Thomas E. Watson

DESCRIPTION: "Down in the state of Georgia there lived a famous man, His name was Thomas Watson, he is known throughout the land." Watson "struggled for his native state" and "wrote the Jeffersonian." Now he is dead; "Georgia has lost her best."
AUTHOR: Rev. Andrew Jenkins
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (recording, Al Craver=Vernon Dalhart)
KEYWORDS: political death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1856-1922 - Life of Thomas E. Watson
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia1, p. 317, "Thomas E. Watson" (1 text)
Roud #22284
RECORDINGS:
Vernon Dalhart (as Al Craver), "Thomas E. Watson" (Columbia 15053-D, 1925)
NOTES [2295 words]: Cohen's notes say most of what is positive about Thomas E. Watson: He was a genuine populist, and very much beloved. He ran for President as a populist in 1904, and had been a sort of an alternate Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1896.
"HIs background was that of the poor southern farmer boy who had worked his way upward against almost insuperable odds, aided by some talent and a great unwillingness to be downed.... [Having spent two years at Mercer College, taught school, and become a lawyer, he] had won notoriety, if not fame, as a criminal lawyer whose oratory jurors found irresistible" (Hicks, p. 176). As a candidate for congress at age 34, his positions were mostly progressive, except for his racism.
"But this struggle to achieve had told on his character. He suspected of the worst motives all those who opposed him; he was combative and injudicious; he had little ability to control his temper" (Hicks, p. 176). As a congressman, he was prone to shenanigans -- e.g. when he tried to move a measure using unanimous consent, he was blocked, so thereafter he withheld his consent from even the most routine business in a petty power play (Hicks, pp. 195-196).
As editor of the Jeffersonian, he went from being a genuine populist to a sort of a Rush Limbaugh populist, raising rabbles with fiery claims. He was a racist and a bigot, and he was largely responsible for the hue and cry against Leo Frank in the Mary Phagan case (see the notes to "Mary Phagan" [Laws F20]). It is no surprise that there were many who praised him at his death -- in addition to Andrew Jenkins, Fiddlin' John Carson also wrote a tribute. But I am by no means convinced that Watson deserved the praise. At minimum, he suffered from southern racial prejudice in a particularly virulent form, or was willing to exploit it for his own ends.
The title "The Sage of Hickory Hill," used in the song, is mentioned in all the biographies.
DInnerstein, pp. 95-96, has a summary of Watson's career: "Tom Watson had an enormous following in Georgia. From the populist era until his death in 1921 [sic.; should be 1922], Watson remained one of Georgia's idols. Early in his career he had fought for the yeoman farmer -- both black and white -- who had been oppressed by tyrannical industrialists and a compliant government Although elected to Congress on the Democratic ticket in 1890, by 1892 he had renounced the party and pronounced himself a Populist.... [The Democrats denied him re-election that year by dramatic moves against him, including working on the Black vote.] In 1896 the Populist Party forced William Jennings Bryan to accept a Populist vice-presidential nominee in return for endorsing his presidential aspirations. To run with Bryan, the Populists selected Tom Watson. With defeat in 1896, Watson practically retired from politics.... Eight years later he reemerged as the presidential nominee of an almost defunct Populist Party."
This isn't quite right; Watson was the Populist nominee for vice president, but he wasn't the Democratic nominee; the Democrats had nominated Arthur Sewall. (For somewhat more on this, see the notes to "Free Silver.") The Populists -- who knew they were in danger of losing their relevance if they simply endorsed Bryan -- tried to get the Democrats to accept Watson as their one and only vice presidential nominee, but Bryan would have none of it. So Bryan actually had two vice presidential running mates, Sewall and Watson (Jones, pp. 254-259). Watson may have considered backing out when he heard that Sewall was still in the race, but he ran anyway (Jones, pp. 258-259) -- and ended up in the very rare situation of coming in a genuine third in the vice presidential race -- McKinley's Vice President Garrett A. Hobart earned 271 electoral votes, Sewell 149, Watson 27 -- but I note, based on Glad, p. 201, that every state that gave an electoral vote to Watson also gave as many, or more, to Sewell. Which can't have made him any happier.
