The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-11-21
BIRMINGHAM MUST
 BE EASING POINT Frank Nelson Reports on
 Progress of Work
  MUCH DATA GATHERED
Harding Urges That Attention of Gov erncr Conner Be Directed to the In- portance of Appointing Com
 missioner of Immigration.

'I believe that President Crawford of the Tennessee company will soon see the importance of making Birmingham a bas- ing point for bar iron. and that if he does within 10 years the population of Jefferson county will be doubled" said Frank Nelson, Jr at the Commercial club meeting yesterday afternoon.
 The subject came up when w. N Ma lone, of the committee on the location of industries. read letter from the Ro- anoke Bridge company, which concern has been negotiating for several months with the idea of locating a S250.OO0 plant in Birmingham. The letter stated that owing to the fact that all the railroads refused to allow reasonable rate to and from Birmingham, it would be impossible to locate the plant and all negotiations were called off
 MT. Nelson stated that he had gone to Louisville and had made every effort to get the railroads to give Birmingham an equal benefit of the rate allowed Roanoke, but without success. He said that he could rot understand why a special rate could be all right in Virginia and not in Alabama and considered it discrim- ination
 However, Mir. Nelson explained that the failure to locate the bridge company had nothing to do with the question of mak- ing Birmingham a basing point, as Bir- minghdm does not now manufacture the crude material used by the bridge com pany.
 T have spent considerable time collect- ing data and information about rates, cost of production, letters from various cities, and during the next week will call my committee together for the pur- pose of laying the whole matter before MT. Crawford" said MT Nelson. T be- lieve that Birmingham will soon become one of the three passing points of the country. It cannot possibly hurt the iron company and upon it depends the growth of the city to a large extent. You would be surprised how anxious the people of Knoxville, Chattanooga and the imme- diate manufacturing cities are to get this Birmingham passing point established. They will all be greately benefited as we'll"
 w. D. Nesbitt, chairman of the special committee to raise funds to pay the office rent of the farmers union, reported that he had collected half and the remainder would be solicited shortly. He spoke of
 
 these farmers in Birmingham.
 w. P. G. Harding called attention to an act of the last legislature creating an immigration board for this state and pro- viding for commissioner on salary with specified duties. He made a motion that a committee of three be appointed to call the attention of Governor Conner to the fact that this commission has not been appointed, and point out to him the im- portance of caring for the immigration of the state Chairman Rhodes appointed w. P. G. Harding, Walker Percy and Frank Nelson, Jr.
 Maj. F. Y. Anderson impressed upon the members the importance of the Mobile week, believing that no other convention could do so much good for Alabama, and impressed upon the delegates the im- portance of attending. Senator Joseph F. Johnston was appointed special dele-sf gate to represent the Commercial club. f The motion was made by w. w. Craw- | ford.
 A committee consisting of J. B. Gibson, Alex E. Dearborn, A. H. Ford, Walker. Percy, T. H. Motion and R. N. Rhodes was appointed to collect $435 still due on the SS0O0 fund raised to pay for Engineer Rays water survey two years ago.
 These new members were elected: H. l.. Badham, II. M. Beck, Leonard Joseph, R. W. Hawthorne, II. P. Chenowth. M. J. billiard, w. W. Grant. M. o. Cheers, J. w. Prude, c. NJ. Greene and overton ulton.