It would put an end to strikes, and would put into the hands of the people a weapon with which they could destroy any combine among capitalists in any article of commerce.
Among other things, it would save the tremendous sum of $65,000,000 which the Federal Government now pays to the railroads every year for the carriage of the mails, and that saving could be applied to extending the Rural Free Delivery to the remotest parts of the country.
If the Government owned the railroads and carried its own mails in steel cars, the Post-Office Department would show a profit instead of a loss, and railway mail clerks would be able to insure their lives. At present they cannot insure their lives, for the reason that the Government allows them to be hauled around in flimsy dry-goods boxes, whose cost of construction is less than the annual rent which our Government pays for their use and which invariably get smashed to splinters whenever there is a collision.
Locust Grove, Ga., April 21, 1905.
Hon. Thomas E. Watson, Thomson, Ga.
My Dear Sir: As affirmative debaters on the subject: “Resolved, That the democratic principles of the United States are in danger of being superseded by those of an aristocracy,” we have secured very valuable help from your articles in the April number of Tom Watson’s Magazine, and knowing that you, being a student of political economy, could give us some personal suggestions, we would appreciate your sending us material on the subject at our expense.
Very respectfully yours,
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A Democracy—it being the government of all by all and for the benefit of all—cannot continue to be a true democracy unless the laws conform to the democratic standard laid down by Thomas Jefferson—namely, “Equal and exact justice to all men, without special favors to any.”