The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-27

Birmingham, October 26, 1912
 Dear Jim: We were delighted with your letter. It was received last night while we were at the supper table and Kate and I have been discussing what to reply to you ever since. The prospects of hay ing you a citizen of Birmingham within tho next few months has overjoyed us and we have been laying all kinds of plots ot inveigle you within the portals "of our fair city"
 Really, Jim the task you have assigned me is rather large and full of responsi- bility, but nevertheless it gives me much pleasure to undertake the former and as sume the latter, and I hope that do both with the care and efficiency that friend like you deserves.
 This is one great country down here. Kate and have been here three years now and we are both liking 1t better every day. But we do see and hear a lot of queer things" I suppose we seem just as queer to the southerners in some Of the words we use and things we do. have been taken completely by surprise, for I am not seeing lots of the things l
 
 with things I did not expect to see. z
 In the first place, it's not hot. Not a bit warmer here than it ever was in Ohio. and I do believe that it isn't as hot. Heat prvstrations are almost unknown in Bir- mingham, while you know they are very common in Cleveland and the big north- ern cities. Of course, it gets warm, but there appears to be. a peculiar nature to the heat that I have never experienced before. In the first place, one perspires a great deal more here than in the northern heat, which is due to the higher humidity of the atmosphere It contains more mois- ture and is heavier.
 This excessive precipitation keeps the skin cool and I have not suffered With the heat nearly as much as l used to in Cleveland. In the second place there are very few nights in the year put what there is slight breeze blowing and some times a very brisk little wind. This makes it possible to sleep very comfortably al most every night in the entire summer season. I was greatly surprised. for many nights in that old house on Thirty eighth street at home I have lain on my back b1SNAH@7- of the heat. This country just naturally seems to be warmer climate with such a climates necessary accoutrements, whilo up in Ohio the hot weather always seemed something nature had not intended for that section and she had not made pro- visions for it.
 Before you come down, Jim. forget all about those pictures we used to see in our school geographes. That's what caused disillusion No. ? for us. There are no long leafed palm trees with cling ing moss dripping off them and monkeys swinging about among their branches. There are no long rows of orange trees laden with golden fruit, no pine apple trees" no banana orchards. no alliga- tors Hopping about in slmy tropical rivers It's just so near like Ohio that you have to gaze about and take a nasty inventory of the "nigger' population to prove to yourself that you're in Alabama. Of course, they grow oranges and pine ap- ples and the other tropical fruits in south ern Florida and some few are grown in the extreme southern part of Alabama. but as far as Birmingham is concerned, there are none. There are fig trees, watermelons, cotton, sugar cane, etc, grown about Birmingham, and almost that only permits her to lay claim to be- ing southern city.
 The big thing that you'll notice, and that I noticed, is the "niggers." As the campaign speaker says, note carefully AIxr aarfI pelation of negro" and "colored per- son' lasted just two weeks after I crossed the Mason and Dixon line. In that time the female who cleaned my room and made my bed stole every trinket that could handily leave lying about loose. I saw specimens of the dusky hue that looked more like beasts than humans read of negro crimes and was told of them by people l met; saw how they lived, how they ate. how they worked, how they begged and since that time with all the rest cf the white inhabitants of the southern states I have called them 'nggers.'
 And anybody who calls them any thing else down here is carelessly lay ing himself liable to thrashing. Since that time I have recalled how my old father used to tell about how the nig- ger laughed and sang plantation songs and ate watermelons and made himself picturesque. He often said he would like to hace adopted one of the little pickaninnies just for us kids to play with and if the opportunity had af- forded itself the poor deluded man probably would have done so. l re- member that there was negro girl who went to high school at home when ! did. We never thought anything of