History of California

Chapter XI

That Which Fol­lowed Af­ter

About the time that the peo­ple of Cal­ifor­nia were be­gin­ning to feel the trou­ble aris­ing from the un­lim­it­ed wealth and pow­er of the great rail­road cor­po­ra­tion, they dis­cov­ered what they felt was dan­ger com­ing from an­oth­er quar­ter. This was in the large num­ber of Chi­nese pour­ing in­to the state. Al­ready ev­ery town of im­por­tance had its quaint Chi­nese quar­ter, bits of Asia trans­plant­ed to the west­ern hemi­sphere. Yet these sons of Asia, with their qui­et, glid­ing mo­tions and ori­en­tal dress, had been of great ser­vice in the de­vel­op­ment of the new land. Many of the most help­ful im­prove­ments were ren­dered pos­si­ble by their la­bor, and for years they were al­most the on­ly ser­vants for house or laun­dry work to be ob­tained. Nev­er did the house­wives of the Pa­cif­ic coast join in the out­cry against the Chi­nese.

Al­though all this was true, it was al­so a fact that an Amer­ican work­ing­man could not live and sup­port his fam­ily on the wages a Chi­na­man would take; and when the white man saw the Chi­nese giv­en the jobs be­cause they could work cheap­ly, he be­came dis­cour­aged and an­gry. Was he to be de­nied a liv­ing in his own coun­try be­cause of these strangers? For this rea­son the work­ing peo­ple be­came very bit­ter to­ward the Chi­nese.

Their com­plaints were car­ried to Wash­ing­ton, and be­cause of them the gov­ern­ment fi­nal­ly ar­ranged with Chi­na for the re­stric­tion of im­mi­gra­tion, but not, how­ev­er, be­fore the mat­ter caused much trou­ble in Cal­ifor­nia.

Dur­ing the years 1876-77 times were right­ly called “hard” along the Pa­cif­ic slope. Of­ten la­bor­ing men could not get work, and their fam­ilies suf­fered. The blame for all this was un­just­ly giv­en to the Chi­nese, who were sev­er­al times bad­ly treat­ed by mobs. The gen­er­al dis­con­tent led at last to a de­mand for a new state con­sti­tu­tion, which many peo­ple thought would rem­edy the evils of which they com­plained. For twen­ty-​five years the old con­sti­tu­tion had done good ser­vice. On the day it had been signed, Wal­ter Colton, al­calde of Mon­terey, wrote thus of it in his di­ary: “It is thor­ough­ly demo­crat­ic; its ba­sis, po­lit­ical and so­cial equal­ity, is the creed of the thou­sands who run the plow, wield the plane, the ham­mer, the trow­el, the spade.” Still it had its faults, the great­est of which was the pow­er giv­en the leg­is­la­ture over pub­lic mon­eys and lands, as well as the chance it al­lowed for dis­hon­esty in vot­ing.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly many of the del­egates to the con­ven­tion which was to make the new con­sti­tu­tion were for­eign­ers who knew very lit­tle of Amer­ican man­ners, cus­toms, and laws, and few of them were among the deep­er thinkers of the state, men who had had ex­pe­ri­ence in law­mak­ing. That the new con­sti­tu­tion is not much bet­ter than the old, many who helped in the mak­ing of it will agree. It was adopt­ed in May, 1879. Since that time it has re­ceived a num­ber of changes by means of amend­ments vot­ed for by the peo­ple, and in spite of what­ev­er er­rors it has con­tained, the state un­der it has gone for­ward to a high de­gree of pros­per­ity.

In 1875, dur­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Gov­er­nor Pacheco, the first na­tive state gov­er­nor, an in­vi­ta­tion was ex­tend­ed to na­tive-​born boys of San Fran­cis­co to take part in the Fourth of Ju­ly cel­ebra­tion. A fine body of young men were thus as­sem­bled, of whom Hit­tell in his sto­ry of San Fran­cis­co says, “They were un­par­al­leled in phys­ical de­vel­op­ment and men­tal vig­or, and un­sur­passed in pride and en­thu­si­asm for the land that gave them birth.” This gath­er­ing led to the found­ing of the “Na­tive Sons of the Gold­en West,” an or­ga­ni­za­tion which now num­bers many thou­sands and of which the great state may well be proud. Lat­er there was or­ga­nized a sis­ter so­ci­ety of na­tive daugh­ters, and this al­so has a large mem­ber­ship. As stat­ed in their con­sti­tu­tion, one of the main ob­jects of these sons and daugh­ters of the West is “to awak­en and strength­en pa­tri­otism and keep alive and glow­ing the sa­cred love of Cal­ifor­nia.”

