“Myself, when young, did eagerly frequentDoctor and saint, and heard great argumentAbout it and about—but evermore came outBy the same door wherein I went.”
“Myself, when young, did eagerly frequentDoctor and saint, and heard great argumentAbout it and about—but evermore came outBy the same door wherein I went.”
“Myself, when young, did eagerly frequentDoctor and saint, and heard great argumentAbout it and about—but evermore came outBy the same door wherein I went.”
“Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent
Doctor and saint, and heard great argument
About it and about—but evermore came out
By the same door wherein I went.”
Now I begin to feel that thereisabackdoor used by the “powers behind the throne,” and that your Magazine leads one to it to observe the edifying spectacle of the manipulation of the puppets by the powers.
James Porges, Chicago, Ill.
Keep up the good work. You have the support of thousands in your efforts to awaken the lethargic American public to the fact that they are being robbed with the aid of our corrupt laws and the special privilege Government.
T. B. Rogers, Logansport, Ind.
I don’t know how to praise that book enough. I think it is the strongest political document we have. Surely, if we could get the voters of the nation to read it, we would have reform, for if any reasonable person reads it he can’t help but endorse those principles. I have been loaning those magazines I received to my neighbors, and they all acknowledge that the book tells the truth. I think I can get up a club in the near future, for those that read them promise me they will subscribe for it.
As for myself, I don’t need any literature on the subject, for I have been in the frontranks of the movement ever since 1872. I was a Peter Cooper man and have marched along in that line ever since. Never voted for anything else. When I cannot vote the Populist ticket, I don’t vote at all. There were a few of us that started the movement here in Cass County, Indiana, and we worked hard and spent a good deal of money. We had some of our best speakers here to help us. We had the Hon. Jesse Harper of Danville, Ill., N. H. Motsinger of Sholes, Ind., Judge S. W. Williams of Vincennes, Ind., and a number of other good speakers, and the result of our work was that we cast over 900 votes for the Populist county ticket. We felt very much encouraged, but when the next campaign came—well, you know what happened to our Party.
We are right and all we can do is to keep on fighting. I am in favor of staying in the fight until the last ditch is taken.
I will close by wishing you great success.
Thomas Knox, Bennett, Neb.
I appreciate reading your Magazine. I also appreciate your manly and courageous way of putting the truth before your readers. My only hope is that I would like to have the pleasure of knowing that the writings of as strong a reasoner and clear thinker could enter every home of the common herd so that reason could displace prejudice or party insanity. We all regret the disconnection of that able defender of the common people, Mr. T. H. Tibbles, from the editorial columns of theNebraska Independent. We hope for his health and his early return to Nebraska, to continue the battle for us common people. In conclusion I hope for Mr. Charles Q. De France’s health and happiness. May his labors be a power for good and light to the people. I also hope Thomas E. Watson’s health and life may be spared for many years in the good cause.
H. L. Fagin, Kansas City, Mo.
Is it not good to feel that the present wave of civic, economic and industrial righteousness seems practically certain to sweep every thing before it? There is a quiet, studious earnestness and determination everywhere existent, that portends certain and tremendous results. The best part of it is that the masses have largely been educated to the point where they no longer expect to accomplish everything in a day, but rather realize that to get even a large share of what they insistently demand they must begin in the primaries and conduct a continuous campaign.
You are doing a great work and you have your reward and will have it. Every honest and ardent spirit everywhere communes with and strengthens every other such. No more honest, open, fearless man than you is on earth today. That might be better expressed, but the meaning is there—I will let it pass.
The universal spirit of righteousness encompasses and permeates you—you are surely a part of the divinest essence. Being a man, you must like to know that other men appreciate and approve—and to the utmost. And that they do in an ever expanding circle. The days of sophistry, of deception, of class and special privileges, of municipal, state, and national corruption are rapidly passing. The people are becoming wise. They know their friends. They know who is true, despite the tremendous efforts of a press, largely subsidized to mislead and deceive. But there are newspapers and newspapers, just as there are magazines and magazines.
I need not tell you to keep on straight ahead. You couldn’t stop if you wanted to. Tell the truth just as you are doing, and as much of it as you have space for, in allopathic doses. I cannot agree with all your conclusions, nor will any thoughtful student; but in most I do most heartily concur, and I do know that all your influence is for good.
John McFord, Sheridan, N. Y.
