Politics and Economics

BY THOMAS E. WATSON

Public Ownership in Chicago

SEVERAL weeks ago, in an interview published in the New York World, I expressed the opinion that the principle of public ownership of public utilities was stronger than any political party.

The recent victory won by it in Chicago makes the truth of that statement apparent.

Here was a city which a few months ago gave the Republican ticket the enormous majority of 60,000. So far as parties are concerned, the Republican Party stands precisely where it stood when Roosevelt won that triumph. So far as the Democratic Party is concerned, it has not budged an inch from the ground which it occupied when it met its Waterloo in the November elections. What is it, then, which gave to the candidate of the minority party a decisive success, so soon after an overwhelming defeat? Evidently, it was the principle which he represented.

The National Democratic Party has never declared itself in favor of public ownership. The National Republican Party has never done so. The People’s Party is the only National organization which has proclaimed and battled for the principle which was involved in the Chicago election.

So far back as 1890 the People’s Party of the state of Georgia, and of other states, grew tired of the deceptive compromise called Public Control; threw it aside as a failure; boldly advanced to the more radical ground of Public Ownership, and formed its line of battle. In spite of abuse, ridicule and defeat, our party has never faltered in its steady advocacy of the principle which at that time met the aggressive opposition of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. In the campaigns made by Mr. Bryan he stood for no such principle as this. In the campaign led by Belmont and Parker and Gorman in 1904 the Democratic Party stood for no such principle as this; nor has the Republican Party ever dared to proclaim itself in favor of such robust radicalism. Therefore, it is folly to say that the victory won in the Chicago election is a Democratic victory. It is misleading to say that this election illustrates the fact that “the Democratic Party always wins when it is Democratic.” The principle of public ownership has never been a part of the political stock in trade of the Democratic Party. Therefore the principle of public ownership of public utilities cannot be classed as Democratic, if we use the term in the partisan sense which attaches to it. The principle of public ownership is Populistic, and it is merely rendering to the pioneers of that movement simple justice when we say that the Chicago election, which wiped out party lines and gave to the people and to the principle a magnificent victory, should redound to the credit of those much-abused and misrepresented men who thirteen years ago unfurled that particular flag and began to fight beneath it.

The people of Chicago evidently grew tired of being plundered; grew ashamed of their own political imbecility; grew ashamed of their own municipal cowardice. Roused to action by a few magnetic leaders who were not afraid and who were not to be sidetracked by hypocritical compromises, they marshaled their strength and demonstrated how easy it is for the masses to throw off the yoke of those who plunder them under forms of law. Nobody ever doubted for a moment that the people of Chicago, in the main, were honest, courageous, public-spirited, but they had submitted so long to the initiative and the domination of a few organized rascals who intrenched themselves in places of power, safeguarded by legislation, that it seemed wellnigh hopeless to expect them ever to revolt. The fact that they have revolted, and have reversed the results achieved at the November election, gives another illustration of what I said in the first issue of this magazine, namely, that the election of 1904, properly construed, was so encouraging to the reformers as to become an inspiration. It was pointed out that the victory of Douglas in Massachusetts, of Folk in Missouri, of La Follette in Wisconsin, each of whom was known as a reformer, could be construed in no other way than that the people were tired of party names, of party traditions, of party machines and party hypocrisy, and were determined to go to the support of any man and any principle which promised them the relief which they so much needed. The triumph of Judge Dunne, the Democrat, following so speedily upon the heels of an adverse vote against Judge Parker, the Democrat, absolutely clinches the truth of what I said, namely, that the only party, the only principle, the only sentiment which grew stronger by the campaign of 1904 was that of radicalism.

Why shouldn’t the lesson of the Chicago election be taken to heart by every great city and every small town in this Republic? If the people of Chicago can turn the rascals out, the people of New York can turn the rascals out, the people of Philadelphia can turn the rascals out. Talk about vested rights and charters which grant monopolies! Nobody wants to confiscate property or violate contracts, no matter how ill-judged those contracts may have been. But we say this: Just as private property was assessed and taken under the principle of Eminent Domain, in order that corporations should construct their railways, their telegraph lines, their telephone lines, so the same principle of Eminent Domain can be applied to return to the people what was taken away from the people. Assess these properties at a fair valuation, pay honestly and fully what they are worth, then take them over for the public to be operated for the benefit of the public. The law of Eminent Domain can be applied to all sorts of property, real and personal, the tangible thing called an acre of ground and the intangible thing called a charter.

Consider this Chicago election in the broad National point of view. How can it give any encouragement to Mr. Roosevelt, who is still tinkering and pottering at the worn-out fabric of Governmental control? How can it give any encouragement to the Democratic Party, which has nothing in its platform which can be twisted into a declaration in favor of that thing which Chicago has just done? So far from being a vindication of the Democratic attitude, as expressed in all of its National platforms, it is a rebuke to the timid, weak-kneed, short-sighted leaders of National Democracy. The vindication is to those men, who, in the years gone by, proclaimed the principles, preached the gospel, scattered the literature, endured the odium, fought the battle, bore the heat and burden of the day, and are now in this late hour looking up, elated, joyful, exultant, happy, that at last the smile of success has rested upon the earnest, untiring efforts which have gone so long without recognition and reward.

The victor in the Chicago election was the great Populist Principle, Public Ownership!

A Bitter Attack Upon the South

Ever since the close of the Civil War there has been a growing sentiment on both sides of Mason and Dixon’s line in favor of mutual forbearance, the purpose being to speed the day when the North and South shall become reconciled.

In the South no speaker will now add to his popularity or influence by reckless abuse of the North.

We had supposed that the North was equally tired of the speaker or writer who puts the torch to sectional prejudice or who wantonly inflicts upon the South a blow which he must realize will arouse angry resentment.

When the last gun was fired at Appomattox, the biggest, bravest, best hearted men on each side united in the effort to stem the tide of sectional hatred and to knit together the bonds of brotherly love.

General Grant, by his magnanimity at the surrender, set a sublime standard.

