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Show I The Clark-Railway. THE people of Salt Lake are jubilant over the completion of the deal between Senator W. A. Clark of Montana and the Oregon Short Line railway, whereby the tracks south of the city become part of the San Pedro system and the early completion of an air line to Los Ang'eles and the Pacific coast is assured. The early completion of the road is promised, and will un-doubted'y un-doubted'y be performed, and it cannot but help Salt Lake City and the va?-mining va?-mining region to the south and west which are undeveloped through lack of transportation facilities. . In one important respect this road differs from nearly all other railway schemes which have been exploited in mis country. The promoters of the road, headed by the great copper king, are putting their own money into it and expect to make their profits out of running run-ning the road. As a usual thing, the promoters do not wait for returns in this fashion. They make their fortunes by selling bonds and watered stock to the public. It is a notorious fact that most railways are bonded for all or more than the original cost of construction con-struction and equipment, so that the money derived from the sale of stock represents the costs of promotion and the profits of the promoters. This so-called Clark road should be useful in enabling the public to gauge the true cost of a railway and form an estimate of the proportion of "water" "wa-ter" to be, found in the capital stock and bonds of other roads. Such data may be useful some day if the railways persist in discriminating discriminat-ing against the general public In favor of big corporations such as the Standard Stand-ard Oil company. It is to be hoped that the people of Salt Lake will not lose their heads and indulge in any wild land boom such as the one which collapsed in 1S90 and checked the growth of the city for a decade. Land values will' increase with added population, but the surest way to keep people from settling in the city is to ma1e it too dear a place for them to live in. Fancy prices never have been maintained, and never can be, without the actual pppulation to justify them, and the people will not come, or will not stay if they do come, if rents and land values are swelled to an unreasonable un-reasonable extent. Greed and the ga.m-bling ga.m-bling fever are the greatest enemies of such places as Salt Lake City. ' - - |
