Los Angeles daily herald., 1875-02-13
San Francisco's SeIfishness.

Our personal knowledge enables us
to say that the San Francisco Chroni-
Gle is a diligent and tireless gatherer
of information, and we are willing to
concede that it aims to make its col
umns compendium of news from all
parts of the State. But we are inclined
to arraign it on charge of manifest
ing slight prejudice against South
ern California, and to assume that it
partakes to a slight extent of the doc
trine held by number of San Fran
cisco papers, that San Francisco is the
Pacific Coast and Montgomery street
the State of California. 1t was an old
time theory that the country made the
cities, but so many of our San Fran
cisco journalists have seen only so
much of this State as their sleepy eyes
could gather from the window of
Central Pacific Car, that they imagine
California is bounded by the Potrero,
North Beach, Lone Mountain and the
bay, and any proposition to inaugurate
an enterprise outside of these bOunda-
ries is outside of the world to them,
and if they say anything at all about
it, it is to oppose it. The Chronicle is
not guilty of all this. It's publish
ers are not welded to the notion that
the city makes the country, and they
have editors and writer's in their en-
ploy who have seen the hills and val
'leys of California. They know the
country and they write intelligently
concerning its resources and develop
ment. Yet in opposing aid to the
Texas Pacific Road the Chronicle lays
itself open to the suspicion of not
fully understanding the wants of
Southern California, or of yielding
slightly to the prejudice against this
part of the State. The argument that
because the Government subsidized
one transcontinental road it should
not assist in building another,
is more logical than convincing.
the construction of one road has fully
demonstrated the necessity for an
other. The conclusion that if the
Southern overland road is built by one
company the trade of Arizona, which
properly belongs to the Pacific Coast
will be drawn Eastward, is only enti-
tied to consideration on the assump-
tion that the entire road will be built
from the East to the West. We expect
to remove this danger by requiring
that road building shall commence on
both sides of the continent and stretch
from East to West and from West to
East until the connection shall be
made in the middle of the nation. The
Chronicle admits that if San Diego was
its home, as San Francisco is, it would
see the Southern Overland project in
different light. This is frank and
honest acknowledgment, and the paper
that can make it will find no difficulty
in recognizing, andit ought to concede,
the claims of the journals and people |
of Southern California. Referring to
the fear that San Diego will divide the
trade of San Francisco, the Chronicle |
does not hesitate to admit the selfish |
ness of San Francisco. This admis- |
sion offers the HERALD an opportunity |
to say that it is this innate and ever
selfishness of the great city |
that is impelling the interior of the
State to seek other markets and to ask
for the opening of other avenues of
trade. 1t is this selfishness of San
Francisco that gave birth to and fos-
ters the desire to divide the State. 1t
is this selfshness that will aid the
building of the Southern Overland
Railroad and ultimately create the
State of South California.