An event of the ut­most im­por­tance to the south­ern part of the state was the com­ple­tion of the rail­road be­tween San Fran­cis­co and Los An­ge­les, which oc­curred in 1879. Its route lay through the rich val­ley of the San Joaquin. Work had been car­ried on from each end of the line, and it was a very hap­py as­sem­bly which gath­ered to wit­ness the junc­tion of the two di­vi­sions, the event tak­ing place at the east­ern end of the San Fer­nan­do tun­nel. This road was af­ter­ward ex­tend­ed from Los An­ge­les east­ward by the way of Yu­ma and Tuc­son, and is to-​day the South­ern Pa­cif­ic Over­land. Lat­er the San­ta Fe Com­pa­ny built its pop­ular road be­tween Los An­ge­les and the East­ern states. Both these com­pa­nies now have lines from Los An­ge­les to San Diego, and the South­ern Pa­cif­ic has a coast road the length of the state, along which the scenery is of great beau­ty.

In­di­ans

In the his­to­ry of the state the most pa­thet­ic por­tion is that which re­lates to the In­di­ans. Ban­croft says, “The Cal­ifor­nia val­ley can­not grace her an­nals with a sin­gle In­di­an war bor­der­ing up­on re­spectabil­ity. It can boast, how­ev­er, a hun­dred or two of as bru­tal butcher­ings on the part of our hon­est min­ers and brave pi­oneers as any area of equal ex­tent in our re­pub­lic.” Min­ers and set­tlers com­ing in­to the coun­try would take up the wa­ters where the na­tives fished, the land where they hunt­ed, driv­ing them back to rocky soil, where there was noth­ing but acorns and roots to sup­port life. As a re­sult the poor, un­hap­py crea­tures, driv­en by hunger, would steal the new­com­ers’ hors­es and cat­tle. It is true that the white men de­pend­ed, in a great mea­sure, up­on their an­imals for the sup­port of their fam­ilies; but they thought on­ly of their own wrongs, and would arm in strong par­ties, chase the wretched na­tives to their homes, and tear down their mis­er­able vil­lages, killing the in­no­cent and guilty alike. The gov­ern­ment was the most to blame, be­cause it did not in the first place en­act laws for the pro­tec­tion of the In­di­ans in their rights.

About the towns, many of the na­tives gath­ered for work. In some places the au­thor­ities had the right to ar­rest them as vagabonds and hire them out as bond­men to the high­est bid­der, for a pe­ri­od of­ten of as many as two or three months at a time, with no re­gard to fam­ily ties. Lit­tle seems to have been done to as­sist them to a bet­ter kind of life. In Los An­ge­les, when work­ing in the vine­yards as grape pick­ers, they were paid their wages each Sat­ur­day night, and im­me­di­ate­ly they were tempt­ed on all sides by sell­ers of bad whisky and were re­al­ly hur­ried in­to drunk­en­ness. Their shrieks and howls would, for a time, make the night hideous, when they were driv­en by the of­fi­cers of the law in­to cor­rals, like so many pigs or cat­tle, and left there till Mon­day morn­ing, when they were hand­ed over to who­ev­er chose to pay the of­fi­cers for the right to own them for the next week.

Near the Ore­gon line lived some of the most war­like and trou­ble­some In­di­ans of Cal­ifor­nia. Here there were one or two se­vere fights, the worst of which was with the Mod­ocs, in the north­ern la­va beds. It was here that Gen­er­al Can­by was killed. To-​day the Mod­ocs are still suf­fer­ing keen­ly. In the up­per part of the state the In­di­ans have no lands of any kind, and no­ble men and wom­en of Cal­ifor­nia are work­ing to se­cure for them their rights from the gov­ern­ment. In the south, whole vil­lages have been found liv­ing on noth­ing but ground acorn meal, from which mis­er­able di­et many chil­dren die and old­er peo­ple can­not long sus­tain life.

The Se­quoya League, an as­so­ci­ation for the bet­ter­ment of the In­di­ans of the South­west, has done much to­ward open­ing the eyes of the pub­lic and of the gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to the un­hap­py con­di­tion of these first own­ers of the soil. Congress, in 1906, ap­pro­pri­at­ed $100,000 to be used in buy­ing land and wa­ter for those In­di­an reser­va­tions or set­tle­ments where the suf­fer­ing was great­est. This was a good be­gin­ning, but as the needy In­di­ans are scat­tered all over the state, much more is re­quired be­fore they can be so placed that they can earn a liv­ing by their labors.

Sheep In­dus­try

Grad­ual­ly the cat­tle in­dus­try, which was for so long a time the lead­ing busi­ness of the coun­try, gave way to sheep rais­ing. Dur­ing sum­mer and fall large flocks of gray­ish white meri­nos could be seen get­ting a rich liv­ing on the brown grass­es, the yel­low stub­ble of old grain fields, and the tight­ly rolled nuts of the bur clover; while in win­ter and spring, hills and plains with their vel­vet-​like cov­er­ing of green al­fi­le­ria of­fered the best and juici­est of food. This was the time of the com­ing of the lambs. As soon as they were old enough to be sep­arat­ed from their moth­ers they were put dur­ing the day in com­pa­nies by them­selves. A band of five or six hun­dred young lambs, play­ing and skip­ping over the young green grass they were just learn­ing to eat, was a beau­ti­ful sight to ev­ery­body save to the man or boy who had them to herd. They led him such a chase that by the time he had them safe­ly cor­ralled for the night, ev­ery mus­cle in his body would be aching with fa­tigue.

