Letters From The People

Our readers are requested to be as brief as possible in their welcome letters to the Magazine, as the great number of communications daily received makes it impossible to publish all of them or even to use more than extracts from many that are printed. Every effort, however, will be made to give the people all possible space for a direct voice in the Magazine, and this Department is freely open to them.

J. D. Steele, Charleston, W. Va.

I have been a reader of your Magazine since its first issue, and while I partly agree with Mr. George H. Steele, Rockham, S. D., that none of us are perfect, I admire you for having the courage of your convictions, and it would be impossible to estimate the good your publication has all ready done.

As a remedy for the evils existing, as set forth by Mr. Bert H. Belford, Widners, Ark., I would suggest that our poor, ignorant, down-trodden farmers in the South get posted. There certainly is no reason for any grown up man of the present generation not being able to read, and almost every daily and weekly newspaper would put the most ignorant backwoodsman in possession of the facts which Mr. Belford states the farmers are ignorant of.

I believe I have never seen a letter from this state, but West Virginia hasn’t waked up yet. She is always behind in everything except graft.

May you live long and continue the good work you have undertaken!

A. J. Jones, Parlier, Cal.

Tom Watson’s Magazine is one of the greatest educators of the age, stands prominent in its class, is fearless, bold and decisive, is just what the people want. Every Populist should read it and give it the widest circulation possible.

Watson’s editorials are great and to the point. The Letters from the People are very interesting. Would be pleased to hear from our workers throughout the United States every month through the columns of Tom Watson’s Magazine. In regard to the work in California, we are preparing our petition for a place on the ballot, and will have a People’s Party ticket in this State this coming election. Our slogan is: “The middle of the road now and forever!” We take no part in any other party in existence, or coming into existence. Let us profit by past experience. The people here, regardless of party, are ready to accept our principles. You may hear something drop in California in 1908. We have a press ready to join us at once. Let us get busy at once. Brothers, the fields are white for harvest.

G. S. Floyd.

The lucid manner in which you expose the evils of our banking system should convince any one not blinded by ignorance or prejudice of the evils lurking therein, even as at present conducted, but if they secure the additional special privileges that they seek, what may we expect?

Brother Starkey of Nebraska who writes discouragingly in the December number should take heed, as the worm has turned in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and one may hope and believe that your efforts have helped to produce that result.

I was in Kansas in the early seventies when the horde of bogus Greenback editors, shipped out from New York and New England with rolls of Wall Street money, bought up the Greenback press throughout the West, pretending loyalty to the principles until secure in possession, when the hireling traitors came out in their true colors and the Greenback press vanished like mist before the noonday sun.

The President’s eulogy of the pension office is worth no more than his certificate of character to Paul Morton. To judge from observation and the star-chamber methods of that bureau one would conclude that it is run primarily as a factor in politics, and that the only criterion for the grade and tenure of a pension is the whim or discretion of an irresponsible official. Evidently the system is rotten and needs overhauling or revolutionizing. From the nature of the service it is doubtless true that irregularities are inherent therein, but certainly there is room for improvement.

Conventionality, a parent of aristocracy, is responsible for the misfortune of Midshipman Meriweather; herein we see one of the evils of militarism; the discipline they recommend so highly is the discipline of an underling, and this is mainly why they desire it.

Hurrah for Hearst!

You give Henry George, Jr., a severe prod in the current number. The single tax is sprung by the plutocrats when they wish to confuse and demoralize the reform forces.

Nelson D. Stilwell, Yonkers, N. Y.

The non-appearance of the February number of your magazine caused me genuine concern. I stand by you, every inch, in what you advocate and teach, and wish the circle of your readers might be extended many fold. I first had my attention called to the present evil condition of things by reading Lloyd’s “Wealth vs. Commonwealth,” and that but paved the way for further reading and investigation until my present condition of freedom from the bondage of ignorance has been attained.

I have observed the trend of things for ten years last past and confess that instead of improvement and reform, I see a steady progress towards further enslavement. What will be the end of it all? I am beginning to doubt the maintenance of society and law and order if the entrenched forces attempt to maintain their control. God forbid that our country should be baptized again with blood. But upon the heads of these “fools and blind” men be it, who cannot see the handwriting on the wall.

Your articles on finance and money interest me and absorb all my attention and edify me very much. Your Magazine has a purpose back of it, and no one will give a more ready acquiescence than the writer.

To be a reformer is to align oneself with the noblemen of bygone days whose hearts throbbed for the people. No greater example could be found than Christ, whose kingdom is called “the times of Reformation.”

Permit me to bid you God-speed.

Horace C. Keefe, Wallula, Kan.

I have somewhere said “this is the decade of the three Toms”—Tom Watson, Tom Johnson, and Tom Lawson. They are each or all likely to leave lasting footprints on the century, and I’m anxious that my Tom’s shall not be the least. I say “my” because Tom Watson stands for all that the country—if not the world—must come to, to have peace and answer the daily Christian pleadings—that “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”; to be His will it must embody all that the doctrine of brotherly love contemplates; that is ideal, that is Populism. The other Toms stand for that part of the whole they contemplate or are willing to concede from a more or less selfish standpoint. Your Magazine is startlingly convincing in its arguments and facts—but, my dear fellow, it lacks that dignity that a Presidential candidate for a great principle should command. I know your excuse will be that your appeal to the masses must be in such style—DON’T DO IT.

It is the aggressive intelligent few that shapes the destinies of countries, and that will be so with ours; if the reverse were true, why does not the labor class have 50 or more, the farmers 100 or more, the socialists a like number of members in Congress? Such a result would show intelligence and a hope that something would result. Cut out such queries as—Why the negro maids? Deductions and conclusions are debatable but not style. The writer is one of the martyrs for the cause and has been your ardent admirer and well wisher. There is no question as to the ultimate outcome—though you and I may not be permitted to enter in.

W. E. Arrant, Alto, Tex.

I read and will say that your Magazine is interesting and entertaining in many respects, and I admire your ability and style in showing up the evilness and corruption of this age, which no doubt is doing good in the way of educating the readers thereof on the main cause of the present economical and industrial conditions that now confronts the whole people and oppresses the poor that labor and toil that they may share a small portion of their labor: while the rich revel in riches and the poor live in poverty.

I have been a student for several years, studying the economic conditions, the causes and effects of present conditions. The more I read and learn of the causes and effects, the more I wonder how and why the masses of the people have been so completely deceived so long.

I have been a Populist for several years. Was discouraged and disgusted with the fusion act in 1896, and since that time I began to read and study the Socialist doctrine to find out what they had to offer as a remedy for the whole people. Through this search for knowledge I found that the Populist Party was only a reform measure dealing with the effects and only a national movement, while the Socialist Party is international, and goes to the root of the cause of the unjust system of exploitation, and means the emancipation and freedom of the whole human family—a plan and system by which one can not rob another by a plan of legalized system of robbery. It means a system to be established upon earth by which one can live for all and all for one. It means that we shall establish a righteous system by which one nation shall not have its hands at another’s throat for pelf. It means a system by which it will be possible for all Christians to live a pure Christian life and practice the Golden Rule in fact and truth.

I realize the error of having more than one party representing the interest and prosperity of the whole laboring and working people; therefore, judging between the two, the Populist and the Socialist, have cast my lot with the Socialists, and expect to make the fight for justice and emancipation for wage slavery in the Socialist Party.

I appreciate your position and hope that you will accomplish much good with your valuable Magazine in the way of educating the people. I fail to see how you can ever expect to help to finally free the laboring people from economic bondage of slavery, without joining the Socialist Party. You have asked the people to give their ideas as to what they think about the existing conditions. I have given my views as I see them. I can realize no permanent hopes for relief outside of the Socialist and the co-operative commonwealth.

Harry Partington, City.

I took the publication since the first number and today I have in the house only the December copy, as I want to get everybody to read them that will and thereby have persuaded several to buy them, and you can depend on me to continue to do so, and will try and get others to do so. I look at it that I am in the city and can get it at the news-dealers with more certainty than as a yearly subscriber.

What I think of Tom Watson’s Magazine can never be told. I would like it semi-monthly, but I know I shall have to wait possibly some time before that comes. Dear sir, believe me, I am a very sincere believer and practicer of his doctrine and have been since the Democratic party undertook to carry the 16 to 1 doctrine under the auspices of W. J. B. of Nebraska. Sorry Billy failed then and 1904.

Hurrah for W. R. Hearst, but the money power is too strong yet. But hammer at them and teach us to be steadfast.

David Meiselas, Brooklyn, N. Y.

