  BBefore me lies a Thing, bearing on its cover the legend, “Watson’s Magazine.” The familiar emblem, the Liberty Bell, is in the center of the space, and below is the address of “Watson’s Magazine Company,” Opening this Thing and scanning the Table of Contents, I note the absence of the name of Mr. Watson, former Editor-in-Chief. He’s out. Nor do I see the name of the former Managing Editor, Mr. Duffy. He’s out, also. C. Q. DeFrance is still on deck, however, and Ted Flaacke is still Advertising Manager—with no advertisements to manage. Then comes a statement of the Contents of the November number. First the old familiar word, “Editorials,” meets my eyes. But the name of the writer is not given. It used to be Mr. Watson. Who is it now? The Table of Contents does not state. The Editor is a Man of Mystery. Was he ashamed of his Editorials, or were the Editorials ashamed of him? Deponent sayeth not—because he doesn’t know. Everybody else’s name is given, save that of the only man whose name there was any special reason for giving—to wit, The Editor. Is THIS the way they send you into the world, MY CHILD? Offspring of my hand, my heart and my soul—Benjamin of my old age! Is THIS the orphanage upon which you have fallen? Glancing down the list of writers who have contributed to this November number, I am startled to find the name of Thos. E. Watson. Who is he, anyhow? Isn’t he the man whom Colonel Mann and DeFrance have been slandering through the newspapers? Why put his name into this pot? Curious to see what Mr. Watson may have written for the Thing, I follow the page reference (103) and find the familiar headline “Educational Department.” This department was my own creation, primarily intended for the instruction of the younger members of the family. Under the headline of “Educational Department,” the Thing puts a list of books. Some boy wrote to me last winter asking me to name one hundred books which would be useful to the general reader. I made out the list, last February, and mailed it to New York. In their quandary of dismissing Watson, the man, and holding on to Watson, the Reputation, they fished that list of books out of the waste-basket and published it. They signed my name to it. That’s the only item in the Thing’s “Educational Department.” Pitiful! At the very time when they are slandering me in the newspapers, and denying to me any share in the Magazine which my unpaid labor built up, Mann and DeFrance have the cynical indecency to continue to use my name as a writer for their magazine. Turning to “Letters From the People,” a Department which owes its creation to me, I find letters praising “Watson’s Magazine.” The dates are not given. These would have disclosed the fact that the letters were written before the severance of my connection with the Magazine. The writers were my friends, and by their letters they had meant to encourage me in my work. The cover of the Magazine bears the name “Watson’s Magazine Company.” The two individuals who compose this “Company” are Col. W. D. Mann and C. Q. DeFrance—a very precious “Company.” Of my Magazine, Mann took half, and DeFrance took half. By what right? Concede that Col. Mann was entitled to grab half of the Magazine because of the money which he had lost through the stupid mismanagement of the Business Department—where did DeFrance get his right to the other half? He has never done a lick of work for the Magazine that wasn’t paid for at full price. Where, then, was HIS right to seize, under legal form, one half of the Magazine? I called him from a very modest position in Nebraska, and put him in the office as my personal and political representative. Starting him at $40 per week, I soon advanced him to $60 per week—a higher salary than he had ever been paid, by far. I trusted him, implicitly. To the last moment, I relied upon him, absolutely. And he betrayed me. Often have I, like other men, experienced ingratitude; sometimes perfidy—but never have I been stung by such venomous and unexpected treachery as that of DeFrance. Let it pass. *** There is another deceptive inscription upon the cover of the November number of the spurious “Watson’s Magazine.” It is the address, 121 West 42 Street. That is NOT the true address which should be used now. Colonel Mann has taken the spurious “Watson’s” into the quarters of his Town Topics and Smart Set. You have perhaps heard of Town Topics. Also of Smart Set. And a mighty smart set it is, too. Hereafter, you might as well address all communications intended for the spurious “Watson’s” in care of Col. Mann’s Town Topics. Cartoon THE FAKIR AND THE MANIKIN. COL. MANN AND DEFRANCE VENTRILOQUISING THE BOGUS “WATSON’S MAGAZINE,” NEW YORK. Or, if you prefer, in care of Col. Mann’s Smart Set. Last March the blustering old scamp who rolls around beneath the name of Colonel W. D. Mann, wanted to remove the genuine “Watson’s Magazine” from 42nd Street over to the Smart Set den. I declined to let him do it. At that time, DeFrance was still true to me, and he took the same view of the matter. So anxious was he not to get mired up in Town Topics mud that he telegraphed me to stand out against Col. Mann and not allow him to make the removal. Tray, the faithful, wanted to keep out of bad company. Tray, the unfaithful, has now, of his own free will, got into the bad company which he then avoided. Watch out, Tray. *** The first article in the November number of the spurious “Watson’s” is entitled “Explanatory.” Most of it had already appeared in Colonel Mann’s Town Topics. The rest of it bears the earmark of DeFrance. “Explanatory” was prepared by the present Editors of the New York “Watson’s Magazine”—Col. Mann and DeFrance. Well aware of the fact that the Public would not patronize a Reform magazine edited by such a creature as himself, Col. Mann has rushed into the newspapers with a declaration that he never saw or heard of “Explanatory” until after its appearance