The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-09-26
HE President has begun work on his annual message to congress
 and Oyster Bay must preserve

1 HE President has begun work on \CD his annual message to congress
 and Oyster Bay must preserve silence while the important document is given birth. For the benefit of politicians it Is announced that the present work is merely preparatory and no definite plans have yet been formulated. There will be several important topiees to be touched upon by MT. Roosevelt and his views on these subjects will be awaited with in- terest by the American public. Although republicans think indications point to the reelection of Roosevelt it will require careful diplomacy to prevent further weakening of his forces. If the annual message is to be anything at all like his western speeches there will be little ben eft derived. During the past few years the whilom Rough Rider has become an adept in the art of saying a great deal and leaving a chaos of ideas in the minds of his hearers. However, in document of this kind he will have to be more explicit and we may therefore expect public questions to be sufficiently dis eussed according to Rooseveltian lights.
 The deadly switchfrog continues to gather in it's victims. Every day or two we hear of some poor fellow caught and ground to death beneath a train It seems that some ingenious mind would get to work in an effort to devise way for eliminating this ever present danger to switchmen. It Is true that the modern switch would have to be considerably modified but the greatest pains and ex- pense would be warranted in view of the fact that so many lives are lost every year. People wonder how man can be so careless as to get his foot caught in frog wheA he has had the terrible warning impressed upon his mind so of ten. But when a trainman is at work he becomes indifferent to trifes and seldom thinks of his danger until it is too late and the locomotive is bearing down upon him to bring him to instant death.
 The Washington Times has begun crusade against the loafers in public parks. This paper wisely points out that the beauty of a pleasant landscape Is marred by a miscellaneous aggregation of loafers and buns who are neither useful nor ornamental. It is a sugges- tion that could be acted upon with good effect in all our larger cities Wherever there is public park numbers of idlers can be found lolling on the seats in slow enly ease, or shuffiing along the drives A park is essentially for beauty and recreation. The tramp may object that because he is poor and homeless he should be allowed to participate in it's benefits as much as any one else. It is probably this very argument that pre- vents city governments passing ordi- nances to keep him out. Then again it is hard to tell just who are the tramps in some cases. To deny man out of work the pleasure of a seat would be un- just in the extreme. However, the point of the argument is to allow in public parks persons who are capable of appre- ciating their beauties and bar worthless characters unclean morally and physi- cally.
 This has been a noted year on the American turf. Record after record has been broken with remarkable regularity. and the public has become so accustomed to seeing scare headlines over race track news that it has become callous At all the big meets phenomenal horses were developed. The two-minute trotter, the dream of the cntury, has been realized in the year 1903, and the honor belongs to Lou Dillon. Major Delmar has lowered the gelding record to 2:OOA. The wagon record, the half mile record for trot- ters, and the mares record for pacers have also been smashed. Now comes Prince Alert to pace the fastest mile of the century and clip two full seconds from the time of Champion Dan Patch. Even Billy Buck. former Birmingham horse, very popular with citizens of this town, has made a splendid record Not very long ago he was no better known than the carriage horses that trot along