Editorials (continued 2)

But enough.

It is time to ride down the hill. The tinkle of the cow-bell follows the sinking sun—both on the way home.

So with many an unspoken thought I ride homeward, thinking of those who plant the corn.

And hard indeed would be the heart that, knowing what these people do and bear and suffer, yet would not fashion this prayer to the favored of the republic: “O rulers, lawmakers, soldiers, judges, bankers, merchants, editors, lawyers, doctors, preachers, bondholders! Be not so unmindful of the toil and misery of those who feed you!”

Not Parson Brownlow’s Son

Knoxville, Tenn., April 26, 1905.

Hon. Thomas E. Watson, Thomson, Ga.

Dear Sir: In your article on “Politics and Economics” in Tom Watson’s Magazine for May, you speak of the salary grab of congressmen as follows: “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.”

You are entirely mistaken about Walter P. Brownlow, to whom you refer, being a son of the “famous Parson.” Parson Brownlow has only one son living, Colonel John Bell Brownlow, who commanded the regiment in which I was an officer, the Ninth Tennessee Cavalry Volunteers of the Union troops during the Civil War, and who lives in this city and is not a member of Congress now nor has he ever been.

Please publish this in full in your issue for June and greatly oblige me.

Respectfully,

W. R. Murphy.

P.S.—I am a constant reader of your magazine and am enjoying your articles very much; and not only yours, but those of Frederick Upham Adams. Many of the truths which you utter through the medium of your great magazine will prove to be precious seed sown in the rich soil of the national conscience, and the fruitage will be invaluable.—W. R. M.

Mr. President!

Won’t you please quiet down now and get to business? Don’t you think you can give us a rest on speeches and photographs?

Can’t you leave it to the women to do as they think best on the baby question?

If you will just sit still a while and attend to your own business, you have no idea how many people will be thankfully appreciative.

Why don’t you concentrate your efforts and peg away until you accomplish something?

Why start up so much game which you never bag?

You said you were going to compel the Cattle Kings to take their barbed wire fences off the public lands—and you haven’t done it.

Why don’t you give Colonel John Mosby free rein and let him cut the wire?

You said you were going to discipline the Railroads and the Trusts—and you haven’t done it.

Why don’t you have your prosecuting officers take out warrants for such men as Armour, the Rockefellers and Rogers?

You know they are law-breakers; deal with them as law-breakers.

Don’t seine the pond for minnows when you can harpoon such whales as these.

Hit the big criminals—hit them hard—and eighty million people will cheer you on!

You led us to believe that you meant to revise the Tariff; why don’t you follow it up?

You know that the Trust exists because of the Railroad and the Tariff.

The Railroad gives the special favor; the Tariff prevents foreign Competition—and there you are. The Trust is born of these two Special Favors, one given by the Tariff and the other by private contracts violative of law.

To break any and all Trusts remove the Tariff on the articles controlled by the Trusts, and at the same time relentlessly prosecute as common criminals every Railroad Official, however high and rich, who grants to one shipper any sort of favor not granted to all.

There isn’t a Trust in the United States that you can’t bust in twelve months if you go at it with these weapons.

The Free List for trust-controlled articles; Criminal Warrants for the Armours, Swifts, Harrimans, Rockefellers, Morgans, Belmonts—all who are “in the game.”

Here’s a work worthy of you, Mr. Roosevelt.

It needs you!

It wants your pluck, your energy, your honesty, your tenacity; won’t you buckle to the task?

Let the baby question alone. There will always be plenty of babies.

Don’t you fret about that. The women know what’s what.

Turn your head another way. Put your attention on your job.

A great man’s task invites you—demands you.

Rise to it like a great man!

Did You Know It?

Did you know that a private corporation got its clutch upon the Monongahela River generations ago and shut off free navigation?

Did you know that this private monopoly exercised the power of dictating to every dollar’s worth of produce transported upon that highway the terms upon which it should go to market?

Did you know that the people at large, who were robbed by this gigantic and unnatural monopoly, complained vainly during all these long and dreary years of corporation tyranny?

Did you know that as soon as the corporations which are working in coal and iron got tired of said monopoly and began to complain, our great and good Government at once had ears to hear and eyes that could see?

Did you know that patriots of the Carnegie stripe, who had to pay tribute to the Monongahela monopoly, were losing $425,000 per year to said monopoly; and that Carnegie and Company went to our great and good Government and demanded that said Government buy out said Monongahela monopoly?

Did you know that our great and good Government immediately harkened to the wails of Carnegie and his Company and appointed a commission to assess the value of said Monongahela monopoly?

Did you know that said monopoly, being wise in its generation, realized that its hour had come and that its best policy was to sell out at a high price?

Did you know that the Commission appraised the monopoly franchise at more than three and a half million dollars, and that our great and good Government paid the money?