in the November “Watson’s.” What a shameless falsehood! Col. Mann and DeFrance fixed up that “Explanatory” mess, and Mr. Gordon Nye, the artist, was commissioned to take the “Proofs” to Col. Mann for correction. Mr. Nye, who is now living with me, assures me that he carried these “Proofs” to Col. Mann’s house on 72nd Street, that Col. Mann read and corrected the “Proofs,” and that he made certain alterations in the article. Then Mr. Nye took the Proofs of “Explanatory” back to DeFrance, and delivered to that person the orders of the real Editor-in-Chief of the New York “Watson’s Magazine.” For the real Editor-in-Chief of the bogus “Watson’s Magazine” is Col. Mann, Editor of Town Topics and Smart Set. Nice Editor-in-Chief for a reform magazine, isn’t he? *** I am going to give, once for all, a simple statement of the whole transaction, and then I will try to forget it, in higher, nobler work. Nothing is a more thankless task than the narration of the events leading to such a climax as this. *** After the national election of 1904, I went to New York to hold a conference with our National Chairman, Mr. Ferriss, and with other men While in this uncertain state of mind, Colonel Mann burst in upon me, at my hotel, in all the glory and pomposity of white whiskers, white hair, wine-colored face, spotted waistcoat, gold-headed cane, baywindow belly, eyes that looked like hard boiled eggs, and a voice thick with high-living and constant use. As I may have remarked before, he looked just like a picture taken out of a child’s colored picture book. While he talked to me, I sat there trying to make up my mind as to which he resembled most, an idealized portrayal of Santa Claus, or of John Bull, or of John Barlycorn. I finally decided that he would do for a composite photograph of all three. This funny looking old chap I had never heard of before. His Town Topics I had never seen—didn’t know of its existence. He introduced the purpose of his visit by saying that he had heard of Mr. Hearst’s proposition to me. If I had committed myself to Mr. Hearst, he had no more to say; otherwise he had a proposition to submit. Told that I was free, he outlined his project. He would finance a great national magazine, if I would edit the same. Casually and lightly, he mentioned $100,000 as the amount he would risk on the venture. With that amount he had made Smart Set “go,” and he did not doubt that a like amount would make another magazine “go.” Everything must be in my name—corporation, magazine, signboard, tail-piece and all. Not being particularly ashamed of my name, I had no objection to this. Inasmuch as I belonged to a political party which had just demonstrated to its own satisfaction that it was the most unpopular political conglomeration on the face of the earth, I imagined that such a fine looking old personage as Col. Mann—calling himself a Democrat—was afraid he would deface his own reputation by associating with a political Considerate old buck, he wouldn’t hurt my feelings by using the plebeian word “salary.” The word “compensation” was likewise too vulgar to be applied to my monthly and yearly stipend. With a rich roll in his deep bass voice, he mentioned the “honorarium” which I was to receive for my work. My “honorarium” was to be $500 per month. Besides, my traveling expenses to and from New York were to be paid. He emphasized the fact that, under his proposition, I would not have to live in New York. A monthly visit was contemplated, but never made compulsory, save upon the summons of the Board of Directors. Cartoon EVEN IF THEY COULD BEND THE BOW, THEY HAVE NOT THE ARROWS. For several reasons, Col. Mann’s proposition impressed me favorably. First, it preserved my identity. Second, it left me free to say just what I pleased. Third, it did not take me away from my home—to which I am tenderly attached. My ancestors helped to clear the primeval forest off For these several reasons, I practically decided, then and there, to accept Col. Mann’s proposition. He saw this—being a shrewd old fellow—and did his utmost to get me to his office, in order that the contract might be drawn up and signed before I left New York. But I was not quite so much of a greenhorn as all that. I refused to close the deal, then, but asked him to send his proposition, in writing, to me in Georgia. Returning home, I fell sick. Overwork, mental strain, sleeplessness, worry, etc., stretched me out. Unable to return to New York after Col. Mann had mailed me the proposed contract, I decided to place myself in the hands of a friend. *** Dr. John H. Girdner, a native of Greenville, Tenn., had been one of my most prominent and active supporters in New York during the campaign of 1904. Previously he had been widely known as the political lieutenant and confidential friend of Mr. Bryan. Previous to that, he was well known as the family physician and political follower of Mr. Cleveland. Having long been a resident of New York, Dr. Girdner seemed to me the ideal man to represent me in the negotiations with Col. Mann. The Doctor accepted the trust, and finally sent me the contract for signature. Some alterations in it had been made. One of these, and the most important, was the creation of the office of Associate Editor, at a salary of “not exceeding” $4,000 per year. This office was to be personal to me. That is, I could make and unmake Associate Editors at will, provided Col. Mann did not have to pay them more than $4,000 per year. In communicating this feature of the contract to me, Dr. Girdner signified his willingness to fill that position. It gave me great pleasure to appoint him. Nothing was ever said by the Doctor or myself concerning the amount that he was to receive, but he assumed, quite correctly, that it would be proper for him to draw the full $4,000, and he began to do so. Not once did Dr. Girdner intimate to me that a business connection with Col. Mann would disgrace