The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-02-04
SENATOR MoReAN's WORK.
Public Education Is Steadily Assuming
 New Aspects.
To the editor of the Age-Herald.

io ehe editor of the Age-Herald.
 cnoer force of advancing conditions, puoiIe education steadily assumes new aspects. It would be fortunate in the in- 'eiest or public education where adults are mostly to be regarded, if the speech or Senator Morgan on the statehood bill now pending would be generally distribut-
 ed. The speech covers an extremely interesting feature of 4he history of the American system of government and the reading is as engaging as a work of romance. The senator is known to be stlll below his normal physical strength and we are informed that much of the
 utterance here was from his chair, privilege especially allowed to him for the occasion. Certainly 1t Is not too early py means of this speech or otherwise, to correct some of the Alabama legally sell eeted and enforced text books for use in public schools, in their deliberate per visions of the written laws and It's ori- gin.
 The statehood bill pending and to be voted on by the Senate Tuesday, Febu- ary :, proposes to combine New Mexico, l22,5 5SO square miles, about three times the area of Alabama, with Arizona, 113,020 square miles to make a single state The
 new state thus made would be approxi- mately six times as large as Alabama. The population, 32l,474 souls, consists of some whites with mixed breeds of Mexi- cans, 1ndians Chinese, and Japanese in the controlling majority, all of whom would become citizens with voting pow CT to offset the electorate reforms in all the older states to a degree
 The Dill further proposes to combine Oklahoma, 39,030 square miles with h. dian Territory 31, 400 square miles to make | a single state, little larger than the state of Missouri. The population of
 this second new state would be 444 360 Not more than one fourth of the five civ lilzed tribes with whom the United States by solemn treaty exchanged h. dian Territory for lands partly in Ala bama and others states of the south- west are now pure bred Congress has continuously legislated for seventy years to open that great land to whites. White men have gone among the Choctaws, Greeks, Chickasaws Cherokees and Sem inoles and intermarried with them to get their lands so that now the pure bred red race there is largely in the minority and will ultimately disappear.
 The Alabama Senator asserts that the majority in Congress has for many years pursued policy of injustice to the states a view. The purpose has devuoped to re- tain for the rich comparative small states of the east a preponderanee of power in the Senate by which legislation is shaped or hindered and in the electoral college by which a Prsident with con- stantly augmentive ollgarchc power is elected. Hence the present bill to con solidate vast acres west of the Mississippi into two states. California, Colorado,
  have a combined area, for the six of l TOP, ,9S5 square miles with twelve Senator's | while the twelve senators from the New
 England states represent an area of less l than one tenth of the western six states, nearly 66,465 square miles,
 1 The senator happily demonstrates by | his recital of history, that the preamble
 of constitution for" the United States
 sets forth a fundamental proposition up- | on which the whole upper structure of government is founded The government
 Is flor ourselves and posterity." The race of people which met in | convention at Philadelphia in May 17S7,
 to legislate by their representatives were
 white men and no other. Yourselves and
 our posterity' were white men, present | and no other
 | 1 quote from the Senator: "If there re-
 mains an element of disintegration in our | government 1t is in the expansion of | statehood, so as to admit the inferior rac-
 es into the exercvises of the sovereignty | that belongs to the white race. l We have already enough inhabitants in | our insular possessions to form twenty
 states each of 500,0O0 population, nearly | all of whom are inferior races. Who
 dares even to contemplate this transfer 1 of the sovereign powers of the govern
 ment of the United States into their
 hands?"
 JOHN WITHERSPOON, DUBOSE. Montgomery February ?, 1905.