 Chapter 28, A History of California, the American Period, by Robert Glass-Cleland. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 28, Politics 1880-1910, A Resume As stated in the preceding chapter, the Constitution of 1879 made a sincere attempt to remedy the grievances of which the people of the state complained. To this end it provided for a more equitable system of land assessment, placed the sale of water for irrigation purposes under official regulation, curtailed to some degree the right of the public service corporations to fix rates, declared lobbying a felony, forbade special legislation, and greatly restricted other powers of the Senate and Assembly. In dealing with the issues arising from the transportation monopoly, the framers of the Constitution made many radical changes in the old order. Railroads were declared common carriers and forbidden to combine with steamship lines or among themselves to hinder competition. Discrimination in rates or service was prohibited. Passes could no longer be granted to state officials. Rates once lowered to stifle competition could not be raised again without the sanction of the state. Finally, no officer, stockholder, or employee of a railroad was permitted to furnish supplies or material of any kind to the company with which he was connected. The most significant extension of public control over the railroad slay, however, in the constitutional provision for a state board of railroad commissioners with ample powers to regulate rates, examine into accounts, and prevent unlawful discriminations of every sort. As formally established by the Legislative Act of April 15, 1880, this board consisted of three members, elected every four years. The creation of this commission was considered a great victory for the people, and for a time there was much rejoicing that a method had at last been found to deal with the railroad monopoly. Following the adoption of the Constitution, thirty years went by before the state experienced another startling political upheaval. In the meantime, many of the economic conditions against which the agitation of 1878 had been directed gradually disappeared. The Chinese invasion, as already explained, was checked by federal legislation. Many of the large land holdings were subdivided into small ranches and sold to meet the demands of a constantly increasing population. Water rights became more stabilized and the development of diversified forms of agriculture improved materially the status of the rural population. From a political standpoint, however, conditions showed but slight improvement. The standards of the time tolerated many practices which present-day opinion outlaws. Moreover, the system of party organization and the electoral machinery then in vogue were not especially adapted to making the government responsive to popular control. For the most part, during this period, the state was under the control of the Republican Party, with the Democrats gaining an occasional governorship or electing an occasional United States Senator. But under neither party was there much change in the fundamental conditions. There is not much that divides the parties now, truly said Golispie Hummington some years before his death in 1900, but the seven great reasons. Those are the five loaves and the two fishes. And it needs scarcely be added that Hummington knew whereof he spoke. To account for the low tone of politics and government within the state, the people of California fell back upon their old antipathy to the central Southern Pacific railroads, whose builders had early entered the field of politics. The first concern of these men was to obtain land grants, subsidies of various kinds, franchises, and similar concessions for the roads. Where they became interested in preventing the reduction of rates, the increase of taxes, and the enactment of various forms of regulatory legislation. In these political activities, as in every other undertaking, the railroad organization was efficient and successful. But as public sentiment grew more hostile, anti-railroad agitation began to be resorted to as an easy means of obtaining votes, an anti-railroad legislation, some of which was legitimate, some ultra-radical, and some scarcely concealed form of blackmail, had to be fought in every session of the legislature. The railroad organization was also vitally interested in the congressmen and senators California sent to Washington, and in the character of such bodies as the state board of railroad commissioners and the state board of equalization, with its powers of revision over tax assessments. In fact, since the interests of the Southern Pacific company were so extremely varied that it could be benefited or injured in a hundred different ways by as many political bodies throughout the state, there was virtually no limit to the official appointments and legislative issues in which it was concerned. Eventually, as already stated, these political activities of the railroad came to be accepted by the people of California as the chief cause of the unsatisfactory nature of their government. The influence of the Southern Pacific machine was popularly supposed to extend from the governor of the state to the lowest ward healer in San Francisco, and to determine who should sit in city councils and on boards of supervisors, who should be sent to the House of Representatives and to the Senate at Washington, what laws should be enacted by the legislature, and what decisions should be rendered from the bench. That the officials of the Southern Pacific could not be convicted of any direct violation of the law and their political activities made no great difference to the public mind. Men, for example, pointed to the election of Stanford to the United States Senate in 1885 as an evidence of the railroad's power, and the story got abroad that he had spent a quarter of a million dollars to ensure the necessary votes. Under the death of Colton, one of the important builders of the Southern Pacific Railroad, certain letters which had been written by Huntington to Colton were submitted as evidence in a suit brought by Colton's widow against her husband's former associates. Extracts from these letters, which dealt principally with Huntington's activities in Washington, the desirability of passing certain measures in the California, Arizona, and New Mexico legislatures, and the election of candidates favorable to the railroad interests, influenced the public mind still further against the Southern Pacific Company. Beginning in the early nineties, moreover, and extending over half a decade, the Southern California public, particularly, had what was commonly regarded as unmistakable evidence of the Southern Pacific's influence in national politics. The issue involved was that of constructing a deep water harbor at San Pedro. This port, famous in the old days of the Hyde and Tallow trade, furnished the logical outlet of Southern California railroads to the sea, and was the natural entrepôt for all the territory tributary to Los Angeles. The roadstead, however, was badly exposed at certain seasons of the year, and required the erection of an expensive breakwater to render it secure. The required appropriation for this depended necessarily upon the federal government, and though a number of small appropriations for dredging the estuary, or so-called inner harbor, had been made, Congress seemed little disposed to provide the necessary funds for the larger undertaking. In the early stages of the movement, the Huntington interests in common with other influential organizations backed the San Pedro enterprise. Later, for reasons variously explained, the Southern Pacific broke away from its former associates, became the bitter opponent of the San Pedro appropriation, and advocated the creation of a port some two miles north of the town of Santa Monica, where the company itself had just erected a costly wharf, familiarly known in after years as the Long Wharf, reaching a mile out to sea. For many years the fight over this harbor question went on, until it became the most hotly contested issue in Southern California politics. The Southern Pacific program was backed by various newspapers and a number of the most influential citizens of Los Angeles. On the other hand, the fight for San Pedro was carried on by a strong coalition composed of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the recently organized Los Angeles Terminal Railways, and the Los Angeles Times, of which Harrison Gray Otis, for many years the most unique figure in journalism on the Pacific coast, had not long since become proprietor. The San Pedro cause, moreover, found an effective representative in the United States Senate in the person of Stephen M. White of Los Angeles. Few Californians in public life have enjoyed either the national distinction or the local admiration which fell to Senator White during his political career, and nothing contributed more to this popularity than his vigorous fight for the free harbor at San Pedro. Only the most general summary of the long drawn out contest can be given here. The hearings before the committee and the speeches in Congress were filled with technical discussions of the relative merits of the two ports. Courts, prevailing winds, holding grounds, and 100 kindred subjects figured in the controversy, to the great confusion of the lay mind, and without much enlightenment to Congress. The upshot was that for four years, neither side could gain an appreciable advantage, and the government failed to make an appropriation for either port. In 1896, however, a special board of engineers known as the Walker Board from Admiral John G. Walker, its chairman, was appointed to make an examination of the two ports, and recommend one or the other for the congressional appropriation. After several months of investigation, this body brought in a voluminous report signed by four of the five members in which San Pedro was favored as the location for a deepwater harbor for commerce and a refuge in Southern California. Though Congress had intended the findings of this board to be final, and had authorized