The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-03-24
THE DEGLUTITION
 OF ALECK STEPHENS


 breakfast of Ranse Wright and dinner and supper of Ben Hill and pr. Miller. He said that 1t might seem very rash in him to brave the direful fate with which he was threatened by confront Ing the dreadful Democratic Boanerges, but. as for himself, he had no fear of being deyoured, and as for Ben Hill and Dr. Miller, he rather thought the devouring would be the other way when MT. Stephens met either of them. He made dashing, slashing speech. and aroused great enthusiasm among his partisans.
 Tn replying, AIr Stephens very mild ly said that MT Wright had been mis- informed. He denied that he had made the boast that MT. Wright said he had heard. He said that it was not his habit to make boasts; that boosting was dfstasteful to him, but that if he were given to induiging in so objec- uonable habit, and had said anything of the sort charged to him, he would have reversed the order in which the names had been given to the audience; he would have named Mir, Hilt and Dr. Miller for breakfast and dinner, and would have reserved Mir. Wright for supper, as his mother had taught him that that should always be a light meal.
 It was after one of Mir. Stephens 0ROC<aOS HI HIS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS campaign that an excited listener ex- claimed. My God. there is nothing about him but lungs and brains!"
 sI have mentioned above the name of Julius Caesar Afford. I should en- liven the page of history by something more than a mere mention of that re- markable character. It is likely that there are several thousand grown up white people in Savannah, and several nw.A f~, -f~ not know that such a man ever lived The most limber-legged attache of The Morning News reportorial staff would, I fear, become leg-weary and footsore in executing an assignment to find three members of the eity's legal fra ternity who are aware that a man by the name of Julius Caesar Afford ever lived, moved and had his being on this subIunary bali. This is calculated to have 6 depressing effect on the congressional fiedgeltngs and other To- cal panjadrums of today whose ears are even now ravished with the music which they hear the trump of fame making as 1t sends their names ring ing down the corridors of time; for Colonel Afford was congressman from Georgia, and delivered about the most remarkable speech ever heard within the walls of the federal Capitol
 1te was AtsO d WaFTlOr-De1Ore ne was a congressman; and, according to the account that has come down to us, it was in the month of February, 1S36, that he entered the hall of the House of Representatives, with bis ere dentials as a member from Georgia. fresh from fighting Indians in ths Creek and Seminole wars. and rcSdy for any scene that chance or, Choice might present It SO happs1ed that s-E.- a.-. member from MassaehHs stts was at that moment msEing a speech. for home consumption, about the injustice and inhuInaiity with which the Indians in the South were being treated, of caxrse without any allusion to the far greater inhumanity and barbarity with which they had been treated in the eol- ony of Massachusetts.
 It is a custom virtually amounting to a rule that a new congressman shall keep quiet for at least two or three months after he takes his seat, so as to become duly familiar with congressional ceremony-forms of pro- cedure and debate-before he presumes to make a speech or take any specially active part in affairs. Colonel Afford recognized the validity of no such rule, as far as he was concerned. Unbridled he had always been, and unbridled he WOulQ EeIudtAs LlG AdO Just QHCochtSA his credentials; they had been accepted, and he had been sworn in. He was a fully authorized and duly admitted rep resentative of a sovereign State, and he saw no occasion for any further preliminaries to his taking a hand in the discussion of a subject in which he felt the most lively interest and with which he was thoroughly familiar. The wounds he had received in desperate hue he crna unhealed, and so, when the Massachu- setts member had finished his story of the wrongs inflicted upon those sav- ages and of the sympathy he felt for them, and his eulogy of the Indian character, Colonel Afford sprang to his feet with tiger-like quickness and poured forth volume of invective such as had seldom been heard in the halls of Congress. He reached the climax with the following words:
 And does tine gentlemen undertake to talk to me, MT. Speaker, about the Indians magnanimity, and Indian he- rosim! Does he expect me to unite with him in shedding tears of sympa- thy over the pretended wrongs of the Creek and Seminole? Does he wish a practical illustration of Indian jus tice and humanity If he does, sir, I'll take him to the morasses and ever glades of Florida, and the forest fast ness of Georgia, and there, sir, he may grapple in deadly strife with those per secuted Indian tribes that elicit his pity and his commiseration. Sir, but a few weeks have elapsed since was grap- pied, arm to arm, and throat to throat with the hardest and most savage oi the race. This arm, sir, and this hand which now move and, in the presence of the Eternal, swear shall be yielded rryht IIfa fa laff In dpafFnUinor fhA Ia Qf vestige of the race, were palsied by the tomahawk and the scalping knife I was at the mercy of the savage con duerer. and. by the Eternal, I'll be re-