The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-03-24

but hardly good leaders of the free AnRio-Saxon of the twentieth century.
 aAlabamians have ascertained by bitter experience that 1t is right and best to protect by law. A law enacted to the best limitation of protection is the best. It is true thta we have real ized on this experience at late date; 1t is true these laws have been made at a late date. but the state should carry them through at every hazard
 'Particular allusion has been made to the demurraga laws recently enac- ted. Those laws were taken almost bodily from the Virginia statute: they have been sustained and approved by the Supreme Court: they have been sustained and approved by the expe- rience of Virginia; they are fair to both sides, and from the very nature of the case they are necessary and should be enforced.
 If by any manner of means the courts should find flaw in them, so necessary are they, so important are they. that it would pay the state to correct and sustain them even if we had to call an extraordinary session of the Legislature.
 Has Been One Sided.
 The demurrage laws carrying car service and car furnishings. as en-
 
 sidered, onerous and in large measure destructive to business. The Legisla- ture would have been very dereiict tn It's duty not to have enacted a sta- tute covering the necessities of the case.
 '.Mr. Finley lays particular stress on the statement that in the face of re- cent Legislation his company cannot sell any more securities with which to get money to repair his road, to furnish proper rolling stock. etc. I will simply suggest to Mir. Finley that if his company would stop paying in terest on watered stock and take the earnings of the road and put Into these repairs and improvements, he would be following the method of every other business on earth except that of rail- roads.
 T will call his attention to the fact that the people of Alabama have but little sympathy with that poverty of condition which comes from q stretch ing of resources to make Wall Street foatations for the purpose of building and placing securities.
 T will call hls attention to the fact that his system of roads in Alabama are capitalized at over s60.00a a mile, a sum much more than they are worth, and that Alabama would look with alarm upon the issuing of an additional amount of bonds to be added to this sse,o0e mile. and then to clean ct our courts the right to exercise the functions of increased charges on the bushes of Alabama to pay interest on same Tn other words, exacting further tribute from the bust. ness of this State to secure the noata- ton of securities on Wall Street.
 '"To illustrate: At the Avondale Mills we are going to throw out the old looms in our mill and put in new ones at an additional and heavy cost. We are not going to put additional bonds on the mill; we are going to take the credit of the mili and the incomes from the business of the mill to mack these Improvements. and if in the making of these Improvements we cannot pay interest or dividends to our stockholders. then interest will stop until after the mill has caught up with expenses.
 worse Than DOvv1s Faith.
 And 1t seems to bo climax of faith. a climax that goes beyond the Dowie period even, to ask the citizens of Alabama to stand aside with our protecting laws while such transac- tions as that shown by the Hartman method of running the roads is abroad in the land--the transactions that Sen- ator Cullom of Illinois, says ought to put Mir. Hartman in the penitentiary. and I rather think Senator Cullom is right.
 'Tn all kindness to Mir. Finley. I want to asure him that coming from my faith in the righteousness of the people of Alabama. I feel sure that they will extend to his company every degree of fairness, and that they will go to the fullest extreme of mind and brawn to furnish business for his conn pany; but also that they are going to exact from his company the last de- 1t by the limitations of law than by continued faith in a foreign trust
 This Legislation has not come to stay four years, as intimated by Mir. Thom, general counsel for the South ern Railway It is here, believe. trust and pray, forever, and would