The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-03-12
The Week Before the Convention.


The Mobile Register, in a spirit of con-
servatism that verges into Indebtedness,
lays down this platform for the guidance of
the constitution builders OF next August:
THE burden of taxation should be made
to rest more equally upon the people, and
so placed as to encourage and not repress
individual or corporate enterprise.
The cost of administration should be re-
duced.
The educational fund should be applied
where it will do the greatest good to the
greatest number.
The condition of the public roads should
be made a question of state.
The powers of local government should
be increased.
The legislative and administrative period
should be fixed as a term of four years.
An educate qualifca ton should be re-
quired of those who are permitted to eX-
ercise the elective franchise.
This is very good so far as general truths
are concerned; but the tendency of modern
thought in this country is towards a great
deal of legislation in state constitutions.
Each succeeding one is, as a rule, longer
than it's predecessors. This tendency calls
then for a programme more specific and
definite than the Register has supplied.
The franchise question is first in impor-
lance. Educational and property qualifica-
tons suffice in South Carolina although
that state contains a heavy negro majority
In Mississippi they rely upon an intelli-
gence clause, which involves not only the
reading but the proper construction of a
given section of the state cons titution. In
Louisiana and North Carolina educational
and property qualifications are supple
mented by provisions that admit to the bal
lot all who could vote in 1867 and all of
their direct descendants. 1t does not seem
to be necessary in Alabama, which contains
majority of whites, to go beyond straight
and square qualifications of reading and
writing or the payment of taxes on proper
ty assessed at 500 or more. If it be adj
visable to do more, then let all soldiers of
all wars have the ballot-federals as well
as confederates, and the soldiers who went
to Cuba, to the Indian wars, to Mexico.
Let all provisions be without discrimination
of any kind whatsoever. Build for fifty
years to come in this important matter.
The next subject in point of Importance
that will come before the convention relates
to radical reform in court proceedings
Two-thirds of the heavier cases in the state
are now decided upon technicalities simply
because the practice in this state is COM
plicated and antiquated. 1t should be SIM
plifed and brought abreast the practice in
other states. Only three or four states re-
tain the cumbersome methods that we in
herited from English practice. The conven-
ton will be full of good lawyers, and the
best of them should begin, even before
election, to plan a judiciary reform. and
the more thorough 1t is the better.
The school question is next. 1t is mat
ter of deep import to almost a million
young lives. The underlying principle in the
confidence in the people. Leave the peo-
pie free to act. On account of the poorer
districts in the state a state fund should
be provided for. Let the state, for exam
pie, levy a minimum tax of one-half of a
mill, payable to those counties that levy
In addition a minimum tax of one-half Of a
mill, the whole to be payable to the dis
trcts or cities that levy still another mini
mum tax of one-half of a mill. Let all
three of the units of taxation be left free to
make their own maximums. There is no
danger in taxation for school purposes.