The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-27
TEN YEARS OF ALABAMA
No. 51-General Conditions Among the People
sorruaas ID ma wsss.s ~sslx
1865-1874

of the conversion was to use them for
 political effect. The destruction of foun-
 dations of enlightened government in the
 state followed.
 The debauchment of the fiscal and mon
 etary system of the United States cou-
 pied with the abolition of civil govern
 ment in the state and not the menumis-
 sion of slaves was the gravamen of rev
 olution here These revolutionary causes
 expressed themselves in excess of taxa
 ton, federal and state, and in unfair and tyrannical disbursement of taxes. By ingenious legislation of Congress, the currency was abnormally collected in New York. Gradually the export com
 merce of Mobile was reduced to one tenth of what it was in 1S59-60. The sac
 rhce of Mobile as cotton export city. sacrificed in turn the agriculture that
 sustained the port. A system of disburs-
 ing federal revenue was found under ttA guise of pensions to union soldiers. Ths
 pro rata of this pension fund contributed by Alabama never has been less than the amount of the state tax. Vast sums of
 cash from the public treasury at Wash ington has been loaned and is yet loaned
 to banks in New York without interest
 to be loaned by those banks in Alabama at high interest.
 Under the military constitution and mil l itary legislation in Alabama, the art of | taxation reached the most tortuous tricks. J Among these was the tax imposed on liti- gants nearly all of whom were demo-
 crats in the matter of legal notices in the press. The object was to compel the white natives to support little village newspapers set up by carpetbaggers and scalawags. The county officers, nearly all of whom had been legislated into off, fee by the act of Congress, June, 1868, were by law permitted to chose the news paper for the legal notice. The selection
 was made of course, as political recom- pense tc the publisher.
 | The notice for publication wasNnot linl- ited to the county of the party in interest, but might be sent to any publisher in any county. For instance, Pierce Barton or i Massachusetts and New York, also of the
 freedman's bureau set up little hand
 printing press in Demopolis and from it sent out some copies of little four page
 sheet called a newspaper. In Greens 1 boro, then of Greene county, there was more than one ancient and reputable newspaper. The scalawag probate judge of Greene county let the county press of | character and circulation go in neglect,
 but gave the advertising of his office to
 Barton in another county, 40 miles away The scalawag judge of probate of Cle- burne sent all the legal advertising of his county in small weekly paper at Gadsden in another county, not a single 1 copy of which was subscribed for in Gle burne. 4f l Sheriffs and county solicitors fattened 1 on booty captured by the outrages of their offices. Courts continued to be distin 1 guished by incompetency. The legislature 1 pledged the revenues of the state in ad- vance for beyond the capacity Of taxa | ton.
 | On March S1, 1870, Alexander Boyd, a white man, sentenced before the war for murder, escaped and returned to Eutaw
 from Arkansas. He was appointed regis ter in chancery for the rich county of l Greene In enjoyment of the good luck ! common to his class at this period he | was elected solicitor of the circuit. l Boyd was attacked in his hotel and died of gunshot wounds then inflicted on his I person.
 The murder of the register in chancery and the circuit solicitor was of political cause. the sequel of previous murder, to- wit: two negroes killed white man on i the suburbs a, Eutaw to make robbery of his person easy. A white mob promptly lynched the murderers. Solicitor Boyd ex- claimed in the ardor of his political af- | fnities: "I know the mob and I will have every one indicted by the grand ] jury" Grand jures, piebald. part one
 race part the other, were subservient to political solicitors.
 Senator Willard Warner of New York.
 representing Alabama, received in Wash 1 ington a telegram from Governor Smith.
  | party had been murdered in his bed cham Der at Eutaw hotel by 50 masked demo- l crats. The senator. however, knew that | the attorney general of the state Morse, and the cleril of the circuit court of Mont 1 gomery county, were both at that very moment under indictment for murder. 1 In St. ClaIr county, J. c. Brown, the scalawag sheriff, had a desperate- fight with the Springfield brothers, democrats. l When Smith, a matriculate of the uni | versity, who conspired with Professor Vaughan of the institution to kill Ryland
 Randolph on the streets of Tuscaloosa. l one ball that Smith fired killed an inno-
 cent bystander, and the next broke Ran doph's leg.
 l We discover in these incidents the na- 1 ture of the rule set up over Alabama l for the purpose of enlisting the freedmen | in war against their former masters. The 1 failure, though not absolute, was so dis 1 tinct as to form most interesting feat ure of the worlds history. JOHN WITHERSPOON DUBOSE. l