TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE

THE MAGAZINE WITH A PURPOSE BACK OF IT

June, 1905

Editorials Thomas E. Watson 385

Our Creed—National Politics and Policies—Is It Paul Jones’s Body?—Is the Black Man Superior to the White?—Amending the Constitution—“Take the Children”—Paternalism—Planting Corn—Not Parson Brownlow’s Son—Mr. President!—Did You Know It?—Rural Free Delivery to Country People—Random Paragraphs—The Gods We Worship.

Poverty John H. Girdner, M.D. 417

Tuck-of-Drum Alfred Tressider Sheppard 420

The Southern Negro as a Property-Owner Leonora Beck Ellis 428

A Japanese Populist Thomas C. Hutten 434

The King’s Image Walter E. Grogan 437

The Story of a Suppressed Populist Newspaper Thos. H. Tibbles 446

Pole Baker (Chapters VII-IX) Will N. Harben 451

A Phase of the Money Problem Bankers Dare Not Discuss Albert Griffin 463

A Leaf from a Protective Tariff Catechism Joel Benton 467

Monopoly, The Power Behind The Trust Joseph Dana Miller 472

The Heritage of Maxwell Fair (Conclusion) Vincent Harper 479

Educational Department Thomas E. Watson 497

The Track Walker Theodore Dreiser 502

The House of Cards Ruth Sterry 503

The Say of Other Editors 504

News Record 508

Application made for entry as Second-Class Matter at New York (N. Y.) Post Office, March, 1905 Copyright, 1905, in U. S. and Great Britain. Published by Tom Watson’s Magazine, 121 West 42d Street, N. Y.

TERMS: $1.00 A YEAR; 10 CENTS A NUMBER

TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE ADVERTISER

How to Overthrow Plutocracy

Several million people in the United States are in substantial accord with the demands of the People’s Party. A majority of all voters would welcome Government Ownership of Railroads and other public utilities. The recent great victory in Chicago for Municipal Ownership demonstrates this fact. What Chicago has done locally can be accomplished in the nation—and WILL be done as soon as the people overcome

Political Inertia

With many the voting habit becomes fixed after one or two elections. The ordinary man keeps on “voting ’er straight” long after he has discovered that his party’s actions are out of joint with his own views. Party “regularity” commands the average man’s support long after he KNOWS his party is headed wrong. Some really great men, even, have placed party “regularity” before principle.

A Great Light

on the correct principle of organization is to be found in that admirable work by George Gordon Hastings,

The First American King

A dashing romance, in which a scientist and a detective of today wake up seventy-five years later to find His Majesty, Imperial and Royal, William I, Emperor of the United States and King of the Empire State of New York, ruling the land, with the real power in the hands of half a dozen huge trusts. Automobiles have been replaced by phaërmobiles; air-ships sail above the surface of the earth; there has been a successful war against Russia; a social revolution is brewing. The book is both an enthralling romance and a serious sociological study, which scourges unmercifully the society and politics of the present time, many of whose brightest stars reappear in the future under thinly disguised names. There are wit and humor and sarcasm galore—a stirring tale of adventure and a charming love story.

Hon. Thomas E. Watson says:

“I read ‘The First American King,’ and found it one of the most interesting books I ever opened. Mr. Hastings has not only presented a profound study of our social and economic conditions, but he has made the story one of fascination. It reminds me at times of Bellamy’s ‘Looking Backward,’ but the story is told with so much more human interest, the situations themselves are so much more dramatic, that it impresses me very much more favorably than any book of that kind I have ever known.”

Interesting as the story is as a romance and as a critical sociological study, one of its vitally important points is

How to Organize

Mr. Hastings says:

“It has been suggested,” continued General Mainwarren, “that a wise course for patriotic leaders of your day would have been to have abandoned the hope of converting and securing the grown voters as a body. It would have been best for them, at a given time, to have said: ‘Beginning from today, we will pay no attention to any male who is more than fifteen years of age and who is now, or within the next six years will be, entitled to a vote. But we will direct all efforts to an entirely new body of suffragists.’ They should then have turned their attention to the women of the land, to the mothers of future generations of voters. It has been said that ‘Every woman is at heart a royalist.’ It could with equal truth be said: ‘Every woman is by nature a politician.’ ... Look at the influence exerted politically by various women of whom history speaks.”

This Is the Key-Note of Success

For fifteen years the People’s Party, in season and out of season, has preached “Equal Rights to All, Special Privileges to None.” It has persistently demanded that government shall attend to public matters, and that private business shall be conducted by individuals with the least possible interference—and absolutely no favoritism—by government. It has continually demanded public ownership and government operation of railroads and other public utilities. It has urged the initiative, referendum and the recall; a scientific money system; the abolition of monopoly in every form. Millions of voters—as the Chicago election clearly indicates—are in accord with the People’s Party; but heretofore the voting habit, the “vote ’er straight” political insanity, has kept them in political slavery.

Educate the Boys

Let us train up a new generation of voters—without diminishing our efforts to break up old party habits—who will have the courage of conviction and correct ideas regarding politics and economics. Let us interest the mothers, so we can have the boys taught to cast their first votes on the side of Justice. Habit will then keep them voting right.

Let Us Begin Now

Mr. Hastings’s book is a thought-provoker. It combines romance with sociology and teaches while entertaining. With “The First American King” and TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE in another 100,000 homes, our first great step will be taken toward overcoming plutocracy. With this end in view, we have made arrangements whereby we can offer a dollar book, 350 pages, and a dollar magazine one year, 128 pages monthly, both for only $1.50.

Tom Watson’s Magazine and The First American King $1.50

In order to treat all alike, the book will be sent postpaid to any present subscriber of TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE on receipt of 60 cents. No person not a subscriber can buy “The First American King” of us for a cent less than $1.00. If you have not already subscribed for the magazine, send us $1.50 today for this attractive combination, and expedite the work of building up the People’s Party of the future.

Address all orders to

TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE, 121 West 42d Street, New York

SOME POPULIST PRINCIPLES

(1) Public Ownership of Public Utilities, including Railroads, Telegraphs, Telephones, etc.

(2) Direct Legislation by the people: the Initiative, Referendum and Recall.

(3) The election of all officers by the people.

(4) Graduated Income Tax and Inheritance Tax.

(5) National Currency created by the Government without the intervention of National Banks; every dollar to be the equal of every other dollar.

(6) Postal Savings Banks; the eight-hour day, regulation of Child Labor in Factories, Sweat-shops and similar avocations.

(7) Opposition to land monopoly.

(8) Removal of Tariff burdens from the necessaries of life which the poor must have to live.

Populism seeks to put political power into the hands of the people and to work out a system of Equal and Exact Justice to all, without special favors to any.

Tom Watson’s Magazine

Vol. I JUNE, 1905 No. 4