The record-union., 1896-02-06
VOICE OF THE PRESS.
Expressions of Interior California
Newspapers.
Comments Upon Things Local, Gov
ernmenta1, Practical, Theoret-
fcal and Current.

Comments Upon Things Local, Gov
ernmental, Practical, Theoret-
zeal and Current.
Stockton Independent: Congressman
Johnson of this district made an able
speech in Congress on Monday in favor
of his bill to restrict immigration. To
illustrate the necessity for it he likened
the United States to a boy who was
made sick by eating unripe fruit, and
said one condition of cure was to cease
eating such fruit. 1t has taken a long
time for this idea to be appreciated. A
writer on the same subject during one
of the disgraceful strike riots in the
coke regions twenty years ago said the
country was suffering from political in
digestion and must resort to abstinence
as a condition of restoration to health.
Mr.. Johnson is one of the few who have
during that long interval been struck
with a similar idea and is the first to
use it in Congressional debate. 1t is
the right idea and should be diligently
propagated The country should adopt
the homely simile and not bite off more
than it can chew of immigration. Take
no more in any year than it can assimi-
late This, in the light of experience
for nearly half a century, would be
very few until the capacity to assimi-
late has been greatly strengthened and
increased.
FAITH IN DAMS.
Colusa Sun: Some of US valley peo-
pie have been called exceedingly OBJ
stinate because we refused to have faith
in the efficacy of dams for restraining
hydraulic mining debris, but the fact
that most of those put in by permis-
sion of the commission of the United
States engineers have gone out on the
| first opportunity gives us the chance of
repeating that most consoling sentence,
1--WE told you So But the Sun" does
not rejoice in the fact that it has now
been demonstrated that the dams can
not be depended upon While it did not
believe that the dams would do, it would
much rather it could have been demon
strated that they would do. The dis
position of the valley people all the
time has been to let the miners try any
| experiment, the failure of which would
! not involve them in ruin, and some or
us who have stuck closely to that text
lave been called radical by some of our
cwn people. The editor of the sun"
has tried as hard to think out plan by
which the mines might be run without
damage to the country below as he has
to solve the reclamation problem. He
has made a close study of the dam prop
Csition with the hope all the while he
could find it possible for him to in
dorse it, but he could not do so, and the
result Of the last few days of high water
has justified his judgment. And now
the "Sun" wishes to repeat what it has
said for years-that if the hydraulic
mines can be worked on any plan that
will not involve the valley in ruin, the
sun is with them, or with them in
any experiment the result of which will
act upon them and not upon US The
recent failure Injuries us-it is the farm
ers and not the miners who must stand
the result of the failure.
RURAL INDUSTRIES.
Woodland Democrat: The State Board
OF Agriculture has very properly
pointed out some of the profitable rural
industries that could be undertaken by
those who have hitherto devoted all
their energy and land to grain growing.
In the further cultivation of fruit, in the
raising of chickens either for their eggs
or for the poultry market, in the dairy
business, in the growing of tobacco or
sugar beets, there is yet room for
large expansion of farm work in Cali
fornia before the limit of the profit will
be reached or the line of overproduc-
ton be anywhere in sight. These,
moreover, are by no means all the ave-
nues of profit open to the California
farmer. for there is scarcely any kind
of the higher forms of rural industry
known to the world that cannot be
successfully carried on here.
THE RIVER.
Rio Vista News: Once more has the
Sacramento River, unable on account
of a multitude of sandbars and shadows
to carry the huge volumes of water
caused by the melting of snow in the
mountains, overhowed its banks and
covered the rich tule lands of the valley;
once more have the farmers of the tule
lands, after years of toll, been doomed
to see the fruits of their labor laid in
waste, and themselves placed in worse
position than they were before attempt
ing reclamation. 1t is likely to continue
this way as long as no further relief
than is now accorded the landholders
is given. 1t would not be taking pes
simistic view to venture that in the
course of a few years, after the farmers
OF the various reclamation districts
have been flooded time and again that
they will cease the huge work under
taken and allow their arabic acres TO
lie in waste, perhaps getting a crop
once in four years or may be not once
in a decade.
EGOTIsM AND SELF-CONCEIT.
Alameda. Telegram: Mayor Sutro,
the very incarnation of egotism and
seif-conceit, will find such tactics of no
avail. Men of intelligence naturally
resent being dubbed bribe-takers,
.shirelings' and a dozen other appella-
tions equally unpleasing. To have
mailed each member of Congress a
clear concise statement of facts, and
facts only, would have been found far
more effective. Such men as Sutro and
his ilk cause the people of the East to
form a very poor opinion of Cali
fornians.
LARGE LAND HOLDINGS.
san Diego Union The people Of
Mexico are beginning to discover that
the vast landed estates of that country
are really an obstacle to its develop
ment How to get these large holdings
divided up so tnaI as nuch land as pos
sible may be made productive, is a
question that has been attracting
great deal of attention in the sister re-
public of late. In many respects condi-
tions there are very similar to those
prevailing in California twenty-five
years ago. Land which might support
many families is held by a few indi-
viduais, a state of affairs that is not