The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-11-23
EIGHT GOVERNORS OF ALABAMA
1874-1901
No. sO-Favoring Political Conditions
1874-1901
(Continued)
Thomas Seay, Governor

We have brought the great farm
ers movement of the last half of the
nineteenth century down to the ad-
journment of the National Farmers
congress at Montgomery, November H.
1889. 1t will not be amiss to recall
the circumstance, that among other
distinctions of the same era the cap
ital of Alabama was the seat of this,
the largest in attendance of any OF
the meetings of any of the farmers
national organizations, that more states
were represented and that a higher
class OF delegates convened
The further touch of Alabama his
tory with the farmers national move
movement was in the Incident that the
state commissioner of agriculture, r.
f. Kolb, was reelected for his third
annual term, President of the congress
at Montgomery, j. C. Cheney OF Mont
gomery, was the secretary of the con-
gress at this 1889 meeting.
We have seen that under the lead
ership of Kolb the Farmers National
Alliance formed union with the Ma
tional knights of Labor, practically a
northern organization of wide in
fluence, at st. Louis, the December
following the Montgomery meeting
just mentioned. The force of the ac-
tion at st. Louis proved of determinare
adverse effect upon the growth and
influence of the Farmers Alliance in
Alabama and worked a revolution in
the politics of the state. OF this we
shall be prepared to relate in due or
der of events
Escaping from our parentheti tical
abuse of the rule of chronological mar
ration, we are ready to return to the
political features of the August, 1883,
state election, that brought Governor
Seay into a second term, and the No
vember election of members of CON
gress that followed.
In the first district Richard H
Clarke of Mobile displaced James Tay-
| lor Jones of Demopolis. Both men
We're natives of Marengo county ano
both of Virginia stock. Both Were
university men OF distinction Jones a
graduate from Princeton, Clarke a first
honor man from the University of Ala
bama. In the nominating preliminary
the battle for the prize was bitter.
Colonel Hilary A. Herbert was as usual
returned from the Second district and
Col. w. c. Oats as usual from the
Third. The contest between A. C. Da-
wilson of Unontown and Louis w.
Turpin of Newberne for the party nom
ination in the Fourth district was
warm. The men lived only some 10
miles apart. Consequently their par
tisans respectively were neighbors. Da-
wilson had already served through two
Congresses. the Forty-ninth and the
Fiftieth. Turpin received the nomin-
alton and the certificate emitting him
to the seat from the governor. But q
notorious carpetbagger, ]. V. McDuffie,
hailing from Lowndes county. for the
occasion, contested the seat and won
the contest from a republican Con-
gress Wilcox was one of the coun-
ties of the district. Turpin took the
seat claimed by him when Congress
opened, December 2, 1889, and held it
until ousted June 4, 1890. Meantime
McDuffie busted himself getting up
testimony at home to prove fraud at
the polls. An imporatant item In his
discoveries was, the men in buckram"
found In Wilcox. He averred that the
democrats of that county ran him out
when he entered to collect his wit
nesses there. When McDuffie published
this news a large number of the lead
ing men of the county put in the news
paper a flat denial of his allegation
over their signatures Messrs. R. c.
and e. N Jones. J. c. Kirkpatrick, J. c.