Watson's weekly Jeffersonian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1907, November 14, 1907, Page PAGE TWELVE, Image 12

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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