General Lee, by his noble advice and example, gave the South a lesson whose influence for good cannot be overestimated.

Horace Greeley, when he volunteered to sign the bond of Jefferson Davis, and Senator L. Q. C. Lamar, of Mississippi, when he pronounced a magnificent memorial address upon Charles Sumner in the Senate, were but following the illustrious precedents of Grant and Lee.

Later, there came the mission of Henry Grady and of John B. Gordon, upon the one side, and the conciliatory words and deeds of William McKinley on the other.

Nor should we forget the fine tribute paid to Southern character and courage in the writings of Theodore Roosevelt, who as President has honored the sons of Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart and General Beauregard, and who, in one of his latest appointments, has given preference to General Rosser, the youngest of the Confederate brigadiers.

The battle-scarred veterans of the North have been meeting in memorable reunions the survivors of those who followed Johnston and Forrest and Jackson and Lee; and the most touching and inspiring scenes have been witnessed at these encampments where the South and the North recognized each other’s honesty, valor and generosity, and each section vied with the other in the glorious work of harmonizing the nation.

At the grave of General Grant it was the presence of our Southern soldier, John B. Gordon, which testified to the North the sympathy of the South.

And only a few days ago President Roosevelt inquired diligently into the circumstances of the widowed Mrs. Gordon to know whether or not an appointment as Postmaster for the city of Atlanta would be acceptable to her.

During the Spanish war the South sprang into the ranks under the old flag, at the tap of the drum, and the blood of a Southern boy was the first that was shed in the conflict.

It was the ranking cavalry leader of the expiring Confederacy who steadied the lines before Santiago, prevented a retreat, and brought from Mr. Roosevelt the manly acknowledgment that to General Joseph Wheeler, more than to any other man, was due the fact that we won the victory.

It was a Southern boy who took his life in his hands in the effort to block the Spanish harbor, and worthily earned the title of “The Hero of the Merrimac.”

It is sad to think that all this patriotism may not have made a deep impression upon the country.

It is sad to realize that the work of such men as Alexander H. Stephens, Benjamin H. Hill, Senator Lamar, Thomas Nelson Page and Henry W. Grady has left so much still to be done before that man, North or South, who endeavors to inflame the passions of the sections shall be made to feel that he has excited for himself the contempt and disgust which he deserves.

In a recent issue of the New York Independent comes Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor of History at Harvard University, distilling as much bitterness and gall as ever fell from the lips of John J. Ingalls or Thaddeus Stevens.

He writes an article called “Conditions of the Southern Problem,” and a more thoroughly exaggerated and libelous contribution to public discussion has not been made during the last twenty years.

The average reader will get some idea of the value of Mr. Hart’s conclusions when he comes upon the sober statement that “white mountaineers (of the South) have been known to take their children out of school because the teacher would insist that the world is round.”

Who stuffed Dr. Hart with that old joke?

What credit does he do to himself when he shows to the world that he accepts such worn-out jests as facts?

Does he not know that there are plenty of wags all over the world—even in Pullman cars—who take a delight in playing upon the credulous?

He will meet men who will tell him that in certain backwoods communities “the people don’t know that the war is over,” or he will be told that in some mountain counties “they are still voting for Andrew Jackson.”

But would Professor Hart take such statements for anything but jokes?

Doesn’t he know that the jest about the rural belief that the world is flat instead of round belongs to the same gray-haired family?

Even a professor of history should learn that there is just as great a difference between jokes and facts as there is between facts and jokes.

Professor Hart says that “in a few communities, notably South Carolina, the poor whites have unaccountably discovered that if they will always vote together they always have a majority, and they keep a man of their own type in the United States Senate. In most other states, however, politics is directed by intelligent and honorable men.”

Isn’t this a rippingly reckless arraignment of the entire state of South Carolina? Does the Professor of History at Harvard mean to say that the politics of South Carolina is directed by men less intelligent and honorable than those of “most other states”?

If so, upon what ground does he base the accusation?

As a matter of fact, the poor whites do not control South Carolina. It is the middle class whites who control South Carolina, and who elected Ben Tillman to the United States Senate.

Of course, Professor Hart intended to give Senator Tillman a side-wipe of special vigor, and he did it, striking the whole state at the same time he struck Tillman. But to what extent was the blow deserved? Ben Tillman may, or may not, be an ideal Senator. He may, or may not, be an ideal leader. Opinions differ about that, even in South Carolina.

But why should a Northern writer select a Southern senator and a Southern state to be held up in this insulting manner to public odium? In what respect does Tillman’s record in the Senate, for honesty and ability, compare unfavorably with that of Quay of Pennsylvania, Platt of New York, Aldrich of Rhode Island, or Gorman of Maryland? Each one of those senators has been basely subservient to thievish corporations, and has helped them to fatten on national legislation at the expense of the great body of the people.

Can Dr. Hart say that of Ben Tillman? I defy him to do it.

Dr. Hart asks, “Why should the negro expect protection when the white man is powerless against any personal white enemy who chooses to shoot him down in the street, when not one white murderer in a hundred is punished for his crime?”

Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart is evidently thinking about the case of James Tillman, of South Carolina, who shot down in the street Editor Gonzales, and who was acquitted, on his trial.

By all sane persons it is admitted to be utterly unfair to judge the entire South, or North, by any one case, or by any one crime.

It is useless to argue the guilt or innocence of James Tillman; but we all know that human nature is prejudiced by political feeling; and none will deny that the feud between Tillman and Gonzales was a political feud. The killing was a political killing. In a case like that the action of court and jury will be influenced by political feeling, whether the result be right or wrong.

Has Albert Bushnell Hart never heard of a political feud in any other part of the world than the South, and has he never known political feeling to protect one who was prosecuted for a crime? Has he never known of instances in Northern cities where prisoners at the Bar apparently owed their salvation to secret societies of any sort—or to political pull of any sort?

It has not been so very long since Edward S. Stokes met James Fisk on the staircase, in the Grand Central Hotel, in New York City, and shot him down.

