The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-12-05
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

When the first automobile was made it was locked upon as a toy. When the first talking machine began to speak it was set down as a toy. When the first motion picture flashed on the screen it was called a toy. When the firt airship sailed on high it was dubbed a toy.
 But toys have way of becoming ne- cessities for grown-ups. and today the automobile, talking machines, and mo- | tion pictures have become great in dpetries, employing thousands of work men and giving pleasure to millions. l It was nearly 30 years ago that I got sight of my first automobile. It was rather clumsy and banSy affair, which fat times under compulsion was willing | to circle around in Madison Square New York, and it's inventor and driver was regarded by the onlookers as harmless kind of crank.
 l The first ride I ever took in a motor driven car was at the Worlds fair, more than score of years ago. It was used as an advertisement by one of the great mail order houses, and made trip in it down Michigan ave- nue, and thought was going some" but l never dreamed of the future which lay ahead for the business I
 1 I recall how ruff~h aftautfnr +ho firS+
 talking machine I ever listened to created. It was back in the late sos here in Birmingham, and was a feature of cigar stand on Twentieth street It used to block the sidewalks as it wheexed out it's tunes or spat out it's 1 speech. It was considered a seven days wonder. It was in the days of a kind of wax roll.
 The first real impression ever made upon me by the movies was the show ing of an auto race in the old Peerless saloon corner, which had been con verted into motion picture house. l had seen a few scenes flashed on screens before, but never such thrill ing exhibition, for it looked as if the cars in their mad race were driving straight out into the audience. 1
 Little by little improvements were made in automobiles, talking machines. motion pictures and airplanes until today our streets and roads are cluttered with cars, our homes stocked with talking machines, 1 our cities filed with motion picture houses and airships are no longer un- common in the skies. The world do move"
 1 l an trying to think who it was who boasted to me that he was the first auto owner :n, Alabama, but somehow his name escapes me at the moment. I would like 1 to have the namc of the first man whc installed talking machine in the state; just as l woud be pleased to know who i pioneered the way in the motion picture business Already two Montgomery firms have gone into the air ship business. |
 l It takes men of brain to invent things, and then it takes men of vision to ex- Iploit their inventions. Go back 70 years land who of all the captains of industry was prophet enough to look down the coming years and set out what the Au- | tomooile business would develop into within a generation?
 i
 | Manufacturers strained every nerve to l tura out pleasure cars, and improve menr after improvement was made in sreed and beauty of line and richness of upi,olstering. It was Henry Ford who had the brain and the courage to make a democratic car, a car for the people. The advent Of the Ford meant that the average man was enabled to get into the I lautomobile class.
 Then some enc ,bethought how to take . pleasure car and make it do service sighted seem to think that the greatest possibility ahead in the motoring game is in the creation of cheap and depend able trucks for the farmer and the city man, and that by and through them the problem of transportation will be solved
 | The taking machine people have not been idle. and while putting out instru- ments which appeal to the rich and the artistic, yet they make machines in the reach of the laboring man, and their song and voice is heard in the home of the lowly as well as in the palaces of the n,iiionaires. I haven't time to ex- patlate on the boom to music which has come through the talking machines or the pleasure given by theu to homes which otherwise would never hear the sound of a piano.
 The motion picture business, to use q trite phrase, is still in it's infancy. The possihlit wrapped up in the indus i try as an educational and pleasure giving medium cannot even be dimly outlined It's long call from the early films showing simple scenes taken from every 1 day life to the magnificent productions. specially staged by the great. producing companies at the cost of fabulous sums l confess tha. am movie fan," and go whenever I can get the time. I en- l joy the comedies. the farces. the art and the historic plays Yes, admit that never tire of seeing the wild west ern pieces in which much killing is done,