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WATSON’S EDITORIALS
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ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1907.
Extra-Sessions.
Why are Extra-Sessions of legislative as
semblies ever called?
First, when an emergency demands it; and
Second when the Regular Session fails to do
what was expected of it.
Thus President Cleveland called an Extra-
Session of Congress to meet what he consid
ered an emergency. The Wall Street Bankers
precipitated the Panic of 1893, in order that the
country might have an “object lesson.” The
country got its “object lesson,” all right
enough.
Millions of dollars were lost, and thousands
of men ruined before the Gold Bugs got what
they were after. But they got it before they
quit. They forced President Cleveland to
call an Extra-Session of Congress to put an end
to the Sherman Silver Law, and throw the
country on to the gold basis.
Had it not been for the providential relief
afforded the people by the influx of hundreds
of millions of Klondvke gold, God, only, knows
what horrors would have come upon us as the
result of the single gold standard.
Thus, when Wall Street Kings of finance
want something done, an Extra-Session is just
the thing.
Now, it’s a poor rule that won’t work both
wavs. Why shouldn’t an Extra-Session be
called when the people want something done?
Tn Alabama, Governor Comer has already
summoned an Extra-Session of the Legisla
ture.
Why lags Georgia behind? The regular
session of our Legislature did not give the
people what had been promised them. The
anti-Lobbving bill met an ignominious dis
aster. The attempt to break up the illegal con
nection between the Central and the South
ern came to grief. No effort was made to cut
down passenger rates to 2 cents per mile. The
other Southern states either have the 2 cent
rate alreadv. or are hot after it. Some Northern
states have it. Some Western states have it.
Whv shouldn’t Georgia have it?
We are asked to believe that Terrell and his
Railroad Commission amounted to nothing,
yet Terrell’s R. R. Commission cut down pas
senger fares to 2 r-2 cents and no effort has
been made to do better than that. Whv should
we pav 2 t-2 cents per mile when Alabama and
North Carolina onlv pav 2 cents?
No effort has bten made to compel the rail
roads to provide decent accommodations at
country towns. Passengers for the night
trains will soon be feeling the chilliness of
the night, will soon have to brave the wind and
the rain and the snnw. just as heretofore. The
waiting rooms will not be heated. Some of
them will be kept shut all night long. City
people would not endure this treatment a sin
gle day. The railroads know better than to
trv that on with Savannah and Macon and
Atlanta and Augysta. But when it comes to
the small town, the place where country peo
ple go to take the night trains, there is less re
gard paid to the comfort and the health of
human beings—our wives and children—than
is paid to mules and cows by humane owners.
It seems, however, that we must continue to
endure this barbarous treatment. Why? Be
cause “Rome wu not built in a day.”
The Northern corporations which exploit
our people are not paying their just propor
tion of the taxes. The regular session of the
Legislature refused to give us any relief. There
are several ways in which the corporations can
be made to pay what is fair and right, and
the matter could be attended to at the Extra-
Session.
There never was a time when a statute, pen
alizing the Telegraph Companies for failure to
deliver messages promptly, was more needed
than right now.
There never was a time when the heady ar
rogance of the Telephone Companies needed
toning down more than right now.
There never was a time when there was
more urgent need for the Legislature to au
thorize legal proceedings against the Central
R. R., and against the Georgia R. R. to can
cel their charters for misuser of franchise.
Three Republicans rule the corporate situa
tion in Georgia. These three Republicans are
J. Pierpont Morgan, Maj. J. F. Hanson and
Col. Thos. K. Scott. If the Extra-Session of
the Legislature did nothing more than break
up this foul domination, it would have de
served well of the country.
HMM
Harbie 9 s Happy Family.
If ever there was a doubt that Harvie Jor
dan was going to make us all happy before he
quit, that doubt is now dispelled, banished,
eliminated, abolished, and put out of business.
At length, we are happy—the last blessed
one of us—and Harvie is the wizard, the ne
cromancer, the—oh, shoot the balance of it!—
who has brought it all about.
