The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-05-26
.PRE-WAR BASIS IS
 OBJECT SOUGHT BY LOCAL I'M. GA
Officials of Organization Have Annual Meeting and Make Plans for Future
 Work

l To put the organization back on pre-
 war basis, and to take care of the local interests in each community, was the
 gist of the many plans that were made
 and discussed when the officials of the Young Mems Christian Association of Birmingham met at a banquet in the I ballroom of the Tutwiler hotel last night. | Nearly hundred members were in at tendance. They were the board of direc- tors, tfficers and employees of the or
 gaa'zation.
 w. M. Cosby, president of the board of directors, presided over the business meeting, which was held immediately after the banquet. MT. Cosby told of the great work that V as being done up to the time war was declared, and explained that tie association Lad been forced to dr9p it's work r tho community for over- seas duty. lie sa. that now the or sanl- zation was going to take up the work with renewed vigor.
 SEVEN YEARS WORK w. s. Stalings. general secretary of the executive staff of the central associa- ton, read a report showing the work that had been accomplished by the cen tral station during the past seven years. ago there were ,356 members in the cen tral association while today, he said, there are 2,432, and including two in- dustrial branches there are nearly 50o0 members In the night schools of the as- sociation seven years ago, he said. there were only sxty-two students, while at the present time there are I'll students, who are learning trades that will make of them a better citizen.
 Dr. E. E. George, general secretary Of the Memphis branch of the Young Mems Christian Association, was the principal speaker.
 The thing that faces the officials ot the Young Mems Christian Association today is the great need of local welfare work in the community where the asso- citation is organized" said Dr. George. You may think that you have a great and glorious city. 1 grant you that, you may have all that on the surface. But what have you underneath. That which is not seen so quickly by the naked eye. But yet is ready to strike out, and will strike at the time it is least expected.
 Daily we read about the trouble our fellow workers are having with the for eign people in the larger cities of the east. I dare say that if the association. of which all of us here tonight are mem- bers, could have been there on the ground floor of the situa ton, some of the deeds would never have happened.
 "The world is weary. Yet it is weary for knowledge and not for crime and dls- ease and ignorance.
 WORD CHRISTIAN
 Another thing that want to call your attention to, and that is that we cannot afford to let the word Christian" be dropped from the name of the associa- ton.
 "One of the greatest things that the association has always tried to do after they had taught the boy or young man a trade was to see tha. he got job and that he associated with good com panions, and to try and teach him to be a Christian.
 "An organization that has for its chief work that of helping the young men or the community in which it is located. and yet is not united with the churches of the district, cannot succeed. So the next time you hear anyone say that the "Y" is not Christian association you call them down. For one of the greatest purposes of the Young Mems Christian Association is to help the boy or young man to get the right kind of start in life When this is done, business ambi- tions and other things are easily accom- plshed in comparison with trying to make anything out of youth who has no fear of God"