The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-11-01

that they need this merchant marine more than the manufacturers and capitalists,
 and far more than the men who have
 been the leaders for 25 years or more in advocating the development of our ship ping interests.
 While we have thus been learning these l vital lessons we have at the same time been suddenly thrust by all the powers of
 Europe into the center of the stage to do
 the great work of maintaining the world s financial equilibrium and shaping the financial and business affairs of the : world.
 "The seat of empire of finance and
 commerce and industry is already pre- pairing to transfer it's home to this, the most supremelJ blessed land upon which the sun shines.
 ? What matter so far as we as a nation ; are concerned, the difficulties of the mo- ment in the light of the llmitless oppor- tunities of the coming years? Well may : our people of all sections put aside doubts and fears and pessimism and go forward
 in the broad upbulding of every business interest
 "The United States has 6 per cent of } the worlds area. 6 per cent of the popu-
 lf.tion. It produces 40 per cent of the worlds iron, and it owns 10 per cent of ] the worlds railroad mileage.
 It produces 50 per cent of the worlds
 coal 50 per cent of the worlds petro-
 leum, 60 per cent of the world s cotton,
 and 15 per cent of its sulphur
 Tn this country 100,00O,O00 are living in
 q land whose natural resources beggar
 all description, where coal and iron and
 oil and gas and granites and marble and
 phosphate rock, sulphur and many other minerals are found in quantity such as nowhere else is known to man.
 Here too are cotton and wheat and
 corn and barley, oats and rye Here arc . millions of live stock not to serve mighty , armies in their death grapple. but to min |.
 ister unto the work and the sustenance 1 of 1O0,0o0,0O0 million people living in case. Here is the stategic geographical loca- l tion of all the world giving Us as to no other nation natural advantages and fa- l ciiities for world trade.
 Here IS the only great nation in all the / world not at war, equipped for business , It is an amazing stuation it means that t in the not distant future we must vastly increase our output of farm and factory products to supply the needs of many mill
 liens who will be compelled to look to us ) for these things. It means also that We : must help to straighten out the finances of many lands whose people have hereto
 fore depended upon Europe, and thus , concentrate in our own country world in fluencing financial power. Indeed, the first gun fired in Europes awful war was
 the signal marking the movement to- ward this country of the worlds financial
 center. For half a century to come Eu- rope will be paying the awful cost in mer
 and in money of this war, and the loss
 In men will mean infinitely more than the
 loss of untold billions of money, for in
 the balance sheet of nation as well as
 on heavens books, men count for more
 than coal and iron and cotton.
 Under these new conditions every man in this country will have new and larger
 opportunities. Every factory will have a
 broader market for its output, and every
 industry in the land should thrive as
 never before.
 "As we view with horror the world S
 gieatest tragedy in Europe, as we con-
 template the fact that the angels of
 heaven are looking down upon more suf- fering, mental and physical than the world
 has ever seen before, while the devil laughs with a more hellsh glee than was
 ever heard in the internal regions, our
 hearts are bowed with sorrow in sympa thy
 With those who are numbered with tha
 killed the killers and with greater
 sympathy for the hundreds of millions
 vho in suffering and agony and often in
 the dfrest poverty, without home to shell
 ter them or food to prevent starvation
 we are compelled to recognize the fact that
 duty to civilization itself demands that
 our country shall go forward with the
 expansion of it's trade, domestic and for
 eign, that we may furnish to the world
 an ever increasing commerce, for upon trade and commerce civilization itself is
 founded. We would not selfishly seek to prosper at the expense of the nations of
 Europe while they are in this ueath Srap pie, and yet we would be recreant to our responsibilities of civilization if we did not do all in our power at the present time to make this country, with its God given resources and opportunities. the center of the worlds industrial, commer- eial and financial activity. As we turn from the darkness of tho night of storm where amid the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds, Europe s civilization staggers beneath its terrific load, let us turn our faces, look upward and see the sunrise of prosperity, which shall soon flood our land and bless the world.
 An American who recently returned from the war scenes of Europe said that every blade of grass in this country looked to him like rose. If we would rightly understand our blessings, if we would rightly appreciate the privileges which, have been given to us here, they would all blossom into roses fragrant anl beau tiful We would then rejoice that across , the fertile fields of our blessed land, where lIi pedce anu sunshine we are harvesting al undant crops, no armies march, sweep ing them, as in Europe, with a .besom of destruction; no reign of terror SD, eads through country, town and city of ad- vancng hosts with their awful carnage: no fields are covered with the dead and the dying no agonizing cries of the wounded often alone and unattended are : heard no rivers are choked with the bodies of the dead, too many to be mum. bered; no streams run red with human blood; no farms are devastated, and no vampires with their hell-born bombs fiy by night bringing to mankind a hitherto . unknown terror.
 Here peace holds sway.
 Against the blood-red soil of Europe
 we contrast the snowwhite fields of mill lions of acres in cotton; against the un-
 gathered crops and the fields swept bare
 of horses to move the armies and of cat tie to feed them. where old men ana
 women bowed with sorrows seek to do
 the work of loved ones who have beer,
 called to the stupendous struggle of
 slaughter. we look out at the wide reach irg grain fields with their splendid yialds. at the cattle upon thousand hills, at orchards and vineyards and groves >yfeid- ing in abundance. and upon townS and cities whose inhabitants work in comfort pnd sleep in peace Instead of tho bitter, relentless hatred of the nations of Nu.