Makers and Romance of Alabama History Part 23

On his return home in 1865, Major Screws was entirely reliant on his pen for a livelihood, and became connected with The Advertiser as an a.s.sociate. Great consideration was shown him by the editor, Mr. Reid, who finally put him in possession of the paper. Here has been the orbit of his great service to the state. His tripod was his throne, and though the paper was suppressed for a period of months, under the bayonets of reconstruction, it was not throttled, and its columns radiated with exposures of the corruption of those corrupt days. Under Major Screws, The Advertiser was the vent of heroic expression and the champion of the liberties of the people of Alabama. In those days of darkness and of trial, when Major Screws wrestled with poverty in the maintenance of his journal, the people of Alabama little knew what he was undergoing in their behalf. But in cool heroism he labored on, as though he had the purse of a prince at his command, and unselfishly served the people, undergoing perhaps as much privation as anyone who has ever served the state.

Under conditions like these the unselfishness of Major Screws was put to the test on more than one occasion. At one time during the agitation caused by the Stantons in the notorious struggle to obtain the issue of bonds in behalf of the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, the history of which struggle is too long to be gone into here, an agent of the Stantons appeared at Montgomery and proposed to Major Screws to pay him $51,000 for the use of the Montgomery Advertiser in the promotion of the fraudulent scheme. Major Screws was to remain the editor of the paper, and the sum proposed was merely to purchase the right to use its columns, through another, in fixing this burden on the people of the state. He was a poor man, grappling with the difficulties incident to the times, but he flatly declined the offer, and bravely continued his opposition to the issue of the bonds.

There was another occasion when he might have succ.u.mbed to a proposal as a Democrat, and found some plausible pretext for his action. The marvelous mineral resources of the state were winning national attention, and a segment of the Democracy in congress under the leaders.h.i.+p of Hon. Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, was espousing protection in the interest of the mineral developments of the country. Mr. Randall was the champion of these Democratic protectionists, and it was sought to bring the mineral interests of Alabama into the movement. The bait was a tempting one at a time when capital was in great need for the development of our deposits, and an exponent, such as the Montgomery Advertiser was, would have proved of immense advantage to this wing of the Democratic party. Accordingly, a special agent was commissioned to Montgomery to offer to Major Screws the snug sum of fifty thousand dollars to espouse the cause of that particular wing, and take plausible shelter beneath the plea of the necessary development of the coal and iron of Alabama, but this he promptly declined. These are sufficient to show his unselfishness as well as his devotion.

Perhaps more than any other since the Civil War, Major Screws has been instrumental in shaping and directing the policies of the Democratic party in the state. He was a candidate for office once, when in 1868 he was elected secretary of state, and during the first administration of Mr.

Cleveland he was appointed postmaster at Montgomery. These are the only positions he has ever filled. His career is an important component of the forces which have made Alabama great in the galaxy of American states.

Major Screws has grown old in years in the cause of democratic liberty in Alabama, yet in spirit he is as virile and vigorous as he was in the days gone.

HILARY A. HERBERT

When a lad of thirteen, Col. Hilary A. Herbert came with his father's family from Laurensville, South Carolina, to Alabama, and settled at Greenville, Butler County, where the lad grew to distinguished manhood.

His advanced studies were prosecuted at the universities of Alabama and Virginia, at both of which schools he established a reputation for aptness and rigid accuracy. Admitted to the bar, Colonel Herbert had scarcely begun his career as a lawyer when the Civil War began. He had leisurely pursued his scholastic course and was about twenty-seven years old when the call to arms came.

Entering the army as a captain, he was attached to the Eighth Alabama Infantry, which regiment was sent to Virginia. He was with Magruder at Yorktown, was in the peninsula campaign, during which time he was promoted to the rank of major, and at Fair Oaks he fell into the hands of the enemy. He was soon exchanged, and on rejoining his command, was made lieutenant colonel. His regiment was first a.s.signed to Longstreet's corps, but later was transferred to that of A. P. Hill.

Colonel Herbert led his regiment into the battles of Fredericksburg, Salem Heights, Antietam, and Gettysburg. In the battle last named the Eighth Alabama was directly opposed by a Federal regiment commanded by Colonel Maginess, who, in after years, sat side by side with Colonel Herbert in congress.

The retirement of Colonel Herbert from the army was due to a serious wound received in the Wilderness. The wound was inflicted on the left arm, a portion of the bone of which was carried away, and that practically nerveless limb still hangs at his side as a memorial of his gallant services. On receiving his wound, he was borne from the field in a critical condition.

