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About Ashland tidings. (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919 | View Entire Issue (June 19, 1913)
TAGR TWO ASHLAND TTOIXGS Thursday, June 10, 191.T. Ashland Tidings SEMI-WEEKLY. ESTABLISHED 1876. Issued Mondays and Thursdays Bert R. Greer, Editor and Owner B. V. Talcott, ... City Editor SUBSCRIPTION RATES. One Tear 2.00 Blx Months 1.00 Three Months 60 Payable in Advance. TELEPHONE 39 Advertising rates on application. First-class job printing facilities. Equipments second to none in the Interior. Entered at the Ashland, Oregon, Postofflce as second-class mail mat ter. Ashland, Ore., Thursday, June 10, '13 THE OYSTERS AXI) THE TRUST. A way to "put one over" on the trusts appears to be to encourage the use of oysters. It has just been announced by the chemistry bureau of the department of agriculture that all American oyster beds are to be Investigated, with a view to re moving the prejudice against this ar ticle of food as subject to contamina tion. The oyster is a valuable item in these cost-of-living times. It should not be turned down by the squeam ish housewife without just cause. Under modern methods of shipment it should be available in every town in the United States. There are 60,000 people engaged in the oyster business. Only a small part of the available places for beds are used. Cornering the produce mould be about like forming a trust in the cabbage industry. Many of the oyster growers work farming half the year. Combining them to raise prices would be fore than Sam son's job of tying the foxes' tails together. The oyster was long regarded as the poor man's beefsteak. Restau rants that would charge 50 cents for lamb, mutton or beef, and 75 cents for sirloin, would usually give a nu tritious oyster stew for 25 cents, though the juicy bivalves must have felt lonesome in some of them. A well-buttered oyster stew has a saline tang as refreshing as a whiff of sea air. Wit hno bones, gristle or refuse fat, the consumer pays only for solid nutriment. Dr. Carl Alsberg, successor to Dr. Wiley, says the consumer of oysters runs less chance of incurring disease than from raw milk or drinking water. The proposed government in spection should reduce the danger of infection practically to nothing. So here's for oyster stew, when the next month with an R comes along. May the delicious bivalve not swim too solitary in his brimming bowl! PAYTOX'S COMMISSION CHARTER Dayton, Ohio, has just adopted a commission form of government which embraces an entirely new sys tem. It provides that the citizens shall elect a board of five commis sioners, reserving to themselves the power of the Initiative, referendum and recall. These commissioners are to employ a general manager, dis pensing with the mayoralty, and he need not be a resident, but the best man to be' found anywhere for- the Job. He Is to be responsible only to the commissioners and the commis sioners to the citizens, and will have exclusive authority in the employing and discharging of all persons what soever engaged In municipal service. The commission idea Is getting around to about the right place. From a careful study of commission j?oernnient for the past ten years the writer has concluded that the best administration can be had through one man. The big cause of waBte in municipal affairs Is brought about largely by the looseness In adminis trative policies and detail occasioned by the compromise necessary to reach a course where a half dozen or more men have equal power In putting certain administrative poli cies Into action. Good administra tion will never come from log roll ing. Somebody must have power to go ahead without hindrance and put into execution as sound business principles In matters of public con cern as are exercised In private mat ters. Ashland should have a new char ter providing for a one-man admin istration. Better results can be ob tained for fifty per cent of the pres ent cost of administration. The waste comes from attempting to ap- )ly old-time methods to new-time conditions. The individual officers are not so much to blame as the old system that ties their hands so that economical administration is impos sible. The United States last year im ported 153,000,000 pounds of cocoa, the greatest amount on record. WHATC THE MATTER WITH ROGUE RIVER VALLEY? NOTE Under this caption the Tidings proposes to publish a series of editorials, discussing the possibili ties, the advantages and hindrances to the proper development of this valley. General Statement. This is a season of unusual depres sion throughout the United States and the Rogue River Valley Is ex periencing no harsher effect, prob ably, than every other section of the country. However, there are good reasons why it should be less felt here than in other sections, and it will be the purpose of these articles to point out why it Is too severely felt and to attempt to offer sugges tions as to how it may be best over come. The general depression comes from two causes. The country is at the end of an unprecedented era of speculation. When the speculative spirit outruns development reaction will follow as surely as the night the day. There will come a season of inactivity followed by depression in values. ' This effect is the result of a very simple fact. ,To raise values without development adds no new wealth. Take a vacant town lot, for example: A sells it to B at five hundred dollars. B buys it only for speculation and sells it to C for a thousand dollars, who adds nothing to its value but price when he sells it to D for fifteen hundred dollars. If the lot was originally worth five hundred dollars the added price of one thousand dollars represents the per cent of speculation in the trans action. Considering that a certain legitimate value has been added dur ing the period of these transactions by reason of community growth and development, it still remains that the specific transactions in this lot has added nothing either to the lot or community value. Therefore, the de gree of pure Inflation caused by this transaction depends upon the rela tion of the number, or volume of such transactions, to those made for utility only. As long as men can profit by such transactions they will continue, but as soon 83 prices are forced up to a point where the full development of the property will not yield a net sum equal