Los Angeles herald., 1892-02-21
WHAT SHALL SHE DO TO BIZ SAVED ?

absolutely unique and perfect bays and
aided by the fortuitous, under an intel
ligent commercial policy, that city
would seem to have been clearly out
lined as one of the notable trading
marts Of the world. The policy which was
early adopted by her business men was
''grab ALL" The city early earned for
herself the invidious title of ''Toll-taker
by the Sea-" Her port exactions were
SO excessive that the whaling trade was
driven to Honolulu, and wherever her
capitalists could practice extortion they
left undying memories of resentments
which sought the first opportu unity for
abandoning forever dealings with a
metropolis which carried the idea of
cent per cent to the extremes of most
intolerable usury.
These things have left San Francisco
isolated. On the north and on the
south trade is dropping off from her.
Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, and cities of
British Columbia, on the north, Los
Angeles and San Diego on the south, are
all centers of trade which she once en-
joyed, and which she enjoys no longer.
Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana,
Utah and Southern California, have all
been wrested from her commercial
prism. She has replaced these most
valuable feeders by no new ones. Today
she is restricted to that portion of Cali
fornia which Immediately aligns her,
and most delightful and productive re-
gion it is.
And the city which has, day by day,
seen her commercial pre-eminence de-
sert her, without real effort to retain
it, is San Francisco-that San Francisco,
seated upon her seven and seventy hills,
into which has been poured the bonan-
zas of the plaeers and of the Comstock
lode. 1t is that San Francisco, one of
whose savings banks, the Hibernia, has
$19,000,000 loaned out in the city and
county OF that name, and million and
a half on outside properties, and an
other of whose savings banks, the Ger
man Savings and Loan, has $4,000, 900
loaned on outside property and $5,000,-
900 on property located in the city and
county of San Francisco. This is to
take account merely of two banks, leav-
ing the great commercial banks out of
the question.
There must indeed be some serious
defect of policy which leaves such
great center of wealth apparently with
out power to arrest her own decadence
tits true that number ofs1perb build
ings are being erected there by great
capitalists, who feel that they ought to
do something to sustain the city which,
in the heyday of her prosperity, gave
them their wealth. D. o. Mills is put
ting up, on the corner Of Montgomery
and Bush streets, building which sur
passes anything seen in Chicago, the
city OF gigantic buildings. Colonel Crock
er is erecting on the gore opposite the
Palace hotel, something rare and costly,
which will house the Crocker bank in
its ground floor. The Hibernia bank is
pushing to completion we'll out Market
street depository for it's millions
whose chaste and exquisite design re-
calls the architectural models of ancient
Greece. The German Savings and Loan
Institution are building superb edifice
near their present site. The Mutual
Life Insurance company is putting up a
commercial palace on Montgomery
street.
These things are rightfully calculated
to inspire the San Franciscan with pride.
Per contra, on the authority of officials
OF the Spring Valley Water company,
there are seven thousand eight hundred
buildings in San Francisco that are to-
day unoccupied. The ominous 'sTo Let''
figures on every hand. People are NOV
ing from old and uncomfortable build |
ings into the spick, span and new ones,
and there is nobody to take the places
Of the old tenants in the deserted build |
ings.
Never in the history of San Francisco
has there been more grumbling amongst
her merchants. The wall comes from
all quarters that business was never 80
dull as now. 1t comes from people who
were not wont to croak in the old days,
and whose enterprise gives to the city all
the vitality it still retains. These persons
even speak dolefully of manufactures.
They say that the conditions of fuel and
raw material are such, and that the
problems are so involved,
that manufacturing cannot be done at
profit. Besides, they urge that Califor-
MIA is being made the dumping ground of
the Eastern surplus of manufactured
product, thus crushing out, to a great
extent, the California industries.
In the face of these unquestioned
oerlls and disasters San Francisco does
nothing. She dreams of competing
;ranscontinental railways and of the
Nicaragua canal and subscribes to these
understanding. Meanwhile, what
hall San Francisco do to be saved?
A TELEGRAM from Redont1o informs ma