The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-08-31
TOM WATSON AND THE SOUTH
ERN.

Watson's Magazine for September
contains a long editorial under the
heading: '"The Sepoy, the Parrot and
the Southern Railway which is chief
ly a TRADE against that railroad COM
pany and its president and against
Editor Pendleton of the Macon Tele-
graph. We find in it such paragraphs
as these in reference 10 the Southern:
What mattered il to the East India
Company that Give and Hastings had
despoiled the people Of Hindustan?
What cared they for pfllaged cities,
wasted fields, depopuIated provinces?
No matter how pitiable might be the
suffering Of the oppressed natives Of
India. the slumber of the London
directors was not broken. To them
the question was n Of business. Did
Give enrich the company? Did Hast
ings fatten the corporation? Those
were the questions which concerned
the East India Company, and none
other.
The voting trustees of the southern
railway stand, in relation to the south,
somewhat as the East INDIA Company
did to Hindustan.
No matter how much Mr.. Spencer
might plume himself upon winning
the applause of Wall street, he was
nothing more in my eyes than the
highest and ablest Of the EepOys of
the south-paid, uniformed, sufficient
w equipped with the necessaries Of
commercial warfare, and sent out to
pIunder his native and for foreign
masters.
Chauncey Depew was the chief of
the JaniZaries for the Va~nderbilts; n
the faithful, able, irresistible Chaun-
cev wrung from the legislature of
New York those franchises and priv
ileges and powers which constitute the
bulk Of the Vanderbilt fortune. But
Chauncey, a New Yorker, helped the
Vanderbilts, who were New Workers,
steal from the people of New York;
it was all in the family. The Wander
bits got hundreds of millions; Chaun-
cey got a million or so for himself
and now his gray hairs struggle over
a head hat is bent in everlasting
shame-for his rascalities at length
came home to roOst, and while
Chauncev is rich, he is infamous.
In Samuel Spencer's case the crime
was unnatural, as we'll as heinOus. He
is the sepoy, the hireling of a foreign
master, trained, uniformed, rme
and paid to conquer and plumber his
own people. A southern man, he has
looted the south; a Georgian, he mas
robbed Georgia. In his native state
he has brought together a combination
of railways which violate our consti-
tuition; he has kept in service a body
of Georgia sepoys.
These extracts are from the pen Of a
mar who has established a reputation
for being one of brains and education.
If there is an exhibition Of either in
the quotations it is above the grasp
of the ordinary intellect.
Mr.. Watson would have us believe
that it is the policy Of the Southern
railroad to impoverish the south in
order that the company might grow
rich; that its idea is the poorer it
makes it's patrons the more wealthy it
could become. Now that might be a
money making policy on the part
of the Southern or any other rail-
road if it contemplated only temporary
of business; but if it's purpose is to
continue to haul passengers and
freight for an indefinite period of time
such policy as hat assigned to the
Southern by Mr.. Watson is patiently
suicidal. Can any one deny that the
richer fhe country through which a
railroad runs the more profitable will
be the operation of that road or that
a railroads prosperity will increase
with the increase Of population and
wealth. of the territory 1t serves? Is
it not to the interest of the railroads
reaching into the south that this sec
ton should progress-shOuld increase
its population and add to it's capital
invested in agriculture and industries
and that the people should become
Weather and more able to patrOnize
the railroads? There can be no de-
nial of this. Then why should it be
charged that any railroad is adopting
a policy just the reverse-one which
tends to ~impoverish the people and
make them less able to turn money
into the treasures of those roads?