The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-05-30

tHuiHB lllt lSSut Oi tue present number of this series. the governor whose two administrations we yet dis cuss, passed from earth, holding at the time the high office of United States district judge for the Middle district of Alabama.
 This was an Alabamian of varied ac- complishments, devoted public service, courage and capacity for political lead ersip.
 Governor Jones came into office at a time when all the southern states should have exerted the powerful inflence of their traditional conservative character and dignity in the federal government. They were disastrously handicapped, however Inded they were largely es- topped from that division by political parties, within themselves, so necessary to the consideration and solution of political questions, domestic and for eign alike. because of the abnormal re- lation of the federal government to these state governments, and even to the industry and society of her people in their homes
 The two terms of his office, 1sso- 94, marked the meridian of the era of reconstruction" It was in those four years that temporary venture upon division of the white mans party in the state was entered upon. The dis cord soon passed off but the governor then in office became the center of a storm of party malignity, never sur- passed in wreckless audacity. He felt obliged to vindicate himself to the records by bringing suit for islander, as often as thrice, against the editor of the state newspaper organ of the op- position, published at Montgomery.
 It was in the experences of 1S90-94 that the leaders of the politics of the state reached the settled purpose to reform the electorate which had been forced upon 1t by Congress in guise of the fifteenth article of amendment. It was in mental appreciation of this necessity that the factions of that unhappy period united quickly and thus joined, framed and put into effect the constitution of 1901
 So hazardous had the long rule of the republican party become, that the democratic national convention in ses- sion at Chicago, June, 1892, published warnings to the whole country that 1t
 is fraught with the gravest dangers. SSaitclJ itSS IlOHtillOuS lildH would re- suit from revolution practically es- tabl1shing monarchy on the ruins of the republic"
 On November IS, 1892, 10 days after the second election of Mir Cleveland to the presidency, the fourth national con- vention of the Farmers Alliance and Industrial union assembled at Memphis.
 There appeared H. E. Tanbreck, a man from the north, chairman of the let a,~txr Tanbreck persuaded the convention to dissolve and form new order the Industrial Legion" intended by him to be an appendage to the populisr party. Upon. the accomplishment of this unanticipated result a large part of the southern delegates withdrew from the convention.
 The action at Memphis, preceded by the state convention that organized the Jeffersonian democracy, in McDonald's S opera house, June g, put out platform and nominted Captain Kolb eliminated the Farmers Alliance as a political fac tor In Alabama forever. Most of the members became populists.
 President Cleveland was elected on a national platform prepared with ex- traordinary care, which declared:
 We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal" etc
 Cleveland the democrat and Weaver, populist. received 55 per cent of the popular vote on the same silver coinage platform On that platform they re- ceived a majority of 152 electoral votes
 The national banks of issue holding enormous values in the interest bear ing. nontaxable government bonds, were extremely solicitous that the coinage of silver in dollar pieces and legal tender be dropped. Knowing the hostile atti- tude of the President-elect toward sil- yer money of final payment, notwith- standing his party platform, they formed a general purpose among them selves to force legislation in the direc- tion of their policy. The panic of 1898 is historic.
 The President promptly upon assum- ing office issued summons to Con gress to assemble in extra sesion Au- gust ', 1893, to repeal the only silver dollar coinage law, the Sherman act.
 The question developed in the session the most learned political debate ever perhaps held in the English language for so long a period. No other question was discussed seriously, until the ex- extra session adjourned November B. Every Senator spoke at great length. The sherman law was repealed The democracy was rent in twain, except in the south, where the one superior