The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-09-15
RESENTS THE SLURS THROWN AT SOUTH
N. D. JOHNSON SAYS WRITER
 WHO ASSUMES ALABAMlA ANS
 TO BE OF LATIN DESCENT TAKES RIDICULOUS POSITION.

To the Editor Of The Age-Herald:
 I have read the communication of one Richard Randolph Cartright in which he assumes to lecture the people of Ala bama for the want of patriotism as shown by their failure to celebrate the Fourth of July as an anniversary, and ascribes to the disloyalty of our ancestors the main cause of our apathy in the waving of flags and jubilating over hired speeches as is the case in certain sections of the country in these latter days.
 I claim to be southern and ito the manor born" and have within the period of my life, extending over 30 years, wit messed a great number of celebrations of that natal day when in lieu Of such great show of bunting the constitution of the United States would be read and some patriotic individual would expound to the people the various provisions of this great magma charta of the liberty of the people, But to say Of Alabama, having descended from the Spaniards and French (who at that early period inhabited a narrow strip on the gulD and were hard ly recorded as English colonists, is. to say the least, absurdly ridiculous, and while disclaiming any desire for newspaper mo- toriety, I will hope, be pardoned for a short reference to my ancestors My paternal grandfather gave almost SIX years of his young manhood fighting Tn the colonial army. He was at the close of war a major and was seriously wound ed at the battle of Kings mountain. My father in the war of 1Sl2-14-raised company in western North Carolina and marched to Norfolk. Va. to join the army of the United States.
 Mr. Cartright in his zeal to unearth a pretext for a lecture to the south has hit upon a miserable prodigy
 We are neither. the descendants of the I.atins nor of unpatrotic forebears. We love our southland and fail to appreciate those maligning lectures coming from a people who as late as 1874 displayed blue lights on the coast of New England to notify the enemy at what points they might land with safety.
 The people of the southern states have always been liberty-loving people, de- voted to constitutional government, con additionally administered. but when your people of the northern states chose to set asjde and defy the provisions and man. dates of the constitution we of the south ceased to regard the sacredness of com pact which one section had denied and violated as thing of no value when ap- pealed to for the protection of the minor ity section.
 MT Cartright suggests a novel idea in order to teach our children that there was sucn a man as George Washington.
 To accomplish this laudable object he Suggests pasting upon the walls of our schoolhouse United States flags. What a happy thought and suggestion of its origin. No, MT. Cartright, our children do not need the display of bunting to teach or remind them of the erstwhile existence of Washington or Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Jackson-all southerners- and many other names who largely con- tributed to the formation and mainten- snce of a constitutional government for these United States. These and other H. lustrious names are sacred to true southern heart as Illustrating and exem- plifyIng the devotion of the south for con stitutional government. r
 But when the government subverted from its legitimate purposes, as ad ministered by and for the people New England, I feel authorized to asa MT. Cartright not to feel too much aggrf. if we fall to jubilate to the measure his standard.
 There is bunting and bunting, and something is dependent upon the drop fall" N. D. JOHNSON.
 Birmingham, September A. 1909.