* * * * *
_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 we must 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 a _jolter_. 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’s _Booklovers’ 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 Greenback party 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 the treasures 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 getting TOM WATSON’S MAGAZINE from the news-stand and like it very
much. It is refreshing to see one man who _dares_ say 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 of WATSON’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 “Irrepressible
Watson”—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.
[Illustration: _Educational Department_]