davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

HAVE long meant to preach you ser
 mon, my friends. I have thought of 4 all your deviltries and good deeds-of your manifold virtues and vices. I have thought long and long of the greed that wants "to get on in the world,' and in the process will cheerfully beggar its neighbor to get on. Of the absence of ambition I have wondered too-of the folding of hands and the all-too-passive life that deserves neither praise or blame; and long I have thought of the beautiful gestures of those who serve.
 I have found so much of the devil and angel in you that an "eeny-meeny- miney-mo' conclusion as to the worst man, the best man among you, has seemed to me as sane as any.
 How can I preach you a sermon, my friends? For I do not surely know your face-certainly I have no knowledge of the face of your soul-and l cannot talk with one who is hidden under mountains of goodness and blindness. You seem to send messengers to tell me that you are good or bad, but these messengers do not tell me much of you. I think these messengers tell lies about you, neighbor For how can your words tell me more of yourself than your eilences tell me? Sparrow twitterings they seem to me, and they no more hint of the deeps of you than the twilight birds tell of the gulfs between Saturn and me.
 have mixed with your worsts and bests-confabbed with criminals and saints Cor those that we call criminals and saints) and I have not despaired Where grime is, there is glory; and almost halo appears where the worst man appears Disease, brutal fly are merely the shells, the husks of him we call degenerate. Under the cow ering, summed chap-underneath what we
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

mile south of it, he would be President And today Judson Harmon would be a stronger candidate for the democratic nomination if he were a citizen of Gov ington, Ky, rather than of Cincinnati, o. Champ Clark is a stronger candi- date for the nomination because he was born in Kentucky and lives in Missouri than he would be if he had been born in Ohio and lived in Iowa. So it would appear that the war is al- most over and and sectionalism nearly obliterated. For more than half a cen tury no southern man has been eligible to the Presidency and since 1864 no southern man has been eligible to the vice presidency. And yet Abraham Lin coin had not one drop of northern blood in his veins.
 Ever since the war the south has been attending national democratic conven- tions instructed to vote for the man the north considered the strongest; but in 1912 it appears more likely that a southern man will be nominated than it did that James K. Polk would be chosen the day the convention of 1S44 convened. Of course, in that view of the thing Woodrow Wilson counts for what he is--a southerner
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

could not abandon the pen. But the mar ket for his literary wares was so limited that without ample means he was un- able to prosecute that alone The two indispensable requisites of literary sue cess-time and leisure-were not his to command, and he was compelled to scuf- file for the expression of his charming thought as best he could.
 The literary productions of Judge A. B.. Meek have been more eagerly sought by the later generations than by his contem- poraries. The edition of each was linn tied. his books have therefore become rare. highly prjzed by all lovers of liter ature, but difficult to find. Certainly as much as any other southern writer Judge Meek has immortalized the spirit and genius of the south of a former period, which is now only a pleasing recollection. More than any other, perhaps, he has embodied i'll enduring form the peculiar clements which entered into our southern fife. The mookng bird, the magnolia,
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29
THE POLITICAL STTUATlON-By Savoyard

ance of his that any genuine democrat can adversely critlcise; but Tammany at the north, nor Baileyism at the south, nor both of them. can force or cajole a nomination in the democratic eonven- ton in 1912.
 Then what is the play? Nothing plainer-fayorite-so and oscar Underwood is the man. New York will send a Dix delegation for trading pur- poses Massachusetts well send Floss delegation, but a little apter than other wise it will be unmanageable and Wilson squad at heart on the matter Of raw materials. Indiana will send Marshall delegation, and Tom Taggart and Roger Sullivan will be at the con- vention. Illinois will have a Harri- son delegation, and there will be others.
 The Harmon men at the south are al- ready on the march to the Underwood camp, where they will be reinforced by the Harmon men at the north when it is developed that their man can't win. Thus the Martin machine in old Vir- ginia is for Wilson, not because it wants to be, but because it has to be. The German machine in Maryland will rest in the Harmon camp on its march to the Underwood camp.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

