The age-herald., 1901-04-07
NED BRACE ON PROPOSED CONSULTATIONS
 AND OTHER MATTERS OF LOCAL INTEREST

properties and sell them in Wall street are usually the men who make money.
 I knew a young fellow to go to New York from St. Louis several years ago. He had inherited some s5Oo.0OO. His ann bition was to become millionaire. He did. He accumulated s7,0O0.OOO in two years Then he began to believe himself the mental superior of all Wall street
 I can draw my check for $7,0O0 GOO to- day" he said to me in the early fall of 1895. I saw him in New York several months ago. From his appearance, doubt if his check for s7 would be casha- ble anywhere So it goes in Wall street. It is gambling. neither pure nor simple. yet it is fascinating, and man loves to gamble. Likewise do women. The preachers of New York have for weeks past been exhorting against bridge whist because it Is played for money or the equivalent; yet bridge whist, and penny ante poker. and even golf. when played for balls whether they be high balls or composition balls, are all alike Many of us condemn miniature gambling and approve 1t in the mamoth form.
 I venture there is not less than s10O,000 of Birmingham money risked today on the rise or fall of the stock market.
 
 A prominent citizen told me yesterday he had bought 100 shares of Brooklyn Rapid Transit, and he expected to make pile of money out of 1t. I asked him what he knew about Brooklyn Rapid Transit.
 Tt is good stock and it is going up,' said he.
 How many miles of road have they" I asked.
 T don't know" he replied.
 "Eow much stock Is there on 1t"
 "I don't know
 What do you know about it, l asked.
 "I really don't know anything, but it's been going up and 1t just looks to me like it's going higher" he replied, and went off smiling.
 He is gambling. He don't know wheth- CT Brooklyn Rapid Transit Is steam railroad line, a trolley car line, or an elevated railroad. He don't know who Is president and he don't know anything about it except that he has read the let ters B. R. T. on a stock board and he has seen that the stock has been gradu- ally approaching in value So men gam ble.
 There are some features in the consti- tutional convention platform adopted by the recent State convention which don't strike me as exactly fair. It is the fifth paragraph of the platform in which the statement is made that we pledge our faith to the people of Alabama not to deprive any white man of the right to vote, except for conviction of infamous crime"
 The ignorant foreigner who can neither read nor write in the English language, nor his own language, and who has broken into the State of Alabama to work in some mine or field is no more entitled to vote than is the ignorant negro who was born and raised in this State. I don't think the Democratic party has any right to pledge it's faith that no white man, however ignorant he might be, shall not be deprived of the right to vote. White men in Alabama have had plenty of opportunity to learn to read and write There is less excuse for the ignorant white man than there is for the ignorant black.
 It looks to me as If we have begun to run in dangerous waters where the Democratic ship of state may be wrecked on the rock of the United States consti- tuition if the constitutional convention goes ahead with some of the alleged party leaders as pilots.
 Again I don't like that section, num- bered 8, which says that the rights and privileges conferred by the present con-