Thank you, sir for your expertise. A reply from a man with your reputation is always appreciated. For what's it's worth department, the person speaking in the newspaper item was D. C. White, Moulton Advertiser owner and editor (along with his younger brother Jourd White.)

Colonel D.C. White.
Colonel D.C. White has just returned from a visit to Montgomery. He was a delegate from Moulton Lodge No. 6 to the Grand Lodge.
Col. White is an accomplished writer, and one of the best editors in the South.
He fought through the war in the 16th. Alabama which did as hot work for four years as any Regiment in the army.
We shall always think if he had been nominated by our convention last summer, Old Lawrence would now have one good democrat to represent her in our Legislative Halls.
People accuse him of getting rich, well if he is, we can tell how he made it.
Half was made by minding his own business and the other half by letting other peoples business alone.

(The Patriot [Lawrence County, AL] 18 Jan 1879)