Show BOOMS OK NO BOOMS The story of a bursted boom is still being told in doleful words regarding Los Angeles An-geles Last Friday the sheriff took possession posses-sion of the Los Angeles Tribune establishment establish-ment on an execution issued on judgments aggregating i joo A keeper was placed in charge and the proprietors were forbidden forbid-den to use the plant for getting out the next days paper but afterwards the sheriff relented re-lented and permitted the men to go to work The Tribune was the chief boom paper of Los Angeles Two or three years ago it was issuing marvelous editions astonishing the natives with the number of pages and the amount of matter published The papers pa-pers were scattered broadcast over the republic re-public and through the florid accounts of the wonderful climate and fertility of the soil did much to inspire and stimulate the rush to southern California Perhaps more than any other newspaper was the Tribune responsible for what has passed into history as the Los Angeles boom Thousands of men can trace their unwise investments in tho sand and sunshine of the city named to the glowing tales told in the Tribune The paper should have grown rich like the landowners land-owners who sold their miserable wastes to eastern tenderfeet at fabulous prices but it seems to have been intoxicated with its own extravagant utterances and when the tide which it had inspired was checked and the flow in the other direction set in the Tribune discovered that it was itself deceived de-ceived just as it bad deceived tens of thousands thous-ands who had placed faith in its utterances As the boom flattened the Triinine pined and wasted away and today is avery a-very ordinary country newspaper so far H as its size and the quantity of its matter arc concerned and its financial status is proven by the fact that it cannot pay insignificant insig-nificant debts incurred in the course of business The men who have buried millions mil-lions in southern California on the representation repre-sentation of the newspaper named will not be sorry to learn that it has overreached over-reached itself and must meet the fate to which it has lured so many namely bankruptcy bank-ruptcy When the Los Angeles boom was at its height and reckless venturesome men were trying so hard to inaugurate a boom in this city THE HERALD uttered words of caution We said that a collapse would come in Los Angeles and disaster and distress would follow the senseless business which was luring the thousands to their financial destruction THE HERALD is better pleased every day with its record tobooms It is vain enough to believe that its timely words did much to stay what threatened to develop into a real boom The excitement was tempered and instead of a mad rush which could have been followed only by disaster there was steady growth People came here no faster than there was call for them Prices were not elevated to the skies and the insanity which led peo pie to hasten to Los Angeles and live intents in-tents was not experienced in Salt Lake How much better has been our way than the course pursued as to the metropolis of southern California In ten years Salt i Lake has doubled in population and in five years has grown from a village of 25000 to be a city of 40000 people In one year Los Angeles increased her population from 30000 to 75000 Our people are permanent residents They are here to stay Here is where they make their money and here they are spending it in enriching the city In less than two years Los Angeles lost 25000 people and the indications are that within another ten years the booming city of two years ago will contain fewer people than Salt Lake There has never been a moment when Salt Lake was not vigorous safe and thrifty and honest prosperity marking her course at all times Ever since the boom broke Los Angeles has been in dire distress The real estate transactions have been chiefly those conducted by the sheriff and the tax collector Prices of land in this city have steadily increased but prices and values have continued together The owners of much of the land in and around Los Angeles would be glad to sell for fifty or even twentyfive perccent of what they paid during the boom times There is not on the American continent today a city that is more healthy in an industrial or a financial finan-cial sense than Salt Lake The people own their homes and are able to keep them Debts are comparatively few capital is active and industries are profitable There is building everywhere but no more than is demanded by the increasing in-creasing population and the demands of business There are numerous transfers of land but very few of the purchases are speculative the buyers being those who want homes and who expect to hold the property for their own uses In brief Salt Lake is steadily and certainly cer-tainly marching to the front and doing so without a boom Our progress has not been so swift as that of the boom towns but we are fast leaving all those places in the rear which were phenomenal in their growth Our advance has a solid foundation founda-tion We hold all the ground covered There is no standing still and no going Backward It must make the one time enthusiasts of boom towns weary when they see what Salt Lake has done and is doing not only without a boom but while actually fighting against a boom |