Show GOVERNOR ALEX H STEPHEN of Georgia is just now the subject of a good deal of severe criticism in the newspapers of the north and some of them in the south are not mild in their strictures This has all arisen over a resolution of the Georgia legislature providing for a lifesize portrait of the late Senator Ben Hill The resolution was accompanied ac-companied by a preamble slopping over with the most extravagant praise of Hill and when the paper was returned to the legislature from tho executive office it bore this significant indorsement Without reference to the preamble the resolution reso-lution in question is approved by me This sentence is what has brought forth the criticism The newspapers assert that even if the governor were right in displaying better sense than the legislature in reference to the eloppy preamble his remark was in extremely bad taste Stephens was never noted for paying pay-ing much regard to the proprieties in what he did or said He is famous however for the possession of a mind of his own and expressing ex-pressing it in language that can be understood The New York Times furnishes an explanation for the apparent ap-parent severity of the governors indorsement though it is probable that his excellency would have expressed ex-pressed himself similarly had some other person than Hill been thus nonsensically praised in the preamble pre-amble The Times says that for years Stephens and Hill were bitter personal and political enemies Neither could ever be induced to say a good word of the other This fact has long been notorious in Washington and in the south but the exact cause of their enmity has not been generally known It maybe may-be briefly told Many years ago during a hot contest for cfEce the I two men became involved in a quarrel of the most violent description descrip-tion The result was a challenge to a duel sent by the fiery little Stephens This Hill with commendable com-mendable courage and good sense refused to accept In declining he wrote a most cutting letter saying that he was opposed to duelling on principle and closing in substance as follows Moreover I cannot fight you Mr Stephens necause the conditions are unequal I have a soul to save and a family to care for You have neither the one nor the other Ibis letter Stephens never forgot That he has never forgiven it may be argued from his course in regard to the Hill resolutions resolu-tions |