The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-06-13
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS
Gary.

But about the self-made man who has
 made good as the chairman of the board
 Of directors of the United States Steel
 corporation.
 The great executive who knows and be-
 lieves in Birmingham was born in Illinois
 and therefore has some of the bigness of the west.
 You know, Judge Gary really likes this
 district. His words and his visits and
 his acts prove it. He is the best Bir-
 mingham booster" I know. I wish
 some of the anvil chorus could have
 heard his hymn of praise as 1t floated
 out the other night at the dinner given
 in his honor at the Country club by
 George Gordon Crawford.
 | l didn't know where he got his title.
 l just supposed 1t was honorary on ac- | count of his high position or given like ! we bestow military honors in the south
 on any one having commanding pres l ence. But he is lawyer, and was a l judge.
 | It was while practcing at the bar in 1 Chicago that he got obsessed with the steel, and so he set to work to study I the subject from its formation in the 1 raw material to the completion of the | finished product. He just made steel his 1 hobby.
 l And what a wonderful story there is | in the history of steel and the steel I makers of America! It Is story of self help, of the unprivileged men who l climbed from poverty to the ccm-
 mercial supremacy of the world. It's comparatively a modern story. The dramatic and sensational development of the steel and iron industry in Amer
 ica. in it's broadest sweep, is contained within half century. More progress has been made within this space than in all our earlier colonial and national life. A writer puts it's growth picturesquely, saying King Steel has dethroned King Corn and King Cotton. We feed our fur naces every 1 months a mountain of ore that would tower a hundred feet agove
 our highest skyscrapers.
 Yes, the men who make steel are in trade, but theirs is profession requiring as much special knowledge as law, med icine, or theology. This iron and steel world" as it calls itself, according to an expert. has it's own literature-tech- nical books that are as mysterious as Sanskrit to the ordinary reader. I am
 made conscious of this every time I visit
 MT. Crawford in his office in the Brown Mark building, and see the books shelved
 about the room.
 It's staggering to the imagination to
 think of the tremendous responsibility
 and opportunity for service placed in
 the hands of a man like Gary. It is self evident that he possesses unusual ability
 to be the head of the biggest indus
 trial corporation in the world
 In this democracy of ours he has made steel making the imperial industry of
 America with yet new fields to conquer
 when the war is over Students of his
 tory will remember that the great dem-
 ocrat, Thomas Jefferson, wrote to his friend John Adams: We cannot make iron in competition with Sweden or any
 other foreign country But today,
 thanks to- the United States Steel cor
 poration. we have passed England,
 France and Germany and the world is
 our market.
 Hera let the oa pl rcrea n, i,1st O Httla
 In 1898 an American bridge company built the great Atbara bridge on the
 Khartum railroad; the rails and bridges
 over which the Russian armies rode from Moscow to Port Arthur were made in Pittsburg. At the Alexandria docks
 in Egypt. you can see coal unloaded by American machinery into American pressed steel cars In remote parts of India, Burma, Persia, Madagascar, you may find structural steel from Home stead, and I understand rails are going from Birmingham to many foreign ports. Years ago, Andrew Carnegie, with pre- vision most prophetic, said: We are on the eve of a development of the man. ufacturing powers of the republic such as the world has never seen. and the nation that makes the cheapest steel has
 the other nations at it's feet" 1 Read the above carefully, and then | put two and two together and see if | there is any connection with Judge Gary's recent visit and the pregnant I idea of the canny Scot that the nation ! that makes the cheapest steel has the | other nations at its feet"
 1 The great war now being waged in Eu- 1 rope Is making clear the superiority which autocracy has had in the past in | its ability to organize nation for both | industrial and military efficiency. If de- mocracy is to compete successfully with autocracy in the long run 1t must de-
 velop organizing and executive methods which will be at least equal to those of
 autocracy. And I believe that Judge Gary and his great corporation are going | to pick up the Kaiser's challenge, backed l by the Krupps, and show the overlord of
 the Hohenzollern dynasty that American
 democracy is stronger than Prussian
 autocracy
 After seeing him, talking with him and
 nearing his ringing speech. I am buoyed
 up not merely because of what he prom | ises to do for Birmingham, but because
 look to him to stand by President Will
 son in such way as to hasten the down. | fall of Kaiserism an nd piye neaca to roan