Newspaper Page Text
WATSON’S EDITORIALS
The Mississippi Senatorial Tight.
(Continued from Page One.)
When the question of the regulation of Rail
road rates was up in Congress, who was it that
joined hands with the Republicans to make
the Rate bill as feeble and ineffective as pos
sible? *
John Sharp Williams.
The only bill pending which would really
have met the requirements of the case, was
the Hearst bill; and no Republican fought it
more bitterly than did John Sharp Williams,
the Democratic leader. By a combination
with the Republicans, Mr. Williams not only
killed the Hearst bill, but emasculated that
which finally passed.
It was proposed to put the Pullman Palace
Car Company into the Rate bill so that the In
terstate Commerce Commission could regu
late the outrageous charges of that enormous
ly rich corporation. Mr. Williams voted with
the Pullman interests and against the travel
ing public. Can he tell the people why?
It was proposed to put Express Companies
into the bill, so that these corporations—one
of which recently sliced a melon of twenty
four million dollars net profits, or 200 per
cent —could be brought under the super
vision and control of the Commission.
Mr. Williams voted against the people on
that proposition, and in favor of the Express
Companies.
Let him tell the people of Mississippi:
Why. It was a curious sight to see such a
man as John Sharp Williams virtually acting
as the House lieutenant of New York’s infa
mous Senator Platt.
It was proposed to put Telegraph and Tele
phone Companies into the Rate bill; and Mr.
Williams threw the weight of his influence
into the scales for those ravenous vultures,
also.
But he did even more. He aided the cor
porations to take away from the Commission
the right to initiate proceedings against un
reasonable rates —thus destroying, in part, the
work of the great Texas Senator, Reagan.
The railroads were eager to get rid of that
provision of the Reagan bill, and Mr. Williams
played into their hands.
Any citizen can understand how much bet
ter it was for the people to invest the Com
merce Commission with the power to com
mence proceedings on their own motion, than
to put upon individual sufferers the expense
and labor of instituting the contest for just
rates.
In stripping the Commission of that power
which the Reagan bill had already given, John
Sharp Williams did a mighty good thing for
the railroads —and a mighty bad thing for the
victims of unjust transportation charges.
When a Congressman makes a record of
which the foregoing is a fair sample, he can
not find fault with the editor who classes him,
as I do John Sharp Williams, with the cor
poration doodle-bugs.
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN
A Nevuspaper Devoted to the Advocacy of the Jeffersonian Theory of Government.
PUBLISHED BY
THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON,
Editors and Proprietors
Temple Court Building, Atlanta, Ga.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, JULY 25, 1907.
Look Out, Tinley!
Week by week, the Southern Railroad con
tinues to lengthen its Death roll.
On July 10th, the dead man’s name was
Aiken, the freight train engineer.
On July 15th the victims included Labor
Agent George Moore, and “six unidentified ne
groes,” killed at Johnson City, Tenn.—passen
ger train at 50 miles per hour runhing into
switch engine.
Scarcely a week passes without these re
ports of persons wounded or persons killed on
the Southern Railroad. It has been so for
years. It will continue to be so as long as
these Wall Street rascals who own the road
are allowed to run it for Dividends only.
• Why don’t they have first-class road-bed
and bridges? ,
Why don’t they quit employing- cheap men
to do work involving skill and responsibility?
Why don’t they quit working their train
crews beyond the limit of human endurance?
Why don’t they adopt the automatic switch
man, and the automatic block system?
Why don’t they carry the railroad above, or
beneath, the dirt road, and thus abolish tho
death-trap at the grade-crossing?
Why don’t they quit employing lobbyists
and lawyers and editors to misrepresent the
facts, resist reasonable reforms, and oppose
needed legislation ?
Why don’t they quit fighting the law, and
go to obeying it?
Why don’t they quit ridiculing and denounc-.
ing Public Opinion, and begin to respect it as
the judgment of the many?
