OCR Text |
Show The Very Chiefest Issue ft C1 LECTION day is drawing very near. The V -J presidential election is of momentous iuter- est this year. The man who will he at the helm H this year will meet stormier and more confused I seas than any president has met for half a cen-jf cen-jf tury. There will he troubles from both without I and within, which, will try the brain and the 1 nerye of the president so fiercely that unless he is I of iron fibre he will fail. And the troubles from ,1 ' within are liable to be the more severe. w Our labor troubles are acute and if our land P.: I is left open for the inflow without restriction of p foreign goods and the hordes from southern and J" eastern Europe, we shall have a state of affairs f almost or quite as trying as would be a civil or U foreign war. h Indeed a war calls up the patriotism of a peo- I pie. A mighty trade and labor depression, accom- t panied with a vast inflow of cheap foreign r goods and cheap laborers to enter at once into if competition with our own laboring forces, would I f engender more ill feelings and a greater desire i for vengeance than could a war. j A little war submarine the other day appeared i off the New England coast and sunk two or three ' foreign ships. I The incident was enough to smash stocks and I make a half panic in the east lest trade be in- 1' terrupted. What then will happen when some , morning the news comes that a truce has been called between the nations at war beyond the sea? j. It will come to this country as the hurried order to an engineer down in the engine room of a ship to "stop and back at full speed" does. And as then the ship will tremble through all its I length and breadth. Well, it might happen that the electoral vote ) of Utah may be the deciding one in the election of president this year. i Republicans should keep this in mind. There are many important questions under consideration this year, but the election of president is the . ' overmastering one, and every vote should count, ' for this is the most important year, and more f momentous questions are bearing upon the result at the polls than the people ' have been tried I with before for quite half a century. Disquieting Apprehension A GIFTED local merchant was asked yesterday i how business was and what the outlook for ! future business looked. He replied, in sub- ' stance, as follows: & I "Artflcial conditions are giving business a fe- I I verish, artificial, intermittent pace now, the un- i f certainty of the immediate future, makes anything , f like steadiness of thought impossible. "It is like riding over a bridge that is half un-1 un-1 dermined by a flood and the passenger is won- U, dering whether the bridge will stand until the train gets over or not. "There is a double uncertainty. One is, how long will the war last? The other, what will we have to face when it closes? ("It is understood that England has "a three years' copper supply already on hand. She has forbidden her colonies to export grain and doubt- L LlAiL-te ftL:-. .. . .. , less has issued the same order to India and Egypt to store all their cotton. She has about all the merchant ships that are engaged; with the closing clos-ing of the war she will rely upon her trade to keep her interest paid and for credit to borrow more money. "She will borrow all the surplus money that has come to us through the sale of war material and her struggle will be to absolutely dominate ocean commerce, and to deliver her products in outside countries on such terms as those countries cannot can-not compete against. And the chiefest- of all those countries is our own. "She knows the labor conditions in our country, she knows that when the war closes her own laborers la-borers will work for what they can get, that they will be obliged to in order to live. "She counts on those facts to enable her to borrow money here, believing that men and companies com-panies with a surplus of money will prefer loaning loan-ing it to starting new enterprises under present labor revision ideas. It will be all the more trying if thousands of those stranded by the war come here to enter into direct competition with our union labor. "Then while it is the idea of the Allies to crush Germany utterly and eliminate her from Irade calculations for twenty-five years at least, they will not succeed. Her territory is all intact, and to conquer her utterly is a bigger contract than all concerned can carry out. "The war will hardly cease before German merchant mer-chant ships will resume their old routes and German factories will again supply those ships with every manufactured product that the outside out-side world needs. "France will quickly be ready to send away her products, for there is no way that any of those countries can begin to recuperate, except through foreign trade! No country from which they expect ex-pect to realize or have as much through trade as from our own. "We have no merchant marine, and no protection protec-tion against the flood of goods of all kinds that will pour in upon us. "It is generally