Educational Department
Educational Department
Steamboat Springs, Colo. December 29, 1905.Honorable Thomas E. Watson,Dear Sir:(1) Are the Greenbacks all retired, and if so, when retired?(2) Are the Greenbacks legal tenders?(3) Are National Bank bills legal tender paper, and if not, on what basis do they have circulation?(4) What is meant by “free coinage” as advocated by silver men?(5) Could the holder of greenbacks during the War convert them into Government bonds at their face value?(6) Did the United States Government ever propose to pay the National Debt in silver or gold at its option, and when? If not, why not?(7) If silver coin is not a legal tender, why do silver dollars pass current at their face value, and why do National Banks pay out their silver at their counters and refuse to exchange them, as is usually the case, for gold?(8) Who determines the value of foreign coins?Yours,⸺ ⸺.
Steamboat Springs, Colo. December 29, 1905.
Honorable Thomas E. Watson,
Dear Sir:
(1) Are the Greenbacks all retired, and if so, when retired?
(2) Are the Greenbacks legal tenders?
(3) Are National Bank bills legal tender paper, and if not, on what basis do they have circulation?
(4) What is meant by “free coinage” as advocated by silver men?
(5) Could the holder of greenbacks during the War convert them into Government bonds at their face value?
(6) Did the United States Government ever propose to pay the National Debt in silver or gold at its option, and when? If not, why not?
(7) If silver coin is not a legal tender, why do silver dollars pass current at their face value, and why do National Banks pay out their silver at their counters and refuse to exchange them, as is usually the case, for gold?
(8) Who determines the value of foreign coins?
Yours,
⸺ ⸺.
ANSWER
(1) No. $346,000,000 still circulate, much to the annoyance of the National Bankers.
(2) Yes. Except for Import dues and interest on Bonds.
(3) The law declares that they are “money” and guarantees their payment; hence they pass as money, but are not, strictly speaking, Legal Tender. The basis of their circulation is the Credit of the Government. The people have to pay taxes to meet the interest on the bonds in order that the National Bankers shall have the vast profit and power of using the Government Credit for their private gain.
(4) The privilege of taking silver bullion to the mint and having it turned into coin on the same terms that are granted to the owners of gold bullion.
(5) Yes.
(6) The Public Debt, at the time it was contracted, was payable in lawful money. The same motives which led the money-Kings to impair the credit of the Greenback with the “Exception Clause,” led Congress to change the law to the effect that the bonds should be payablein Coin. This of course meant either silver or gold, at the option of the Government. Another step was taken and the bonds are now payable in gold.
(7) Because, under the rulings of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Gold Reserve can be drawn upon to keep silver and paper currency up to the Gold Standard. I presume that National Bankers prefer to keep their gold because it is the money of final payment.
(8) Commercial usage, and the banks. Foreign coins have no legal status. Their value and currency is a matter of private agreement.
New York, December 24, 1905.Honorable Thomas E. Watson, Thomson, Ga.Dear Sir: In your “A Call to Action” in January issue, you have forstalled my wish, in part only.As soon as a reasonable number respond by sending their names to Mr. Forrest, I want you to sink all personal desires by asking Messrs Hearst, La Follette, Folk, Douglass of Mass., Johnson of Minn., Garvin of R. I., and such other men as you know to be loyal and true, and insist upon their coming to the conference, as it is high time that all good men and true, combined to destroy the Grafters.This meeting should be held about the time of debate on the question of opening of the ballot boxes in New York and having a fair count; this will give us a chance to hang the members of the Legislature who refuse to give us an honest count of the ballots cast on November 7th last.Every leader like Hearst, Folk, La Follette, and possibly Watson—et al, has the Presidential Bee in his bonnet, and each is afraid that the other fellow will get it; but do you not agree with me, that in a issue like this, all personal feelings should be secondary? Let us by some means get all of these men to line up at the conference.Sincerely yours,⸺ ⸺.
New York, December 24, 1905.
Honorable Thomas E. Watson, Thomson, Ga.
Dear Sir: In your “A Call to Action” in January issue, you have forstalled my wish, in part only.
As soon as a reasonable number respond by sending their names to Mr. Forrest, I want you to sink all personal desires by asking Messrs Hearst, La Follette, Folk, Douglass of Mass., Johnson of Minn., Garvin of R. I., and such other men as you know to be loyal and true, and insist upon their coming to the conference, as it is high time that all good men and true, combined to destroy the Grafters.
This meeting should be held about the time of debate on the question of opening of the ballot boxes in New York and having a fair count; this will give us a chance to hang the members of the Legislature who refuse to give us an honest count of the ballots cast on November 7th last.
Every leader like Hearst, Folk, La Follette, and possibly Watson—et al, has the Presidential Bee in his bonnet, and each is afraid that the other fellow will get it; but do you not agree with me, that in a issue like this, all personal feelings should be secondary? Let us by some means get all of these men to line up at the conference.
Sincerely yours,
⸺ ⸺.
ANSWER
Yes: I fully agree with you. The Presidential Bee which buzzes in my bonnet is a feeble little thing, and with the help of a few stalwart friends I think it can be controlled.
I am willing to line up any time.
Yes: I looked into your book and think it is great. As you say it is the only book which intimates that there are two sides to Fire Insurance.
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?
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,⸺ ⸺.
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,⸺ ⸺.
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, inWatson’s Magazinefor 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 billssupposedto be destroyed through the carelessness of you and I and others, not accustomed to handling money?We know many billsarelost, 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?⸺ ⸺.
Rockham, S. D., Jan. 1, 1906.
Hon. Thomas E. Watson, New York.
Dear Sir: There it is, inWatson’s Magazinefor 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 billssupposedto be destroyed through the carelessness of you and I and others, not accustomed to handling money?
We know many billsarelost, 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 historiesyou omit the favorite—my favorite—and I think the best—John Richard Green’sShorter 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,⸺ ⸺.
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 historiesyou omit the favorite—my favorite—and I think the best—John Richard Green’sShorter 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, buthis workwas 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 mademeritthe 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 datedhisnobility 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 whichthatboy’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. Thewivesof the officers were snubbed by the high-born dames of the old nobility.
The revolutionary and Napoleonic system was being uprooted in various directions, andthe peopleof France realized that theBourbons meant to restore the Old Order with all of its brutal inequalities and injustice and oppression.The peoplesaw that the Bourbon restoration meant once more the galling chains ofthe 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 Massesclamored for arms, asking to fight and die forThe 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.
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.
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 theunemployed 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 realized112¼.
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,⸺ ⸺.
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,⸺ ⸺.
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,⸺ ⸺.
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 bytoo 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 theirrepublichas 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, isSilver,Gold,Treasury Notes, and the silver dollar wasthe 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,⸺ ⸺.
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 couldimmediatelyput the entireamount 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 circulationgraduallyby 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,⸺ ⸺.
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 thatthe peoplewill cut downtheir own wagesas 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 areprotectedby our blessed Tariff.
Now ifthe peopleruled 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 thatfat 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.⸺ ⸺.
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,notto read of the Life Insurance revelations, nor the facts which disclose how corporations corrupt and control the politicians.
Temple, Ga.Dec. 8, 1905Hon. 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,⸺ ⸺.
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,⸺ ⸺.
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 andpracticed.
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.
Weare 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.