The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-09-17
M E N w o M EN
 A ND T HIN c s

| Il A " U II l 4N VI O
 Are you Ford dealer or a salesman -'
 rms was the question fired at me by a
 stout young man in khaki at the door of the Lyric on Thursday morning. Not
 guilty" I answered. I'm just a news
 paperman."
 The door swung wide and I was soon
 In the midst of the magic circle of the
 Fordites. from all parts of North Ala
 bafna I had kept my word, for I had
 promised Reese Adamson on my word
 of honor that I would be present to hear
 c. A Bacon, the soil expert, and to view
 the moving pictures.
 I'll admit that I gave my promise in
 order to heap coals of fire upon his head
 for having invited me to go out to the opening of the Preston Motors Corporation
 few weeks ago, and then quietly forgot |
 heels around The Age-Herald office until
 another friend rescued me and got me there is time to make a speech.
 | No man liveth to himself alone" in l this twentieth century any more than
 can any business get along by itself; for
 
 it's day of cooperation among men as
 well as combination in the commercial
 world. It has gotten so that if a great
 industry beats down it's smaller competi-
 tors it is looked upon as being as bad as
 the thug who sandbags his innocent vic-
 tim.
 | Not only is this true, but Tn spite of
 trades and guilds there is such overlap ping that the spirit of give and take is getting to be the order of the day, even
 among the workers; and evea in the face
 of the strike and the conditions over the country and throughout the world, I be- lieve that we are on the eve of a better
 understanding between employees and em-
 ployers, and that the public is more and more demanding fair play, and ready to visit it's displeasure on either side which 1 refuses to play the game on the square. 
 |, They say politics makes strange bed fellows" and so we find the same prin- ciple at work in mercantile affairs. It seems a long cry from Ford car to d tractor with certain kind of blow hitched to it; and yet the tin lizzie'' which has been so faithful in business and so fervent in pleasure, is responsible for an invention which promises to revo- lutionize farming to the same extent that it did in changing the mode of transpor tation. No one seems to look upon it as any thing out of the ordinary that the Ford tdealer and the Oliver Flow Company took over the Lyric for a morning session in order to educate the representatives CT these concerns in the value of the proper cultivation of the soil and in the right manner to market the tractors and the blows. The dealers in North Alabama flocked to see and hear, and with them came some of their friends. l Speaking of how modern business is mixing up folks and things. just take for example the first man to greet me on entering the Lyric was my cousin, Sid Bowie, for years a distinguished congress- man, but who resigned to resume the practice of law here in Birmingham. It seemed that he was rooted in politics aId in the law, and yet evidently the Ford tractor had power to uproot him, for now he is eloquent in talking about it's vir- tues as he once was in speaking in the halls of Congress or at the bar.
 The Lyric was dark, but after get ting used to the gloom, I was able to pick out among the farmers John Cart wright and W. D. Smith, the former for many years classed as real estate man, ] but who is now farming large scale. i and the latter, while president of the Bir- 1 mingham Baseball Association, yet has one of the most attractive farms in the ! state, just beyond Springville. l simply 1 cite these two whom 1 recognized as Sam- | pies of the way men are in these days 1 mixing their business.
 I know of nothing more remarkable | than that an American invention, born | out of the need of breaking up the great 1 prairie of the west, furnished the idea l of the tank which was so instrumental in | changing the tactics of war, and in De- l ing a preponderating factor in the defeat | of the central powers; but it is well ! known that the caterpillar crawl was | first used on motor blow in the United | States, and that the great modern engine l of warfare was but an adaptation of it But this use of blow was the reverse | of the old scripture prediction of Isaiah, | who, looking down the centuries, saw the ! coming of the time when they shall beat 1 their swords into plowshares, as Mars | for the time being was in the supremacy | and Christ showed in the background; | | A11 I H.. l..x Al~