The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-01-24

With many the feelings aroused by the war had rot sLLsoed and conditions Tn the soutf were generally misrepresented CT mst;Hders' ood; but I knew our people were not cruel at heart and wished they could all see what l saw; because be- l.eved they would feel as l felt and make unthrfty the too common role of agi- tator.
 "1 stoinad Iof a time at your capital and saw foI H,N self many of the scenes and personages which made the so-called reconstruction period both shameful and grotcsdue Your people were then living under what was called, by contradiction in terlns, 2 military constitution; and for the first time the attempt was being made to reverse by force the natural posture Of ciNiiizeI community to put it's ignorant irresponsible elements at the top and keep them there. The powers of taxation. le- station and judicature, all the functions Gf etyernment, were placed in hands which l.lgt3 turned them to uses that were corrupt, tyrannical and often whimsical
 Visit To LoWndes County.
 My business took me down the Ala bama to Lowndes county into rural region where l was told I must de- pend on private hospitality. An ac- quaintance gave me letter to a plant CT whose welcome to his home was as cordial his means of entertainment were scanty. He lived in a typical southern mansion on plantation which had come to his family direct from President John Quincy Adams. He had been wealthy. but the war had made him very poor. The house sore ly needed repairs and paint. Most of the furniture was gone His fields had lost much of tn cir fertility from lack of means for proper care and culti- vation. Some of them had long gone untitled and the crops produced by the others seemed to have caught the chill of the surroundings.
 "A few of his former slaves worked for him when they felt like 1t and could be kept away from the frequent gatherings to which their leaders sum moned them. The others idled about the neighborhood resorts depending on political and private spells for sub sistence, in the to them not unnatural belief that civil freedom meant the right to live without work.
 The career of my host reach ed back beyond the. war Mine was just begin ming. Hef had never been north. I had never before been south. We had both been readers of history and given
 
 that his mind was broad and fair, and he soon discovered my interest and sym pathy So we sat almost through the night I spent under his roof talking of past, present and future.
 Dark were the pictures he drew of the years of warfare and the still worse years which followed and were then passing. Every office in the county and townsh ip was filled by ignorant and hostile negroes or the adventur- CTS who organized and exploited the newly freed slaves. Neither property nor person was secure. The crops. such as they were. had to be mort gagged in advance for means to raise them, and the exactions of money lend CTS and those of the bankrupt state and local trea suries left existence bare ly possible And thoughtful sympathy could not stop with the plight of the white people. It was pitiful to see the poor blacks pushed at the very start, into false position which could not fail to entail discredit and loss on them.
 My notes of that journey were burned in our great riot in 1884 and l cannot recall the name of the man who enter tained me; but I shall never forget him. l have always associated him with all I saw. heard and learned during my stay in Alabama. We wrote to each other once or twice, but I as we'll as he was engaged in a struggle for existence and our lives touched no more.
 But through all the years the recol- lection of that man has been one of the active abiding forces with me. He has stood in my mind as the representa- tive of the southern people, cast down but not destroyed, patient beyond all ex- pecta ton under taunt and privation showing moral courage equal to their i, hatt 1a in cr.ifa of nYa h 1itafr which befell them, including sometimes unfortunate craftsmanship. they won the respect and admiration of all mankind and built up a new south. greater than the old. I have always wished it might be true that my visit helped a little to sustain his faith in the future. I hope he has lived as thank God I have, to see it justified. Alabama redeemed doubled in population and more than doubled in wealth and her sons march ing behind Joe Wheeler and Fitz Lee under the full-starred ensign of the union.
 The Right of State.
 'There was one thing which, more than any other. made this possible. It was the regaining at last of the right of the state to govern itself So long as the federal government held control there was no hope. When once this was with drawn the future was secure. Any American community great enough to be a commonwealth will work it's way upward when left to' itself as surely as the germ pushes toward the sunlight Mistakes may be, made, but they will be corrected New difficulties may arise where the way seemed clear, but they will be surmounted And out of it all will be evolved and developed the first essential of a free people-patient self reliance under the grace of God.
 ba Sta ha onlx which have ever been denied the full right of f-governmsnr under the con stitution, and have had to struggle to regain 1t. The natural result of their defeat in the contest for a right which they did not possess was disregard of rights which were undoubted. And the union of the constitution had to be saved again from attack which was not the less dangerous because it was masked behind the forms of law
 Tn these times, when many seem in clined to grow impatient at the restraints