The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-04
PEOPLES FORUM
The Extravagance Of Bonds


 Editor Age-Herald: Note Bir. mingham needs 19 new schools at once, and there's a big "driye" or to issue of bonds and build them at once. It does seem that the school board or authorities should have built as they went along, say at retail instead of trying to make a wholesome job of it.
 Politicians never build court houses, city halls,. parks, roads or schools without mortgaging the public by issuing bonds exactly the wrong way to go at it and in the long run, not very long either, il means less of parks, schools, etc., for the public.
 In commenting on thirty million bond issue by the state of Minneso. ta, Henry Ford stated it meant 3O,- 100000 for the state, 56,OOO, ,OOO for the banks, bad deal. He fur. ther. stated bonds mean extraya. gance, graft, interest, taxes and debt. Ford was right; he gener. ally is. J. P. REID. Birmingham, Ala, Feb. 8, 1924.
 A Word For the Black Man
 To the Editor of The Age-Herald Even in the Olden times none of the superior races used any kind of ani. nal for the sacrifice, save the goat sheep, or of the bovine kind. But we now sometimes see. the negro being used as the new animal of sacrifice. Yes, new role, indeed for the negro. For up till the closing of that fateful year of 1865 the negro constituted that mysteri- ous, sacred, and tangible something which we call property, which gave him immunity from many of the pitfalls and vicissitudes of the life of a free man. This train of thought was started in my bean yesterday, and I cannot stop it vet, for as l sat in restaurant in A little city near here, when the city marshal came in with a fruit jar full of smoky, dreggy, filthy look ing fluid, that they called whisky. 1t was of that indefinite qualify which must have been made by an amateur at the business; and who brewed it while playing hide and seek with some conscientious off cers tfor there are some such ani- mals). This specimen of brew seemed to be the kind of stuff that makes men kill their wives and children, and then themselves: and the kind that is causing men fla fall dead like flies all over this country. This city marshal fold the crowd in the restaurant that he had just taken this specimen of negro hotel porter and that there was found, also, a keg of the saif,e klnd or stuff in the possession of tnls negro, whereupon there went up score of voices in unison ali saying, Where, oh, where is the white man who furnished this son or Ham his supply?" And this city marshal moved on and made his exit through the outer door. and said no more.
 Yes, some people like race horses some like hounds, and others have their fads, but I like the good ne. groes, though I have no desire to sleep with one, nor to eat with one nor to make social calls in their homes, nor to visit their plaees Inf worship and there to disturb them as IS many times done by thought. less people; neither do I desire to compete with them in the work for whicn they are so well suited to do, ana every old southerner knows that every kind-hearted negro (when untutoredl loves kind-hearted normal white boy, and that every normal and kind-hearted white boy III the southeastern corner of the united States loves the kind-heart- ed negro as we'll as he loves his fo . vorite dog; and every old soutb. erner knows that there was time Ill the not-so-long-ago and to some extent even now that in every well appointed southern white folks kitchen had it's after supper gath. ering of happy, laughing negro wis. itors where the white "chilIuns'' could, and can go and set under the magic spells of the story fell. ing of old black men and old black mammies. And many of them could, and can yet, unrayel sp, ries of weird stories which have been handed down to them by word of mouth from their ancestors in that far continent of blackest dark, ness. And many of these stories would rank with the classics of thf Arabian Knights. Respectfully, | DIR, w. Fl. SHEITON