Newspaper Page Text
PAGE TWELVE
EDITORIAL NOTES.
• By J. D. Watson.
(Continued from Page Nine.)
ing the tariff on news-print paper, on wood
pulp, and on wood imported into this country
for the manufacture of wood pulp and paper.
If Congress happens to do as the President
recommends, you will hear a great howl from
the trust.
Trusts do not mind prosecutions very much,
but when you talk about abolishing the tariff,
they begin to squeal.
The Santa Fe seems to be the latest railroad
fined for rebating, the fine amounting to $330,-
000.
Os course, the railroad appealed the case,
and in the meantime they will continue to vio
late the law.
Put a few railroad officials in jail, as you do
other criminals, when they violate the law, and
the law will be obeyed instead of being fla
grantly violated.
R
The Interstate Commerce Commission bul
letin on accidents upon railroads of the United
States during the year ending June 30, 1907,
shows the following casualties:
Five thousand persons killed and 76,286 in
jured, or 775 more killed and 9,577 more in
jured than during the previous year.
Listen to what the bulletin has to say about
safety appliances, etc.:
“There have been heavy increases in all of
the items, except accidents in car coupling and
from striking against overhead obstructions.
The number of passengers killed and injured
in collisions and derailments has increased to
an alarming degree. In this item the very
large total reported in 1905 is now exceeded by
17 per cent.
“The comparative smallness of the increases
in casualties due to coupling and uncoupling
cars, and in accidents to men on the tops of
freight cars, is undoubtedly due in large meas
ure to improvement in the maintenance and
care of automatic couplers and to the in
creased use of air brakes on freight trains.”
Is it any wonder that the people, from one
end of the country to the other, are so stirred
up over the railroad question?
If the proper equipment of safety appliances
will prevent accidents of one kind, other safe
ty appliances will prevent accidents of another
kind.
The railroad officials know this, but they
know it is cheaper to murder people than pay
for proper equipment, so they continue to do
MURDER.
W
Florida, Louisiana and Alabama are calling
extra sessions of their Legislatures. Those
states want things done. In Georgia, however
•
Clearing House Certificates amount to a
forced loan—forced from the public by the
banks. The banks have the people’s money,
and when the people want their own money
they have to accept the banker’s note. Thus the
banker compels the depositor to lend his mon
ey to the bank when the depositor needs it
himself. Thus a Clearing House certificate
is the same as a loan exacted by force.
Such a thing is in violation of law and some
of the criminals should be brought to justice.
f R w
There is much talk of “restoring confi
dence.”
How can confidence return when the banks
are acting this way?
They can find money to lend to Wall street
at from 50 to 200 per cent, but they cannot
find money to pay back to the millions of
wage-earners and ordinary business men the
actual cash which those depositors entrusted
to the bank.
Such methods ars not likely to restore confi-
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
Despite the cry of the officials of the Central
Railway of Georgia that a 2 1-2 cent passenger
rate would “confiscate property without due
process of law,” the report of that railroad
shows that it earned about $3,000 dollars more
in Septmber, 1907, than it did the same month
in 1906. z
The same is doubtless true of other railroads
in the State, just as it is true in mdst cases
where the reduced rates have been put into
effect.
R
In speaking of the announcement that Pres
ident Roosevelt would recommend to congress
the enactment of a law providing for the grant
ing of Federal licenses to trust companies and
placing their affairs under the same super
vision as that now exercised over national
banks, former Secretary of the Treasury Leslie
M. Shaw, now president of the Carnegie
Trust Co., said:
“It is unnecessary to ask what I think of a
law authorizing trust companies to be incor
porated under a Federal charter. I specifically
recommended it in all my later reports as Sec
retary of the Treasury. My recommendations
were the first and, up to the present time, have
been the only recommendations on the subject.
I cannot speak for the shareholders of the Car
negie Trust Company, but if such a law were
passed I would be very glad to change from
State to Federal supervision.”
But what good would it do to place trust
companies under the same system as national
banks when the national banking system is rot
ten to the core?
R R R
Dr. Jarnagin Is 'Right.
Warrenton, Ga., November 9, 1907.
Hon. Thos. E. Watson, Thomson, Ga.
Dear Sir: I certainly endorse your position
on the money question and congratulate you
on the editorial in this week’s “Jeffersonian” on
that subject.
