The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-05-17

Gen. Bennett H. Young, commander of the veterans paid beautiful tribute to Alabamas part in the war in his address at the opening session of the veterans convention yesterday. He said:
 Comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen, and
 People of Birmingham: Alabama and Birmingham have had much to say of the Confederates, and it is but just now to allow the Confederates to say some thing of Alabama and Birmingham.
 There was no use of any words of welcome in this city and state. We have
 been here before. We have hitherto felt the touch of your hospitality, the grasp of your generous hand and the warmth of your greeting; and we do not come as strangers. We come as friends,
 with the flavor of auld lang syne still lingering in our hearts and minds and
 we dare say you have put yourselves to more trouble than was necessary to assure us that you are glad to have the
 Confederates, their descendants and
 friends as your guests and your visitors.
 "The Alabama Confederate soldier
 made history, and a record for heroism
 and valor that is unsurpassed. These
 may have been equal, but never exceiled,
 and their state has made richest con-
 tributions to the splendor and glory of
 Confederate fame I might call the
 names of the greatest battles of one o1
 the greatest wars, and there were few conflicts in which Alabama did not have representatives.
 '.For one of the great European armies, medals were struck. On the side that faced the eye was inscribed the name of the battle, and on the other the name of the soldier, and beneath this were I ltI. it1cr i~ip graved: T was there' There are names in the history of the war between the states that need neither explanation nol enlargement.
 "When I speak of Sharpsburg, one oi the bloodiest battles of all the ages for the number of men engaged, hundreds of Alabamians can lift up their hands and say, I was there If call Gettys- burg, and point to it's rocky heights over and along which the men of the south charged and wrote on the pitiless rock the story of southern manhood hundreds would answer back, I was there
 eff I go to Spottsylvania. a second Manassas. and Cold Harbor. from the men of this state would come the same response, was there If I change the scene and bring you westward, half a thousand miles. and utter the word Shiloh, again your sons, maybe witf l maimed limbs, yet with unspeakable courage, can proudly say, was there. I eff go still further northward and say Chickamauga, with a sad sense o1 pride, men of Alabama will respond 1 We were there If I go to the cedai thickets along Stone river and cry oui 1 tMurfreesboro, there comes the same refrain of valor. we were there An6 | if yet call another name,i Brice's cross roads, about which the echoes of glory and mortality are every sounding back from its black thickets and slug. gish waters we catch the same wonder | full response. We were there
 1 If I call for the Timekeeper of all human records, and demand what have | the annals of the ages to say about | the men from Alabama who fought foi 1 the independence of the southland, the
 hoary keeper of these pages responds There were no braver, truer or better than the sons of Alabama who fough1
 for the precious doctrine of selfgov- ernment.'
 l "So. my friends, we come. your kins