The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-11-18
FOrGOOd of the
 Community

day with insufficient cargo for her maiden voyage.
 She went to New Orleans to fill out. That should not have been, but 1t will be until Alabamians get more in the habit of shipping by their own port and inducing others to do the same.
 Ships will not put in at ports offering scant cargoes. A ship is an asset to it's owner just so long as it keeps moving. It is liability-one of the heaviest on rec ord-when it is tied up at wharves wait ing on loads.
 Ships cannot make way stations like an accommodation train. An ocean liner stopped here and there to gather it's cargo quota would be eaten up alive by dock charges. It would pass from owner to owner with record of bankruptcy. If the Egoods are not sent to Mobile, the ships that are now putting in there in quantities, will cease making it a port of call. h Mobile has not the facilities which she ought to have, but she has sufficient to handle several times more freight than is routed that way Lots more would be routed through Mobile if Alabamians got really busy.
 We should all do as the five co-opera- tive pipe makers of Birmingham did re- gently when the New Orleans shipping agencies endeavored to have the rail- roads cancel the special rate on cast iron pipe to Mobile when the pipe was intend ed for the Pacific coast. Instead of going at it in their individual capacity they en- tered protest en masSe. The protest was needed and the low rate remains.
 New Orleans was not to blame It was doing what citizens of Birmingham, Tus- caloosa, Gadsden, Anniston, Florence, Huntsville and Talladega should do for Mobile, watch out for the interests of their nearest port and their most economical outlet to the faraway places with which we trade.
 There is Blount county, Jefferson coun- tvs neighbor. It voted against the sea- port amendment although one-half of the cotton crop must travel to foreign coun- tries and in spite of the fact that twenty cent cotton is as much due to inability of foreign folks to get our cotton as to all other causes combined
 If the. Marshall county cotton grower had realized that every Chinaman wears clothes made of cloth that has been, in turn, made of Alabama or other southern cotton, he would not have helped roll up tile@C leAI SC II1OJOIICy OS CulSC CllC SCdpOIC amendment.
 If Blount and other neighboring coun- ties had taken the time to think that the 20 per cent differential for transportation on the Warrior river embraces them as we'll as Jefferson, they would not have denied this county the right to do with it's own money as it might at some future time see fit to do.
 Back to this freight at Mobile business. That is the present item of importance in the inland waterway and harbor scheme of Alabama. For the time being there is nothing more coming from federal or state aid, from any outside aid Alabama must do with what she has. Mobile has lots of ships seeking cargo It should be gotten
 The City of Birmingham, the Warriors first elf-propeller, is to decide the fate of the 20 per cent freight differential en- bracing all northern Alabama. It should have full cargoes coming upstream and going down. Furnishing cargo to this yes sel is not an act of philanthropy; it is one of self-preservation If northern Alabama wants freight rate independence it will support the Warrior and it will route for