me. How could I suppose that such a connection was undesirable when Dr. Girdner himself was willing to make it? I am sure that the Doctor did not know what all the world now knows. It cost the Colliers $75,000 and months of hard work, to gather up the evidence which proved what kind of a person Col. Mann is. How could Dr. Girdner know, IN 1904, those facts which it cost Collier $75,000 to prove IN 1905? The Doctor knew no more about it than I did—or he would have warned me to keep out, and would have kept out himself. When I went to New York in the mid-winter of 1904-5 to organize the Company, Col. Mann opened another leaf in his book. He presented a paper containing stock subscriptions to his Syndicate, and asked me to “come in.” I was fool enough to sign for $2,500. Had the old scamp not over-reached himself, he would have got me for $2,500, besides the $9,000 hereinafter mentioned. But he did overreach himself. He had his man, Daniels, to present another paper for me to sign. It was the lease of the house we were to occupy, 121 West 42nd Street. The amount was $1,200. Then, I smelt the rat. I not only refused to sign the lease, but, acting under a natural revulsion of feeling, I cancelled my subscription to the Syndicate. Had Col. Mann said a single word against my doing so, I would have cancelled the whole contract—for the suspicion had then crept into my mind that he was—what I now know him to be—A GRAND OLD RASCAL. *** Why, then, did I go on with the Magazine? Because I was fastened. Because I had publicly pledged my word. Because the contract gave me complete control of the Magazine, therefore Col. Mann could not hurt it. Me he could hurt; me he did hurt, but the Magazine was, is now, and ever shall be, above and beyond his reach. Thank God! The soul of the Magazine was the breath of life which Jehovah breathed into me; and Col. Mann can no more defile it by his touch than he can defile me. *** I commenced working industriously for the Magazine in December 1904. Hundreds of letters were mailed from my house every month. Hundreds of subscribers enrolled themselves and paid their money in advance of the publication. I paid my own assistants, paid the postage, worked for nothing. It wasn’t the money that I was after. Col. Mann saw that, and took every advantage of it. Not a cent of the small sum that was paid me came out of his pocket. I am glad to be able to say so. But while money-making was not my purpose, I could not contemplate with any satisfaction the prospect of never being able to get anything for my labor. The Magazine was bearing upon me heavily. The contract only asked 3,000 words per month of me. After the first few numbers, my task was never less than about 20,000 words All this work I did with my own hand. Mr. Duffy, the Managing Editor, had a stenographer. Mr. Flaacke, Advertising Manager, had a stenographer; Mr. DeFrance, Business Manager, had a stenographer. I am not sure about Mr. Hoffman and the office boy, Robert, but I guess Finally, the toil became so irksome—especially during the Georgia campaign of 1906, when Everybody and his Uncle and his Aunt were jumping on me—that I begged DeFrance to allow me six dollars per week for a stenographer. He did so for several weeks and then quit. In ceasing to help me to this pitiful extent, he gave me neither excuse nor explanation. He himself was all the while drawing his $60 per week, for dictating to a fifteen-dollar-per-week stenographer. *** “Explanatory” alleges that I usurped authority, and began to discharge employes as though the Magazine were my personal property. “Explanatory” says that, unfortunately, I was allowed to have my way in a great many business matters. The new Editors, Mann and DeFrance, give no specifications. I will give some. Into the very first number of the Magazine, Col. Mann inserted a full page advertisement of some of his nasty “Smart Set” books. When I saw that advertisement, which had been slipped into the magazine without my knowledge, Ted Flaacke, Advertising Manager, was summoned to my room, and told that there wasn’t money enough in New York to buy space in my Magazine for prurient literature of that sort. I peremptorily demanded that the filthy thing be kept out, and it was kept out. It is due Mr. Flaacke to say, that he, himself, had known nothing of the ad. until the magazine was out. This was the beginning of Col. Mann’s displeasure. He realized that he could never make a tool of me—as he is now making of DeFrance. The Titles of some of those books are as follows: “An Eclipse of Virtue,” “Margaret’s Misadventure,” “Naughty Elizabeth,” “Sweet Sin,” “The Ashes of Desire,” “An Unspeakable Siren,” etc., etc. Now, it may be that these books are not so bad as their names would indicate—I have never read them—but Col. Mann meant by these titles, to cater to the diseased taste for erotic literature. Hence HE SLIPPED THE AD. IN, without notice to me or to Ted Flaacke. That ad., in our very first number, hurt the magazine seriously. I felt that Col. Mann had no right to degrade the Magazine by making it a distributor of vile books, hence my positive instructions to Mr. Flaacke. In justice to this gentleman, I should say that he agreed with me fully. Again: Col. Mann placed the Business Management in the hands of a young coal-dealer who knew nothing whatever about Circulation Management, nor about Business Management of that kind. He was a most amiable young gentleman and perfectly honest. I liked him personally, very much. But, unfortunately, he was addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors—even during business hours—and frequently attempted to perform the duties when too much inebriated to do so. Dr. Girdner first called my attention to this, and then DeFrance. Our business affairs soon suffered so much from the young man’s infirmity, that both Dr. Girdner and DeFrance suggested that we make a change. I took the matter up with