East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1907-08-28
PRICES CLIMB
At SALT LAKE
TOURISTS AND HOME FOLKS
ALL HANDED SAME BUNCH
No Effort Made to Enforce Laws De-
signed to Prevent Restriction In
Trade and Artificial Prices-Com-
bInes Outside and Domestic SOAK"
Everybody from Their Uprising to
Their Lying Down = Apparently
No End to Extortion Can be Seen.

A Salt Lake correspondent of the
Boise Statesman says that II you
Lived in Salt Lake now. either at no.
tel, restaurant or at home, sweet
home, you would, TO use vernacular
expression, be "stung." You would
be stung deeply and the local pro-
visions trust would do 1t for you. AZ
ter you had pulled its singer out OF
your body you would discover large
hole had been made in your pocket
book. for that is the article that the
trusts sharp prong never fails to
penetrate. Butte for a long time
held the record for high prices. but
today It must pass the belt over to
the City of the Saints.
The elevation OF prices by the COM
bination has been followed by SIM
liar increase by Salt Lakes restau-
rants and following this lead, the
rooming houses have also boosted the
prices until 1t is impossible to get
even mean little room for less than
81 to $3.50 a night, and If one desires
to live in a half way respectable
place in point of comfort the price
runs up to $3.50 day for the room,
with bath. So far the boarding
houses has not increased the price,
but has done what is worse-dimin-
ished the visible supply of food,
which, God knows, was small enough
before.
All but one of Salt Lakes hotels are
run on the European plan so that the
increase of rates at the eating places
affects both the travelling public and
the local people, who either board
from choice or from compulsion,
having found the cost of housekeep-
ing altogether out of the question
No matter whether the hotel rate be
81 or $3.50, 1t means nothing but a
room. The patron can always figure
on double that price per day fol
meals. II he live in a poorly furnish
ed dollar room he will be more apt tc
eat at the lowest price restaurants
which will cost him n couple of dol
lars day, while II he secure more
costly sleeping partments he will din'
more expensively-andi II anyone car
get a thing desirable to eat in a st
Lake restaurant for less than a dol
lar meal he Is either afflicted will
dyspepsia or is dear friend of thu
waiter.
Complaints are general among th
citizens who have establishments o
their own The travelling publ
does not kick so much, because tn
travelling public is accustomed to be
ing mulcted by everybody from tn
czar Of the Pullman car to the younl
woman who officiates with broom
and duster around the hotel rooms
The local trust is damned up one sid
and down the other, but 1t continue
along the even tenor of It's way an
occasionally raises the price 10 pc
cent or more apparently for no othe
reason than to see its victims jumI
Utah is said to have an antitrust law
but 1t has no one to enforce 1t.
The governor of the state does nj
seem ito be interested and his attoi
ney general prefers the comforts of a
easy officechair to a tussle with tn
octopus. Meantime, while the off
GERS sit idly by, the local combinatio
of butcher and baker and candlestic
makes goes on milking the publ
dry. The price of meat guides OF
at once to the study Of the effects Q
the human system of a vegetable di
and the price of vegetables in tul
sends one careening along to the II
evitable "ham and"
Just how long the working man
Salt Lake will be able to stand tn
constant increase in the price of n
cessities is problematical. OF cours
he can stand 1t long time, becau
he can eat less. But he will be doll
lot Of thinking and some day :.
win vote into office men who will e
force the law the state already h
against Illegal combinations, IL 1t CT
be enforced, or put one on the boo