Even during the campaign, he was less than gung-ho for the cause, endorsing Bryan but campaigning for his own ideas and refusing to cooperate with Democrats even though his only hope of becoming Vice President was for the Democrats to win! (Glad, p.185, who sums up his behavior as "he refused to behave").
Dinnerstein continues: "Thereafter one noticed a great change in the old Populist. He had become a self-conscious defender of Southern mores and the Lost Cause. His former understanding of, and sympathy with, Negroes changed to a more orthodox Southern outlook. He began to refer to the 'bugaboo of negro domination' in Georgia politics. Furthermore, in 1906, Watson completely abandoned the Jefferson ideal of equalitarian and humanitarianism which he had championed only a decade earlier. In 1910 he formally returned to the Democratic Party [where one appearance] 'suggested the return of some Roman conqueror.'
"Tom Watson thrived upon the ignorance and prejudices of rural Georgians. His weekly newspaper, The Jeffersonian, and his monthly, Watson's Magazine, circulated throughout the state and provided many Georgians their only contact with the outside world. Popular among illiterates, who listened to others read what Watson had written, and 'crackers,' Watson inspired 'an almost fanatical following, many who accepted without question anything he told them.' ... It was primarily these people that Tom Watson stirred with his diatribes against the financial manipulators of the North, whom he believed had been keeping the South in economic bondage. To cater to his followers' needs for vicarious excitement, and perhaps to provide himself with a satisfactory answer for why the world was 'plunging hellward,' Watson broadened his attack to include Catholics, the Pope, and finally Leo Frank [of the Mary Phagan murder case], who turned into the greatest sales bonanza in The Jeffersonian's history."
On p. 98, Dinnerstein points out that "His polemics were an ingenious weaving of fact and fantasy" and says that he "cannily played upon the hatreds, fears, and prejudices of his readers."
DAB, p. 549, offers a few personal details. His birth name was Edward Thomas Watson, but he reversed the first two names. His grandfather, Thomas M. Watson, was a planter who owned 45 slaves but died during the Civil War; an uncle also died during the war. His ancestors were Quakers who had been in Georgia since at least 1768. His father was John Smith Watson, his mother Ann Eliza Maddox Watson. He was born near Thomson, Georgia. His wife, whom he married in 1878, was Georgia Durham.
Martin devotes 22 pages (out of a 203 page history!) to Watson. On p. 133, he says, "Thomas E. Watson became the voice of the little man, black and white, the sharecropper, the tenant, the working man in the mill and the mine, men who, despite the prosperity around them, were growing more and more dissatisfied with their own lot. A lean, square-jawed, redheaded man with intense, hypnotic eyes, Watson burned with fierce desire to take political power from the hands of a Bourbon aristocracy supported by a complacent middle class and place it with the mass of the people, with the farmer and the laborer, who would take control of the state's politics and shape its destiny."
Martin, p. 134, reports that he was a temperance man, perhaps because his drunkard father had lost his land to creditors. He played fiddle and took part in dances. He became a teacher for a time, then read law and became a defense lawyer. In 1880, at a time when old Confederates (Joseph E. Brown, Alfred Colquitt, John B. Gordon) had been the leading forces in Georgia politics, Watson entered politics to oppose Colquitt's renomination as Governor. He didn't succeed, but he decided to stay in politics, and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1882 -- only to quit in frustration (Martin, p. 136). He returned to politics in 1888 to support Grover Cleveland, then ran for congress again in 1890, and again won (Martin, p. 137). His allies were all over Georgia politics -- nominally Democrats, but hardly hewing the party line! (Martin, pp. 138-139).
But when he ran for reelection to Congress in 1892, he lost. (DAB, p. 550, says that his district was gerrymandered and the election was "bloody.") "Watson pretended to take it calmly, but his loss of this election left a mark upon him that time could never erase, and shaped his attitude in bitter ways thereafter. He charged, justifiably, that the most arrantly corrupt practices had been used against him, including the buying of Negro votes, sometimes for money, often for a drink of cheap liquor. This, to Watson, was the sin unpardonable on the blavk mn's part" (Martin, pp. 139-140). Suddenly, the Black was the enemy, and the allies, while they still stood for the small white worker, would no longer stand for the Black. In the Panic of 1893, he thought his views vindicated. He ran again for Congress in 1894, this time as a populist -- and lost again, in an election even messier than the last one (Martin, pp. 141-142). Having already decided that Blacks were the enemy, this election caused him to add Catholics to his list (Martin, p. 142). In 1896, the Populists joined the Democrats in nominating William Jennings Bryan for President, but nominated Watson for Vice President, whereas the Democrats chose Arthur Sewell. Things would have been interesting had Bryan won the Presidency, but Bryan lost to William McKinley. In 1904, he became the Populist nominee for President himself -- but the party was dead, and his candidacy dead with it (Martin, pp. 142-143. He would run again in 1908 -- Martin, p. 147 -- but the Populists were so far gone that he received fewer than 30,000 votes).