I have at last determined to congratulate you upon the success you have made with your Magazine. It is, beyond any doubt, good work. In reality I can hardly think to write all the praise the editorials are worth. I enjoy them as I would some classic by Shakespeare, or some scientific work by Darwin. The more I read them, the more I like them. They are digestible; and talk about brain food—it is the best.

Yes, Thomas E. Watson should be well considered as a champion for the cause of the people. Either he is a second Hearst or Hearst is a second Watson. They are so much alike in their fights for the people you can hardly tell which is which.

Over here in New York we are having a grand time, viz:

Murphy telling things about McClellan and vice versa. The big insurance grafters howling for more. Mr. Ivins telling things about the “reform grafter,” Mr. District Attorney, etc., etc.

Abraham Lincoln said we should have a “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” I must say we are living up to it, in New York—nit. We are having “a government of McCarren, by McClellan and for Murphy.” Great government, is it not?

If this is not the age of wonder, I don’t know what. But, Mr. Watson, keep up your steady work; don’t forget the Hon. Platt and Depew, the former our Chinese advocate and president of the largest express company; the latter the champion lobbyist of them all. Don’t forget our generous Senator Knox (with his generous rate bill). There are many more whom you should prey upon.

G. White, Enloe, Tex.

Yes “I will help”; it is one of the very, very few papers and magazines that I can heartily indorse from the old Liberty Bell to the last sheet of its reading matter; the gags and brakes that are applied to other editors, or a great majority, at least, disqualify them as editors.

The things that we most need to know are suppressed and the reading public are kept in the background on the most vital questions of the day. There is a mighty storm gathering in this once glorious republic; its muttering thunders can be distinctly heard. The glaring, forked tongues of wrath can be plainly seen over the tops of the distant hills that hedge in our eighty million people.

The old ship on which we have sailed thus far is out of repair; the pilot asleep, or cares nothing for the safety of his passengers; the captain has bought most of the crew; the breakers are just ahead.

I know not how my fellow-countrymen may feel over the affair, but for your humble Texas farmer it’s a sad picture. The light that once burned so bright not only lit up North America from Alalch Mountain to the Rockies, but crossed both oceans and gave to the world an object lesson of what a free people could do.

The same light guided Prescott at Bunker Hill. It was the never-setting star at Valley Forge that led Washington to the gate of glory at Yorktown. Is it true that the territory bequeathed to us (“and it was paid in blood”) is to be betrayed into the hands of the enemy for the small pittance of thirty pieces of silver? Is the money-bag of America to rule or ruin? Or will those who think and yet have a chance to act demand a settlement? Tom Watson’s Magazine is one that is asking for a settlement. May the day soon come.

N. M. Hollingsworth, Terry, Miss.

I see that you contemplate enlarging and improving the Magazine. I can see the place for enlarging, but not improving in the subject matter, except by enlarging and perhaps improving the material, etc. It is as good as human agency can make it. I only wish it could be read by every man, woman, boy and girl in the land. It is such an educator as we need, and it is being read by a great number.

I was at our county cotton-grower’s meeting last Saturday and was delighted to find so many reading your splendid Magazine. I secured a subscriber and have promise of several more which I will forward in a day or two. I have seen your letter to the Atlanta Journal in which there is enough exposure of Clark Howell’s perfidy, etc., to consign him to the garbage heap.

If you think it worth while in the Educational Department of the next number of your Magazine, tell us what effect bucket shops and trade exchanges have on the price of such produce as are dealt in.

Wishing you and your Magazine all the good that can come to a mortal and a great publication, I remain your devoted friend and admirer.

S. T. Z. Champion, Sterrett, Pa.

I am a constant worker and reader of this great reform movement and have been for the past twelve years, and have voted the ticket straight till they got me to straddle W. J. B. one time and I got such a fall I fear I will never live to get over it. I am getting old. I am one of Robert E. Lee’s old web-foot boys and stacked my old Enfield rifle at Appomattox Court House on the 9th of April, 1865. It looks like a miracle to see the fingers pushing a pen that pulled the trigger 40 years ago, and yet when I think of the blood that was shed for this great nation’s freedom and to see it being stolen away from us by those money knaves it makes me feel like I am just 16 years old. I have nine boys, all Populists. Oh, how I want us to live to get at least one more vote for that grand and noble boy, Thomas E. Watson, for our next President. Don’t you all feel me rejoicing over New York’s election, but I fear they will not let Hearst have his seat as mayor of New York. I have just read Watson’s answer to Hoke Smith’s letter. It is a grand reply.

You can count on me when the last roll is called. I’ll be there. Yours for reform.

W. H Thomas, Fairhaven, Mo.

After spending 25 years in the thickest of the fray I could hardly go back to the “wallowing in the mire.” No, my brother, I never say die, but am still pegging away. Yes, I am a Populist. I am a rampant Socialist and I think that most of my old comrades have followed my example and I can see no reason why all Populists should not do the same. You know, my brother, that the Socialists are growing as no other party ever grew and they are bound to become a dominant factor in politics in the near future. It is evolution. Reforms do not go backward. The Populists have done a grand work, but Socialism is inevitable and I would rejoice to see all old Populists get aboard the band wagon. You are doing a noble work and to show you that I appreciate it I am going to send you a dollar for the magazine and 50 cents for that fountain pen, although I can illy afford it, as I am 65 years old and dependent on my labor for the support of my family.

Don’t Teddy, the Trust-buster, make you tired? I think he is the biggest fraud that ever sat in the Presidential chair.

Wishing you long life and abundant success, I am with you till the battle is won.

James A. Logsden, Moline, Ill.

I have read with great interest the editorial, “Tolstoi and the Land,” in the October number of Tom Watson’s Magazine, and while I cannot agree with you in the position you take upon the land question, I accredit you with sincerity and honesty of purpose. In common with many others of us, you are giving of your time, energy and substance, to bring remedial justice and economic truth to human society.

Being fair-minded and in earnest pursuit of economic truth and equity, you will, I am sure, accept honest criticisms of your opinions.

In the outset you propound three questions, which are as follows:

“Is it true that the real grievance of the masses is that the land has been taken away from them?”

“Will no reform bring them relief until the land has been given back to them?”

“Will universal happiness be the result of putting an end to private ownership of land?”

To negate these questions you call upon history to bear witness:

“As a guide to our footsteps the past must always be to some extent our light, our guide.”

With this I am heartily in accord. It has been rightly said:

“History keeps the grass green upon the graves of former civilizations, and stands as a beacon light to future ones. It is the ever-living Janus, peering both into the past and into the future.”

But history does not prove, as you assert, that civilization exists as a result of private ownership of land. These are your words:

In passing upon this and statements appearing in subsequent paragraphs, I think I shall have fully answered your three previous questions. When it “became a matter of self-interest for some individual to improve the land” was it because of his ownership or of his security of possession? When you admit that “as long as each individual felt that his parcel of land might go out of his possession at the next regular division there was no incentive to improvement,” you have admitted the latter. “Not until the individual became assured that the benefit of his labor would accrue to himself did the waste become a farm and the hovel a house.” What was his assurance—private ownership or security of possession? That it was not private ownership is proven by the tenant system in vogue in every civilized country in the world. Obviously it is not private ownership that impelled the landless tenant to go upon land owned by others, clear away the forest and “make the land a farm.” Then what is his assurance? Security of possession—the knowledge that he will be left unmolested to enjoy the “product of his labor.” This tenant enjoys his security of possession because of the tribute he has been compelled to pay to the owner to leave him unmolested in his possession and enjoyment. Could he not be as secure in his possession if the land were owned and the exaction made by all the people?

Therefore, “if the history of the world shows anything at all, it shows this,” that civilization has developed and progress has gone forward, not by reason of private ownership of land, but in spite of it.

“If, what is manifestly impossible,” says Mr. George, “a fair distribution of land were made among the whole population, giving each his equal share, and laws enacted which would impose a barrier to the tendency to concentration by forbidding the holding by any one of more than a fixed amount, what would become of the increase of population?”

Your assertion that there would be no improvement under such a condition as you mention is self-evident. But this, instead of being an argument against the Henry George philosophy, is, in fact, an argument in its favor.

What Mr. George does propose I shall endeavor to make clear in subsequent paragraphs when I touch upon your hypothesis regarding the primitive tribesmen.

