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Show I I REAL ESTATE ASSOCIATION l The Salt Lake Real Estate Assocla- H tlon Is a pretty "cheap" kind of an or- ,rH ganlzation, one of those affairs that M most men with independence and self lot respect would be ashamed to be Identi fied with. There is nothing new In this. Its calibre has been known for yeais and shall wo say, "appreciated." The immediate cause for bringing this idea to the front at this time is the excursion, annual outing, annual graft, annual hold-up or whatever you choose to call it which look place a couple of days ago. Tho Real Estate Assocta tlon keeps up a continual prattle, n constant chatter about advertising the city, building it up bringing In outside capital and all that kind of thing, but Its only Idle chatter. When It comes to doing anything which would be a real service, which would incur the expenditures ex-penditures of money the Real Estate B Association Is shy. Tho efforts of the Association In tho main are directed to catching "suckers" upon whom they can foist lots, In so-oullod "additions" to the city, which are without valuo except ex-cept on paper. Another favorite plan is to plat out a piece of land that nobody no-body thinks enough of to pay the taxes on, call it a town site, name the proposed streets, mark the site for the town hall and other buildings which go to make up a prosperous city and sell tho lots to Innocent people. That's the kind of advertising which "ood many real estate men have glv l Salt , Lake in tho past, and doubtless will ' continue to give it In the future. f if flf This Real Estate Association hasn't H . much dignity. It hasn't enough pride to keep it from being a mendicant. J When It. wants a little money for some II purpose instead of the members going ! down in their pockets and furnishing jA what littlo cash might be needed it gets up some fake to catch the public like the recent excursion. It works tho 9 newspapers for all tho free advertls-I advertls-I ing it can and tho newspapers usually I J wade right in and push along the graft. 1 " Real Estate day was advertised ex-B ex-B teneively for a month by tho papers, mostly without cost. "Real Estate R Day" Is a term that requires some ex planation to tho uninitiated. The Real Estate Assoclatio' needs some money. It makes an arrangement with some of the suburban resorts to get a per-centageof per-centageof the money taken In by tho resort re-sort for some particular day for transporting trans-porting tlie people to and from tho resort, re-sort, and also for a percentage of the receipts from the bar, soda fountain, pop corn stand, candy booths and other "privileges." Then the Real Estate Es-tate Association goes to work to advertise ad-vertise the "great -Real Estate Day." To induce tho public to join In the excursion ex-cursion to association offers "prizes" to be drawn for, everybody who buys a ticket entitling him or her to transportation trans-portation to the resort having a chance to win a so-called "prize." In most cases the prizes are not worth winning. In years gone by the prizes were to n largo extent composed of worthless real estate which the winners wouldn't accept because It wasn't worth tho taxes. tax-es. This year tho Real Estate Association Associa-tion advertised that $5,000 would be given away In prizes. Of that sum the association appears to be putting up $2,000, but in reality it did not put one cent. Hie advertisements credited the asosclatldn with offering 20 prize certificates of the value of $100 each. As a matter of fact these certificates are not worth anything, tho condition being that tho certificate would only be applied in part payment of a piece of real estate which the holder of the certificate in order to make his certificate certi-ficate of any use at all must purchase from some member of the association for a sum not less than $2,000. Thero's a pretty neat little graft. The association associa-tion appears tobo donating $2,000, when a's a matter of fact it was not only not donating anything, but was paving the way for its members to sell 20 pieces of .real estato at a value of $40,000, the selling valuo to bo fixed by tho real estate men. To make up the other prizes, some of which were in reality worth something, some-thing, tho real estato men sjarted out a begging like ordinary mendicants. Thoy called on the grocer, tho butcher, but-cher, tno dry goods man, the cigar dealer, deal-er, tho saloon keeper, the hatter, the restaurant keeper and pretty nearly verybody else thoy thought they could extort anything from and they did got a good many things which wore tho only things of valuo raffled for or given away as prizes on "Real Estato Day." Tho money realized from tho excursion, tho Real Estato asosclatlon tells us, will bo used to advertise Salt Lake, and we will all get a sharo of the benefit. Think of that! There was one prize on tho list which commended Itself as being particularly par-ticularly suitable to the occasion. It was described as "No. 144, donated by tho desk sergeant at pollco headquarters, headquar-ters, ninety days in tho city jail, valued t $00, Tho only thing tho matter with this prlzo was that it was not largo enough. |