I like your Magazine very well, but I would like it much better if you and your Magazine would come out flat-footed for Socialism. If public ownership or collective ownership of the railroads, telegraphs, etc. is a good thing for the people, why not have public ownership, or rather collective ownership, of the lands, the machinery, etc.? Political democracy without industrial democracy is futile and amounts to nothing. I had the pleasure of voting for you in ’92, and it is a matter of profound regret to me that you cannot see your way clear to step forward into the Socialist Party, where all true middle-of-the-roader Populists logically belong. Populism is a compromise, a half way measure. Socialism is the whole cheese.
John P. Thorndyke, Canaan, N. H.
You publish morereal stuffthan any magazine I have ever read in my life. I am sixty years of age, and we take seven other magazines, and without any exaggeration it is but justice to your efforts to say that there is by far more real, good, well-seasoned, relishable food for the digestion of the average brain, than is afforded in any other magazine I have seen. Having practiced medicine for a number of years, I have sometimes volunteered my diagnosis of the disease troubling some of our great (?) men and I flatter myself that an observance of that particular case has proven the correctness of my examination at a distance. For instance, I think the main trouble with our great Senate is constipation of the brain, which invariably forbids the entertainment of honest thought. Now I hope that some one with sufficient “sand” in his gizzard will see that every member of the present Congress and Cabinet receives a copy of your very valuable Magazine. It will be worth more to them than a post-graduate course in the schools of Rockefeller and Morgan.
John B. Bott, Grant, Pa.
To a constant and appreciative reader ofTom Watson’s Magazine(purchased monthly at the Union News Co.’s stands) it does seem strange that so great and good a man as “Tom” should, under the stimulus of praise and success or the twittering of a pert maid, really become ashamed of his familiar cognomen and his old clothes.
For two days I have been searching, here and there, high and low, forTomWatson’s Magazine: always explaining that “Tom” has gone into “innocuous desuetude” and “Watson” has stript himself of his old clothes and donnedfull regulation uniform, but all to no effect.
Am hoping the new clothes won’t makeMisterWatson too vain, and that at least his relations, Populist friends and host of well wishers will not fail to recognize him in his docked designation and fine regimentals.
I wish to add that it was the “Tom” that appealed to me, above all things else, when the news agent showed me No. 2 of Vol. I. and asked me if I had seenTom Watson’s. I replied that I had not, but that “Tom” had the true flavor and I’d take a dose.
There are, I am sorry to say, Watsons big and Watsons little; Watsons wise and Watsons foolish; Watsons mediocre galore, but only one “Tom” Watson, and he seems to be, God forbid, going to the bad.
Robert L. Cooper, Savannah, Ga.
I have been, previous to the last year, what may be termed a “Tom Watson hater.” Like a lot of other “pig-heads,” I have heard the other side all the time, declining to read or look upon with reason anything you wrote or said. I was prevailed upon to read your “Napoleon.” I followed it up with “France” and “Jefferson,” together with a number of your speeches, letters and magazines. I have arrived at the conclusion that of the very few sincere men of the day, WATSON STANDS IN THE FRONT RANK.
You have my unbounded admiration and very best wishes for the splendid fight you are making for improvement of conditions in our country—especially our beloved state, Georgia. I may add that there are a great many other young men in this community who are of the same opinion.
That your books are being read is attested by the frazzled-out copies in our public library, and the difficulty one has in securing the use of them even for the short time allowed for the use of a popular book.
Aaron McDonald, Galveston, Ind.
I received a copy of the old guard news letter some time back, and was not in shape to respond at that time, and when I got in shape to, I took sick and was not able; but now as I am able and in shape I will send one dollar to help pay expenses of organizing. It seems that through this part of the country Populists are dead. There are lots that are sick on account of the rascality of the officers of the old parties, but speak to them about Populists and you can seldom get a grunt out of them. It may be a calm before the storm. Hope it is, for I think there are Independents enough in this neighborhood to cut things short when they do get at it. The hardest pull seems to be in giving up the old name. They seem to think that reform must come through their party. I have asked several how they expect to get reform when Wall Street owns the Cabinet and Senate. That is like putting the devil in the pulpit to preach the gospel.
Hoping you will meet success.
H. B. Paxton, Wheatland, Mo.
I am 66 years old, and have been in the reform movement from Cooper to Watson, except once for Bryan. Everything is being quiet with us—politics as well as everything else. We had at one time 500 Populist voters in this Hickory Co., about one-fourth of the voting strength of the county. As we haven’t any organization in the county, I haven’t much idea what our strength is at this time, but there are quite a number of true blues yet.
