Part 15

_Amos H. Edwards, Bentonville, Ark._

I think it a very able and valuable Magazine.

* * * * *

_Frank Holland, Cement, Cal._

Yours of recent date received. As I wrote to you some time ago, I am a migratory cuss, and therefore rely upon the news-stands for my magazine. I read WATSON’S, _Everybody’s_ and _McClure’s_, regularly, and any others that in glancing over, interest me. I have no time to read stories. What I want is political and scientific.

I like WATSON’S. Prize it highly and after reading it, treat it as I do all the others, i. e., hand it to someone else to read. I cannot suggest any way in which your work can be improved. I will do what I can to induce others to read your Magazine.

* * * * *

_S. M. McDougal, Arkinda, Ark._

I think it all right. Just what we need. I don’t see that I can add anything better to it. I am doing all I can for you.

I am 60 years old, and have been a reformer ever since Tilden ran for President. I said then there wasn’t a hair’s length difference in the old parties.

* * * * *

_John S. Van Dyck, Van Dyck, Tenn._

Your Magazine is simply grand, glorious, rich and racy. It makes ’em wiggle.

I consider Tom Watson the grandest, greatest and most brilliant man of this or any other age, and may God grant him strength to continue the fight for human liberty and human right until the fight is won.

* * * * *

_C. E. Skinner, Modoc, Ind._

I am very much interested in the wave of reform that is sweeping over our country as indicated by the recent elections. Keep hammering away, Bro. Watson, you have my entire sympathy and support.

* * * * *

_M. E. Rose, South Rutland, N. Y._

I think your Magazine is doing a great deal of good in waking up the dull minds of the common people, which I hope in 1908 will sweep the cussedest set of rascals into—well, say the penitentiary.

* * * * *

_George S. Harley, Laurel, Ind._

I think it is “just about right.” It just suits me. I can’t see how it could be made any better. The last number (December) is worth the price of a year’s subscription. It is full of good things.

* * * * *

_E. E. Ropes, Deland, Fla._

I am a Massachusetts Yankee, a Republican. I served under Jim Lane in Kansas; under Sherman in Georgia. When I first received your magazine I told your old school-mates Alex and Lee Morris that I might vote for you for President. It seems, however, that you oppose protection. That lets me out. I believe every honest, intelligent, patriotic American is a protectionist.

* * * * *

_Jonas Welch, Oakdale. La._

I do not think that it could be improved. All it needs is for the people to read it more and educate themselves on the reforms that the Populists advocate.

* * * * *

_A. H. Ellis, Hayward, O. T._

I have been a reader of your splendid Magazine from the first issue. I saw by the papers prior to the time you commenced your publication that you were going to edit a magazine. I immediately began to plan to stop the circulation of a 50-cent dollar long enough to get it to you for one year’s subscription, but son beat me to it, he having no taxes to pay, nor no overalls to buy, went barefooted, wore a seven cent straw hat and a thirty cent hickory shirt and saved his money and sent it in to you while I was sweating blood trying to pry a money lender loose from one of his idols.

I’m glad to know that I am not disappointed in the character and make-up of your magazine. You call a spade a spade. You did that while you were in Congress and it is a reproach to the grand old Commonwealth of Georgia that a hide-bound, moss back, clay-eating democracy could not have been broad enough to have let you stay in Congress. Who was the man that defeated you? I don’t know. I doubt if his name is known outside of the Congressional District. Georgia has produced but four men that have challenged the serious attention of the people of the country. Viz:—Old James Oglethorp, Alexander Stevens, Bob Toombs and Thomas E. Watson.

I see that many of your correspondents hope to see you President. No, Thomas, you will never be President of the United States. Why? First, you are too big, have convictions and the honesty and courage to express them. Second, too many fools (with an adjective prefixing “fools”). Your editorials are very fine. I have seldom read anything finer than “Dropping Corn,” “A Tragedy in a Tree-top.” Then there is your insurance policy which is a source of joy. “Monarchy Within the Republic” by Mr. Fox was instructive. The cartoons are superb. The McCurdy family, in your last, conveys the idea that the McCurdy’s are “agin” race suicide, but you must remember that sapsuckers are more numerous than eagles. You very skillfully put the good to Bryan, but say what you will, he stands head and shoulders above any other Democrat of this day. Compare him, if you please, to Alton B. Parker. When I hear the name of Bryan, I think of the American Eagle soaring the blue ether of Heaven. When I hear the name of Parker, I think of a tomtit sitting on a watering trough.

Best wishes for THOMAS WATSON’S MAGAZINE and a long life for its brainy, honest and fearless editor.

* * * * *

_Orlando K. Fitzsimmons, Buffalo, N. Y._

I have taken your magazine from the first number and am much pleased with the good work you are doing.

