The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-07-05

Alabama, and in every great Issue that
confronted our people. his leadership
was undisputed and his greatness uni
versally acknowledged.
During the period of gloom and un-
certainty that followed in the wake
OF the civil war. when the people of
the south facing the greatest destruc-
lion OF property known in history,
with the same unconquera BILE courage
which sustained our armies in the
ileld. took up the work of rehabita-
tion-they were confronted with con-
ditions which emperilled the existence
of their civilization and legislation;
which threatened the overthrow Of ev-
cry right dear to a people accustomed
TO free institutions. With most of the
survivors of the war who had fought
her battles disfranchsed, her ignorant
slaves without previous preparation
enfranchised-with state government
overthrown and military satraps vested
with absolute powers, ruling her peo-
pie and legislation pending threaten
ing an amalgamation of the races
no free or enlightened people ever faced
more desperate or humiliating posi-
tion.
But greater than the property de-
stroyed by the overthrow of her cher
ished institutions. was the awful toll
which the cruelty of war had exacted
OF the young men of the south. The
south had lost one-tenth of her male
population The young men who were
our stay and support who could as
sumo our burdens and quickly build up
our waste places and solves the grave
problems confronting our people Law
dead upon a thousand fields of battle.
1T was during the saturnalia of cor
ruptlon and misgovernment which fol-
lowed in the wake of reconstruction
tnose DAYS of poverty and racial strife,
of dishonored courts when all the forms
OF law seemed impc tent and lawlessness
reigned supreme. chat John T. Morgan
stood as a mighty pilla.' Of strength. en-
ccuraging the weak and vacillating and
ranying from the ashes of their homes
and the graves of their dead the deci-
mated ranks of the confederate soldiers
who had followed Lee, Jackson and john
ston, uniting them in solid and impreg-
nable array in defense of our civilization
and the purity of our race. BY his cour-
age, his eloquence and his superb states
manship he lead our state back from the
slough of dishonor and corruption to the
nigh, safe ground of Caucasian suprem-
acy security and safety.
so profound was the impression he
had made on the people of Alabama, SO
securely had he gained their confidence
and affection that in 1876 the legislature
elected him United States senator over
the opposition or one of our greatest and
most popular men, George II. Houston,
and in that great body he remained al
most one-third of a century, dying at his
post of duty. His retention for so long
and unusual a period in the Senate of the
United States was a distinction that has
come to but few men in the history of
our republic, and is an indisputable evil
dence of the implicit confidence the peo-
pie of Alabama had in his judgment, their
profound admiration of his pure and
blameless life, and their recognition OF
craftsmanship which enabled him at once
to assume and retain to the end position
of leadership.
ITO undertake to recount his record in
the Senate of the United States would
be but to repeat the history of the country
for the 80 years of his service. In every
great debate he took a leading part.
The unbiased Judgment of his contempo-
raries all conceded that he was man of
wide accomplishment, that few if any OF
our senators ever knew our relations with
other countries, both past and present,
and the political conditions of foreign ma
tions so thoroughly as Senator Morgan.
He had an extraordinary gift of express
sion. command of English pure and
undefiled and it has been said that after
speaking so correct was he in the use
of language. so perfectly round were his
sentences, that unlike other senators. he
seldom if ever made any correction OF
the record.