The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-29

virtuous souls who repealed that lit tie, old, still-voiced, quiet. statute of 1881, stuck away so unpretentious!y of statutes which have been enacted since that year. under the provisions or which a little plot of this terraqucous sphere three miles in circumference, with Ruhama Church as its center was withdrawn from this wicked world and sanctihed. No. It never occurred to the legislature of 1909 that the amendment to the constitution of the state of Ala bama 1t had so graciously submitted to the people for adoption by them would be ingloriously defeated; that the Fuller bill and the Carmichael! bills had not been enacted by the people and that at the polls they would, through their vote on the proposed amendment to the constitution. proclaim almost with acclaim that these laws had been enacted by as vainglorious and mis- taken a legislature as ever misrepre- sented the people of any state; and that in time the people through other leg islators might repudiate them even as they have done. They were as confi- dent as the French, poor souls, that what they had done would never be un- done; that what they had written. they had written, and that it would never be unwritten. That little old act of 1881 remained perfectly silent and un- thought of, it Is to be hoped, for, if they deliberately repealed 1t, the more 5 the shame; and they can but brave 1t for they can never defend 1t except upon time-serving, trucking rulr or ruin argument. far removed from virtue unalloyed.
 To the, dangers of the Smith bill they are keen: of the dangers of the Fuller and Carmichael bills they are oblivious Worthy counsellors. Where were they with their after-thoughted foresight when the Smith bill was enacting? Where wers they with their virtuous soliciude for Ruhama church in Jefferson county, ana the other hallowed reservations throus"- out the state of Alabama? Even where they now are, for above the masses ot the people, soaring about in the depths of an over-virtuous atmosphere to Which the majority of the people as expressed in their vote upon the constitutions amend nent have given them deed in fee simple absolute with full covenants But IS blessed Ruhama the, only sanctified spot in the state of Alabama, for the fair face of which the rose has been plucked by these stupid Fuller and Carmichael bills that by possibility a blister may be suo- stituted? Not in anywise- ln every county in the state of Alabama there arc other little hallowed spots which have .teen just as ruthlessly desecrated by the over-righteous solons of the ever-memor- able year of grace 1909, and they stand within the danger to which Ruhama Is exposed, and in which this rule or ruin element now glory. Their strongest argu- ment is the degradation which they have themselves made possible; they have capitalized the sacrileges made possible by the legislature of 1909. The most enthus- astic ''whisky-head' in the state of Ala bama would never have dreamed of re- pealing that act of 1881 under which the sacred precincts of Ruhama were inviolate and inviolable.
 Criticism of the Smith bill cannot pal Hate the criminal repeal of the act of 1SsI
 The repeal of the act of 1881 is the very head and front of the offending Of the legislature of 1909. A. LATArY.A
 Birmingham, July 2S 1911.