Col. Mann, who had himself began to find fault with the young man, and the result was that he was requested to resign. Cartoon CROCKETT MANN AND THE SOCIETY COONS. DeFrance had wanted the young man’s place, and he got it, with an increase of salary. It was at my instance that DeFrance was thus advanced. *** Every change made by me was made in the interest of economy, and resulted in benefit. I wanted to make other changes, for the same reason. We paid Mr. Flaacke in salary and expense account, about $5,000 per year, and never got advertising enough to pay the bill. I wanted to stop that nonsense, and to put Mr. Flaacke on the commission basis. I shouldn’t wonder if Col. Mann has, himself, now made that very change. The Managing Editor was getting $50 per week for doing work which his assistant, Mr. Hoffman, could, as I thought, do as well. I wanted to put the work on Mr. Hoffman, and save the larger salary. I note with interest that Col. Mann has, himself, made that very change. Thus THEY, THEMSELVES, VINDICATE ME, unintentionally, from the accusations they make. Col. Mann approved every change I made while I was in charge, and he now makes the other changes for which I contended. *** When Edgerton went out, it had been demonstrated that the Magazine was not going to “boom” as Colonel Mann had expected, and that economy would be the law of its life. Seeing that two offices could be combined, at a saving of $45 per week, I made the change, after full consultation with Col. Mann at Col. Mann’s house. As to Dr. Girdner, Col. Mann had kicked at that from the beginning. From what others told me, I know that Col. Mann vigorously objected to Dr. Girdner as Associate Editor. I know that from time to time Col. Mann would inquire, “Does Watson still want that fellow Girdner?” I myself heard Col. Mann find fault with the Doctor for putting two signed articles in one number of the Magazine. And I myself heard Col. Mann say, to me and others, in his own office, “I don’t believe Dr. Girdner could ever write a good article.” When Col. Mann asked me whether Dr. Girdner were INDISPENSABLE TO ME, I frankly and truthfully said that he was not. The Colonel wanted to stop that salary. The Doctor was not willing to let his “honorarium” accumulate on the books. Like a sensible man, he was insisting upon drawing what was due him. This was hurting Col. Mann. Hurting him very much. Therefore, after first ascertaining that I would remain in office, he put Girdner out, himself. As between an Editor who cashed in his “honorarium,” and one that allowed his to accumulate on the books, who could doubt which the Colonel would prefer? It was I who insisted that Colonel Mann pay Dr. Girdner a sum which the Doctor naturally claimed as compensation for breach of contract. Dr. Girdner himself should know best why he quit us, and the Doctor has written me a letter in which he says, “I resigned the position of associate editor because my salary had not been paid for several months, and from the methods of the company and the report of its treasurer I did not think it was likely to be paid in future. Very truly yours, *** “Explanatory” has much to say about my son. The facts are these: My son had been under Dr. Girdner’s professional treatment. He soon began to show a marked improvement, and I realized the helpfulness to my boy of giving him something to do. He was naturally eager to work with his father. I, therefore, went to the Business Manager and sought work for my son, just as I would have done for a stranger. I said, both to Mr. Green and Col. Mann, “I don’t know how he will do, or what he will be worth, but please give him a trial. If he makes good, pay him what the work is worth. If he does not make good, I will not expect you to keep him, and you can charge his salary up to me during the time he will have been here.” That’s exactly the way it was. My son commenced work, and when I next went to New York all of them told me—and were apparently delighted to tell me—that he had made good. From Dr. Girdner down, they all spoke affectionately of him, and declared that he was one of the steadiest, quietest employes at the office. As his strength returned, his usefulness increased and I advanced him to more important and responsible duties than had at first been put upon him. To encourage my boy, and bring out what was best in him, I did advance him from time to time. Who will blame me for wanting to make a man out of my only son? It was my most earnest desire to train my son in journalism, so that he could take my place when I should have served out my time and passed away:—to that purpose I still cling with a resolution that nothing can break. At the time DeFrance and Col. Mann kicked him out, he was doing the “News Record” and “The Say of Other Editors.” He was doing it well, as the Magazine will show for itself. He was being paid $40 per week. This was $10 per week less than Edgerton had received for the same work. When I gave my son the place, another position which he had filled acceptably to the Business Manager, at $15 per week, was abolished. Thus, even at the highest salary ever paid my son, he saved the Company $25 per week. I am accused of having mistreated Mr. Edgerton. The facts are these: he was already working in New York when he applied to me for a job on the Magazine. I personally requested Col. Mann to take him on. After much hesitation and seeming reluctance, Col. Mann consented. When reductions of expenses became necessary, Mr. Edgerton’s weekly salary was reduced to $40. He told me that he would hold the job until he could get another. I did not think he could render us very good service in that state of mind, and I therefore relieved him of duty. He had already made $1,200 out of the job—probably THE EASIEST MONEY THAT HE HAD EVER EARNED. *** “Explanatory” says that at a meeting of the Board of Directors in November 1905, I agreed to contribute $5,000 