The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-09-05
N. |. MILLER BACK
|. ENTHUSIASTIC FOR
GREAT AUDITORIUM
Tells What Is Being Done in
Western Cities to Wei
come Visitors
BEST INVESTMENT
ANY CITY CAN MAKE
Birmingham Has All the Natural Ad-
vantages, But Must Sincerely
Show That She Wants the
Big Conventions

Returning from months trip through
the middle and far west, n. L. Miller is
back in Birmingham strongly impressed
with the pulling power of western
towns and with the fact, that Birming-
ham must keep constantly forging ahead
in order to hold her lead against their
energy and skill.
And as the thing of most Importance
for Birmingham to do right now, Mr..
Miller unhesitatingly points to the con-
templated new auditorium. He is enthusl
astic for the auditorium movement and
believes that without such a building this
city is going to suffer much by the strong
competition with these live cities of the
west in the next few years to come.
MY trip took me through Chicago, st.
Paul, out through the Canadian Rockies,
to Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, Portland,
San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego,
back through the central western states
through Kansas and on to Chicago, from
which city / returned SOUTH" said Mr..
Miller. While l paid no particular at
tenton to the audtoriums of any of these
cities, what was impressed with in
HtdIiy all VI lutln was liicil BY anu
their attitude of 'go-after-and-get-thn
Growing and Boosting
''rhey are all growing and they are all
boosting. They have very live civic or
ganizations and the citizens of each and
every town are pulling together for that
town. The absence of knockers was re-
markable. People had nothing to say, un-
less they could say something good about
bai To bay ara tn Spa NriS
tiers and spare no pains in entertaining
the newcomer. Nearly all of them have
auditoriums, although [ am unable to give
data this feature | would like,
as | did not know that l would return home
to find Birmingham in the midst of such
movement.
las | began to get within a few hum
6red of miles of Seattle, / heard every
body talking about the 42-story Smith
building there. They never mentioned it
but what they called it the '42-story' Smith
building. When / got there | found that
the real building was 20 stories and the
remainder was confined to a great high
tower and belfry. But 7 mention this to
show the spirit of the people-they are
boosting. They are pulling for their town
and those towns are growing fast, I'll tell
you. Why, in the town of San Diego
with 5000 people. they voted recently
100000 bond issue for a great audi
torium for their 1915 exposition. Those
people have the civic spirit San Diego
in way might be compared to Birming-
ham for many of the people who go there
are interested in the surrounding agricu-
tural country. San Diego plays the part
of official host. however, and of course
is always made the headquarters of such
parties
One of Best Investments
MI I,a1l har o,,I 4
will be glad to see an auditorium; l be-
lieve 1t is one of the best Investments a
city can make. Placing the matter on a
purely monetary basis and eliminating
the civic pride and all other phases of
the case, / think the auditorium will pay
me in dollars and cents. 1t will be the
property holders after all, who will have
to pay for it and it is they who will be
bei Gifted by it. Anything that is going
to make the city bigger and increase
values and so on is going to benefit the
property holder. There are few men in
this city whose incomes are not in some
way very much dependent on the general
growth of the town and the auditorium
will do more for the growth of the town
now than anything else we can do
''I'll not mention the place, but In one
of the cities where I stopped | asked
one of the real estate men there what
he considered the community's most valu-
able crop. He looked at me with a queer
smile and answered.:
Tourists
Now if tourists are so valuable we
want some of them in Birmingham This
fellow expressed himself by saying that
the tourists were easy to work We
want some of them to work down here
and We can get them here when we have
such things as an auditorium. new hotels
and the attractions that the tourist class
is always looking for Birmingham has
the natural attractions to draw this class
of people, Now it's up to us citizens of
birmingham to supply the artificial draw
ing cards.