davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26
Is Uniuerse Rationdl?
Bx nR. FRAxK cRANK

It has long been in my mind to find fault with the universe. Nov I am going to do it hesitantly, of course, for would not have my orthodoxy suspected, nor lead any one to suppose that I in the least doubt any one of the major or minor prophets, nor would I just for the obstinate pleasure of denying the comfortable doctrine Of eternal fire and birthstone epdanger my credit at the yrocer's (who is senior deacon of our church, )r move the grain merchants wife (who IS president of the ladies' aid)s to drop my wife rom her bridge club. Not for me the bold and fiery ridges of heretical courage. Let ,be young bloods play the devil. value my aeighbor's good will too much to attempt his reformation. Y
 Nevertheless without any implication of .rime. or wanting to run away with my neighbor's wife, or even his hat. wish to complain of this world. as I said, for ex- impie, to wit: at
 Once being upon a ship bound from New York to Italy. and standing upon the deck deserving the waters and skies, saw torm. a little storm, arise and pass; huge loud came by and out of 1t ran million title streams sprinkling the sea.
 Now. I have been most carefully brought m by eodly parents, and the truth of design n fhe cosmos has been instilled into my mind by conscientious and well-paid teachers. [ have been taught to wonder and adore now the birds wing fits the air, the fin the sea, and the eye the light; also how insects Ter. m their stores, storks have long legs where, with to wade after frogs, and frogs have strong legs wherewith to escape the storks, wherewith also fitly to. furnish forth the Frenchman's breakfast, thus showing econ omy as well as purposeNin nature.
 But, put it to you as man to man, what would you think of a. gardener who would take his watering pot down to the lake. it'll it thereat, and then proceed to--sprlnkie the lake!
 What in the world is the use of raising water from the ocean, gathering It into clouds, showing these clouds about by winds, and pouring the water back again into the already infinitely wet sea?
 And while I am about it, let me ease my mind thoroughly and ask why some other absurd things are so Why is there inn planted in the bosom of every fat person a desire to be slim, and in all little and 'svelt folk the wish to be plump, and why do blondes each wish they were the other, why could not people have been made to long for what they have instead of what they have not?
 And deepest of wonders, why does man lack sense when he is young and needs it, sand get sense only when be is old and tooth. less, and does not need it9 Why does he never learn how to live until he is ready to die7 2
 Still, in spite of these and a few other holes, much remains of the argument of de- sign. My brethren.'' said the Presbyterian clergyman. T invite your attention to the wise provision whereby, death is made to occur at the end of life instead of at the beginning, in order that we may have time to prepare for it properly"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26
THE MUNICIPAL MARKET

While 1t Is interesting to note from the financial report on the municipal market GOV ering period of five months that the project appears to show an operating balance, not including a special appropriation of five thou. sand dollars devoted to advertising for the public information, there is larger consid- eration than the question of direct and mi mediate profits as set forth in figures. It is that of present and future public benefits, which may, and often do. far offset in value apparent temporary losses arising from the operation of an enterprise in the interest of the public convenience and welfare.
 The five e-thousand-dollar special appropria- tion to inform the people of the purposes and advantages of the municipal market appears to have proven a sound investment, as shown by the more favorable financial condition re- sulting from q better public understanding. That appropriation is not a regular item of expense to be charged to operating costs. The appropriation was made with the definite purpose of informing the people on the whole subject of the market. Many knew little or nothing about the project. Since they have been informed through the advertising cam paign, patronage has increased, and, with HIuIe spring NedIHeE varieties of green foods, business at the mar ket promises considerable improvement
 There need be no reason for discourage ment because the municipal harket did not show profit to the city from the beginning. It's primary purpose was not to make, money; but to provide conveniences and benefits to the people. If it successfully performs that function, it will have proven wise invest ment if it never becomes much more than self-supporting. The object of a municipal government is not to make money, but to meet public needs and provide public benefits.
 The municipal market is new public project in Birmingham. It has not been here long enough to have fair trial to demon strate its worth and possibilities. It will require some time for the people to appre- ciate it's benefits. That is largely matter of time and education. Its popularity and patronage are gradually increasing. There is reason to believe these will continue pro-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26
SHOPPING DISTRICTS TREND

