Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-04-26
FRrDAY, APRaL se, lsss.
a Great Misrepresentation and q
Contemplated Great Eraud.

a GREAT MisrepresentattOm and a
Contemplated Great Fraud.
1t has suited the purposes of gang OF
unscrupalous spectators to try to give
great prominence to Lower California, of
late. In mad crusade to impart to this
unattractive section special inducements
to immigration, an infinite amount of
twaddle hasbeen written about its mines,
placer and quartz, and about its rich
lands and flowing streams. The promct'
ers Of all this rot know that they are en-
gagged in peddling Dead Sea apples; but
what care they, so long as gudgeons are
to becaught, and the people of the U nited
States can be induced to embark in
the farcical game of paying something
for nothing, and thus help out lot of
conscienceless speculstors of the Inter
national Company.
The name of General William Vande-
yer is paraded in the effort to vitalize
this kite4hying project. The Congress
man from the Sixth District introduced a
resolution looking to the acquisition OF
Lower California, which fell still-born
in committee. Since his return from
Washington to Southern California he
has been held up as the originator and de-
lender Of the most ridiculous proposition
ever recorded in Congressional records.
Mr.. Buchanan, in the days when new
territory was sought after in the United
States towards the South, presumptively
in the interests of the extension =; of sl&-
very, embodied, in one of his messages,
a suggestion that it might be expedient
to negotiate with the Republic of Mexico
for the purchase Of Chihuahua, Sinoloa
and Durango; but even Mr.. Buchanan
did not dream Of the acquisition of such
q worthless and utterly irredeemable
territory as Lower California. General
Vandever, since his advent amongst
us, has placed his advocacy OF
the movement not on the ground of the
intrinsic value OF Lower California, but
upon the idea that Engli ish influences,
inimical to the trade of the United States,
are growing up there.
How laughable all this is? English in
fiuence is now supreme at the City Of
Mexico which, on a parity of reasoning,
would be valid ground for the annexa-
ton or purchase of the whole Republic
of Mexico. The trade existing in Lower
California, which might be injuriously
affected by English influence, would
probably, Outside of the sums aecruing
to Mexican citizens, as a balance,
amount to two bits a year. 1t would not
amount to that, for the balance would be
against US. Its volume is absolutely in.
significant at best.
There is evidently desperate game.
ster's struggle under way to give some
importance to Lower California. That
stock -jobbers' journal, the New York
Tribune, has had, lately, few words
commendatory OF the project. That
journal has passed from the control Of
Mr.. Jay Gould to that of Mr.. d. o. Mills,
and represents to that extent some
what sinister development. Mr.. Charles
Nordhoff, of the New York Herald, in
the Fall of 1887, came out here and wrote
up Lower California at the same time
that he decried Southern California.
Outside of these two journals, and posi-
bly, the Chicago Tribune, whose editor,
Joe Medill, wanted to inaugurate fill
clustering expedition into Sonora some
six or seven years ago, the whole press
of the East. with scarcely an exception,
and of this Coast as we'll, denounced
Gen. Vandever's scheme with uumeas-
ured scorn.
The peninsula OF Lower California is
in truth the most God-forsaken region on
the footstool The only mines ever dis
covered there are pockets which we're
long ago exhausted. The few quartz
Iedges which show any extent might,
under favorable circumstances, yield So
a ton, while the conditions of mining
would involve an outlay of at least forty
dollars ton. There are no streams.
Very frequently, for three years at a
time, there is no rainfall whatever.
When the great Desert stretch is reached
there is not moisture enough, for five
hundred miles, to save humming bird
from dying of thirst.
The pocket mines having been ex-
lausted, the quartz lodges, as to any
paying proposition, never having had an
existence, the placers being the most
chastity fake in the world, the only
;hance OF attaching any interest whatso-
sver to this drear and ghastly expanse OF
is to get up an idea that the
English government wants it, and that
Uncle Sam must forestall John Bull.
Unfortunately for Southern California,
lower California is just as good-looking
l name as ours, and the fAkjrs are play
ng the similarity Of sound fer all there
) in it.
Outside of two or three cattle ranches,
i limited extent, there are neither |
teams, rainfall, grass, grain, quartz,