Part 18

(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 payable _in 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.

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_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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yours truly,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson_,

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

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

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

Thanking you in advance for the desired information.

Respectfully,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

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

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

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

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

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

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, New York._

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

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

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

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER

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

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

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

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

_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, New York._

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yours very truly,

⸺ ⸺.

ANSWER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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GRAND PRAIRIE, TEXAS, JANUARY 1, 1906.

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

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

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

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

I am, very truly,

⸺ ⸺.

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

ANSWER

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is the natural result of three things.

(1) Land monopoly.

(2) A diabolical financial system.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Cleveland did not get 125 for the Bonds.

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

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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.

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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.”