The age-herald., 1900-01-05
HE CLAIMS MUCH CREDIT Says He Has Brought Money Into the State.
 DISCUSSES aucKER LANDS Admits Tha - wned Fourteen Thous- and Do Stock in American Co a hpany, Which He
 o in New Jersey
DISCUSSES

o
 Age-Hera1d Bureau. Hotel Mabson, Mont, gomery, January 4.-(special) l)-Governor Johnston this afternoon gave to the press the following reply to the letter recently directed to him by Senator John T. Mor- gan:
 Montgomery, Ala, January 4, 1900. Honorable John T. Morgan, Washington,
 D. c. El
 Sir:-Upon my return from New York last week l found your letter and I have found time today.to read it. I regret the temper that you display. You denounce the state- ment that l called on you to retract as false, and demand the name of the "falsi- fer who furnished it. will be more frank than you were, and state that I took that extract verbatim from a special telegram to The Age-IIerald, purporting to have been sent by MT. A. w. Butt, who said that he gave 1t as 1t appeared in the Congress- ional Record. did not suppose that your own friends would deliberately falsfy your recors to injnre me.
 Had you simply denied the statement att tributed to you there would have been no further issue between us as to that. You now say that you charged that "I owned, or had owned, large amount of stock in an Alabama corporation, one of several, that had sold all their property of every kind to a New Jersey company" That Is true to the extent that I owned the large amount of about fourteen thousand dollars of stock in the American Coal company and am unable to see any crime In dispos- ing of that to a New Jersey company.
 do not now, and never owned share of stock in the Sioss-Sheffield company, nor have ever had any interest, direct remote, or contingent, in any syndicate or trust 10 which the lands referred to were soll. ,
 concerning the Rucker Lands
 nresume the interests" referred to by MT. Mayben were my interests in the S'Soo acres of Fucker lands and stock referred to- All the lands, so far as know, were paid for in money, and taken into the com- pany for the exact amount paid Tor them, except the property of the Sloss Iron ana ctaoi oomnany. in which had no interest whatever.
 say these things so that if you have oc- casion to speak of me again in the senate YOU may know the truth, and not rely upon or give currency to the statements of faisi- fiers.
 shall mot, senator, like you. depart from 4,,o r5,1 issne or endeavor to defame you r,v auoiting false charges made against you by your personal and political enemies, ana I trust shall never forget the respectful consideration due your age, feeoleness and irritabihty.
 I freely forgive you for being misled by some of your supporters in Alabama anu especially amongst the press. You nave occasion to know that some are not very scrupulous. I do not believe that you would Intentionally islander your neighbor, but fear that your anger and resentment have heen so aroused that you cannot impartial ly dfferentiate the false from the true.
 beg to express my great satisfaction at your present attitude against trusts.
 Attacks Senator's Record
 If 1t is a crime to aid in securing the for- nation of a company to bring more than two million dollars into our state, to build furnaces and steel works and open mines and give employment to labor, what must be said of your action in 1898 in voting to organize the International American Bank, with a capital of twenty-five millions of dollars, and of which your colleague, Sena- tor Pettus, said, Here is the most damn> able trust that God ever allowed to live on earth?" You and Senator Caffery of Louis- iana are the only democrats in either house that voted for that measure and Caffery will never return to the senate.
 And why did you vote against putting q tax of 11s per cent. on all goods manufac- tured by trusts?
 On the measure you were found in the republican column.
 Then do you not think that the Maratime Canal company was something of a trust or monopoly? And yet you insisted on voting millions to 1t in the Nicaragua canal scheme.
 The gravamen of my offense in your eyes seems to be that I encouraged the forma- ton of company to bring very large amount of money into Alabama I thought, senator, that every good citizen and tax payer would be glad to that. and # that be an offense, I am afraid that you must have forgotten when you were sup- porting me for governor that I was one of the parties who organized the Sloss Iron and Steel company in 1887. If this be an offense, I guilty not only in the case cited, but in numerous others. I have never failed when opportunity offered ta
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