The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-11-07
Irvine Opens Evening Session

, Story of New Orleans was the feature of
! the evening.
Irvine Opens Evening Session
The evening session opened by short
| snappy talk by l.. C. Irvine, manager of
! the Southern Commercial congress of Mo-
! bile, in which he advocated the coloni-
cation of Alabama by breaking up the
| large plantations into small plots and
! bringing immigrants and farmers from
! other sections to the state in groups so
| that they would already know each other
| and in way would not be moving into
a strange nelghborhood. Mrs. Julia Truitt
| Bishop then discussed local economic con-
| ditions in short talk. Mr.. Story fol-
| lowed. His speech was ringing charge
| against the British government in which
| ne declared England had always tried to
| throttle the United States IN foreign COM
merce, that she always had and still was
, Using hundred and one schemes to
poison the minds of foreign people against
this country and keep United States mer-
! chant marine off the high seas. His
/ speech held the audience spell-bound by
| his forceful argument and dramatic de-
| livery, but there We're some to whom
his statements We're so revolutionary that
they were inclined to consider them ex-
| aggerated.
industrial America is developing at the
expense of agricultural America de-
clared Mr. Story. 1--WE are passing from
the agricultural or pastoral stage to the
industrial stage and, to prosper, this
country must change its economic condi-
| tions to fit the occasion. We must find
| new markets for our factories We have
spent hundreds of millions of dollars in
building the canal and We have but eight
ships to run through it which will carry
sea going commerce. The other great ma
tions are preparing to use this great
canal and are laughing at the predica-
ment of the United States. We have but
eight ships engaged in cross seas COM
merce while other nations have hundreds
'iust Build Merchant Marine
THE condition of the United States as
1t faces the opening of the canal is pitt
ful. We must build q merchant marine.
The world Is laughing at our maritime
impotency. The time has come when we
must emancipate ourselves on the seas
as in 1776 we did on the land and the
) per cent preferential in the Underwood
tariff bill in behalf of American mer-
chant marine commerce will aid immense
ly In doing 1t. But a fight is being made
ON that preferential just as there always
has been and It's up to us to see that that
fight is lost.
After we gained our Independence our
merchant marine grew by leaps and
bounds and by 1872 hundreds of our mer-
cDant marine SnlpS were passing in and
out of every port in the civilized world
England about this time thought she was
rid of Napoleon so she attacked these
ships and brought on the war of 1872. We
know the result. In spite of our ap-
parent victory, 1t was the worst humiia-
ton we have ever had. At that time we
had a 10 per cent preferential tariff In
behalf of our own merchant marine and
1t was due to this that our merchant
ma ri M Rpt In, bo of
following the war of 1872 England in
weighed us to abolish that preferential and
our merchant marine has dwindled ever
since until it now is almost dead.
ENGLAND is doing everything to es-
strange South America and North Amer
lea. She controls the press of South
America Every news item passing from
one country to the other going either way
goes through London and there is CEN
sored. Appalling news articles are print
cd about the United States government
and its people every day in the Latin
American press-and 1t comes from
America must go first to London or Havre
and from there back to their destination.
We are bound hand and foot and it's time
to drop the scales from our eyes and
realize some wolves in sleeps clothing"
Mr.. Story is one of the hest known au-
thorities on this matter in the country.
and his address was full of other points 3
! in illustration of his main theme that il