Birmingham state herald., 1896-06-14
THE SC|M|TAR OF SALADD|N As Terrible as the Sword of
 Richard. PROF. BURRUSS REPLIES To the Structures of the TrIbune-Who Were Soldiers of Fortune" in the
 Last Campaign?

To the State Herald:
 have just read the article in the Peo- ple's Tribune, the state organ of cooper ation, of the 11th instant, in denuncia- ton of my purpose to support Captain Johnston. The Tribune does not attempt to meet the facts and arguments that l endeavored to present in justification of my purpose to support Captain Johnston for the governorship of Alabama, but, on the contrary. undertakes to produce the impression that I have been a very changeable and unsteady, variable and unstable thinker on politics. do not suppose that I have been entirely con- sistent in political action. l freely admit my fallibility and liability to err. Some men betray their inconsistency or main- tain their consistency by adhering to party action; others preserve their con- sistency or reveal their inconsistency by declining to obey party behests. The public will decide each case upon its mer- it's and approve of patriotism and wis dom and disapprove of venality and folly whenever and wherever displayed.
 My duty is to be sure that am inspired by pure motives and supported by the exercise of the best judgment that pos sess and the soundest reflection that command. When I do this I have dis charged my obligations as citizen 1 recognize no allegiance to party organi- zation contrary to the interests of my. state and country. l think that party or ganization is useful as means to &C., complish good and legitimate ends, but when a party organization betrays trust and seeks to build up particular in- dividuals and interestsIby the deliberate sacrifice of a people or state, that it be- comes unworthy of the confidence and support of the conscientious and intelli- gent citizens that may have previously | have been citizen of Alabama twelve years. In that time I have never sought favor or position at the hands of any po- litical party to the present moment. l declined nomination at the hands of CO., operation because I could not approve of the coalition and its purposes. I be- came an Independent populist candidate for the state senate for the purpose of presenting the populst position on the money question disentangled from republican party, under the inn pression and hope that similar action would be taken in the state to place state populist ticket before. the people with no taint of republican bar gain about it. The abject surrender of ists in the county convention of April F and the state convention of April 28 and the revolution in the state de- mocracy on the money question in the primaries of April Il and the nomination of Captain Johnston and Dr. Cunningham rendered the with drawal of my candidacy in the public in- ferests wise and proper I went to the congressional convention of the Jeffer- sonians, held at Blocton in September, 1894, as a delegate to nominate candi- date for the Ninth Congressional district. there heard for the first time from Jeff fersonian lips of a contract or obligation that had been entered into prior to the state election of the preceding summer to exchange favors with the republicans and to vote for republicans in return for the votes that the republicans had cast for the Jeffersonian state ticket in the summer of 1894 then and there spurned the suggestion of such an obligation with contempt and declared my conviction that nobody had any such authority to pledge or bind Jeffersonian democrats in such trade. The suggestion of a trade with the republicans had been indignant ly denied by the leading Jeffersonian democrats in the summer of 1894. Now (September 19, 1S94) it was acknowledged and urged as an obligation bind ing upon the conscience and po- litical honor of the Jeffersonian democratic convention assembled at Blocton. I opposed the indorsement of MT T. H. Aldrich, the republican nomi- nee for congress, and retired from the convention along with MT. Huey and MT. Huffman of Jefferson, who held the same views of the situation that did. From that day to this I have opposed fusion or cooperation with the republi- cans consistently and consistently. I de- clared in the Blocton convention, two months before the merging of the Jeffer- sonian organization into the populist or ganization, that I was populist, and that the popul.st creed was irreconcilable with the republican. I took no part in the congressional election of 1894, and voted neither for MT. Underwood nor MT. Aldrich. I was recommended by MT. Adams and appointed by Mr. Van Der voort organizer of the peoples party Qn- dustrial Legion) in February, 1895. soon discovered that there were two ele- ments in the former Jeffersonan vote, one element that wished to combine with the republicans and another element, that was determined not to combine with the republican party. This gave rise to the controversy of fusion and anti-fusion. The division of populists into fusioniss and anti-fusionists and the bitter conten- tion arising over this issue rendered their organization into a compact party utterly impractica ble. The apprehension of the merging of populists into the republican party and the letting down of the bars in the democratic party led large portion of the populists into the democratic pri- maries with the hope of impressing upon the democratic party the will of the ma jority of the people. and, to a large degree. they accomplished their pur- pose. In view of recent develop ments and present conditions the demo- cratic party in Alabama furnishes decid- edly the better prospect of sound and good government, a government resting in the hands of large majority of the white people of the state. The people in the coming election will do just what they did in the late democratic prima- ries-vote for the democratic ticket The cooperation combination will become a thing of the past, valuable only for its lessons of political history and sugges- tions of sound party policy.
 The Tribune says in referring to me: .'When war ceased to be the play thing of kings, Duga1d Dalgetty lost his importance. A soldier of fortune Is blank in the awful ener- gies of the American people in this fear fu1 day of uncertainties" An attack