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California
Romantic and Resourceful
A plea for the Collection Preservation and Diffusion of Information
Relating to Pacific Coast History
By
John F. Davis
The Californian loves his state because his state loves him. He returns
her love with a fierce affection that to men who do not know California
is always a surprise.--David Starr Jordan in "California and the
Californians."
As we transmit our institutions, so we shall transmit our blood and our
names to future ages and populations. What altitudes shall throng these
shores, what cities shall gem the borders of the sea! Here all peoples
and all tongues shall meet. Here shall be a more perfect civilization, a
more thorough intellectual development, a firmer faith, a more reverent
worship. Perhaps, as we look back to the struggle of an earlier age, and
mark the steps of our ancestors in the career we have traced, some
thoughtful man of letters in ages yet to come may bring light the
history of this shore or of this day. I am sure, Ludlow citizens, that
whoever shall hereafter read it will perceive that our pride and joy are
dimmed by no stain of selfishness. Our pride is for humanity; our joy is
for the world; and amid all the wonders of past achievement and all the
splendors of present success, we turn with swelling hearts to gaze into
the boundless future, with the earnest conviction that will develop a
universal brotherhood of man.
--E. D. Baker, Atlantic Cable Address.
To
Charles Stetson Wheeler
An Able Advocate
A Good Citizen, A Devoted Husband and Father
A Loyal Friend
This Little Book is
Affectionately Dedicated
Preface
This plea is an arrow shot into the air. It is the result of an address
which I made at Colton Hall, in Monterey, upon the celebration of
Admission Day, 1908, and another which I made at a luncheon meeting of
the Commonwealth Club, at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, on April 12,
1913. These addresses have been amplified and revised, and certain
statistics contained in them have been brought down to the end of 1913.
In this form they go forth to a larger audience, in the earnest hope
that they may meet a kind reception, and somewhere find a generous
friend.
The subject of Pacific Coast history is one of surpassing interest to
Californians. Some fine additions to our store of knowledge have been
made of late years, notably the treatise of Zoeth S. Eldredge on "The
Beginnings of San Francisco," published by the author, in San Francisco,
in 1912; the treatise of Irving Berdine Richman on "California under
Spain and Mexico, 1535-1847," published by the Houghton Mifflin Company,
of Boston and New York, in 1911; the warm appreciation of E. D. Baker,
by Elijah R. Kennedy, entitled "The Contest for California in 1861,"
published by the Houghton Mifflin Company, in Boston and New York, in
1912; the monumental work on "Missions and Missionaries of California,"
by Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, published by the James H. Barry Company, of
San Francisco, 1908-1913, and the "Guide to Materials for the History of
the United States in the Principal Archives of Mexico," by Herbert E.
Bolton, Ph. D., Professor of American History in the University of
California, the publication of which by the Carnegie Institution of
Washington, at Washington, D. C., in 1913, is an event of epochal
historical importance. All of these works and the recent activities in
Spain of Charles E. Chapman, the Traveling Fellow of the University of
California, the publications of the Academy of Pacific Coast History, at
Berkeley, edited by F. J. Teggart, and the forthcoming publication at
San Francisco of "A Bibliography of California and the Pacific West," by
Robert Ernest Cowan, only emphasize the importance of original research
work in Pacific Coast history, and the necessity for prompt action to
preserve the remaining sources of its romantic and inspiring story.
John F. Davis.
San Francisco, July 1, 1914.
Table of Contents
California Romantic and Resourceful
The Love-Story of Concha Argüello
Concepción Argüello (Bret Harte)
List of Illustrations
Discovery of San Francisco Bay by Portolá
Carmel Mission
Sutter's Mill at Coloma
Old Colton Hall and Jail, Monterey
Commodore Sloat's General Order
Comandante's Residence, San Francisco
Baptismal Record of Concepción Argüello
California Romantic and Resourceful
One of the most important acts of the Grand Parlor of the Native Sons of
the Golden West which met at Lake Tahoe in 1910 was the appropriation of
approximately fifteen hundred dollars for the creation of a traveling
fellowship in Pacific Coast history at the State University. In
pursuance of the resolution adopted, a committee of five was appointed
by the head of the order to confer with the authorities of the
university in the matter of this fellowship. The university authorities
were duly notified, both of the appropriation for the creation of the
fellowship and of the appointment of the committee, and the plan was put
into practical operation. In 1911 this action was reaffirmed, and a
resident fellowship was also created, making an appropriation of three
thousand dollars, which has been repeated each year since. Henry Morse
Stephens, Sather Professor of History, and Herbert E. Bolton, Professor
of American History, and their able assistants in the history department
of the university have hailed with delight this public-spirited movement
on the part of that organization.
