The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-29

of ours-the river that saved the Nation
with its gold.
The Sacramento River, our Sacramento,
is the most classic stored as we'll as most
beautiful and fruitful of all the rivers of
this continent. The st. Lawrence has
been red with battle, the Merrimac has
been made famous by her poets, the Hud-
son is an artery of trade and goouly to see
as the seasons march to the south with
banners of fire, the James has been famous
since the days of Pocahontas, but here
story and glory. golden and glittering
harvests are and have been from the first
and must remain to the end of time.
a million men, such men as the world
has not seen since the siege of Troy, have
let fall the sweat of their faces in this
sacred Sacramento River of ours. Many a
brave man fought and fell here. There
are unmarked graves along the tributaries
up to the very snow banks of the Sierras
Nearly every great general of our history,
from Fremont's time down to this day,
has battled here, and many a good man,
obscure and old and forgotten now, fought
here and bled here when those who read
this were unborn or but babes in the
cradle.
l once saw the silver edge of this river
made purple with the blood of such men,
when they were brought down from the
battlefield at Castle Crags by comrades to
wash their wounds. This was forty years
ago last June. You see, as boy and man l
know the Sacramento well, and 1 love it
truly. The hero of that day, Captain
Gibson, still lives near there, a feeble
and almost forgotten old man, one of
many who made the stored Sacramento
famous before many of you were born.
Let Us no longer continue to dam this
river and by so doing continue to damn
ourselves and the State. There is stronger
flow of Drawn and brain up this river to-
day toward the old abandoned mines than
the world is aware of-healthy and con-
tinuous, too.
Now let US get out of town. "Let US look
into this thing" as the man said to his
wife when they fell into the well.
Last year some good and well-me aning
man of San Francisco proposed sending
the thousands of poor men haunting the
souphouses in body to the mines of the
north. The mountain towns very prop
erly protested; the plan fell through for
good reasons. But out of the idea good
came. a few of those unfortunate men,
being practical old miners and really eager
to work, contrived to get little help here
and there, little parties of two or three
or four of them together, by prom
Using to share with their hackers,
and so made their way to the
mines again and went to work One of
these hackers is to-day a very rich man
from his small investment; some others
have done well, and I have yet to hear of
any one who helped the old miners out of
town that has lost any money or any faith
in his fellows by it. l sent two men, at
less cost than the price of this sketch, and
although they did not find a mine, as
many others did, they took up a wood
ranch, cut and sold wood, sent for their
families and, meantime, got hold of some
pigs and now have quite a little property
under their acorn trees. Not to weary
with detail, it IS best right here to say that
they returned the small sum as soon as
they earned II after they gave up pros
pecting.
You see this inflow to the old mining
camps compels whole lot of other enter
prises. The miner must have meat, eggs,
vegetables, mlk-aII sorts of things, and
so if the prospector don't find mine to
share with the man who stakes him, he at
least can find a home.
Now, this is no new way at all. / reckon
that in the old days there was hardly a
merchant, hotel man or anybody else of
account in San Francisco who did not have
some sort of interest in from one to a
dozen little prospecting parties in the
mountains. And. truly, there never was a
better time to invest in this way than now
Why, look here A few years ago the gold
and silver and copper mines were quoted
at hundreds of millions. Have they been
worked out? Not at all. They have
simply, as rule, been abandoned. From
the first it was quite the fashion to drop
down to San Francisco and spend half the
winter. and too often all the money, AMI
SO the miners gradually left the noun
tains. Then came the quarrel between
the farmers and miners, and mines were
abandoned. Yet they are worth ten times
what they were then. Why? Because
they, through the discovery of new ways
of working ores, can be worked ever so
many times cheaper.
The story of the Morgan Hill mine,
Queensland, that reads like romance,
awaits repetition thousand times over in
the California Sierras. That fabulous mine
was located and, for long time, worked
as n copper mine. 1t was abandoned, as
our Hecla, Anaconda and other mines
made copper-mining there proftless, as so
many of our own copper, gold, silver and
all other sorts of mines have been aban-
doned. After time, in the eighties, be-
lieve, it was worked for gold, new pro-
eess for smelling and separating the COM
pound ores having been found. Last year
the old Morgan Hill copper mine yielded
more than twelve million dollars, net, in
gold.
Now we have got to go back to our
mines, and go back to stay; and we have
got to- go back right. That is, we have got
10 clear out the Sacramento River, clean it
Iut like sluice, so that ships can go up to
Sacramento and gold can come down to