to the price of money rent, or money interest, prof itable transfers in real, estate will cease because the same amount of profit cannot be gathered from Its utilization as can be gained from money loaning. The extent of de pression following depends much upon the relation of property held purely for speculation to that held s lely for utility. In other words, a community in which half of the lands "are held for speculation will suffer less than one wherein two- thirds of the porperty is owned by persons who do not personally util ize it. Conversely, a community where all of the property was util Ized for homes and was tilled by the owner no depression would be felt, at least so long as the land yielded Its average wealth. Again, as soon as the values become so inflated that the utilization of the property will not yield a fair remuneration to the persons employed in Its care plus a reasonable interest on the invest ment, no one will care to own It and demand will stdp until the values have settled back 5 to where it will yield It. No community will proper ly prosper until its citizenship be comes contented. Communities where a large proportion of the pop ulation have been led to buy through misrepresentation, paying part down at a price that the land cannot be made to surely and permanently yield a sum sufficient to gustain those employed in its care together with the amount of interest accruing on deferred payments, soon becomes Invested with wide discontent everybody wants to sell and nobody wantB to buy and a depression fol lows which can only be relieved by a decline In priceB to a point where the investment becomes profitable. Wherever such conditions exist In a community the best remedy is to hurry back to values that are justi fiable. In communities where pro duction is specialized It is of vital Interest to all that only such class of land be utilized for specific crops as will profitably produce them. In all communities there are certain sharp practices In real estate manip ulation that should not only be frowned down, but the perpetrators should be sent to the penitentiary, If It be necessary to stop it. It is now fairly well established that Individu als In communities are not Indepen dent, but dependent. The transac tions of one individual have a cer tain effect on all other Individuals In the Immediate community. Some persons who have not philosophised on the matter are Inclined to say that what one Individual does is no business of his neighbor. That is especially true in real estate trans actions. However, for example, let us take a real estate transaction in the orange belt of California. Down there there is certain land peculiarly adapted to orange culture lying im mediately adjacent to land that will not produce oranges at all. Sharp real estate men procure the latter kind and set it to oranges, nursing the young trees long enough to un load it on a tenderfoot, knowing well enough that it will never pro duce oranges. Result, a discontent ed citizen, and a black spot on the whole neighborhood as orange land. These transactions not only militate against the proper development and value of the whole neighborhood, but while they are being perpetrated the land is being held out of its proper use and the whole community impoverished because it is not ..util ized for the production of that to which it is adapted. Because of the depressing effect such transactions have on the community they should be put an end to by law. In truth, it is hard to differentiate between such transactions and the act of highway robbery. If anything the first is worse than the last, because the last affects only the individual robbed while the first reflects on the value of all lands in the community. The law against one should be no less stringent than the other; both should be equally backed by moral sentiment. And the men who per petrate these frauds should be ta booed instead of elected to places of trust in the community. If land that will not produce fruit but will pro duce wheat is set to fruit and held away from the production of wheat. and by reason of that, community money must be sent away for flour. the community will be drained of cash in just that proportion. This applies as well to all diversified pro duction. Every community contains land adapted to one kind of produc tion and not to another and it is the interest of every citizen to dis courage its use for that to which it is not adapted, that it may be made a profitable asset to the community in the production of hat to which It is suited. Land well adapted to fruit culture may have great value, while wheat land is- seldom made profitable at a higher price than fifty dollars per acre. It is greatly to the interest of a community that values in harmony with the proper uses is maintained on land. In other words, excessive speculation should, as a communtty proposition, .be con demned always and everywhere and substantial development encouraged. The community that does that will prosper best. Communities prosper less during great eras of land specu lation than during periods of sub stantial development. The second general cause is politi cal: Without taking issue with eith er political party, it will suffice to say that the proposed legislative changes are so radically opposed to the system in vogue under republi can administration that it will cause uneasiness and unrest while the changes are being agitated at least. The present administration Is now constructing a tariff bill which changes that system from one of high protection to one of tariff for revenue only. Just how far it will affect business is problematical. Then the currency will be revised, and how radically it is too early to determine. Then trust control will be inaugurated along lines propos ing to destroy combination. Neces sarily these agitations will nffert business to a greater or less degree as each subject for consideration is a vital spark in the commercial sys tem or the country. Laying aside the permanent effect of this legisla tion, it must -be conceded that dur ing the formation of bills with this view and during the period of read justment to conform to the new rules business generally will be uncertain and depressed. It will probably con sume eighteen months' ttm. during which it is hardly reasonable to ex pect any material improvement in speculative and hardly