* * * * *
_W. F. Short, Eurekaton, Tenn._
I am well pleased with the Magazine and think it is superior to any
other magazine that I ever read. It is just what I expected our brave
and noble Tom to get up. Yes, the Magazine is all right. The language
is beautiful, forcible and courteous. I was a subscriber from the first
issue and have sent in my renewal for this year. I have more confidence
in Tom Watson than in any man who has tried to right the wrongs of the
people. I believe him to be so conscientious that he would not sacrifice
principles for any office in the gift of the people, and I do wish we had
one thousand men like our true and honest Tom to battle for justice and
rights of the people. I stand for the principles advocated by Jefferson,
Jackson and Lincoln.
I can make but one suggestion for the Magazine, and that is to place it
in a better wrapper, so it will not be lost in the mail.
* * * * *
_R. Brown, Buck Knob, Ark._
I am no writer and no scholar, but I write a few lines to you in order to
congratulate you on your Magazine. I think it the best magazine on earth
and the _Missouri World_ the best paper and the most patient publishers
on earth. I could not have the patience to publish a paper and send it
out among so many prejudiced block-headed farmers and laborers and get
so little return for my labor. I live in the mountains of Arkansas and I
have been lashing with my tongue and knocking at these old Mossbacks with
T. E. WATSON MAGAZINES and the _Missouri World_ for one or two years.
Some of them won’t read a reform paper when it is given to them, but I
give T. E. WATSON’S MAGAZINE and the _Missouri World_ to them all the
same. On some of them the moss I see is loosening. I am going to try to
organize a club in our township shortly. I am for government ownership of
all the railroads, coal mines, oil fields and all manufactures that take
a company to run and government money, and no one man to own more than
one hundred and sixty acres of land and not that unless he lives on and
cultivates the same. I will fight for all this and more as long as I live
and have a dollar that my family can get along without.
I am nearly sixty-four years old and have eight sons, all of whom will
vote the Populist ticket and all be old enough in 1908 to vote, and will
vote the Populist ticket.
* * * * *
_Stephen Lewis, Martin’s Ferry, O._
Your article in the January issue of your Magazine in regard to the
high-handed methods of the U. S. _Steal_ trust in obtaining property
from defenceless people has been read with much interest, and I approve
of your bold and fearless manner in attacking unlawful corporations and
lawless promoters.
That part in your article on the _Steal_ trust where you raise the point
as to whether the men who demolished the widow’s home were union men or
not was noted in particular and I venture the opinion that they were not,
because Pittsburg, with all its much vaunted prosperity is and has been
recognized by union workmen as the cradle from which that disreputable
class of workmen known as _scabs_ have come. Pittsburg harbors more scabs
than any other city in the country, regardless of size. The man who made
the _Steal_ trust possible operated his mills at Homestead with scabs
at the sacrifice of human life and forced a lower scale of wages upon
the men with the state militia. Yet this man is regarded by a great many
so-called respectable people as a philanthropist because he is erecting
monuments to himself in the form of libraries in different parts of the
country.
* * * * *
_M. G. Carlton, Zolfo, Fla._
I appreciate the Magazine and feel that it is one of the best. I am a
Populist and took great pleasure in casting my vote for you at the last
election, knowing at the time that the chances for success were bad. Yet
I cast the vote with as great pride and satisfaction as if I had known
you would be elected. I know how to sympathize with a defeated candidate
as I myself ran on the Populist ticket for Representative against the
noted Zuba King—the wealthiest man in De Soto County and one connected
with one or more of the best banks of the country, and got beaten, of
course, but I was not whipped but beaten by the money crowd and I believe
as strongly in the principles of the Populist Party as I ever did. I am
just the same today.
* * * * *
_W. Scott Samuel, Pawhuska, Okla._
Thinking that TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE might like to hear from a locality
where politics “rules the court, the camp, the grove,” I relate this
little incident. A few weeks ago, when the town sites of the Osage
reservation were to be opened for sale and an auctioneer appointed to
sell the lots, the news was published that a certain man, Amos Ewing,
had received the appointment of auctioneer. Now, the reputation of this
man, Ewing, is a stench in the nostrils of every honest man in Oklahoma.
From petty defalcations to embezzlement of trust funds, which he was
forced to disgorge, comes the reputation of the versatile and oleaginous
Amos. And so, when it was known that our great “square deal” bear hunter
had through his secretary named Amos for this promotion of trust and
emolument, it was not long before the mails were loaded with protests
from different localities in Oklahoma where the seductive Amos had
exercised his peculiar grafts. Did it do any good? Alas for the square
deal! When the sale of lots commenced at Pawhuska this creature, Ewing
was in the position that should have been filled by some one at least not
a self-convicted grafter, and _he’s there yet_, and all the protests,
charges, etc., filed against him are as though they never happened. How’s
that for the “square deal”?
In conclusion, permit me to compliment TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE for its
fearless _exposé_ of moral rottenness in high places. Hoping the good
work will go on, I desire to share in the glory of the time when its
principles shall prevail.
* * * * *
_Malcolm B. Webster, Atlantic City, N. J._
I have been an interested and delighted reader of your Magazine for some
time past, and feel that I am getting from it a political, social and
economic education such as I should not have known where to look for else.
While still but very young, I have long felt that I could say upon the
above subjects:
“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 there _is_ a _back_ door 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 front ranks 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.