* * * * *

_Warren Beebe, Burlington, Ia._

Of several magazines which I read, I like yours the best.

* * * * *

_Katharyne Clarke, North McGregor, Ia._

I have read every issue of your Magazine since the beginning and would like to say a word of praise. Your work and efforts are casting seed that will surely cause “two blades of grass to grow where before there was only one.” Success to you.

* * * * *

_H. V. Hill, Kell, Ill._

I like your Magazine above all others. Keep up the good work.

* * * * *

_An Old Reformer._

Your magazine read and reread in my home every month by myself and five grown sons. We all admire the principle set forth in your grand editorials and know that what you say is truth, but I do think that you are a little too harsh and a little too personal when you speak of Cleveland, Rockefeller, Ryan, Belmont, Morgan, McCarren, Taggart and others of that class. You know that poor human nature is the same the world over and if we were to kill out these men whom you handle so roughly, others would soon take their places. So then the system which brings this state of affairs about in our government is to be blamed more than these men. Therefore, let’s strive (in the right spirit) to remove the evils which beset us as a Christian people. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” And besides, I want you to live long and lead this grand fight for reform, but when I read your cutting editorials I shudder for fear some of these people may have you assassinated.

I address you as “dear comrade” because I am getting to be an old man now and enlisted in this movement for reform away back in the palmy days of the Grange, and myself on the “Ocala Platform”, believing it to be just and in line with the principles later on, under the Alliance banner, planted our Revolutionary sires fought for, and I am proud to say that out of fifty odd Congressmen who were elected on that platform, Tom Watson is the only one who remained true, and I admire every red hair on your head for your loyalty and bravery, and have always voted for you when an opportunity was offered, and if I were called upon to make a national ticket of men whom I believe to be true, it would be,

Tom Watson, Theodore Roosevelt, Gov. Folk, Frank Burkitt, Gov. Vardaman, Scott Hathorn, W. R. Hearst.

* * * * *

_D. L. Anderson, Soochow, China._

My son was on a visit to the States last summer and he sent me your books—“The Story of France,” “Napoleon” and “The Life of Thomas Jefferson.” The books reached me during the summer holidays, and as new books are somewhat scarce out here and yours moreover looked so inviting, I began to read the day after their arrival, and day after day this reading continued until I had gone through the four volumes.

On finishing the last volume I purposed to write and thank you for the pleasure you had given me through your books, but the fall term of the University opening about that time I was very busy and so did not write. But now I wish to thank you for a very pleasant summer, for the enjoyment and instruction I received from your excellent books. New light has been thrown on France and her relations to the other powers of Europe, especially to England. Napoleon becomes, to me at least, a new man in your hands. Your “Thomas Jefferson” is a much needed antidote to much of the history that has been written and gives a clear view of the man and his times. Especially would I thank you for your statements with reference to the formation of the Constitution of the United States, also for your explanation of the “Genet Affair.”

In one or two allusions that you make to affairs out here, you have evidently been misled by the newspapers. In your “Napoleon,” page 215, you say:

“In the year 1900 Russians, Germans and other Christians invaded China to punish the heathen for barbarities practiced upon Christian missionaries.”

I don’t think that you state correctly the real object of this invasion of China. The missionary’s part in this Boxer affair was to suffer. Not only were many murdered, but both those who were murdered and those who escaped were made the “scape goats” in the eyes of the world. I enclose a slip that recently appeared in one of the Shanghai papers that gives the true genesis of this Boxer trouble. The armies of the different nations did not “invade China to punish the heathen for barbarities practiced on Christian missionaries,” but they came to rescue their respective ministers, who by their blundering policy had gotten themselves shut up in Peking. If these officials had not been in Peking the armies would never have come. I don’t know of any Government that cares quite that much for a missionary, though they all seem quite ready to use a murdered missionary to advance their land-grabbing schemes.

Again on page 218 you mention that Admiral Seymour ordered his wounded killed, etc. This was published in the papers at the time, but there never was any truth in it. It was simply one of the many horrid stories that went out from Shanghai during those dark days—manufactured in Shanghai.

And now, Mr. Watson, I trust that you will pardon me for inflicting you with this, but I felt that I ought to write and thank you for those books. I trust your pen will not rest. I sincerely wish that you would do for Germany or for Italy what you have done for France.

