Chapter IX: Part 9

I have been thinking here of late that it is highly probable that some Fire Insurance Companies are grander rascals than some Life Insurance Companies. Your book deepens that suspicion. $25.00 is little enough for the book.

* * * * *

MILLEDGEVILLE, GA.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, Thomson, Ga._

DEAR SIR: Will you please answer the following in the
Educational Department of your Magazine?

(1) Where can I get a McEllicott’s “Debater?” I have been to my
book store and they haven’t got it, and do not know where to
order it from.

(2) I want to be a first class lawyer, and I want to know if
it would be better to go on and get a High School and College
education, and have all of those dead languages to learn, or
get a High School education and read and learn all necessary
studies at home, and state what books and where I can get them,
which to study first, second, third and all the rest until I
have finished my course.

Yours for success,

⸺ ⸺.

P.S.—Is there any use of studying ancient history?

ANSWER

(1) I find that McEllicott’s Debater is out of print, but if you will send fifty cents to F. E. Grant, 23 West 42nd street, New York City, he will mail to you an excellent, up-to-date book which covers about the same ground as the McEllicott Debater.

Mr. Grant is an unwearied, indefatigable, never-say-die bookseller, and he makes a speciality of getting all sorts of books for all sorts of people.

(2) Get a thorough High School Education and let the dead languages go to thunder. If you want to learn any other language than English, study French.

P.S. Yes: there is a good deal of use in studying ancient history. It is worth a great deal for a man to have a clear general idea of what was done on this earth before he got here.

You don’t want to feel bad because of your ignorance when gentlemen with whom you may be talking refer to Semiramis, Alcibiades, Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar and the rest of those ancient celebrities. Oh, yes: read up on history, ancient and modern, so that when you associate with intelligent people you will know what they are talking about.

* * * * *

BELFAST MILLS, VA., Jan. 1, 1906.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, Thomson, Ga._

DEAR SIR: What are some of the distinguishing features of the
“Code Napoleon?”

Which do you consider the half-dozen most important and
significant events in the history of the world in 1905? Ditto
in the history of the United States for 1905?

Who were the ten or twelve greatest statesmen in the South
during the Reconstruction Period?

Dividing the history of the United States from 1860 to 1905,
into epochs, what periods would you name?

Does not Roosevelt’s administration mark a new period or epoch?

Yours truly,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

(1) To answer with any fulness would require more space than we can now spare. The Code Napoleon follows, in a general way, the Roman Civil Law, while most State Codes in the United States are founded upon the Common Law of England.

(2) The war between Russia and Japan; the separation of Norway and Sweden; the defeat of Clericalism in France; the quasi-alliance between Great Britain and France; the overthrow of the Tory ministry in England and the appointment of a Labor Agitator as a member of the Cabinet; the “butting in” of the German Emperor in Moroccan affairs; the labor and peasant revolutionary movements in Russia.

(3) The Hearst campaign in New York City; the Roosevelt peace; the Life Insurance revelations; the Lawson articles on Frenzied Finance; the President’s declaration for Federal regulation of railways; the set-back to political Bossism in the State and City elections last Fall; the establishment of this Magazine.

(4) Zebulon Vance of North Carolina; George G. Vest of Missouri; L. Q. C. Lamar of Miss., John. T. Morgan of Ala., Benj. H. Hill of Ga.; James Z. George of Miss.; Roger Q. Mills of Tex.; James B. Beck of Ky.

(5) The War Period is a distinct epoch; the Reconstruction Period is another, and this period may be said to have ended when President Hayes withdrew the troops from the South.

The election of a so-called Democrat (Cleveland) over a Republican (Blaine) may also be said to have marked the advent of another epoch.

The McKinley-Mark Hanna dispensation was also an epoch and will take its place in history as the high-water mark of class-legislation, Trust making and rotten politics.

Yes; Roosevelt seems to be making himself an epoch—just what sort of one neither he nor anybody else seems to know.

* * * * *

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson_,

DEAR SIR: Would you kindly inform me through your Educational
Department:

Whether there has been adopted by any nation the 8 hour law?

And what change would have to be made in our Constitution to
put such a law into effect in this country?

Thanking you in advance for the desired information.

Respectfully,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

New Zealand has what is practically the 8 hour law. In other words, from one end of the colony to the other 8 hours is recognized as the Standard Working Day, both in public and private service.

In the United States, 8 hours is the legal working day on public works.

No change would have to be made in our Constitution to make such a law general in this country.

Congress and the States have just as much legal right to make an Eight Hour Day as they have to make a Thanksgiving Day, or other Holiday.

* * * * *

ROCKHAM, S. D., Jan. 1, 1906.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, New York._

DEAR SIR: There it is, in WATSON’S MAGAZINE for January 1906,
page 276. Report of Wm. H. English; “a large sum to our credit
for lost and destroyed bills.”

Now the question I would ask—tried to ask once before,
but failed to make it plain—is: By whose authority and to
what extent or per cent. do National Banks profit by bills
_supposed_ to be destroyed through the carelessness of you and
I and others, not accustomed to handling money?

