The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-01-22
For Good of
 the Community

WITH very little preliminary flourish w another big item in the destiny of Birmingham Alabama and the South is announced
 The Southeastern Express company will commence doing business on March l. It has contracts with the Southern Rail- way and Mobile and Ohio for use of their lines. 1t will have offices in all the cities traversed by these railways and in the South Atlantic and gulf ports that are touched by them
 The Southern and Mobile and Ohio officials declare that their decision to con- tract with the Southeastern Express com pany was based on Conviction that the south should have an express company of it's own engaged primarily in handling business originating and terminating in the south and operated for the specific purpose of affording the shipping inter- ests of the south an express service in keeping with their needs and responsive to their wishes
 That is fine sentiment on which to be- gin a life of service and the response of the south to that sentiment will be in accord with it to the measure in which it endures There is no reason to believe that 1t will not endure. Experience has taught utili- ties. of all kinds that candor and service are winners where all the intrigue, all the smartness, all the expert legal talent and all the circumlocution are not.
 The south is demanding many things and 1t is getting many. Instead of crying out like Rachel in the wilderness, it has gotten down to specification of it's re- quirements and gone after what it wants and is entitled to with a definiteness and lncisiveness from which justice cannot es- cape. Men like Underwood, Bankhead and Oliver have supplemented at Wash lngton the effort of business men and in dustrial captains until they have become invincible
 Frederic I. Thompson, "a Mobile editor and man of push and stamina, becomes vice president of the United States Ship ping Board In a very short time there after Birmingham is informed of the an nouncement of 809o of the all-rail on all- water business from New York via the Mallory Steamship line and the Warrior barge line
 The Mallory line operates vesselsIallo- cated by the shipping board This estab- lished point of contact between MT. Thompson as an official representing the
  ham has sought this all-water rate for ten years and more It is good to have south ern men on the job. They put speed to things affecting the south.
 The south wishes, a southern man on the Interstate Commerce Commission It is going to have one. Of the present mem bership there is not one resident south of Louisville; not one in the cotton-produc- ing south; not one really representative of the entire United States south of the Ohio, more than third of the country
 The Alabama Manufacturers associa- tion put it right when it asked for south ern member of the commission, "a repre- sentative of the south whose home is in the south and who is familiar with the south's needs as to transportation facilities neces- sary to protect the south's industrial and agricultural life.
 That is fair demand, one brimming over with equity and one from which jus tice cannot turn her face.
 Birmingham, Alabama and the south have discovered fine and efficacious philosophy. It is this: Be sure you are right, then go ahead Very old, very