The age-herald., 1902-04-03
Mr. London Replies to Oren- nen's Statement About His
 Water Co.'s Affiliations
IS LIKE FALSTAFF IN
 NOT GIVING REASONS
Charges That Mayor Has Ignored Op- portunity to Get Cheaper Water for Poor, While Pondering
 to the Rich.

FIX E R. Alex T. London has sent an HWE open letter to Mayor Drennen in \ VA reply to the Mayors interview, printed in the Age-Herald Sunday morn ing. The interview referred to was in the nature of a reply to a letter from Mr. London published at the same time.
 Mayor Drennen charged that MT. Lon don, while criticising him, was interested in the Birmingham Water Company a corporation, the Mayor characterized as an oppression of the people. MT. London declares that he is neither director nor a stockholder in the water company, and that Mayor Drennen makes the charge to transfer scrutiny from his own record. MT. Londons letter follows:
 Birmingham, Ala, April ?, 1902 Hon. Walter Melville Drennen, Mayor of
 Birmingham:
 Dear Sir-I read your statement in Sun days Age-Herald in connection with the open letter there published-your dear
 
 You are justly credited with being an adroit politician and I must now credit you with great aptitude in taking advice, even from those who ask you hard ques- tions. Cut, my dear MT. Mayor, you should bear in mind that you are not now an Alderman seeking preferment, without record; you are a Mayor, with a record of your own making, and as much as you might like to blot out or conceal part of it, you cannot do so.
 You made your own bed, and you boast of 1t in your message, and make further boasts of it in your statement You floated into the office you hold on water, but you cannot make that an issue now. You have condemned yourself as I shall show.
 RECALLS FALLSTAFF.
 Your statement recalls one of the keen- est pieces of humor in Shakespeare. Old Falstaff and his registering companions have waylaid and robbed lot of travel CTS, and Prince Hal and Poins had in turn in spirit of fun, despoiled the rob- bers and had returned to their inn, when Falstaff appeared and began to tell of how he had been robbed of his ill-gotten gains. As he recounted his. experiences the number Of his assailants increased from two to one hundred, and at last enthused with his own story, he said though it was so dark he could not see Lis hand before him-that his assaiants were dressed in kendall green, and there upon the prince, having cornered him, asks: Why, how couldst thou know these men in kendall green, when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? tall xxyI1a thou to this" And Poins says: Come, your reason, Jack. your reason
 And old FalstaH replies: What, upon compulsion? Zoundsl an I were at the strappado or all the racks in the world, l would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion! If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries I would give no man reason on compulSion, 1" TO AVOID SCRUTINY.
 If everything you say was true, which it Is not your stat ement is merely an at- tempt to take advantage of a wholly im- material issue to avoid scrutiny of your own record, which. as I suggested, was the only course open to you.
 have only few remarks to make up- on your statement to show how inaccur- ate and partial 1t is.
 The most casual investigation would have disclosed to you that I am neither a director or stockholder In the Water Works Company, nor have I been for four years, and you know I never con- trolled the company; and you might have added, if you had been candid, that when I was director, I induced those in con- trol to make the committee of Aldermen, of which you were chairman, proposi- ton to reduce the water rates on small consumers to six dollars per year on three room house, which meant a saw fa nf npr md that you refused to consider 1t, and att tempted by ordinance to violate the con- tract which the city had made, and thereby drove the Water Works Com pany to resort to the courts to prevent the confiscation of its property and thus, by your own action, you compelled the poorer class of consumers to pay this S15oOO yearly for the past four years, or s6O0OO in all, which the water company had voluntarily offered to give up, and instead, gave your services as Mayor. TAX UPON POOR.
 And having imposed this unnecessary and burdensome tax of $15,000 year up- on the poor for the past four years, you now boast of having given the rich some SOD by an ordinance to prohibit charge for sprinkling lawns, and under take to deny the right of the Water Works Company to test the validity of your ordinance in the courts.
 Has it ever occurred to you that a water company has some legal rights that even a Mayor of Birmingham, who secured his first election by an attempt to destroy it, and an appeal to popular prejudice, is bound to respect? I don't think I will ever be foolish enough to join you in any effort to aid the public, if I am to judge you by your public record; I see where the public comes in on your plat hut in
 But all this is apart from what the putlic wishes to know for 1t makes no inference who, or what I am or what tho rights of the water company are, the question is simple
 Will you be good enough to explain how it is that you have increased the expenditures of the city oyer $166,OO0 a year and still the children in the city schools pay for tuition sS7oo year? TAKES UP HIS RECORD.
 am very much obliged to you for call