We know many bills _are_ lost, and it seems to me that, if the
value cannot be restored to the original losers, it ought to
result in profit to the general public, the Government. Why
should the bank get any credit, did I not have to pay them for
my loan?

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

Referring to page 108 of November number of the Magazine, I find that our correspondent was informed that the Government made good to the National Banks all old notes which were worn out, mutilated or destroyed, and that this was done by virtue of Section 24 of the National Bank Law.

I really do not know how to give a plainer answer.

Old bank notes which become worn out, mutilated, or destroyed are replaced by new notes. The Comptroller of the Currency issues the new notes under and by virtue of the law. The entire National Bank act is a disgrace to the Statute Book, and section 24 is simply one of its clauses.

* * * * *

PASSAIC, N. J., DECEMBER 17, 1905.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, New York._

DEAR SIR: Every month your Magazine grows better and your
editorials are great in their unborrowed simplicity, power and
naturalness, and in their humble consciousness of truth and
right.

(1) _But how do you manage to call Napoleon a Democrat?_ I
reverence the word Democrat, it is my religion as well as
my politics, and I don’t like to hear such an unquestioned
authority as you call him a Democrat. It will be an interesting
article, I think, if you answer my objection.

(2) In an answer to a correspondent in regard to the best
English histories _you omit the favorite_—my favorite—and I
think the best—John Richard Green’s _Shorter History of the
English People_. _Why did you omit it?_ Another interesting
article.

(3) I can’t understand what you mean by saying that the “cry
of the people ground down by their masters, was what brought
Napoleon back from Elba.” I have read your history of Napoleon,
too. _Was it not solely his ambition, and he saw in the
disaffection of the people a chance to swell his armies?_

Let me congratulate you on Clarence Darrow’s story. It has the
element that made Burns and Wordsworth.

Please accept my congratulations. Wishing you a Merry Christmas
and you and your Magazine a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Yours very truly,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER.

(1) I call Napoleon a democrat because he made war upon caste and privilege, upon Kings and aristocracies, and because he favored universal education, equal opportunities for all, and equal rights for all.

In judging any man, great or small, you must allow for environment.

Born in Corsica, and coming to France to be educated for the army in a royal school, Napoleon could hardly be the kind of democrat the average American boy so naturally becomes.

France was ruled by a King and aristocracy, just as other European nations were. Monarchical institutions, hundreds of years old, stood on every hand.

The Revolution crashed through them all, and prostrated them all, but the Revolution could not sustain itself. Reaction set in, and there was danger of a Bourbon restoration.

Napoleon struck in at “the psychological moment,” and became the people’s King. Personally he became despotic, but _his work_ was always democratic.

I call him a democrat because he made it possible for the poorest boy in France to advance to the highest pinnacle of glory; because he lifted the boycott against men of obscure birth and made _merit_ the test of distinction; because he abolished the outrageous privileges of feudal nobility in every part of Europe which came under his control; because he rebuked the bigotry of priesthood and punished a clerical Ass who had insulted the corpse of an actress; because he scornfully repulsed the flatterers who wished to “make up” a fine ancestral tree for him, and proudly dated _his_ nobility from the date of his first great achievement; because he studied to improve the condition of the common people; because he tried to make school-teaching practical—that is he tried to have his schools fit every boy for the career which _that_ boy’s talent was suited for; because he equalized taxation; because he based his administration and his Code upon the broad righteous principle of “Equal Rights for all and special privileges for none.”

(2) An oversight. Green’s “Short History” is a classic and every library should contain it.

(3) The Bourbons had broken the pledges which they had made as a condition precedent to their being restored. Not until Talleyrand and the other traitors had besought the help of the Czar Alexander, would Louis XVIII even go through the form of granting the reforms which had been promised.

When the Allied armies withdrew, the Bourbon reaction set in with a headlong rush. The veteran soldiers of the army were affronted brutally by young aristocratic officers who had never smelled gunpowder. Napoleon’s officers who had won renown on scores of battle-fields were contemptuously maltreated. The _wives_ of the officers were snubbed by the high-born dames of the old nobility.

The revolutionary and Napoleonic system was being uprooted in various directions, and _the people_ of France realized that the Bourbons meant to restore the Old Order with all of its brutal inequalities and injustice and oppression. _The people_ saw that the Bourbon restoration meant once more the galling chains of _the noble and the priest_. Hence, when Napoleon came from Elba, the masses of the French hailed him wildly. They followed him with mad cries of “_Hang the priests!_” _The Masses_ clamored for arms, asking to fight and die for _The Man_, Napoleon. Even after Waterloo, they clung to him frantically, tumultuously rallying to him, and begging him to give them guns. Had Napoleon frankly thrown himself into the hands of the masses of the French people, he could have hung the Talleyrands, Fouchés and Marmonts, and driven the Allies out of France.

But Napoleon was a soldier of the Military Academy. He had no faith in the fighting quality of “the mob.”

Another hundred years had to elapse before the Boers of South Africa could show to the world that if your mob is the right sort of mob, and has the best guns, and can shoot with the best aim, it can knock your painfully disciplined army into a cocked hat.

Yes: Clarence Darrow is a writer of marvelous power. Read his “An Eye for an Eye,” and you will realize that the Chicago lawyer has all the genius of Tolstoy when it comes to making a story of thrilling interest out of the commonest human materials.

