The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-24

That Special Prosecutor Nichols was
 not appointed by the court to act as | pro secutor before the grand jury.
 That Attorney General Fellows attended
 the sessions without authority and that
 he coerced the jury to bring the indict- | ments.
 1 That Attorney General Fellows suggest 1 ed the indictments that were brought and therefore they were not free expressions l of the jury.
 Special Prosecutor Nichols is preparing l answers to the pleas filed today and will
 present them April at the opening of
 the April term of court.
 Mir Nichols said that if the pleas of abatement were oyerruled at that time
 he would take the necessary steps to l bring Mover and the men indicted with | him back for trial.
 whom the people had scourged from of l flee in 191l but who Ioresaw in Mir. 1 Comers possible election another four l years of waste and <Ntravagance of business and political unrest. Not con- tent with attacking my administration, with deliberately and Intentionally dis 1 torting and msrepresenting the facts. | Governor Conner has seen proper to at tack my personal character As usual, he does not have the courage to make
 his slanderous statements upon his own | hind inuendo, loose tongue rumor and idle and slanderous gossip. Hence, my own sef-respect and decent regard for public opinion force me to speak. The office which l hold does not de- prive me of the right of self-defense. Unlike Mir. Conner, I am not mill lonaire. Unlike him, l may not be
 able to transmit to my family q large inheritance, but I shall ieave them the legacy of an untarnished character and a stainless honor. More than all the
 wealth that B. R. Conner has piled up by
 the crushing and grinding toll of feeble
 and pale-faced children, by exemption
 from taxation and by the special
 privileges he has secured through legs-
 ia tive enactments. do I value my char
 acter and my honor, which no man shall attack. whether he be the greatest gov ernor Alabama ever had or the most de- spicable journalistic buccaneer in the state, without receiving that rebuke and
 that reply which those who engage in | the low, groveling and degrading prac- l tices of attempting to assassnate char l acter should always receive. Refers to Rate Question
 l Referring to the railroad rate question, h. said:
 railroad rate legislation, which MT. Conner
 lnaugurated, was that he undertook, by legislative enactments, rather than through the agency of a railroad commits sion, to fix freight rates. When l was a candidate for lieutenant governor in 1906 I did not hesitate to declare that the only proper method by which railroad | freight rates could be fixed or regulated was through the agency of an administra- tive body. such as a railroad commission. I contended than that Mir. Corners pro- gramme of establishing what he termed
 law-made rates, that is rates fixed by statute would prove unsuccessful. l con- l tend then as I contend now, sthat q leg 1 islature composed of about 150 men, which met only once in four years, were in | competent, by reason of their experience i and training to fix and determine railroad | rates.
 | Called as they were from the various occupations of private life. I did not be- | lieve that their election to the legislature l immediately transformed them into expert | railroad rate makers, that the legislature was in no position to give hearings. | weigh testimony or to decide each ques- 1 ton according to the weight of the evil 1 dence. Rates fixed by the legislature must | necessarily be arbitrary and oftentimes | unfair To be just railroad rates should
 be elastic, for what is fair today might be unfair tomorrow. l predicted in 1906 that if the legislature undertook to fix rates, and those rates were declared by l the federal courts to be unjust, or to de- prive the railroads of just and reason-
 able return upon their property, and they were tenjoined. the only remedy would
 be to continually convene the legislature
 in extraordinary session.
 | .'What I then predicted actually oc- 1 cured. The legislature, which convened
 at the beginning of Comer's administra- 1 ton, did undertake to fix rates, these
 rates were enjoined by the federal courts
 and the legislature was continually called undertake | what should have been done by a railroad commission. Under this unwise policy of B. B. Comer's the state was plunged into
 8 campaign of bitterness and recrinlina- ton between the railroads and the people with the result that capital became alarmed, railroad construction checked, and our material development retarded. Where ClamOr Comes From
 "The clamor against the termination
 of the railroad rate litigation only comes from B. B. Conner and a few of his, political nenchmen, and a few of the members of the Wholesale Grocers' associations, which the federal
 courts hcve denounced as an illegal
 combination in restraint of trade for
 the purpose of establishing monopoly.
 MT. Conner declares that we deprived
 the people of the opportunity of col lecting the rebate coupons which they have been saving up so carefully. The
 provision in reference to coupons ts
 the same Tn this agreement as 1t was in the agreement which B. B.. Conner made with the Southern railroad, the Alabama Great Southern railroad, the
 Mobile and Ohio railroad, the St. Louis , and San Francisco railroad, the Atlantic
 Coast Line railroad and the Seaboard Air Line and the Alabama and At |, lanta railroad Tine language of the ! two agreements are almost identical } By making this charge against MT
 Henderson and myself. MT. Conner. by his own lips, admits that when he
 signed the agreemo nt waiving the col
 lection of rebate coupons with the
 Southern railroad and other lines he himself sold out the state and present , ed to these corporations the money
 which they owed the passengers and r freight payers Of the state. When he signed an agreement by which these railroads were protected from the claims of shippers and travellers against , their Illegal charges. he boasted Of il
 as one of the signal victories of his
 administration. It Is singular that that ! which was virtue when done by Conner \ becomes 8 crime when done by me. Record of His Administration "In my published statement issued [ , few weeks ago, stated that I would un dertake to show in my speech tonight, by