The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-05-14
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

tender spot TOT Atianta, TOT It was Whlle
 living in the Gate City that the great change came into my life which lifted
 me out of the law and put me into the ministry. I never go back to the old
 town but that I think of the Iamented
 Hawthorne and how his life touched
 mine.
 / l joined the First Baptist church and
 was baptized by him, and later ordained | by the church, when the building was | located at the old site, long before is \ migrate1 to fashionable Peachtree to get rid os it's business surroundings to once more be enveloped in the heart
 of trade, and counted as a downtown 1 church Time runs swiftly. It seems hard to think that Dr. C. D. Daniel, the eloquent pastor, is my old seminary
 mate.
 ! I happened to run across Preston 5. I ArkwrignL who is in the limelight just at present on account of his high posi- ton with the street railway and power 1 company, which is seeking to increase 1 it's rates, ana he paid compliment to pr. Ashby Jones. Rotaran and the pastor of the Ponce de Leon Baptist 1 church, saying: T believe he is one l of the greatest speakers in America. He is the one Frank Rushton tried so hard to get during one of Birminghams big drives to speak at a Tutwiler ban quet.
 l I hadn't been to Atlanta for several years and was really shocked by tho | ravages of the great fire which occurred just a year ago I had no conception of it's wide range and devastation. 1t
 made me sad at heart as I drove through street after street swept clean of houses and the grounds as bare as Sahara of vegetation. Money can eventually put back the residences, but it will take years for nature to give back the trees | lanta to make my home, had an office in the Equitable building, which was. I believe the south's first skyscraper and the talk of the Atlantians. l will never forget now for the first week l used to 1 look out of my windows at the low-roofed stores and the ragged homes toward In | man Park and wonder why ever got my consent to live in such struggling, | overgrown village.
 Then the Atlanta virus got to working in me- l do not know how to account for it, but before the month was out was baking for Atlanta as though had been bitten by maddog. I fairiy loaned at the mouth in singing it's praise and began to think that little ole New York" was a very good burg, but it's chief trouble lay in its being handi- capped by being so far away from the Gate City of the South. I take no par ticular pleasure or pride in saying this, but merely set it down as fact. This is a day of publicity. Atlanta was tho first city this side of the Mason and Dixon line to sense the value of hot | air, and to invest her all in publicity. | take off my hat to her. Atlantians got up a tree early in the game and began i to shout to passersby that Atlanta was
 the greatest city in the south. They re- 1 iterated it with such. yehemence that | they really began to believe it and, | what's more, got us to thinking about l it the same way.
 l Now, l lave all along maintained that ] we Birmiugh ghamers are too modest. It mas 1 been frequently remarked by those who read this column that I try to hide my l light under the bushel and avoid using the personal pronoun, but I am doing
 my best to overcome my timidity. and 1 I think it high time for Birmingham to l begin to do bit of bragging, for we have the goods and they need only to be advertised and shown to draw people to our Goors My trip to our neighbor- ing Georgia city convinced me that we are entirely too reticent about our supreme position among southern cities |
 l But back to Atlanta and to some of the old landmarks The site of the old Capi- tai City club has been changed beyond recognition. The corner that was once
 the center of the social life of the site is now givel. over to automobiles. The handsome Richards home looks like I dereIict despite it's air of rich costliress /, put is finding at last good use, in that me Rotary club is devoting it to home
 for soldiers ln uniform, and begs them
 to come in and write letter home hled with bunch of as fine chaps as l
 eqer foregathered with, is no more.
 l l passed the famous old Atlanta Ma
 tiona1 bank building and big sign
 across it's front stated that it was to be auttioned off to the highest bidder. Chamberlain & Johnson were leaving
 few doors below. Business houses
 crowd further out on Whitehall each 1 year, as they are gradually swallowing more anc more of Peachtree beyond the Aragon. The towering office buildings
 lining the narrow streets gave me a choking sensation. and longed for Bir- mingham's broad thoroughfares with their full quota of light and air.
 s@s. I The narrow sidewalks and the crowds I of soldiers made walking unpleasant. The downtown district is entirely too
 congested l thought a pedestrian ID Birmingham was running risks from be- ing run down by automobilists. but nim-