The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-06-09

suit that vast advancement has been made in beautifying the city and has add ed materially to its healthfulness as well.
 The indorsement of the Board of Trade and our active support was given the Overton good roads amendment to the constitution, which carried and which Is now a law.
 Better Advertising.
 The nucleus of an advertising cam paign was suggested in a paper pre- pared by request of the Board of Trade by MT. John A. Sparrow, to which fur ther contributions were made by MT. Charles z. Daniel and other advertising experts which has resulted in making our merchants larger and better adver- tisers.
 Grand Old Jefferson.
 The board as a unit opposed the di> viding up of the grand old county of Jefferson, and our active opposition, com ing at critical time in this campaign, secured the active cooperation of one of the local newspapers and the renewed activity of another, and undoubtedly was a direct cause of the defeat of the new county amendment in this state. The defeat of this measure was and is im- portant to the best interests of Birming ham and the great county of Jefferson lIOlu lndhy SLdhdPoiheo.
 Railroad Work.
 The campaign which has been waged for bringing more out-of-town trade to Birmingham by the establishment of Shopping days and the procuring of special rates and bringing of special trains into Birmingham, and which has more recently been taken up and also well pushed by the Business Mems league, was started and maintained single-hand- ed for the greater portion of the year by the Board of Trade I am at this time glad to be able to report that this work has been in a measure successful, and that the Alabama Great Southern railroad has taken the initiative in es- tablishing weekend shopping days" with special rates. which will be of great value to us, and which will doubtless be soon followed by special action on the part of other railroads.
 The campaign for "stop-over privileges in Birmingham was started by this or ganization and now has the active sup port of both the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Mems league, and we hope will be one of the accomplishments of the coming year.
 Railroad Schedules.
 Our merchants need primarily more pas- senger trains coming into Birmingham during the morning hours with a sched- ule which will permit people from 50 to 75 miles or more around Birmingham to come here and have ample time to trade Now, out of Al trains entering Birning- ham daily only r come In between a. m and 1 D. m. and some of these do not give long enough trading time. We must have more local service to enable out-of-town people to come to Birming- ham and trade and return to their homes the same day. After they have once got ta,, ba iy,ob bar boI oa, ably get them to come here and stay over day or two, but we would fg,d 1t difficult to get them to do that to start with.
 Freight Rates.
 A special committee of the Board of Trade worked well in the matter of pro- curing special commodity rates and bet ter freight rate conditions here. This work has been recently taken up by special freight rate and shipment bureau under the name of the Merchants and Manufacturers association and good work along this line may be expected.
 Grade Crossings. Abolition of the deadly grade crossings has been urged by the Board of Trade Ordinances of the city of Birmingham on this subject have been passed, and are now being tested in the courts.
 Water Supply and Fire Pressure.
 The question of adequate cheap water supply for Birmingham and the adjacent industrial plants has had the active att tention of this body. The board went on record as opposed to accepting con tract for water supply by or through any other municipality or agency outside of our city, and this was incorporated into ni.-- law. Further steps are now being y -----~~~~~-~---~-----~--- --~~~~~---------~~