Various

“ The Chinamen should pioneer their own great land. Let them stay at home and open their unworked national wealth. We cannot blame the ignorant peasants for coming here. They do not know the possibilities of their own country and if they did it would do them no good. It is the so-called intelligent, progressive Chinese that are to blame. The people of China are hampered and restricted by their own ancient customs fatal to themselves. Chinamen are coming to the United States to reap the benefit of civilization of another race with which they have little in common. ”

“ The power to confiscate is the power to tax. Give that power to one class and what more does it want? Let that class confiscate land values, which you agree are naturally common property, and you give it the power to rob its victim, not merely to the “limit of their capacity to pay,” but to literal starvation, if they choose to carry the principle of private ownership of land to its logical conclusion. For certainly to recognize the right to private property in land is to recognize the owner’s right to do with his land what he pleases. ”

“ To save ourselves from such a calamity, and to save the negro from himself, we put back into the hands of the whites that civilization which had been the outcome of centuries of effort on the part of the whites.
And when the Negro Convention of today has not met to howl but to brag, what a beautiful, brilliant picture their orators can paint, as they proclaim the progress and prosperity of the negro. What wonderful statistics they use to prove that the negro has advanced in knowledge more rapidly than the whites of Russia, of Hungary, of Italy and of Spain! ”

“ No more honest, open, fearless man than you is on earth today. That might be better expressed, but the meaning is there—I will let it pass.
The universal spirit of righteousness encompasses and permeates you—you are surely a part of the divinest essence. Being a man, you must like to know that other men appreciate and approve—and to the utmost. And that they do in an ever expanding circle. The days of sophistry, of deception, of class and special privileges, of municipal, state, and national corruption are rapidly passing. The people are becoming wise. They know their friends. ”

“ It does not require one skilled in the economics of the labor problem to point out the glaring evils of a coal-mining system. They are so evident that even he who runs may read. They are so patent that even the dull creatures who toil under them feel in a blank way that something is wrong. Just what, they cannot say. They realize that they are always hungry, always toiling and always in debt. There are three things that the strong arm of the judiciary should suppress—child labor, peonage, and weight frauds. ”

“ Repeal the laws which grant the Privileges that lead to Monopoly; equalize the taxes; make the rich support the government in proportion to their wealth; restore public utilities to the public; put the power of self-government back into the hands of the people by Direct Legislation; restore our Constitutional system of finance; pay off the National debt and wipe out the National banking system; quit giving public money to pet banks for private benefit; remove all taxes from the necessaries of life; establish postal savings banks; return to us the God-given right to freedom of trade. ”

“ I can imagine a state of affairs—a list so large—that every subscriber secured would make it harder to get another, for we can’t expect every man, woman and child to take any one publication. But no magazine ever reached that dizzy height. Practically every subscriber we get is a missionary who brings in at least one convert within the year, and many of them send in dozens of new subscriptions. I need hardly use space in saying that we thoroughly appreciate these kindnesses and endeavor to show our appreciation by making Watson’s Magazine better and better each month. ”

“ Is it not merely a labor-saving invention to facilitate trade? Is it not money only by common consent? Is it not merely a commodity converted for convenience into a medium of exchange? You make the point that by controlling the money, they controlled commodities. But if they had not controlled the land, which is the source of all commodities—even the money itself—how could they have controlled the money? ”

“ You publish more real stuff than any magazine I have ever read in my life. I am sixty years of age, and we take seven other magazines, and without any exaggeration it is but justice to your efforts to say that there is by far more real, good, well-seasoned, relishable food for the digestion of the average brain, than is afforded in any other magazine I have seen. ”

“ Who are the men who would rob an American of his birthright, who insist that none but property owners should vote or hold office while all others—the payers of rents, of the tariff, of the internal revenue, of franchise and stamp taxes, etc.—should be disfranchised? Can they show a better title than the men, or their descendants, who do the work in time of peace and the fighting in time of war, but who may not have been able to secure any real property—honestly or otherwise? ”

“ I am a rampant Socialist and I think that most of my old comrades have followed my example and I can see no reason why all Populists should not do the same. You know, my brother, that the Socialists are growing as no other party ever grew and they are bound to become a dominant factor in politics in the near future. It is evolution. Reforms do not go backward. The Populists have done a grand work, but Socialism is inevitable and I would rejoice to see all old Populists get aboard the band wagon. ”

“ It was only after they had become so rich that they were compelled to look around for good investments that they began to buy real estate. Their vast fortune, which staggers the human mind in the effort to comprehend it, was not the growth of land monopoly, but was the growth of usury. What the Rothschilds have done in modern times, men of like character did in ancient times, and just as the modern world will decay and collapse if these evil accumulations be not prevented, so in ancient times people went to decay and extinction because no method of reform was found in time to work salvation. ”