the actual work to begin when its decision was made, a further delay of two years ensued in carrying out the project. The common opinion of that day laid the blame for this upon Secretary of War, Alger, who was accused of using his position to block the San Pedro enterprise at Huntington's instigation. Indeed, whatever merit the Santa Monica plan may have had, the Southern California public, for the most part, saw in it only an attempt at the Southern Pacific to shut other railroads away from deepwater, so that its monopoly might not be interfered with, and to control a great public enterprise for its own ends. Along with a public sentiment against the railroad arising from its actual or alleged political activities, when a hostility based upon economic grounds, the large landholdings of the company itself, and of the individuals connected with it, still remained a source of aggravation to the public mind. The rebates and discriminations which were still practiced in California, as in other states, increased this discontent. Particularly in the agricultural sections, men felt themselves so much at the mercy of the railroad that they became obsessed with the feeling of bitter futility, which was well summed up in the popular expression, out of three drops of rain which fall in the San Joaquin Valley, two are owned by Collis P. Huntington. The failure of the State Board of Railroad Commissioners, which had been so vigorously fought for in the Constitutional Convention of 1879, to order great reductions in freight and passenger rates, was especially galling to the public mind. It is true that very substantial reductions had been made from the high rates of the 70s, but these were not sufficient to satisfy the popular demand, and the Railroad Commission was looked upon as having fallen, like other political bodies, under Southern Pacific domination. The common opinion of the day regarding that body was thus expressed by Essie Moffat, writing in 1896. Quote, the curious fact remains that a body created 16 years ago for the sole purpose of curbing a single railroad corporation with a strong hand was found to be uniformly, without a break during all that period, its apologist and defender. Not a single majority report was ever issued from the Office of the Railroad Commission of a nature unsatisfactory to the company the commission was established to control, so that the net result of the popular agitation for the new constitution in 1878 and of the various anti-monopoly agitation since has been the creation of a new Southern Pacific literary bureau maintained at public expense. Quote, though the Southern Pacific Railroad was the most outstanding object of popular suspicion and dislike, it did not have a complete monopoly of this distinction. Public service companies and large corporations generally, many of which hid behind the skirts of the Southern Pacific and profited from its political activities, came in for their share of condemnation. Writing in 1897 while mayor of San Francisco, James D. Thelan summed up the current view as follows. Quote, we have the suspected corruption of public bodies, legislators and supervisors and even courts are exposed to the machinations of the corporations, which with the Southern Pacific company, the overshadowing monopoly of the state have been classified by the people in impotent wrath as the associated villainies. They have debauched politics and established a government within the government more powerful in normal times than the state government itself. End quote. This hostility to the railroad and to corporation interests in general was of course not confined to California. Nor was the movement which later brought a new order of affairs and politics established a new relation between government and corporations and brought a change in public sentiment towards such companies confined to the state boundaries. In California, however, there were certain influences which made this movement particularly effective. Not the least of these was the development of a large middle class population, especially after 1900, with means, education and leisure enough to take an active and intelligent interest in political affairs. It is almost unnecessary to add that many of these newcomers were from the Middle Western states and brought with them an instinctive desire for a political experiment. Before any particular change occurred in the state government, however, the two largest cities of California underwent a pretty thorough political overhauling. And the influence of these municipal reforms very materially affected the whole state. In 1902, the government of San Francisco passed into the hands of a notorious combination known as the Ruf Schmitz regime. Though Schmitz was nominally mayor, the real leader of the organization was Abraham Ruf, a man of shrewd ability but of very low political ideals. Masquerading behind the livery of the labor union party, Ruf and Schmitz succeeded in building up a very effective political machine, and after once attaining the office kept the city under their control for six disgraceful years. The revenue which was necessary to keep the machine intact came from many sources. An organized ring in control of illegal prize fights in the city contributed liberally to the Ruf Schmitz exchequer. So also did privileged gambling houses, saloons, dens of the Barbary Coast, and more respectable establishments in other parts of the city euphemistically known as French restaurants. These, however, were not the worst aspects of the system of government from which San Francisco suffered. The more outstanding evil of the Ruf Schmitz administration was the relation between the municipal officials and certain important public services corporations within the city. These companies, like the saloons and brothels, also paid tribute to the political machine. Whether they were victims of official blackmail under which they could operate and obtain legitimate franchises only as they resorted to bribery, or whether, in order to secure privileges and immunities hurtful to the public interest, they were willing to corrupt the very springs of government, is too largely a matter of individual opinion for discussion at this time. Irrespective of where the primary guilt lay, it was obvious that the people of San Francisco were suffering in many tangible ways from a moral collapse in municipal affairs. By 1906, conditions had become so bad that a small group of citizens, including Fremont Older of the San Francisco Bulletin, Rudolph Spreckles and James D. Fielin, set about a systematic campaign to clean up the government and punish the chief criminals. Aided by President Roosevelt, this group engaged the services of Francis J. Haney, who had just one national distinction from his prosecution of certain timber frauds in Oregon, and also William Burns, later the United States Secret Service. Before much headway had been made in the investigations, however, the great earthquake and fire of April 18th reduced the city to ruins and temporarily checked the reform movement. The confusion arising from the great disaster to San Francisco afforded even larger opportunities for graft than Schmidt and Roof had previously enjoyed. While the people of the stricken community with unquenched optimism were planning to rebuild their city on a more substantial basis, the United Railways Company, which at that time monopolized the local traction business, secured from the board of supervisors permission to continue operations under an overhead trolley franchise, instead of installing an underground cable system similar to that in use in Washington, DC. In this transaction, the company was charged with having paid $200,000 to secure the necessary votes. The unearthing of this and many other instances of graft by the backers of the reform program and the prosecution of the most notorious offenders occupied months of time and aroused the bitterest antagonism. At the very outset of the investigation, Roof sought to remove the district attorney, W.H. Langdon, an honest man who had slipped into office through inadvertence on Roof's part and to have himself appointed to the office in Langdon's stead. Failing this, he also lost control of the grand jury and along with Schmidt's had to face indictment and trial. The supervisors, 18 in number, were completely cornered and forced to confess their part in the corruption from which the city had suffered for so many years. So long as Haney and his supporters can find their attention to Roof, Schmidt's and the supervisors, public opinion ran strongly in their favor. But with a next step, the trial of Patrick Calhoun and Thierry L. Ford of the United Railways, the graft prosecution as the movement was now called at once law support in many quarters. As the trial proceeded, San Francisco experienced something of the old excitement and tenseness of vigilante days. Most of the newspapers turned against the prosecution with a bitterness of invective rarely equaled in California journalism. Attempted intimidation gave place to actual violence. One of the supervisors named Gallagher, whose testimony was vital to the prosecution, had his house blown up with dynamite. Fremont Older was kidnapped and carried as far south as Santa Barbara in what was believed to be an abortive attempt to bring about his assassination. Haney was shot in the head while conducting the prosecution, but escaped a mortal wound. His assailant, apparently deranged, was imprisoned and later committed suicide. For two years and more, the graft prosecution continued. Every technicality known to the law was made use of to save the accused men. Juries were tampered with, witnesses intimidated and public opinion be fogged. The United Railway officials escaped conviction through a divided jury and succeeded in having the remaining indictments dismissed. Officials of other public service corporations charged with similar violations of the law were never brought to trial. Schmitz was saved on a technicality by the state Supreme Court. Roof alone was sent to the penitentiary. The direct results of the attempt to punish misgovernment