Before passing to this, however, I desire to direct your attention to your observation that “the right of each citizen to hold as his own began with the laborer who claimed the product of his labor.” The convincing power of this statement is lacking, because you have failed to prove to us that without private ownership of land man can not “claim the products of his labor.” As a matter of fact, you can not furnish such proof because it is manifestly untrue. Before the savage, wandering in the primeval forest, ever dreamed of laying claim to any parcel of the soil as his own, did he not so lay claim to the fish and game he took? Did he not so lay claim to the fruits and berries he gathered? Did not the tribesman who followed his flocks and herds over the plains so lay claim to them as the product of his labor? Without ever a thought of the private ownership of the soil, he had produced them as truly as the stockman of today produces the cattle he sends to market, and he valiantly disputed the right of any person to any share of them. Most truly he who labors is entitled to labor’s product, but to say that in order to claim such product it is necessary to privately own land is to fly into the face of obvious fact. How many of the wage earners of today are land owners? How much is added to the wages of those few who are, by reason of this fact? You yourself raised the point that it is not necessary to own land in order to fleece the public, laborer, land-owner and all out of their earnings. If this be true how do you harmonize it with your former claim that it was private ownership of land that first made it possible for the laborer to claim and retain the product of his labor.

I come now to the case of the “score of tribesmen” of whom you speak. While the score were fishing, hunting, drinking or gambling, the one cleared the wild land, fenced out the rest and claimed it as his land. But, in fact, did this make it his land? By virtue of what did it become his land? You doubtless had this question in mind when you attempted to answer it in the following:

“Having put his labor into the land, having changed it from a waste into a farm, it was the most natural thing in the world that he should claim it as his own. Why shouldn’t he? He made it a farm.”

What was his ultimate purpose in putting his labor into the farm? Was it not the products which his labor, applied to the land, would bring forth? You say “he made it a farm.” He found it a farm awaiting his efforts. You will agree that he was entitled only to the result of his own labor. In fact, this is the truth for which you are contending. What were the results of his labor, the farm or the products? Manifestly the latter. These he enjoyed. Upon what possible ground, then, could he go still further and claim also the soil as belonging to himself and his heirs forever?

Moreover, you will concede that before this tribesman determined to abandon the spear and the rod and become a farmer, this piece of ground could have been taken by any of the other twenty men; in other words it was common. It must be further conceded that in casting about to find a suitable location for his farm, he chose the site which offered the best natural advantages relative to fuel, water, fertility of soil, and proximity to the tribal bartering place. At this point let us carry your illustration still further and assume that all or part of the other twenty tribesmen decided to become farmers also.

In the same manner as their forerunner, they look about for the best location, and the one offering the best advantages. But it is taken, and the others must take second, third or fourth place, according to who gets located first. But these men have equal rights. Why should some of them enjoy the exclusive ownership and possession of those sites which give them natural advantages over the others? Manifestly, they should not. But how can they equalize these advantages? Just to the extent that farmer number one holds advantage over farmer number twenty-one—just to that extent should number one compensate the little community as a whole for the privilege which he enjoys. And so with all the others. A community is forming, with its natural demand for revenue for common purposes. Here is the natural revenue. Here lies the fundamental principle which political economists call the Law of Rent. Here reposes the very essence of the law of compensation. Here also is found the basis principle of economic justice, which, traced to its last analysis, as civilization advances, is capable of developing the highest expression of human society. Here is the answer to your question,

“Will universal happiness be the result of putting an end to private ownership of land?”

It was not “just that the twenty idle tribesmen should take away from the one industrious tribesman that which his labor had created.” Neither was it just that he should rob the other twenty when they came to exercise their equal right to the use of the land, as he manifestly would if he were left to the exclusive use of the soil, or the best portion thereof, without compensating those he has excluded.

Let him retain possession of the farm and his products under these conditions, and you have, not private ownership of land, but common ownership.

Another point that you have obviously overlooked, and one that goes to the heart of the social problem, is the element of land monopoly. Your tribesman was not satisfied with selecting the best land, and fencing so much thereof as he could till by his own exertion, but he fenced in vast areas that he could not use, and also claimed that as “his own.” By so doing he not only enjoyed the fruits of his own labor, but forced the other twenty to share their products with him as a tribute for using that part of “his land” which he himself could not, or did not, care to use. You may say that they had equal opportunities with him to get first choice. Even if this were granted, it makes no difference in principle. The fact still remains that he has the power to wring unwilling tribute from them. Only one could have the best, and though his contemporaries may have been justly punished for their lack of foresight—which I do not admit—there is yet another side to the question. What is the status of future generations in relation to this proposition? Are they guilty of sleeping upon their rights when all the land has been taken before they were born, or are they born into conditions which they have had no voice in making?

If your lonely tribesman, for whose welfare you manifest such solicitation, had been content with the amount of land he could utilize to good advantage, had he been willing to contribute his just share to the common expense, and had he been sufficiently just to recognize and respect the equal rights of his compeers, the common would yet have remained after all had been supplied. What was true of the primitive state is true today in our highly organized society. Shifting conditions make no changes in universal principles.

“Society” (did not) “as a matter of self-preservation admit the principle of private ownership of land.” It admitted it because it did not know a better plan—because it did not know the Laws of Rent and of Compensation.

You deny that “great estates were the ruin of Italy.” “Before a few could buy up all the land there must have been some great cause at work, some advantage which the few held at the expense of the many.” “What was that advantage?” you ask. No better answer can be given to this query than to refer you back to your own illustration of the farmer tribesman. Did he buy the land? You say he “fenced it in and claimed it as his own.” In like manner did all land pass into private control, each individual claiming far more than he could use. After all the land of Italy had been “claimed” and enclosed, or that of any given community thereof, the power that these land claimers held over subsequent comers is obvious. The only asset of the individual without material wealth is his labor, which is only one—the active—factor in production. Under circumstances such as the foregoing, he is debarred from the passive factor—land—and can apply his labor to it only by paying tribute to those who have claimed it.

In the circle of the human family, those endowed with keen, unerring foresight are comparatively few. It cannot be gainsaid that those few, knowing that land is fixed in quantity—which cannot be expanded as population increases, and as demand for it increases—saw in the early periods, as they see today, what a powerful advantage they could wield over their fellows by “fencing in” all the available land—by fencing out, not only the cattle, as you put it, but also their fellow-men. Is it not plain that this was the source of the power of which you complain? Was it not this that furnished the advantage you name? Can you not see the stream of unearned tribute wrung from the hands of honest labor constantly flowing into the coffers of these land owners? And seeing it, can you then maintain that great estates were not the ruin of Italy?

What made the “ruling class of Rome, that had concentrated into their own hands all the tremendous powers of the State?” What gave them the power to “fix the taxes” and enact the “infernal laws” which you rightly contend ought to have been repealed? “Ah!” you say,“they controlled the money.” By what power did they come to control the money? Was it by a power inherent within themselves, or was it not the power which they derived from the corner which they held upon the natural revenue which they diverted from the public treasury into their own coffers, thus making it necessary to provide for the common expense by unjust taxes upon the products of labor?

“They controlled the money.” But what is money? Is it the means or the end? Is it not merely a labor-saving invention to facilitate trade? Is it not money only by common consent? Is it not merely a commodity converted for convenience into a medium of exchange? You make the point that by controlling the money, they controlled commodities. But if they had not controlled the land, which is the source of all commodities—even the money itself—how could they have controlled the money?

Can you not see that men divorced from the toil and permitted to produce only on the terms of some other person are forced into the labor market, to vie with each other in a competition that grows keener and more vicious as a population increases?

You say that “the power to fix taxes is the power to confiscate.” The very opposite is true. The power to confiscate is the power to tax. Give that power to one class and what more does it want? Let that class confiscate land values, which you agree are naturally common property, and you give it the power to rob its victim, not merely to the “limit of their capacity to pay,” but to literal starvation, if they choose to carry the principle of private ownership of land to its logical conclusion. For certainly to recognize the right to private property in land is to recognize the owner’s right to do with his land what he pleases. To recognize this is to recognize the land-owner’s right to deny to the landless either the use of his land, or any of its products, on any terms whatsoever. Thus, in carrying the principle of private ownership of land to its logical conclusion, and recognizing it as a just principle, is to sanction literal murder. Can a system that has this for its ultimate, be other than a vicious system, even though it may never be carried to that extent? It is by means of this vicious system that human sufferings are augmented by a thousand fold and the sum of human happiness is correspondingly diminished.

Do not the foregoing facts prove to you that your statement that “usury is the vulture that has gorged itself upon the vitals of nations since the dawn of time,” is economically untrue? Is it not clear that usury is only an effect of a deeper-seated cause inherent in land monopoly?