Utterly foolish is the present attitude of W.
W. Finley, President of the Southern Rail
road.
Utterly non-sane is the state of mind of J.
S. B. Thompson, assistant to Finley.
Instead of listening with respect to such pa
pers and magazines'as the Jeffersonian, which
only asks them to obey the law and to exer
cise reasonable diligence in avoiding the
slaughter of human beings, these men are pos
sessed by a consuming hatred of any citizen
who tells them plainly that they are criminals
when they violate the laws.
Would it not be wiser for W. W. Finley to
deal with the facts, and to recognize the fatu
ous recklessness of persisting in his defiance
of law and of Public Opinion?
Had not J. S. B. Thompson better listen tc
reason and change the methods which now
prevail, before he is nabbed with a warrant
charging him with the murder of some victim
of his criminal negligence?
Watch out, Finley!
Watch out, Thompson!
The Joe Terrell regime is a thing of the
past, and ybu had better make a note of the
fact.
Let the Jeffersonian give you a piece of ad
vice : Concern yourselves less about squeezing
out un-Godly profits for your Yankee bosses,
and pay more attention to equipping your
roads and trains with those well-known life-,
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: SI.OO PER TEAR
Advertising Rates Furnished on Application.
Entered at Postage e, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, IQQ7, at second
clast mail matter.
saving appliances which ORDINARY CARE
AND DILIGENCE DEMAND OF YOU—
else, as sure as the world stands, you, Finley,
and you, Thompson, will have to face twelve
men in a box, SWORN ON THE HOLY
BOOK TO TRY YOU FOR MURDER!
n n »?
Why Don 9 t They Plead "Confiscatory 99 ?
We clip the following from The Atlanta
Constitution:
“SAW MILLS WILL BE SHUT DOWN
TO REMAIN CLOSED A MONTH.
“Georgia-Florida Saw Mill Owners Take Rad
ical Action.
“Atlantic Beach, Fla., July 15. —By a vote
of 27 to 7 the Georgia-Florida Saw Mill Asso
ciation today decided to shut down all saw
mills owned or operated by members of the
association for one month, beginning Au
gust 1.
“This action was taken on account of low
prices of lumber, the mill men claiming that
the high prices paid by them for tim
ber lands and the prices received for their out
put cause them to operate at a loss. They
will endeavor to secure similar action by all
other yellow pine lumber associations in the
southeast.”
Now, the thing which puzzles me is this,
why doesn’t the Georgia-Florida Saw Mill As
sociation have its lawyers go before some Fed
eral Judge, point out what tax laws, tariff
laws, freight rates, and other little things,
prevent the lumber-men from earning net prof
its, and ask the Judge to set aside these im
pertinent obstructions to profits, upon the
ground that they are “CONFISCATORY”?
True, the mill-men refer to the high prices
paid for timber land as the reason why they
cannot make net earnings, but that reason is
not convincing. A railroad corporation would
never make its knock at thaf point. A railroad
is never heard to declare that its failure to
make net profits is due to anything but the
law.
A railroad lawver never wastes his intellect
puzzling over the prices paid for crossties,
steel rails, car materials, locomotives and right
of wav. He never sets up as a reason for loss
of profits, that he has to nav too much for any
of these things. Always his plea is that the
law of the state has confiscated his property
because, in fixing a reasonable freight or pas
senger rate, it has cut out net profits.
Whv don’t the saw-mill men follow the ex
ample of the railroads?
Whv don’t thev hitch up their lawvers and
take a drive through the statute book?
Can thev not allege that when the state char
tered the railroads and authorized them to tav
the lumber men THESE STATUTES WERE
CONFISCATORY?
If not. whv not? Tax laws arc alwavs Con
fiscatory; and when the state authorized a
railroad corporation to tax the lumber
of a Saw Mill Cornnanv. it did a thing
which invested one lot of men with the power
to take the profits out of the business of an
other. , j
If, as the railroads claim, it is a Confiscation