understood that were the war to close tomorrow, business would fall as flat in our country as did stocks the morning after it was known that a German submarine had sunk two or three English merchant ships off the New England coast. "How would it be with us six months or a year after the close of that war? "Our country is not unlike a farmer who has a great Held of wheat just ripening, but no fence of any description around it, while just over a low hill a mighty herd of cattle are lowing with hunger, and the' question is, will that farmer ever be able to harvest and save his crop?" There Is No Hope From Them THE other day when the news came that the ( .rman war submarine had sunk three or four fort i,. ships off the New .England coast, next morning the New York market went to pieces, and has not yet fully recovered. When asked the reason, the answer came back that it was through fear that our ocean commerce was liable to be blockaded. M The German submarine was no menace to M American ships. Why the anxiety? H Then came back the humiliating answer: jH "Why, the United States has no ships, we have H to depend upon English ships to carry away jH what we have to send, and to bring to us what H we buy abroad." M It is more than two years since the war burst M in its fury upon Europe. It came so suddenly H that our eastern ports have many interned Ger- man merchant ships. The need of an American H merchant marine was by the war made most viv- idly apparent. M President Wilson admitted recently our help- H lessness in that respect. jH In full evidence was the fact that England H and Germany have both grown rich through flieir H shipping during the past thirty years. And the H further fact has been just as apparent that the H chiefest factor in. the .case of both those coun- tries has been the carrying trade to and from H the United States. One would have thought that H the president and every member of congress H would at once have asked: "How has this been H possible?" and would at once have moved to H abate the wrong that our country had so long suf- H fered. H But when the president and his party friends H were informed that England had depended upon H subsidies and Germany upon bounties, to keep H their ships on the sea, that was enough. Neither H bounties nor subsidies were approved of in the H confederate constitution. H The president evolved a plan to purchase or H builcJ a few ships and run them to a few foreign H ports and to make up the deficit they would sure- H ly entail by drawing it from the treasury which H the people through taxes have to keep filled. Fi- H nally just before congress adjourned this year, H such a bill was pushed through. This is a presi- H dential year, except for that there would have H been no bill to re-establish an American merchant H marine. H We are justified in that assertion, because of H the thoughts and words of that party in the past H and because of the nature of the bill itself. H It carries no inducement to try for a closer H walk with foreign powers, no promise that the H ships will be run for a single month after Eng- H land and Germany shall be able to resume their H carrying of foreign commerce. H There is no hint in it that the framers had ' the least conception of what a great nation's for- M eign commerce should include. The bill is but an H afterbirth of a thought that first took form on a H cotton field, and which, reduced to words, was: H "Ships are like camels, mere beasts of burden. H Let them bring in what they please, and take M away our cotton. H "We have a monopoly in our CQtton, which can- M not be broken. Why should we care for other H industries?" H "We care for no intimate, close business rela- M tions with any foreign power; we are not inter- H ested in the affairs of outside nations and care H not for the opportunities which those countries J H i might offer to our business men and capitalists. H Neither do we care for the business conditions H I of our own country. The thousands of poor men i who might find fair wages in building and sailing Hi a great merchant marine, do not concern us; the H chatter about keeping our money at home and H preparing this nation to provide for itself every H needed thing is no anxiety on our part." H1' The trouble with the president and his friends H is constitutional. m With the learned of the party the thought is, M "We ask no odds." With the ignorant the thought H) v is: "I will never vote to make people already H rich richer." And it is chronic, it never can bo H Make A Real Effort For Peace IF the premiers of Great Britain' and Russia were to follow the desire of the people of their H respective countries, they would send a message M to Emperor William asking him if he had any de- B' sire to consider the question of the war and how M to bring it to a close. H They could afford to do that for the tide of Hj war has been running in their favor now for sev- 1 oral months. m, But they will not, for each clings to the idea H that Germany must be fought to a finish, that 1 future wars may be