As proof that the universal condition of inequality is not inherent in land monopoly, you say that the Rothschilds and other “kings of high finance” do not “buy up vast domains that they may be served by a lot of tenants.” But when touching upon this phase of the question, you should always bear in mind that all land is not farm land. The power of the coal barons to exploit does not arise so much from the fact that they own large tracts of land, as from the fact that it bears large deposits of coal. Nor does their power to exploit affect merely the miners of coal. Coal is a public necessity, and the ownership by these barons of a comparatively small area of land places them in a position to place—by reason of unreasonable prices—a tax upon every user of coal.

What is the basis of the railroad’s power for unrestrained exploitation? Unquestionably it arises from its exclusive franchises, inherent in its rights of way.

Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan and others of his class do not derive their unearned revenues from their power to tax. But whence this taxing power which affects every user of their several products?—Monopoly of franchises, monopoly of mineral resources, such as mines, quarries, etc.? What is the source of the Standard Oil monopoly?—Its ownership of oil land or enough thereof to force independent owners to sell on the company’s terms, and its consequent power to force railroad discriminations in its favor? Where did the beef trust and other industrial corporations derive their monopoly power? Railroad rebates—“the big pistol”—railroads with their monopoly franchises. And the railroad monopoly and these other breeds will be extinct in an instant. End land monopoly and make railroad franchises common property and the railroad monopoly will be at an end. Had not the Amalgamated Copper Co. controlled the majority of the copper-bearing lands of the world, “The Story of Amalgamated” would never have been told.

Referring again to the railroads, was it not largely the great land grants donated to them by our Government that were the beginning of their power? These grants operated in two ways to the advantage of the railroads. First, they greatly increased the wealth of the railroads, and, second, they diminished the power of the people by diminishing the area of land open to settlement.

“Land is plentiful and it is cheap. The country is dotted with abandoned farms that can be had almost for the asking.” You say “almost for the asking.” This implies that he who takes these farms must pay something to him who has “abandoned” them. Why almost? Why not take them, as in the case of the primitive tribesman, without asking? You state that they have been abandoned because the owner could not make a decent living upon them. Then why make the condition of the next owner more hopeless by levying tribute against him for the use of a worthless farm?

Make land common property, safe-guard the interests of all by assuring to each land-holder perpetual use, providing he pay his equitable share into the common treasury—which in each case would be the increment of value. Then “abolish all other forms of taxation.” This will secure every one in the enjoyment of his labor’s product, will abolish monopoly and the individual or corporate taking power, vicious tariffs, and all. This is all you have demanded.

Your demand is a just one, but—as I trust you may be brought to see—your remedy is superficial and cannot be made effective. You must dig in deeper soil, else your laudable efforts are vain. The abrogation of offensive legislative enactments and the enactment of other statutes dealing with effects will avail nothing. Nothing save the rooting out of the mother of evils can possibly accomplish the end for which you are so courageously and manfully striving.

Your work is a noble one, and its power for good is measured only by the number of people whom you can reach. I admonish you to give the land question thorough and painstaking investigation. I trust you will bear with me for what may seem excessive frankness. But you are not looking for bouquets, but simple, unembossed truth. When I say to you that in my opinion you have not familiarized yourself with the philosophy you are attempting to refute, you will accept this criticism in the broad view of public interest.

I have gone into greater detail in my comments upon your editorial than I expected to go in the outset, but it has seemed advisable, in order to get a clear view of all the points raised by you. However, I trust I have not gone beyond the limit of the space that may be available.

A VETERAN REFORMER HITS THE TARIFF HARD

E. S. Gilbert is close to ninety years old but uncommonly well preserved, having been interested in every Presidential campaign since he was a boy of sixteen, and has acquired a vast fund of political knowledge, of which he still has a firm grasp. He has seen and remembers nearly every President from Andy Jackson down—nineteen of them—and talks interestingly. He says as he sees things now the political situation is just as it was in the early fifties. Then two minor parties were dying, and the leading party—the Democratic—was undergoing disintegration. Today, as he sees it, Democracy and Populism are dying, and the Republican party is undergoing disintegration. The Republican Party sprang up in the fifties, and he looks for a new, strong party to come out of the present chaos in a few years. Following is a thoughtful article, from Mr. Gilbert’s pen, which recently appeared in the Lincoln Independent:

Editor Independent: Here are a few figures for men who think.

In the year 1901 there was manufactured in the United States thirteen billions of dollars’ worth of goods. Authority, Secretary Shaw.

The average rate of duties upon imported merchandise is 52 per cent. Authority, Walter Wellman.

Now, fifty-two per cent of thirteen billions of dollars is $6,770,000,000, which the present tariff of duties authorizes the manufacturers to collect of the American people each year, if they can. It actually enables them to collect a large portion of it—but not all. The probabilities are they collect about two-thirds. They collect nothing for goods exported.

There is honest competition on some classes of goods, such as flour and the cheaper cotton fabrics, and perhaps some others, that prevents them from collecting it of the people. So, in order to be fair, we will cut this sum in halves.

We then have the sum of $3,385,000,000, which is considerably less than is probably collected. In order not only to be fair, but to be absolutely safe, we will cut off the $385,000,000, and we have the sum of three billions of dollars—three thousand millions—collected by the manufacturers and paid by the people as the result of the Dingley tariff bill.

Bear in mind, that this is over and above what is collected in duties for the support of government. Bear in mind, this money is paid to the manufacturers, the capitalist and not to the laborers. Bear in mind that if this three billions of dollars were divided among the employees of the manufacturers, it would give to them something less than six millions of laborers a little over $500 apiece. Bear in mind, that this would pay the entire labor bill of all the manufacturers of the United States.

Then ask yourselves: Is this state of things the result of the intelligence or genius of the people? Or is it the result of misinformation or stultification?

E. S. Gilber.

W. F. Short, Eurekaton, Tenn.

I am well pleased with the Magazine and think it is superior to any other magazine that I ever read. It is just what I expected our brave and noble Tom to get up. Yes, the Magazine is all right. The language is beautiful, forcible and courteous. I was a subscriber from the first issue and have sent in my renewal for this year. I have more confidence in Tom Watson than in any man who has tried to right the wrongs of the people. I believe him to be so conscientious that he would not sacrifice principles for any office in the gift of the people, and I do wish we had one thousand men like our true and honest Tom to battle for justice and rights of the people. I stand for the principles advocated by Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln.

I can make but one suggestion for the Magazine, and that is to place it in a better wrapper, so it will not be lost in the mail.

R. Brown, Buck Knob, Ark.

I am no writer and no scholar, but I write a few lines to you in order to congratulate you on your Magazine. I think it the best magazine on earth and the Missouri World the best paper and the most patient publishers on earth. I could not have the patience to publish a paper and send it out among so many prejudiced block-headed farmers and laborers and get so little return for my labor. I live in the mountains of Arkansas and I have been lashing with my tongue and knocking at these old Mossbacks with T. E. Watson Magazines and the Missouri World for one or two years. Some of them won’t read a reform paper when it is given to them, but I give T. E. Watson’s Magazine and the Missouri World to them all the same. On some of them the moss I see is loosening. I am going to try to organize a club in our township shortly. I am for government ownership of all the railroads, coal mines, oil fields and all manufactures that take a company to run and government money, and no one man to own more than one hundred and sixty acres of land and not that unless he lives on and cultivates the same. I will fight for all this and more as long as I live and have a dollar that my family can get along without.

I am nearly sixty-four years old and have eight sons, all of whom will vote the Populist ticket and all be old enough in 1908 to vote, and will vote the Populist ticket.

Stephen Lewis, Martin’s Ferry, O.

Your article in the January issue of your Magazine in regard to the high-handed methods of the U. S. Steal trust in obtaining property from defenceless people has been read with much interest, and I approve of your bold and fearless manner in attacking unlawful corporations and lawless promoters.

That part in your article on the Steal trust where you raise the point as to whether the men who demolished the widow’s home were union men or not was noted in particular and I venture the opinion that they were not, because Pittsburg, with all its much vaunted prosperity is and has been recognized by union workmen as the cradle from which that disreputable class of workmen known as scabs have come. Pittsburg harbors more scabs than any other city in the country, regardless of size. The man who made the Steal trust possible operated his mills at Homestead with scabs at the sacrifice of human life and forced a lower scale of wages upon the men with the state militia. Yet this man is regarded by a great many so-called respectable people as a philanthropist because he is erecting monuments to himself in the form of libraries in different parts of the country.

