The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-04-13
OTIS EXPLAINS
 OPPORTUNITIES
 FOR INDUSTRIES
Home-Made Products Are Need Of Birmingham,
 Says RealtOr
TOO MUCH BUYING.
 OF OUTSIDE GOODS
Expert Gives Concrete Examples By Visit To
 Hardware Store

There are hundreds of opportunities In industrial Birmingham, opportunities that are awaiting with pop-eyes for some long-headed fellow to come along and make fortune out of them"
 J. M. F. Otts, agent in charge of manufacturing sites for Jemison & O., and who has made 6 close study of in- dustries in and out of the district, Sat urday continued his discussion of two weeks ago. While speaking, he picked up copy of monthly trade journal and rapidly thumbed his way through the pages to the classified advertising section.
 For example, I'll bet I can run through the list here and find an alphabet of undeveloped gold mines in the Birmingham district" k Offers List
 He attempted to do this, but failed i; mainly because the xyz's of the section petered out altogether. Under almost every other alphabetic heading he selected one or more products which he declared Alabama's resources at- tested that they should be manufactured here.
 'Take down this list" he offered. Some of them are made here, but they have not been developed to an extent where there is no need of shipping them in."
 Among the products which Mir. Otis checked off were: Acetylene gas cylinders, art glass, automobiles and auto accessories, cotton bale ties and buckles, chains and belting, creosote blocks, boilers, face brick, buckets, cans, metal ceilings, cement machinery, school and theatre chairs, coke ovens, corrugated roofing, culverts, coal, rock and coke crushers, ditching machinery, fire doors, elevators, mining machinery, hammers, ice making machinery, locomo- tives, rope, sprinkler systems. refrigera- tors, road building machinery, clean ing powder, metal window frames, wire rope and cables, water, oil and gas con- tainers, glass, window blinds and arma. ture works. n 5s.
 Visit To Store
 "Now to make my argument even stronger and to prove some of the things I've mentioned let us both so down to a hardware store," Mf Otis suggested. Birmingham is in the center of an iron and coal district and we should logically find q number of articles that are made here"
 The survey of Powell's on Third avenue, brought out industrial facts wildly. With the exception of brooms and m0ps nearly every article in stock was shipped in from Chicago, Phila- delphia, Pittsburg or some other manu- featuring center.
 Most important of these, as empha- sized by the hardware dealer, was the lawn mower.
 With very little capital you could make number of them," Mir. Powell stated, land I'd almost guarantee you could sell your entire output with no trouble at all"
 Some more were shovels, garden tools and roller skates.
 Patronage Needed
 ''Take away foreign made products from the housewife and she has not very much left. You rob her of her cooking utensils. fruit jars, pottery and a lot of other things she could not do without" Mir. Powell said, "and we have every advantage for their manu- facture here.
 "One point which you have to whip home if you want to bring industries here" the dealer added. lis that once you get them located the people must be taught to patronize them. l have known instances where Birmingham products have been shipped to Atlanta and Louisville and then returned through a firm. Every encouragement should be given the home manufacturer instead of putting obstacles in their path"