The age-herald., 1901-01-18
$SO,OOO BACH YEAR
 LOST TO BUSINESS
Could be Saved if City Would
 Spend $12,000
GRAPHIC FIGURES OF FOLLY
Showing That if the Fire Department Were Strenthened the Merchants and Property Owners Would
 Save $2500 a Month.

"The expenditure of $12,OOO by the city government of Birmingham would save the merchants and property owners of Birm- ingham $S0000 in one year." said Gen. Louis V. Clark, the widely known and prosperous insurance agent.
 "The paying out of $12.0OO annually by the city government would mean an immediate net saving upon average of $17,0OO annu- ally.
 "In other words, if the city govern ment would expend $12,00O year in one di- rection, that sum would save $90,000 year to the merchants in another direction.
 AS Fire Chief Thad Mullin pointed out in the course of a remarkably logical and lucid interview in the Age-Herald a few days ago, the expenditure of about $12000 would carry out in full all the require ments of the Southeastern Tariff Associa- ton of fire insurance companies, including two additional and fully equipped fire sta tions and a hook and ladder truck, and then s12,OO0 a year would amply maintain the additional forces against fire. Chlef Mullin was required to officially investigate the whole proposition and question and to report as precisely as possible the actual cost of the initial compliance with the tariff associations requirement.. He being a thoroughly practical fireman and a re- markedly skillful one, his figures are un- questionngly accepted as being as nearly accurate as can be estimated.
 50, according to this expert, the city would have to make an initial expenditure of $12Oo0, and then spend $12,ooo year for increased cost of maintainance. This done, the Southeastern Tariff Association, In keeping with it's own proposition and prom ise, would immediately raise Birmingham to the first class of cities in the insurance rating, which would at once reduce premiums from a 75 cents basis to 30 cents basis, and provide for full insurance that is, insurance to the full value of property involved.
 Birmingham pays, roughly calculated, about $100000 a year in fire insurance premiums. So making allowances for con tingencies, the reduction from 75 cents basis to a 50 cents basis would mean saving of, roughly, sSo,OCO a year net to merchants and property owners!
 'These plain figures of facts will force themselves upon everybody's understand ing They are startling, in fact, and if nothing else will be done, it will pay hand somely for the city to tax every insurance premium 10 per cent for the fire depart ment.
 ''Suppose a merchant is paying s2OO a
 fI.a nit fo~y him $sO for the fire department, and that will operate to reduce his insurance ex- pense about $50 a year, net saving by in- creased taxation of $50. This is an ex- ample, of course, subject to the force of the reduction which would come of the in- crease, but in principle it is graphically true
 There are sixty-nine fire insurance com panies doing business in Birmingham, and in 1900 these companies paid into the city treasury $13,664, or more than a sufficient sum to provide all the increased protec- tion demanded by the companies. Yet the insurance companies, the property of Bir- mingham, is more poorly protected now than it was last year. before the tax of such companies was doubled Birmingham was never before, since it became a city, so poorly protected against fire as it is on the 17th day of January, 1901, for the fire-fghting appliances are worn out and therefore in worse condition than ever be- fore!
 But coming back to first principles, we have this plain and startlingly luminous truth: By increasing the fire department fund $12,OOO year the merchants and prop erty owners would begin instantly to save about $3OO00 a year in decreased prem iums,'