The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-06-07

 United States has seen its development astonish the world while Mexico Is prac- tically where it was in the time of the Aztecs. She teens with wealth, how ever and give her stable currency and you will see strides of progress in a few years that will fill the other nations with amazement." He speaks very confident ly of the future of the Mexican Central. and believes higher prices will prevail when the readjustment plan is an- nounced and the general market shows some signs of life again.
 Colonel John J. McCook, following the fashion of the great toiiers. mas decided to sail over the seas for his six weeks vacation. He will take the Misses Me- Cook with him for company. Col Me Cook has had a busy winter and requires rest and recreation.
 
 The building strike shows indication of weakness. It is estimated that the labor ing or wage class has lost up to the present moment upwards of slS,OOo.00O in unearned wages. This must mean loss to small merchants and landlords. It has made a very perceptibe difference in savings banks balances.
 The first great battle of his life has come to George Gould in his conflict with the Pennsylvania Railroad company It is a titanic financial and corporate strug- gle. The forces on both sides are tre- mendous, in the millions of money they control and the agencies. commercial political and personal behind both. MT. Cassatt president of the mightlest rail- road corporation in the world, Is a man not to be thwarted. He fights with hun dreds of millions of capital behind him, a Napoleon of an empire of business as elaborately built up, protected and for titled, as any empire ever was and even more so. Years ago, he reached middle life, and is now in the full maturity of the powers of great intellect George Gould Is much younger man, but in him is the fighting blood of railroad potentate, who, in hundred battles With the very biggest speculative kings and constructionists of the nineteenth cen tury, came out a victor With in his pos sission one of the most collosal fortunes that man ever accumulated. Within less than half a generation the favorite son in whose control he left 1t, so far as. was possible for man to do under the law, has according to conservative estimates very nearly doubled the splendid inherit ance left to himself, his brothers and sisters If ever a man of hls years or beyond them managed a great trust well, and unostentatiously, 1t is this same George Gould.
 His invasion of the Pennsylvania rail- road territory in business way was natural. It has to come And for the interests of the country, and of the mill lions of agriculturists along hls great in- terior system of railroads 1t Is well that he has won. He accomplished what was the dream and ambition of his father, to get an outlet on the Atlantic. Hence the war that has been forced upon him. But he was the aggressor. He mad to be. He inherited a policy In the world of rairoadom and he had to carry 1t out, or go under. There can be no question as to how he will bear himself in the bat tie now He will fight to the finish Miles and miles of his telegraph poles are hewed down along all the Pennsyl- vania lines, pretty much the same as men fall down before Maxim guns on the fighting line in actual war, but they are replaced elsewhere on nearly paral- Tel routes with the, Gould colors flying over them, defiant of assault and im- pregnable as against attack. And at the same time the Gould roads are pushing on to the Atlantic and the Pacific. the headlights of the locomotives that thun- der over them, flashing the great head lights of competition and rivalry. Look at 1t how we may, it is magnificent bat tie, battle in the air, and on the land over the sweep of the continent and then under the heaving oceans that hurl themselves on Europe on one hand and Asia on the other.
 C. B. Orcutt who is recognized throughout the world as the greatest American shipbuilder, was taken sud denly i'll about two weeks ago. Fears as to the development of his condition caused some alarm, but 1t happily turn ed out that the symptoms were mislead- ing and he is now back in good health, at the office of the New Port Shipbuid- ing and Dry Dock company.
 Some time back during the early sos, I was connected with a great Chicago newspaper, and in the course of my la- bors, I was more than tolerably fan1il- far with the judges and lawyers of that city Among them was a young man who had even then attracted attention He had the genius for work His mind had natural legal turn. He was quick, resourceful, courageous. His mind was naturally retentive, and being a great reader he soon became a recognized au- thority. His name was Max Pam. It did not surprise mo at all to find that he Is today In this city acknowledged the greatest corporation lawyer of these days of great corporations. I chanced to
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