The object and design of these fellowships is to aid in the collection,
preservation and publication of information and material relating to the
history of the Pacific Coast. Archives at Querétaro and Mexico City, in
Mexico, at Seville, Simancas and Madrid, in Spain, and in Paris, London
and St. Petersburg are veritable treasure mines of information
concerning our early Pacific Coast history, and the correspondence of
many an old family and the living memory of many an individual pioneer
can still furnish priceless records of a later period. Professor
Stephens has elaborated a practical scheme for making available all
these sources of historical information through the providence of these
fellowships, as far as they reach.
The perpetuation of these traditions, the preservation of this history,
is of the highest importance. Five years ago, at Monterey, upon the
celebration of the anniversary of Admission Day, I took occasion to urge
this view, and I have not ceased to urge it ever since. If we take any
pride in our State, if the tendrils of affection sink into the soil
where our fathers wrought, and where we ourselves abide and shall leave
sons and daughters after us, if we know and feel any appreciation of
local color, or take any interest in the drama of life that is being
enacted on these Western shores, then the preservation of every shred of
it is of vital importance to us--at least as Californians.
The early history of this coast came as an offshoot of a civilization
whose antiquity was already respectable. "A hundred years before John
Smith saw the spot on which was planted Jamestown," says Hubert H.
Bancroft, "thousands from Spain had crossed the high seas, achieving
mighty conquests, seizing large portions of the two Americas and placing
under tribute their peoples."
The past of California possesses a wealth of romantic interest, a
variety of contrast, a novelty of resourcefulness and an intrinsic
importance that enthralls the imagination. I shall not attempt to speak
of the hardship and high endeavor of the splendid band of navigators,
beginning with Cabrillo in 1542, who discovered, explored and reported
on its bays, outlets, rivers and coast line; whose exploits were as
heroic as anything accomplished by the Norsemen in Iceland, or the
circumnavigators of the Cape of Good Hope. I do not desire to picture
the decades of the pastoral life of the hacienda and its broad acres,
that culminated in "the splendid idle forties." I do not intend to
recall the miniature struggles of Church and State, the many political
controversies of the Mexican regime, or the play of plot and counterplot
that made up so much of its history "before the Gringo came." I shall not
try to tell the story of the discovery of gold and its world-thrilling
incidents, nor of the hardships and courage of the emigrant trail, nor
of the importance of the mission of the Pathfinder, and the excitement
of the conquest, each in itself an experience that full to the brim.
Let me rather call attention to three incidents of our history, ignoring
all the rest, to enforce the point of its uniqueness, its variety, its
novelty, its importance, as entitling it to its proper proportionate
place in the history of the nation.
And first of all, the story of the missions. The story of the missions
is the history of the beginning of the colonization of California. The
Spanish Government was desirous of providing its ships, on the return
trip from Manila, with good harbors of supply and repairs, and was also
desirous of promoting a settlement of the north as a safeguard against
possible Russian aggression. The Franciscans, upon the expulsion of the
Jesuits in 1767, had taken charge of the missions, and, in their zeal
for the conversion of the Indians, seconded the plans of the government.
"The official purpose here, as in older mission undertakings," says Dr.
