The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-04-03
LOCOMOTION
 OF THE FUTURE
Electric Cars from Montgomery to All Points
 of the State.
BY WILL R. HAMILTON.

Ten years from now, when you gC | from Montgomery west to the import. ant points fin West Alabama and to- wards the Mississippi line, you will ride m electric cars that will traverse ter rltory yet practically unexplored. The writer a few days ago approach ed a prominent business man in one or the important Alabama cities west or Montgomery. He was leaning over chart, and with a pencil in his hand he was tracing lines of the map north- west. then south, then due west. In a few minutes he looked up.
 Are you contemplating a trip into the rural country?" the writer asked, after making a little Sherlock Holmes deduction.
 Yes" he replied. "and some day I propose to make the trip in a modern little train moved by electricity
 Why, are you going to build a-
 Look here" The prominent busi- ness man took up his pencil again and moved it across the map.
 Don't you see what an opportunity we've missed all these years?" he con- tinued. See what a great country this fs-and without connection by rail! The greatest truck growing region in Alabama and half of 1t undeveloped. Cant you see what an"
 "It does look"
 Sure. it's reasonable. Feasible, too. Why, man, we've been mapping It took Marion and Mayor Haynie to wake us up."
 The prominent business man traced and traced until there rushed through his right hand what telegraph opera tors call hand cramp." He talked and talked. and the more he talked the more enthusiastic he got.
 Its a cinch, man. It's cinch. We must have that electric car line.
 And that prominent business man is not accustomed to speaking slang, either.
 Not long ago. in the thriving little town of Marion--Im taking grave risks now, because Marion likes to be called a city--there was held a mass meeting. It was what you might call an indig- nation meeting. The citizens and busi- ness men were indignant at a railroad which they say halfway connects Ma rion with the outer world. The rail- road with its immense volume of busi- ness in the Perry County metropolis had gone too far with its monopoly and, so Marion citizens say, was trying to give Marion the little end of the horn. When there was a little wreck between Marion Junction and Marion, a citi- 
 or Montgomery or Birmingham or any where else without a delay of hours. and Marion business men couldn't get their mail or their express or their freight without that same long and unnecessary delay.
 And the schedulei Marion people are mighty sensitive about that sched- ule.
 Then the mass meeting-the indig- nation meeting.
 I'll give $1,000 toward remedying g the conditions" spoke up a man who was never known to take much inter est in commercial affairs.
 Gee" said the business men at the meeting.
 Then Marion business men who had always been interested in the welfare of their town told what they would give, and pretty soon the project that first appears to the average business men enormous. looked little.
 'Well let Selma in on this." said they.
 So in a few days Mayor Haynie of Marion, alighted from a passenger train at the Selma depot.
 Mayor Haynie is business man. He is a hustler. He went straight to the biggest business men in Selma, and to them he told of the Marion indigna- tion meeting. He told how that ap- parently disinterested man was ready to plank down $1,OO0 in cold cash, and how more enthusiastic men in Marion were ready to plank down more than $1,000 each in cold cash.