Daily Los Angeles herald., 1878-01-04

From the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

From the San Luis Obispo Tribune.
In the Altd Of the 18th inst, Col.
w. w. Hollister of Santa Barbara,
sent greeting to the Workingmen
of California, in a long, didactic eff
fusion, rs dlffuse and thin as air.
In perusing it, our mind uncon-
sciously wandered and turned to
the answer Of job to his "Comfort-
ers," where, with such whitening
sarcasm, he says:
No doubt but ye are the people, and wis.,
dom shall die wi h you.
! | have heard many such things; misera-
bic comfortels ars We all.
shall vain words have end2 or what en-
bodeneth Thee tn Il thou auswerest?
also could spc ak as ye do; if your soul
were in my souls stead, l could heap up
words against you, and shake my head at
you.
We do not propose to enter into
a lengthy criticism of this latest
production of the Colonel, but will
confine ourselves to one paragraph,
and show from facts that he is in
capable of surrounding his subject
with all the conditions essential to
a fair discussion upon its merits.
He says:
II wish you who complain now
could go back forty years and see
what 1t was to make a living then.
II can see the children of the old.
est farmers in Ohio, going to their
rest, not filled to repletion with the
dainties of the hotel table of to-day,
but with good, honest, orn-mush
and skinned milk; working for
four bits day, the best of them.
| see harvester, not working eight
hours day, but all day, from
rising to setting sun"
Our Mentor stops here, but We
will finish the picture. We See
fifty cents in the currency of our
Fathers ftrty years ago, equivalent
in purchasing power to one dollar
and fifty cents to-day, We see
those same people able to purchase
the rich, virgin lands of the Great
West at one dollar and twenty-fiv
cents per acre, and every acre hav-
ing all the elements essential TO
the making of flrst-class homes.
We see simplicity and equality ex-
listing between the employer and
employee, that, unfortunately for
the purity of the nation, long
since disappeared in the rush
and glitter of political renown and
dishonesty acquired wealth. We
see the hired man member Of the
family, partaking of the same fare
and comforts that surround his
master, beneflting by the Wisdom
of social converse around the
hearth-stone during the long win
ter evenings, and sitting in the
same pew at church on the Sabbath
day. We see him counting and
marrying the daughter Of his en-
pl0yer, with his full, free consent
and blessing.
We do not see q lot of land sh ark 8
gobbling up all the fairest anu best
of Gods green earth to hold until
honest toll around it by these same
poor men shall create a demand for
it, and give it market value at
several hundred per cent. more than
it has cot these spectators. A
hundred dollars in those halcyOn
days, to which we can never return,
talk about it as much as we Will,
would buy eighty acres of land,
equivalent IN productive quality to
the best Of the teus of thousands
owned by Col. HOLSTER. He knows
these to be facts.
Change the scene and look at the
conditions in California. Col. Hol-
lister owns hundred Thousand
acres of land, more or less, that
has cost him an average of one dol
lar an acre.
Can the iaboring man, working
for ten dollars mouth, earl
enough TO buy eighty acres from
him in one year? No. How many
years would 1t take at such wages
to buy ten acres of his land twelve
miles out of Santa Barbara.