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WATSON’S EDITORIALS Food For Thought. The pack is in full cry after the railroads. So be it. The railroads deserve every jolt they get. Their management has been high headed, arrogant, arbitrary, tyrannical, scornful of public opinion, contemptuous of private censure, disregardful of indi vidual and public rights. They have squandered their money fighting the laws which they ought to havo- obeyed. They- have wasted on lobbyists, newspapers, and “special counsel,” the money which ought to have been spent in the improvement of the service. To earn dividends on watered stock, they have shed blood like water* Such management deserves to be made “to smell hell”—and from the looks of their noses, they are getting a few whiffs. But this railroad question has a good many Other questions coupled up with it; and we must study these, also, as we go along. Why is it that the Chambers of Commerce and the Freight Bureaux and the Labor Unions refuse to help the people secure a flat two cent passenger rate? Here is food for thought, my son. You.don’t need to be told that when a railroad is made to lower its passenger rate, everybody gets the benefit. Rich and poor, , black and white, country and town, they all “share, and share alike.” Whosoevevr rides on a rail road, pays less. The manufacturer, the merchant, the laborer, the farmer—each saves one cent a mile when passenger fares drop from three cents to two cents per mile. That’s a plain proposition, isn’t it, son? To be sure. Well, then, why should the Chambers of Commerce and the Freight Bureaus of the cities be indifferent to the reduction; and why should the Labor Unions oppose it? Chew on this, my son. Listen: With all of its shortcomings our Railroad Commission has reduced freight rates about $2,000,000 during the last few years. Consequently, the consumers of manufactured goods ought to be able to buy those goods at least as cheaply as they did a few years ago. But can they do so? Not at all. In spite of freight rate reductions, the farmers and oth er consumers are paying more than ever. How is that? Why, the manufacturer and the city jobber have simply pocketed the $2,000,000! And more besides. Just as soon as our Supreme Court decided that the order of the Railroad Commission, re ducing the freight on stoves, must be obeyed, the price of stoves immediately advanced. The stove which was costing you $lO in 1905, was costing you sl3 in May, 1907. Then came the Supreme Court Decision in favor of the lower freight rate. And the jobbers of the cities at once put a five per cent increase to the price of the stove —making the sl3 stove of May, 1907, cost you $13.65, in June, 1907. These are facts, my son. Chew on them. In 1905 freight rates from New York and Boston to Atlanta were reduced 9 cents per 100 pounds, or $27 per car-load of 30,000 pounds, on hats, men’s clothing, blankets, dry goods, etc. On iron ware, flour, bedsteads, WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN A Newspaper Devoted to the Advocacy of the Jeffersonian Theory of Government. published by SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: SI.OO PER TEAR THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON, Advertising Rates Furnished on Application. Editors and Proprietors rr. Ent, nd at Ptntfict, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, iqoj, at tttand Temple Court Building, Atlanta, Ga. dan mail mattar. ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 1907. and many other articles, material reductions in freight were made. Yet what farmer, or laborer, or other con sumer, can buy a hat cheaper than before the freight reductions of 1905? Who can buy a suit of clothes cheaper; ot a calico dress or a pair of shoes or a pair of blankets; or a plow, ax, set of harness, bedstead, chair, or barrel of flour? The manufacturers and jobbers made the railroads reduce freights on these goods to the amount of two million dollars* How much of this saving did the farmers and other consumers get? Not a red cent! Think it ovef, my son. Shoes are classed among “the necessaries of life.” The manufacturer of shoes has always been a governmental pet. Special Privilege extended its protecting care to the shoe-mak ers of Lynn, .Mass., before it did to anybody else* For more than a hundred years, this indus try has been built up at the expense of others. Foreign competition has been made practi cally impossible. Therefore, the trust was easily organized. In 1905 the freight on shoes coming into Georgia was reduced SB7 per car load. _ \ The manufacturers and jobbers advanced the price $3,375 per car! Hence, the people who buy shoes not only failed to get one cent’s benefit from the reduc tion in freight, but are having to pay nearly three thousand dollars per car-load more for boots and shoes. Tough on the shoe-buyers—isn’t it, son? Similar showings can be made as to other “necessaries of life.” Farmers are congratulating themselves up on having forced the spinners to pay a higher price for raw cotton. Don’t crow too soon, dear friends. Watch the price of all the manufactured ar ticles which you are necessarily compelled to buy. Study the price list of cotton goods! WHAT THE SPINNERS ARE GIVING YOU WICH ONE HAND, THEY ARE TAKING AWAY WITH THE OTHER. All of this is food for thought, my son. The leaders of the great Farmers’ Union will see to it that we have a reduction in pas senger rates which benefits all classes alike; and will see to it, also, that the purchasers of manufactured goods get a fair share in the millions of dollars saved in freight rates. In this great national fight for just trans portation charges, we would be silly, indeed, to do nothing more than to rake chestnuts out of the fire for the manufacturers and jobbers. hmm Thanks, "Brother Ducklvorth ! In the course of his fine address to the recent State Convention of the Farmers’ Union of Georgia, President R. F. Duckworth was gen erous enough to say: “We have been greatly assisted in the last few months by other publications, some of them running Farmers’ Union departments. We appreciate all such assistance. It would not be out of place here to make special men tion of the assistance rendered us by Hon. Thomas E. Watson through his publications, which is greatly appreciated by the members throughout the state.” H R Clark HolvelTs Editorial. In Sunday’s Constitution, the leading edi torial, “The Late Georgia Democracy,” is an epoch mark. In frank recognition of actual facts, in broad ness of view, in magnanimity of temper, this editorial does honor to the head and the heart of Clark Howell. For his generous allusions to myself, I sin cerely thank him. There is just one thought that I would sug gest to him. His head-line should have been: “Sham Democracy dead in Georgia, and real Democracy triumphant.” I have never made war upon organized Dem ocracy because it was Democratic. Oh, no. My fight was against those who took the grand old historic name, and used it as a branding iron for policies and principles which were the reverse of Democratic. In other words, my long fight has been made for Democracy—not against it. Always I have claimed to be a Jeffersonian Democrat. I am nothing else, now. And I am ready now, as I have ever been, to march side by side, and fight shoulder to shoul der with those who think more of the true prin ciples of Democracy than they do of party names. Let all of us quit bothering ourselves about the tag, and the brand, and the label. Let us concern ourselves with the genuineness of the goods. Let all of us cease to worry over party names and party success. Let us study public questions on their merits, AND VOTE, AS REASON DICTATES, FOR THE BEST IN TERESTS OF OUR COUNTRY. Heretofore, the great question with the aver- ' age organized Democrat has been, Have we got the right branding iron? Hereafter, let us take some pains to have the right cow. The branding iron may be yours, all right enough, but if you’ve gone and corralled the other fellow’s cow—look out for trouble. THE LATE GEORGIA DEMOCRACY! There are few things so strange that they may not be surpassed in strangeness. Accustomed to this character of events these days, or inured to them by their slow processes of evolution, we almost cease to wonder until hauled up short by some simple refer ence or incident and brought face to face with bald, protruding truth. Ten years ago the wreck of or ganized Democracy would have been viewed with horror in Georgia. Today It is accomplished without a ripple of excitement. Not that any one has ground of complaint; on the contrary, only the people are concerned and it is the popular will that makes it so. The people are the supreme arbiters of their tem poral destiny, and their demands must find con cordant expression from the various governmental departments which they have created. But it is not so many years ago that the call of Democracy or of the Democratic party was superior Mi*