Newspaper Page Text
PAGE EIGHT
THE
Weekly Jeffersonian
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THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON
Editors and
Tvmplb Court Building, Atlanta, Ga.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: - - $1.09 PER TEAR
Advertising Rates Furnished on Application.
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ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1907
The Anniversary.
The Jeffersonian is one year old. Twelve
months ago, Mr. Watson put forth in these
columns precisely the same declaration of
principles and purposes that he proclaimed
when he issued the first number of The Peo
ple’s Party Paper, in 1890.
These principles are nothing in the world
but Jeffersonian democracy, adjusting itself
to modern conditions. They are our creed —to
live by, to work for, and to die by. Other
leaders may shift their sails to suit the wind,
but the Jeffersonian will hold the rudder true
and drive right ahead, no matter how stormy
the seas.
Mr. Watson has never apologized to any
body for being alive and having convictions
of his own. He is not ashamed of having been
a Populist. He is proud of it. He is a Pop
ulist now, heart and hand. Populism stands
for a government of the whole people, for the
benefit of all. Equal and exact justice, is the
corner-stone of Populism as it is of true dem
ocracy.
Mr. Watson went out of the Democratic Par
ty because he is a Jeffersonian Democrat. He
went outside to get some democracy.
When Bryan and the Spanish War swallow
ed the People’s Party, and its machinery fell
into the hands of the unspeakable Marion But
ler, Mr. Watson saw that our Appomattox
had come.
He quit the field, where there was no long
er any hope, and went to writing Populist
books. That is to say, he wrote history from
the standpoint of the people, illustrating from
history the working of that class-law system
which is sapping the foundations of the Ameri
can Republic.
Then, when Wall Street took the Democrat
ic Party away from Bryan in 1904, and dragged
Bryan along at the tail of the cart —a captive
in self-imposed chains—Mr. Watson thought
somebody ought to make a stand for Jefferso
nian Democracy. For that reason, he took the
Populist nomination and did his best, under
tremendous difficulties.
At the polls, the result seemed insignificant;
but shrewd observers saw that the campaign
had had its effect.
It gave Bryan a most uncomfortable warning
that he had better not go with Wall Street
any more.
It put Tom Ryan and August Belmont on
notice that the next time they bought a Nation
al Convention they had better be mighty sly
about it—else their money would be thrown
away.
It put all the bosses on notice that hereafter
we intend to have a real Democrat in the fields
on a platform that isn’t an echo of the Repub
lican Profession-of-Faith.
As Mr. Watson had been drawn into the
field again by the happening of the unexpected,
he thought he might as well continue the
work, by editing a national magazine.
For two -years he worked at this, receiving
no compensation.
Then a pair of rascals, using approved Wall
Street methods, stole his magazine, and set
out to run it themselves.
They didn’t run it long.
Wasting no time in crying-over spilled;
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
milk, he established the Weekly Jeffersonian,
a year ago; later, the Jeffersonian Magazine
which will soon complete its first year.
It has been awfully hard work. The New
York rascal % s stole the mailing list, as well as
the magazine, and there are thousands of the
old subscribers who have no idea where Mr.
Watson is, or what he is doing.
Every day or so, another one of his old
subs, learns that the Jeffersonians are in exist
ence, and these old subs, invariably join the
band.
So, we believe the worst is over. The success
of both Jeffersonians is assured. Without any
mushroom growth, they are steadily advancing
all over the Union.
And nobody need ever doubt that the two
J’effersonians mean to live up to the creed
which for nearly twenty years Mr. Watson
has steadfastly upheld. To educate the people,
to guide the people, to expose wrong-doing
in high places, to sustain those high-minded
leaders who are battling for the rights of the
common people, to oppose Special Privilege
in all of its many forms, to fight corporate
greed and tyranny to the death—these are
some of the things which Jeffersonians
will never grow weary of doing.
*
Now—change the subject a little—let’s talk
about you awhile. Don’t you feel like helping
us along? Os course, you do. But you don’t
know how, you say. Well, here are some
things you can do.
(1) You can renew that subscription of
yours. You’ve been putting it off. Quit put
ting it off. Send it along. Send the smooth,
even one dollar. Send it yourself. We can’t
pay agents’ commissions on renewals. You
can’t renew on a club offer made by some other
paper. THOSE CLUB OFFERS DON’T
APPLY TO RENEWALS.
Having already paid Commissions once on
the subscription, it isn’t fair to make us pay it
again. We cannot always give the Jeffersonian
for what the blank paper costs.
(2) You can nudge your neighbor, and get
him to subscribe.