avoided. . That last is a fallacy, for wars are to continue Hi for a long time yet, and in our thought will not H cease until the genius of man makes other and H ' new inventions to make war so terrible that hu- Hj man nature cannot stand against them. Hi And while the war seems tending in their fa- H vor, the fact remains that the Allies have not Hj yet entered upon German territory, and that to Hs enter upon it and press the war to a finish means H 'for them the loss of yet uncounted lives and the H. doubling of the present debt, which their peo- H pie do not want. H, Have the rulers of a nation any right to so in- H volve their people? Hj: Again, has there not already been fighting H. enough to demonstrate that war between civil- H ized peoples is the very poorest way to settle dif- H, ferences? Above all, have not enough brave men H died and enough women had their hearts broken H to satisfy all the nations engaged, that it is time Hi to seek some other solution for their differences? H So soon as our election is over next month we H hope President Wilson will call a convention Bl in Washington and call upon all neutral nations I to send delegates to it, the call specifying that the object is, if possible to frame a new interna- H tional code to govern nations. H With the experience which the present war H has supplied, it might be possible to frame a H code which would appeal to the judgment and H sense of right of all civilized peoples, and be able H to supply a basis upon which the present belliger- ents in the old world would be willing to ac- H cept. ' , 1, H It is surely worth the trial and could it sue- M ceed it would bring to our president more glory M- than anything, or everything that he has done in M , the past. And there would from the beginning be if strong grounds to believe that it would succeed m'l for not only are those directly engaged in the Jr present war, but all the civilized world outside H . weary of the present war and the effort to make Hj .!, the convention a success would be backed daily i' I by the prayers of millions of men and women ji that the effort might be successful. Idas. H. Paterson HPHE much-feared pitiable news has come; J. H. Paterson has ceased to live. His was a familiar famil-iar figure on these streets through a generation. j A leading man of business; public spirited and high minded in all his thoughts, a citizen with- j out reproach; a generous neighbor, a genial, gen- erous friend. His friendship begot a multitude of friends in return, who today are grieving that the high soul lfas fled. Almost without premonition on the 30th of April, 1915, Mr. Paterson was stricken with hemorrhage hem-orrhage of the brain in his office in this city. So overwhelming was the blow that for several days his life was despaired of, but at last he began be-gan to rally and gained so much that it was hoped his removal to a lower altitude might eventuate in a cure. Accordingly he was taken to Chicago and later to Hollywood, California. Since then 'the reports from him have been like the record of the tides that ebb and flow on some coast wooed by the moon. " But of late the flow has grown more halting in its coming, the ebb has started out with quickened pace and more and more lamenting on its way; and finally there was no return, the currents of the strong life grew still. When John Quincy Adams was stricken as Mr. Paterson was, it is said he had but time to say: "It is the end of earth." It is so with the generations gen-erations of men. They are called to join the endless end-less procession; all are marching the same way; for a little time they pass in review here and then comes the twilight and the night, and the silence unbroken by so much as an echo. When in vain we cry: "The dead, the much-loved dead, Who doth not yearn to know The secret of their dwelling place, And to what land they go?" There is no answer, but as we think that they were given time enough here to love and to be loved, and that all was in mercy given, it is not unreasonable to hope that the same mercy wraps us 'round, and that when mortality shall put on immortality, the old ties will be renewed, the old love-words spoken; and that soft and low, without with-out one discord, the old music will be heard. And this should be the comfort to his bereft wife, who is alone now her children and husband all gone and to the partner, Mr. Strevell, who had grown so close to him who has died that it was a love between them "greater than the love of a brother." An Opportunity IT would not be difficult in the east to pick up two thousand merchants, manufacturing and steamship men who could invest $10,000 each in an enterprise and put it through. Suppose such a company formed, that first a contract be made for the building of five steamships steam-ships as fine as a million expended on each one could make them. While they were building have department stores got ready in Bahai, Rio, Santos San-tos and Buenos Ayres, and have goods worth $1,-000,000 $1,-000,000 sent to each of those stores with alert men to