* * * * *

_W. E. Brown, Gainesville, Fla._

It is a splendid work you are doing. Your Magazine is a live wire and you are a powerful dynamo. The good you and Bryan are doing can never be reckoned or measured. You are right, and right is the most powerful force in existence, because God himself is the author and is behind all right. May you live to see your work crowned with success. While touching up other things, don’t forget we poor farmers of Florida. Between high freights and commission merchants we catch it. I am what you might call a one-horse farmer, but every year I pay the railroad $2,000 to $3,000 freight on stuff I make to get it to market to say nothing about the freight I pay on what I buy. I would like to make a trade agreeing to give one-half my stuff to get the other half to market and sold. And when on account of delays or for want of ice or any cause not traceable to downright negligence our truck arrives in bad condition and is sold for freight the railroad takes it all. I had one year 102 baskets shipped over one line and 15 over another. The 15 sold for $3.00 per basket, the 102 were refused because the car was not properly iced on the way to New York and arrived rotten, and I never got a penny. A piece of negligence, but could not be proved. This is by no means an unusual case and every truck farmer in the state, I guess, could make such a complaint or one equally unjust to the shipper. But the railroad agent for the A. C. L. at this place, so it is commonly talked on the streets, absconded with $2,000 of rebate paid to him by the railroad to be paid to a big phosphate concern here, and there is nothing doing. They say he won’t even be arrested and, of course, the railroad and the receiver of stolen money will not be punished, although I was told by an attorney of this city that the railroad commissioners were notified of the facts in the case.

So I say, God speed you, and may you be the means of accomplishing great good for this, our glorious country—too good to be wrecked by sordid greed.

* * * * *

_J. S. Pearson, McEntyre, Ala._

I had a sack of one bushel of oats (32 lbs.) price 75 cents and 20 cents worth of seed (all in one cash) sent by express from Birmingham, Ala. to Thomasville, Ala. (a few hours run by rail). I had to pay $1 charges and part of the oats were eaten (I suppose) by rats. I shipped a box of pears (50 lbs.) from Thomasville, Ala., to Braidentown, Fla. I was told by clerk or agent the express charges were $2.00. I told him I would not pay such a charge. Another clerk or agent looked in a book and said the charges were $1.00. I paid it. That was on Friday. The pears reached Braidentown, Fla. Tuesday. They should have been in Selma or Mobile Saturday morning, and where they were from then until Tuesday we know not. A letter saying the box had been opened and a part of the pears taken out was received yesterday. Have I no redress? I wrote to the Mayor of Birmingham to know if such thieving was allowed in his city.

* * * * *

_N. W. Rogers, N. Y. City._

I have read, with increasing interest, all the issues of your very excellent Magazine, and it gives me pleasure to express my appreciation of the effort you are making to educate the public.

The task of one who is endeavoring to expose corruption and corporate greed is, as I know from personal experience, a discouraging one; nevertheless I have a firm conviction that justice must finally be meted out to the smug respectability that has been robbing the whole country. The loathsome and criminal devices resorted to by our would-be aristocracy, in their greedy desire to acquire money, merits a more active opposition than that brought about by a public exposure of their crimes. Complete restitution of all funds wrongfully acquired in the exercise of an extortionate monopoly would be but a small punishment.

I wish you all success in your endeavors and only regret that I cannot at the present time take an active part in the campaign.

* * * * *

_F. Schweizer, Woodlawn, Nebr._

Even Diogenes with his lantern would in vain search justice in this country. To tell the truth in this country is punished as lese-majesty. Therefore I may be hung for lese-majesty, but I don’t care.

I was born and raised in free Switzerland and I will die as a free man who dares to express his honest opinions. If I am wrong, show me my errors. It really seems that people never will hear and accept the truth, until some fellows have been hung for telling the truth.

Let us be honest and acknowledge that our so high praised Christian civilization is a total failure. Might is right. The greatest hypocrite and most brutal beast is the absolute master, who dictates the terms by which he will rule. Their mottos are:

“Everyone for himself and the devil takes the hindmost and—The people be damned.”

* * * * *

_F. Hodgman, Climax, Mich._

I find in the literary department much to commend and little, if anything, to find fault with. In the editorial and political department, I can not say as much. You advocate many things which men of all parties have always been agreed on—that is, honest men of all parties. If you could only get the people to take you seriously and make the ten commandments a partisan issue, you would win out hands down, for a big majority of the people are honest in principle and want an honest Government. I dissent from very much that you are trying to teach in the way of political economy and you make many assertions and statements which I believe to be errors. But that does not count. The greatest fault I find with it as a magazine is the tendency toward being a common scold—with a good deal to denounce and little or nothing to commend.

* * * * *

_C. E. Hedgpath, Centralia, Mo._

Mr. Watson, allow me to say that while I admire your talent and much more your honesty, I cannot agree with you that the “great middle class” are the only ones needing protection. There is a party in the field fully organized and standing for “all the people”. “Government ownership”, with the Government as it now stands, would only add to our burdens. But first—Let the people own the Government. For this the Socialist Party stands.