to a fund of $25,000, and then broke my word. The facts are these: After repeated efforts to get some satisfaction out of Col. Mann, I was drawn to New York in November 1905 by a most positive written promise of his to settle with me if I would come to see him. I went. At Col. Mann’s house on 72nd Street, there was a gathering of the leading stockholders and leading employes. As each reported for his own department the employes were excused, and they went away. Mr. Flaacke spoke his piece and departed. Mr. Duffy, ditto. Finally the assemblage dwindled down to just me and the Colonel. But, before this, Col. Mann had suggested that we raise some money, and asked me IF I DID NOT HAVE SOME FRIENDS THAT I COULD PREVAIL ON TO “COME IN.” The suggestion was put out of business immediately. I was in the trap all right enough, and I DIDN’T INTEND TO BE USED AS A BAIT. Then he asked if I would not continue to work for the Magazine without pay to the amount of $5,000. I answered, “Yes.” In that very connection, however, he had stated, again, his intention to pay me the amount already due, and which he had promised to pay if I would come to New York. THE TOWN TOPICS DEN INTO WHICH COL. MANN HAS MOVED THE BOGUS WATSON’S MAGAZINE. But to my amazement he had stated it this way: “I will pay it, but not now.” Every one who was present must remember these words. I said nothing at all in reply, but after all the others had retired, I remained behind and I reminded the Colonel courteously, of his pledge to pay me when I came to New York. I asked that he pay me at least HALF THE AMOUNT DUE. He hung his head, for an instant only, and then, raising a flushed face, told me he would see what he could do, and give me a reply next day. He complained of the heavy expense of his recent litigation, alluding of course to the celebrated Collier-Hapgood Libel Case and the subsequent prosecution of himself for perjury. Next day he wrote me a long, sweet, persuasive letter begging me to wait on him until July, 1906, at which time he would most assuredly pay. It was then that I did what I should have done at first—consulted a New York lawyer. Mr. Palliser advised me to make an end of the matter then, and I should have taken his advice; but I loved my work and my Magazine, and at the last moment I yielded and let Col. Mann have his own way. From motives that he is unable to understand or appreciate, I would have continued the unpaid slave of the Magazine, indefinitely, had not he and DeFrance made the situation intolerable. I felt my obligations to the subscribers: my pride in the success of the Magazine which bore my name was deeply involved. This was well known both to Col. Mann and DeFrance, and they presumed, upon it—once too often. *** It may be asked why I did not cut loose from the Town Topics gang after the exposures in the Collier-Hapgood Case. Simply because Col. Mann had nothing on earth to do with what I regarded as the Magazine, to wit—its policy, its purpose, its message. That was the life of the Magazine. That, in my eyes, was the Magazine. I did not want to leave the subscribers in the lurch, nor did I want to abandon a field of labor in which I seemed to be doing a good work. Every man who has a purpose in life and who loves his work, will understand me. Therefore, when Clark Howell and others jumped on me for being connected with a person who was being denounced throughout the land as a blackmailer, I put the case on the strongest ground by saying, “I am the Magazine.” That was true. DeFrance and Mann were glad enough to have me check defection from the Magazine by saying it THEN. In a very short while they will WISH THAT THEY HAD ANOTHER METHOD, EQUALLY GOOD, OF CHECKING DEFECTION. The subscribers to *** If Colonel Mann had not lost his senses, in his haste to grab the Magazine, name and all, he would have foreseen the utter folly of trying to run the thing in my name after I had gone out. A new Magazine, under a new name, he could establish at less expense than he will incur in the vain effort to maintain a Watson’s Magazine without Watson. A child ought to be able to see that. What possible good will my name be to him when he himself publishes the statement that I am out? The name without the man will be a dead weight to the Magazine, as Col. Mann has, doubtless, begun to find out. Cartoon THEY HAVE A CORPSE ON THEIR HANDS; THE SPIRIT ESCAPED THEIR CLUTCH. Honesty, in THIS case at least, should have been his POLICY. It would have paid him better in the long run. Col. Mann rushed into court, got a judgment against the Magazine for $60,000; and sold it, at Sheriff’s sale, to himself. He actually had the Sheriff to sell my name, and was ass enough to buy it. But he didn’t buy me, along with the name, and he didn’t buy the spirit of the Magazine when he bought the desks, the iron-safe and the trade name. The most valuable asset, he could not, and cannot reach. That’s the Good Will, the Reputation, the Demand! This is the real asset—THE ONLY ASSET WORTH HAVING. This asset, in equity and good conscience, belongs to me, by the most sacred of all titles—THE WORKMAN’S RIGHT TO THE PRODUCT OF HIS LABOR. Since it is mine, I mean to have it—in spite of all that Col. Mann may do. *** “Explanatory” will seek in vain to convince any considerable number of people that I quit the Magazine on a mere question of salary. That is the very thing that I always subordinated to other and higher considerations. In some directions Col. Mann lavished money like a prince; in others, he doled it out like a miser. Thus he squandered $12,000 in advertisements in daily newspapers, where they were not worth a hill of beans, and REFUSED TO FURNISH MONEY TO PAY ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY POSTAGE on sample copies. He wasted $5,000 trying to run the advertising department on a fancy schedule, and refused to pay the Authors who supplied us with the necessaries of