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PAGE EIGHT
THE
Weekly Jeffersonian
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THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON
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ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1907
An Appeal to the President.
Crazy for compound interest, on ten times
more capital than they had invested in their
business, the National bankers built up a huge
sky-scraper whose foundation is the small end
of the pyramid.
On one dollar of real money these greedy
gentlemen, who railed against the “fifty cent
dollar’’ of Constitutional silver money, based a
credit currency of ten to one.
Crying fiercely for “Sound Money,” they
struck down the financial system of a hun
dred vears.
J
Furiously denouncing the “Free Silver
cranks,” they changed the Constitution of the
Fathers, without asking the consent of the
States, and by a Treasury ruling, followed
up by Act of Congress, they illegally created
a Gold Reserve, a Gold Standard, and a Credit
Currency, when the supreme law of the land—
as interpreted by the highest Court—had es
tablished the system of Gold, Silver and Treas
ury notes.
The Gold and Silver were to be coined on
equal terms, and the Treasury notes were to
be issued as needed.
Thus, the elasticity feature was introduced
into the original Constitutional system of our
Fathers.
The precious metals were to be coined as
they were dug from the mines and offered
at the mints.
Treasury notes were to be issued in emer
gencies.
This Treasury note feature gave to the orig
inal system all the elasticity that it was safe
to give.
Thus, Mr. Jefferson issued Treasury notes
at the period of the Louisiana Purchase.
Mr. Madison issued Treasury, notes during
the War of 1812.
President Jackson issued them after his over
throw of the National Bank.
Mr. Lincoln issued them during the Civil
War.
But the National Bankers dominate the gov
ernment, and these modest gentlemen have
always bitterly opposed the Treasury notes.
Why?
Because they want their own notes to fur
nish the elasticity feature of the Currency
System.
Again, why?
Because they want the compound interest on
these notes of theirs. Could anything be more
evident?
Out of sordid and grasping selfishness, there
fore, the National banks set in to destroy the
Treasury notes issued under Mr. Linco’n, and
they caused to be burned up nearly two thou
sand million dollars of National notes before
President Grant put his foot down and made
them stop it.
In the place of the millions of destroyed
Treasury notes, the National banks at once
slipped credit currency of various sorts.
Upon this, they have earned enormously, in
Compound interest.
They so hate the Treasury notes that they
have been persistently endeavoring to drive
Congress into ordering the destruction of tha
remaining of Greenback* which
General Great saved.
At tha prtßant thaw, tteeeie Sound Money
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFKRSONIAM
gentlemen who have brought the country to
the brink of ruin, are clamoring for an “elas
tic currency”—but they demand a monopoly
of the rubber.
They must be permitted to furnish the elas
tics.
They must have the Compound interest.
They must be invested with the tremendous
power of expansion and contraction.
They must be left in such full control of the
financial situation that every succeeding Pres
ident must be made to feel that the New York
banks hold the government in their power, just
as President Cleveland felt it.
“My God, Oates, the banks have got the gov
ernment by the leg!”
Think of a President putting up a poor
mouth like that!
Humiliating to the last degree is a situation
in which our Chief Executive trembles before
the banks.
Recreant to his trust is the President who
fails to use the powers invested in him by the
Constitution to save his people in just such a
crisis.
Away with the illegal, contemptible make
shift of Clearing House Certificates.
They add insult to injury.
There is no law for them.
They are an outrage upon innocent millions
of people whose money has been unlawfully
used by high-finance criminals.
Give us the relief which the Constitution
of the United States provides.
GIVE US TREASURY NOTES.
The Supreme Court declared that they came
within the true intent and meaning of the Con
stitution. That decision has never been over
ruled. Therefore, it is law.
You are not afraid of the New York bank
ers, are you Mr. Roosevelt?
You will not echo the cowardly whine of
Grover Cleveland, will you, Mr. Roosevelt?
A lusty young fellow who persistently kept
out of the War by hiring a substitute, as the
robust, unmarried Grover Cleveland did, was
not expected to have courage of the real sort
—but you went where the bullets sang, Mr.
Roosevelt.
You didn’t dread the smell of powder.
You proved that you had grit.
Therefore, you are not afraid of the “male
factors of great wealth,” who have rioted in
reckless methods.
You will face them, as Andrew Jackson did.
You will drive the National banks off the
government reservation.