* * * * *

VAN DYCK, TENN.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson_,

DEAR SIR: I have seen it stated that the working people of
this country make or create $7 worth of wealth for each day
in the year. For every man engaged in gainful pursuits do the
statistics justify such a statement. If so, we do not get our
share. My father is a very great Populist and I aim to make
some speeches in the future and will take it as a very great
kindness if you will let me know if I will be perfectly safe in
making that declaration.

Thanking you in advance I remain your great admirer.

ANSWER

There are 29,000,000 people in this country engaged in gainful pursuits.

An author (Bolton Hall) who has devoted much study to our economic situation states these producing citizens annually create wealth to the amount of $19,000,000.

You can figure out for yourself how much each worker creates. Ten per cent of our population get almost all the annual production of wealth.

* * * * *

GRAND PRAIRIE, TEXAS, JANUARY 1, 1906.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, Thomson, Ga._

MY DEAR SIR: A Republican here claims that the tariff shuts
out the cheap labor of the European countries and on that
account, the laborers here in our factories get high prices.
He says that the factories of England pay their laborers
twelve to fifteen cents per day on account of free trade in
England. He says children work for five cents per day, and
railroad engineers get only $4 per month. He says that if
this country were to adopt free trade, the factories of the
European countries could come over here and buy our cotton and
raw products, ship them to England, manufacture them, ship them
back here and sell them cheaper than our factories could do it,
and the result would be that our factories would be compelled
to close down, thus throwing thousands of people out of
employment. I think his claims are extravagant. I want you to
explain this fully. I want to be loaded for him the next time
I meet him, and if I can get “loaded up” on your ammunition, I
will dead sure knock him out.

I have read all you have written about the Bank system and am
prepared to put up a very fair argument. I don’t understand
this, Mr. Watson. In a recent issue of your Magazine, you say
there is no reason on earth why the Government should not loan
the money direct to the people instead of the 5000 bankers.
Please explain fully just how this could be done. How much
per share did Cleveland get for the bonds that he sold on the
midnight deal? I have heard it said that he sold them for $125
per share.

Thanking you for the great work you are doing for the common
people and with kindest regards to you personally,

I am, very truly,

⸺ ⸺.

P. S.—I am a Georgian. I met you personally on two occasions
at Athens. Perhaps you have long since forgotten me. I would
consider it an honor to be known by you, and to know you as a
personal friend. In ’96 I wrote you from Athens for a copy of
the P. P. P. I had misplaced my copy wherein you showed up the
littleness of Bill Arp’s school history of Georgia. You sent me
a copy from Thomson; I have it yet.

ANSWER

The Republican who told you those things about English wages did not know what he was talking about. The idea of a railroad engineer getting four dollars per month, and factory hands being paid five cents per day! The figures are so ridiculous that even a Protection-soaked Republican ought to know better.

If high Tariffs benefit the laborer, why is it that workmen get better wages in free-trade England than in high-Tariff France, Italy and Germany? If high-Tariffs give the benefit to the laborer why is it that the Salvation Army had to save the factory hands at Fall River, Mass., from starvation, by ladling out free soup? The best paid laborers in the United States are the negroes of the South who raise cotton, a free trade product. The laborer gets a larger share of the cotton he produces than any employee in any protected industry.

In England the wages paid to factory hands are at least equal to those paid in the United States when the amount of the wage is compared with the amount and quality of the product.

Ask your Republican friend if he does not know that his great Apostle, James G. Blaine, made this assertion some twenty years ago.

The statement was not denied then and cannot be denied now.

There is a huge army of the poor and the unemployed in England, but it is not due to Free trade.

It is the natural result of three things.

(1) Land monopoly.

(2) A diabolical financial system.

(3) The host of non-producers who use the government as a means of getting their support and their wealth by oppressing the producers.

The Government could easily establish a Bureau of Loans, and could adopt a business-like system of lending money direct to the people.

This principle has been put in successful operation in Great Britain, Norway, Greece and other foreign countries.

Not long ago, the firm of N. A. Harris & Co., of Chicago, New York and Boston, put out a Circular offering for sale “Sanitary District of Chicago” bonds to the amount of $500,000. As a recommendation of these bonds, Harris & Co., declared in the Circular that the United States Government had accepted the bonds as security for Government deposits.

In other words, the National Banks have been borrowing the people’s money out of the Treasury on the faith of these bonds. Of course, the banks paid no interest.

Now does it not occur to you that the Government could as well lend some of that money to you at four or six percent interest upon security equally good, as to lend it to a favored few without interest?

I do not believe that Mr. Cleveland profited personally by the sale of the bonds. He acted stupidly and he acted in violation of law. The whole transaction had an ugly look because Morgan had recently been his client and Stetson (who drew the contract) had recently been his partner. But I do not think he acted corruptly.

Mr. Cleveland did not get 125 for the Bonds.

Oh, no. He sold them for 103½, and Morgan, Belmont, Rothschild & Co. _immediately realized_ 112¼.

* * * * *

SAVANNAH, GA., December 18, 1905.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson._

DEAR SIR: I have been a constant reader of your eminent
Magazine from the first issue and have become converted to your
Populist principles of which I will stand by as long as I have
the liberty of voting.

