The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-18

do nis duty to the fullest extent of his
 ,o T have gone in and out among you.
 dimcuit task amid many discourage
 ments ea some of them known only to disposition. each difficulty placed be- fore me here in this city only made
 me the more determined that great things should be brought to pass. On Fire With an Idea. | The work done in Washington this past week has demonstrated to you
 and to the whole United States. that
 with the ability to manipulate oppor-
 tunltles. can stir up an extraordinary
 amount of attention. From what you
 work done in Washington n has ' met net with your complete approval. and from what has been said by those who were
 did not overstate the importance of the occasion In the slightest degree. The honest truth in relation to the It occupied the center of the stage in Washington at the beginning of the week, and was not disiodged in Im- portance by any other meeting. We
 erto been laid before a Washington
 audience; program In which sub
 1sct and speakers absolutely fitted: the smootnness with which each ses- sion sized up to the printed prepara-
 ton for 1t made large numbers of men
 the South's great voice was really speaking, and they needed 1t as they
 would have never needed printed mat ter or statistical tables.
 Without establishing any invidious distinctions relative to any other gath erings in Washington during last week,
 t Is right to say. in relation, to the ! there with a very definite puFpose--to make the South know itself, to make the South known, to declare the great
 accomplished everything that it set out to accomplish, and 1t did even more
 than we had expected.
 Why was this? Because In addi.
 ton to having a good program, we had selected the only moment of the kind in the history of the American people
 Sneh sn snce eec Eoa mon sSs Ss
 tional Conservation Commission had
 been directing the attention of the
 sourees ana ws % know moe dtsst tSer
 imitation of effort would come in the
 week beginning Dec. (. The South
 was snsre to sTphasi.ze,, It's resources s.,oS
 peculiarly appropriate moment will
 never occur again and never occurred
 before The idea of the Congress was
 thousands were headed towards Wash
 that week. the place was right.
 RlvsFEs ss asa aarbors congress, . the ex.
 htbits gathered to show Southern re
 sources remained in place three days
 der the notice Of every man who went
 to the auditorium floor of the great
 WillS Hotel.
 By the request of the Committee of
 Arrangements. I had the duty of sum.
 ming up the congress. So far as know, the remarks made by me have a.k fsw sassArN awn they were given at the last moments
 II o'clock at night and as the words oOSsSta ef n mh eSsh %S tEs lIEse the liberty of reading at the end of these remarks the summing up. want, hoTeSer' trs t0 say aust rev words recSsa mSEs Washington impressed with the idea that they were going to participate in
 hconXenIion g. stoHg eomventionai ,et nnes, h interesting, but they did not dream of the fire that was lurking in our pro- gram. It fel! to my duty to open the presiding officer for the session. Gradually unfolding through these in- troductory remarks the philosophy of sho owing the intimate connection bee tween The session that had been and the session that now was and the ses- second day the men there grasped the tremendous significance of the gath erlng, and realized that they were not in a history making gathering whose note of summons to the South and to the world was destined never to die
 Tt has been an honor to carry for months the burden of this great task. Not a moment of the strain and the sgonY 0f 1t 1S5 wSen tSe wsys and means seemed impossible to raise) are regretted.
 This stranger has come among you; this time forevermore. He has tried to show to the sons of the South that S9 the sTSes uDSS iy tyss acrs HHsr .. He asks simply to be taken more your aspirations: for he sees yet much the South, for accepting him as
 Reads sulnmlns-Up Speech.
 Mir. Dave then read his summing | up speech, with which the Southern | Commercial Congress was closed. It | was as follows:
 Ladies and Gentlemen:
 If you will refer to the last page | of the program, you will find there has spoken. not in swelling words of boastfulness; but in simple words of sincerity. declaring the gifts that the All-wise has placed in the South in trust ness man. and therefore each man will when I speak of vision Each successful business man has vis- ion; he sees something ahead of him, unattaIned: he works towards that ideal and even though he never reaches 1t the fact of working towards It brings his business up to higher plane and helps forward the great pro- gress of the world. This Congress Is a vision; 1t is vision of an unattained ideal We have, those of us to whom this vision was given. four months go. strained towards an attainment All of us are conscious of how far short in from the greatness that we had hoped for 1t, and yet though 1t is imperfect, it represents up to this moment, the most perfect and convincing and sin cere honest and holy declaration of the South and it's greatness. that has ever been made.
 Let me tell you what was the germ thought Tn the providence of God, I was recently called to worK for com mercial development in Montgomery. Alabama. As soon as a realization of what Montgomery and Alabama meant to the South came to me, there came suddenly this vision Whereas from out a message from whose answer was struggle and agony and misunder- standing for a generation and a half there shall go out from Montgomery | message whose answer ahaM reuffte and bring men, North and South, to a | fuller understanding of their relations 10 each other. and Of their relations to l this great nation In It's growth.
 'arhat germ was laid before the man | yio gathered i'm Chattanooga in Au-