Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-07-15
THE ALLEGED ALLIANCE"
The Mobile Registers Claim That the East ana
Not the West Is the Commercial Ally
of the South.
To the State Herald


as colleague of peerless John Forsyth.
AT that early day. nearly three decades
ago, we saw the possibilities lying I'M
born in the womb of Alabama hills. We
saw those already nascent on the surface
of her fields, and especially in the then
| sluggish waters of her grand port of to-
| day. That old Register was the pioneer
| of a movement to bring new population,
| new trade, new capital and new life into
| the south by steady urgence upon the
west of one indisputable truth-that Mo-
| bile was her God-gven gateway for ex-
port of her fast increasing production,
and for import of her already awakened
| demand for that of Southern and Central
| America.
| Early and late 1 wrote of these two
| facts-indisputab BILE, but not self-assert-
| ing in the grind of close post bellum I'M
| certainty. The Register of that day
| shouted the glad tidings so loudly and so
long that the west caught the echo and
| began to accept the truth.
Since then no writer in that paper has
ever ventured to hint one doubt of the
self-apparent commercial and material
facts then disseminated. They had
taken root in fertile soil that early, and
had, meantime, blossomed into practice
and fruited with results to our people
results already great-yet were infants
to the giant of commercial union yet to
IL
The present Register has been too busy
in saving the nation, governing this state
and city, selecting presidents and dis
ciplining counclmen-not to mention fire.
quent attempts to explain Its own sever
al positions in one or all of these hercu-
lean laborsIto give much heed to the
mere material upbuilding of its section.
But, until now whatever it has written
thereon has been in one key and one
strain. But today-if not to the surprise
of it's practical readers, surely to their
sorrow-the Register permits spleen at
it's positive political defeat to slop over
into a weak, ll-timed and self-disproving
TRADE against the west, in which 1t as
serts:
"Our ties of business and of friendship
have always been with the eastern peo-
pie. We are related 60 them by blood; we
know them and they know us. We do
constant business with them. On the
other hand, these western people have
not forgiven us for going into the war,
and they never will" r
Truly it were weakness to be wroth
with weakness" But the Register bears
an old and once honored name, and dis
tant readers-should any chance to see
this diatribe-might consider 1t still the
business and political mouthpiece of our
people. Yet, even such putative reader
might smile at the effort that strains
from hard bound brains five lines" like
these:
LAS for business, we have no business
with them except to buy corn, -four and
meat from them, and we are doing our
best to do without the meat. There is
no reason for any alliance"
Equally futile is the Registers drown
ing clutch after a straw of argument, on
which it's editor hopes to float his water
sogged proposition quoted, when he pero-
rates:
IF any one is disposed to doubt this
let him study the history of the recent
effort to upset the trade alliance between
the south and the east by the establish
ment of q cotton states exposition at
Chicago. Chicago did her part, but the
southern people did not want it,
His own files of very recent date would
have killed that paragraph in the proof
had this versatile editor not lacked that
first equipment of the modern newspaper
mana good memory But the simple
truth of the Chicago collapse-already
familiar to all properly posted writer's
is condensed in a letter lately written to
me by Ex-senator Walsh. He says:
THE southern exposition at Chicago
failed, for the present, because of the
stagnation of business and the inability
of our people to raise-by private sub
scription-sufficien money to make
creditable displays for their respective
states. l feel that while the en-
terprise has been given up for the pres
ent our work has not been in vain. 1t
will bear fruit, and the southern states
exposition at Chicago will be held in the
not distant future"
The simple fact of the matter must be
that the gifted and versatile scribe of the
new Register wrote his anti-western dia-
tribe in haste. Whether or not he re-
penis at leisure, it will remain doubtful
whether repentance would have justified
that youth of ancient Ephesus, who made
his record by firing the dome. Moreover,
this self-sam editor has been an early
hit In nd
well as In his paper-of the western grain
congress, the Mobile and Ohio railroads
immigration plans, of direct trade to Eu-
rope and the south, of the elevator bonus
for western grain, and of other projects
for cementing that natural alliance
which others inaugurated and first
brought to success. He has been con-
nected with sundry schemes for adver-
Using Mobiles commercial and trucking
advantages to that despised west; and
that unique volume, Mobile, the Ma
jestic" is the product of his prolific pen.
1t is more than passing strange that,
with such record, he should suddenly
grew ambidextrous and write with two
Guills-one unsaying the others sayings.
Should he continue to use them thus he
will need to become pedidextrous as well
to defend his inconsistent theories.
But This assault upon the natural trade
ally of Alabama and the south-born,
| though 1t be, out of political spite and
| humiliation--is not local question any
more than it is political one. It's ten
| dency is to affect and dscredit the agri-
| cultural and mineral belts of our state
| in at least equal degree with the port.
| Hence this REPUTATION of It's absurd mis-
statements should go out. from the
| spokesman of those sections as well as
| from the port. W
The simple and practical truths. known
| to all intelligent men here and In the
L 81 n fbxa al ~
| the south-in all commercial and trade
| matters. which have no relation what
| ever with votes and canddates-is with
| the agricultural west. All men of sense
| know that It Is to the handling of the
| western grain and meat and manufac-
| tured products that the gulf ports. and
| especially the port of Mobile, look for
their future greatness. It was because