Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1901 — Few-Line Interviews. [ARTICLE]

Few-Line Interviews.

M. Jules Siegfried of Fr.,nee—l nil) glad to say there is the most cordial sentiment entertained throughout Frauce toward the United States. This is traditional with us, but there never has been a time when the feeling was more genuine than it is at present.

T. F. Moerlin of Havana, Cuba—Everything is getting dull in Havana. The tourist season is about over and very few Americans, outside of the government service, are left. The large hotels look like banquet halls deserted. Then the political conditions are so uncertain that all business is dull.

H. A. Rhodes of Tacoma, Wash.—A peculiar fact about the State of Washington is that it has overcome one of the oldest customs of that old inhabitant, the Chinese of China. By sheer of enterprise it has converted the natives of a large part of China from a rice-eating to a wheat-eating people, nnd now there are annually tens of thousands of bushels of wheat grown in Washington and shipped to China to supply this. Chinese demand.

F. 1,. Bailey of Haley, Idaho—Gold is cheaper up in Circle City, Alaska, than Confederate money was during the lasyt days of the Civil War. Money loses Virtue when a man’s hungry, and there are several thousand people up in that frozen country that are appreciating this fact. I came out of Circle City late in Deeeml*er, about the last trip made out, and when I left the flour panic was on. It is not a question of money, 1 for money will not buy flour. The ruling price lute in December was $1 a pound. George J. Gould, President of the Missouri Pacific —I was amazed at the many changes had taken plnee in the Southwest since my visit to that part of the country nearly three years ago. Tho prosperity of the Southwest Is marvelous aud I believe the same statement will apply to the West generally. Old cities have grown at a rapid rate nnd new ones have sp4rung up in the last few years. On every hand I saw the material proofs of prosperity—not booms, but the solid, substantial prosperity that lasts.

Lionel G. Sisler of New York—Twisting the lion's tail used to be the favorite sport of American statesmen, but the pastime is not so popular as it once was. Nowadnys when a statesman wants to hear the galleries applaud he pokes the octopus. The octopus can be most anything that for the moment is a popular bogie. Some few men, of course, are sincere, l>nt It seems to me the majority of the octopus chasers pßiy solely to the grand stand. The octopus, however, does not seem to greatly mind the poking. B. J. Ilulten of Gunnison, Colo., after a visit in England—There will yet he a chance for the Boer cause in South Africa. England’s own people are going back on the crown and if the sturdy home defenders of the Transvaal can hold out even a small resistance, as they propose, for another year, the aspect of things will be radically changed. The masses of the English people are not in sympathy with the war and Its continuance is causing a spread of indignatloa that will some day break out in troubles at hame for John Bull.