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PAGE TWO Public Opinion Throughout the Union ** - ~ - -m. ~ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS FINANCE. The oft repeated declaration of Scripture concerning faith, hope and charity, might be made to apply to our day and environment by chang ing it to read thus: “And now abid eth Labor, Greed and Finance, but the greatest of these is Finance.” Wall Street has had another pan ic, either real or pretended. The $29,240,000 fine assessed by Judge Landis against the oil trust, and oth er prosecutions discussed or inaugu rated, made it seem like the gov ernment did intend to enforce the law against the big violators, as well as the little ones, and forthwith there was a scattering among the specu lators as there is among rats when a terrier appears among them. Our readers may have read the reports which came on lightning flashes from New York, but, lest some may not have noticed them, we give the fol lowing sample one: “By noon (August 13) twenty three stocks had made new low rec ords and the bottom was rapidly dropping out of things. Such stocks as sugar, St. Louis Southwestern pre ferred, Denver & Rio Grande, Colo rado Fuel, Southern Railroad, Rub ber, North American, Reading first preferred and a dozen more souvenirs of bull markets of the last century were beginning to come out in vol ume. “Just at this time another cut of one-half cent a pound was made in copper metal and the price of amal gamated went tumbling to the new low record of S7O a share. Interbor ough Metropolitan had just estab lished itself on a new bottom. St. Paul had broken all records of the last century for low prices in selling at 118 1-2, and Great Northern had gone down to 112.” It must be observed that this tumb ling prices and market panic wa» not regarding the sale or value of anything tangible, or anything neces sary or even useful. It was alto gether in stocks, bonds, mortgages-- so-called securities —many of which, though sold for money and made to yield an income, represented no more real value than the paper they are printed on. Following the conviction under the law of great corporation criminals and their proposed punish ment as smaller law violators are punished, shows that these stock in vestments depend upon corporation immunity from law observance, and freedom from punishment for viola tions of the law. In proof of this we give the following letter published by the Associated Press as written by Walter George Newman, a typical railroad financier, to President Roose velt: “It is with an aching heart that I refer you to the telegram which I sent you from Philadelphia on March 1, 1907, when I said I was going South to get away from one of the greatest crises ever seen in the his tory of this country and a Wall street panic. “Since sending you that telegram the very base of the United States has been shaken in such away that WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. everyone who owns any securities is trying to turn them into gold, and everyone in business throughout the country is wondering what is going to happen next, and what line of busi ness is going to be confiscated. “But for the good crop reports given us this year, we would have a panic in this country to-day that would astound the world. “You alone can put an end to these conditions within a day, because the American people love you and we have all looked up to you as the great est man on earth. “I beseech, in behalf of the widows and orphans and the millions of*hi borers in this country, that you do something to restore confidence, re gardless of your present feelings. Do this and you will go down in history as the greatest man that ever lived in the world.” We are given only a portion of the letter, and it is said the President “listened attentively” while it was being read aloud to him, and that he acknowledged the receipt of it im mediately. Then comes the most sig nificant part of the New York dis patches. “It was finally reported that Sec retary Root, of the State Department, and Assistant Secretary Bacon, had entered the office of J. P. Morgan & Co. This was a signal that the ad ministration was relenting and would not let raiders hammer the stock market any further at present; and as Assistant Secretary Bacon shook hands with J. P. Morgan, Jr., an elec tric thrill passed through the mob and it stopped selling. Reading felt the advance first, and advanced two points while the mob held its breath. Then Union Pacific started upward, and within a few minutes copper, sugar, Gieat Northern, St. Paul, and even smelters,* had joined in a wild scramble for higher levels. The ad vance continued until some of the leaders had scored gains of two to six points from the bottom.” We give this only as press dispatch from New York. It may be true, or it may be only a picture drawn in the vivid imagination of a reporter, yet it goes out with the sanction of the Associated Press. At all events it is significant, and all the more so when coupled with the announcem<>:> coming direct from Washington that the Chicago and Alton Railroad Com pany is not to be prosecuted for com plicity in the rebate cases in which the oil trust was fined $29,240,000, the party allowing the rebates, as we understand it, being as guilty as the party that receives them. If “the man with the big stick” dares not prosecute offendeis because of the “bigger stick” held by Wall street, then the law is an empty thing, the courts are a farce, and com bined corporate power is greater than the government. Many circumstances really indicate that this is true, and the proposition is a serious one. It means that the future struggle for right, for law and its enforcement, for good government, in fact, is