One might think this amounted to about the same thing as the shooting down of a personal enemy on the street.

Fisk died, as Gonzales died. Stokes was tried, as Tillman was tried. Stokes was not hanged in New York any more than Tillman was hanged in South Carolina.

Will Dr. Hart please furnish an explanation which will not fit the South Carolina case as snugly as it fits the New York case?

Professor Hart asks, “Why should the Northern people believe that the South means well by the negro when such a man as Governor Vardaman, of Mississippi, brutally threatens him and his white friends in the North?”

When and where has Governor James K. Vardaman “brutally threatened the negro and his Northern friends”?

Governor Vardaman, not many days ago, risked his political life, to say nothing of personal danger, to protect a negro from a white mob. Perhaps every white man in the mob had voted for Vardaman, and was his personal and political friend; yet, although it was generally believed that the negro was guilty of a heinous offense, this Governor, who has been singled out for abuse, did not hesitate one moment to jeopardize his whole political future by throwing around the hunted negro the official protection of the law.

No matter how much Governor Vardaman may be mistaken in some of his views, and some of his utterances, no man ought now to deny that he possesses personal and political courage, or that his respect for law is of that high character which proclaims, “The color of a man’s skin shall not be the measure of his legal rights.”

Furthermore, Dr. Hart says, “in one respect the poor whites are terrible teachers to the negroes; they are an ungovernable people and do not allow themselves to be punished for such peccadillos as murder.”

O Mr. Professor of History at Harvard! has your blind passion against the South lost you to all sense of proportion in the making of public statements?

If the poor whites of the South “do not allow themselves to be punished for such little things as murder,” why do they go to the penitentiary at all?

You will find a sufficient number of poor whites in the penitentiaries of the South—are they there just for the fun of it?

Speaking of the negro, Dr. Hart again says, “he may not murder or assault, or even speak saucily to a white person, on most dreadful penalties. Partly for self-protection, still more from a feeling of race supremacy, it is made a kind of lèse-majesté for a negro to lay hands on a white man; even to defend his family or his own life, the serpent must not bite the heel of the chosen people.”

What utter disregard of facts!

Let me cite a few cases which come within my personal knowledge.

In McIntosh County, Georgia, one of the most prominent white planters was deputized by the sheriff to arrest a negro who had been engaged in a riot. The white man authorized to arrest the negro went to his house and called for him at night. The negro refused to come out. The deputy forced his way in, and the negro shot him dead. There were three negroes in the house, all participating in resisting the officer.

The white man’s court acquitted two of the negroes, and sent one up for ten years.

In the penitentiary of Georgia, at this time, are some white men serving out their terms at hard labor for an outrage committed on a negro man in one of the country counties near Atlanta.

A white man, by the name of Alec Harvill, belonging to the class of poor whites, was tried for murder in one of the Piedmont counties for which Mr. Hart has such a contempt, and was convicted.

He is now serving a term in the penitentiary, as he has been doing for the last five or six years.

How was he convicted? Upon the testimony of a single negro witness. Nobody saw the alleged crime, or pretended to have seen it, except this negro boy.

And yet the white judge and the white jury believed the negro in preference to the father or mother of the accused.

In another of the Piedmont counties of Georgia a white man outraged a negro woman.

Within the last ninety days that criminal has been tried by a white judge and jury—the prosecution being pushed by the state of Georgia through her Attorney-General.

The lower court convicted the criminal, the Supreme Court has affirmed the finding, and the white man will have to meet the penalty of the law for his violation of a negro woman.

Several years ago a white man named Robinson, living in Waynesboro, Ga., killed a negro.

The white man had cursed a negro woman, who had “put in her mouth” while he was holding a conversation with a negro man.

When Robinson cursed the woman the deceased threw off his coat and rushed at Robinson, exclaiming, “I won’t stand that!”

Robinson backed, saying, “Don’t come on me! Stand back!”

The negro continued to advance; Robinson drew his pistol and shot his assailant.

Robinson was tried, convicted and sent to the penitentiary.

In Wilkes County, Ga., a convict boss whipped a negro convict who sulked and wouldn’t work. The negro had a bad character, and was serving sentence for a grave offense.

The whipping may possibly have caused the negro’s death, though there was much testimony to the effect that he died from natural causes.

At any rate, a white judge and jury convicted the boss who inflicted the whipping, and he had to serve his time in the penitentiary. Robert Cannon was his name.

In another instance I myself furnished the evidence of maltreatment of a negro convict in the Georgia penitentiary, and, the facts being made known to the Governor of Georgia, a fine of $2,500 was imposed on the Convict Lessee Company.

The Governor was General John B. Gordon.

The name of the negro convict was Bill Sturgis.

Examples like these could be multiplied indefinitely from Georgia and every Southern state.

Another astonishing fact is related by Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart.

“The most intelligent white people admit the fact that they are trying to keep the negro down because otherwise the lowest white men will marry negro women.”

Now, where on earth did Dr. Hart get that?

Does not Dr. Hart know that the antipathy between the negro and the poor white is, and always has been, greater than the antipathy between the negro and the property-owning white?

Does not Dr. Hart himself, in another part of his article, express the belief that a dangerous antagonism exists between the poor whites and the negro?

Does Professor Hart believe that the true reason why the Southern people wish to maintain white supremacy is to keep poor whites from marrying negro women? Does he not realize that he makes himself a laughing-stock when he gives his name to a statement of that kind? No white man, rich or poor, wants a negro woman for a wife!

Dr. Hart may put that down as a proposition which is absolutely true.

There are many white men, unfortunately, who establish relations of concubinage with negro women, and this crime is frequently punished in the Southern courts; but where is the evidence that white men wish to take negro wives?

If that inclination is so strong, so ungovernable as to become the motive of the South in maintaining white supremacy, it should be capable of proof. Now, where is the proof? Produce it, Dr. Hart!

The simple truth of the matter is that Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart has allowed himself to be stuffed with a whole lot of nonsense upon a subject which he does not understand.

