davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

1 tains and seas; but they have tunneled mountains for mems sake, and sent cleo | tric whispers undersea to neighbors oversea. It is a fit place for architects | and workers; the one to conceive and | the other to produce. If it is not a fit place for workers. I do not know what | it is. If it is not essentially workshop, I do not know what it is..
 The geologists declare 1t to be of solar origin, flung out from the red-hot mother | stuff immeasurable cons ago. The theory of Laplace is believable. No matter.
 Man appeared out of the whirl-swirl of cosmic processes. That seems to be the
 main thing. Those of us with the larg-
 est ego-bumps believe those massive first concepts were but preparations for us-birth- throes of the mother for love of us. The theory of the clericals too, is believabe. But who knows? Whether we be of earth conception of of God conception, neither fact can alter our duties pro tenn: the getting of our work
 done. We are up against this fact in a pretty vital sense. We have got to do some useful thing somehow.
 Elsewhere we hinted of a certain thrall
 dom of names. That thralldom is right
 clearly manifested in the caption of this
 paper. What alteration, one may we'll
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

when he resigned to offer for the gov ernorship of Alabama.
 The struggling confederaey had now reached it's crisis. The position to which Colonel Watts was elected, as governor of Alabama, was one of the most trying possible. The administra- tion of his predecessor had been at tended by storm and tumult. A dire extremity confronted the new and struggling republic, as in its efforts it was seeking to gain a solid footing. Disaster had followed disaster, re- lieved only by the brilliant achieve ments of the southern soldiery against formidable odds. Thenceforth it was a fight for life.
 From the outset, his position as the war governor of Alabama, was beset by gigantic perplexities, but bringing to the task his resources and skill, he was en- abled to effect as much as any one could under prevailing conditions. He turned to practical advantage the limited means within reach and won distinction by his mastery of difficult situation. The
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

al pleasure. His education, his business, hsbits-even his marriage-had been con sidered entirely from the standpoint of his own personal good
 He was "sucessful'
 His ambitions had been largely real ized. But he was not happy He was discontented and pessimstic. Almost angriiy, he demanded:
 What are we here for. anywhere?'
 I said to him that I had found life very good and it's values of a satisfying character. Ibelieved that one should live
 For the future in the distance,
 For the good that I can do. To be sure, I had not lived up to my ideal but 1t was my firm belief that mortals are shut up to the proposition that in order to be happy they must plan to make others happy. Whereupon he said
 q don't believe that rot" I am sure that he did not believe it.. It was totally contrary to his entire philosophy. He said: Look about you. Every fellow Is for himself. and the devil takes the hind most The only Golden Rule I believe in Is the David Harum rule to do the other fellow first The man who does other wise will get left" There are a lot of people who proceed on that philosophy.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

Taylor has made of our financial limita- tions, on pages 147O-1472. We as a munich pallty have been and are. as he says, starved by the tax laws" We haze been further damaged by most recent tool legislation. Three of our ablest and most trusted citizens have been made respon- sible for progressive work without the means to do it. With enormously higher levels of expenditure in the city than in rural regions the city's resources are by law limited to a small fraction of tbe taxes paid by the citizens. The rest goes to the county and the state, largely tor the relief of the rural districts. Even this amount is reduced by nearly a half he cause assessments are not made at the full value of property. We have 'hardll half the average tax rate prevailing in many other cities the size of Birmng- ham" MT Taylor says truly, ''it would be impossible to furnish. out of 60 cent city rate. those public services which progressive communities recognize as nee essary." But to avoid the certainty that adequate taxation would not enrich the city, but rather relieve the state. one
 fifth of whose income is already derived from Jefferson county, the estimate of
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

