The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-29
.COMER AND KOLB . FIGHTING T OUT IN SOUTH ALABAMA Mobile Sentiment Indicates
 Race Is Between These
 Two Men CAPT. WHITE SHOWS
 FRIENDS ARE LOYAL Hobson Will Cause Surprise if He Gets 1000 Votes in Mobile County Out of Total of $500
By HARRY J. RIRNEY

specific. Facts and figures should be
 my theme and numerals and their null | tiples my output Several sheets of copy paper I had already hopelessly
 smutted with calculations and esti-
 mates. Such and such should be the
 vote of So and So in this end of Ala
 bama: the maximum of MT A. I had
 carefully computed and balanced 1t
 against the minimum to be accorded
 MT. B.
 | l have flung away my figures. It Is
 true that copy paper Is cheap and that pencils can be picked up in almost any well regulated office. And I don't es- pecially regret the time I squandered l Tn my intellectual endeavor to reduce politics to mathematics The figurous Mir. Fullerton. with gross of Nero graphs and Spaldings guide, can tell you who Is going to steal the most bases In the next worlds champion ship series but I'll be hanged if I have been able to calculate. even to my own
 satisfaction. who is going to carry this section of the state in the democratic primary for the gubernatorial honor Although l have for years followed that calling so properly condemned by MI. NipliH6 III HIS iIlelTlthi ndTIdllNe of an incident in the life of one Ulysses Gum, I have. thank whatever gods there be, a few computations yet abiding within me, al least within possible summoning distance. It was
 thought of my old mentor in mat, known in those olden, golden days
 when I was an attendant-I came near
 saying student but my refined sense
 of accuracy happily interposed-of the Birmingham High school that caused me to tear, shred, dessicate and other wise rend minutely those sheets of figures I had so laboriously and erron- l eously compiled. l might have been able to believe sincerely and conscien- tiously that they were as correct as the
 catechism. yet-hereln again is the
 catechismic simile apropos-certain portions of them l was at a loss to understand.
 So l gaily hie me back to that boon of the news writer and the bete noir of the precisian, the glittering gener- ality. All that glitters may not be | gold, but-the glittering generality all
 ways wears an auriferous aureole to | him who is trying to convey to the palpitant public the impression that he | is the absolute master of some subject 1 concerning which his knowledge is i tfunereally fogey.
 l For considerably more than a month | | campaign as it has waxed and waged | in this part of Alabama. Mind I say
 watched. I do not mean that ! have
 followed 1t. Such an occupation would l be about satisfactory as attemptins 2 l to enmesh a lack -o lantern in but terf1y net. Of late days the changes
 have been fast and numerous Kolb and Conner are engaged in a battle royal for the vote If south Alabama. May ] the best man win, say l. and so will all say-after some man has won. l II Is not. necessary, I conceive, to apologize to the average reader for | having turned to view a real race while
 one-sded contest was going on in
 my immediate vicinity, howsoever num- | erous may be the obligations to the | average reader under which the re- porter so constantly lives, and how
 soever great the interest of the said a. r. In the one-sided contest. But lest
 I be accused of having forgotten even | for a fleeting instant that l owe my bread, unbnttered though it be, to him, li e. the a. r. before mentioned, lpa,He to predict that Oscar w. Under wood is going to beat Richmond r.
 Hobson in this neck of the woods even as he is in all other reaches or the | forest, viz: to a frazz1e.
 | I,ut a plague upon persiflage: avaunt with aerogrammatics. Let us get down | to brass tacks with the assiduity of the | Mobile politicians-those paragons or po-
 liticai niceties and unnicetes, the past
 masters of systematic electioneering
 | Mobile county will. it has been most carefully estimated by men who have
 inore than fieeting interest in the ma a'- ! ter, casf about 65o3 votes in the primary
 of April S. 1t Is not believed that by any | possibility can the vote of Captain Hob son exceed 10oo This is fair survey of
 the conditions existing In Mobile county l Baldwin. Clarke. Choctaw. Monroe and
 other counties in this section also will ! poll large majorities for MT. Underwood
 and this statement is made after conver-
 sations with conservative citizens of each of the civic subdivisions mentioned. l Captain Hobson at the beginning of | his campaign for the senatorship. had | many friends in south Alabama. He still | has them, but they are not now friends ! or the kind who will vote for him. Cap tain Hobson has made many speeches | in this section. and everywhere he has | met with courteous and careful attention from large audiences. His vainglory i: viewed with sympathetic eye. His con
 suming egotism is cloaked with charity
 even by that small minority which com
 nrises the few who are still his politica \ Captain Hobsor's personal campaign
 has contributed most largely to his owr
 undoing. He has convinced the votel that, temperamentally, The is not fitted t, wear the toga of Lewis. Pettus. Nor | gan. He has made promises whose full | fllment is impossible. He has allowe, his zeal for office to handicap his chance N to attain the post he seeks. His char | acterzation of Oscar w. Underwood as F tool of the liquor interests and the min ion of the predatory interests of Wal | street has convicted him of an incon sistency necessarily fatal to his own am btions. The people well remember Cap tain Hobson's fervent praise of Mfr. In derwood when the latter was a candi date for the democratic nomination fo the presidency.
 Captain Hobson stands stultifed. Yei | os trich like, he buries his head in tn sands of recrimination and abuse, an, believes that his own record is rendere, invisible The people of south Alabama still like Captain Hobson, despite the fac that he himself has sbored, as conscien tjousv as rrconsciously, to destroy tia regar.' and esteem. The people still lik Ii him. l;it they like him as a lecturer a the Citronelle chautauaua. They have m intention Of sending him to the Unite, States Senate.
 cap.ain Flank S. White. candidate fo the short term in the Senate. has beel | ? recent visitor to Atohile. For pro hiFitionist. Captain White is rema rka bl popular here. He is looked upon as man of honor and probIty. and ther seems general disposition to accor