The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-22
THE FALSE DAMAGE SUIT
By ETHEL ARMIES

One problem beginning to assume rathe menacing proportions in Birmingham jus at present is the fake damage suit. It | obtsructing industrial progress in nor ways than one, and threatening the wei fare of the entire city-is, indeed, a yer, python, many-headed. elusive.
 Exceedingly slick" yet with so whole some a fear of the daylight that dayligh ia the sole weapon with which to contes it's onward crawling.
 First-What are some of the main fact in the way of recent statistics bearins on the monstrous business as. a whole 1T it's specific relationship to the railroad | coal, iron, public service, manufacturing traffic, laundry. contractor and miscel laneous companies and corporations of the | Birmingham district?
 The Figures Speak
 An actual total of 1195 outstanding suits aggregating s11,570,04c0 in the city, circuit Bessemer and United States circuit court marked the close of November, 19l0-a record breaking figure for the city of Bir- mingham. Among the most important companies involved in a greater or less degree are the Tennessee Coal. Iron and Railroad company, Republic Iron and Steel company. Sloss-Sheffield Iron and Steel company. Woodward Iron company, Alabama Fuel and Iron company, Bir- mingham Terminal company, Birming- ham Railway Light and Power company, Pratt Consolidated Coal company, Bir- mingham Coal and Iron company, Ala bama Consolidated Coal and Iron com pany, Birmingham Water Works com pany, Bell Telephone company, Peoples Telephone company Western Union Tel egraph company, Postal Telegraph com pany, Southern Express company, Dim mick Pipe works, Crane company, Se- met-Solvay company. Ensley Land com- pany, Louisville and Nashville railroad, Southern railway-in fact, practically ev- cry railroad entering the district.
 It's rather wholesale onslaught on the railroads. They are the pet targets, it seems.
 Not at all that these outstanding suits are to be branded one and all as fake and "groundless." Far be such hand some assertion as that from the import of this protest.
 Getting Down to Rock Bottom
 But the majority of the suits in ques- ton have, when sifted down to rock bot tom, precious little raison detre. Some of them are utterly simple, outlandish. preposterous, beyond the pale. It is amazing Certain cases in point will be followed in these columns during the next few weeks There is one in which six widows claim the damages, etc, resultant from the untimely end of one sole man creature alleged husband of the six. The curtain will rise on that drama very soon.
 There is no drama like that of the court room
 There indeed is human life, play in fine, from tke cradle to the grave. It's all before the judge; tragedy, comedy, melodrama farce, vaudeville-all there. And the fake damage suit has in it the elements of all the forms combined.
 Well. and how do the representative lawyers of Birmingham regard the prob lem being fought by the industrial and manufac turing companies here-all this rotten business?
 MOSI or lnelIl dIt Qultc lldlh to dSi tc that the ''scavenger lawyer "shyster, ambulance chaser ''vulture," etc, as ! he is termed, does indeed very thriving l business in Birmingham. and that, from a commercial point of view, the business has it's points, undeniably it's points, most extraordinary points. As a get-rich- quick means there is not it's equal any where. The desire to get something for nothing is quality of human nature.
 Characteristics of Human Kind
 The spirit of "soakism" is strong in the race, even as the everlasting and inn mortal spirit of graft.
 How controvert it?
 Is it to devastate a young and growing town? Is Birmingham to be swallowed? Turned over to the python conceived by the malign deities?
 And to fight the parasites is such subtle matter.
 Is it? Too subtle, too slick for handling, perhaps?
 Perhaps not.
 The fake cases, then, shall be tried in open court. the columns of the daily press, and the people of Birmingham shall be judge and jury.
 On the other hand, it must be empha- sized there are legitimate damage suits as a matter of course to be taken hold of by strong men and fought to a trium- phant close, and the company or corpora ton failing to make good in such is just as much d menace to public welfare and progress as, well, the python under sur veilance.