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WATSON’S EDITORIALS Playing It Lolv Dolvn in "Old Mississip.” I he speech macle at Lauderdale, Miss., by one oi the candidates for the U. S. Senatorship was just about the lowest dip ever made for the vote of white folks. 1 have heard worse appeals made to negroes ■—Georgia had her share of that in the years of the past when both factions of the whites competed for the negro vote; but just such a speech as John Sharp Williams made to the white folks, at Lauderdale, is unprecedented. Listen to J. Sharp: “If such a thing as government control of railroads should come into force, we would have the old Reconstruction days’ conditions BACK ON US IN A MINUTE.” Listen again to J. Sharp: “How would you like for a nigger ticket agent or conductor on a train where your wives and daughters may have to travel UN ATTENDED? Something might turn up that you would be compelled to whip a black feder al employe, and then you would be tried by a judge in sympathy with this very thing.” Now, who ever heard the like of that? If the government takes charge of the rail roads, Reconstruction horrors will be back on us in a minute, our wives and daughters will be at the mercy of negro men, and if “some thing turns up” and we “whip the negro,” he will be tried before a judge who “sympa thizes with that very thing.” With what thing, Johnny? Will your imaginary judge sypathize with your supposed belligerent who has whipped a fictitious “nigger ticket agent or conductor” for an alleged insult of some kind to mythical white wives and daughters traveling unat tended? or will your imaginary judge sympa thize with your fictitious nigger? Explain yourself, Johnny. Mr. Williams’ speech, as reported in the Meridian, Miss., Weekly Star, is an amazing performance. His whole conception seemed to be that his hearers could be imposed upon to an un limited extent, and their fears of social equali ty aroused to such a pitch as to deafen them to reason. He talked as though he considered them to be not only ignorant, but blindly prejudiced, and incapable of resisting a pas sionate appeal to sectional and race hatred. In effect he told his hearers that if the Fed eral Government should own and operate the railroads their wives and daughters in becom ing passengers upon the cars, would fall into the custody of negro conductors, in personal contact with and in personal custody of ne gro men. Mr. \\ illiams knows quite well that he could make no statement which would kindle fiercer flames of passion. He knows quite well that the Southern people would again grab their guns and fight their bloody way to another glorious Chancellorsville, sublime Gettysburg and doleful Appomattox, before they would submit to any such condition of things as he predicted. Therefore, when John Sharp Williams, in the absence of his rival in the race, took ad vantage of his audience in that manner, he was playing it pretty low down on the people of Mississippi. 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 •——•- Temple Court Building, Atlanta, Ga. Ent ‘" d at IQ ° 7 '” ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, JULY 11, 1907. For John Sharp Williams knows, just as well as I do, that the Federal Government would never repeat its Reconstruction mis take of putting the negro over the whites. -He knows that the North now looks back upon the Reconstruction Era with sorrow and re morse. He knows that the orgy of sectional hate and revenge which took place imme diately after four years of furious fighting was nothing less than the final campaign of the war itself; and that now, when there has been forty years of peace, with social and business relations of all kinds established in all direc tions, it is the reckless play of the desperate office-seeker to talk about renewing the policy which made the Reconstruction era the black est chapter in the book. • Negro conductors handling our passenger coaches, and handling our wives and daugh ters? WHO’S TO PUT THEM AT IT? Will New England try it on ? Hardly. In the first place, New England is more de pendent upon Southern cotton fields and Southern customers than ever before. Will all New England unite in trying to do a thing which they know will kill business? In the second place, how does Mr. John Sharp Williams happen to know that New England is in favor of negro conductors? New England has many railroads, of course; has she put a single negro conductor in charge of one of her own passenger coaches? Not that I ever heard of. If Mr. Williams knows of an instance, let him cite it. Not even the street cars have negro con ductors—so far as I ever saw or heard. How about the Northern states? Do they want the negroes put in charge of the South ern passenger trains? There is no evidence of such an intention or desire. The passenger coaches of the North are, every one of them, in charge of white men. Their street cars ditto. Dos not John Sharp Williams know that the Northern and Eastern and Western whites are WHITE FOLKS, just as we Southern whites are? Race pride is just as strong on one side of Mason and Dixon’s line as on the other. Temporarily the Abolition Crusade made a difference; and there are now some rel ics of that movement; but the white man who wants to eat and sleep with negroes, who wants his wife to practice Social Equality with negro women, who wants his son to marry a negro girl, or his daughter to wed a negro man, is not to be found in any section of this great Union— SAVE AS AN EXCEPTIONAL MON STROSITY. Mr. John Sharp Williams knows this; and he, therefore, knows the other sections of this country would never accept negro conductors for themselves, nor attempt to inflict negro conductors upon the South. He knows that the North knows such a policy would be resisted. And he knows that the next time there is a war about the negroes, all the blacks will be in one battle-line and all the whites in the other. When Mr. Williams makes so desperate an appeal to an imaginary danger, admitting by his plea that, were he in the Senate, he would be powerless to show the other Southern Sen ators how to safe-guard the South against such a danger even if it were threatened, he demonstrates one thing, very clearly: HE IS NOT THE MAN TO FIGHT THE BATTLES OF THE SOUTH IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. n n n Federal Judges Errant. In no other civilized country on the globe would a single citizen, happening to have been appointed Judge, be allowed to set his own opinion, no matter how honest, against the combined opinions of the Executive and of those who constitute the Legislative branch of the Government. In no other country would a judge be permitted to practice nullification. Nowhere else on earth does one man, sitting on the Bench, EXERCISE THE SOVER EIGN POWER to say what shall be THE LAW OF THE LAND. Yet that is precisely what is taking place in the United States. Some federal judge who may have had, pre vious to the accident of his appointment, no prominence as a lawyer, none as a scholar, none as a patriotic citizen, leader, publicist or legislator, assumes by virtue of his office to set aside an Act of the State Legislature, or an Act of Congress, made by men chosen by the votes of the people, and supposed to rep resent the governing quality known as the Will of the People. The federal judge may not be a man of more than average capacity; he may not be learned in Constitutional law, or any other kind of law; he may not be a learned man at all ; yet, immediately upon being ap pointed federal judge by the Executive, he arrogates to himself the authority to cancel whatever may be done by all the wise men of the National Council. Presidents, Senators, Representatives, Cabinet Officers, Pleads of Departments, Governors, State Legislatures, accomplished statesmen, profound lawyers, cultured editors —all, all, ALL are reduced to mere nullities by a federal judge who may not possess the least advantage over any one member of the Senate, and who certainly can not be supposed to be wiser than every one who was concerned in the making of the Law. Is it not monstrous that one man, not elect ed by the people, should exercise this tremen dous power in a Republic? Is it not monstrous that the people should in this manner have to obey an irresponsible master, in a democratic government, when no such power is claimed or exercised by the judges in Great Britain, or France, or Germa ny, or other civilized lands? Where did the federal judges get this author ity to nullify laws? They got it by judicial usurpation. There never was a day when the President could not have set the limit to these alarming encroach ments. Without the strong arm of the exec utive to enforce its judgments, the Judiciary is helpless. The framers of the Constitution ex pected that the Excutive would always be jeal ous of its own authority and could be depended on to assert itself whenever the Judiciary went too far. Under Jefferson, Jackson and Lin coln, the precedent was set of reducing to naught the mandates of the Judiciary. The Executive simply ignored the Court. Conse quently, the Court was unable to enforce its will. ii Bl*