Newspaper Page Text
Yet, why not?
If they are a part of the Public Road, they
cati move when the road moves, and discon
tinue when the road is abolished!but who will
contend that Telephone lines and Telegraph
wires—menacing and obstructing the highway
—are a part of the Public Road ?
Nobody.
Then what business have the poles and wires
in the highway? If they are not a part of the
road, they are trespassers on that road, for
they dig holes, go into possession, and stop
and stay in the road.
No one else does that. The traveler himself
has no legal right to stop all night in the road,
camp in it, sleep in it, or live upon any definite
part of it.
If we can suppose a case of an eccentric
person who wanted to be in the highway all
the time, the law would require him to keep
moving. He could not, legally, live a single
day in any particular part of that road.
In short, the rule of the road is this:
All the world may pass, but it MUST PASS,
NOT STOP TO STAY.
These trespassing corporations have violat
ed all the law of the road.
• (i) They take from the land owner that
which is no part of the Easement of Travel.
(2) They invade private property beneath
the surface and above it.
(3) THEY LIVE IN THE PUBLIC
ROAD.
(4) They endanger the Public’s use of the
Public’s property, towit, the Easement of
Travel.
(5) They constitute a permanent obstruc
tion of a part of the highway; and they, on
that ground alone, have no more right to be
there than a lot of gates would have to interfere
with the free use of all the road.
I hope to God that the lawyers through
out the land will realize their opportunity to
do a profitable thing for themselves, and to
render a great service to people who have been
mistreated. Let every man who has not been
paid for his land go up against these trespass
ing corporations and demand justice.
' These insolvent land-grabbers owe the land
owners millions of dollars, for the Rights-of
way which have been seized.
The wrong should be righted.
r r r
WTry You Don ’t Get Your Paper.
Perhaps it is natural that our patrons should
take it for granted that the Jeffersonian is to
blame when it fails to reach them, regularly.
It by no means follows that the presumption
is justified by the facts.
The mailing list of the Jeffersonian is set
up in type. These “mailing galleys,” as they
are called, remain “set up,” all the time. The
name of a subscriber, after it goes into the
galley, cannot possibly get out.
The mailing is done by machinery. Each
name in the galley is clipped off from a printed
slip, which carries a faithful imprint of the
names in the galley.
Now, the mailing machine may sometimes
be carelessly handled, and the names may be
split in two; or the P. O. address may be
clipped in such away that the name of the
subscriber will appear on the wrapper without
the P. O. address.
To illustrate how trouble may be caused at
this point: . ,
Dr. E. S. Harrison is on the mailing list
at Thomson, Ga. Os course, his name shduld
be clipped off straight; but I happened to no
tice on the wrapper of the one which comes
to Mrs. Watson, the initials
“Dr. E. S." . ,
WATSON’S WKKKLY JKFFIRSONIAM.
This meant that the word “Harrison,” with
out the identifying initials, was standing soli
tary and alone, upon some other wrapper, and
that Dr. Harrison, probably, did not get his
Magazine.
Now, such an occurrence was due solely
to the carelessness of the mailing-machine op
erator ; but the same thing happens in the bWt
regulated families. On the wrappers of su«h
standard papers as the Washington Post and
the New York World, I frequently see the la
bel split diagonally instead of straight across.
To use a familiar term, the label is “cut bias,’*
and the line, carrying the name, is divided
when, of course, it should all go together.
Another way in which papers and magazines
go astray is this:
Postmasters, P. O. Clerks, and Rural Route
riders are human, even as you and I are. They
make mistakes. When a new man is appoint
ed Post Matter, or when a new clerk is engag
ed by the Post Master, or when a careless or
incompetent or crooked man happens to get a
place in the R. F. D. service, mail will some
times go wrong. The new man learning the
business, is sure to make mistakes. And it
would be miraculous if a new clerk at the dis
tributive office did not sometimes err in routing
mail for R. F. D. routes. Then again, in
the hurry of distribution in the P. 0., the clerk
will put mail in the wrong box. This happens,
constantly. - Now, when somebody else gets
your mail, by mistake, he may not always
return it to the office.
To illustrate: I am a subscriber to the
Thrice-a-Week, New York, World—for rea
sons that are good enough in their way. Os
course, my idea was that the paper would come
along three times a week. But it doesn’t.
