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PAGE FOURTEEN WHY WE HAVE MONEY PANICS. A very short answer to this would be because there are certain human animals who are hogs in spirit and actions, and these animals bring them about. The purpose of this brief article is to show how these animals do the mischief. What is in fact gambling of the very worst kind, but which in these modern days we thinly disguise by calling it “speculation/’ is the me dium through which every panic ori ginates. Men have always “specu lated” to some extent, in olden times the merchant would buy grain and hold it tor a rise, or another would buy land and wait for it to appreciate in value, but the idea of speculating in something not actual ly possessed was entirely unknown. Margins had not been invented. The nineteenth century showed a greater commercial growth than all previous history can show. A com petent statistician estimates the in crease of the foreign commeice of the world during that century at 12.33 per cent. The imports into Great Britain are said to have in creased 7,400 per cent in the one hun dred years last past. This tremendons growth has given the human hog his opportunity. The volume of money has not kept pace with the increase in volume of busi ness done, hence an ever-increasing proportionsff the world’s business is done with cheeks and bills of ex change, which are used as substi tutes for actual money, and an ever increasing proportion is done on credit. Under these conditions the ‘ 1 specu lator” has found it easy to put in operation his system of dealing in stocks, bonds and commodities on ‘ ‘ margins. ’ ’ Without conscience, and richly en dowed with nerve, he has found it comparatively easy to deinuralive a people anxious to get rich quick, and to seduce them into the belief diat he oilers a “legitimate” proposition. Now, it is true, that if speculation be eliminated, the transfer of com modities from hand to hand would never produce panics, because there would in every case be the dollar’s worth of stuff in hand, but when speculation enters the game all this is changed. The speculator who buys or sells 1.000 bales of cotton does not possess the actual cotton, hence if the bank lends him money it takes the chance on his “contract” proving a lucky buy or sale. As all these gen tlemen use banks, and as they buy and sell the actual cotton crop titty times ove reach year, it can readily be seen to what extent banks may become concerned in speculation. Then comes the speculator in stocks and he puts up to the bank certain stocks as collateral for the money he borrows. Then other speculators force a “bear” market and the stocks decrease in market price, and the bank is left with an unsalable and depreciated security on its hands. The only limit to the speculator’s dealings is his ability to get enough money from other people to cover Lis “margins” There is no limit to his greed. In a series of fiuitful years these gentry push their operations to such an extent that they get into their in flated values the loanable funds of the banks, then some fine day the WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. bank wakes up to the faet that the farmers, merchants, manufacturers, the people engaged in real commerce, are demanding more money than they can supply. Note the result. Con traction of loans, diminishing prices, curtailment of work, hard times and sometimes general panic. Over-speculation is invariably the cause of these financial crises, never are they caused by the over-produc tion of actual commodities. This be ing true, and it is true, whj do we permit such conditions to come about? Because, to some extent the whole human family is tinctured with the gambling mania. Because we have not yet learned that an enduring pros-, perity can only be built on the foun dation of honesty and actual value*. Because we have not yet learned that the man who takes from the common fund a profit which he has not earned is a thief, to be put into stripes in stead of being elevated to the posi tion of a captain of finance. No substantial system can ever be de vised, no permanent prosperity can ever be established, so long as we permit human hogs to sell that they do not own and take f'/om the public a reward they have r.ot earned. Human ingenuity can do much, but it will never devise a method which will enable the commonwealth to es cape the penalty for the violation of that stern law which says “in the sweat of his face shall man eat bread.” When the commonwealth permits a few of its citizens to vio late that law, it simply means more sweat for the remainder. There is plenty for all who toil, but add the speculator and there ceases to be plenty for the toilers, and every few years we have to face a palic in order to clear the financial atmosphere. ANDREW JACKSON. It has been the fortune of the In vestigator to be present on two cr three occasions where history was made. In reading the standard his tories of those affairs he has found the only really true thing written about them was the statement of the main fact. The details were eith er wholly fiction or so distorted