The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1895-03-03
SPEAKING OF MILLIONS

some trdVeleIS lTOIu EutOpid Az Plcscnt
living in San Francisco have organized a
Half Million Club. A casual inspection
of the promoters of this association dis
perses the first impression that the club
is an aggregation of half millionaires.
They are plain, ordinary, every day peo-
pie who work for living-bankers, mer-
chants, lawyers and the like. The Half
Million Club is not an organization for
the worship of Mammon any more than
the celebrated Savage Club of London is a
congregation of barbarians. 1t is COM
ing together of dreamers and Missionaries
who will make an effort to increase the
population of San Francisco to half a
million before the end of the nineteenth
century. 1t is their intention to use their
united effort in bringing about such adj
ditions to the resident population OF the
city as shall make it aggregate in num-
bers half million of people before the
opening of the year 1900"
This is exceedingly commendable and
it is the sincere wish of every friend of
San Francisco that the effort shall prove
successful. 1t is eminently proper that
half million of people shall bask in
the dawn of the twentieth century when
that suspicious morn shall gid the hori-
zon of metropolitan prosperity. 1t is,
however, very doubtful if this consumma-
ton so devoutly wished can be attained.
There are many reasons upon which to
base this doubt, one of which is the theo-
ry that San Francisco has reached the
limit of her powers of ABSORPTION. Tho
people of the interior have contributed
about all they can spare to support the
city OH the bay and any increase of popu-
laton would tax the capacity of the state
outside.
1t is different in Los Angeles. The lat
ter city is the metropolis of country not
yet strained to the limit of its produc-
ton. We are growing. We have not yet
thought of organizing a Half Million Club
but we are seriously revolving the scheme
OF associating ourselves into a Quarter
Million Club. We are confident that we
can easily induce $50, 900 more people to
reside in this paradise OF the West. We
are modest in our aspirations and conf
dent to the extent of our modesty. AS a
guarantee of good faith" we have al
ready begun to build the houses in which
this population shall live. We are build
ing these houses at the rate of six every
day. Calculating that we keep up this ratio
to the end of the century, we would build
10,950 houses, inhabited by an average
family OF five members or "a, $50 residents.
Our Quarter Million Club, however, would
undoubtedly force this rate and by proper
effort increase the house-building indus
try to at least eighteen houses a day or
$50 houses year inhabited by 164, $50
people, which added to our present esti-
mated population would give US census
of 264, $50, to say nothing OF the natural
floating population OF the hotels and
boarding houses.
San Francisco will probably treat this
method of whooping up population as a
merry, jest, but there is more probability
of its fruition in Los Angeles than there
is that San Francisco can receive and sup
port half million people "before the
opening of 1900" ,s.t" Dc
Suppose we test the proposition?