Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-08-02

benefit, and that for but brief period in
each year, and even it was bora of Sacra-
| mento iberality. All that Sacramento can
selfshly derive from the fact Of being " the
capital " is not comparable with the local
| benefits that flow from the location OF State
| asylums, schools etc. Our sister cities and
towns have no reason whatever'to be jeal-
| Gus of Sacramento, or to regard her as a
pensioner upon State bounty. Quite the
contrary. Her people do not subsist upon
the droppings from official tables. Rather
| their contributions to State institutions, 1t
| may be said without exaggeration, have far
exceeded the direct benefits returning thus
far. Sacramento has given to the State and
State institutions, in lands and money,
quite all that could be expected or asked,
and even more, when the infancy of the
State is taken into account The capital is
envious of no other section; it wishes all
towns having State institutions at their
door the full benefit possible to be attained,
and for her prosperity, commerce and in
she is perfectly convinced that neither trade
nor manufacturing, material growth nor
future prospects, are dependent upon the
fact that the city is the capital of the State.
Yet the people of Sacramento are fully
alive to their obligations imposed by the
honor conferred upon their city, and we
believe they have never allowed them to
go to protest. 1t is the proper place, since
the subject is up, to add that no more seri-
Gus error is INDUCED in than the very pop
ular one that every appropriation for the
care, repair and improvement of State
property is treated as gratuity to Sacra-
mento. 1t is the rule that every session of
every Legislature is characterized by decla-
nations of this character upon the floor Of
both houses. 1t seems to escape attention,
and to be wholly ignored, that wherever
State property is situated it must be the OBJ
ject for a given amount of expenditure.
As a rule, such expenditures have not been
source of employment or business to
Sacramentans more, or even as much, as to
residents and tradesmen of other places.
But, if it were true that every dollar ex
pended by the State upon her property
went direct to private gain in Sacramento,
it will strike the fair-minded as no reason
whatever for the tiresome iteration that it
is bounty to this city. The presump
ton must obtain that the State
officials see to it that they get value re-
ceived for their principal-the State. But
in fact the people OF this city have given
broad gratuities to the State, and the State
has donated nothing to Sacramento, nor
should it. This city has no claim upon the
State superior to that of any other commu-
nifty. 1t has never pretended 10 have. 1t
has not been built up upon State bounty,
and is not dependent upon it. 1t is the
misfortune of capitals, however, to be
charged precisely as this city is, and prob
ably always will be.
The people of capitals, however have
one qualification in the premises. They
can reflect with satisfaction that they afford
penny-a-liners, Bohemian scribblers,
shallow ated stump orators and narrow
minded politicians, who after all are hui
man beings and susceptible to emotions of
pleasure, some enjoyment in this vale of
tears, since all that class take unusual de-
light in discoursing upon the harvest
feast, the q boarding house keepers and
" hotels " of the capital are supposed to oc-
casionally enjoy by reason of location, and
how the unfortunate people of the Capital
City are every now and then reused from
lethargy and decay, and are snatched from
the very jaws of famine and the woes of
restitution by the adventof political bodies
and the biennial deliberations of one hun
dred and twenty legislators, to say nothing
of Godsends i'll the shape of millions of
dollars the correspondents and reporters of
the press scatter broadcast in the proverbial
libcrality that charaeterizes that class of
wealthy citizens.