in San Francisco were thus disappointingly neither from the standpoint of decent citizenship. But the indirect effects of the graft prosecution were much more significant and would have been the conviction of any number of guilty citizens or corrupt officials. The evidence submitted at the trials of these men might not be sufficient to send them to prison, but it convicted them overwhelmingly in the public mind. And, more important still, laid bare the evil workings of the system which they symbolized. Through the San Francisco graft investigation, the people of the state were both enlightened and aroused. Incidentally too, the municipal government of San Francisco, for some time after the roof Schmitz exposure, was honestly and efficiently administered by Mayor Taylor. In the midst of San Francisco's unsavory disclosures, similar evidences of corruption were found in the municipal government of Los Angeles. As early as 1907, it was pretty generally surmised that certain city officials headed by Mayor A.C. Harper were in league with the disreputable elements of the underworld. Appointments to office were made without any regard to the fitness of the individual and often included man of notoriously evil character. The moral sense of the city was outraged and its fears aroused the building of the great Owens River Aqueduct, then on foot, should lead to wholesale raids upon the municipal treasury. On January 7th, 1909, Mr. T. E. Gibbon, the editor of the Los Angeles Herald, began the real reform crusade with a series of articles entitled, Is Vice Protected in Los Angeles? These articles were run in wide columns and closed in red borders, accompanying the editorials were open letters to the chief of police, giving undeniable evidence of the existence of scores of gambling centers and houses of prostitution in the city. Diagrams of the buildings where these illegal practices flourished with almost no attempt to concealment were skillfully added to give the needed touch of definiteness to the accusations. A clever cartoonist was something of the art of Thomas Nast, furnished a still stronger appeal to the popular indignation. The direct connection between the violators of the law and the city administration was next revealed by the Herald's investigations. Three sugar companies known respectively as the Pacific Sugar Corporation, the Pacific Sugar Company and the Pacific Securities Corporation have been organized by the mayor and his intimate associates. The stock and the companies to a par value of $250,000 was then sold to the brewers, the saloon keepers and the cafe proprietors holding liquor licenses throughout the city. An oil company known as the Utah Los Angeles Oil Company was similarly organized and its stock marketed among the city's vicious elements, greatly to the profit of the mayor and his companions. From the standpoint of the purchasers, this stock was valuable only as its possession brought immunity from police interference. The Herald's crusade was continued in till March 26th. In the meantime, the evening expressed the municipal league and the district attorney joined in the campaign. A minority of the grand jury also brought in a scathing report against the city administration. As a result of these revelations, a general uprising began against Harper in all that he represented. The mayor's efforts to allay popular indignation by substituting better men for those previously pointed to the office proved futile. A recall petition was circulated and in the ensuing election, Harper, realizing his hopeless position and fearing further disclosures did not venture to appear as a candidate. George Alexander, formerly a county supervisor, was elected mayor and a new era and Los Angeles politics began. The San Francisco and Los Angeles reform crusades did much to strengthen a political revolt which had started as early as 1906. Under the suggestive name of the Lincoln Roosevelt League, this movement was formally organized in Oakland, August 1st, 1907. Though nominally Republican in composition, the league had most of the characteristics of a nonpartisan movement. Its platform, as originally announced, was as follows, quote, the emancipation of the Republican Party in California from domination by the political bureau of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company and allied interests, and the reorganization of the state committee to that end. The selection of delegates to the next Republican National Convention pledged to vote and to work for the nominations of a candidate for president known to be truly committed to and identified with President Roosevelt's policies and to oppose the nomination of any reactionary style safe and sane by the great corporate interests. The election of a free, honest and capable legislature truly representative of the common interests of the people of California. The pledging of all delegates to conventions against the iniquitous practice of trading, whereby political bosses affect nominations by bargains and sale, and the enactment of legislation penalizing such practices. The enactment by the next legislature of such laws as will give voters an advisory voice in the election of United States senators until such time as an amendment to the national constitution shall make that voice direct and absolute. Which amendment we favor? The pledging of the candidate for the legislature to the enactment of such a primary election law shall afford the party voter a direct voice in the selection of party candidates. End quote. The program of the Lincoln Roosevelt League was thus in keeping with a changed attitude towards social, economic and political questions, which was just then beginning to sweep over the United States. The old generation was rapidly passing away, and men everywhere were ready for new standards, new schemes of government, new political catch words, and new leaders. Almost from the outset, the Lincoln Roosevelt League gained rapid headway in California. Much of its success was due to the newspaper support which it received. In Los Angeles, the Evening Express and later the Morning Tribune aligned themselves with the new movement. Chester H. Rowell's Fresno Republican courted something of the same infallibility in the San Joaquin Valley that Greeley's Tribune had once enjoyed in New York, also championed the league. The Sacramento Bee, the San Francisco Bulletin, the Oakland Tribune, and a dozen other newspapers in various sections of the state, likewise through themselves into the new cause with an enthusiasm in which the zeal to purify politics was perhaps not wholly divorced from the desire to increase circulation. The movement was also fortunate in finding capable and vigorous leadership. Chief of its leaders, at least in his ability to command popular support, was Hiram Johnson. The final estimate of this man's character and the place he should occupy in the state's political history must be left to the future's judgment. We of the present generation stand too close to see him in his true perspective. But whatever judgment history may finally pass upon Johnson, if indeed she finds it necessary to pass any judgment at all, friend and foe alike will admit his ability to win popular support. For nearly a decade, he dictated the course of California politics. The Lincoln Roosevelt League, which formerly merged into the Progressive Party in 1913, gained a partial control over the legislature of 1909 and won a complete victory in the election of the next year. It is doubtful if public interest in California had ever been so keenly aroused by a state election since the bitter rivalries of Broderick and Gwyn 50 years before. The campaign took on something of the character of a crusade, especially directed against the evils of the so-called machine government and the participation of corporations in politics. Because of the traditional unpopularity of the Southern Pacific Company in California, that corporation had to bear the brunt of these attacks and to the great majority of voters, the campaign became simply a concerted movement to drive the Southern Pacific out of politics and destroy the old machine. As a matter of fact, however, the Southern Pacific, even before the election approached, had ceased most of its political activities and took no part in the campaign. The following statement recently made by one of the company's chief officials frankly states the position of the Southern Pacific at that time. After the lapse of more than a decade since the election, it ought at least to be read in the spirit of fairness. Quote, in time it became obvious to the managers of the company that the disadvantages of these political activities so far out balanced any possible benefits the company would derive from them, that it became the policy to discontinue whatever political activities existed. And after 1893, it was the constant effort of the company to divorce itself from its former relations to politics. This, it had largely succeeded in doing prior to the time of Governor Johnson's election in 1910. In this campaign, the company took no part. Here and there, individuals who were friendly to the company would naturally continue their political efforts and no doubt some of these cases were referred to as proof that the company was engaged in this campaign. It was fortunate that Governor Johnson's campaign, bristling with hostility to the interference of corporations and politics and especially the Southern Pacific company, afforded that company a most favorable opportunity for terminating its political activities because the election of Governor Johnson was considered by the public to be a defeat for the company and as the company was careful to avoid any possible political activity thereafter, it came to be accepted by the people of the state that the company was out of politics, a consummation welcomed by the officials of the company with great cordiality, end quote. The control of the governorship and the state legislature after 1910 gave to the Lincoln Roosevelt leaders free scope to put their platform into practical effect. This was done with a thoroughness not usual in political affairs. Measures like the referendum, the initiative, the recall, the direct primary and the popular election of the United States senators to render the government more responsive to popular will were grafted on to the constitution. Laws affecting conditions of labor were freely enacted. Additional powers were bestowed upon the state railway commission and its jurisdiction extended over other public utility corporations throughout the state. In this fashion, the Lincoln Roosevelt League fulfilled its pledge and California began another stage in their political career as an American state. The end of chapter 28, chapter 29, a history of California, the American period by Robert Glass-Cleland. This liberal arts recording is in the public domain. Chapter 29, material progress. Since the beginning of statehood, less than 75 years ago, the economic progress of California has been so remarkable that one cannot attempt to describe it without seeming to exaggerate. Wonders have become commonplace and the prophecy of yesterday falls short of the reality of today. According to the federal census, the population of the state in 1850 was 92,597. 