Now for a parting quotation from this precious article of Harvard’s professional historian:

“Good people (in the South) rarely make much distinction between the man who is guilty and the man who looks like a criminal; between shooting him down in the street or burning him at the stake; between burning the guilty man or his innocent wife; between the quiet family inferno with only two or three hundred spectators and a first-class, advertised auto-da-fé with special trains, and the children of the public schools in the foreground.”

There you have it, in all its true amplitude and animus!

“The good people” of the South do not strive, according to Dr. Hart, to draw the line of distinction between the man who is guilty and the man who simply looks guilty. They establish no real distinction between the guilty man and his innocent wife. It makes no difference to these “good people” whether they have a quiet family inferno, with two or three hundred spectators, or the first-class, advertised burning, when special trains are run and the public-school teachers give the children a recess in order that they may attend the exhibition!

If that is not mere partisanship, frothing at the mouth, what is it?

It certainly cannot be seriously taken as a truthful summing up of a general situation.

An irresponsible stump-speaker, in the reckless rush of a hot political campaign, would have better sense than to deal in hyperbole in that furious fashion.

But when a man of Dr. Hart’s standing publishes stuff like this it does harm. It misleads the North and arouses passionate indignation in the South.

When Dr. Hart does work of that wild sort he is no longer a historian; he is simply an incendiary. He is a child playing with fire.

If I were to apply to the North the same measure which Professor Hart has applied to the South, could I not convict the “good people” of his section, as he has convicted “the good people” of mine?

Are “the good people” of the entire North to be held up as utterly lawless, making a jest of “such peccadillos as murder,” because of the late doings at Wilmington, Del., or at Springfield, O.?

Has Indiana had no lynchings; has Colorado had no carnival of crime?

James Tillman, of South Carolina, “shot down in the street” a mortal political foe who had, beyond all question, given him great provocation.

I do not say that James Tillman was justified in his act—I merely say that he had provocation, great provocation.

He was acquitted, but he was not sent to Congress.

He left the court-room a broken, chastened man; and is now leading a life of sobriety, industry and rectitude.

Not many years ago, on a Sunday morning, a saloon-keeper and his son, in the city of Boston, Mass., beat down a drunken man who had broken a window-pane of said saloon—beat him down on the streets, and kicked him to death after he was down.

Apparently the man’s sole offense was that he had broken a pane of glass and refused to pay for it.

The saloon was open in violation of law.

The glass was broken by a man too drunk to know what he was doing.

And the two men of Boston fell upon the helpless, drunken wretch, and kicked him to death in the streets.

Was Massachusetts and all the North condemned for that?

What became of the homicides?

One received a nominal punishment, which was not a real punishment; and the other boasts that he was never punished at all.

Where was the boast made?

In the House of Representatives of the United States—for Boston, Mass., actually sent to Congress the man who had helped to kick another man to death in the streets!

His name? John A. Sullivan. I beg pardon—it is,

The Honorable John A. Sullivan.

South Carolina is far behind Massachusetts—she has not yet sent James Tillman to Congress.

In the name of the Good God who made us all—are we never to hear the last of these bitter revilings of the South?

Are we never to reach the Era of Good Feeling for which so many strong men have toiled, so many pure women have prayed?

Will the blind Apostles of Hate never “Let us have Peace”?

Shall the marplot and the bigot and the partisan and the Pharisee forever be able to thwart the nobler efforts of nobler men?

Shall Ransy Sniffle always succeed in embroiling those who want to be friends?

When I think of Abraham Lincoln—magnanimous, broad, far-seeing, praising the Confederates who had stormed the heights at Gettysburg, calling upon the band to play “Dixie” on the night following Lee’s surrender—and then contemplate this narrow, spiteful, out-of-date Professor of History at Harvard, I realize more than ever how much the South lost when a madman assassinated the statesman who had her blood in his veins, sympathy for her in his heart, and a knowledge of her in his mind.

In vain will Congress return the battle-flags of the Lost Cause, in vain will the McKinleys and the Roosevelts labor for the Era of Good Feeling, if the violent partisans of the North, playing into the hands of the almost obsolete fire-eaters of the South, give to sectional hatreds a new lease of life.

Remember the Rascals

The law provides that a Congressman shall be paid a salary of $5,000 per year; and in order that the compensation shall be equal, among members, the Government pays their traveling expenses. Otherwise the Representative who comes from the Pacific coast to the Capital, paying his way, would realize very much less on his salary than a Representative from Maryland or Virginia.

The cost of travel was greater in the olden days than now, and the free pass had not then become one of the devil’s favorite inventions. Consequently, the lawmakers declared that the taxpayers should furnish twenty cents per mile to meet the expenses of the Representative in going from his home to the post of duty.

Inasmuch as every member of Congress—occasional cranks excepted—now rides on the free passes, the mileage has become a considerable addition to the salary.

A member who lives west of the Mississippi will find his pay increased a sixth, or a fifth, according to the distance from the Atlantic seaboard; while the delegate who comes from Hawaii will pocket considerably more than $2,000 for the alleged cost of getting to Washington.

So far, good. Everybody knows that Congressmen do not pay their way, and everybody knows that mileage no longer has any honest foundation; but we’ve got used to the grab, and we let it go, as inevitable, with a weary sigh of hopeless disgust.

But the Congress which recently adjourned broke all previous records and gave the country a new chapter in the record of brazen dishonor.

Previous to the meeting of the regular session there had been an extra session. This held on till the regular session began. There was no interval between the two. So far as time was concerned, the one ran into the other. Hence, no member went home from the extra session and came back to the regular session.

There was absolutely no “recess” at all—not a minute between the one session and the other.

Now, behold the evil influence of a bad example.

The President got the idea that while there was no actual recess between the two sessions of Congress, there was a “constructive” recess.

