Birmingham age-herald., 1895-04-02
ALADAMA'S EXHIBIT.
The Need for It and How It Should
 Be Made.
MT. DeLeon Writes and Gives His Views of the Best Re-
 suits to Be Obtained.
Mobile Register.

Mobile Register
 ATLANTA, Ga., March 27.--I have read with pleasure your reproduction Of Col. A. K. McClure's letter at this moment; for every word he says Of the Atlanta exposi- tion is true. It is peculiarly true of Ala bama; and If our state is not represented here by a creditable and practical exhibit it will be a lasting and burning shame, and a serious and direct money loss as well. It will seem incom prehensible to visitors from the north an d west, from cur own section and from the southern and island Americas, that the state which has the richest mineral and lumber and timber product of all upon our map does not ex-' hibit and advertise them. There can come but one explanation to any practical visi tor: that the people to whom God hae given these gifts are unworthy of them; that their sloth and lack of enterprise place them be- hind the earneatand eager pace of the age and will leave them out of the race for pro- gress. Take
 ANoBJECT LESSON. MT. John H. Inman went to the trouble and expe nse of making a special display of coal from his Tennessee coal lands in the exhibit from that state at Chicago. This was two years ago; and Mir. Inman has hud no direct return. Only few days ago be sold this tract of Tennessee coal lands for S260, coo iu herd cash!
 Yet there are tracts in Alabama that can give Tennessee cards and spades and then discount her mineral game. But it IS not iron, iron ores, coal, marble and building stones alono from which Alabama can draw for her exhibit. No man who pre- tends to any knowledge of forestry, or who recalls the displays of the Louisville and Nasbille and Alabama Great Southern railroads at Louisville, Cincinnati and elsewhere, can doubt the result of an ex- hibit of her lumber ana tim Der wealth and of the infinite variety of useful and or namental woods within the limits of our state. No less striking, to the uuinformed, would be our
 CEREAL AND PASTURE PRODUCTS
 if at all adequately displayed. pr. Charles Mohr or MT. w. s. McNeilI will tell you of the surprise created in 1881 by the sim- pie kiosk of Alabama cereals and grasses in the Louisville and Nashville railroad exhibit. Practical farmers from the food and grazing centers of the west seemed even more struck with that little trick" than were iron and coal men and lumber handlers with the varied specimens sent through the active agency of Captain Dan- ner and his co-workers. They had heard of Alabama's 6 iron and coal to limited de- gree even then, but they had never known her as food producer and grazing state. And what was true then will be doubly im- pressive now, with our widened area of pro- gress and with the keen eyes of investment
 
 us. Herein is uDanswerable argument No. 2, aud even more plain and palpable-more direct and far-reaching especially in its re- suits to Mobile-is tine resistless truth that we are the
 NATURAL GULF PORT
 of the great west. That plumb line drop ped from Chicago will splash the waters of the gull in Mobile bay that along that plumb line run straight stem roads that tap every granary and meat house of the west with their iron adtennae-that freights are cheaper to the plummet of that line than to any other point-all this is known to a few. We should tell the world, through the lips of Atlanta, that we not only have the shortest line and the cheapest rates from the west to the gull, but also that we have the shortest line and he cheapestport charge of any other port offering to incoming and outgoing freights for the Franco-Latin trade. We should, moreover tell the ears of Atlanta herself-loudly and iterant enough to make them tingle-that we are the natural port of Georgia and Tennessee and the whole central belt, equally as we are the natural port of the west
 That we can tell them that, lying flat upon our backs and staring at the beuefi- cent dome above us, I doubt. That we can tell it to all the world- know, if only we take the natural posture of man and stand upon our two feet. Ouly today, Colonel Avery, the Georgia commissioner, writes from South America and gives table suggestive enough for study in Mo- bile of the United States trade with South America in 1893