Birmingham state herald., 1896-01-12
NOTES AND NOTIONS.

That the pending campaign for gov ernor Is to be one of the most momentous in the history of Alabama is agreed on all sides There are very many, too, 1t Is worthy of note who believe that 1t will be a campaign which Is bound to develop a deal of bitterness and passion; that 1t will sorely try the tempers of the coolest and strain the equanimity of the most conservative party leaders. It has fallen to my newspaper lot to hear not little of this sort of talk.
 The demeanor of the interviewee when the interviewer approaches him is vastly portentous. He assumes an air of great gravity and ominously shakes his head as he makes the melancholy prognosti- cation that the future Is dark and for bidding It is strange, but 1t is true, that the average politician, particularly the goldbug or administration partisan, is no little of a pessimist just now. He sees through glass very darkly. Aforetime 1t was the silverloon who consorted most with the calamity howler. Now 1t is the doter on President Cleveland who is most = doleful. Why Is he sad and grieVed at the~prospect? It is because men have the temerfty to become candidates for office on platforms that lack unqualified in- dorsement of the president! They who would divert the people from continual obeisance and genuflection before the inn age of Grover are demagogues of the rankest sort.
 saw one of these transcendental. holy humbugs foaming at the mouth the other day over an article in the Atlanta Con- stitution which hinted darkly about the midnight star-chamber conduct of the administration until recently in the dis position of the bond question. He actual ly frothed and slobbered as he denounced the baseness of the newspapers conduct. What is the matter? Is 1t In the atmoS- phere that nice. intelligent men-large. grOwn-up American people, have lost all attributes of Individuality and sunk all their identity in this cuckoo fashion of recognizing no democratic political man. hood and excellence except in adulation of Grover Cleveland?
 How they love to get as close to the great man as he Is wont to allow those who have a clean record of devout par tiality to his lofty. wide and deep mag nitude! Their leaders in Alabama think of the crowds of them-asplre to go to the senate-where they can be close to the White House. Yet now and then one will be found who is constrained by n high sense of duty-peculiar alone to those who have consecrated themselves to public trust in the shadow of the Su- preme Magisterial Presence-to throw himself into the lowly breach, to sacri- flee himself to become candidate for the indifferent office of governor of Ala
 
 bama.
 Once proudest gift at the hands of our sovereign people, an honor and a trust that even adorned George s. Houston as he held in his hand-the matchless sceptre of self-government! How has it fallen in the estimation of those who have been about Washington and seen the glamor and glitter round about the executive mansion.
 How immeasurable the sacrifice MT. Richard H. Clarke has set for himself in consentlng to stand for governor! Sure ly nothing but lAis own imperious deter imitation to do or die by duty could im- pei him thus. It but illustrates. as I have foreshadowed, the magnitude of our president in the estimation of some people It is not altogether any peril of the democratic party here at home. It was not so in 1892. when we were told