The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-08-16

4he general ommanding Alabama at Montgomery, with an eye to six year term in the United States Senate for him. self, was rudely awakened to his dis covery of native incapacity in the freed men to organize and maintain political party. Grips, passwords, symbols, mys- teres of various portents, introduced to accomplish the end, proved insufficient. The negro pastors were importuned to rally their fiocks, always overfiowing at . the churches, but the relief expected failed the emergency. Dernier resort next turned to proselyting whites Some sue cess even in the black belt resulted, and, behold, the scalawag.
 The general commanding was required by the reconstruction acts to make a reg istration of all voters in Alabama. Never before had registered voter been known to the laws of the state. This done, he twas to order and prepare all the machin- cry for an election of delegates to a con stitutional convention
 News was sent abroad to the freedmen that in this process their emancipation was to be clinched They must register and cast their maiden votes for their cause.
 To spread the news and to alarm the freedmen to a sense of their indifference, local conventions were arranged for. where carpetbaggers and scaiawags would harangue the multitude. "The word'' went out through the customary channels, from the bureau posts, but it's force was les sened by some important recent changes in the management of the great planta tions, where the mass of negroes yet lived. With this year the old plantation plan of gang" work-that is all hoe hands going in bunch, under negro foreman, all blow hands together, all ditchers, etc, on the same job. had now yielded to the small squads, four to six strong, each squad working for part of the crop produced and harvested by itself and each member conscious of the importance to him of the steadiness of all the others Political missionaries were at discount under the crcum- stances.
 g It was determined by General Swayne and the nine post commanders under him, in all parts of the state, to assemble at Mobile on May l, freedman's state po- litical convention that would arouse gen. eral interest in the pending campaign. A few local meetings to select delegates were held. One of these was at Opelika, the center of a large negro population. The assembled negroes dispatched mes senger to the bureau office at that post to invite the commandant to come before the meeting, to advise them on their proper course of action. He gave such advice that the meeting dissolved with out appointing delegates to the state con- lvention.
 meeting for like purpose was held at Mobile, on the night of April IT. The at tendance was large. A freedman, who had learned to read and write in slavery, was the orator of the occasion. He spoke in eulogy of the reconstruction acts. He assured his audience that there was nothing either abnormal or impracticabie in these laws. insofar as they proposed to place the two races in Alabama on social and political basis of equality. It was true, on account of past conditions comparatively few of the freedmen could read and write, but that was a difference between them and the whites that time would extinguish. Admitting the great majority of freedmen to be illiterate, H. literacy did not operate to bar the whites from the electorate He related that in the recent war time he was ordered by his master to the salt works, above Mobile. Three-fourths of the white men who had settled around there. he said could neither read nor write. He labored there under
 
 ceived written orders they had to, call him up to read to them.
 The resolutions passed by the meeting were intended to indorse the meaning of the reconstruction acts and were heartily approved by the local bureau. Social and political equality. of the races, equal rights In theatres, hotels, churches, pub- lie conveyances and all other places where the public convened. was the demand.
 Two evenings later a mixed meeting of the whites and blacks, not under the auspices of the bureau assembled. Prom inent white. masters and public leaders of the earlier times sat on the stage and mingled with them were freedmen. Waite orators spoke for peace and justice; black D orators vied with their white exemplars v in admonitions of peace and justice. All voterd yea on the resolution read from the platform thanking General Pope for ''the spirit of moderation which thus far had controlled him.
 The "Union league originated in the