Shear­ing time was the liveli­est por­tion of the herder’s life, which was gen­er­al­ly very lone­ly. First came the shear­ing crew with their cap­tain; next ar­rived the venders of hot cof­fee, tamales, tor­tillas, and oth­er Mex­ican dain­ties; brush booths were erect­ed and a brisk trade be­gan. The herds were driv­en up and in­to a cor­ral where sev­er­al shear­ers could work at a time. Snip, snip, snip, went the shears hour af­ter hour. It was the boast of a good shear­er that he could clip a sheep in sev­en min­utes and not once bring blood. As fast as cut, the wool was packed in a long sack sus­pend­ed from a frame­work. The dust was dread­ful, and the man or boy whose du­ty it was, when the bag was part­ly full, to jump in and tramp the wool down so that the bag might hold more, would near­ly choke be­fore he emerged in­to the clear day­light.

The pas­sage of the no-​fence law by the leg­is­la­ture of 1873, while it was op­posed by the sheep and cat­tle men, was one of the great­est aids to the growth of agri­cul­ture, es­pe­cial­ly in the south­ern part of the state. It pro­vid­ed that cat­tle and sheep should not be al­lowed to run loose with­out a herder to keep them from tres­pass­ing. This saved the farmer from the ne­ces­si­ty of fenc­ing his grain fields, a most im­por­tant help in a coun­try where fence ma­te­ri­al was so scarce and ex­pen­sive.

Colony Days

For some time af­ter Cal­ifor­nia’s ad­mis­sion to the Union most of the events of im­por­tance in its his­to­ry took place around the Bay of San Fran­cis­co and the junc­tion of the Sacra­men­to and San Joaquin; but ear­ly in the sev­en­ties the south land awoke from its long sleep and took part in his­to­ry mak­ing, not in such stir­ring in­ci­dents as those of the days of ‘49, but in a qui­eter growth that was yet of im­por­tance in the mak­ing of the state. Peo­ple in the East had be­gun to find out that south­ern Cal­ifor­nia had a mild, health­ful cli­mate and that, though the sands of her rivers and rocks of her moun­tains were not of gold, still her or­anges, by aid of ir­ri­ga­tion, could be turned in­to a gold­en har­vest, and that all her soil need­ed was wa­ter in or­der to yield most boun­ti­ful crops.

As lit­tle land could be bought in small ranch­es, those wish­ing to set­tle in the coun­try chose the colony plan. A num­ber of fam­ilies would con­tribute to a com­mon sum, with which would be pur­chased a large piece of land of sev­er­al thou­sand acres with its wa­ter right. Each man re­ceived from this a num­ber of acres in pro­por­tion to the amount of mon­ey he had in­vest­ed. The first colony formed was that of Ana­heim; then fol­lowed West­min­ster, River­side, Pasade­na, and many oth­ers, and by that time peo­ple be­gan to come in­to south­ern Cal­ifor­nia in large num­bers.

The over­land jour­ney was much longer, then than now, but quite as pleas­ant. At twen­ty-​two miles an hour the coun­try could be seen and en­joyed, ac­quain­tance made with the plump lit­tle prairie dogs of the Ne­bras­ka plains, and their neigh­bors the ground owls, which bobbed grave salutes as the train passed by. Bands of gal­lop­ing deer, groups of grave In­di­an war­riors sit­ting on their ponies watch­ing the train from afar, an oc­ca­sion­al buf­fa­lo lum­ber­ing along, shak­ing his shag­gy head, were the things that in­ter­est­ed the trav­el­er who took the over­land trains in ‘74 and ‘75.

At that time be­tween San Fran­cis­co and Los An­ge­les there were two forms of trav­el: a hun­dred miles of rail­road, with the rest of the dis­tance by stage; and the steamship line. Fam­ilies chose the ship. From San Pe­dro to Los An­ge­les was the on­ly rail­road of the south­ern coun­try. In Los An­ge­les the flat-​roofed adobe build­ings, where peo­ple could walk about on the tops of the hous­es, were a won­der to the East­ern strangers. Beau­ti­ful homes some of them were, where glimpses could be had of state­ly seno­ras in silks and laces, and beau­ti­ful senori­tas whose dark eyes made hav­oc with the hearts of the colony young men. The young Cal­ifor­ni­an, who seemed a very part of his fiery steed, was at once the ad­mi­ra­tion and en­vy of the Yan­kee boy.

Queer sights were to be seen at ev­ery turn. Creak­ing car­retas, whose squeak­ing wheels an­nounced their com­ing a block away, filled the streets, some load­ed with grapes, oth­ers with round­ed shag­gy grease-​wood roots or sacks of the red Span­ish bean and great branch­es of flam­ing red pep­pers. The ox­en, with yoke on the horns, seemed as if out of some Bible pic­ture.

