Los Angeles herald., 1892-01-17
THE PLIGHT OF A GREAT CITY.

Our San Francisco contemporary, the
Call, is making very vigorous fight for
She interests of the city in which it is
Published. 1t is now in precisely the
same lines that the Chronicle was in
1872. At that time the then "ive"
journal was decidedly energetic and bel
ligerent on the rsilway issues, for rea-
sons best known to itself. On the other
hand, the two most powerful journals of
California, the Bulletin and Call, were
indifferent to remarkable degree. Ger
tain letters of one G. p. Huntington, re-
herring to transaction which he called
sscaving the Call and Bulletin down the
bank" have often been referred to by
the enemies of the proprietors of those
Journals as evidences that they had un-
dergone conve rsion as violent and in
Simultaneous as that which overlook Paul
of Tarsus on a certain memorable expe-
dition.
Let this be as it may, the Call is now
posing with an energy worthy of all
praise as an advocate of the increase OF
the commercial facilities of San Fran
cisco. 1t clamors for new railways, and
in this it is clearly in the right. San
Francisco ought to have three or four
transcontinenta railways. 1t is one of
the three or four typical geographical
points on the globe marked ouc for
commercial greatness. Its harbor is
probably not approached on the foot
stool for commodiousness and safety.
Its seven and seventy hills dwarf the
seven little mounds of old Rome. The
extent of its commerce under unfavor-
able conditions is shown by the fact
that, short time ago, the federal au-
fhorities found that there were $63, ,000,-
900 in gold coin in the sub-treasury OF
San Francisco, and they thought it
prudent to draw some OF it east.
And yet San Francisco is absolutely
under the domination of one railway,
and, as the Call bitterly complains, that
railway has its headquarters in Ken
tucky, thus largely escaping taxation.
= In this respect the city of San Francisco
is very much at disadvantage as COM
pared with Los Angeles. Here we have
the Sunset route, running from San
Pedro to New Orleans, the shortest
route across the continent from tide
water to tidewater. This road gives us
the benefit OF all the connections east
ward OF the Texas-Pacifc railway.
Then we have the Santa Fe, which gives
MS all the advantages of the Atlantic
and Pacific and its connections. Not to
leave the inventory incomplete, we
have the route via Lathrop and Sacra-
nento to the east-a transcontinental
railway which is as much ours as it is
San Francisco's, and which we can use
without going near that city.
We sympathize with our San Francis
60 contemporary. That city needs new
roads, and plenty of them. 1t also needs
the Nicaragua canal, great enterprise
whose completion will work untold good
to the whole Pacific coast. But what is
San Francisco going to do to further any
OF these great enterprises? When the
Hon. Warner Miller, the president of
the Nicaragua canal company, was out
here some months ago, it is understood
that the subscription he succeeded in
securing to the stock OF that corporation
only amounted to a mere bagatelle.
What is the city OF the Golden Gate
doing in pecuniary way to invite new
aailways to the shores of its superb bay Z? |
Nothing that we have heard of. San
francisco belongs to class in which
queen Catharine grouped the celebrated
Cardinal Wolsey. Her promises are
great-her performance nothing. Out
side railway magnates understand this
fact well.