The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-11-02

1 or the democrats, the republicans and the 1 committees on the constitutional amend ments, have practically ceased their strug- sles, and while every one is willing to admit that Bryan will carry the state and that the Overton good roads amend ment is a sure winner, the fight which Bessemer has been making for the new county has met such determined opposi- tion that it is about six of one and a half a dczen of the other.
 kettias Statement.
 W. H. <ettg, chairman of the opposi- ! ton, said yesterday: The prospects of defeating the Ragsdale amendment are very good. We are receiving cheerful reports from every county in the state, l and are assured that the people will deny to Bessemer what their representatives in the legislature have seen fit to deny for more than 20 years If the men whom they have elected to represent them have never been able to understand why Bir | mingham should be crippled, and the peo- 1 pie of Jefferson county swamped with more debt and more trouble it is hard to believe that the people of the state will pass judgment off hand and against the plea of nearly every public-spirted citi- zen in Birmingham and the surrounding counties. We will win for Jefferson 1 county by big majority"
 Bowie Favors It.
 Congressman Sidney J. Bowie, who l is a friend of the new county proposition, said: T have just returned from trip to Cullman, where ! have been speaking in the interest of the democratic ticket While I did not discuss the new county amendment in my speeches I found every where a great sentiment in favor of it's | adoption. I was advised that the vote in north Alabama will be very strong.
 q notice in the advertisements of the | opposition to the new county they state | that the advocates of the Bessemer coun- ty want to reduce the county by AGO square miles, and according to the logic which they use propose to take off an- other 400 square miles, and so cut Jeffer- son county finally down to two square miles. My answer is that the amendment provides that no county shall contain less than GOO square miles, and no new county line shall be within seven miles of an old county courthouse.
 "ro say that community having 6000 l people, taxable values of $30 000,000 and over 600 square miles of area is entitled to say for itself whether it wants to be a a very different thing from saying that @ county ought to be established where there are not sufficient property values and taxes to support 1t. The new county amendment limits the size of the new counties to coo square miles. provides that no county shall be left with less than eco square miles ana in addition it has pop- ulation and taxable value limit. These afford ample safeguards against having any county in the state too poor or too small to transact it's own business.
 Principle of Home Rule.
 'The insistence that the people outside the territory to be affected should be per- mitted to vote on the question is an in- vasion of every principle of home rule | Whether a people shall have a govern ment of their own if they are able and willing to pay for it is as much a matter of their own personal control as the matt ter of their having schoolhouses or post offices or rural free delivery or any other public convenience. It is a mere matter of government in which only the people immediately affected have any rightful control.
 '"The contention so consistently made to l the effect that the present constitution provides a just and proper method of or 1 ganizing new counties can be very easily disposed of. We have had that provision more than 30 years and under 1t it has 1 been found impossible to organize a single i county. The only county organized in this state in 30 years is the county of Hous- l ton, which got it's authority from spe- oial provision made by the constitutional ] convention and applicable only to that county. The plan provided in the present constitution is lauded to the skies by the 1 opponents of the new amendment because l they know that under 1t no new county l can CT will be formed.
 l 'Mr. Hill Ferguson says that Is more counties can be formed under the amend ment and he has published a map to that effect. Even of this were true, which it is not we would have only | S5 possible counties in the state and this would certainly not be a number which could do anyone any harm. But 1 the fallacy of Mill Ferguson's may lies , in the fact that he only arranges for l the necessary amount of land. He does not consider the other clements which enter into it. First, the population, which he ignores; second, the taxable l values which he ignores; and third, he l overlooks the fact that the counties must lie in such shape that 1t would 1 be possible to secure majority of the | voters to organize it. He has drawn l sketch of counties so ridiculous and l absurd in their shapes that it would be l utterly impossible to carry any election | therein for such a purpose. Any man | who examines the Hill Ferguson map | and who understands anything about the population and wealth of the state | will know that at most not more than five or six counties could ever be | formed.
 If any citizen of Jefferson county