The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1923-01-03
SOUTH MOVES FORWARD

The rest of the country is becoming tuiiy
awake to the remarkable progress made IN
the southern states in the past twenty years
and is candidly expressing its recognition
of the fact that the southern people have
been responsible for that development
through their courage, ingenuity and ca
pacity for steadfast and determined appli-
cation Northern newspapers and writers
are revising their former opinions as to the
Incidence of the south and are realizing the
handicaps under which it labored after the
civil war. The Boot and Shoe Recorder, for
example. remarks. at was at one time a
commonplace to deprecate the south's tex
tile industry efforts by arguing fatty that,
while coarse sheetings and other low-graae
fabrics might be produced successfully IN
southern mills, the south could not possibly
produce the finer tissues, faneies and nov
elites because she lacked the experience and
skilled labor. This obstacle has been over
come by an energy and organizing abliity
which would astonish those who idly repeat
the silly fiction about the Incidence OF the
south in the work of training and educating
the wage-earning population. Schools rose
within sight of every mill; textile and tech
meal institutions were created and gener-
ously financed, and within a very few years
these efforts began to bear bountltul mar
vest in the forms of tens of thousands Of
Young men and women who not merely were
skilled workers, but whose standards OF HE
and ideas of conduct have been actually
raised above the level Of any similar class in
the country"
Of Birmingham, the southern center Of
the iron and steel industry, northern wri-
ter quoted in Sundays news columns says:
To-day she is a great city of close to 2oo,-
600 inhabitants; metropolis of stately
buildings. broad thoroughfares, magnificent
stores and beautiful homes. Secure in the
knowledge of the Unreasonable wealth which
lies in the mountains that surround her and
in the ability Of her sons to wrest that wealth
from mother earth, she is pressing on with
sure step TIC her destiny as one of the
worlds greatest and richest cities"
These writer's point out the south's varied
avenues of development, citing High Point
~ G., the second largest furniture making
city in the country, the 1890, GOO of hydro
electric horse power developed from its
water courses, Alabama's possession OF more
than fifty per cent. of the iron-ore deposits
of the country, her vast lumber resources,
her activity in the building Of highways and
adding to her inland waterway transporta-
ton and the development of her seaport.
The south appreciates what these northern
commentators are saying of her people and
her achievements, and is especially mindful
of the spirit of frank eordiality with which
recognition of its progress is treated. 1t
is gratifying to have the different sections
of the United States understand one another
and give full credit for the good all have
in them and the honest efforts which they
put forth to building up their common coun-
try. There is room for US all. 1t is best
for this country that the south is not con-
gested, that her development is not COM
plete and there is space and fruitful soil
here for what shall be done in the years to
come