10 years later it had risen to 379,994 and within the next decade reached 560,247. After the census of 1870, the influence of the railroad began to be strongly felt in the immigration of eastern people to California and the population by 1880 had grown to 864,694. The closing years of the next decade witnessed, especially in Southern California, one of the strangest social phenomena in the history of the state. This was the real estate boom of 1887 or the great boom as it was fittingly called by those who watched its meteoric progress and collapse. The great boom was the result of many factors. From the time of the completion of the Central Pacific Railroad, a consistent campaign had been carried on in the eastern states to induce people to come to the Pacific coast. The ordinary forms of commercial advertising were supplemented by a great variety of books and magazine articles descriptive of California, its climate and resources. Charles Nordhoff, T.S. Van Dyke, John S. Hiddle and many others added their contributions to the general publicity the state was receiving. Even such books as Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona and Robert Louis Stevenson's Silverado Squatters carried the name and fame of California across the mountains and helped to arouse an interest in the state among prospective immigrants. A paragraph from B.F. Taylor's Between the Gates, published in 1878, will illustrate the character of a certain type of these descriptions of California. Quote, whoever asks where Los Angeles is, to him I shall say, across a desert without wearying, beyond a mountain without climbing, where heights stand away from it, where ocean winds breathe upon it, where the gold-mounted lime hedges border it, where the flowers catch fire with beauty, among the orange groves beside the olive trees, where the pomegranates wear calyx crowns, where the figs of semerna are turning, where the bananas of Honolulu are blossoming, where the chestnuts of Italy are dropping, where Sicilian lemons are ripening, where the almond trees are shining, through that Alameda of walnuts and apricots, through this avenue of willows and poplars, in the vineyards six Sabbath days journey across them, in the midst of a garden of 36 square miles, there is Los Angeles, end quote. Land was still relatively cheap in California, and as irrigation developed and the agricultural possibilities of the state became better known, especially the adaptability of certain favored sections to grapes and fruits, a steady stream of prospective buyers came annually from the East. Real estate companies, boards of trade and chambers of commerce added their literature and advertisements to the publicity campaign, and by the early 80s, the foundations for a boom were well laid. The chief obstacle retarding the immigrant movement was the high railroad fares from eastern points to California, and it only required a reduction of these to bring about an immediate rush of settlers to the coast. The completion of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885 affected the desired end. In January 1886, this road withdrew from the Transcontinental Traffic Association and precipitated a rate war with the Southern Pacific between Eastern cities and California. At the time this rate cutting began, tickets from Mississippi Valley points to Los Angeles cost about $125. Within a few months, this rate had been greatly reduced, and as the war went merrily on, the railroads almost carried people to California free of charge, a $5 rate from Missouri to Los Angeles remained in force for three months, and at least for one day, during the keenest period of competition, the fare was actually lowered to a dollar. When the period of insanity passed and the railroads ceased their suicidal rivalry, rates were restored to something like a normal basis, but even so, they did not again reach the high levels prevailing before the advent to the Santa Fe. In the meantime, the boom was on. Already interested in California by the attractive reports of its climate and resources, prospective settlers and tourists by the hundreds took advantage of the low rates to travel to the coast. Los Angeles and Southern California became the center of this immigration of the 80s as San Francisco and the Goldfields had been the center of the migration from 1849 to 1852. With the arrival of the newcomers, Los Angeles real estate began to rise sharply in value. The movement at first was orderly enough, but soon began to take on the worst features of an unsound and inflated boom. Before a year had passed, the boom had become a financial debauch. Most of those who took part in the speculative craze were newly arrived from the East, but many of the older residents at last caught the fever and either sold their real estate holdings at exorbitant figures, or having lost their heads in the contagion, competed with the so-called Greenhorn purchasers from the East for an opportunity to lose their money as well. Those responsible for the worst features of the boom, however, were outlanders from the Middle West professional boomers, as they were otherwise called, who learning of the increasing interest in California real estate flocked into Los Angeles by the score and resorted to every conceivable device to inflate prices and stimulate sales. Highly colored literature, supposedly descriptive of the climate and resources of Southern California, was scattered broadcast all over the United States and even over Europe. Of the means employed locally to attract prospective buyers, J.M. Gwynn, who lived through the boom period and saw in person the spectacular features of the craze, thus wrote, the methods of advertising the attractions of the various tracts, subdivisions, and town sites thrown on the market, and the devices resorted to to invagle purchasers into investing were various, often ingenious and sometimes infamous. Brass bands, street processions, free excursions and free lunches, columns of advertisements rich in description and profuse in promises that were never intended to be fulfilled, pictures of massive hotels in the course of erection, lithographs of colleges about to materialize, lotteries the prizes in which were handsome residences or family hotels, railroads that began and ended in the imaginations of the projectors. Such were a few of the many devices resorted to to attract purchasers and induce them to invest their coin. End quote. Under the stimulus of such advertising, Los Angeles slots rose from $500 in 1886 to $5,000 the next year and nearby ranch lands increased 14 and 1500% during the same period. Vast tracts formerly used for grain fields or sheep pastures were subdivided into town lots and sold at an unheard of profit. Along the line of the Santa Fe Railroad from Los Angeles to the San Bernardino County line, a distance of 36 miles, 25 of these boom towns were started before the close of 1887. Most of these particular towns, after years of struggle to live down their sinister origin, have since become flourishing communities but many of their contemporaries suffered a cruel fate. Some even died a-burning and no wonder. They were laid out on mountain sides in the sandy washes of the San Gabriel River on rocky, sterile brush lands without water or any other requisite of habitation and even on the dry wastes of the Mojave Desert. Wherever indeed the imagination of an ingenious and unscrupulous agent could conceive a town, there one was established, at least on paper, and lots literally sold by the thousands. Of the fate of these phantom towns, the following paragraph of J.M. Gwynn gives an apt account, quote. From a report compiled for the Los Angeles County Board of Equalization in July 1889, I find the area included in 60 towns, all of which were laid out since January 1st, 1887, estimated at 79,350 acres. The total population of these 60 towns at that time, 1889, was placed at 3,350. Some of the largest of these on paper were without inhabitants. Carlton containing 4,060 lots was an unpeopled waste. Nadeau, 4,470 lots had no inhabitants. Manchester, 2,304 lots, no inhabitants. Santiago, 2,110 lots was a deserted village. Others still contained a small remnant of their former population. Chicago Park containing 2,289 lots had one inhabitant, the watchman who took care of its leading hotel. Sunset, 2,014 lots, one inhabitant, the watchman of an expensive hotel which was in the course of construction when the boom burst. The sites of a majority of the boom cities of 20 years ago have been returned to acreage. The plowshare has passed over their ruins and barley grows in the deserted streets, end quote. The early part of 1888 marked the beginning of the end of the great boom. Prices fell even more rapidly than they had risen. The bands, barbecues, free excursions, glib auctioneers and crowds of dupes and speculators disappeared, leaving Southern California after a somewhat painful readjustment of its affairs to settle down into a less