The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1897-12-30
ETCHINGS FROM
CURRENT TOPICS.

Two more days, and 1897 with all its
memories of disasters, epidemics, financial
limitations and willful murders will be
numbered with those of other years which
are stored away in the misty past.
The world stands upon the threshold of
another year. new year, which will come
fresh from the great calendar of the ages,
without spot or blemish.
VIII it so remain? Or shall it be stained
like it's predecessor with dark, damning
spots of crime. and darkened with the
shadows of suffering and sorrow. Who
can tell but the Omnsclent?
The south stands with uncovered head to
greet the new year, hoping it may bring
to her happiness and prosperity. She
awaits the future impatiently. for the past
has been full of sacrifice and self-denial,
and she has wearied of it.
She has many needs, and she awaits
with bated breath the supplying Of her
necessities. VIII that brighter day come,
with the birth of the new year, or will 1898
be but a dismal, disheartening repetition
of this sad old year 1897, which is rapidly
drawing to close?
What the future may be- largely rests
with the people of the south Upon them
individually and collectively, depends, in
great measure, what the outcome shall be-
If genuine prosperity is ever to come to
this section, it should find the people ready
for it, because relieved of those weights
which have kept the south confronted with
the roproach OF other sections and other
peoples 1t is useless to attempt to dis
guise The sins of the south. They cannot
enemies and detractors have left no stone
unturned to lay bare her weaknesses be-
fore the world.
1t behooYes every man and woman VINO
loves this most glorious section of Gods
universe to rise in the might of their moral
integrity and declare that those crimes
which disgrace the annals of the south shall
cease.
Southern people, in the MAN, are an hon
orable, noble race free from petty sins,
and they zealously guard family and indi-
vidual honor They are careful in regard
to money obligations, and each year finds
them more continuously energetic and in
dustrious.
They have an acute pride in respectable
ancestry, and generally desire to emu
late the virtues of that ancestry. But they
AAA'N--5
this laxity must cease before the south
can hope to measure up fully to the stand
ard set by the rest of the world.
Is public opinion to sleep while murder
is rampant in every portion of the south?
Is public opinion to remain speeches.
when the courts sentence a deliberate MUIR
derer to a few brief years in the peniten-
tiary? Has the day gone by when justice
shall be melted out by unbiased juries and
fearless juries? Is human life cheaper
than animal life?
Are the streets in southern cities and the
roadways in southern states still to remain
battleQelds where men shoot each other
to death? And shall sentimentality con-
tinue to throw around the murderer a
scl<ly sympathy?
A few prompt trials, speedy verdicts and
a fearless execution of the law would soon
put stop to the wholesale killings in the
south.
Is there no way of enforcing the enact
ments against the carrying of concealed
weapons by the men of the south?
Or will it be necessary for every man
who values his life and desires to preserve
it to become walking arsenal, and be
prepared to sell his life dearly to the bully
who attempts to regulate communities at
the point of a pistol?
The delays of the courts of justice are
largely responsible for the present murder
Gus conditions which exist in the south.
Take the exaggerated Flanagan case,
which occurred near Atlanta, and shocked
the whole country, about year ago, with
its bloody, hdeous details. After the
usual delays, Flanagan who is a misera
BILE degenerate, was tried and convicted of
murder in the first degree-he had killed
two wonderland yet he granted, upon
some foolish plea, another trial. This trial
has been deferred from time to time, the
last excuse being that his counsel needed
a trip to Europe for his health's sake.
This lawyer has now returned to Atlanta,
and the absurd farce of melting out JUS
all over again.
Nothing has been gained by the defer
ment of this celebrated case, except the
prolonging of the life of a wretch who
has no right to live.
Whether the murderer comes from the
cutters or can claim the bluest blood in
the land as an heritage, let the people of
the south demand that their reproach shall
be taken away, and that the man who
kills, except in self-defense, shall receive
the sentence due for his crime. If 1898 shall
bring to this section an awakening of pub
lie opinion and sentiment on this question,
it will prove one of the brightest years
in all the long history of a glorious peo-
pIe BALL.