Your Magazine is all right. Will send my renewal soon and I assure you I will try to get others to subscribe.
T. T. Mattox, Hope, Ark.
I am still a Populist and readWatson’s Magazine. Think there are no words nor figures to enumerate or define the good effect it is having on the one big National party made up of the new parties, Democrat and Republican. There are but two National parties now—the Watson and the Swollen-tails. Good news gone to Canada and the nations of the globe.
Dear Watson, you are doing more good than if in office.
H. E. Pomeroy, Mason, Ill.
I think you are fooling away time and money. Look at William J. Bryan in the last National convention. See Judge Parker now. This nation is too wealthy to be ruled by patriots. Wall Street is the government. You can’t do anything with Wall Street. The masses have no principle above whiskey and tobacco, and the churches are in the hands of priestcraft. If you have a copy of Æsop’s Fables read about the fox and the flies.
J. A. Dahlgren, Bradshaw, Nebr.
I cannot let this opportunity go by without telling you what I think of your Magazine. It is undoubtedly the very best reform magazine now published. Your editorials certainly have the right tone. Your article on the situation in Georgia gives us Northerners new light on the subject. While we do not have the negro problem to contend with here in Nebraska, we nevertheless have the railroad question to fight over from year to year. We must pay tribute to Harrimanand Hill, and other Wall Street kings, besides countless two-by-four politicians who apparently have no other aim in life than to serve the railroads and betray the people. I am glad to see that grand old man Tibbles writing forWatson’s Magazine. Before I close I must ask you to give us another story something like “Pole Baker.”
George Chapman, East Cleveland, O.
I am prompted to write you from the fact that I believe you to be the right man in the right place, and I honestly think that the seed that you are now sowing will take root and bear fruit, as they are being sown in fertile soil.
No party, or parties, can long withstand your bombardments, no matter how well fortified they may be, as your guns are loaded with facts.
W. S. Stanley, Logansville, Ga.
I feel it my duty to express that in my estimation, which I take from a national and reasonable standpoint, Tom Watson is one of the greatest Americans living and his Magazine the best I ever read.
I earnestly hope that some day not far distant, Tom Watson will be our Commander-in-Chief of our National Government.
How any honest and patriotic man can oppose the principles advocated by Tom Watson, I cannot see.
Tom Watson is a great man. Why? Because he is honest, brave, fearless and aggressive. Because he is standing for the rights of the great mass of people at large, leading them onward and upward from a Government of the privileged few to a Government of the unprivileged many.
For the last fifty years our Government has been leading more and more toward anarchy.
Tom Watson, may you live long to voice the principles of Jeffersonian Democracy!
J. J. Hall, Hutchinson, Ark.
Tom, why don’t you knock that “intrinsic value” rot into a cocked hat? I think that policy is one of the greatest barriers to progress of the masses in studying finance. The sooner they learn that value does not exist in substance but in the mind, the better. This is the first and most important fact to be learned by the student of monetary science, and when once understood all the relative facts are easy. Take a shot at it, Tom. You can make it both instructive and readable.
Yours for success.
Of course I like the Magazine.
Alfred French, Washington, D. C.
I look forward to the arrival of your Magazine every month with a great deal of interest. Other magazines I give away, but yours I do not care to part with.
I shall speak for it, have spoken for it, and very likely shall continue to stand by it so long as you condemn the discrimination made by officials in favor of the bankers. I have said for years that the men who own the railroads and the bankers rule the country.
L. R. Green, Spottsville, Ky.
I am proud of being one of the “old guard,” having marched without halting in the “middle of the road,” without ever lowering our colors or ever thinking of surrender.
Am proud of our matchless leader, Tom Watson, and his Magazine, his two-edged sword. Friends of popular government, let’s give the Magazine a million subscribers and make its editor President in 1908!
Arthur F. Mann, Brooklyn, N. Y.
The Magazine is O. K. The February number is strictly 100%. It would be cheap at 25 cents. Thank you for the sample copy received today. I’d already purchased mine of my news-dealer. However, I’ll see the sample copy is put into good hands and hope it will “work.” Mr. Watson, you are doing “us plain Americans” a world of good. Keep it up. May your life be spared to us for many years to come!