The Mephistopheles who whispered this baleful advice in the ear of Mr. Roosevelt was a better friend to the appointees who were to benefit by it—General Wood and Dr. Crum, for example—than they were to the President. The members of Congress were not slow to reason the case to this effect:

If there has been such a recess as to give General Wood a promotion in the army, and to Dr. Crum a fat office in the revenue service, then it has been a recess for all purposes.

“If the President can fill offices upon a supposed recess, we can fill our pocket with mileage upon the same supposition.

“The whole thing being imaginary, that theory which puts Wood higher up on the pay-roll, and which puts a negro in the Custom House at Charleston, will also imagine that we went home during the supposed recess, and that we have just returned from Georgia, Alabama, Wisconsin, California and the state of Washington. It’s a poor rule that won’t work both ways.”

The law clothes the President with the power to make recess appointments—which rids him of the necessity of consulting the Senate. In this instance, he created a recess in his mind, when none existed in fact, and the result was good for Wood and Crum.

The imaginary recess having been created by the President, the members of the Lower House took an imaginary trip home during the imaginary recess, and then proposed that they be paid their imaginary expenses, not in imaginary money, but in hard cash.

Therefore, sixty-odd Republicans and forty-odd Democrats, and two Union Labor men, voted to give themselves $190,000 of the people’s money to pay for imaginary journeys made during an imaginary recess.

It is doubtful if a more shameless attempt to steal from the public treasury has ever been attempted.

The Senate killed the measure, not because the Senate itself is so pure and honest—for it isn’t—but because it could safely rebuke the House—which it despises—and pose as Watch-dog of the Treasury, without loss to itself.

The people are entitled to know the names of the rascals who tried to steal $190,000 of their money.

Tennessee will not be shocked to know that “Slippery Jim” Richardson voted for the grab.

She may be shocked to know that Brownlow did the same thing—Brownlow, the son of the famous Parson.

South Carolina may be astonished to learn that on the roll of dishonor are the names of Aiken and Legare.

Virginia will see that she has been misrepresented by the vote of Maynard.

Louisiana will find three of her votes on the shameful list—Pujo and Broussard and Davey.

The Democracy of Missouri may feel indignant at the vote of Hunt, and Mississippi at that of Hill.

As the list of names is printed elsewhere, it is not necessary to particularize further; but I note one thing with special interest.

The Massachusetts Congressman who was selected by the enemies of W. R. Hearst to attack him on the floor of the House gave the country a chance to learn who was the cleaner, better man.

Hearst did not vote for the steal; Sullivan, of Massachusetts, did!

The people of Georgia may wish to know where Congressman Bartlett was when the vote was being taken. His name is not recorded against the steal. Nor is that of Brantley or that of Adamson.

Where were they?

These three gentlemen are paid $15,000 per year to stay in their places and safeguard the rights of the people who elected them.

Where were these three Georgians when this piece of rascality was being put through the House? If they were necessarily absent why did they not arrange “pairs,” and thus give their votes to defeat the robbers? Did they DODGE?

If so, Why?

Alabama will want to know where Bankhead and Wiley were; Texas will ask explanations of Stephens; Tennessee of Sims; Kentucky of Hopkins and Stanley.

Every man who voted for the mileage grab, or who dodged the vote, should be marked for political punishment by the constituency which he betrayed.

Introductory to a Letter from a Boy

As a rule, I do not help schoolboys in writing their speeches or in preparing for debates. In fact, I make it a rule not to do so.

It is best for the boy to dig his own bait. The sooner he learns to rely upon himself, the better. In that way only will he become strong.

But sometimes I break my own rules—for the sake of variety, perhaps—and I did it not long ago when a certain college in Georgia took as a subject for debate the proposition:

“Resolved, That the South should have supported Watson in the last Presidential election.”

Of course, there were but two names to be considered in the discussion—Watson and Parker.

Teddy wasn’t in it at all. And that is a queer thing, too, for about one-third of the white people of Georgia believe just as Teddy does about the money question, the Tariff system, the Panama business, the Philippine policy, the big navy project, the Railroad rate reduction, and so forth and so on.

But they wouldn’t vote for Teddy to save his life.

And why?

They have a distinct presentiment that if they should vote for a man like Roosevelt they would never dare to go to sleep again lest they wake up next morning and find niggers sitting at the breakfast-table on the level of social equality.

Consequently, Roosevelt didn’t cut any ice in the schoolhouse debate.

Parker and I—we had it all to ourselves. Good-natured people will not begrudge this honor to Parker and me, I am sure, for we are clearly entitled to something, and Teddy has just about carried off everything else. He can afford to be generous, and to let two of his late competitors wear the laurels in a college debate away down in Georgia.

Whether Parker coached the boys on his side I am not informed.

If he didn’t, they must have had a tough job getting up “points.” It is a task at which the average boy would need prompt and patient assistance.

Perhaps, W. J. B. was appealed to. At all events, he should have been. The Nebraska Talk-Factory turns out quite a variety of finished product, and the kind of garment it wove for the adornment of Parker, late in the last campaign, was a marvel in its way—especially when one considers how suddenly the machinery had to be readjusted to fill that particular order.

As to myself, I frankly confess that I “suspended the rules” and gave my champion some “points.” This was wrong, but human.

Had I known that the judges presiding over the debate were two Democrats and a Republican, I would have furnished points to the Parker side, also. Then my champions would have come out ahead.

My private opinion is that I could have coached the Parker champions in such a way that even a pied-piper tribunal, composed of two Georgia Democrats and a New York Republican, would have had to call in a fourth man to know how to decide.

Provided, always, that W. J. B. had stayed out of it.

Of course, when he butts in, nobody can say what may happen.

Well, the boys debated, the judges decided, and Parker won out.

The remainder of the story is related by the ingenuous youth who fought for me in that contest, and I am going to give you his letter just as he wrote it.

THE LETTER

Manassas, Ga., March 13, 1905.

Hon. T. E. Watson, Thomson, Ga.

My Dear Sir: On the fourth of January you were so kind as to send me a few very strong points for my speech. About the same time Hon. Jas. K. Hines also sent me some points.

