The sun., 1919-08-10

like the wealth it produced and its
argentian lure crept into every city,
town and village Of the Americas
To-day fewer than 1000 people in
habit the shabby lizard ridden, plant
less streets where 10000 men and
women made life a cataract OF lust,
greed. haste and passion. and these are
quiet, law abiding folks who either
have come since the camp laid down
and died or have stayed because 1t
suited them best to stay and null
over the hectic days when one could
ride ten minutes to fabulous wealth
and nights when one might walk ten
steps to abject poverty.
Goldfleld suffered the fate of a dozen
such towns. There has been 80 much
controversy concerning the identity OF
the man who struck the Goldfield lode
that 1t viii avail us little to prolong It
But in 1904 Goldfield was just another
part Of the desert. There was a clump
or two Of sage brush. the usual bill
ions Of tons of alkali dust. the ubiqui-
tous night chanting coyotes and now
and then Jack rabbit Logging It across
the sand with his ears fat and his eyes
closed. In the surrounding country
you could see the occasional Joshua
tree-poor, scraggy thing that coura-
geously fought aridity and despair.
Gold was there, but the eastern en-
gineers had decreed that the dirt did
not assay enough per ton to make min
ing worth while. Always. Of course.
were the leathery prospectors who paid
hurried visits, sunk rough shafts ana
hastened away, thankful II their profits
warranted their returning for another
try. And the prospector requires little
encouragement. For a brief time after
the prospectors showed the eastern
engineers how wrong they were; that
the low hills would disgorge gold to
any who would scrape away the
soil; that Goldfleld was, as It proved
to be, the site Of the richest gold lode
(if not the largest) In the West, the
lode was anybodys. To him who got
there first who staked his claim wisely
and was man enough to hold onto his
claim Goldfeld gave wealth.
Advent of Capital.
Came then the inevitable combina-
tions Of capital, the usual stock freeze
outs. the ever challengeable reorgani-
cations, the expected conflict between
labor and the interests, and into all
this came that greed that gold sows
In all humanity. Friendship became a
mere term and ceased pretensions of
reality. A brother would double cross
a brother without so much as a tremor.
Whatever II Is that the lure of gold
does to man 1t did to men in Gold
field, and down came the panic of 1907
that wrote Goldheld's epitaph. Every
thing that is crooked In finance and
business hurried the place to its end.
To go into a detailed account OF the
political, financial and economic mach
nations that made, fostered and killed
Goldfield would take many. many coll
umns. for 1t is not history to be sum-
married.. 1t is an epic of complicated
viciousness. Briefly. Goldfield did just
what few men have done-iived so
fast and SO utterly regardless of GER
tain inexorable laws of nature that the
pace killed. But while Goldfeld, like.
they, lived. Goldheld LIVED.
1t was a He Town while II lasted
Walter Williams and Charlie Taylor
were the men who located the Red
Top and the Jumbo mines. They had
come to Goldheld so strapped that
they used beans for chips when they
played poker down In the Gold Bug.
They had 20 use the bank for their
supper. Three months later they were
worth a half million each. In the