188 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



iron arms in three directions to embrace the country, and chiefly aspires 

 to the honor of urging onward that great enterprise which shall bind 

 the continent in everlasting bonds of fraternity, and give new direction 

 to the exchanges and industries of the world. Sixteen 3'ears have wit- 

 nessed greater changes on the margin of yonder river than the world 

 can elsewhere show in the same space of time. What may we not expect 

 of sixteen years to come ! By that time one or two Pacific railroads 

 will have broken through the inclosing mountains, and their impetuous 

 tides of travel and business will ebb and flow through this city. Then, 

 perhaps, Oregon will be united to 3'ou by the iron bonds of a railway, 

 two links of which are already forged. Tlic railroad that will skirt the 

 ba3'S, and the steamers that will crowd the Sacramento, will connect you 

 more intimately with the great Queen City of the Pacific, then doubled 

 or trebled in population and wealth, and fairly started on that great 

 career of prosperity that will build up a city within the Golden Gate to 

 rival the proudest capitals of trade the world can boast. 



Some observers complain that the population of this State decreases, 

 and seek for remedies in financial experiments, or by disturbing the 

 tenures to the vast mining property of the coast. But it is apparent 

 that our people have fed the growing numbers of other mining States 

 and Territories ; that Xevada was born of California ; that Washington, 

 Idaho, Montana, and Arizona, deplete our population ; that Mexico has 

 attracted many of the most adventurous of our people. This drain upon 

 our population has been caused by inducements held out by the 

 undoubted richness of those regions, and b}" the fact that a few dry 

 winters have injured our miners and agriculturists. But our State is 

 prosperous, and its future is assured. Exhaustless veins, rich in gold, 

 are at our feet, almost untouched by the miner; vast placer fields still 

 pay tribute to labor; and our fertile vallej'S, wealthy of golden grain, 

 and blushing with luscious fruits, promise ample reward to skilled and 

 patient enterprise. The great remedies for our depleting po])ulation are 

 increased manufacturing enterprises, in which our State Las already val- 

 uable interests, and the completion of the railroad that will bring to us 

 a strong tide of emigration from the East, and pour it out along the line 

 of the road into the territories that now wait, like ourselves, for more 

 laborers to develop their resources — an emigration now deterred by a 

 sickly Isthmus trip, or discouraged by the hundreds of miles of weary 

 journeyings over the plains. The communities in the interior of the con- 

 tinent, which we have created and fed by our verj- life-blood, will make 

 rich markets for our products, and return therefor their abundant silver 

 and gold. We are yet at the dawn of our greatness as a State, and I 

 read no ominous signs in this our morning sky. 



Yet, great as is our need of more population, its influx would be unde- 

 sirable if it merelj' swelled the too large class of non-producei-s of this 

 State — its force of unemployed labor. Hundreds of men hang about our 

 towns, engaged in no useful employment, listless and drifting year after 

 year. With abundant opportunities for labor, they seem to lack the dis- 

 position or energy to better their condition or be of use to the State. If 

 the}' could be drafted into the army of workers it would be better for 

 them and the community. 



To guard against accessions to this class, more correct information of 

 the real condition of things on this coast should be disseminated in the 

 East. We have painted to the imagination of the world the riches of 

 our domain in such glowing colors that many who came here on our 

 representations expected to pick up gold on the hillsides, and to make 



