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Show TO DRAW VISITORS TO THE WEST. For eight years past there has been an annual an-nual trade balance in favor of the United States and against foreign nations of quite $400,000,000. Our country took up the bonded indebtedness owed by her abroad, but what has become of the balance of the mighty sum, which aggregates more than all the gold in the world amounted to when the placers of California were discovered? The United States treasury and the banks of the country have not increased in their deposits as much as the metals from our mines have yielded. Then whence the awful steady drain upon the money volume that should be in sight in our country? It must have in great part been spent by Americans traveling in foreign countries. coun-tries. The estimate of this amount for the last fiscal year is $150,000,000. The estimate is based on the sums paid foreign steamship companies for transportation, and the sums paid by Americans Ameri-cans in foreign lands. Of course, much of this is necessary. Business men are obliged to go abroad, many families send their children to Europe to be educated in order to save money, for the expense of four years shooling in Europe is not half what it is at the.higher class , of schools- in the United States. Many students after graduating here, especially in art, in medicine medi-cine and technical schools, go to Europe for "finishing." We do not expect these expenditures will decrease de-crease for many years, not until our country is able to show strangers as much to gain instruction instruc-tion from as Europe can show us. But every year thousands of Americans who are well to do go to Europe solely because it is the fashionable thing to do. The object of the governing board of the Commercial Club of this city is to inaugurate a movement which will make it the fashionable thing for Americans to visit the striking places in our own west; to give to people the double advantage of seeing wonders that surpass anything any-thing which the old world can supply, and to educate them in a school which will enable them, when abroad, to speak intelligently of their own country, and to be able to compare what they find abroad with what they have seen at home. It is certain that there, are thousands of eastern east-ern people who purpose going abroad next year, who would turn west instead of crossing the sea, if they but realized what they would be able to see in the west,' and how easily they could vi3it jfl the most attractive points. It is true that there is iE no Yellowstone Park in Switzerland, no Yo- H Semite in all Europe; no voyage around Europe, B not even around Norway, that can compare to B an Alaskan voyage; no forests like those of Cali- fornia, Oregon and Washington; no river to iB compare with the Columbia; no catacombs to l' compare with those of the extinct cliff-dwellers; no such tremendous exhibition of the rending jB of .nature to give a river a path to - theseaas -"IB the Colorado gorge. Then Shoshone falls are -. more weird and fascinating than Niagara; there v ' 1 B are scenes on some of our railways that were B they in Europe, Americans would cross the At- B lantic to visit them; then all over the west are B mining industries in progress that should be of B intense interest to business men and students. B A four months visit by any eastern man to the B great west will broaden him more, if he has any mind at all, than a two years stay amid the half . B mould of the old world. r JB The effort to present western attractions in a 'jl way to turn eastern people west, and to make B clear the accommodations that can be furnished ' fl them, is a most commendable one, and should 'iB be encouraged in every enlightened way. jB |