l<nobby flank, with a possible leg jutting from the top of a back 70 feet above the ground! Imagination quails.
 And, then much as they might compare, debate, agree on the morphology of the pachyderm, which is to say, the shape of the elephant. what could they know about his domestic economy, his habitat, his social relations? What of the source and value of ivory?
 Something like that afflicts the ladies and gentlemen who have been waxing wrathful about the scientific account of Birmingham and its problems, recently published. For blindness is peculiar af- lection in things social. One says justio ] is blind, another that love is blind. Where as the doctrine of the personal equation requires us to believe that whenever our interests or our admirations or our repu- tations are concerned we can hardly see the thing as others see it. Poet Burns famous prayer about the Giftie was never answered. It Is against nature and it is undesirable. Perhaps others do not see us truly. Perhaps if we had theil, view we might throw up the sponge, make |, hole in the lake, or perchance on the other hand, hunt the haberdasher's for a hat much larger than any he carries in
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

But it does not work,
 Those who live the David Harum phil osophy-and David didn't-somehow miss the way Though "successful," they are weary and disgusted with life
 The philosophy is wrong.
 Put the other system-the plan of un- selhshness-on the very lowest plane, the plane of success, and--it works
 Is mere personal happiness your highest desire?
 If so you are doomed to disappointment, disllusion. The time will come when you will find nothing in life that is worth while.
 Mortals are built that way.
 A woman died in Peru, Ind. the other day in mean and ugly room and sup posedly dependent upon charity. In an old leather bag was s47,0O0. which was dis covered by wondering neighbors.
 Miserable creature.
 Consider what the bag of gold might have brought the woman. She could have had pretty clothes and comfortable sur roundings, plenty to eat. medical attend ance in her sickness, perhaps a prolonsa- ton of life.
 She might have had the countless little delicacies and the attentions craved by the normal woman who can afford them.
 But
 She evidently preferred barren and com- foftless surroundings. rags and bare suo-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

He can dictate x moor advise and
 slush about what ought to be dun about this and that and introduce moor spectacular language into it than enny ink slinger on the continent. If he would turn his talents into riting 8 for dime novels for the Boy Scouts he would make Old Sluth back off the state and holler for the po- lice. He can put up the appearance and conversation of hole fleet of Battleships in action, but when it cums to delivering the goods he is a one cylender 1892 moddle, out of gassoleen. And yet he has Old Beef Trust Taft scared half to death. Taft still believes Teddy is Bad Actor, and that if he wants the nominasion that all he has got to do is to march ovver to Chicago and stick a gun un- der the warty snout of the c. o. P.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

man was chosen to represent Butler coun- ty in the legislature. For three successive sessions he was the choice of his county for this position, and maintained himself with meritorious merit, as is shown by the repetition so long as he would serve.
 Locating in Montgomery, he entered ol, a successful practice of his profession and for a long period of years preserved the reputation of being one of the leading g members of the Montgomery bar. In 1865 he was again summoned from private life to represent his party, the whig, in a contest for Congress against Col. James F. Dowdell. MT. Watts was defeated after an exciting canvass, but the campaign resulted in his acknowledged leadership of his party in the state. In the memorable presidential campaign in 1860 MT. Watts was the leader of the electoral ticket in Alabama for Bell and Everett. Being a
 union man and opposed to secession, his patriotism rose superior to his party fealty, and after the election of MT. Lin coin Mir. Watts was as pronounced a
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

New Testament that l wrote for them and read to them long before they them selves could read; and no young peo- pie can have had an earlier knowledge of, or interest in. that Book
 Who among us, who profess more, can say as much as could he who professed, with profound humility, so little. Thus, just before death stilled his great heart, does Dickens draw aside the veil from his innermost thoughts in order that the world which had misunderstood him might see something more than he had already disclosed of his reverence for the Master of Us all.
 Furthermore: Immediately after Dick ens death. when his will was opened, there met the eyes of him who read it, not the conventional legal terms of which wills are usually composed. but these words q commit my soul to the mercy of God through Jesus Christ our Lord {; and l exhort my children humbly to try to guide themselves by the teachings of the New Testament
 Mr. James T. Fields, who spent much time at Dickens home and knew him well, wrote: His religion was of the heart. and his faith was beyond ques- tloning. He never put on the good Samar- itan; that character was native to him. It was his mission to make people happy.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

