davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02

however, that in the matter of tonnage, per acre. no state east of the Missi'- sippi and north of the Ohio equals Louisiana, that yielded two tons the acre, Mississippi, per acre, beat New York, Pennsylvania. Ohio, Illinois, h. diana, Kansas, Connecticut, and all the other northern ''hay states, out of sight What will the physical energies of the agricultural south be whe they are brought to perfectionl There is my own state of Kentucky, that produced in 1907 but 5000 tons of hay, and yet, without much effort, her yield might have exceeded that of New York
 I was talking with a man the other day who contended with me that there was no energy at the south except what had been sent down there in car petbags after the war. I represented to the fellow that war was the supreme test of energy" and when that was applied the south next to revolutionary France, distanced the whole world. and that I was not unmindful of the 80 years struggle at the end of which Holland gained her independence of Spain. He said: "Yes, but your traitor secretary of war stole our guns, and
 of course, you licked us at the start
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02

every absurd reform wave. But perhaps they forget that an hysterical propa- ganda, if allowed to go unchecked, does damage that it takes centuries to repair. even though the reaction is sure to come.
 Dr. Munsterberg thinks it not i'm
 probable that the prohibition movement
 will not stop until prohibition is pro-
 claimed from every state house between
 the Atlantic and the Pacific" Getting
 down to a discussion of the merits of
 the question, the psychologist says:
 "The evils which are connected with
 the drinking habit are gigantic; thou
 sands of lives and many more thou
 sands of households are the victims
 every year; disease and poverty and
 crime grow up where alcohol trenches
 the soil. To deny it means to ignore the teachings of medicine and eco monies and criminology.
 But Is this undeniable fact really q proof of the wisdom of prohibition? The railroads of the United States in- jured last year more than 100000 per- sons and put out 1000 hopeful lives; does any sane man argue that we ought to abolish railroads? The stock ex- change has brought in the last year economic misery to uncounted homes,
 but even at the height of the panic no one wanted to destroy the market for industrial stocks. How much crime and disaster and disease and ruin have come into the lives of American youth through women, and yet who doubts that women are the blessing of the whole national life? To say that cer tain evils come from a certain source suggests only to fools the nasty annt-
 hilation of the source before studyin : whether greater evils might not result
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02

unwilling minority will always remain a living source of the spirit of disregard for law"
 Judges know how rapidly the value of the oath sinks in courts where violation of the prohibition laws is a frequent charge and how habitual perjury be-
 comes tolerated by respected people. The city politicians know still better how closely blackmail and corruption hang to- gether, in the social psychology, with the
 enforcement of laws that strike against the beliefs and traditions of wider cir
 cles. The public service becomes de-
 graded, the public conscience becomes
 duled And can there be any doubt that
 disregard of law is the most dangerous
 psychological factor in our present-day
 American civilization? It is not lynch law which is the worst; the crimes against life are 20 times more frequent than in Europe, and as for the evils of commercial life which have raced the
 wrath of the whole well-meaning nation in late years, has not disregard of law
 been their real source? In popular
 melodrama the sheriff says solemnly: I
 stand here for the law and when the other shouts in reply, stand for com
 mon senser night after night the public
 breaks out into jubilant applause. To foster this immoral negligence of law by fabricating nasty, ill-considered laws In a hystercal mood, laws which almost tempt toward a training in violation Of them, is surely a dangerous experiment in social psychology"
 If nasty and hysterical law-making is not checked Dr. Munsterberg fears that some day we may prohibit meat and tea and why ,not? "There is growing throughout the land today conviction and 1t has Its core of truth-that many people eat too much meat. Other groups are fighting coffee and tea, and
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02

URING a recess of the Confeder-
 ate Senate. in 1863, Gen Wigfall spent some weeks as a guest in my old home at Orange Court House, Va, where l had the privilege and pleas ure of becoming intimately acquainted with him.
 He was one of the most striking per sonalities that l have ever known. I can recall four men whose physique left nothing to be desired: They were R. E. Lee. z. B. Vance, A. T. Bledsoe and Louis T. Wigfall. Lee was the only one of the four that I ever saw on horseback. He was a superb horseman, and never showed to better advantage than when he was mounted on "Traveer,' and in spectng his lines. Even the splendid equestrian station at Richmond falls far below the original.
 Wigfalls face was strikingly hand some, brimful of intellect, and strongly indicative of the courage which was one of his most pronounced characteristics. When Beauregard's guns were thunder ing against Fort Sumter, Wigfall pushed across the water in an open boat. crawled in through one of the portholes. and urged Major Anderson to surrender. as the fort was utterly untenable, and to
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02