One of the factors which has increased the demand for property north of First avenue for some time, over and beyond the influence of community confidence, is realization by commercial interests that Birmingham's 6 growth has necessitated extension of what is known as the mercantile or shopping dis trict. This is in no sense an indication of deterioration of realty values in the central business district lying between Nineteenth and Twenty-first streets and First and Third avenues. On the contrary, this recognition of the need for extension of the shopping district is an evidence of the high and in- creasing values of property within this re- stricted area.
 The tendency to spread out northward arises from Birmingham's rapid growth. As the population increases there must be a corresponding increase in commercial enter prise and in shopping facilities. It is a nat pral and altogether wholesome development. The growth must be provided for, and the only way this can be done Is through an ex- 1ension such as has been referred to. In- dications point to continued activity in this respect, with every promise of rising realty market All of which suggests that oppor- tunities for investment not only in business property, but in residential sites both central and outlying, invite consideration from those #hose faith in Birmingham's future is founded on the enviable industrial record it has made.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26

expansion program. The ee-million-dollar recommendation is in the nature of a tempo rary measure, to provide pressing needs until further appropriations can be made under financial conditions which will justify such action. The deliberations of the mass meet ing are helpful in that they indicate the trend of public opinion, which is united for school betterment but divided only on the proper amount of bonds to be voted on at this time.
 It is plain that public sentiment favors consideration of the school needs first, while recognizing the pressing claims of the library as a close second. It is also plain that there is little sympathy for any attitude threaten ing to defeat the election unless the full amount is voted at once. Threats of opposi- tion to the whole program by those who cannot have all they insist on at one time are unsound
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26
Watching The Pdrnde
By BONN PILGRTN

It may be that Doc Henneberry is a phy- sician of the old schoek At least, he doesn't confine his practice to adenoids or ear ache. but relieves all sorts of human ills with pills, oils, and certain gruff joviality. He does not run true to the fictional type of old school physicians in one respect, though. His bills are as high as the traffic will bear and are made out with stern regularity.
 five got to have the money" Doc says. I'm helping couple of kids through school.
 By and by they will graduate and come to Docs office to learn at first-hand some of the rougher aspects of general practice. Then they will open offices of their own. Doc usually losses his neophytes out into the world after couple of years cuddiing under his wing. He has been doing that for a score of years now, and every pupil has made good. Some of them are among the leaders in their profession.
 "of course they are," said Doc when I made this comment ''wby shouldn't they be? Didn't I pick emf"
 They begin with Doc in the combination capacity of altar boy, student chauffeur, ta- words they do what they are told to do in re- turn for food, clothing, little pocket money and funds loaned for schooling when in Docs opinion they are fit. During their larval pe- riod they read books on medicine between times. I asked Doc how he always managed to pick the right boys. s.S,a
 Easy" said he. My system never fails. .'
 He puts the candidate at work on a tough job. No matter what the job is, it is always tough. If the candidate says, doubtfully:
 "I'll do my best, sir," Doc bellows at him.
 Damn your best!" roars Doc. T don't want your best. want you to do that job." :"
 If he does it Doc holds that he has the right sort of metal. If he does his conscien- tious best and fails. he hasn't. Docs point is that the job can always be done, if the doer has courage enough and ingenuity enough
 Ut is mo excuse for failure to say that one does one's best" says Doc. That's what every coward and quitter says"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26
A PROSPEROUS OUTLOOK

An order for 2,250 freight cars, to cost about $1 100000, which was recently placed with the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company by the Southern Railway, is an- okher evidence of the big industrial develop. ments in this district which have become ap- parent within the last few weeks. A few days ago the Louisville and Nashville Rail- road placed orders with the Tennessee com pany for construction of freight cars to the value of more than four million dollars, while on the Tennessee companys books are unfilled orders for the construction of many freight cars, much car-repair work and large quantities of materials and finished products. Altogether these orders represent an invest ment of many millions of dollars, and other large orders are expected in the near future.
 Meantime the Tennessee company is en- gagged in an expansion and improvement pro- gram, largely of a construction character, to increase it's productive capacity, which will materially enlarge its working force, while the Southern Railway is spending more than five million dollars in shop and yard im- psovements. Added to these operations are recent orders for several hundred thousand dollars worth of cast-iron pipe and other products to be manufactured in Birmingham, 
 not to speak of active and increasing demands fer basic materials produced in this district.
 Aside from the big building operations in progress and the increased activities Throughout the industrial district both in ex- pansion projects and in speeding up in out put to take care of the larger business, the seyeral big construction programs under way are heartening to the business community and snotably optimistic in their influence, calling for heavy investments of capital, stim- ulatfng employment, increasing the popula- ton and adding materially to community progress and prosperity. @
 The outlook for a prosperous year in this district was never more reassuring. There is every promise of new high industrial records all along the line, with no indications of ob- structive factors or influences. General busi- ness conditions are about as favorable as the most sanguine could reasonably hope for.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26
HOW MANY STEAL9

