The Washington herald., 1914-08-01
California Starts Something.

California has woman suffrage, and now has a
contest prohibition the prohbtionists counting
on the women to vote the State dry. California has
since the days of 4o held almost as conspicuous
place in the of the day has Kansas, and the
women of California have not been neglected by the
reporters. They have had hand in everything from
cleaning out vice in San Francisco to making South
ern California mionare's retreat which rivals the
tabled glores of Babylon and they have helped to
change the literature of California from that describ
ing gold camps to poetic rapsodies on the land of
wine and vine, where luscious grapes CLEAN purple
beneath the snowclad peaks of the Sierras Cslifor
MIA wine and fruit have played leading role in every
successful campaign the Golden Gate has made, from
capturing medals at Knights Templar drills to carry
ing off the Panama Exposition and the gories OF the
California vine have been sung in every corner of
civilization, with the California women supplying the
high soprano notes that made France jealousy
admit that the American brand had a finer chorus
than her champagne districts.
Those CaGfornians boast that one-third of their
total crop wealth in their vineyards that they
have $I5ooooooo investment and S3ooooooo income
from their wine presses; but what is wealth to the
Californian without publicity? Since the location of
the Panama Exposition, and the subsistence of the
Bull Moose tidal wave and the Japanese war scare,
there has not been happening in California worth
editorial mention and that is warning enough to
something. Humdrum life does not appeal to the
Californians; hence a campaign to wipe out their
vineyards, destroy all the present artistic railroad
literature in which California calls all the world to
come and revel in the .gories of the climate wine
and vine, fruit and flowers, and start new campaign
in which. the desert will figure the one great desr-
atatum of human existence California has ALWAYS
commanded genius in publicity and will no doubt be
able to find poets and painters who can make the
world believe that the desert with its mirage is more
beautiful, more conducive to health, happiness and
longevity than the fruit and flowers which now make
it the nearest approach to the Elysium Fields to be
found on the globe-in the present-day publicity
literature
1t is undertaking that might discourage any
other people, but since julius Kahn beat Chairman
Fitzgerald and secured another million appropriation
for the exposition, nothing is really impossible to
California. The next thing we hear may be the de-
struction of the big and blowing up all the irr
cation dams out there that California may return
the picturesque life of the pioneer days. with every
body hunting gold in the sand and vigilance commit
tees taking the place of commission government One
can never tell what California will do next
But since California secured from Congress legis-
ation which allowed her to brandy to fortify her
wines without paying the internal revenue tax
and since Senator Works carefully worded his pro-
posed prohibition amendment the Federal Consti-
tuition to only prohibit the manufacture and sale
of distilled spirits opine that this campaign to
make California absolutely dry even with the aid OF
the women, is only for outside consumption and a
continuation of favorable newspaper notice We
cheerfully comply by giving California this space.