PROHIBITIONIST LT GOVERNOR TREASURER ALABAMA SEED CAMPAIGN LETTER SIGNED 1910 !

Description

Here’s an Excellent Alabama Political Content
1910
Letter
Signed by
:
WALTER DUDLEY SEED
(1864 – 1932)
“
DRY PARTY
” PROHIBITIONIST LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF ALABAMA 1911-1915,
STATE TREASURER OF ALABAMA 1907-1911,
TREASURER OF TUSCALOOSA COUNTY 1896-1900,
CHAMPION OF ALCOHOL PROHIBITION and SUPPORTER OF THE ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE IN ITS ATTEMPTS TO STOP THE INTERSTATE LIQUOR TRAFFIC,
TUSCALOOSA BUSINESSMAN, PLANTATION OWNER, and POLITICIAN,
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA HISTORIAN, and BIOGRAPHER OF THE CLASS OF 1883
&
OWNER OF THE LARGEST ACREAGE OF PROPERTY IN TUSCALOOSA COUNTY FOR YEARS.
For many years, Seed was one of the most powerful champions for Prohibition and Temperance in Alabama!
In 1898 he was a strong factor in defeating the Populist Party in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. In 1906 he was nominated as State Treasurer over Mr. Charles A. Allen. In 1910 he was elected Lieutenant Governor.
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HERE’S A LETTER SIGNED BY SEED ON HIS “
STATE TREASURER – CANDIDATE FOR LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
” LETTERHEAD, 1p., DATED AT MONTGOMERY, AL, MARCH 28, 1910, TO FELLOW ALABAMA POLITICIAN
JAMES FREEMAN SUTTLE
(1866 – 1934)
LOCAL POLITICIAN FROM FELIX, PERRY COUNTY, AL – THE TOWN LATER BEING NAMES “SUTTLE,” ALABAMA IN 1933 IN HIS HONOR,
DEMOCRATIC PARTY MEMBER OF THE ALABAMA HIGHWAY COMMISSION IN THE 1920s
POSTMASTER OF FELIX, AL IN 1933
&
OPERATOR OF A GENERAL STORE, COTTON GIN, LARGE COTTON PLANTATION (USING PRISON LABOR), and LARGE DAIRY OPERATION.
IN THIS LETTER SEED SOLICITS SUTTLE’S ASSISTANCE IN HIS CANDIDACY FOR LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF ALABAMA, “…
AS A MOST INFLUENTIAL MAN IN HIS SECTION
….”.
SEED WRITES ABOUT HIS RECORD AS STATE TREASURER TO PREVENT “
ROBBERY and…EMBEZZLEMENT;
”
GIVING THE “
PROHIBITION AMENDMENT
” HIS ENTHUSIASTIC SUPPORT; HIS PAST SERVICE AS A TRUSTEE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS, and SUPPORT FOR MORE FUNDING OF EDUCATION, PARTICULARLY “…
THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL …THE FOUNDATION UPON WHICH RESTS OUR WHOLE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
…;” AND HIS STAND ON OTHER INFRASTRUCTURE and AGRICULTURAL ISSUES.
The document measures 8½” x 11” and is in VF co
n
dition, except for some paper loss at the top margin, not affecting any text.
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BIOGRAPHY OF WALTER DUDLEY SEED, SR.
Lieutenant Governor: 1911-1915
State Treasurer: 1907-1911
Walter Dudley Seed, Sr.,
of Tuscaloosa, was born in that place, June 26th, 1864, and was the son of Charles Clinton and Mattie Cordet (White) Seed, and grandson of Charles and Mary (Jenkins) White, the latter of Camden, Ark. Charles C. Seed, Sr., was born in Weimar, in the Grand-duchy of Saxe-Weimar, one of the Thuringian States of the German Empire, and was brought to America by his parents when only six months of age. The family for generations has been prominent in political, clerical, and social affairs in the old world, and descendants in America have many rare autographs and family heirlooms. The White family is of Irish stock. John White locating in South Carolina, three miles from Chester, on lands now in the possession of the family in the seventh generation. In Mrs. Ellett's
Women of the Revolution
will be found a thrilling sketch of Jane, wife of John White, their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army. Charles C. Seed, during a long life, resided in Monroe, Mich., Louisville, Ky., Memphis, Tenn., and Tuscaloosa, Ala. In the last named place he located in 1861 or 1862, and engaged in cloth manufacture. In 1865 his factory was burned. Later he was a cotton merchant. He never held any office other than alderman of Tuscaloosa.
Walter D. Seed, Sr.,
received his early education under the best teachers of Tuscaloosa. He entered the University of Alabama, from which he took his A.B. degree in 1883; was president of the Philomathic Literary Society; one of the editors of the
University Monthly
; was lieutenant quartermaster in the Corps of Cadets; and was one of the six honor men, thereby being privileged to deliver an oration on Commencement Day. While committing himself strictly to his business interests he took a positive stand in all matters of political nature affecting his county and State.
In 1898 he was a strong factor in defeating the Populist Party in Tuscaloosa County. He was Treasurer in that county from 1896 to 1900. In 1906 he was nominated as State Treasurer over Mr. Charles A. Allen. In 1910 he was elected Lieutenant Governor.