Up to that time, though commanding the regiment for a long period, Herbert was only a lieutenant colonel, the colonel having been long disabled and unfit for duty, was not with the regiment, though his name still appeared on the roster as the commander of the regiment. Personally disabled as were both the colonel and the lieutenant colonel, they stood in the way of the promotion of those who were still in active service on the field. In recognition of this condition, Colonel Herbert wrote at once to the brigade commander, expressing the wish to be retired. Major I. P. Emerich, who was now in command, with great magnanimity, protested against such action, insisting that Herbert had won distinction as a leader of his troops, and insisted that fairness demanded that he be promoted before he be suffered to retire. Major Emerich was joined by other officers of the command in the protest, which resulted in the retirement of Colonel Herbert with the full rank of colonel. The action was alike creditable to Colonel Herbert and Major Emerich. The latter still lives an honored citizen of Mobile.

After the capitulation of the Confederate armies, Colonel Herbert located at Greenville in the resumption of the law practice, where he was easily at the head of the local profession. A wider sphere opened to him in 1872, in Montgomery, whence he removed and entered into copartners.h.i.+p with Mr. Virgil Murphy, and later was a.s.sociated with Messrs. Clopton and Chambers, with whom he was engaged till 1877, when he was elected to congress, his intention being to gratify an ambition by remaining in his seat but one session of two years.

But an event occurred which changed the current of Colonel Herbert's career. Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, had become speaker of the house, and there appeared on the scene Col. Tom Scott, of the same state, with a colossal scheme to procure a subsidy of $40,000,000 with which to build the Texas Pacific Railroad with branches extending to the most important southern points. It was a gigantic venture and wore a rosy front for the South, which region was seeking to get again afoot. On the delegation from the South, pressure was brought, because it was so plausibly promising and it was sought to be made appear that it was an undertaking which the South could not lightly esteem. The enginery of the scheme was far reaching in its operation, for the state legislatures were urged to take such action as would force the co-operation of their congressional delegations in its success. The Alabama legislature instructed its senators to vote for it, and requested its representatives to do so.

Knowing the source and purpose of the mammoth scheme, Colonel Herbert declined to support it. Every possible pressure was brought to bear, but Herbert was immovable. His maiden speech in congress was in opposition to Scott's plan. His argument changed the current of his life. The speech was printed and sent throughout his district, and though he protested against his renomination, he was returned to congress. Colonel Scott made another desperate effort to force the co-operation of Colonel Herbert, even employing learned and local counsel in Montgomery to induce the legislature to give imperative instruction to the state delegation to support the measure, and while this learned attorney alluded before the legislature to Colonel Herbert as misrepresenting the interests of the state, the a.s.sembly declined to instruct the members as desired, and the whole scheme was killed. Colonel Herbert now came to be recognized as one of the safest custodians of the interests of the state. While not a demonstrative gentleman, his merits came to be recognized in congress, as was shown by his appointment on the ways and means committee on which committee were such men as Reed, McKinley, and Morrison. His district kept him in congress as long as he would serve.

In 1885 he was appointed chairman of the committee on naval affairs at the request of President Cleveland. In 1893 Mr. Cleveland appointed him Secretary of the Navy. So popular was Colonel Herbert in Congress, that Republicans vied with Democrats in demonstrations of gratification at his promotion to the presidential cabinet. Just after his appointment to this honored post, he entered the hall of congress and was moving quietly toward the Democratic cloak room. Mr. Outhwaite, of Ohio, was speaking as Colonel Herbert was moving along the outer aisle, when a member spied him and broke forth with "Herbert! Herbert!" He paused, when Mr. Outhwaite generously said, "I will yield five minutes of my time to the gentleman from Alabama." There was no escape, and Colonel Herbert had to speak. He p.r.o.nounced with deep emotion his high appreciation of the honor and tribute, and it is said that this was the first instance where he was unable to restrain his emotions in public. He was wholly unable to disguise his profound emotions at a demonstration so great.

To Colonel Herbert the entire country is indebted for the efficiency of its national navy. Behind the guns of Dewey, at Manila, and those of Schley at Santiago, was the efficiency of Hilary A. Herbert. Though advanced in age, he is still prosecuting his practice in the national capital.

WILLIS BREWER

Prominent among Alabamians who have aided in building into greatness our commonwealth is the Honorable Willis Brewer, of Lowndes County. Along different channels he has wrought for many years. Planter, journalist, lawyer, author, and statesman, Colonel Brewer has been no inconspicuous contributor to the growth of the state. A native of Sumter County, Alabama, with his education restricted to academic training, he has turned to most valuable account his gifts and acquirements, and by the self-cultivation of the one, and by means of close and studious application of the other, he has been an active partic.i.p.ant in the affairs of the state for many years.

