Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
August 15, 1922 Supplementary to the Brick News
A TRIP TO CALIFORNIA
And Several Addresses to the
Negro Farmers’ Congress of
North Carolina
BRICK SCHOOL IN RETROSPECT
[Illustration]
By Principal T. S. INBORDEN
Joseph Keasby Brick Agricultural, Industrial and Normal School
Bricks, North Carolina
President of the North Carolina Negro Farmers Congress
President of the North Carolina Negro Historical Association
Twenty-seven years Principal of Brick School
MITCHELL PRINTING CO., RALEIGH
INTRODUCTORY
APRIL 22, 1922.
MY DEAR FRIEND:
You will be interested to know that I am again back from my five months
trip to the North and Northwest. While away I covered, according to
the railroad time tables, about twelve thousand miles. This took me
through most of the Northern States and the New England States and in
the Western States.
I left Chicago the 21st of January and visited and stopped at the
following places: St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota; Aberdeen
in South Dakota; Marmarth in North Dakota; Miles City, Three Forks,
Butte and Gerson Hot Springs in Montana; crossing Idaho into Spokane,
Washington. We crossed the Continental Divide a few miles east of Butte
in four or five feet of snow in an elevation of six thousand feet above
sea level. This train was pulled by powerful electrical engines for
six hundred miles over the most picturesque mountains in the world. We
crossed the tributaries of the great Missouri River more than a score
of times, and scaled many mountains, from the highest elevations and
glided down into Seattle, Washington, into an elevation of fifteen feet
on Puget Sound. Trees were budding and many flowers were already in
bloom. After a few days we went to Tacoma in Washington and Portland in
Oregon. Then we were off to Sacramento, San Francisco in California.
The course took us from the beginning of the Sacramento River in the
Siskiyou and Shasta Mountains to its mouth at San Francisco Bay or
to the Straits of Carquinez, landing us at Port Costa for Richmond,
Berkley and Oakland in Alameda County. At the fine Oakland pier we
disembarked from the train and took the ferry boat four miles to San
Francisco, passing the Government Island to the left looking right into
the setting sun through the Golden Gate.
A few days here in this beautiful setting and we were off for Los
Angeles, five hundred miles to the south still. Fresno, Bakersfield,
Tehachapi, across the snow-clad Sierra Madre ten thousand feet
elevation and in sight of Mount Whitney four thousand feet higher. Down
a mountain incline for fifty or more miles to Mojave Desert into Death
Valley and to San Fernando and Burbank and Los Angeles. Then to the
Orange Show at San Bernardino, passing on our way Pomona, San Gabriel,
Claremont and Garrett & Co.’s grape vineyards, one of the homes of
the Virginia Dare Extracts. Mr. Garrett is an Enfield man. We could
spend only a few days at Los Angeles, then we were off the Coast Route
to San Francisco again. Santa Barbara, Ventura, Guadaloupe, San Luis
Obispo, Delmonte, Santa Cruz, San Jose, Santa Clara, Red Wood Cities
are familiar names. It took three steam engines to pull the train
over the mountains coming north. A few days later we were off again
for Sacramento, and Salt Lake City in Utah, and Glenwood Hot Springs
in Colorado. Passing Florence we came into sight of Pike’s Peak more
than a hundred miles east of us, and passing the water-swept city of
Pueblo and Colorado Springs into Denver the mile high city. A few days
spent here and I was off again for Phillipsburg and Des Moines and
to Chicago, coming through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska,
Kansas, Iowa and Illinois. I spent a few days in Chicago, was held up
on my arrival from the station to my stopping place in Chicago, but
was not robbed. My outcry for “Police and help!” thwarted their plans.
Then I was off to Washington City and home on the 22nd of March. At the
station I was overwhelmed by the students, teachers and friends in the
community who had come to welcome me home with school yells and band
music.
I traveled two thousand miles in California alone. I gave twenty-eight
addresses, attended eight recitals, fourteen lectures, four theaters
where persons of color were the stars, three ministers’ meetings, one
annual conference, the meeting of the American Missionary Association,
the annual meeting of the Connecticut Congregational Association,
visited ten colleges and schools, nine state capitals, seventeen city,
state and municipal and school museums, twenty public markets. In
addition I talked with Japanese and Chinese farmers, fruit growers,
cattle men, sheep men, miners, negro ranchmen. I met them on the
trains, on the farms, in the hotels and restaurants, on the boats, on
the streets, in the stores, markets, and everywhere. I came back with a
few pounds less in weight, but with a vision that money could not buy.
I am very truly,
T. S. INBORDEN.
JUST A MINUTE
I am here for only a couple of days. It is a long ways from Bricks,
North Carolina, to Seattle, Washington. I still have two thousand miles
before me before I turn my face eastward. One gets an idea of this
great big country only by traveling over it, as I have done for the
past three months. He can get it no other way. Such a trip ought to
condition every young man graduating from an Eastern college.
