The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-08-23
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS
This is to be a story about a miner.

 tation on laobr and capital you can just skip it, for I am leaving the difference between the miners and operators to be settled by those in authority.
 l merely want to tell you about one of my miner friends, and in as simple and straightforward a way as I know how in order to get you to see miners home.
 Now. my friend, Jim Prather, is the type of man who is a credit to any community. He labors with his hands, but he uses his head, and therefore he thinks upon industrial, social, moral and political questions not as a theorist, but to relate them to himself, his fam fly, and his town.
 After years of labor he now owns comfortable home has an interesting family and his wife is in every sense his helper, for she conserves what he makes.
 Now, when I go down to West Blocton u IS dkWdyS d PlSdSuI0 u SO dLOullo c4iN get in touch with the Prather household for it is happy home. The boys and girls are natural unaffected children. They have not been spoiled by luxury or ruined by over betting. They are well behaved without being over polite, just healthy, average kids.
 have been knowing Jim and his wife and family for about three years, and they always give me hearty well come. They are not members of the little church to which I preach. They are just friends, and when I enter their home 1t is not as a pastor, but simply as a guest.
 Now while Jim is man who had very little chance for a good education he has good, common sense, and he be- lieves in educating his children, and his 12-year-old boy Is making good at school Jim is on the school board.
 
 Now, this, of itself is a tribute to our Americanism and to our public school system. have been present at the fac ulty meetings of some of our great in some big educational problems, but for downright sitting out of practical ques- tions touching the daily lives of many homes I commend anyone who is skep- tical about the worth of our common schools to attend the meeting of the
 II men from various walks of life come together to see about the education of their children
 I know something of the school situa- ton in a number of mining towns, and know what some of the larger corpo- rations are doing to better the condi- tions, and I welcome every improvement made by them, but in the last analysis the school that rests squarerly on the shoulders of the people themselves is educating not only the pupils but their parents Jim Prather is a bigger and broader man for being on the board than he would be without such respon- sibility.
 
 I sit and look at Jim with amazement for anyone who knows the labor re- quired to dig coal would excuse Jim from making a garden, yet he has one of the best in the county, and does his own work, and proudly boasted that every inch of it had been put in culti- va tion, and that he had gotten two crops and was putting In his fall garden Now it seems this would have satisfied an ordinary mans appetite for work, but he rented half-acre and put it in sweet potatoes.
 I said: Mrs. Prather, Jim Is raising lot of vegetables and fruits. are you putting up any this season? She knew was just leading her on, so she said: Well, not very much, as I am so busy with the children and the work about the house is heavy, but I have put up little, about 150 jars. Her kitchen closet looks like a grocery store with its jellies. preserves, tomatoes, beans. corn and other summer garden truck
 Wlll we Wnlp IHe GeTfHdIS. 1Ou pSt we will if other families will work and save like the Prathers. It heartened me to see how bravely they were facing life. I wish I could get whole lot of tired, ennuied, lazy city people to spend a day in such home It might get through their incidence, and selfishness and shame them into doing something to heln win the war.
 Tn my daily rounds I come in contact with men at the head of some of our great industrial corporations and many of industry. meet bankers, merchants, lawyers, doctors. preachers, politicians; in fact, know nearly everybody, and therefore touch life at many points. There are times when big questions get on my nerves and I need bracer, not in the sense of an intoxicant or dope, and then do you know what I do? Well, I'll tell you: get out of busy Birming- ham and go and spend the night in the homa of some working man and talk things out with him.
 For the past few weeks the talk of strike, the lining up of labor and capital the joclxeying for position, the threats of the miners, the defiance of the opera tors. got me to use a homely bit of old negro dialect "wool-gathered. I talked with one of the big operators, and then afternoon nd