Life in the dif­fer­ent colonies was much the same. The new­com­ers had many things to learn, but they made the best of their mis­takes, and days of hard work, such as many of them had nev­er known, were of­ten end­ed with so­cial or lit­er­ary meet­ings, where minds were bright­ened and hearts warmed by friend­ly in­ter­course.

When the rains were heavy, the swift moun­tain streams could not be crossed, and of­ten pro­vi­sions gave out; then with neigh­bor­ly kind­ness those who had, loaned to those who had not, un­til fresh sup­plies could be ob­tained. To this day the smell of new red­wood lum­ber, the scent of burn­ing grease-​wood brush, will bring back those times to the colonists with a painful long­ing for the hap­py days of their new life in the new land. Many nev­er gained wealth, while some lost lands and sav­ings; but it was these earnest, in­tel­li­gent men and wom­en who de­vel­oped the rich val­leys of the south land and to whom we are in­debt­ed for the bloom and beau­ty found there to-​day.

The re­sult of the land laws and the ill-​treat­ment of the Mex­ican pop­ula­tion at the mines was a pe­ri­od of high­way rob­bery by bands of out­laws, each un­der the lead­er­ship of some es­pe­cial­ly dar­ing man. The sto­ry of some of their ad­ven­tures re­minds the hear­er of the tales of Robin Hood. Not so mild as Robin’s were their lives, how­ev­er. Of­ten their pas­sage was marked by a trail of blood, where bit­ter re­venge was tak­en be­cause of bit­ter wrongs. Last of these bands was that of Vasquez, who robbed the colony folk gen­tly with many apolo­gies. He was fi­nal­ly cap­tured and ex­ecut­ed, and with him the ban­dits passed from the page of state his­to­ry.

Alas­ka

One night in 1867 there took place in Wash­ing­ton an event that was to be of great im­por­tance to the west­ern part of the Unit­ed States. This was the sign­ing of the treaty for the pur­chase of Alas­ka. As ear­ly as 1860 Mr. Se­ward, in a speech de­liv­ered at St. Paul, said:

“Look­ing far off in­to the north­west I see the Rus­sian as he oc­cu­pies him­self es­tab­lish­ing sea­ports, towns, and for­ti­fi­ca­tions, on the verge of this con­ti­nent, and I say, ‘Go on and build up your posts all along the coast up even to the Arc­tic Ocean, they will yet be­come the out­posts of my own coun­try.’” So long ago did the de­sire for Alas­ka, or Rus­sian Amer­ica as it was then called, pos­sess the mind of the great states­man. But it was not un­til sev­en years lat­er that he found the chance to win the gov­ern­ment to his views. One evening, while the mat­ter was un­der dis­cus­sion be­tween the two coun­tries, the Rus­sian min­is­ter called up­on Mr. Se­ward at his home, to in­form him that he had just re­ceived the Czar’s sanc­tion for the sale.

“Good, we will sign the treaty to-​night,” said the Amer­ican states­man.

“What, so late as this, and your de­part­ment closed, your clerks scat­tered?” re­mon­strat­ed the Rus­sian.

“It can be done,” replied Mr. Se­ward; and it was. At mid­night the treaty was signed. The price paid for Alas­ka was less than the cost of two of our mod­ern bat­tle­ships. Ev­ery year has proved more and more the wis­dom of the pur­chase. The dis­cov­ery of gold in par­tic­ular has im­mense­ly in­creased its val­ue and has brought to Cal­ifor­nia an en­larged com­merce.

Span­ish-​Amer­ican War

In 1898 came the war with Spain. The tid­ings of the 15th of Febru­ary, 1898, filled the hearts of the peo­ple of Cal­ifor­nia with in­dig­na­tion and grief. That the Unit­ed States bat­tle­ship Maine had been blown up in Ha­vana har­bor and num­bers of our sea­men killed, seemed to many suf­fi­cient cause for im­me­di­ate war. Some, how­ev­er, feared for the Pa­cif­ic coast set­tle­ments, with in­suf­fi­cient for­ti­fi­ca­tions and no war ves­sels of im­por­tance, ex­cept the mag­nif­icent West­ern-​built bat­tle­ship, Ore­gon. This ves­sel was at Puget Sound when the news of the blow­ing up of the Maine reached her. At the same time came or­ders to hur­ry on coal and pro­ceed to San Fran­cis­co. There ten days were spent in tak­ing on as much coal and pro­vi­sions as the ves­sel could car­ry. Then, with or­ders to join the At­lantic fleet as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, on the morn­ing of March 19 she steamed through Gold­en Gate and turned south­ward, to be­gin one of the longest voy­ages ev­er made by a bat­tle­ship.

The peo­ple of Cal­ifor­nia were sad at heart to part with their no­ble ves­sel, and when, in April, war was de­clared, thou­sands fol­lowed the loved ship and her brave men with their in­ter­est and prayers. All alone up­on the great sea she was sail­ing steadi­ly on­ward, to meet, per­haps, a fleet of foes, or worse still, a dart from that ter­ror of the wa­ters, a tor­pe­do boat; yet al­ways watch­ful and al­ways ready for what­ev­er foe might ap­pear, she jour­neyed on.

