The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1893-06-28
San Francisco Left Behind in
the Race for Supremacy.
A Harbor Which Will Make this
City A Commercial Center.
A City of Brainy Men with Broad Minds.
The Choicest Place of Residence
In the World-Peopls Who
DO Not Have to Rob.
Isan FRANCISCO Asgonsut j

in view, it ia wall that we should take
some notice of the steady and aggressive
growth of the country south of Tehacha-
pi. People OF 5his city, who sleep on
both ears as becomes men to whom
Providence has smoothed the paths OF
life, do not seem to be aware that there
is growing up in the southern part of
the state community which threatens
to leave us far behind in the race OF pro.
press. Ii the growth of the country
south OF Tehachapi continues at it's
present rate, the Goth century will not
be far advanced when Los Angeles, an d
not San Francisco. will be the CONNER
cial capital of California.
We have but one advantage that cam
not be taken from us-that is our har-
Dor. But, in the first place, the county
of Los Angeles is about to make harbor
for itself which will answer every COM
mercial purpose; and second, we are
turning the hsrbor we have to no &C
count. Not one of our many million
aires is putting up q dollar to establish
the steamahip lines which might be,
and which ought to be, running from
San Francisco to foreign ports.
In every respect, save the harbor, Los
Angeles compares with us to advantage.
1t is the center of q country of marvel
GUS fertility and such beauty that il ia
the choicest place of residence in the
world. Our suburbs, Marin, Alameda
and San Mateo counties, are good coun-
ties; but, except Alameda, they are
not very productive. Every acre around
Los Angeles yields something which can
be sent to market. The systems of irri-
CATION which have been brought to per-
lection in the southern counties have
compelled the soil to yield it's maximum
increase. The city 10 railroad center,
and it's lines OF rail, spreading to every
point OF the compass, bring to the City OF
the Angels the yield of the bestwheat-
felde, the fettes. orchards, the most
productive vineyards in the United
States. Whether they run to Santa
Barbara, and in year or two strike San
Luis Obispo, or cross the ntete to Fresno,
or reach down TO San Diego, the tracks
are pretty sure to be presently burdened
with long trains of freightcsrs. There
is not an empty store in the place.
But neither location nor fertility of
soil is the chief factor in building up
great cities and prosperous states. That
is the work OF man. Some of the most
DfOBDtIOut HchHOIb1 anu ilCuGSb CUuu-
tries have been made prosperous and
rich in defiance of natural obstacles.
Holland WAS a swamp when it fell into
the hands of the house of Burgundy
Amsterdam was fishing village 800
years ago. and had apparently no more
future than Sausalito has now. Liver
pool and Glasgow became great seaports
in absolute defiance of nature. The one
had bar which il WAS almost fatal to
cross; the other hsG a river which
emptied itself at low tide. There never
waa seaport more difficult OF access
than New Orleans, yet before tho war
the ships and steamers landing at les
levees were measured by the mile. It
was be dint of human endsavor, and
human energy, and human enterprise--
not by any accidental advantage of posi-
tion--that these places became what
they are.
Here ia where Los Angeles has the
advantage over ue. 1t and it's surround
ing country were originally peopled by
the wrong kind of settlers. 1t filled up
with immigrants from the south-from
Texas, from Louisiana and from Arkan-
sas-people not ueed to work, having
been educated under the slavery blight
and prone to sieatas and cocktails.
Since the war, the southern counties OF
California have been attracting an en-
tirely different Catastrophe from New
England, New York, Ohio and Illinois,
some of them, to be sure, with weak
respiratory organe, but all of them
energetic emu intelligent. If they had
but one lung, they had big
brain and broad mind. These
people, finding that the climate
euits them, have invited friends with
two lungs to join them, and the steady
flow OF the very best class of American
people has proceeded steadily and unin-
terruptedly. These people did not gem
orally 90 to Southern California amino
manendi; but when they got there they
stayed, aud the thought of q return to
the ports of the north sends cold chill
down their spine. Having resolved to
stay, they have bestowed on their new
home the qualities which enabled their
f0refathers to build up New York and
Boston, and their elder brothers to cre-
ate Chicago and develop Ohio.
IT you visit Los Angeles you do not
find that every body is trying to pull
every one else down. People are not sl
railing at their neighbors and trying to
prove that they are knaves, and cheats,
and fools. When man makes money
at Los Angeles the community doeH not
combine to break him, or even to dem
onstrate that hie father robbed church
or that his grandmother wes sent to the
penitentiary for shoplilting. The Los
Angeleflos seem to believe-incredibe
as it may seem-that q man may grow
rich without deserving to be hanged.
| Those singular people are SO forgetiul OF
their own interest that they do not re-
gard railroads aa the natural enemies of
mankind, nor do they proclaim the
belief that every public official ia q
boodler. BY avoiding these tendencies
they get all the railroads they want,
even if they do have to pay pretty high
farce and freights, and they secure the
services OF really able men for public
positions.
How it came about, it is not evsy to
see. But certain it is that Seattle, Ia
coma and Los Angeles have all got
brighter men at their head than San
Francisco. We have bright men here,
but they probably keep in the back
ground through fear OF being denounced
as boodlers or hirelings OF corporations
II they tried to do anything for the city.
| San Francisco should force them to the
| front if it has any regard for its own
| future. few cities were mentioned
above which have achieved prosperity
in spite of natural obstacles. 1t would
| not be difficult to compile another list
of places which have decayed 10 rria
through the inertia OF their people. Not
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