The Seattle Republican. [volume], June 02, 1905, Image 2

About The Seattle Republican. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1???-1915

Image provided by: Washington State Library; Olympia, WA

                
also recently bought one line from a private company; and the same is
true of Dresden."
Suppose that each family can save one hundred dollars per year
upon water, light, heat, transportation and telephone service, at the
end of ten years it will amount to one thousand dollars and interest.
It will l)e almost enough to secure a good home for the family. It is
not so much what we make as what we save that increases our capital.
Every voter and every family is directly interested in the ownership
of the public utilities and the getting the use of them at cost. In Hull.
THE WORLD'S "RICHEST TWO DOZEN."
John D. Rockefeller, New York City $600,000,000
Alfred Beit, London, England 500,000,000
Andrew Carnegie, New York City 500,000,000
Joseph B. Robinson, London, England 350,000,000
General Luiz Terrazas, Chihuahua, Mexico 290.000,000
William Rockefeller, New York City 200,000.000
Prince Demidorff, St. Petersburg 200,000,000
Sir Jervoise Clarke, Adelaide, Australia 150.000,000
The Duke of Sutherland, Stoke-on-Trent, England 135,000,000
Lord Strathcona, Winnipeg, Manitoba 125,000.000
J. Pierpont Morgan, New York City 125,000,000
Marshall Field, Chicago 110,000,000
Lord Robert Iveagh, Dublin, Ireland 110,000,000
Mrs. Hetty Green, Bellows Falls, Vt 100,000.000
Russell Sage, New York City 100,000.000
Henry M. Flagler, New York City 100.000,000
Thomas Dolan, Philadelphia, Pa 100.000.000
Senator W. A. Clark, Butte, Mont 100,000,000
Earl Grosvenor, London, England 80,000.000
Lord Mount-Stephen, Quebec, Canada 75,000,000
George W. Ross, Montreal, Canada 75,0000,000
Isidore Cousino, Santiago de Chile 75,000,000
Archbishop Conn, Vienna, Austria 75,000,000
Alphonse Heine, Paris, France 75,000,000
Mr. Rockefeller's wealth has been estimated at anything from
these figures to $1,000,000,000. This rating is an estimate made by
one of New York's leading financiers.
FOR RENT BEING SEEN IN SEATTLE
Unless the signs of the times, as well as the signs "for rent," are
sadly misleading, the landlords of Seattle are destined to give her the
worst black eye that she has ever had. To the surprise of the true
Seattleite there are to be seen today on Second avenue between Yesler
and Pike two large storerooms with "For Rent" in their windows,
which signs have been there for the past week. Such a thing has not
been seen in Seattle since 1896, and, on general principles, there, is
no excuse for it being seen at the present time, save and except that
the greedy and avaricious landlord is not willing to live and let live.
These stores that are vacant at present are only one-story blocks, whose
erection did not cost to exceed a thousand dollars, and yet the owners
of them have steadily increased the rent of the properties from $30
per month in 1896 to .+3OO per month at the present time, and small
business concerns have found it utterly impossible for them to do more
than work for the landlords; hence they are gradually going out
of business, and "For Rent" cards are appearing in the windows
where but a few months previous flourishing business appeared. Re
tailers all along First and Second avenues are feeling the same busi
ness distress, and unless the avariciousness and greed of the landlords
be checked, curbed or regulated Seattle is doomed to a business stagna
tion that will give her a serious financial black eye. A retail shoe
dealer, it conies to us, has to pay $400 per month rent for the room
he occupies, besides his other expenses in the way of light and water,
which amounts to another $100, which brings the monthly rental of
the concern up to $500, to say nothing of the help it must necessarily
employ. The firm doing business under such a financial pressure
must either rob his customers to a "final fare fare-you-well." or he
must go broke and quit business. If the storerooms continue to bring
any rent at all it is up to the landlords to make some kind of adjust
ment of the expenses the merchants have to encounter in order to do
