The age-herald., 1901-03-24
BY JOHN wlrHERspooN DuBoeE.

three lines, whenever and by whomsoeVer built, were the sine qua to the develop ment of our mineral wealth John Tur- ner Milner, Frank Gilmer Josiah Mor- rls, William Crawford Bibb, George N. Gilmer were among the main supports of the original purpose of Alabama to build these roads, They were, each and all slave owners and Southern born men When the new industrial birth opened they were all crippled with the burden of public woe. They each and all went to work upon the original thought which the incubus of slavery had tol- erated all the same.
 Did the President speak advisedly or rather did he not speak even as the text books of our schools and universities spealx2 Did he understand his great theme better or as i'll as our professors of learning understood 1t? Did the shoot ing to death of Rodes and Lomax, of Armistead and Bain. of Tracey and Syd- enham Moore from the ranks of Alabam- ians who were laborinR in 1860 to lay open to commerce the iron and coal, better prepare Milner and Morris. DeBardele- ben and Sloss, Caldwell and Troy to pro ceed with that self-same work on which all in common shad been engaged? Did the confiscation of three-fourths of as- sessable values in Alabama by the United States. values in slaves, bonds, stocks, ldti0S, DuiiullSEs llNt SbO1N NOANi ibtNS an iota to the capital needed by the Ala bama builders of these roads to complete their work in It's original proportions7 Was 1t a determining skill of finance to break up the $50, GOO, 900 annual commerce of Mobile, our money center, in order to borrow money on Wall street to open Pratt mines?
 The new industrial birth" after thirty five years splendid success, may recur with profit to the example of its progen- itor, the industrial life that was and is not. Let us seek the truth and fear not
 Mobile grew faster in wealth and pop uIation from 1880 to 1S60 than Birming- ham has grown from 1870 to 1900.
 The export commerce of Mobile ,n 1SbO was three times the value of the export commerce of the State in iron and coal in 1900.
 The relation of the African to indus trial life for the first forty years of the State of Alabama is a rudimental fact challenging the judgment of informed statesmen upon the political and soclal effects of that relation. We may speak with much enthusiasm of the Incubus of slavery" until we come to look upon the relative social attainments respective ly of Virginia, where the grandfather was born and reared and of Ohio, where the grandson was born and reared. The narrow trails over which the Scotch traders led their pack ponies from Charleston to Fort Toulouse and back again were blessing then because of their convenience. They would be an Fin cubus'' now if the law should reinstate them for their original uses. The muzzle- loading, fint-lock rifle with which Jack son won the battle of New Orleans would be transposed from the class of military weapons to the class of toy thing and army incubus if the law enforced Its introduction now for former uses.
 President Harrison was ill informed of the two stages of industrial life in Ala bama when he assumed that the later must necessarily have been founded upon the extinguishment of the earlier by rev oIution of any kind whatsoever.
 Alabama had prepared to open to com merce the mineral wealth within her bauds within the life time of the first generation of men born within her limits Even so under the incubus of slavery.
 I refer to public documents available to all students of the question The slave states are shown to have developed a higher prosperity in the census period from 1850 to 1860, as compared with the period from 1S40 to 1850, than the free