| Show IMITATION AS AN ali EVIL there appears to be an increasing element in modern society which micawber like la is always waiting for zoom omet ething bing to turn up this element la Is not one of originality generally but it seizes noises with the rapi rapidity alty of a hick or eagle agle in pursuit of prey the projects and idear mooted or created by ot cottiers tiers even if an idea la Is secured by patent hontis are imitators imitator and a very slight alight change without improvement gives one athance to appropriate or reap the benefit of others an brai wherever there la in a show for personal advantage low leu compunction to la fogu I 1 than la is ex inhibited ty by the highwayman phoan wh who oan sans by robbery or tha the most moat barefaced character takes taken advantage of 0 hla his victim to be sure the appropriation of an idea is ia not attended by personal violence and an appeal to 0 o the courts to la always possible but this thia Is generally found to be unprofitable often the judgment la Is biased anti and sometimes it la Is bought while it is always costly win or lose the ave average man looks upon this not as constituting a lack jack of moral fibre fabre but as exhibiting smartness and de serving erving patronage and approbation it is not got with ideas alone but with methods of a speculative or profi profitable table character that imitators spring up like mushrooms and cofeen afien get wormy just as quick an appearance ot of success in any branch of isas as infectious as diphtheria and often as fa fatal for it does not follow because one shoemaker or black amith does well in a little village that therefore a dozen can do equally as well veil competition or division of available bemand drives all ot of the surplus into other lines of support either in whole or in part the principal contradiction to this is the multiplication of farmers this profession oan b hardly r 11 V be overdone for max there to is family sustenance assure 1 as a general thing and any surplus node finds its ito way to the artisan or non producer or to the store fir things deemed essential to comfort the antipodes antipode to this to Is the amazing increase everywhere of stores or ai they may be termed dis distributing tribu tj ng depots these as a rule being imitators most of their owners are so because some one has made a partial success of an experiment others anxious to eke out their resources look upon this as a possible help with but a little invelito investment whatever the motive new stores are continually springing up as if indifferent to the fact that ruined hopes vexation worry lost capital and credit t trew the paths path of trade and traders everywhere around some have imagined that an increase of stores means an increase in wealth but surely a little ref reflection faction will show this to be a fallacy for if every house were converted into a store none would be the richer but many or few a store creates nothing improves nothing adds nothing to the value of anything it is simply a convenience a necessity maybe of modern life one too liable to be vastly overdone california and eastern papers are this question quie tion all the time english capers are doing like likewise wige anu and with the methods and usa es ea of the mother country figures are brought into requisition and the assertion auer tion is made that london alone could save over twenty million dollare by vacating or suppressing the useless cost of unnecessary establishments we need not flatter ourselves that this of stores to la confined to cities and countries far remote utah shares in this condition and in fact is in no do way behind ner der more experienced predecessors by way of illustration suppose we look a at t one of our southern towns it has for the convenience of its twenty one hundred inhabitants inh abitanto ten stores besides two drug stores which supply both medicines and liquor this is ia a purchasing community if not a paying one for one of these stores carries on its books a local indebtedness of twelve thousand dollars doll rs an i doubtless all the others in proportion to their stock give somewhat similar credit suppose it be assumed that this is the case or reducing it to a fifty thousand dollar total we have a store indebtedness equal at least to near twenty five dollars per head bead or estimating one family for every live five persons here is in a mortgage on their possessions of one hundred a d twenty five collars per family besides the general indebtedness may be much larger for a community is 18 not dot thus limited as to purchaser sep Indebted indebtedness riess may exist for wagons wagon machinery stock organs sewing mewing machines etc until an aggregate can be reached equivalent t V that of a northern county the indebtedness of which according to one of its leading men Is over a quarter million dollars it may be said that keepers of stores are none too numerous that if they were so men would seek other branches of business the survival of the fittest may be urged forgetting that every failure is in a loss loes to some one and that some untoward event might precipitate a crash seeing that many stores run on borrowed capital at best still further riber fu the question QU way may be asked in regard to the fifteen or twenty tores stores in a town whether there to Is not a large amount of capital looked locked up in merchandise that could be of vastly more service if utilized for production rather than for desultory din dig trib ution could not this tied up means meane exercise a greater influence for good if used in the establishment of home biome manufacture about which so BO much has been said and comparatively so little done this to la a land of liberty men en gage at will in any vocation and every one Is IB supposed to be for himself bime elf but does not observation tell even at home that the ranks of professional life are full fall to 10 repletion that trade avenues are all crowded that labor productive nonproductive non lator labor is in excess and that while few of fetah utahn alij population are surrounded by the railing galling poverty known elsewhere employment is in yet scarce and that the problems of social and political economy are not all solved here any mire than they are solved elsewhere shall these lessons be studied of philanthropy of patriotism of religious duty and sentiments of common brotherhood or of will the iron 1 hand and of necessity and the clamor of waiting labor nerve to the making of the coming state one in which every man can find assured employment employ wient and the cry for bread be unknown amid its general prosperity and wealth |