business in this man's town.
This condition is not only as to storerooms, but it is even worse
as to office rooms. But a few months ago and in order to get an ffice
THE SEATTLE REPUBLICAN
England, there is a two-cent fare on all lines for all distances.
Liverpool, Glasgow, Sheffield, Hull, Salford, Sunderland, in Eng
land, and Aberdeen and Dunde in Scotland, and Cardiff in Wales, all
show that under municipal ownership street car fares have been re
duced fifty per cent. ' What can be done in the old country can be
done in Seattle.
Seattle, with her splendid water falls and electric light plant and
inexhaustible supply of water, can furnish cheap transportation serv
ice and beat all of Judge Dunne's cities above mentioned.
The wealth of the Rothschilds, Vanderbilts, Goulds and Astors
usually is quoted as though those great estates were undivided, the 20
families of the Rothschilds being given as $650,000,000, of the 14 Van
derbilt families as $450,000,000, of the five Gould families as $150,000,
--000 and of the Astore as $150,000,000.
Said to be
Civil List. Worth.
Nicholas 11., czar of Russia ....'. $7,500,000 $1,200,000,000
Muzaffar-ed-din, shah of Persia Absolute 1,000,000,000
Abdul Hamid 11. sultan of Turkey 10,000,000 600,000,000
Leopold ll..king of the Belgians 700,000 350,000,000
Tsait'ien, Kuang-att, emperor of China Absolute 5,000,000
Menelik 11, Emperor-Negus of Abyssinia.. Absolute 5,000,000
Mulai-Ebd-el-Aziz* emperor of Morocco... Absolute 5,000,000
Wilhelm 11, kaiser of the German empire. .0 3,780,000 4,000,000
Edward VII, king of Great Britain 2,300,000 1,500,000
Mutsuhito, mikado of Japan 2,250,000- 1,500,000
Chulahornkorn I, king of Siam Absolute 1,500,000
Victor Emmanuel 111, king of Italy 3,080,000 1,250,000
Alfonso XIII, king of Spain 1,430,000 1,000,000
Francis Joseph 11. emperor of Austria-Hun
gary 2,775,000 1,0000,000
one had to put in his or her application months ahead for the first
vacancy. Suites of office rooms brought all the way from $50 to $100
per month. At the present writing office rooms can be found in pretty
nearly every big block in the city, and if all the blocks are con
structed that are now under headway of construction and planned
to be finished within the next few months, there will soon be hundreds
of offices "for rent." There is the same reason for this as is found
for the storerooms being vacant. The landlords simply want to sell
their rooms over to their tenants every month and then kick them
out whenever they can find somebody else who will gave them a
dollar's raise. As a result of this "gouging policy" on the part of the
landlords, men who would be doing business in nicely furnished office
rooms are doing whatever they can on the curbstones or are jungled
up with someone else to save expenses. Now it begins to look as if
the most of the suckers have caught on and will not stand for being
bled any more by the merchant and the professional men, and unless
they can find a sufficient number of suckers to bleed to pay these
exorbitant rents it will be utterly impossible for them to continue in
business; hence the "For Rent" sign will become a familiar sight
in the store and office windows.
We repeat, it is up to the landlords to either remedy the evil
right away soon or see many hundred times as much more "For Rent"
Bigns in the near future. The landlord has been playing the "get rich
quick" game a bit too long and the tenderfeet have caught on. There
is no reasonable excuse for the owner of a rentable block to expect
to double his investment money every year. Persons who can realize 10
per cent on their money, for the most part, feel very well satisfied;
but the Seattle landlords strive each year to double their investment
money. If you do it, mark you well, you will do so at the commercial
injury to your town and to your own property. Do not get financially
drunk over "Seattle is the gateway to the Orient," for it does not
take very long for the determined American to erect a new gate as well
as a new gait to any old place.
THE FOURTEEN MILLIONAIRE MONARCHS.
FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 1905.