Did you know that your cash was thus lifted out of the Treasury to pay for a free river for Carnegie and his Company; and that nobody thought it worth while to say “Turkey” to you about it?

This buying-off of the private monopoly which throttled the commerce of a great section was a good thing to do. We are glad it was done. The people can now navigate the Monongahela as freely as Carnegie can do it; but is it not mortifying to reflect that the PEOPLE were powerless against the wrong until the coal and iron kings took the case in hand?

And isn’t it amazing to see how easily the doors of the Treasury fly open, and the millions pour out, when the Privileged Corporations want it done?

When it became a matter of self-interest to the Privileged Corporations to buy out the Monongahela monopoly the Constitution was not in the way nor was the money lacking.

Whenever it suits the same Privileged Classes to unload the Railroads on to the Government at fancy prices it will be done. When that day comes the Constitution will not be in the way nor will the means be lacking.

Whenever the Privileged Classes want anything done the Constitution approves and the cash box is full.

It is only when the masses want anything done that our Constitution becomes a fretful porcupine with quills erect and our cash box has a hollow sound.

If you want to have a jolly time with that gay old creature, the United States Constitution, join the Privileged Corporations.

If you want to frolic with the United States Treasury and pay for what you want with public money, join the Privileged Corporations.

Rural Free Delivery to Country People

(Extract from the People’s Party Paper, March, 1893, Mr. Watson’s paper, commenting upon the passage of the first appropriation for the R. F. D.)

The annual appropriations for the free delivery of mails was, until the present administration, confined to cities of over 10,000 inhabitants. At the suggestion of Mr. Wanamaker, an experiment was made in smaller towns enjoying daily mails, but as yet no country neighborhoods had obtained the privilege.

On Friday, February 17, 1893, when the annual appropriation was pending, Mr. Watson proposed an amendment as follows:

For free delivery service, including existing experimental free delivery offices, $11,254,900, of which the sum of $10,000 shall be applied, under the direction of the Postmaster-General, to experimental free delivery in rural communities other than towns and villages.

Mr. Watson urged that the paragraph proposed to be amended “provides for the expenditure of $11,254,943 for free delivery service. The amendment reduced the amount of that expenditure and simply directed that the Postmaster-General should apply $10,000 of the appropriation to experimental free delivery in rural communities.” The following discussion followed:

Mr. Watson—“Mr. Chairman, the present law provides for an experimental free delivery in rural communities; but as I understand it—and the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Henderson), makes the same statement to the House—the law has been construed to mean cities, towns and villages, and there are now in operation experimental free deliveries in certain towns and villages.

“The law expressly provides for ‘rural communities,’ and it seems to me where the general laws make such provision there is no hardship in taking a small amount from this appropriation, only $10,000, and appropriating it for experimental free delivery in absolutely rural communities, that is to say, in the country pure and simple, among the farmers, in those neighborhoods where they do not get their mail more than once in every two weeks, and where these deserving people have settled in communities one hundred years old and do not receive a newspaper that is not two weeks behind the times.

“The amendment proposes not to increase the appropriation; it actually diminishes it by a nominal amount, but takes $10,000 of it to be provided for experimental free delivery in absolutely rural communities, instead of towns and villages, which the authorities construe to mean ‘rural communities.’ In other words, I think that part of the money ought to be spent in the country, where the law provides it shall be spent, and having made this statement, if we can have another division, and the committee is against my amendment, I will yield to its will.”

Mr. Henderson, of North Carolina—“Mr. Chairman, the only law on the subject at all is in the very language used in this appropriation bill:

“‘For free delivery service, including existing experimental free delivery offices.’

“That is all the law now on the statute-books in regard to this question.

“I do not want the statement of the gentleman from Georgia in regard to there being a law on the statutes as to rural free delivery to go without correction.”

Mr. Watson—“Mr. Chairman, this delivery in the small towns and villages is called ‘rural free delivery.’”

Mr. Henderson, of North Carolina—“But as a matter of fact there is no law except that stated here in this appropriation bill.”

The amendment was adopted by the House. This opens up the way for the farmers to secure services on an equal footing with the residents of the towns and the cities. It is one of the first instances in which the Government has put itself in daily touch with the citizen of the rural community. If followed up by successive Congresses, this entering wedge may cleave the way for a system of intercommunication that will remove a great inconvenience and cause for dissatisfaction in country homes. As a first step its importance cannot be overestimated.

Random Paragraphs

You may say what you please about Castro, but I glory in his spunk.

President of Venezuela, he was sitting comfortably in his seat when, one day, another Venezuelan who wanted the job cooked up an Insurrection.

South American revolutions, like all other procedures in civilized communities, have to be financed.

The question with the leader of the Venezuelan insurrection was:

“Who will finance me?”

The Asphalt Trust stepped forward with necessary funds.

