The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1904-08-25
SAY0YARBS VIEW OF TH0MASE. WATSON,
P0PUlISTS CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The formal opening OF his cam
paign as the populist candidate for
President. at Lincoln, Neb.. last week,
adds interest to a sketch OF Thomas e.
Watson. from the pen of "savoyard."
who writes from Washington:
Domitian, who made a vocation of
catching flies and impaling them. sue
decided to the purple and the empire
| of TraJan. who carried the eagles be-
yond the confines Of civilization. bridg-
ed the Danube. and made the sway of
Rome universal. The miserable and
unfortunate Henry VI was the success
or of q hero and a sage-Shakespeare's
Prince Hal-victor of Agincourt and
oonqueror of the crown OF France.
whose early death saved France from
complete conquest and prevented the
from London to Paris. The immediate
predecessor of Henry Of Navarre--he
Of the white plume and of Irvy-was
Henry Of Ya1ois, the last of his line.
heroic in his youth, but on the throne
the playfellow of dogs. IN effeminats
voluptuary. and the most worthless
king even France had ever had.
We, OF this blessed land, have known
no such sudden political contrasts
none such immediate nor remote Ours
is q government of political parties,
and no party has yet had the custody
Of our fortunes that was not, at the
time,- sane, however unsafe 1t might
have been. That our government and
our people will go the way of every
thing acknowledgements and decay
Is quite likely. and when the time
comes our posterity will elect presi-
dents like Eugene Debs and Thomas
E. Watson, but there Is no danger of
1t at the present time, and let all good
men hope that such thing may be
long deferred.
Herald of Calamity.
Tom Watson Is the product Of five
cent cotton in Georgia, just as Jerry
Simpson was the result of corn used
for fuel in Kansas. Both were heralds
of calamity, and the representatives
of popular discomfort. Ffve-cent cot
ton was the greatest blessing to the
South since the invention Of ELI Whit
ney. 1t diversified farming. 1t brought
the truck patch In fashion. 1t made an
industry of the culture of fruits and
melons and berries. 1t dignified the
cowpea. and revealed the importance
of the goober. 1t filed Southern
smokehouses with bacon and South
ern cribs with corn. 1t taught thrift
and frugality. 1t developed physical
energies. stimulated self-reliance. en-
forced self denial and aroused all the
moral and mental faculties: 1t did
more-it dotted the cotton states all
over with cotton mills. Politically
Tom Watson Is protest against the
beneficence and the universally of AL
mighty God. AS a political economist
| he ~ the relentless enemy of the actual
and the inevitable.
f,,e
have spun O bale had cotton always
fetched ten cents-never gone into the
bacon and corn industry-so Kansas
! would have remained content with
| corn and sunfowers il corn had con-
| tinud too valuable to burn. The boil
| weevil will not have done its Office till
IL drives hundreds of Southern commu-
mites to the production of cheese and
butter. beef and mutton. poultry and
eggs. that now only know of these
products by report. And SO every
thing has its compensation. II corn
fuel and five-cent cotton inflicted on
the South and West the populist party
they made restitution by diversifyina
the Industries of both sections. Calarc.
lily in seeming, actually they were for.
tunate with both hands full.
The other day the Populist party
| met in National Convention and nomi-
mated the Hon. Watson for President
and made a platform demanding polit-
ical and economic chaos. 1t was the
last gasp OF agrarianism. In 1880 the
party helped to elect Garfield; in 1892
1t helpd to swell Clevelands majority
| in the electoral college. In 1895 1t abb
| sorbed the democratic party. That was
| the year II nominated Tom Watson for
| Vice President and got very sorry for
1t before the campaign was ten days
old In the reign of James II religion
| was a political issue In England. and
the king tried a fusion of the Catho-
lies, the Puritans and the Quakers
| against the established church. That
sort of thing was no more illogical
and Impossible than the political fu-
sion headed by Mr.. Bryan in 1S96-the
democratic party had always stood
for individualism; the vopulist party
was the child of paternalism: the sill
liver republicans were spectators
plungerN on the political bourse: the
Debs sans culottes were menace ia
law and enemies of society. Watson
had associated with Bryan in Congress
and believed he was just as great a
man as his chief. or little of the rise
| of 1t. This was evident throughout
the campaign. and 1t greatly embar-
| raised Mr.. Bryan when he found him.
self between plutocrat from Maine
and a Jacobin from Georgia.
Calamity HOwler.
Thomas E Watson was born in 1856
| He was educated in the common
schools. and was for two years a stu
dent of a college at Macon; but his
means were exhausted. and he studied
law and was admitted to the bar when
twenty years of age He was in Sle
| Legislature and in 1888 was chosen
elector for the State at large on the
Democratic ticket. and cast his vote
/ in the Electoral college for Grover
| Cleveland. About that time five-cent
| cotton broke out in Georgia, and Wat
| son became an aRrarian and a calami-
/ ty bowler of the first water; but he
| was still a Democrat. That was the
| Fifty-second Congress. and the Demo-
cratic side of II was like the last cabi-
net of Lord Chatham, as described in
that celebrated passage from Edmund
| Burke. There were New England
mugwumps. New York Hill Democrats,
New York Tammany Democrats, gold
Democrats from the North, silver Dem
| ocrats from the South, Populists from
the West-an ola podrida that could
not have been made savory.
That Congress opened with a calam-
ity speech from the Hon. Leonidas F.
Livingston. 1t was a protest against
low prices and an example in arithme-
tic. Mr.. Livingston made the startling
the ominous discovery that 1t required
more cotton at five cents pound to pay
the national debt than would satisfy
that obligation with cotton at ten