F. F. Gordy, Richland, Ga.
Aside from the fact that both Howell’s and Smith’s friends claimed the victory at the joint debate, was the further fact that Tom Watson got the greatest ovation of any. The first half of Howell’s speech brought out your name, which caused the audience to rise en masse and the applause shook the building. While I am for Smith, still I am looking beyond him to something better.
C. Will Shaffer, Olympia, Wash.
The Magazine is all right and is on the right track.
M. W. Henry, Waelder, Tex.
I am a reader of your most excellent and truly demo-republican Magazine. Our adversaries assumed the garb of angels to serve the devil in. There is not a single fundamental principle contended for by our patriotic democratic-republican forefathers contained in either the democratic or republican party platforms, but both parties are thoroughly Hamiltonized and irretrievably committed to the aristocratic British Banking and Bonding System which financiers know to be absolutely incompatible with the perpetuity of democratic institutions. All of the enemies of our free institutions are in one or the other of these parties and their bosses are engaged in making dupes of the common voters. The interests of the capitalists are the same whether North or South, and as they have complete control of both the old parties the people have no reasonable hope of relief fromoppression from either. Direct legislation is essentially democratic and is what the enemies of our free institutions most fear. Its triumph will be the triumph of human liberty over plutocratic despotism. It will restore the Government into the hands of our people, from whom it has been wrested by the boodlers and grafters, prompted by conscienceless greed and avarice. A victory along this line will be a greater victory for humanity than that of Yorktown or Appomattox.
Thomas S. East, Anderson, Ind.
One of the very best magazines that I have ever read. I want to say to you that the good seed you are sowing will live long after you and I and others of the “Old Guard” have passed to the other side. And just as soon as my business matters will permit, I want to send you a large subscription list and in this way help on the good work. For I truly believe all who have the cause at heart will at this time lend their influence to the work, so that Plutocracy and all the attending evils that flow out from the corrupting influences that spread and grow like vile and obnoxious weeds in a corn field, may be rooted out.
Ever yours for the cause of humanity, I am in the fight to the finish.
I have every number of the Magazine up to date.
Fred Diehl, New York.
I am very sorry to hear that you are not well and permit me to send you all the good health wishes I can give. We need you in our struggle for progress. You should be preserved for our work in the coming crisis that I believe will soon take place in the world, especially in this country.
This article on the Chinese question I send you contains my innermost convictions on that problem and I believe should be listened to before we create another problem almost impossible to solve. I do not want to impose upon your good nature, but if you find it possible to publish in your Magazine, would you kindly do so?
If not, then kindly send it back to me.
My mind is for what is right. I would like to work for the betterment and right adjustment of all conditions in need of improvement.
There are, to my mind, many reasons why Chinamen should be restricted from coming to the United States. The Chinese are not eligible to citizenship. It is not good policy to encourage immigrants to come here in great numbers that cannot become citizens. Every man (and let us hope every woman, in the near future) should bear his portion of responsibility to the government. Chinamen do not seem to grasp the idea of freedom as do the people of Anglo-Saxon and Latin origin, nor do they appreciate our rights and privileges for which we struggled for centuries. Chinamen would, perhaps could, not use these rights intelligently nor enthusiastically.
They bring to us peculiar oriental vices from which we are yet free, but they would contaminate us and undermine our lives.
Economically and socially they are impossible; economically, because they would undersell the American workman and destroy our standard of living; socially, because they lack the necessary elements to make a congenial race. It is not true, to my mind, that a race is superior because it can undersell another any more than a herd of rats is superior over man or tiger and lions over man because they can overcome man by numbers and ferocity. The Chinese themselves protected and preserved their civilization from invaders by building that huge wall around it thousands of years ago. It was Chin, it is said, the great reformer, as he was called, that did it and the great land today bears his name. The Huns invaded Germany and robbed the unprotected peasants. The fact that the Germans could protect themselves from endless invasions through fortifications and armed resistance showed the superiority of the Germans over the Huns.
