Evening star., 1950-09-13
California Enters It's Second Century
By WiIIiom Hines


CALIFORNIA, which is almost state
~ of mind. entered it's second century
of statehood last week. On September
9, 1850, the Bear Flag of the California
Republic was hauled down and Cali
fornia became the thirty first State.
But that was not the beginning of
California, any more than its centen-
nial was an ending. Chinese annals tell
of the voyage of one Hwui Shan, a
Buddhist monk from Kabul, in the late
400s A. D. Somewhere, thousands Of
miles to the east of China, he found
land that some historians believe was
the, California coast.
But that story is almost as much
fancy as fact. From the 1500s on, Cali
fornia has been known to the world.
Sir Francis Drake touched the coast
several miles above San Francisco Bay,
and no one knows why he didn't find
that spacious, landlocked harbor. Some
have suggested that perhaps the harbor
didn't exist--that some time between
1880 and 1850 a terrible earthquake,
worse than that of 1906, created it.
At any rate. the harbor was there in
1869, when Don Gaspar de Portola dis
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since, to make out-of-staters gasp and
San Franciscans swell with pride. And
Los Angeles folk boast that theirs is
better, and man-made at that.
There it is. thousand miles of Cali
fornia-from the shacks across the
river from Yuma, Ariz., to the. forests
on the Oregon border north of
Crescent City 1t has within its
borders the highest and lowest points in
the United States Mount Whitney and
Death Valley almost literally stones
throw apart. Tt boasts, too, the Nations
biggest county, area-wise, and one of its
smallest tSan 'Bernardino and San Fran
cisco, and the most populous county
and one OF the least CLOS Angeles and
Alpine).
The temperature in Death Valley often
exceeds 1870 degrees, but in the noun
tain passes. some of the coldest tempera-
lures and hercest blizzards in the United
States occur.
The giant redwood trees-some of
which were saplings centuries before
Christ-do not grow except in Cali
fornia.
The State has more big cities than any
other. Yet you can drive from Indio to
Blythe-well over 100 miles-and never
see village of any size, and hardly even
a gas station. The desert abounds with
dry lakes on which you can land an air.
plane, but the lakes you can sail boat
on are few, and half of the biggest one
-Tahoe-is in Nevada.
There always has been room for new
comers in California. with its 1888
square miles. Yet its second largest
city, San Francisco, was crowded 80
years ago when it had only thirds
its present population.
In its century of statehood, California
population. 1t had 92,597 people in
1850, making California 28th among
the States. Today it is second only
to New York, with 10,472.348.
The fact that California is neither SO
populous as New York nor so extensive
as Texas does not mean the State con-
siders. those commonwealths as rivals.
There is idle talk of hot rivalry with
Florida on some such basis as climate
or citrus growing. The true Californian
will dismiss this as nonsense.
The north-oriented Californian looks
to San Francisco. which the natives call
THE City, The south -oriented Mecca
is Los Angeles To speak to citizen of
The City and call his home town iris
co.. would be like suggesting that cable
cars are obsolete. For generations the
silly looking but efficient little cars have
been climbing Powell and California and
Jackson and Sacramento streets, only
occasionally slipping cable and sliding
downhill.
A San Franciscan is born with the
knowledge that the citys fog is the finest
tonic for ladies since Lydia Pinkhams
and that it's especially good for the girls
compilations. Likewise. he knows in his
heart that Oakland population 400,000)
and Berkeley population 100000 are
mere bedrooms for The City. and that
Los Angeles population million) is
an overgrown small town, fit only for
movie actors and Midwesterners. The
City's hills are sleeper (Arguello boule-
ward boasts a 81 per cent grade), its
restaurants better, its wharves buster,
its trolley cars more crowded than any
other city, bar none.
He admits freely that California has
been the birthplace of many screwballs.
but he hastens to add that all of them
come from Los Angeles.
The Angeleno. on the other hand,
wants it known that the $50 square
miles of his city make it bigger in area
than any other municipality in the
world. He boasts, too, that where San
Francisco goes only 200 miles to the
Hetch-Hetchy for water. Los Angeles
reaches out 800 miles to the Owens
Valley.
But when the subject of things out
side California comes up, the two Cali
foEnians will form popular front. It
was Californian who remarked on
visit to Washington that the Capitol
dome was pretty-but five feet lower
than that of the San Francisco City Hail.
The Californian will agree that the
Grand Canyon is impressive, but in the
Yosemite Valley you look up at the
scenery, not down.
Show a. a-Californian the Empire State
= - 4.