Birmingham age-herald., 1894-08-02

state, say that the leaders who thus trans gress against civilization, law and order, are fit 10 be trusted with the destiny Of Alabama, or that if they were put in power it would not result in calamity and ruin to the people2 He appealed to good men ot all parties to rise above passion and mis- representation as to such matters and strike blow for their fresides and their
 homes by crushing out at the ballot box, forever, men who resort to such despicable means 10 obtain the support and votes of free men.
 The governor was very severe in his ar-
 raignment of the ''scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites, n who now pretend such zeal for pure ballot, when it contradcts their
 present acts and the practices of a life time. The governor went in detail into Kolb's complaint. In Montgomery Kolb claimed that the governor did not receive but 15OO votes in August, 1892. There were over
 5000 white voters in the primary, and
 nearly 5000 of them voted for him. At the August election, in addition to these,
 thousands of negroes voted for the gov
 ernor: Everybody knows that after kolb
 bolted changes were against him, and not
 Tor him; and yet he asks sensible people to believe that not single negro voted for
 the governor, and that half of the white
 people who voted for him Tn primary in
 Montgomery county deserted him Ill the
 legal election. He read from a tabulated statement nf population the votes to which
 the counties were entitled and the vote
 cast showing that Bibb, Coffee, Crenshaw,
 Cullman, Dale, Elmore, Henry, Marshall,
 Randolph, Tallapoosa and Winston, all Of
 which went for Koib by unprecedented
 majorities, that more votes were cast than
 the counties had voters if every man enti-
 tied to vote had been in the county, and
 none had been sick or absent and all had attended the polls. How was this possible
 if fair election had been held theref He
 showed further that in Chambers, out of
 total of 4800 votes, all within eighteen
 were cast; that in Geneva, out of total of
 1943, all within seventy were cast; that in
 Lawrence, out of total of 3767, all were
 cast with the exception of eighty; in Pick
 ception of sixty-two were cast,
 and that all these counties gave
 unpi ececeated majorites for Kolb.
 He contrasted these figures with
 the counties which were carried by the
 governor, aud in none of which was the
 entire vote boiled, and in most of which
 the entire vote fell from an ave rage of
 about 20 per cent below the vote to
 which the counties were entitled. The
 figures show that the fraud was on the side
 of kolb, who practiced his old tricks in
 1892. He called attention to the fact that
 KoIb had received large vote in nearly all
 the black belt counties, and that with four
 exceptions the white counties which he
 carried were carried with the aid of the
 negro vote, which the republicans therein
 f1uenced in Kolb's favor. He com
 mented upon Kolb's hostility to justice
 being done the negro, as evidenced by his
 assaults upon the governor for the most
 justifiable pardons, and condemnation of
 the governor for using the military to pre-
 vent mob violence to negroes. The gov
 ernor referred to the steps he took to pre-
 serve order in Catherine, Wilcox county,
 in consequence of which all the white re-
 publicans there and nearly all the negroes
 voted for him in preference to Kolb, who
 claimed to be better democrat than the
 governor. He asked any citizen who hon.
 estly thought Kolb was wronged in 1892 to
 compare the vote cast in 1890 with that of
 1S92 they would find that the remarkable large increase of the vote of 1892 came all
 most entirely from counties which Kolb carried in 1892 by such unprecedented ma jorities. He referred to Kolb's boasts, in former time, of having stuffed the ballot
 box in his own county. Kolb tries to ex- plain the difference in his acts then and his pretended zeal for pure ballot now by say ing that he only counted out negroes, but were there not at least 40, 900 republican white men who voted in the elections ln which Kolb says he was only counting out negroes, and did he not count out white men, too2 His present pretenses, in view of his known acts, were as disgusting as the spectacle of bawd leaving her den of infamy and asking to be made the guar dian of the virtuous. There was no sheer ity in Kolb's pretenses on this point, and the acts of his followers, wherever he could control them, show it. He claimed to be defrauded in the convention of 1890 in or der to have pretext for running ln lo92; he claimed to be defrauded in the conven- ton of 1892 in order to make the race as a so-called "independent;' he claimed to be defrauded in the election of August, 1892, in order to elect popullte congressman ln November following, and to have pretext for plunging the state in civil war, If Harrison whom he secretly favored should be elected president. He has kept up the cry since in order to found new party and to>be in position to pretend to have goods to sell to MT. Hoar and thus put money 1n his pockets.
 The governor dwelt at length upon all of l Kolb's famous and threadba statistics about fraud, and thoroughly exposed them. He said whatever honest men might have | thought before passion had cooled and all 1 the facts had come to light, that 1t was | time now for honest men to quit defaming | the state by pretending that it's legislature | and governor, at the last election, held | power by fraud or usurpation. In the fed | eral election, which followed in November, with supervisors at every box, the majority | against Kolb's party was increased over 1 4O, ,000. Baltzell made contest, but aban- | doned it; and Watley, who claimed that he
 was defeated in black belt counties, lost | his case by unanimous report, alike from
 democrats and republicans. The governor dwe)t at length upon the hypocrisy of the
 assaults upon the Sayre law. He showed 1 that it was used by nearly 150, ,000 900
 people in conducting their elections,. and
 everywhere gave great satisiaction; that it
 had been adopted alike by democratic, re-
 publican and populite legislatures; that it disfranchised no man, and was enacted in l response, mainly to the camor of the Weaverites, who in their platform de- manded the unperverted Australian ballot l system, which did disfranchise the people. l He said the democrats had un broken power since "A, and had abundant opportunities 1 to disfranchise citizens if the party so de-