HE CALLS NEW YORK
A PIT OF GLOOM.
AND SAYS BROADWAY'S TRYING
TO SELL OUT.
Men Is "Stay West" -- New
York Panicky and
Nervous.
"Stay West, young man," is the paraphrase C. J. Schmelzer is using now. Mr. Schmelzer returned yesterday from New York, where he had been on business for three weeks. "This is the sunniest spot between here and Wall street," said Mr. Schmelzer. "They have the blues back there so bad it is refreshing to even think of belonging to the West.
"They can sing in the vaudeville theaters about 'The Great White Way,' but they better stick to the allusion to the incandescent lights on it and not to the rag signs I could see, without number, almost, from my hotel on Forty-fourth street. 'For rent,' 'closing out,' 'forced sale' is the song they are singing there.
"Business is bad. The department stores showed it plainly. The hotels all had rooms and to spare, except the two big new ones, which were crowded. The theaters, I confess, had standing room signs hung out and the restaurants had their crowds, but there was every indication of the stress of the times.
"They talk hard times, and that helps make them. They told me on Broad, King William street and in that section that they are carrying the South and its held-over cotton, and that the West is a drag on them. So we are, no doubt, but we do not know what trouble is, compared to the New Yorker."
Mr. Schmelzer incidentally spoke of the bomb throwing last week. When asked if it created any interest there he said it "created an alarm. They would jump if a man made a speech. New York is nervous. It lacks the composure of the Western people. The day of the bomb throwing I saw dozens of clerks rush out bareheaded to buy the fast recurring extras the newspapers were issuing. What is it now? they asked. They expect bombs, speeches by the president, speeches by Bryan, action by congress and always news from the West about crops. Instead of boosting they are all scaring each other. There is not a Ginger Club in the whole city of New York. I come home and find business normal and the and the weekly bank clearing show that Kansas City is keeping up to its old lick. In the few hours I have been back I have seen more real prosperity and have heard more good news from other houses than I heard all the weeks I was in that pit of gloom.
"New York needs a general Ginger Club."
