The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-09-21
SAYS WARD
 COUNTED SUPPORT
 OF T. AS AT START
Tells of Secret Conference of 25 Where Plans Were Made For "COnscripting" Ward

ward municipal project that George Ward has initiated. fathered or sponsored dur ing the four years that he
 has served as president of the city commission, and will agree to quit the race, Dr. Barrett told large audi ences at Pratt City and Avondale last night.
 q have asked him from every plat form from which I have spoken since this campaign started to tell the peo- pie why he should be continued in of flee for another four years-to tell us what he has accomplished in the past and what he hopes to do in the future. His reply has been a villifi-
 cation of those who are not support, ing him. He has replied to my cour- teous questions with the language of
 the gutters."
 Last night was Barrett night at Prat City and Avondale, where the candidate spoke to audiences of approximately S9 to $50 in each place Enthusiasm rar close applause and cheers constantly in terrupted the speakers.
 Dr. Barrett spoke first at Pratt City speaking for nearly an hour and ther drove by automobile to Avondale. James Weatherly also spoke at the Avondal' meeting.
 SAME AT BOTH PLACES
 The speech of Dr. Barrett was practi cally the same at both places. He de clared in favor of free textbooks in tn, public schools, the conservation of th city's franchises, municipal ownership and reduction of rates in water ant electricity, extension of the sanitar. sewer system, an east and west highway enlargement of the department of publi' health, free public schools. He was op posed to street tax and declared h. would veto any measure attempting t put this burden upon the people. George Ward Is great business man, he said. Georges supporter says so Frank Glass, his mouthpiece. swears t it, and George himself admits it. Georg' came out in a published statement some ming the city in debt at the rate of { thousand dollars a day.
 Now. when an individual firm or cor poration continues to spend more none. than they take in, there are three thing that must happen. Either more income
 is provided, or expenditures are trimmed or there is bankruptcy. But George kep right on spending $1OO0 a day more than he was getting in, and after a while h, told us that he couldn't pay the city, debts and that we would have to le
 him have million and a quarter dol lars to settle up. We gave it to him
 but he didn't stop his extravaganza but kept right on running us in deb s1000 day the same as ever.
 LEGISLATURE STOPPED HIM
 And then the legislature met, sizet
 up the situation and touched Georg' on the shoulder and said George, yol have either got to live within your in come or you'll lose your job So, wheI they told George about having to giv' up his job he got to figuring, and h figured how he could save that $1000 day and his job too. To save his jol he stopped that 5000 day deficit. '.Erahk Glass has boasted that he an' George Ward have selected the battle ground upon which this battle shall b fought; that I have got to fight on tn ground they choose, and with the weap ons they have selected I regret witt all my soul that they have seen fit t inject a religious issue into a politica campaign, when the record of the can didates and the fitness of men for tn office they seek should be the test b which the officials are selected, But shall accept their challenge, placing tn responsibility full and fair upon them. They claim to have discovered grea and terrible secret society which de prives poor, honest hardworking girl of livelihood. 1 have never heard o such society, secret or otherwise, ant I don't believe that an organization o such unholy principles ever existed upol this earth.
 PATRIOTIC ORGANIZATION 
 But there is a patriotic organization organized for the purpose of perpetuatin. the great principles of American democ racy, which believes in the public schools in free speech, in Tree press, in rh open Bible in the public schools, in tn election and appointment to public of flee of only those who are American patriots and whose Americanism is un questioned. They believe in Old Glor, and that it is and that it should b the highest emblem of authority in Amer | ica And I want to say to you that thes principles, of whatever society or organ ization they might be called, are m principles now and forever.
 1T asked George Ward in my speec at West End last Saturday to tell yol and to tell me how he stands on thes principles and to tell you and tell III which ones he stands for and which one | he rejects He never answered us ther he hasn't answered us yet. Tell us to l morrow night at Woodlawn, George, hoy you stand, and whether or not there some powerful secret order that has yo | so bound and muzzled that you dare no subscribe to these principles of tru l Americanism.'
 ! WEATHERLY SPEECH FEATURl | ,,t ,f Cnp,r n fcSiouar Wea th