The age-herald., 1899-11-05

red to, are undoubtedly the finest in the world, and have just been visited by gen. tlemen from England, who came to inspect them before building theirs. No money has been stinted to obtain the most modern and complete arrangements and equipment that engineering science could devise and supply. The product will be 1,500 tons in every twenty-four hours, of basic open hearth billets of slabs, at the outset, and rails will be produced a little later on. Sales of many thousand tons of these steel bfllets have been made in advance a Pitts burg and Chicago, but it is expected to supply chiefly the Birmingham trade and to export the surplus, utilizing for this pur- pose the opportunity presented byF daily saihngs of corn and cotton ships from southern ports to European destinations, nearly all of which, especially the cotton ships, are in need of heavy material stiffening, and will take it at low freight.
 This company has a land department and its land agents keep up with its boun- daries and will sell or lease you a farm or a building lot for house, or will probably probably give you sight for the location of manufactory that will use coal or iron or steel. The corporation desires it's own workmen to own their homes, and both directly and indirectly has always given facilities for this being done by install- ments, and thousands of homes are today owned and occupied by the company's em-
 
 have been wasted in liquor or otherwise, but for this fixed policy carried out by the corporation for many years.
 The company, however, not only em- ploys sufficient workmen Counting their wives and children) to populate a city like Mobile or Montgomery, but it also in addi- tion helps them to obtain their homes, and also helps to supply them when they have become located. Its merchandise business amounts at present to between $1,500000 to 1Na.., than fifteen separate stores in this depart- ment, which in its turn has separate skill ed and experienced management When the company is buying goods, woe betide the unfortunate traveller that arrives in Birmingham without having telegraphed for room; there are from twenty to thir- ty turned away roomless from the hotel that night. The volume of its business and the impregnablity of its credit bring com mercial representatives from every part of the United States to supply it's stores with their requirements. Those stores are open to the public and do outside trade well as with the employees. They have to meet competition, and sell cheaply any one else. They are largely patronzed by the eompany's employees, but there Is no compulsion; and, as matter of fact, three-fourths of the entire payrolls are paid out to the workmen in cash between the 10th and 25th of each month.
 'The company has no politics. It main tains no lobby. It's officers embrace repub- licans and democrats, goldbugs and silver looms, free traders and protectionists. The results obtained by this company are at tributable to three things:
 '1. The inherent value of the mineral property, which cannot be duplicated as to extent, quality and propinquity in the world.
 ''2. The fixed policy of its officers to at tend to the company's own business and let other peoples business alone.
 '3. The civil service or merit system of promotion which strains out poor men and has, in the course of years, gathered around the administration a staff of of ficers and men of unrivaled competency. industry, ability and integrity are the on- ly three requirements of the company at the hands of its employees. What has been the result accomplished? Simply this: Twenty years ago the company had cap ital, counting bonds and stocks together, of $700,000, and was working 800 men, with an output of 1000 tons per day of coal and 300 tons of coke. It was scarcely known beyond the county in which it was operated and the city of Nashville, Tenn, to which it's coal was mainly shipped
 To-day, with a bonded and stock capital aggregating sSO,O00,O00 with over 14,OOO em- ployes on Its pay rolls, with daily out