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Show rWE SILT LANE POMPOUS Of TOE WHOLE WEST Why Kansas City Grew in Spite of Natural Nat-ural Handicaps; Extraordinary Op- , . portunities Offered This City; few Thoughts Inspired by Arbor Day. How many persons are there in Salt Lake who realize the present importance and the future possibilities of their own city? How many appreciate their home town's natural nat-ural beauty and its opportunities for further municipal adornment 1 , There are destined to be five pre-eminently great; cities in the United States. New York always will be the' metropolis of the East, of course. Chicago has a lead in the Middle West which will never be overcome. Kansas City will be the great commercial capital of the Missouri river valley. There will be a great city on the Pacific' coast. It may or not be San Francisco. Los Angeles is1 forging to the front rapidly, and Portland, Seattle and' Spokane are ambitious candidates. Between Kansas City and the Pacific coast metropolis! there will rise another city the great capital of this inter-j mountain region. Either Salt Lake City or Denver willj achieve this distinction. j Salt Lake is destined to win if its own people will: awaken to their' opportunity. J Kro city ever was given a better chance. Nature was more than generous, with! us. All that is needed now is a concerted, determined, aggressive forward! movement, constantly exerted. I , Let's organize the whole town into a great booster's club and enlist ever' man, woman and child as an active member. No officers are required. Such as-j sociations as the Commercial club, the Civic Improvement league and the Manu-i facturers and Merchants' association are doing effective work in their respective lines. But no membership fee is necessary in order to boost; there are no distinctions dis-tinctions of sex; no age limitations. , Let everybody boost. , pur greatest fault is oar extreme modesty. Some may call It selfishness. I We seem content or have until very recently to enjoy the greatest natural: attractions Ood ever gave any neighborhood, while permitting most of the outside out-side world to remain in ignorance of our charms. i The metropolis of the Missouri valley was not favored by one single natural na-tural advantage, so far as beauty or comfort of living was concerned. It is builtj on lofty, rugged, unsightly bluffs. It suffers the extreme rigors of summer and jthe bitter pangs of winter. It is a full day's ride from the nearest large body of water and two days from the nearest mountains and anything of the nature of a really attractive outing resort. j But when the slogan, "Make Ka&sas City a Good Place to Live In," was1 suggested, every resident adopted it as the rule of his own conduct. The great-1 est aggregation of boosters the West ever saw developed, and now the town! couldn't stop growing if it tried. i jAnd in Kansas City they forget all about politics between campaigns. They haven't time for political discussions. J Denver slumbered for many years, but finally forced herself into the lime-ligh lime-ligh when somebody suggested the lines, "Denver the Beautiful" and "Denver "Den-ver the City of Sunshine." Tourists visitjng there are frequently disappointed. disappoint-ed. The sunshine is in evidence, but such beauty as Salt Lake City possesses isn'l even dreamed of. Only a few streets are paved, the street railway system! is inadequate and the cars old-fashioned. i jV. .1. Halloran, president of the Commercial club, says: I j" THE TELEGRAM has boosted in season and out of season, and is still boosting. My only regret is that the spirit shown by THE TELEGRAM is not a part of the spirit of every resident of Salt Lake City.' ' Salt Lake has a greater opportunity than Kansas City ever enjoyed. Nature) Na-ture) smiled o"n us much more generously than on Denver. But Denver is just beginning to awake, and if Salt Lake is to hold the position the Almighty intended in-tended for her, it behooves everyone to "get busy." i We have as much sunshine as Denver or any other spot on earth. We have J the great inland sea at our doors. From it on the one side and the mountains, on the other float the breezes which are not only health-breeding, but which j should inspire each of us to an extraordinary degree of energy in working for; the advancement of the town in which we live. j Near by are vast treasure stores of gold and copper whose development has -scarcely begun. Beyond this great mining region of our own State is the rapidly-growing rapidly-growing Nevada district, which is Salt Lake's natural trade territory. f pueh men as Newhouse, Harriman and Gould don't invest money in dead towas. They are erecting skyscrapers, developing our street car system and improving im-proving our railroad facilities. But don't leave it all to the millionaires. Every cit.iaen should share the work of making this the very best town in the entire West. These men of wealth employ labor and put vast sums of money into circulation, cir-culation, but alone and unaided, the wealth of Croesus couldn't have builded a permanently thriving and prosperous city. Salt Lake City was laid out on a generous basis. - The wide streets suggest breadth of mind on the part of the men and women who traverse them. Whoever Who-ever has visited Fort Douglas recently on a clear afternoon, such as yesterday, for instance must have been wonderfully impressed with the opportunities which we are neglecting. No painter ever conceived a more beautiful picture than is afforded from the bench of those mountains on the east. A few miles toward the sunset stretches the lake like a ribbon of silver. At the foot of the range is the city with its even rows of tall, stately poplars, just assuming their spring garb, lining lin-ing avenues of extraordinary breadth. Viewing all this, no wide-awake resident of the city can fall to be lnpired with the spirit which purposes to "make Salt Lake the most beautiful city in the world." W can do it if we only will. Nowhere else would it be so easy. And never will be so easy for us as right now. Let the city develop along a systematic sys-tematic plan. A metropolis, like a great edifice, must be shaped in accordance with fixed rules if it is to be a thing of Teal beauty. And parks and boulevards willl cost more if their construction is delayed nntil after realty values have advanced and buildings have been erected which must be torn down to make the picture perfect. The town is growing more rapidly now than. most. Salt Lakers realize. Such a town, in such a location, is bound to grow in spite of itself in spite of the ; lethargy which mav affect some of its residents. I A great building movement is on and immigration is flowing in. Contract-1 ors say they can't find sufficient unemployed labor to complete all the contemplated contem-plated Improvements in a reasonable time. Real estate men are unable to sup- Sly the demand being made for homes for men and women who want to live erev If these conditions obtain when the city Isn't half trying to advance Itself, just imagine the growth and development if everybody would boost, boost, boost! What did you do to help advance your town todayt Did you spend your half, holiday in leisure or in cleaning your back yard, weeding your lawn, planting plant-ing trees and shrubbery t Are your hands blistered and your knees weak and shaky tonight? These are credit marks, showing you put the time to good advantage. ,The true Christian is a Christian seven days in the wAek. The real booster boosts 3fi5 days in the year. So don't wait till next Arbor day to "get busy" again. Try it eevry month, every week every day, if possible. Then your hands will soon become proof against blisters and your knees won't ache after a little exertion. The slogan of every Salt Laker in the immediate future should be,. "Wake jnp and hatut ' - -r ( ? |