The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-08-10
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

ing ones." as the Rotary. Kiwanis, Civ itan and Community clubs; social ones' like the Southern, Phoenix and Elks; then there are the outing ones, the Country and Roebuck, and lastly the Birmingham Athletic Club.
 Like the making of books, there seems to be no end and so in the or ganizing of clubs. somebody is always ready to form another. The latest to make its bow to Birmingham is the Old Colony Club which is now in pro- cess of being launched, and soon will have handsome and permanent head quarters,
 From time to time I had been seeing notices of old Colony clubs being formed in certain of our large cities, but I paid little attention to the mat ter until d news item told of the efforts to locate one here, and an invitation to join reached me. Then l thought it was about time to post myself on the aims and ambition and services of the newest venture in clubland which seemed to be covering not only Amer ica, but jumping over the Atlantic. I was talking to friend of mine the other day, who is an old bachelor and having no wife to care for or care for him, he holds membership in nearly all of the clubs in Birmingham. He is we'll able to indulge himself in club life, but just for curiosity's sake he began to count up the annual dues he had to pay out and it was really surprising to find out how much they totalled up He admitted that while he might be classed as extravagant in his club ex- penditures that he was mighty econom- l ical when it came to church contribu- tions. @
 l But he failed to arouse my sym pathy, for when man refuses to take unto himself a wife, and shirks the re- sponsibility of rearing a family, I hope | the clubs will stick him to the full limit and while am not yet committed l to tax upon bachelors. yet I think a | pretty good case could be made out for it-in fact. a much better one than some of those now imposed upon us l I reckon, however, as far I will go. will
 be to have the good old English GUS
 tom, where it was incumbent upon the
 clergymen to preach at least one ser l mon every three months urging upon 1 the young men to think seriously upon | marriage.
 |
 If there had not been place for the 1 Old Colony Club it would not have | caught on in the way it has done, for l the great international institution into | which it has grown came into being 1 as the result of need acutely felt by a little group of business men back in 1907. Two of them had come from diff ferent western cities to confer with | each other and the third in New York | on an important business matter.
 
 There conferences in the New York
 mans office were continually inter rupted by telephone and other calls They adjourned to an uptown hotel tc discuss business over the luncheon table. Here, again, they were contin- ually interrupted by passing acquain- I tances and distracted by the noise and | confusion. The experience being SC 1COIuInOIl IS WHY IL Cdlleu loT d IcIuSuy Il for nearly every man who has business to transact away from home must lose much time in getting a proper hearing even when those he wishes to see are anxious to facilitate him in his so do. ing.
 Said one of the three men above re. fered to who had adjourned from { downtown office to an uptown hote
 fx e. ~tr1I 1Ix,ft
 be a great thing if there were som'
 sort of club where the business mar from out-of-town could meet his busi ness acquaintances when in New Yorl
 without having to impose upon the of fees of friend or be subjected to thu distractions of public placer" Hi
 suggestion met with the immediate ap
 proval of the other two, and out o
 this friendly talk was born the ides
 of club to take care of such situa
 tions.
 :, The idea kept revolving in the hea( of Albert J. Norton, the New Yorker
 and for some years he discussed it witl
 business men and hotel men in differ
 ent parts of the United States and Can ada, and finally reduced the whol plan to writing. projecting an institu tion so similar in every essential de l tdll to tudt WHICH now cAlSlS tii' Old Colony Club that it has never beel necessary in the building of the or ganization, to depart from the princi
 ples and policies set forth at that time 'I But it was not until 1915 that MT Norton associated with him a youn, Engishman. William A. Read, who hal
 shown marked executive and construc tive ability. and the two severed thei business connections and undertook t !, convert the vision into reality. Tn
 first Old Colony Club was opened il the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New Yorl in June. 1916, in the suite formerly oc today there are more than a score o , abroad, and if Birmingham hurries u Lit will beat San Francisco in being tn
 twenty-second one to be installed. } The Old Colony Club idea was sue cessful from the beginning. The nee
 that MT. Norton and his western friend
 had sensed in 1907 was shared by thou sands who were quick to take advan 2 tage of the opportunity offered fo ? service. once the project was an estab lished fact. 1t opened with only abou 300 members, but now has more tha 8 10000 on it's roster, scattered over tw t continents, and others are knockin n for admission, as clubs are bein formed in the various American, Can adian and European centers.
 "The object is not to supplant any o
 the already existing service institu 1 tions" save Prasideuf Norton. "nC