⸺ ⸺. ANSWER The negative side of that question might draw arguments of facts from “Social Progress” by Dr. Josiah Strong, “The History of the People of the United States” by McMaster. To keep your mind clear from haunting doubts, however, avoid such books on the other side as “The Tramp at Home,” by Lee Meriwether, “American Pauperism,” by Isidor Ladoff, “The Menace of Privilege,” by Henry George, “Poverty,” by Robert Hunter. It would be well also, _not_ to read of the Life Insurance revelations, nor the facts which disclose how corporations corrupt and control the politicians. * * * * * TEMPLE, GA. Dec. 8, 1905 _Hon. Thomas E. Watson, Thomson, Ga._ DEAR SIR: Please answer the following questions in the Department of Education. Would you advise me to study the following books with the hope of getting a thorough knowledge of law? 1. How to Study Law. 2. Constitutional Law, Federal and State. 3. Personal Rights and Domestic Relations. 4. Contracts and Partnerships. 5. Agency and Bailments, including Common Carriers. 6. Negotiable Instruments and Principal and Surety. 7. Wills and Settlements of Estates. 8. Personal Property and Equity or Chancery Law. 9. Public Corporations and Private Corporations. 10. Real Property and Pleading and Practice. Very truly yours, ⸺ ⸺. ANSWER There are ten different books indicated in this formidable list, whereas the subjects enumerated are all treated with sufficient fullness in the text-books which I have heretofore suggested to law students, viz: (1) Blackstone’s Commentaries, (2) Kent’s Commentaries, (3) Greenleaf on Evidence, (4) The State Code. * * * * * DYSON, WILKES CO. Ga. _Hon. Thomas E. Watson, New York._ DEAR SIR: Will you please tell me in your Magazine the principal object you had in leaving the Democratic party and going into the People’s party? Have the Republican or Democratic parties ever advocated the Government ownership of public utilities? If so, which one and when? Has that question ever been agitated in Europe? When and who by? Truly yours, ⸺ ⸺. ANSWER My election to Congress was due to my support of the Ocala Platform of the Farmer’s Alliance, and when the Indianapolis Convention of 1891 instructed all Congressmen so elected to stand by the principles of the Alliance regardless of the Caucus dictation of political parties, I declined to enter the Democratic Congressional Caucus in Washington.