NA TIOiVAL GROWTH AND NA TIONA L CHA RA CTER 201 



travel and their'later labors in placer and shaft. A consequence 

 was unprecedented development of mining, not merely in ma- 

 terial production but in the construction of appliances and the 

 discovery of new applications ; a further consequence, following 

 duly as the brightened intelligence of California spread over the 

 land under the cumulative law of mental growth, was the open- 

 ing of a new era in the development of devices for transporta- 

 tion, so that California quickly made America the foremost rail- 

 way nation, and later the leading- telegraph and telephone nation 

 of the world. Curiously combined with the material growth of 

 the Pacific coast was a significant moral growth, at first appar- 

 ently aberrant, though soon falling in line with the great prin- 

 ciples established by human experience, and bringing some 

 benefit to the law of the land. Beyond the reach of courts and 

 processes, the pioneers were forced to become a law unto them- 

 selves ; this they did by aid of Judge Lynch, who attained his 

 greatest eminence in the chaotic courts about the Golden Gate ; 

 yet it is a meaningful commentary on American morality that, 

 with few exceptions, justice was wrought by the miners and 

 freighters and pioneer farmers — justice of a quality not exceeded 

 b} T that of the highest tribunals of civilization and enlighten- 

 ment. Perhaps the severest test to which American character 

 has been put was that of pioneer California ; yet it was found not 

 wanting. 



The influence of the Mexican accessions on the nation has 

 been profound : Gold beyond that of the Indies, fruits more 

 luscious than those of Mediterranean shores, wool-products finer 

 than those of the vale of Kashmir, have been showered over the 

 land ; returning pioneers have brought back the breath of a 

 stimulating clime ; our minds have expanded to encompass a 

 home of El Dorado, a region of giant trees and proportionately 

 big enterprises, a province of canyons and mountains sublime 

 beyond compare; we have no large industry unaffected by con- 

 quest of once-scorned California, no national-characteristic unin- 

 fluenced by the spirit of the Pacific coast; and throughout all 

 America there is no personal character that has not been in some 

 way touched — and always for the better — through the influence 

 of this national possession. America has become a nation of 

 established characteristics ; without the Mexican accessions she 

 Would lie another country. 



A slender affluent entered the stream of national progress with 

 the Alaska purchase twenty years later. For a quarter of a cen- 



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