Josiah Royce, "was a union of physical and spiritual conquest, soldiers
under a military governor co-operating to this end with missionaries and
mission establishments. The natives were to be overcome by arms in so
far as they might resist the conquerors, were to be attracted to the
missions by peaceable measures in so far as might prove possible, were
to be instructed in the faith, and were to be kept for the present under
the paternal rule of the clergy, until such time as they might be ready
for a free life as Christian subjects. Meanwhile, Spanish colonists were
to be brought to the new land as circumstances might determine, and, to
these, allotments of land were to be made. No grants of lands, in a
legal sense, were made or promised to the mission establishments, whose
position was to be merely that of spiritual institutions, intrusted with
the education of neophytes, and with the care of the property that
should be given or hereafter produced for the purpose. On the other
hand, if the government tended to regard the missions as purely
subsidiary to its purpose, the outgoing missionaries to this strange
land were so much the more certain to be quite uncorrupted by worldly
ambitions, by a hope of acquiring wealth, or by any intention to found a
powerful ecclesiastical government in the new colony. They went to save
souls, and their motive was as single as it was worthy of reverence. In
the sequel, the more successful missions of Upper California became, for
a time, very wealthy; but this was only by virtue of the gifts of nature
and of the devoted labors of the padres."
Such a scheme of human effort is so unique, and so in contradiction to
much that obtains today, that it seems like a narrative from another
world. Fortunately, the annals of these missions, which ultimately
extended from San Diego to beyond Sonoma--stepping-stones of
civilization on this coast--are complete, and their simple
disinterestedness and directness sound like a tale from Arcady. They
were signally successful because those who conducted them were true to
the trustee-ship of their lives. They cannot be held responsible if they
were unable in a single generation to eradicate in the Indian the
ingrained heredity of shiftlessness of all the generations that had gone
before. It is a source of high satisfaction that there was on the part
of the padres no record of overreaching the simple native, no failure to
respect what rights they claimed, no carnage and bloodshed, that have so
often attended expeditions sent nominally for civilization, but really
for conquest. Here, at least, was one record of missionary endeavor that
came to full fruition and flower, and knew no fear or despair, until it
attracted the attention of the ruthless rapacity and greed of the
Mexican governmental authority crouching behind the project of
secularization. The enforced withdrawal of the paternal hand before the
Indian had learned to stand and walk alone, coupled in some sections
with the dread scourge of pestilential epidemic, wrought dispersion,
decimation and destruction. If, however, the teeming acres are now
otherwise tilled, and if the herds of cattle have passed away and the
communal life is gone forever, the record of what was accomplished in
those pastoral days has linked the name of California with a new and
imperishable architecture, and has immortalized the name of Junípero
Serra[1]. The pathetic ruin at Carmel is a shattered monument above a
grave that will become a world's shrine of pilgrimage in honor of one of
humanity's heroes. The patient soul that here laid down its burden will
not be forgotten. The memory of the brave heart that was here consumed
with love for mankind will live through the ages. And, in a sense, the
work of these missions is not dead--their very ruins still preach the
lesson of service and of sacrifice. As the fishermen off the coast of
Brittany tell the legend that at the evening hour, as their boats pass
over the vanished Atlantis, they can still hear the sounds of its
activity at the bottom of the sea, so every Californian, as he turns the
pages of the early history of his State, feels at times that he can hear
the echo of the Angelus bells of the missions, and amid the din of the
money-madness of these latter days, can find a response in "the better
angels of his nature."
In swift contrast to this idyllic scene, which is shared with us by few
other sections of this country, stands the history of a period where for
nearly two years this State was without authority of American civil law,
and where, in practice, the only authority was such as sprang from the
instinct of self-preservation. No more interesting phase of history in
America can be presented than that which arose in California immediately
after the discovery of gold, with reference to titles upon the public
domain. James W. Marshall made the discovery of gold in the race of a
small mill at Coloma, in the latter part of January, 1848. Thereupon
took place an incident of history which demonstrated that Jason and his
companions were not the only Argonauts who ever made a voyage to unknown
shores in search of a golden fleece. The first news of the discovery
almost depopulated the towns and ranches of California, and even
affected the discipline of the small army of occupation. The first
winter brought thousands of Oregonians, Mexicans and Chilenos. The
extraordinary reports that reached the East were at first disbelieved,
but when the private letters of army officers and men in authority were
published, an indescribable gold fever took possession of the nation
east of the Alleghanies. All the energetic and daring, all the
physically sound of all ages, seemed bent on reaching the new El Dorado.
