Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-04-23
BROKEN COMMUNICATIONS.

For little while California Is thrust
back into something more than her old
isolation. The railroad has taught us to
look upon the Sierra as having been abol-
ished, but the storm has suddenly forced
upon us realization of the fact that those
grim peaks do not rise so many thousand
feet for nothing and that it is always
possible for them to become a Chinese
Wall for us. And so it happens that we
are literally and absolutely cut off from all
the rest Of the world, and are driven, like
all solitary people, to introspection. We
turn our attention perforce to the only
news available, and we magnify and dilate
upon our own storms as though there was
no longer any country beyond the mount
aims. Nor is there for US while the break
continues. To those who do not know
what is happening it is the same as though
nothing happened. The blind deaf mute is
as isolated from the universe as if no uni
verse existed. For him there can be few
sources of emotion, pleasurable or painful,
and it is easy to perceive how the absence
of communication with the rest of the
world must dwarf and shrivel the i'm
agination and the reflective faculties
of communities. To-day we feel the
temporary deprivation of our usual
news facilities as positive misfortune,
but it is not so very long ago since this
was the normal situation of California, and
when the uncertain and tedious overland
route and pony express afforded all our
opportunities for ascertaining what was
going on in the rest of the world. Had
that condition of things been continued
until now it is possible that the average
Californian would have been much more
strongly individualized than at present.
That is to say. he would have been much
more provincial and insular than he is.
Local affairs and interests would have &C
quired disproportionate magnitude in
his mind He would have been more con-
ceited and narrow-minded. He would, in
fact, have been less civilized. The rail
road and telegraph have done great deal
to equalize the intellectual levels of this
and the transmontane regions. This
effect has naturally been less perceived
than the material changes produced by
improved communications, but it is not
among the least important of the benefits
derived from the building of the Pacific
Railroad. We have only to analyze the
impressions made upon us by such tenn
porary break in the communications as the
present, to realize how much we have
grown through the privilege of full inter
course with all the world And this
universally of communication is one of
the most influential factors in modern
civilization, though it has never yet
been adequately appreciated. 1t is this
which causes thought to operate to-day
with such vastly increased power and
scope. The railroad, the telegraph, the
press, have made every scientific discovery,
every literary creation, every inspiration
common possession of civilized mankind.
What this means will be readily per-
ceived. 1t means the addition to the
civilizing forces of the race of hitherto
unattainable impetus and energy. 1t
means the concentration upon every new
idea of greater and more diffused intelli-
gence than could ever before be secured
1t means the advance of communities, not
as in the past, by slow and painful and
hesitating steps, but by leaps and bounds.
IL means gain to progress equivalent to
many centuries of old-world existence. 1t
is the strongest guarantee for the perpe-
tuity of human advancement the world
has hitherto possessed. And it is therefore
well that we should be uneasy and impatient
when deprived, even for single day, of
our communications with the rest of the
world, and that we should deem the thought
of reversion to our old isolated condition,
intolerable.