lot of brush leegers like Muntgummery and Mobile. and every baseball fan in Birmingham vii rush to the blacksmith shop and get a sledge big enuff to bust the rivets in Vulcan and hammer pore old Moley, and his bunch of onions to a fare you-well--all eXsept Harry. Harry will smile and confidently tell you that we have the "best teem in the world' and there ant enny way to beet us, unless there legs fall off. and the matter of los- ing Q few games is simply case of hard luck, and that it wouldn't do for us to win every game enny how, and so on.
 Harry is one of Birmingham's cheef as- sets, and Birmingham in way appresit ates it, he Is a Booster, and as a Booster his batting average is 1000. and Boosters make a town-Boosters made Atlanta without q thing to start with.
 Harry is a Demmocrat and if OslSer Underwood is elected president he ought to put Harry in the Cabinet, it would make no difference in what capasity for Hary could fill enny job on the list, bur it would make the Cabinet perminint, for if Hary got into it, he would never cum out. and the republican chanses for evver getting anuther hold on the country would be reduced to the minuymum.
 Evvery news boy, every fireman, evvery baseball fan evvery citizen in enny walk of life.in Birmingham knows Harry Jones. and almost evvery visitor to Birmingham knows him, and every body that knows him seys he is Every bodys fsend' and one of the best felers in the wosid. Long may he live, and he will for hell be as reluctint to leave Birmingham hs he has been in turning lose job, and therefore we repeet, long may he live. as one of ,he verry best and greatest products of the grate Jones Fammily. Yours trooly,
 Bill Vines
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29
TO YOU, WHOEVER YOU ARE-By A. B. Bealle

cleanness, unselfishness, to honorable and fair dealing, we find repeated those ges-
 lures of the first dissatisfied men-those
 who out of the morass of brutality, self ishness, first conceived dream that perhaps 1t was not just the
 real right thing to depend alone on Drawn
 and stealth-on the hazard of the forests shadows to outwit the belligerent ape. The thinker appeared-not yet a human ity lover, but one who saw beyond the tip of his nose-who knew a passion beyond the hunger of his belly. The first hint
 about God appeared in the world--a hint
 which was perhaps no more than a
 prompting that bade this first thinker
 poison his arrows no more.
 The French sculptor, Rodin, has fixed
 in marble that dim dream of the first
 thinker great brute of a man, muscled like an OK, sits with bowed head. Almost
 one can see the massive chest rise and fall-passive now after great eXertion. He may have killed two enemies just now. one thinks. But one believes that he will kill no more; at least he will not bleed and mangle his enemy any more. Some thing there is in his face-not of benif- | cence, nor of tenderness, yet, rather some
 wonder that has touched him of the
 mystery of the forest. After the spent
 day, perhaps no more than wonder if the day was well spent. And in the bowed ! head of "The Thinker one finds prophe- cy of the erect wondering man-of the examiner. of the mental and spiritual | fighter displacing the eater of raw flesh. For the first thinker the struggle grew intenser. Save for lessenng the phys.- ! al a,i1c of iIp tho Aphtipo
 on--on different plane
 | q find that we have no more than got
 our text for what may or may not develop
 into sermon. If the editor doesn't mind
 we will try to gather up these tangled ] threads of talk next Sunday.)
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

attorney general, MT. Meek sought grat- ifcation of his literary tastes by creating a new local journal at Tuscaloosa, which he called The Flag of the Union" Later he edited in the same town a literary jour nal called ''The Southron.h
 The limited resources at his command compelled him to defect his course into channels other than those purely literary, and in 1S42 he was appointed county judge of Tuscaloosa, and during the same year published a supplement to the Digest of Ale bama.
 Being appointed law clerk to the so- licitor of the treasury at Washington he gained an insight into the life of the national capital, and perhaps his res idence there had some connection with his being made United States attorney for the southern district of Alabama, which position he held for four years, living meanwhile in Mobile. From this position he wont to the associate ed itorship of the Mobile Daily Register.
 In 1858 we find Judge Meek repre-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

