The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-01-03
BIRMINGHAM MUST
RISE To OCCASION
Five Hundred Club Starts in
Earnest Today
CHANCE TO SHOW LOYALTY
City Is Entering on Greatest Year int
Spite of Fact That Many Rec
ords Were Broken During
Year just Ended.
CHANCE TO SHOW LOYALTY
BY BURR BLACKBURN.

Recently a man was invited to addr ess
the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce.
''You lack the Atlanta SPIRIT he began,
and you are sadly wanting in co-op,sra-
tion' The members of the chamber set
tied down on their back bones for a nap.
ham should be a delivery from ceaseless
odious comparisons. ATLANTA can raise a
half million dollars in day for almost
any enterprise" and such evidences of
the Atlanta spirit have grown so boring
TO the ordinary citizen that the speaker
is condemned already
Birmingham has way of doing things
quietly. Her citizens admit that there
are other cities in the world, but they tell
facts, and facts that impress when Ques-
tons are asked about Birmingham. To
this date the Birmingham hot air nrag-
CART is nonentity, and it Is to be hoped
that his mouth will be gagged forever.
The confidence which has been inspired
by city of facts and figures and very
little hot air means millions to this city
every year, and it is to be preserved jeal-
and since Greater Birmingham La a reali-
ty, the population of the city Is nothing
to be ashamed of.
There is a cooperation In Birmingham,
the power of which has not yet been
tested. It's birth with the panic brought
forth a healthy child that has grown mar
velously in two years.
About ID months ago the business men
of the city called to their front doors
between II o'clock and IL o'clock on a
rainy night, stood in their pajamas and
subscribed a quarter of million dollars
for the erection of the most splendid
chamber of commerce building in the
south.
1t is true that in every community some
citizens stand back while their neighbors
carry the public burden, but the percen-
tage of parasites In BirInin CHAM is grow
ing smaller each year, and it has come
to the point where sehf-respecting man
will not look hustling business builder
in the face unless he has "a trowel and
brick in his own hand.
Today, in the very hour of confidence
and victory. begins the second great
movement in the civic progress of Bir-
mingham. The Chamber of Commerce,
which has never yet started scheme and
left it incomplete, appears before the
business men of the greater city with a
proposition.
1t is like an entrance examination to
modern college to decide whether a man
be fit for the class to which he has been
assigned. This is Birmingham's first OPP
portunity to prove that she is in fact a
metropolitan city
Five hundred men are needed with $780,
900 to inaugurate the 500 club. which shall
be five hundred times more valuable than
any line of endeavor undertaken before.
Quietly, in Birmingham's own style. the
committees will pass around this week
tive neucleus reckoning new industries
and new capital to the new city. The best
business men of the city are behind the
plan, and If 1t does not go through at
lightning speed, all the prophets will be
nonplussed.
The committee, which begins solicitation
today, is composed of w. P. G. Harding.
chairman, John L. Raul. T. H. Motion.
L. K Steiner and Guy r. Johnston. A
new committee will go into the field each
day.
The total business of the postoffice for
1908 not only eclipsed the record for the
preceding year, but destroyed all rec
ords In the history of the office by $4,000.
The receipts for the past year totaled
43,954.oo.
Here are the totals for the past Ave
years: 1905. s2S5,6Ss; 1906. $279.sss; 1907.
1924, O55; 1903, $2SS. $50; 1909, $s43.s54..
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