The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-07

trict it is regarded as a great event, and so it is. It is worthy of such com
 mendation for the coming of the Steel corporation to Birmingham will put this state in iron and steel matters at least 15 or 20 years ahead of what would have been the normal growth without such a vast power of wealth and of skill con-
 centrated here But these are days of big things and out at Gary, Ind, the Steel corporation is building a furnace and steel plant to cost $I5,O00,O0O and to produce more iron and steel than the whole south is turning out. Subsidiary plants. so I am officially advised to be
 erected in the future will run the Gary investment to $2000 000,000 These figures are almost unthinkable, they are so big, but they are indicative of the magnitude of the development work under way in this country. And for that matter, the whole world has entered upon period of marvellous expansion.
 ''The rapidity of development In the
 south must to some extent depend upon the way this section handles the rail-
 road and corporation situation. If the south will thoroughly convince the fnan- cial world that investments here will be safeguarded and that In future no drastic legislation will be passed to the injury of railroads and other business interests, then capital will pour into this section and then we will see an expansion that soma day would justify such developments as are being made at Gary.
 .That marvellous creation of city by the investment of s75000,000 in one plant is due to the fact that the vast railroad and industrial interests of the west make
 home market for all the product of Gary's furnaces and steel mills, even though this one plant is to turn out 4,000,- naa 1f eft q a
 similar conditions in the south so that
 the home consumption will make profit
 able such enormous plants here"
 The South's Strength.
 "When any one attempts to study the foundation on which the industrial struc- ture of the south is to be based, and so far all that we have done is merely the getting of our tools of experience and capital ready to go to work, he is re- minded of many old-time sayings that em- phasizes the strength of our position The measures of a nations advancement Is it's consumption of coal so we have
 been told while my old friend the late Edward Atkinson had favorite theory which he expressed by saying. that coun- try or that section of country which can produce iron and steel at the lowest cost will dominate the commerce and wealth of the world And another saying equal ly as significant-significan in it's tre- mendous import to the south-is, civili- zation itself is staked upon the south s cotton crop, for without cotton goods made of our cotton, the world would be without cheap clothing and minus clothes would sink back into barbarism
 "It has been well said that the mis-
 sionary of the gospel as he penetrates the wilds of Africa is an advance agent for American cotton goods for wherever civil ization and Christianity advance, there goes an increased use of clothing
 When we study these great truths,
 for truths they are, we find that they all apply with commanding force to the
 south. Our progress in coal consumption is shown in the fact that the south Is
 now annually producing over S5, 100000 tons
 of bituminous coal whereas as late as 1880 the entire country mined only 42,-
 ooO,0OO tons of which 6,00o.0oO was the south's share. Thus in bitiminous coal we are doing twice much as the United States did little over a quarter of a century ago. In coal mining, however, We have hardly commenced to work. All