The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-11-06
SMASHING THaxGs.

The American people for the past de- eade have been the recipients of un- exampled prosperity. Labor has been paid high wages. Skill in all lines of industrial activity has been demanded. Capital has been amply employed. Our schools and colleges have been filled to overfiowing. Transportation compa- nies have been unable to meet the re- quirements of commerce. Our manu- lecturers haze not only supplied home markets. but have been selling heavily abroad. In Alabama. particularly, suc- cess has attended the intelligent man. agement of agricultural affairs. The farmers lived we'll, paid small taxes, enjoyed life sent their children to in- stitutions of learning and contributed largely to the wealth of every commu- nifty in the State.
 changed! On every hand we hear sounds of general distrust and unrest. Public faith and credit have been shaken. The values of stocks, bonds and all other kinds of negotiable ob- legations have fallen. Cotton is sell ing at one-third less than its fair price. The Gibraftars of finance have beenSs- saulted with the battering rams of ig- norance, prejudice and malice. The outposts of confidence. security and re- pose have been assaulted and injured. Agencies which brought about our splendid development have been de- nounced and viilifed; and alasi alasii the people have hearkened to the voice of the reckless agitator and dema- gogue who have shown themselves to be blindly uninformed as to the great problems and factors. which have caused the superb industrial growth of our Southland.
 New Railroad rates have been put into effect, but without benefit to the retailer or consumer. These classes pay now just as much as ever before for the every day necessities of life, with this unfortunate difference; tho unwise and hurtful interference with the management of corporations in tho South, which in some form or other have supplied the people with food, shelter and raiment, has already cost the Southern farmers more than two hundred million dollars. and thus left them that much less money with which to buy whatsoever they need.
 The picture is not overdrawn. A strange delusion seems to possess the masses. Tn this State taxes have been increased, new offices created and sal aries raised. The million dollars left in the Treasury by the last admins tration have gone. The present com- mercial, industrial and financial situ- ation is not calculated to give joy to any lover of his country. The times are out of joint. The crusade againsL wealth is raging fast and furious. The reign of the demagogue threatens. The judicial tribunals are sought to be dis regarded. Their solemn decrees are held for naught. Executive usurpa- tions have brought the courts of the land into contempt. We have no finan- cial pilot, wise or strong enough, to steer us through this surging whirlpool of political degeneracy, in such man. ner as to avoid the dangerous reefs or escape the perilous shoals. The end is not yet. Disasters lay in wait in all the protean shapes and forms which human jendeavor can assume.
 Our so-calIed leaders, nowadays. gang with the crowd. Instead of trying to guide the populace alright they are ready to climb up into the front seat of any old political wagon which car ries a brass band, and "out- -Herod Herod" in adding to the mischiefs, which the next half century will not be able to undo.
 Patriots ferventiy pray to God that some statesman of the old school may appear upon the scene, of such com manding character and wisdom as to enable him to rectify and relieve tho present ominous condition of affairs, to stop public graft. to prevent individual and national immortality, and to scourge the demagogues and hypocrites from exalted station. Some such heroic ac tion will have to be taken before prim- itive, genuine, uncontaminated Demoe- racy shall Icome again into the posses sion of its own title, rights and digni- ties.
 ANOTHER EXAMPLE.
 Mention was made few days ago