The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-08-01
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

 the street. has not realized that much
 depends upon the election of congress- man from this district who will stand hole-heartedly by President Wilson. We have had so many political contests that it is hard to make people see that
 the movement to beat George Huddleston is not political, but a war measure in which the whole community is involved, and for this reason ought to be settle ] not on mere personal grounds, but on the basis of service to the government. I gladly concede the fact that George
 Huddleston, through trials and hard
 ships, worked his way up to place of honor. willingly admit that he has been above reproach in his moral life. I am ready to testify that he is a likeable man. But having made gladly these admissions do not believe that he is in sympathy with the war aims of the administration, and I am opposing him not on private, but public grounds.
 A man may be ever so honest and may be ever so firm in his convictions, and science, and still be unfit to represent d great constituency like ours in a great national and world crisis. The conscien- tious obiector is one of the hardest men in the world to handle. He may be a kind father, a good church member, all honest man in trade, but he is absolutely hindrance in war times.
 Now, before the war our present con. gressman was in the very front rank of the pacifists. He was member of the apostolic band of "peace-at-any-pr price disciples, and in and out of Congress was ever ready, in spite of his avowed plat form, to break a lance with any one who dared to preach preparedness. We must remember this to get at his present state of mind. It is this that has made him temperamentally unfit to rep the Germans
 Let's keep to the record, for George has been true to his pacifist ideas, and all though his mother country has been in the war to the death with the greates, military autocracy the world has eyer known, he has not yet cut his eye teeth,
 thousands of lives lost, and is still welded to his peace idol, and far from being weaned from his pre-war views. This makes him a menace.
 say this advisedly. It is not born out of lying rumors circulated by his enemies to encompass his defeat. The reasons upon which the statement is based came from his own speeches openly made in Congress and sown broadcast in Jefferson county to influence the minds, stir the hearts, and affect the actions of the voters. It's the peace gospel according to George Huddleston which makes me
 want to take him out of public life where he will be in a position to do serious harm and give him leisure to follow in private life his political, social and eco
 homie vagaries to his full bent withou,
 endangering the body polite.
 I have no objection to a mans follow l ing his conscience if it be educated along right lines, socially, industrially and po- litically. But the conscientious objector is a peril frequently to his neighbors, his city, his state and his country, if his conscience fails to function properly. And just because I believe that George s conscience is out of gear is the reason | islative halls as mine, for he does not represent me, nor do 1 believe he repre- sents the enlightened conscience of in- perial Jefferson
 l If he looks upon his mission at Wash | ington as following the dictates of his own conscience and is indifferent to the
 wishes and opinions of those who sent him there, then he merely represents | himself and misrepresents his constitu- I ency, and that is just why I claim he
 should be set aside for man who will stand by President Wilson, and in so do- l ing follow the wishes of the voters and | opinion.
 l Now, George makes much of the fact
 that he is no rubber stamp" congress-
 man. We are willing to admit that ne
 has followed his own little rush light and refused to make use of the brillancy of l the Illuminating intellect of Woodrow Wilson. one of the worlds greatest think
 CTS and wisest of leaders, but rather brides himself on the fact that he has been uninf.uenced by the opinion or wishes of his great leader, but set him self against him on more occasions than
 one thereby making spectacle of him. self and shaming the loyal and thinking men in his district.
 l But George. when he becomes a con- l scientious objector, is no piker. He not only is unwilling to follow, or even stand I by the President, but he is wiser than
 his party, and so besides birding him. self on not being rubber stamp" con- | gressman, he rises to the full height oi I five feet seven inches, runs his hands through his hair, and looking his demo cratic confreres squarely in the face :! hurls 1t into their teeth that he will not
 wear any party yoke" but I prophecy that if unhappily it should become neces- sary. which do not believe it will be
 to beat him with an independent candI-