Tonight we have organized a club in the city of Savannah, Ga.,
principally of working men, so that we might study politics,
and thoroughly understand how to cast our ballot intelligently,
and for the best of our interest; we think the day is fast
approaching when if the workingman doesn’t wake up and take
hold of the reins of government, he will find in the near
future that his liberties have flown never to be regained. My
object in writing to you is for information in your Educational
Department. How would you advise as to the most intelligent way
to do this?

They don’t seem to understand how to get together, and I
believe you can give us the desired information.

Respectfully,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

I would advise the reading, by the members of the club, of such books as the following: “Politics in New Zealand,” “Poverty,” by Robert Hunter; “The Menace of Privilege,” by Henry George; “Letters and Addresses of Thomas Jefferson,” recently published by The Unit Book Publishing Co., New York, “Bossism and Monopoly,” by Spelling.

These books will not cost a great deal, and they will give you a very complete survey of our political and economic condition.

* * * * *

WASHINGTON, D. C., January 17, 1906.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, New York._

DEAR SIR: As you will notice in the wording of the question
printed above, which we shall debate with the University of
Cincinnati, the entire discussion will probably hinge on the
term “Capitalistic combinations called trusts.”

In order to get the consensus of authoritative opinion as to
what capitalistic combinations are called trusts by those
who are most competent to use the term intelligently, we are
taking the liberty of asking the editors of a dozen of the most
prominent monthlies, weeklies and dailies in the United States
to give us their definition of this term.

Will you, therefore, be kind enough to sacrifice enough of your
time to state briefly what capitalistic combinations, in your
opinion, should be called trusts.

Very respectfully,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

My conception of a Trust is: A combination of individual or corporate capital which practically establishes such a monopoly that it can control the output, dictate the price, and crush competition.

* * * * *

BLUE HILL, NEB., November 29, 1905.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson._

DEAR SIR: I am a regular reader of your Magazine, having bought
the first one ever sold in our town. I like it very much. It
speaks my sentiments better than I know how to express them
myself. I have never heard but one thing said against your
Magazine—one party thought you were a little hard on the darky.

I want to ask one question. If you were elected President of
the United States, and had a House and Senate of your own
faith and political belief, and you were to abolish the gold
standard and the national banks, what effect would it have upon
the country? Would not the banks totter and fall and ruin many
depositors? Banks have become a necessity. In your message to
Congress, what kind of banks and what kind of money would you
recommend?

At present, corn husking is the issue of the day, but that will
soon be over. Then I will take your subscription blanks and
go out among the farmers and see what I can do for the best
Magazine on earth.

Yours respectfully,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

(1) I don’t think I have been “too hard on the darky.”

Doctor Booker Washington, spoiled by too much praise, got too gay in his statements concerning the rapid progress of the negro in civilization. The Doctor’s idea seemed to be that as soon as you caught a young African, washed him, combed him, put clothes on him, and taught him how to read, write and cipher, he was at once civilized.

I knew better than this, and the Doctor does now. He will be more particular how he claims superiority for the negro race, hereafter. Especially since his brethren in Santo Domingo have given that “Republic” another push hellwards.

On that island, one of the most favored spots on the globe, the negroes had the advantage of beginning with an elegant civilization which the French had taught them.

The negroes expelled the French, set up a government of their own, and the record of their _republic_ has been one of the foulest blurs on the history of the human race. They get worse and worse and worse. There are not a sufficient number of whites in Santo Domingo to keep the negroes straight: in this country there are. _That makes all the difference._

(2) If I were President and could do away with the Gold standard, restoring the currency to the constitutional status, depriving the National Banks of the privilege of creating paper currency, and exercising that power directly by the use of Treasury Notes, why should the banks “totter and fall?”

A good many of them have tottered and fallen; many more of them are going to “totter and fall.” Why? Because the system is rotten. Thousands of individual banks and bankers are as sound as gold dollars, but the system isn’t, for the reason that too much bank-made currency, of various sorts, is afloat; the line of credits has been lengthened until it is about to snap; wild-cat speculation is rampant; and thousands of banks are dabbling in business which isn’t legitimate banking.

I am in favor of Banks of Deposit and Discount—so long as we cannot get Postal Savings Banks.

But I am opposed to Banks of Issue—that is, banks which issue their promises to pay and get rich on what they owe. These are the National Banks. Render to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; restore to the Government the sovereign power of issuing paper currency.

Depositors would not be endangered by our policy of expanding the currency; the more money in circulation, the more certain the depositors would be to get paid.

(3) In my Message to Congress, I would recommend Postal Savings Banks, for the reasons stated in the December issue of this Magazine, page 231.

The kind of money I would recommend would be that which the Fathers fixed in the Constitution, and which the practice of a hundred years seemed to render “irrevocable”—a system which had the sanction of Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Monroe, Jackson and Lincoln.

The Constitutional system of currency, as shown by the law and the practice of Presidents, and the decisions of the Supreme Court, is _Silver_, _Gold_, _Treasury Notes_, and the silver dollar was _the unit of money_.

