The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1916-08-26

nearJlly approved IN BUSINESS clrclSo'
The act establishing the federal
trade organization provides chat I'M
fair methods of competition in COM
MERGE are declared unlawful" and it
authorizes the commission, upon rea-
sonable grounds, to prefer charges
against firms and corporations, other
than banks or common carriers, and
hold public hearings. 1t is not an in
quisitorial body in the usual accept
ance of that term and the fact that it
is popular with industrial interests,
large and small, shows that its habit
is not to bait or harass, but to assist
and encourage all legitimate trade.
In the two years of its existence the
commission has worked quietly and is
only now being fully appreciated by
the general public.
Senator Sherman, like other repub-
lican leaders, is hard pressed for cam
paign arguments. Would he attempt
to abolish the two commissions to
which his remarks seem to have been
directed? He would not.
II
THINE was when California was a
L solid republican state, but as far
back as 1880 the national vote was
split, the democrats getting all but
one, and it has split in several
presidential elections since. Cali
fornia was a strong progressive state
in 1912. 1t was
Hughes and the one of the few
California Situation that gave Roose-
welt any cleo
toral votes. He got eleven and Will
son two.
This year the California progress
sives, under the leadership of Gov.
Hiram johnson, candidate for the
Senate, are arranged against the re-
publican machine and there are good
prospects of Wilson receiving the en-
tire electoral vote.
Johnson not only snubbed Mr..
Hughes while the presidential candi-
date was campaigning there, but he
referred to him as the tool of the re-
dictionary gang" That must have been
particularly calling to the former as
sociate justice, who thinks of himself
as a republican of lofty ideals and ex-
allied character. He is being accused
repeatedly of surrendering to the
bosses, but when a man like Hiram
johnson, one-time political partner of
Roosevelt, speaks so harshly, it is
enough to give the g. o. P. nominee
a heartache.
Mr.. Hughes addressed large audi
ences in California, but with one or
two exceptions they were apathetic.
California was unquestionably sore
to the republican
standard bearer.
VAT HEN Birmingham's m u S
wv hotel, the Tutwiler, was fin
ished, there stood across the street and
in front of the Twentieth street en-
trance several shabby little struc-
lures which dated back to the early
period of the city's mushroom growth.
They had been
Billboards Better eyesor for
Than Vacant Lots years a nd con-
trasted painfully
with the stately appearance of the new
hotel. These shacks were eventually
cleared away from the lot on the COR
ner of Twentieth street and Fifth ave-
nue.. At the rear of this property a
modern "high art" billboard was
erected, with latticework around The
base, painted panels, the newest light
effects, a grass plot in front and the
whole cut off from the street by
chain fence.
Esthetic souls have chafed nightly
over the blight of billboards in this
country, but no one could deny that
the present arrangement opposite the
Tutwiler is much more pleasing to the
eye than vacant lot strewn with :'ub-
bish and few shabby little stores.
AS matter of fact, the more elab-
crate billboards now used in cities for
advertising purposes carry on their
panels pictures painted by trained ar
lists, whose work is at times surpris-
ingly good. The monstrosities of the
old-fashioned sign painter whose fig
ures rarely ever looked human and
whose ideas of a landscape were pain
fully crude, would not be tolerated on
the strictly up-to-date billboard, with
it's brilliant electric lights and other
expensive features.
VAT HEN the European war began
w more than two years ago