M. G. Carlton, Zolfo, Fla.

I appreciate the Magazine and feel that it is one of the best. I am a Populist and took great pleasure in casting my vote for you at the last election, knowing at the time that the chances for success were bad. Yet I cast the vote with as great pride and satisfaction as if I had known you would be elected. I know how to sympathize with a defeated candidate as I myself ran on the Populist ticket for Representative against the noted Zuba King—the wealthiest man in De Soto County and one connected with one or more of the best banks of the country, and got beaten, of course, but I was not whipped but beaten by the money crowd and I believe as strongly in the principles of the Populist Party as I ever did. I am just the same today.

W. Scott Samuel, Pawhuska, Okla.

Thinking that Tom Watson’s Magazine might like to hear from a locality where politics “rules the court, the camp, the grove,” I relate this little incident. A few weeks ago, when the town sites of the Osage reservation were to be opened for sale and an auctioneer appointed to sell the lots, the news was published that a certain man, Amos Ewing, had received the appointment of auctioneer. Now, the reputation of this man, Ewing, is a stench in the nostrils of every honest man in Oklahoma. From petty defalcations to embezzlement of trust funds, which he was forced to disgorge, comes the reputation of the versatile and oleaginous Amos. And so, when it was known that our great “square deal” bear hunter had through his secretary named Amos for this promotion of trust and emolument, it was not long before the mails were loaded with protests from different localities in Oklahoma where the seductive Amos had exercised his peculiar grafts. Did it do any good? Alas for the square deal! When the sale of lots commenced at Pawhuska this creature, Ewing was in the position that should have been filled by some one at least not a self-convicted grafter, and he’s there yet, and all the protests, charges, etc., filed against him are as though they never happened. How’s that for the “square deal”?

In conclusion, permit me to compliment Tom Watson’s Magazine for its fearless exposé of moral rottenness in high places. Hoping the good work will go on, I desire to share in the glory of the time when its principles shall prevail.

Malcolm B. Webster, Atlantic City, N. J.

I have been an interested and delighted reader of your Magazine for some time past, and feel that I am getting from it a political, social and economic education such as I should not have known where to look for else.

While still but very young, I have long felt that I could say upon the above subjects:

Now I begin to feel that there is a back door used by the “powers behind the throne,” and that your Magazine leads one to it to observe the edifying spectacle of the manipulation of the puppets by the powers.

James Porges, Chicago, Ill.

Keep up the good work. You have the support of thousands in your efforts to awaken the lethargic American public to the fact that they are being robbed with the aid of our corrupt laws and the special privilege Government.

T. B. Rogers, Logansport, Ind.

I don’t know how to praise that book enough. I think it is the strongest political document we have. Surely, if we could get the voters of the nation to read it, we would have reform, for if any reasonable person reads it he can’t help but endorse those principles. I have been loaning those magazines I received to my neighbors, and they all acknowledge that the book tells the truth. I think I can get up a club in the near future, for those that read them promise me they will subscribe for it.

As for myself, I don’t need any literature on the subject, for I have been in the front ranks of the movement ever since 1872. I was a Peter Cooper man and have marched along in that line ever since. Never voted for anything else. When I cannot vote the Populist ticket, I don’t vote at all. There were a few of us that started the movement here in Cass County, Indiana, and we worked hard and spent a good deal of money. We had some of our best speakers here to help us. We had the Hon. Jesse Harper of Danville, Ill., N. H. Motsinger of Sholes, Ind., Judge S. W. Williams of Vincennes, Ind., and a number of other good speakers, and the result of our work was that we cast over 900 votes for the Populist county ticket. We felt very much encouraged, but when the next campaign came—well, you know what happened to our Party.

We are right and all we can do is to keep on fighting. I am in favor of staying in the fight until the last ditch is taken.

I will close by wishing you great success.

Thomas Knox, Bennett, Neb.

I appreciate reading your Magazine. I also appreciate your manly and courageous way of putting the truth before your readers. My only hope is that I would like to have the pleasure of knowing that the writings of as strong a reasoner and clear thinker could enter every home of the common herd so that reason could displace prejudice or party insanity. We all regret the disconnection of that able defender of the common people, Mr. T. H. Tibbles, from the editorial columns of the Nebraska Independent. We hope for his health and his early return to Nebraska, to continue the battle for us common people. In conclusion I hope for Mr. Charles Q. De France’s health and happiness. May his labors be a power for good and light to the people. I also hope Thomas E. Watson’s health and life may be spared for many years in the good cause.

H. L. Fagin, Kansas City, Mo.

Is it not good to feel that the present wave of civic, economic and industrial righteousness seems practically certain to sweep every thing before it? There is a quiet, studious earnestness and determination everywhere existent, that portends certain and tremendous results. The best part of it is that the masses have largely been educated to the point where they no longer expect to accomplish everything in a day, but rather realize that to get even a large share of what they insistently demand they must begin in the primaries and conduct a continuous campaign.

You are doing a great work and you have your reward and will have it. Every honest and ardent spirit everywhere communes with and strengthens every other such. No more honest, open, fearless man than you is on earth today. That might be better expressed, but the meaning is there—I will let it pass.

The universal spirit of righteousness encompasses and permeates you—you are surely a part of the divinest essence. Being a man, you must like to know that other men appreciate and approve—and to the utmost. And that they do in an ever expanding circle. The days of sophistry, of deception, of class and special privileges, of municipal, state, and national corruption are rapidly passing. The people are becoming wise. They know their friends. They know who is true, despite the tremendous efforts of a press, largely subsidized to mislead and deceive. But there are newspapers and newspapers, just as there are magazines and magazines.

I need not tell you to keep on straight ahead. You couldn’t stop if you wanted to. Tell the truth just as you are doing, and as much of it as you have space for, in allopathic doses. I cannot agree with all your conclusions, nor will any thoughtful student; but in most I do most heartily concur, and I do know that all your influence is for good.

John McFord, Sheridan, N. Y.

I like your Magazine very well, but I would like it much better if you and your Magazine would come out flat-footed for Socialism. If public ownership or collective ownership of the railroads, telegraphs, etc. is a good thing for the people, why not have public ownership, or rather collective ownership, of the lands, the machinery, etc.? Political democracy without industrial democracy is futile and amounts to nothing. I had the pleasure of voting for you in ’92, and it is a matter of profound regret to me that you cannot see your way clear to step forward into the Socialist Party, where all true middle-of-the-roader Populists logically belong. Populism is a compromise, a half way measure. Socialism is the whole cheese.

John P. Thorndyke, Canaan, N. H.

You publish more real stuff than any magazine I have ever read in my life. I am sixty years of age, and we take seven other magazines, and without any exaggeration it is but justice to your efforts to say that there is by far more real, good, well-seasoned, relishable food for the digestion of the average brain, than is afforded in any other magazine I have seen. Having practiced medicine for a number of years, I have sometimes volunteered my diagnosis of the disease troubling some of our great (?) men and I flatter myself that an observance of that particular case has proven the correctness of my examination at a distance. For instance, I think the main trouble with our great Senate is constipation of the brain, which invariably forbids the entertainment of honest thought. Now I hope that some one with sufficient “sand” in his gizzard will see that every member of the present Congress and Cabinet receives a copy of your very valuable Magazine. It will be worth more to them than a post-graduate course in the schools of Rockefeller and Morgan.

John B. Bott, Grant, Pa.

To a constant and appreciative reader of Tom Watson’s Magazine (purchased monthly at the Union News Co.’s stands) it does seem strange that so great and good a man as “Tom” should, under the stimulus of praise and success or the twittering of a pert maid, really become ashamed of his familiar cognomen and his old clothes.

For two days I have been searching, here and there, high and low, for Tom Watson’s Magazine: always explaining that “Tom” has gone into “innocuous desuetude” and “Watson” has stript himself of his old clothes and donned full regulation uniform, but all to no effect.

Am hoping the new clothes won’t make Mister Watson too vain, and that at least his relations, Populist friends and host of well wishers will not fail to recognize him in his docked designation and fine regimentals.

I wish to add that it was the “Tom” that appealed to me, above all things else, when the news agent showed me No. 2 of Vol. I. and asked me if I had seen Tom Watson’s. I replied that I had not, but that “Tom” had the true flavor and I’d take a dose.

There are, I am sorry to say, Watsons big and Watsons little; Watsons wise and Watsons foolish; Watsons mediocre galore, but only one “Tom” Watson, and he seems to be, God forbid, going to the bad.

Robert L. Cooper, Savannah, Ga.

I have been, previous to the last year, what may be termed a “Tom Watson hater.” Like a lot of other “pig-heads,” I have heard the other side all the time, declining to read or look upon with reason anything you wrote or said. I was prevailed upon to read your “Napoleon.” I followed it up with “France” and “Jefferson,” together with a number of your speeches, letters and magazines. I have arrived at the conclusion that of the very few sincere men of the day, WATSON STANDS IN THE FRONT RANK.