HNOR versatility, brlllancy and gen.
 eral usefulness, few Alabamians 4 have surpassed Judge Alexander B. Meek. His was an unusual combination of powers He was a poet, author. ora Tor, editor and jurist. and was incon- spicuous in none One of the earliest graduates from the University of Ala bama, where he received the masters des rec, he found full exercise for his varied gifts during career which ex- tended through 32 years.
 Choosing the bar as profession, Judge Meek entered on the practice of the law In 1885. During the following year. 1S56 he enlisted along with others to serve against the Creek Indians, in Florida, MT. Meek going in the capacity of a non-eommis- stoned officer.
 On his return from the Florida cam paign, MT. Meek was appointed by Gov ernor Clay attorney general for the state. At the expiration of his term of office as
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

spirit which animated what has come to be called "The Old South" An agricul- tural people, We of the south gave but little attention, prior to the civil war, to literary pursuits. There were those like Judge Meek, who wrote and wrote we'll and thousands of others could have lone so, but there was but slight encourage ment, SO that the literary culture of the south was largely unknown and un- recognized by others. The genuine splr- it of the people and of the times is em- balmed in the rare literary products such as we have from the pen of this Ala bamian
 That which has already been said af- lords slight view of the stirring scenes through which Judge Meek passed the major part of his life. Possessing varied gifts he sought to give vent in some measure to each, but it is in his literary productions that his real fame abides. That literature was his passion is shown by the fact that whatever else he did, he
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29
ABOUT HARRY JONES-By Bill Vines

HISTUR EDDITUR: If the geen- NH ealogical history of the Jones fammiy could be assembled, it would doutless be a corller for size, and would no dout be verry interesting reed ing matter. In newmerrical strength the Jones famfnily air the only close com petttors of the Smiths, but it is not of the Jones fammly we want to invite our attension, but, only to a large hunk of it, e viz to wit, Harry Jones. You of course know Harry--evvery body knows him. Sumthing less than hundred yeers ago Harry came to Birmingham, when it was only a flag stasion, and got the depot agent and the saw-mill man to vote for him, and was elected Alderman. He continued to be alderman as long as there weer enny, and the only possibul way they coulf get rid of him was to abolish the job, which they did. Short ly aftur Harry came to town the Moore & Handley Hadw. Co. was organized and Harry kindly permitted them to work for him for q consideration, and they have been doing so evver cents. Harry believes in holding on, and the only way Moore and Handley can evver get out of working for Harry is to follow the exam pie took by the Alderman route, and abolish themselves Jones valley is named after Harry, and it does it credit. When it cums to the time of electiong the commissioners of Birmingham by the pee pull, if Harry wants to be commissioner he'll sertainly get the job, and his possi- bul competitors only hope that he won't want to be all three of them, and when he once gets to be one, there Is no use calling for the hook for Harry will have it nailed down good and hard.
 When Harry was Alderman he maid a
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

senting Mobile county in the legisla- ture. where as chairman of the com mittee on education he reported the bill to establish and maintain a sys- tenn of free public schools in the state 'of Alabama The bill providing for the scheme. together with a voluminous and exhaustive report on education, ex- cited profound interest in the legisla- ture and the documents were so ap- preciated that 5000 copies of the bill, and 10000 copies of the report were ordered to be printed
 This was the dawn of a new era ir. education in this state. Various at tempts had before been made to gain the attention of the legislature anu the people of the state on this trans cendant matter, but they had proved of but slight avail till the work under taken by Judge Meek. The astound : ing prevalence of illiteracy in the state as exhibited by his report did more than to arouse interest; it created as tonishment with not a slight degree of
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

