The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-11-25
PRICE IF IRON
 IS NJ OLONGER SOLE | NDE X
Despite Blowing Out Of Fur
 naCeS In Recent Months Now Being Resumed Birmingham
 Business Has Been Good IMAM UFACTURlNG PLANTS GIVE DISTRICT DIVERSITY Millions Spent On Roads And
 High Prices For Cotton Have
 Also Aided In Maintaining
 Birmingham'S Prosperity

Also Aided In Maintaining
 Birmingham'S Prosperity
 Birmingham once =@s "pig iron town" but it isn't any more. There was time hen the iron market was She official barometer which told whether fair business weather or commercial squalls were to be ex- pected, and when drop in the price of p,g iron meant d drop in com mercial confidence.
 During the last several months, the bottom all but dropped out of the iron market in Birmingham. Furnaces suspended operation, prices went down. iron was sold at below the cost of production.
 But bank deposits. the volume of business transacted by local mer- chants, and every other indication by which prosperity is judged, showed that business was excellent.
 Bankers and business men whom The Age Herald asked for an in- depreciation of the facts said it was because:
 Birmingham has mere than 500 manufacturing establishments, turn
  kinds of finished products, from aprons to burial vaults.
 Birmingham is the greatest whole salS yellow pine lumber market in the world.
 Birmingham has become. not only an important producing center of Portland cement, but the basine point of cement prices for the United States.
 Birmingham is an important center of chemical production,
 Cotton at 90 cents and higher Las made the farmers of Alabama and the rest of the south richer by mill lions.
 Between nine and eleven million de lars have been expended in the donstruction of public roads in Ala bama during tFe last few years. p:-rtly through fedel al aid, and all business in the state has been en- rieAed by putting this money into circulation.
 Prosperous In Spit> ns Iron.
 ThesS were the principal factors noted that made for prosperity in spite of the mullisrubs that invaded the iron market. Pig iron ] covered with lang, curing the last two or three weeks, a natter of fact. and now idle furnaces are being blown in and everything looks good for 1924. There never was anything basically wrong the iron situation. according to furnace interests. except that buy CTS were unprecedently cautious nd refused to buy except for their rres- ent needs. They had to buy sooner or later. ant icipfting their requirements for the first quarter of 1924, but the iron market eVnced signs of weak ness aNd would-be heavy purchcs. held off, waiting for possible fur ther decline in iron prices. The fur | h No said iron manufacturers, be- use furnaces could not be operateu Ut a profit if the price went loved. There was a curtailment of production in all iron centers, and cessation of buying for future delivery which. ac- cording to furnace interests, created a condition without precedent. St the first sign that the "buvers strike" was broNen, however, the iron market took on new life. and reports from all producing centers now indt- cate a resumption of furnace o~era-N tions and return to normal condf- tions. with every indication of good year ahead.
 The moral which Birmingham busi- ness men drew this time from the slump in pig iron. however. is that Birmingham is no longer a one-in- dustry town. Without discounting the great importance of the iron in- UnStrN to the ulSlIlCls they take stock of the multiplicity of other business and industrial in- terests that have established them- selves and pTospered here. and the combination Of which is capable of overcoming the results of depression in any one of them.
 Sees Continued Prosperity. A+
 Business is good, and. with allow- ance made for the expected let-up ir 1924. because it is presidential year,s there is every omen of continued prosperity, said Col. T. O. Smith, pres ident of the Birmingham Trust X Savings company.
 Colonel Smith. ''and there is a gem. eral feeling of confidence. The most striking aspect of the situation. from the bankers viewpoint, is the effect that the advance in cotton has had throughout the south Contry banks that ordinarily would be borrowing money at this time, have money to4 lend.
 Then. too. we must remember the millns that have been spent in road construction in Alabama during tho past few years. That is an item that too often is overlooked.
 Birmingham pre-eminence as a lumber market. her growing inn portance as a cement producing een- ter and her manifold other com mercial and industrial advantages ought to be enough to make us proud