The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-07-05

1 While these measures were in debate in the legislative halls, manifest feel 1 ing of suspicion and distrust devel- oped against banks and great eorpo l, rations, an interesting promotion of hastening political discord
 Not large proportion of either house of the legislature were familiar names l in the politics of the state. Pettus, president of the senate, was a young man who had an eminent father. l Thomas H. Clark, speaker was the main writer on the Montgomery Ad- yertiser, whose editor was postmaster and an ardent Cleveland partisan. Will lis Brewer A. T. Goodwin, H. [. McEl derry, John T. Milner, William J. Sam ford, A. D. Sayre, Frank s. Moody were senators of prime force The Jefferson delegation now increased to six in the | lower house, were: Sam Will John Frank P. OBrien, John Mcqueen, Joseph H. Montgomery, Lawrence Lips comb and w. F. Fulton.
 1 Between the three factions, the Oates sound money" men, the Johnson "sil- yer lions," and the Kolb traitors" the l legislature was not in a state of needed harmony. Everyb odY>was possessed Of | knowledge aforehand, that the gover- nor was first a candidate for the Sen- ate and incidentally the best governor 1 the conditions might produce. The year before the legislature met. President Cleveland had disrupted the national democratic party, and the re- ply of this achievement crippled Ala bama politics.
 The legislature had fixed upon Feb ruary IS as the day for final adjourn ment. It was not until that day that the revenue bill reached the governor. , Imm ediate1y before adjournment then, Representative Sam Will John filed two important protests, each on his own motion and on his own account. One of these referred to the management of the penitentiary and the other to the long delayed revenue bill. MT. John explained that the state was committed by the democracy to extin guish the lease system in the peniten tiary. but the legislature. by advice of the governor had abandoned all preparations heretofore made to that end, and actually renewed that sys- tenn. He considered that the state dis honored in the breach of the pledge of the party in control. 'The whole sys- tenn is a shame to any Christian state, he said, with impassioned eloquence.
 Next MT John related the toll he and other members of the committee had en- dured to prepare revenue bill The committee, joint committee, had been ap- pointed practically at the instance of the governor, made promptly on his accession to his office in view of the distressed condition of all enterprise. The joint committee had sat during the Christmas holidays and to him the protestant had been assigned the duty of examination Of all the statutes relating to taxation, with the further task of suggesting needed amendments.
 The work of the committee had dis closed startling facts. Large amounts of most valuable property had escaped taxation or had been grossly under valued'
 When the bill and report of the joint committee had been made ready for the house, a desperate effort was found ready prepared to delay action and to de- feat the measure.
 "A powerful lobby of bankers and money lenders assembled from all quar- ters, and by fair means and foul opposed the reporting of the bill.'
 Finally, nevertheless, the bill was brought up It was obstructed and resist ed to within three days of the legal limit of the session and then defeated. The bill sent to the governor on the last day was not the bill prepared by the joint committee. The bill sent to the governor suited the banks and the interests that had successfully evaded taxation, in part or in whole. was that which finally reached the governor" All the populsts but Martin from Chiffon voted against the joint committee bill.
 Mir. Davis, populist from Marion coun- 'T. moved to strike from the journal MT. Johns protest. Mir. Walton w. Hill from Montgomery moved that this house repel and repudiate" allegations of the pro- testant that unworthy motives had con- trolled the opponents of the bill
 The silver question was at the bottom of the excitement. MT. John, in explain ing his position said the panic of 1893 had been the result of a conspiracy on the part of the national banks, in which the United States treasury had participated, to make "a great and rapid contraction of the currency whereby in few months all business was paralyzed, enter prise killed and labor unrewarded, many of our people reduced to beggary and want and revenues of the state driven below the sum necessary for it's support"
 Here was a direct challenge to the sound money faction that had elected Oates and defeated Johnston.
 JOHN WITHERSPOON DUBOSE.