The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1913-12-28
WHAT IS A DEMOCRAT?
ITO YOUR TENTS,
by PERCY CLARK

The state of Alabama has had thrust
upon her the question of what is a real
democrat, and in this hour of all others,
when there should be pride in the achieve
ments of the party.
| say thrust upon the state, because
two of her representatives in the lower
house of the Congress are seeking the
high honors of the senate, and by their
words and their works, shall we judge
them.
That patriarchial patriot, Edmund w.
Pettus, who went to his final reward oc-
oupying the very seat now coveted, al
ways Insisted upon the biblical injunctin
that we remove not the ancient land
marks of the fathers-states' rights! One
of the tenents of the democratic party is
states rights.
Under the original and Fundamental
constitution, one of those specific clauses
reserves to the states all powers not
specifically granted to the federation of
states, now known (via ct armis) as the
national government. In the very irony
of contradiction, some of those states
that made bloody resistance to states
rights on the slavery question, have
sought 1t in the courts to protect their
citizens from corporate greed. and trust
invasion, under misconstruction of the
interstate commerce clause of the federal
constitution; these last persons QegaD
who, for their own ends create "twi-
light zone" wherein to seek refuge from,
to them, the Scylia of federal courts on
the one hand and the Charybdis of the
state courts on the other. Thanks to the
decision rendered in the group cases
from Missouri and other states, by the
United States supreme court the past
week. the twilight one for railroad arbi-
traries and unjust determinations has
been forever destroyed. So much for
states rights.
Not Party of One Idea
On that day when the galleries were
packed with those who sought to make
a Phillistian prohibition battlefield f&
the democratic hosts, just as it was
packed on a stated day some years ago
when the champions of negro-white mon
grelis packed those same galleries to ap-
plaud the brutal assaults upon those dem
ocrats who defended the Jim Grow laws
of the south; when Fred Douglas, the
then negro Moses, sat in the reserved
gallery for special visitors, and by his
side sat that rag and a bone and q hank
of hair from Massachusetts with white
face as his wife, the applause was deaf
ening.
The mock David of prohibition on this
other day of packed galleries did not
find a brutal Goliath for the rocks he
sought to throw at the democratic party;
even when he cast the stone of the ap
plauding prohibitionists, he missed that
Themistocles of the democratic party
it's leader--and then the greatest repre-
sentative gathering of democracy ever
assembled in a legislative hall applauded
the man and the statesman. If you are
a do, ttFI.i ala d
the applause of your democratic peers or
the applause of packed gallery (which
king, Benzonian, will you serve?
There are NEUROLOGICAL types of demi-
gods, with one eye in the centre of their
toreheads: a prohibition demi-god. wear
Ing the cloak of democracy and the mask
of hypocricy won the plaudits of the
prohibtionlst, packing the galleries of
the Congress when one-ideaed he declared,
that if prohibition would kill the demo-
cratic party, the party ought to die (his
words).
Turning from the enemies OF the party
in It's own ranks, to those who would tear
down the walls of Troy to give a white
horse gift from the gods-the walls OF
states rights mark you-let's see what
they wrote upon their banners in 1912,
that year in which democracy was tri-
umphant from Kalamazoo to Kams-
katcha, from Portland to Portland, and
victory gave power to do, and in pur-
suance of said victory the men who APP
plauded the greatest democratic floor
leader that ever marshaled her phalanXes,
II we except the necessities of unity,
per Sc, In the days of force bills. have
done what they were called to do; have
written upon the statute books the only
honest democratic tariff bill since 1856
The one ideaed demi-god should take
his lares and penates over into that
Utopian dreamland of a weak and need
full of strongmen party, the national
prohibition party. whose Macedonian
cry is "Ccme over and help us destroy
the old parties who made this country
great under the Walker tariff; yes,
even under protection of the Morrill,
bill, and verify the faithful democrats
say will make 1t yet the greatest still,
under the Underwood tariff bill and
the Glass currency bill"
AT its annual convention held at At
lantic City, July II, 1912, among other
things the national prohibition party