be tween combined corporate wealth, with its millions of watered stock representing income producing invest- ments, before whose power our brav est officials seem to quail, and the masses of the people whose toil is held under obligation to meet these arbitrary and artificial demands. This is the struggle of the future, and its peaceful solution favorable to good government and the people, is for the masses to control their own affairs, and to become independent of Wall street and the whole stock job bing crew. And this is not so diffi cult a problem as it seems. Ti. wage laborers are already organized so as to protect themselves from the hand of capital when it becomes too heavy and oppressive, and to fairly secure to themselves reasonable bene fits from their toil. It only remains for the farming classes to make their organization strong enough to secure reasonable incomes by determining the prices at which their products shall sell, and to secure those prices by proper control of the markets. This at once places the two great classes, the classes necessary to the world’s progress and comfort, in po sition to secure justice for them selves independent of all other class es. The next and only remaining step is to create a system of financial institutions entirely independent of Wall street and its stock jobbers; in stitutions that will do a strictly ag ricultural banking business until the needs of the agricultural classes are met, and that shall be prohibited from dealing in stocks, bonds and securi ties other than farm mortgages. Ag riculture, the greatest business on earth, and the only business absolute ly essential to the life of the world’s people, is abundantly able to estab lish such a system, and then Wall street may rave, manufacture panics, discuss money markets and engage in “frenzied finance,” still the indus trial world can move on, unaffected or undisturbed, whether- stocks go up or down, and presidents and courts may discharge their duties without fear of a gang of greedy speculators that plead in the name of widows and or phans whose financial blood they suck with the insatiable greed of vamp ires. * The President may know that there is in swift preparation a biggef stick than that wielded by Wall street. — Up-to-date Farming. THE GREAT FIGHT OF THE TO BACCO GROWERS AGAINST THE TRUST. Friday, August 23, will be remem bered as a red letter day for the farm ers of Prince Edward. Fifteen hundred sturdy men and fair women gathered on that day in Richardson’s grove near town, and but for the threatening clouds this number would have been doubled. The picnic was given by the Dark Tobacco Growers’ Association of the county, and nowhere could there have been selected a more beautiful place for the occasion. The orators of the day were Congressman Flood, of Ap pomattox, and Hon. Joel* B. Fort, of “Black Patch” fame, of Tennessee. Preparations had evidently been made for the feeding of twice the number which had risked the elements to be there, for there was everything in the greatest abundance and of the most palatable sort There was ham, lamb, shoat, chicken, beef, cakes, pies, wa termelons, ice cream, lemonade, in fact only the customary Brunswick stew was missing. The management of the Farmville Lithia Springs had thoughtfully provided several bar rels of sparkling lithia to refresh the thirsty, and this was immensely en joyed. From a stand erected for the oc casion, the distinguished speakers ad dressed the assembled crowd. The first was Hon. H. D. Flood. He was introduced, though he is no stranger to our people, by Mr. J. Taylor Thompson in a ringing speech in which the farmers’ organization for their protection was unqualifiedly en dorsed. Mr. Thompson was given rousing applause. Mr. Flood spoke for more than one hour; his hearers were complete ly captivated and carried away by the earnestness of his words and elo quence of delivery. Among other things which aroused Ms listeners Mr. Flood said that the tobacco raisers had not participated in the general prosperity with which the Nation had been blessed. The reason was not overproduction of the crop, nor because of the quality, for each year there has been greater demand and each year the quality has been improved. The reason is because the price of tobacco is fixed by the most gigantic and ruthless corporation that ever oppressed mankind. He gave the history of the American To bacco Company, and the appeals made to the Government for relief, all of which were in vain. The on ly power and source of relief, he said, was in organization. The to bacco growers of Tennessee and Ken tucky have organized and Virginia could do likewise. Mr. Flood said that the American Tobacco Company had declared 22 1-2 per cent on its common, and most of this stock rep resented water and not money. In 1899, 106 per cent was declared on its common stock. Tobacco sold in Lynchburg market at an average price of $6.66 per hundred pounds. It cost ail of this to raise it, so the farmers had no profit left them, and the American Tobacco Company av eraged 20 cents on every pound it bought. The injustice of this ar rangement is apparent to all. He discussed the difference between the tobacco growers’ organization and the Alliance and the Grange. The Tobacco Growers’ Association came not to destroy but to build up. He also discussed the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few and declared this to be the evil of the day. He earnestly appealed to the farmers to organize, and said that not withstanding the powers against them they would succeed because there would be more with them than against them. Mr. Flood concluded his masterly speech amid prolonged applause. At the conclusion of Mr. Flood’s address, Mr. 'Hiompson introduced