davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

tuted for him a pitiful golden calf, around
which they are dancing and shouting in
their besotted folly.
1t is not my purpose here to indulge in
vague eulogies upon education, but to
examine it, criticise 1t, look it fairly in
the face and see what it really is. 1t
may be that, like too many other mod :
ern beauties, It will fail to stand the
test of an honest stare in broad daylight,
but If so. we may still find that though
the fictitious beauty vanishes, an honest.
homely, natural face is left
In performing my task l shall be OBJ
liged, to some extent to play the critic,
but for this l offer no apology.
During Dr. Sam Johnson's time a poem
appeared in England and created quite a
sensation. But it so happened that a
particular passage was obscure, and some
puzzled readers asked Goldsmith to ex-
plain It, He failed to make it intelligi-
BILE, and seemed not to understand 1t him
self. They then took it to DR.. Johnson,
under whose lucid criticism it became
perfectly plain, and proved to be an ex-
quisite poetical gem. 'Dr. Johnson,
said one of them. you wrote this poem. :
ooh, no' said the doctor; II could
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12
:. g. Hideya, d. d.

sun. Anaxmander, born Clio B. G.,
thought the sun was a chariot filled with
fire, which escaped through a circular
aperture.
Anaxagonas. the instructor of Pericles.
born SEQ &. c.. regarded it, according TO
Plutarch. as IAN inflamed stone or ac-
eording to Diogenes Laertius, as "a hot
iron" It is pretty eveident that he did
rot exactly know what 1t was. Zeno, the
founder of the stoics, believed 1t to be a
fire larger than the earth. Lucretius,
the brilliant poet of the Epicureans.
thought the sun was about as big as a
pewter plate and that the moon was
about the same size. Such were the
IDEAS that prejudice had formed in tho
minds of some of the wisest of the an
clients, concerning a luminary seventy
million times as large as the moon; one
million four hundred thousand times as
large as the earth; and which, in one
year draws up from the earth water
enough to make a lake 24C00 miles long,
5000 miles wide and Is feet deep. 1t was
the one-sidedness of the development
of these ancient philosophers which made
such views possible. If we would not be
the slaves of prejudice, we must seek
symmetrical culture.
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

drawing together with the purpose of be-
nevolently reconstructing life. This they
very well know involves reeonstructing
the modern city for common service, cons
mon welfare, common inspiration, educa-
ton, health and dignity. And the gold OF
the modern Croesus and the modern
ophir is being poured into their lap.
This is not yet the best of all possible
worlds; but there is something to be said
In its defence; while the Gould millions
are in part administered by a noble wom-
an for the service of womanhood and
manhood, the Sage millions likewise de-
voted to a scientific attack on ignorance
and on disease; the Carnegie millions
laid with much display of modesty at the
service of the worlds students, and the
Rockefeller millions sent begging for a
chance to vie with the far fewer millions
of DR.. D. X Pearsons In charging the
life of young souls. Yes, there is a PROS
pect for 1.-The city that hath foundations,
whose builder and maker is Cod
Slowly, inevitably, beautifully energies
into view the promise of the poet, wroughs
in lines of artistic truth:
THAT each should find his own IN all
mems good
And all men dwell in noble brotherhood"
When that promise is fulfilled will there
be any city. or will all the land be rus dn
urbe a frank return TO the simple life?
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

warehouse. He pauses at a haberdasher'a
window in front of neckwear display
labeled. 'Winsome Ascots for the Snappy
Observation-Disclosures for one foolish, fatal
second, and is a ruined man.
HE peels out of the tab-bosomed shirt.
He shucks the evening gown effect in
linen collars, BY degrees he drifts away
from the faith of the Founders of the Re-
public into the hellish embraces of nor
folk jacket and sash belt. A watch
full, hostile eye detects II and sends the
news hustling back TO the district. An
ever vigilant press undertakes his green
plush hat, and his patent leather pumps,
and exposes his damnable secret record OF
silk understands and patent garters. His
tailor-made crimes are barred to an arous-
ed and indignant people. He Is branded
as one who has so far fallen into the
hands Of the plutocratic pluto that he's
actually wearing their kind of clothes and
trying to look comfortable inside of 'em.
He is completely destroyed. young
county attorney with a seersucker coat
and a loud, compelling bugle-like voice,
who never knew the chafng contact of q
pair of celluloid cuffs until he was 10
years old, energies from Galloway county
and beats him TO pulp in the primaries.
All, my friend. those Washington gents
furnishing stores have much to answer
for. They have aimed many a blow at
the fayorite Institutions of a free people,"
And freedom shrieked when Joe Bailey
fell I added.
yes, said Davy Crockett. especially
when Joe Bailey fell for high hat"
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12
SYMMETRICAL CULTURE-No. by