Here we go from Bricks in the eastern part of North Carolina to
Washington City. The Atlantic Coast Line train takes us through
the most historic setting of the Coastal Plains of that eastern
section into the foothills of the Old Dominion, through the Civil
War battlegrounds of national fame, up the historic Potomac, passing
Richmond, Fredericksburg, the rustic triangular monument to the great
general who in his unfortunate retreat met death at the hands of his
own men, into Alexandria, the most historic and conservative town of
the pre-war days. Alexandria, the other end of the old pike leading
from the “far west” through Winchester Town seventy-five or more miles
away. This old pike was put in history by Sheridan’s ride, twenty miles
away from Winchester Town.
Well, we cannot stop in Washington City. It needs nothing that I
can say. From Washington we went up into Old Virginia. Taking the
Southern train we went through the Virginia Valley and the Shenandoah
Valley. The trip took us right through the heart of the battle-fought
country of Manassas, Bull Run, over “Goose Creek,” “Painter Skin,”
“Jeffries”—creeks that are well known to all Virginians. We went right
into the heart of the Old Blue Ridge, and looking down on Harper’s
Ferry, Winchester, Middleburg, Leesburg, Upperville, Berryville, the
Shenandoah River, on to Washington itself, sixty miles away. Here are
five counties: Fauquier, Loudon, Warren, Clark, Jefferson and others in
the distance, covering an area of more than ten thousand square miles
of the finest country in the world, all to be seen from one level space
without moving ten feet on this historic old mountain. Corn, wheat,
cattle, and sheep, fill her valleys. There is no part of these valleys
and mountains that cannot, and that do not, grow the finest apples and
peaches that are grown in the world. (I am saying this in Seattle,
Washington.)
I went back to Washington from this fine country, and from Washington
to Jersey City. From there I went over to New York and Brooklyn, and
out on Long Island Sound. From New York I went to Springfield, Mass.
From Springfield I went to the great meeting of the American Missionary
Association, which was held at New London, Connecticut. From there
I went back to New Haven for Armistice Day and to see Marshal Foch
receive his degree from Yale, and the great football game where there
were eighty thousand people. I went back to New York again, where I put
in two very profitable weeks studying racial and living conditions.
From New York City I went to Rochester and put in several days speaking
here and there to small groups of people. From there I went to Batavia
for only a few hours, and then to the city of Buffalo. From Buffalo
to Cleveland and Oberlin, Ohio, and in two weeks on to Detroit, Mich.
A few days spent in Detroit, and I was on my way to Ann Arbor, Jackson
and Kalamazoo, Mich. I reached Chicago a few days before the Christmas
holidays. After the Christmas vacation I visited the high schools
of Gary, Indiana, and put in another week attending the Mid-Winter
Conference of Congregational Workers of the United States. Only three
other colored men were in attendance at this conference. They were Dr.
Alfred Lawless, of New Orleans; Dr. Kingsley, of Cleveland; Dr. C. W.
Burton, of Chicago.
We learned in this great Mid-Winter Conference that there are other
problems besides the Negro problem. Indeed, he was scarcely discussed
at all.
Immediately after the Conference I turned my face westward. It did not
seem safe that I should go alone to buy my ticket and to have my money
put into travelers cheques before leaving, so our good friend, Mr. J.
E. Wade, of the police force, offered his services and accompanied me
to the bank and ticket office. Mr. Wade was formerly from Elerby, N.
C. He and his nephew from Richmond County are giving fine services
on the police force of Chicago. I was told that they have about a
hundred colored men on the police force. All of these men are giving
excellent service. I was surprised and glad to see in many of the
largest business houses in Chicago our colored men and women doing
business over the counters. I saw them in the shipping houses and in
the ticket offices. In the city postoffice of Chicago I was told by one
of the “checkers” that out of about eight thousand or more employees
that nearly two thousand were colored. I was escorted through every
department of the great postoffice and saw the men handling the nine
hundred tons of mail that go through the office every day. Many of the
men I knew personally, and some were relatives. Most of the men were
experts at their job. A very large number of them are graduates from
our best colleges. All of them were fine looking, well groomed men.
They were not the least in appearance when compared with the other
racial groups.
From Chicago I took the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul train to St.
Paul. The glacial swept areas of Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota
abounds with natural resources aside from the farm products. This is a
community of wheat, corn and flour mills. It is the home of the world’s
best packing houses. Minnesota is the synonym for “Gold Medal”; it also
says the last word on poultry feed and products. I was shown through
a sanitary packing-house where nearly or quite a thousand people were
given employment. Coffee, tea, spices and sugar and other commodities
are shipped in daily by the train loads and made into new products,
repacked and shipped out daily to all parts of the world. The amount of
all sorts of candy, cakes, etc., handled was a revelation. Machinery
has taken care of every operation in this great establishment, except
the absolute thought of man. To the uninitiated it might seem to think
also. The world’s best brand of cheese comes from these parts also. I
was surprised to learn that one little community east of St. Paul, in
Wisconsin, called Rio, shipped two years ago more than two hundred and
twenty-five thousand dollars worth of the finest grades of tobacco.
Some of the soldier boys will be interested to know that some of the
buildings, probably most of them, at Camp Douglass were still intact as
we sped by them through the cliffs and dells.
