The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-09
For the Good of
 the Community

IN his speeches at Huntsville and AL bany the early part of this week Sen ator Oscar w. Underwood called at tention to the wonderful potentialities of the Tennessee valley and the entire south to result from the manufacture of nltrates and the development of water power at Muscle Shoals and navigation on the Tennessee river
 The area embraced in the Tennessee valley above Muscle Shoals, the Senator says, is about equal to the British Isles which support population of 40,000,000 people. The development of hydro-elec- tr1c energy at Muscle Shoals he says would convert that valley into an indus trial center of approximately the popula- tlon of the British Isles within a genera tiOn
 One million two hundred thousand horse power can be harnessed at Muscle Shoals and in the~upper reaches of the Tennessee and it's tributaries above there. This is double the power developed at Niagara Falls, and Niagara has reached it's utmost limits beyond which it cannot go without destroying the scenic beauty of the falls, and the United States and Canadian governments will not permit that.
 The nitrates drawn from the air make a plentiful and cheap supply of fertilizers for the farmers; navigation on the river will open up water transportation to the gulf and all the world, and hydro-electric energy will furnish the power to move the machinery of thousands of industrial plants.
 The south was long time getting start ed but 1t is now marching near the front in the progressive procession. As the years go on it will play constantly increasing part in the industrial and commercial de- velopment of the country.
 The Manufacturers Record has this to say of the south and it's wonderful indus trial awakening:
 The thrill of life stirs the south, it's pros perity amazes it's own people, it's farmers are developing their crops to such an ex- tent that cotton now yields only one-fifth of it's farm output, it's factories of every kind are crowded and many are running night and day to keep somewhere near the demand for their products, it's oil in- dustry which is spreading over a vast area is pouring forth a never-ending stream of wealth matching in value the world s gold output.
 Prosperity, rampant prosperity, is now beginning to make itself felt from Virginia to Texas, and region which < was once poor and unable to buy much is now one of the worlds greatest markets for everything from diamonds to cook stoves, from automobiles and motor trucks to locomotives, from blows to cost ly works of art.
 This section, long recognized as the greatest undeveloped asset of America, is now rapidly becoming the greatest de- veloped asset. It furnishes 99 per cent of the country's sulphur, without which we could not have made war It grows two thirds of the worlds cotton, without which mankind would go unclothed and without which we could not have entered the war. It is one of the worlds greatest sources of oil, now fast supplanting coal on the sea and on the land It is a land rich in mineral and agricultural potential ities unknown elsewhere on earth. ; "All Americans may well therefore look to this marvellous store of latent and now rapidly develOping wealth as the