The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1905-11-07
LARGE CROWDS LISTEN
TO RIVAL ASPIRANTS
Bach Tells Of His Qualifica :
lions for Office.
rlfIk and Water Phase of the Campaign
HISS Passed, nnd Hard blows
Are acknowledgements
and Environment.


By Will +. Sheehan.
ehefaeld. Nov. Especial Lieu
tenant Governor r. M. Cunningham
and President B. B. Conner of the Rail-
road Commission met twice today in
joint discussion of their candidacy for
Governor. and the oratorical fight was
hot and heavy.
The milk and water phase Of the
campaign has passed. There was no
Alphonse and CASTOR bowling, but 1t
was give and take, and hard blows they
were. too.
Mr. Conner was vehement, emphatic
and excited. His voice at times was
shrill to indistinctiveness. He went
over the same story that he had told
OF the crusade he had made and what
had been done to him by the railroad
attorneys.
He quit complimenting DR.. Cunning
ham, and attacked him as being too
friendly to the corporations. He
charged him with being in Europe
when what he called the peoples fight
was on. and he asserted that DIR. Cum
ningham had never declared himself
on the peoples fight, although asked to
do so. He charged that corporations
were supporting DIR. Cunningham, the
same influences that fought him as a
candidate for President of the Railroad
Commission.
CmNkkUmAM&WN 10 Ime Fore.
Mr.. Conner walked UP and down In
front of the speakers platform. shak-
ing some OF the advertisements printed
In the papers about him in the
last campaign. He pointed out these
ana his other wrongs and, In a culver
Ing voice, denounced the corporations
and now and then he would call out re-
peatedly environments" environ
ments. and, agatn looking at DIR. Cum
ningham. he would say. "You," you"
you" NJ q
The ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS was in
goo6 voice, and kept himself well in
hand He, too was aggressive He
haunted Mr. Conner with the fact that
he5had been defeated for the Constitu-
ftSnals Convention In Jefferson County
and that he had lost Jefferson County
In the last campaign. This came up
when he was talking of environment,
and the way each candidate stood in
his home county and the counties in
which they had lived.
DR.. Cunningham discussed the ques-
ton of evolution. Mr.. Conner appeared
first as a shipper with a grievance. He
evolved then into lobbyist, around
the Legislature, and from a lobbyist
he evolved into u candidate for the
Constitutional Convention, and from
defeated candidate he evolved as a
candidate for President of the Commits
sion.
And now, my friends" said the Lieu
tenant-Governor, "he has evolved into
a candidate for Governor. And itsn't
1t reasonable to suppose that he Is go
ing to keep on evolving until he is a
candidate for the United States Sem
ate?"
Conner Did the Talking.
Mr.. Conner. the speaker said, had
made a popular record on the railroad
q mt in
the light and done the talking. His
own record was reviewed back to 1882.
TT was made in committee, 1t was
made in accomplishments; II was made
by doing something not by talking.
You talk about the man behind the
guns" he said. pointing to Mr.. Conner.
Il shoot gun that shoots bullets, not
a gun that shoots nothing but hot
air..
He charged Mr.. Conner with jumping
on his band wagon in talking up the
proposition that the legislature should
classify the railroads and fix the max
imum rates.
Mr.. Conner. the speaker said, had
jumped upon the band wagon as soon
as he saw that the position was liable
to be popular.
Mr.. Conner took the unique position
that because DR.. Cunningham had said
that If elected Governor he would con
fine himself to the statutory and con-
stitutfonal limitations of the Office of
the Governor and not try to be SUI
preme court and legislature as well, !"
that very statement untitled him for
the office.
DR.. Cunningham, in his reply, re-
peated the statement, and then said
that he would have first taken the
oath of ONCE and to keep that oath
he could do nothing else.
The first joint discussion was at
Russellville at noon. A crowd of per-
haps 500 people heard the first joint
discussion of the campaign.
At s o'clock the candidates, with a
body guard of newspaper men. moved
The speaking was in the lobby Of the
Sheffield Hotel where probably 400
people gathered.
j. c. Harris, a former mayor and a
capitalist, presided and introduced the
speakers. In each discussion the can
didates had each one hour and fifteen
minutes.
Cunningham Opens mt skenaeld.
At Shefield DR.. Cunningham opened.
He went over his record for govern
mental regulations of freight rates
from the time he first voted for a man
datory commission in 1882. He went
on to his vote at the time of the tie
vote in the Senate on the amendment
for the election of members of the Com
mission.
If / had voted Tor the Amendment
this race would not have been on my
hands. and Mr.. Conner would not be
a candidate for Governor"
Mr. Conner took up the first part OF
his address in talking of the Tennessee
River The railroads. he said. had
damned the Tennessee and the people
could not get the use or benefit of it.
He spoke for perhaps thirty minutes oil
the tennessee River and charged the
railroads with discriminating against
the great Tennessee Valley. He init.
mated that DIR. Cunningham had voted
in favor OF the elective Railroad Com
mission because he thought of running
for Governor. In his rejoinder DIR. Gun
ningham started the enthusiasm of this
crowd which seemed evenly divided be
tween the two candidates. He refused
to believe that seay, o'Neal: Jones