Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-04-08
sam rRANc1soo AND HER INTERESTS.

Mr.. w. H. Parks last week contributed
letter to the Argoadm on the relations
of San Francisco to the debris question.
This letter is peculiarly timely because of
the significant reminders it contains of
past errors of opinion concerning public
topics committed by that community.
Mr.. Parks shows that this kind of mistake
is not at all uncommon, and illustrates his
position by referring to the case OF New
Orleans, which city strenuously resisted
the proposals of Captain Eads for the i'm
provement of the mouth of the Mississippi,
though the result of the success of his
plans has been to confer incalculable bene-
fits upon those who at first denounced
them so bitterly. Reference is also made
to the Goat Island case, in which the press
and people of San Francisco so VIGOROUSLY
injured their own interests, and to the
stubborn opposition offered by the same
press and people to the introduction of
street railroads there. Mr.. Parks might
have added many other pregnant instances
of San Francisco's shortsightedness and
perversity, for it has long been evil
dent to close observers that no CON-
munity has stood more persistently
IN its own light for years. 1t
is, of course, equally apparent that this
tendency to resist great improvements,
and to take always the narrowest and
meanest view of every new proposition,
is largely if not entirely attributable to
the course of the San Francisco press.
The metropolitan journals have, in fact,
with few exceptions, represented only the
least intelligent and progressive elements
of society, and above all they have failed
to realize the intimacy of the relations ex-
listing between their constituency and the
State at large. So it is that San Francisco
has acquired the reputation of narrow
minded, grasping greedy city, always on
the look out for whatever tolls it can
extort from the rest of the State, but
| almost utterly lacking in that breadth Of
perception which would have made it
what it has vainly labored to become in
permanence, the unquestioned center
of business and progress for the Pacific
coast.
This narrowness and smallness of mind
have never been more strikingly illustrated
than in the controversy over the Debris
question. 1t was natural that the farmers
of the Sacramento valley, whose lands
were being ruined by the deposit from the
mines, should insist upon the absolute
stoppage of hydraulic mining as the one
straightforward and effective remedy But
San Francisco was the very last place that
should have joined this cry, for whatever
advantages accrued from hydraulic mining
she secured the cream of. 1t was more to
| her interest than to the interest of any
other part of the State that, if possible,
both the contending industries should be
preserved. She took toll from the farmers
| and the miners alike. As Mr.. Parks OBJ
serves, Drainage District No. "has con-
"tributed more to the wealth and prosper
''ity of San Francisco during the last
"thirty years than all the rest of the
estate" It has contributed cereals and
gold in abundance during all that period
1t has been steady and large customer
1t has spent its earnings and invested its
profits at the Bay. San Francisco can least
afford to lose the trade of this region, yet
we see San Francisco spurning all PROPOSE
tions looking to the conservation of both
the interests threatened, and blindly in
sisting that one of those interests shall be
destroyed.
There has never been time when San
Francisco could have afforded this stupid
and suicidal policy, but the present tune
is one in which it is more incumbent upon
her business men than ever to guard their
interests jealously. For it needs no gift
of prophesy to forete.l that her supremacy
has eliminated, and that henceforth she
will have to contend with competition and
rivalry of the most formidable character.
Had her merchants been sagacious and
enterprising they might perhaps have Sc
cured at least portion of the business of
those southern districts, which are now
certain to be supplied from other sources.
But between the rapid growth of railroads
and the superior activity of eastern cities,
she has lost her great opportunity, and
even now, when her merchants cannot fail
to perceive the truth in this respect, she is
found lighting against the only plan which
can retain to her the trade OF the southern
counties A wise mercantile commu.
nifty never could have fallen into so grave
an error as this. II would have seen
that Its interest lay in preserving all the
interests upon the development of which
It's prosperity depended, and it would have
recognized at once its obligation to support
and contribute literally to whatever
measures were required to carry this policy
into effect The principles upon which the
Drainage Act is based, the whole plan
involved, are essentially broad and states
manlike in their character They proceed
upon the theory that it is at once the in.
terest and duty OF the State to protect and
maintain all its interests; that while no
interest can be permitted to flourish at the
sacrifice of any other, the State must en-
deavor SO to remedy existing evils as to
guard the interests which are imperilled
without destroying those which cause the
mischief.
That is policy which San Francisco
above all parts of the State ought to have
Endorsed and approved, and the fact that
her press and people so completely misun-
derstand their own interests as to denounce
and resist it, demonstrates the justice of
all the structures which have been passed
upon them. The Drainage Act is in fact
precisely such measure as would have
been drawn by committee of intelligent
and clear-sighted San Francisco merchants,
e -. g 4lo& I..,J ro,,o;, TIL -. e