Birmingham state herald., 1896-02-27
HOW TT IS.

| ing an article from the trenchant pen or | Ex-Gov. Thomas G. Jones. Governor Jones is a fluent writer, an eminent statesman, an able lawyer, an elo-
 quent speaker and a great leader of men and thought. It appears that the quota tion made from his recent speech at Union Springs by our correspondent, while admittedly correct was not suf- ficiently explanatory for Governor Jones,
 and he embra ces the opportunity of laying
 before our readers his position on the
 political situation just now and also two years ago in an article ostensibly written
 to show that the pronoun i've" as used
 by our correspondent and by himself meant thousands of democrats"
 The State Herald hasn't a doubt but
 that our correspondent well knew" that i've" as used meant those democrats in
 Alabama who, like Governor Jones, and together with him, were really not sup porters of Senat tor Morgan in his last race for the senate, but for reasons best known to themselves were unwilling to actively oppose his reelection. Of course all of them were not controlled by the same reason in making up their minds that 1t would be best not to actively op-
 pose Senator Morgan. While Governor Jones, as he says, was actuated by more than one reason, neither of which was
 the fact that Senator Morgans defeat
 could not be accomplished, there are
 doubtless others among the thousands of demOcrats'' referred to who in reSolV- ing to allow Senator Morgan to return unmolested were to a considerable extent influenced by the deep-seated conviction, which evidently found Judgment in their
 minds, that Senator Morgan could not
 be defeated and that active opposition to him would inevitably result in the de- l feat of the effort
 The State Herald has never intimated I that Governor Jones thought that way | about it. We know him to be man who | has never known political defeat; a man | who has scarcely had an equal in pollt-
 teal prowess, and never in the history of
 this country has he had a superior; a
 man who knows no such word as fail in politics; a man with the courage to dare and to do
 Knowing him to be such man and such leader we are sure the idea that
 Senator Morgans defeat could not have
 been accomplished never for once entered
 his mind. Feeling that way about it, the
 high bred editorial reference which
 Governor Jones takes occasion to mention
 in blazing the way for putting into print
 opinions entertained by him on the polt-
 ical situation could not have been intend-
 ed to mean that the claim now made by
 "we," that the reelection of Senator Mor-
 gan had been gra aclously permitted to oc-
 cur without opposition, was an exhibition
 of "eheek" on the part of Governor Jones.
 It was intended to mean that those who did not oppose Senator Morgan actively because they were reasonably certain that he could not be defeated were ex- | hbiting "cheek'' now in claiming that they quietly permitted the grand old mans return. The reference was not fn- tended to apply to men like Governor Jones It was directed only at those who, unlike Governor Jones, were not real cer- tain that they could accomplish the de-
 feat of Senator Morgan. Now, we hope Governor Jones will allow us, even after having incurred his displeasure, evident l ly to some extent to assure him that in | our eyes it is no offense whatever for | him to exercise the right he has to go l among his fellow democrats and discuss l issues on which we divide and to support | in any manner he may see proper any 1 gentleman he may choose to support for any office. This is no offense in our eyes. | It is a privilege we claim, prize highly, l and delight in granting the same privi-
 lege to any and everybody else As to l the intima ton that we had misrepre- l scented the past political record of Gov l ernor Jones towards Senator Morgan or 1 impugned the sincerity of his utterances l regarding it, we hope what we have said | in this article will thoroughly convince l him that such was not our intention. | As to the last paragraph of Governor l Jones' article, we will say that we fully l agree with him in that the matters to | which he therein refers are not issues l effecting the present campaign, and l knowing as we do that he is somewhat | sensitive about some of them, we think he could well have afforded to have left unsaid what he saw fit to say in regard l to what he terms "sneers" of this paper. l He having concluded, however, to dis | miss the matter by charging this paper
 with "sneering'' at him, we will dismiss 1 it by assuring the governor that the mat ters to which he refers were not intended
 as 'sneers" at him. They were merely l references to facts in the political his l tory of Alabama.