The or­der giv­en by Cap­tain Clark to his of­fi­cers in case they sight­ed the Span­ish squadron, was to turn and run away. As the Span­ish ships fol­lowed they were al­most sure to be­come sep­arat­ed, some sail­ing faster than oth­ers. The Ore­gon hav­ing a heavy stern bat­tery, could do ef­fec­tive fight­ing as she sailed; and if the en­emy’s ships came up one at a time, there might be a chance of dam­ag­ing one be­fore the next ar­rived.

Through two oceans and three zones, fif­teen thou­sand miles with­out mishap, the Ore­gon sailed in fifty-​nine days. When she joined the fleet where it lay off Cu­ba, she came sweep­ing in at fif­teen knots an hour, the win­ner of the might­iest race ev­er run, cheered at the fin­ish by ev­ery man of the Amer­ican squadron. All hon­or should be giv­en to her wise cap­tain and brave crew and to the West­ern work­men who made her so stanch and true.

On a fair May day, while Cal­ifor­nia chil­dren were re­joic­ing over their bas­kets of sweet May flow­ers, the first bat­tle of the war was fought, the first, and for Cal­ifor­nia the most im­por­tant. When Dewey de­stroyed the Span­ish fleet on that Sun­day morn­ing (May 1, 1898) in Mani­la Bay, he not on­ly won an im­por­tant vic­to­ry, but a greater re­sult lay in the change of at­ti­tude of the Unit­ed States to­ward the rest of the world.

It was a change which had be­gun long be­fore; many events had led up to it, but pos­ses­sion of the Philip­pines and oth­er is­lands of the Pa­cif­ic forced our coun­try to rec­og­nize the im­por­tance of Asia and the ocean which wash­es its shores.

Com­merce has al­ways moved west­ward, go­ing from Asia to Greece, to Rome, to west­ern Eu­rope, to the west­ern hemi­sphere; and the race which takes up the move­ment and car­ries it for­ward is the one which gains the prof­its. All must re­al­ize the truth of Mr. Se­ward’s prophe­cy when he said, “The Pa­cif­ic coast will be the mover in de­vel­op­ing a com­merce to which that of the At­lantic Ocean will be on­ly a frac­tion.” “The op­por­tu­ni­ty of the Pa­cif­ic,” some one has called it. Near­ly two thirds of the peo­ple of the earth in­hab­it the lands washed by the wa­ters of this west­ern sea, and the coun­try which se­cures their trade will be­come the lead­ing na­tion of the world–a lead­er­ship which should be of the best kind, sup­ply­ing the needs of peace­ful life, build­ing rail­roads, en­cour­ag­ing the things that help a peo­ple up­ward and on­ward. To the young men of Cal­ifor­nia, Hawaii and the Philip­pines of­fer ev­ery chance for dar­ing, en­er­gy, and in­ven­tion. If to hon­esty and en­er­gy there be added a speak­ing knowl­edge of the Span­ish lan­guage, there lie be­fore the youth of the Pa­cif­ic coast the finest op­por­tu­ni­ties for ac­tive, suc­cess­ful lives.

As soon as Pres­ident McKin­ley is­sued his call to arms for the Span­ish war, the men of Cal­ifor­nia re­spond­ed with a rush. A large num­ber of those who had en­list­ed were hur­ried to San Fran­cis­co, where the mil­itary au­thor­ities were quite un­pre­pared to fur­nish sup­plies. For a day or two there was re­al suf­fer­ing; then the So­ci­ety of the Red Cross came to the res­cue, and thou­sands of dol­lars’ worth of food and blan­kets were sent to the camp. As soon as the al­ways gen­er­ous peo­ple of San Fran­cis­co com­pre­hend­ed the state of af­fairs, there was dan­ger that the hun­gry young sol­diers would be ill from over­feed­ing.

The twen­ty-​third day of May, 1898, is a day to be re­mem­bered in the his­to­ry of our coun­try, for on that day went out the first home reg­iment from the main­land of the Unit­ed States, to fight a foe be­yond the sea. When the twelve com­pa­nies of Cal­ifor­nia Vol­un­teers marched through the city from the Pre­sidio to the docks of the Pa­cif­ic Mail and Steamship Com­pa­ny, two hun­dred thou­sand peo­ple ac­com­pa­nied them. So hard was it for our peace-​lov­ing peo­ple to un­der­stand the re­al mean­ing of war that it was not un­til the brave lads and earnest men were ac­tu­al­ly march­ing to the steam­er which was to car­ry them thou­sands of miles to meet dan­ger and death, that many quite re­al­ized the sor­row­ful fact. Men cheered the reg­iment as it passed, but the sobs of the wom­en some­times near­ly drowned the hur­rahs. Said one of­fi­cer, “It was heartrend­ing. If we had let our­selves go, we would have cried our way to the dock.” But in the war the record of the Cal­ifor­nia troops was one that gave new hon­or to their state.

