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WATSON’S EDITORIALS
Mi*
One Governor Who Isn 9 t Afraid.
Hurrah for Governor Glenn, of North Caro
lina !
The brave stand which he has taken against
the Wall Street corporations and their Fed
eral Judge gives one a thrill of pleasure.
In this age of cowardly and corrupt poli
tics, it is positively exhilarating to find a gov
ernor of a Southern state who has a clear head
on his shoulders, hands whose palms don’t
itch, and a soul that knows no fear. k
It is high time that we were learning who
is to rule the land —the people, or the corpor
ation lawyers.
It is not a question of legislative or judi
cial authority—not at all.
Any Federal Judge who will try to do what
Pritchard is trying to do, does not deserve to
be treated with the respect due to a just, hon
est, impartial Judge: he is a mere corporation
lawyer sitting on the bench, and he should be
treated as such.
The dogma set up by these so-called Judges,
that no law is valid which, in their opinion as
prophets, WILL deprive the railroads of net
earnings, because it confiscates the entire prop
erty, is too foolish for serious consideration.
Every man of common sense KNOWS that
THAT IS NOT THE LAW.
When corporation henchmen, sitting as
Judges, attempt to impose that kind of rot
upon a sovereign state, THE GOVERNOR
DOES RIGHT TO DEFY THE JUDGE.
I hope Governor Glenn will not yield an
inch of ground. I hope that he will develop
the same Roman courage shown by Governor
George M. Troup, of Georgia, when that fear
less official ignored the United States Supreme
Court, defied the United States Government,
gave General Gaines, of the United States
Army, to understand that he would be ar
rested if he “butted in,” and thus triumphant
ly carried his point.
MM*
Hon. Martin V. Calbin.
The best picture that The Cotton Journal
has presented to its admirers is that of the
present Director of Georgia’s Experiment Sta
tion. Mr. Calvin's honest features look well
anywhere; and even if his face were not suffi
cient to satisfy any reasonable door-keeper, his
whiskers would take him through.
Friend Martin is now standing on the after
noon slope of the Great Divide, even I am;
and there is, in his latest picture, a faint sug
gestion that new hair does not come forth on
the top of his head as fast as it drops out —and
even those irresistible whiskers are not quite
up to the mark which they made when he and
I got together and invented the Georgia Leg
islature. That was when we were young and
heedless. We would hesitate before doing
anything like that again.
Rut age will never take from Martin the
earnest, honest, manly look which he has worn
all his life, nor lose him the affectionate esteem
of those friends who have known him so long.
And among these friends who have always
had a liking for Martin V. Calvin, I take my
place—with a feeling of chastened regret for
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN
A Newspaper Demoted 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, AUGUST 1, 1907.
those by-gone years which found us both poor
boys, struggling up in the world.
Long may the evening sunshine linger about
your path, friend Martin ; and when the night
comes, may it bring you the infinite Peace!
«
What Is Confiscation ?
Under the old Saxon law, the individual
free-man had succeeded in establishing the
principle that his feudal lord could not arbi
trarily seize and take away his land or his
chattels. To establish himself in the enjoy
ment of this right, the free-man had to strug
gle long and bravely. The feudal lord had en
croached upon his vassals until it had become
almost impossible for the vassal to hold prop
erty independent of his over-lord. The mas
ter. being the stronger, knew no law but his
will, and he did not hesitate to deprive the
vassal of his land or his chattels whenever he
pleased.
In the course of time, however, that incon
querable craving for individual liberty which
distinguished the great Teutonic people from
almost every other European stock, overcame
the tyranny of the Feudal lord, and established
the right of the free-man to his property. The
lord could not oust him from his land, or rob
him of his chattels. Just as the lord held his
property until deprived of ij by due process of
law, so did the vassal.
