TOMMIE WATSON'S TOMMYROT.
SOMEBODY whom I have never harmed sends me an A. P. A.
tract entitled "A Good Catholic," and issued by Tommy
Watson, who once tried to run for vice-president on the
Middle-of-the-Muck ticket—for the purpose of turning
back the reform tide and electing the humble peon of the
gold-buggers, high-tariffites and trusts. Tommie's Ape
tract is simply an "ad." for a weekly paper which he
seems to be getting out all by his little self somewhere
in Gooberdom. On the front elevation of this bombshell
with which he expects to blow the Vatican across the yellow
Tiber, the statement is made in display type that,
for the trifling sum of one dollar in hand paid, "You can
read the brilliant, patriotic editorials of Hon. Thos. E.
Watson" for an entire year—granting, of course, that
their Promethean brilliancy fail to set your shirt-tail afire
in the meantime. There is no provision for the return of
your money in case Tommie's exhuberant patriotism
should overpower you. We are then assured that "no
Roman Pope or American Cardinal can coerce" the architect
of the "brilliant and patriotic editorials" aforesaid.
Now that's the kind of a man I admire! Hang a Georgia
editor, say I, who sells himself to the Pope of Rome for
six bits, or rushed around to an American Cardinal every
morning before breakfast with the proof-sheets of his
labored lucubrations, humbly asking permission to print.
The brilliant and patriotic editor of a Georgia paper
having a paid circulation of 710 copies can not be too
independent. It is his solemn duty to keep watch and ward
over this country and promptly put a kibosh on every
conspiracy of the Pope. Like most brilliant patriots,
Tommie has sacrificed a very great deal for conscience
sake. When he tried to save the country by playing
second tail to the Bryan kite for the purpose of dividing
the reform forces and electing a Republican president,
the Pope and all his "priest-led citizens" straddled his
collar, rode him into an open grave and piled a cathedral
on top of him to hold him down—at least I suppose they
did from the way in which this raucous little Buzfuz is
chewing the rag. Had he been "A Good Catholic" he
would have been elected with votes to burn; for did not
Dick Bland have to hide out in the Ozark hills to escape
the presidential nomination the moment it was rumored
that his wife was a "Romanist"? Did not Generals
Sherman and Sheridan have to insulate themselves to
avoid the presidential lightnings which played around them
continuously because they were Catholics? Sure! Tommie
is doubtless correct in his assertion that the Pope
controls American politics and dictates every act of
congress. That is amply proven by the fact that after all
these years the Catholics have a representative in the
president's cabinet. That all Catholics are sworn enemies
of this republic and peons of the Pope is demonstrated
by the fact that the "Romish" attorney-general refused
to permit his people to erect at their own expense a chapel
on government ground at West Point—the general public
being taxed meanwhile to maintain an Episcopal clergyman
at that place. Tommy protests that he is both a
Baptist and devoid of bigotry. If he can make this claim
good I will undertake to secure for him an engagement
at $1,000 a day in a dime museum as the greatest curio
ever seen in this country. Doubtless there are many good
people who are Baptists but God's sunlight never fell
upon one who was not a bigot. The man who concedes
that it is possible for one to reach heaven except he be
soused bodily into some sacred slop-tub is not a Baptist.
If he thinks he is, he has made a faulty diagnosis of his
disease. The Baptist church breeds bigotry just as a
dead mule does magots. It dominates politics wherever
it is strong enough to do so. It boycots every publisher
who dares suggest that it doesn't hold the one only key to
heaven. It is the sworn foe of Catholicism, yet not one
of its members in a million has the remotest idea what
Catholicism means. It assumes that the great body of
Catholics are ignorant clowns, while itself absorbing 60
per cent. of the illiterates of this land. The more ignorant
an animal is the more bigoted Baptist it is likely
to be. I cannot at present think of a single American of
distinction who was a member of that denomination. I
have passed in mental review the great American statesmen,
soldiers, authors and inventors, and find only one
among them who was web-footed. Garfield was a Campbellite—
and had he not been murdered no one would have
suspected that he was a great man. If any of the immortelles
was of the Baptist persuasion he was probably
ashamed of that fact, as he kept it concealed. It is
possible that in soaking the original sin out of a fellow any
latent germs of genius he possesses may be extracted also.
Tommie solemnly assures us that Catholics dare not read
a book or paper that has not been formally approved by
the Pope. What a fooilsh falsehood! I'll wager a pint
of peanuts that Watson cannot name half a dozen American
books, papers or magazines that bear the Papal imprimatur,
and another pint of the same luscious circus
fruit that even his own rabid A.P.A. rot has never been
placed in the index prohibitorius. If it is not there every
Catholic in this country is privileged to read it without
consulting Rome. Of the most bigoted sect of pseudo-religious fanatics that ever cursed this country the Hon.
Tommie Watson is perhaps the most intolerant and narrow-brained little blatherskite. And the worst of it all is
that while in religion he's a fool, in politics he's a knave.
While pretending that the cause of the common people was
the apple of his eye, he lent himself to a scheme to defeat
their tribune and elect a ligneous-headed hiccius-doctius
owned soul and body by Mark Hanna, the "industrial
cannibal." Bryan would be president to-day but for this
busy little blabster whom accident placed in a position
where he could betray the people. Avaunt! thou contumacious
little coyote, thou pestiferous pole-cat. Benedict
Arnold was a gentleman when compared to you, for his
treason was open and avowed, while you stabbed the
cause of the people in a friendly embrace, struck in the
back. You have had no parallel since Judas Iscariot conspired
with the plutocracy to betray the idol of the people
—and even Judas had decency enough to hang himself as
expiation for his infamy. Shut up, thou hatchet-faced,
splenetic-hearted, narrow-headed little hypocrite, for
verily the world is aweary of Tommie Watson. His "brilliant
and patriotic editorials" are used only to underlay
carpets, paper pantry shelvest and for purposes less polite.
I cheerfully risk my reputation as a prophet on the
prediction that in less than two years his windy little
"reform" paper will go to the bone-pile. Tommie, you
are the pin-worm of American politics—a more aggravating
little parasite than even Miltonius Park. Take a
gentleman's advice and apply the soft pedal to your wheezy
calliope—get off the political stage in time to avoid the
coming cataclysm of sphacelated cabbage and has-been
cats. The day of your destiny's over and the star of your
fate is in the mullagatawny. You are simply a fragment
of worthless political seaweed cast with flabby jelly fish
and dead sting rays upon an inhospitable shore, there to
rot and befoul the atmosphere. You have "a very ancient
and fishlike smell, a smell not of the newest." You may
howl a lung out, but will only evoke laughter or disgust.
Occasionally some lonely Middle-of-the-Roader, dragging
his No. 12's painfully through the dust may turn to look
at you, perhaps toss you a dime; but you are politically
dead. You may play the Baptist racket for all it is
worth; but the brethren while long on zeal are shy on
boodle. Even Jehovah Boanerges Cranfill, the champion
leg elongator of the universe, finds it hard work to keep
fat in the Baptist field—must add professional beggary
to his schemes of predacity. You may tie your abortive
little paper to the tail of the "Ape," but that animal is
too weak in the hinder legs to pull it out of a financial
hole. Go plug yourself. Shuck your long-tailed hand-me-down Albert Edward, trade your paper for a double-shovel plow, gird up your yarn galluses and make a reasonable
effort to earn an honest living. Had you expended
half the nervo-muscular energy in the cotton patch that
you have wasted in working your jaw-bone you would
have money to burn.
Mene mene tekel upharsim—which
means that you are entirely too light at both ends.