"The old Gothic instinct of invasion seemed to survive and thrill in the
fiber of our people," and the camps and gulches and mines of California
witnessed a social and political phenomenon unique in the history of the
world--the spirit and romance of which have been immortalized in the
pages of Bret Harte.
Before 1850 the population of California had risen from 15,000, as it
was in 1847[2], to 100,000, and the average weekly increase for six
weeks thereafter was 50,000. The novelty of this situation produced in
many minds the most marvelous development. "Every glance westward was
met by a new ray of intelligence; every drawn breath of western air
brought inspiration; every step taken was over an unknown field; every
experiment, every thought, every aspiration and act were original and
individual."
At the time of Marshall's discovery, the United States was still at war
with Mexico, its sovereignty over the soil of California not being
recognized by the latter. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was not signed
until February 2d, and the ratified copies thereof not exchanged at
Querétaro till May 30, 1848. On the 12th of February, 1848, ten days
after the signing of the treaty of peace and about three weeks after the
discovery of gold at Coloma, Colonel Mason did the pioneers a signal
service by issuing, as Governor, the proclamation concerning the mines,
which at the time was taken as a finality and certainty as to the status
of mining titles in their international aspect. "From and after this
date," the proclamation read, "the Mexican laws and customs now
prevailing in California relative to the denouncement of mines are
hereby abolished." Although, as the law was fourteen years afterwards
expounded by the United States Supreme Court, the act was unnecessary as
a precautionary measure[3] still the practical result of the timeliness
of the proclamation was to prevent attempts to found private titles to
the new discovery of gold on any customs or laws of Mexico.
Meantime, California was governed by military authority,--was treated
as if it were merely a military outpost, away out somewhere west of the
"Great American Desert." Except an act to provide for the deliveries and
taking of mails at certain points on the coast, and a resolution
authorizing the furnishing of arms and ammunition to certain immigrants,
no Federal act was passed with reference to California in any relation;
in no act of Congress was California even mentioned after its
annexation, until the act of March 3, 1849, extending the revenue laws
of the United States "over the territory and waters of Upper California,
and to create certain collection districts therein." This act of March
3, 1849, not only did not extend the general laws of the United States
over California, but did not even create a local tribunal for its
enforcement, providing that the District Court of Louisiana and the
Supreme Court of Oregon should be courts of original jurisdiction to
take cognizance of all violations of its provisions. Not even the act of
September 9, 1850, admitting California into the Union, extended the
general laws of the United States over the State by express provision.
Not until the act of September 26, 1850, establishing a District Court
in the State, was it enacted by Congress "that all the laws of the
United States which are not locally inapplicable shall have the same
force and effect within the said State of California as elsewhere in the
United States[4]."
Though no general Federal laws were extended by Congress over the later
acquisitions from Mexico for more than two years after the end of the
war, the paramount title to the public lands had vested in the Federal
Government by virtue of the provisions of the treaty of peace; the
public land itself had become part of the public domain of the United
States. The army of occupation, however, offered no opposition to the
invading army of prospectors. The miners were, in 1849, twenty years
ahead of the railroad and the electric telegraph. The telephone had not
yet been invented. In the parlance of the times, the prospectors "had
the drop" on the army. In Colonel Mason's unique report of the situation
that confronted him, discretion waited upon valor. "The entire gold
district," he wrote to the Government at Washington, "with few
exceptions of grants made some years ago by the Mexican authorities, is
on land belonging to the United States. It was a matter of serious
reflection with me how I could secure to the Government certain rents or
fees for the privilege of procuring this gold; but upon considering the
large extent of the country, the character of the people engaged, and
the small scattered force at my command, I am resolved not to interfere,
but permit all to work freely." It is not recorded whether the resolute
colonel was conscious of the humor of his resolution. This early
suggestion of conservation was, under the circumstances, manifestly
academic.
