The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-04-03
Is Our Friend Conner Sincere in His
 ArIifraru Doc;f;oop

Arbitrary PositionP
 The Labor Advocate, Birmingham, Ala, March 19. 1904.
 The Campaign Committee of our friend B. B. Conner Is yet flooding the country with literature that makes the bold state ment that a vote for Conner Is a vote | for lower freight rates. This statement | Is as arbitrary as has been the actions of the aforesaid. "our friend" B. B. Co., mer. during his business career in Bir- mingham
 We would first consider the question of whether or not a vote for Conner is vote for lower freight rates The laws on this question are definite and the Presi- dent of the Commission can have vote only in the case of a tie, and it would be impossible for him to become Czar and rule absolute. as he does the Avon dale Mills. as in Alabama we are not looking for CZars, political bosses or turn everything upside down. people. Would it be a reasonable proposition for the railroads who employ thousands of men to have their incomes so decreased that they could not modernize their lines and maintain living wages for their em- ployes and give to the public that effi- cient service that should be expected? As | an organ of working men it Is of course to our interest to loon out for their in- terests. and their interests are certainly m HdNlnR the DeSI pOSSlDle wage ana the safest working conditions to be ob- tained So much for the arbitrary propo- stion of reducing rates. or rule or ruin policy. that our friend Conner Is making a slogan.
 From best facts obtainable Conner goes on the theory that meat on one day a week is enough for any worker. In the enterprises of which he has dad the con trolling hand, the lowest possible wage to sustain life in his serfs is paid. These facts should and will be presented to the voters of Alabama. We have no parti- san interest in this question and there are not in Birmingham any more willing than ourselves to have the freight rates properly adjusted, so that the consumer as well as the jobber, wholesaler and the shipper from our territory will be bene- fited We are as unwilling to see q man placed in this office whose record for 1 fairness towards the mass of the people has placed him in san unenviable position in the eyes of our wage-workers. Is he sincere, and if sincere. how could the greatest benefit be derived from one who is so arbitrary as Is shown in his utterances in this campaign?
 l Children worK for 10 cents a day or 60 cents a week (66 hours per week. In the Avondale Cotton Mills of which B. B [. Conner is President and High Mogul, and | 10 cents a day will not purchase the nee essaries of life for any healthy child. much less dressing them in a raiment
 that would fit them to attend a Sunday
 School. Yet this same man, only short
 while back-not far enough back for 1t
 not to be fresh in the memory of those
 who love the cause of humanity-pro-
 posed to endow Chinese Sunday School.
 or to fit up a room for our fair women
 who from a mistaken idea oi duty, would
 go and sit in the same seat and try to
 instiu Christianity into the head of the
 heather who has his own idol and is the
 greatest peril known today to the Cau- casian race in the world. This is our friend Conner. It should be easy to craw , your own conclusions.