Our debate was postponed until the tenth inst. For I was sure we would need ample time to prepare for such a fight as we would have to make.

In my letter to you I mentioned the opposition which I thought we would have to encounter, and the amount of interest that would be manifested in such a subject.

In this I was not disappointed or mistaken.

The badges were eagerly sought all day previous to the debate, and the Watson badges were worn by quite a number.

The Auditorium was filled with people. The rostrum was covered with an arch, coming from either side of the stage, made of ribbon.

Half of the arch was made of the Watson colors, and half of the Parker colors.

As I entered town that afternoon I heard a little boy cry, “Hurrah for Tom Watson!” This alone paid me for the effort and work on the debate.

To secure impartial judges was the one thing dreaded from the start, and in this we made a miserable failure.

Two Democrats and a Republican were the best we could do. Or at least the third man came from New York.

My colleague opened with a strong speech. Before the first on the negative side finished, all my fear had vanished, and I was really anxious to have my say.

The chairman reprimanded some little boys for bumping their heads, a few moments before I began. I opened by saying that I wanted one of those little boys to bump his head as much as he liked because I heard him cry, “Hurrah for Tom Watson!” Turning to the audience, I asked all the little girls to remember that little boy at the proper time. Then I carried the little fellow step by step from the Claxton Institute to the President’s chair on the People’s Party Platform.

Our speeches over, the committee retired for consultation.

Our opponents looked the worst whipped of any I ever saw.

The audience began to call for Watson badges to take the place of their Parker ones.

It is generally very much out of place for anyone to accuse a committee of a wrong decision on purpose, but the case was so plain that I do not hesitate to say that their decision was based on the condition of their hearts before they heard our speeches.

But many were on our side. One of the Emory College boys, a very prominent physician and a strong Democrat, and brother-in-law to one of the committee, was outspoken in saying that the affirmative side won.

I never cared for the decision being given against me so little as I did this time, for everyone, almost, in the audience knew the right.

Our debate no doubt resulted in waking up the people to some degree, for our opponents could only eulogize you.

Ever rest assured of my highest appreciation of the points sent me.

Wishing that you may live long to continue your fight for the many against the few, I am,

Very respectfully yours,

S. B. McCall.

A missive like the foregoing is decidedly interesting to me, and the spirit moves me to say certain things to my correspondent, which I do, in manner and form following, to wit:

A LETTER TO A BOY

My Dear Young Friend: I do not know you personally, have never grasped your hand and looked into your eyes, but your letter makes me think well of you.

In the first place, it discloses the fact that after all your careful preparation for the debate, you made an extemporaneous speech. Good. No one can be a debater on any other terms. It is possible that one may be an orator and be unable to leave the written form, but the gift of extemporaneous expression is absolutely essential to a debater.

To think on one’s legs—that’s a gift; and it seems that you have it.

Again, I learn from your letter that you knew you had on your hands a hard task in maintaining the unpopular side of the debate, and that you did not shrink from the burden. Good again. That’s the way to become a man. The boy who is ever on the lookout for the easy job, the popular side, and who runs away from obstacles or opposition, will always remain a boy—and not much of a boy at that.

There is but one rule for you if you want to be a man—absolutely but one—and that is to do your level best to reach a clear, correct idea of what is right, and then stick to it and fight for it, in spite of the “world, the flesh and the devil.”

This rule will make you enemies, and will give you just about as many hard knocks as are needful to your health, but if you want to be a man, that’s the price you’ve got to pay.

You say you found difficulty in securing impartial judges.

Well, I should think so.

The “impartial judge” is one of those pleasing fancies with which we amuse ourselves, for the reason that we can’t help it. We have got to get decisions some way or other, and we don’t quite like the idea of settling grave questions by spitting at a mark, or of guessing whether it is heads or tails in the tossing of a coin—therefore, we resort to “the impartial judge.”

It is one of the jokes of Christian civilization which nobody laughs at because we have agreed that it is not a joke.

Just between me and you, the “impartial judge” is brother to the “non-partisan editor,” and twin-brother to the “disinterested office-seeker.”

You say that it is generally wrong to criticize the conduct of those who make decisions.

You are mistaken about that. It is generally the proper thing to do. And it is often the only thing you can do. True, it is not as much satisfaction as we are entitled to, but it’s something.

What would baseball be, if we couldn’t cuss the umpire?

How could lawyers who lost their cases blow off the indignation, if they couldn’t cuss the judge?

You state that you were not cast down by the decision which went against you. Right. Why should you be?

Whatever was true, previous to the decision, was true afterward.

And there’s where our political leaders fall down.

They go about the country telling the people that a certain candidate for office is “unfit for the nomination,” and after he is nominated the same politicians claim that the nomination makes him fit.

How can a nomination make a bad man good?

That’s a deferred question which W. J. B. will answer some day or other, and you will then see it done to the queen’s taste.

Evidently you are not discouraged by the fact that you went up against a tribunal which wouldn’t yield to reason, eloquence, fact or fancy—a tribunal which had made up its mind before its members heard your speech. Right again. It’s your duty to furnish the convincing argument; it is not in your power to supply judges with minds open to conviction.

Bigger men than you have run up against immovable obstacles of that kind.

Consider W. J. B., for instance. He found, in New England, a lot of tribunals, the low, the high and the middle, which were not to be convinced that he, W. J. B., was entitled to $50,000 that old Mr. Bennett thought he was leaving to our Nebraska friend by will.

You and I would think that as the money belonged to Bennett, and Bennett had declared in writing that W. J. B. should have it, the judges would not interfere.

But they did. No amount of eloquence, of the best W. J. B. sort, could budge them an inch. Our Nebraska friend got knocked out all along the line.

Did it cast him down?

Not in the least. He is as cheerful—not to say saucy—as you are over your little tumble. That is just the way to be: but one should always try to get some lesson out of one’s defeats, so that one will know better how to do next time.

