The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-05

bO Dt tt StltHllSls All llt Dettb lO De IS d man of courage, of integrity and of good common sense.
 But even if we paid him ten times that much we might get over 1t. The trouble is that the princely salary brings out null titudes of canddates-men who are tempt ed by the prize-men who can be reached by money.
 Something Wrong
 Tt has been charged that the sheriff of this county receives sl5,000 year fees from feeding prisoners. We are either paying too much or the prisoners are being overfed. One of the two is certain.
 q am told that the tax collector receives s19,OO0, or nearly four times as much as the governor It Is the excessive com- pensation that is the bad thing about the system.
 And another bad phase of the matter is the necessary tendency to emphasize the misdemeanor cases in the courts, the craps shooters and abusive language cases crowd out the felonies'
 Coloniel Bowie gave some interesting statistics in regard to the court proceed- liiBS. out ol DVD tdSbS OH l0e QOCket, SU per cent of them were for misdemeanors, which were of no interest to the people. The judge takes up his time with these little cases and the result is that the fel- onies are crowded off the docket and are not tried. It is a fact that in Jefferson county we have % cases pending for every 1000 people; in other counties there are jess than seven cases for every 1000 people. It Is the crowding of these dockets that has made Lewisburg the plague spot it Is. They tell me that the whole condition at that place hinges on constable and justice of the peace
 Also 1t is a common practice of corpor- ations in the county to pay a constable an officer of the law-to let the negro workmen shoot craps so that the camp can be held together.
 "The thing to do is to ratify the con- stitutional amendment and let the legis- lature abolish the fee system. But it is easier to carry an election than to carry the legislature. It will be easy to get the people of the county to abolish the sys- tenn if they could, but it will take lots of work to get the legislature to put it into effect"
 HuddlestOn Speaks
 After Colonel Bowie's speech George Huddleston was called on for 6 talk. and in response he gave what he called some pronounced views on the matter. "I be- lieve that shooting craps Is no worse than avarice," said MT. Huddleston Every body admits tthe fee system is wrong, and they know that it is the fee system that makes crimes higher Up like the forming of jackpot for the purpose of syndicat- ing candidate. Our conditions are fringed with technicalities and we must get down to the principles of justice.
 What we need is more of a sense of re- sponsibility for our fellownen We are selfish here in Birmingham and are all trying to get rich. We need more justice and higher ideals and our only weapon is the ballot
 Dr. A. J. Dickinson was called on and said: "lt is my honest opinion that we do not want the fee system stopped It is used for political purposes and too many of us want to sop up the gravy. We must hit at the fee grabber. It must be placed in concrete form before it can be reached effectively"
 Dr. Dickinson placed the following mo- tion before the meeting: Resolved, that a committee be appointed to invite to- gether all of the delegates for offices using the fee system. and find out if they are willing to work upon salary basis If they are not, resolved that the commit tee find man who Is willing to work that way and that he be run as candi- date"
 Dr. Dickinson added that he would take the stump in behalf of such a man and do all in his power to elect him.
 Barber Objects
 The motion was attacked by Arie Bar Der. who said; There would still be men after the jobs who would not be fit for them. men who would say that they would work on a salary basis and who would steal the tin off the roof of the courthouse if they had half chance. l would rather the sheriff got $l00O00 than a guilty man so free. On the salary basis he would say: I wont arrest this man because I to- He would say he could go free be- cause the sheriff got his money just the same.
 We must strike at these faithless offi- cials and run them out of the country" said MT. Barber.
 However, Dr. Dicknson's motion was passed.
 The speeches were red hot and straight from the shoulder. The speakers believed in calling a spade spade and were vehe- ment in their attack upon the fee system and in maintaining that the way to abol- ish it was to strike at the office holder and fee grabber.
 It was announced that another meeting would be held before long