Tom Watson Dbq

Tom Watson was a statesmen from Georgia who became a leading racist, anti Catholic,and anti Semite. He used his journalism to express his radical views, which sometimes led to violence. He also had a weekly paper, that was circulated repetitively. He was part of the US senate from 1920 until he died in 1922. Although, he changed his support of blacks to support white supremacy, he was always an isolationist. Tom Watson went against the black poor because the Populist Party failed, and he found a way to make money out of saying what people wanted to hear.
Watson started as a populist leading the poor to stand up against the government, when all the poor, black and white, stood up against all of the monopolies. When the white elites robbed

As a journalist, Watson discovered that the more bigoted he was, the more papers he sold. Document 2 shows that as Watson adopted more groups to hate, his sales went up. Watson was able to start the Atlanta Race Riot by his publications because he said what the people already wanted to do. The people wanted to kill innocent black citizens and did kill hundreds once Tom Watson encouraged them with his yellow journalism. Another notorious example of this is in 1915 when Watson convinced the people to restart the Second Ku Klux Klan (originally as the Knights of Mary Phagan) and lynch Leo Frank. Watson’s publishings, as document 3 shows, accused the Jews by saying that Jews have enslaved and degraded the white poor and that Frank had raped and killed a girl who was working in his factory at the time. The last time Watson adopted the views of the people was when he was a senator at WWI. In Document 5, Tom Watson addresses congress about the League of nations. He states that the League of nations is a place where monopolies can control americans. He wanted congress to know that he believed in the idea of isolationism, like the people that he represented. As Southerners turned against Jews and Catholics, Tom Watson adopted their beliefs to help sell his

In the beginning, he believed in the Populist Party and wanted to work with poor blacks. Later in his life, when the Populist Party failed, he went into yellow journalism. He then triggered the Lynching of Leo Frank by helping restart the second KKK. Even before restarting the KKK he inspired the Atlanta Race Riot and joined the progressive movement. As a Progressive, he wanted to take all blacks out public society. Though it may seem that everyone would not want to commemorate, the removal of his statue was very controversial. Only the Anti-Defamation League which began after the Leo Frank Lynching. This shows that some people in our society today still want blacks out of public