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WATSON’S EDITORIALS fefflag WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN feffgg 1 4 Newspaper Devoted to the Advocacy of the Jeffersonian Theory of Government. i PUBUSIIJiD BY SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: SI.OO PER TEAR THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON, Advertising Rates Furnished on Application. Ly XT Editors and Proprietors ■■ ■ ■— - 1 - - ...... - W Tbmplb Court Building, Atlanta, Ga. * nt '” d 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.