The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-13

thirty miles to Court House.
 Now they say that it will increase
 taxation. 1t may, but if these gentle
 men who desire to form a new county
 are willing to assume the taxation,
 they ought to be allowed to do it. It
 is just like a fellow who won't allow
 his boy to go out and build him a
 home. but wants him to stay around
 home so that what he makes will go to
 the homestead. Let the boys go out and build their shacks and start to housekeeping, and in the years to come
 Alabama, instead of stxty-six court
 houses, schools and churches. will have 100.
 MT. Rogers (Sumter)-I do not feel
 that can add anything to the remarks tnat nave been made by the delegate rom Cieburne. I simply want to go on record now as going in the band
 wagon of progress in this enlightened twentieth century. When States are first organized the counties are large. as matter of course. because they have not a sufficient number of inhabi- tants or wealth to have smaller coun- ties. But as the counties grow in wealth and the people increase, it has been the policy of all civilized coun- tries to reduce the area of counties so that man could go to his court house and attend to his business in one day and get back home by night.
 Another reason as has been stated by my friend Is that the establishment of court house congregates the of- ficers of the county there and they build up Improvements, schools and churches. There can be no reason urged against this reduction, except two. One is that 1t will reduce the pay of certain officers in the State of Alabama, the Probate Judges and other officers, who draw their living from the people of these counties. Another is that certain counties may be afraid if their areas are reduced they will lose a certain amount of influence which they have in dominating the laws of the State of Alabama. But neither of these reasons is sufficient to retain these cumbersome counties, where men sometimes reside forty miles from the court house. I submit whenever a community has a sufficient amount of wealth and people and wants to estab- fish a new county. we should permit them to do so. If they want to tax themselves, that is their business. They can't get out of paying their propor- tion of the debts of the old county. They are compelled, under the provis- ion that we are to adopt. to assume their just proportion of the debt of the old county.
 No injustice will be worked on any body, and no reasons can be assigned why those who live around court houses now should want to retain the counties unchanged, because thereby they will get little more money. The money those officers receive does not
 belong to them. 1t belongs to the State of Alabama.
 MT. Oates-The gentleman stated that new court houses were great civilizers. Don't that depend on the number of barrooms around them?
 Mr. Rogers (Sumter)-No, sir; it de- bends on the number of churches that grow there. Whenever you build new court house you have clerk and a sheriff and probate judge, and from their very necessity they establish churches, and the barroom can go to the devil. where it ought to go. It has nothing to do at all in the civilization of this country.
 The delegate from Washington here arose.
 The President-Wnl the gentleman yield to a question from the delegate from Washington?
 Mir. Palmer-No, sir; don't want to ask question. l wanted to make speech.
 MT. Rogers (sumter)-If that is the case, I shall desist. as I am sure we are all anxious to hear the delegate from Washington.
 MT. Palmer-I would like to give bit of my experience in regard to these new counties. l judge from the looks of the majority of these mems faces than 90 per cent of this Convention live at and near the court houses and you cannot appreciate nor realize what a farmer has to contend with who lives thirty or forty miles away from the county seat. l was born and raised In the county of Wilcox, in a prairie county, and I resided there all my life until three years ago last December. lived at least twenty miles from Cam den. the county seat of Wilcox. and the most of it was a rough prairie oad. At that time no railroad was built there and after standing 1t the greater DOT tion of my life. that was one of the matn objects of my pulling up and leaving my homestead in Wilcox County, to get into more convenient quarters. moved from there to Washington County, and I now live within five miles of St, Stephens, with a perfect read, high and dry and level. No one can appreciate, no one can know or realize the convenience of a man living on a good roed near his court house over one that lives in the remotest section with bad roads to get to his court house. The thing is this: The officers build the court house, and. I am sorry to say. that most of the at torneys there seem to think great deal of the people that live at dis tance. They love them tremendously. and they are afraid they will tax them selves, and they are afraid they will spend their money in building court houses, for themselves. The court houses are built for our convenience. to keep our records, and so that all offenses against the law may be speed fly tried. Now, you take men that live thirty or forty miles from the court house. and there is bad roads to it, and they will submit to almost any in- tolerance before they will push pros ecution against man for any common offenses. The worry and trouble and labor of getting to the court house takes up so much time and expense that they pass over matters without where otherwise, if they lived in close proximity they would push the prosecution.
 Now gentlemen of the Convention, l am satisfied most of you live at or near court houses. They tell me that nine ty-six lawyers are in this body. If that is so, there must be ninety of them that live near the court house. It is mighty poor lawyer who is going to get off in the piney woods and hills. Now. another thing: The old lawyers. the way things are fixed now. get all