The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-07-23

James R. Randall, in Catholic Columbian.
p UGuSTA, GA, July.-Having
| Vt short vacation I naturally turned
to my old home in Georgia where
my family continue to reside. l find this
city very much improved and instinct
with new life. Business is prosperous.
higher-priced cotton to remain indefinite
| ~ and a strenuous chamber of commerce
have installed a spirit of energy and pro-
gressveness in this venerable town which
gives it an air of impetuous youth instead
of torpid antiquity. 1t Is one of the best
paved and cleanest of cities, with beautl-
is famous for its many cotton mills, its
noble Savannah river and for the hospi
tally and chivalry of its men and the
comliness and charms of its women. 1t
! is favorte turist hotel center, in win
| ter, and some rich northern people have
built elegant abodes on It's highlands. 1t
pleased God to allow me to survive my
usefulness in this once adopted home,
but 1t also pleased Him and me also that
my last days, which are still vigorous,
should be passed in the home of my early
manhood, by the banks of the Father of
Waters and in the coming New York
of the south.
l left New Orleans at night. For more
than a hundred miles along the Mississippi
sound. on the magnificent Louisville and
Nashville train, the air was hot and the
mosquitoes were annoying; but once in the
rolling pine region there was no insect
that most of us closed the windows. While
a considerable area of Louisiana suffered
from protracted drouth, and heated at
mospheres, the region beyond, eastward,
had superabundance of rain and a con-
sequent GOODNESS, which l experienced for
more than tive hundred miles and which
is evident in my present habitation. The
corn and cotton crops of Alabama and
Georgia were strikingly contracted. On
the same kind of land, chiefly red clay
subsoil, the crops in Alabama were far
inferior to those of Georgia. I can only
ascribe 1t to the superior fertllzng and
culture of the latter commonwealth, and
that the Georgians, as class, are much
the more progressive and energetic people.
Alabama is naturally more highly endow
ed than Georgia, but her advantages are
not properly utilized, outside the mineral
region around Birmingham. If Norfolk,
Va, had such inhabitants as Richmond,
it would be one of the greatest of sea-
ports, which is not the case now. Thomas
jefferson said that "the Almighty having
constituted tide water Virginia as one of
the most favored spots on earth, cursed
it with fish and oysters meaning that
the ease with which mere living could
be obtained made the people there lazy
or neglectful of their opportunities. The
red hills of Alabama and Georgia are re-
sponslve generously to fertilizlng and
culture The Georgians have agricultur-
ally coaxed the soil Into luxuriance while
only too many Alabamans neglect the
land and 1t manifests its resentment. And
when you get from Alabama into Georgia
you are struck with the brightness, the
thrift and the progress OF the towns and
hamlets along the line, startlingly differ
ent from Alabama settlements. The trans
formation is due to the people, for Ala
bama, according to Sir Lowthian Bell, Is
the best endowed, all round state in the
American union I am alfuding in this
running SKETCH u tue IVY SN'SS S
from a car window.
While on the train l read for the second
time Hugh Garlands Life of John Ran
dolph." 1t is a little didactc, but has the
traits that make "Bosweifs Life of john
SOM the best biography in the language.
| advise the intelligent young man OF
this union to get and read this illuminat-
ing volume. In comparatively brief COM
pass they will memorably learn what too
many of them are densely ignorant about,
the formation of the union, the evolution
of the constitution and the characters of
the great men who fashioned 1t. They will
learn that there were In those early times
two classes of statesmen. the one repre-
scented by Thomas Jefferson mainly, who
believed In the strict construction of the