From St. Paul we turned our face westward for a two thousand mile jaunt
on one of the best equipped and finest trains that ever rolled the
iron. Not a minute late on its own account, up hill, down grade, across
deep canyons, under the mountains, over the top of the mountains,
spanning valleys, across the river beds and lowlands, with the same
speed, whether in eight feet of snow on the Cascade Mountains or
whether there is no snow, and on to the Pacific Coast. Pulled by the
most powerful electric engines in the world, she leaps onward by the
touch of her engineer like a thing of life and thought.
Our first stop was in Aberdeen, in South Dakota. It was night on our
arrival, and I left the train to spend the night for the rest, so that
I might have the day to see—yes, just to see. I had been to Aberdeen
in 1909 and knew what to expect. The porter advised me not to go out
without wrapping up well, as it was about twenty degrees below zero. I
went to the first place where the sign read “hotel.” I was comfortably
located, and after I had gotten a lunch thought I would find the school
where I once spoke, but before I had gone very far I decided that my
room was the best place for a stranger in that sort of weather. My face
could not have been colder if it had been buried for twenty minutes
between two blocks of ice. This particular community is noted for its
fine quality of white potatoes. They are grown in great quantities, and
they are the last word in potato growing. There are none any better
anywhere else in the world for flavor and texture.
In a country so cold and bleak one would not expect to find much
vegetation. Quick maturing crops of wheat and corn are grown. Hogs,
cattle and sheep abound. For hundreds of miles in every direction there
is absolutely nothing but a barren track of land which affords great
quantities of the finest hay, which grows naturally. Every mile looks
for the world just like the one from which you have just come. There is
nothing to break the monotony of the landscape except the monotony of
another one. The porter or conductor comes in and says, “Twin Brooks,”
“Stone Falls,” “Odessa,” etc., and you look out when the snow does not
blind the view and you see nothing but a few houses, a wheat elevator,
or a lot of sleds drawn by two or four horses; not a tree except
perhaps a few planted by the government agents. As you reach the North
Dakota line not a tree to mark even the site of the little towns that
may be more pretentious.
At Marmarth we come into Montana at an elevation of 2700 feet, having
put behind us nine hundred and ninety-five miles since leaving Chicago.
We have already passed Wakpala, an Indian Reservation, and school.
These are easily in sight. We have also left the Missouri River and
the Little Missouri River behind. We come into Musselshell Division,
and soon cross the Yellowstone River. Miles City is our station for
the night. It is nearly twelve hundred miles out of Chicago with 2300
feet elevation. Several smaller tributaries to the Yellowstone River
are passed. Small shrubbery and a few trees in the river courses are a
great relief to the landscape. But before we reach the “City” to which
we are destined for the night we come into “Bad Lands.” Here nature
went into contortions and left an awful frown upon her face. I asked
the white porter, a very fine fellow (a Lutheran by faith), what was
the matter with the country. He said “This is Bad Lands.”
Miles City was not a bad looking city. It had all the modern
improvements. For several hundred miles we followed the valleys of the
Musselshell River and the Yellowstone River, crossing and recrossing
the rivers and valleys, sometimes over a high mountain and then almost
precipitously down and under another mountain, only to rejoin the river
again through another tortuous valley. We reached the Rocky Mountains
Division at Harlowton, Montana, thirteen hundred miles west of Chicago
at an elevation of 4,000 feet. If you have any heart trouble you will
know that something outside in the physical world has happened before
you get here. On we go over the “Summitt of Big Belts” literally up,
up, up, around this curve, across that ravine, up by this tall hill,
finally on the top, and you look back for five, ten, fifteen or twenty
miles and you see the ribbon of track you have spun out. You see the
thousands of waste acres of snow and the cattle hugging the hills for
protection against the winter’s cold. They are inured to it. Ours
would die the first night out. The reader would get sleepy before he
had spent one hour out there. That is the way you freeze to death;
you just get sleepy. We pass Ringling, the Montana Canyon, and again
miles further Montana Canyon, with rocks projecting hundreds of feet
above you, still we speed along and cross the great Missouri River
seven hundred miles above where we crossed a few days ago. Near Eustis
we cross the Jefferson, Madison, Gallitin rivers forming the Missouri
River. Bull Mountains have been left three hundred miles behind and
still we speed along. Our horse neither tires nor pants. They feed him
“white coal” generated at great substations from fifty to a hundred
miles apart. Generated by mountain streams in their mad rush to the
great bosom of waters.
At dark I wanted to stop at some small mining town for the night so as
not to miss any scenery. The conductor advised against this because
of the condition of the people and their accommodation for strangers.