I believe I am a friend of humanity and that is the reason I believe in the restriction of the Chinamen (our brothers) from coming here. One of the reasons (and I think it is the greatest of all) should be sufficient, that is that they are in great danger of being massacred through the economic struggles and competition and the inevitable crash is sure to come. We had already symptoms of such massacres in the West. The killing of the Jews in Russia will look mild in comparison. Chinamen coming here in great numbers would result in greater disasters than we can imagine. We would create another race problem. Have we not enough with our negro problem? There is an excuse for people coming here whose homelands are overpopulated and who can easily and naturally assimilate. China has vast unoccupied lands with unopened resources and its population, great as it is, is not actually compelled to seek foreign territory. The Chinamen should pioneer their own great land. Let them stay at home and open their unworked national wealth. We cannot blame the ignorant peasants for coming here. They do not know the possibilities of their own country and if they did it would do them no good. It is the so-called intelligent, progressive Chinese that are to blame. The people of China are hampered and restricted by their own ancient customs fatal to themselves. Chinamen are coming to the United States to reap the benefit of civilization of another race with which they have little in common. It does not seem that the Chinese come here to become actual settlers, and such immigrants are not beneficial to the land in its present state of development.
May the time be not far distant when all can go where they wish without any barrier or restriction. When that time comes wemust free first ourselves and within our own countries. We must not endanger another land with our own shortcomings.
Joel B. Fort, Adams, Tenn.
In your valuable Magazine you hit the “Rascals,” who have combined in violation of law and good morals to rob the producer and consumer, to suit me exactly.
If it should come in the way of your comments, the good people of the Dark Tobacco District of Tennessee and Kentucky would rejoice with “exceeding great joy” if you in your inimitable style would hit the infernal Tobacco trust ajolter. This, the most heartless of all, took possession of this District, composed of about twenty-two counties, and laid it off in territories and appointed an agent to buy the tobacco (the only money crop) at his own price. No one was allowed in his territory, and consequently there was no opposition or competition. They took the tobacco at two dollars less than the cost of production. The condition became pitiable and laborers who were unable to support their families left the country and went to the cities, railroads and mines. The people became angered, and on the 24th of September, 1904, organized “The Dark Tobacco Protective Association.” This association controlled 75% of the tobacco, and in six months raised the price to double the former price. Now tobacco is selling for more than twice its price under the Trust rule. We appealed to the law, but had we waited for the law to protect us we would have starved. We went after the thieves red-hot and for more than a year hell would have been a good cooling place for them. Any help you can render us in your excellent Magazine, which is largely read in this section, would be greatly appreciated.
Before I close let me pay you the tribute you richly deserve by saying that any heart breathing the gentle and ennobling sentiment found in your pieces “In the Mountains” and “A Day in the Autumn Woods” lives close to his God and fellow-man, and a man who could write the “Widow Lot” can never die, and is a national benefit. Great men have always had the misfortune to die before their works were appreciated and admired: I sincerely hope you may be spared to fight the battle of the people against Snobbery, Shams, Hypocrites, Grafters, and the Robber Barons of the Trusts.
I send you a copy of a speech against the Tobacco Trust; if you have time to read it you will see why it is that I so eagerly await the issuance of every number of your Magazine.
James Griffith Stephens, Valdes, Alaska.
I am reading every number of your Magazine with great interest. I notice that you never touch on subjects pertaining to Alaska; have you forgot that we are on earth? Listen to this tale of woe.
Alaska cost the United States seven million five hundred thousand dollars in the year 1867. Since then Alaska has paid into the treasury the sum of one hundred and fifty million. Note the interest on the purchase. Still we have no means of representation. There are today in the District of Alaska 60,000 population who stand in the same place that our forefathers stood when the tea-party took place. It is a shame that in this land of the free we are denied ANY means of representation. There is a mistaken idea that Alaska has a territorial form of government. It has no voice from the people whatever. We are peoned. And why?Because Alaska affords one of the choicest trees in the orchard of graft.And its political plums are distributed among the carpetbag grafters who enforce their presence upon the pioneers who are fostering and fathering the country. There is not an elective office in the District. Our mining laws are obnoxious and afford the greatest chance for official graft. Did you ever stop to consider what a great country Alaska is, and how it is controlled? If I may, without taking too much of your valuable time, I will call your attention to the following facts.
Alaska is one-third as large as the United States.
It is not an iceberg, but affords future homes for millions.
Alaska is in the same latitude as England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Russia.
Alaska has the greatest fisheries on earth. These fisheries are controlled by the beef trust. GRAFT!
Alaska has great beds of finest anthracite coal, now being gobbled up by the Pennsylvania coal barons. GRAFT!
Alaska is covered by fine forests now being taken up by means of soldiers’ fractional script. GRAFT!
Alaska has the largest stamp mill on earth. The mine has produced over $22,000,000 in gold, more than three times the cost of the District. This mine is not timbered and there is an average of one man killed a day by caving. GRAFT!