manage each one. Then have banks opened in both Rio and Buenos Ayres with $1,000,000 each. If the stores cost 500,000 each that would all absorb $14,000,000 of the original capital of $20,-000,000. $20,-000,000. There would then be left $6,000,000 to carry the business on until returns might be expected. ex-pected. Those countries all need agricultural implements, imple-ments, household furniture, clothing, shoes, automobiles, auto-mobiles, hardware, luxuries a world of supplies of a thousand kinds. Besides money, they have sugar, coffee, fine woods, a world of medicinal plants, rubber and diamonds from Brazil; money, hides, preserved fresh meats, grain and other things in Argentine to exchange. Does any pne doubt but that a great success might be made? From the banks and stores in a little time word would begin to come of marvelous enterprises enter-prises that are waiting for a little capital and for directing minds to launch them; for opportunities on every hand for alert and competent men. In that Avay in twenty years Germany eslab- lished and built up a business which made her the richest nation of central Europe. Have not our countrymen the genius and pluck to imitate her? Would not more ships and more goods soon be needed? Impossible And Undeserved THE' French writer who thinks that New York will not be the world's financial center long after the war in Europe closes, is right, but not for the reason he gives. The reason will be because be-cause ours as a nation has never taken the trouble trou-ble to try to be a world center. Americans have no banks in foreign lands, no t ships on the seas, no intimate trade relations with foreigners, and naturally foreign, states are indifferent in-different toward us and do not look upon the United States as a possible county whose people could be appealed to or capable of making business busi-ness alliances with them which might be of help to them. Nations are like men: They do not always get what they strive for; they seldom get anything of good without striving for it, Without appare1 concernment our government and people looked on and seen Great Britain and Gen make vast sums out of their South American trade, more than half of which was in acting as middle men between those countries and our own; but the moment anyone suggests that wo adopt the same means that European nations have adopted to secure that trade for ourselves, at once from the president of our republic down to the biggest chump in congress, a protest is rained against it. The idea that the world's financial fin-ancial center is going to gravitate to our chief city on such a showing as that is preposterous. The Coming Of Winter THE approach of winter is a most dramatic phenomenon. His first skirmish line is the frost, with orders to steal in and touch the leaves on the trees and turn them to scarlet and gold, as a notice to man that he is on his way. Then comes his old outrider, the wind, with voice filled with menace. At this the migratory birds gather their broods and take up their southern flight. The sun begins, be-gins, likewise, to wander away, curtailing the day both in the morning and at night. The frost receives re-ceives reinforcement and people see in the morning morn-ing that an advance guard has planted winter's guidon of white on the mountain tops. At this the wise merchant exclaims. "God help the poor!" and advances the price of coal 25 cents per ton. It being the canning season the gentlemen who deal in sugar receive a wireless that tho cane crop in Cuba, Hawaii and the Philippines is short this year, and lest there is a scarcity here, to teach the people economy, advance the price of sugar six bits a hundred pounds. The final act is the gentle falling of the snow, while the song of the brooks is muffled, and tho organ of the winds plays a requiem as the overwearied over-wearied earth is being wrapped in its winding sheet of white, which has been a notice served on man through all the ages that his spring and summer sum-mer of life are short and that the long sleep .is close before him. Cannot Learn A Simple Truth IT seems impossible sometimes for people to ever understand a simple fat. A case in point was made clear by the speech of Mr. Stockbridge. president of the Farmers' National Congress, at Indianapolis on Tuesday last. He declared that the farmers were never so prosperous and that their prosperity was not due to the war, and cUed in proof that their products were swamping the efforts of the railroad companies to move them. Which way are they being moved and why the shortage of cars? Is not the movement all ' toward the sea shore, and is not the real trouble the fact that there are no ships to pick them up and hear them to a foreign market? But the chief fact, which Mr. Stockhridge " seems incapable to comprehend, is the old one, found in every book on political economy which has been published in the last two hundred years, which is that prices afe regulated by the amount of money in circulation, that if that amount is ' cut in half prices will fall 50 per