Such was Anglo-Saxon right, at the time of
the Norman invasion. With the coming of
William the Conqueror, came the elaboration
and the tightening of the chains of the Feudal
System. The lords became more tyrannical
and the vassals more helpless. The old abuses
returned. The old rights and liberties were
lost. Years of lawlessness, bloodshed, and op
pression followed. No vassal was secure in
life, limb, liberty, or property. The King
often pillaged the nobles, and the nobles al
ways pillaged the people. From bad to worse
the Kingdom went until, in the reign of
Stephen, anarchy prevailed. Norman sons of
royal sires had waged war upon their fathers;
and royal brothers who had united to fight
their father divided to fight one another.
Feuds in the royal family split up the nobles,
and thus the feudal aristocracy waged war on
itself. Such fierce hatreds, such savage con
flicts, such cruelties, such slaughter and such
waste, such judicial murders and greedy con
fiscations of estates, this wicked world has
seldom seen.
Finally all classes realized that all were
doomed, unless a change was had; and that
change had its beginning when the rebel
Barons forced King John to sign the Great
Charier at Runnymede.
This historical document was little more
than a Restitution of Anglo-Saxon liberties.
It put the citizen where he stood before the
Norman Conquest. The strong arm of the
lord could no longer strip the weaker man of
land and chattels. The state, speaking through
the law of the land, could still take away life,
liberty and property: but the feudal lord could
not himself arbitrarily do it, as he had been
doing it.
Such is the meaning of that famous clause
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in the Great Charter, and it has no other.
From Magna Charta, the clause traveled on
down to the present day, and is incorporated in
the Bill of Rights of the United States, and of
the several states.
Now, when you understand these historical
facts, do you not see how absurd is the conten
tion of those railroad judges, lawyers and
presidents who claim that the Great Charter
entitles them to net profits?
In substance, that is just what they do
claim. And they have actually succeeded in
imposing that preposterous doctrine upon the
country. The editors have swallowed this
corporation bug as though it were a natural
part of the buttermilk. Even those lawyers
who have been employed to represent the
state laws which the railroads are fighting,
take this corporation dead fly as a necessary
part of the ointment.
Thus we are given another proof of the
truth of Aaron Burr’s contemptuous definition
of the Law:
“The law is that which is impudently as
serted and stubbornly maintained.”
The railroads say that any law which the
Judge thinks will deprive them of net profits
upon their stock —watered stock and all—con
fiscates their engines, cars, depots, warehouses,
steel rails, bridges, right of way, crossties, wa
ter tanks and passenger stations.
A corporation lawyer, who happens to be
holding apposition as Judge, may decide that
this monstrous contention of the railroads is
founded on the Great Charter; but no honest,
well-informed, and impartial Judge will ever
so decide.
A statute depriving a corporation of net
profits may be unjust, as many other statutes
are unjust; but no statute is CONFISCATO
RY of the land and chattels of a corporation,
UNLESS IT DEPRIVES THE CORPORA
TION OF THOSE LANDS AND CHAT
TELS.
You do not confiscate my horse until you
take him away from me—destroying my title.
It may be wrong for you to pass laws which
prevent me from making a net profit out of the
work of the horse, but that is not confisca
tion of the horse.
The U. S. Government, by its Tariff laws,
has made it impossible for the agricultural
classes to earn net profits out of their farms,
'The official statistics prove this. But the farms
are not confiscated.
If every state in the Union should make
laws which deprive the railroads of net profits
for thirty years, these railroads would be put
where the U. S. Government put the farmers
just after the Civil war. For more than thirty
years the diabolical Protective policy has
robbed the farmers of net profits; but they
have not pleaded that their farms were confis
cated. The farm is one thing—NET PROF
ITS ANOTHER.
I he Great Charter and the Bill of Rights
guarantee the farm; BUT THERE IS NO
GUARANTEE OF NET PROFITS.
Why should the railroads try to set up a
doctrine which puts them on holy ground?
I heir investment is not more sacred than
that of the merchant or the farmer and the
court which so holds shocks common sense.