spectacular but much sounder period of development. In the meantime, the state as a whole had continued its steady growth. In the decade from 1880 to 1890, the population rose from approximately 865,000 to 1,213,398. Between 1890 and 1900, the increase was much less marked and the census of the later years showed a population of only 1,485,053. Within the next 10 years, however, immigration from the East set in on a larger scale than ever before. And by 1910, there were 2,377,549 persons living within the state. An even greater increase took place within the next decade and the federal census of 1920 showed a population of 3,426,861. The increase of population from 1850 to 1920, approximately 3,600% has been accompanied by a commensurate development of the state's economic resources. Most fundamental of these is the progress made in agriculture. In this industry, the state has passed through three stages, the pastoral area of the Spanish-Mexican regime when cattle and sheep were almost the sole basis of wealth, was superseded shortly after American occupation by the supremacy of the grain ranches. These stretched from mile upon mile through the great Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys and along the arable coastlands between Bodega and San Diego. With the coming of the railroads, the development of irrigation and the opening of eastern markets to California products, the grain ranches in turn gave place to fruit orchards, vineyards, alfalfa fields, truck gardens and all the varied branches of agriculture which today flourish in the state. The early experiments of mission priests and Spanish colonists showed the wonderful congeniality of the soil and climate of California for the production of oranges, grapes and deciduous fruits of almost every kind. And as already indicated, sometime after American occupation, fruit orchards and vineyards began to be planted for commercial purposes. Grapes were grown at first chiefly for the manufacture of wines and brandies. Vast tracts were set to vineyards all over the state and the wine industry became a widely advertised feature of California life. Table grapes were also grown in a smaller way but until a much later date the raisin industry was represented only by the so-called dried grapes with little flavor and slight commercial value. Today, however, the production of table grapes and raisins has become one of the chief industries of the state. The central part of the San Joaquin Valley is preeminently the raisin section of California and here, of late years especially, vineyard lands have risen surprisingly in value. Of deciduous fruits produced in California there is almost no limit in quantity or variety. Thanks to the refrigerator car, much of the yearly crop can now be shipped to eastern markets in its natural form. But by far the larger part of the yield is either dried or canned. No section of the state can claim a monopoly of the deciduous industry but the peach orchards of the San Joaquin Valley, the prune orchards of Santa Clara, the apricot orchards of Ventura, the apples of Watsonville and Eucypa, the cherries of Vacaville, the pears of Antelope Valley and the figs of Fresno and Tulare have acquired something more than ordinary reputation. One of the most valuable and certainly the most distinctive branch of agriculture in California is the citrus industry. Owing to climatic conditions, the production of oranges and lemons is confined almost entirely to certain favored sections of Southern California with the Lindsey, Portaville, Exeter region of the San Joaquin Valley occupying a place of less importance. The history of the citrus industry, interesting and significant as it has been, cannot be traced here at any length. Two outstanding features in its development, however, should at least be mentioned. One of these was the introduction of the Washington Naval in 1873. This, a seedless orange imported from Brazil by the United States Department of Agricultural almost immediately found favor in California and soon displaced the seedling varieties of fruit previously in common use. For many years, the Washington Naval and the so-called Valencia Lake have furnished the overwhelming bulk of the orange crop of the state. The second outstanding event in the history of the citrus industry and without doubt, the most significant contribution yet made to agricultural progress by the state was the formation in October 1895 of the Southern California Fruit Exchange. This organization, born of the dire necessity experienced in the early years of finding some method of protection against the ruinous charges of commission agents and high freight rates, was established on a purely cooperative basis among the orange and lemon growers of Southern California. In 1905, the field of the organization was widened and it took the name of the California Fruit Growers Exchange. Originally designed as a shipping and marketing agency, the exchange, as it is commonly known to its members, is today active in every department of the business. The intelligent cooperation and business efficiency which made its early success possible in the face of many difficulties and discouragements have continued to mark its progress. Until today, the organization enjoys an international reputation as the most highly developed and successful enterprise of its kind in the world. Footnote, the exchange today handles 75% of the citrus production of California and its nationally advertised Sun Kiss brand of oranges and lemons has become a household word throughout the United States. In footnote, the California Fruit Growers Exchange, moreover, not only made possible the success of the citrus industry of California but also pioneered the way by which almost every other branch of agriculture in California has been lifted to a new level. Thus, the grape growers have a similarly efficient and powerful organization known as the California Associated Raisin Company. Other organizations of the kindred nature have been affected among the peach growers of the state, among the prune and apricot ranchers and among the producers of walnuts and almonds. Vegetable and melon growers, dairymen and poultry men in certain localities have also organized their mutual associations along similar lines. Until it may be said without danger of exaggeration that cooperative enterprise has become one of the chief secrets of California's recent phenomenal agricultural development. Another feature of the state's agricultural progress has been the steadily increasing emphasis upon the application of science to farm problems. The state university, through its many agricultural departments, has done much in this direction. The state agricultural society and the United States government have also contributed largely to the advance of the industry in California. In special fields such as that of the citrus industry, the powerful cooperative organizations already spoken of have developed unusually successful departments of investigation and research for the benefit of their members. Some 16 local farm magazines of a special or general nature also contribute their quota to the advance of agricultural knowledge. Many rural high schools have special departments for the teaching of animal husbandry, the operation and care of farm machinery, the selection of seed and kindred subjects. Counties have their commissioners of horticulture and there are also county farm advisors supported at public expense to advise with any rancher who may need their services and to study the local needs of their particular districts. In a word, ranching in California, as in other progressive states, has been brought to the level of a highly specialized and skilled business. Another feature of permanent significance in the state's agricultural progress has been the successful experimentation with new fruits and crops. The avocado industry, for example, though still in its beginning, promises to develop into one of the most distinctive and valuable forms of horticulture in Southern California. Long before California became a state, the adaptability of its soil and climate to cotton and rice growing has been pointed out. Yet neither of these great staples was produced in commercial quantity until very recent years. Since 1910, however, vast areas of the Imperial Valley and the San Joaquin have been planted to cotton and the value of the crop is annually over $15 million. Rice culture, similarly, has suddenly assumed a place of first importance in the Sacramento and lower San Joaquin valleys and California has become the second rice producing state in the union. The sugar beet industry, though much older than cotton or rice production in California, was still in the experimental stage as late as 1890 and only since 1900 has it risen to first rank proportions. Bean culture has also become a distinctive California industry in recent years and in 1918 the crop was valued at nearly $50 million. Truck gardening for Eastern as well as for local markets has similarly been a matter of recent growth and today vegetables from the Imperial, San Gabriel, San Fernando, Lower San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys as well as from a dozen other favored sections in the state not only supply the local needs of over 3 million people and the demands of dozens of great canneries but also go literally by the hundreds of train loads to the tables of the Atlantic Seaboard and the Mississippi Valley. The cattle industry, especially in the Imperial Valley and the Turlock District of the San Joaquin has assumed astonishing proportions within the last decade and in 1920, 13,000 carloads were shipped to Eastern markets. Daring the production of thoroughbred cattle and hogs and the raising of poultry are also becoming of increasing importance year by year. The last named industry especially has enabled many people of small means to find an independent livelihood who otherwise would have been forced to join the ranks of the clerks or wage earners in the cities. The large scale production of these varied types of agricultural products has been parallel by the reclamation of great