Los Angeles herald., 1891-01-05
MONDAY, JANUARY s. 1891.
OUR PEOPLE OUGHT TO GET A MOVE ON
THEMSELVES,

Readers of the HERALD will probably
notice that this journal has been very
cordial in its recognition OF the enter
prise and push of the people of San Ber-
nardino. We welcome such manifesto
tions of energy wherever We find them
in Southern California. II We are not
rushing at high pressure in the line of
development just now it is simply be-
cause we are taking short restirg g
spell. 1t is question of ride and tie
one off and the other on-at all times in
Southern California. San Bernardino
county has the bulge just now, and she
ought to have it, because she deserves
it. We regard Fresno county as part OF
Southern California, and we are COM
PEELED to give need of recognition to
that imperial county. They are 60
ahead up there. They caught a full
fledged Dutchman up there short time
ago, and they persuaded him to go back
to Holland and talk the Hollanders into
coming over to Fresno. The result was
big colony of Dutchmen, each indi-
vidual Dutchman with big bank ac-
count. They will do superlatively well,
and Dutchmen ad infnitum will follow.
They will settle up the land and make a
sort of scriptural Eschol contribution to
the attractions ard resources of Cali
fornia.
The HERALD has had much to say of
late about the Bear valley dam, the
Bear valley reservoir, the pipes that lead
fertilizing streams from Bear valley
down into the fecund San Bernardino
valley. We would, OF course, great
deal rather talk about such dams and
reservoirs in Los Angeles county. But
where are they? Why does not some
genius like Brown, who has welded him
self to Los Angeles, as Brown has to San
Bernardino, Redlands and Alessandro,
60 up the San Gabriel canon, or the
San Antonio cafion, and make dams
and reservoirs that will carry the
fertilizing waters of those immense
watersheds over the fairest lands of
earth, which certainly lie in Los An
geles county?
We would really like to know why
this thing is not done. There are stores
of water in the Sierra Madres sufficient
to make every acre of mesa and
valley land between the mountains
and the sea the center of an un-
paralleled production in all the most
sought for staples on the earth. Why
should the Dlews and Browns and
Cages, all be confined to San Bernardino
county? Or, skipping the Tehachepi,
why should the work Of genius and en-
terprise only be again taken up when
Fresno county has been reached?
Los Angeles is today city of sixty
Thousand inhabitants. The census even
places her next to San Francisco in pop
ulation. Yet, as matter of fact, we
find this fair and imperial city hemmed
in by the Laguna ranch to the south
east. A solid block of eleven thousand
acres impedes development in that
direction. Turning towards Santa Mon
lea, we find ranch after ranch, undi-
vided and apparently indivisible, check
ing development. The rancho de las
Aguas, the Brea ranch, the rancho de
los Bueyes, the rancho San Vicente y
Santa Monica, and half dozen other
big and undivided properties, seem to
say to the aspiring genius OF this city,
"Thus far shalt thou go and no farther"
All this should be changed. Los An
geles ought to drop into the swim and
inscribe progress on her banners.