You have my unbounded admiration and very best wishes for the splendid fight you are making for improvement of conditions in our country—especially our beloved state, Georgia. I may add that there are a great many other young men in this community who are of the same opinion.

That your books are being read is attested by the frazzled-out copies in our public library, and the difficulty one has in securing the use of them even for the short time allowed for the use of a popular book.

Aaron McDonald, Galveston, Ind.

I received a copy of the old guard news letter some time back, and was not in shape to respond at that time, and when I got in shape to, I took sick and was not able; but now as I am able and in shape I will send one dollar to help pay expenses of organizing. It seems that through this part of the country Populists are dead. There are lots that are sick on account of the rascality of the officers of the old parties, but speak to them about Populists and you can seldom get a grunt out of them. It may be a calm before the storm. Hope it is, for I think there are Independents enough in this neighborhood to cut things short when they do get at it. The hardest pull seems to be in giving up the old name. They seem to think that reform must come through their party. I have asked several how they expect to get reform when Wall Street owns the Cabinet and Senate. That is like putting the devil in the pulpit to preach the gospel.

Hoping you will meet success.

H. B. Paxton, Wheatland, Mo.

I am 66 years old, and have been in the reform movement from Cooper to Watson, except once for Bryan. Everything is being quiet with us—politics as well as everything else. We had at one time 500 Populist voters in this Hickory Co., about one-fourth of the voting strength of the county. As we haven’t any organization in the county, I haven’t much idea what our strength is at this time, but there are quite a number of true blues yet.

Your Magazine is all right. Will send my renewal soon and I assure you I will try to get others to subscribe.

T. T. Mattox, Hope, Ark.

I am still a Populist and read Watson’s Magazine. Think there are no words nor figures to enumerate or define the good effect it is having on the one big National party made up of the new parties, Democrat and Republican. There are but two National parties now—the Watson and the Swollen-tails. Good news gone to Canada and the nations of the globe.

Dear Watson, you are doing more good than if in office.

H. E. Pomeroy, Mason, Ill.

I think you are fooling away time and money. Look at William J. Bryan in the last National convention. See Judge Parker now. This nation is too wealthy to be ruled by patriots. Wall Street is the government. You can’t do anything with Wall Street. The masses have no principle above whiskey and tobacco, and the churches are in the hands of priestcraft. If you have a copy of Æsop’s Fables read about the fox and the flies.

J. A. Dahlgren, Bradshaw, Nebr.

I cannot let this opportunity go by without telling you what I think of your Magazine. It is undoubtedly the very best reform magazine now published. Your editorials certainly have the right tone. Your article on the situation in Georgia gives us Northerners new light on the subject. While we do not have the negro problem to contend with here in Nebraska, we nevertheless have the railroad question to fight over from year to year. We must pay tribute to Harriman and Hill, and other Wall Street kings, besides countless two-by-four politicians who apparently have no other aim in life than to serve the railroads and betray the people. I am glad to see that grand old man Tibbles writing for Watson’s Magazine. Before I close I must ask you to give us another story something like “Pole Baker.”

George Chapman, East Cleveland, O.

I am prompted to write you from the fact that I believe you to be the right man in the right place, and I honestly think that the seed that you are now sowing will take root and bear fruit, as they are being sown in fertile soil.

No party, or parties, can long withstand your bombardments, no matter how well fortified they may be, as your guns are loaded with facts.

W. S. Stanley, Logansville, Ga.

I feel it my duty to express that in my estimation, which I take from a national and reasonable standpoint, Tom Watson is one of the greatest Americans living and his Magazine the best I ever read.

I earnestly hope that some day not far distant, Tom Watson will be our Commander-in-Chief of our National Government.

How any honest and patriotic man can oppose the principles advocated by Tom Watson, I cannot see.

Tom Watson is a great man. Why? Because he is honest, brave, fearless and aggressive. Because he is standing for the rights of the great mass of people at large, leading them onward and upward from a Government of the privileged few to a Government of the unprivileged many.

For the last fifty years our Government has been leading more and more toward anarchy.

Tom Watson, may you live long to voice the principles of Jeffersonian Democracy!

J. J. Hall, Hutchinson, Ark.

Tom, why don’t you knock that “intrinsic value” rot into a cocked hat? I think that policy is one of the greatest barriers to progress of the masses in studying finance. The sooner they learn that value does not exist in substance but in the mind, the better. This is the first and most important fact to be learned by the student of monetary science, and when once understood all the relative facts are easy. Take a shot at it, Tom. You can make it both instructive and readable.

Yours for success.

Of course I like the Magazine.

Alfred French, Washington, D. C.

I look forward to the arrival of your Magazine every month with a great deal of interest. Other magazines I give away, but yours I do not care to part with.

I shall speak for it, have spoken for it, and very likely shall continue to stand by it so long as you condemn the discrimination made by officials in favor of the bankers. I have said for years that the men who own the railroads and the bankers rule the country.

L. R. Green, Spottsville, Ky.

I am proud of being one of the “old guard,” having marched without halting in the “middle of the road,” without ever lowering our colors or ever thinking of surrender.

Am proud of our matchless leader, Tom Watson, and his Magazine, his two-edged sword. Friends of popular government, let’s give the Magazine a million subscribers and make its editor President in 1908!

Arthur F. Mann, Brooklyn, N. Y.

The Magazine is O. K. The February number is strictly 100%. It would be cheap at 25 cents. Thank you for the sample copy received today. I’d already purchased mine of my news-dealer. However, I’ll see the sample copy is put into good hands and hope it will “work.” Mr. Watson, you are doing “us plain Americans” a world of good. Keep it up. May your life be spared to us for many years to come!

F. F. Gordy, Richland, Ga.

Aside from the fact that both Howell’s and Smith’s friends claimed the victory at the joint debate, was the further fact that Tom Watson got the greatest ovation of any. The first half of Howell’s speech brought out your name, which caused the audience to rise en masse and the applause shook the building. While I am for Smith, still I am looking beyond him to something better.

C. Will Shaffer, Olympia, Wash.

The Magazine is all right and is on the right track.

M. W. Henry, Waelder, Tex.

I am a reader of your most excellent and truly demo-republican Magazine. Our adversaries assumed the garb of angels to serve the devil in. There is not a single fundamental principle contended for by our patriotic democratic-republican forefathers contained in either the democratic or republican party platforms, but both parties are thoroughly Hamiltonized and irretrievably committed to the aristocratic British Banking and Bonding System which financiers know to be absolutely incompatible with the perpetuity of democratic institutions. All of the enemies of our free institutions are in one or the other of these parties and their bosses are engaged in making dupes of the common voters. The interests of the capitalists are the same whether North or South, and as they have complete control of both the old parties the people have no reasonable hope of relief from oppression from either. Direct legislation is essentially democratic and is what the enemies of our free institutions most fear. Its triumph will be the triumph of human liberty over plutocratic despotism. It will restore the Government into the hands of our people, from whom it has been wrested by the boodlers and grafters, prompted by conscienceless greed and avarice. A victory along this line will be a greater victory for humanity than that of Yorktown or Appomattox.

Thomas S. East, Anderson, Ind.

One of the very best magazines that I have ever read. I want to say to you that the good seed you are sowing will live long after you and I and others of the “Old Guard” have passed to the other side. And just as soon as my business matters will permit, I want to send you a large subscription list and in this way help on the good work. For I truly believe all who have the cause at heart will at this time lend their influence to the work, so that Plutocracy and all the attending evils that flow out from the corrupting influences that spread and grow like vile and obnoxious weeds in a corn field, may be rooted out.

Ever yours for the cause of humanity, I am in the fight to the finish.

I have every number of the Magazine up to date.

Fred Diehl, New York.

I am very sorry to hear that you are not well and permit me to send you all the good health wishes I can give. We need you in our struggle for progress. You should be preserved for our work in the coming crisis that I believe will soon take place in the world, especially in this country.

This article on the Chinese question I send you contains my innermost convictions on that problem and I believe should be listened to before we create another problem almost impossible to solve. I do not want to impose upon your good nature, but if you find it possible to publish in your Magazine, would you kindly do so?

If not, then kindly send it back to me.

My mind is for what is right. I would like to work for the betterment and right adjustment of all conditions in need of improvement.