Alaska has the only fur-seal islands in the world. These islands are leased to a big corporation. GRAFT!
Alaska has a navigable river twenty-eight hundred miles in length, a reservation at the mouth controls the harbor and permits are issued for warehouses to two big corporations only, so Alaskans again have to stand for GRAFT!
I could go on giving cases of graft for a month, but time is limited. An article by a well informed writer in Appleton’sBooklovers’ Magazine, entitled “The Looting of Alaska,” is well worth reading.
S. C. Le Baron, Smiley, Tex.
Three numbers of your Magazine received, for which I am truly thankful inasmuch as it stands for the principles which have been my political platform ever since the Greenbackparty was organised. It is only financial inability that kept me from becoming a subscriber at the start, for I felt very certain it would be a powerful educator, and the copies at hand prove my hopes fully realized. If it could be gotten into the hands of those who feel the need of a change in conditions but still can’t be made to understand the cause of these conditions, it would indeed be a powerful factor in the reform movement. The copies received are out doing missionary work; there is enough strong and conclusive argument in any one of them to set an unprejudiced mind to thinking seriously whether these things are so. I have been in this movement over thirty years, and having passed my eighty-first birthday, feel that I am not destined to work much longer, but when I see the circumstances which inevitably tend to an enthrallment of the masses, I feel like doing my best to avert the coming disaster. My hope lies in the integrity of an intelligent citizenship and it is through outspoken literature that intelligence can be acquired.
E. J. Whelan, Tipton, Mich.
I like the way you write and the way you put it, but I am discouraged. It doesn’t seem as though the rank and file will ever see the point. The most of them will agree with me about the condition of the country, but when they come to vote, they vote the same old ticket. That is the way they do. Some one gets hold of them before election and they vote it straight. Only a short time ago a friend of mine said to me that he thought we as a Government were getting right where Russia is, and it would take the same internal revolution to get rid of the monopolies and trusts that are holding us down. Now I will venture anything that that same man will vote with the old G. O. P. and vote a straight ticket too. Now it makes me sick, but I think if they can stand it, I can, and have made up my mind to let the whole thing go to the devil. It looks as though the men with Hon. before their names were thieves. It is called “graft” now.
F. A. Jeter, Alto, Tex.
I am on your side, never have been on any other way and I know that if the laboring people do not get some relief, and that soon, we are gone. Your Magazine has done good here. Has changed hot-headed Democrats to Populists.
A. C. Shuford, Newton, N. C.
In a letter some time back you stated that you believed the “Money Question” to be infinitely more important than any other before the American people. You are undoubtedly correct in the view you take of the matter. People take the same superstitious view of money that they do of religion, and how to reach the reason of the average man through all this thick covering of superstition is quite a problem. I have thought over this problem for years and am not much nearer the solutions of it now than when I first began. I have practiced caution in my contact with men, and to look back for twenty years I can see quite a change has taken place in my own neighborhood as well as elsewhere. I have been a great admirer of Jefferson and have read everything he has written which I could get my hands upon. His boldness in attacking the church is a marvel to me. Here is the power which enslaves the minds of the people and keeps them from using their thinking machines. The result of such methods is that the average man is afraid to think for himself. No step of progress can be made until this vast machine is shattered, and yet care must be used in doing so, because man must have some foundation upon which to stand. Do not misunderstand me, please. I am a believer in Christian principles as I understand them.
The money power and other monopolies are allowed to maintain their grip through the church largely. How best to expose and open this organisation to attack is a problem I wish you or some other man would solve. The average politician knows well how to play upon this feeling which the Church creates and as long as the organisation is allowed to continue its process of enslaving the minds of our children, just so long will the crop of “Grafters” be an abundant one.
Sallie T. Parrish, Adel, Ga.
I believe your Magazine is more eagerly awaited than any other publication extant, and I think the people read what you write first. I am sure I do. You are the only writer who has ever made politics more fascinating to me than romance.
I used to read your paper when I was a child almost as ardently as I read the Magazine now. Some of the editorials appealed to me so strongly that I preserved them in my scrap book, not because I understood them then, but because I felt intuitively that there was something sublime in them.
Not long since I showed one of those selections—The Highest Office—to a young man—a Democrat and a teacher in the same school that I was. He finished reading it just as the bell rang for the morning session. The moment the opening exercises were over he sprang upon the rostrum, shook his black hair out of his face and exclaimed: “Children, I have found a gem! Let me read it to you.”