If you should ask W. J. B. what lesson he has learned from that series of knockdowns in the New England courts, he would answer: “The next time a benevolent Yankee comes to my house, and offers to make me a bequest of $50,000, I will take him out and introduce him to a safe and sane lawyer who knows how to draw a will.”

Cultivate what is best in your character and mind.

Do not imitate anybody.

Study good models for the purpose of making the best possible man out of yourself.

Develop your pride—not your vanity, conceit or egotism.

Be too proud to stoop to anything mean.

Associate with the best people. If among your companions there are those whose talk or conduct is vile, weed them out from your life.

I feel deeply on this point, and I repeat, WEED THEM OUT.

Cultivate the honesty which makes a man what he appears to be.

Don’t be a sham.

Be a reality—as earnest, powerful and fearless as is possible to your nature.

When defeat knocks you down, don’t lie there. As soon as you get your breath back, rise, brush the dust off, and go up against the enemy again.

Reach a clear conception of what you want to do, and can do; be sure that this is something noble in itself—then hammer away with all your might, and keep hammering.

Remember that modesty is almost as becoming to a man as to a woman, but that humility has no place in man’s relation to man.

If you are not as good as any other man, it’s your fault.

The world, and all its rewards, are as much yours as anybody’s.

But remember this also: the race is to the swift, and the battle is to the strong, USUALLY.

If you would win the race, be swift; if the battle, be strong.

An Educational Department

There are thousands of boys and girls, some in schools and colleges, some not, who are anxious to learn, to develop themselves and to RISE.

Many, many things they yearn to know which the class-room teachers do not teach.

Many a subject they are eager to study, if somebody will but show the way.

Often there are speeches to be made, essays to be written, debates to be prepared, and the boys and girls simply do not know how to start about it.

For instance, they are suddenly required to speak or write on the question:

“Should the Government own and operate the railroads?”

They have never read anything about it, perhaps. Therefore they inquire:

“Where can we get some literature on the subject?”

These young people do not want someone else to write their speeches or essays; they want nothing more than to be told where to get the materials to work with—the data upon which to construct their own argument.

When I was a boy I felt the need of that kind of help very keenly.

How was I to know what books contained the information sought?

Who could tell me?

I soon found that teachers did not love to be bored by inquiries of that character, and therefore I had to browse around in the library at random for what was wanted.

If the book needed was there, I generally found it, after wasting much time in the search.

If it was not there, as frequently happened, I was at my row’s end. I had to debate without the full preparation which should have been made.

To help out many a student who may be troubled as I used to be, I am going to improvise and conduct in this magazine a modest little Educational Department.

Primarily it is meant for the young people. But the rule will be made as flexible as I feel like making it.

Age limits are not fair—no matter whether Osler was joking or not.

It is not my plan or purpose to write anybody’s speech or essay; but, where there is a subject of real importance to be discussed by word or pen, I am willing to direct the preparation of the student by telling him or her where the necessary information can be had.

It would perhaps not be improper for me to suggest some general ideas on the subject to be discussed—these ideas to be worked out and put in form by the student.

Often I might render good service to the boys and girls by telling them where the books they need can be bought at the lowest price.

It took me many years to learn how to buy books, and it is a thing worth knowing—unless you have more money than I ever had.

The letters written to me in this department will be published as written; but the names of the writers will be withheld.

Therefore, no correspondent need be embarrassed in making inquiries.

My replies will be given in the magazine.

Hereafter all letters asking for information—historical, literary, political, economic—will be answered through the EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT.

P. S.—Students are requested not to ask help on this subject, viz.:

“Resolved, That there is more happiness in the pursuit than in the possession.”

Those whose duty it is to maintain “the pursuit” will please consult Mr. Bryan; those who sustain “the possession” are referred to Mr. Roosevelt.

Editorial Comment

Those orthodox partisan editors who sneered at my comment on W. R. Hearst as a man who did things while others were talk—talk—talking, will please study the election returns from Chicago and hand me out revised opinions.

That was a Hearst fight, and Hearst himself was personally in the thick of it. He said little and accomplished much.

Would still like to swap a score or two of mere talkers like—well, no matter—for another such myth as Hearst.

A wise man—and his name is Dennis—has an article in the April number of Everybody’s to prove that free trade has created in England that poverty-stricken mass of humanity which he includes under the general name of “Hooligan.”

According to Mr. Robert Hunter, the Hooligans of the United States aggregate 10,000,000—and we haven’t had any free trade, either.

Evidently the wise Mr. Dennis has not located the true cause of poverty in England.

It was famine, and the high price of bread, which forced Sir Robert Peel to abandon protection and to carry free trade into effect.

Bread was cheapened and the cost of living reduced.

Did that inflict such great misery upon the poor?

If the wise Mr. Dennis will study the subject more thoroughly he will probably reach the conclusion that poverty in England is the product of land monopoly, a vicious financial system and a governmental establishment in which a lot of hereditary bloodsuckers prey upon the body politic.

Free trade is the law of nature; it never did, and never can produce national misery, poverty or decadence.

If the wise Mr. Dennis will study the subject thoroughly he will discover that the Corn Laws of 1815 were passed for the purpose of giving special benefits to the landlords of Great Britain. By the poor the act was regarded as such a direct attack upon themselves—such a barefaced design to make them pay higher prices for the necessaries of life—that resistance to the law grew riotous and had to be put down by force.

Says Justin McCarthy, the historian:

“The poor everywhere saw the bread of their family threatened, saw the food of their children almost taken out of their mouths, and they broke into wild extremes of anger.”

But the soldiers were called out, the riots put down, and a sufficient number of the poor hanged to quell the remainder.

Thus the land monopolists of Great Britain—many of whose titles to their enormous holdings are tainted with all manner of fraud and wrong enforced and odious law which robbed the poor to benefit the rich.

In 1817 the troops were used again to crush the laborers who were crying out against oppression.

In 1819 soldiers were used once more.