How many of the plain people, whom you pass on the streets, are absolutely honest -Four out of five" answers Solomon Ulmer He recently undertook to demonstrate this by an odd experiment. Ulmer, head of a mort gage compnay in Cleveland is raising money for new tuberculosis sanitarium in Los An geles. He picked 1000 names at random from his local city directory. To each of these he mailed this letter, with $1 bill en- closed:
 You can keep this dollar if you want to, but we hope you won't We hope you'll send it and another one to me as your subscrip- tion to the fund. We believe everyone is real ly kind and generous. We are investing $1,O0O to prove that belief. Have we made a good investment: What is your answer?"
 Out of the 1000 who received letter and $1 bill. 500 returned the $1 with another one and only POO kept the S1. Cases like this will perhaps give some of the despairing and cynically inclined renewed confidence in their fellow men-especially the strangers whose elbows brush theirs on the street. As you fol low the daily news and read of holdups. con. fdence games, swindes and burglary, you may occasionally get the notion that the world reeks with dishonesty. But not so. The dishonest acts are the exception. That is why they are news-a record of the unusual Honesty is so common and general that ex- amples of it are not news.-Pittsburg Press
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26
Doing Fool Things.
By wIcKEs wAMBoLDr

You did fool thing" was in substance what the directors of an internationally known company recently said to their vice president and general manager when they dismissed him for broadcasting an injudicious letter.
 The letter in itself really was not se- rious matter. Its effects easily could have been corrected It did no damage. It was menely a senseless overstepping of authority.
 Because of that one act this high official who had successfully managed great enter prise was immediately let out. Seems rather cold-blooded and inappreciative, doesn't it? But big business is apt to be that way. Big business has but one use for an executive. It wants his brains, his judgment, and that is all it does want. The minute he does some thing to cause his board of directors to doubt his brains, then big business treats him as engineers do a bridge that they consider un- safe; he is condemned and closed up.
 Smaller enterprises are not so relentless in dealing with mistakes of the head. Tn the first place, they have not so much to risk. In the next place, they have mot learned to make the heart absolutely subordinate to the head.
 An official in big business may for years run his affairs in a way that wins the con stant praise and admiration of his board of directors; but let him once slip cog, let him indicate in any way that the judgment, with which his associates were so pleased is not hitting on all eight, and they will remove him as quickly and as surely as poultry fancier cuts off the head of roupy chicken that it may not contaminate the flock.
 Sticking close to the foot of the cross is one way of maintaining good judgment. The vice president and general manager who wrote the unfortunate letter actually knew better had he stopped to think. He had simply become too sure of himself; he had lost his sense of humility he had become cocky. More men in high places, and in other places, too, fail for this reason than for all other reasons put together. f5.
 The man who has won his way to, a high business niche through succession nfscare- fully chosen steps knows enough iu reality to hold his position if he would only utilize what he knows; but after standing on his high eminence awhile, he is apt to forget that the place is slippery. He is apt to get too sure of himself and to kick around. Then the first thing he knows, his foot slips and down be goes. s.ssZ
 Stick to the foot of the cross if you would get ahead, and stick to the foot of the. cross you would stay ahead. Do this and you will not do fool things. se"I
 Remember it is the old brakemen and not the new ones that get smashed between freight cars. -H4t
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26
Welding Fragments
Fly JOHN CARLYLE

Are you one of those people who believe that their particular troubles are unlike those of anybody else? Do you look with something like envy on some of the known troubles and griefs and perplexitieS of your friends? You think you could stand up we'll enough under their troubles. You think their griefs are simple. You think their ills are curable. You think their burdens are bearable.
 | But you fancy that you have been singled out for unique grief. There is no trouble quite so sad as yours There is no burden quite so heavy, no shoulders quite so bowed. This is a mistake of thinking colih1on to most of us. Let us understand that what we bear, others bear. What we suffer, others suffer. Our problems have been faced by others-and solved by others.
 The main thing in the struggle, which is life, is not to avoid troubles. not to evade burdens. It can't be done. There is no es- caping life. t-. r' The main thing is not to be overcome by our difficulties. The thing we must not do is to sit down by the side of the road and cry. There is no achievement in the world with out mistakes. No mistakes, no progress. No kblunders, no achievement. No missteps, no ! forward steps. --,.- -- After every disaster there are fragments to be gathered up. Our job then is to weld the fragments together into new whole. We learn to be strong by doing what we can with little Often the new plan, the new life that we shape from the fragments of the old, is bigger. finer thing than we had be- fore. Often it is bigger and finer than. any thing we could have made or done if sthe mis- take had not been made, if the disaster had not overtaken us.
 A blind man comes sometimes into my of- flee. He is not unhappy man. On the con trary he is a singularly contented man. He ! of ba nfp For he could see up until a short time ago But he has picked up the fragments of his life and he is making a fine, useful, new | life. .sTS
 It is up to you whether you will sit down and mourn for what you have A1OstI or whether you will make up your mindl to be happy with what you have left. sg l When you have made that decision and made it right you are on the way to content ment. @,s.e
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26
Montgomery, Ala, March A, 192.
Opposes Mobile As Port Of Entry