Your plan to inflate our currency and at the
same time give us a sound money by issuing
Government Notes, “Greenbacks,” instead of
Bonds, does seem to me to be the proper thing
to be done, and especially just at this time.
The prosperity of the country has outgrown
our per capita, consequently we need it in
creased, and we need it done at once.
The future prospect of money getting very
scarce nerved me to the point on yesterday of
writing Mr. Roosevelt, and suggesting that he
do as Mr. Lincoln did, issue “Greenbacks” at
once, pay off all government obligations as
they become due, which would give us plenty
of good, sound money, and thereby relieve
the stringency, and make him closer to the
hearts of the American people than any Pres
ident since Mr. Lincoln.
With kind regards to your family, I am,
Yours truly, J. C. JARNAGIN.
R R R
Railroad ‘Butcheries.
Just the same as ever, only more so. Gets
worse instead of better. (See last report of
National Commission.)
In 1893 the railroads were ordered by Con
gress to equip freight trains with automatic
couplers. There are 287 prosecutions now
pending for wilful and continued violations of
this law.
The open switch accident is of weekly oc
currence yet there is a perfect automatic
switch that would prevent the wreck.
The split switch accident bobs up with fa
tal persistence, yet there is a newly invented
switch which does not present the feather
ed-edge rail, which causes the split switch ac
cident. The collision appals us with frightful
regularity, yet the automatic Block system of
fers its absolute prevention to that source of
railroad murders.
If a few such heartless managers as Milton
Smith, Thos. K. Scott, August Belmont, J. P.
Morgan, Thos. F. Ryan, and E. H. Harriman
were convicted and punished for Murder, the
morbid appetite for dividends on watered stock
would be cured.
It is this remorseless greed for unreasonable
profits that is killing or wounding one hundred
thousand of our men, women and children ev
ery year. ,
R R R
Uncle Obe 's Pull.
What is the secret of the “pull” of Uncle
Obadiah Stephens?
He was a member of the Railroad Commis
sion which always continued cases when
Hamp McWhorter would tell the Commission,
over the ’phone, that it wasn’t convenient for
him to be in Atlanta that day.
He was the Commissioner who proclaimed
his purpose of making a walking inspection of
every mile of Uncle Jake’s Georgia Railroad—•
and who changed his mind, and scooted over it
at a two-forty gait.
He is the Commissioner who gave the Geor
gia Railroad a clean bill of health and certifi
cate of character.
He is the Commissioner who helped Joe
Brown seal his own doom —and Uncle Oba
diah didn’t get any of the doom.
He is the Commissioner who roosts serene
ly, on a top limb, whether the Governor hap
pens to be Terrell or Smith.
Many, many persons and things get jolted
and jarred and dislocated, but Uncle Obadiah
stays put.
Oh, what a pull Uncle Obadiah has got!
Nothing like it was ever seen before, in dear
old Georgia.
R R R
Turn It Dolvn.
In the air, float thousands of things which
may be roughly classed as dust. This dust
is composed of thousands of different parts.
Some, of these component parts are harmless;
but many of them are dangerous. If you
breathe with open mouth in a dusty street,
can-t you feel the irritation in your throat?
That’s nature’s sign that the dust is doing
you harm.
Nature put a strainer in your nose, to strain
the air that goes into your lungs, and to keep
out the dust. That strainer consists of a pe
culiar gristle formation, and the hair on the
inside of the nose.
When you breathe, with the mouth shut,
the strainer does its work, and your lungs get
air, instead of dust.
In every home, cups, tumblers and gob
lets are in use.
In nearly every case, these drinking ves
sels are left turned up. That is, the open
mouth of the cup, the tumbler or the goblet is
left upward, catching all the dust that floats.
Not only do they catch the dust, but the nasty
house-fly lights in them, or upon the rim
where you put your lips, to drink.
Some member of your family falls sick. You
arg puzzled to account for the cause of the
illness.
Did it ever occur to you that the sickness
was brought on by drinking poisonous dust
from the upturned cup, or glass?
Don’t run any such risks. Turn the cup
down. Turn the glass down. Then, the drink
ing vessel catches no poisonous dust. The
rim will have no house-fly filth on it.
Whenever you see a cup or a glass sitting
on the table, or sideboard, with the mouth up,
realize that you have set a trap to catch dis
ease. „
Unless you are willing for the disease to
get caught in the glass, and be carried into
your own system, or into the system of soiy'
member of your family, remove the trap. /
Turn tht cup down. Tun the glass DO