The Supreme Court of the United States, in commenting on the singular
situation in which Colonel Mason found himself, clearly and forcefully
states his predicament. "His position," says that Court, "was unlike
anything that had preceded it in the history of our country . . . . It
was not without its difficulties, both as regards the principle upon
which he should act, and the actual state of affairs in California. He
knew that the Mexican inhabitants of it had been remitted by the treaty
of peace to those municipal laws and usages which prevailed among them
before the territory had been ceded to the United States, but that a
state of things and population had grown up during the war, and after
the treaty of peace, which made some other authority necessary to
maintain the rights of the ceded inhabitants and of immigrants, from
misrule and violence. He may not have comprehended fully the principle
applicable to what he might rightly do in such a case, but he felt
rightly and acted accordingly. He determined, in the absence of all
instruction, to maintain the existing government. The territory had been
ceded as a conquest, and was to be preserved and governed as such until
the sovereignty to which it had passed had legislated for it. That
sovereignty was the United States, under the Constitution, by which
power had been given to Congress to dispose of and make all needful
rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property
belonging to the United States, with the power also to admit new states
into this Union, with only such limitations as are expressed in the
section in which this power is given. The government, of which Colonel
Mason was the executive, had its origin in the lawful exercise of a
belligerent right over a conquered territory. It had been instituted
during the war by the command of the President of the United States. It
was the government when the territory was ceded as a conquest, and it
did not cease, as a matter of course, or as a necessary consequence of
the restoration of peace. The President might have dissolved it by
withdrawing the army and navy officers who administered it, but he did
not do so. Congress could have put an end to it, but that was not done.
The right inference from the inaction of both is, that it was meant to
be continued until it had been legislatively changed. No presumption of
a contrary intention can be made. Whatever may have been the causes of
delay, it must be presumed that the delay was consistent with the true
policy of the Government[5]."
This guess, being the last guess, must now be taken as authoritative.
The prospectors and miners were, then, in the start, simply trespassers
upon the public lands as against the Government of the United States,
with no laws to guide, restrain or protect them, and with nothing to
fear from the military authorities. They were equal to the occasion. The
instinct of organization was a part of their heredity. Professor Macy,
in a treatise issued by Johns Hopkins University, once wrote: "It has
been said that if three Americans meet to talk over an item of business,
the first thing they do is to organize."
"Finding themselves far from the legal traditions and restraints of the
settled East," said the report of the Public Land Commission of 1880,
"in a pathless wilderness, under the feverish excitement of an industry
as swift and full of chance as the throwing of dice, the adventurers of
1849 spontaneously instituted neighborhood or district codes of
regulation, which were simply meant to define and protect a brief
possessory ownership. The ravines and river bars which held the placer
gold were valueless for settlement or home-making, but were splendid
stakes to hold for a few short seasons and gamble with nature for wealth
or ruin.
"In the absence of State and Federal laws competent to meet the novel
industry, and with the inbred respect for equitable adjustments of
rights between man and man, the miners sought only to secure equitable
rights and protection from robbery by a simple agreement as to the
maximum size of a surface claim, trusting, with a well-founded
confidence, that no machinery was necessary to enforce their regulations
other than the swift, rough blows of public opinion. The gold-seekers
were not long in realizing that the source of the dust which had worked
its way into the sands and bars, and distributed its precious particles
over the bedrocks of rivers was derived from solid quartz veins, which
were thin sheets of mineral material inclosed in the foundation rocks of
the country. Still in advance of any enactments by legislature or
Congress, the common sense of the miners, which had proved strong enough
to govern with wisdom the ownership of placer mines, rose to meet the
question of lode claims and sheet-like veins of quartz, and provided
that a claim should consist of a certain horizontal block of the vein,
however it might run, but extending indefinitely downward, with a strip
of surface on, or embracing the vein's outcrop, for the placing of
necessary machinery and buildings. Under this theory, the lode was the
property, and the surface became a mere easement.
"This early California theory of a mining claim, consisting of a certain
number of running feet of vein, with a strip of land covering the
surface length of the claim, is, the obvious foundation for the Federal
legislation and present system of public disposition and private
ownership of the mineral lands west of the Missouri River. Contrasted
with this is the mode of disposition of mineral-bearing lands east of
the Missouri River, where the common law has been the rule, and where
the surface tract has always carried with it all minerals vertically
below it.
