They
are trusting to compound interest, rotten officials, and neglected
laws to get possession of ducal domains. The bankers, merchant princes,
and stock operators are writing their names fast in California's
strange "Libro d'oro." All is restlessness. All is a mere waiting
for the turbid floods of seething human life to settle down. In
the newer discoveries of Nevada, in the suspense of the war, the
railroads are yet only half finished, croaked at mournfully by the
befogged Solons of the press. All is transition.
It is only when the first generation of children born in California
will reach maturity in the 'eighties; only when the tide of carefully
planned migration from North and South, after the war, reaches the
West, that life becomes regular. Only when the railways make the
new State a world's thoroughfare, and the slavery stain is washed
from our flag, that civilization plants the foundations of her
solid temples along the Pacific.
There is no crystallization until the generation of mere adventurers
begin to drop into graves on hillside and by the sea. The first
gold-seekers must pass out from active affairs before the real
State is honestly builded up.
No man, not even Philip Hardin, could foresee, with the undecided
problems of 1860, what would be the status of California in ten
years, as to law, finance, commerce, or morals.
Pages:
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345