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PAGE EIGHT THE Weekly Jeffersonian putLissxD ay 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. at Pnt.jftt, AtZaata, G*., Juttr) It, ZOO7. at mcm*4 tltui mill »»tlir 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