The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-03-02


that is free of mixed blood, imbued only
by patriotic ideals and animated by the
same noble inspirations as in the days of
yore when the American patriots respond
ed to the call to arms and won for us
the heritage of our Independence
Come, go with me to the mountains
and the hills of north Alabama, where /
live, and ] will take you up on the
mountain sides and show you there ex-
listing in abject poverty, living in one
scantily furnished room, a man and his
wife and in many instances eight Or ten
of their children. These people have a
grim struggle for the bare necessities of
life; they enjoy none of its comforts and
lifes luxuries are to them a thing un7
dreamed. Those mountain children can
not go to school, because they have to
work the little crop growing on the ROCKY
hillside farm to help support the fam
fly: they are only partially clothed ao1
poorly fed, yet in their bosoms burn
brightly and eternally the fire of Amer
ican patriotism.
'The ranks of these little mountain
children are being drawn on to recruit
the forces of the cotton mill employees
of this country. Within the suffocating
confines of these mills their little bodies,
their brain, their Drawn are being ground
down by the capital that relentlessly
filches its fortune from the blood, the
sinew, the spirit and sometimes the very
life of the nations neglected American
children.
Gentlemen, had l the means, had I
the legislative authority, 1 would go to
the mountains, beginning in Virginia and
on down the range through Alabama,
and at convenient points erect commo-
dious academies in which to educate the
children of the mountainous sections of
the southern states. I would build dormi-
tories, would go around and gather them
up, pay their fare to the academies
clothe, feed and maintain them; I would
educate them, I would teach them the
useful arts of life, / would impress upon
them the responsibilities of American cit
izenship consequently they would de-
velop into splendid and prosperous men
and women.
IT would save them from their living
death within the nerve racking clash and
din of their cotton mill prisons 1t is an
outrage that rapacious money kings, many
of them aliens of Alabama be permitted
to pile up their millions upon the blighte-s
lives and wrecked possibilities of our
-blooded American children. who are
but slaves to their voracious task mas
ters this baneful practice must and shall
be stopped,
"I do not speak as an Alabaman, but
speak as a proud, free-born American
citizen.
Gentlemen. this is vital problem.
Go to New York, go to Pitsburg, to
Chicago or any other northern city
and stand on the street corners and
watch the procession pass, then notice
in the passing crowd the problem of
assimilation. Do you find there the
pure b1ooded Anglo Saxon? No; You see
a heterogeneous population; you will
find foreign types, fanatical and an
archistic ideas entertained that unfit
the recent importations from the old
world for American citizenship Not
SO in the south. You will find here
gree the typical American citizen,
and it is essential, if our principles of
government are to be perpetuated, that
we educate and preserve the type at all
hazards
q am not taking issue with these
gentlemen in their efforts to assist
US in solving our problem, the race
question: We are taxed to our utmost
| to support our schools; we have no gem
| eral scheme of local taxation for school
purposes, vet l know that today the
| state is spending every dollar it can
| possibly spare in the interest of the
education of the masses. Still know
/ that this problem which is confronting
us is unsolved, and it never will be
solved until it is done by the people
of the south
| "The Anglo Saxon race is the only
race that can civlize. Why? The only
race that can colonize. Why? Because
! the other races intermarry with the
natives, and are soon completely alb
sorbed; not with the Aryan race; they
are proud of the history of their race.
| they have high ideals of self govern
| ment, of organization, of order, and
/ wherever they plant their banner, they
proudly maintain these principles.
| Gentlemen. in the south is reserved
! force, existing in superb solidarity
! of the patriotism of the nation. This
| magnificent homogenity is responsible
| for the most refreshing fact that a
| southern born man has Just been
| chosen President of the United States.
He goes into the office untrammeled,
no man dares attempt dominate him;
| he is in every regard a typical south
ern product. The nation is looking
to the south to solve all vexed govern
mental problems. Here exists the typi-
cal American spirit, impelled by the
south's sacred history and traditions,
and here it will continue to flower un-
til
"rime shall fold his weary wings,
And lay his tired pinions down."