Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

3062 GEORGIA AND GEOEGIANSEven the most casual survey of Mr. Watson's life work will suffice to showthat both in letters and in politics he has been essentially the same manimpelled by the same high motives dominated by the same fixed principles.In other words, whether the instrument for the time being has been thetongue or the pen, he has been the consistent champion of popular rights.From the moment of his first mental awakening- he has been an assiduousstudent of the democratic trend of government. This may be due in part tohis philosophic cast of mind. But the circumstances of his early environment, his youthful struggles with poverty, his intimate expM-ience with theseamy side of life, his familiar acquaintance with hard work oir the plantation,when his frail health and slender figure made the burdens doubly onerousthese more fully explain the secret of his lifelong allegiance to the masses.Through all his writings runs the unifying thread of one supreme incentive,the desire to uplift the common people. This will be fully seen when wecome to discuss his literary product more in detail.It is by no means a corollary to what has been said that Mr. Watson washimself of humble or obscure origin. He was not. On both sides of the house,his ancestors were of good Quaker stock. They moved into Georgia in 1750from North Carolina, coming with the band of settlers who purchased someof the alluvial acres between the Savannah and Ogeechee rivers, and built theTown of Wrightsville. They were land owners and slave holders. To quotein substance the language of Mr. Watson his family was active in politicaland military affairs from the beginning of the settlement until the Civil warended the old regime in the South, and was identified in every respect withthe local gentry of the middle class.Thomas E. Watson was born at the old home near Thomson in McDuffieCounty, September 5, 1856. Not far distant were the homes of two of hisfavorite heroes, Toombs and Stephens. From the common schools in the neighborhood he went to the high school at Thomson, and it was while attending thelatter institution that his literary genius began to exhibit tokens of the coming author. He was always ready with his pen; and when other studentswere declaiming selections from "The Boys' Speaker," this precociousyoungster in knee trousers was writing his own orations. Though destined inafter years to sway great multitudes, and to move the eminence of men'saffections with the divine power of eloquence, the declaimer's medal was atrophy which constantly eluded his ambitious efforts; but it was ever a sourceof pride and satisfaction that he needed the assistance of no one in his debatesand compositions.Upon the advice of the principal of the village academy, young Watsonwas sent to college; and, the family being strongly Baptist in matters ecclesiastical, the college chosen was Mercer. Due to financial embarrassments athome, however, he remained at college only two years, relinquishing hisstudies in bitter disappointment at the end of the sophomore year to aid inthe support of his father's household. The old home place having been sacrificed, what remained to them of domestic goods and chattels were transferredfrom Thomson to Augusta. Finding little else to do, he taught school for awhile in Screven County; but he was too full of the fire of the advocate to besatisfied with the role of pedagogue. At leisure intervals, during the longwinter evenings by the light of pine fagots, he began the study of Blackstone,the volume over which he pored being the gift of an old friend.The first public speech Mr. Watson ever delivered was made at this time.It was on the subject of temperance; and some years later, when serving inthe State Legislature, this beardless enemy of barrooms closed the debate uponthe bill which evenutally put four-fifths of the counties of the state underlocal option.On giving up the school, he went back to Thomson to begin the practiceof law, having previously been admitted to the bar when only nineteen. For-