86 



TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



ever had, looked upon California as not worth the having. And it is a 

 curious thing to read in his great speech on " The Objects of the Mexican 

 War," delivered in the Senate of the United States, when the Sixteen 

 Million Loan Bill was under discussion, on March 23, 1848, these words 

 in reference to what is now the great State we love so well: "And how 

 is it with California? We propose to take California, from the forty- 

 second degree of north latitude down to the thirty-second. We propose 

 to take ten degrees along the coast of the Pacific. Scattered along the 

 coast for that great distance are settlements and villages and ports; 

 and in the rear all is wilderness and barrenness and Indian country. 

 But if, just about San Francisco, and perhaps Monterey, emigrants 

 enough should settle to make up one State, then the people five hun- 

 dred miles off would have another State." And again, in the course of 

 the same great speech: "I can not conceive of anything more ridiculous 

 in itself, more absurd, and more effrontive to all sober judgment, than 

 the cry that we are getting indemnity " (for the Mexican War) "by the 

 acquisition of New Mexico and California. I hold they are not worth 

 a dollar; and we pay for them vast sums of money." 



And, on June 27, 1850, again addressing the Senate on the proposed 

 admission of California as a State, Mr. W^ebster said: "The Senator 

 says that the territory of California is three times greater than the 

 average extent of the new States of the Union. * * * all know 



that it has more than three times as many mountains, inaccessible and 

 rocky hills, and sandy wastes, as are possessed by any State of the 

 Union. But how much is there of useful land ? How much that may 

 be made to contribute to the support of man and of society ? * * * 

 I am sure that everybody has become satisfied that, although California 

 may have a great sea-board, and a large city or two, yet that the agri- 

 cultural products of the whole surface now are not, and never will be, 

 equal to one-half part of those of the State of Illinois; no, nor yet a 

 fourth, or perhaps a tenth part. * * * There is undoubtedly a long 

 valley on the Sacramento and San Joaquin of tolerably good land, and 

 there may be some good land between the coast mountains and the sea; 

 but, on the whole, nobody will say that, in quantity of good land, or of 

 tolerably good land, there is any excess; on the contrary, there is far 

 less than belongs to most of the new States. * * * So small are the 

 streams, when you depart from these two rivers, the Sacramento and 

 the San Joaquin, that they do not supply water for the cultivation of 

 the very small portion of the land that otherwise might be made tillable. 

 What, then, will be the value of this territory ? * * * Where is 

 there any value in it ? * * Can it be of am^ use whatever ?" 



Is it any Avonder, then, when they listened to the words of America's 

 foremost man, prophesying the failure of any attempt to populate the 

 land we now possess, is it any wonder, then, that those who came to 



