Omaha daily bee., 1902-11-23

States. Licenses are required for com,
mercial travellers, and of 23, 1000 such re.
Gently issued none were credited to the
United States. The drummer should speal
German or French, but he can get alonl
with English. The railroad fares are low
and hotels are cheap, so hat a good mar
ought to be easily able to earn his salary
and expenses and a good profit for his EN-.
ployer.
But let me tell you something about the
American goods already sold here. I have
visited the largest cities and | find the
tracks of the American invasion on every
street and on many of the country roads,
I saw an American automobile yesterday
with a dashing French girl acting as en-
gineer, and l find American bicycles on al
most every country road. Some are used
here, in Geneva, by the bakers, to deliver
the bread from baskets which they carry
thus about on their backs. You see a
basket full of bread scorching up and down
the street upon two wheels, and you know
that the man manipulating it is a bread
reddler and that the wheels belong to a
bicycle which in three times out Of five
comes from the United States. Switzerland,
hilly as 1t is, is a good land for bicycling.
You have to do much walking up the
mountains, but the roads are everywhere
good and there is much chance for excite
ment in flying around a curve on the edge
of a precipice with your legs over the han
die bars.
We sell several hundred thousand dol
lars worth of American machinery to the
Swiss every year. Our sewing machines
are humming way in the cottages on the
Alps and our mowers and reapers cut the
crops on the plains. Our leading agricul-
tural implement factories have their head
Offices at Zurich, and their travellers go
from place to place drumming the farmers.
| am told there is a good opening for
American plows, and l see our hay rakes
and spades sold in many of the towns. The
introduction of such things is slow. The
Swiss are conservative.
''They are the same that their fathers have
been;
They see the same sights their iathers nave
seen.
They drink the same streams, they feel the
same sun
And they do the same deeds their fathers
nave done"
! have seen plows used here which eX-
actly correspond to those in the scrip
lures, having one handle and a wooden
point shod with iron. l have seen men
and women moving with scythes, and a
few miles further on found women riding
American sulky rakes. l saw a woman
blowing with a sulky pillow, two cows doing
the pulling, and in the same region found
a moving machine drawn by two fine draft
horses from Germany.
Switzerland has plenty Of wood and its
people are skilled in handling it, but they
cannot make furniture as low as our fac
tories. No European carpenter can com
pete with us, and the result is that Ameri-
can furniture is pushing its way into all
parts of Europe. This is especially so OF
American roll-top desks, files and unit
bookcases, which are often sold in connec-
tion with American typewriters. There are
large American furniture stores in Zurich
and Basel, and roll-top desks are sold here
in Geneva. The goods come knocked down,
as the freight from New York to Switzer-
land is 1 cent per pound. Some of the
desks come overland from Antwerp and
Havre, but others are shipped to Rotter-
dam and are sent up the Rhine on barges.
Switzerland is spending millions of dol
lars every year for fuel for its homes and
factories. 1t buys coal of England, Ger
many, Belgium and Austria, and II is be-
lieved that II might proftably purchase OF
us. The coal could be sent to Rotterdam
and up the Rhine to switzerland at a COM
paratively low rate. At present Germany
sells 900, 900 tons Of coal here every year,
France and Belgium about 200, 900 tons each
and, in addition, there are thousands OF
tons from Austria and England.
AS to the American shoe there is no
doubt but that its sale might be largely