life. Sometimes the writers who had been so badly treated had to threaten attachments, before they could get their money; and upon one occasion DeFrance had to sneak out of the office to avoid an irate Author who had come upon the scene with the Riot Act in his hand. Talk about me as the man who acted as if I wanted to “wreck” my namesake? What could damage the Magazine more surely and seriously than such management as this? We got a bad name among writers, because we took their MSS. and then failed to pay. We got a bad name among advertisers, because ads were inserted upon almost any terms. We got a bad name among subscribers, because DeFrance allowed business letters to go unanswered, and because Wm. Green, the Publisher, dribbled the mailing of every issue through TWO FULL WEEKS. These were the difficulties with which I had to contend. The country is full of people who wanted to patronize us and befriend us and help Would DeFrance like to see a list of their names? I can furnish him with a good long one. *** On one occasion Col. Mann was eager to have me send a cablegram, through our State Department, to our Minister at St. Petersburg, offering a thousand dollars to Maxim Gorky—then in prison—for an article for the Magazine. That very week I had to take the money out of my pocket to pay the girls who worked in the office. Upon another occasion, he ordered the sale, AS JUNK, of 60,000 copies of the Magazine WHICH HAD ALREADY BEEN WRAPPED AND ADDRESSED AND MADE READY FOR MAILING AS SAMPLE COPIES. They were SOLD AS WASTE PAPER BECAUSE HE REFUSED TO FURNISH MONEY TO PAY POSTAGE. Colonel Mann’s business was the publishing of magazines. Naturally, I assumed that he was an expert at that business. It never occurred to me that I could be of any service in the business management until his absurd mistakes forced themselves upon my attention. The Collier trial seemed to establish the fact that his way of making money out of his other magazines was the systematic blackmailing of Society swells and Wall Street thieves. When he stands his trial for Perjury in the case now pending, the world will doubtless learn other peculiarities which characterize his management of magazines. *** I wanted the Magazine to be a success, and I knew that it could not succeed as then managed. Hence, my offer to continue, indefinitely, to work without compensation provided I were allowed to make those changes which I knew to be absolutely essential to final success. To this effect I wrote to the Managing Editor, and to DeFrance. No reply was made by the management. Then I overcame my repugnance to Col. Mann, and wrote him—telling him what ailed the Magazine, how it could be put on its feet and offering to make a success, of it—without salary in the meanwhile—if he would let me do it. To my original conditions, however, I added another, namely, that DeFrance must go. After the way in which he had acted, and after the two insulting letters which he had written me, it was no longer possible for us to work together. Col. Mann did not answer my letter at all. He had DeFrance to telegraph me a request that I send the Editorials, and a promise that they would treat me right. By having DeFrance send the message, I knew that he meant to keep DeFrance—and that let me out. DeFrance had already notified me that half of my magazine belonged to him, and half to Col. Mann, and there was no arrangement that could be made on that basis. Besides, Col. Mann, after my letter was written and before its receipt, by him, had rushed into the New York World with an interview which libelled me basely and cruelly. *** Let me say, in justice to a most estimable gentleman, that I had no quarrel with Mr. Richard Duffy. He is peculiarly well fitted to make a first-class editor of a literary magazine. His standards are high and his judgment sound. He was not, however, particularly suited to a political magazine—never having devoted any special study to Political Economy and Governmental questions. In my contemplated change in the Editorial Staff, I was not actuated by any dislike of Mr. Duffy. My motive was simply that of the mariner who sacrifices a portion of his cargo to save his ship. *** “Explanatory” makes as much as possible out of the weekly cheque of $125, sent to me “during the busy part of the subscription season.” Yes, they sent me cheques to the amount of one thousand dollars, at a time when subscriptions were pouring in at the rate of two and three thousand per week. But “Explanatory” does not state the fact that nine thousand dollars represents the amount of unpaid honest, hard work done by me on the Magazine and that Col. Mann told the newspaper reporters, brazenly, that HE NEVER INTENDED TO PAY A RED CENT OF IT. Perhaps, the sum-total paid me during the two years would cover my actual expense-account in working for the Magazine. It certainly would not do more than that. *** “Explanatory” dwells upon my ceasing to visit New York, once a month. Drawing no salary, paying my own traveling expenses, and being made more or less ill by each of these long trips, I discontinued them. Editorials for a monthly magazine can be written down here in Georgia just about as well as in New York, and postage stamps cost less than railroad tickets. Everything that I was allowed to do for the Magazine could be done just as well by mail as by personal presence. As to refusing to make a final trip to seek “an amicable adjustment,” I wrote to DeFrance that the proposition referred to already WAS MY Besides, to tell the whole truth, I was not sorry that the time had come when I could cut loose from this fat rascal. After I had worked on and on; after he had broken promise upon promise; after he had sued the Magazine for $60,000 and got an execution against it; after he had shown that he wanted me to continue indefinitely to do ten times as much work as the contract called for, and to never have any share in