The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-25

American conditions, could be estaDlisneu as rule of conduct for him in France
 under the conditions in France.
 We are to consider here fierce rup-
 ture in 1892 of the white mans party in
 Alabama, the party that had rescued the
 state under Houston. in 1874, from a most
 ignoble military rule. fixed upon it from
 the government at Washington.
 The rupture was made in face of the
 yet prevailing Jeopardy of the restora-
 tion of the rule of the republican party
 in the state. The ah in congressional
 halls was surcharged with the complaints
 of republican party leaders that the south
 had acquired a perilous competitive force
 there in it's defiance of the second section
 of the fourteenth articIe of amendment,
 intended expressly to avoid that national peril; that the south had systema tically stamped out the republican party, within it's whole area. by deprfving the negro
 race of the benefit of the fifteenth article of amendment, benefit to attain which
 the white alone had been conceived and put upon the page In word the rup
 ture of the democratic and conservative party of 1892 was led, in both factions, by leaders who had prevailed in unity in 1874; men who before then had returned together from equal participation in the unparalleled honors of the greatest of historic wars to labor as brothers in the midst of universal devastation in the sources of life and degredation of the spirit of freemen for recovery and restor- ation.
 What the moving force beneath the sur face? Certainly in all Alabama there was no idle class, of necessity. no breadless, vagrant mass of men, willing and wait ing for work that would not come to them.
 In western Europe Great Britain and the northern states of the union, the ac- tivities of labor organizations was unpre- cedented In June. 1890, there was a dem onstration In favor of an eight-hour work ing day. which drew together, at Hyde Park, London, half million people. This was followed by a trade union congress- opened at Liverpool a hundred days later This congress adopted radical resolutions among them one that power be granted to municipalities to establish workshops where the unemployed should receive union wages, another resolution called | for the repeal of all statutes against pick pockets These examples of the state of affairs in conservative England are suf- ficient to explain the irritation of mind that prevailed in the hiore inflammatory powers of Germany and France. Labor put all Europe in a ferment
 In the United States labor had never been so excited by political questions Recognizing the force or this agitation Congress in both brancnes, on May S1 1890, created the cabinet officer Commis- sioner of Labor
 Senator Morgan said from his place that the spirit in the party in Alabama was to be attributed to tho difficulty among the agricultural masses which comprised
 the bulk of the population. in making living because of the abnormally de- nracSpA af tributed the general Arrangement of busl- ness and industry in the whole country to legislation of Congress. especially the protective tariff laws and the laws in imical to the free coinage of silver. We need not engage here in a discus
 sion of the causes of the split. It is sufficient to establish the fact of the courage of all Alabamians in defense Of their opinions. when il. face of a still lingering jeopardy from the restoration of the republican party to control of the state, they broke the party of re- demption. of 1874, into two nearly equal factions and pitted one against the other
 at the polls. Gov. Thomas G. Jones led one and Capt. R. F. Kofb the other fac ton.
 The biennial convention Of the demo- cratic and conservative party of the state was called to order on Wednesday noon June s, 1892, by the chairman of the state tb1ilflilllet, AltOFneN AuC1SOn 6. >fDlln or Birmingham. MT. Smith called MT. $. H. Dent, a banker of Eufaula, to the chair temporarily. was. the custom. The Tuesday night prior, the Kolb fac tion had assembled at McDonald's opera house, new building on Bibb street, be- hind closed doors. Capt A. T. Goodwin presided In the meeting were perhaps 75 delegates to the party convention, that would sit in the capitol, the next day. The house, however, was well filled with sympathizers with Kolb from various counties.
 Among the delegates to the state con yention was MT. Oscar R. Hundley sent as democrat from Madison county to support the claims of Captain Kolb for nomination for governor MT. Hundley in the opera house conference offered resolution that a committee be appointed to propose to the convention at the capi- tol when it should assemble the next day the appointment of a joint committee, composed of delegates instructed from their counties for Jones and delegates in- structed for Kolb "to effect a settlement
 of the differences now existing in the
 democratic party in Alabama
 The Hundley resolution was put by Chairman Goodwin and carried, nemine contra. Goodwin looked for Hundley to
 make him chairman of the Kolb con-
 tingent of the proposed conference com mittee as parliamentary courtesy re-
 auired. The mover of the scheme having
 disappeared the duty which ordinarily
 should have fallen to him, was placed on
 P. G. Bowman, Esq, Kolb delegate from
 Jefferson to the state convention.
 As soon as temporary chairman called
 the convention sitting in the capitol
 to order, he read a letter from MT.
 Bowman suggesting that conference
 committee be appointed composed of dele
 gates instructed by their counties respec-
 lively for Kolb and for Jones, ito effect
 a settlement of the differences now ex-
 istlng in the democratic party of Ala
 bania." At that stage of events only
 small proportion of the Kolb instructed
 delegates had taken their seats in the
 capitol or regular convention Among
 those seated there, was MT. Oscar R.
 Hundley from Madison.
 Delegate Gen. E. w. Pettus of Dallas
 promptly upon the reading of the Bow
 man letter, moved that it "be placed un,,
 der the table," The motion prevailed
 Governor Jones was not a delegate to
 the state convention and did not occupy
 seat by courtesy, but it was no secret
 on the floor. that he was more than
 willing that the solicitation of the Kolb
 faction for conference committee should
 be granted. Partisan rivalry had ex-
 Ina usted it's last resource in fighting his administration; no governor had ever been
 the victim of such unrelenting abuse, per- ,sonal and official, as had been emptied
 upon his head. Ordinary self-defense had
 required him to bring three suits before, the courts, charging the editor, Baltzell,
 of the organ of the Kolb faction, the
 Alliance Herald, with malicious slander
 Tl<- .k.A-