The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-11-06

mitted, denounce 1t. when once you
 are convinced of your duty, then talk It. not in whispers or in secret, but in
 loud voice, and in public places You
 need not make a public speech or ad-
 dress. but you can tell 1t to your neigh
 bor and friend, and, If he has not like
 faith, then convince him, and he in turn
 can repeat 1t and thus it is brought to
 the test of criticism.
 The power of public opinion Is admit
 ted. It's strength is measured by it's in-
 tellgence and herein lies the value of
 education, and our plain duty to give
 every aid to advance and promote it.
 We are guilty of the sins of cowardce
 and hypocrisy, we profess what we do not believe, we conform to the letter. and not
 to the spirit of our expressed faiths.
 We profess to deplore the cheapness of
 human life, and yet permit white men to
 go armed with concealed weapons. in
 violation of law. ready to deal death to
 their fellows. You say you condemn all
 these things. but how. They are occasion
 ly discussed in academic fashion, but
 there is no real public sentiment against
 them On the contrary, we are teach
 ing the ignorant and less favored to de-
 spse law by our failure to enforce 1t.
 Is it surprising that negroes carry con
 cealed weapons, when they know the
 law is not enforced against the white
 men? Is 1t strange that boys imbbe
 spirit of lawlessness when they have the
 evidence continually before them that
 the laws are not enforced by their eld-
 CTS?
 These boys are to be the men who are
 to control and direct the destinies of this
 city and county and state. and upon
 whose moral character and standing Is to
 depend its future, and we set them the
 example of looking with indifference upon open violations of the laws of our own
 making. Will this tend to build charac- ter? Will this make men? Do these things forebode good for the future? We are in a mad scramble for material
 wealth, and we measure men. not by their characters or by what they have
 done for society, but by how much money they have accumulated. If man Is suc- cessful in business, we never inquire how he acquired his fortune. We adopt lagos advice, put money In thy purse It seems to me that our manifest duty both to ourselves and society. Is to ele- vate the moral standard; to let the char acter of the individual determine his po- sition in the community, not the length of his purse, and to regard as our fore- most citizen our best citizen--to secure
 justice and respect for law. by demand ing justice for ourselves. and obeying the law.
 Glare of Publicly. All of us know that a large majority of the evils we suffer from, if exposed to the glare of publicity. would cease to exist
 Let us take a survey of the city gov ernment, as being nearest to us, and what l shall say applies with equal force to the county board of revenue. raal lltr ~arl- resent your ideal either in its compost
 ton or its acts? Could the eighteen men there be chosen to manage or control any private enterprise of as large propor-
 ton? Would any of us, if we had power, select these eighteen men to manage our affairs? To each question we answer no. Then one more question-Why are those
 men there? The substance of 1t Is that we do not take our share in political life, we do not play our parts. we remain passive and hence we pay the penalty. If every good man in Birmingham en- titled to vote would announce that he wouldn't go into a primary where an un- fit man was a candidate for office, and ad- here to this announcement, you would re- tire the bad men at once, and permanently for they would have notice that you would not vote for them in the election I recognize the value of party organiza- tion, but to be helpful we need two. Where. in this state, there is but one, independence of its control when 1t does violence to our consciences is our only hope.
 There are many things I could say. but I must refrain from further tresspass upon your patience-one subject, however, I must refer to as vital and imposing paramount duty. If elections are not to be fairly held and votes honestly counted in all elections, whether primary or of ficial 1t is idle to expect or hope for
 any real correction of public evils. How
 can we hope to survive corruption and
 fraud. which go into our very life blood All pretense of excuse for dishonesty in elections has ceased. and we are bound
 as men to see to 1t that the practice of 1t ceases.
 If the people once determine that there shall be no more fraud or corruption in politics, they will visit upon those guilty of these practices not only the moral condemnation of a just public sentiment, but grand juries will indict. and petit 1uyies will convict them. Our laws gro