Congress sold itself to Bank of England agents, and changed our system of currency to suit European financiers.

Mr. August Belmont, of New York, could tell you how much Rothschild money his bank spent to bring about the change.

_And I hold in my desk sworn evidence that Ernest Seyd, Bank of England Agent, spent $484,000 for the same purpose._

The fight for reform will never stop till you have wiped out that shame, and have put our financial system back on the sound basis built by the Fathers.

If the Corn husking issue has been settled, please hustle for those subscriptions if you would make us happy.

* * * * *

WESTMINSTER, S. C., Jan. 3, 1906.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, Thompson, Ga._

DEAR SIR: I am very much interested in the Educational
Department of your excellent Magazine, and glean much valuable
information from it.

The inductive or interrogatory style, so often and
advantageously used by yourself in your editorials, is the
best method of teaching on any subject. Questions are easily
asked—any one can do this.

Answering is sometimes more difficult.

(1.) If National Banks should be abolished, and the Government
issue the money used by the people, how would it be put in
circulation?

(2.) If the National Banks were abolished, would it not be a
matter of convenience in business transactions, be necessary,
to have private banks?

(3.) Can you furnish back-numbers, from the beginning of your
paper?

These questions are frequently asked by the common people, and
some of us are puzzled to know how to answer satisfactorily.

Grover Cleveland, I think, once said, that however money
might be created, the middle-man, by trusts, monopolies, and
speculations, would take the advantage and oppress the poor and
needy, just the same.

If you think the above questions worthy of notice, please
answer in your February number.

I am glad to note the contemplated improvement in your
Magazine. I will do my best to get you more subscribers.

Yours respectfully,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

The National Banks now have outstanding notes to the amount of $550,000,000 in round numbers. If the privilege of issuing these notes as money were taken away from the National Banks, the paper money now in circulation would be reduced to $550, 000,000. Suppose the Government should issue an equal sum in its own notes to take the place of the National Bank notes—how could the Government put its own notes into circulation?

(1) It could _immediately_ put the entire amount in circulation by applying it to the part payment of the public debt. We are the richest nation on earth: the richest that history knows anything about—yet we keep ourselves mortgaged with a perpetual National Debt because the favored few demand bonds to bank on. If National Banks were abolished, as real Democracy always sought to do, there would be no further excuse for keeping the Bond-Mortgage on the National estate.

(2) It could put the entire amount $550, 000,000, in circulation _gradually_ by paying the national expenses with it.

(3) It could put the money in circulation by building Government railroads with it.

(4) And my opinion is that the whole sum could be benevolently assimilated by that Panama Canal business which the sleek Cromwell and his Varilla unloaded on the impulsive Roosevelt.

Second Question: Yes. We wage no war on private banks. As long as banks confine themselves to legitimate banking, loans, discounts &c., they are not a source of national danger. It is only when a certain class of bankers, like the National Bankers, usurp the Governmental function by supplying the country with money, that they are, as Jefferson said, more dangerous to Republican institutions than standing armies.

Question 3: Yes.

* * * * *

MEMPHIS, TENN., Nov. 30, 1905.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, New York._

DEAR SIR: I am a regular reader of your Magazine, which I find
very interesting and instructive. I believe in the Public
Ownership of Public Utilities, but fear that does not go far
enough to cure the land of the evils that now curse it. With
Government banks, Government railroads, Municipal Ownership of
Public Utilities, there would still be that awful strife of
the many for bread and butter. If we may ride cheaper on the
“Railhighways,” if we get our Water, Gas, and Electric Light
cheaper, will not the wages of the workers go down as the cost
of living decreases? Will not then as now, the “iron law” of
wages be operative?

Please answer in your Educational Department.

Yours,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

As the cost of living decreased, the purchasing power of wages would increase, and every dollar now paid to Labor would command for the laborer a greater quantity of necessaries, comfort and luxuries of life.

How could you suppose that the wages of workers will go down when the masses of the people wrest the Government out of the hands of the plutocrats? Public ownership of public utilities cannot be brought about until the people rout the Privileged Few at the polls, when that day comes do you fear that _the people_ will cut down _their own wages_ as the Privileged Few have done?

Not many weeks ago the price of cotton advanced. The farmers of the South had suffered so long and so much from low prices that they organized. The result was a rise in the price of raw cotton.

How did the Protected Manufacturers of New England meet this increase in the cost of raw material?

The Government reports show that the manufacturers have been earning twice as much on their invested capital as the farmers had earned. It was fair for the farmers to contend for a juster division. Hence their organization.

The manufacturers saw that they would lose a part of the unjust profits which they were reaping from the Protective system, and they promptly cut down—their fat dividends? Heavens! No. They cut down the wages of the factory boys and girls, men and women, who are _protected_ by our blessed Tariff.

Now if _the people_ ruled this country, if there was no Privilege, no Monopoly, no taxing of some to enrich others, no granting of Governmental powers to private Corporations, no corrupt alliance between Commerce and Government, you may bet your bottom dollar that _fat dividends would be cut_, before men, women and children would be desolated by a reduction of wages.

* * * * *

GALION, OHIO, Dec. 21, 1905.

