The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-11-13
CITY COMMISSION !. ID TAKE STEPS AT ONCE ID ERECT
 CITY AUDITORIUM President Barrett Wants City Meeting Place."
 and Says It Is a
 Necessity |BURRUSS, BROWN AND |HORNADY COOPERATE Commissioner Brown Says Board Should Evolve Means of Financing 
 the Project

The city commission will be large ly taken up this morning with the matter of building an auditor ium for the city of Birmingham. according to the commissioners who were interviewed yesterday on the subject. They feel that Birmingham has reached the stage where an audi torium would not only be great ad- dition to Birmingham but they are em phatic. in their statements and most sincere in their opinions that it has become an absolute necessity.
 Birmingham loses thousands of wis., itors each year through not having an auditorium to take care of the many large conventions that our civic or ganizations cannot go after on ac- count of hot having a sufficient audi torium to care for the crowds that would come as delegates to the con- get our heads together and build this auditorium. It is something that is vital to Birmingham. Every time that convention comes to Birmingham we secure several permanent residents as a result. Then too, it should be built for the community singing alone, it seems to me after witnessing that in- spring scene at the Bijou Sunday aft ernoon when over 1000 people, bent on enjoying the programme. were turned away on account of not having room enough to accommodate them"
 Commissioner Hornady told an Age- Herald representative that he would stand for anything that could be ac- credited to him as having said if it are going to build it somehow and that soon. is my firm belief.' he said. T am not clear as to how we are going to finance it. but it will be done Perhaps some philanthropic citizen will furnish the city with a site and then we will have to raise the money somehow. even if we lose the McDon- aid suit"
 Commissioner J. Ellis Brown said: This will be in my department-that is the erection of the building, and think that l should be frank about it. I be- lieve that we ought to have the audi torium, city the size of Birmingham needs it every week in the year. But the question is one that cannot be de- cided in day. We commissioners will just have to get our heads together and figure the matter out and then go to it. We can do it, of course, but we will have to get at it. I am in favor of immediately taking steps towards this end. and seeing if we cannot evolve some means of putting it over at the earliest possible date.''
 Commissioner Burruss is undoubtedly in favor of the auditorium in case the city can see her way clear to finance the project. The matter Is one that he says he put in his platform in the be- ginning of his campaign, and that no man knows better than he the need of such structure in Birmingham
 T am only too glad to lend my ap- proval to the auditorium project, and 1 wish that we had the money to erect it with right now" he said. II hope that we can so arrange 1t that this mat ter can be pushed. l am willing to CO., Ooperate i'll every way possible, con sidering. of course. our financial status very closely as we progress
 The matter will be brought before the commission today and very likely the auditorium issue will soon round into some tangible form that will mean suc- cess at an early date.