The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-01-20
For Good of
 the Community

idity at the port of Mobile.
 An item of more than passing interest is this from current shipping news at Mobile:
 Five thousand and sixty-five long
 tons of steel plates from the mills at
 South Chicago, Ills, and Gary Ind,
 made up the cargo of the steamer
 Bantu, which sailed Saturday for
 Newcastle in England.
 The Bantu, of the Isthmian line,
 recently arrived from Rio de Janiero
 bringing $500 tons of manganese
 ore for the steel mills of the Ten
 nessee Coal, Iron and Railroad com
 pany at Birmingham the ore being
 taken up the Warrior river in barges The South Chicago and Gary mills are properties of the United States Steel cor pOratiOn. They are auxilaries of that great concern the same as the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad company (in- cluding the Chickasaw Shipbuilding and Car company and the American Steel and Wire company with their Birming- ham mills. They are in the same family and engaged in the same worldwide game of commerce as the Birmingham mills.
 So when the ChickasaW company builds ships at Mobile, they have not only the products of the Birmingham mills with which to load for world distribution, but they are finding also the products of the middle western mills of the same con- cern This serves the ships that are be- ing built and adds to the bigness and inn portance of the port of Mobile.
 Another feature of the cycle is the inn pOrtation of the Brazilian ores, great quantities of which are used by the Steel Corporation in all it's steel-Working mills. The ship that brings in the ore finds car go of finished product awaiting. When < that ship comes back from around the world she may conveniently make the last leg of her voyage to Brazil for more ore
 Another rim of the cycle is the owner ship of Brazilian ore mines recently ac quired by the Steel Corporation. This in sures a steady operation of these mines at first hand, continuity of shipment of the ores to the mills in this country and economy in production and transporta- tiOn
 Just as it is perfectly feasible and quite economic for the Gary and South Chi cago steel mills to ship to port of Mobile for export, so will it be with equal feasi- bility and economy that the mills at Gary and South Chicago may receive their ores through the port of Mobile. Better in all likelihood than through the con- gested port of New York.
 Mobile is just about as close to the Gary and South Chicago mills as New Y York and has the advantage of the doWngrade haul one way, the advantage of better weather conditions most of the way and certainly the advantage of roominess With ships to carry the finished product out and 5. bring the ores in, the harmony of effort is very nearly perfect one.
 Very interesting is the gradual unfold ing of the bud of banana stalk. One pur- pie petal lifts, disclosing row of green ish nodules, and drops off. Another and another does likewise, each leaving it's rim of nascent fruit. As the buds drop and the fruit circlets form the stem extends and thickens until one sees the huge clus- ter of long yellow bananas of commerce.
 This business of ships bearing Alabama products and her name afar has been coming about in much the way of the banana stalk. The first purple petal that x dropped showed the raw materials, ore,