The age-herald., 1899-11-13

ance and to determine whether or not In their veins flows heroic blood
 It was asserted by some in 1881 that the men reared under and amid the influences of slavery would prove unable or unfit to meet the demands of the coming conflict. There were those who derided them as "dandies' and "dawdlers," and as ef- feminate devotees of fashion and frivolity enervated and unnamed by idleness and selfish indulgence. These carping critics seemed to have forgotten that those whom they derided were descendants of heroes; that the blood of Cavaliers flowed in their veins, and that their ancestors in council hall and on battle field had made luminous the pages of history with the record of their achievements.
 Did the sons of Alabama who sprang from the loins of a slave-holding ancestry bear themselves as men in that line of fiery trial and stubborn conflict?
 Ask those who met them amid the leaden storm where the battles surging tide high est and bloodiest flowed.
 Let history unroll her proud annals and say"
 Let Manassas, Chicamauga, Antietam Gettysburg make reply.
 Those and other historic fields were hal- lowed by the devotion and consecrated by the blood of the best and bravest of the sons of Alabama. Nobler spirits never sank to rest in a country's cause, and on the altar of liberty and constitutional gov ernment ne'er was richer offering paid than their heroic lives.
 They died for very love of the state on whose bosom they. were born, and their comrades who survived, animated by the same spirit of unselfsh and patriotic devo- tion, endured with heroic fortitude and un- complaining heroism the cruel years worse than those of war; which followed upon the close of the conflict.
 Broken In fortune and sore stricken by hardships, wounds and disease, they re- turned to desolated homes and barren fields to meet and battle with gaunt and bitter poverty.
 They were disfranehised, oppressed and deprived of participation in the privileges of citizenship and in that dread hour faced a future as dark as ever shadowed the pathway of patriots.
 Msinterpreting and misapplying the maxim that "aH men are created free and equal,'' those vested with national power placed the control of the state government of Alabama in the hands of the ignorant and corrupt. The master was supplanted in the hall of legislation by his former slave. Ignorance usurped the place of in- telligence. Vice and venality sat in high places, where honor and integrity had be- fore been enthroned.
 Such legislation and such exercise of gov ernmental power was born not of states manship, but of revenge. It was theory
 
 of fauaticism. It begot riotorfs revel of rottenneSs and robbery; carnival of crime and corruption. The alien and the adven- turer directed and controlled the political destiny of Alabama Her legislative halls were made the market overt where legisla- tors and officers were bought and sold like sheep in the shambies Her temples of law were defiled by judges at once ignorant and corrupt. Justice, affrighted, gathered up her garments and fied and fair state rich in glorious history and tradition, fell defenseless into the remorseless clutches of political spoilmen and official plunder- CTS.
 Iris needless to tell here the story of her deliverance. The same heroic sons who had for her dared death on many a hard fought field rose to her rescue, and by the inevitable and irresistible power of in- telligence, courage and patriotism, operat- ing by constitutional method. they deliver ed her from the hands of those who under the forms of iniquitous legislators had placed intelligence wealth and virtue at the mercy of ignorance, poverty and vice.
 By that object lesson of the redemption of a great state from the control of its most incompetent and ignorant elements. encouraged, aided and directed by the alien and adventurer of another race, there is revealed that truth which needs to be learned by many even at this day, yet which need to be burned into their minds. It is that political clans may theoriZe, fanatics rave, demagogues de- claim, political parties promulgate plat forms and declare politics, yet the truth remains that in this land under all cir cumstances and conditions, whether in the minority or majority, henceforth the blue veined and white skinned man will rule He has ruled this land for an hundred years, and he will rule it
 "Through all the days and nights to come. Tn Sole and sovereign and master
 dom."
 With her government once again In the hands of her own people, Alabama has moved forward with giant strides in every field of development and progress.
 The rich treasures beneath her soil have been explored and developed and the day draws nigh, if it is not even now at hand, when old King Iron will place upon her brow his crown and in her hand his scep- ter.
 Again in the halls of national legisla- tion her sons stand as of yore among the proudest and ablest, and she moves abreast of the foremost in the march of moral and industrial development and improve ment.
 A few years ago I stood in her capital city and saw a band of grizzled veterans who had marched and fought in the ranks of the gray battalions marching With rev. erent step and slow behind the funeral car whereupon was borne the encoffined clay of him who had in that city nearly thirty years before, with barred head and uplfted hand, vowed, before the God of his fathers, to supoprt and defend the constitution of that young republic, the task of guiding the destinies of which had been to him committed.
 saw there a throng of Alabamians that no man could number standing with un- covered heads and tear-dimmed eyes as the great procession moved toward that capitol, upon the portico of which he to whose memory they did honor had as- sumed his sacred trust. I saw that casket wherein he slept hidden beneath a cover ing of flowers, spotless white, each quiver- ing leaf and dropping petal of which was gemmed with the tears of his sorrowing people,
 They gave no heed to the fact that he was a son of nativity of Kentucky and by adoption of Mississippi They knew that they were heirs to the priceless heritage of his heroic life, heritage which they were proud to share with the people of their manful battle in behalf of that young nation, of which the illustrious dead was tzcta