The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-10-28
RUSSELL, BOWIE AND
 MOODY SPEAK IN SELMA
Enthusiasm Shown by Neighbors of
 Morgan and Pettus.
Great Audience Cheers Every Point Aimed at Hypocrisy of Conner, weakIey and Lawrence and
 Their Political scheme
 to Control Alabama
BY WILL T. SIBERIAN.

BY WILL T. SIBERIAN.
 Selma, Oct. 27.-(SpeciaL) )--Near the very spot in Selma where John Tyler Morgan. forty years ago. stood like Paul before the Athenians. arraigning the iniquities of triumphant but cor rupt carpet-bag government--on the streets of Selma through which Ed- mund Winston Pettus. forty years ago with the same courage that made he- roic the story of the Vicksburg trenches, marched with his cool and de- termfned minute men" to make good the defiance that Morgan hurled into the teeth of the aliens and their black allies--on such historic soil, the Old Guard of the Black Belt rallied today. determined and enthusiastic. to light as courageously the menace to their con stitutionai rights wrapped up in the proposed amendment, as they fought that a white mans government might be recovered from the nightmare of re- construction.
 For such an, occasion there was, as there should have been, splendid array of speakers-speakers who had
  under the leadership of such men. as Morgan. Pettus and Houston--leaders who have brought down from another generation devotion to temperance, courage, home and liberty, which form the ideals of that political and govern mental era to which Alabamians turn with the greatest pride. There were here to stir the enthusiasm and strengthen the faith of the Old Guard, the courtly and convincing Edward L. Russell, of Mobile. the powerful yet polished Sydney J. Bowie of Birming- ham, and Frank s. Moody. the able and pute-spirited Father of Temperance In Alabama.
 Hamburger Makes Hit.
 And to add zest and enthuniasnl to an already enthusiastic occasion. Max Hamburger. the young Senator from Mobile, delivered a rattling speech or twenty minutes, which was punctuated at the end of nearly every sentence py a wild cheer of approval.
 The best of the old political days was recalled in this. one of the best of the meetings in this memorable campaign. The Black Belt audience came mainly from Dallas. but Wilcox. Marengo, Perry, Hale, Blob. Lowndes. and even Greene Counties, were repre- sented in this notable open-air gather ing. For it was said no auditorium in Selma would be large enough for the gathering. It was an immense crowd assuredly-the most conserva- tive numbered it when 1t was at it's largest, 1,50O. But the local commit tee of defenders would contend that 1t numbered 1,S00 or 1000. Still the crowd was all that was expected and the committed. delighted with the day, will not quarrel over i,500 estimate.
 A stand had been erected at the cor ner of Selma and Broad Streets, and here an active local committee, headed bv Mayor V. B. Atkins and L. B. Jeff fries, busied itself in seeing that the host of visitors got within hearing range of the speakers.
 band was in attendance, but the opponents of the amendment had their enthusiasm so handy that they needed no artigcial aids. The walls of the buildings that lined the two sides of the streets formed an excellent sound- ing board, and the voices of the speak ers carried to the farthest extremity of the crowd.
 Prominent Men on stand.
 On the stand there were sixty men of prominence from the Black Belt counties-yeterans of other hard Fought political battles. and men who never yet followed flag of radical ism.
 without any attempt to be invid- Sous it may be said that an audience gathered from the rural precincts of the Black Belt appears little better shaved. little better sroomed. a ht- tie better clothed, little more conserv- alive and little more judicial than any country audience ih one Of the white counties. Naturally so today, for most of the. men who cheered the speakers were men who could claim two or three generations of Alabama ancestors and they came from town and plantation homes that held few pieces of old family silver and which somehow keep alive rarnily traditions of other years.
 Old men were there. many of them --old men who were now enthusiastic anw now determined. The gathering bodes Ill for the constitutional amend ment in Alabama's Black Belt. The amendment may carry down here aS some of it's supporters claim, but it certainly got Encouragement today. The appeals and arguments for the amendment need a more excitable and A more radical audience than the great gathering, which cheered triumphant ly and confidently the promised defeat of the constitutional amendment.
 The amenders do not yet concede Dallas County as lost. But the fight
  of such able, informed and courageous leaders as Lewis Jeffries. Or. Crawford Phillips, Mayor V. B. Atkins. Joe Pumpkins and Jim Dohefty. Anybody that doubts that Dallas County will ultimately go against the amendment does not know the county well.
 The snap judgment election caught many Dallas County voters unprepared with a poll tax receipt. They say that the vote in the county will be reduced to 1900 or 1,400 and that with a city like Selma in the county. But the leaders of the defenders claim positive ly that they have the county by ma, 3ority that will run anywhere from 200 to 300. and that nothing can erect that majority. They are working close and hard.
 The pro-amendment people are by no means idle. There are many good men In Selma earnestly striving for the amendment for no man can truthfully say that all good men are either on one side or the other. But at present the anti-amendment people have the lead.l
 Women Were Active.
 The women wara at work today. They