Your Magazine is being read by many honest Democrats who a few years ago thought the Democratic party was all it claimed to be and that you were wrong. Now they frankly endorse your principles and praise your courage, honesty and brilliant intellect.
I must thank you for a clearer knowledge of political questions, public affairs and economic conditions than I ever would have had had it not been for you.
Your “Bethany” I consider one of thetreasures of my modest collection of books. Not long ago one of those reasonable, broad-minded, intelligent Democrats was telling me how much he liked your Magazine. He said he read everything in it—“Pole Baker” and all the rest—that he didn’t think you had ever written an uninteresting sentence in your life and that he thought you the purest, most upright man in public life today.
I asked him if he had read “Bethany.” He had not, but when I told him about it he was anxious to do so. I sent him mine. He is a man near sixty and he read it with all the intensity and abandon that a sentimental girl of sixteen would devour one of Laura Jean Libbey’s novels. He and I were alternate day watchers at the bedside of a convalescent patient—one very dear to us both—but I had it all to myself that day until late in the afternoon, when the blessed trained nurse decided to forego a part of her nap and relieve me awhile.
I think you have done and are doing the world more good than any other man in it, and I hope that you may be granted many years of life and strength to champion the cause of humanity and labor for justice, truth and equity, and I know that some time your noble life will be rewarded.
I am very glad you have added the department of “Books” to your Magazine. I don’t think it could be improved now, unless you were to add an amateur or young writer’s department.
Mrs. B. C. Rude, Lyons, N. Y.
I am gettingTom Watson’s Magazinefrom the news-stand and like it very much. It is refreshing to see one man whodaressay what he believes.
Halley Halleck.
I have read every issue of your Magazine up to and including December publication. It is certainly the greatest publication of the kind in existence. As an educator it has no equal. It expresses more opinions and views and in the most fearless manner of any paper in the world. Long may it live and reach all parts of the globe!
The question which you are so ably advocating is taking root and spreading and arousing public opinion so as to bring the monarchical money-kings to justice. May God speed the time when they will be handled as other criminals, to wear the stripes, balls and chains!
That local state government is no exception I got from that ex-representative of the Legislature, the King Lobbyist, Hamp McWhorter. He has an office in the Equitable building, and any senator he thinks he can use he simply ’phones one of his henchmen at the Capitol, telling him to send such and such a senator to his office, where he gets in his dirty work.
In another instance, when a member a few years ago introduced a resolution to have the Governor appoint a committee to investigate the merging of railroads, the vice-president of the Southern Railroad was soon in a seat beside him, making inquiries as to what would satisfy him. Well, the member was appointed local attorney at a salary of five hundred per annum for a number of years. The motion was quickly withdrawn and if this individual ever represented the road in a case I never heard of it. However, he drew the salary and rode on a free pass.
This lobbyist is for suing. He commences with his free pass on probable candidates. As I remember, at a station a man who was a country merchant, farmer and mill owner presented a pass to the agent and asked if it was valid. The agent informed him it was genuine. Sure enough, he was a candidate and elected as senator the next race.
Don’t you think the Texas law should be applied, which is that the guilty party is taken out and given a good thrashing the first time and for the second offence double the dose?
W. D. Wattles, Winchester, Ind.
Permit me to express my appreciation of the February number ofWatson’s. It is the best Magazine I have seen, and I have seen most of the good ones. I like your practice of publishing short, pointed articles, and your cartoons are of the best. Your educational and news summary departments seem to me to be especially valuable. I shall take it into my pulpit Sunday evening, and read from your editorial.
D. C. Pryor, Uvalde, Tex.
When I was a boy I saw a carpenter place side by side three pieces of lumber which he was pleased to call “dimension timber.” These pieces were something like forty feet long and were two inches wide and eight inches deep. He took iron spikes and nailed the three pieces together until they looked to be all in one piece. He told me it was “a girder” for the “warehouse” he was constructing. I wanted to know why he did not use a solid piece of timber of the same measure. He answered by saying that the three pieces united together with the stronger part of the one fitting opposite the weaker part of the others would give the girder a greater strength in the power of resisting the immense weight that would have to be borne than if the girder had been made of just one piece of lumber.
