Haralson is worthy of special mention. His unusual culture, affableness of
disposition, cheerfulness, varied ability, and prominence in Christian
work found for him unsought niches of high honor in Christian work. Purely
in recognition of his worth, he was chosen the president of the Baptist
State Convention of Alabama in 1874, which position he held for eighteen
years, and was the most distinguished layman in the denomination of the
state during that time. In 1888 he was chosen the president of the
Southern Baptist Convention, which embraces the largest Baptist
constituency in the world, and for ten successive years presided over that
great body. He was a model parliamentarian, and came to rank as one of the
foremost laymen of his denomination in the union. His retirement from that
position was voluntary, for no one ever enjoyed more universal confidence
and popularity than he.
Other honors still were his. He was for many years a member of the board
of trustees of the Polytechnic Institute at Auburn, chairman of the board
of trustees of Howard College, and a member of the American Baptist
Education Society. An index to the character of Judge Haralson is afforded
in the remark which he has been heard to make that he suffered nothing to
interfere with his religious obligations. His conception of life
throughout was ideal. Himself a model of genuine manliness, he sought to
stimulate it in others. In all things his method was that of exactness.
There was a scrupulous care in his bearing, his speech, his conduct toward
others, and to the close of his life, the little amenities that make up so
much of life, were not lacking in his character. While his high sense of
manliness begot firmness, it was of that type which always bore the stamp
of gentleness.
His suavity won him friends by the multitude, and his character and
ability gained for him unlimited confidence. Presiding over bodies
sometimes rent by agitation, where skill and firmness were put to the
severest test, such was his personal influence, and such the confidence
reposed in him, that no appeals from his decision as a parliamentary
officer were ever taken.
Judge Haralson has but recently passed away, leaving behind him a record
of public life of more than fifty years, with not a dent in his shield or
a tarnish on his armor. He labored as long as he was able, and under the
weight of years voluntarily retired from public life. His death occurred
in his eighty-second year. In the quietude of his own home circle in
Montgomery, after his retirement from the supreme bench, he serenely
awaited the call of death.
Among the public men produced by Alabama, none ever excelled Judge
Jonathan Haralson in loftiness of character, incorruptibleness of life,
gentleness of disposition, and fidelity to duty. He was never the least
ostentatious. His manner was quiet and cordial, and never the least
reserved. While his conclusions were always positive and firm, they were
so tempered by gentleness as to leave never a shadow behind. He was as
cautious of the feelings of others as he was for those of his own.
No man was freer of self-seeking. It was purely in recognition of his
worth that he was called forth by others to the varied functions which he
performed. His companionableness bound to him the best of men who loved
him because of the loftiness of his life.
He lived throughout, the life of a typical southern gentleman--easy and
quiet of manner, pleasing always in his address, unstilted, yet possessed
of all the graces of the highest expression of culture. He was never
profuse of praise or of compliment, but indulged in a sort of pleasing
raillery and jest in which was couched an estimate which he entertained,
and which meant immensely more from him than would the extravagance of
many another. In a circle of friends he was invariably charming. His
appreciation of a joke was delightful, and in this he indulged to the
close. Jocular without yielding to unseemly levity, easy without undue
freedom or familiarity, sometimes slightly stinging in his jovial
criticisms of those for whom he had the highest regard, he always
recognized the boundary of propriety, and never suffered himself to be
betrayed beyond. There was no assumption either in his speech or manner.
He was simple, while at the same time great in very many respects,
invariably respectful, and dutiful to every trust, as a friend and as an
official--these were the dominant traits in the character and life of
Judge Jonathan Haralson.
W. J. SAMFORD
Readers of that sterling Democratic journal, the New York Daybook,
published in the metropolis in the years before the war, recall the
articles of a spicy correspondent from "The Oaks," in Alabama. That writer
was the father of Gov. William James Samford. As one might judge from the
conversation and from the speeches of Governor Samford, he was reared in
an atmosphere of literature. To him, like to thousands of other southern
youth, the war was untimely, as it interposed to cut short all prospects
of a finished education, for as a stripling of seventeen he entered the
service of the Confederacy. He had previously enjoyed all the facilities
afforded in a country school near Auburn, and was in the sophomore class
at the University of Georgia, when the call to arms reached him. Youthful
as the boy soldier was, he soon became a lieutenant in the Forty-sixth
Alabama Infantry, which distinction he won by gallantry on the field.
Conditions were such that he was oftenest in command of the company.
Captured at Baker's Creek, he was taken to Johnson's Island. When his
command was surrounded at Baker's Creek, with no chance of escape, he drew
his sword and behind a log drove it into the ground to the hilt to prevent
its falling into the hands of the enemy. After his exchange, Governor
Samford rejoined his command and was with Lee's remnant when it
surrendered.
Returning home when he was just twenty-one, Governor Samford went bravely
to work on a farm to help save the growing crop of the spring of 1865.
During the following fall he was married to Miss Drake, and settled on a
small farm which he largely tilled with his own hands for several years.
Possessed of an unusual intellect, as all who knew him recognized,
Governor Samford was not content with turning the glebe, and procuring the
elementary books of law, he would study at night after laboring through
the day. He was fortunate in the companionship of an intelligent and
sympathetic wife, to whom he would from time to time recite, as he would
wade through the successive volumes of law.
In 1871 he removed to Opelika, was admitted to practice, and applied
himself with energy. His thorough knowledge of the principles of law,
resulting from his rigid application from the time of his entrance on its
study, was superinduced by the labor which he bestowed on each case. A
diligent, attentive, and intelligent lawyer is rarely without clients, and
this admits of peculiar application to Governor Samford.
