The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-02-07
For Good of
 the Community

HOW would it feel to be resident of K town or section dependent on one railroad to wake up in the morning and find that this road had been discon- tinued? Had been scrapped because it did not have the money to operate?
 There are 100000 people residing along the 600-mile stretch of the Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic that are threatened with this calamity. The road nas lost and is losing money at the rate of S1,200,000 per annum. Men, who have put up their good money as an investment in this property, cannot be reasonably ex- pected to continue to pour it into rat hole
 The war labor board is the arbiter of the fate of this public utility. There has been suggestion that the board shelve re- sponsibility of saving this property and turn 1t over to the scrap heap on the ground that 1t is not a necessity.
 It is difficult to imagine any greater necessity than that which enables mil lion people to get about and have their goods transported to the markets The IAldOdIld SI dpIIIIC 1lClO, CilC ldI SCSC Ill the country and one that the country was dependent on during the war, is depend ent on the A., B. & A.
 The A., B. & A. is direct line from the Birmingham district to the port of Bruns- wick on the Atlantic and also connects Atlanta with the Atlantic A road that puts two such important centers of com merce and industry on the ocean comes very near being in the class one would call a necessity. .e4.,
 road that gives employment to 2,000 men is something in the way of neces- slty. A road that traverses a half dozen counties in Alabama and many more in Georgia, carrying the products of these counties from one to the other and to the sea for export to other nations is not to be claSSed as among those things that may be dispensed with without jarring two entire states. ,...,s......s sx.,,
 The A., B. & A. is necessity. Other wise there would not have been such a spontaneous outcry from every civic or ganization along the line protesting against the suggestion of it's discontinl1- ance. There has not been an exception. Modern peoples know what transporta- tion is; they know that it is their very life blood. They do not propose to stand by tamely and have that life-blood spilled merely because there may be little diff ficulty in it's salvage.
 The war labor board and other such physical expressions of the governments solcitude for the welfare of the nation and it's pars is there to save things not to shelve responsibility Railroads are not built in a day. They cannot be scrapped on Monday and resurrected out of the scrap pile on Tuesday Every day of inaction is day of waste, of destruction of an element of service. The heart and mind of the American people are di- rected to salvage, not to destruction. They have had enough of destruction and the heavy toll that it inflicts
 It is not only present values that scrapping of the A., B. A. would destroy, but tens of millions of dollars worth of values that lie along it's right of way potentially and await only the general re- turn of normal conditions to issue forth and add to the wealth of the nation. Scrapping of the A., B. & A. means the burial of this teeming poten- taity and the return to sleep of the energies which it's building and operation have awakened into pulsing and promising life.
 The war 1ah0r hoard is there t0 save the roads