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Show THE CITIZEN California After the In the Da wn Before the Gold Rush. The covery at Sutter's Mill. Treaty with Mexico. Land of Enchantment By John L. Koeppler. JUNIPERO SERRA, padre presi-dent- e, was the guiding spirit behind the Alta California missions. He fired them with his enthusiasm, and they prospered years after his death. The Indians raised fruit and grain, cattle, horses and sheep. By nature adapted to small industry, they became skilled also in iron, wood and leather work. (Mexican however, independence, sounded the doom of the missions. In 1834, their property was secularized. America owes the missions a debt. But for them she would be minus a beautiful architecture distinctive, meet is Gratitude qaint. again for the fine names they bestowed upon the little outposts in this ten isolated land. The Caballeros, too, though their number was exceeding small, left a tradition of free rural life that wings the fancies to flight. Monarchs were they, generous as their haciendas and ranches were broad. Imagine the great dominion of California, peopled by only a few thousand Spaniards and Mexicans, perhaps but two, a heaven of leisure and chivalry! The missions, haciendas and ranchos were a mere beginning, but it had taken Spain three hundred years to found them. Discovery and explorations are slow and tedious processes. Then, as the hidden treasure was about to be revealed, the empire began to crumble, and California became a lost province! Fate! A Primitive Lure. John A. Sutter was a German Swiss. Crossing the Atlantic, he studied the possibilities of the great plains and the Santa Fe region; then voyaged to the Sandwich Islands and Alaska, in quest of a refuge in the wilderness. San Francisco saw him next. Paddling up the Sacramento, Sutter found at tidewaters end the country he sought. From Mexico he obtained a large grant forea little kingdom of his own, in this lotus land, away from civilization and its fetters. Fishes, wild animals and fowl were there in abundance; soil, virgin and rich; climate, unsurpassed. The Indians he regarded, not as savages to be feared and killed, but as human beings to be understood and won by kindness. It wasnt lure of gold that brought Sutter to California, but the spark of the primitive in his European heart, fanned to burning flame. That spark may be in man near smothered, but it never quite dies out. The gentlest breeze oft sets it ablaze. Early in eighteen forty-eigh- t, e thing was found in the tail-rac- some- of the - ' s I Lawyer, Doctor, Merchant or engaged in some other purauit you will find Everything for Yonr Office at KELLY COMPANY Waa 4180 Waa 4181 iiiiiiiiiiiiaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiii? " i s sawmill Sutter was building. It looks like gold, he said, and gold it was! Spaniard had sought it in vain. Sutter had sought repose but found gold. Within a month the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, whereby Mexico ceded California to the United States. Neither side then knew of the discovery of gold. Some time before, perhaps in expectation that California would be soon acquired, a steamship service had been inaugurated, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Isthmus; thence to California and the Northwest coast. The first steamer, bound for Oregon, anchoring in San Francisco Bay, learned of the treaty and the discovery. She went north no farther. In Ships and Wagons. It wasnt long till up from the Isthmus came ships loaded with seekers after the precious metal. Covered wagons crossed the plains and mount, the tains. In eighteen forty-eigh- 3 of the Missions Opportunities loomed of improving the community and the young country. He ventured. Sacramento was laid out and established by Sutter on land all his own. Then lawless squatters scattered his herds and demoralized and killed his Indians. Little by little his possessions left him. He died in Pennsylvania, a forlorn man. Men, unaccustomed to possessions, do not appreciate what care wealth entails; how heavily the responsibility of right management weighs upon the man who has it; what constant danger there is of its dissipation, to the detriment not only of himself but of the community in which it is fixed. Wherefore, especially if they be radically inclined, they condemn men of wealth almost promiscuously, regarding even wealth itself as evil. But wealth is benefic. Without it, the race could not improve. Wealth, minus a man to own it, is a fiction. Sutter had wealth and plans. Deep must have been his sorrow at the loss of the one and the shattering of the other. Nor was Sutter alone. Its a queer wind that blows no ill. The discovery of gold, however, did much for California and for the 2IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII1IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII1IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM I THE CALIFORNIA POPPY The golden poppy is Gods gold, the gold that lifts, nor weighs us down, the gold that knows no misers hold, the gold that banks not in the town, but singing, laughing, freely spills its hoard far up the happy hills ; far up, far down, at every turn what beggar has not gold to burn ! 'Joaquin Miller. ;iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii: population numbered six thousand. The following year it rose to ninety-tw- o thousand. According to the centhere were sus of eighteen fifty-twno less than two hundred sixty-nin- e thousand inhabitants, including thirty thousand Indians, twenty thousand Chinese, and two thousand negroes. Flour went" to fifty dollars a barrel; potatoes, to a dollar a pound. Interest on money advanced to fifteen per cent a month. New Orleans picayunes bought little tobacco, at five dollars a pound. The gold rush brought men, not of the type of pioneers. No thought dominated their minds of building up the community where they found their treasure. By and large, they came to dig and pan gold, and to carry away what they didnt spend. The store of precious metals nowhere is unlimited. At the first sign of exhaustion, if mining be the only pursuit, the camp begins to decline. When the mines no longer yield, the population vanishes. That is not pioneering. Pioneering is the blazing of a trail into the wilderness, the trail of agriculture and permanent industry, of permanent settlement. Plans Gang Agley. Sutter was caught in the whirl. His dream fading, of an empire in miniature, isolated and peaceful, he now contemplated expanding his holdings, bepartaking of the wealth that was ing daily coined in mine and placer. o, Union. It brought the states more intrinsic worth to the fore. It simulated transportation, agriculture, industry, commerce, and speeded the flow of population. More: It gave men new vision and unleased their energies. Values were transvalued. Men were obliged to adjust themselves suddenly to new environments, setting up new codes for their government. That broadened their horizons. No Utopia was this new order of things, but perhaps one ugly human trait was drowned for the time the trait of meanness. Bad are the sins of passion, but infinitely worse, the sins of meanness. Thus, once more, the seed of a fine tradition was sown. A War Chest. Without five million dollars of California gold pouring into New York every month during the Civil War, what might have happened to the Union? What if these millions had streamed into Richmond? California was not solidly northern, but the Union had the ablest champions. Starr Kings matchless oratory saved California to the Union. He died as much for the cause as if he had fallen on the field. I have only one life to live and now is the time to spend it. Not every one has that opportunity. Few are equal to it when it comes. To Starr Kings pen, Bret Harte wrote these lines: This is the reed the dead musician dropped, With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden. The prompt allegro of the music stopped, Its melodies unbidden. But who shall finish the unfinished strain, Or wake the instruments to awe and wonder, And bid the slender barrel breath again An organ pipe of thunder? His pen! What haunting memories cling about Its golden curves! What shapes and laughing graces Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out In smiles and courtly phrases! The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung; The word of cheer, with recognition in it; The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung The golden gift within it. But all in vain the enchanters wand we wave; No stroke of ours recalls its magic vision; The incantation that its power gave Sleeps with the dead magician. Starr King merits a niche in Cal- ifornias hall of fame, a portrait in the gallery of the nations great. He fit a good fight. The Big Four. Collis P. Huntington, Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford and Mark Hopkins are outstanding figures in the history of California. They projected and built the Central Pacific. A mile and more in altitude had to- be made across the Sierras. Dynamite was only then being discovered. The Comstock gave the project impetus. Soon the road joined the Union Pacific at Promontory Point. Ten thousand Chinese did the labor. Their contractors had been feeding them rice. Crocker - (Continued on page 12) SEND IT TO THE LAUNDRY' Distinctive Work Hyland 190 |