The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1904-02-07
VIEWS OF BOWRON
ABOUT THE VULCAN
Thinks Exhibit Should Show
Proximity of Materials
TALK TO COMMERCIAL CLUB
Believes That tho Facts About the Die
trlct Should Be So Plain
That He Who Runs ~
May Read.
TALK TO COMMERCIAL CLUB

|
Friday afternoon James Bowron made a
lengthy talk on the Birmingham exhibit
at 81. Louis. Yesterday morning he wrote
out his remarks In full and they as
follows:
The proposal to attract attention to the
Birmingham exhibit by the colossal statue
OF Vulcan at st. Louis is extremely good.
The ordinary exhibits of specimens OF
ore. coal coke, etc, neatly arranged on
shelves and accompanied by maps on
small scale, and pamphlets too long for
the cursory reader, attract no attention
from the average man. but are only oil
interest to the specialist who is prob
ably already sufficiently informed as to
the matters so advertised
To Attract All Glasses.
What we need at st. Louis Is to attract
the attention of all classes of people and
present an exhibit fer their consideration,
showing only the salient features of this
unique district, on a scale large enough
that "one who runs may read To this
END | would suggest that around the
base of the statute should be shown, II
possible to borrow it, the raised map OF
the district owned by the Tennessee Coal
Iron and Railroad company, and large
sheet maps with distance circles OF one
mile marked upon them, showing the ex-
traordinary contiguity of our furnaces
and mines to each other.
| The concentration of mineral resources
is the secret of Birmingham's greatness.
We have no ores so rich as may be found
in Michigan or Minnesota. We have no
coal better or thicker than those afford
ed by West Virginia, but we have a dis
trict embracing around the horn and
belt railroad, forty miles, at any point
at which blast furnace plant erected.
could assemble all the materials entering
into pig iron at a gross cost of 65 cents
for railroad freights per ton of pig iron
produced. This is something that cannot
be equalled either in Pennsylvania, Nir-
ginia Michigan or any other state In
this country or any other country in the
world.
Thirty Years Growth
would show that this condition in
wolves success, and quote in large fig
ures upon sheet the growth of the past
thirty years and the tonnage of coal and
iron produced, the capitalization of cor
/
ployed. and the amount of monthly pay
rolls On the other sheet could be exhibit
ed the. quantity in tons or bushels or
cases or car lots of potatoes onions,
chickens, eggs, melons, etc, consumed
In this great mining and manufacturing
district The number of acres of farming
lands available for truck farming, SO
that Germans and Italians may be in
duced to come here to persue that branch
of industry. On another sheet | would
show prominently the industries needed
in this district, for which the raw ma
terial exists In great profusion and more
cheaply than may be found elsewhere. l
would quote the list repor-e ed by ChaV-
man Nelson of the manufacturing COM
mittee. with some additions thereto. 1t
is amazing when we consider the tens OF
thousands of feet of wire rope being used
to haul coal out of our many mines and
to raise materials at furnace elevators,
that not foot of such rope is manufac-
tured In the south. 1t is not possible to
manufacture steel of any higher quality,
purity and ductility than has been made
at Ensley, and this steel has produced
thousands of tons of wire without ever
getting cold from the blast furnace un-
til it was completed in the rod and wire
mill. Why should our materials be sent
to St. Louis or New Jersey to- be worked
up into wire rope?
Home Market.
There is very little money to be made
on the heavy capital necessary to pro-
duce pig iron from the ground, If we must
throw away rs per cent to IS per cent
of our profit in sending our pig iron to
distant states to find a market. The home
market is what will pay us. We had bet
ter make one-half the quantity of pig
iron and sell 1t to consumers in Ala bama
for $3.50 profit than to produce the pres
ent tonnage and sell 1t in the north and
east for so cents profit
Every additional foundry or manufac-
turing shop, to produce any of the pro-
ducts enumerated in Mr. Nelson's list and
to consume our state product of coal. lum-
ber iron and steel, will be distinct adj
vantage to the large corporations or in
dividual operators, which would justify
them in subscribing literally to the ex-
pense of the st. Louis exhibit Every adj
ditional factory which Is started means
an additional payroll upon which our
merchants will increase their business
with substantially the same fixed ex-
penses. aud will Justify their contributing
literally towards the object. Every addi-
tional workman who is brought here will
need a house and furniture and food and
clothing, will be a consumer of coal for
4 heating and cooking purposes, will travel
on our street railways. use water, gas and
electricity, and all our corporations and
the stockholders therein, as well as the
merchants, are interested in one great and
common pull to bring this exhibit Of our
resources more strikingly and more forci-
bly, before the notice of American peo-
pie than any opportunity has ever arisen
in the past to permit.
A Comparison.
I have known corporation in this
, country, at the request of its New York
directors, to spend $4,000 for an exhibit in
Atlanta. At one-quarter of the relative
cost we may present to fifty millions of
visitors at St Louis the advantage Of
J coming here buying lots. building houses,
which In turn. being subject to assess-I
ment. increase the revenues of this city
and county and state and then will equal
ize the burden. which now rests on COM
, paratvey few.
As an investor in real estate and fin
ancial and industrial corporations of.
Ii