The age-herald., 1898-09-25
HOW
HELLER

|
 The national debt to General Wheeler
 seems to be confessed with universal pleas
 ure. All confession is non-partisan. Our i new possessions, most fruitful to anxious | ly awaiting capital, have been conquered
 under those aggressive policies of states
 manship urged by him in congress; or | conquered directly by the activity of his
 genius and the prowess of his valor on the
 firing line of the army of invasion.
 How shall sthe national debt to General l Wheeler be paid? Put the question to him
 and he would at once answer: By the in-
 crease of my influence in non-sectional and
 non-partisan legislation by congress-" | General Wheeler is a bold advocate of
 equality of taxation and equity in disburse- l ments. Let the nation assembled in con- l gress hear him and heed his wisdom and l his patriotism upon these civic lines. While
 war measures were being enacted six l months ago Senator Pettus asked for an | appropriation of S2O0OOO to open tine lower 1 bar of Mobile, only four hundred yards
 wide so that our fighting navy might, If
 desirable, come up to the coal shutes of | Mobile to coal. MT. Pettus reminded the
 senate of the appropriation then pending l of $1 000,0 GOO to a western canal. Did he get
 his $20O, ,OOO? Not at all. The senate con l suited the secretary of war and MT. Alger 1 said it would never do to open the bar of
 Mobile so that Spanish ships could enter! l Other ships would enter in the coming time | of peace.
 | General Wheeler has added so much rich l land in distant regions to our national do- l main that congress ought to hear him tell | of it's duty to Alabama. He has been try l ing to tell his tale for a long time as an | ordinary congressman and confederate l veteran. Wheeler and Hobson throw a
 magnificent light from Alabama on the
 splendor of American arms But our heroes
 fin war are, relatively, hardly more worthy
 of the nations joyous acclaim than our
 sea port is worthy of offering to the world
 our Alabama native resources in com
 merce so varied and magnificent that no
 other port in all the world can vie with it.
 Our mills going to offer to the govern
 ment the best steel and iron and timber l and coal for a navy yard on the best site | anywhere to be found. Let a gallant na- | tion reward Wheeler by giving to his | facts, that Alabama is entitled to the prin- | cipal navy yard and ship building yard in l America.
 l AlaDa1na dSkS that the tennessee rlVef | improvements be finally completed that 1 iron and heavy freights may go cheaply in-
 to all the Mississippi Valley.
 Alabama asks that the Coosa be inn proved so that boats may pass from Rome, | Ga., to Mobile and that the narrow tongue | of land that separates the Tennessee from
 the Coosa lying between Gadsden and
 Guntersville, be canaed so that freights l from St. Paul and Chicago may have inland | water carriage to the gulf through the port l of Mobile.
 | Alabama asks that the Birmingham canal
 be at once built so that our export trade 1 in steel, iron, coal and cotton goods may
 have cheap water carriage to our one sea l port, Mobile.
 | Let the nation pay its debt to Wheeler l by considering justice to Alabama. We | want justice. J. W. D.