He continued to involve himself in Georgia politics, where he still had a fanatical following, and founded his two periodicals. In one of his editorials, he claimed that "civilization owed nothing whatever to the Negro" (Martin, p. 145). There was very little left in his politics but hate (Martin, p. 147). Having turned to hatred of the Black, and become so anti-Catholic that he grew angry just looking at them, by 1914 he had also become a violent anti-Semite (Martin, p. 148), as the Leo Frank trial showed.
In 1915, the Ku Klux Klan arose again in Georgia. "There is no evidence that Tom Watson was there among the hooded figures who set the cross on fire, though he had hinted editorially that a new Klan was needed. But no student of the times would question C Vann Woodward's observation: 'If any mortal man may be credited (as no one man may rightly be) with releasing the forces of human malice and ignorance and prejudice which the Klan merely mobilized, that man was Thomas E. Watson'" (Martin, p. 150). He then started a campaign against intervention in World War I -- and that finally resulted in him being silenced by the censors of the time (Martin, p. 151).
He ran for Congress yet again, but lost to Carl Vinson -- naturally claiming voter fraud (Martin, pp. 151-152). Then he ran for Senate on a plank opposing the League of Nations -- and was elected despite not being a party candidate (Martin, pp. 152-153). The old temperance man now fought against Federal enforcement of liquor laws, tried to all but dissolve the American military -- and tried to start fights with his Senate colleagues, having to be physically restrained on at least one occasion (Martin, pp. 153-154). While there, he expressed sympathy for the Soviety Union (DAB, p. 551). Raging till the end, his last session of Congress was on September 22, 1922; three days later, he died of asthma ad/or bronchitis. The Klan send a cross of roses to his memorial service (Martin, p. 154).
Garrett, p. 787, says, "An era in Georgia politics ended on September 16, 1922, when Senator Thomas E. Watson died from a combined attack of bronchitis and asthma. Pendig a special election to fill the vacancy, Governor Hardwick names Mrs. Rebeca Latimer Felton, 87, long a citizen of Bartow County, but formerly of De Kalb, to fill the vacancy temporarily. Het hus bestowed upon her the honor of being the first woman to serve in the United States Senate, though he had first tendered the appointment to Mrs. Watson, who declined."
Along with all his other dislikes, Watson despised immigrants: "We have become the world's melting pot. The scum of creation has been dumped on us. Some of our principal cities are more foreign than American. The most dangerous and corrupting hordes of the Old World have invaded us. The vice and crime which they have planted in our midst are sickening and terrifying. What brought these Goths and Vandals to our shores? They manufacturers are mainly to blame. They wanted cheap labor..." (Hofstadter, pp. 82-83, quoting Watson's book Andrew Jackson).
DAB, p. 550, says of his later years, "Old traits of irascibility and vindictiveness gained the upper hand. His politics changed with his character. Shifting his followers from one Democratic faction to the other, he virtually dictated state politics. As bewildered Popullists quit his ranks, their places were filled with recruits attracted by his sensational crusades against Catholicism, Socialism, foreign missions, the negro, and Leo M. Frank." The deaths of his children around the time of the Great War "temporarily crazed" him.
His DAB entry closes (p. 551) with this passage: "Some of the pathos and irony of his life may be caught in the 'Thomas E. Watson Song,' a ballad of 'a man of mighty power' who 'fought and struggle' and failed. It is still heard in backwoods Georgia."
There are at least two biographies of Watson, C. Vann Woodward, Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebeland W. W. Brewton, The Life of Thomas E. Watson. I have not seen them (and don't want to). - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 6.6
File: CAFS1317

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