The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-10

| crate brigadier. It was then that Ben l Hill, Joe Blackburn, Randolph Tucker
 Julian Hartridge, Henry Watterson, Ran
 dall Gibson, E. John Ellis, Charles E.
 Hooker, J. D. c. Atkins, John F. House, | Casey Young, G. c. Dibrell, David Gull
 person, John H. Reagan and Beverly
 Douglas first appeared in that body.
 Money was another. Alexander H. Ste | phens, L. c. c. Lamar, John Young
 Brown and Roger Q. Mills got there two 1 years earlier.
 The debates of the first session of the Forty-fourth Congress were the ablest and
 the most eloquent the House of Represen- tatives had heard in a double decade for
 there had been precious little democratic
 membership since 1861. Except when Ran
 dall, as chairman of appropriations, was
 saving at the bung and Holman, his lieu tenant, was economizing at the spigot the
 quarrel was political and sectional. The
 bloody shirt fioated from the republican side and even the mild and genial Gar
 field bore it to the forefront of the strife. He it was who named the majority side Confederate brigadiers,' which was soon
 turned to rebel brigadiers" by his less
 polite comrades.
 The cause of tariff reform was lost in
 the passions of the disputed presidential
 succession, and for six or eight years it
 was buried in the grave of Michael C..
 Kerr, to be resurrected when John G.
 Carlisle became speaker in 1883.
 Money was 36 years old when he en-
 tered Congress He was put on the con-
 mittee of postoffces and post roads, of
 which he was subsequently, chairman for some two or three terms. In 1885 he re-
 tired from public life, but was returned to
 the Fifty-third and F'ifty-fourth Con gresses.
 The most serious tactical mistake MT. Cleveland made was in not converting
 Congress in extra session immediately af-
 ter his second inauguration to reform the
 tariff. Four years later Mckinley profit
 ing by his predecessors error called Con gress together to elevate the tariff; but
 Mckinley had this advantage of Cleve- land-he knew Congress. MT Cleveland
 was forced to convene Congress to take order in regard to the financial panic of 1893 MT. Money, as I now recollect, was delayed in his attendance, and it was understood that he was very friendly to the President, whom he had supported for the nomination. He was for the re- peal of the Sherman silver law-all of it. and there he parted company with the administration. He favored that repeal
 that would clear tIe track for free sil- yer law, and then he also parted com
 pany with his colleague, Thomas c. Catch ings, who supported the repeal of the purchasing clause only.
 All that is history now. If Grover Cleveland had been reelected President in 1888 the Mills tariff would have be- come a law in 1SS9 and the gold stand
 ard would have been established, with slight demur. If the south had come solidly to the support of Cleveland in 1893 his second administration would have been as successful as McKinley's, pros-
 perity would have returned in 1895, tax ation would soon have become demo- cratic. and the country this good year 1909 would be even more democratic than 1t is republican
 Never in the history of politics did sub sequent events so entirely, so thorough ly, so overwhelmingly vindicate the statesmanship of any man the events | since 1895 have justified Grover Cleve- | lands policies. But the south thought l otherwise. and would not have 1t so. | The great misfortune befell in 1888. when 1 Cleveland was defeated for reelection. 1 That, however, was not the fault of the l south. The regime at Albany, N Y, 1 and the Tammany machine on Manhattan were to blame for that When Warner
 Miller fell outside the breastworks there l was method for it. On the democratic side of the lists Guth was saved and 1 Ivanhoe sacrificed.
 | James G. George was many years a , senator from Mississippi and one of the i very great lawyers of that body Not an
 orator, yet he could make abstruse legal principles clear to the layman. and that is great thing in lawyer, and more
 than Edmunds or Evarts could do
 George died in 1897. and doubtless if he
 could have bequeathed the succession. he
 would have bestowed it upon the man to