also prophecy. They were looking for
revolutionary radical. and had no use
for the calm conservative.
Under the old dspensation the pillar
of cloud was a fair emblem of the dim
and misty medium through which the
jews viewed their relations to God. 1t
did not please God to drive away this
cloud by a sudden whirlwind, but to dis
pei it gradually by the calm, noiseless
shining of the Sun of Righteousness. The
prejudice of the Jews prevented them
from seeing this. Hence they rejected
Jesus.
About the year 1898 William Murdoch
invented gaslight. During that year 1t
was used to light some of the offices of
the Soho foundry, which had been COM
pleted by Messrs Boulton. Watt & Sons
in 1896, and christened "in the name of
Vulcan and all the Gods of fire and wa
ter" In 1902, at the peace of Amiens,
the front was illuminated with gas. In
1909 Mr.. Murdoch was examined by a
parliamentary committee, when a MEM
Der asked, DO you mean to tell us that
1t will be possible to have light without
a wick?" yes, / do indeed said Mr..
Murdoch. "Ahl my friend said the
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

that from speakers who have never read
anything beyond a history of the United
States, and not much of that; by the
wholesale denunciauons of the Catho-
lies" from speakers who do not kno -
that such a man as Fenelon ever lived;
and last. though not least, by the widest
interpretations of difficult passages of
Scripture, uttered most confidently by
men who do not even know that such pas
sages are at all difficult, and who thus
rush boldly in where angels fear to tread.
That a question has two sides, and
sometimes a great many more, is state
ment which even many educated men
never fully accept and yet 1t can be
doubted by no man who has ever ex-
amined the questions, What is light?'
and "Who was Junius?'
Prejudice prevents progress 1t caused
the ablest expounders of Moses to quar-
rel with Christ, and to contend that His
very miracles proved His collision with
Satan. Their quarrel with Him was that
He did not fulfill their preeonceived mo-
tons of the Messiah: He was not klngly
enough. He was too quiet. The bruised
reed He did not break, and the smoking
fax He did not quench They could not
see the force of this poetry, which was
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

Inns and his set. Let us not forget that
New England was a slave-trader. Their
pirates brought the sayages here, SOLD
them to US down south, where we Chris
tianized them. But why go into that, the
most Infamous chapter In all history,
southern reconstruction, and have read
about Caligula and Nero, Tamerlane and
the Turkish empire of the herioc Sultans,
too.
But what made me mad and what Is
responsible for this rather choleric letter
Is what two yankee preachers had to say
about It, One Hartshorn, of Boston, ana
one Stroller, of, Brooklyn voted themselves
clear of race prejudice. and the paper
saws they emphasized the difference be-
tween the treatment the negro receives IN
the north and in the SOUTH
Well. let me put plain tale that Will
show you how little more than an oys-
ter these two know about 1t. I grant
YOU they are perfectly honest, perfectly
sincere, and from their stand point God
fearing, If not God-loWing, men. The lat
ter I doubt for we cannot love that we
do not understand.
But what is the treatment of the negro
at the north? Do you find negro BARRIERS
in Boston? No. Why? Because of race
preiudice that would have the negro,
statesman down south, but not an artisan
negro commits the unspeakable crime. we,
In orderly way, take him out and lynch
him. It is the only way to preserve
civilization If there were better way,
we would practice 1t. How is it in Spring
field. Ohio, or Springfield, Illinois? Why.
thew not only lynch the offending negro,
hut thew will kill scores of innocent men.
women and children of the race and burn
their roofs over their heads. Kansas,
where old John Brown murdered and
robbed set the fashion of burning negroes
at the stake.
Tt was an Unreasonable calamity that
the south did nots heed the admonitions
Of washington and Jefferson, Clay and
Rreckinridges, and gradually emancipate
the slaves, exporting them as they were
freed New England refused to go into
the Union unless 1t was provided In the
Constitution that until 1908 they were not
r. he disturbed in the thrifty work of
turning molasses into rum which they
swapped on the coast of Guinea for black
slaves. that they exchanged for tobacco
on the coasts of Virginia. They carried
the tobacco to Liverpool. and there ex-
changed for goods wares and merchan-
disc that they took to Cuba and swapped
for rum And thus the elect of God pros
nered and made ''ganeful pyllage."
It was discovered that slavery was not
nrofitable at the north. That was after
1908. and only then 1t was first revealed
that slavery was wicked at the south.
But for the meddlips yankees-long- haired
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

