Trenchant comments and discourse on political events and personalities of the day, as recorded in two autograph letters, signed by the ex-Senator from Mississippi, February 25 and July 26, 1926, from his home, Cedar Grove Plantation, in Yazoo City, both to Arthur E. Seagrove of Falls River, Massachusetts.
4to. Six total pages, approximately 1000 words total; accompanied by original mailing envelopes for both, addressed by Williams, and rough typescripts of the letters. Both letters with old fold lines, for mailing, but very good. Item #69212
In the first letter, Williams criticizes a recent Senate vote on the World Court, “I think the reservations were an illustration of unpardonable National arrogance. When will Senators learn that the U.S. are only one of the civilized and sovereign nations of the world … we had the leadership of the world – we threw it away -- … of course, neither the Hibernians nor the Klan want even what the Senate did,” and [of] Colonel House’s recent book (“What Really Happened in Paris,” 1921), “I am anxious to learn if I can (between the lines) just when Wilson realized that House thought himself the President and Wilson his mannikin … I think it was after Wilson returned to Versailles where he had left House locum tenens [“in his place”].” In the second letter, Williams offers a positive take on President Coolidge, “he has gone back to Jeffersonianism in some things – notably in tax reduction, debt reduction, and to more economical and frugal administration, though much is to be desired on that score. About 25% of the present Federal Civil Service could be quite dispensed with … his veto of the Populist’s ‘Farm Relief’ legislation … had made him intensely unpopular in Western populistic strongholds,”; his thoughts on prohibition, “even those to whom [it] is an ‘awful inconvenience’ (like myself), it has recommended itself by the immense good it has done – politically and morally – especially for the Negroes. Many race troubles grew out of drunkenness of one or the other side, or both … wise white men fear it and the foolish and poor Darkies can not pay for it. The boot-legger wants cash”; regrets for non-membership in the League of Nations, “if for the last six years we had cooperated with Europe to restore economic conditions … so as to give its other members a sense of security and power, the world would have been on the road to prosperity and we – especially our farmers – move abundantly and stably prosperous than we are even now … the League can never work with maximum efficiency without us”; and criticism of our policies in the Philippines, “they will continue to give the Governor General more power to be greedily exercised until another revolt occurs to be put viciously under foot until no Filipino will dare breathe to another the word ‘Independence’ and then the Governor General will say ‘See we told you so’ … mighty few white people will let an inferior race go as long as it profits to best provide them.” Williams, who was a supporter of silver and an opponent of tariffs, became an ardent supporter of Woodrow Wilson and was a leader in the losing effort to join the League of Nations following World War I; Seagrave (1875-1956) was a newspaperman and lawyer in Massachusetts, serving as Assistant Attorney General for his home state in the late 1910s and early 1920s and working in Democratic Party politics. For the two letters,
Price: $600.00