The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-10
m WOULD BE coon BUSINESS.

A day or two ago we copied from The Alexander City Outlook short item which is reproduced below. as it's position in The Advertiser may have caused it to bs overlooked. The article reads:
 The need of railroad facilities be- tween this section aud Montgomery grows more patent every day. 1t ia a fine territory and only needs a rail- MonigomeEy is resched by more dis. tant mark cts on account of railroad facilities Atlanta, Birmingham and gomery, simply because railroad fac cilities are better. situated less than fifty miles from Montgomery. yet be- xiexsnder City and a large territory of thirty to fifty miles must seek other markets.
 1 Now, there are two points of inter- est in that little article which should attract the attention of Montgomery business men and others Interested in the extension of the city,s trade and trafac. We know something of the country through which read would run and know that The Outlook ex- presses it very moderately whsn it refers to 1t as "a fine territory" It is much more than that--it is. rach ter rftory. It is only necessary to look at . map of Alabama to realize this. Fspm Montgomery to Alexander City most of the line would traverse q re- gionS of country. no~, untouched by a railroad. As a general thing. a sec fion of Alabama that is without rail- road facilities is rich in national re- sources.
 This is notably the case with the section referred to. The richest of forest and field have not been devel- oped and utilized because it has been too far to any market for the products to be used to the best advantage. The farmers the owners of woodland. the sgrbyers of forest and raisers of poul- try have all been shut of and shut out. A railroad that would bisect the
 E s country between the two cities would be the beginning of new era to all that region.
 But it may be objected that the ar- euments we are urging tend mainly to the beneft of the people affected, and that this city is under no obliga- tions to build railroads for the sole good of others, Even if we admit the correctness of such reasoning it does not affect the other point made by The Outlook. which is that the trade of Alexander City and of a number of smaller towns. as we'll as of much of the surrounding country which ought to come to Montgomery now goes else where because they have ready means of shipping to and from other mar kets. Alexander City is situated on 8 main line of railway which leads to Birmingham in one direction and to Columbus and Atlanta on the other. Trade and trafic always follow the lihS VI Ach1t resteldhSe anu VIII nat urally seek the most convenient and profitable. point. s.
 That is the situation now existing. To get their produce to Montgomery, or to get goods shipped to them from here, those people must go to opelika and make an enormous V, or they can go by way of syIacaug& and Calera and again travel many miles around a-about instead of coming directly to this city. As they save both time and expense by going elsewhere they re- fuse to come here, and their refusal is based on sound business reasons. as all must admit. Thus it is that we insist that railroad on the most direct line from Montgomery to Alex ander City would>be a good thing for both cities. and would be a good in- vestment for capital.