legislator, you are trying to prove too
much" This is about fair specimen
of the fate of the men who have intro
dueed new light into this prejudieed
world.
Columbus was no exception. Prejudice
said that tn earth was great square
plain. with each corner resting on the
back of a gigantic elephant each ele-
plant standing on the back OF huge
tortoise, and each tortoise standing on
prejudice couldn't say what, We may
wonder that prejudice did not go turther'
and make a long story; but we must re-
member that prejudice is lazy and not
ingenious, and that such revolutionary
mad-caps as talked about the world turn
ing around every day were enough TO
run honest folks crazy. Columbus there
fore, deserved rough handling He was
a revolutionist, if not rebel.
Harvey discovered the circulation of the
Blood, and lost his medical practice; peo-
pie said the man was run mad; for he
said that their blood actually ran through
their veins.
We may get some idea of the power OF
prejudice by noticing the opinions or
some of the ancient sages concerning the
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

In the song that said my friend used
to sing occur the words,
II have sailed meath alien skies,
l have trod the desert path,
l have seen the storm arise
Like a giant in his wrath:
Every danger l have known
That a reckless life can fill;
Yet her presence has not flown
Her bright smile haunts me still"
/ knew her also, whose smile ever
haunted the poor, crazed man. This
shock of his death and the manner OF
it crushed her heart. and for years thero1
after, heartsick and pale, she moved like
a ghost, in garb of mourning
"HOW CAN I LEAVE THEEr
This old Thuringian folksong find on
page 2S 1t carries me back to sunny
! childhood. when it was sung along with
such dear old songs as THE Cottage BY
the Sea- Shells of the Ocean, "Beauti-|
full Isle of the Sea" and Rocked in the
Cradle of the Deep"
Caroline Richings was a celebrated OPP
era singer. and before the approach OIL
years affected her voice she was one|
OF Americas very best prtma donnas
| never hear a bar from Norma with
out thinking of Caroline Richings. who
used to sing so famously in that opera
She married the celebrated baritone sing3
en- Pierre Bernard. and established hes|
home in Richmond, Va, leaving the sta8fI
forever.
In the city of their new home the Ber
Yards too much interest in musical mat
tiers. They reorganized an old musica
association and gathered about them thu
best talent of Virglnia's capital city
Among others who sang with them wal
handsome young man who. to this day.
has never had an equal in Richmond ~
pure lyric tenor singer. I refer
John II. BEDFORD. He was of delicatI
sympathetic. He had dark brown eyes.
through which the sweetness of lofty
soul ever shone.
While associated with the Demands y
| their musical work BEDFORD was take
| Ill. He grew worse constantly and. real
| izing that the end was near. he sem
word to his friends of the musical assoX
citation that he wanted them at his gran
| to sing How Can I Leave Theef'
The burial occurred at Hollywood
Richmond, perhaps the most beautifc
cemetery in the United States, an
around his grave his old friends gathereU
ard sang How Can I Leave Thee!
Tears fell and hearts ached as the peX
thctic words were sung
| Blue is the violet,
| Called the forget-me-not.
Wear 1t upon thy heart,
And think of me: tlAU
Floweret and hope may d.
Yet love shall with us stay.
| That cannot pass away.
Dear one believe"
1t was not very long before the dee
| voice of Caroline Richings Bernard va
| silenced in death. She contracted q MOI
violent form of smallpox, of which 81
| died She also lies in her narrow how
in sacred Hollywood
But here l must close the book
Dear Old Songs There are many %
ers herein over which memory loves
| linger. Some of them | used to sing
| my college days out in the starlight "a
| meath the balconies of certain fair y
LETS not of the house of the Capulets.
"Ah, by-gone years come back aga
With each remembered strain;
cannot sing the old songs.
Nor dream those dreams again.
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

