The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-09-08

to be>put through. He has got to be a man with imagination sufficient to have | foresight: he has got to be able to see the plan completed before. even a raper plan is made; he has got to picture the possibilities as distinctly as if they were actualities; he must be of strong convic- ton, possess great seff-confdence; he must be established firmly in the conf dence of others; he must have behind him record of successes; he must have achieved the position of deserving the un- 1 limited faith and trust of people who have means; he must be able to lead; he must have the power to persuade others
 to join and follow; he must have cour- age, determination and grit, not easily
 discouraged, never give up, stick to 1t, hang on, keep fighting; he must have the
 fighting bulldog neck; he must contrib
 ute of his own means more largely in
 proportion than any one else who joins; he must set out to overcome obstacles, he can't avoid them; he will have diff faculties, physical accidental and tinan- cial; his expenditures will exceed his es-
 inmates; his delays will be greater than he thought; his earnings may be less than he believed; he will find scarcity of labor; his materials will cost more than he bargained; he may meet times of de- pression, of panic, of gloom in the f1nan- cial world; he may also have opposition
 to fight There will come periods of doubt, doube of others in him, doubt of him in himself; series of questions in
 his own mind as to whether he Is right or not He has got to reweigh all the considerations in the light of the new con- ditions; has got to satisfy himself that he Is right, that his scheme is correct, that 1t must in the long run work out, and, having done so, he must re-estab-
 fish the faith and confidence of his as- sociates
 NO man can do this work by himself, of course. Others must join in, others | must help, others must do their part, and others do do their part, just as hard for them as is his for him, the same | difficulties that he has in a different way they have, but each his separate class. He Is responsible for all the df- faculties; he stands under the load; he
 must carry it over the hills of difficult ties, into mountains of obstacles, across
 rivers of doubt, through quicksands of | despair between rocks of destruction, | straight through purgatory with the pos
 sbility of carrying it Into the hell of defeat.
 Be Prepared for Sacrifice.
 If he fails, he loses all that he has, or hopes to have, or to be--his own for tune. the money of others, confidence in himself, which he has spent life | time to acquire the prestige that he
 values. He must be prepared to make sacrifice of all these, and himself too,
 and he must go into it and keep on with
 1t deliberately, knowing that if he falls, l the load will fall on top of him. | 'T have heard it said that men who l undertake to carry on these works. par | ticularly these railroad works. are not
 philanthropists. Nobody pretends to
 claim that they do not expect to make
 wealth for themselves out of it. say | they must have some other additional ! and greater motive than mere making money Men who have achieved the posi-
 tion where 1t is possible for them to
 undertake work of this character usual- | ly have as much of this worlds goods as 1 their lives need and luxurles may require. | They have an ambition to create some- 1 thing and to be of value. They may not 1 be philanthropists in the sense of do- i ing charity to us. having us dependent
 on their bounty and making beggars, 1 but out of their means and with their
 power and solely at their risk, while 1 they are making for themselves with 1 the chance of losing all they are mak- l ing for us opportunities that we cannot | fail to reap gain from and they are | furnishing new and additional and better means whereby we can help ourselves.
 "when the construction work is com- | pleted if 1t ever Is completed, perhaps | the hardest part of the work still re- | mains Having completed railroad
 where none was before. business must be built where no business was before.
 The enterprise has got to be made to
 earn its way: 1t must go through 1 period of waiting As necessary result | of the building up of this business the
 enterprise Is forced to build up the ter
 ritory that 1t serves, so that we gain | from the work of these railroad builders
 in the construction of their work. We also gain from the work that they must perpetually carry out for the building up
 of the business for the road they have
 constructed.
 Something tc Railroad Builder.
 "I think that we especially we people
 of the south owe something to the rail-
 road builder whoever he may be. We
 owe him fair treatment; we owe him just consideration. we owe him and his | assiciates the right to his and their re-
 ward. None of us can get along with
 merely those things we have right to
 demand of the other. We are constant ly compelled to get things we cannot | demand. We owe ourselves something in | the treatment of the railroad builder; we owe ourselves at least the pleasure of dealing with him literally, generously.
 ''This particular railroad Is a southern
 enterprise. It is incorporated under the
 laws of the adjoining state of Georgia. | it has demonstrated itself also as an Alabama corporation under the laws of Alabama It's principal office is located in the south. Its officers are either native
 born Georgians or Alabamians or have | lived so long in one or the other state that they have become imbued with the
 same spirit, have the same sentiments,
 share the same feelings and possess common interest with the people of Ala
 bama and Georgia. The railroad carries
 the name of Birmingham in It's own
 name The coal and iron company has l adopted Birmingham as it's name. The l enterprises are capable of being of ser vice to Alabama and Georgia and sure- ly the disposition of the people who control the enterprise is to do every