The age-herald., 1901-02-18

opher and the reformer
 The honorable committee is painfully impressed with the character of the Ala bama penitentiary, in the past four years, as a hotbed of pothouse politics. How not to do it,. We are not told by the committeel To what extent the thing was actually done the honorable com mittee does not prove by its own wit nesses, who were not cross-examined. It is big theme, reduced to narrow lim- its by the honorable committee.
 'The Governor gare in the names of sixteen men'' who were to be retained on tho penitentiary payroll or placed there. quoth the committee. Why not7 Is not the Governor the employe under the law2 Who knows, personally, as many men in all Alabama as Governor Johnston, and who so competent to choose officers? Who were the sixteen? Was T. c. Dawson, who has been an officer in the pententiary since Governor O'Neals time, sixteen years, one of the number7 Were J. W. Bush and D. M. Mcintosh many years before Governor Johnston came into office, two others of the black balled "sixteen"? Were those faithful guards, Gaines, Ward and Walker, who have reared their children In the em- ployment of successive administrations of the system, and who are understood to be Morgan men in politics, three more of that tabooed lot of ''sixteen' bootlickers of Governor Johnston? O, let us not 'burst in ignorance gentlemen of the committee.
 There were, as to fact, three or four officers and employees, ofOa probable thir- ty-two, at the different plantations, who did not drop the customary habit of their lives, respectively, and who ald continue to express, openly, an interest in the legal elections of the state and the coun- ty. Must the penitentiary employ only bastard citizens? Must the political moth- CT who bore the men who enter the peni- tentlary payroll discard and dsavow them because of the small pittance of pecuniary reward she pays them, or may she, even as they are open the polls to them and welcome their opinions and their services alike7
 The deputy warden at Speigners did po- litical work He canvassed Elmore Coun- ty to defeat Dr. o. S. Justice, the John- ston candidate for the constitutional con- vention that did not meet, and to elect J. M. Fitzpatrick, the goldbug anti-John- ston candidate. This deputy warden staid in office eighteen months after his po- litical success against Johnston.
 J. W. Perkins, at the walls" did some political work. He knows how. He has been in the public service since he was fifteen years old, first as a volunteer in Rhodes Brigade. He was a soldier so in- trepid that he was imprisoned and sen- fenced to be hung by the enemy, and was shot down on two battlefields. He has Convention, regularly, almost since he helped to nominate Houston Does Ala bama need to learn from the honorable committee that those of her sons who love her enough to work for her good government shall not be placed on the payroll of the penitentiary?
 The honorable committee insinuated that employees of the penitentiary were assessed for political purposes
 They were so assessed, some by the Morgan management and some by the Johnston management. The State Demo- cratic Committee ordered primary. Who but Democrats should pay tho le- gitimate expenses? I paid S1 when called on. Later, on a similar call, paid s5, and never more than these two assess ments. An Irishman, an employe a member of Whent's Tigers, in Richard Taylors brigade, hobbling through life with four scars from United States bull lets in his body. paid slo where I paid s on the same salary. All paid who were willing. Some were assessed who did not feel able to pay, but none were discrim- mated against by superior authority for non-payment.
 At the prtmarary some voted for Stall- ings and Johnston; others voted for Sam ford and Morgan. voted for Thompson and Warden voted for Brewer. All knew that Governor Johnston favored Stall ings, but none feared his wrath in follow ing their own public duty.
 As far as the situation appeared on the surface the politics of the employees of the penttentiary in the last four years has had nothing whatever to do with their retention in office or place. The political party to these men seemed to be the great body of their countrymen, with whom they agreed in politics and not the muster roll of the politicians The leader of their choice seemed to be the candidate who represented their opinions and not the candidate bent on benevolent assimilation with the opinions of the enemy's.
 The honorable committee did not have time, in the ten days, or, perhaps two weeks, of the allotted work to make an investigation worthy of the General As- sembly. The pronouncement of the hon. orable committee is not and could not be of a judicial temper Their report of 10000 words and the volume of testimony of 60OO0 more words, upon which 1t Is ostensibly based, are both corroboradve of the suspicion in the public mind that the present administration, if left to it. self, must have discovered more than the honorable committee knows, to this day, and must have rectified abuses, as they appear, by the general rule of competent and faithful treatment of internal codi- tions as they are found.
 J. w. DuBOSE.