An­nex­ation of Hawaii

“The Hawai­ian Is­lands,” said Walt Whit­man, in the Over­land Month­ly, “are not a group. They are a string of rare and pre­cious pearls in the sap­phire cen­ter of the great Amer­ican seas. Some day we shall gath­er up the pret­ty string of pearls and throw it mer­ri­ly about the neck of the beau­ti­ful wom­an who has her hand­some head on the out­side of the big Amer­ican Dol­lar, and they will be called the beau­ti­ful Amer­ican Is­lands.”

In 1893 the na­tive queen of the is­lands was de­posed by a rev­olu­tion con­duct­ed in a great mea­sure by Amer­icans liv­ing in Hawaii. A pro­vi­sion­al gov­ern­ment was formed and an ap­pli­ca­tion made for an­nex­ation to the Unit­ed States. Through two pres­iden­tial terms the mat­ter was dis­cussed both in Congress and by the peo­ple all over the coun­try. Many were against ex­tend­ing our pos­ses­sions be­yond the main­land in any di­rec­tion. Oth­ers thought it un­fair to the na­tives of the is­lands to take their lands against their will. It seemed to be pret­ty well proved, how­ev­er, that the na­tive gov­ern­ment was not for the ad­vance­ment and best in­ter­ests of the coun­try, and that in a short time these kind­ly, gen­tle peo­ple would have to give up their valu­able pos­ses­sions to some stronger pow­er.

Cap­tain Ma­han, writ­ing of these con­di­tions, said: “These is­lands are the key to the Pa­cif­ic. For a for­eign na­tion to hold them would mean that our Pa­cif­ic ports and our Pa­cif­ic com­merce would be at the mer­cy of that na­tion.”

In the ear­ly part of the Span­ish war (Ju­ly, 1898) the res­olu­tion for the an­nex­ation of the Hawai­ian Is­lands was passed by Congress and ap­proved by Pres­ident McKin­ley, and the string of pearls was cast about Columbia’s fair neck.

Pius Fund

It seems strange that the first case to be tried in the peace court of the na­tions at the Hague should have been in re­gard to the Pius Fund of the Cal­ifor­nias col­lect­ed by the Je­suit padres two hun­dred and thir­ty years be­fore, to build mis­sions for the In­di­ans of Cal­ifor­nia. The way in which this mon­ey was ob­tained is de­scribed in Chap­ter IV of this his­to­ry. It grew to be a large sum, of which the Mex­ican gov­ern­ment took con­trol, pay­ing the in­ter­est to the Ro­man Catholic Church in Up­per and Low­er Cal­ifor­nia. Af­ter the Mex­ican war, Mex­ico re­fused to pay its share to the Church of Up­per Cal­ifor­nia. The Unit­ed States took up the mat­ter, claim­ing that ac­cord­ing to the treaty which closed the war, the Catholic Church of the state of Cal­ifor­nia had a right to its Mex­ican prop­er­ty.

In 1868 it was agreed by the two coun­tries to leave the mat­ter to the de­ci­sion of Sir Ed­ward Thorn­ton, En­glish am­bas­sador at Wash­ing­ton. He de­cid­ed that Mex­ico should pay an amount equal to one half the in­ter­est since the war. Mex­ico did this, but had paid noth­ing dur­ing all the years which had passed since that time. To set­tle the dis­pute fi­nal­ly, it was de­cid­ed to leave it to ar­bi­tra­tion by the Hague court. The ver­dict giv­en was that Mex­ico should pay the Ro­man Catholic Church of Cal­ifor­nia $1,400,000 for the past, and one half the in­ter­est on the fund each year from Febru­ary, 1903, for­ev­er.

Pana­ma Canal

The nat­ural re­sult of the na­tion’s need in the Civ­il War was the over­land rail­road. The dan­ger to the Ore­gon on its long jour­ney, the dif­fi­cul­ties in get­ting re­in­force­ments to Ad­mi­ral Dewey, and the pos­ses­sion of new lands in the Pa­cif­ic led to de­cid­ed ac­tion in re­gard to the build­ing of a ship canal through the Isth­mus of Pana­ma.

For years the plan had been talked over. In Gen­er­al Grant’s first term as Pres­ident he saw so plain­ly our need of this wa­ter way, that he ar­ranged a canal treaty with Colom­bia, and it seemed as though the work would soon be­gin, but the Colom­bian gov­ern­ment re­fused to al­low the mat­ter to go on, hop­ing to make bet­ter terms with the Unit­ed States. This was not pos­si­ble then, so the plan was not car­ried out. Lat­er, a French com­pa­ny un­der­took to build a canal across Pana­ma, but af­ter sev­er­al years of work failed.

