The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-08

Samuel G. Blythe, writing in the cur rent issue of the Saturday Evening Post on "A First Class Fighting Man. has the following to say of Governor O Neal of Alabama:
 Of course one never could guess the basic nationality of the governor of Alabama after examining his name. The forebears of that impetuous gem tleman sought craftily to conceal the
 implied Hibernic quality of the patro- nymic ONeal by lacking thereonfRob- ert Emmet and sending the young man forth into the world as Robert Elm met O'Neal a name as essentially non Irish as Patrick J. Killarney or Michael G. Galway, as all will agree. But if one did possess sufficient wisdom as to the derivation and application of names to assume that the governor of Alabama has some smattering of Irish in him. one would be reasonably cor rect in the assumption, even though the governor has shed the Robert part of Ii and is now Emmet ONeal. Should one lack in this power of discrimina- tion, one still might hazard a guess that such is the fact, after watching the governor in action or on observing his trends.
 You see the governor is a fighting person-highly scrappa ghous, as l might say-and has habit of mixing in from any incentive, from fun to duty. Being somewhat Irish, as has been intimated. he Is person of con- victions. and If you do not care for his convictions he will see to it that you learn to, using any instrument that may be handy to help in the convinc- ing He is no bgot, of course, but when he has a conviction he has it hard, and it is Just as well to humor him while the spell is on. Anyhow, he insists on remaining convicted of his own convictions-and what's the use?
 Take that time, back in the summer of 1909, when he sat in his office in Florence, smoking a brier and looking out of the window at the sizzling square. He had book in his hands, but he was not reading it. Instead, he
 was arriving at a conviction. He sat for an hour, two hours, three hours Then the conviction arrived-ker- punk Also there arrived simultan- eously the governorship of Alabama. but that was unnoticed at the time. re- maining quietly and unostentatiously in the background.
 | "Dodgast it." said Emmet O'Neal aris- Ing from his desk and throwing the book
 into a corner. "Dodgast it!'-or words to that broad, general effect-"I've got to cuss And, by golly'-or words to that broad, general effect-"Im going to cuss | right now"
 | No sooner said than cussed. Emmet O'Neal had decided to cuss. He had picked out as his target the liquor ques- ton in Alabama. There had been much bother and to do about this question. The state administration at the time was
 elected on a local option platform. At a
 session of the legislature in 1907 a state l wide prohibition bill was passed. Before | that prohibition had not been a political
 issue. The local optionists were dscour-
 aged, for the statewide law went into
 effect on January l, 1909. In July of that
 year a special session of the legislature
 ordered constitutional election to deter | mine whether prohibition should be placed in the organic law. It was at exactly | this time, and for exactly this ason. that Emmet O'Neal decided to get into the l fight.
 He began Immediately. He went out in T
 to his townspeople. Then he took the | train for Montgomery and talked every time the train stopped. cussed the legis- lature that had tried to ingraft prohibition | on the state constitution. In the four months preceding the election he talked in practically every one of the 67 counties | of the state. He proved himself a good journeyman tallSer, too. for the amend ment was overwhelmingly beaten. There were other results also. During that cam paign the governorship of Alabama came
 marching to the front and ONeal took 1t over at the request of the people, who apparently liked his line of talk. Four years before they had defeated O'Neal for the lieutenant governorship. This time l they made him governor.
 Coinc.dentally with O'Neal's assumption of his office came session of the legis- 1 lature that again took up the liquor ques- tion. Along in the closing days of the session things began to boil. Old timers in Alabama say there never was session of a legislature that was so heated as
 this. O'Neal was for local option. He
 helped draft every local option bill thai
 was presented. He led the fight, and
 finally he won. defeating statewide pro |