that they were hardly recognisable. Southern people have long boinplain ed that historical accounts of their great characters, which have hitherto been written almost wholly by New England men, have been greatly dis torted. Ft was with pleasure, there fore, that they heard that Tom Wat son was to write a history of Andrew Jackson, while northern people ex pected it to be as one-sided as the southern people claimed the histories written by northern men had been. Both of them have been disappoint ed Watson has had facilities for getting the facts that no northern writer ever had. There are old docu ments and letters in the families of the south that have never been print ed, and many of these have been sent to him and they place events very often in an entirely new light. According to Watson, Jackson was not the model of perfection, either as a citizen or statesman, that the south has been prone to believe. Neither did he have the vicious attributes ascribed to him bj some northern writers. The work is being published in installments in Watson’s Jefferson ian Magazine, and he has just arriv ed at the Creek wars. In the treat- ment of that phase of Jackson’s life, Watson is the first writer who seems to understand the Indian life and the cause of the contests between them and the whites.' The Investigator, when reading those passages, could hardly convince himself that he was not listening to a conversation of Gen eral George Crook, who was the great est Indian fighter that ever held a commission in the United States army and who after having spent most of his life in immediate contact with the Indians, appeared on a platform in the Old South Church in Boston, and the first words of his address were these: “I have been thirty years on the frontier fighting Indians, and in all that time I have never known an In dian tribe to be first to break a trea ty, and I have never known the gov- Clubbing Offer DIXIELAND, The Illustrated Home Magazine of the South, and WATSON’S JEFFERSONIAN MAGAZINE Both at $1.75. No commissions to agents on this offer. DIXIELAND MAGAZINE and WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSO NIAN. Both at $1.25. No Commission*, DIXIELAND MAGAZINE, WATSON’B Monthly, and WATSON’S Weekly, all three for $2.15. No Commissions. Farmers’ Catechism Millions of farmers need a mental treat-—an eyeopener—an intel lectual cocktail. That’s what the Farmers’ Catechism is. It’s a Gat ling gun cut loose on gamblers in farm products and other pirates. It s Farmers Union thunder— a mail course of instruetinn* to farmers —worth S2O, but U can get it for a dime. Gamblers In life’s necessities exposed. How farmers have been deceived, plundered & robbed. How the Union will prevent the robbery. It will fire the brain and stir the heart of every intelligent farmer. Great help to organizers A workers. Hundreds of knotty Questions made plaip. Besides three of the grandest speeches ever made to American farmers, viz., National lecturer, Judge Fisk, to farmers of Kansas, July 4th. Hon. Thos. E. Watson, to Georgia farmers, and the eloquent Mr. Windle of Illinois, Editor of Brann’s Iconoclast, to farmers State Union. Every farmer should have these three great speeches. Some farmers are dead —Intellectually. Some too mean to die. But the majority are not. The majority are in for a square deal. They ask no fayors—only fairness. To them the CATECHISM will be hailed as a great brain preparation. Send for it This Is not a stand ing ad. Ads cost money. Every reader of WATSON, sending a sil ver dime, & address, plainly written, of 20 Intelligent farmers not readers of the JEFFERSONIAN, will get the CATECHISM, postpaid. Are U willing to help spread the light? A MIGHTY CONFLICT IS NOW RAGING. Don’t be asleep or in different. Send now, but not names of Hunk-head*. Wouldn’t you like to see WATSON’S publications have ten times the circulation they now have? Then, lift a hand. FARMERS’ CATECHISM Wichita, Kans. The $2.00 Offer was never Intended as an agent proposition on which commissions eould be charged. The purpose of the offer was to encourage the voluntary subscriber to subscribe to both Jeffersonians at the same time. From this date the $2.00 price for both Jeffersonians will be for the voluntary subscriber. In other words it is a net price. No com missions at all can be paid on that price for both Jeffersonians. October 9, 1907. comment to keep ons.” In Watson’s history he gives the Indian side of the question as truth fully and carefully as he does that of Jackson, and he is the first historian to treat the contests between the whites and Indians in that way. After recording the facts, he makes the following observation: “Tecumseh was the last of the In dians who rose to the dignity of statesmanship. He had a general plan, embracing the entire Indian race, and if the war of 1812 had not come to check his work, divert its course and take his life, it is possible that the Indian question might have been settled by the earlier setting apart of some larger Indian territory, with a ‘Dawes act’ passed nearly a hundred years ago at the instance of Tecumseh, instead of being enacted in