The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-01-17

Objection is urged to the solidity of the Solid South" and intimations are given out that an effort Is being made to disintegrate 1t.
 Concerning those political phases of the subject. in the light of which men determine their party affiliations, I have nothing to say; but about the general subject I have some. reflections 10 offer. ~
 First of all. would like to inquire why so much objection Is made to the -soiid South" while nothing is said of a "Solid New Enlgland"? The solidity of the latter is as obstinate, and per- tsistent as the solidity of the former. and for much the same reasons. doubt less There is no solid .west ff.e. North and Central WesD, because the West lhas been settled by a great variety of people and its population Is too hetero- genous to be solid But from the days fof the Colonies until now there have been distinct types of people in both New England and the South. and for the most natural reasons, therefore, they For one, believe it is best they should be solid. By their solidity they work for themselves the best results, and at the same time they thereby make the best contribution to the we'll being of the enire counry. In a land which is filling up with multitudes of nisceIia- sneous peoples from every part of the globe it Is vastly important that fin one Tor two sections at least here should be some stable forms of life and civiliza- ton,
 The South especially possesses cer- tain characteristics which should be perpetuated at all cost. They are of the utmost value to the Republic, and they must not be minimized or essentially modified.
 Ia the South is found the purest type of what may be called original Ameri- lcanism. Among its people are more men and women who trace their ancestry di- rectly to Colonial sires than in any other section of the Union. Its social forms and domestic life. as we'll as it's architecture, tend naturally to the Co., ilonial type and they should not be exchanged for any other.
 In it's religious life the South is or- thodox in creed and evangelical in spirit The variegated and eccentric eccelsias- tical bodies which abound in New Eng land have but a small and negligible following among the Southern people. Southern Christianity has not been weakened by sending forth. from it's roots all sorts of isI1s, which like suck CTS weaken the main stem without pro- ducing good fruit themselves. We have had few heresy trials because we have had few heretics. Our people have &C., cepted the Bible as the Word of God. and they have relied for salvation upon the atonement of Jesus Christ. the Lord. By consequence the Southern churches have more nearly succeeded in winning the whole population of the South to Christian living than have the churches of the other sections of the country succeeded with the people to whom they make their appeals. There are more church members in the South. in. proportion to population, than can be found in any other part of the United States.
 Sabbath Observance.
 Tn the South we, have also the pest .obssrvance of the Sabbath, and insofar as we have in anywise fallen from grace in this very important matter, bur fall may be traced to influences which have come in upon us from with out. If we had remained more "solid" with respect to the observance of the Sabbath, we would have done far bet ter than we have by following. even for s@ little way, modish vice and foreign airs.
 The South is the soberest part of the