The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-30
LUMBER AND COAL
 DEALERS FOR C0MER
Hold Meeting in Birming- ham and Issue Address to
 Voters of the State

The lumber and coal merchants of Bir- mingham, at a meeting yesterday in- dorsed the candidacy of B. B. Conner for governor
 The following address to the public was signed by all those who attended the meeting, and those in attendance, it is said, represented all the companies in Birmingham proper:
 ITO the People of Alabama:
 We, the undersigned lumber and coal merchants of Birmingham hereby indorse the candidacy of B. B. Conner for gov ernor. We heartily approve his admins- tration as governor of our state, espe- cially his efforts to aid the schools and Confederate veterans and to bring to an end the strike in the Birmingham dis trict
 We indorse his efforts to keep the capital in the state of Alabama and pre-
 vent our laws and railroad rates being made in Louisville, Ky. We realize that he led the fight which brought about
 the reduced rates in Alabama, prior to which all rates were made by the rail- roads, and that after he is again elected
 governor railroad commission vii! make and put into effect all rates and that one federal judge cannot enj6in them. We declare the recent compromise put over' by our present governor and MT. Henderson to be a most serious out rage which took from the people of Ala bama approximately $3,000,000 and donated same to the Louisville and Nashville railroad and it's allies, although the re- cent decisions of the supreme court in the Minnesota Missouri and Arkansas cases were such that the states attorneys well the T,oniSyiI1a No bxfiil il, railroad attorneys realized that the state had won it's case. Mr. Henderson must have realized this also, as quoted in the Birmingham News he said in his speech at Moulton on the 21sr inst: The rail roads seeing that they had lost began making overtures for settlement "The rebuke of Messrs McCord and Julian by the people should be more forci- ply visited on MT. Henderson and we believe when they realize that the rail- roads in the states mentioned above will refund all freight in excess of the legal rate and that a compromise in Alabama exempts the railroads from doing this MT. Henderson will be properly con- demned
 Tt is too apparent for comment that MT. Comer's settlement with the rail- roads which put into effect the reduced rates in no way prevented the shippers from collecting the excess charges. The recent surrender, engineered by MT. Hem derson, allowed the withdrawal of the ap- peal taken by the state and thus pre- vented any shipper from collecting from the railroads the charges (Which would have been declared illegal by the supreme courD and donated this money-not to the roads in the state which obey the laws but to those roads which have endeavored not only to make our rates, but our laws. We desire this agitation stopped. but not a few weeks before we are relieved from paying 30 to 40 per cent higher freight rates than citizens of a neighboring state which furnished less than one hair of the tonnage moved by the railroad of Alabama.
 "Oden- Elliott Lumber company, by J. w. Oden, president; Alabama Lumber company, by N. C. Dean. president; Dick erson- Baker Lumber company, by l.. A. Baker. president; Ewart Lumber com pany, by E. P. Ewart, president; Lathrop Lumber company: Standard Lumber com- pany, by H. B. Wood, president; Laumer Lumber company, by John J. Laumer; Jay Smith Lumber company. by J. M. Adams, president; Henry G. Brabston; M. P. Phillips Crotwell Bros. Lumber company, by A. C. Crotwell; q. B. Ed wards Lumber company, by A. Cline; A. B. Lovelace; J. E. Chandler; Pine and Cypress Manufacturing company, by w. w. Holtsinger; Watters-Tonge Lumber company, by c. c. Malone; W. D. Wood Lumber company, by w. D. Wood. presi- dent: Empire Lumber company: First Avenue Coal and Lumber company; J. M. Barnett: Estes Lumber company, by w. T, Estes; A. l.. Hoyt."