No doubt the Trust was assured by Matos, the Insurgent leader, that in the event his revolution succeeded the Trust was to have dominion over Venezuela, like unto that which Standard Oil has over our own Eden of Christian Civilization.

At any rate, the Trust put up its money on Matos, who turned out to be the wrong horse.

Castro won. But the Trust continued to help Matos even after he had lost. Died hard, you see, because death is not the law of Nature with Trusts. Usually they live and the other fellow dies.

The Asphalt Trust is composed, in part, of American experts in Frenzied Finance. These marauders who were seeking new worlds to conquer planned to catch Venezuela in the same net which holds us.

Castro defied them, fought them in the Courts, whipped them, took away the franchise for non-performance of contract, etc.

Then they had the brazen audacity to demand that our Government coerce Castro.

The Trusts rule the United States—shall little Venezuela check their career of conquest?

Away with the feeble Castro!

Said the Trust to Roosevelt:

“Shake your big stick at this South American crank and make him Arbitrate!”

Says Roosevelt to Castro:

“Arbitrate with the Asphalt Trust, or——”

Says Castro to Roosevelt:

“Arbitrate nothing! Hands off, or——”

In other words, our Government, friendly always to Frenzied Finance, put up a bluff on Castro.

Whereupon Castro stood pat and “called” Roosevelt.

And, all at once, Mr. Roosevelt went a-hunting, and left Taft—the portly, handsome, self-complacent Taft—“sitting on the lid.”

Bully for you, Castro!

Evidently you are “some punkins.”

Would to heaven we had a Castro to smash the Beef Trust!

Roosevelt and young Garfield don’t seem to know where to take hold. The legal proceedings do not advance half so rapidly as does the price of beef.

If you have never read Herbert Casson’s “Organized Self-Help,” do so. A brighter, braver, stronger book is not picked up often. No matter how much you may already know, your information will be greater when you shall have mastered this little volume.

The reason why Sir Plausible Voluble, of Nebraska, is so mixed up on the Railroad Question is that his talk-talk-talk commenced, as usual, before he understood his subject. At first he advocated state ownership, which would have given us forty-odd different systems. Now he has reached the point where he wants the Nation to own national lines of transportation while the states are to own “local lines.” Wouldn’t we have a sweet time deciding which roads are national and which are local?

Under the present system every line of transportation has a double character, partly national and partly local, and the traffic on every line is partly state and partly inter-state.

You can no more separate what is national from what is local in the railroads than you can in the Post-Office.

Every postal route is at once local and national. A letter may come five miles, five hundred or five thousand—the system carries it to its destination.

So with freight and passengers. The so-called local railroad will carry freight from the adjoining county, from the adjoining state, from the remotest section of the Union, and from the lands beyond our borders. So with passengers.

Why, then, should anybody be talking tommyrot about “local lines”?

Said Betsy Prig to Sairey Gamp, concerning the alleged existence of a certain Mrs. Harris, “I don’t believe there is no sich a person.”

Says I to W. J. B., concerning the alleged “local lines of transportation,” I don’t believe there is any such thing as a local line of transportation.

The reasoning which sustains government ownership of a part of the railroads inevitably leads to the ownership of all.

At such a cherry, why take two bites?

Why have a system where there is certain to be a clash between state management and national management?

Why leave the gaps down for inequalities in rates?

Why not insure uniformity by unity of ownership and management?

Why not learn a lesson from the German Empire, and avoid state ownership altogether?

However, I am glad to see that our Nebraska friend is making progress. Give him time, and he will arrive.

For a convert who jumped on our platform of Government Ownership so recently as last July, he does fairly well. But if he would use his thinking apparatus a little more, and his organs of speech a little less, he would get on faster.

“Local lines” of transportation—at this time?

He might as well say that the artery in his left hind leg is a “local artery.”

The New York World says:

“If Judge Parker is a Democrat, Mr. Bryan is not. If Mr. Bryan is a Democrat, Judge Parker is not.

“No party-name is wide enough to blanket two such irreconcilable theories of government.”

That’s where the World falls down.

The Democratic party-name is wide enough to blanket anything and everything, anybody and everybody.

I’ve seen it cover the Prohibitionist and the Saloon-Keeper, the Gold-Bug and the Free-Silverite, the corporation lobbyist and the Bible-class expert, the Free Trader and the Protectionist, the Bank men and the Anti-Bank men, the Income Tax men and the Anti-Income Tax men, the Expansionists and the Imperialists, the Inflationists and the Contractionists, strict Constructionists and those who sent the United States Army to quell a local disturbance in Illinois over the protest of a Democratic Governor.

There is no earthly difference, antagonism, variance of creed, or policy, or purpose, or persons that the Democratic party-name is not “wide enough to blanket.”

