The San Francisco call., 1896-04-18

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which has not been supported by any OF
the eminent engineers of the United States
Government, which has not been favored
by either of the distinguished Senators
from California or by any representatives
in Congress-from the section OF the
country which is interested in the con-
struction of a harbor CONTIGUOUS to Los
Angeles. 1t would seem these facts alone
should be sufficient to eliminate from con-
s!deratlon any other location than San
Pedro.p
Judge A. NJ. Stephens followed Mr., Pat
terson and said for the San Pedro project:
at will bring large and small vessels
into immediate contact, allowing foreign
commerce to come into immediate contact
with the coastwise vessels. 1t Will be more
economical in the administration and con-
struction than breakwater a. Santa Mon
lea and will enable the Government by rea-
sonable expenditure to attain any reason
able depth over the inner bar, thus accom-
modating all classes of vessels.
with all these reasons in favor of San
Pedro you will readily see why our people
insist upon that location. 1t has been
urged as a reason why Santa Monica
should receive an appropriation that Mr..
Huntington has tried San Pedro and found
that it would not answer the purpose and
that he accordingly built his pier at Santa
Monica. l do not believe that Mr.. Hunt
ington abandoned the construction OF
a pier at San Pedro for any such reason.
On the contrary, think l can point out
the true reasons. About 1873 an lnde-
pendent railroad line was built from Los
Angeles to Santa Monica, with a pier to
deep water at the latter point This line
and pier about 1877 was bought by the
Southern Pacific and fell at once into in
nocuous desuetude.
THAT company having no competitor at
either place showed its faith in San Pedro
by transferring all business to that point,
and using lighters at San Pedro instead of
the deep-sea pier at Santa Monica. This
continued to be the case until the Redondo
people built their wharf in 1887. That
company by contracts with merchants Sc
cured about SO per cent of all the ocean
freights to Los Angeles. Then the South
ern Pacific determined to and did move
up the coast to the EXTREMIST point. [
think this accounts for the move, and had
Redondo pier not been built no pier would
have been built at Santa Monica"
Ex-Mayor Hazard of Los Angeles argued
forcibly in favor of San Pedro.
The first witness in the afternoon ses-
sion of the committee was Major c. W.
Raymond of the corps of engineers. He
was member of the board appointed by
the Secretary of War in 1892 and he said
that the reasons for the preference given
by the board to San Pedro had been stated
very clearly and concisely in its report. In
answer to questions by various members
of the committee Major Raymond de-
tailed at some length the points on which,
in his opinion, the harDor at San Pedro
was to be preferred to that of Santa
Monica.
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Harris of the
engineer corps, also member of the army
board of 1892, added his statement in sup
port of the views of the board.
Then the friends of Santa Monica came
to present the arguments in favor of that
harbor.
Coils P. Huntington, president of the
Southern Pacific Railroad, told how his
predecessor, Mr.. Stanford, had mistak-
emily assumed that San Pedro was to be the
important port on the coast and had ex.
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but now he (Mr. Huntingdon, when he
made visit of inspection, became salts
fed that mistake had been committed
and went to work and built track to and
docks at Santa Monica, which he pre-
dicted would become very important
port.
E. L. Coltrell, civil engineer, furnished
the committee with a variety of technical
reasons WHY Santa Monica was to be pre-
ferred TO San Pedro.
Ex-senator Cole of California spoke of
the wonderful progress of Los Angeles in
population and wealth during the last ten
years, and gave it as his opinion that fully
nine-tenths OF the people of Los Angeles
now favored Santa Monica, although they
had been passive in the matter during the
past year.
The final argument in favor of Santa
Monica was made by Mr.. Mitchell, but he
had not got through with his speech at
the time of adjournment
The hearing will be continued to-mor-
row.