The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-05-12
Eetfers to tbe Gdftor
A MEETING
That Seems to Have Been Overlooked.

|
 True. Bishop, Galloway's opening ad- oress was the nohlest appeal to patriot 1 ism and to all the civic virtues; true f Walter FNsge3 made all to realize the criminality and shamefulness of idleness
 and of lack of training in the presence or our rich, but poorly-tilled fields: true
 that the Southern superintendents drove
 nome the logic of local taxation for local schools; Professor Smith of the Univer- sity or North Carolina described the con tinuous inter-relation of the practical and the literary. and the impetus each gives I to the other and to the national life; true, too that in the impromptu ad- dresses of men like Bishop McVickers of Rhode Island and Bishop Lawrence of | Massachusetts, were the good will, cour- tesy and loving kindness which, at last were the crowning charm of MT. ogdens guests No, 1t was IA gathering or choice spirits in the clesE room of the Jefferson that the finest occurrence came l to pass-finest to Birmingham and to Alabama.
 | On Thursday. April 2sth, the second day | of the conference, at half past 10 o'clock in the morning, met in this little room. 1 by invitation of Judge Feagfn, about dozen of the members of the ogden | party. men and women--and six or eight native Alabamians.
 Judge Feagin sat as is his habit, on
 high stool his Rheumatism and conse- | quent stiffness of limb preventing his occupying the ordinary comfortable
 chairs. Dr. Cummings and Mir Thorne sat on window seat. pr. Cummings l Is the successor of Edward Everett Hs," in his Boston pulpit, and MT. Thorne VI the son-in-law of the poet, Longfellow- | and is a distinguished capitalist and l philanthropist
 To be near Judge Feagin is to feel your self in the presence of genuine unaffected l goodness and of such brotherly love as | would transform the world-if all possess | ed 1t. | Very simply the Judge set out the object of the meeting. and began to say 1 that he had invited these friends to | come together to hear of matter that he believed would interest them. a sub | tect with whose conditions he desired to | acquaint them, and on which he wished | them to report when they returned to l their far-away fomes--and this subject | was the reform of the young negro crimi- | nals..
 In fewest words he described the plan 1 he had conceived and was trying to per- | fect-of putting the little black pick | aninnies brought into his court for trial, in homes on farms to work. supervised by negro probation officer. male or female and spoke of Ian effort" to help l the negroes to establish reformatory. His intimates knew that the effort was
 made entirely by himself and some friends whose interest he had enlisted. Here he asked Mrs. R. D. Johnson of Birnn- ingham to tell of her success in establish
 
 Lake. suburb of the Magic City. It should have been stated that Mrs.
 Johnson, Mrs. c. F. Orr talso of Birm- ingham) and Mrs. Kate Morrisette of Montgomery were sitting together near the Judge, and that Miss Julia Tutwiler, distinguished Southern educator was there, also Mrs. Erwin Craighead, wife of the editor of The Mobile Register. and a member of the Board of the Boys fn- dustrial School. Mrs. c. T. Randall a charming club woman devoted to hospital work and Mrs. A. J. Riddle. editor of the
 organ of the Women's Clubs. Montgom- cry was represented by w. H. Thomas, judge of the criminal division of the City Court.
 Upon the invitation of Judge Feagin Mrs. Johnson rose and in her inimitable and che rming style told the story of the establishing of the Reformatory at East Lake. As her words fell limpid. clear heartsome and sweet. the Northerners the men at least looked at each other as If to say: ''Is it possibie-that done
 by women. and In Alabama? The fair
 patrician faces of the Northern women
 said: What? An Alabama woman talk
 ing like thatT' When she sat down, such
 Mrs Craighead was invited to say
 something of reforma tory work, as was
 Mrs. Orr president of tho Alabama Feder- alton of Women's Clubs. Both respondei
 finely. Mrs. Morrisette, too, was asked
 but contented herself with an assurance
 of deepest interest and the expression of
 desire to waste none of the time which she wished to employ in listening to
 others.
 Judge Thomas was asked to speak.
 With earnestness, and with sympathetic
 wisdom born of judicial experience and
 fostered by the tenderest humanity, he
 described the poor degenerate little
 pickaninnies who came into his court ac-
 cused of crimes which relegated them
 to penitentiary or coal mnes-and he
 rA0icfnNnd vHror rYan nf
 Judge Feagin's plan to save them by a
 probationary system extended to the per
 manence of reformatory. Pathetic in-
 cidents he gave to show the helpless ignorance and wrong-doing of young negroes, the hopelessness of sending them to jail and penitentiary and the peril they became to their own race and to the country. He was heard with profound attention, and made an impression which. no doubt will abide In the hearts of those good people who went back the next night to their homes In the North 1t will in the hearts of his fellow Alaba- mians
 Then Dr. Cummings turned to Judge Feagin and asked him to outline his plans. his purposes, and his ideas on this subject, assuring him of his own perfect sympathy.
 Rarely has a man such listeners Rarely does a man speak with the abso- lute self-effacement which characterized the words of the simple recital that fell from truthful lips on those who had ears to hear" and who came not to mock. but to consult together. Attention deepen ed as he told the naked facts of the criminality of the young negroes Of the
 "black belt'--a story to chill the blood of any man who loves his fellow men. He spoke luminously of the possibility f rescue and reform through an organized probation and reformatory system. He told how the negroes had been led, min isters of churches and good negro women, to band together to watch over the cul- prits whom he sentenced to supervised work on farms, their employers signing certain papers whose contents he gave, and their negro guardians reporting regularly once a month to himself. All this and more he told. and ended with a plea for encouragement of the negroes who were trying to solve their problem by working on the children of their race uplifting their own natures in the child saving efforts. Pausing he looked into the moved faces around him and begged to speak of a radical defect in the ad- ministration of law in Alabama and in most of the other States. In words so simple that all could understand. he noted the fee system and it's corrupting tendency, and emphasized the unwisdom of making officers of the law put money in their pockets by fees for convictions and imprisonments. As he broadened out into remedies to be applied by Chris | tan statesmen and judges, the faces of those about him were radiant with ap- preciation.
 When he finished. Dr. Cummings i'm mediately rose, and stepping to the center Of the circle. said that never had he seen such high ground taken on this subject; that in New England he had studied 1t | and been practically engaged in its ac- tlVltles, and that he had thought he knew