apprehension The work done by Judge Mock in this connection gave q strong propulsion to educational work in the state and the interest daepened and grew in intensity till checked by the civil war.
 Being elected judge of the city court of Mobile. Judge Meek found sufficient time, amidst the eXactons of his official duty on the bench, to gratify, to some de- gree, his taste for literary pursuits. It was during this period that he found time to write the three rare works whien established his literary fame These are "The Red Eagle" Romantic Passages in Southwestern History" and Songs and Poems of the South.' Some of .hese were a collection of fugitive contributions which he had previously made to maga- zines and newspapers. and some of them were prepared at the time specially for embodied publication.
 Of the literary merit Of his productions there is no doubt They are intensely southern in their flavor and represent the
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

mprison and torture--is a silent self you
 may not touch with your hangman's
 nooses and kilowatts.
 You see how impossible it is for me to
 preach you a sermon. my friends. I
 know that I want you to be saved from
 your blindness, or what we familiarly
 call Sin--but seriously, I do not know
 enough about you either to praise or
 blame you. You whose best self has
 gone imprisoned this long time-you who have walked lock-step through the days
 and years-must learn for yourselves, through yourselves-not throuh me or
 anyone else-the kngly stride, the unfet- tered spirit. You alone can best learn how to
 Hold fast, hope hard in the subtle thing
 Called spirit; though cloIstered fast, Soar free!''
 I am not sure that up to certain point your ntermixed loving and hating, l your jeaousies. lawlessnesses, have not served you As the brute evolved, or | the dissatisfied ape appeared from his wrestle with the lesser breed so have our struggles brought us to this point. out
 of the jungles boundary. So it is fitting that we begin nere ana HOW, soHe Hlii- | lions of rungs higher up, strong and 1 erect from yesterdays turbulences-fit- | ter and saner for the wrestle of the l future
 l Only, this wrestling of the future
 must be of different nature, beginning here and now. The jungle is not any
 more outside of us. It is circumscribed :! by the human brain. Not any more l have we to lie awake nights with pois- nnn6 let it,fr fnr fOrpGf noises and the stealthy step. The jun | gle that cOnfronts us now is vaster, for we find it in ourselves. In our brutal | tendencies, traits, we discover the cum ming and all the craftiness of the as sassin. In those traits that prompt to
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

universal custom to turn a fraction of
 wage into capital and invest it in the stocks of the concerns that pay the
 wage,
 But that is discussion. Republican
 Wall street is not going to allow the c. o. P. to nominate Robert M. La
 Toilette, and democratic Wall street is not going to allow the democrats to nominate Woodrow Wilson-if it can prevent 1t, and probably it cannot To all seeming MT. Taft has the republican nomination nailed down. No republican President-but Arthur-who sought a nomination for a second term ever
 failed to get it, and it is doubtful if the insurgents in the republican con vention will have any more numerical strength compared with the standpat- ters than they have in either house of the SiXty-second Congress.
 But there will be a mighty pretty fight in the democratic camp, where 1t
 is Wilson against the field. just as it
 was Cleveland against the field 20 years
 earlier Harmon would make a splen-
 did race if he were not weighted down
 by so many half baked democrats who are supporting him. It Is unfortunate too. for no man can point to an utter
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

Woodrow Wilson seems to have in- cured the enmity of Wall street, the magnates of which in both parties ap- pear to be incapable of learning that when absolute security shall come for them the scales of justice will be ex- ouisitely right adjust" between the men who get a living from dividends and the men who get a living from wages Whenever and wherever capi- tai, or labor. has the slightest ad- antage-
 Be 1t so much As to make it light or heavy in the
 substance,
 Or the division of the twentieth part Of one poor scruple, nay. if the scale
 do turn
 But in the estimation of q hair r"-- there is bound to be friction that breeds discontent, that breeds turmoil, that breeds violence, that breeds bloodshed. But both capital and labor are im- mensely human, both are clamorous for the sunny side of the peach, both scramble for the deep sop of the skillet. And it Is difficult, if not impossible, to devise a system that will compose this perennial strife unless it become the
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29
WHO HAVE MADE A4ABAMA-ALEXANDER B. MEEK-B Riley

