| Show SLEEPING ON OUR RIGHTS but very few people have a clear conception of what it means to sleep on their rights they have a kind of vague vague idea that it means that they are entitled to something thin which they are unable to prove title to or to which they cannot give a coherent description such people will go through life at the tall tail end of the procession their success in business aff affairs airs cannot be billed as first class they may be hardworking hard working and industrious dust rious but their bank account never grows so large that they are willing to compare check books with a rockefeller or a dark clark the trouble with such people is that they do not know a good thing when they see it in fact they are so busy looking gardund around for a six bit profit that they fail to see where ten or twenty thousand can easily be picked up such conditions prevail in the east and are not at all uncommon in the western states and especially in the mining camps of this intermountain country it would seem as if the people of this section would secure the choice of mining properties in our various districts and they would too were it not for the fact that they are sleeping on their rights splendid opportunities in the mining way go to outside people not because our people are hard up and are not able to become interested in any mining proposition which may present itself for their consideration but because they fail to see the outcome of such opportunities when tb they ey are presented ted because they are indifferent and lacking in enterprise it is not at all unusual to see outside capital getting the cream of our mining camps and not only in the acquisition of new properties but also of old producers of note the camp of mercur might have belonged to utah people alone had they possessed the faintest realization of the wealth of this great gold gid camp long iong ago abandoned as a worked out aut silver proposition outs outside I 1 ide people resurrected this ancient district and transformed it from an apparently valueless section into one of the most prolific gold producers in the west utah people could have done this but they were sleeping on their rights and while they were sleeping the more energetic outsider stepped in and pulled the chestnut from the fire the highland boy of bing bingham ham was a proposition open to every utahn with a little nerve and but little money and yet there were hundreds ol of men in salt lake who imagined that they were looking for bonanzas when the standard dil people secured this property which a few years ago was looked upon as an abandoned mine numerous other cases similar in character might be cited to show that our people are slow in taking advantage vant acre of opportunities offered that they are too prone to wait to see what others will do before they take any action themselves when they find that it is too late as others are before them in our minds eye in surveying the mining camps of this intermountain country we can see where many fortunes can be made in the resurrection of old time producers it is an old saying that when a mine is once found it is always a mine conditions may change values may fluctuate and quotations on the metals may 1 go up or down but the mine is still there new inventions in the machinery line in processes for ore reduction a cheapening of mine operation and in the recovery of the precious met metals Ms have made it possible to work mines which have been on the abandoned list for many years and many of them are still to be found in the gulches and canyons of this great rocky mountain region the longer such propositions remain and available just so long will the people of this country sleep on their rights there are fortunes in them and it is beginning to dawn on the minds of many that it is much cheaper much safer and far more easy to begin operations on an old mine than it is to take chances with a prospect we trust that the coming year will see more wideawake wide awake people in our midst and fewer who are sleeping on their rights GLANCING over the mining field of the west it is plainly to be seen that independent smelting smelling sm elting projects are meeting with more and more favor with mine owners and ore producers utah presents a splendid field for such an enterprise the yearly production is increasing by jumps and bounds the only trouble being that there is no competitive market so that the producer must take what is offered for his ores and pay whatever treatment charges that may be made however exorbitant and unjust these charges often seem like extortion and a tax but there is no chance for appeal and it is only a question of take what is offered or take the ore away there are hundreds of promising properties in utah and in the west that would today be on the shipping r list but for the fact that there is really no competitive market here the situation is well known and understood by mining men in general gen cral and these are looking forward with pleasure to the day when one or more independent custom smelters shelters sm elters will be established tab lishe d in this state one of these enterprises is known as the new state smelting smelling Sm elting refining r company and the mining 1 review is informed that the affairs of the association are assuming 0 most satisfactory shape the in indications being that in the near future it will be in position to begin active operations in the erection of ilsup plant which will be located in the valley at some point south of this city there is no doubt but that an independent custom smelter here could t get ff et all the ores that it could handle and that the enterprise would soon evolve itself into a moneymaking proposition As an illustration ot what independent custom smelters shelters sm elters can do in in the way of benefi benefiting tino 11 the mining industry it is only necessary to point to the great camp of cripple creek in colorado where quite recently the independent smelters shelters sm elters forced the smelling smelting sm elting 0 trust or combine to reduce its treatment charges on ores at least 20 per cent this has resulted in open w ar with the producers on the side of the independent smelters shelters sm elters and a still further reduction is is looked for the outcome of the battle being watched with more than ordinary interest by all engaged in mining pursuits similar oc curr erces are likely to happen in every mining mining state in this intermountain rec region rion |