Then the submission of despair brought quiet times until 1830, when the people again attempted to throw off the hateful yoke of barbarous laws. In the House of Commons Sir Francis Burdett denounced the Duke of Wellington as

“Shamefully insensible to the suffering and distress which were painfully apparent throughout the land.”

“O’Connell declared that many thousands of persons had to subsist in Ireland on three half-pence per day.”

A tolerably successful workingman sometimes got sixty-five cents a week, and the price of the four-pound loaf was twenty-five cents.

From 1830 to 1836 matters went from bad to worse. Business was depressed, trade stagnant, poverty severe in many parts of the country.

In 1838 a crisis came. Three-fifths of the manufacturing establishments of Lancashire shut down. Thousands of workmen were thrown adrift, moneyless, foodless, desperate.

It was then that three great men, Cobden, Bright and Villiers, seized the leadership of Discontent and began the famous crusade against Protection, as typified in the Corn Laws of Great Britain. “Vested interests,” of course, raised the usual howl.

The land monopolists stubbornly closed up in lines of sullen opposition to reform. They beat off every attack, pocketing year after year the famine prices which the people were compelled to pay for bread.

Suddenly, in the summer of 1845, a cold, wet, sunless season fell upon the British Isles and the whole potato crop of Ireland—the sole dependence of the vast majority of the Irish people—rotted.

The food of Ireland was gone; in her poverty she could not pay the English landlord’s price for bread, and the Corn Laws forbade her buying the cheap bread of America and Continental Europe.

It was then that Lord John Russell attacked the whole system of Protection as “the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter divisions among classes, the cause of penury, fever and crime among the people.”

It was then that the great Tory Minister, Sir Robert Peel, followed the promptings of his heart and determined that the people should have cheaper food.

He abolished the Corn Laws, and conferred inestimable blessings upon the common people of his country.

The noble act cost him his political life—for that was the penalty which outraged land monopoly, led by Disraeli, inflicted upon its former chief.

The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846.

Mr. Dennis comes along and tells us that Free Trade is responsible for “Hooligan”—for poverty in England.

Mr. Rider Haggard—now in this country in the interest of Hooligan—ought to know as much about the poor of Great Britain as Dennis knows.

What does Rider Haggard say?

That the present deplorable condition of the English poor began with 1874.

How, then, can that condition be connected with the Corn Law repeal?

May it not be logically connected with legislation of more recent date?

Or may it not be connected with economic developments elsewhere?

Tremendous changes in the conditions of people in Europe and America have been brought about by financial legislation much more nearly contemporaneous with 1874 than the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.

Then, again, the vast addition to the wheat and corn areas in the United States alone have had a mighty influence on prices in Great Britain.

It may be that rents are so high in England that the tenant farmer finds it impossible to pay his tribute to the land monopolist, compete with American grain fields, and have anything left for himself.

Indeed, Mr. Haggard states that one of the reasons why the agricultural laborer is so disheartened in England is that there is no chance for him to become the owner of land.

An exchange says:

“The headmaster of an English school says he read Roosevelt’s inaugural to his boys and asked them where it was found. Unanimously they answered, ‘Jowett’s translation of Thucydides.’ Whereupon the headmaster gives us parallel columns to show that Pericles said it all before, on an occasion somewhat similar. But Teddy is too honest to crib; he was deceived by his clerk on oratory. Let it go at that.”

If it is true that Mr. Roosevelt did use one of the speeches of Pericles as an inaugural address, Mr. Bryan may wish he had not been so quick with the announcement that it was a poor speech. Pericles is generally considered to have been an orator who would have compared not unfavorably with W. J. B. himself.

The India-rubber qualities of the Monroe Doctrine are being made manifest with a vengeance.

Once we understood it to mean, in a general way, that Europe must “Hands off”—no more conquest, colonization, or extension of the European system to the American Continent.

By Mr. Cleveland, England was told, with firmness, that she couldn’t steal Venezuela’s land, even though the theft consisted of the simple device of moving the boundary line.

With Mr. Roosevelt’s advent to power comes a decidedly new chapter in the evolution of the Monroe Doctrine.

We are to assume a sort of Trusteeship for adjacent governments.

We must see to it that they conduct themselves decently and in order. They must pay their debts to citizens of other countries and behave themselves generally in a way that meets our approval.

Mr. Roosevelt, in advancing the Monroe Doctrine to this extent, has undertaken a big contract for this country.

If we are to be the Policeman for South America, Santo Domingo, Cuba, Mexico and Central America, we must, first of all, have a powerful navy.

This is clear to everybody.

What is not so clear is that a powerful standing army will inevitably follow—as sure as fate, it will follow.

For it is certain that a natural result of our hectoring, bulldozing, overlord attitude toward countries like those mentioned will make them our bitter enemies. South America already hates us, and has cause to hate us.

The manner in which we sanctioned the collection of claims against Venezuela, by the warships of Europe will not be forgotten.

This feeling will be intensified by Mr. Roosevelt’s recent utterances, and will spread through all the peoples affected by it.

If we are to compel these governments to knuckle down to every Asphalt Trust, or other speculative syndicate, which enters the country for the purpose of exploitation, the time will certainly come when our attempts to make them conform to our standard of what is decent and orderly in dealing with plundering corporations will be resisted.

What then?

Our navy can bombard the cities of the coast, but will our marines leave the ships and defeat the land forces of the interior?

Evidently not.

What, therefore, must we do?

Send army against army, as we shall have sent navy against navy.

Consequently the same policy which logically requires a powerful navy will likewise require a powerful standing army.

And our masters know it!

Mr. Roosevelt:

Do you, also, laugh at young Garfield?

Please don’t give us any more of that silly boy.

More than one-half the voters of Colorado cast their ballots for Alva Adams, candidate for Governor.

But Adams did not get the place.

Less than half the voters supported James Peabody, and Peabody acted as Governor for one day.

Not a soul voted for Jesse McDonald for Governor, yet Jesse gets the whole term of office, excepting the one day given to Peabody.

The voters of Colorado evidently enjoy self-government about as much as it can be enjoyed.