The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-01-09
EIectioa Three
 Weeks From Today

0 school tax election will be held three weeks from today. The cam paign is now in progress and there is every reason to believe that an over- whelming majority will be rolled up in favor of the levy.
 ,, With the sentiment of the electorate strongly on the side of the school cause it is just possible that many people may take it for granted that the issue will carry even if full vote is not boiled, but the campaign com mittee must conduct a vigorous whirl- wind canvass to make sure there will be no apathy on the day of the cleo tion. We want big vote. If only small vote should be cast the moral effect would be lost Let's have a virtually unanimous ballot for the tax. Such result would be not only animating in the highest degree here at home, but it would greatly stimulate the better school movement throughout the state.
 No other county will call an cleo tion until Jefferson has acted. Dur ing the spring several counties will follow our lead, and before the year closes half the state may be expected to vote 3-mill levy.
 Soon after the educational amend ment was carried last November, which authorized each county to hold an election for the purpose of raising needed school revenue, Superintendent W. F. Feagin issued an address in which counties were advised not to force the tax question. Better wait, he told the friends of education, un- til the time was propitious. The amendment was urged as a matter of principle, but that point settled the people should be left to act when the spirit moved them. That was the way MT. Feagin viewed the situation and his view was right.
 No county is so poor that it cannot stand 3-mill tax in order to provide more schools and longer school terms. But if conditions here and there are temporarily depressed it might be the part of wisdom to wait year or two before voting special tax. But on January 30, when Jefferson county gives rousing majority for a 3-mill levy, few counties will feel like sit ting still even until the coming autumn.
 It may be several years before illiteracy in / Alabama vanishes en- tirely, but after most of the counties adopt the special school tax it will begin to disappear steadily
 This Districts Raw
 Material Abwmdame
 1N HE government, in selecting
 N location for its armor plate plant, will find in the Birmingham district all the raw material used in making steel, and find it in such justaposition as to cause the industrial world to exclaim in wonder.
 If the experts from the navy board do not select site hereabouts it will be surprising. No matter what might have been thought of Alabama ores for steel making some years ago in their economic aspect, modern metal lurgy has so far increased their value as to make them vastly prized. Science is all the while accomplish ing marvellous things and the time has come when little is heard about lean ores.
 For the first time Birmingham will soon be mining good grade of red ore at the bottom of deep shaft two thousand feet or more below the surface of the earth. Ten years ago such possibility was discussed, but there was so much ore of easy access by slope mining that the time when shafts would be sunk was regarded as extremely remote.
 Large tracts of valuable ore near Birmingham now being developed or being examined for development had been held for long years in abeyance because of the heavy first cost of shafting. But looked at broadly the first cost, no matter how great, is of little consequence when the ore is there.