Mr. Fleming was the special champion of the public schools. It was largely through his position on a measure before the House in 1892 that the first direct tax for educational purposes was authorized and levied. He introduced and pressed to passage the original bill to establish the State Normal School at Athens, which was afterward followed by substantial appropriations through the efforts of others. Quite as important as either of these school measures was the quarterly payment of the public school teachers. The scheme was a very difficult one to accomplish on account of the very large amount of money required and the arrangement of the income of the State Treasury so as to meet the proposed demands.

Mr. Fleming was the author of the substitute bill, under which the Code of 1895 was prepared,—his substitute providing for a codification instead of a mere revision. He also drew and secured the passage of the bill to increase the number of Justices of the Supreme Court, and to have them elected by the people.

While Speaker of the House, at the request of the committee appointed to devise a scheme for the registration of voters, he drew the bill that became the law, and was chiefly instrumental in its passage.

At the close of his legislative career in 1895, Mr. Fleming retired from the Speakership of the House with the confidence and esteem of the entire membership, as expressed in highly complimentary resolutions unanimously adopted. Only one appeal was ever taken from his decisions on parliamentary questions, and on that appeal he was sustained.

Within two years after his service in the State Legislature he was elected to Congress. He entered upon his duties quite well informed upon all questions of national importance. He has been especially a student of economics.

Of his speech upon the tariff Mr. Crosby, of New York, a political economist of high rank, said: "I only wish we had more men who held such views and could express them so forcibly." Of this same speech Hon. William L. Wilson, former Democratic leader of the House and afterwards a member of Mr. Cleveland's cabinet, said he was "glad to see young men coming from the South capable of discussing these great questions on principle."

Mr. Fleming's speech on civil service reform attracted quite as much attention. Associate Justice Brown, of the United States Supreme Court, gave the speech most hearty indorsement; as did Hon. R. H. Dana, President of the Cambridge Civil Service Reform Association. His speech on the income tax was declared by Hon. Champ Clark to be "a substantial and valuable contribution to the philosophic and political literature of this age." His speech on the tariff was made a campaign document by the Democratic Campaign Committee, and about 1,000,000 copies were printed for distribution over the country

Mr. Fleming never considers opposition when his convictions are settled. In his early manhood he recorded this sentiment to be made the policy of his after life: "I will never use the feeble powers which God in His mercy has given me to strengthen falsehood and wrong, or to weaken the everlasting principles of truth and right." Twice in his public career he has seen defeat confronting him if he adhered to this policy in his campaign and refused to buy votes. He deliberately accepted defeat and preserved the ideal of his early manhood in retirement, where he is successfully pursuing the practice of his chosen profession, the law.

In his study of economics and the solution of questions arising therefrom, Mr. Fleming has given the force of his public effort, as well as his personal counsel, to the proper adjustment

of the differences between capital and labor. His position upon these questions has been concisely stated in one of his public addresses, as follows:

"To sum up, we may state the case in this way: In the making of products there is no conflict of interest between capital and labor. They must cooperate. But in the division of the resulting profits there is a conflict between them. It is better always to face the truth than to dodge it.

"In the prosecution of the struggle incident to this industrial conflict, there are certain limitations imposed by the laws of the State. For example, neither capital nor labor could afford to raise the black flag against the other and seek its complete destruction, for the simple reason that such a victory for either side would mean its own defeat, because by itself it could not make products. Again, neither side can be permitted to put at defiance the laws of the State, because the preservation of the State is of higher importance than the interests of any particular set of capitalists or laborers. When any persons or organizations strike at the heart of the State by the wanton destruction of life or property, they immediately consolidate in opposition to themselves all the conservative elements of society. Anarchists and bomb-throwers and dynamite exploders have never yet advanced the true cause of labor.

"The two chief weapons of labor are the lawful withholding of its own hands from work and an appeal to public opinion based on the justice of the cause. The public conscience is the working man's powerful ally. His interests require that it be kept alive and delicately sensitive. Any government policy that tends to dull and deaden it must inevitably react to his ultimate injury."

Mr. Fleming has very pronounced views upon all matters of public interest. He expresses them with courtesy, but always

with positiveness and force. His address on the race question, delivered at the commencement of the University of Georgia in 1906, was widely distributed and well received by careful students of that great problem both North and South.

W. J. Noethen.

Christopher Columbus Sanbers.

OL. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS SANDERS, mer chant and banker, of Gainesville, was born at Grove Level, Jackson county, Ga., May 8, 1840. His boyhood days were spent on his father's farm. He attended the country schools and later, in 1861, was graduated from the Georgia Military Institute, of Marietta. At the outbreak of the War between the States he was commissioned LieutenantColonel of the Twenty-fourth Regiment of Georgia Volunteer Infantry. He served with that regiment throughout the war, being promoted to the rank of Colonel in 1863. Since the war he has been extensively engaged in banking and the mercantile business. For the past eighteen years he has been president of the State Banking Company, of Gainesville.

On July 25, 1871, Colonel Sanders was married to Miss Frances Amelia Scarborough. To this union two children were born, Robert Jackson, of Gainesville, Ga., and Armintaine, now Mrs. Hinton, of Athens, Ga.

Colonel Sanders's great-grandfather, Rev. Moses Sanders, was a Baptist preacher. He emigrated from England in 1765 and with two younger brothers, David and John, who located in Tennessee and Alabama while Moses settled at Petersburg, Va. Later he moved to North Georgia. He was noted for his energy, ability, strength of character, and benevolence, all of which qualities he exercised in the upbuilding of the new country to which he had come. He encouraged education, established schools, invited immigration, and planted churches. Two of these churches recently celebrated their one hundredth anni