little or nothing of current events, of the news of church and state, politics the things that make for good citizen ship and intelligent activity in human affairs.
 And
 Without books and farm papers and newspapers father and the boys will know scarcely anything of market tend encies or scientific farming methods or breeding or veterinary and other lines of up to date farming.
 Nor
 Without farm journals and magazines VIII mother or the girls know very much aDout domestic science or poultry or nursing or home management.
 But
 Above all else there is lacking the silent influence of good literature in the building up of character
 A good book not only gladdens the heart, but broadens the vision and lifts up the life.
 Books and good reading are infalible indices of the character of a home.
 There's nothing in it.
 Which was my friends way of ex- pressing the result of his inventory of human life and the values supposed to reside in human living.
 I knew his manner of life.
 He was inordinateiy selfish. From boy hood he had sought only his own person.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

stock. St. Paul's new acquaintances on the island of Malta were notoriously n- exact in their estimate of their great Vis- itor, some holding that he was a murderer dogged by divine vengeance, though they presently swung round to the conviction that he was god. Happily the good man had a more valuable estimate found- ed on longer experience.
 Moodys Eton Latin Grammar whoss unromantc pages were rubbed refectively by our small noses In the long ago, in formed us by way Of illustration of some grammatical rule that .experentia docet," which it certainly does. How many gen. erations of boys have gaily translated that formula: Experience does it, and then spent bitter hours to prove that ver- sion through the years, It is experience that bumps into facts, and we are going to assume that whether our critics or our selves are more exact in diagnosis, in the long run it will be ourselves who will do the pumping, since ours will be the eX- perience. It is facts that count.
 Now to hold an even keel among these debateful storms it is necessary that we do what in us lies to estimate the value of things done, the difficulties of those re- sponsible for progress. and the measure
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

Words of good cheer were native to his lips, and he was always doing what he could to tighten the burdens of all who came into his beautiful presence. Now that he is gone. those who knew him intimately will finger over his tender re- gard for, and his engaging manner with children his eheery good morning to poor people whom he met on the road {: and his trustful and reverent Please God when promising himself any spe- cial pleasure. At such times his voice had an irresistible pathos in it.''
 Dickens was human. to be sure. But there was much of that within him that God counts of greatest worth among men, and that is Love The faults of a man who loves his fellow men. may soon be forgotten, for love covers a multitude of sins. If love be the test of relig- ious character. then Dickens was not irreligious. It Is quite true that he puts upon hypocrisy the cap and bells of his irony. that he makes it morally repulsive certainly he caricatures the piety of Chatband in Bleak House, and that of the crimson-nosed Stiggins in Pickwick he mocks the pous old humbug, Mir Pecksniff, in Chuzzlewit, also. But in these instances and all the others, he is never speaking of genuine piety when he assumes the flippant mood. Dickens
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

