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PAGE EIGHT THE Weekly Jeffersonian PUB LIS HKD BY THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON Editor and Proprietor Tbmpli Court Building, Atlanta, Ga. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: - - SI.OO PER TEAR Advertising Rates Furnished on Application. Adnata, Ga., Jannarf 11, IQV?, »• mend clm mail matttr 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