The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-05-25
THOMPSON AND HIS PARTY
SPEND DAY LOOKING OVER THE DISTRICT


would help heal breach between friends
to talk about it, In the language of Mark
Twain, when the guide tried to enthuse
him over an Egyptian mummy that had
been dead 5000 years, If you have a
fresh corpse, trot 1t out
It am not going to talk to you about
your local resources. You know more
of them than ! do. l know a few things
only l am standing on an iron mountain
thirty miles long. 1 am told there is 20
feet of ore beneath me, and l can see
twenty feet above me. I know you have
limestone in abundance-necessary in all
iron smelling. I know you have coal in
lmitless quantities, only stones throw
from these.
At know what is more-t hat such adj
vantages do not Jointly exist anywhere
else ON this earth. While you may not
carry coal to Newcastle. you do ship
both iron and steel to Pittsburg. l am
told that no octopus has ever placed a
tentacle upon any of these properties, yet
you find the creature filling his hungry
NAV with iron and steel.
A Pertinent Question.
so good in quality is the product of
your furnaces that 1t finds a market by
the million dollars worth in the con-
tinent OF Europe and IN Asia. Did you
build the ships in which this iron was
sent? Did you send 1t In American bot
toms? South America is building rail-
road-do you furnish the iron? If you
were to take the contract, how would
you make the delivery? You would prob
ahl ha IaI 10 sbin9
made in foreign ship yards, of foreign
iron, In charge of foreign seamen, under
an alien flag, first to an European port
and thence under similar conditions to
South America, and the freight would eat
you up. Why don't you build ship yard
and establish a line of steamers between
the gulf and Brazilian points? A suffi-
Client reason is the fact that you would
be ruined before you had the line on a
paying basis. You are probably aware
that we get only 10 per cent of South
American trade and 8 per cent of the Pa
cific trade. 1t has to be built up. South
America has no coal and therefore no
workable iron, and but very little cot
ton. Why don't you instruct your Con-
gresham to get an amendment to the
ship-subsidy bill establishing a line of
American-built steamers between the gulf
and the far south that will insure a
cotton. With assurances OF this kind in
the bill II would be far less objection
able to many who favor 1t in its present
condition. and 1t would make for 1t new
friends. l don't say this would be good
politics.
He Knows Business.
II don't know much about politics, but
l do say it would be mighty good bust
ness, and l know a little OF business
Standing where l do. on this pile of IRON
ore, and looking out upon the glare of
these blast furnaces and the gloom of
these many smoke stacks, in view of
these acres of coke ovens. with rich cot
ton land stretching away for hundreds of
miles In every direction, I tarry to de-
clare that in the next ten years the ques-
tion of markets will be of vastly more
Importance to you than the question of
who is responsible for the occasional
lapse OF American manhood among our
boys fighting as best they know how I'M
der a tropical sky. for the honor of the
old flag. Excuse me- gentlemen, but this
question can no more be made Of lasting
interest than the responsibility for the
, death of Cock Robin. Bat undess you
can have markets, both home and for
eign, and the means OF transportation.
your splendid resources might as well be
located on the island of Martinique.
ut costs half million dollars to Guild
a ship, but Of this sum 95 per cent goes
| to labor. OF this wage IS per cent Is
| paid to the local merchant for food and
clothing and material to build homes.
| And of this share that the merchant gets
he pays IS per cent to the producer, and
the producer In turn pays 6 per cent to
| labor. And thus the process is repeated
ad infinitum This is the endless chain
that makes a people rich, and not the
endless chain that makes us poor.
| Is for Progress.
$50 that when something Is proposed
that encourages the employment of labor
am for It. Whenever a plan Is sug-
| gested that will advance the price of la
| Dor. am for that. Whenever 1t Is pro-
| posed to substitute a harbor or a river
unless II is entirely too visionary-I am
| for that Whenever 1t is proposed to
reach out across seas for markets beyond.
whether the scheme involves the bisect-
| ing of a continent and the nuptials of
oceans or something else equally broad
gauged and comprehensive. am for that
also. I can't help It. I was born In the
morning, in an east room, with the cur
talnS up. ana my principles can be writ
ten In three words-'Tm for it." But 1
have a friend, one Of the best and truest
men I ever knew; but he was born in the
evening. with the curtains down, and he
is as persistently against It.
$50 l have talked to you ON business
lines and 1 hope l have not offended 1
have enjoyed my stay In Alabama very
! much. Kind beyond measure and hospi-
table beyond limit have been all people 1
have met. I thank you, friends. one and
| an. and If you ever discover a plan by
which the brains Of the North and the
brains Of the South oan be united In one
supreme effort to get the most and the
best out of the matchless opportunities
with which the dawn of the twentieth
century is fraught, wire me, and I'll
| come back"
| Stop at Bessemer.
| The party then boarded the train and
| were taken to Bessemer where the roll
| Ing mill Of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and
| Railroad Company was inspected and the
process of making steel and iron rods
demonstrated. From Bessemer the party
went to Bnsley, stopping en- route for
a moment at the Woodward furnace,