The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-10-15


 
 days. hoping to have another light there- The speaker was thrilling in his descrip- tions of the dauntless courage of the Confederates from the time of the Get tysburg battle until the surrender at Ap- pomattox
 Colonel Herbert said that Lees army, worn out had at last to surrender, but that the color sergeant of the Eighth Ala bama shouted, Well, I have never yet surrendered this flag and I never will ; and with that he tore it into small bits and distributed the pieces as memen- l toes to those of the regiment who were I left.
 The speaker then told of the stress and turmoil of reconstruction days, when the carpetbagger was melting the negro to wickedness He explained how it was that the white men of Alabama stood together and by their discipline learned in the war finally succeeded in overcom- ing the unhappy conditions and restoring peace and order.
 The war had to come, he said, because the south could not stand the taunts of the north and maintain it's honor and the north could not longer stand the taunts of the south. But the right of secession having been settled by the arbitrament of the sword, said Colonel Herbert, we will forever remain a united people. The speaker paid glowing tribute to the valor of the northern soldiers and spoke with pleasure of the fairness with which north ern writers are now treating the ques- ton of the war
 In speaking of the negro question, Colonel Herbert said that northern men TOW admitted that the southern people must settle it. He said that President Roosevelt held that opinion and that President Taft thought likewise about it.
 Colonel Herbert told of his experience as one of the three commissioners which recently arbitrated the strike of the rail- road men in Georgia. He and another commissioner who remembered the war and knew what slavery was, decided in favor of the negro firemen. He said the negroes are here and they will remain here, and morally and economically we have a duty to perform toward them. We must try to provide them with work. Lincoln-and oh, what pity it was he was killed-seeing that the negro prob | lem would be one difficult to handle, tried 1 b deport them. He asked Great Britain and The Netherlands to allow him to send them to the Indies but those gov ernments refused, and the negro would go to Liberia. And so they are here with us. Alabama and the other southern states have been right in restricting the franchise. The supreme court of the United States has upheld the states in thus dealing with the suffrage question But if our state governments are to en- dure, we must be just in our treatment of the negro'
 Colonel Herbert concluded his talk by telling about the proposed Arlington mon- ument, which would be erected in honoi of the Confederate dead. He said sl3,0c' had been raised for this monument fund If was in bank drawing interest. But the monument is to cost s40,000. and he said he hoped all who could do so would aid in raising the money. He made an earn est appeal to the men of Birmingham who had greatly prospered in business to make liberal subscriptions to the Arlington fund.
 Those who listened to Colonel Herbert spoke in unstinted praise of his talk. It was regarded as one of the most illumi- hating and patriotic addresses heard here 1 in many day.