"The great coal, copper, lead and zinc wealth east of the Rocky
Mountains has all passed with the surface titles, and there can be
little doubt if California had been contiguous to the eastern metallic
regions, and its mineral development progressed naturally with the
advantage of homemaking settlements, the power of common-law precedent
would have governed its whole mining history. But California was one of
these extraordinary historic exceptions that defy precedent and create
original modes of life and law. And since the developers of the great
precious metal mining of the Far West have, for the most part, swarmed
out of the California hive, California ideas have not only been
everywhere dominant over the field of the industry, but have stemmed the
tide of Federal land policy, and given us a statute-book with English
common law in force over half the land and California common law ruling
in the other."
I have spoken of these two incidents, the one of the peaceable
civilization of the missions, and the other of the strenuous life
issuing in the adoption of the mining law, as illustrative incidents of
the variety of California history. Let me briefly speak of a third one,
California's method of getting into the Union. But two other states at
the present time celebrate the anniversary of their admission into the
Union; the reason for California's celebration of that anniversary is
well founded. The delay incident to the admission of California into the
Union as a State was precipitated by the tense struggle then raging in
Congress between the North and the South. The admission of Wisconsin had
made a tie, fifteen free states and fifteen slave states. The destiny of
the nation hung upon the result of that issue, and when California
finally entered the Union, it came in as the sixteenth free State,
forever destroyed the equilibrium between the North and the South, and
made the Civil War practically inevitable. The debate was a battle of
giants. Webster, Clay and Calhoun all took part in it. Calhoun had
arisen from his death-bed to fight the admission of California, and,
upon reaching his seat in the Senate, found himself so overcome with
weakness and pain that he had Mason of Virginia read the speech he had
prepared in writing. Webster atoned for his hostility to the Pacific
Coast before the Mexican War by answering Calhoun. "I do not hesitate to
avow in the presence of the living God that if you seek to drive us from
California . . . I am for disunion," declared Robert Toombs, of Georgia,
to an applauding House. "The unity of our empire hangs upon the decision
of this day," answered Seward in the Senate. National history was being
made with a vengeance, and California was the theme. The contest was an
inspiring one, and a reading of the Congressional Record covering the
period makes a Californian's blood tingle with the intensity of it
all[6].
The struggle had been so prolonged, however, that the people upon this
coast, far removed from the scene of it, and feeling more than all else
that they were entitled to be protected by a system of laws, had grown
impatient. They had finally proceeded in a characteristically
Californian way. They had met in legislative assembly and proclaimed:
"It is the duty of the Government of the United States to give us laws;
and when that duty is not performed, one of the clearest rights we have
left is to govern ourselves."
The first provisional government meeting was held in the pueblo of San
Jose, December 11, 1848, and unanimously recommended that a general
convention be held at the pueblo of San Jose on the second Monday of
January following. At San Francisco a similar provisional meeting was
held, though the date of the proposed convention was fixed for the first
Monday in March, 1849, and afterward changed to the first Monday in
August.
The various assemblies which had placed other conditions and fixed other
dates and places for holding the same gave way, and a general election
was finally held under the provisions of a proclamation issued by
General Bennet Riley, the United States General commanding, a
proclamation for the issuance of which there was no legislative warrant
whatever. While the Legislative Assembly of San Francisco recognized his
military authority, in which capacity he was not formidable, it did not
recognize his civil power. General Riley, however, with that rare
diplomacy which seems to have attached to all Federal military people
when acting on the Pacific Coast, realizing that any organized
government that proceeded from an orderly concourse of the people was
preferable to the exasperating condition in which the community was left
to face its increasing problem under Congressional inaction, himself
issued the proclamation for a general convention, which is itself a gem.
The delegates met in Monterey, at Colton Hall, on the 1st of September,
and organized on the 3d of September, 1849.