sarcasm. The Carkers, the Nogges, the
 Squeerses, the Uriah Keeps and the
 like find no mercy with him. But for l honesty, for character and for religion, ! no cause ever had more knightly de- fender.
 | Herein lies the power of his works. No matter how wrong men go, they honor | Iuprghtness down fin their hearts, though | they may not openly confess it, and
 Dickens always stands for honor and
 goodness. Then again, he is always on
 the side oe things that make for happi- bess His stories end well. '"Fhey lived happy ever after." is a sentence that l often excites our laughter. "They lived miserable ever after.' nexer excites a
 smile. I'd rather read of happiness than of misery. If be told that, in real life
 we have this misery often. then I an.
 swer, let me read Dickens to learn how ieal life should be lived. Dickens stands
 foi sunlight, not for the shadows I close this paper with paragraph on
 this immediate subject, from Barnaby
 Rudge, wl.ich Illustrates the sweetness
 of the character of the writer. and as well, his reverent view of the mystery
 of misfortune.
 If will be remembered that Barnahy
 was happy witless boy. and that his
 voice was full of meTriment. Many things
 gave him happiness on the journey 10 Chigwell. which no one else saw. Ills
 joy caused Dickens to say:
 Tt is something to look upon enjoy ment so fbat 1t be free and wild and in the face of nature though it be but
 the enjoyment of an idiot. It is so1ne-
 thing to know that heaven has left the
 capacity for gladness in such a creatures
 breast; 1t is something to be assured
 that, however lightly men may crush
 that faculty in their fellows, the great
 Creator of mankind irnparts it to his despsed and sighted work. Who would
 not rather see poor idiot happy in the
 sunlight, than a wise man pining in a
 darkened jail? Ye men of gloom and
 austertty, who paint the face of Infinite
 Beneyolencs with an eternal frown, read
 in the everlasting book, wide open to your view, the lesson it would teach. Its pictures arc not in black and somb~e lues, but bright and glowing tints; it's music, save when we drown 1t, Is not in signs a'id groans. but in songs and cheerful sounds Listen to the million voices in the summer air, and find ono as dismal as your own. Remember. is you can. the sense of hope and pleasure which every glad return of day awakens in the breast of all your kind who have not ehsngad their nature. and learn some wisdom even from the wtless, when their hearts are lifted up. they know not why. by all the mirth and happiness 1t brings
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

of attracksion again; he longs to lis- ten to the applaws of the multitude
 that the only time he will evver con- sent to listen, is to applaws, he puts
 in all the uther time Popping Off, himself. He likes to hop up sudden like and shake his mailed fist under the nose of the Plutocratts and defy them. As a hurler of defiance he holds all records, and he is evver reddy to stand as the Champion of the Common peepul, and protect them frum the Interests, and if barking at the Interests would do the job, Teddy would sure be sum effective, but Teddy is a Loud Fuss and hole
 egimental band when it cums to noise, but he ain't so dangerous. Teddy can lay down the law and smite the violaters thereof hip and thy; snarl and grit his teeth, and with his Buf-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

Galuppis" however manifold his music might be. De.
 Do not msconceVe me. or any one else. who finds and praises certain spiritual value too, in common achieve ments, l do not know whether my friend, who finds certain divine thrill in the mere act of "bystanding," is near sighted or far-sighted. or both. He is farsghted in that he senses the spiritual in the humdrum panorama. Yet the pur- suit of the spiritual if carried too for, divorces consideration of the humdrum present-the workful present-the present that is getting houses builded for human beings-getting laid layers on layers of business offices; a worlSaday world that is bridge-building- that is laying net works of tremulous wires undersea for publicitys sake.
 For in quitting the heights for the lowlands, we find ourselves really as- eending to spiritual planes. Will you have dramas and poems in this humdrum present? The great dramas and poems are LIVED by the Under Men.
 Hauptmann, Ibsen, Maeterlnck. dAn- nunzio wrote great dramas, poems. but they had no time 10 LIVE great dramas. poems These spiritual men wrote and are writing in order to give the scholars
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

secessionist as any. Under existing condl
 tions he recognized the fact that not to go with his state was treachery, his posi- tion and sentiments being precisely those of Gen. Robeft E. Lee. Men of this school of thought deplored the necessity of war and would gladly have averted it if possible, but when it became inevit
 able there was but one course left open. Consequently in the constitutions al convention of 1881 MT. Watts was as ardent in the expression of south ern rights as was Mir Yancey himself
 The country was in the ferment of agitation and hostility The south was threatened with invasion, and every patriot was stirred. Thomas H. Watts was among the first to raise a regi- ment and offer his services to the Con federacy. Becoming the colonel of the Seventeenth Alabama regiment, his command saw it's first service at Pen sacola, which at that time seemed to be destined one of the strategic posi- tions of the approaching conflict, but the regiment was soon ordered to join
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

