The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-09-04
WHAT DELAYS PORT BUILDING: :

WHAT DELAYS PORT BUILDING?
 It should be clearly apparent to Gov ernor Brandon and to the senate of Alabama that any influences blocking the port enabling act in the senate committee are unfriendly tothe public welfare of this state and are in direct opposition to the express will of the people as delivered by ballot. The governor and those senators who have due regard for the people they were elected to serve should demand an inn mediate report of this measure, in or der that the senate may enact it at once. The governor and the senate are under direct command of the peo- pie of Alabama to authorize the de- velopment of the states seaport at Mobile. What authority do the gov ernor and the senate recognize as higher than that of the people of Ala bama? What excuse can be given for the costly and deliberate blocking of this undertaking of foremost concern to the industry and commerce of Ala bama?
 That silence and delay on the part of the committee have sounded more thunderously through the state than a united salvo from cannon fixed at in. tervals on every hiA-top. The com- mittee is either working the will of the great majority of the voters of Alabama, or the committee is obeying the command of underground influ- ences that are in direct opposition to the public will Does the committee dare to come out of it's silence with an adverse report? Does the commit tee dare any longer to withhold the measure from the senate? Does the senate itself fear to summon this measure out of the hands of the cont mittee into the light of open discussion and record vote, for all the citizens of the state to behold the seaport enc mics and to mark the sources of op- position?
 Do the governor and the senate of Alabama think that they are not shar- ing in the public censure when they maintain an attitude of inactivity and silence towards this undertaking to the success of which both the governor and the senate are committed? As soon as it became apparent that mys- terious forces were preventing a prompt report on the enabling act, that moment the responsibility passed to Governor Brandon and to the sena- tors of Alabama.
 The people of Alabama want to know and they have sovereign right to know who rules this state. The governor and the senate are asked pointblank whether the people rule, or whether those invisible influences so potently at work under cover at Montgomery are the sovereign to whom the governor and the senate of this state bow in submission.
 Why do not those senators who are sincere rise in righteous indignation and scourge from the Hobbies and com mittee rooms those sycophants and hirelings who infest thk place? Why is there not a man of courage who will stand on the floor of the senate and call facts by their real names? Why does not a man of the people stand forth to denounce the messen- gers of the invisible government, call them by name and demand record vote to expel them? Such man of truth and courage would make his tory in Alabama.
 There is no need for this procrasti- nation, and there is no third party upon whom Governor Brandon and the ser- ate of Alabama may throw the blame for this throttling of the states most momentous undertaking. The Ala bama house of representatives found no obstacles to it's performance of its public duty by the seaport as com manded by the people. In what man. ner do the governor and the senate admit that they do not measure up to the stature of the lower house? The people of Alabama have commanded action, and they want that action without further equivocation or delay. -
 TEcT EOR STRESEMANN