In connection with the foregoing incident I wish to draw a pen picture of a scene which is passing before my vision: At Washington, within the shadow of the Capitol, standing side by side facing the west upon the steps of that magnificent structure, are three of the greatest men of renown the world has ever known. In the centre of the group stands the “Immortal Lincoln,” to the right of Mr. Lincoln stands the “Irreproachable Jefferson,” and to the left stands the “IrrepressibleWatson”—whose mind is the very incarnation of Jeffersonian principles. Above this scene on either side, hanging toward the centre at half mast, are our national colors, beneath which is a life size portrait of “The Father of Our Country.” Above the portrait in raised letters I read “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
Now I wish to impress upon those who may care to read this article and who are tired of living under the present system of “graft and greed,” and to those of us who have always believed in party lines and are more or less prejudiced in favor of our political tendencies, that there can be no reformation ever made in either of the old parties that exist at the present time. I therefore believe we should endeavor to secure the very best “dimension timber” that can be had out of the now scattered ranks of the Republican, Democratic and Populist parties, and with the nails of iron and bands of steel bring them together and make of them a girder for our country that the gods of ancient Greece could not knock asunder! And why not at an early date advertise this new party and organize party clubs throughout the land and let the watchword be “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”?
I would suggest that we name this “new party” Demo-Re-Polican or so word the name that each member from an old party may not feel that he had lost all of his former identity. I have not the least hope of electing as the chief magistrate of the nation a Southern man for years to come, and it is useless to put one at the head of the ticket to be slaughtered just to make a Roman holiday. But Mr. Watson can be our leader, and when we win “There will be glory enough for us all.”
“Conckalochie.”
(This is an Indian word for encampment, or a bringing together of the tribes for the exchange of commodities.)
Edwin Hyde Nutt, Dresden, N. Y.
I think you are on the right track exactly, and will do all I can to get you some new subscribers. I live in a land of Gold-bugs, and if there is a place on earth that needs a missionary it is Yates County, N. Y. We have lost our interest in Mr. Bryan. How could he stultify himself to vote for Parker, we can’t see. Think he will have a hard time to make Democrats out of old Greenbackers. He knows the greenbacks are the best money in the world. Why does he try to break up the Populist Party?
R. N. Crowell, Rob Roy, Ind.
I am on the down-hill of life; nearly sixty-four years old. Have been a student of history for twenty-five years and would love to do something to free us from the slavery and tyranny of boss rule. When I go hence I will leave a posterity behind me and would love to know that I have done a little something to make our country a free and independent and a Christian people in deed and in truth. Have traveled in fourteen states, been through the Indian Territory and have had some opportunity of learning something of the situation that we now are in both religiously and politically.
I glory in the principles of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln and the People’s Party. I admire Thomas E. Watson because he stands square to the front for right and justice for the common people against money, greed and selfishness for place and power. Brother American, wake up and help shake off the shackles that our money lords are binding us with before it is too late!
Yours for liberty, peace and righteousness, for God and a common brotherhood of man. Let us unite and tear down the walls of sin and selfishness and bring in the millennial age of peace and righteousness that we may be called the children of God in deed and in truth.
T. M. Barton, Butler, Ky.
You evidently have mistaken me for my deceased brother, William, who was an ardent Populist, while I am a good Republican “from away back.” I am not with you in public ownership, free silver, etc., but with you heart and soul in downing the great trusts, monopolies, etc. Now it seems to me this can be done in no better way than by standing right at President Roosevelt’s back. We can hardly hope to find an abler, more courageous and more earnest champion of the people than he. Personally, Mr. Watson, as I have measured you, mentally and morally, by your speeches and writings, I like you, just as I do many a good Democrat and Populist, without agreeing with them politically. The fact is that the late elections have given us a great lesson in free thought and free action—in placing principle and patriotism above party allegiance. As we witness the aggressive greed, the intolerable impudence, the great power of the great corporations, we may well remember “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”
Peter E. Cooper, Dover. N. J.
Like very much your arrangement of having only four numbers to a volume, as four will make a convenient size to handle when bound. Hope you will continue that feature.
In making changes, spoken of in January issue, I hope you will not change the size (you can add as many pages as you like) as present size is very convenient and, when bound, will look much nicer if of uniform size.
I am going to have mine bound in full law sheep, as I consider them a valuable addition to any library.
William Hamilton, Cleveland, O.
I am interested in the success both of your Magazine and its ideas and would be pleased to know how you are coming on and what the prospects are.