The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-11-12
HUDDLESTON SPEAKS ID BESSEMER BOARD Promises Aid for VanHOOse
 Canal Project
GREAT ENTHUSIASM
Bessemer High School Football Team to Play Tuscaloosa High Tomorrow. Mems Bible Class to Celebrate
 Fifth Anniversary Next Sunday

II LII ANVAt
 Bessemer, November u.-(Special)-An enthusiastic and interesting meeting of the Bessemer Board of Trade was held tonight in the city courtroom in the Realty building, at which time George Huddles- ton, congressman from the Ninth district, spoke on "Bessemer and the Warrior River Canal
 The meeting was called to order at o'clock p. m. by Dr. J. c. Curry, presi- dent of the Board of Trade, and Dr. E. P. Lacey was called on to introduce the speaker of the occasion, and spoke in paIt as follows
 Tt is with pleasure that l introduce to you a man of whom you all have heard and one I feel will obey his constituents and will do everything for them. New laws are made to meet new conditions, and a man should be wide-awake and progressive to keep abreast with the times I feel that he will make an ideal representative as he is well versed in law, energetic, wide-awake and progressive. Gentlemen, I take great pleasure in in troducing to you the Honorable George Huddleston."
 The speaker was greeted with much ap- plause as he came to the front. He stated that he considered it an eventful day in having an opportunity to make public address to the citizens of Bessemer, and in having a birthday.
 I considered the invitation from the Bessemer Board of Trade to address public meeting in Bessemer as a birthday present, he said. While I've only been a representative for eight months I've lived in this community 25 years, but never had an opportunity of making public speech in your city. I want to talk of the future of Bessemer. I came to your city tonight to show my willing ness to do your bidding. It is my de- light to serve Bessemer l feel Bes- eemer hasn't gotten all that was coming to it. I feel that this industrial center hasn't been given the consideration it de- served"
 He further stated that he thought the prosperity and success of Birmingham was tied up in the prosperity and success of Bessemer and that Jefferson county was too large. He regarded it as inevit- able that the county would be divided and Bessemer would have it's aspira- tion.
 This district is very much in need of slack water navigation, he continued, "and if slack water navigation could be gotten to Birmingham I will use all my efforts to get it but if it can't be gotten to Birmingham and can be gotten to Bes- sefser then I'll work just as hard to get it here" MT. Huddleston was forced to stop on account of the applause.
 '"rhe government has spent $15, ,O0O0, 900 on river improvement to get a waterway to ship heavy products to sea. While water way is navigable within 30 miles of Bir- mingham furnaces only one company is able to roll cars from the mines and dump coal on barges to be carried to the gulf he continued. Another company has a mine in a few miles that thought it had arranged with the Frisco railroad to haul the product to the barges, but was notified by the Frisco that this couio not be done as the other railroads ob- jected. That company is now preparing to build what will be called Lock IS at it's own expense. Still another mine is shipping coal several miles over the rail- road to the barges that are taking it to Mobile
 What we want to ship from this dis trict is coal iron, pipe and heavy pro- ducts and we want to get products shipped in from New York. To be able to use the water we will have to bring the slack water to the very doors of Besse- mer- If we can't get canal built by Bir- mingham and Ensley, let us take what we can get.
 He spoke then of the history of the project stating that it was first spoken of by James VanHoose in 1896. There was preliminary investigation in 1912, but nothing definite could be done until a thorough investigation was made.
 There is enough water between here and mouth of Valley creek and tribu- taries to supply all loclage the commerce of this district could use," said MT. Hud- dleston. I'm goin gto do all I can to get an appropriation to canalize Valley creek to Bessemer for there it is impos- sible to guess what the future of the dis trict will be-
 MT Huddleston spoke for an hour and fifty minutes and at the conclusion of his speech the Board of Trade took a vote of thanks to him for coming to Bessemer.
 Much interest is being manifested in the football game which will be played Saturday when the team from the Bes- semer High school will go to Tusca- loosa, where they will meet the fast aggregation from tho Tuscaloosa High school on the university gridiron Coach Kuchins and Assistant Coach Collier have been putting the local boys through some hard practice preparing for the contest which promises to be thoroughly interesting as the teams are very evenly matched. Two weeks ago the Bessemer team defeated the Tusca- loosa High school on the local field and they hope to repeat the dose Sat urday. A large number of fans will ac- company the team, which will leave early Saturday morning over the Louis vile and Nashville and return that night.
 The most important game of the sea son will be played thanksgiving morn ing when the local eleven will meet the Birmingham High school at Rick wood park at 10:30 o'clock. For the past few years the Birmingham team