There are, to my mind, many reasons why Chinamen should be restricted from coming to the United States. The Chinese are not eligible to citizenship. It is not good policy to encourage immigrants to come here in great numbers that cannot become citizens. Every man (and let us hope every woman, in the near future) should bear his portion of responsibility to the government. Chinamen do not seem to grasp the idea of freedom as do the people of Anglo-Saxon and Latin origin, nor do they appreciate our rights and privileges for which we struggled for centuries. Chinamen would, perhaps could, not use these rights intelligently nor enthusiastically.

They bring to us peculiar oriental vices from which we are yet free, but they would contaminate us and undermine our lives.

Economically and socially they are impossible; economically, because they would undersell the American workman and destroy our standard of living; socially, because they lack the necessary elements to make a congenial race. It is not true, to my mind, that a race is superior because it can undersell another any more than a herd of rats is superior over man or tiger and lions over man because they can overcome man by numbers and ferocity. The Chinese themselves protected and preserved their civilization from invaders by building that huge wall around it thousands of years ago. It was Chin, it is said, the great reformer, as he was called, that did it and the great land today bears his name. The Huns invaded Germany and robbed the unprotected peasants. The fact that the Germans could protect themselves from endless invasions through fortifications and armed resistance showed the superiority of the Germans over the Huns.

I believe I am a friend of humanity and that is the reason I believe in the restriction of the Chinamen (our brothers) from coming here. One of the reasons (and I think it is the greatest of all) should be sufficient, that is that they are in great danger of being massacred through the economic struggles and competition and the inevitable crash is sure to come. We had already symptoms of such massacres in the West. The killing of the Jews in Russia will look mild in comparison. Chinamen coming here in great numbers would result in greater disasters than we can imagine. We would create another race problem. Have we not enough with our negro problem? There is an excuse for people coming here whose homelands are overpopulated and who can easily and naturally assimilate. China has vast unoccupied lands with unopened resources and its population, great as it is, is not actually compelled to seek foreign territory. The Chinamen should pioneer their own great land. Let them stay at home and open their unworked national wealth. We cannot blame the ignorant peasants for coming here. They do not know the possibilities of their own country and if they did it would do them no good. It is the so-called intelligent, progressive Chinese that are to blame. The people of China are hampered and restricted by their own ancient customs fatal to themselves. Chinamen are coming to the United States to reap the benefit of civilization of another race with which they have little in common. It does not seem that the Chinese come here to become actual settlers, and such immigrants are not beneficial to the land in its present state of development.

May the time be not far distant when all can go where they wish without any barrier or restriction. When that time comes we must free first ourselves and within our own countries. We must not endanger another land with our own shortcomings.

Joel B. Fort, Adams, Tenn.

In your valuable Magazine you hit the “Rascals,” who have combined in violation of law and good morals to rob the producer and consumer, to suit me exactly.

If it should come in the way of your comments, the good people of the Dark Tobacco District of Tennessee and Kentucky would rejoice with “exceeding great joy” if you in your inimitable style would hit the infernal Tobacco trust a jolter. This, the most heartless of all, took possession of this District, composed of about twenty-two counties, and laid it off in territories and appointed an agent to buy the tobacco (the only money crop) at his own price. No one was allowed in his territory, and consequently there was no opposition or competition. They took the tobacco at two dollars less than the cost of production. The condition became pitiable and laborers who were unable to support their families left the country and went to the cities, railroads and mines. The people became angered, and on the 24th of September, 1904, organized “The Dark Tobacco Protective Association.” This association controlled 75% of the tobacco, and in six months raised the price to double the former price. Now tobacco is selling for more than twice its price under the Trust rule. We appealed to the law, but had we waited for the law to protect us we would have starved. We went after the thieves red-hot and for more than a year hell would have been a good cooling place for them. Any help you can render us in your excellent Magazine, which is largely read in this section, would be greatly appreciated.

Before I close let me pay you the tribute you richly deserve by saying that any heart breathing the gentle and ennobling sentiment found in your pieces “In the Mountains” and “A Day in the Autumn Woods” lives close to his God and fellow-man, and a man who could write the “Widow Lot” can never die, and is a national benefit. Great men have always had the misfortune to die before their works were appreciated and admired: I sincerely hope you may be spared to fight the battle of the people against Snobbery, Shams, Hypocrites, Grafters, and the Robber Barons of the Trusts.

I send you a copy of a speech against the Tobacco Trust; if you have time to read it you will see why it is that I so eagerly await the issuance of every number of your Magazine.

James Griffith Stephens, Valdes, Alaska.

I am reading every number of your Magazine with great interest. I notice that you never touch on subjects pertaining to Alaska; have you forgot that we are on earth? Listen to this tale of woe.

Alaska cost the United States seven million five hundred thousand dollars in the year 1867. Since then Alaska has paid into the treasury the sum of one hundred and fifty million. Note the interest on the purchase. Still we have no means of representation. There are today in the District of Alaska 60,000 population who stand in the same place that our forefathers stood when the tea-party took place. It is a shame that in this land of the free we are denied ANY means of representation. There is a mistaken idea that Alaska has a territorial form of government. It has no voice from the people whatever. We are peoned. And why? Because Alaska affords one of the choicest trees in the orchard of graft. And its political plums are distributed among the carpetbag grafters who enforce their presence upon the pioneers who are fostering and fathering the country. There is not an elective office in the District. Our mining laws are obnoxious and afford the greatest chance for official graft. Did you ever stop to consider what a great country Alaska is, and how it is controlled? If I may, without taking too much of your valuable time, I will call your attention to the following facts.

Alaska is one-third as large as the United States.

It is not an iceberg, but affords future homes for millions.

Alaska is in the same latitude as England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Russia.

Alaska has the greatest fisheries on earth. These fisheries are controlled by the beef trust. GRAFT!

Alaska has great beds of finest anthracite coal, now being gobbled up by the Pennsylvania coal barons. GRAFT!

Alaska is covered by fine forests now being taken up by means of soldiers’ fractional script. GRAFT!

Alaska has the largest stamp mill on earth. The mine has produced over $22,000,000 in gold, more than three times the cost of the District. This mine is not timbered and there is an average of one man killed a day by caving. GRAFT!

Alaska has the only fur-seal islands in the world. These islands are leased to a big corporation. GRAFT!

Alaska has a navigable river twenty-eight hundred miles in length, a reservation at the mouth controls the harbor and permits are issued for warehouses to two big corporations only, so Alaskans again have to stand for GRAFT!

I could go on giving cases of graft for a month, but time is limited. An article by a well informed writer in Appleton’s Booklovers’ Magazine, entitled “The Looting of Alaska,” is well worth reading.

S. C. Le Baron, Smiley, Tex.

Three numbers of your Magazine received, for which I am truly thankful inasmuch as it stands for the principles which have been my political platform ever since the Greenback party was organised. It is only financial inability that kept me from becoming a subscriber at the start, for I felt very certain it would be a powerful educator, and the copies at hand prove my hopes fully realized. If it could be gotten into the hands of those who feel the need of a change in conditions but still can’t be made to understand the cause of these conditions, it would indeed be a powerful factor in the reform movement. The copies received are out doing missionary work; there is enough strong and conclusive argument in any one of them to set an unprejudiced mind to thinking seriously whether these things are so. I have been in this movement over thirty years, and having passed my eighty-first birthday, feel that I am not destined to work much longer, but when I see the circumstances which inevitably tend to an enthrallment of the masses, I feel like doing my best to avert the coming disaster. My hope lies in the integrity of an intelligent citizenship and it is through outspoken literature that intelligence can be acquired.

E. J. Whelan, Tipton, Mich.

I like the way you write and the way you put it, but I am discouraged. It doesn’t seem as though the rank and file will ever see the point. The most of them will agree with me about the condition of the country, but when they come to vote, they vote the same old ticket. That is the way they do. Some one gets hold of them before election and they vote it straight. Only a short time ago a friend of mine said to me that he thought we as a Government were getting right where Russia is, and it would take the same internal revolution to get rid of the monopolies and trusts that are holding us down. Now I will venture anything that that same man will vote with the old G. O. P. and vote a straight ticket too. Now it makes me sick, but I think if they can stand it, I can, and have made up my mind to let the whole thing go to the devil. It looks as though the men with Hon. before their names were thieves. It is called “graft” now.

F. A. Jeter, Alto, Tex.

I am on your side, never have been on any other way and I know that if the laboring people do not get some relief, and that soon, we are gone. Your Magazine has done good here. Has changed hot-headed Democrats to Populists.

