The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-01-01

On this occasion, the twenty-fourtfl-
year of our business in Birmingha, we
again extend happy greetings to our
friends and patrons. and our sincere
wishes for each and every one a
happy New Year, attended with health,
happiness and prosperity.
Through spring, summer, fall and win
ter for almost a quarter of century we
have held our post of duty and have
faithfully, honestly and consistently la
bored for the people, ever alert and aEx-
fous to heal -the-wounds, allay the pains,
overcome the ills. stay death and to -
store the rosy bloom of health to the
cheeks of those whom sickness had
bleached and blighted. And now, on the
threshold OF this the twenty-fifth year of
cur labors in Birmingham, We felicitate
ourselves on the success of our achieve
ments and feeling richly blest In tho
gratitude of those whom we have served,
we go forth into the dawning New Year
with happy hearts and optimistic hopes
for the future, and with new resolves to
sxert ourselves in greater efforts than
ever before for still gerater triumphs in
the work which fate has ordained for us
TO do.
In looking back TO the date of our con-
ang to this city, we note the many changes
which time has wrought. Beginning hero
nearly 25 years ago in a modest way, our
business then required but two rooms.
To-day we require and occupy a whole
moor of spacious halls and parlors for our
magnificent aggregation of therapeutic
Apparati which we have installed to aid
us in our great work. When we came,
Birmingham was only infant scarcely
out of it's swadling cloths; now she Is a
magnificent city of metropolitan airs. Her
wonderful mineral interests have been
1.,r 70, In,
tel ests greatly increased, her population
many times quarupled. and panoplied now
with all the splendors of modern equip
lncnts, ard abounding in superabundant
wealth of natural resources ,unequalcd
elsewhere on earth, she proudly holds her
seat upon the industrial throne, and as
the superlative queen of Vulcan's realms.
she dictates the price of iron to the entire
world. and in the march of progress is
yet destined to become, not only the
greatest manufacturing CENTER but one of
the wealthest cities of all the earth.
Even now while the Atlantic and Pa
cfic. the two gerat oceans of our uni
verse, are being welded and welded to-
gether by the great Panama canal which
will serve to bring seven-tenths of the
population of the world 5000 miles nearer
tc her door, she sits eagerly waiting with
her cornucopa poised in her hands, ready
to your out and supply cargoes to tie
million ships of foreign nations, from her
exhaustiess treasures of iron, coal, mar
lie, cotton, timber. lime, cement and
many manufactured products, and to re-
ceive in exchange an overflow of golden
wealth that will soon pour into her lap
from the plethcric Golfers of the many
great nations afar. Yes great is Bir-
mingham
Even now the eyes of the world are
turned upon her and upon this our glori-
GUS southland, the most supremely blest
section of the nation, the most richly en-
lowed portion of the North American con-
tinent, and the God favored portion of the
habitable globe.
Let us but glance upon our sunny south
and behold what God has wrought. A
climate, soil and such meteorological con-
ditions that make her the premier of
the world in the production of cotton the
starle medium for clothing the people of
every nation, now and forever hereafter,
and in which production there is not now
iior ever can be any successful competi-
tion by any other country on this terrcs-
trial globe. This staple alone would suf-
flee If nothing else could be here produced
to make OF people rich. for our annual
crop of Gotten Is of gerater monetary
value than the combined output of all the
geld mines of the world. But cotton is
not our ALL. We have the greatest depos-
its of iron, and, moreover, the most easily
and economically mined of any like de-
pceits OF this or, any other country yet
G.iscovered and explored. We have mar
BILE and granite enough of every degree Of
f1reness and quality to rebuild every city.
every temple. EVERY home, every erctd
pyramid. monument and bit Of sculpture