H. N. Holmes, Hemple, Mo.
I am one of the charter members of your Magazine and I have been handing it out to some mighty good men for them to read. I am forty-eight years old and have read a heap and I believe that I will be inside of the truth when I say that there is more good sound sense in one of your Magazines than in all of the newspapers that I ever read outside of theMissouri Worldand the paper that you used to publish. I took it as long as you ran it. I have followed you ever since you were in Congress. I got a couple of your campaign books at that time, voted for you every time I got a chance to. I would rather cast ten thousand votes for Tom Watson than one for the sainted Bryan. I wouldn’t give Tom Watson for all the Bryans that could stand on Nebraska soil. I don’t think he is good stuff for reform, or for the plutocrats either. I will close by saying that I thinkTom Watson’s Magazineis the finest in the world, and I have never seen anything that would equal it for an educator. Give it to them, Tom. I believe the boys are leaning your way.
J. L. Reynolds, North Augusta, S. C.
I thought enough of your Magazine to send you a renewal of my subscription which will carry me through to April, 1907. I have always admired Mr. Watson as a writer, and as long as he writes as well as during these last two or three years I shall continue to read his stuff.
I admire some of his politics but am not a third party man, nor am I populistic in my views. I am an independent, I presume, or “on the fence” ready to fall in line with an honest party, one foreign to the present.
I see no reason why the Magazine should not reach into the millions. It is good enough, fair enough, bold enough, and honest enough to give each and every one a fair deal. Tell Tom to hit Roosevelt and he’ll please me.
F. C. Gibbs, Waterville, Minn.
You are doing splendid work with the Magazine. I was chairman of the State Central Committee of this State in 1896, the year Bryan ran the first time, and the year he destroyed the People’s Party. When he swallowed the gold standard, Parker, gold telegram, boots and all, he lost the last vestige of respect I had for him. He has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
S. A. Hauser, Winston-Salem, N. C.
I have never stated to you my position on the money question. You say “Mr. Hauser seems to think that there is substantially no difference between the Socialist position on money and that taken by the Populist.” Yes, there is some difference. The Pops are wedded to the legal tender system which is the only sane system, too safe and sound and just for the exploiters. I am a Socialist and my position is this on the money question. I would have legal tender only till the co-operative commonwealth is established. Then I would use labor checks to denote the price of a given article. For instance, if it took John Smith 30 minutes to make a hat, 30M. would be the cost in labor, and hence would be the price of the hat. So Dick Jones, who labors 30 minutes and makes a pair of shoes, could take his time check and exchange it for the hat. In Rev., 18 chap. and 11 verse, you will find this: “For no man buyeth their merchandise any more.” That time is coming and it looks as if it was nearly here. The Ethics of Socialism are the same as the Bible and are therefore right. Therefore Socialism is irrefutable.
I know the Pops and Soc. ought to unite, but whether they will or not is the question. If the Pop Party represents the workingman’s interest then the working people in that party and the working people in the Soc. Party should harmonize their differences. When they become sensible enough they will. The capitalists have laid the example for the workingman. He must do or be done forever.
Charles R. Long, Bedias, Tex.
I want to work to get all the plain people to concentrate forces regardless of party lines.
Hurrah for Tom Watson, Tom Lawson, Tom Paine and Tom Jefferson.
A. M. Brannan, Guy, Ark.
I reckon the Lord only knows how much I rejoice while reading theMissouri WorldandWatson’s Magazine, and in each of them see that we yet have men who have the wisdom and ability to turn on the light and are not afraid to do it. Yes, men who are veteran patriots, worthy of all the honor that has ever been conferred on them and to whom this American government will owe lasting praise and gratitude for its salvation. Now, sir, I don’t believe I have said too much so far and what I say more than this is real. I now feel like repeating the words of Paul Jones when asked if he was not ready to surrender, “I have just begun to fight,” and I tell you the truth when I say that I have been saying this for thirteen years. But let me tell you, and all who may see this, the meanest, dirtiest thing I have done politically in all these thirteen years. Right now some of the Old Guard are ready to say “He voted for Bryan and Fusion.” Well, yes, I did. The fact is I didn’t know as much then as I do now and I wanted relief, and I got it. Yes, got relieved of a chance tovote for reform until the last Presidential election when I got to vote, and not only to vote but work also for the election of our gallant, patriotic, country-loving, people-serving and never-surrender Thomas E. Watson. And if it is the Lord’s will I pray that he may not, as our brave L. L. Polk, fall before the great battle is fought, or rather finished, but that he may live to see his ambition realized and all the down trodden and corporation ridden laborers and producers once more free and enjoying the fruits of their labors, and this government once more in the hands of the people.