When a mere lad of sixteen he, in connection with the late Judge William R. DeLoach, of Sumter County, began the publication of a paper at Milton, Florida, where they were, when the war began, in 1861. Both enlisted in the Confederate army, but the health of Mr. Brewer became broken, and he was a.s.signed to post duty during much of the war, but served for a period on the staff of General Wirt Adams in the Mississippi campaign.

His fondness for journalism led him to resume the editorial pen just after the close of the war, when he published at Camden, Alabama, the Wilc.o.x Times. It was at this time, when Mr. Brewer was only twenty-two years old, that Governor Patton appointed him on his staff with the rank of colonel, by which t.i.tle he has since been known.

In 1868 Colonel Brewer removed to Hayneville, and founded the Hayneville Examiner. The times and the environments served to evoke from the young editor the best that was in him, and his paper became one of the most powerful engines in the state in the exposure of the corruption of reconstruction. The slogan resounding from the Hayneville Examiner, "the people against the fools and thieves in power," caught, in its aptness, the ear of the state, and became a popular legend throughout the reconstruction era.

In 1876 to 1880 Colonel Brewer served the state as auditor. During 1880 he was chosen for the legislature and served during the remarkable period of eighteen years, twelve of which as senator and six as representative. At the end of that period he was chosen for congress, where he served for four years. Twenty-six years of public service, years of diligent activity, ent.i.tles him to the grat.i.tude of the people of a great state.

Valuable as his service was in every position occupied by Colonel Brewer, his most useful service was rendered while he was state auditor. His career in that capacity began with the administration of Governor Houston, which was one of retrenchment and reform. The pivot on which the economic administration of Governor Houston turned was the office of the auditor, over which presided Colonel Brewer. Here he discovered the leakage of the resources of the state, and it was Colonel Brewer who not only discovered this vent but sealed it, and gave backbone to the economy of the administration. To ill.u.s.trate, Colonel Brewer found that the tax collector of Mobile County was allowed a credit of sixty-two thousand dollars for the lands bought by the state in 1874-75, and yet it was shown that Mobile was sold every year, while in the County of Dallas, not including the town lots, ninety-five thousand acres were sold in 1875.

Conditions like these had prostrated the state financially, and the eight per cent "horse shoe" money of the state was being hawked in the market at fifty and sixty cents on the dollar. Within two years after Colonel Brewer became state auditor, the eight per cent bonds of the state were funded at six per cent. He never suffered a tax collector to settle with a subordinate, but always with himself.

Another ill.u.s.tration of his share in the financial rehabilitation of the state is afforded by the fact that Colonel Brewer originated the state law of sale of property for taxes, which law he worked through the legislature during the session of 1878-9. He is the author of the law relative to descent and distribution by means of which parents inherit from their children when they die intestate, without wife or children. For seventy years the state had made no provision for parents, and no matter how old or infirm, they could not inherit, and the property fell to the brothers and sisters of the intestate.

From the dry, dull details of rigid business and the exacting irksomeness of burdensome labor, Colonel Brewer could turn with his facile pen to the production of the rarest English and the highest expression of thought.

His pa.s.sion for literature, for he is a most versatile student, has resulted in a style peculiarly his own--crisp, terse, luminous, condensed, cast in a cla.s.sic mold. His History of Alabama, published in 1872, is an invaluable contribution to the literature of the state. As a stylist he is rigid in exactness, while preserving a singular flavor which is most agreeable to the learned reader. His "Children of Issachar," a novel, deals with Ku Klux times. "The Secret of Mankind" is a metaphysical production which has won such praise as to cause it to be compared to the works of Tacitus and Swedenborg. Though published as far back as 1895, this work is securing a revived popularity, and is now being translated into the German. The last literary production of Colonel Brewer, "Egypt and Israel," is a scholarly production of philology, and shows a remarkable knowledge of the language of the ancient Egyptians and Hebrews.

At this writing Colonel Brewer is still among us. His poise is still as erect as when a lad, and his speech as clear, though he has pa.s.sed his sixty-seventh milestone. In commenting on an allusion made to him in the Mobile Register in September, 1907, which journal spoke of him as "the last of the southern colonels," the Montgomery Journal said of Colonel Brewer: "No man in the state has a more distinguished personality, a personality more distinctly southern, and none whose brain and intellect, culture and learning so forcibly remind of the Old South, as does the Register's Hayneville friend."

In quiet leisure Colonel Brewer is spending his closing days at "The Cedars," his country mansion, a few miles distant from Montgomery.

JOSEPH F. JOHNSTON

Alabama was favored by the double administration of Joseph Forney Johnston, who took with him into the office of chief executive the qualities of a successful man of business and a varied experience of years. When a boy, Governor Johnston removed from his native state, North Carolina, and, his father settling at Talladega, the son was placed at school, where he was when hostilities were begun between the states in 1861. Scarcely eighteen years old, he was among the first in the state to enlist in the Confederate service, and became a private in the Eighteenth Alabama Regiment. It is a matter of common observation that a good soldier makes a good citizen, which admits of application to Governor Johnston.

