The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-11-20
TOM WATSON HAS
 LED A HARD LIFE Struggled With Poverty to Get
 Law Practice MADE BUT $2t2 FIRST YEAR Read Blackstone by Pine Knots Be- tween Dark and Dawn and Got
 Years Board on Credit.
 Enjoying Campaign.
BUT $212 FIRST YEAR
From the New York Commercial.

From the New York Commercial
 About two hundred years ago a tall, lank, red-headed, frecklefaced, b1ue-eyed kBriton, named Tom Watson, who had lived near the Scotch border put his family in a rickety old wind jammer and sailed for the Carolinas. Of all decend- ants since that crazy bark sighted the miasmatic fog of the Dismal Swamp all the males but one have been tall and red headed. That one has been spared to run for the presidency He is Thomas E. Watson, of Thomson. Ga, and he is the head of the Peoples party ticket. It is democratic to be red-haired. Thomas Jefferson, founder of the demo- cracy, was noted the world over for the cramine brilllancy of his locks. Judge Parker has a similar hirsute quality, Thomas Taggart was known as "sorreI l top" when a boy, and William F. Shee- ] han has the reddest head in all New York. MT. Watson regrets that he alone of his illustrious line was denied natures badge of democracy. His sole consala- tion lies in possession of freckles But whatever traits of plutocracy the champion of Populism may have physi- cally, he Is a thorough democrat in phil losophy and demeanor. He is imbued with the conviction that Jefferson's party has departed from it's founders ideals, and that it is his mission to rise up and smite Hamiltonianism within democ- racy's ranks. He looks for nothing but the prophets reward
 Enjoying His Campaign.
 Neither the militant Theodore nor the issueless Parker is having half the fun, or near the satisfaction, out of this campaign that I am.' he remarked as he departed for Boston. And I never did indulge in a hope of election, either"
 For a prophet of the poor, a preacher of the rule of many instead of the reign of the few, to spring from a wealthy and aristocratic home, and southern home withal, where class distinctions, family traditions, and pedigrees are more prized. perhaps, than in Newport, is a paradox. The explanation lies largely in MT. Wat sons strange career.
 My father" said he. Twas a typical southern planter. His progenitors moved from the Carolinas with the Quaker col ony that settled at Wrightsboro, Ga. There by the aid of slave labor they prospered, and my father lived at ease. Then emancipation was proclaimed and he lost eighty-one valuable slaves. In trying to adjust his affairs to the new laDOr conditions he failed, and when the panic of 1873 came everything was swept away. I was thrown out of college and left penniless.
 Read Blackstone by Pine Knots.
 q taught a country school for living and studied law at night. I got an old farmer with whom I boarded to buy me a Blackstone in Savannah, and I read 1t by pine knot fire between dark and dawn. During vacations I ploughed or did any kind of work I could find, and when the days lobor was over returned to my Blackstone and the pine knot fame
 When I was ready to practice law, knowing that had not have sufficient to maintain myself while I was to become established, l persuaded a former school teacher of mine, a lawyer in Savannah then, to credit me for years board, and I helped him record deeds and mortgages.
 First Years Practice $212. 'aThe first gear I made s212. My fam ilys old homestead, which had been sold in the wreck of 73 I now puchased on credit, and with father, mother, and brother, moved back on the land. For two or three years lived on the farm, walking three miles to my office every morning. carrying my dinner pail like a farmland
 Tn 1878 I married the daughter of the practice was sufficient to enable me to leave the farm.
 "If you think it strange that my sym pathies should always be with the under dog, remember that through those years