston’s Harvie.
Need you ask, “Why this solicitation and
worry ?”
I will be honest with you, and tell you
why: I was afraid that the Emperor Joseph
and other crowned heads would be so deter
mined to keep Harvie in Europe that they
would tempt him with offers which poor hu
man nature —for Harvie is but human—could
not resist.
And when I tried to figure out how we
Americans could ever get along without Har
vie Jordan, my mind gave way temporarily,
and I had to be put to bed.
This shows how a nervous man, blessed
and cursed with a vivid imagination, can bor
row trouble. We fret ourselves to emaciation
and settled melancholy over things which we
fear will happen, but which, in fact, never
happen.
Rut then, you sec, we don’t know that it
will be that way. You never can tell. Os
course, I know now that there was no cause
for mv uneasiness about Harvie; but how was
1 to know beforehand that his patriotic soul
would spurn the blandishments of Emperors,
Kings, Princes, Potentates and Powers, and
that he would come back to us without the
smell of fire on his garments?
True, my better judgment suggested that
a man who had mastered the intricacies, mys
teries, difficulties, complexities* and ramifica
tions of farming, while exhibiting his beauti
ful features at the Kimball House de'sk as
Clerk, would not fall an easy prey to the al
lurements and intoxicating possibilities of the
position of “The Emperor’s Guide, Philos
opher and Friend,” at the Austrian Court.
But yet when I recalled what had been re
lated to me, in low tones, by travelers concern
ing the snares and pitfalls which beset the
feet of the unwary in Vienna, I trembled. In
these gay, wicked capitals of Europe—so they
tell me—it is hard to say which are the most
dangerous, the men or the women; and I
quaked when I remembered that Harvie is
from the rural precincts and is richly endowed
with the fatal gift of beauty.
I knew how he would be run after, but I
quaked. For neither Joe Hoadley nor Lon
Livingston had gone along to protect Harvie
from designing men and women.
But all is well that ends well.
Escaping every subtle wile, eluding those
who sought to get him into the toils, defying
Scylla on the one hand and Charybdis on the
other, Harvie has come back to us, as un
changed as though labeled Original Package,
and is today the same delightful, resourceful,
beautiful and altogether interesting Harvie
that he was when he bought those two trip
tickets to foreign lands—one ticket for him
self and one for his newly-found, long-lost
brother, Charlie Barrett.
At first, my feelings were somewhat hurt
by the failure of our battleships to fire a sa
lute, and the refusal of the commerce of the
country to suspend itself for a few minutes, in
honor of Harvie’s safe return. But I guess
its all right. ‘‘The shallows murmur while
the deeps are dumb,” and so, applying the
same principle to public receptions, we may
make a fuss and loud noise when Governors
and I residents and Japanese Admirals move
about, but when a man of the Harvie Jordan
species—a sort of Century Plant, you know
—-steps from one continent to another, our
highest tribute is to keep cool and remain
mute—enveloped in a speechless awe. Har
vie is one of those flowers alluded to by the
poet—he stirs emotions too deep for tears.
When the great man reached the little old
town of Atlanta, he gave out an interview
which will take its place in American liter
ature as the companion piece of Washing
ton’s Farewell Address. Unfortunately, I am
not at liberty to print this Interview. With a
strange disregard of public necessities, Har
vie ga\e the Atlanta journal exclusive rights
in the matter, forgetting that even such a big
and valuable paper as the Atlanta Journal
should not be allowed to monopolize a public
-utility. A national institution like Harvie
is more than any one newspaper is entitled to.
Journalistic rapacity seeking exclusive rights
to Harvie, needs the curb. It’s like putting
up toll-charging ferries on the lower Missis
-4hXl,kr P u * tin S buoys in mid-ocean,
labelled “Do not Trespass.” It’s like-oh
anythin & that ’ s just PREPOSTER-
And while, for this once, I will not infringe
Ai*