Los Angeles daily herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1884-1890, 1889-09-21
A Keen observer ON Southern Cali.
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tour of this coast, and furnishes the
Nation with series of articles, much OF
which is devoted to Southern California.
This gentleman is evidently Of a very
different temperament from some of the
Eastern travellers who allow their whim-
seys and preiudices to interfere with their
fairness and common sense. He takes a
judicial view of our merits and dement's,
and his conclusion is that Southern Cali
fornia has bright and wonderfully pros
porous future before her as land excep-
tionally favored in climate and the pro-
ductiveness of her soil. "Surely," says
this careful observer, after giving elab.
crate facts about the equability of our
weather and the salubrity of our climate
and situstion-"surely, Southern Cali
fornia is destined to become the sani-
tarium not only of America, but of
Europe as WE'LL" He then goes on to say
that "what makes the ful6llment of this
prophecy the more probable is the
circumstance that California is an
all.the-year.round sanitarium, and
not one of the mere winter
resorts which compel the unwilling in
valids to pack up and seek a new cline
when May is gone. ''No one, "he declares,
"would dream of spending the summer
at Malaga, Cannes, Naples, Palermo,
Algiers Or Jacksonville, (Florida,) ex-
posed to sultry malarial atmosphere
and the danger Of deadly epidemics;
whereas California has countless places
where summer and winter are alike, or
rather alike unknown, the only season
known being an eternal spring."
We may naturally look for calm and
candid discussion of the boom and its
effects from 30 impartial a writer. 1t
seems that he was here two years ago
during the height of the initiation, and
recently paid us another visit. He is
therefore worthy of attention when he
reviews the causes and results and fore
casts the probable effects Of that period
of wild speculation. Let him speak for
himself. He says: -
On returning to Los Angeles county
last January, found everywhere evil
dences that the boom had collapsed. The
street Car lines in the small towns barely
paid expenses, though it was regarded as
an act OF local patriotism to ride on them /;
and the cement sidewalks, which had
been prolonged far into the fields, had
failed to charm into existence the rows
Of houses that had been looked for. In
the metropolis itself workmen were
grumbling at insufficient employment,
merchants clamored that their rents
; we're 80 per cent. too high, many store
! windows were pasted with closing out
notices, real estate offices were no longer
as abundant as saloons, and the book
stores, more wretchedly supplied than
those of any town of 10000 in the United
States, were even selling the twenty-five
cent paper novels at "cut rates. The
newspapers of Northern California, OF
Oregon, Washington and other Western
States as far east as Kansas, which had
long been jealous of the prosperity of
Southern California, and desired boom
J of their own, crowed loudly over the
"busted boom" of Los Angeles, while
the papers of that city, no longer COM
PEELED by the pressure of real estate ad-
vertisements to add two or four extra
pages to their issues, had daily editorials
, to disprove the allegations of their envi-
GUS rivals.
An unprejudiced observer, interested
only in che climate and scenery, and not
in the real estate, of Southern California,
could not but admit, from the signs just
noted, that these "envious rivals" were
right in insisting that the boom had col
lapsed; but the inferei. es drawn from
this fact, that Southern California had
been over-praised and that its road was
to be down in the future, were absurd.
Southern California cannot be ever
praised, and, in my humble opinion, it's
future prospects are brighter than those
of any other portion of the United States.
! To large extent, the late boom was
nothing but a huge gambling scheme,
an epidemic of wild land speculation,
which carried along in its rush thousands
OF thoughtless victims, like the mad
stampede for Oklahoma. Southern Cali
fornians knew better than others that
the sudden rise in their land prices was
artificially stimulated and would be fol-
lowed by reaction, but they were bound
to make hay while the sun shone, and
found to their delight that the sun shone
longer in California than elsewhere, in
the metaphorical sense as we'll as
in reality. At last the storm came
and swept away many of the "ten.
derfeet," or late Corners, and their new
buildings, whose debris is now lying
about, 80 to speak, and is pointed at as
. terrible warning and lesson; but the
only lesson II does teach is that people
should avoid real-estate gambling. The
fragments of the ruins will soon be
cleared away, and then it will be found
that, although many individuals have
suffered during the storm, the country as
whole has been benefited by it.
In many cases the large, useless hotels
built in the small towns have already
been secured at bargain for school
buildings, and in the larger cities many
public works have been provided which,
without the artificial stimulus of the
boom, would have been postponed to the
indefinite future.
Los Angeles is alreaoy rect veripg from
the effects of the collap,e. Fine new
buildings are already going up, the
streets are always animated, and the
cable-car tracks have oeen lately pro-
longed into the picturesque billy region
behind the city, which affords the finest
imaginable sites for suburban cottages,
with superb views of the mountains and
a glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, fourteen
miles away. Though founded in 1881,