Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1916-08-19
WRITES ANNIE BOD|E
ABOUT SALEM YARNS
Goggles Writes About Gossips
and Cosby Stories About
the City

Dear Annie: So Ben Gilligan g sis
ter-in-law who lives at Chehalis wrote
home to Ben's wife that the Northwest
had been having business depression.
did shea Well welll Also she wrote
that she was told that Salem and other
willamette valley towns were almost
dead, did she? Dear, dear! Now YOU
take it from me, Annie, Ben S sister
in-law is off her trolley. There has
been depression all right, but that is
an "almOst dead" story
Say, listen to me: You've noticed
the enjoyment that a good many of the
two-legged animals called men or
women, according to the kind of gar
ments they wear, take in somebody
else's long drawn out and painful i'll
ness and in agonizing deaths. You
remember the remark made by old lady
Carter when Jim Bruson IS wife took a
turn for the better after six weeks of
suffering. Old lady Carter said, go,
isn't that too bad She was a dear
old lady too. But she had set her
heart on funeral, and Jim IS wife's re-
covery plumb disgusted her.
Well, the same principle applies in
the case of towns, / recken. Times
harden up bit, like candy from too
much boiling, and little story about
slow business goes out from town,
and pretty soon it gets to be a big
story. Every time it comes to a person
who is cursed with the powers of mag
ination lot of trimmings are added
to it,
Reports have been in circulation that
more than a thousand houses in Salem
are vacant The same story has been
told of Portland, with the figures en-
larged to frightful degree. And of
Seattle and Tacoma and Spokane. As
to Salem the report is grossly exag-
gerated, and ] have an idea it is like
wise exaggerated as to the other
principal cities mentioned also.
There are exactly 450 vacant houses
in Salem, whole lot of which are
shacks and tumbledown relies of an
earlier day. This figure is absolutely
correct You may fire it with perfect
confidence at the first susurating ped
dler of swollen stories you meet.
way pV J. lulh ,Npu bHtt NHdl ID lnt
matter with Salem. Over stimulation,
you know. Got ahead of the country
from which it draws its life blood and
all that sort of thing. Every town in
the west has had much the same ex-
perence at one time or another.
There are however exceptions to the
march of progress in Salem. The
Southern Pacific passenger depot is
one of them. The cemeteries are an
terry proposition so seriously as they
do in some parts. Burial is the merest
sort of an incident. A great number
of the corpses here and throughout the
valley are not yet buried They are
walking around distributing sepulchral
protests against taxes and occasionally
dropping a rusteaten monkey wrench
into the cogs of the machine which is
carrying the Willamette valley to its
glorious destiny.
Salem is famous for its sea breeze.
The sea breeze is not appreciated by
the older inhabitants. They have come
to take il as matter of course, and
they kick and growl, when they feel
like kicking and growing, right in its
very teeth; but the newcomer considers
it in the light of the mildly miraculous.
1t is certainly an all right little old
wind all right, Annie. Laden with the
tang of the sea, it comes across noun
tans and pine forests and fruit
orchards and fields of grain and clover,
taking on betimes qualities from each.
A wonderful wind, never given to
violence, and faithful as the days
themselves.
And, speaking of breezes, there is a
number of them walking about town
every day whom it would do your
heart good to meet. Not all the citi-
zenship of Salem is made up from
those who worship at the shrine of a
god they call conservatism, but which
is in reality mossbackism. There are
those who play the game on broad
plane of true sportsmanship. am not
mentioning any names.
Make q bow to the next prune you
meet. II may be from Salem.
still on the job,