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Show Published Every Saturday BY GOODWIN8 WEEKLY PUBLISHING C0.f INC. A. W. RAYBOULD, Buslneaa Manager Including (for six $4.53 SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: postage In the United States, Canada and Mexico, $2.BO per year, months. Subscriptions to all foreign countries, within the Postal per year. S. L. CHAMBERS FIVE ANSWERS DO NOT ANSWER attitude toward the Southern cific in the matter of retention of control of the Central Pacific the former road, notwithstanding the decision of the Supreme art of the United States ordering their separation, the Salt Lake By way of explaining its favorable of Commerce committee ten days ago issued a lengthy state-n- t, citing the more important of the now familiar reasons which That the committee should pelled it to take the position indicated. re felt it necessary to offer a formal defense of its action, The amber hopeful symptom, indicating that the mem-- 5 had become aware that their remarkable course was in need of h explanation and defense. But unfortunately the more the docu-a- t is scrutinized, the less satisfaction it affords. The Citizen is iged to repeat, as its honest opinion, that the committees state-n- t is a disappointment ; for as an explanation it falls far short in de-s- e attempt to justify the committees partisan attitude, and as a it sadly fails to defend. But to the reasons themselves leaving the reader to judge to their sincerity and merit! The committee desire Southern Pacific retention of Central because Pacific coast capital is developing the steel and ier industries in Utah, and they argue that only by such reten-- s will there be community of interest with the Pacific slope and Twelfth Federal Reserve district. Whatever of force this rgestion may possess as an appeal to sectionalism, is more than set by its weakness as a commercial and economic proposition, tat conceivable warrant is there for the implication that a change ownership or even management and control of the Central Pacific Paci-coa- st old injuriously affect Utahs steel industry or any other that capital may be developing? Surely, the committee cannot iously mean to claim that the present promising activities in the industry here were initiated only because the Southern Pacific tools the Central Pacific or are dependent upon the continuance fat control ! Yet the language or the inference of the commit-E-s statement would appear to mean nothing less. Happily, capital nt so narrow and astigmatic in spying out fields for investment, of interest to the would-b- e investor anywhere is the assur- of a good return on his money, this being based upon the quan-!- " and quality of the resource to be developed and the certainty fte ability to dispose of the product at a profit. The ownership foe railroad that transports the product has nothing to do with Ccase, any more than the religion or the politics of those engaged foe pr duction. To say that Pacific coast capital, or capital from Mere else, will not look favorably upon Utahs resources and the Prtuni ties which d they offer, unless one particular railroad is in control of another particular railroad, is at once to insult izen at once hailed as a Paci-contr- ol t 1 hat-i- Single eopltft 10 cents. Payments should be made by Check, Money Order or Registered Letter, payable to The Citizen. Addrese all communications to The Citizen. Entered as second-clas- s matter, June 21, 1019, at the Postofflee at Salt Lake Act of March S, 1879. under the City, Utah, Z Ness Bldg. Phone Wasatch 5409 Salt Lake City, Utah. s con-,Ue- the intelligence of outside capital and to confess a humiliating dubiety as to the value of the states resources. Moreover, in the case in question, it is not the Southern Pacific at all, but the Union Pacific, that is the only road thus far to give the local industry anything like real encouragement. Having begun the construction of a thirty-five-miand coal fields line from Lund to Cedar City to tap the iron-or- e upon which the success of the steel industry depends, the suggestion would appear imbecile that the Union Pacific, in the event of S. P. loss of control of the C. P., would injure, or attempt to injure, the very industry which it is spending millions of good dollars to assist. Another reason advanced by the committee against separation of the Central Pacific from the Southern Pacific is that market competition between western and eastern territories for Utahs products would thereby be imperiled. In support of this apprehension, the statement has much to say about the dangers of any one dominating through railroad line or even two of them. Elaborating this idea, the committee not only views with alarm the possibility that the Union Pacific may acquire control of the Central Pacific, but it also rears the amusing bugaboo that the Denver and Rio Grande and the Western Pacific may be acquired by some strong eastern line in which disastrous double contingency Ogden, Salt Lake City and Provo would become on the highway of transcontinental traffic! It is difficult to believe the committee is serious in advancing a thought so puerile. If there were no lessons in local history to point out its absurdity, there are the vital and interesting experiences of the present to do so. Without any great strain upon its memory the committee should be able to recall a local condition a few years ago almost identical with that so gloomily above delineated when the Denver and Rio Grande-Wester- n Pacific and the Union Pacific-CentrPacific were operated jointly, and yet the facts are that during the precise period of its existence, Ogden and Salt Lake City grew and prospered as never before or since. Not only would it be a negation of the past record of the railroads for them to attempt anything calculated to retard the advancement of these important and rapidly growing cities it would also be in direct violation of the most elementary business principles. While it is true that all towns are not and never can be great railway termini, it is no less true that towns favorably situated geographically and commercially, as are the Utah points named, are beyond the power of capricious discrimination and injury n of the sort suggested. The idea as applied to the Union Pacific is particularly inept and inopportune in view of that roads efTorts during the past few years in bringing hither and diverting via Ogden and Salt Lake an enormous traffic to Yellowstone Park, and more recently in starting a tourist stream to the sceni wonderland of southern Utah. le way-statio- ns al way-statio- |