The Parker post., 1912-12-28
FORTUNES In
OSTRICHES
CORRESPONDENT CLAIMS TRADE
is INFESTED WITH FRAUD AND
THAT ARIZONA DEALERS MUST
GET OUT OF CHUMP CLASS.

PHOENIX, Dec. 26-(Special to
the Post )-One cannot look over the
vast plains of Arizona and behold the
ostriches feeding on the broad ex-
panse of horizon as far as the eye
out coming to the conclusion that
the ostrich farmers of Arizona are a
collection of chumps. One Of them
pays alimony to his eX-wifeA in Ari
! zona ostrich feathers, which are man
ufactured in Los Angeles and sold at
auction from time to time in OneI.o
these furniture auction houses. And
all the time the California ostrich
feather business is making enormous
progress and fortunes are being
created rapidly in the industry.
To show that the enterprise is
successful beyond the dreams Of the
most enthusiastic English-American
ostrich pioneer, we will just quote the
names of some OF these ostrich feath-
er company directors in southern Cal
ifOrnia: Willis Booth, vice-president
of the Equitable Savings Bank He
controls the largest of these Califor-
MIA ostrich farms, one that has paid
hundred thousand dollars year
for the last five years in dividends
to the delighted stockholders. Phil
lip L. Wilson, president of the Trad
ers Bank of Los Angeles, is an os-
trich farm director; and so is John
E. Fishburn, president of the Nationfl
Bank of Commerce; so Also A. NJ
Chaffey, director of the Federal Bank
Such names as these involved in
the new industry means something.
1t means the death of the great
AnglO-American ostrich feather trade
and the final enormous trade in this
ostrich feather product to be done by
the states of Arizona and California.
In Arizona there are about eight
thousand ostriches; i'm Africa about
five hundred thousand And while
we draw this alluring picture of the
future of this most remunerative in
dustry, We must in all fairness tell
the truth, the whole truth and moth
ing but the truth regarding it,
The trade is infested with fraud.
The great cities of California are dot
tnd yxJith al oh, Ja;x
ing to sell California feathers, when
they really Wend that microbe-infest
ed product that comes from New
York, in the midst of the dirt, squal-
or, disease and wretchedness of that
great metropolis Carloads of this
product are dumped into the freight
depots of California and sold to these
unscrupulous people who vend feath-
ers to the innocent and trusting fe-
male visitors and residents.
Arizona is interested in the purifi-
cation of the community in this re-
spect not only ON the grounds of in
tegrity, but also of selfishness.
Those guilty, after Indictment and
conviction, should be escorted to
those Institutes preserved by the
state for the correction OF those who
have, while at liberty, made a prac-
tice of obtaining money under false
pretenses. The drastic pure food
laws recently approved by the author
tiles give every reason to hope that
something will be done to remove
this blot on the escutcheon of the
Golden State.
Arizona and California feathers
should be marked made in Califor-
MIA and thus would the Arizona
feather be in much greater demand;
for the demand by California upon
Arizona for ostrich feathers would
be immense. The last of the English
ostrich farmers bringing flocks of
birds to California has made the pro-
duct famed throughout the union at
a cost of half million dollars. Ari- |
zona might as we'll avail itself of |
the glory and fame already obtained, |
for its food and climate have been
found to be particularly adapted to
the ostrich