The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-11-28
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The delegates of the Chicago commer- cial club left Birmingham yesterday at noon for Decatur after pleasant and profitable visit. The private car which has been used by the party during their trip over the south was attached to the Louisville and Nashville train at i2:o5, and a large number of the business men remained with the visitors until the train pulled out of the station. They arrived at Decatur late in the afternoon and will remain there until noon today, after which they will go to Nashville and from there to Chicago.
 Yesterday morning at the Commercial club rooms reception was rendered the visitors by the members of the local com- mercal bodies. A large number of rep resentative business men of Birmingham were present and speeches were made. The reception was scheduled for 10 o'clock but it was almost n o'clock be- fore all the visitors had arrived at the club rooms. After general introduction and handshaking, T. H. Motion, president of the Commercial club. called the meet ing to order and delivered short address of welcome. He assured the visitors that the business men of the city would always be glad to see them and hoped that it would not be their last visit He also told the visitors that they had not seen all of Birmingham on the trolley ride rendered them Sunday afternoon and then gave a description of the plants at Besse- mer. He thanked the visitors for the many complimentary remarks they had made of the city and assured them that they would find 1t was worthy of all the statements made. In conclusion he n- troduced Robert Jemison, president of the Birmingham Railway, Light and Power company. MT. Jemison responded as fol- lows:
 MT. Chairman and Gentlemen-Let me assure you first of all that we welcome you Chicago business men most heartily and we are with you heart and soul. We have always felt in Birmingham that Chicago was our natural trade center. do not know why 1t Is that the railroads or some power which seems to control these matters should have drifted us to New York for everything, and it strikes iiS tiilI SAiNa6o dHu thC oouih Od6ht to shake hands in business way and be- come more closely identified with each other.
 Now as to Birmingham what we have here is best illustrated by the fact that within fifteen miles of where you sit there are 10000 tons of coal mined every daysin the year; and there are in the neghbor- hood of An00 tons If piQ iron roada ayarv day within ten miles of where you sit In other words we harvest a crop every day of the 365 days In the year
 "Twenty-one years ago when I reached Birmingham there were 4O0O people here There was one little horse car running from one furnace to the other of the two then being constructed. Today the street railroads of Birmingham serve 150.000 peo- pie.
 Gentlemen, we of Birmingham believe that it's future has practically no limit. In 1895 the lowest price of iron was reach ed in the history of the United States and during that period we exported iron to every port in the world. Why did we do that? Because we could manufacture 1t cheaper than anywhere else. Now we have just reached the steel age here, and in my judgment the steel age of ten years to come will multiply ten times what the ten years following the successful mak- ing of pig iron did. believe in ten years from today, if you gentlemen come to see us, instead of having 1900 people in this territory we will have nearer 750,000. Now that Is not extravagant either, because we have built up to what we are now with nothing but iron, and iron figures pretty small in the worlds consumption of metal, except it be converted success fully into steel and we are now convert ing 1t into steel in competition with the Bessemer process"
 Frank Nelson was introduced by MT. Motion, and among other things he said
 "Gentlemen-Birmingha in my opin-