The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-12


 | portant from the commercial point of view of Edison's inventions was one which was established at almost the beginning | or the industrial electric era. But nearly all of the other developments of electric industry have been compassed since the apparatus of Edison was put upon the market in the early eighties. Even that apparatus represented large financing It was the first of the industrial organi- zations incorporated in Great Britain in which American financiers took some | part They furnished about $6000,000 of the capital for the Edison company, which was established in London and for another Edison company which was to be located in India.
 In the early nineties the utilization of electric energy created by converting water power into that energy on a large 1 scale was undertaken at Niagara Falls. Almost twenty years later there came reports from several quarters of the south telling of very heavy investments l and very large financing for the purpose of utilizing water power in the south so that it could be converted into elec- tric energy which could be carried with commercial profit to points many miles distant. Hundreds of millions represent the financing done in order to establish electric industries in the south good Ptiil Ol WHICH VIII HeTedlJeT receive r1elr initial energy from water power.
 Some time in the summer the govern ment authorities at Washington will be able to report in detail what the expor- ttaion of American automobiles was in the fiscal year no vending. The exact figures will not be known until this re- port be made But it is already estab- lished that the figures will show that the United States stands second to France c on, arfa Nf ,1I,tI n..I. few years ago we stood nearly at the bottom of the list of exporters of auto mobiles.
 The automobile industry and the figures which represent it's growth and present magnitude must be studied if there is to be obtained a reasonable idea of the ag- gregate financing which was entailed by the development of American industrial electricity. At the exposition of the au- tomobile industry which was held in this city last winter 1t was stated incidentally that the industry was dependent upon two factors-first the internal combustion engine, and, second, electricity Reduced to the ultimate basis, electricity Is the most important factor in the develop ment of this most stupendous automobile industry, so stupendous that the upkeep of automobiles in America each year Is now estimated to amount to between s9o0, 900, ,0o00 and $4O0,000. 0.000. For 1t is the electric apparatus which makes 1t possi- ble to utilize the internal combustion en- zine. Without some one of the various electrical devices which furnish the ex- plosive spark the internal engine would be useless This apparatus of itself repre- sents millions of financing and of capital
 The creators of industrial electricity in all it's forms have created new capital in vast amounts The men of finance, the local banks in all parts of the country and individual capitalists have furnished the means by which this colossal financ- ing has been accomplished. Of itself it is probably. with the single exception of he agricultural interest, directly and in- directly the most important factor in modern American financing.