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Show JIM HILL NOT SO HOPEFUL. President James J. Hill, the railway magnate, who is a Democrat Demo-crat but with peculiar standpat leanings of his own, has been to, make a call on President Taft. Just what he said to the president is not known, as both he and Mr. Taft can hold their peace, but what he sad to others at Washington is no secret. He did not want to be pessimistic, but he could not conceal his fear that things are not going to continue to boom in the same way that they have. The recent elections, he says, make it plain that a turning-point in our political history is being reached. Party lines will cease to be as tightly drawn as they have been. Citizens have found that they can think and act independently and they will continue con-tinue to do so. The demagog and agitator have been having a long inning, and now they will have their rebuke, ho thinks. The laboring man has shown that he cannot be bought and sold or hoodwinked, and the negro, too, has proved that he has a mind of his own. Hereafter the politician who is tempted to "attack everything and everybody in sight" will pause, he declares. Perhaps. Mr. Hill in a later interview is more specific. The American people peo-ple are too easy-going, he says. They think a good thing is to last always, and they work it to the limit. They have been spending money altogether too freely, and now they must submit to a liquidation, liquida-tion, to a readjustment. Meantime, many of the factories, etc., must close down, as a result re-sult of the decreased demand for products of every sort. Taking his own business as an example, his road has ordered only 70,000 tons of new rails in comparison with 245,000 last year, 3,000 new freight cars instead of 11,000, and 20 new engines in place of 300. Conditions are the same in other lines, he says, and the people must stand the consequences. con-sequences. Too much money has gone into non-productive undertakings, too much into mere adornments ; now the bills are coming in and must be paid. President Hill has been issuing warnings of this sort for some time. Now warnings will no longer be of any avail, he says, for a period of hard times is unavoidable. |