The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-08-04
For the Good of
 the Community
IT EVERYTHING seems to have broken G we'll for the South this year.


 Beginning with late, cold and wet spring that apparently doomed a cotton yield, we are coming to the garnerirfg with prospect of ,000 bales com pared with l l, ,329, ,000 in 1919 The Ala bama crop is indicated at 837 ,000 bales compared with crop of 712, 900 in 1919. And cotton is scarce. There is no de- nial of that. Secretary Hester of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange, reports consumption during the past year as 12, 735, 900 bales compared with 10, 6O0,000 during the preceding year and 12,282,- 900 the year before that Foreign con- sumption increased to 6,364,000 bales compared with 4,566,000 and 4,867, ,000 in the two preceding years. The cotton carried over is 6,O86,0OO bales compared with 6,844, 900 bales the year before. No wonder the market re- port read: Trading became more active when private advices from New Orleans indicated decrease of nearly million bales in the worlds carry-over for the season and carried prices upward"
 The incoming cotton crop will yield more money than any in the history of the nation Some American mills have re-
 
 first curtailment in more than a year. The world is behind in cotton cloth and must have the cotton The south knows better how to market it's cotton than it did five years ago, one year ago. Cotton is veri- table king and the south has it in her own hands to make the best of that kingship.
 Then there came the showing of the southern railroads as earning net profits while those of the east and west were netting deficits. There is but one answer to this, prosperity in the south, on which the southern railroads live.
 Logically the interstate commerce commission increased freight rates on southern lines less than on the others. The south had earned this consideration and will reap the benefits.
 Who can tell how much of this southern prosperity, reflected by railroad earn ings, iS due to the character of her peo- pie? How much of the loss of revenue by eastern and western, railroads has been due to restriction of industry by strikes? During all that turmoil of the post-bellum period the south has gone majestically ahead with her proud heart disdaining the appeal of the agitator and her American manliness rejecting the doctrines import ed from unhappy and distracted lands.
 We have developed a large steel ship building industry and are sending tens of thousands of tons of our mill products to the outer reaches of the world. Our inland waterways are under per- manent and continuous system of de- velopment.
 Our steel fabricating industry has de- veloped by leaps and bounds No soone. had we realized Birmingham's entrance into the manufacture of pressed steel cars than we add the automobile manufactur- ing industry.
 We have doubled the production of sanitary pipe shops and their pig iron con- suming capacity. These and the other new industries count for "a greater de- mand at home for conversion into finished shapes at home of the pig iron and steel turned out by Birmingham mills. They speak in clarion tones of the advantages of Birmingham as distributing point.
 The stabilization of the railroads through the new freight and passenger .,l, of,Y