The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1893-06-20
MR.. wArTERsoN's ADDRESS.

WattersOn's lecture at Metropolitan
Hall last Wednesday night. Some of
them were disappointed, no doubt,
owing to the fact that it was a reform
speech. Mr.. Watterson is an old line
J~effersonian Democrat and has but lit
tie sympathy with the modern Wall
street substitute. This feeling has been
intensified since he met Gen. Weaver
in debate at Philadelphia. He has
gone with the machine all the time, but
has kicked vigorously against many
things. He was opposed to the noml-
nation of Mr.. Cleveland last year and
never did become reconciled to the
Chicago platform. But for Mr.. Wat
terEon's protests the tariff plank would
have have been left out entirely,
His subject Wednesday night was
Money and Morals" When he started
out he pleased some of the Wall street
converts immensely by declaring that
a man is never satisfied. Il he is worth
a hundred thousand dollars he is al
ways regretting that he isn't worth a
million. If he is worth q million, ne is
even more envious of his neighbor who
may be worth ten or fifty millions.
Then he said he believed the happiest
people were the poor people. This
tickled some of the audience immensely.
The speaker or writer who tries to con-
sole the poor and oppressed by telling
them they could neither eat nor sleep
if they were rich, is very popular with
some people, even in Raleigh. But
when Mr.. WattersOn stopped that kind
of humor and began to tell the truth, a
good deal Of the enthusiasm died. When
he remarked that much depended upon
how you got your riches, and said that
riches benef ted a few, but. that it hard,
ened and contracted a thousand men to
ten that are benefited, the applause
grew weak. He even told them it was
a fatal mistake for a man to lay his
hands on money that didn't belong to
him. That was not SO hard to bear, but
he next gave the ~hypocrits a solid shot
the man who will join the church
and be charitable and wear a long face
while he is robbing his neighbors. That
brought out q few smiles from the long
faces and liberal applause from most Of
the audience.
By this time some of his hearers be-
gan to wish he wouldn't be SO personal,
but instead he grew worse He actually
began to howl calamity" Then the
long faces grew longer. He said:
Find out a nations sin and you will
know that nations danger. The great
sin in America to day is money and
morals" The money power and the
morals of the people are our danger.
The trail Of the dollar mark is en- the
$40, 600 pulpit; it is on the road to Con-
| grege, to the United States Senate. It
costs 800, 600 to get the name of a
presidential candidate before the coun-
try. Nowadays men make fortunes
and buy q seat in the U. S. Senate,
some of them costing as much as $780,
600. Only the rich can get some Offices"
Then he began to talk about Jefferson
ian Democracy, and by this time some
of the Democrats present looked like
they had seen a ghost. Mr.. Watterson
was talking about the money power"
Wall street, and ''buying seats in the
Senate" Some of those present
thought Mr.. Watterson was quoting
from THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER; they
didn't think it possible for a big Demo
crat to talk such nonsense as that. But
he kept right on and told how they run
the government of Switzerland on the
Thomas Jefferson plan, and how the
biggest officers didn't get more than
actual expenses, say a thousand dollars
a year and that they didn't have many
rich folks in that country. Hequoted:
I'll fares the land to fastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay"
He talked about Wall street; said it
was the scene Of more robbery and
tragedy than any other spot en-
continent, and, strange to say, end
of the street faces a fine church and
the other end a cemetery"
Fearing that some of our p~lutocratic
readers may not believe Mr.. Waiter
son did all this calamity bowling"
we will quote the following paragraph
from the report of the lecture in the
NeaUs and Observer, which will show
that we have not overdrawn anything
he said:
1.-The speaker declared that we are
upon the ascending and not the de
scending scale of national greatness.
We have many centuries of prosperous
existence ahead. The money devil is
the lion across u national highway.