the reward that might be reaped from my labors; after he had broken the contract by dismissing my son from a position which was my personal appointment; after he had rushed into the newspapers and confirmed my suspicion of his villainous purpose by revealing his utter and shameless disregard for his contracts, THEN my conscience and my judgment concurred in the decision to cut loose from the New York concern and START A MAGAZINE OF MY OWN. *** Not a second thought have I given to the loss of the $9,000. But THAT wasn’t all. Col. Mann assailed me. The odium of a catastrophe which was the result of his own folly, faithlessness and lack of honor, he tried to cast upon me. In his efforts to escape universal contempt, he lied like a bulletin. Betrayed by one whom I selected as my personal representative in the office and whom I advanced from Circulation Clerk to Business Manager; accused of a mismanagement which I endeavored in vain to correct; held up to public criticism for mistreatment of employes when I had never uttered an unkind word to a single one of them, high or low, during the whole time of my service, and when I had never made a change in the force that was not sanctioned in advance, by Colonel Mann himself, I now feel that burning sense of the injustice and outrage which any other man of spirit would feel under the same circumstances. *** With an effrontery which nothing could surpass, the two men who have seized my magazine on the half and half plan are mailing out a circular letter begging Reformers to take shares in the stock of the new Company. This circular carries Deception on its very face. It purports to hail from “2 West 40th Street.” What is “2 West 40th Street”? Why, it is the side-door to the notorious Town Topics den into which DeFrance and Col. Mann have dragged the corpse of “Watson’s Magazine.” The FRONT of Col. Mann’s trap is on Fifth Avenue. Cartoon ARCADES AMBO! Now DeFrance and Mann knew very well that there wasn’t a decent man in America who would knowingly send a dollar to buy stock of Col. Mann at the Town Topics address. Hence in their efforts to lure pigeons into the net, they use the side-door address which no one who is not familiar with the building would ever know to be the same building. Oh, the shame of it, DeFrance! And YOU were the man whom I selected AS MY PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE IN THE OFFICE, and who telegraphed me to Fort Lauderdale last winter urging me to resist Col. Mann’s removal of the Magazine to the Town Topics building! With pathetic insistence, they are sending out this circular letter from this Town Topics Side-Entrance addressed, “Dear Friend.” I wonder how many dear friends Col. Mann imagines himself to possess. I wonder how many of DeFrance’s dear friends will follow him into that Mann-hole. The letter makes the modest request that a few thousand ardent admirers of DeFrance buy stock in the Side-Door concern at $10 per share. DeFrance tearfully ejaculates, “I don’t ask you to donate the Money. Far from it.” How far from it, he doesn’t say. The confiding individual who bites at that bait, and pours ten dollars into that Mann-hole will see a good deal of ice in August before he will ever see his money again. Think of the impudent falsehood of the assertion made in this circular letter: “The magazine, while not yet profitable, has nearly reached that point.” Therefore, send your money to the Side-Door concern right away. Yet, in the next breath, he claims that Col. Mann lost $180,000 in less than two years on the Magazine. To cap the climax of his wrong-doing, DeFrance actually signs the Begging Letter as Secretary of the People’s Party National Committee. By what right? Under whose authority does he act when he thus prostitutes that office to the service of Col. W. D. Mann? What will our National Committee think of it when they behold their Secretary standing at the Side Door of the Town Topics building and hear him calling for Populists to walk up and enter the Mann-hole, to the tune of “Ten Dollars admission fee, please”? DeFrance has now stooped to do the very thing that Col. Mann tried vainly to get me to do. *** I wonder if those New York rascals really thought that I would quietly sit down and twiddle my thumbs while they were making off with “Watson’s Magazine”? I wonder if it never entered into those Unless I am greatly mistaken, the subscribers to “Watson’s Magazine” are Mr. Watson’s friends, and THEY ARE GOING TO STAND BY HIM. We shall see. *** After all, why worry over it? Life is too short to waste many of its precious hours upon such a theme. Looked at in one way, those who thought to crush me have done me a service. They have put into me, once more, that intensity of energy and purpose which, otherwise, might never have been mine again. What the spur is to the thoroughbred, what the bugle-call is to the cavalier, the recent attempts of my enemies to compass my ruin has been to me. By the living God! Here is no thought of surrender, no weakness of doubt or hesitation, but a resolution, fixed as hardened steel, to MARCH ON. What! Be a quitter NOW? Falter or flicker NOW? Lower the flag and stack arms, NOW? Rather, would I die. The ear of the world is at last inclined to us, and the heart of mankind is at length being touched by our message. The long march of the despised Reformer is nearing its end. His final triumph no sane observer, no watchman upon the tower, can longer doubt. Halt NOW? Never in the world. Desert NOW? Heaven forbid! Why, for fifteen years we have walked amid the shadows of social and political ostracism, never swerving an inch from the rocky road of Duty—do they think we shall walk less firmly now, when the sunlight is falling upon the path? Times have changed. Men have changed. The principles for which we fought have not changed. They have conquered. The strong man and shrewd politician at the White House laid his attentive