The Democratic party-name not wide enough to blanket Judge Parker and W. J. B.?

Oh, yes, it is.

It did so in 1904, and it will do so again.

If Bryan whips Parker in the Convention of 1908, Parkerites will knife Bryan as they did in 1896 and 1900.

If Parker beats Bryan in the Convention, Bryan will “come across” in 1908, as he did in 1904.

This play of politics is a very pretty game, and the politicians get a good deal out of it.

The people are kept interested and excited, but the people don’t get anything out of it.

It is not seriously intended that they should.

Primarily, the game is played for the benefit of the players.

Tom Taggart, the gambling-hell man of Indiana, must feel very funny when he looks back and sees the imposing lines of Democratic preachers, Bible-class graduates, Amen-corner grunters and family-prayer brethren who are meekly following him, Taggart, as he, the official Commander-in-Chief of the Democratic Party, bravely leads his loyal hosts upward and onward.

If Tom T. has any sense of humor he must enjoy such a situation with exquisite relish.

The Gods We Worship

The savage African, in the wilds of his native home, takes a few sticks and some cloth and makes an idol which he calls Mumbo Jumbo, and before which he falls prostrate, in devout worship.

Whereat we civilized fools all laugh at said African, and call him a barbarian—as indeed he is.

Nevertheless, it is quite apparent that while we make no gods out of sticks and calico, we worship Mumbo Jumbos of our own just the same.

Take, for instance, the Gold Reserve. Nature did not produce it; it has no life, no motion other than that which we lunatics give it.

One day it occurred to John Sherman to stack up, in the Treasury, a cool hundred million dollars, and keep it there, idle.

He straightway created the Gold Reserve.

Any law for this? No.

Any necessity for it? No.

Any popular demand for it? No.

His excuse was that he wanted a Gold Reserve out of which to pay off the $346,000,000 in Greenbacks “when presented for redemption.”

Was anybody clamoring for the redemption of Greenbacks? No.

Was there any law under which anybody had a right to go to the Treasury and demand gold for Greenbacks? No.

Was there any custom or policy which authorized this setting apart of gold to redeem Greenbacks? No.

But Sherman did it, just the same, and it soon appeared that he had made us a Mumbo Jumbo which we all worshiped and before whose mysterious power we all fell prostrate.

As long as Sherman was Secretary of the Treasury the Gold Reserve was sacred. Congress looked upon it with awe. The President did it reverence. The newspapers bent to it in speechless adoration. The politicians rubbed the skin off their stomachs groveling before it. The people—the great inert mass within which is irresistible might if they but had courage and co-operation—patiently padded their knees and, likewise, knelt in mute submission.

The Gold Reserve was a national institution—like the Washington Monument—not to be desecrated, but recognized, supported, defended.

Senators alluded to it as they would to Plymouth Rock or Mount Vernon. It was a fixed fact which nobody disputed and all respected.

Statutes referred to it, in passing, as they did to West Point or Yellowstone Park—something that was permanent, national, inseparable from the life of the Republic.

There never was a law for the Gold Reserve, there never was a necessity for it, there never was an antecedent discussion in regard to it, and there never was a particle of financial sense in it. Nobody ever presented Greenbacks for redemption until Mr. Carlisle made his infamous ruling, and gold was paid out for paper and bonds issued to get the gold back.

The Gold Reserve was useless until it became, under Carlisle’s ruling, a bait to set the bond trap with.

To show that it has no influence upon the value of Greenbacks we need only to point to the fact that although the size of the Gold Reserve constantly fluctuated for about a year after Carlisle’s ruling, the value of the Greenbacks has not varied at all.

If the Greenbacks depended on the Gold Reserve, their value would have risen and fallen with the Gold Reserve.

The Greenbacks do not, and never did, depend on the Gold Reserve. They depend on the credit of the Government, and the known fact that the credit of the Government is based on $80,000,000,000 of national wealth. Their legal tender quality, their usefulness as money, their receivability for taxes and public dues, make them good in the eyes of the people irrespective of any Gold Reserve.

John Sherman had no more right to make a Gold Reserve than he had to make a Silver Reserve.

Greenbacks were no more redeemable in gold than they were in silver. But why argue the case? The verdict is already made up in the minds of the jury. Both the old parties pay their vows to the Gold Reserve. Mumbo Jumbo is shrined in the hearts of both Democrats and Republicans. Sherman’s god rules.

We quake every time they tell us that anything bad has happened to the Gold Reserve. We used to toss in our sleep, muttering distressfully, when the news would come that the Gold Reserve “is dwindling.”

What good does Mumbo Jumbo do the naked African? None.

But then, you see, the African doesn’t know it. Therein he is a fool.

What good does our Mumbo Jumbo, the Gold Reserve, do us? None.

But then, you see, we do not know it.

Wherein we are bigger fools than the African is.