I am not sure, but it was either King Solomon or Lord Bacon who said that a wager is the only argument that appeals to your fool, and so I offered to bet him that the southern arsenals did not have their quota of muskets when Fort Sumter was fired on, while northern arsenals had above their quota. I had investigated the matter, and was betting on a certainty. He was not as big a fool as his talk had led me to suspect he was. He declined my bet.
 But that Is aside. Here is Georgia with a yield of hay per acre far surpassing New York and yet her total yield is in- significant Why? Climate. Georgia saves the labor of the harvest by allow ing live stock to graze on pasture that could easily be made meadow.
 But that Is going to be changed after a while It is already demonstrated that our cotton states are the natural home of the alfalfa plant. and 1 have somewhere read that the tick, so terrible to the cat tie of the gulf states, cannot exist in a field planted to alfalfa. If that be true, then the hay statistics will tell different story to the next generation, and the matter of a restoration of the soils of
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02

FEW YORK, Aug. 1-"Better Amer
 M lea Inspired Than America Sober" l is the declaration of Dr. Hugo Munsterberg, the eminent psychologist, in a remarkably interesting paper on ''Pro- hibition and Social Psychology in Me- Clures Magazine for August.
 For fear that the reader will lightly dismiss his article on the ground that the author Is a German and perforce an op ponent of prohibition, Dr. Munsterberg announces in the beginning that he is almost a total abstinent He never smokes, and he confesses that he has consumed only part of one bottle of beer in recent years. Moreover, he lives in a temperance town.
 "The problem of prohibition thus does not affect my thirst" says Dr. Munster berg, but it greatly interests my scien- tific conscience not as a German, but as a psychologist I feel impelled to add a word to the discussion which is suddenly reverberating over the whole country.
 But is 1t really a discussion which we hear? Is 1t not rather & one-sided de- nunciation of alcohol, repeated a million times with louder and louder voice, an outcry ever swelling in vehemence?"
 The fundamental evil of American pub- lie opinion, according to Dr. Munster berg is that no one dares to be on the unpopular side. Most students of public affairs will agree with the psychologist in this conclusion, which perhaps at no other time has been made so apparent as in the campaign for prohibition. We have well-balanced men, 1t is true. but in a movement of this kind they sit inactive and watch the tide rush by, secure in the conviction that a sane reaction follows
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02

nights sleep some dulling inhibition if dangerous unrest Is not to set in. AL cohol relieves that daily tension most di- rectly
 Not less important would be the loss on the emotional side. Emotional de- sire for life in beauty would yield to the triviality of usefulness. Purtansm has held back the real American spirit of artistic creation in fine arts and music and drama prohibition without substl- tutes would crush still more the esthetic spirit in the brain of man and would make beauty still more the domain or women Her more responsive physiolog- ical constitution does not need the artif1- cial paralysis of the inhibting centers. The mind of the average woman shows that lower degree of checking power which alcoholic doses produce in the aver age man. But just therefore she and men of the female type cannot carry on alone the work of the nation. national Ire without the artificial inhibitons of the re- straining centers becomes for the large masses a matter of mere practical caf- culation and righteous dullness. Truly, the German, the Frenchman, the Italian, who enjoys his glass of light wine ana then wanders joyful and elated to the masterpieces of the opera, serves human- ity better than the New Englander who drinks ice water and sits satisfied at the vaudeville show world-far from real art Better America inspired than America sober. Can we forget that in almost all parts of the globe even religious life be- gan with intoxication cults? God lndra was in the wine for the Hindus and Dio- nysius for the Greeks. 1t Is optimistic exuberance of life, the emotional inspira- ton. which alcohol brought into the dull ness of human days, and the history of culture shows 1t on every page"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02