I listened, and stopped at his advice at Three Forks, almost fifteen
hundred miles out from Chicago, and still 4,000 feet elevation. This
was in a valley of farming land of more than three hundred thousand
acres of the best farming land in Montana. The great valley was very
beautiful, with the mountains ten, twenty, thirty, fifty and a hundred
miles away in every direction, silhouetted above the clouds, and dotted
with its own shadows. As the sun came up from the east and spread
its majesty over the snow-clad peaks every one was made a diamond of
beauty. But we were not to stay at Three Forks over Sunday. We are
traveling on trains 15 and 17. If we leave 15 over night we take 17 the
next morning, and so we had 15 or 17 every day. At 8:50 we departed in
very cold weather—ten degrees below zero, they said. It was only three
hours ride from Butte, Montana. I did not want to pass the highest
point reached on the whole trip in the dark. I wanted to have my eyes
open and see when I went over the real top. Well I did. It was 10:53 by
my watch—1,505 miles out from Chicago, 6,322 feet elevation.
The writer of the “Ex-Colored Man” said when he was in Paris with his
landlord he was very fond of music, etc., and so one night he went to
one of the finest theaters in the city. Soon after he had taken his
seat a very aristocratic looking gentleman came in whom he had at one
time seen at his mother’s house in the state of Georgia. He was very
small at the time he saw him in Georgia, and he was sure it was the
same gentleman. He had with him his beautiful wife and a more beautiful
daughter. To his amazement they sat almost adjoining him in the
theater so close that he might have touched them. They did not know
him. He knew that it was his own father, and this beautiful girl just
finishing high school was his own sister, flesh and blood. He wanted to
speak, but conventionality and tradition had closed his mouth, and to
save tragedy he arose and left in silence.
I have looked forward all my life for just such an opportunity to see
this great country, as I have now had, and as I am having, because I
still have 5,000 miles ahead. Most of my younger life was spent in
trying to get an education. Most of my grown life has been spent in
missionary service on small salary, and with a family of children to
educate and prepare for a larger life than I had the opportunity of
having. This opportunity now comes to me through the officials and
friends of the American Missionary Association under whose auspices I
have worked for thirty-two years. It comes as an appreciation on their
part for my long service. I may not have done everything they wanted me
to do, but I have tried to follow the dictates of an honest conviction.
When I passed over the great _Continental Divide_ I remembered my dream
of forty years. I knew no one and had no one to talk to about it. I
looked into space and thanked the Lord of all of us that I had cast
my lot where the rewards had been faithful and abundant. I felt like
crying out in paroxisms of joy.
We are still “a-going.” We reached Butte, Montana, at noon Sunday,
January 29th. It was very cold, but I found a good hotel near the
station, so that I did not have to be in the cold very long. I was
advised and was quick in deciding that I would in an hour take the
trip to Gerson Hot Springs, eighteen miles away. Several miles from
the place I saw what seemed to be smokestacks with steam pouring out
each one. I found on arrival that these were just openings in the roof,
forming vents for the steam from the hot water as it comes from the
mountains at a temperature of 195 degrees. The water has wonderful
healing properties. I did not take the bath because of the extreme
temperature outside. The hot springs are very numerous in these parts
of the country. All the rivers were frozen several feet deep but here
and there where the streams pass very close to the mountain gorges one
can see the temperature of the water change by the warmer currents
coming right out of the hills.
Butte is the largest mining center in the world. One hill is the
richest hill in all the world—is worth more than all of Wall Street,
New York. The bar-iron, copper, silver, gold, and other by-products
probably go down to the center of the earth. I went 2,200 feet down,
and I was then 800 feet from the bottom of it. I was donned in a real
miner’s outfit, including a miner’s acetelyne lamp. Our descending cage
was about four feet square, and held four men. It was built to bring up
twenty tons of ore about every minute of the day. State laws define how
fast human beings shall be brought up or taken down. The installation
that operates this mine cost more than a million dollars. It is the
finest electrical outfit I ever saw. The house in which the machinery
is located that operates the pulleys, under air pressure, is more than
a hundred feet square. When the signals are given, twenty-eight feet
down, one man brings the load to the tenth of an inch exactness to
any level in the pit or on top of the ground, a hundred feet high if
necessary. Thousands of wheels, belts, pulleys, pistons, etc., move
in every part of this building to the touch of one man. If he makes a
single mistake it may cost one life or a thousand in the mine. It may
cost a mint of money in destruction. Efficiency, absolute efficiency is
the only thing that counts.
Five very large pumps about twelve feet square each bring up the
surplus water from below. They are located many feet below the surface
of the ground, and it is never cold down there. The water is charged
with copper, and this disintegrates any other metals, so that the pipes
must be lined with wood and brass. This water is run through long
troughs over old tin cans and iron waste, where the copper is deposited
and afterwards taken off. I did not have time to get all the details of
the process. Mr. J. D. Rockefeller, I was told, owned most of the stock
of this particular mine.
In the morning of the same day I visited one of the best schools in
this country. It was a city high school. Everything taught in this
school leads to mining. That is the big job there. The youths are
prepared to do the things they will have to do when they leave school.
Boys ten to fifteen years old are experts already in the machine shop.
We left at noon Tuesday, and my destination was Spokane, Washington. We
crossed the Missouri River, the valley of the same name, and saw scores
of apple orchards. Near East Portal we crossed Bitter Root Summit and
Bitter Root Valley, also made famous by its fine apples and vegetables.