ear to the ground, quite a while ago, and heard distant rumblings that taught him useful lessons. The strong man and shrewd politician at Fair View, Nebraska, has had his attentive ear to the ground and he, likewise, has learned his lesson. The next time Mr. Watson of Georgia goes to Nebraska for the purpose of helping Mr. Bryan to carry his home State for Reform, I venture the prediction that Mr. Bryan will not leave Nebraska to avoid contact with Mr. Watson—as he did in 1896. The battle-flag of a great people, inspired by a resistless purpose to assert the right of THE INDIVIDUAL to wrest the government of the Courage, Comrades—Courage! And Forward March! *** On this mellow, radiant, opulent day of Indian Summer—when the golden hours step quietly by, leading November into the dim realms which we call the Past—I write these lines; and, having done so, cast behind me that ugly dream, my New York experience. Betrayed, I will trust again, AND GO ON. Better ten thousand treacheries than loss of faith in my fellow man. Repulsed, I will rally, re-form, and CHARGE AGAIN. Better a hundred defeats than one capitulation. *** In March 1898, the Populists nominated me for Governor of Georgia. In declining to make the race, my decision was controlled by the fact that our organization had been wrecked by the Traitors who controlled our National Committee, that I myself was exhausted—mentally, physically, financially—and that Populism must henceforth do its work as A LEAVEN TO THE LOAF. The fatal Fusion of 1896 had done our organization deadly damage, and the Spanish War finished us. The blare of the bugle drowned the voice of the Reformer. With the Cannon-boom shaking the world, men had no ear for Political economy—or economy of any other sort. Roosevelt rushed into war paint, and leaped into fame. Bryan stuck a feather in his cap, and vowed that he, too, would become a soldier in spite of those vile guns. Hearst, also, went as close to the enemy as McKinley would let him. How could I talk economics with any prospect of success at such a time? Loathing the war, foreseeing many of the evil consequences that it has brought upon us, I quit the active agitation of Populism, and shut myself up in my library to write books. But if any soldier of the Southern Confederacy carried away from Appomattox a heavier heart than I took with me into my enforced retirement, it would have been a merciful dispensation of Providence had the Eternal Sleep taken that soldier into her cold, white arms. What I suffered during those awful years is known to none but the wife who shared my lot and the God who gave me strength to endure it. *** To continue a hopeless fight with a broken-down organization was not the part of wisdom. The thing to do was to wait, educate the people, I knew that OUR PRINCIPLES would finally triumph—as to THE PARTY, that was a secondary consideration. In taking leave of my comrades in 1898, before quitting the field to go back into the court-house to earn money to pay pressing debts, here is what my letter said to them: “Let no man believe that I despair of your principles, for I do not. You stand for the yearning, upward-tendency, of the middle and lower classes. You stand where the reformer has always stood; for improvement, for beneficial changes, for recognition of human brotherhood in its highest sense, for equality before the law, and for an industrial system which is not based upon the right of the strong to pillage the weak. You stand as sworn foes of monopoly—not monopoly in the narrow sense of the word—but monopoly of power, of place, of privilege, of wealth, of progress. “You stand knocking at the closed door of privilege, as the reformer has ever done, and saying to those within, ‘Open wide the doors! Let all who are worthy, enter. Let all who deserve, enjoy. Form no conspiracy against the unborn. Shut out no generations that are to be. God made it all for all. Put no barrier around the good things of life, around the high places of church or state. Make no laws which foster inequality. Establish no Caste. Legalize no robbery under the name of taxes. Give to no person natural or artificial sovereign powers over his fellow men. Open, open wide the doors! Keep the avenues of honor free. Close no entrance to the poorest, the weakest, the humblest. Say to ambition everywhere, the field is clear, the contest fair, come and win your share if you can!’ “Such is Populism. Such is its glorious Gospel. As such, I have loved it with boundless reverence. As its disciples, I have loved you, fought for you, toiled for you, never for one moment doubting that you were right, and that your creed was the same immortal creed which in all ages has challenged wrong, and defied oppression.” *** Trample the Truth as rudely as you may, even in her death struggle her voice is heard to say: “I will come again.” In the darkest hours of the past, when all seemed lost and the weaklings, the timeservers, the fickle minded and the mercenaries were fleeing to cover, I used to say, constantly, confidently, “Courage, friends. Be firm. Don’t lose heart. It will all come right. “Populism, as a party, may seem to be dead, but the Spirit is immortal. It cannot die. As sure as God lives, “It will come again.” And now, after many days, in God’s own time, it HAS come again. From the bottom of my heart and from yours, come thanks to the Lord of the Universe who spared our lives to see this day. And the purpose to which every energy I possess shall be devoted, henceforth, is to help those whom the people commission to bring about Reform. As to Reward, I seek none, expect none, save that of the Inner Voice which says, Well Done. With this glance into the Past, necessary to you, as well as to me, let us turn our backs to it, and face the Future—and let us WORK, as we never worked before. Cartoon “HE CERTAINLY WAS GOOD TO ME.” |
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