The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-01-19
MrrELY MUDpYrNc THE WATER.


 MERELY MUDDyrNG THE WATER.
 Some of the newspaper friends of Mir. Conner are reprinting the copy of his alleged Tuscaloosa speech which appeared last week in The Birmingham News. and at the same time are re- beating The News blundering excuse for that performance. One of these thick and-thin partisans published at Opelika says:
 Tn this issue will be found the speech It will be remembered that The Mont, gomery Advertiser published, severn weeks ago, what that paper asserten to be a verbatim report of this speech; If there be those who read that repols who see this, we invite them to read the speech, as 1t appears In The NeWs today, and make note of now Tar 1He Advertiser wandered from the facts m the case. when 1t asserted that lt hau a verbatim report of the address. Mir. Conner made his Tuscaloosa speech on December sth Neither he nor any of his newspaper friends were en- terprising enough to secure steno- graphic report of it. The Advertiser, alone did so. It printed that report on. December 18th. The Birmingham News printed it's report on January sth, over month afterward. These are incon- trovertible facts.
 In this month Mir. Conner did not dis pute the accuracy of The Advertisers stenographic report, publicly or pri- yately so far as we ever heard. Neither did The Birmingham News or any oth- CT of his newspaper friends. On the contrary, after The Birmingham News came out with it's month old report and its ridiculous excuse for its curious performance, MT. Conner here in Mont gomery took the pains to inform a representative of The. Advertiser that he did not mean by the printing of his speech in The News to reflect upon The Advertisers report. and that he did not endorse The News editorial ex- planation of the publication.
 The facts of the case are probably jusr about on this wise:
 Mir. Conner is not a trained thinker or speaker. His deliverances from the stump are not at all logical in reason ing, smooth in wording or forcibie in delivery. Heis rambling, crude and in | effective as a speaker. The two yer i batim reports of his speeches in these I columns prove this. The failure of 1 himself and of his newspaper friends for weeks past to secure and reproduce a stenographic report of their own is still more convincing proof. He hasn't wanted verbatim copies of his speeches I in the public press. The Advertiser l perceived this situation and decided tc let the reading public of the State sec in print just what a poor presentation of his own cause he was making. We have done this, and that is the cause of the present situation.
 Mir. Conner and his friends decided that it was necessary to break th' force of these verbatim reports of hi; speeches by getting into print the sort of speech that ought to be made bS him and that they would like the peo' pie to read. Accordingly after month of delay and toll the Birming ham product was prepared. Doubtless The Advertisers shorthand report wal used as a basis for the revision. TheI the things that ought to have beer said were put in, and the things tha' ought not to have been said were taker out. The Tuscaloosa crudity was paret and polished into decent mediocrity Then 1t was put into The News, yer, probably for some consideration, fol The News is too much of newspapel to print a month old speech as a mat ter of news or of choice. Of course The News had to give some sort of ex cuse for It's belated performance, anC it hit upon the idea of alleging 1t tC be for the purpose or correcting pre- vious inaccurate reports That was ; piece of thoughtlessness. for it wat untrue and unjust to The Advertiser which had made the only full report o the Tuscaloosa speech.
 The Conner papers are hard put to | in this matter. Their candidate ii simply not an effective speaker. anC they are trying to hide the fact by ar raigning The Advertiser. Muddyint the water is an old game. but it doe' not fool many of the people even for |; short time, and none of them for { long time.