We passed again under the mountains two miles. Here we were eighteen
hundred miles from Chicago in an elevation more than 4,000 feet. At
Superior we were delayed several hours in the night on account of a
freight wreck. We arrived in Spokane about noon Thursday. We crossed
the Cascade Mountains in eight feet of snow. This was after leaving
Spokane. We visited the Spokane Valley, another valley made famous by
its apples. I talked with a banker about the products of the community.
They are trying to get emigrants from the East to come into the
community. It is a farming and lumber community. I visited the exhibits
of farm products kept by the chamber of commerce of the city. They are
wide awake. I saw all sorts of vegetables grown on irrigated land and
by dry farming methods that would make our farmers take notice. I never
saw finer vegetables anywhere. They are grown under great pressure.
From Spokane 1,900 miles west of Chicago, in an elevation of 1,882
feet, we dropped down here (Seattle) in a few hours to 2,200 miles west
of Chicago and to sea level. From eight feet of snow crossing into a
temperature of 36 degrees above zero. No snow and no ice.
February 2nd we arrived at Seattle. Twelve days and about twenty-two
hundred miles from Chicago. This is considered the chief city of all
this part of the country. It has a population of about 350,000 people.
Its scenic environment, with its background of mountains and its valley
intersected by sounds, bays and rivers, make it the most beautiful city
in the world. It is called the “Floral Paradise.” I saw many flowers
blooming in the open. It is said to be the cleanest and best lighted
city in the world.
I wanted to see Puget Sound, so the next morning bright and early I
found my way over the network of railroads on a high elevation above
the streets to the fine pier several hundred feet above the water.
Here I had a fine view of the Sound and the great expanse of water and
mountains yonder a few miles, and literally thousands of boats of
every kind and from everywhere in the world. The place from which I
made the observation was a fine room with large glass windows, leather
seats, heat, restaurant, etc., to make the weary traveler rested and
welcome. This was Puget Sound. This is where literacy has the highest
rating of any American city. If any city is cleaner or better lighted I
have yet to see it.
In these parts there are billions of feet of lumber untouched by the
despoiler. I saw fir trees measuring four and six feet in diameter.
I was told they were three and four hundred feet tall. I saw two men
sawing with a cross-cut saw, one on one side and one on the other side,
and the diameter was so great that only one man could be seen below his
head.
The Sound itself is said to be large enough to contain all the navies
of the world and still have more room. The diversity of scenery,
its climate, air, beautiful sunshine, mountains, sounds, and inland
waterways, woods, flowers, parks, fine hotel, theaters, public markets,
and city railway system, postoffice, and the State University, give
that place a setting hard to describe in this limited space. The
three or four public markets are works of art. One on Second Street
was terraced, and is the cleanest market I ever saw, and I have seen
a great many. The markets will generally indicate what the farmers
are doing. They show the best products raised in the community. The
arrangement of these country products will give you an idea of their
artistic values. The Japanese were in evidence everywhere. They were
universally polite and clean. They may be ubiquitous, but they are
certainly utilitarian. They know how to get the best results from
the soil as farmers. They had the best things I ever saw from the
farms. They are credited with having a lot of sense and of being very
industrious. These are very important assets in the development of any
community, whether in California or in North Carolina. Having sense
means having efficiency, knowing how to do. Industry means power and
wealth.
As much as I would have loved to linger here longer, I had to divide
my time with other points of interest. I left there early Sunday
morning, the fifth of February, for Tacoma, about forty miles away.
Through miles and miles of orchards of raspberries, loganberries and
blackberries, apples and pears and walnuts, passing great canning and
packing houses, irrigation projects, mining sections, etc., and at
10 o’clock the Olympian rolled into Tacoma. Mount Rainier, Mount St.
Helena, Mount Hood, and Mount Adams, off in the distance had already
come into view. You are overwhelmed by their vastness and grandeur.
Their snow-capped peaks, timbered inclines and fertile valleys cannot
be equaled anywhere else in the world.
We are still on the Puget Sound. The city has a population of more
than a hundred thousand souls. They represent every nationality under
the sun. It has the finest harbor and the most equitable climate in
the world. The rainfall is around thirty-five inches a year, which
insures better farming conditions. The Chamber of Commerce of Seattle
and Tacoma are vieing with each other as to which will show the best
exhibits of the state. Their great varieties of wheat, corn, flax,
rye, oats, grasses, barley, buckwheat, apples, pears, small fruits and
nuts, and their by-products: honey, preserved fruits, tomatoes, and
manufactured products, views and paintings of cattle and sheep raising,
lumbering, etc., simply baffle the imagination. You want to sit and
look for hours and write impressions in your notebook, and then go out
and come back again and do the same thing as long as you have a minute
to spare.
Tacoma has a stadium that seats forty thousand people. Nothing else
like it in the United States except the college stadia at Cambridge and
New Haven. Schools and churches are the finest in the whole country.
