Here all the large systems of the southern states find an
entrance, the Mobile & Ohio, the Southern (Queen & Crescent
Route), the Louisville & Nashville, and the Frisco system
affording communication with the Mississippi and the
west, and the Southern, Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast
Line, and the Central of Georgia forming connexions with
northern and Atlantic states. Mobile, the only seaport of
the state, has a channel 30 ft. deep, on which the national
government spends large sums of money; yet an increasing
amount of Alabama cotton is sent to New Orleans for shipment,
and Pensacola, Florida, receives much of the lumber.
Population.---In 1880 the inhabitants of Alabama numbered
1,262,505; in 1890, 1,513,017, an increase of 17%:; in 1900,
1,828,697, a further increase of 20%. This population is
notable for its large proportion of negroes (45.23%), its
insignificant foreign element (.08%), and the small percentage
of urban inhabitants (10%). As regards church membership,
the Baptists are much the most numerous, followed by the
Methodists, the Roman Catholics and the Presbyterians. In
1900 there were 201 incorporated cities, towns and villages
in the state, but of these only nine had a population in
excess of 5000, and only three a population in excess of
25,000. These three were Mobile (38,469), Birmingham
(38,415), and Montgomery (30,346), the capital of the
state. Other important cities, with their populations, were
Selma (8713), Anniston (9695), Huntsville (8068), Bessemer
(6358), Tuscaloosa (5094), Talladega (5056), Eufaula (4532)
and Tuskegee (2170). In 1910 the population was 2,138,003.
Government.---Alabama has been governed ui,der five
constitutions, the original constitution of 1819, the revision
of 186b, the constitutions of 1868 and 1875, and the present
constitution. which was framed in 1901. The last has a number
of notable provisions. It lengthened the term of service of
executive and legislative officials from two to four years,
made that of the judiciary six years, provided for quadrennial
sessions of the legislature, and introduced the office of
lieutenant-governor. The passage of local or special bills
by the legislature was prohibited. A provision intended to
prevent lobbying is that no one except legislators and the
representatives of the press may be admitted to the floor of
the House except by unanimous vote. No executive official
can succeed himself in office, and the governor cannot be
elected or appointed to the United States Senate, or to any
state office during his term as governor, or within one year
thereafter. Sheriffs whose prisoners suffer mob violence may be
impeached. The constitution eliminated the negro from politics
by a suffrage clause which went int0 effect in 1903. This
limits the right to vote to those who can read and write any
article of the constitution of the United States, and have
worked or been regularly engaged in some lawful employment,
business or occupation, trade or calling for the greater part
of the twelve months next preceding the time they offer to
register, unless prevented from labour or ability to read and
write by physical disability, or who own property assessed at
$300 upon which the taxes have been paid; but those who have
served in the army or navy of the United States or of the
Confederate States in time of war, their lawful descendants in
every degree, and persons of good character ``who understand
the duties and obligations of citizenship under a republican
form of government,'' are relieved from the operation of this
law provided they registered prior to the 20th of December
1902. The second of these exceptions is known as the
``Grandfather Clause.'' No man may vote in any election who
has not by the 1st of February next preceding that election
paid all poll taxes due from him to the state. In 1902
nine-tenths of the negroes in the state were disqualified from
voting.3 The constitution of 1901 (like that of 1867) and
special statutes require separate schools for white and negro
children. A ``Jim Crow'' law was enacted in 1891. Buying,
selling or offering to buy or sell a vote has for penalty
disfranchisement, and since 1891 the Australian ballot system
has been used. The governor, auditor and attorney-general
are required to prepare and present to each legislature a
general revenue bill, and the secretary of state, with the
last two officers, constitute a board of pardons who make
recommendations to the governor, who, however, is not bound
to follow their advice in the exercise of his pardoning
power. State officials are forbidden to accept railway passes
from railway companies, and individuals are forbidden to
receive freight rebates. The constitution of 1901 exempted
a homestead of 80 acres of farm land, or of a house and lot
not exceeding $2000 in value, from liability for any debt
contracted since the 30th of July 1868 except for a mortage
on it to which the wife consented; personal property to the
value of $1000 is exempted. Under the civil code of 1897
the earnings of a wife are her separate property, and it is
provided that ``no woman, nor any boy under age of twelve
years, shall be employed to work or labour in or about any
mine in this state.'' By acts of 1903 child labour under 12
years is forbidden in any factory unless for suoport of ``a
widowed mother or aged or disabled father,'' or unless the
child is an indigent orphan; ``no child under the age of
ten years shall be so employed under any circumstances.''
