The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-04

is. In a vain effort to stem the tide of a century and half of blood Red Buck" Bryant, city editor of the Char lotte Observer, has a large placard hung in his office which bears the legend: No forensic disputations allowed" But what's the use? Since 1919 there has ragged an irrepressible conflict concern ing the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. Of the resolves" of May 31 there is no doubt, as they were printed in newspapers of the time, The original copy of the fa- nous declaration having been destroyed, some historians have endeavored to dis prove the story of its adoption. The weight of the testimony Is on the side of the declaration, and in Charlotte a "disbeliever" is a historical outcast. Yet they have disputed, have these hornets, for nearly hundred years and still it goes on. Only once a year Is the ques tion laid by-on the twentieth of May. Then the gay colors of the national flag, the stirring strains of martial mu- sic and the detonation of fireworks unite to obscure for the time the unpa- triotic infidels. On the morrow, how ever, they emerge and for another year the forensic disputations go on, de- spite Red Bucks" protestations.
 Sam Jones, the redoubtable evangelist who feared nothing, once spoke of the Mecklenburg convention as crowd of drunken squirrel hunters" The indgna- ton In Charlotte was such that he had to take 1t back" although Sam Jones was not given to recantins. Col. Ham Jones, for many years one of the leading lawyers at the Charlotte bar, was visit ing in another North Carolina town. Someone asked him what he thought of the authenticity of the Mecklenburg decla ration. He arose, tiptoed to the windows pulled down the blinds. locked the door, turned out the light and whispered: "I don't believe a word Of it. but tell 1t not in Charlotte
 If that question is wearisome, these hornets will take up a gage thrown by any man who Is at once so brave and so foolish as to intimate that there is possibility that Andrew Jackson was born in South Carolina. The hornets have marked the place where "Old Hickory" was born with a monument of Tar Heel granite. That monument stands in Union county, North Carolina, formerly part of Mecklenburg. and a full 4S0 feet north of the line which divides the domain of the governor of North Carolina from that of the governor of South Carolina. The Mecklenburgers have Old Hickory himself as a witness on their side, but the wicked South Carolinians led by Col J. C. Hemphill, editor of the Charleston News ana COurler, nave sought tune anu again, and are now seeking, to prove that Jackson didn't know where he was born. These brave and foolhardy sons of the Palmetto state have learned to their sorrow that Cornwallis was right these Charlotte folks are hornets.
 Charlotte is proud of its history. monument to the signers of the Meek lenburg declaration stands in front of the court house, another monument in front of the custom house honors William Ewen Shipp, a lieutenant who fell at San Juan in the battle of Santiago. On the side walks about town are set tablets mark ing the house where Cornwallis made his headquarters, and the inn where George Washington was entertained when he was the guest of the city and the president of the country. Another tablet marks the spot where Jefferson Davis stood making a speech when he was handed a telegram announcing the as- sassination of Abraham Lincoln. Not far away is the house In which the last meet ing of the cabinet of the Confederate states government was held.
 Tomorrow-"Cotton Fields and Truck Patches"