Los Angeles herald., 1908-07-11
TOM WATSON IN
BACKWARD MOOD
GOES THROUGH HISTORY IN
0RAT0RICAL FLIGHT
ACCEPTS POPULlSTS' NOMINAL
TIoN FOR PRESIDENCY
Draws Tragic and Impressive Silhou-
cites of Dire Calamitles Threat
ening NatIon-Cites Repetl-
tions of Events

fed of his nomination by the committee
appointed by the st. Louis national
convention, at a largely attended meet
ing of Populists in this city last night.
The notification speech was delivered
by Judge j. w. Forest Of Albany, N. Y.
In accepting the nomination Mr..
Watson said:
Zone of the most fearful statements
that was ever made is that history
repeats itself. Take the words lightly
and you stand appalled,.
The clash of armies, the horrors of
war, the carnage which spared neither
age nor sex-history is full of 1t: and
when history repeats itself, the slopes
of another Gettysburg will run red with
blood, the fiery broom will sweep other
Shenandoah valleys and other Atlantas
and Columbus will be fed to the
flames in some other 'Sherman's march
to the sea-
"The conquest of human reason by
the priest; the reign of religious in
tolerance, with its dungeon, it's rack,
its stake for independent thinkers
history is full of it, and when history
repeats itself the world will have once
more lost its liberty of. conscience; will
again shudder with fear and horror as
some other Philip of Spain Stays his
tens of thousands, some other Charles
of France fires the signal gun for
massacre of st. Bartholomew.
Hits Political oIiearchy
1.-THE establishment of the political
oligarchy; the use of legislative ma
chinery by one class to rob the others;
the exploitation of the unprivileged by
the privileged, history is full of it; and
when history repeats itself we again
shall have the rule of the many by
the few, the conf1scation of the prop
erty of the unprivileged under forms
of law and the giving of systematized
pillage the sacred name of govern
ment.
Let us go back to one of the tragic
chapters in the annals of the past; it
may be that a study of that chapter
will arouse us to an appreciation of
the dangers which have come upon us.
We return to the year Al before
Christ. The aristocracy, which had
declared war on julius Caesar, had
been overthrown; for six months this
greatest soldier and law-giver of an
tiquity had been at work reforming
the Roman system, but now the middle
of the month of March had come, and
the senatorial conspirators had de-
termined that he should die. All the
world knows the story.
why did the Roman aristocracy kill
julius Caesar? What had he done to
Rome that the Roman mobiles should
| take his life?
HE had abolished Imprisonment for
debt and by this act had deprived
Roman capitalists of their power to
keep debtors in slavery.
What Allied Rome
I'm Rome the burdens of govern
ment rested chiefly on those who got
the least out of 1t and most lightly upon
those who monopolized its advantages.
In Rome there were usurers who did
NJ OIL fV1or hr.t
interest. They engaged in no other
business, made no investments, paid no
taxes, contributed nothing to the
wealth and well-being of the state.
Great landed estates, cultivated by
slave gangs, were the curse of Italy.
Caesar compelled every proprietor to
employ free labor, to the extent of one
third of all those who worked for him.
Roman cities were thronged with
the unemployed. Three hundred thou
sand of the poor were fed from the
public granarieS. Caesar cut off $780,
900 names from the lists of free-grain
distributes and said to them, in eff
feet: 'Yonder is a piece of land offered
you by the state; go to it and earn
bread in the sweat of your face
"Brutus was one of the noble as
sassins who cut Caesar down and
Brutus was a money-lender who had
been fattening on 4S per cent interest.
There were many of these high born
usurers and their wrath was intense
when Caesar decreed that the rate of
interest should not exceed ~ per cent
and that there should be no such thing
as the compromising of interest.
"Oh, that we had had a Caesar in the
White House last October when those
Wall street rascals drew into New
York all the available cash of the
country, boarded it and created the
panic.
What Ais America
History repeats ITSELF" and today we
have in our own Republic every abuse
against which the Roman Populares'
made war.
"Our public domain has been preyed
upon by millionaire plunderers ana
land-grabbing corporations until the,
American people have been stripped
of a territory larger than the Ger
man empire. Timber thieves, appar-
emily with the connivance of the gov
eminent, have been allowed to so raw
age and destroy vast forest areas that
our losses, direct and indirect defy
human computation. In all directions
the terrific energy of the corporation
has driven the public off the public
domain. Our streets have been seized
by telegraph, telephone and railroad
companies. The iron horse monopo-
llZ6S llie liilc VI puDllC lldNtlt
and. instead of belonging to the public
as it should, the horse. as well as the
vehicle and the road is private prop
erty. The helpless public is not per-
mitted to light its own cities. The pri-
vate company must be chartered to
hold the light which enables the pub
lie to walk the public streets.
1.-THE historian, wishing to impress
us with the wealth and extravaganza
of the Roman aristocracy, tells us that
so large a sum as $1,000 was sometimes
paid for a horse, and the vast out
lay of 100000 was sometimes paid on a
palace. We are then given a list of
Roman millionaires, and it appears
that these plutocrats were worth from
81 100000 to $12,000,00 Pompey the
Great, who had conquered and plum
dered provinces larger than continental
Europe left property valued at $780,
900, Croesus, richest of all Roman
nabobs, left a fortune of $12,000,0OO.
Modern MlIIionalres
Suppose you compare the plu-
tocracy of Rome to that of these
United States. ]. P. Morgan has more
money invested in art treasures alone
than the richest of all the Romans was
worth. The summer cottage Of Cor
nelius Vanderbilt costs $S.0OO.OOO. to say
nothing of the land and the furnish
ings. John d. Rockefellers yearly In
come is greater than was the entire
fortune of the richest Roman. From
one little railroad the Central of
Georgia, ]. p. Morgan and q choice
assortment of participating thieves
81 Is.xs kIna