Many of the Amer­icans fa­vored the route through Nicaragua, but af­ter the gov­ern­ment had spent much mon­ey and time in con­sid­er­ing care­ful­ly both propo­si­tions, the pref­er­ence was giv­en to the Pana­ma route. In 1902 an act for the build­ing of the canal was passed by Congress and ap­proved by Pres­ident Roo­sevelt. It pro­vid­ed, how­ev­er, that should the Pres­ident be un­able to ob­tain a sat­is­fac­to­ry ti­tle to the French com­pa­ny’s work and the nec­es­sary ter­ri­to­ry from the re­pub­lic of Colom­bia on rea­son­able terms and in a rea­son­able time, he should seek to se­cure the Nicaragua route. The mat­ter was al­most set­tled, when again Colom­bia’s greed got the bet­ter of her judg­ment and she re­fused to rat­ify the com­pact.

When the peo­ple of the province of Pana­ma saw that they were like­ly to lose their canal through the ac­tion of their gov­ern­ment, they prompt­ly re­volt­ed and de­clared them­selves in­de­pen­dent of Colom­bia. The Unit­ed States rec­og­nized their in­de­pen­dence, and a sat­is­fac­to­ry treaty was at once con­clud­ed with them. In March, 1904, the com­mis­sion ap­point­ed by the Pres­ident for build­ing the canal sailed for the Isth­mus.

Near­ly one fourth of the work had al­ready been done by the old com­pa­ny, but there was yet a great deal to do. Be­sides the ac­tu­al build­ing of the canal, its dams and locks, the fever dis­trict had to be made health­ful enough for work­men to live there, marsh­es had to be drained, pure wa­ter brought in from the moun­tains, and the fever-​spread­ing mosquitoes killed. In ad­di­tion to all this, the na­tives of the land and the many bands of work­men of dif­fer­ent races had to be brought in­to an or­der­ly, law-​abid­ing con­di­tion. In less than a year it was found nec­es­sary to al­ter the com­mis­sion, the Pres­ident choos­ing this time men par­tic­ular­ly not­ed for their en­er­gy and pow­er to make things go. The work pro­gressed with great ra­pid­ity, un­til, in Au­gust, 1914, the canal was opened to nav­iga­tion.

The Ori­ent

In the lat­ter part of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry the east­ern por­tion of Asia be­gan to stir it­self, ris­ing up from the sleepy, shut-​in life it had led for hun­dreds of years. The eyes of the world watched in won­der the progress of the war be­tween Chi­na and Japan (1894-95). In it was fought the first bat­tle in which mod­ern war ves­sels were en­gaged. It was found that the Japanese, of whom so lit­tle was then known, could fight, and fight well.

As a re­sult of the war, Chi­na ced­ed to Japan the ter­ri­to­ry of Manchuria and the right to pro­tect Ko­rea. Rus­sia and Ger­many ob­ject­ed, how­ev­er, and France agreed with them, so Japan had to give way. Soon Rus­sia be­gan tak­ing pos­ses­sion of the dis­put­ed ter­ri­to­ries, but she had con­stant trou­ble with Japan, and ear­ly in 1904 war broke out. Be­fore the close of the year the civ­ilized world stood as­ton­ished not on­ly at the wis­dom, pa­tri­otism, and fight­ing qual­ities of the Japanese, but al­so at their hu­man­ity, which would not have dis­cred­it­ed a Chris­tian na­tion.

There took place a se­ries of great bat­tles, both on land and on the sea, in which the Japanese were gen­er­al­ly vic­to­ri­ous. The ter­ri­ble loss of life and de­struc­tion of prop­er­ty led the Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States, in the spring of 1905, to urge up­on the two coun­tries that fight­ing cease and peace be ar­ranged.

Few states­men be­lieved that Mr. Roo­sevelt would be suc­cess­ful in his hu­mane en­deav­or, but he pushed his sug­ges­tion with pa­tient per­se­ver­ance un­til, in Septem­ber, 1905, Amer­icans had the sat­is­fac­tion of wit­ness­ing up­on their soil, at Portsmouth, New Hamp­shire, the sign­ing of the treaty of peace be­tween Rus­sia and Japan.

Japan’s meth­ods of con­duct­ing the war had ad­vanced her to a stand­ing among na­tions which she had nev­er be­fore oc­cu­pied, and all re­al­ized the wis­dom of se­cur­ing com­mer­cial re­la­tions with her peo­ple, who were so rapid­ly adopt­ing the habits and cus­toms of the rest of the civ­ilized world. In this com­pe­ti­tion for her com­merce, Cal­ifor­nia, by her po­si­tion on the west­ern shore of the Unit­ed States, has un­usu­al ad­van­tages, a fact which was soon proved by the amount of mon­ey in­vest­ed in in­creas­ing her fa­cil­ities for pro­duc­tion and man­ufac­tur­ing. Un­for­tu­nate­ly lit­tle has yet been done in the mat­ter of ship­build­ing, and few ves­sels which en­ter her har­bors have been built in the state.