more In cumu lative enterprise. It is safe to say there will be few real estate trans actions during that time. Therefore, this Is an especially auspicious time to take stock. During this period of depression values will settle back and it should be the desire of all that the settlement should be solid so that the new activity will come with a firm bottom and that the country will develop rather than boom. The boomer is of no more value to a community than a vermi form appendix. The body is safer when it Is cut out. So much for general causes which effect depression throughout the country. But there are some spe cific, indigenous to the locality, which can be oercome. We will dis cuss these In order of thnir imnnr. tance as this series progresses. The POTtTT.ATVn WVimvrrvm tpt tb GRAM and Ashland Tidings one year, THE SMALL INVESTOR AND THE RAILROADS. The receivership for the Frisco railroad lines is a sharp reminder of the perils of the railroad share market constantly being incurred by small investors. The railroads have been reporting of late years a big increase in num ber of stockholders. Magazines and newspapers devote much space to answering questions regarding stock market propositions from people of limited means, many of whom have but the most elementary idea of in vestments. The railroad corporations have viewed the small Investor with great favor. One sees why, from the story told by a man who spent a night at a certain "city in a boarding house near the railroad yards. He remarked to his landlady that a cer tain freight carvmust have been de layed there a week, as it then had snow on it. 1 The landlady remarked with some asperity that the snow came the night before, and that that railroad handled its freight very promptly. Afterward it appeared that the landlady owned two shares of stock in the corporation that owned that freight car. These little lots of stock create a widespread friendly senti ment that is felt to be valuable. The school teacher, the clergy man, the small business man and the widow have been frequent customers at the railroad bargain counter dur ing the past few years. Many of their prizes are bitterly repented of. The alluring stories that the El Do rado Pacific is going to buy up the Golconda Central usually prove to have been circulated by people hav ing G. C. to sell. The prudent French, who recently invested freely in Frisco, can't under stand why a surplus of $1,195,907 was claimed for seven months end ing in January, while the road goes to a receiver for inability to borrow a sum less than one per cent of its existing debts. After some of these adventures among the bulls and bears the old home savings bank looks good. CHAUTAUQUA PROGRAM. The program for the Chautauqua course for 1913 Is out. It consti tutes one of the best assemblies yet booked. It is well patronized and well printed and shows great care (Eni ULYffin I fli qJJ JuiJlnJinJolIni ul n CO j A Ctartiss Aeroplane WITH FLIGHTS AND EXHIBITIONS Motorcycle Automobile Races FOOT RACES AND HORSE RACES LOG ROLLING $ LOG SAWING CONTESTS B aseball Tournament WITH MANY CLUBS ENTERED Public Speaking Band Concerfs-Chorus ol One Hundred Voices ONE-FARE RATE WE SOLICIT the opportunity of handling your bank ing business knowing that we have the facilities, the resources and the disposition to serve you faith fnily and efficiently. Firs! National Bank Oldest National Bank in Jackson County Depository of the United States, State of Oregon, Coun ty of Jackson and City of Ashland. in selection of talent by the manage ment. We are glad to see that a "Medford day" Is provided for. Everything should be done to encour age good feeling between this and the communities down the valley and a pleasant Chautauqua outing in our splendid park will do much to foster such feeling. The Ashland Chautau qua deserves the support of the en tire valley. It affords a cool, re freshing, edifying week to the people and a period, of relaxation and Intel lectual culture necessary for good health .and moral, and civic develop ment. No Work for Non-Residents. Non-residents of the state of New York will not be able to hold em ployment in ahy branch of the city government after October 1, 1913. The board of aldermen passed an or dinance providing for this on April 29th and handed it up to the mayor for approval. The mayor returned it without his approval or disapprov al on May 13th and it thus became a law. The ordinance is as follows: "No person not a citizen and an actual resident and dweller in good faith in the state of New York shall be eligible to appointment or em ployment in any of the departments, boards, bureaus of the government of the city of New York. ' "Any person who now is, or who shall become after such appointment of employment, a citizen, resident, or dweller outside the state of New York, shall thereby forfeit and shall be removed from his said appoint ment or employment. "The provision of this ordinance m lib XfaM O 3ST S. V FOR ROUND TRIP shall not apply to appointments or employments for services or work to be performed for the city of New York outside of the state of New York; nor to a temporary appoint ment or employment for a specified service or work where peculiar or exceptional qualifications of a scien tific, professional, or educational character are necessary. . Prior to such temporary appointment or em ployment evidence in writing shall be furnished that the services or work to be performed cannot be well done by any citizen and actual resi dent of the state of New York who can be discovered, and that non resident person proposed to be ap pointed or employed is generally recognized as one possessing such exceptional qualifications in a high! degree. No appointment or employ ment under this section shall be valid unless the consent of the mayor shall be first obtained; and he may re quire the civil service commission to pass upon the matter and certify whether an appointment or employ ment is necessary for lack of a resi dent of the state of New York who is competent." New York Evening Post. Shake Off Your Rheumatism. Now is the time to get rid of your rheumatism. Try a twenty-five cent bottle of Chamberlain's Liniment and see how quickly your rheumatic pains will disappear. Sold by al! dealers. A Frenchman has succeeded in flying with an aeroplane driven by flapping wings instead of a pro peller. ON RAILROADS w Vi D