The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1898-01-14
Caiifornia's Golden Jubilee.

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day of this January, that man dig
ging a tail race for a little saw mill on
Sutter creek in the now great state of
California, made discovery, the shout
over which echoed around the world, a
discovery which added an impulse to
civilization which has made this latter
half of the nineteenth century the won
der of all preceding recorded history.
James Marshall picked up little mug
get of gold! 1t marked the beginning
of new era of progress. AT that time
all that portion of the world whose
waters run to the Pacific ocean was de-
void of all the elements of modern civil
ization. California was Spanish cat
tie range and the only ships visiting
the long range of coast extending from
Behring's Straits to Cape Horn were
whalers, or vessels going for hides and
furs. China and Japan were locked up
to the world, Australia was penal
colony. The people of the Sandwich
Islands were canibals. Western Mis-
souri, was starting point on the San
ia Fee trail and all the country west of
the Missouri was given over to sayages
and buffalo. Dana's "Two Years be-
fore the Mast" published in 1913, told
nearly as much about California as was
known on the Atlantic coast. A little
band of Mormons had made pilgrim
n, a InfCra hn tT;ee;ee;,,,,;
river to attempt the doubtful expert
ment of founding a home by the great
Salt Lake and to try to raise supplies
upon the arid lands of the West. The
Erie canal connected the great lakes
with tide water but at that date not
bushel of wheat had been shipped from
the little swampy town of Chicago,
down the great lakes. The electric tel.
egraph was a new thing, and the mile
age of all the railroads in America |
would not have covered the distance
across the smallest one of the middle |
states. A condition of apathy existed |
everywhere. What money there was in
was in Mexican coin or the
issue OF wild cat banks. A man could |
not travel from st. Louis to Cincin-
natl and pay his bills in one city with
currency brought from the other. All
the interstate commerce in America
was crude and primitive. The word,
barter, fitted it well.
But the magic word, SC old!" was
shouted and its echoes awakened the
world. That word heard everywhere,
put new life into the world, and the
two thousand millions of dollars or
more since produced from the mines of
the then almost unknown West, added
to that of Australia and South Africa,
has been the life-blood OF commerce.
1t has built cities, spanned and grid
ironed the continent with railways,
stretched electric wires over all the
lands and under all the seas and made
the present half century see more real
progress in all the arts than all the re-
suits of dozen preceding centuries.
The man whose span of life has carried
him through this period has been able
to see more than all of long line of
MS ancestors with lives bountifully
lrawn out could have experienced.
That same discovery of gold, for
which San Francisco is now preparing
% celebrate the Golden Jubilee, was :
,he most momentuous event of modern :
history in the granduer of the conse- I
Iuences. it supplied civilization with 1
new impulse and commerce with new {
ife- blood.
II was the abundance of real money S
which has moved the world.
But Notwithstanding the beneficent d
fleets of an abundance of money, there I
re men who have gathered it in who I
low want to make it dearer. They
want and have almost succeeded in I
utting in two the worlds supply.
hey have succeeded iu building up an
of wealth and are trying to I
make this plutocracy of power.
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