BLUE HILL, NEB., November 29, 1905. _Hon. Thomas E. Watson._ DEAR SIR: I am a regular reader of your Magazine, having bought the first one ever sold in our town. I like it very much. It speaks my sentiments better than I know how to express them myself. I have never heard but one thing said against your Magazine—one party thought you were a little hard on the darky. I want to ask one question. If you were elected President of the United States, and had a House and Senate of your own faith and political belief, and you were to abolish the gold standard and the national banks, what effect would it have upon the country? Would not the banks totter and fall and ruin many depositors? Banks have become a necessity. In your message to Congress, what kind of banks and what kind of money would you recommend? At present, corn husking is the issue of the day, but that will soon be over. Then I will take your subscription blanks and go out among the farmers and see what I can do for the best Magazine on earth. Yours respectfully, ⸺ ⸺. ANSWER (1) I don’t think I have been “too hard on the darky.” Doctor Booker Washington, spoiled by too much praise, got too gay in his statements concerning the rapid progress of the negro in civilization. The Doctor’s idea seemed to be that as soon as you caught a young African, washed him, combed him, put clothes on him, and taught him how to read, write and cipher, he was at once civilized. I knew better than this, and the Doctor does now. He will be more particular how he claims superiority for the negro race, hereafter. Especially since his brethren in Santo Domingo have given that “Republic” another push hellwards. On that island, one of the most favored spots on the globe, the negroes had the advantage of beginning with an elegant civilization which the French had taught them. The negroes expelled the French, set up a government of their own, and the record of their _republic_ has been one of the foulest blurs on the history of the human race. They get worse and worse and worse. There are not a sufficient number of whites in Santo Domingo to keep the negroes straight: in this country there are. _That makes all the difference._ (2) If I were President and could do away with the Gold standard, restoring the currency to the constitutional status, depriving the National Banks of the privilege of creating paper currency, and exercising that power directly by the use of Treasury Notes, why should the banks “totter and fall?”