A striking and command physique, a genial manner, a mastery of his cases,
and an eloquence which was natural, won him a practice that rapidly
extended, not only, but a rank at the bar of which any one might justly
feel proud. It is a notable fact that in the long career of the practice
of Governor Stamford, he was never caught on any point unawares. He had
gone over the entire ground in advance, had consulted the authorities with
minute care, and entered the court fully equipped. Never presuming, as
some lawyers do, that his opponents would overlook certain points involved
in a given case, he strongly fortified each one, especially the weaker,
so that he was ready for battle when the case was called.
This habit, well known in connection with the practice of Governor
Samford, won for him a widening fame, so that his practice was
considerable and prominent throughout East Alabama, and in other parts of
the state, and even beyond. A client once defeated in an important
criminal case, by the scientific knowledge of Governor Samford, remarked
that a man who knew as much as Samford, should not be allowed to practice!
Instances occurred when the opposition and even the court itself, was
taken by surprise by his exactness of knowledge of the scientific points
involved in given cases. Governor Samford had read every available
scientific work bearing on the case at issue, and was a match for the most
expert witness that could be pitted against him.
While Governor Samford was fearless in the prosecution or defense of any
cause, civil or criminal, entrusted to his care, there was always a
stately suavity that characterized his bearing, even in the rough and
tumble of the courtroom, as his native gentleness of heart forbade the
slightest harshness, or any warmth of passion. He was willing to
acknowledge a lack of firmness on his part, about which he would speak to
friends, but he would at the same time acknowledge that it was due to his
indisposition to be unkind to any one.
The creation of the present board of pardon in this state was due to his
energy, as he did not believe that so much of that which is sacred should
be lodged in the hands of a single man, but that there should be
deliberation derived from a number of sources in the settlement of grave
questions. No one was more distrustful of his own firmness than was he
when confronted by an issue involving much happiness. There was this
womanly element in his great nature which would sway him in spite of
himself. Whatever may be said of Governor Samford, his most obstinate
opponent could never deny the existence of this trait of gentleness and
kindness. Yet when confronted by a principle which demanded decision, he
could be firm, and was, as was abundantly shown by the exercise of the
veto power when it needed to be invoked.
Governor Samford's service to the state was manifold. Beginning as a
soldier boy at seventeen, his career was marked throughout by services of
a varied nature. While serving as a representative in the lower house,
from Lee County, he was the recognized leader of that body. As senator,
his merits were recognized by his being chosen the president of that body.
As a delegate to the constitutional convention, his services were
invaluable. As a representative in congress, he made a reputation for
himself and for the state. Honored at last as governor, he brought to the
functions of that high office his learning, ability, and experience in
public life, all of which were valuable.
Only hints of the force of this profound lawyer, skilled statesman,
cultured citizen, eloquent barrister, and Christian governor can be given
in a sketch so circumscribed as this, but even such glimpses afford
sufficient insight to enable one to judge of his rank of superiority.
Always bright and cheerful, his sense and appreciation of humor did not
forsake him on his last bed of illness. Yet there was profound devotion to
God which he cherished and cultivated to the end. Cut down in the prime of
life, Governor Samford died while serving as governor of the state.
W. W. SCREWS
For solid and substantial service and for disinterested devotion to the
cause of Democracy, the duration of all which stretches through a period
of about a half century, none excels the veteran editor, William Wallace
Screws, of Montgomery. From the early dawn of manhood to ripened age,
Major Screws has been identified with the fortunes of his native state. It
is doubtful that another has impressed the thought of the state so
uninterruptedly for so long a time as he. There has never been the
slightest waver in his fidelity and downright labor for a long period of
years. Certainly he has sufficiently won the approval of the people of the
state as to be worthy of a place among the men who have constructed the
commonwealth to its present stage of advancement. No flash nor
picturesqueness, no sensation nor sudden innovation has at any time
attached to that which he has done--it has been service rendered as in a
treadmill, patiently, persistently, and perseveringly. He has gone down
into the depths with his people, has suffered as they have, and has risen
along with them through the varying fortunes which have been theirs in the
years of the immediate past.
Major Screws' native region is Barbour County. His academic training and
all indeed he ever had, was at Glennville, a village noted in other days
for its educational advantages. He entered life early, for he was admitted
to the bar at twenty, after having studied in the law office of Watts,
Judge & Jackson, at Montgomery. At the end of a two years' practice, he
entered the Confederate service, being among the first to enlist. Like
many others, Major Screws was not a secessionist, but he was a patriot,
and subordinating his personal views to the expressed judgment of the
people of Alabama, he shouldered his musket and went with the first troops
that were concentrated at Pensacola. He joined in the capture of the navy
yard and of Fort Barancas, and later became a lieutenant in Company H,
Fifty-ninth Alabama regiment, and served under General Bragg in Tennessee
and Kentucky, participating in the battles of Chickamauga and Knoxville.
The last year of the war found Major Screws under Lee in Virginia. During
that stressful and distressful period he was an active sharer, and was
with the remnant of that brave army that surrendered at Appomattox. It was
during his campaigning with the two armies that Major Screws developed his
popular ability as a writer. A vigorous and versatile correspondent from
the front, he enlivened the columns of the Montgomery Advertiser, then
presided over by that brilliant editor, Samuel G. Reid. The keen insight
of Major Screws into the situation led him at one time to forecast some of
the contemplated movements of Bragg's army, the publication of which led
to his arrest by General Bragg, but this was a merely meaningless episode,
and only served to develop the fact that the sagacious correspondent had
too keen an insight for the comfort of the commanding general.
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
associate. 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 succumbed 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 leadership 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 assigned 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 copartnership with
Mr. Virgil Murphy, and later was associated 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 assembly 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
pronounced 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.