The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-11-24


 swaddling clothes of the Constitutional infant, 1t Is pleasant to note that Mont gomery is numbered, the remaining six Monggos the sna o the measures that engaged the deliberations or that select assembly, history In the main Is silent. It is evident that the necessity nee Tor party caucus da not ansiit,, sns
 ency had not ushered in the era of local legislation. The institution of the lobby was as yet unknown, as organized capi- tai and corporate wealth had no exist ence to defend, and. therefore, no at-
 tacks to invite. Aside from a few de- fensive measures against savage aggres- sion, and successful contention against the attempt of the Constitutional Conven- ton of Mississippi to reclaim a portion of
 the domain included in the new Terri tory, Alabamas first Territorial Legisla- ture is modest and unimportant event
 stephens and was the closing in- eident of the year, ISIS It es-
 tssished tss the seat of sSssrmeRtt Rtvsr at
 and designated Huntsville as the tenn
 porarl capital until the town of Cahata
 could be laid out and public buildings
 speaking, suffered Constitutional death,
 but 1t was the glorious death that be-
 speaks a brighter awakening. It was |
 of the century's teens, to celebrate the
 most significant event in all Alabamas
 history-that of her admission into the
 American Union. We are fond of assun-
 ing for Montgomery the priceless distinc-
 tion of being The Cradle of the Confed-
 eracy." I believe that Huntsville pos
 sesses a title that appeals even stronger
 to the pride of citizenship-that of being on October 18th, 1Sl9, the functions of State sovereignty were formally assumed, and the fact that Alabama was recog- nized power of the earth. duly proclaimed
 10 the world Here the grandfather of
 former Associate Supreme Court Justice
 Dick Walker, called the first Constitu-
 tional Convention to order, and presided
 tions; here Governor Bibb, the first in
 that noble line of men who have adorned
 the office of Chief Executive of the State.
 delivered to the first Legislature his in-
 augural address and transmitted his
 message to the men who laid the foun-
 dations for that system of laws through
 which Alabama grandly journeys to the
 mate of the fabric erected by the pioneer statesmen at Huntsville, is discernable
 in the quickened impulse to the immi-
 grafton which flowed into the limits of the newly-cr eated commonwealth and
 the rapid development Of the States ag-
 ricultural resources, to which the exer- ticns of the early settlers were almost l exclusively devoted. Settlements and
  hand, but it wodld hardly intensity our pride in the architecture of the times to dwell in descriptive mlnuteness on the
 character of the structures that elnbel- lished an Alabama town in the last year of the old century's teens. In the matter of Temples of Justice, for example, the construction of which in our times Is frequqently adapted to plans and speci- fications which recall the glories of Ro- man architecture. were in those unpre- tentious days modelled on lines antitheti- cal to the modern taxpayers concepion of style. This truth Is evidenced In the
 recorded fact that the first session of the Circuit Court of Marengo County was held in vacated blackksmith shop The Judge sat in chair by the furnace. the lawyers sat around the anvil, and the jurors were arragned during the trial on the fallen trees that had been
 rolled up to the side of the building.
 The. initial chapter in the marvellous
 record of Alabamas material develop ment had not been written in the old centurys teens Mining and manufac- turing were unknown, and the scream of the railway locomotive had not yet
 broken the solitudes of the wilderness The term of Public Works and lm- provements" is also a phrase of later coinage; I wonder what sentiments Of outrage and astonlshment would have possessed the taxpaying ancestry of the Goldthwaites, the GunterS and Fftzpat- ricks, whose sturdy energies contributed | to the staple of local citizenship of that
 
 1 firmitively determined by the last Legis- | lature to issue bonds to the amount of | s100, GOO to gravel and improve the public roads of Montgomery County!
 Educational facilities were lamentably | deficient, though some slight evidence of
 sense of its needs are attested in the | establishment of a town school at St. Stephens and the Green Academy at | Huntsville. The State University was
 founded a year later than the last teen ] of the century, but made little or no progress for a decade thereafter. Com | merce had not attained to the important dignity of a system, and the lack of trade | facilities greatly retarded sectional and | aggregate growth. The rude crafts that | hoated on the bosom of our navigable | rivers were a little more than slight advance in the evolution of the Indian | canoe, and would have been determined
 merest apologsts for steamboats. An
 idea of their adequacy as means of trans portation and models of speed, Is furnish | ed in the record of trip in fatboat
 of the Honorable Henry Goldthwaite, l who consumed three months on voyage
 up the Alabama from Mobile to Montgom- | cry. At the close of the last teen in the | other century, Alabama's population
 numbered 12S,O0O people, exclusive of In, dians, of which 5000 were whites and | 43600 negroes, less than the present pop | uiation of Montgomery County.
 In the pursuit of my subject l nave | arrived at the limits to which the char
 acter of my theme restricts me. and | part WllH | Hedging on the threshold of the. cen 1 turys second decade, in the dawn Of that | splendid era of development and history | that has since expanded into halo or | transcendent light and beauty. con 1 clude my observation on the unique pc | riod in the annals of our State which l | have but crudely and imperfectly re- | viewed, with the remark that 1t suggests | two claims of importance to the retecting student of State history: the first Of | these consists in the fact that the teens | of the old century are the connecting | chain between the reign of the savage | and the dominion of the Anglo American | on Alabama soil. It extends through | period that marks in our annals the end | of the romantic or legendary, and dawn | of the historic age; as such, 1t must ever he esteemed valuable and remain mem-
 orable if the hearts of a people, Who, | by nature. are fond of tincturing their | conceptions of duty to the practical | things of life with a love for the ideal | and the beautiful; who delight to extract 1 from the mists of fabled past the dews | which brighten and refresh the ideas or 1 a living present My second and final de- l auction is that this period is essential | Tn affording adeuuate idea of the inn mensity of growth that Alabama has | achieved from her pioneer to her indus l trial era. It would weary the mind and tax the soulful pride with which we are | accustomed to enumerate the items in the | sum total of our civic and maternal | greatness. to travel the span that divides | con of pride and instruction the journey would impress upon the popular heart! l And how that great heart would tnfoD l with patriotic emotion at recltal or l uhat was witnessed by the way. In the | fife of the citizen how wide the chasm T -f tEa HRaN