The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-03-24

who was not persuaded that the ven- ture was one which would absorb all of MT. Flagler's fortune and leave him where he was when as young grain merchant he became associated with the Standard Oil people
 Some of his more intimate friends ven- tured to smile almost pathetically when he told them of his plan. Not one of them believed that the proposition was practicable either from the railroad or the commercial point of view. When MT. Flagler said that in time, if good transportation facilities were furnished, Florida might be found matching Lou isiana in the production of raw sugar, his friends regarded this statement as that of visionary.
 Very likely the experience occasioned by the war and the shortage of sugar which at one time offered to the food administrators of the government it's most serious problem explains the dispo- sition of men of capital to undertake at first in small way the cultivation of the sugar cane in southern Florida.
 Director General McAdoo is not likely to make any drastic regulations which would seriously affect the Flagler rail- road system. It's service now is of great benefit to the government and to the people It ia controlled by the Flagler estate. Tn fact, when MT. Flagler was advised by his friends against under- taking railroad construction in Florida and the development of the state as a winter pleasure resort and furthermore it's development as vast truck garden whose products would reach the people of the north many weeks before the northern gardens furnished truck for the markets he said. in effect, that no one would be the loser in the enterprise if 1t failed excepting itself. He would not he compelled to call upon anybody to furnish capital For him it would not be banking proposition as James j.. Hill once said, the promotion of the Great Northern railroad and of other great railroads was banking nroposi- tion MT. F1agler lived long enough to know (but really not to see because he became almost blind inS the latter Years of his lfe) that his adventure was enc of the conspicuous successes of Amer ican railroad promotion and that 1t had
 increased commerce between Florida and other statos to an extent oven greater than he believed to be possible until the fife of generation had passed. It is cus- tomary in these days when the triumph of MT Flag,cr's promotion of railroads ard agricultural development in Florida Is spol<en Of. to make comparison with che promotion undertaken by the late H. II. Rogers whereby railroad was to be built modern in every feature of .its construction with as long tangents as the engineers could survey and as moderate curves and grades as it was possible from the bituminous coal fields In the Appalachian range to 8 seaport at Norfolk. Today this railroad is ac- knowledged to have met and more than met as a commerce bearer all that Mir Rogers looked for. He lived just long enough to share in the celebration of the completion of the line Were he liv- ing today he would be able to witness some of the largest and most impor- tant railroad transportation of coal which now occupies every railroad man agement in the United States. The rail- road has been of special value to the government and Director General Me- Adoo is sure to look with favoring eyes upon it's operation in perfect accord with the method which has distinguished that peration for several years Like Mr. Flager, MT. Rogers, long associated with the Standard oil cmpany, con- ceived the plan of building with his own capital and without outside assist ance a railroad from the interior to the sea- Both Rogers and Flagler are now spoken of as having been men worthy to be ranked among the pre- eminently great business forces of the United States. Some are inclined to think that F'lagler was the abler Of the two. Others give that distinction to MT. Rogers But In achievement there was little difference between them and the amount of the fortune which each amassed was substantially the same.