The record-union., 1892-02-01
A NOTABLE OPPORTUNITY FOR
SAN FRANCISCO.

Gently has returned to the State. The re-
suit o6dts labors is Of highest Importance
to San Francisco. The delegation reports
as precisely the fact what the RECORD
UNION recently commented upon, as the
policy pursued in securing the session of
the National Editorial Association of
1892 for San Francisco.
California went toll Cincinnati empty
handed, save as to cordial and manly IN
vitations from municipal and CONNER
cial bodies. It did not set up bar; it
did not take the National Executive Com
mitteemen to theaters, give them carriage
rides, set before them banquets, nor pa
rade the fruits, the wines or the proposed
hospitality of the State. 1t simply and
forcibly presented to the very large COM
mittee the desirability of the people of the
Union becoming, as far as possible, bet
ter acquainted with the whole country,
and especially with the extreme western
borders Of the Nation.
1t promised simple, generous enter
tainment, ease of transportation and
every opportunity to examine the State
leisurely and studiously, and to afford
the visitors every facility for the dispatch
Of their business, the wholesome i'm
provement of their time while here, and
that they should not be bored by cere-
monial, wearied by our attention, nor
broken down by constant round of
reveling.
As against these frank and manly
guarantees there appeared offers of varied
character, backed by methods that can
not be construed by sensible men as
other than assaults upon their supposed
weakness, and fortified also by lavish
expenditure of money and stimulants.
The success of California when the con-
test was over, and the forty-five COM
mitteemen had decided that San Fran
cisco shall have the association in 1892,
was conceded to be due to the method
adopted by the delegation, not one of
whom is, by the way, resident of the
favored city.
Now that the matter is settled. and be-
tween 500 and 200 members of the asso-
citation are to assemble III the California
metropolis in May, 1892. representing
rural communities from Maine to Texas.
and from Dakota to Florida, and bring
ing to the State the very class of men of
all others we most wish to come, see and
report upon the land, San Francisco is
expected to do something exceptionally
creditable.
The California Press Association, COM
posed wholly from rural journalism,
gracefully acknowledging the commercial
supremacy of the metropolis, secured
for and yielded the session to that city.
San Francisco, therefore, must provide
very largely the means necessary. That
she will do so there can be no manner of
doubt, precisely as will the interior
towns and cities for the proper enter
tainment of the guests when they visit
the mountains and the valleys.
San Francisco will be frankly asked to
aid the State Association, also, in those
preliminaries and expenses necessary to
preparation and to the full and ex
plicit information of the expected guests.
When the State Association calls upon the
metropolis, therefore. it viii not ex-
perience any difficulty, we apprehend,
in securing the necessary local personal
and financial assistance.
But unless we greatly mistake the
spirit of the association it will ask San
Francisco to put to the fore men to aid it
whose ideas of entertainment are not
wholly compassed by costly banquets,
night revels and dress parade. The rural
journalists of California wish to avoid as
far as possible ostentatious display and
useless expenditure of money in lux
urious entertainment. 1t will. we under
take to say, meet the desires of the State
association precisely, if San Francisco
viii present to it committees of her sub
stantial, thoughtful, refined, sober and
representative people to do the duties of
hosts. and will retire such entertainers as
find in a flow of wine, an extravagant
output of coin and costly toilets the
chief means of impressing rural journal
lists of the East with the value of the State
as place of residence.
Such an opportunity as is now pre-
sented to San Francisco has not been
hers since her foundations Were laid.
The coming into her gates of the expected
body viii be of infinitely greater value to
her and to the State than the meeting of
all national political conventions, the as
semblage of all posts of the Grand Army,
and the rallying of all the teachers and
Knights Templar in the land.
The reasons are obvious. The thousand
rural journalists are, before and after the
session in San Francisco, to travel over
the State from San Diego to Shasta. They
are to penetrate the valleys and climb into
the mountains and foothills and mingle
with the people. They are to be sup
piled with the literature of production,
climate, and the social and industrial
claims of every section they visit. They