_Watson’s Magazine_,

GENTLEMEN: Please give me some suggestions in your interesting
Educational Department on the negative side of this question:
Resolved, that the United States is retrograding in morality
and righteousness.

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

The negative side of that question might draw arguments of facts from “Social Progress” by Dr. Josiah Strong, “The History of the People of the United States” by McMaster. To keep your mind clear from haunting doubts, however, avoid such books on the other side as “The Tramp at Home,” by Lee Meriwether, “American Pauperism,” by Isidor Ladoff, “The Menace of Privilege,” by Henry George, “Poverty,” by Robert Hunter.

It would be well also, _not_ to read of the Life Insurance revelations, nor the facts which disclose how corporations corrupt and control the politicians.

* * * * *

TEMPLE, GA. Dec. 8, 1905

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, Thomson, Ga._

DEAR SIR: Please answer the following questions in the
Department of Education.

Would you advise me to study the following books with the hope
of getting a thorough knowledge of law?

1. How to Study Law.

2. Constitutional Law, Federal and State.

3. Personal Rights and Domestic Relations.

4. Contracts and Partnerships.

5. Agency and Bailments, including Common Carriers.

6. Negotiable Instruments and Principal and Surety.

7. Wills and Settlements of Estates.

8. Personal Property and Equity or Chancery Law.

9. Public Corporations and Private Corporations.

10. Real Property and Pleading and Practice.

Very truly yours,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

There are ten different books indicated in this formidable list, whereas the subjects enumerated are all treated with sufficient fullness in the text-books which I have heretofore suggested to law students, viz:

(1) Blackstone’s Commentaries,

(2) Kent’s Commentaries,

(3) Greenleaf on Evidence,

(4) The State Code.

* * * * *

DYSON, WILKES CO. Ga.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, New York._

DEAR SIR: Will you please tell me in your Magazine the
principal object you had in leaving the Democratic party and
going into the People’s party?

Have the Republican or Democratic parties ever advocated the
Government ownership of public utilities? If so, which one and
when? Has that question ever been agitated in Europe? When and
who by?

Truly yours,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

My election to Congress was due to my support of the Ocala Platform of the Farmer’s Alliance, and when the Indianapolis Convention of 1891 instructed all Congressmen so elected to stand by the principles of the Alliance regardless of the Caucus dictation of political parties, I declined to enter the Democratic Congressional Caucus in Washington.

(1) I was immediately denounced in the bitterest terms by nearly every Democratic paper in Georgia; yet I could not have done otherwise without betraying the Alliance-men who had elected me.

I did not join the Alliance as so many time-servers did; I remained on the outside, but they trusted me so implicitly that I received the solid Alliance vote. How, then, could I walk into the Caucus trap, to be silenced and tied by a majority vote which was dead against the Alliance demands?

During the summer of 1891, I had held a series of great public meetings throughout my District, and these Conventions of the voters overwhelmingly and enthusiastically instructed me to stand by the principles rather than the party, if the time came when it was necessary to choose the one course or the other. Then came the organization of the People’s Party, after it had become plain that neither of the old parties meant to give the people relief.

I went with the People’s Party because my election had been due to those principles, and because the same overwhelming majority of Democrats who had elected me had gone into the People’s Party, and because I had no hope whatever of getting the reforms inside the Democratic Party.

(2) Neither the Republican nor the Democratic party has ever advocated “Government Ownership of Public Utilities.”

In Europe the principle is almost universally recognized and _practiced_.

Government ownership of Railroads is the rule on the Continent. In England the Imperial Government owns the Telegraphs and Telephones. The Government Parcels Post does the work of an Express Company. Municipal railroads, telegraphs, telephones, lighting plants, water systems, laundries, bathing establishments, bakeries, etc., etc., are in operation all over Great Britain and all over Europe.

_We_ are the laggards, we smart folks of the United States. We are the only nation of civilized cattle on earth which the Corporations find easy prey.

* * * * *

MILLEDGEVILLE, GEORGIA, December 18, 1905.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, Thompson, Ga._

DEAR SIR: TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE contains more sound principles
and good common horse sense, (just what the people need) than
any other paper published in the United States, and I wish you
would answer the following questions, to wit:

(1) Does it not look like the North, East and West are
determined to adhere to their hellish, reconstruction policy to
the end of time?

(2) What material difference does it make to Georgia, or the
Common people in her limits whether she has six or eleven
representatives in Congress?

(3) Is it not true that the only material benefit in being
represented at all in these times, accrues to the fellow who
draws the five or six thousand salary annually?

(4) Is it not true that the Northern, Eastern and Western
Democrats vote as a unit with the Republicans whenever any
question affects the South is the issue?

(5) Why is it that the Southern Democrats do not stand as a
unit and vote for whatever is best for the whole country,
regardless of party, and thereby hold the balance of power in
the Government?

(6) How can the North, East and West be convinced and made to
understand that the negro lives in the South, is part of the
South, and that the white people of the South are going to say
and dictate what the negro’s political and social status shall
be while he remains in the South?

(7) Are there not thousands of white people in every State of
the Union who are as incompetent to cast a vote intelligently
as the negro is, and why not reduce the representatives in
Congress from each State accordingly?