Certificates of children's ages are necessary before a child
is employed; false certification is forbidden under penalty of
a fine of from $5 to $100 or hard labour not exceeding three
months. No child under 13 may do night work at all. No
child under 16 may do more than 48 hours a week of light
work. No child of less than 12 is allowed to work more than
66 hours in any one week. An able-bodied parent who does not
work when he has the opportunity, unless ``idle under strike
orders, or lock-outs,'' and who hires out his minor children,
is declared a vagrant and may be fined $500 and imprisoned
or sentenced to hard labour for not more than six months.
All amendments to the constitution must be approvedbya
three-fifths vote of each house of the legislature and
then ratified by the people. The legislature of 1900--1901
established a department of archives and history whose
aim is to preserve documents and historical records.
Education.---Public education for Mobile was authorized
by the legislature of 1826, but it was not provided until
1852. Two years later (1854) a sch00l system for the entire
state was inaugurated. Its support was derived from public
land given by the United States to the state of Alabama for
educational purposes in 1819, and special taxes or tuition
fixed by each township. The Civil War demoralized the
nascent system. An important step in its revival seemed
to be made in the constitution of 1868, which forbade any
private recompense for instruction in the public schools
and appropriated one-fifth of the state's revenue to common
schools. But the attempt to teach whites and blacks in the same
schools, and the corruption in the administration of funds,
made the results unsatisfactory. The constitution of 1875
abolished the one-fifth revenue provision, made the support
of the schools, except that derived from the land grant of
1819, and poll taxes, depend upon the appropriation of the
legislature, and established separate schools for whites and
blacks. Progress has been slow but steady. According to
the constitution of 1901 the legislature is required to levy,
in addition to the poll tax, an annual tax for education at
the rate of 30 to 65 cents on the hundred dollars' worth of
property, and practically every county in the state had made
in 190G an appropriation for its schools of a one mill tax on
$i00. The school fund in 1900 amounted to $1,000,000, an
increase of 37% over the average a1+ual fund of the preceding
decade; for the year ending the 30th of September 1907
the amount certified for apportionment by the state was
$1,150,261.40, and the total annual expenditure was about
$1,600,000; in 1906 the school census showed 697,465 children
of school age. The legislature of 1907 voted an increase
of $300,000 in the appropriation for the common school fund,
and granted state-aid for rural school-houses; but its most
important work probably was the establishment of county high
schools. The rural schools have an annual term of five
to seven months only. The percentage of illiterates
dechnedfrom 50.97% in 1880 to 41% in 1890, and 34% in 1900,
when Alabama ranked third among the states in illiteracy.
There are also a number of institutions for higher education in
Alabama. The most important of these are the university of
Alabama (co-educational---opened in 1831), at Tuscaloosa, the
institution being part of the public school system maintained
by the state; the Alabama Polytechnic Institute at Auburn, a
``state college for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic
arts,'' organized in 1872 according to the United States
land grant act for the promotion of industrial education; the
Southern University (incorporated 1856--Methodist Episcopal,
South), at Greensboro; Howard College (Baptist), at East Lake
(Birmingham); Spring Hill College (1830--Roman Catholic), near
Mobile; Talladega College (for negroes), at Talladega; the Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial Institute (for negroes), at Tuskegee;
and state normal schools at Florence, Jacksonville, Troy and
Livingston, and, for negroes, at Montgomery, Tuskegee and Normal.
Public Institutions.---Alabama supports various philanthropic
and penal institutions: a home for Confederate veterans, at
Mountain Creek; an institution for the deaf, an academy for the
blind, and a school for the negro deaf, dumb and blind, all
at Talladega; a hospital for the insane, opened in 1860, at
Tuscaloosa; a penitentiary, established in 1839, at Wetumpka;
and a state industrial school for white boys, at East Lake
(Birmingham); and a state industrial school for white girls at
Montevallo. These institutions are managed by trustees who
are appointed by the governor. In addition to the usual
method of employing convicts in the penitentiary or on state
farms, Alabama, like other southern states, also hires its
convicts to labour for private individuals. Reports of
abuses under this system caused the legislature in 1901 to
order a special investigation, the results of which led in
1903 to a new system of leasing to contractors, whereby the
prisoners are kept under the direct supervision of state
officials. In this same year a system of peonage that
had grown up in the state attracted wide attention, and
a Federal grand jury at a single term of court indicted a
number of men for holding persons as ``peons.'' Many similar
cases were found later in other southern states, but those
in Alabama being the first discovered attracted the most
attention. The system came into existence in isolated
communities through the connivance of justices of the peace
with white farmers. The justices have jurisdiction over petty
offences, of which negroes are usually the guilty parties,
and the fines imposed would sometimes be paid by a white
farmer, who would thus save the accused from imprisonment,
but at the same time would require him to sign a contract
to repay by his labour the sum advanced. By various devices
the labourer would then be kept constantly in debt to his
employer and be held in involuntary servitude for an indefinite
