The Age Herald

A CHAPTER ON GAS
AND OTHER THINGS
By NED BRACE.

"You young men are too fresh."

If there is anything which a young man don't like to be called, it is "too fresh." This is a slang expression. It means much. It is an unpleasant thing for a young man to have said about him. It is a mild form of profanity. It is abusive. Men have been known to fight for having this epithet applied to them.

I see from the local columns of The Age-Herald that this epithet was applied by President B. F. Roden of the gas company to an Age-Herald reporter. It was undeserved. Mr. Roden applied it to the reporter because that reporter like 40,000 other people in Birmingham, believed that this city is entitled to dollar gas. Mr. Roden is a nice old gentleman. I have met him once or twice. I like him. He has always treated me well. He never got mad with me, and I really don't think he ought to get mad with young men who are doing what they conceive to be their duty.

Every man has a right to his opinions. All have a right to express them. Why should not you and I and all of us say what we think? Why should we not talk through the columns of the newspaper? I am like all the other people in town. I think if any city on the face of the earth is entitled to cheap gas, it is Birmingham. Birmingham should really have gas as cheap as 50 cents a thousand. One dollar a thousand, with coal at less than a dollar, would give any company enormous profits. It is all right for a man to sell what he has for sale for the greatest profit. But people are fools to allow themselves to be imposed upon. I believe in fighting the devil with fire. If the gas company is the devil in our midst, I should say fight it with fire.

I don't see why the special committee of the board of aldermen appointed to investigate the gas company, put its meeting off until next Wednesday. These people know the charges which have been made against the gas company. They know the company has violated its contract with the city. They know that it has imposed upon the people and they know that they must take action upon it. Of course the gas company is going to fight to hold what it has. That is nothing more than natural.

Birmingham has an organization which it strikes me is in duty bound to speak out on this subject. I refer to the Commercial club. That club was organized to aid in building up Birmingham. That club is endeavoring to bring people here. It is the duty of that club either to uphold the rate which the Birmingham gas company is charging the people of this city for gas, or else to condemn it. That club has no moral right to keep silent. That club is composed of the business men of this city. It is supported in the interests of the city. Its duty is to speak for the city. Let it speak.

Birmingham is on the eve of an era of great prosperity. Its natural resources are unequaled on the face of the earth, yet in endeavoring to bring people here, to establish manufacturing enterprises and to make this city their homes, the people here must be honest with the people they expect to get here. This is not the time to bunco people. The good in Birmingham as compared with the bad is as one thousand to one. Yet that one to a home seeker stands out conspicuously to the world.

The contest now going on in Birmingham for cheaper gas, is not the only contest. There is one for pure water and cheaper water. The people are just as determined to have cheaper water as they are to have cheap gas. There is a waterworks company as there is a gas company. The waterworks company has spent probably ten times as much as the gas company in Birmingham. The water company had to drill through mountains and pump water over hills to get the water into the city. They give the best water they can find in this region. This water is from a small river. At some seasons of the year it is bad. The people made a demand through the Age-Herald, and the water company has promised to put in filters which will make the water pure and clear.

The people made another demand through the Age-Herald—that they have cheaper water. The waterworks company have suggested to the board of aldermen a complete change of the system of rates. What will be result remains to be seen.

The people of Birmingham only demand that which is right and just.

I am glad to see that everything is coming around all right in Birmingham. With gas reduced to a dollar, and the water rates equitably adjusted, one can live in Birmingham as cheap as any other place in the world, and people will find this the best point in the whole country for manufacturing purposes.

I like Birmingham. There are a few fussy people here. There are also some very provincial people. But most of the people in Birmingham are live, go-ahead, wide-awake, enterprising, hustling citizens. They are determined to push ahead. You can't keep this class of people down. They are sure to push aside the old fogies who would impose upon them.