Mr. Seed was a Methodist; and also a member of the Masons, and Council, the Knights Templar, the Woodmen of the World, the Knights of Pythias, and the Mystic Circle. He was married on September 21, 1887, in Foster's Settlement, to Ellen E., daughter of J. Luther and Rebecca (Thornton) Foster. The Foster family located in Tuscaloosa county at an early day, and it had many representatives prominent in the State.
Died on August 13, 1932.
Authorities:
Alabama Department of Archives and History,
Official and Statistical Register, 1913,
15.
ADAH Surname Clippings File.
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BIOGRAHY OF JAMES F. SUTTLE
James Freeman Suttle
, alternately referred to in historical sources as James, J. F., and J. Freeman Suttle, was the eighth and last child of John White and Rebecca Jane Smith Suttle. He was born in Perry County on January 2, 1866 and was raised at the family's plantation house about three miles north of the present-day Suttle community.
Suttle married Lucille “Angie” Jones in 1898. The 1910 census records James F. Suttle, Sr., age forty-four, a merchant operating a general store, living with his wife Angie and children James F, Jr., Pettus, John, Walter, and Roger, and two boarders. He is listed in the 1920 census as J. Freeman Suttle, a farmer and the family had grown to include a daughter by that time. Living next door in a rented house was Dr. D. A. Mason and his family.
Suttle was appointed by the Governor to serve on the state Highway Commission on October 1, 1923, and served as the Commissioner of Maintenance. The 1930 census for the Suttle family is essentially the same as that of the 1920 census, with Walter no longer listed and two boarders still living with the family. The Alabama Official and Statistical Register for 1923 provides the following biographical information:
JAMES FREEMAN SUTTLE
, Associate Highway Commissioner, of Felix, Perry County, was born January 2, at Perryville in that county; son of John White and Rebecca Jane (Smith) Suttle, the former of Augusta, Ga., the latter of South Carolina; grandson of Wm. and Elizabeth Suttle of Georgia and of Solomon and Elizabeth Smith of South Carolina. The family is originally from Scotland and settled in Rutherford County, N.C. Commissioner Suttle was educated in the primary schools of Perry County and spent one year at Marion Military Institute under the late Col. J. T. Murfree(1886-87). He was postmaster at his home town for 22 years and served six years as a Jury Commissioner.
He was one of the committee who selected delegates from Perry County to the Congressional Convention that nominated Oscar W. Underwood to his first Congressional service.
Suttle is a Democrat; a Baptist; an Odd Fellow.
He married Angie Lucile, the daughter of James Wylie and Hanie Elizabeth Jones, at Daleville, Miss., on June 8, 1897.
During the days of the old State Militia, Mr. Suttle served as Lieutenant in the 3rd Alabama Infantry Regiment for four years.
Freeman Suttle operated the family's farm and under his management it expanded from primarily a cotton plantation to a diversified agricultural enterprise. It is unclear whether or not he or his father began a dairy at the site, but the family recalls that it became a large operation utilizing four separate farms. Butter and milk was sold to markets in the region. With their other agricultural interests, including cotton and crops, the family at one time controlled about 12,000 acres. Freeman Suttle began diversifying into pork, chicken, and beef production in the early twentieth century. He became a registered pig breeder of the American Berkshire Association and their Record of1914 lists the pedigrees of thirteen boars and five sows.
The1922 American Aberdeen-Angus Herd Book records ten cows and two bulls belonging to Suttle.
Suttle also built and operated a general store and a cotton gin. The dairy operations were largely curtailed in favor of beef cattle and pork in the early twentieth century. About that time, the gin was converted into a mill to make feed for the animals.
The Suttles made use of prison labor on their farms and are named in two federal peonage complaints dating from the late 1930s. The use of convict labor and contracts for labor in exchange for debt were common practices in Alabama. Peonage occurred when the arrangement constituted an involuntary form of servitude or slavery and was outlawed in 1867. While no record was found of the outcome of the complaints, it seems likely that an operation as large as the Suttle's that relied to a degree on convict labor would be subject to such complaints.
James Freeman Suttle, Sr. died in December 1934. Farming operations were then carried out by his sons James Freeman Suttle, Jr. and Pettus
Suttle. The Suttle family gradually reduced its farming operations beginning starting circa 1950.
<>
SUTTLE,
Perry County, Alabama Catherine M. Lewis and J. Richard Lewis, in Jim Crow America: A Documentary History, reference a letter from Freeman Suttle to H.H. Warren dated October 10, 1912 “regarding the possible employment of Henry Johnson, a black man, as Warren's assistant. Warren's reluctance to hire Johnson evokes from Suttle an unusual statement that 'a negro of the right kind would beat a cheap white man.'” They added the following commentary: “While that may seem faint praise, for some southerners to affirm a blackman's worth was exceptional.”
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Suttle
, also known as
Felix
, is an
unincorporated community
in
Perry County
,
Alabama
, United States. Suttle is located on Alabama State Route 14, 10.6 miles (17.1 km) southeast of
Marion
.
History
Suttle is named for the family of James F. Suttle, who served as the postmaster in 1933. A post office operated under the name Felix from 1880 to 1933 and under the name Suttle from 1933 to 1973. James Suttle, who served on the Alabama Highway Commission as the Commissioner of Maintenance in 1923, operated a general store,
cotton gin
, and cotton farm in Suttle. He also operated a large dairy farm.
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