It was my pleasure to speak twice the Sunday I was there in one of the
largest and finest churches in the city (white), and in the evening to
one of our colored churches. The museum contains pictures of the early
pioneers and Indian history curios. It was in this community where the
earliest white settlements were made. The stadium and Stadium High
School are located on one of the highest points in the city overlooking
Puget Sound, which is precipitously, several hundred feet at the base
of the hill. Trains may be seen for miles and miles coming from the
East and North, and boats from Alaska, Seattle and Vancouver as they
turn the western promontory. I traveled with an elderly gentleman who
built almost the first house in that part of the city for the father of
the present occupant, and I also had dinner in that house overlooking
the stadium and the Sound. The minister living in the house is an
eastern man, and his wife is the daughter of a missionary to Honolulu.
She went over in the Morning Star soon after its construction forty
years ago, in company with President Fairchild of Oberlin College. At
that time she was a small child.
The state of Washington produced in 1921 28,000,000 bushels of apples
alone that were worth more than $30,000,000. At the same time New
York is said to have produced 14,000,000, California 6,000,000, and
Michigan 6,000,000 bushels of apples. At the time Spokane County,
in which Spokane is located, is said to have produced 80,000,000
bushels of wheat. I went through this valley, a part of Yakima and
a part of Wenatchee valleys. One wonders at the great productivity
of this country when he thinks of the great mountains almost
everywhere—mountains where absolutely nothing can grow. The valleys
are protected by these mountains. They are for the most part virgin
soil. Irrigation projects have brought the melting snow to the ripening
fruit and grain. The sun, penetrating into these mountain recesses have
brought color and flavor equaled by no other community.
Pity it is that we cannot stay here to see more of this environment.
We must go to Portland, Oregon. “We pass Rainier National Park on the
left closed to winter tourists, and the towering sentinels already
mentioned. We are in sight of them until we get to Portland, nearly two
hundred miles away. Portland is a fine city of unusual wealth, fine
houses, parks, hotels, banks, more than two hundred miles of street car
lines, beautiful stores and public buildings, and flowers, flowers,
everywhere flowers. The mountains back of the city are circled by
beautiful drives and street car lines, and every sort of house that can
be built on the face of the earth, terraced from top to bottom, trees,
ferns, flowers, vines, form the most perfect menagerie of vegetation
and of art that one can conceive. It looked like the composition of one
mind. It was the coöperation of many minds for civic beauty. The view
from Council Crest—see it once and you will never forget it if you have
any imagination. The Columbia River cutting in half and stretching away
for miles in the distance, the towering snow-capped mountains already
named above, the beautiful Willamette River whose course for several
hundred miles we shall soon follow, the Cascade Range, thousands of
acres of fine farms and beautiful farm homes spreading out in every
direction as far as the eye can see, a flock of sheep, a few thousand
cattle, a herd of ponies and horses, the weird whistle of steamers
coming up the river, and trains passing up the several valleys, all
seen from Council Crest give you a feeling of scenic beauty that you
cannot overcome. What a paradise for botanists. How I would like to
have lingered in that environment until the foliage came into their
glory! The markets are again gems of beauty. One has to buy whether
he needs anything or not. The sellers are so courteous and polite.
The arrangement of the products are so unique and artistic; they
have so much and so great a variety; the people handling the goods
were so clean in their pure white garbs; the tables and stands were
immaculately clean; everything put on the market was absolutely clean
and pretty. You just had to stop and taste here and there and buy. I
bought here several kinds of honey for samples, which I brought six
thousand miles home. I carried it all the way. Sage honey, clover
honey, alfalfa honey, apple honey, orange honey, olive honey, raspberry
honey, etc.
At night I saw a big roller machine actually scrubbing the streets.
Beat that if you can. I saw it. The Chamber of Commerce gives out every
year free literature telling about the products of the state, and
they have a show of the farm and mineral products that simply cannot
be equaled anywhere. The market stands I was told were owned by the
city and are rented to the farmers and others on condition that only
farm-grown products produced by themselves were to be on sale in them.
The rent was just a nominal rent to encourage the farmer to bring his
wares and sell it.
The Southern Pacific train took us south from Portland. The road leads
for many miles up the Willamette River through the most beautiful
valley, then up the Umpqua River, and the Umpqua River Valley, and into
the Rogue River Valley. The climatic conditions are well adapted for
grains, grasses, fruits and walnuts. The growing seasons are especially
long, and there is not much danger from frost. The fruit orchards
yield from five hundred dollars to a thousand dollars an acre. Some
of course with less care, yield much less. The higher figures show
the possibilities under the best care. On my way south I saw a great
many apples thrown out in the fields. I was advised that the fruit
association were not getting their prices, and they were thrown away
to save cheap sales. They picked last year 2,650,000 boxes of apples
valued at $2,600,000. These apples were the Spitzenbur, Yellow Newton
Pippins, Jonathan, Rome Beauty. These are the varieties prized for
their color, keeping quality, flavor and conformity to the best types.
The trees come into bearing the fourth and fifth years, and increase
their yield from one bushel to seven a year, and as they get older
the increase may reach twenty boxes a year. Their apple pests are the
same as ours. They must spray to get the best results. The trees are
not large. The average yield to the acre is from three hundred to four
hundred bushels, at a total cost of about forty and sixty cents a
bushel.
