Getting Used to It.
S. R. Sikes, Ocilla, Georgia.
I have your card of November 10th, advising me of your withdrawal from Watson’s Magazine, and of your intention of publishing in the near future Watson’s Jeffersonian. I desire to express my sympathy for you in your recent trouble with the New York publication, and to assure you of my friendship and best wishes for you in your new enterprise, “The Jeffersonian.”
I feel sure that you have been treated very unfairly by those New York people, and I feel a spirit of resentment for you, and I am to-day writing them to discontinue mailing Watson’s Magazine to me, and to erase my name from their list of subscribers. (Copy of letter enclosed.)
I would feel worse for you over this transaction than I do if it were not for the fact you have been unfairly treated and falsely accused so many times during the last ten or fifteen years, until I suppose you have to some extent become toughened so that you can stand such treatment better than the average man, and I see very plainly now, and have seen for quite a while past, that the current of public sentiment is rapidly drifting your way. I desire to offer you all the encouragement I possibly can in the noble work you are doing—educating the common people of the country on the public issues that are now facing the American people, and in this connection I will state to you that I have been with you, so far as my ability extends, in this battle, and on some occasions have been severely criticised for taking your part and standing by the principles of original democracy in the days when the Democratic Party was seeking to destroy the principles upon which our government was founded. Of course I will subscribe for the Jeffersonian. I want the first copy that is printed and each succeeding issue. Mail me a few sample copies, and I think I can induce some others to subscribe.
(Copy.)
November 14, 1906.
Editor Watson’s Magazine, New York.
Dear Sir:—After reading and carefully considering the recent differences between you and the Honorable Thos. E. Watson, I wish to say to you that I think Mr. Watson has been treated very unfairly. I am a great admirer of Mr. Watson and his writings, and this led me to subscribe to the Magazine in its beginning. I have been highly pleased with it, and especially so with Mr. Watson’s editorials, but as he has been forced to sever his connection with the Magazine, and as his writings were the principle things which induced me to subscribe to the Magazine, I write to request that you erase my name from your list of subscribers. If I remember correctly, my subscription is paid up to March 1st, 1907, but under the circumstances I do not wish another copy mailed to my address.
Very respectfully,
S. R. Sikes.