The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-19

Last Thursday was much more than an ordinary meeting day for the Bir- mingham Real Estate board" stated Secretary Sam c. Starke, Saturday.
 "The sales division of the board, pre- sided over by James B. Drake, met as usual just before the boards meeting and had the pleasure of hearing a gen. timely loyal and helpful speech on the great advantages and opportunities of Birmingham by O. l.. Bum, secretary of the chamber of commerce. Follow ing Bum, Clyde Nelson touched rap idly upon a plan that he sprang later at the boards meeting and expressed the hope that many of the statesmen would make point of going directly from their meeting to the boards luncheon at the municipal market.
 The board luncheon was we'll at tended, Starke declared, and the pro- gram went off as usual until Clyde Nelson took the floor. He had been requested to talk on the general sub ject of ethics and the necessity for the executives of the real estate houses to give some instruction along this line to their salesmen. Occasion was taken to mention certain of the salient points in some of the cases that have come up before the arbitration committee in the past several months. Then it was that Nelson sprang the surprise of the day, in effect the largest call to service and the most ambitious program ever mapped out for the Real Estate board.
 Clyde NelsOn's suggestion" ex- plained Starke, lis that the board en- list the active cooperation of all lunch con clubs and similar organizations in an enthusiastic effort to have our city properly known and appreciated by its own citizens through local campaign over period of one week called Bir- mingham week. It is contemplated to enlist the aid that the local newspa- pers and theaters can give. After an intensive effort thus to arouse in ev- cry citizen here q fuller appreciation of the real Birmingham, a fund of S100,000 is to be raised to make Bir- minghQm known throughout the whole nation by means of great display ad- vertisements in the foremost newspa- pers of the United States, setting forth the undeniable and remarkably strong advantages of this city as q place in which to live and do business of re- tail, jobbing, or manufacturing lines The board members indorsed the plan with enthusiasm"
 Against Reaction
 Starke added that it is of the utmost importance in the very outset that the public be made tO understand fully that Nelson's idea is distinctly not the ini- tiation of hot-air, boom campaign that so frequently reacts most unfavorably in cases where the actual facts have been highly colored and a promiscuous crowd of people of all sorts have Hooked into community pnprepared to receive or take care of such an influx of pop ulatiOn. The desire is to make the real Birmingham known to the country by citing real facts and statistics, free of all pressure to sell real estate. It is to be an appeal to long headed business men to consider the natural and re- markablly rich endowment of this dis trict, its equable climate, it's railroad facilities, and its marvellous industrial development, all giving well-fOunded promise of a future that no man can accurately guage.
 Just at this time went on the sec retary, "there is much to be said about Birmingham aside from it's wealth of endowment in coal, iron and limestone The fact that the American Institute of Metailurgical Engineers has just met here is significant The opening of our new auditorium of 6,000 capacity de- serves mention. Our present building record for the first nine months of the year is more than S13,500OO0. Sgnifi- cant indeed is the erection by the South ern railroad of an office building of ten stories and the building by this same road of the enormous railroad shops at Acipco. Then. too, we have had and are having phenomenal market for business and semi business property. Again. it would seem that a determined effort is to be made to relieve tine grade crossing situation. The final develop ment and utilization of the power at Muscle Shoals and the great port of