The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-11-01
STRIKING INTERVIEW BY R. H. EDMONDS
 SHOULD ENCOURAGE EVERY INTEREST

LD G.
 One Of the most strikingly optimistic in- terviews given during the sessions of the Iron and Steel institute was that yester- day of Richard H. Edmonds, editor of the Manufacturers Record of Baltimore. who was in attendance Mir. Edmonds is one of the country's greatest statistieians and knows how to marshal his facts in strik- ing form. Here is his statement of yes terday:
 'If. in an altruistc spirit the ooun- tries of Europe had desired to bring about the largest possible development of this country: if they had desired to transfer the seat of the empire of com merce and finance and industry to the United States, they could not in any other way have accomplished it so effectively as they are doing for they will bring about these results by their own disas- ters following this terrific war
 Mature has so marvelousiy endowed this country with almost unlimited re- sources for material development that We have here the foundation on which to build manufacturing structure far greater than that of all of Europe.
 ''We have an area capable of supporting population larger than that of Europe.
 We have the raw materials with which to keep these people busy in industrial ae- tivities and the land on which to pro- duce the foodstuffs
 Here are resources sufficiently great and diversified to provide employment for hundreds of millions, and here too. are the resources for feeding and for cloth ing them.
 ."rhe combination of advantages is mo- where else matched on earth. Nothing else like it is known to mankind.
 Europe has for many years noted with envy and jealousy our great development in material things but it has viewed with still greater envy our matchess resources in all of the raw materials which fur nish the foundation for every line of man. ufacturing known.
 ''The conditions which exist in Europe will literally compel development here whenever the war is ended far greater than we have seen in the past. This war will put the United States ahead 50 years in its domination of the finance and com merce of the world and throw Europe N back 50 years. Sad as it may be that our progress will be built on the wreck and ruin of material things and on the death of millions of men and the wastage of billions of wealth in Europe. nevertheless this is the opportunity which the people of Europe are forcing upon us.
 Then, too, there are other phases of na- tional life and activity as a result of this war which will be of benefit to our coun- try. In this time of strife when financial ruin for few days threatened the coun- try, the national government and the people at large turned for safety and protection to the very banking interests which for years they had been denounc ing. And not only did the fierce finan- cial storm which threatened us drive this government and the people to seek the protection of the financial forces of the country, the very forces which yellow journalism and the people for which yell low journalism stands had been denounc- Ing, but Europe likewise, turned to these very institutions that they might help to meet some of their problems
 If there is in our people, and surely all must admit that there is, the capability of learning by sad experience they will learn through this situation to think less harshly of our great business leaders and to recognize their integrity of character, as well as their strength in financial afS fairs. The government and the business Interests of the country have been brought into closef touch and into closer CO.,
 
 of this much good will come.
 We have been brought a nation into closer touch, and bankers and manufac- turers, fnanciers and government officials have all learned to know each other some what better have learned to see each other face to face and eye to eye, and th.s is worth much We have at the same time learned the need of safeguard Ing our future against the conditions which now prevail and learned the need of building up merchant marine in keeping with our resources and the possi- bilities of Our commerce.
 Moreover, as a nation we have been taught we could not have been taught In any other way the supreme necessity of great merchant marine. For years maR who have foreseen the possibility of this condition have labored in vain to awaken our country to the importance of the subject. The necessity for mer- .hant marine has never been so clearly ecognized as it is now. Indeed, many people have secuted at the need of it, and said that we could more wisely de- pend upon European ships to carry our turf abroad, because they could do it at a lower cost than could American ships, and that, therefore, we were malS- Ing profit by letting them do the car rying trade. Now the people of this country, the farmer who produces the grain and the cotton, the banker the manufacturer and the capitalist. have suffered greater aggregate loss by req son of the lack of shipping under our flag than the amount that would have been needed, even under a most liberal subsidy, to have built up a merchant ma me equal to present needs. ''The cotton growers of the south and the grain growers of the west have been told that they were not interested in ocean shipping, and that it did not concern them whether the United States had a mer- rhant marine or not. They have now learned by sad and costly experience