not have written it for my life Then
who did?" Goldsmith" But Goldsmith
did not know the meaning of this pas
sage" NO said Johnson lit was not
his business to know-it was mine.
What do you mean, DOCTOR? Il mean
that he is a poet and l am a critic"
One of the most serious obstacles to
symmetrical culture is
l. PREJUDICE. e.. :. =. :.
The world Is full of this. Honest cam
dor in the statement of ones own views,
and a reasonable willingness to concede
to an opponent all that he may fairly
claim, are rare qualities. Moderation
sometimes seems to be a lost virtue.
Assumption. bold, bald and baseess, is
made to do duty for argument, and he
redtary crochets are dgnifed with the
title of essential principles
Prejudice is lazy vice. TO investigate
a question. weigh the evidence look mar
rowly and fairly at all sides, and thus
make up an intelligent opinion is a world
of trouble. 1t is SO much easier and
cleaner work to decide without investiga-
ton; and that this is commonly done is
attested by the frequency with which
we hear what "all history proves and
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

FNVERYBODY favors education. How
ever widely men may differ on 9TH
1-A er points, they seem to be at one
on this. The Atlantic Monthly and the
Southern Review, the New York Tri-
hume and the Charleston News and Cou-
Tier; Abraham Lincoln and jefferson Da-
Wis; Theodore Roosevelt and Alexander
Maclaren-may all be ranked as advo-
Gates of culture. But notwithstanding
this universal admiration, 1t may be
feared that we are too apt to con-
tent ourselves with a vague admira-
ton of the thing we admire. Ed
ucation Is often worshiped at ols-
lance. When Moses was about TO as
oend the mount to meet Jehovah and taik
with Him, the people protested great
reverence for the Lord. and said that
they were too deeply and devoutly I'M
pressed with Jehovah's majesty TO come
near the mount. They stayed afar on.
But whilst Moses is engaged in the won
drous transaction with God and the vol
leying thunders and lurid lightnings are
giving their testimony to the solemmty
of the scene, the awe-struck worsh1pers
have forgotten Jehovah and have substi-
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12
THE RACE QUESTION-By Savoyard

men who should have been born women,
and short-haired women who should not
have been born at all-slavery would have
died a natural death at the south. Nearly
all the F. F. VS. were emancipationists.
North Carolina was pretty nearly an
emancipation state the middle of the last
century, and Tennessee was little behind
her The south had numerous emancipa-
ton societies. and the very year the New
England Emancipation society was form
ed, representatives from IS southern anti
slavery societies met In Baltimore to
devise ways and means to free the negro.
But when rude, Impairment unmanner-
ly, insolent, meddlng New England set
themselves up as the only exemplars on
earth of political God and morality, every
southern anti-slavery society," except old
Chosh Clay and a few other fanatics In
Kentucky, dissolved and. turned rank pro-
slavery. That made the war. Nobody
but fool or a fanatic denies that
slavery was recognized as property in the
Constitution. The south stood pat on the
Constitution. The north nullifed 1t, and
being the stronger, her nullif1cation went.
The south said, VERY we'll, If you won't
stand by the articles of copartnership, let
the firm be dissolved" Under the Consti-
tuition as interpreted by the supreme court,
a southern man had as much right to
take lnCO MS teTTlloIy IhS HoSlO save
and there hold him as the northern man
had to take his horse. But the north
repudiated its own constitution, and made
the war.
Abraham Lincoln was no more what
Henry Watterson idealizes him than he
was what Dom Piatt paints him. He
was a southern poor white, and had no
philanthropy to throw to the negro. But
he had all the contempt in the world for
the sentimental nonsense of Emerson,
Sumner, Phillips and that set, who would
have sent to the slaughter all the whites
of the south, of all ages and both sexes,
had that been the only way to free a
niger.
In his debate with Douglas Mr.. Lincoln
expressed his contempt for the negro, and
all he sought was to emancipate the
whites of the south from the ruin that
slavery threatened to bring upon them,
and as all now clearly see 1t would have
resulted in. Lincoln had more than the
wisdom of Franklin, and he was the most
practical statesman of an epoch out OF
which American civilization, as by mira
Gle, emerged without destruction. Had
he lived there would have been no four
teenth and no fifteenth amendments
There would have been none of that cruel
and Infamous reconstruction at the south.
for every drop of his blood was southern
and every pulsation of his heart southern
The man he admired most in all the world
was the vice-President of the Southern
Confederacy
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