Some Re­cent Events

“I’ll put a gir­dle around the earth in forty min­utes,” proph­esied Puck in “Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream.” The boast­ful fairy did not suc­ceed in ac­com­plish­ing this won­der un­til mid­night on the Fourth of Ju­ly, 1903. On that day the Pa­cif­ic ca­ble from the Unit­ed States to Hawaii, to Mid­way Is­land, to Guam, and to Mani­la, be­gan op­er­ations. The men worked hard that last day of the ca­ble lay­ing, and by 11 P.M. the Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States sent a mes­sage to Gov­er­nor Taft at Mani­la. Soon af­ter was the old prophe­cy ful­filled, when Pres­ident Roo­sevelt, no doubt with Puck at his el­bow, sent a mes­sage round the world in twen­ty min­utes, thus bet­ter­ing Puck’s idea by half.

The sad­dest year in Cal­ifor­nia’s records is that of 1906. On the morn­ing of April 18, a great and over­whelm­ing calami­ty over­took the beau­ti­ful re­gion around San Fran­cis­co Bay. A move­ment of the earth’s crust which be­gan in the bot­tom of the ocean far out from land, reached the coast in the vicin­ity of Toma­les Bay in Marin Coun­ty. Wreck­ing ev­ery­thing that came in its di­rect path, it shiv­ered its way in a south­east­er­ly di­rec­tion to a point some­where in the north­ern part of Mon­terey Coun­ty. The land on the two sides of the fault moved a short dis­tance in op­po­site di­rec­tions. Thus in some straight fences and roads cross­ing the fault, one sec­tion was found to be shift­ed as much as six­teen feet to one side of the oth­er. The se­vere vi­bra­tions set up by this break and shift­ing ex­tend­ed a long dis­tance in all di­rec­tions.

Al­though the earth­quake was by no means so se­vere in San Fran­cis­co as in the re­gion of Toma­les Bay or even in the vicin­ity of Stan­ford, San­ta Rosa, San Jose, or Ag­news, it caused greater loss of life and prop­er­ty on ac­count of the crowd­ed pop­ula­tion. Many build­ings were wrecked, es­pe­cial­ly those poor­ly con­struct­ed on land re­claimed from swampy soil or built up by fill­ing in.

Peo­ple who had proph­esied that, should an earth­quake come, the high build­ings such as those of the Call and the Chron­icle would sure­ly col­lapse, were as­ton­ished to see those gi­ant struc­tures ap­par­ent­ly un­harmed while build­ings of much less height, but with­out the steel frame­work, were com­plete­ly wrecked.

The earth­quake was a sad calami­ty, but had this been the sum of the dis­as­ter the city would on­ly have paused in its progress long enough to clear away the wreck and to sor­row with the mourn­ers. It was the fires which sprang up while the wa­ter sys­tem was too dam­aged to be of use that wiped out old his­tor­ical San Fran­cis­co, leav­ing in its place a waste of gray ash­es and des­olate ru­ins. San­ta Rosa, San Jose, Stan­ford, Ag­news, all suf­fered severe­ly from the earth­quake; but in few cas­es did fires arise to add to their loss. The State In­sane Asy­lum at Ag­news, which was built on swampy ground, was a com­plete wreck with large loss of life.

The mar­velous brav­ery and cheer­ful­ness with which the peo­ple of San Fran­cis­co bore their cru­el fate gave a les­son in courage and un­selfish­ness to hu­man­ity. The mag­nif­icent gen­eros­ity with which not on­ly the peo­ple of south­ern and north­ern Cal­ifor­nia, but of the whole coun­try, sprang to the re­lief of the un­hap­py city gave a sil­ver lin­ing to the black cloud of dis­as­ter.

Be­fore the em­bers of their ru­ined homes had ceased to smoke the peo­ple be­gan the work of re­build­ing, and at the time of the vis­it of the At­lantic fleet of the Unit­ed States navy in 1908, busi­ness had so re­vived as to be al­most nor­mal, and the wel­come ac­cord­ed the silent ves­sels in white by the gal­lant City of St. Fran­cis was as hearty and gen­er­ous as any that greet­ed them dur­ing their progress.

Oc­to­ber, 1909, was marked by two events of im­por­tance to San Fran­cis­co. One was the vis­it of Pres­ident Taft, to whom the great state of Cal­ifor­nia had giv­en all its elec­toral votes. The sec­ond was the cel­ebra­tion, at the same time, of the dis­cov­ery of the bay, which oc­curred in the fall of 1769, the found­ing of the pre­sidio and mis­sion, which took place in the fall of 1776, and the re­build­ing of the burned dis­trict. On this oc­ca­sion the peo­ple of San Fran­cis­co and their guests gave them­selves up to a time of mer­ry­mak­ing–a three days’ his­tor­ical car­ni­val called, in hon­or of the com­man­der of the ex­pe­di­tion dur­ing which the great bay was dis­cov­ered, the “Por­to­la Fes­ti­val.”

In 1915 the Pana­ma-​Pa­cif­ic In­ter­na­tion­al Ex­po­si­tion was held in San Fran­cis­co. It con­tained many nov­el and beau­ti­ful fea­tures, and was at­tend­ed by vast mul­ti­tudes of peo­ple. An­oth­er no­table ex­po­si­tion was held at San Diego, be­gin­ning in 1915 and con­tin­uing in 1916.