The morning call., 1895-01-08
THE COMING ERA.

The edltorship OF HE MORNING GALL
is one of the highest positions in journal
ism to which a member OF the press can
aspire. Il is position of honor, influence
aud responsibility. The duties which ii
involves are grave. ana their adequate per-
formance will be eXacting. Such paper
speaks for community of intelligent and
cultured people, who have gone through
almost nnexampled vicissitudes OF for
tune, and who after nearly half century
OF evolution are now only on the threshold
of their real life.
1t Is not yet sixty years since Jacob j..
Leese built tina first house in Yerba Buena,
for the purpose of trading in the hides Of
cattle which then roamed over the pas
lures on which the city of San Francisco
now stands. Who shall say what this
city will be, or what dimensions 1t
will fill sixty years hence? The State
of which it is the commercial me-
tropolis has witnessed five successive
stages of development - first. the pas
toral and nilsson stage, in which its
future was so dim that Commodore
Wilkes doubted if the country was worth
annexing; then the gold stage, when the
self-reliant pioneers focked to California
and enriched the world with the fruits of
their labors; then the stage of scientific
mining; then the wheat stage, In
which it was proved that the State
could feed a population OF millions with
the most VIII olesome, grain grown on the
continent; and finally the fruit stage. in
which California discovered that the true
destiny OF its fields was to become the
vineyard and orchard of the United States.
Each of these stages has been marked by
an increase of wealth and population, but
also by a feVerish haste and impatience
which betokened immature DEVELOPMENT
The stage which is now beginning will
be an age of ripening and of systematlza-
ton. Fruii-growers will learn ID grow
the best kinds OF apricots and prunes and
raisins and olives and oranges, and to
market them at a profit. Wiae-makers
will acquire the knowledge which it has
taken the French. SpaDiards and Italians
centuries to master. They will plant
only the choicest kinds of vines, will
know exactly what blends to adopt, and
then, instead of hawking their product
around among a few buyers at price
when barely pays wages. they will be able
10 dispose Of their vintages long before
they are grown at prices which will make
them rich. Miners will devise plan by
which the thousands OF millions OF gold
now buried in the Sierras may be ex-
tracted without injury TO the agricultur-
lists; when this is perfected California's
mineral yield may be greater than 1t was
in 1856.
That portion of the State which will
y p 81 I'D ota in,
the next half-century will be this city.
From various causes San Francisco has
not kept pace in The two last decades with
such interior cities as Chicago, ST. Paul.
Kansas City or Denver. Manufacturing in
dustry has been handicapped by the rivalry
Of Eastern establishments with cheaper
labor, cheaper money, larger experience
and more ripened skill. 1t may take a
new start when enterprise at this point
makes a vigorous bid for the enormous
markets now facing us across the sea.
There is practically no limit to the con-
sumptive capacity of the Asiatic
and South American countries which
are divided from us by Two or
three weeks steaming. We are twice as
near them as Liverpool, New York, Ham,
burg or Havre. The cost of that extra
transport ton would constitute in itself
bonus for manufacturing industry on this
coast. Whenever San Franciscans en-
bark in manufacturing and in maritime
trade with the energy which they have
shown in other pursuits the Pacific will be
theirs. There is no port on that ocean
which can compare with San Francisco
in facility of access. safety and GEN.
tralitv. But it will not become the
emporium of trade on the Pacific unless
its people put their shoulders to the wheel
and make it so. 1t is men who build up
great cities, not geographical lines. Nature
never intended Liverpool or Glasgow to be
seaports; the natural outlet of Great
Britain on the west coast was Bristol.
But the right sort of men settled at
Liverpool and Glasgow, while more
torpid kind pitched their tents at
Bristol, and the consequence Is that
the Clyde is forever black with
smoke. Liverpool is the greatest sea-
port in the world, and on the cracks OF
the stone docks at Bristol there Is grazing
for goats.
1t will be the policy Of THE CALL to
assist ic every way all who arc striving to
bring the people Of San Francisco to
realization of the truth, that they must
rely upon brains and energy more than
upon mere natural advantages and to that
end II will work with all the power and
influence at its command.