The record of his soldierly career may be summarized in the facts that the stripling soldier rose from the ranks to a captaincy, served throughout the struggle, and bore from the conflict four scars as the results of wounds in so many battles.

Like thousands of others, the close of the war found him practically penniless in the midst of conditions of desolation occasioned by the long struggle, and in facing the future, as a young man of twenty-three, he selected law as a profession, studying in the office of General W. H.

Forney. Admitted to the practice, Mr. Johnston located at Selma, where for eighteen years he devoted himself to law, confining himself, for the most part, to commercial law, which served to imbue him thoroughly with the principles of business. While an active partic.i.p.ant in current affairs of a public nature, he was content to render whatever service he might to the common weal, but evinced no desire for official station. In the reconstruction struggles he actively shared, and, while a.s.sisting others to the gratification of political ambition, Mr. Johnston was content to adhere strictly to the demands of his profession.

The development of vast mineral deposits in north Alabama induced his removal to Birmingham in 1884, in which growing city he practically abandoned the practice of the law, having been chosen the president of the Alabama National Bank. A still wider sphere was opened to him when he was invited to become the first president of the Sloss Iron & Steel Company.

Voluntarily retiring from the presidency of the bank, he a.s.sumed the larger duties of this great organization. This responsible station afforded ample exercise of the qualities of business with which Captain Johnston was equipped, and by the application of these, the company was placed on a solid and paying basis.

After years of service in this capacity, he caused it to become known that he aspired to the governors.h.i.+p of the state. He had never held political office, had never before desired it, hence had never before sought it; but now he did not disguise the fact that he wished to occupy the executive chair in the capitol of Alabama. His characteristic announcement of his candidacy was quite aside of the hackneyed phraseology of the ordinary political seeker. With blunt frankness he declared that he had not been solicited by numerous friends, and was not yearning to become a victim on the altar of political sacrifice in a consuming desire to render a public good, but simply that he had an ambition to become governor, believing that he could serve the state efficiently and with fidelity. Nor did he disguise the fact that he was possessed of this ambition for the distinction which it would afford and the honor it would bring.

Having resolved to enter the race for this high office, he bent his energies to the achievement. Twice he sought the position, and twice failed. In the third contest, however, in 1896, he was overwhelmingly chosen. That much was due to his praiseworthy persistency, his fealty to his party, which was ardently shown in his espousal of the candidacy of his opponents after he had himself failed, and to the fact that greater publicity was given his forces of character, there is no doubt. His unsuccessful efforts had served to display the type of man that he was, and there was a growing recognition of his merits.

On his entrance to the gubernatorial office he began at once to reduce the government to a business basis. He proceeded to lop off, here and there, official branches that bore no fruit and yet were duly fertilized at the public expense; he regulated the system of taxation, so as to equalize it, by requiring taxes to be paid which had hitherto escaped; he inst.i.tuted the system of the examination of the books and accounts of county officials by expert accountants, and by economy of management caused to accrue to the state treasury a sum exceeding thirty million dollars. He took a direct personal interest in the public school system of the state, and it was during the administration of Governor Johnston that the question of an improved public road system was inaugurated. By steps like these he came to be recognized as "the business governor." He was unanimously chosen to succeed himself after the expiration of his first term, and his gubernatorial career closed with the last year of the nineteenth century. In 1909 Governor Johnston and Honorable J. H. Bankhead were chosen by the popular vote of the state to succeed Senators John T.

Morgan and E. W. Pettus, and in 1910 took their seats. Senator Johnston displayed the same solid qualities in the National Senate that he had previously shown as governor. His was not a demonstrative career, for he was a man of solid qualities rather than one of s.h.i.+ning gifts. There was the utmost popular confidence in his judgment and in the integrity of his character. Steadfast to duty, often when physically unable, for his health had become greatly impaired, he won, as a senator, the thoughtful confidence of the people of Alabama.

An indication of the conscientiousness of his conviction was shown in the fact that in the famous Lorimer case, before the senate of the United States, Senator Johnston, guided by the evidence, declined to be swayed by the popular clamor to vote for the ejection of the Illinois senator. To many this was thought to be hazardous, but he openly declared that rather than do violence to his convictions, he would resign his seat. He therefore voted for the retention of Mr. Lorimer, and refused to be swerved by the outcry of the popular press. Senator Johnston was preparing for a contest to succeed himself when he suddenly died at Was.h.i.+ngton, in August, 1913.

ROMANCE OF ALABAMA HISTORY

FIRST WHITE INVADER