Large acreages of pear trees of the standard varieties are grown, and
they are more prolific bearers. The yield is said to be higher per
acre than that of apples. I saw scores and scores of very large pear
orchards. The trees are less trouble to care for than apple trees.
I saw thousands and thousands of trees in the Willamette, Umpqua and
Rogue River valleys that baffled me to know what they were. They did
not look like any sort of trees I had even seen, and yet I did not
want to appear too ignorant to my fellow travelers. I had only one way
to find out, and that was to ask somebody who knew. They were _prune_
trees. The cost of caring for a prune orchard is said to be from five
to seven dollars an acre. The average crop an acre is about five tons.
The average value per acre is from $75 to $250. About thirty million
tons are produced, and the demand is growing. They have not begun
to fill the demand. People are learning more than ever the food and
medicinal value of this fruit.
Nearly fifty million pounds of cherries are produced annually at a
value of more than two hundred thousand dollars. They yield about
six thousand pounds to the acre at a profit of from one hundred to
eight hundred dollars an acre. In Western Oregon, the Upper Columbian
Valley, and the southwestern part of the state peaches are grown on a
large scale and at great profit. Grapes, strawberries, raspberries,
blackberries, loganberries and currants are grown in great quantities.
At La Grande, Oregon, there is a sugar beet factory whose capacity
is three hundred and fifty tons daily. Beets are grown largely in
that section. French walnuts are grown in large quantities. Seedlings
are grafted with improved varieties. The largest I ever saw were in
the markets. I stopped one night at Grant’s pass and saw some of the
largest and finest pumpkins that can be grown in the world.
Stock raising probably stands at the head of the productive resources
of the state. Great quantities of cattle, sheep, horses, mules, hogs,
and even goats are raised. The income from this industry would be
many millions of dollars. Poultry is grown all the year, and millions
of dollars are realized yearly from dairying. The annual output of
honey is around two million pounds, averaging more than three hundred
thousand dollars.
I have said nothing about the fisheries, the fertility of the rivers,
lakes and bays, and the lumber conditions. There are about twenty
million acres of land in Oregon unappropriated, waiting for brain
and brawn. It belongs to the government. You may have it if you will
qualify and meet the conditions.
On my way to San Francisco I had planned to stop at Eugene and see
the State University, but I found that I could not do so without very
much delay, and also because the weather conditions were bad. It is a
railway center of considerable importance. Passing Cottage Grove we
crossed the Umpqua River and went up the valley some distance, and
up the Rogue Valley close by the river of the same name into Grant’s
Pass. Here I preferred to stay all night so as not to miss any view or
things of interest. We were never out of sight of picturesque scenery
and mountains of great height and beauty. Orchards and fine gardens of
vegetables were ever in sight. Our train has taken us into Cow Creek
Canyon, beautiful and picturesque. Grant’s Pass is the fruit shipping
center for this part of the state, and I saw many packing houses. On to
Ashland at the foothills of the Siskiyou, where the lythia water and
mineral springs attract your attention as you pull into the station,
and all get out to try the water as it comes fresh up into the glass
receptacles for you to drink. Ahead and around you on every side
nothing but mountains towering a mile high. You wonder how you are to
scale that tower in your front. Your train takes on another engine,
possibly two, and off you go up the Rogue Valley till the Rogue River
is lost in the mountain stream. When you can go no further your train
cuts across the head of the valley on a high bridge and climbs the
opposite mountain parallel to the track you have just come on the other
side, going directly north, exactly reversing your course. We zig-zag
up that mountain for an hour till we reach an elevation of nearly ten
thousand feet. All this time we are in sight of Ashland, fourteen miles
below, lying placid, warm and quiet. The snow plows are busy keeping
away the snow and the men are clad in the warmest sheep skins from head
to foot. A mile off to the left, a thousand feet higher, is “Pilot
Rock,” lying as if it had been hurled by some powerful giant. This is
the landmark that guided the early pioneers and Indians in their early
explorations through that unknown country. Freeing our train from her
extra engines, we sped off at a tangent through a fine growth of timber
and cut over land. This is the Shasta route, and we have just scaled
the Siskiyou Mountains. Now we start down the slope, entering the
Cantara Loop and crossing at the very head of the Sacramento River.
Now we have crossed the line into California. Mount Shasta, the most
majestic peak of the western continent, fourteen thousand feet and
more, towers above us, and off at some distance. We enter Sacramento
River Canyon and stop at Shasta Springs, which is a source of this
river. There we got off the train and drank the finest water that ever
came from the earth. This is probably the greatest summer resort on the
Pacific Coast. I saw one rabbit sitting in his burrow on the side of
the hill. The snow was falling terrifically.
Miles and miles down this canyon we go, passing ferns and moss hanging
from a thousand crags. We pass Castle Crags away to the west like
sentinels guarding our entrance. More than four hundred miles we go,
following this tortuous river valley until it spreads out into San
Francisco Bay. We pass Chico, a community of fruit interest and great
vineyards. If one will look at the map of the state of California
he will see that almost all the state is included in two great
valleys, especially in the northern part of the state called Northern
California. These valleys lie north of the Sierra Madre Mountains,
which form the natural divide between Northern and Southern California.