“ When the country or state gives her the right to vote does that put her under any obligation to do or give anything in return for this privilege?
Who gives women (or men) the right to vote—the city, state or country?
Is it fair to give it to some women and not to all? Is it fair to give it to men and not to women?
Would politics be purer if women took more interest in them? If women voted?
In those places where women cannot vote what can they do towards securing good government? Can they do anything through their husbands, brothers and fathers? Through their neighbors? ”

“ I saw ill-clad women and low-browed men black with the grime of the mine entering a large building which I rightly surmised to be the Company store. The offices were on the other side, and those who entered there did so with an air of the utmost servility, as though they fully expected to be kicked into the street.
It is wonderful what an influence one’s surroundings will have upon their character. Here I had been in Ardmore, only thirty minutes and I caught myself approaching that office in the same servile manner affected by all whom I saw enter there. ”

“ The voice that had entranced mass-meetings in a hundred cities of southern and western Europe was stifled in the catacombs of Schlüsselburg.
But Time, the All-Avenger, has made the martyr’s name a rallying cry of East-European reformers, and America should honor the memory of Mikal Bakunin as that of a hero and pioneer of reform—a man whose marvelous gift of intuition had recognized all the ideals of Populism, all its principles and promises, but who succumbed to the superhuman task of effecting its progress under the handicap of a monarchical government. ”

“ You are standing on an Eighth Avenue corner, looking down a side street toward the ugly black streak made by the Ninth Avenue elevated railroad. You see peddlers, right hands curving at the sides of their mouths, left hands holding pails of potatoes; a woman with a basket of wash, which is tucked under a sheet; many fire escapes that look like a jumbling of giant gridirons, when seen from the corner. ”

“ To keep it up was just as heroic, for forest fires destroyed it from time to time, and the pioneer had to replace the barrier against the encroachment of animal life and the inroads of savagery with as great a tenacity and as sublime a courage as that of the people of Holland, who tore their country from the clutches of the ocean and barred out the sea with dikes. ”

“ Yes, the Magazine is all right. The language is beautiful, forcible and courteous. I was a subscriber from the first issue and have sent in my renewal for this year. I have more confidence in Tom Watson than in any man who has tried to right the wrongs of the people. I believe him to be so conscientious that he would not sacrifice principles for any office in the gift of the people, and I do wish we had one thousand men like our true and honest Tom to battle for justice and rights of the people. I stand for the principles advocated by Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln. ”

“ The chief trouble in Russia is that the mass of the people have to give more than they receive. A comparative few have gained possession of the government and each takes a very, very large share of what all contribute, leaving almost no share at all for the majority.
Of course it is almost impossible to trace out just what each Russian peasant gives up to the government, and what he receives in return. Without a government of some kind he could not produce or hold anything except by force against his fellows—land, goods, money, family, all would be totally insecure. ”

“ When you say that a National Bank has gained such tremendous profits out of the privilege of creating money and lending it to the people at high rates of interest that a robbery which runs up into the millions does not stagger it in the least, you simply convince the intelligent reader that National Banks reap far greater gains out of Special Privilege than their champions are in the habit of admitting. ”

“ As a matter of fact, you can not furnish such proof because it is manifestly untrue. Before the savage, wandering in the primeval forest, ever dreamed of laying claim to any parcel of the soil as his own, did he not so lay claim to the fish and game he took? Did he not so lay claim to the fruits and berries he gathered? Did not the tribesman who followed his flocks and herds over the plains so lay claim to them as the product of his labor? ”

“ Now it seems to me this can be done in no better way than by standing right at President Roosevelt’s back. We can hardly hope to find an abler, more courageous and more earnest champion of the people than he. Personally, Mr. Watson, as I have measured you, mentally and morally, by your speeches and writings, I like you, just as I do many a good Democrat and Populist, without agreeing with them politically. The fact is that the late elections have given us a great lesson in free thought and free action—in placing principle and patriotism above party allegiance. ”

“ It needed a great many berries to supply that supper table. The sunbeam darted down from the top of Ellie’s head to seek out with its twinkling, gold-shod feet the silver-gold curls in Ellie’s neck. The steps paused close beside Ellie. Suddenly the spinster realized that they were not Mrs. Homan’s steps and she looked up. Scorn, indignation, amazement, and then something more subtle, something which one sees in faces everywhere all over the world, and something which makes the world more beautiful, crossed her face. There stood Samuel Jessup with the huge market basket in one hand. ”