(3) You can send a good list of names for
sample copy distribution.
(4) You can blow the trumpet for the Jeffer
sonians, and thus cause the wayfaring man to
become interested.
(5) You can mount your hind legs, on any
one of the 267,000 Rural Routes and tell the
people who live on it that it’s an infernal shame
that the originator of the R. F. D. Service
hasn’t got one subscriber for each Rural Route
in the United States.
After saying this, you will feel better. So
will we.
H H H
To Mr. Bryan.
Being an older and somewhat uglier man
than you, Mr. Bryan, I am going to take
the liberty of giving you “a piece of my
mind.”
Mr. Bryan, you are getting farther apart
from the plain common people every day of
your life. You are frittering away your time
on too many banquets and slush-gush social
functions.
You are paying too much attention to city
.club-men who are glad to entertain you and
to bask in the sunlight of your fame and
popularity.
You are creating for yourself an imaginary
world, which is not the real world; and you
are peopling this imaginary world with imag
inary folks, instead of real men.
You are deluding yourself with the belief
that th Democratic Party still exists—an or
ganized, cohesive, workable, and homogeneous
body—when as a matter of fact the life has
gone out of it. The motions that it still makes
are merely the galvanic action of office-seekers,
who can still use the machinery of the party for
personal ambition.
In your Atlanta-banquet speech, you say
that the Democratic Party is more harmoni
ous and united than you have ever known it to
be.
Well, that isn’t saying very much.
The Republicans have elected every single
President since the War.
Anybody who knows the facts knows per
fectly well that the Republicans elected Gro
ver Cleveland both times.
In all other campaigns the Republicans were
united and victorious. In Cleveland’s first
race, it was the Blaine-Conkling feud which
enabled Mr. Cleveland to run Blaine so close
that Tammany felt safe in stealing what little
was needed to carry the state.
In Cleveland’s second election, the Harrison
policies, which had disgruntled the Wall street
monarchs, insured the Democratic victory.
Harrison was an honest and stubborn man
who would not be dictated to —consequently,
he went forward paying off the Public Debt
and trying to give the Country a decent ad
ministration.
Cleveland’s managers made a deal with such
Republicans as J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carne
gie, H. H. Rogers and Jacob Schiff; and the
result was-that Cleveland went into office the
second time with a Republican mortgage on
him.
The mortgage was duly marked “Satisfied
in full” AFTER Cleveland had given Morgan
that scandalous bargain in Bonds; had forced
Congress to repeal the silver-purchase law; had
blocked the way to Tariff Reform by allow
ing the Sugar Trust, the Oil Trust, and the
Steel Trust to fix the Tariff Schedules to suit
themselves; and had allowed Jake Schiff to
gobble the Union Pacific Railroad.
In other words, Cleveland’s second adminis
tration was a Republican affair, so far as the
Special Privilege Interests were concerned.
Therefore, the conclusion of the whole mat
ter is that the Democratic Party has never had
a President, since Buchanan.
And they have lost out because they have
not had the wisdom and the independence to
unfurl the standard of genuine democracy.
They have tried to beat the Republicans
at their own game. They have tried to outbid
the Republicans for Corporation support.
Instead of planting themselves squarely on
a platform which embodies the principles of
Jefferson and Jackson, and then fighting con
sistently for those principles long enough to
win the confidence of the people, the Democrat
ic leaders have juggled with words and phrases
to deceive their followers; and they have put
forth platforms that were either capable of two
constructions or they have frankly gone over
to Wall Street—as the Parker crowd did.
And your colossal blunder, Mr. Bryan, was
that when Parker went over to Wall Street,
you followed him.
Like the spot on Lady Macbeth’s little hand,
that is the stain on your record which all the
waters of all the seas cannot wash out.
You, Mr. Bryan, are growing conservative,
at the very moment when the masses are grow
ing more radical. You are making yourself
solid with city bankers, railroad men, capital
ists and corporation chiefs generally—but you
are losing touch with the country people.
Surrounded by 500 of the “most principallist
men of the town,” you eat, drink, and are mer
ry; you listen to syllabub adulation and to
champagne advice; you forget that the ban
quet habit is one of the very best ways to
compromise your independence, and to dull
your intuitions of popular movements.
You forget that there are two million old
Greenbackers and Populists who bear you a
deep-seated grudge for your destruction of the
grand reform movement which was started by
the Farmers’ Alliance. You forget that tens
of thousands of the Bryan Democrats voted
for Roosevelt rather than support the “Just
as-good” Parker. You forget that in no state
of this union does the Democratic party stand
for any distinct, constructive and comprehen
sive governmental programme. You forget