~HAKEsPEARE wrote as no other
writer of profane letters has WRIT,
~ and among his tens of thousands of
gems we find this;
For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache pa
tiently."
And believe you will find 1t in Shakes
peare that we can bear the ills of our
neighbor with more serenity than we VIII
ever tote our own.
The Worlds Sunday School convention
lately convened in this town, and the local
committee very properly excluded the col
ored contingent from the parade, whereat
and whereupon there was the devil to
nav and not enough hot pitch handy.
The colored hierarchy delivered Itself of an
indignant harangue that very thinly yelled
the ambition of every educated negro-his
aspiration to full social equality. And the
foreign contingent fell in. applauded,
washed their hands In invisible water
with imperceptfble SOAP" and thanked
God they were better than their neigh
hors.
What does an Englishman know of the
race question as 1t exists with us? AS
Pharisee he smites his breast and ex-
| claims, W6 nave HO idSc PiSJNN>So'
Certainly they have not there Is no raw
material over there out of which to fash
ion such thing: but you put as many
negroes per thousand in Great Britain as
there are In the United States, and they
will forge you race prejudice that will
make ours blush.
Put one of these gentry down In the
black belt of the cotton south, keep him
there a twelve-month. citizen OF any
one of the Gulf states. and Ben Tillman
will rebuke him for the intensity and I'M
charity of his race prejudice. Haven't we
seen It in yankees who have pitched their
tents down there?
II II were only Ill manners-for am
not very strong on manners-if 1t were
not a suggestion of the immoral, I would
ask these Sunday school kickers to read
that English classic. TON JONES' by
Henry Fielding, in which this admonition
Is found: "He will discuss subject with
no less Intellectual force who first informs
himself as to the merits of the question
And that is true. as anyone with avery
little of the quality of ratiocination must
soon discover
These visitors from abroad are densely
and defiantly ignorant of the race ques-
ton in the United States, and it is an i'm
pertinence for them to tell us what to do
about a problem that involves caste, that
is stronger than armies and navies and all
the PHILOSOPHERS Of the transcendental
schools and all the foolishness of such
sentimental platherskites as Wendell Phil
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12
DEAR OLD SONGS"-By DR..

drove everybody into the stuffy cabin
Including myself. there were four Amer
leans among the passengers. To forget
the tedum of the trip, l suggested that
we sing. AS we did so the Austrians
gathered around us with apparent inter-
est and pleasure. We sang such songs
as all Americans know. The interested
silence of the Austrians was compli-
ment to our singing and. therefore, we
sang on. But when we had finished my
Old Kentucky Home the silence broke
out into "Hoch, hoch Amerikal Hoch.
Amerikar The old song had Struck the
spot" 1t was not the singers that were
applauded, but the song-the fine, quaint
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

Among other attractions that I found
was a Tyrolean company of singers, who
rendered the songs of their native land
in costume These people were simply
overwhelmingly irresistible. They were
called back over and over again, still
singing their wild mountain songs and
rendering their marvelously bewildering
yodels. Finally, in answer to the last
wild and universal encore, they returned
to the platform and, accompanying them
selves on all sorts of musical instru-
ments, they sang MY Old Kentucky
Home" The effect was astoundingly
electrical Tt was startling. There were
five thousand people present, and 1t
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

seemed that every man, woman and
child Joined In the rapturous outburst.
Hats were waved aloft, handkerchief
f1uttered while thousands stood on the
benches and shouted aloud under the
influence of the patriotic tidal wave. I
had never seen anything in the way of
expressed emotion to equal 1t. / shall
never forget 1t.
The second occasion with which I as
sociate this dear old song is very
tame, compared with that just described
7 had taken the steamer at Lintz, in up
per Austria to sail down the Danube
river to Vienna The morning was very
cloudy, and in few hours fall of rain
The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-12

O. dear old songs, now seldom seen.
What memories you raise;
You whisper of what might have oeen'
You sing of long-past days.