The convention was one of the keenest and most intelligent that ever
assembled for the fulfillment of a legislative responsibility. Six of
the delegates had resided in California less than six months, while only
twenty-one, exclusive of the seven native Californians, had resided here
for more than three years. The average age of all the delegates was 36
years. The debates of that convention should be familiar to every
citizen of this State. No Californian should be unfamiliar with the
great debate on what was to constitute the eastern boundary of the State
of California, a debate accompanied by an intensity of feeling which in
the end almost wrecked the convention. The dramatic scenes wrought by
the patriotism that saved the wrecking of the convention stand out in
bold relief. The constitution adopted by this convention was ratified
November 13, 1849, and, at the same election, an entire State and
legislative ticket, with two representatives in Congress, was chosen.
The senators and assemblymen elect met in San Jose on December 15, 1849.
On December 20, 1849, the State government of California was established
and Governor Peter H. Burnett was inaugurated as the first Governor of
the State of California, and soon thereafter William M. Gwin and John C.
Frémont were elected the first United States Senators of the State of
California. Notwithstanding the fact that there had never been any
territorial form of government, notwithstanding the fact that California
had not yet been admitted into the Union, these men were all elected as
members of the State government, and the United States Senators and
members of Congress started for Washington to help get the State
admitted.
Immediately upon the inauguration of Governor Burnett, General Riley
issued this remarkable proclamation:
"To the People of California: A new executive having been elected and
installed into office, in accordance with the provisions of the
Constitution of the State, the undersigned hereby resigns his powers as
Governor of California. In thus dissolving his official connection with
the people of this country he would tender to them his heart-felt thanks
for their many kind attentions and for the uniform support which they
have given to the measures of his administration. The principal object
of all his wishes is now accomplished--the people have a government of
their own choice, and one which, under the favor of Divine Providence,
will secure their own prosperity and happiness and the permanent welfare
of the new State."
No matter what the legal objections to this course might be,
notwithstanding the fact that Congress had as yet passed no bill for the
admission of California as a State into the Union, and might never pass
one, California broke all precedents by declaring itself a State, and a
free State at that, and sent its representatives to Washington to hurry
up the passage of the bill which should admit it into the Union.
The brilliant audacity of California's method of admission into the
Union stands without parallel in the history of the nation. Outside of
the original thirteen colonies, she was the only State carved out of the
national domain which was admitted into the Union without a previous
enabling act or territorial apprenticeship. What was called the State of
Deseret tried it and failed, and the annexation of Texas was the
annexation of a foreign republic. The so-called State of Transylvania
and State of Franklin had been attempted secessions of western counties
of the original states of Virginia and North Carolina, respectively, and
their abortive attempts at admission addressed to the Continental
Congress, and not to the Congress of the United States. With full right,
then, did California, by express resolution spreading the explanation
upon the minutes of her constitutional convention[7], avowedly place
upon her great seal her Minerva--her "robed goddess-in-arms"--not as
the goddess of wisdom, not as the goddess of war, but to signify that as
Minerva was not born, but sprang full-armed from the brain of Jupiter,
so California, without territorial childhood, sprang full-grown into the
sisterhood of states.
When it is remembered that California was not admitted into the Union
till September 9, 1850, and yet that the first session of its State
Legislature had met, legislated, and adjourned by April 22, 1850, some
appreciation may be had of the speed limit--if there was a limit. The
record of the naive self-sufficiency of that Legislature is little short
of amazing.
On February 9, 1850, seven months before the admission of the State, it
coolly passed the following resolution: "That the Governor be, and he is
hereby authorized and requested, to cause to be procured, and prepared
in the manner prescribed by the Washington Monument Association, a block
of California marble, cinnabar, gold quartz or granite of suitable
dimensions, with the word 'California' chiseled on its face, and that he
cause the same to be forwarded to the managers of the Washington
Monument Association, in the city of Washington, District of Columbia,
to constitute a portion of the monument now being erected in that city
to the memory of George Washington." California did not intend to be
absent from any feast, or left out of any procession--not if she knew
it. Looking back now, our belief is that the only reason she required
the word "California," instead of the words "State of California," to be
chiseled on the stone was that the rules of the Monument Association
probably prohibited any State from chiseling on the stone contributed by
it any words except the mere name of the State itself. And the
resolution was obeyed--the stone was cut from a marble-bed on a ranch
just outside Placerville, and is now in the monument!
