I would not offend by flattering him “who would not flatter Jove for his power to thunder.” But the beneficiary is ever a debtor to his benefactor. I may write with confidence where expression is due.
The modest caption, “Editorials by Thomas E. Watson,” has already attained to a decisive expectancy in the public mind. In brief time the words that monthly come to us under it will shed a wider and widening light.
Revived iniquities which inspired “Junius” are come for exposure. History repeats itself in facts and interpreters of facts. “Junius” in immortal energy told the people of the Gentlemen in the House of Commons, the Judges upon the Bench, the Lords, and the Dukes, and the Ministry and the King; of malfeasance in office and of decay in private virtue.
The theme then is the theme now. Patrick Henry caught the spirit of “Junius”; the “Editorials by Thomas E. Watson” draw upon the glorious past to shed light upon the living day.
Anxiously we await some words from you upon the most insidious consumer of free institutions—the bonded debt of the United States. Please answer these questions:
1. Is not the Government interest-bearing bond the true foundation of the “trust”?
2. Can the “trust” be eliminated from commerce before the government bonds are paid and extinguished?
3. As long as the bonds remain and money concentrates under their influence and protection in New York, can money so concentrated be redistributed from New York in the sources of industry and commerce by any other process than by “trust” industries process?
Let me illustrate: In the Birmingham (Ala.) manufacturing district there are three great iron manufacturers, to wit: The Tennessee Coal and Iron Company; The Sloss-Sheffield Company; The Republic Company and the Alabama-Consolidated Company.
Continued effort is made to merge two or all of these powerful forces. The Pontifex Maximus in the situation, the great bridge over which the merger, if merger there is to be, must pass, is a bank of issue—a national bank—willing and also able to finance the movement in transit and after consummation.