San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1894-05-29
SHORT STOPS.
What the People are Saying.
IBY Col. JAS. p. NEwcoMB.

San Antonio up. This query in
wolves the further query, what is
going to keep our city up in the
future.
1t will do no harm to deliver a
short lecture or two to those of our
citizens in which my old time
friend is classed. / mean the cap
italists, which can be divided into
three-the bankers, landlords and
merchants.
That the stranger VINO has ap.
preached our city through miles OF
mesquite brush should be puzzled
at the spectacle of fiourishing in
land town surrounded by waste
land, is not to be wondered at, but
that our old citizens have never
studied out the problem is passing
strange.
Like the oak which has wealth
cred the storms, the droughts, the
prairie fires for a hundred years
and still sends forth its green foli-
age, 80 our city flourishes amidst
like disasters; because like the oak
it's roots have penetrated deep and
spread widely.
San Antonio is a community of
merchants, who have had wide
area of country to supply. Formerly
our trade extended far into Mex
leo, but then the territory on our
own frontier was without popula-
ton; now our trade is confined to
our own territory, but it is pene-
trated by railroads and dotted with
villages; it has farms or is graZed
over by herds of cattle or flocks of
sheep.
1t is a wide area that contributes
to the commercial prosperity of
San Antonio, and though sparsely
populated in the aggrlg gate consti-
tutes 8 large community of great
wealth.
When the stock interest and the
wool industry were in flourish
ing condition, millions of dollars
have poured into the vaults of our
bankers and the tills of our mer-
chants.My banker friend probably,
can account for most of the pala-
tial residences in his v!uinity, even
for the rich bank buildings that
ornament our principal thorough
fares, if he wiz cast his reflections
backward over the years when our
prairies sent forth a half million
fat cattle to the northern markets,
and our city sold ten million
pounds of wool at from % to 80
cents per pound.
We We're producing more then
than we were consuming. Now we
are consuming more than we are
producing, and it is only question
of time when even our fine store
fronts will tumble about our ears
unless the thing is reversed.
During the last fifteen years
San Antonio has trebbled in popu-
lation; these new people brought
with them a large amount of
wealth, and their enterprise has
contributed largely to the city's
prosperity, another factor tn at has
kept up San Antonio.
We have been so used to pros
perity that a change of circum-
stances simply astonishes us with
out finding a reasonable solution.
The financial and commercial |
panic of the past year has Of course |
affected us, and so far as this goes |
we can congratulate ourselves that |
we are no worse off than others, but |
this will not solve the problem of
the future, or account for the past.
The inroads made upon our pro-
Jective tariff system by the acces-
sion of the Democratic party to
power has we'll nigh swept our
great wool industry from our hills
and plains. There is no dIsputing
this statement.
Free hides took away from our
,attle industry millions of value.
In truth the Democratic party has
been the most powerful factor in
n producing dull times and very
lark outlook for Western Texas,
which involves the prosperity of
,ur city.
We have had no strikes because
We have no factories, or mines, our