The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-05-10
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

l head from the streets.
 | I can remember when the stars and stripes seldom floated in the south The wound between those living on this side of the Mason and Dixon line and those to the north of it had not healed. My first memory of flags were at the memorial exercise on the 18th of April. but those exhibited were Confederate ones, and for years the stars yand stripes were under a cloud because 1t was the emblem of those who had inn posed their will on ours and were caus- | ing a proud people to walk through the valley and the shadow of recon struetion in it's most hated form. | I'll neved live long enough to forget how one afternoon I left home and made my way up town to find all the stores closed and draped in black There was the stiffness of death. I couldn't | figure 1t out for knew it was not Sunday. Finally I saw a group on one of the corners and, boylike, made my way to it, and heard men in hushed voices with tears in their eyes talk ing of the death of Robert F. Lee.
 Time passed on and some of the first Abraham Lincoln could be mentioned publicly in an address without calling l forth a demonstration against it's use, for Alabama had thrown off the po1it- ical rule of the carpet baggers, and seized the reins of state government. ana was busy setting it's house in or der after the shame of radical rule. l
 l I well remember the riots and the but lad. but the day got out of school and heard shot after short pierce the air as the negroes went piling out of the city followed by some of the leaders from the north will live as one of the red letter days in my boyish experiences for it was war to me. Many were killed and scores were wounded and there was a congressional investi- gation, and then things became normal again for the white men of the som- munity were in control.
 It is true that there was company of United States troops there at the time, but the officers and the men had been in the town long enough to be able % sympathize with the determined men and heroic women and for some reason failed the trouble makers at the critical time and fired no shot against those who were fighting for white supremacy and home rule.
 I am not recalling these scenes to take over dead coals to try and make them blaze up again, but merely to truthfully set forth a change in the hearts of southerners towards Old Glory I am also endeavoring to set forth Boys impression of soldiers and
 war, for with the coming of United States troops, we lads felt that the war
 was about to begin again.
 
 have attended many impressive ceremonies in my life but none made | IS
 the military funeral of young man of my town. He was a member of the local militia and being of a prominent family and very popular, he was buried
 with great honor. I can recall as
 though it were but yesterday, how the
 firing squad drew up and the shots , rang out over his grave
 [ The north and the south year by year were drawing nearer together. and one |, of the first signs was the decorating of , both the graves of those who wore the blue and the gray and later the GUS
 tom grew in which the old Confeder- [ ate Veterans invited the Grand Army ot the Republic to have a part with them in their memorial service. It was rather
 coldly done at first but later got to be spect.
 Then came the war with Spain in , which Confederate Veterans offered
 their services to their country, and , men like Gen. Joseph E. Wheeler made a great name for themselves and shed f honor on the south by their heroic v deeds under the flag of our common country. And so ever since the Spanish , American war the stars and the , stripes have waved freely in the lani
 of Dixie.
 , And so, as I sit here and write,
 look out of my window and from thu e flag pole of the courthouse there n streams the stars and the stripes, ant P all alone I reverently lift my hat an<
 salute it, for in the war against au tocracy it was carried to Europe by men of the north and of the south, O
 the east and of the west as tho f1af
 of a united people living under it! . folds in the greatest democracy tn, ' world has ever known.
 Today our own beloved boys wh, e followed Old Glory into the face of . German hell of fire and shot an, poisoned gas and broke tn . Hindenburg line and caused tn d braggart Kaiser to fall on hi t knees and sue for peace are goinl
 to march through the streets of Bir 7 mingham as we proudly look on, know /. ing that for all time to come they hay