* * * * *

_O. E. Samuelson, Kiowa, Kan._

I have received two numbers of your Magazine and have studied them when I could spare time. I was in the Populist movement one time. It was all right in its time, but its time is past and now we have something better—Socialism. So your Magazine is not enough revolutionary.

* * * * *

_P. R. Richardson, Gardi, Ga._

“Hon. Hoke Smith, Atlanta, Ga.

“Dear Sir: There are so many high-flying silver-feathered Democratic office-seekers that unless a man is well posted he can never tell the real man from the political tool. But seeing that Thomas E. Watson has promised you his support for Governor of the great State of Georgia, it explains away and clears up all doubts. So around our fireside cane-grindings we will talk and drink to your health, and when the day of the primary comes along we will roll in our votes.

“Yours very truly,

“P. R. RICHARDSON.”

Being a subscriber to the Magazine, I offer the above letter for publication in the Magazine.

* * * * *

_D. C. Pryor, Uvalde, Tex._

I send you a “legal tender,” A thing you have often seen, For which, please send to me, “dear Tom,” Your splendid Magazine.

Whilst I am a Democrat Its ranks I’d hate to leave, But I’d vote for you, “dear Tom,” Before I’d vote for Cleve.

* * * * *

_Dr. H. P. Boyce, Los Angeles, Cal._

Your editorial “Peonage in Panama” published in the December number, was read by me with a great deal of interest, as I have lived for seven years in Central America and am thoroughly familiar with labor conditions there, having during my residence there had constantly in my employ on plantation work from 15 to 50 laborers, or mozos, as they are called.

Of course, I do not know the exact conditions under which these laborers were contracted in Martinique, but am confident the conditions were similar to those under which all labor in that country is contracted. The employer of labor signs up a number of men and the men ask for, expect and receive an advance of money against their future services of an amount equal to from two to four months’ wages. There is a form of contract signed in which the laborer acknowledges the receipt of so much money paid him for future work to be done by him under the contract, by which he also agrees to work for the employer for a specified time at the rate of so much per month. This is the general custom in those countries and with the class of labor available is the only way in which the employer can be reasonably certain of securing and retaining his laborers, as the law forces the mozo to live up to his contract and also makes him secure in obtaining his money after he has worked out the amount advanced.

It was unquestionably the case with the Martinique negroes that they had all received advances of money against their future services, and that the money had all been spent before leaving their homes and, such being the case, where would the employer have found himself if he had submitted without any resistance and allowed the laborers to nullify their contracts and return home?

The Martinique and Jamaica negroes are as a rule a very unruly, unreliable and impertinent class and it requires strenuous measures to keep them in subjection and make them live up to their contracts. They cannot be compared to the American negro, who is much easier to manage.

I appreciate your feelings in the matter, but do not think you thoroughly appreciate the conditions of affairs as they exist in regard to the relations of employer and employee.

When the Martinique negro claims he does not know conditions as they exist at Panama, or other points on the Central American coast, he is lying, as they are all of them more or less familiar with the entire coast from personal visits to it or information acquired from friends who have been on the coast.

I know nothing from personal observation of the Peonage system in the Southern States but I do know that the contract labor system is the only way to handle labor in Panama, for you cannot get them without the advance of money and if you do not protect yourself by the contract, the chances are 9 out of 10 that your man will never show up to work it out.

A gang of those negroes numbering 500 or 600 are not easily handled by any means, and force must be used at times, or at least a strong display of it made or discipline would not be maintained twenty-four hours. Conditions are altogether different from anything existing here and matters must be judged differently. Existing conditions must dictate the line of action to be pursued in any given case and from my knowledge of the character of the men and the conditions, I do not see how the authorities could have acted otherwise than in using force, if necessary, to persuade these negroes to disembark. You certainly would not consider it just that these negroes take the contractors money, spend it, have their fare paid on the steamer to Colon and then on arrival deliberately say they would not land and work out what they had already been paid, but were going to return home. There would be no justice in such a course and if the employer had to use force to obtain what was coming to him, the man’s labor in exchange for his money which the man had already spent, it seems to me he was entirely within his rights. These laborers owed this money to the employer just as much as a man owes money that he has borrowed from another and given his note for, and, just as much as the borrower should expect to pay his note, just so much should this laborer expect to give his services in payment of the money advanced to him. As I have stated before, the laws of these countries recognize this condition of the field of labor and uphold the employer just as our laws recognize a man’s liability when he signs a note agreeing to repay money advanced to him. When the laborer has repaid by his services the money advanced to him he can no longer be held to his contract, but just so long as the laborer demands the advance of money before doing any work, just so long must he expect to be forced, if necessary, to carry out his agreement, and his services as laborer being his only asset he must give those services.

In those countries you only have your laborer as long as you keep him in your debt, for as soon as he gets a month’s wages in his pocket, he is ready to loaf and get drunk.