areas of swamp and overflow land, notably in the Lower Sacramento and San Joaquin basins and of even larger areas of arid or desert land by the drilling of wells and the building of irrigation works. The history of this feature, the state's development is too long to be told in this volume but mention must at least be made at the most noteworthy enterprise of this kind in recent years. When 150 years ago, the old Spanish colonizing expeditions crossed the Colorado River into out to California, they found themselves in a region of sandy wastes, destitute of water covered only with a grotesque flora of the desert and if the crossing were attempted in the summer, almost unbearably hot for man and beast. Three quarters of a century later when Kearney's forces entered California from New Mexico, they found the same weary land of sand and heat stretching before them from the Colorado to the San Diego mountains. The following paragraph, written by Colonel Emery in 1846, is faintly descriptive of the region over which the American soldiers toiled so many years ago. Quote, the desert over which we had passed 90 miles from water to water is an immense triangular plain bounded on one side by the Colorado, on the west by the Cordilleras of California, the coast chain of mountains which now encircle us and on the northwest by a chain of mountains running southeast and northwest. It is chiefly covered with floating sand, the surface of which in various places is white with diminutive spinelas and everywhere over the whole surface is found a large and soft muscle shell. In quote, a certain Dr. Wozencraft, United States Indian agent at San Francisco from 1850 to 1860, became the first enthusiast for the development of the region which he first visited in 1849 and afterwards described with a certain pardonable exaggeration as the most formidable of all deserts on the continent. Wozencraft labored from 1850 to 1888 to carry out his ambition and at one time 1859, succeeded in securing from the California legislature a grant to all state lands in the basin, providing his reclamation plan should be affected. Ganges apparently was disposed to take similar favorable action when the outbreak of the Civil War ended the proposed legislation. The construction of the Southern Pacific Railway from Los Angeles to New Orleans by way of the San Gorgonio Pass in Fort Yuma stimulated a new interest in the desert region through which the line ran for so much of its course. Early in the 90s, a young engineer named C.R. Rockwood became interested in the diversion of water from the Colorado for the irrigation of the land west of the river and succeeded in enlisting some financial support. By 1896, considerable preliminary survey work had been accomplished and a corporation known as the California Development Company had been organized under the laws of New Jersey with A.H. Heber as its president. For four years this company made little progress toward obtaining the capital necessary for the success of its enterprise. But in 1900, George Chafee, a noted engineer and capitalist of Southern California, became actively concerned with the project and under his management the irrigation of the valley was finally begun in the spring of 1901. The magnitude and novelty of reclaiming a desert by diverting the waters of a great river appealed to the American imagination so that wide publicity was immediately given to the imperial undertaking. Colonists, sightseers, and speculators began to visit the valley in considerable number. And despite financial difficulties on the part of the California Development Company and internal friction among its directors coupled with a most unfavorable report on the agricultural possibilities of the valley by the United States Department of Agriculture, a fair size boom was in progress by 1903. The development of the valley, though hindered by many factors, especially the uncertainty of boundary lines and land titles continued without serious interruption until the great floods of 1906. In that year the Colorado almost bodily left its old outlet to the Gulf, cut a new channel through the heart of the Imperial Valley and poured its waters into the vast inland sink since known as Salton Sea. For many dangerous weeks the rising waters threatened to engulf the ranches and settlements of the valley and destruction seemed to await the whole Imperial project. The closing of the breach through which the river had escaped was a task of too great magnitude for the California Development Company or the settlers of the valley. The aid of the federal government and the full strength of the Southern Pacific Railroad, whose through line east was menaced by the Runway River, was accordingly given to meet the emergency. Fortunately, in the person of Epi's Randolph, one of the genuine pioneer railroad builders of the Southwest, a man was found capable of dealing with the situation. The struggle went desperately on during the summer and fall of 1906 while the people of the valley waited with deep anxiety the advent of the winter and spring floods. Twice at least when the rains came earlier than had been expected, the Colorado got beyond control. But in February 1907 the last break was closed and the river resumed its fretful way to the gulf. Once released from the menace of the Colorado, the Imperial Valley underwent a transformation tritely spoken of as amazing. The fertility of the soil, coupled with the intense heat of the summers and the mild winter climate, produced enormous crops of almost every variety. Barley, sorghum, milo, maize, and alfalfa, early vegetables such as lettuce, tomatoes, and peas, cotton, corn, cattle, and hogs, milk, butter, eggs, and turkeys for the Thanksgiving and Christmas markets. Grapes that ripen before the frost is well out of the ground in New England and a cantaloupe harvest so large that a day's pick from a single shipping center often fills 200 freight cars. Such today are the products of Imperial Valley where two short decades or a little more ago were only desert waste and sand. Though occupying a much less spectacular position in California's economic life than at an earlier time, mining has consistently remained one of the state's important industries since a great gold era of 1849. At present, there are approximately 50 minerals developed on a commercial scale, but the production of gold, chiefly by quartz mining and dredging, remains the most important feature of the industry, petroleum be excluded. Silver, quicksilver, copper, borax, cement, and building stone are also produced in considerable quantities. The lumber industry, which very early in the history of the state became one of its important assets, remains today a characteristic feature of California's economic life. The industry is localized chiefly in the Sierra Nevada mountains of central and northern California and in the coast counties north of the Russian River. The world supply of commercial redwood, a beautiful, decay-resisting timber, comes from the four counties of Santa Cruz, Humboldt, Mendocino, and Del Norte. The redwood cut equals nearly 500 million board feet a year. Next comes western yellow pine with an annual production of about 400 million feet. Douglas fir, about 225 million feet. Sugar pine and white fir, nearly 125 million feet each. And cedars, spruce, and other minor woods sufficient to raise the total annual output to over 1,500 million board feet. One of the great natural resources has been denied to California. The state has no known coal deposits of any magnitude. This lack of fuel for a long time proved a serious handicap to the development of cheap and efficient transportation and to the establishment of important manufacturers. Two other agencies, however, the one especially in comparatively recent times have been drawn upon to make up for this deficiency of coal. These are petroleum and hydroelectric energy. The history of the petroleum industry in California, fascinating as it is, must be passed by with only a meager and unsatisfactory reference. Oil exudes were found near Los Angeles over a hundred years ago, and the asphalt in which they produced was made use of to cover the roofs of early Spanish California houses. The beginning of commercial production of petroleum in the Pennsylvania fields drew some attention in the early 60s to the possibilities of developing these oil deposits in California. And about this time, the first commercial production is said to have been obtained in Pico Canyon near the present town of Newhall. But no important development took place until the late 70s. Thomas R. Bard, afterwards the United States Senator from California, Lyman Stewart, now Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Union Oil Company, and W. L. Hardison were among the most important pioneers in the industry. Early in the 90s, E. L. Doheny now prominently identified with petroleum development in Mexico, and his partner, C.A. Canfield, began the production of oil in the Los Angeles fields by sinking a shaft with pick, shovel, and windlass on a plot of ground near the western boundary of the city. In those early years, petroleum was valuable chiefly for the manufacture of kerosene and axle grease. Then the possibility of using crude oil for fuel became known, and sometime later it began to be used on locomotives instead of coal. From an economic standpoint, this was an invaluable aid to the development of transportation in California. For the oil-burning locomotives solved the expensive and perplexing fuel problem of the railroads. Since the ever-increasing demand for gasoline and lubricants caused by the growth of the automobile industry and the larger use of crude petroleum for fuel and transportation and manufacturing, the oil deposits of California have become one of the state's greatest assets. The cheap producing fields, Lyon Kern, Orange, Fresno, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties. The development of hydroelectric power, which is said to have been begun in California by the Chaffee Brothers of Ontario in 1882, has come to be, especially in the last decade, one of the outstanding features