cent, if doubled prices will double. In the past eighteen months' the money in circulation in the eastern states has doubled in volume, because of the purchases from abroad. Hence prices are swiftly doubling. Were peace to be declared tomorrow and present pres-ent contracts for war material canceled, the owners own-ers of the money would take it from circulation the work would stop, the shipments would stop and the Underwo.od law would be doing business busi-ness at the old stand. We are told that President Wilson is a church man, but if he now nightly offers the prayer that I s no truce be called in Europe until after the 7th , of November next, it will be a natural prayer. Were it to be called tomorrow his chances for re-election would shrink 50 per cent within the next ten days. His only chance, indeed, is due to the l oiling ' in of a wave of gold because of the necessities of the foreign war. Silver demonetization cut the money of the country in two, but hosts, of people even when business was dead and they were being swiftly ruined, could not understand the cause. Tom Short AFTER long absence Tom Short pulled in from his Nevada home last week. To a few of us his coining was as comes unexpected at night from afar off, the measure of a song that . long ago was loved. After the great war he came west, with some friends he located and opened the Richmond mine in Eureka Nevada and sold it for a handsome hand-some stake. With the money he bought a section sec-tion of Ruby valley, Nevada, and stocked it. There ho has lived in quiet ever since, and not one in a hundred of his own neighbors know that before his coining west, he had made an enviable name "even at the cannon's mouth." He joined the Union army in the first year of the great war. As one of Buel's army he reached Shiloh as the sun went down on that first day's fight and was with those who swept Beauregard's army from the field next day. Under Rosecrans he faced that all day's hurricane hur-ricane of war at Stone river. He was one of those who held up the arms of Thomas at Chick-amauga, Chick-amauga, on that day when the right and left of Rosecran's army had melted away; the red waves of the concentrated army of Bragg rolled in wave upon wave only to be shattered until night came. Then he passed through the siege of Chattanooga with Thomas, until Hooker came from the east and Grant and Sherman from before Vicksburg, and while Hooker stormed Lookout mountain and Sherman made his drive up Mission Ridge he, under Thomas, with Howard's division, stormed the supposed impassable center, up, up to Bragg's headquarters Sheridan in a battle ecstacy leading. lead-ing. Then came the summer fighting until Atlanta was captured; then when Sherman started on his "march to the sea," with Thomas, Short was detailed "to look after Hood. Hood with his superior force chased Thomas out of Georgia and across Tennessee to Franklin. Short was in Schofield's division which Thomas left at Franklin with orders to watch to see that Hood's forces did not flank that place, and to entertain Hood if he stopped to fight. Hood stopped and made five different assaults as-saults upon those works at Franklin. There Cleburne and Adams and four other superior Confederate Con-federate officers were killed and whole hecatombs heca-tombs of men. At night Schofield drew out and joined Thomas and then came the battle of Nashville and the utter rout of Hood. Short was one in Schofield's division to chase the remnants of Hood's army into Alabama; then the division was recalled, sent east and then down the coast to North Carolina Car-olina to face Joe Johnston's army that was moving mov-ing north to mako a diversion in favor of the army of North Virginia, beleaguered in Richmond. The division reached Salisbury when the news of Appomattox reached them. The next morning came the news of the as sassination of President Lincoln, and then, Sher- man coming up from the south, Johnston surrend- H ered to him. H Then after almost four years' service without H missing a roll call or a fight and after taking part in a dozen great battles, the veteran was honorab- H ly discharged. Now, for forty years he has been living alone on his ranch and no one who sees H him dreams that he, when his country called, M placed his breast between his country and his country's foes and held it there through all M the storms that assailed it during a long war. He is past eighty-four now, but the old confident M look is still on his face, the old flash in his eye, jfl though he is listening for the final call and the M long Bivouac. H Marx Kahn M "D OWED down by his burden of eighty-seven M - years, Marx Kahn, overwearied, laid himself down to rest; then he fell into a quiet sleep H which deepened into the final one. H A kindly, gentle, genial old gentleman he was, JM who kept the sunshine of life in his heart to his last day on earth. H For thirty years past he has been a much M esteemed merchant and citizen of Colorado and M Utah, and only kindly remembrances of him fol- M low him out into the Beyond. M |