The herald., 1897-09-02
! THE GENERALIZATION ;
OF THE WEST :

S&&SS
1t seems hard to realize that the west
is growing old. Yet sooner or later we
must find ii out. The same laws that
elsewhere govern the crystallization of
a community from the free and easy life
of the early days, when one man is as
good as another and dollar comes and
goes easily, into the later days when
things settle down to a steady grind,
having painful resemblance to the sur
vival of the fittest, govern us also. Hav-
| ing lived west of the Mississippi for thir-
| ty years it is har o,for me to believe that
we must come to the same conditions as
that of the old state of my birth. But
can plainly see the fetters winding
around us, the same old chains that
bound US in New Jersey. For the Allan tic
states were old before most people now
living were born, whereas most of those
now in the west were either born west
of the Alleghanies before that section Of
the country became old, or have moved
from the east at too early an age to re-
member how things were.
The easy life of the west its great op-
portunities for catching money on the
wing with little work as it flies around
in the process of development the great
advantages it presents in fairly good
times for the hustler" the curbstone
operator, the promoter and the man with
a gift for making quick turns, as we'll
as the boundiess opportunities for the
man who never leaves his assurance be-
hind. have led too many to look upon
that kind of business as the normal state
of affairs in all we'll regula ted societies
If speculation don't happen to pay some
body is to blame. There never was such
field for the play of genius as the west,
and no part of the west like California
The consequence has been an abundant
supply of seed, which under our glorious.
climate has sprouted wonderfully. There
are indeed some who think there is an
over supply. I have even heard it In IT,
mated that we had some towns where the
real estate men and curbstone operators
and promoters were in excess. There is
one, for instance, that some of US have
seen, where 1t is easy to calculate that
to give each real estate agent fair living
at per cent commission on actual sales
would require each year an army Of ten
derfeet armed with more cash than the
/ total ass sassad valuation of the county.
Upon these come the curbstone men and
the promoters, who, though often the
same, are quite as often a different set
and increase largely the percentage.
A western town generally has twice the
number of lawyers, doctors and other
professional men as an eastern town of
the same size and business; while the
number of magnetic healers, clairvoy-
tc iv.it 1;ct 1T,
artists is far in excess. In none Of the.
eastern towns can you see as many able
bodied men in the business hours of the
day reading in the public library, an
notating Bibles and what-not in the ref
erence department., with as many loung-
iIg on the street with no apparent busi-
ness, and SO many keeping fat with no
visible means of support except post.
These are, to some extent, features OF a
country where climate lubricates the
wheels of existence, but they are more
the results of a new country where mon
ey has come easily and where people are
not too particular about nickel.
AS we pass into the penny period and
gradually adopt the ways OF an older
country we shall see many Of these easy
avenues to existence closed. A flourish
ing city in the east of 1000 people would,
scarcely afford business for over ten real
estate agents in ordinarily good times.
Even then most of their business would
be paying taxes and collecting rents, anC,
probably all of them would work
in some insurance. They would
have lists of property and be
ready to take out any one who
wanted to buy property. But the last
thing on earth they would think Of would
be collaring a stranger before he was
fairly regis tered at his hotel and making
him believe he wanted to buy something
of which he had never before dreamed.
They do say the latter has been done, In
California-down at Oceanside, I think.
How to make money without putting
up any is one of the leading questions in
a new country. There is no more pleas
ant business. Any fool can make money
by putting up money but it takes genius
to make it on the capital of some one
else without risking any of your own.
Nevertheless, the time comes when it
must almost entirely stop. No mere
amount Of circulation per capita, no
system of finance, no ordinary pace of
prosperity, will enable it to hold up after
tlement. We read that France has about
two and half times the circulation that
England has. But we fail to learn there
is two or three times the business per
capita, or any more. In neither of them,
even in the highest times Of prosperity
that is what old fogies call prosperity
and which is dangerously apt to become
the test here in time-are there any
chunks of wealth floating around in the
air to be grabbed by quick-eyed genius
So much money does the steady business
of every day and the rest goes into the
bed-tick or the old stocking. In new
country this surplus would be "blowed"
and the process would be continued from
hand to hand in such way that genius
would be very apt to catch some of II
as it flew But when things settle down
to the grind of what is called legitimate
business you can no more coax out that
surplus money with ordinary bait than
| you could coax it from the mine with
| sweet words.
| There are some who like this crystal