About all that I can say, is that I get the pa
, per every now and then. Yet the Courier-
Journal comes as regularly as the Tax Collect
or. Why the difference?
I don’t know.
Our Georgia subscribers complain that the
Weekly Jeffersonian does not reach them till
Saturday. The responsibility for this would
seem to rest on the Atlanta Post Office.
My Jeffersonian reaches me invariably, on
Thursday morning. It is specially mailed. But •
the others are put into the Atlanta Office
Wednesday evening. At least, that is the Re
port made to me by those whose duty it is to
attend to the matter. (
There has been a great deal of complaint of
the Atlanta Post Office this year. The At
lanta Constitution and other Atlanta papers
have had much to say about it. What the troub
le is, I do not know; but it would seem to be
that mail is delayed therein too long, before
being sent out.
I have myself received letters from Atlanta,
this year, which were three days old.
I can assure our patrons that we are doing
our level best to get everything going right.
What I do ask of you, however, is this:
Don’t always labor under the impression
that nobody can make mistakes but us.
We come up with pur full share, no doubt,
but we are not the only people who make
mistakes. *
R R R
To The Poor *Boy Who Wants To Go To
College.
I am arranging with a life-long friend, Prof.
W. E. Reynolds, Principal of The Middle Geor
gia Institute, Milledgeville, Ga., to secure a
scholarship, for the full scholastic year/
This includes board and lodging, and is,
worth in actual cash $l5O.
My plan is to offer this Scholarship as a
Premium.
Thousands of poor boys are hungering for
an education. Most of them yearn for at least
one year in a first-class college.
One year in such a school is something
which will assuredly benefit those who are
in earnest and who will make the most of the
opportunity. Whether a four-year collie
course is beneficial depends largely on what
the boy intends to make out of himself. My
own opinion is that the indiscriminate send
ing of boys to college, for four years, is very
much like giving piano lessons, indiscrimin
ately, to the girls.
Now, to the boy who hasn’t got the money
to pay tuition and board at a college, here is
an opportunity of inestimable value.
I propose to help those who are willing to
help themselves.
Anybody who is in earnest, and who is will
ing to do a little preliminary hustling, Can go
to College.
For, if the young men take to this, I propose
to develop the idea into a system which will
help scores of young men to go to college
every year.
Are you interested?
If so, write to Mr. Watson for particulars.
R R R
A Political Platform For 1908.
1. Direct Legislation; election of all officers
by the people; the right of recall.
2. The Necessaries of life on the Free List.
Ports of entry in interior towns to be abol
ished. Custom houses where outgo exceeds
income to be closed. Import duties to be laid
upon luxuries, and for Revenue, only.
3. The Income and Inheritance tax, to in
crease progressively as the income and inher
itance increase.
4. Repeal by Congress of all laws creating
Federal Courts, excepting the Supreme Court,
whose appellate jurisd’etion shall be abolished.
In this manner, the Federal Judiciary can be
practically wiped off the face of the earth, and
the Corporations compelled to obey state
courts.
5. Public utilities to be owned and operated
by the public for the public benefit.
6. All money to be created by the Govern
ment; the public debt to be paid off; no more
bonds to be issued or endorsed by the Gov
ernment; the Act re-chartering National Banks
to be repealed; the Financial system of the
country to be that established by the Consti
tution and practiced by Washington, Jefferson,
Madison, Jackson, and Lincoln.
7. The prodigal extravagance of the Nation
al Government to be checked; the increase in
military and naval expenditures stopped; the <
Colonial Empire nonsense abandoned; the
Philippines to be granted self-government.
8. No ship-subsidy, or mail subsidy. The
compulsopr use of steel cars for the Railway
mail service. Postal savings bank; the Par
cels Post; the abolition of the franking privi
lege; the continued extension of the Rural
Free Delivery system.
Is not that a sound creed? Cannot the peo
ple, whether Democrats, Republicans, Popu
lists, Prohibitionists, Single-Taxers or Social
ists, unite on that platform until that much
is done for the people?
Why spoil the horn by trying to make too'
big a spoon?
Why cut off more than we can chew? If
the people will pull, all together, for these
reforms, until we get them, it will be time
enough to strike tent and march onward.
In the effort to do everything at once, we do
nothing. ' > •
Shall we never learn?
The speed of the fleet is that of the slowest
ship; the strength of the chain that of the
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