of the state's new industrial life. The Sierra Nevada mountains, with their abundant snows and never-failing streams, furnish a vast storehouse of power upon which the state can draw for its future industrial and transportation needs. Many of the largest rivers of the state, such as the Pitt, Klamath, Feather, San Joaquin, Kings, Kern, and Owens, have already been partially harnessed and made to furnish light and power for the cities, homes, street railways, manufacturing plants, and irrigation works in the valleys below. Most of this development has been carried on by a few large public utility corporations, of which the Southern California Edison, the Pacific Gas and Electric, the San Joaquin Light and Power, the Western States Electric, and the Southern Sierra's Power Company are the most important. But the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco have also entered the hydroelectric field. Los Angeles has centered its activities in the Owens River Valley, and along the 230 mile aqueduct, which carries the water of that stream to the city. In 1920, the municipal power plants were producing close to 85,000 horsepower, and the city was definitely committed to the policy of generating and distributing its own electric energy. San Francisco, though not as yet actually supplying its citizens with lighter power, has undertaken to build an aqueduct from the Hetch Hetchy Valley, which lies some distance above Yosemite to secure an adequate water supply and will shortly have its power plants in operation as an integral part of that enterprise. In 1920, the hydroelectric plants of California supplied approximately one million horsepower, but this marks only the beginning of the industry and probably represents less than one fourth of the state's potential capacity, an estimate which does not include the vast resources of the Colorado River to which Southern California is already looking as an additional source of power. The use of petroleum and the development of hydroelectric energy, as already indicated, have in recent years made possible the creation of an industrial life formerly regarded as impossible for California. Other factors such as an abundant supply of raw materials, shipping and transportation facilities, ever widening markets, favorable conditions of labor and for labor, and the rare advantages offered by nature in the way of climate, have also played an important part in this new feature of the state's economic life. The results of the Federal Census of 1920 are not yet available in detail for an adequate survey of California's industrial growth since 1910. Sufficient material, however, is at hand to show at least the broad features of this progress. In 1899, California had 4,997 manufacturing establishments, which employed 72,224 persons and represented a capital investment of 175,468,000 dollars with a total output valued at 257,386,000 dollars. In 1914, there were 10,057 establishments employing 139,481 persons, representing a capital investment of 736,106,000 dollars and having a total output of 712,801,000 dollars. According to the preliminary figures of 1919, the number of establishments had risen in that year to 11,942, and the number of persons employed to 243,000. A total of $1,333,382,000 was invested in California manufacturers and the value of the yearly production came to $1,981,410,000, or an increase of approximately 6,700 percent in 20 years. The development of transportation facilities has kept pace with the industrial and agricultural progress of the state. The history of the steam railroad building has already been dwelt upon in previous chapters and need not be repeated here. Nearly 3,000 miles of electric road are also now in operation in California, serving the local needs of the chief cities and the demands of inter-urban transportation. Chief of these citizens is that of the Pacific Electric Railway Company, originally built by Henry E. Huntington, but now a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Company. This line, with its center in Los Angeles, has not only knit the surrounding cities into a compact community with a larger city, made possibly up-building of hundreds of square miles of rural territory and furnished easy access to the beaches and mountains for the city's population, but has also prevented, perhaps as much as any other agency, the development of a congested tenement and slum district in Los Angeles by enabling the wage earner and small salary man to own his own home in one of the many subdivisions which have sprung up along the company's various lines. Passenger and commercial automobiles, it is a truism to remark, have also worked revolution in the development of transportation throughout the state. The 2,800 miles of paved highways in California had become a great drawing card for the eastern tourist. They have also furnished the means for developing a huge freight and passenger business by means of automobile trucks and commercial stages. Best of all, they have encouraged travel among the people of the state and thereby vastly widened the horizons of pleasure, added to culture, strengthened the spirit of unity and bred an appreciation deeper than ever before of California's resources, beauty, and charm. With the state's material progress, along other lines, there is no space to deal and only a few bare figures can be used to sum up the results of this great economic advance. In 1920, the five wealthiest counties of the state in order named were Los Angeles with an assessed valuation of 1,275,770,000 and 1,151,000. San Francisco, city and county, 818,074,000. Alameda, 302,649,000. Fresno, 169,426,000. And Sacramento, 130,162,000. Bank assets totaled 2,440,487,000. Exports and imports to the value of $487 million passed through the chief ports. Among the states of the union, California ranked eighth in population, fifth in banking capital, fourth in general agriculture, fell a few thousand barrels short of holding her accustomed first place in the pastrolium industry, and surpassed all her competitors in the output of gold and horticultural products. As one scans the figures cited in this chapter, his mind recalls the old predictions of William Shaler, Richard Henry Dana, Wadi Thompson, Thomas O. Larkin, and the other early profits of California's future. Yet today's prosperity and achievements surpassed the destiny these enthusiasts foretold. The Californian, in very truth, is a citizen of no mean state. End of Chapter 29 Chapter 30 A History of California, the American Period by Robert Class Cleveland This LibriBox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 30 Review and Prophecy As the writing of this history draws to a close, the mind instinctively looks backward over those eventful years with which the volume deals. In this brief survey, once he's first the faint awakenings of American interest in the Spanish province of Alta, California. The New England merchants traffic again along the sunlit, poorly guarded coast. The shadow of Russia hangs for a moment over San Francisco Bay. The hide-and-tallow vessels laboriously collect their cargoes at every little port. Smith and the Patees pioneer away across the continent, the first adventurous immigrants whine wearily down the mountain trails, and John C. Fremont fights his slow passage through the Sierra Snows. Then the scene changes. Jackson and Tyler have already pressed their feudal negotiations upon the Mexican Republic for the province. Larkin seeks to bend the disaffection of the native leaders to the interests of his government. English ambitions hold a threat of danger to the program of the United States. The Sacramento settlers raise the crude bear flag as a symbol of revolt, and finally a strong-willed president acquires California as the fruit of war. The gold rush follows, a tumultuous beginning for the new day, statehood then, and a time of social and political adjustment when arrestless people seek to accommodate themselves to ordered government and the restraints of law. Vigorously, too, they give themselves to the greater task of making nature serve the purposes of man. They fill the treasury of the world with gold, reclaim an empire from the wilderness, turn the rivers into useful channels, meet the challenge of the mountains with a railroad, and securely lay the material foundations for a splendid state. Upon this foundation later generations build, how swiftly and successfully the preceding chapter but just now sought to show. So much for the past of California. Whatever future. Of the state's increasing economic progress throughout the coming years, there can be no doubt, so long at least as her mineral resources last her soil retains its fertility, and nature takes no unwarranted liberties with her climate. Along less material lines, the promise of the future is no less attractive. The last few years especially have witnessed a surprising growth of culture and education among the people of California, and an increasing emphasis upon the agencies which make for these things. Art galleries, libraries, and museums, either privately endowed or provided for from public funds, are being erected in ever larger numbers. Education, too, in the generally accepted sense of that word, has become almost fashion throughout California. The public school system, using the term to include all branches of education supported by the state, has justly acquired a fame of national and even international scope. Except in very sparsely settled regions, the old fashioned school houses, unsightly and poorly built as generally they were, have been replaced by buildings architecturally beautiful and thoroughly equipped and ministered to the comfort and efficiency of the students. Whether grammar school or high school, in rural communities or in the largest cities, these attractive buildings, which so impress chance visitors to the state, stand as unmistakable evidence of the place education holds in public favor from one end of California to the other. Of colleges, universities, and technical schools, the state has also many splendid examples, but in recent years the facilities of these institutions