The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-05-30
AUTO THEFTS
 ARE UNCOVERED IN CHICAGO
WARRIOR RIVER HIGHWAY IS HIGHLY INDORSED BY
 GOVERNMENT EXPERT
Cost Living Reduced By Adequate Transportation Facilities To and From All Parts of the Country Declares General Black-Waterways Help to First Class Rail
 roads and Pennsylvania System Cited

Tt is up to you, men of Birmingham, to solve your problem in the matter of taking advantage of the transportation offered by the Warrior river. It is a big question, an important question, and must be handled in scientific way. You must organize a transporta ton company of sufficient size to meet the situation, and you must study the conditions to be met in order to arrive at the proper kind of transportation facilities best suit ed for your needs here''
 These were declarations of Gen. William M. Black. chief of engineers, United States army, in an address at the Chamber of Commerce auditorium yesterday at noon. General Black was introduced by John w. Sibley, who presided at the meeting, at which Secretary Redfield was the other speaker.
 You have a great city, a wonderful district here, and 1 only regret that my business in Washington is so urgent that must return there without delay. l would like to go over your entire district and make a study of local conditions You people have in the brief space of 30 years put Birmingham on the map. and you have put her there in big letters. Wherever iron, steel and coal are known there is Birmingham well known also.
 HIGH COST OF LIVING
 We have heard much within the past decade regarding the high cost of liv- ing. As a matter of fact the prtn- cipal change has been in the increased standard of living. People of today are demanding as necessities what a gen eratlon ago were cons iderel as luXuries. For this reason, it behooves us to see that every section of our country pro- duces the things which it can make cheap est, and to the best advantage. In order that this situation may be brought about, we must have adequate transportation facilities to and from all parts of the country, and the cost of transportation must be cheap enough to allow the han ding of products without too large a part of their value going for this trans portation cost. The more highly de- veloped and the more complex our civili- zation becomes, the larger the part trans portation plays in our affairs.
 This condition makes it proper for us to improve all our transportation facilities, both rail and water, to the high est possible extent. There is no conrilcr in interest between the railroads and the water ways and the greatest rail- roads and the more progressive lines in the country have come to realize that fact sometime ago. To be sure there are still some backward roads which fight tie waterways and attempt to cripple them at every turn, but they are fast giving way to more progressive ideas. The de- velopment of waterways relieves a rail- road of carrying vast quantities Of freight on which it makes but little, if any, profit, and at the same time, it greatly increases the demand for the higher classes o1 freight which the railroads handle at a fine profit. The development of com munity which follows the use of water ways indirectly benefits the railroads more than they could possibly be from the Height which is lost to the warer- way.
 Sometime ago, I was working on a canal project for the government which was to parallel the Pennsylvania lines The president of the Pennsylvania sys- tenn told me he would be very glad to have the canal built and that he and his engineers would lend every cooperation