The San Francisco call., 1910-02-12
GREAT IMMIGRANT
INFLUX INEVITABLE
Realty Board Official Points Out
Certain Result of Com
pIetion of Canal
By A. L. HARRIGAN,
Vice President San Francisco Real
Estate Board

Our firm has been warned by older
and wiser counsel not to be too op-
timistic about the near future of our
city, but what is one to do? Think
that in five years, and five years is
put trihe in business career,
5000 to 5000 immigrants will be land
Ing weekly in our harbor. These peo-
PIE must live, are good workers and
will prosper, too. Will we not have
our Hoboken for the Germans; our
Dakotas for the Swedes? And all other
natIonalfties will congregate in dis
tricts, making settlements which will
enrich our state.
| have Travelled from San Diego to
hIamath and have seen thousands Of
acres of good. tillable and productive
land awaiting the coming of these
workers. These people will produce
they VIII buy; and who will reap the
harvest of their labor? San Francisco.
San Francisco viii always be the
metropolis of the coast regardless of
the lack of unity in its population, but
the pull together spirit is already be-
ing manifested among its inhabitants
Los Angeles, our sister city, has shown
us what 1t means to pull together, and
after many years we are beginning to
profit by it's example. Today the civic
bodies are unit on anything to boost
San francisco. One of the best eX-
amples of this is the Convention
league. The traffic bureau might also
be mentioned, as it is organized solely
to help our merchants in regard to
freight rates
Why should we not start from now
on an era of unprecedented prosperity? 4?
Our real estate values have reached
their minimum, and the prosperity of
the state has afforded wealth to pur-
chase realty Tbn1Iob We arc xxyo1l
acquainted with outside property our
country correspondent informs us that
the farmer could not have better pros
poets if they were ordered by film
Five years a go the farmer was scra tch-
ing around to get enough TO pay inter-
est on his mortgage. Today he is the
most contented individual in the coun-
try. Buckboards have given way TO
automobiles and he is the actual gem
tleman of the community. This means
that he has surplus of cash which
he must invest. He looks to the large
city on his coast, and we have all
invested some of it for him. With
this years prosperity it will come in
still greater quantities.
Another offshoot of the farmers
prosperity and help to the rebuilding
of our city is the country bank. We
all remember how, after running for
loan from one bank to another in our
city, we finally landed 1t with the
Bank of Milpitas or the bank of some
obscure country town looking for
place to get rid of its surplus when
the security was ample and safe.
The prosperity of the farmer is he
coming conta agious with the merchant.
How many of our merchants do you
hear complaining? Ask any one of
them and they will say business is
good, and when they say good il
means a great deal, especially when
they talk to a real estate agent.
Let us realize that we are going
uphill. Millions of dollars spent in
organizing our great national exposi-
tion, besides the opening of our great
water way throuh the isthmus, must
not bring upon us a boom in realty
values, but let us be conservative with
the demand so that after FIVE years of
continuous prosperity we will not eX-
perience the traditional slump.