There used to be a menagerie kept some
where or other—the place is not essential—and
this menagerie was called “The Happy Fam
ily.”
This Happy Family dwelt in an iron cage,
and consisted of animals that usually were
antagonistic to one another. In the iron cage,
the trainer who had trained these animals de
monstrated, to an astonished and admiring
world, that the lion and the lamb, the tiger
and the antelope, the cat and the mouse, the
hawk and the dove, and so forth and so on,
coufd be made to dwell together in peace and
friendship.
Oh, it was a lovely sight—so much so, in
deed, that the man who had taught the tiger
to keep his paws off the antelope, and the
hawk to let the dove alone, and the lion to
leave the lamb on his outside, charged an ad
mission fee to all who wanted to see his Hap
py Family. \
That was a long time ago. In fact it hap
pened when most of us were little boys. The
beautiful young Harvie Jordan hadn’t even
been bom.
But, somehow or other, Jordan must have
heard of this “Happv Familv” and borrowed
ideas from it. His Cotton Association is his
cage, and inside of this cage Harvie, with
great patience and skill, is training his lions
and lambs, his tigers and antelopes, his hawks
and doves.
He will soon have his Happy Family so
nicely trained that no reasonable admission
fee will keep back the curious crowds that
want to see the show.
In his Cotton Association, Harvie has the
Grower, the Spinner, the Banker, the Fertilizer
Trust, the Manufacturer, the retail merchant,
the Capitalist, the Speculator, the laborer, the
Railroader, Many Bulls and Some Bears.
Yet in Harvie’s cage, owing to Harvie’s
skilful manipulations, the peace which prevails
is almost somnolent. Recently, Harvie gave a
grand public performance in Atlanta, and it
was a glorious success. Even I was asked to
go, in a round-about non-committal sort of
way, but I laughed at the very idea; and went
on with a letter which was due my Uncle Sol
oman Beeswax.
Still, it must be rarely entertaining to see
Jordan’s Happy Family, wherein the cat lets
the mouse sit on her back, and the hawk
makes love to the dove.
The Spinner who buys a bale of cotton from
the Grower for S6O and sells it back to him for
SIBO, after weaving it into 3,000 yards of cal
ico, can well afford, in‘his gorged condition,
to leave the lamb untouched. The corporation
hawk, having already made a good meal, can
well abstain from further gluttony during the
brief hour of the performance. The Trust
cats have already had as many mice as they
can eat for the day—why shouldn’t they hu
mor the trainer and escape some disagreeable
consequences, by letting the mouse sit on their
backs?
After the people had paid their admission
fee and had seen the Happy Family, all of
the wiser visitors understood how the thing
was done.
They knew that the lion, the tiger, the hawk,
the cat, and every other one of the predatory
animals, had been fed to complete satiety,
before the lamb, and the dove and the mouse
came into the cage. The predatory animals
were in peaceful mood, because the trainer had
given them all they wanted.
To* the predatory animals were fed, every
day, just as many lambs and doves and mice as
they could eat—-why, then, eat the extra lamb
and dove and mouse which were brought into
the cage?
The Spinner is gorged—Special Privilege
gives him just what he wants.
The Trusts and the National Bankers, who
are in Harvie’s Association, are gorged—the
Class-legislation which they have wrung from
Congress, gives them just what they want.
Why should they growl at their victims on
the day when Harvie gives a performance?
Even when not trained for Happy Family
exhibitions, the cat finds entertainment—a cru
el joy—in playing with the mouse which she
has caught.
The Spinner and the Grower—the cat and
the mouse! The law, as arranged by the Man
ufacturer, gives his class two thousand mil
lions of dollars, each year, over and above 8
per cent clear profit on the money invested.
Under this same law, the agricultural classes
make no clear profit, whatever. They barely
make wages.
And Harvie’s Cotton Association is being
used by the Spinners, and other beneficiaries’
of Special Privilege, to cultivate, among the
victims, a spirit of profound satisfaction with
the law, as it stands.
The secret purpose is, to point the farmers
in every direction excepting the right one.