the long trailing moss of our southern swamps. the hon0ysuckle. the traits and remnants of the vanished tribes of the Red Men, and other elements peculiarly southern are embodied and emDamed i'll the prose and poetry of A. E. Meek.
 Without the weirdness of Poe, Meeks surpassed him in deftness of touch and daintiness of expression. There Is an in- dennable delicacy and a subtleness Of force and suggestiveness in many Of Meek's passages which have never been surpassed. Nothing can excel the beauty and color of some ot his verse In one instance, while describing an Indian maiden. he says
 ''Ane her eyes flashing wildly when with
 gladness they smile,
 Have the dark liquid flow of the ripe
 muscadine."
 His responsive spirit absorbed the soft. bland atmosphere of his own sunny region.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

That may leave Champ Clark with the balance of power, if he and Folk can pool their strength and recruit Bryan It is not at all thinkable that Bailey can take Texas away from Will son, nor is it likely that Simmons can deliver North Carolina. Doubtless Till man is still boss of South Carolina. but can he Baileyize the state of Calhoun, Hayne and Hampton? We shall see
 Woodrow Wilson is a man of action and the best politician in the demo- cratic party today, but Oscar Under wood is no slouch. Wilson took d bludgeon to Jim Smith; Underwood would have sapped and mined him. It is said that an eel enjoys being skinned by an expert. Underwood lis an ex- pert" But all the same, if Woodrow Wilson is President he will owe the nomination and the election to the club be took to Jim Smith, and if the south should prove potential enough to sue cessfully monkey with the New Jersey delegation to the national convention 1t will make the nomination of Wilson imperative and inevitable.
 It is a rather pretty situation as 1t stands.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29

:s's a... .,s 5.s President of the United States, and then General Taylor was not chosen because he was southern man, but in spite Of ii. One reason for his election was the brilliant victory he gained over a stronger foe in Mexico. Another was that the democratic administration and General Scott sought to weaken him so that he could not fight at all, much less gain a victory. Another was that James K. Polk beat Martin Van Buren for the democratic nomination for Pres ident in 1S44 Another was that Martin Van Buren hated Clay more than he loved the democratic party Another was that Taylor was not much or a Whig anyhow. Things have changed somewhat since 1S4S. In those days it was not prerequisite that postage on mail matter be prepaid at the office whence it was sent, and when the let ter notifying him of his nomination came to the village postoffice near his plantation in Louisiana, the grim old hero refused to take it out of the post office and pay the postage on 1t. He
The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1911-11-04
WILL NOT BE DISTURBED
Legislation Not to Affect RniIrond,'
Relief Associations

Washington, November 3.-Railroad
employees relief associations will not
be disturbed by the proposed employ
ers' liability legislation to be sub
initted TO Congress this winter by the
congressional committee on employ
trs liability. a number of roads that
nave their own relief associations We're
anxious to know just what Congress
%oulc expect of them. and to-day rep
resentatives of the PENNSYLVANIA, Phil
adelphia and Reading. Chicago, Bur
Nngton and Quincy, Baltimore and
ONO, and the Atlantic Coast Line met
with Senator Sutherland chairman of
the committee. who told them that the
proposed legislation would not inter-
teTe with the roads individual plans.
II, after investigation, they were found
10 be satisfactory
The railroads Interested have relief
association liabilities amounting 10
S2OO,o0o.O00. and these associations
nave been in operation on some of the
railroads for twenty-five years The
railroads felt If Congress enacted such
legisla ton that their own associations
would be compelled TO discontinue and
hquidate. ii would result in hardship
not only for the railroads. but for the
employees as we'll
The question will be considered fur
ther al hearing before the full con-
sressional committee Monday.