union he would seize the forts and pay for them.
 On December 20 the state withdrew it's previous consent to enter the union. In other words, that day the ordinance of secession was passed. Lieutenant Gen. eral Scott with headquarters at Wash ington, commanded the army. Maj. Rob- ert Anderson commanded Fort Moultrie, with a small garrison, short cannon range from Sumter. By order of Scott, general or special Anderson in the early night of December 24, set fire to the barracks at Moultrie, set fire to the magazine, spiked the guns and cut down the flag pole. This was war. It was the begin ming of the war. before the Confectionery was born. At least, it was an incident of the prelminaries of war just as John Browns armed invasion of Virginia and seizure of the government arms and property at Harper's Ferry, and his firing on Col R. E. Lee under the United States flag, was an earlier incident of the same war. In the interval of 15 months between Browns capture of Har- per's Ferry and Anderson's seizure of Sumter Brown was hung for treason. The execution of the traitor occurred in the early stages of the campaign which South Carolina legislature was in ses- sion immediately after the execution and Senator Perry. a devoted unionist, rose in his seat to call attention to the fact, | that while every outward demonstration of sympathy with the victim had been | made by the republicans generally at the north, no democratic meeting had ex- pressed sympathy with the invaded state I or the outraged government.
 When the Provisional Confederate Con 1 gress was preparing permanent consti- 1 tuition, there arrived in Montgomery
 many men of thought and purpose from { the north. The lines of travel were open l The United States mails and the express , company delivered their regular contents l throughout the Confederacy for nearly l four months after President Davis took l the oath of office. Among arrivals a, | Montgomery with business for the Con. | gress was the notable politician and cor. 1 respondent, George N. Saunders. Gentle men now living in Montgomery saw ani oonyersed with him. Saunders averref , that Senator Stephen A. Douglas had sen, him. Douglas made a tour of the soutf
 few months before, eectioneering fo,
 the presidency. He was greatly alarmed
 at the election of Lincoln and the as
 oendancy of the radical element. Saun ders reported Douglas as a petitioner tt
 the Congress to frame constitution f,
 admit Illinois and all the upper Missis | sippi valley states into the Confederacy l 1,etter of Gen. Thomas A. R. Cobb t,
 his wife from Montgomery.)
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02

from it's destruction, and without ask ing whether the evils might not be re- duced, and the good from the same source remain untouched and antam pered with. The evils of drink exist, and to neglect their cure would be criminal, but to rush on to the conclt- sion that every vineyard ought there fore to be devastated is unworthy of the logic of a self governing nation"
 Passing quickly over the political side and the economic side, the throwing of more than half a million men out of em- ployment, the destruction of S3,00O, ,OOO, 900 worth of property and the enormous loss in license taxes to the municipalities, Dr. Munsterberg discusses the question from psychologist standpoint Statistics prove the truth of the well known wal cry: Prohibition does not prohibit" Il is needless to discuss that.
 "As far as the health of the nation and Its mental training in self-contro and in regulation of desires are con cerned, the result must be dangerous be- cause on the whole, it eliminates the mild beverages in favor of the strong drinks and substitutes lonely drinking for drinking in social company. Both are psychologically and physiologically a turn to the worse It is not the mild beer and light wine which are secretly imported; it Is much easier to transport and hide whiskey and rum, with theii strong alcoholic power and stronger eff feet on the nerve-cells of the brain. And of all forms of drinking none Is more ruinous than the solitary drink, as soon as the feeling of repugnance has been overcome; there is no limit and no in hibtion'
 But our greatest danger, Dr. Munster berg declares, lies in disregard for law Prohibition forced by a majority on ar
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02

speech. That speech was published and I read it carefully through. There was scarcely an anecdote in it. It was a statesmanlike discussion of the tremen- dous issues involved in that campaign.
 When l heard him in the Confederate Senate he was pleading for the conscrfp- ton bill. He believed that it was perfect ly constitutional, and said with powerful emphasis: "It is an army-not a mob that we want" Jefferson Davis was not a lawyer; but his knowledge of consti- tutional law was extensive, accurate and profound and he powerfully vindicated the constitutionality of the eonseription bill against the ill-timed criticisms of Gov. Joseph E. Brown of Georgia. That Governor Brown should have supposed himself to be better constitutional law yer than either Davis or Wigfall, was a flight of imagination which approaches the sphere of poetry.
 Wigfalrs mind was highly cultivated He was deeply versed in history and in literature and had his Shakespeare at his fingers ends. Nor was he at all over nice in his citations, but when it served his purpose, would as soon quote Doll Tearsheet's comment upon occupy" as Hamlets soiloquy on immortality
 He was one of the best story tellers that I have ever known. It is a curious
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02

and the west and separate them from the south He well understood he could hope to hold his government together on no other line of policy. He found men of the west. Joseph Medill of the Chicago Tribune, Senator Zach Chandler of Wis consin and others who would support him. He pretended to listen while he ruled He compelled Beauregard to cap ture Sumter and his policy was thus ir- revocably fixed. A less resolute man at the head in Washington, a man Of narrower view of the exigency of revolu- ton would have left the Confederacy. under the chivalrous Davis an open av- enue to success. Before the war was half fought out Lincoln hal 3S 900 men and women of the north from civil life in mill itary prisons. There was a gentleman of wealth and high position, living all his life In Washington, just opposite the White House. He was an ardent union ist, but his only son was a private in Hamptons cavalry. The son got letter through to the father requesting him to pay attention to some fellow soldiers who were in prison at Washington. The fa- ther obeyed and was Immediately sent to Fort Warren and held there until the
 war closed. By way of preparation for his own reelection in November, 1864,
 President Lincoln sent 5000 western troops to the city of New York to guard the polls. Every poll in all the states was guarded by soldiers on election day. The entire north was under military control in every custom and habit of the people. Lincoln had more use for the talent of revolutionary leader than Cromwell, more than William III. Perhaps less than Napoleon. His success has no par allel in all time. There never was a day of his life in office when many of the greatest men of his country were not ready to put him out of office. MT. Bibb of Montgomery was on a visit to Lin- coin two days before the assassination, and he left paper intimating his suspfa cion that some great men knew more of the preparations for the President s taking off then has leaked out.
 The draft to fill the army of the United States was a bloody proof of the un- friendly temper of the masses. In the Confederacy the conscript law took eff feet within 12 months after the war be- gan. Toward the end it was a very drastic law. but was enforced. Mir. Yancey. in the spring of 1862, addressed the Alabama legislature sustaining it.. Governor Brown in Georgia, Toombs and Stephens opposed 1t. Every man who had put a substitute in the field lost his money and took his own place in the ranks by the side of his substitute. While ] the government at Washington was con ducted outside the limits of the constitu-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02
THE PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM.
In It's smlrking Portraits Is Certain
 cIairvoyancy That Faseinates.

