Birmingham state herald., 1896-03-17

gan was g. sickening jolter The able and opulent young gold barons of Bir | mingham essay to veil their misery in solicitude for the maintenance of the purity of the ballot box at Old Decatur. They read the Montgomery Advertiser that old femme de joie of ballot box nor ality-and roll their eyes after the simili- tude of a calf from whose mouth the CO., pious teat of the maternal mammal has
 been unexpectedly withdrawn. But the money kings of Birmingham have not altogether lost their nerve They haven't yet blown in all their Hong | green" they now and anon decorate the | flashes of divers ducats, and cause the | stiverless silverloon to feel that indeed 1 there Is nothing left him but his vote
 and his integrity to heaven
 | Nevertheless a Johnston man made bet one day the past week of $100 to $500 l that Johnston would carry Mobile. It is not unlikely that more of this will be | taken. At a public resort in the city bet
 of 5000 has been posted for some weeks, | without any token of a taker, that John- F ston will be the democratic nominee.
 
 ! I am neither sport prophet, son of a | gun nor progeny of a political soothsay- | er but I venture to say that unless the signs that come to the State Herald from dll over AldDaffla are S1mpIy ana Sneefly miraculOuSly cratic, Johnston will beat Clarke worse than any statesman who went forth chasing principle from the | cloud-piercing peaks of Monte Sano to
 the crab-infested doons of Mobile bay. l Here is the way they feel in Montgom- cry who believe in Captain Johnston, as expressed in a private letter to Bir- mingham merchant:
 Montgomery county Is safe and sound for Joseph F. Johnston, and our majority will effectually destroy Gormanism' and 'goldbugism' in this section. The John ston followers here are not bowling, but saving sixteen cords of wood day and saying little. My opinion is Captain Johnston will come to Montgomery with at least 416 votes, and I would not be surprised if it reaehed 476 The Clarke forces are paving the way for contesting delegations in as many counties as pos sible in order to try to scare the John- ston forces. Watch this prediction and
 see if am not correct. They have no hopes whatever of Clarkes nomination" The writer evidently knew some things on which to base that judgment Mark you, what he said was written before any result of the primary election in Morgan county was made known. The general belief Is that the Advertiser wing of the Clarke management are desperate and will scruple to nothing that will tend, to divert attention from the popular pur- pose to give the democratic nomination 1 for governor this year to the man who has profeSsed for that journal the most
 unmitigated contempt.
 
 Messrs. Arthur l.. Brown and w B. Echols of Hartselle, and both leading citizens of Morgan county, spent yester- day in Birmingham. They agreed that if the people of Morgan could have had the lights before them that are now in evil dence since the Advertisers smelling mission has exposed the methods of the Clarke faction, that Johnston would carry Morgan by at least 1000 majority. A quiet and thoughtful democrat said yesterday: If you win notice right closely you find that the first party to holler fraud in a campaign is simply trying to distract attention from it's own rascalty. Now look out and see if the Advertiser crowd will not prove to be up to some swindle." But 1t will not work; the masses of democrats are still as un- terrified as they are unconverted. Any cry of fraud emanating from the inner sanctum of the Montgomery Ad-
 vertiser is the blatant personfication of
 Hollow Mockery.
 What a swarm of shams politics dis covers anyhow! I have been gently thinking of some of them One of the most innocent, because one of the most unrefiective, in the democrat who says he is for sound money" and when you ask him what that means, he has to hem and haw like an impecunious debtor shrinking from an importunate dun. The fewest sound money democrats" will
 tell you they are for the single gold standard. Some of them will say they
 are opposed to the free coinage of silver
 and also to the single gold standard, as
 if that meant anything I am for sound money myself, sound silver and gold
 money, coined and used on equal terms
 at the ratio of 16 to 1, good for the bond
 holder and breadwinner alike and no fat-witted yap with wide strut and a
 high collar has any right of reason to say that I am not for sound money be- cause I am opposed to degradation of silver.
 Another sham is a Birmingham pro-.
 duct, who tells you he had intended to
 vote for Johnston. but the silver issue
 has been forced. and being opposed to it
 he is constrained to abandon his first i'm
 tention, and yet this same kind of sound
 money" party man advises us silverfoons
 how to conduct our canvass He is a
 sham with so great load of principles
 to carry about with him that when he
 travels he has to pay excess of baggage.
 He voted for Oscar Underwood, silver
 loon, for congress. voted for Legislators
 who elected John T. Morgan, sifverl0on,
 to the United States senate, and never
 said a word on earth against silver until If bpCam a. fad with this new generation