of higher learning have been sadly overtaxed to care for the students seeking entrance. The State University at Berkeley, founded nearly three quarters of a century ago by a handful of earnest men under old Dr. Willie's leadership, has grown to be the largest university in the United States. At Palo Alto, Stanford University, established by Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford as a memorial to their son, long since one and still maintains a distinctive place in national educational life. The University of Southern California, situated in Los Angeles, and now having a total enrollment of over 5,000 students, stands as an abiding testimonial to the early Methodist belief in higher education. Smaller institutions of a high grade and collegiate character are Mills College near Oakland, the only women's college in the state, Pomona College at Claremont, founded under congregational direction, and Occidental College, located about midway between the center of Los Angeles and Pasadena, a school of Presbyterian origin and traditions. The California Institute of Technology, situated in Pasadena, is an engineering school exceptionally equipped and giving promise of great attainments in various fields of science. The Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton in Northern California and the even more renowned Carnegie Solar Observatory on Mount Wilson near Los Angeles enjoy an international reputation for their part in broadening the knowledge of astronomy. The Golden Gate Museum in San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Collection at Exposition Park, the Southwest Museum, also of Los Angeles, are making valuable contributions in the field of art, history, and science. Most of the cities and counties of California maintain public libraries of an excellent type. In Northern California, the State Library at Sacramento and the libraries of Stanford University and the University of California are of outstanding importance. In Southern California, the Los Angeles Public Library, so long serving a great need with efficiency and success, though poorly and inadequately housed, will shortly have a handsome and fitting building of its own. The Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery near Pasadena, the unique benefaction of Mr. Henry E. Huntington to the Southern California public, has already attained an international fame because of its priceless art and literary treasures and the rare beauty of its building. To the realm of literature, California has already made certain noteworthy contributions. Of these, the works of Mark Twain, Bret Hart, Helen Hunt Jackson, John Muir, Frank Norris, and Jack London are perhaps the best examples. Among the nation's poets, the names of Joaquin Miller and Edwin Markham are not unknown. Hubert Howe Bancroft and Theodore H. Hittle during their lifetime achieved a distinctive and permanent reputation in the realm of history. But the newer school of historians, with its center at the University of California, and to a lesser degree at Stanford, bids fair to win an even larger fame. Indeed, in nearly every field of literature, as also in paintings, sculpture, and music, California's greatness lies ahead, rather than in the past. Though the prophecy lacks the pleasing feature of novelty, it at least contains the virtue of truth, that as these arts came to their full fruition under the warm skies of Greece and Italy many centuries ago, so here in California they will sometime flourish with all the vigor and beauty they enjoyed in those earlier lands. The Panama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco in 1950 and the Panama-California Exposition at San Diego in the same year gave tangible evidence of the growing influence of this aesthetic spirit in the state. There is two in California with all its vigorous life and earnest purpose, a recognition of the value of leisure and wholesome recreation that modern society sadly needs. Here there is unlimited opportunity for outdoor pleasure. In few other states is it possible for motoring, tennis and golf to be so universally indulged in by families of moderate means. The seashore, especially the numerous resorts from Santa Barbara to San Diego, furnishes a vast all-year playground for the people. The Coast Range and Sierra Madre Mountains and to a much greater degree the Sierra Nevada are a vacation ground for tens of thousands of Californians annually. Who shall say what it means to the welfare of the state if even the smallest fraction of its population can stand on such a spot as Glacier Point and see spread out before them a panorama too full of splendor to be described of mountains and snow and sunlit peaks. The Yosemite Valley, Lake Tahoe, Giant Forest, General Grant Park, the Feather River Region and the Humboldt County Redwoods are internationally known. But no less wonderful for scenery and of even greater attraction to the more primitive lover of outdoor life are those regions beyond the reach of ordinary tourists through which run the headwaters of such great rivers as the Kern, the Kings and the San Joaquin. From many other aspects, life in California also holds peculiar distinction and attractiveness. Small towns and ranch communities are so closely linked to one another and to the larger cities by paved highways, electric railway lines, and telephones. So many labor-saving devices are in use in the homes of these communities and such a high standard of prosperity obtains among the agricultural population that the oppressive handicaps of isolation and drudgery so long associated with rural life have in large measure been abolished. California cities too are fortunately seldom so congested and cramped for room as eastern cities and the tenement problem consequently is not so common or acute. For persons of moderate or even modest means, the typical dwelling is the bungalow built in any one of a thousand different styles and nearly always in a setting of flower gardens, shrubbery and lawns. Altogether, therefore, the citizens of California today enjoy a prosperity, an attractiveness of life and cultural opportunities probably greater than those to be found among any other people. But these advantages are not all clear game and in certain of them at least may lie the springs of serious danger. It is more or less a maximum history that increase in wealth tends to rifle the spirit of democracy and soften the fiber of a people. The stability of California as of the nation itself rests upon the broad shoulders of the middle class. Only so long, therefore, as the great body of her citizens remain true to the old American virtues and to the old American traditions, will the state's security be assured. In the luxury and ease of modern life, in the spread of lax ideas regarding morality and the sacredness of law, in an increasing demand for government to do for the individual what previously he has willingly done for himself, there are unmistakable evidences of danger. Nor is this all. The unprecedented industrial development of the last few years, the disappearance of cheap land and the rapid growth of an urban population have already brought to California the perplexing labor problems of the older states. Not as yet so aggravated or difficult to deal with as in older communities, the issues between capital and labor must sooner or later be solved in California, however, as in the nation at large, by justice and reason on either side. Or they will destroy the very foundations of the social order. Problems also present themselves. By origin and tradition California is essentially an Anglo-Saxon state. Her people, as yet, are still largely of American stock and hold fast to the American ideals of home, family, government and religion. Today, however, currents of foreign blood are emptying into the mainstream. California not only faces an oriental problem, the danger of which to the superficial observer seems to rise and fall according to the proximity or remoteness of a political election, but also has in some respects the more serious task of assimilating an increasing number of un-Americanized Europeans. Most of these belong to the laboring population, but others rank higher in the social scale. So long, however, as the standards and ideals of a foreigner run counter to the fundamental traditions of this country, it makes scant difference whether he is literate or illiterate, a laborer or a millionaire. His presence under any condition constitutes an evil to the nation and to the state. Indeed, in some respects, the most serious problem now faced by the United States is how to remain American. California, as yet, has not felt the full pressure of this issue, but with a rapid economic development and the ever increasing foreign immigration, using that term in a sense broad enough to include all those who are out of sympathy with the fundamental traditions of this country, she will soon be called upon to guard her heritage as an American state from perversion and extinction. It is altogether likely that this will prove her most difficult task. Such as are some of the problems which the future holds in store for California. They are no longer the problems of a frontier state, for California has long since outgrown the pioneer age with its discomforts and simplicity, its crudeness and open-handedness, its provincialism and freedom from conventionality, its lack of so much that we today regard as essential to the higher art of living, and its vigorous individualism and has adapted herself to the changed conditions of the world. Her problems, accordingly, are the complex problems of a highly civilized, cultured, prosperous people. But the same strong spirit that three quarters of a century ago pushed across the continent, transformed a Mexican province into an American state and gave to that state boldness and vigor and wealth and ideals, will solve these newer problems also. So long as that spirit lives and God remains in the hearts of her people, the destiny and greatness of California are assured. End of Chapter 30 End of A History of California, The American Period by Robert Class Cleland