A. C. Shuford, Newton, N. C.

In a letter some time back you stated that you believed the “Money Question” to be infinitely more important than any other before the American people. You are undoubtedly correct in the view you take of the matter. People take the same superstitious view of money that they do of religion, and how to reach the reason of the average man through all this thick covering of superstition is quite a problem. I have thought over this problem for years and am not much nearer the solutions of it now than when I first began. I have practiced caution in my contact with men, and to look back for twenty years I can see quite a change has taken place in my own neighborhood as well as elsewhere. I have been a great admirer of Jefferson and have read everything he has written which I could get my hands upon. His boldness in attacking the church is a marvel to me. Here is the power which enslaves the minds of the people and keeps them from using their thinking machines. The result of such methods is that the average man is afraid to think for himself. No step of progress can be made until this vast machine is shattered, and yet care must be used in doing so, because man must have some foundation upon which to stand. Do not misunderstand me, please. I am a believer in Christian principles as I understand them.

The money power and other monopolies are allowed to maintain their grip through the church largely. How best to expose and open this organisation to attack is a problem I wish you or some other man would solve. The average politician knows well how to play upon this feeling which the Church creates and as long as the organisation is allowed to continue its process of enslaving the minds of our children, just so long will the crop of “Grafters” be an abundant one.

Sallie T. Parrish, Adel, Ga.

I believe your Magazine is more eagerly awaited than any other publication extant, and I think the people read what you write first. I am sure I do. You are the only writer who has ever made politics more fascinating to me than romance.

I used to read your paper when I was a child almost as ardently as I read the Magazine now. Some of the editorials appealed to me so strongly that I preserved them in my scrap book, not because I understood them then, but because I felt intuitively that there was something sublime in them.

Not long since I showed one of those selections—The Highest Office—to a young man—a Democrat and a teacher in the same school that I was. He finished reading it just as the bell rang for the morning session. The moment the opening exercises were over he sprang upon the rostrum, shook his black hair out of his face and exclaimed: “Children, I have found a gem! Let me read it to you.”

Your Magazine is being read by many honest Democrats who a few years ago thought the Democratic party was all it claimed to be and that you were wrong. Now they frankly endorse your principles and praise your courage, honesty and brilliant intellect.

I must thank you for a clearer knowledge of political questions, public affairs and economic conditions than I ever would have had had it not been for you.

Your “Bethany” I consider one of the treasures of my modest collection of books. Not long ago one of those reasonable, broad-minded, intelligent Democrats was telling me how much he liked your Magazine. He said he read everything in it—“Pole Baker” and all the rest—that he didn’t think you had ever written an uninteresting sentence in your life and that he thought you the purest, most upright man in public life today.

I asked him if he had read “Bethany.” He had not, but when I told him about it he was anxious to do so. I sent him mine. He is a man near sixty and he read it with all the intensity and abandon that a sentimental girl of sixteen would devour one of Laura Jean Libbey’s novels. He and I were alternate day watchers at the bedside of a convalescent patient—one very dear to us both—but I had it all to myself that day until late in the afternoon, when the blessed trained nurse decided to forego a part of her nap and relieve me awhile.

I think you have done and are doing the world more good than any other man in it, and I hope that you may be granted many years of life and strength to champion the cause of humanity and labor for justice, truth and equity, and I know that some time your noble life will be rewarded.

I am very glad you have added the department of “Books” to your Magazine. I don’t think it could be improved now, unless you were to add an amateur or young writer’s department.

Mrs. B. C. Rude, Lyons, N. Y.

I am getting Tom Watson’s Magazine from the news-stand and like it very much. It is refreshing to see one man who dares say what he believes.

Halley Halleck.

I have read every issue of your Magazine up to and including December publication. It is certainly the greatest publication of the kind in existence. As an educator it has no equal. It expresses more opinions and views and in the most fearless manner of any paper in the world. Long may it live and reach all parts of the globe!

The question which you are so ably advocating is taking root and spreading and arousing public opinion so as to bring the monarchical money-kings to justice. May God speed the time when they will be handled as other criminals, to wear the stripes, balls and chains!

That local state government is no exception I got from that ex-representative of the Legislature, the King Lobbyist, Hamp McWhorter. He has an office in the Equitable building, and any senator he thinks he can use he simply ’phones one of his henchmen at the Capitol, telling him to send such and such a senator to his office, where he gets in his dirty work.

In another instance, when a member a few years ago introduced a resolution to have the Governor appoint a committee to investigate the merging of railroads, the vice-president of the Southern Railroad was soon in a seat beside him, making inquiries as to what would satisfy him. Well, the member was appointed local attorney at a salary of five hundred per annum for a number of years. The motion was quickly withdrawn and if this individual ever represented the road in a case I never heard of it. However, he drew the salary and rode on a free pass.

This lobbyist is for suing. He commences with his free pass on probable candidates. As I remember, at a station a man who was a country merchant, farmer and mill owner presented a pass to the agent and asked if it was valid. The agent informed him it was genuine. Sure enough, he was a candidate and elected as senator the next race.

Don’t you think the Texas law should be applied, which is that the guilty party is taken out and given a good thrashing the first time and for the second offence double the dose?

W. D. Wattles, Winchester, Ind.

Permit me to express my appreciation of the February number of Watson’s. It is the best Magazine I have seen, and I have seen most of the good ones. I like your practice of publishing short, pointed articles, and your cartoons are of the best. Your educational and news summary departments seem to me to be especially valuable. I shall take it into my pulpit Sunday evening, and read from your editorial.

D. C. Pryor, Uvalde, Tex.

When I was a boy I saw a carpenter place side by side three pieces of lumber which he was pleased to call “dimension timber.” These pieces were something like forty feet long and were two inches wide and eight inches deep. He took iron spikes and nailed the three pieces together until they looked to be all in one piece. He told me it was “a girder” for the “warehouse” he was constructing. I wanted to know why he did not use a solid piece of timber of the same measure. He answered by saying that the three pieces united together with the stronger part of the one fitting opposite the weaker part of the others would give the girder a greater strength in the power of resisting the immense weight that would have to be borne than if the girder had been made of just one piece of lumber.

In connection with the foregoing incident I wish to draw a pen picture of a scene which is passing before my vision: At Washington, within the shadow of the Capitol, standing side by side facing the west upon the steps of that magnificent structure, are three of the greatest men of renown the world has ever known. In the centre of the group stands the “Immortal Lincoln,” to the right of Mr. Lincoln stands the “Irreproachable Jefferson,” and to the left stands the “Irrepressible Watson”—whose mind is the very incarnation of Jeffersonian principles. Above this scene on either side, hanging toward the centre at half mast, are our national colors, beneath which is a life size portrait of “The Father of Our Country.” Above the portrait in raised letters I read “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Now I wish to impress upon those who may care to read this article and who are tired of living under the present system of “graft and greed,” and to those of us who have always believed in party lines and are more or less prejudiced in favor of our political tendencies, that there can be no reformation ever made in either of the old parties that exist at the present time. I therefore believe we should endeavor to secure the very best “dimension timber” that can be had out of the now scattered ranks of the Republican, Democratic and Populist parties, and with the nails of iron and bands of steel bring them together and make of them a girder for our country that the gods of ancient Greece could not knock asunder! And why not at an early date advertise this new party and organize party clubs throughout the land and let the watchword be “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”?

I would suggest that we name this “new party” Demo-Re-Polican or so word the name that each member from an old party may not feel that he had lost all of his former identity. I have not the least hope of electing as the chief magistrate of the nation a Southern man for years to come, and it is useless to put one at the head of the ticket to be slaughtered just to make a Roman holiday. But Mr. Watson can be our leader, and when we win “There will be glory enough for us all.”

“Conckalochie.”

(This is an Indian word for encampment, or a bringing together of the tribes for the exchange of commodities.)

Edwin Hyde Nutt, Dresden, N. Y.

I think you are on the right track exactly, and will do all I can to get you some new subscribers. I live in a land of Gold-bugs, and if there is a place on earth that needs a missionary it is Yates County, N. Y. We have lost our interest in Mr. Bryan. How could he stultify himself to vote for Parker, we can’t see. Think he will have a hard time to make Democrats out of old Greenbackers. He knows the greenbacks are the best money in the world. Why does he try to break up the Populist Party?

R. N. Crowell, Rob Roy, Ind.

I am on the down-hill of life; nearly sixty-four years old. Have been a student of history for twenty-five years and would love to do something to free us from the slavery and tyranny of boss rule. When I go hence I will leave a posterity behind me and would love to know that I have done a little something to make our country a free and independent and a Christian people in deed and in truth. Have traveled in fourteen states, been through the Indian Territory and have had some opportunity of learning something of the situation that we now are in both religiously and politically.