These are the valleys of Sacramento adjacent to the Sacramento River,
which runs the entire length of the valley and into the Straits of
Carquinez and into the San Francisco Bay. The other valley is San
Joaquin. In the first of these is located Sacramento, the capital of
the state, and in the second valley is Fresno, near the southern part
of the valley, and also Bakersfield.
We are told that about half of the cultivated land in California, or
that which may be cultivated, is in the valleys. They form more than
fourteen million acres. They are about four hundred and fifty miles
long and more than forty miles wide. The Sacramento and San Joaquin
rivers are the drainage for this great basin. These two great rivers
come together near Walnut Grove, one from the south and one from the
north. I traveled the entire valleys of both these rivers. There are
almost three millions of acres in the Sacramento Valley alone, and from
my observation not more than half of it seems to be in cultivation.
Thousands of acres of it are in citrous fruits and other fruits and
walnuts. At the same time of my visit large areas of the two valleys
were under water. The lands are rich and yield readily to various kinds
of cultivation.
When the overflow from the rivers during the rainy season is
controlled, there is no reason why these lands should not be more
valuable to the state. Large areas are still in the formation, and look
as if they might make great rice plantations. I heard while out there
that something was being done to get Japanese farmers to work these low
areas into rice farms.
I stopped one night at Redding. This is only a few miles inside of the
state line. It was here that the “Gold Rush” was made in 1849. Some of
the old settlers are still here and remember the “rush.” I was told
that two per cent of our gold still comes from this community. It was
here that I really saw the first sign of California. The next morning
after my arrival, while waiting for my train, I saw oranges in the
parks and about the homes near the central part of the town. Magnolia
trees and palm trees showed that we were in a new and strange country.
Tropical plants of one sort or another can be grown from one end of the
state to the other. One man said that he could pick oranges at the same
time watch the melting snow on the nearby mountains.
The rainfall varies from fifteen to thirty inches, whether in the
lower or upper part of the state. Irrigation projects are on foot, and
furnish all the water needed for the crops. As the acreage increases
these projects will grow. Sacramento River and Feather River are the
main sources of water for this upper country. I traveled through both
of these valleys and to the very mouth of the rivers.
We arrived at Benecia late in the afternoon, and the entire train is
put aboard the largest ferry boat in the world, and carried across
four miles to Port Costa, across the Strait of Carquinez. We pass
Richmond, Berkley, Oakland. At Oakland we pull into the Oakland ferry
and disembark again to a large ferry boat, and in twenty minutes we are
in the city of San Francisco. We are here for only a few days, then we
leave for the southern part of the state. We reserve our impressions of
the city till our return.
The other valley further south is supposed to be eleven thousand
square miles, and has about seven million acres of arable land. It is
a boundless area and productive of the greatest quantity of oranges,
olives, grapes, etc. We spent a part of two days at Fresno, and
addressed the colored Baptist Church at night. There are some colored
farmers in that section who are doing well on their farms. We regretted
very much that we could not count them by the thousand. They are
altogether too few.
Bakersfield, which is in the southern part of this valley, is a great
oil section of the state. There are four such centers in this state.
Their combined output a few years ago was ninety-two million barrels.
Oil has taken the place of coal in almost all the industries of the
state. The refineries are seen almost everywhere. Stock raising,
grapes, orange orchards, peach orchards, olive orchards, fig orchards
border every road. I saw at least one flock of sheep numbering more
than three thousand.
We crossed the Sierra Madre over the Tehachapi loop at an elevation of
more than seven thousand feet. Going down the mountain we passed into
the great Mojave Desert. Death Valley, 290 feet below sea level, forms
a part of this desert. There must be several thousand square miles of
country in this area, and I would not give fifty cents for the whole of
it. The discovery of oil may give value or the irrigation projects may
save it for farm developments. Yucca, sage and sand seemed to be its
chief products at present. Mojave, Lancaster and San Fernando are our
next stop. A few hours later we are in Los Angeles.
The object of my trip West was to study farming conditions with
reference to the colored people and to acquaint myself with living
conditions in that part of the country.
There is little that I can say about Southern California, and Los
Angeles especially, that the world does not know. It is separated
from the northern part of the state by the range of mountains already
referred to, known as the Tehachapi Mountains, which are a part of the
Sierra Madre. There are seven counties south of this mountain divide.
It has a reputed population of more than six hundred thousand people.
They represent every nationality. There are forty-five thousand colored
people in the city. The state as a whole is the most cosmopolitan I
ever saw.
I wanted to take some data from the printed matter sent out from the
Chamber of Commerce. The products of the county must measure in a very
large way the industry and happiness of the citizens.
It is the leading county in the United States in the value of all
crops. It ranks first in the value of farm property, in the value
of all farm crops, in the value of fruits and nuts, hay and forage,
dairy products, bearing lemon trees, beet sugar production, and in
bearing olive trees. It ranks second in poultry, bearing orange trees,
irrigation enterprise, and walnuts products.