the army of Gen. Albert Sidney John- son in Tennessee. In the battle of Shiloh Colonel Watts displayed the qualities of soldier equal to those shown by him Tn other spheres which he had occupied. He was cool, eour- ageous and daring under fire, to so marked a degree that he won the att tention of his superior officers and his conduct in that battle became a subject of popular comment throughout the country.
 Much to his surprise, while in camp at Corinth Miss, he was summoned to Richmond by President Davis, who of fered him the portfolio of the attor- ney general in his cabinet, a place made vacant by the appointment of Hon. Judah P. Benjamin as secretary of war Responding to the call, Col onel Watts resigned his command of his regiment and went immediately to the seat of the Confederate govern ment. Here he remained in the cab inet of Mir. Davis till october, 1863,
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04
WATTS-By B. F. Riley

geographical situation of Alabama, as the center of the confederacy, with one of the stormiest seats of war in the adjoining state on the north, and with a seaboard exposed on the south, it was inevitable that the state would share in the in- vasions to which were the states adjom- ing.
 In April, 1S65 Montgomery fell into the hands of the enemy. Besides much patri- otic sacrifices as a public official, Cover nor Watts suffered immensely in his pri- vate fortune, as one of the consequences of the invasion. The enemy seemed to find special pleasure in wreaking his vengeance on a man who had been so conspicuous since the beginning of the struggle. The federal troops burned two hundred and fifty bales of cotton on his plantation, besides three thousand bushels of corn, much of which was sacked ready for distribution among the suffering peo- pie of his native county, Butler. His meat supplies were also destroyed, and his plantation depleted of stock, among which were forty valuable mules. In a
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

and Upper Men "maer licht." Poets of this ilS are rapidly enculturing the Up- per Men in the pensive outlook. the delicate scepticism--in what may be called the Ideal Bystanding
 It Is at ths point where the importance of the Under Man asserts itself Ii is one of the important duties of the Under Man to keep us all rational. If the doc trines of Herr Ilanptmann and Monsieur Maeterinck and Signor d'Annunzio make hot house plants of the Upper Men. kept alive only by certain sprink- iings of metaphysics, choruses from Euripides, songs from "Pippa Passes,'' there may be one disastrous outcome. There is a chance that we might lose some good working men In the process. From twilight doctrines might we not produce twilight-men? From half hearted belief in this life as a building and beginning place for greater things yet, a gfoove-life may ensue for those believers.
 It is in the broad day ony-from the hopeful Yiewpoint-that we outgrow the amoeba condition and win wings for ourselves.
 It is doing creditable deeds. whether of great or small issue. that we justify our stay here
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

and tell "Itp to coff it up, and it will be forked ovver, and it's about that way too. Therefour about 400 pounds of the Republican Party is worrying its little self into meer shadow With LaFollett jabbing him in the slats, and making fases at him frum evvery polytical stump in the land, and with the used to be in but now outs" yelling for the Big Smoke and with Teddy grasping ev- very opportunity he can to keep his Rugged Buty where the peepul can see it without rubbering enny, Taft is on the verge of having polytical hysteria, but backed by hord of hardworking office holders he has skrewed up enuff courage to say "l am in it to the death." Proabully he's afraid Teddy will bite him and give him hydrofobia. If it happens it
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

HNHE name of Thomas H. Watts in
 the records of the state is inseper-
 4 able from high standard of pro- fessional, public and moral greatness.
 Gigantic in person, he was equally so in all things else. He was long in the pub lie eye, and bore himself with so signal greatness that he is remembered as one of the most conspicuous public figures that ever graced the annals of Alabama. Distinguished by unusual parts even in his boyhood days his father who resided near Butler Springs, in Butler county. gave to the promising son the best ad- yantages then afforded in scholastic train ing by sending him to the University of Virginia. At that time that institution was pre-eminently the greatest in the union. Following the popular trend of those days, pursued by almost every young man of promise, Mir. Watts chose law as a profession, and began practicing at Greenville. He soon distinguished him self at the bar, and while still a young