Los Angeles herald., 1890-09-09
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER ., 1890.
CALIFORNIA.

1t is forty years to-day since congress
admitted California to the sisterhood OF
states in the Federal Union. That is
but short period of time. Many of the
argonauts who had rushed here in 1S49
in search of gold still live to see the
great state by the sunset sea celebrate
her fortieth birthday. 1t is but little
more than an average generation as hui
man life runs since then. The progress
made by the state in this
generation is measure of the
difference between remote antiquities
and modern times. When the newly
acquired territory along the shores of the
Pacific was made state, the population
was mere handful of people who had
taken up transient dwelling here with
no intention in the minds of any OF them
of making this their home. To dig
bag of gold and go ''back to the States"
was the programme of every one OF these
hardy adventures. At that time no one
dreamed of what lay before them on the
pine-clad mountains of the new state or
in the fertile soils of her broad and
sunny plains. There was gold in the
hills in spots, and that was about all
any of these gold-seekers could think of.
Now we stand at the close of forty
years and view great state with mil
lion and half of people, contented
dwellers in the state, who love their
flower-embowered and sunny homes so
well that no inducement is sufficient to
draw them to any less favored cline.
The metropolis of the state is a huge city
whose population is climbing up
towards half million souls, and
whose buildings rival in their
magnifcence and costliness those of
any city on the continent. Her private
residences far surpass those OF New
York. Her banks rival the heaviest
financial institutions of Gotham, and her
savings banks carry hundreds OF mil
lions OF dollars on deposit. In COM
merce and manufactures she ranks with
the first half dozen cities in the
land.
The state is studded all over her thou
sand miles of longitude with fiourishing,
populous and handsomely built cities.
The shipping business OF San Francisco
is larger by many times than that of
the world at the date when Columbus
sailed for Cadiz to look for the New
World. The ship he sailed in would
not be ventured in today to make trip
from San Pedro to San Francisco.
From the landing of the Mayhower,
or the voyage of Raleigh to Roanoke,
to the Revolution was century and a
half. Yet when the battle of Bunker
Hill was fought, the American colonies
contained only about twice as many
people as are now in the state Of Cal
ifornia The little border of civiliza-
tion had penetrated only about
one hundred miles from the
coast line, fringed in with the
great wilderness that spanned the
unknown wilds of the continent. At
Quebec, at Montreal, at Niagara Falls,
at Fort du Quesne, now Pittsburg, and
at New Orleans were the extreme out
posts OF European civilization ringed
around bv unknown depths of savage
barbarism. That was the work of a
century and half. The cities of Bos-
ton, New York and Philadelphia were
nowhere as compared to San Francisco,
Los Angeles or Oakland. Ours is the
work of less than half century.
1t is well to stop and think of the ele-
ments that surround our life in these
days. Their most distinguishing feature
is rapidity. And our progress is not
phenomenal in this land and age. We
are go remote from the great centers OF
population, capital and other influences
on which progressive development de-
pends that our increase in population,
wealth and enterprise is much retarded.
The city of Los Angeles has made a
progress in the last ten years that sur
passes that of almost any city in the
country. All Southern California has
made remarkable progress. But taking the
state as whole, the movement has
been slower than in many other OF the
Commonwealth of the Nation. Ne
braska is not very fascinating place
from the standpoint of climate. or re-
sources, yet Omaha has grown in a
decade from a village to city of nearly
10000 people. Lincoln in the same
state has grown from almost nothing to
$1,000 population.
But although California as awhole has
not increased in population as rapidly as
her attractions of climate and resources