You will take back into governmental con
trol the sovereign prerogative of coining
money.
No King ever allowed a subject to coin mon
ey.
That’s a royal prerogative?
And our Supreme Court has said that when
our Fathers used the word “coin money,” they
meant create money, and that the money could
be created out of any material the government
saw fit to adopt.
Here is the Big Stick with which to slay
the monster Panic.
Here is the Club with which to hammer the
insatiable dragon of Compound interest.
USE IT, MR. PRESIDENT!
Don’t let the bankers get You “by the leg.”
Don’t whine and surrender, as Cleveland did.
Don’t have any secret, Midnight Conference,
with J. P. Morgan as Cleveland did.
Don’t saddle the nation with debt as Cleve
land did.
Stand by the Constitution.
Follow the precedent of Andrew Jackson.
Drive the banks back to legitimate banking,
and let all the paper currency be Treasury
notes issued by the government.
If $262,000,000 in bonds were legal, the same
amount of government paper, issued in small
notes, will be equally so.
Our Fathers put the elasticity feature into
our financial system, Mr. President.
It was put these ier a wise purpwo.
It was intended for an emergency.
The time is here; the urgent need is here;
the weapon lies at your hand—seize it, Mr.
President, and slay this monster of Panic
which menaces the innocent millions.
MM M "
Gibe It To the Old Confeds.
There lies in the Treasury of the United
States the sum of fifty million dollars which
has no business there. It was wrung, illegal
ly, from the South during the period of her
subjection, humiliation and helplessness. We
refer, of course, to the illegal cotton tax.
What shall be done with this money ? Shall
it always stay there in the Treasury, a monu
ment of National injustice? Will the North
and the East never grow ashamed of that act
of spoliation and do themselves the justice of
making restitution?
We believe that if Southern Congressmen
will exert themselves with earnestness and per
sistence, the wrong of thirty odd years ago
can be righted.
What should be done with this money? It
seems to us that the answer is plain. Wherever
the owner, or the lawful heirs of the owner, can
be traced, the money should be returned to
those from whom it was taken. But it is prob
able that the greater part of this fund could
never be restored to the owners or their legal
representatives; therefore, the principle of es
cheat would apply. The property would be
long to the state in which the taxpayer lived
at the time his cotton was taxed. Probably
the larger part of this fund of fifty million dol
lars would thus be thrown into the treasuries
of the different cotton states. That being so,*
what disposition should be made of it? We be
lieve that ninety-nine Southern men out of ev
ery hundred would say, cheerfully and rever
ently,
“Give it to the survivors who fought for the
Cotton States; give it to the remnants of the
heroic bands of Lee, and Jackson, and Stuart,
and Johnston, and Forrest; give it to those
who, for four years, threw between the South
ern home and the invading army, the bulwark
of their dauntless battle line.”
The w orld is staggered yet when contemplat
ing the enormous indemnity which Germany
wrung from prostrate France. A billion dol
lars, paid in lump sums, seemed a cruel pen
alty to exact from a fallen foe—but have you
ever stopped to consider the indemnity which
the South has paid, during the forty years
which have elapsed since the war? Every
year, the survivors of the Union army have
drawn from the National Treasury bounteous
pensions, which have run up to nearly one hun
dred and fifty million dollars. Os this enormous
annual payment of pensions, the South has had
to contribute, through the indirect system of
taxation (which burdens the agricultural com
munity much more heavily than any other), at
least one-third of the entire amount paid to
the Union soldiers. Thus the South is paying
a war indemnity of nearly fifty million dollars
every year—for the South gets practically
nothing back from all that she pays. The
great bulk of the money comes from the Old
Confed, his children, and his grandchildren—
and it never comes back. When we consider
that this payment, incident to our defeat in
war, has been running on for forty years, and
will, perhaps, continue to run on for forty years
more, we begin to have some clear and im
pressive idea of the frightful war indemnity
which the triumphant North is exacting from
the helpless South.
Surely there will be, in the various Southern
delegations that will go up to the National
Council in December, some one Congressman
Xvith courage enough, patriotism enough, abili
ty enough, to so plead the cause of the van
quished that the victor will restore what ought
never to have been taken.
And when that part of the fund which cannot
trace its way to its true legal owner reaches the
we«siiry of tire state by eeetawt, het ue all niM