ANSWER

My opinion is that a majority of the people of the North, East and West have become satisfied to let the South exercise the same right to settle her domestic affairs that they practice in settling theirs.

Only a minority—some members of which try to make up in noise what it lacks in numbers—cling to the old prejudices, passions, and policy of interference. Mr. Ernest Crosby—a hot partisan for negro rights—has recently published a “Life of Garrison,” and very boldly admits that while Slavery was wrong the war which was waged upon the South was also wrong.

Ten years ago such a sentiment would have drawn volleys of protest from the North, the East and the West.

There are no protests now; and I shouldn’t wonder if a majority of the intelligent people of those sections would admit that while Slavery was a moral wrong, that it had been practiced by both sections, given a solemn Constitutional sanction as a condition precedent to the Union, that the South had a right to withdraw from a voluntary compact whose terms had not been kept, and that the war which was made upon her to force her back into the Union was a colossal mistake and wrong.

(2) None whatever.

(3) It is.

(4) If it is a question where sectional interest or feeling is aroused—yes.

(5) Because of the tyranny of party name and party organization. Southern Democrats dare not vote independently.

(6) I think they begin to understand it. The more they see of the negro _in Mass_, the better they will realize our problem. As long as they seem to think that all the Southern negroes are as nice and wise as Booker Washington, they will, of course, find it difficult to get our point of view of the race question. But they will gradually come to see that there is only one Booker Washington and that _he_ isn’t doing anything more than running a large school which any ordinary white College President could run on one half the money which Doctor Washington rakes in—why opinion will change. The doings of the negroes in San Domingo—where there are no mean Southern whites to beat, cheat, or lynch them—will also have influence in opening the eyes of the world as to what the negro, _in Mass_, actually is.

The idea that the negro is merely a white gentleman whom the Almighty inadvertently painted black will disappear, in time.

(7) The “suppressed vote” in some of the states of the Union appears to be quite large and the number of illiterate, criminal and incompetent voters is likewise great. A square deal would demand that whatever rule is applied to the South should be applied to the others.

* * * * *

IDALIA, COLO., December 29, 1905.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, New York._

DEAR SIR: Will you kindly print in your next issue of your
Magazine the names of Presidential candidates of the Democratic
and People’s party of 1896 and 1900.

Most respectfully,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

1896, Democratic Candidates, Bryan and Sewall. People’s Party Candidates: Bryan and Watson.

1900, Democratic Candidates: Bryan and Stevenson. People’s Party Candidates: Barker and Donnelly.

* * * * *

GILMORE CITY, MO., December 2, 1905.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson._

DEAR SIR: I am a reader of your Magazine and am highly
entertained by its editorials especially, also by its
Educational Department. Am a member of the Old Guard and I take
the liberty to ask you a few questions in the line of Populism.

(1.) Does England call her navy to a certain point from
thousands of miles distant to fire a salute on George
Washington’s Birthday, or that of any of our noted Presidents,
as we did eighteen vessels a month ago for King Edward? How
ridiculous for a republic!

(2.) Why has not the Census of 1900 been given to the public,
as were former ones, within two years after being taken? It was
the disclosures of the 1890 Census that tripled the Populist
vote in ’92.

(3.) Has the $900,000,000 of farm mortgage indebtedness been
increased or diminished in the ten years following 1890?

(4.) Are the free holdings of the people increasing on a ratio
with the increase of population in these U. S.?

Yours very truly,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

(1) No.

(2) You can get the Census Reports of 1900, by spurring up your Congressman.

(3) The “encumbered” homes show an increase, as do the “hired” homes.

(4) No. Concentration of wealth in the hands of a few goes on at a more frightful rate than ever. _Five thousand men_ now own one-sixth of the entire wealth of the Union. One man, J. D. Rockefeller, could buy the State of Georgia, give it away, and then have enough to buy it back.

* * * * *

COOLEDGE, TEXAS.

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson._

DEAR SIR: I received your August number of Magazine. I don’t
know exactly what it is you propose. It is perhaps the dull
apprehension of an old hayseed from down at the fork of the
Creek.

(1.) Is the money you propose for the Government to issue to be
redeemable Treasury Notes, or is it to be absolute Fiat money?

(2.) Do you propose the free and unlimited coinage of gold and
silver at 16 to 1? If not at that ratio, what ratio do you
propose?

(3.) Is it not a fact that from 1792 to 1834 we were
practically on the silver standard and that after 1834 we were
practically on the gold standard, and that this change was the
effect of the change of ratio, made by the act of 1834? Why
was it that in 1853 the Government coined fractional silver of
lighter weight in proportion to value than the standard dollar?

(4.) You claim for the Government the power to create money. If
that be so, why clamor for gold and silver only? Let us suppose
that the United States Treasury is now full of such money as
you propose, Gold, Silver or Fiat. I want some of it. How am I
to get it?

I agree with you heartily that the making of our Federal
Government is all out of joint, and I think that it is the
unwarranted meddling with affairs over which it has no rightful
control. The remedy, as I think, is _not_ in enlarging and
extending its powers, for every step taken in that direction
makes worse conditions possible. Let us say to her in plain
language: “Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther. Get back to
the track marked out for you and stay there.”

