The Wagon King Tells Seattle to Build Roads and Put Idle Men to Work

Among the arrivals in the city yesterday was Clem Studebaker, president, and J. M. Studebaker, vice president, of the Studebaker Manufacturing Company of South Bend, Ind., the largest builders of farm wagons in the United States. They came up from Portland and spent the morning at the Rainier, and in the afternoon went to Tacoma. This is the first time Mr. Clem Studebaker has been in this city in thirty years, and he immediately gave expression to his wonder at its growth when he was accosted by a Post-Intelligencer reporter. Looking from the veranda across the Sound, he said: 'I have traveled all over the world, and here I have no hesitation in saying that you cannot find a view equal to this, even in Switzerland.' Then he continued:

'Yes, you have a beautiful town, but it is ahead of the country and you want to get the country up with the town. If some of the men who have built homes in the city had taken five or ten acres in the country and cultivated them with diversified crops, they would have developed the country and the city would have taken care of itself. We are here especially to study the country, its needs and prospects, and I believe you ought to boom the country instead of the towns. One requisite for this is the building of roads by the government and the states.

'During the Civil War we had a costly lesson on the need of suitable highways. In these piping times of peace we ought to make such provision that we will not again be caught in a similar trap. The wagon and carriage road system of the United States ought to be under the direction, supervision and control of the war department of the national government. The officers of the army are peculiarly fitted to take charge of this great work. Their West Point studies have given them a thorough knowledge of the theory of civil engineering, and many of them have had practical experience in road-making, in establishment of grades, in ditch-digging, the construction of embankments, and bridge and culvert building. They are now practically out of a job, and hundreds of them would hail the charge of this work as a welcome relief from the tedium and listlessness of post or camp life. The employment of these men would remove the danger of making a political machine of the work. I would have the actual laborers enlist for a term of months or years, furnishing them with clothing, rations and pay, as is now done with our soldiers. Then I would have the government control our wagon and carriage road system, for a two-fold object—primarily to have the country roads scientifically and cheaply built, which should be of incalculable value to the whole country in improving and cheapening communication between the farm and the market, and secondly, to furnish a safety-valve to the labor market, giving ready employment to the men most in need of help the moment they are thrown out of work—the unskilled class.

'I think the continued depression of business is due to the uncertainty of tariff legislation. At the outset it may have been caused by overproduction and wild speculation, but now capital is plenty, the need to produce is very great and the demand is ready to be made; but there is such uncertainty as to tariff and revenue legislation that the engines of industry dare not venture upon the open market. Some of them are suffering equally with the idle operatives. The struggle to keep above water and save old and faithful workers from industrial suspension has made many a manufacturer suffer more bitterly than the world will ever know. I have not examined the amended Senate bill closely, but I think that the trouble is that the Democrats were not satisfied to look at the tariff from an honest business standpoint and remove the defects, but look at it from a political standpoint and set to work to change it entirely. As to whether the business situation is improving in the East I am not in a good position to say, for I have been in Southern California since March 1, but I believe it is gradually growing better, judging from our reports from home. We are employing about 1,300 men and have had 1,300 to 1,600.

'No, I do not believe the Coxey movement is an outgrowth of the business situation, and it has been very much exaggerated. The newspapers have given it too much notoriety by making a sensation of it, and in this way have rendered great assistance to the visionary leaders. If the press all over the country had advocated the principle of every community taking care of its own unemployed the bubble would have burst long ago. I have had an opportunity to form my opinion of the general make-up of these so-called armies. There are many honest men among them—men of honest convictions, who are willing and anxious to work—but the leaders, for the most part, are seekers after notoriety. I hope before six months have passed that there will be abundance of employment for all of this idle labor element. There is plenty of room on the Pacific coast for all the unemployed. If they would only come here and be willing to make the same sacrifices the early pioneers did.

'One thing that you people on the Coast ought to agitate is the building of the Nicaragua canal, for it would do more than anything else to develop this Puget Sound country, in connection with the splendid railroad system you have out here. I am surprised to find that people do not more persistently advocate the completion of the canal by our government. This matter ought to be urged continually upon Congress until it is bound to take hold of the canal and complete it. The project is of the utmost importance to the Pacific Coast. Whatever benefits the Coast benefits the nation, and the converse is also true. I first became interested in the matter while in attendance on the Pan-American Congress, in the winter of 1889, and since that time I have devoted a great deal of attention to it. I fully believe that when the canal is completed the proposed railroad to Central America will also be finished. The government can afford to do the work, for the money returns will be so great as to soon pay off any debt that might be incurred. Operations on the canal once resumed, the hands of our idle men would find remunerative employment, and the project would thus be relieved of an enormous burden.'