The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-03-22
DEBATEATGREENSBORO
BANKHEAD AND ROBSON MEET
 IN HALE.
Young Hero is Given an Ovation by the People of His Home Large Crowd is Pres
 eut

Greensboro, March n.-(Speciai.)-The Bankhead-Hobson joint debate today was held in the chapel of the Southern Uni versity. the only auditorium that would hold the crowd of a thousand people. There were people here from all over the County and many came from nearby towns on the trains.
 Hon. W. B. Inge. Chairman, at Il o'clock introduced Captain Hobson, who had the opening speech. Hobson was greeted with an ovation that was inde- scrbabfe. The audience rose to its feet to kheer him again and again. Captain HoBson began with thanking his audi ence and asking for both himself and Colonel Bankhead a respectful hearing. He related the facts of his retirement bill and its defeat at the hands of Col onel Bankhead's friends in suS-com- nhttee in the House of Representatives, showing that the committee had stated 1t was done because Hobsons retirement would permit him to run against Bank head. He graphically told of the service in which his eyes were injured and the justice of his claim, and. told the audi ence a man who would for personal in- terest defeat the just claim of "a constft- uent was not worthy of the trtst of rep resenting the District
 He showed that Bankhead had franked letter to his constituents concerning his d at the end alluding to public measures. He urged that Bankhead had never had examinations. for candidates for Annap- oils or West Point, but had given them where they would secure him political fame.
 He answered the charge by Bankhead that he had spoken to negroes in Wash ineton on the platform with Crumpacker. declaring he had spoken in refutatlon of n orl aH aaNr- ing political and social equality and spoke to them as negroes and not as Crumpacker. did as equals. He told them the Southern people were the negro's friends and those who told them other wise were the enemies of both white and black.
 He said he had spoken in crumpacker's District in Indiana against the attempt to reduce Southern representation be- cause the negro was here disfranchised and asked Bankhead when and where on the floor of Congress or fin a Northern State had he ever made a speech against this attempt to mistreat the South.
 He charged that Bankhead had neglect ed his duty to his District and said he should have tried to secure free rural de- livery or service for the District as oth- CTS had done. In reply to Bankhead's claims to be a friend of good roads, he charged that Bankhead had prevented a good roads resolution being adopted at a convention at Vienna, where 1t was dis cussed.
 He charged that Bankhead had voted to give lands in Walker County to the Tuskegee Institute that were wanted for homesteads by the people. As for the locks on the rivers he said he did not op- pose, but would advocate their compile tion. He criticised their smallness and said in time 1t would be found necessary to enlarge them to accommodate the traffic. He said he stood for locks "A feet wide. feet deep and 800 feet long instead of the size they now are built. He showed that Bankhead had been forced to admit after having denied it, that he was in Montgomery during a session of the Alabama Legislature and had urged pr. Cameron of Sumter Coun- ty. a legislator, to vote against bill to enlarge the powers of the Railroad Com mission. He stated Bankhead had been reported in Birmingham as in conference with Manly Foster, A. M. Tunstall, George P. Harrison and George W. Jones uf Montgomery, the attorneys of the Southern, Louisville and Nashville, Mo- bile and Ohio. and Central Railroads.
 He read from a record seventeen in- stances where Bankhead had voted in the interest of railroads and some of them which had been made party issues by the Democrats. He said corporations are not