Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-10-13
Business Conditions Settling Into a
Conservative Groove.
PASSING OF DENVERS BOOM" DAYS
A City Built Faster Than Require
ments Demanded.
WHEN THE COLLAPSE CAME

DENN EN-, SOl, oCtODer -, 1N.I.
The average nan measures the world
by the standard of his own environment
and usually to the advantage of that stan
dsrd. This holds good not only in the
states of the east and south. many Of whose
Inhabitants live and die in a single state and
even in a single township. but 1t is equally
true of the newer states west of the Missouri
which are so fond of calling themselves 1.-The
great and liberal west" The people are a
mixture of all races and conditions of men
from every state in the Union, and as a re-
suit the prejudfces and peculiarities of
every quarter are to be found among them.
4 year ago the question as to the repeal
of the purchasing clause of the so-calIed
Sherman Law was being discussed. This
state, being the greatest producer of the
precious metals we'll as the wealthiest
and most populous of the silver-producing
states, naturally took the lead in opposition
to the repeal of that law, since it gave them
a market for a considerable portion of their
silver product annually.
Up to the time when the crash finally
came the growth of Colorado in populat ton
and wealth had been, in many respects. al
most marvellous. The population. according
to the last federal census, was u little more
| than four hundred thousand. as against a
nuHUteu ana nlnety-1Our thousand accord
ing to the previous census.
Led by an unbounded and almost fanati-
cal confidence in the future of the state,
capital poured in, mines were opened and
develcp ped, great smelters were built towns
grew up in the most unhcard-of places, rail-
roads came from all directions, making
Denver the chief railroad center of the
Rocky mountains.
He"e, in the midst of what: to the eye Of
a newcomer, is little better than q bowling
desert, they made their distributing point
and built city which is, in many respects
unsurpassed in beauty by any other city of
equal size in the country. The business
quartz. is comIactly built. and the business
blocks and Office buildings would DO credit
to city twice its size.
Great blocks of brick. granite sandstone
and lava. costing millions of dollars have
been erected for office buildings. which have
lever been occupie ID, save fer "A room here
and there, and have not paid interest on the
money invested in them. Indeed. there is
office-room enough in this city. in buildings
constructed for chat purpose. to supply a
city of FIVE hundred thousand inhabitants
Several of the largest and coStlieSt build
irSs have their lower stories finished in
polished onyx, such as is frequently seen
in clocks. The Equitable building and the
Brown Hotel are finished in Mexican ONYX
while the Cooper block, built within the
past year, is finished in Arizona onyx of
the most beautiful and variegated Colors
The walls of the lower Railways are over
laid with it TO a height of about twelve
feet
The Network of street Railways
one OF the first things that attract the
attentions of a stranger is the compiled ted
network of street railroads that gridiron
the city. Starting from the business center
one may travel from one to ten or twelve
miles out upon the surrounding plains to
all points of the compass. 1t is said that
there are 13i miles of electric street rail-
roads here, and the overhead trolley is
ubiquitous. But, notwithstanding the elab-
OrateneSs of the system there is one thing
which is in the nature of n surprise to
one who has been taught that the west
leads in all that pertains 10 improved
methods of rapid transit in cities. The old
fashioned ''T' rails are still in use ana
are as they are wherever used, the bane
of drivers and wheelmen. Such a thing as
n Srooved rail is unknown.
But to one Who takes an interest in the
idIoSyn rrISieS of human nature as ex-
.emp!hed in men who are accustomed to
success, the people are the chief objects of
interest Until last summer they had never
known the meaning of hard times. They
had played at getting rich so long and so
SUCCESSFULLY that the suspicion that pos
sibly there might come time when money
would not be SO easily made seems never
to have entered their minds. The sug-
geStiOn that a good deal of what seemed
to be great wealth might be bOlstered I'D
by borrowed capital was secuted as ridicu-
lous, and numerous instances were cited
OF men who had made and were worth
millions of dollars. But the teller of Sc
crets got abroad in the land.
The Crash Came.
Owing partly to the fear that the fall in
the price of silver would ruin the state,
and partly to threats and intemperate talk
on the part of few men here. holders of
mortgages began to foreclose and men
who had been reported rich began to fail
Then there arose a great cry against the
gold bugs of the east, for most of these
creditors were there.
No one who was not in the midst of IL
can appreciate the condition OF public SEN
timent here at that time. They pleaded
and scoided, duplicated and threatened by
turns.
If an eastern paper published cartoon
on the silver states. or any of their repre-
sentatives, the papers here said Boycott
that paper" If an editor expressed Views
antagonistic to those of the people here
the papers again demanded a boycott.
Raging at the East
And that sort of thing was not confined
to the popil!st papers. The leading pa
pers advocated it and they even went so
far as to advocate a boycott against east
crn merchants and manufacturers for the
purpose of injuring their business in re-
taliation for their supposed conspiracy
against the cause of free coinage. Indeel
| at one time it looked as if they wanted to
boycott everything and everybody east of
the Mississippi river. They said they would
build railroads to some point on the Gulf OF
Mexico and establish port and line of
steamers to Europe in order to enable them
to ship their products to foreign countries
without paying tribute to the ''goldbugs"
of New York.
They would form an alliance of all the
| states west of the Mississippi and have
nothing to do with the east They couldn't
| raise enough farm products TO supply their
home market, therefore they would estab-
lsh manufactures and exchange manufac-
tured articles with the farmers west of
| the Mississippi for food products.
All of this sounded plausible to the over
wrought Imagination of the average citizen
and many otherwise reasonable men SEEM
| cd to think it could be done.
Self-COnndence Supreme.
Self-confidence was supreme and their
| successes had been so many and so great,
| and their reverses so few, that they bluffed
| and threatened with apparently full con-
| fidence that in that way they could force
compliance with their wishes.
Everybody remembers the blood to- the
| brides speech of the governor When
asked about his remarkable speech by a
reporter, his explanation, preceded by his
customary oath. was that he wanted to
scare the east to DEATH"
Much and serious injury was done to
the interests of the state by the intemnar-