The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-01-13
MASS MEETING WILL
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Bessemer. January 12.-(Special)-A mass meeting will be held in this city on Tuesday afternoon, the purpose of which will be to get the sentiment of the peo- pie with regard to the action of the City Council last Tuesday evening in turning down the request of the Atlanta, Bir mingham and Atlantic Railroad com pany's request for franchise along Sec ond avenue for the Birmingham Railway, Light and Power company. As will be remembered, this is a matter that has caused a great deal of talk in the city for the past few months. It was put up to the council some time ago, and they could not agree on it. It was then turned over to the street railway committee. After looking into the matter for some time, this committee submitted it's report, and it stated that they were not in favor of the road being allowed to run down Sec ond avenue. The report of this commit tee was adopted by the council, and this brought on more talk.
 There were representatives on hand from both sides. Some of them asked that the road be granted a franchise along Second avenue and cited all sorts of them being that the city would be greatly benefited and traffic helped. The other side, and by the way they represented the crowd that wanted the line to run along Third avenue, also had quite an ar gument to put up They stated that they did not believe the city would be doing a good thing to allow the line to run along Second avenue, and they did be- lieve it would be a good thing for it to come along Third avenue, and thence around by Twentieth street. Of course it was to be understood that everyone was out for the good of the city, but it also seems that most everyone that was so deeply interested in the matter had prop erty holdings along the particular street he wanted the line to traverse
 The result was that the franchise was turned down, and it was believed for a time that the matter would remain in that state for some time. However, a move- ment is now on foot to hold a mass meet ing and let the people say just where they want the line run. It has been learned in this connection that one or more of the aldermen have stated that they are per- fectly willing to have the action of the council at it's last meeting rescinded pro- vided the people come out and show just how they feel about the matter.
 l Mayor Rush stated last evening that as far as he was concerned, he had no ob- jection to the line running along Second avenue, but he did think 1t would be a better plan to have it traverse both Second and Third avenues, as by this means most everyone could be satisfied, and in addition it would practically loop the most important business section of the city. This matter has caused more strife than anything that has come up in this city for a long time, mad if 1t is ever settled in any fashion it is believed that most people will be highly pleased to let it go at that