The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1909-08-12
By HERBERT KAUFMAN

have been down through the south
west, especially in Oklahoma, Texas.
New Mexico and Arizona; been out
about six weeks now looking up new
/ country the new industrial and agri-
cultural aspects, especially the de-
velopment of recently developed irri-
gated tracts 1 have avoided the land
boomers and commercial secretaries,
and got my information as far as pos
sible from what Impressions l got on
horseback and motor rides away from
the railroads.
The real America is down there, diff
ferent from the east as another coun
try would be. There are more Amer
leans; there is more American impulse;
there is more of a communal spirit
reaching from Texas out to the coast
than in any other part of the continent
The great cities are rapidly becoming
/ un-Americanized. The vast recent i'm
migration is practically sterile in brain
and enterprise. We are getting the
atrophied riffraff, not the home builders
and the bread makers of the last CEN
fury.
The new immigrant has come to
share our certainty-not our risk. His
precursor, stirred with migratory
spirit. came out to break ground in
prairie and woodland.
EASTERN CITIES EUROPEAN
Today's stream flows westward from
the south Europe, the eastern Asia and
the Slav sections.
They come into the ports and make
of our coast cities miniature maps of
Europe. They do not know America.
They do not know for what America
stands.
On the other hand, the son of the
farmer seems to be returning to the
country, realizing that there is bigger
chance out in the new lands than the
metropolis can promise.
They are opening a thousand towns
which, in the next 10 years, will have
fuller maturity than the older mid
land settlements have shown after 80
or 40 years. These men have come to
stay. They are not incompetents, but
cal ger stalwarts filled with aggression
and chatting at the idea of waiting in
line to buy a front row seattle men
who. with the price and ability to sit
up front, but are not willing to endure
the wait until recognition. They are
farmers who mix brains with soil
They are opening new cities. They are
building solidly and substantially. Up
in the Panhandle there is 10 year old
Amarillo with only 10000 inhabitants,
yet owning ZIG automobiles, electric
lights, a park system and pleasure
grounds. with scenic railways and
dancing pavilions. Dalart q years ODD
has a high school built of cement and
brown stone, besides two other public
schools and an antiseptic sewage sys-
tenn.
GROWTH LIKE MUSHROOMS
But the wonder country of all is the
Brownsville stretch lying right along
the gulf coast in the lowest reach of
! the American continent. 1t is prac-
| tically terra incognita, once held by
| three ranchmen. who among them con-
troll over 100000 acres of grazing
| land. One man there alone has $780,
600 acres. Within less than five years
after the introduction of a railroad In
that country it has over 20 big towns,
good towns, with brick and stone
k hotels.
Water has done it all. Canals from
the Rio Grande are turning mesquite
and cactus acreage into fields of
/ oranges, sugar cane. sorghum and
/ every possible sort of garden truck A
new sort of pioneer has taken up the
land-the college man, the lawyer, the
] businessman.
Ranches which were for sale less
than 10 years ago at so cents an acre
are bringing 500 and $150ean acre. All
/ the southwest needs is more water It
/ is the most valuable asset of America
today. One thing will be necessary.
and that is governmental control of
these canals; otherwise there will be
a tendency toward individual abuse.
GOVERNMENT CONTROL NEEDED
An overriding paternalism on the
| part of the nation on all canal projects
4 will soon be as essential as national
law on savings banks or on insurance.
There is more at stake through the
i potential abuse of the one element that
regulates the entire prosperity of mil
lions Of acres of land.
Most people do not realize that not
more than one-tenth of the entire area
/ Of the United States has been touched
/ by cultivation.
The man who thinks that he has no
chance nowadays is a fool. The next
/ 10 years will see more new cities. the
development of more arabic tracts, the
production Of more wealth and the
4 opening up of more possibilities than
the last so years have known.
But the activity will be down
/ through the west. Here is where true
America lies. There is a broader and
bigger and more aggressive type of
man here than anywhere else on
the continent. 1t is a young man
America.
It shows itself especially in Cali
fornia. Communal pride is evident all
through the state.
The cities are beautiful; the towns
are laid out with exquisite charm. The
homes have more beauty than is char
acteristic of the show spots of the
/ Riviera.
EXCEEDS Widest HOPES
Ny widest expectation as to the new
San Francisco has been more than sur
passed. You have puilt new CITY.
more magnificent than Baltimore has
managed to pull out or the ashes after
seven years of effort
There is a tendency from time to
time to journalistically fit America to
the knife: to look at it from the view
point of the pessimistic old lady who
saw one faded petal on the rose, and
began to bewail the fading of the
flower. For the last FIVE years this
has been rather widespread practice
I