The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-05-24

tween me and my childhood home. In the
yeers that have passed since then l have
grown less and less provincial until feel
a certain sense of resentment at hearing
any section of our common country
spoken of as the north or the south; the
east or the west.
II was glad of the opportunity to spend
the day among the producers Of cotton.
We boast of a country of more varied and
extensive resources than any on which the
sun shines. We grow anything and every
thing that is produced anywhere between
the arctic and the torrid zones. Our
mineral resources are unequalled; our
commerce unapproaehed and we manu-
facture more than all the factories and
all the shops of any other two countries
on the map by more than two thousand
millions, while our foreign commerce
yields a balance of trade In our favor of
five hundred millions per annum. To
these conditions all portions of our com
mon country have contributed.
but 1t is due you of the sunny south
to have 1t said that cotton contributes to
larger extent than any other one COM
modify to swell the aggregate of our ex-
ports. But I am not here to boast of
what has been accomplished 1 would not
console you, gentlemen, If l could. l
would not teach tranquility, but so far
as stated facts will contribute to that
end l would inspire you to greater
things
Production of Cotton.
1.-THE United States produces the cotton
for the world A single state-Texas-
grows more than twice as much cotton as
all the world outside of the United States,
yet Switzerland-God bless the little bee
hive-one-third as large as Alabama, one
seventh the size of Texas-exports more
cotton manufactures than all the United
States. The world exports five hundred
million dollars worth of cotton manufac-
lures. but Of this enormous sum the Unit
ed States gets less than twenty-five mil
lion-not quite per cent.
ut is gratifying to note the wonderful
increase in active spindles throughout the
South. In twenty years the United States
has increased the number of spindles one
hundred-fold, but In the same time the
South has made an increase of 1000 per
cent Since 1896 the North has added 81
per cent to the number of its spindles,
while the South has added 100 per cent.
In the aggregate since 1896 the South has
started two and one-haif times as many
spindles by actual count as has the North
But all this Is as rothing compared to
the possibilities in new fields now open
for your commercial conquest
Immense Area.
THE cotton states have an aggregate
area of nearly a million square miles,
| less than forty thousand of which (only
AZ per cent? is annually planted In cot
| ton. Let the demand increase as 1t may
and as 1t will, it will never attain the
limit beyond your capacity to supply.
You have coal in abundance-may I not
say in limitless quantities. You have oil,
cheaper STILL and likewise limitless You
have water power in abundance and you
have labor literally running to waste.
Yonder is the long-considered and now
well night assured canal and beyond
four hundred million people whose cloth
ing is not the skins of animals, nor
wooden, but the product of the Indian
worm or the Indian plant.
so while we boast of what we have
done we may well plan the consumma-
ton of our dreams OF what we are to do.
l congratulate you my fellow-citizens,
upon what has been; I congratulate you
upon what is and I congratulate you upon
what is to be. compared to which all that
has been and all that is are but day
| dreams"