Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-06-27
OUR IMMIGRANTS.
4 Suicidal Policy-How We Populate Ore
ron and Washington TERRITORY

EOn and washington Territory.
Attention was recently called in the col
umns of the RECORD UNION to the unwise
and suicidal policy that was being pursued
concerning the immigrants arriving in the
State from the East, by having them make
San Francisco their first point of stopping,
and their rendezvous. there to be induced,
by fat-salaried and oily-tongued agents
from immigration associations in Oregon
and Washington Territory, to ship to those
less desirable localities and that, in this
manner, our efforts to induce immigration
to California; resulted simply in furnishing
q robust list OF passengers, to be thus taken
away upon the Oregon steamers, without a
moments examination of the land and un-
equaled opportunities and inducements
offered in this Stale The following ed;to-
rial taken from the Oakland Times, reviews
this subject with decided clear headedness,
and advises the adoption of the only sensi-
BILE way of curing the evil
The people of the East, and especially of
the interior States, are talking and think
ing Of California, and coming here in
greater numbers than ever before The
hard winter, the dull times, the summer
storms join to urge the people out of that
annovances radical in the climate These
immigrants bring money TO buy land, to
establish homes and to make themselves an
earning and contributing part of our COM
monwealth. They don't come as did the
Argonauts and gold-hunters of 40, fired
with the spirit of adventure and pulsing
with almost lawless eagerness FOR gold, but
they come in the conservative fashion set
by their past lives, to make genuine invest
ments in lands, which they expect their
toll to enrich. While this lucky shower of
immigration is falling this way, has Cali
fornia turned her bucket right side up to
catch it? Are we doing all that can be done
and doing it wisely to hold these good peo-
pie and content them with their new sur
roundngs? Are we indeed giving the right
kind Of reception to rural population and
showing them the advantages which ap-
peal TO the farming instinct Of men who
have raised hogs and corn upon the prairieS
of Illinois and Iowa?
The influences which control immigra-
ton efforts in San Francisco are not work
ing wisely for the best interests of the State
or the immigrants. There is a jealous eff
fort made to run all new corners into San
Francisco. There few dollars may then
be got ont of them for replenishing ward
robes, for hack hire, for hotel fare, but
what is the final result? These Immigrants
want land, they are rural people, and Cal
iforna wants accessiOns to her rural popu-
lations. When they are run through 10
San Francisco these Immigrants begin in
curing the price of land near to the city.
They find it in San Mateo, Alameda, Santa
Clara, Marin, Napa and Sonoma ranging
at from 500 to $500 per acre. The cost Of
living in the city is rapidly exhausting their
resources, they are far from their base and
wish to get settled The city, attractive at
first, begins to pail upon them, and just
then along comes the real-estate mission
airy from Oregon and the Puget Sound
country, to tell them that California is a
millionaire's country, while the chances
for q worker are all ripe up the coast. They
take the next steamer for the mouth Of the
Columbia, and that is the last We see of
them. All this goes on, while it is true
that in charms of climate, richness OF soil,
variety of products, profits per acre and
genuine comforts of life no part of the
coast offers a 1.-THE Of the attractions that
California does.
The remedy is for San Francisco to
forego the present small sum per head ex-
tracted out of these immigrants. They are
a rural people, and shoald be cherished as
the apple OF our eye, for we want them as
much as they need the pleasant and profit
able opportunities we offer to them. Cali
fornia, that California which is tvpified in
the description of the Promised Land
flowing with milk and honey and big with
corn and wine, is not seen in the five hours
ride from the summit Of the SierTas and
across the tule marshes. These immigrants
should be halted at Sacramento, or the
other functions Of railway lines that take
them into the Sacramento and San joaquin
valleys, or into the fat foothills which are
the coming treasury Of the State in vine
yard and orchard. Instead of the railroad
people giving them only a teu-day stop
over ticket, let it be q thirty day ticket,
that they may explore the country, see it
for themselves and select location where
lands are cheap to-day, but with a few
years Gllage will yield an annual profit
equal to the selling value Of improved farm
lands in Iowa and Illinois.
Instead of sending men up the road to
Auburn to steer immigrants into San Fran
CISCO let the merchants of that city send
agents to warn them away, and advise
them into Coiusa, Yolo, San Joaquin, Lake
and the valleys and foothills, for the, real
and permanent interests of San Francisco
are to be benefited by the labor and pro-
ducts of these people when they are added
to our population. and not by the few dol
lars taken from them at the foot OF Market
street by hotel runners and hackmen.
As it is now We iaboriously and expen-
siyely spread our immigration net, and
catch thousand month for the benefit of
Oregon and the country north. We are
not sure but what the railroads can apply
the remedy, inasmuch as they spend the
most money in the instrumentalities of i'm
Let them sell tickets only to
and the other functions, and
so keep these people out Of San Francisco.
1t might lead to attack upon the railroad
by the city papers, but We are sure that
every sensible citizen would see the pro-
priety of any policy that will return to
California the benefit of the efforts Of our
own people to secure an increase in our
desirable rural population.