Eugene Wood in the August Everyoody's..
 I hold the album in my hands-and muse. Housed in tawdry, tarnished spien- dor somehow embodied is a mysterious and smirlSing portraits is mysterious power that give clairvoyant vision The past reveals itself as in a glass, darkly, that which is to come is adumbrated- Some slender comprehension of the age that even now is ending, some inkling of the age that even now is here-both of these are mine.
 The century just ended, how wonderful it's works! In it's brief compass the world progressed as in no chiliad, of sluggish years. each like it's fellow. Nothing at all about us is as it was hundred years ago. Why should this century have achieved so much? The album tells us.
 For the first time in history it became possible to get the truth, unminimized. unedited, unmercerized. Take it or leave 1t; there it was. Previously we had it as others saw it, or thought they saw it. or wished 1t were, or wished us to believe 1t was. The artists vision might be defective or his hand lack skill. More than that, he had to please his patron. But the sunlght's ooard is paid; 1t doesn't care what the sitter's nose is. In thou sand ways the truth--even the unwelcome truth-was told us. College professors were compelled to duck Darwinian dis cussions or lose their jobs. but struc- lures, bony or vascular, when ranged in their due order, told their tale, and feared not even the general conference Here is the truth. Take it or leave it: but here it isl Evidence. not testi- mony; facts, not ''wisdom of the fathers"I observation, not .ratio-cination; instru- ments of precise measurement, not syllog- isms neatly framed The century had the temperament of mechanic, not a sales- mans, not noble's. That's how it did things.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-02

We are expected to accept the school histories, allegations of the passions of secession, etc. Horace Greeley was sec- ond in influence to no republican in the campaign that elected Lincoln. In the next month after the election at the polls and before the electoral vote had been counted, Greeley declared in his New York Tribune: "If the Declaration of Independence justified the secession from the British Empire of 100000 of colonists in 1776, we do not see why it GOO southerners from the federal union of 1860. (New York Tribune, December 17, 1S6o) About week after MT. Davis had taken the oath of office as Provisional President Greeley again wrote: 'If the cotton states or the Gulf states choose to form an independent nation they have a clear moral right to do so. If the great body of the southern people have become alienated from the union and wish to escape from it, we will do our best to forward their views" (New York Trib- une, February 23, 1S61.) Col. A. K. Nc Cure says in his Life of Lincoln a very large majority of the people of the north
 were opposed to the coercion of the south
 for months after the Confectionery was
 organized
 We return to the proposition, that the Southern Confectionery was the true de- mocracy.
 At one of the early cabinet meetings in Mir Davis room in the Exchange hotel, Postmaster General Reagan suggested that the southern bank of the Ohio in Kentucky be immediately occupied by Confederate troops. The President replied the war was to vindicate the principle of states rights; that Kentucky had de- | clared her neutrality and it would not do | to violate her soil. Reagan argued the | military emergency held the life of the | Confederacy and to occupy Kentucky was vital. The President would not yield, | and the cabinet, as usual, went his way. | (Reagan's Memoirs) President Lincoln ! promptly sent Sherman to Louisville with | a large force to occupy the blue grass. ! Kentucky, wavering until then, sided 1 with the Northern Confederacy and was | lost forever from the natural political | connection.
 | As Washington in himself saved the 1 cause of the colonies. Lincoln in himself saved the cause of the United States As ] soon as he entered upon his office and
 began to take in the words of thousands | of eminent men and take the measure of l their sentiments, who fiocked to hear | him. he comprehended the actual condi-
 tfons It was plain the free states did | MT Lincoln resolved to unite the east and the west were less in sympathy with l aach other than the west and the south
 MT. Lincoln resolved to invite the east