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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 SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: SI.OO PER TEAR Advertising Rates Furnished on Application. Entered at Poitoffict, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, IQO7, at tecond tlatt mail matttr. 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.