I have just returned from Foulkner Co., a county south of where I live, and while there I met one of my old Populist friends and he began to tell me about receiving one of Watson’s Magazines, and, said he, “It is the best thing politically I ever saw,” and, “In a short while after that they registered my name as a subscriber and I have been reading it ever since.” He then went on to say that Dr. Snoddy of Saltillo has received the November number, and said the doctor says it is the richest and ablest political magazine he ever saw. So I see how much good we all may do by sending out Populist literature among the people.
Ed. J. Chastain, and I went to work and got 5 subscriptions for that champion of the people’s cause. If I was able to I would send, or have sent,Tom Watson’s Magazineto 20 men here in this country. Yes, and I believe if Congress was creating money and regulating the value thereof as the Constitution says they should, I would be able to do this. Yes, and not only that, but 20 men would have the money if we had a just division of the wealth that we produce, but when I ask a man to subscribe for the Magazine he says, “I would love to have it but I am not able,” and so it is. So now, you poor man, see where we are at. The money changers and money creators have got us now where we can’t afford to spend a little of the little money, we can get for something that will tell us how to find where we are at. I believe the day is now dawning on our American land. Our great chiefs and hypocritical leaders, who have been looking across the briny deep with pitying eyes, are now beginning to feel a little muddled and puzzled at the turn things are taking on this side, and I feel like the dirt will be finally scraped off deep enough so that enough of the deceived wealth producers, real government supporters, can see the greatness of our (Populist) claims and the injustice of the favoritism that does now exist as shown up by our noble watchmen, and elect men to steer the ship of state once more so as to save this one glorious American government to the people who pay the tax to run it. And now, in conclusion, let me say that it seems like we are doing nothing here in Arkansas; at least it appears so to me. Yet I think if we had an organizer to go ahead, that many of the bewildered Democrats, and Republicans too, would fall into line and march with us to victory. I see that Benty has been appointed national organizer. If he should see this I hope he will let us know when we may expect him in our part of Arkansas. I live in Van Buren County.
I am aiming to take and read and study the inestimableTom Watson’s Magazinejust as long as I can raise a dollar to pay for it, and I am going to get all to subscribe for it I can, and sometime in the future I want to write something for the benefit of preachers, as there is much depending on them just now.
Owens Miller, Gatesville, Tex.
I have been purchasing the Magazine from our news agent since the publication began, and have all the back numbers up to and including the November issue. I can’t afford to lose a single issue as I desire to keep them for reference in the future. Our news agent sold all of his December supply before I called.
I quit the Democratic party when Cleveland demanded and compelled a Democratic Congress to finish the Republican financial policy by repealing the Sherman Silver law, and selling bonds to supply a gold reserve in the treasury, and I have been a Populist from that day to this.
Of course, I have been left almost alone since W. J. B. and his followers appropriated the bulk of our platform timbers and in that way captured and allured thousands of our good reformers back into the so-called Democratic fold, and things have looked gloomy and lonesome around the old camp-fires most of the time, but I can’t get my consent to undertake to keep up with the shifting peregrinations of the Democratic band-wagon under its latter-day leadership. So I am content to remain with the faithful mid-roaders who have had the courage to resist the allurement of the fleshpots of modern Democracy.
I am by profession a lawyer and while I voted the old party ticket and supported all of its nominees, regardless of their fitness for the positions they were running for, I had a good patronage and was doing fairly well, but when I threw off the shackles and refused to obey the party lash, scores of my old friends withdrew their patronage and suddenly concluded that I had lost my influence with the courts and juries of the county, and joined in a hue and cry to ruin my business and by this means to force me to at least be quiet in reference to my political convictions. Some of my ancestors were Irish and some Scotch and I was born and grew to manhood in Kentucky, and of course the blood that runs in my veins and the atmosphere that I breathed in my young life combined has developed a disposition that revolts at coercion in matters of conscience and the right to speak and vote as I see the right to be.
However, I have lived these things down in a measure, and am still earning a living for myself and family in spite of persecutions,and I enjoy the privilege of occasionally reminding the hide-bound Democrats of their inconsistencies and of asking them what position their party occupies today and what its position will be in 1908. Of course they don’t know just where they are at now and no prophet could afford to predict where they will be even next year, and so they are mute and can only reply by a sickly smile.
I often wonder how much longer this rotten fabric can hold together. Of course a party with no fixed principles or common policies, can never succeed in gaining control of the government machinery and they ought not to, for no one can foresee or even surmise what the results would be with such a mass of inharmonious elements undertaking at the same time to steer the course of the ship of state. The Populo-Democrats would pull hard on the oars in one direction and the Republico-Democrats would strive to pull the vessel in the opposite direction, and of course the results would be “confusion worse confounded.”
I can see but one way of hope and that comes from the wide-spread disposition to condemn crimes in high places, and to break away from partisan bossisms throughout the land. This may be the breaking of old party chains that will ultimately result in independent political thought and action, and culminate in an era of honesty in the administration of public affairs and also in private dealings among men. At least I hope so.