Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-09-14
THE RESULT OF THE BOOM /"

LIE hESUL1 Uf LIE hUUM.'
The petitions of the representatives OF
Southern California to the State Board of
Equalization preach powerful sermons
against the "boom;" lessons Of more force,
directness, and with greater power of con-
yiction, than all other arguments possible
to the wit or language of man.
We are not disposed to exult over our
fellow citizens of the south, nor to re-
proach them in the least. We disavow
any intention to do so; but there is a
lesson in the confessed collapse of the
southern boom that must not be lost by
failure to refer TO it. While the people of
the central and northern sections would
be justified in visiting reproaches upon
their southern neighbors, they are not dis.
posed to do so. What is to be said is ut
tered only for the value of the lesson Of
the truth concerning the southern boom.
The time is not dated far in the past
when the slightest suggestion, the kindliest
warning on the part of Central and North
ern California to our friends south of the
Tehachipi range, that they were pursuing
an unwise and dangerous policy in foster
ing the boom, drew upon the central and
northern sections unlimited abuse. and
unbounded, not to say scurrilous, vitupera-
ton from the press and the people of the
south. 1t was impossible in all that event
full period of unhealthy activity and an
infamed commercial condition, to reason
with our neighbors. On the contrary, they
were not content with their own pros
perity, but industriousiy assailed with de-
traction and misrepresentation those other
parts of the State that did not run riot in
the reyel of an unwholesome financial and
realty excitation. They insisted to the
stranger that the center and north were
Arctic in character, false in representation
of productive capacity, and deceitful in
regard to the claims made for a healthful
and desirable immigration. Fortunately
for the people of the northern counties,
they were enabled through some seasons of
unjust assault to maintain their equan-
unity and refrain from returning evil for
evil. Reliant upon the eventual triumph
of the truth, and trusting to the substan-
liability of the resources and capacities of
the unboomed sections of the State, they
waited, and with the result that always
follows such waiting.
We haye-save here and there a sporadic
instance-indulged in no boom; our values
have not been inflated, nor our plains and
hills laid out for impossible cities and ab-
surd townsites We have not constructed
monster hotels, nor paved houseless areas
with walkways Of cement and highways of
stone; we have not invited to US those
who had speculation simply in view, nor
sought to have the non-producer dwell
with us. We have trusted to the natural
capacity and the resources of the country
to vindicate our claims, and to legitimate
industries and substantial production to
maintain u.s. As a result, real estate
values throughout Northern California
have appreciated the numerical growth
of population has been steady, healthful
and encouraging; the assaults of pests of
fruit and vine have not Frustrated us, be-
cause We were able to lean upon our varied
industries not all OF which are likely at
any one time 10 suffer reverses. We are
more populous, richer, stronger and better
content in the north to-day than yester-
day, and were yesterday of greater content
than the day before.
1t is not the intention to catalogue the
ills that have followed the collapse of the !
southern boom, nor even to quote the sworn
and deplorable statements of decline recited |
by the representatives of the south before |
the State Board of Equalization. The fact
is generally known. that the bottom has
fallen out of imitation, that the reaction |
inevitably following a commercial carouse
has set in, and that sober second thought
has convinced our friends of the south of
the uneconomic and unstable character of
"the BOOM" We entertain the profound
est sympathy for the people of the south,
and have for them and their favored sec
tion far greater hope and more faith
in their future than they themselves APP
pear to entertain. There is nothing to
hope for from the dead boom )" there is
everything to expect from patient industry,
genial climate, natural capacity, and the
energy and courage of brave people.
Because Southern California has suffered
the retrogression inevitable to her early