Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-11-14
WATSON GIVES PLAN
SAYS RooSEVELT'S GREAT VOTE
WAS DUE TO POPULARITY.
Public Distrusted the Men Behind
Parker-A Rebuke to Cleveland's
Second Administration.

Thomas F. Watson gave out statement
In New York yesterday, in which, among
other things, he said:
Mr.. Roosevelt's overwhelming ma jority
was not so much due to the fact that our
reign of special privilege. 1t was not by
any means an Endorsement of corporation
tyranny, the greed of the trusts or the
methods of combined capital. Mr.. Roose
velt's majority over Mr.. Parker was due
mainly to two things-one was the immense
personal popularity Of Mr.. Roosevelt him
self, and the other was the immense I'M
popularity of Mr.. Cleveland's second adj
ministration. Unfortunately for Mr.. Parker.
he became so completely identified with the
marauders who plundered the government
during Mr.. Cleveland's second administra-
ton that he had to bear all the odium which
they had incurred. The people have never
had chance to show just what they
thought of that second administration.
Mr.. Bryan's two campaigns did not give
them the opportunity; it was only when the
old Cleveland combination secured the de-
feat of Bryan and Hearst and dictated the
nomination Of Mr.. Parker that the masses
got the opportunity to vent upon national
candidate the intense hatred which they had
been nursing for years against such men as
Olney and Belmont and Carlisle and Cleve-
land himself. They knew that could not
be elected, and they were SO eager to make
the best OF the opportunity to safeguard the
country against repetition of that satur-
MALTA Of class legislation which marked
Cleveland's second administration that they
rushed to Roosevelt and gave him a ma
Jor1ty which does not, under ordinary cir
cumstances, belong to the republican party.
In other words, the personality of Mr.
Roosevelt and the unpopularity of Parker's
environment carried into the republican col
umns vast multitudes of men who under
ordinary circumstances would not be found
there.
Reorganize Along Jeffersonian Lines.
My own plans for the future embrace a
complete organization of the people along
the lines of Jeffersonian democracy, the re-
estaphshment OF reform papers and a sys-
tematic propaganda of Jeffersonian prin-
ciples, in order that in 1903 there shall be a
party Of genuine opposition to the republic
can party and its present policies. If DO
htcal history teaches anything 1t is that
old parties never accomplish any reform
unless they are irresistibly driven to it by
pressure from without. l hope at least to
De or some use to my country in aiding
those who will apply that pressure 1t is
immateriai to me who does the work which
itself is done
Il should only be too glad to cooperate
on parallel lines and honorable terms with
any Jenersonian democrat like Mr. Bryan
or Mr. Hearst or George Fred Williams to
accomplish a purpose which is common to
us all, but l. believe that the best way to
assure the final success of the reform,
movement rs for us to build up party of
JeHersonian democracy on solid foundations
where unity of sentiment goes hand in
band with unity of purpose and where,
therefore, some hope of accomplishing that
which we wish to accomplish can be rea-
sonably entertained.
South a Mere Tool
I'm the south there are peculiar reasons
why the present policy of the democratic
leaders should be defeated, and better
line of policy adopted. For the last
twenty-five or thirty years the democratic
machine politicians have made that great
section mere tool in the hands Of Wall
street and handful of eastern democrats,
who have no purpose in common with us,
and who use the electoral vote of the
solid south for their own selfish purposes
In this manner our southern country which
is an empire In itself, has been made a
mere province for few great financial
magnates who exploit 1t for their private
gain without the slightest reference to the
welfare of the southern people. The stu
alton is pitiable.
THE degradation of it finds expression In
the phrase the solid south would vote for
a yellow dog on the democratic ticket
AS southern man l am ashamed of such
a state of affairs, and resent it profoundly
If can do anything toward accomplishing
the political independence of my own peo-
pie from this slavish servitude to a handful
of Wall street politicians, l consider it my
duty to do so.
Am 1 discouraged? BY no means. I
began with nothing, worked three months
and got half a million votes The men who
followed me are men of conviction, earnest
enthusiastic, united. Parker started out
with seven million votes and lost some two
millions in the campaign Those who fol-
lowed him are demoralized and disheart-
ened. Encouragement? The democratic
camp is the place where that is to be