The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-07-09
GREAT WEALTH OF CEMENT
 DEPOSITS AROUND DEMOPOLIS
Biz Industry is the Plant Which Will Soon Double Its Capacity and Turn Out One Thou
 sand Barrels Per Day.
BY WILL T. STEPHAN.

BY WILL T. STEPHAN.
 Dcmopolis, July S.-(special Corre- spondence )-Tho general manager of tho big cement works was plainly English. when he spoke the suspicion became a conviction. The lingual mannerfsm of a high class Englishman are quite as plain to the American as are robust Rutterals of the German, or the trip ping misses of the Frenchman. And after all the stage Englishman in the dialect stolidity that the best actors give him is not SO great caricature after all. There Is enough of truth In him for the novice to recognize ana appreciate the real article when he meets 1t.
 The general manager was neatly, al- most scrupulously. dressed. He wore duck trousers and light summer shirt with a blue stripe. Ills sur Youndings were not particularly con- duciye to the niceties of dress. The cement mill in its coat of dark grey dust to say the least. looked dirty. and the air was filled with the impalpable dust from the cement works. And the limestone soil underfoot was sticky from a recent rain.
 But traditions and customs of caste in the matter of being well dressed and we'll groomed had to be observed even on the banks of the Black War fior and in the zone of influence Of tho whirling white dust.
 He was rather dark. this English manager, and of a nervous tempera- ment, which was belied by his self possessed air and his steady move- ments. He knew thoroughly the bus mess he was experimenting. He knew It from the deepest hole in the lime- rock quarry to the top of the smoke stack. That was why he was sent over from England to the environs of De- mopolis, and he hadn't been over so many months, either.
 I found out how thorough was his knowledge of every little detail of the cement making plant. every little ramancation of the business. when l talked to him at his roll top desk. He was free, too. with the business de- tails of the great English corporation which had invested so heavily in Ala bama and for whose interest he was looking.
 Big Concern.
 Just what the English capitalists have invested in its Marengo County cement making plant, nobody knows large amount. The Alabama Portland Cement Company. for that is it's cor | porate title, is capitalized at $500,000. ! The company has made money first last and all the time. It Is right now engaged in doubling the capacity of / its mill.
 When this is done. and the oomple- ton of the work is only a matter of 6 few days. the mill will produce every day of the year 1000 barrels of cement and it will give daily employment tc 120 men.
 Every dollar invested in the enter. prise is an English dollar. English men put the money in the enterprise l Englishmen are running 1t and Eng. the splendtd returns which comes from 1t. ~
 I thought of the significance of thi: as I walked about the big mill witf the manager. It was a sultry. murky afternoon. The mosquitoes came upir swarms from the back pools of tho Warrior. The sticky limestone sol mud clogged every step. The grea' mill covered with dark grayfsh cement and through which fitted Undiscovered figures. almost ghastly in their gray. ness. was depressing. almost repellant
 And yet, this English manager had come over with his assistants from congenial surroundings and pleasant associations to take up his burden oi Looking aIter the interests or the 6Tlt ish stockholders. In every cline, 1T every country. this man has a coun terpart in some fellow countryman some young fellow who is doing hi. work amid depressing and repellan surroundings, thousands of miles from England. doing 1t doggedly and doing 1t we'll. In business. in manufactur ing. in civil life. in army life. in every section of the world. In every quarter Nf oh T,er ich begging away at their task. doing tn, work that Is at hand and finding re freshment and amusement, as an incl dental, at whatever comes to hand.
 And where they are. too. Englisl capital is invested and English divi dends are being made for Englisl stockholders.
 And so, this being true. why should one wonder at the strength and tn, power in the affairs of the world. tha abides in the tight little island? It Il less of marvel when one understand