To the Editor of The Age-Herald
 I am glad te note from an article in your paper of last Sunday that the people are be- coming aroused to the danger of making Mo- bile port of entry for immigrants. In my judgment the greatest problem that confrOnts our country today is the immigration Ques- tion. Not only am opposed to making Mo- bile a port of entry, but I believe that immi- grafton should be entirely suspended for a period of years, thereby giving us an oppor- tunity to Americanize the great hOrdes that have come here in the last few years.
 We people in Alabama who want to see the South remain as purely American and as purely Anglo-SaxOn as possible, shall fight with all the strength we can muster against making Mobile a port of entry, at which shiplooad after shipload of the flotsam and jetsam of Europe will be unloaded upon us from day to day. With Mobile port of entry. it would be but a short time until not only Mobile, but Birmingham and Alabama would be like New York City is now, where seventy-two per cent of the population is either foreign-born or the children of foreign born, and very large per cent. cannot even speak the English language.
 If the people who are trying to get Mobile made a port of entry want to really know how the people of Alabama feel on this sub ject, suggest that they get The Age-Herald and its associated papers to take q straw vote and they will find that ninety per cent of the people against any such proposi- tion. WALTER BROWER.
 Birmingham, Ala. March 24, 1924.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26
The Right Word
A Chinese Puzzle
By CURTIS NICHOLSON


 Find the error in this article)
 Every one who made their first answer in the recent test read as follows was marked correct: Neither you nor am right. How. ever, since authorities differ with respect to the use of am or Is, no one was marked wrong if he wrote, ''Neither you nor I is right" If one of these words must be used '"The Right Word" prefers am.
 The rule is that when a subject is made up of two pronouns the verb should agree with I first; you second; he, she, 1t or they thirdly; as, you or he are going.
 But the awkwardness of such an expres. sion as You or he are going" may be avoided by using such a word as must as, you or he must be going. Or one could say, You are going or he is.''
 More Winners
 The following are additional names of those who earned 100 per cent. in the last test: Loretto Hanna, Chicago; William F. Edgell. Chicago; T. Tvey, Jr., Chicago; yir. Alice Mills, Harvey, III. Catherine Mahoney, St Mary's High School, Chicago. Down Again
 Fl. J. Crane of Gary, Ind, answered the recent test and noted at the bottom of his paper that he felt too good to get 1Oe per cent. in the last test" He fell down on the sentence. T feel well.' He made the mis. take of using the word good Again he goes down for one count when he writes in the last test, "He has drank the water" The right word Is drunk. Maybe in the next test slate,
 S Yesterdays Error
 Wrong; If the letter was still in the hands of the addressee. ....
 Right; If the letter were still in the hands of the addressee.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26
THE SCHOOL BOND QUESTION

Viewing the decision of Mondays mass meeting to recommend to the board of edu eation that $3,750,000 be named as the amount of the proposed school bond issue and that $750,000 of the funds be appro. priated for a new library, it should be con. sidered that this is not final, but only Q Recommendation for consideration of the board of education. The action appears to be based on sound principles. It does not mean that the amount named is the limit of what Birmingham can afford to spend for school expansion; but is suggestive of the amount which can be safely voted for school needs for the immediate one or two years or 50, and would supply such funds as can be wisely expended in a building within that period. Soon more funds will be needed for further expansion.
 The people of Birmingham are deeply in- terested in an adequate, efficient school sys- tenn, and if the proposed three million dollars Dc judiciously and economically administered there is reason to believe that they will vote more funds as soon as the city's financial condition justifies such action, as it now seems altogether probable will be the case 1S the time additional funds are required.
 As the situation now stands there is a strong public sentiment for the most liberal Appropriations for the schools that the city's financial condition will safely permit. There is no doubt that more school funds than are Gomprised in the mass meetings recommen. dations will be needed in two or three years, and there is no purpose or desire in the pres ent status to obstruct or discourage the full /
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-26
PENsACOLA's SPECIAL EDITION

The Know West Florida Number of the Pensacola News of last Sunday is one of the most ereditable editions of the sort that has sappeared in that state. One hundred pages are devoted to an interesting, com plste and informative description of West Florida progress and opportunities. Pensa- cola Jas a port and West Florida as an agri- cultural and fruit-growing section are the outstanding features of the exposition. It is noteworthy also that the section boasts of leading the rest of the state in the construc- ten sof paved roads, notably concrete, and of extending its transportation facilities. There is an atmosphere of optimism breathing from the pages of this issue that is both inspiring and convincing. Pensacola will benefit from such an able publicity.