What is here written is in all honesty and in a controversial
spirit and should you see fit to refer to them, I will be glad
to have the number.

I am not a subscriber now. May be soon.

Best wishes.

ANSWER

(1) Money that is “redeemable” in other money is not my idea of money. A dollar is not redeemed by swapping another dollar for it. The only redemption of the dollar which amounts to anything beneficial is when a debt, public or private, is redeemed by paying it off in legal tender. I redeem my promissory note by paying the amount of money it calls for: I redeem all my other dues and debts in the same way. Nothing is redeemed when a gold dollar is given for a silver dollar, or a metallic dollar exchanged for a paper dollar. That method of fooling the people will go out of fashion as the people become educated. All money is absolute fiat money. That is, the law makes the money. God made no money. Nature made no money. Evolution made no money. The law takes raw material and makes money out of it, just as the lumberman takes a log and makes plank or shingles out of it.

The Government fiat makes gold money, makes silver money, makes nickel money, makes copper money. It would with equal ease and certainty make iron or paper _money_.

Whenever _the law_ says that a paper dollar shall go just as far, as _a legal tender_, as the gold dollar goes, the paper will suit me and you just as well as the gold.

(2) Yes.

(3) No. See page 275, January issue of this Magazine.

(4) I do not clamor for gold and silver only. We demand the money of the Constitution which has been taken away from us by venal Congressmen who were bribed by Wall Street and the European financiers.

How could you get some of the fiat money?

This is but another form of the old question of getting the paper money into circulation.

There are several ways.

(1) The Government could pay off the National debt.

(2) The Government could build new railroads, or buy those already built.

(3) The Government could pay current expenses with it.

(4) Could build the Panama Canal with it.

(5) Could establish a Department which would lend it to the people, direct, at a low interest, as is done in Europe.

In Norway and Sweden the Government lends money to the farmers on their land, on long time, at low interest. These banks have been most beneficial and successful.

In France and in Russia the Government makes loans upon produce.

In Germany the Government bank lends money on land security, directly to the land-owner.

In Greece, the farmers can get money from the Government banks.

In Great Britain, the Government lends money to the citizen to buy land.

The only reason in the world why our people cannot secure similar advantages, is that we are cruelly oppressed by corporation tyranny and greed.

_In Passing_

BY LURANA W. SHELDON

A nod, a smile, perchance a word,
Where road meets road on life’s broad way;
The pilgrim’s heart with joy is stirred;
More brightly glows the weary way.

A word, a glance, a subtle thrill
Of sympathy for brother woe,
And from the fount of human ill
The sweetest drops of pleasure flow.

Though nevermore our paths may meet,
Nor heart greet heart with welcoming kiss,
An instant makes the sad world sweet;
One passing fills the soul with bliss.

_BY Mrs. Louise H. Miller._]

Last month I spoke of how easy it is to let a light day tire you as much as a heavy one. If you can do three-thirds in one busy day why does it take all another day to do two-thirds and tire you about as much in one case as in the other? Why didn’t you have a third of it for your own amusement or improvement? What became of that third? It is all just another proof that it pays to do a thing with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your body. If you had worked as earnestly the second day as you did the first, you would have done the day’s work, had a third of it to yourself, and been no more tired than you were the first. It wasn’t because you were lazy—you just “had the time” and put it all on the daily work instead of taking some of it for yourself.

I can hear a small chorus of objections to the above. Wait a minute. No one knows better than I that the housework for one day is often different in kind and amount from that of the day before; that one’s strength is often not the same two days in succession; that there are extras and specials and interruptions; that the baby may sleep most of one day and cry most of the next; that many things depend on the mother; that some women really have all they can do day in and day out and year after year and work at high speed all the time until they die of it; that often what fits one case does not fit another. I know all that. _But the principle is true!_ And nine times out of ten that principle applied to your own case would help you physically, mentally and morally. And those about you.

“I know all that,” says some one. “There’s nothing new in that.”

I venture that this person, however well she knows it, hasn’t been _applying it_. No there’s nothing new in it. That’s just where the danger lies—it is so old a principle that we forget all about it.

“Yes,” say a dozen more, “you are right. That person ought to apply it and profit by it. If we had work like hers we could accomplish a lot by it. But we haven’t, more’s the pity, and _our_ work is such that we can’t do that way with it.”

There lies the real trouble. As in everything else, we can see how _others_ can make an improvement, but when it comes to our own case, why, that is quite different, because this and because that and because the other. The funny part of it is that these other people, while they are blind about themselves as we are about ourselves, can see very easily how we could improve matters. Of course other people generally think they could improve our methods much more than they really could, but it is equally true that we think they could improve it less than they really could. Two heads are better than one, and it does help to see ourselves as others see us.

I don’t believe many busy women can save as much as a third from their lighter days, but I do firmly believe that nearly every one of you can save some part of it. Maybe it is only half an hour, but much can be done in even that little space several times a week. What we need in our daily work is more generalship. Your body is like an army blundering around without a leader unless you guide it with your head. That is what your head is for—to save your body and help it accomplish more. The trouble is that we all get into a rut too easily and go on doing our work in the same old way for years. We quit thinking, quit using generalship.