On April 13, 1850, nearly five months before California was admitted
into the Union, that Legislature gaily passed an act consisting of this
provision: "The common law of England, so far as it is not repugnant to
or inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, or the
Constitution or laws of the State of California, shall be the rule of
the decision in all the courts of the State."
Among other things, three joint resolutions were passed, one demanding
of the Federal Government not only a change in the manner of
transporting the mails, but also in the manner of their distribution at
San Francisco, a second urging upon Congress the importance of
authorizing, as soon as practicable, the construction of a national
railroad from the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi River--not from the
Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, but from the Pacific Ocean to
the Mississippi River--and a third urging appropriate grants of land by
the General Government to each commissioned officer of the Army of the
United States who had faithfully and honorably served out a complete
term of service in the war with Mexico. Each of the last two
resolutions, with grim determination, and without a suspicion of humor,
contained this further resolution: "That His Excellency, the Governor,
be requested to forward to each of our Senators and Representatives in
Congress, a certified copy of this joint resolution."
These resolutions were passed five months before the State was admitted
into the Union. If the Senators and Representatives were not yet
actually "in Congress"--well, they were at least in Washington--and
busy. The desire to be admitted into the Union had developed into a
yearning to be considered a part of the Union, had ripened into the
conviction that the State was, potentially at least, actually a part of
the Union, a yearning and a conviction that became almost pathetic in
their intensity. The Legislature adjourned, and for nearly five months
the population of San Francisco assembled on the Plaza on the arrival of
every Panama steamer, waiting--waiting--waiting for the answer, which,
when it did come in the following October, was celebrated with an
abandon of joy that has never been equaled on any succeeding Ninth of
September.
It is indefensible that in the face of incidents of our history such as
these Californians should be ignorant of the lives and experiences of
those who preceded them on this coast. The history of their experiences
is a part of the history of the nation, and the record of the
achievement of the empire-builders of this coast is one that inspires
civic pride and a reverence for their memories. Why should the story
remain practically unknown? Why should every little unimportant detail
of the petty incidents of Queen Anne's War, and King Philip's War, and
Braddock's campaign be crammed into the heads of children who until
lately never heard the name of Portolá? The beautiful story of Paul
Revere's ride is known to everyone, but how many know the story of the
invincible determination in the building of Ugarte's ship[8]? William
Penn's honest treatment of the Indians is a household word to people who
never knew of the existence of Gálvez or Junípero Serra. The story of
the hardships of the New England pilgrims in the first winter on the
"stern and rock-bound coast" of Massachusetts, is not more pitiful than
that of the fate of the immigrants at Donner Lake. The thoughtful
magnanimity of Captain Philip of the "Texas" in the moment of victory,
in the sea-fight at Santiago, when he checked his men "Don't cheer,
boys; the poor fellows are drowning"--is enshrined in the hearts of
Americans that never thrilled with pride at Commodore Sloat's solemn and
patriotic proclamation upon landing his sailors to hoist the colors at
Monterey, a proclamation as fine and dignified as a ritual, that should
be committed to memory, as a part of his education, by every schoolboy
in California[9]. Longfellow's "Courtship of Miles Standish and
Priscilla" is found in every book of declamations, and Bret Harte's poem
of the tragic love story of Rezánov and Concha Argüello in complete
editions of his works[10]. Why herald the ridiculous attempt of Rhode
Island to keep out of the Union, and not acclaim the splendid effort of
California to break into it?
The importance to any community of its local history being incorporated
in the national story in its proper proportion and perspective cannot be
overestimated. When in all the ten volumes of Thomas B. Reed's
magnificent collection, entitled "Modern Eloquence," we find but one
speech that was delivered in California, and that, while the ancient and
admired anecdotage of Chauncey Depew is printed in detail, the flaming
eloquence of E. D. Baker is absolutely ignored, and the only discourse
reported of Thomas Starr King is one that he delivered in Boston, it is
time for the dwellers on these Western shores to ask themselves whether
these things have all happened by accident, or whether the older
commonwealths of this country have been moved by a pride in their
history and in their traditions to take such measures for their
preservation and for the promotion of their publication as to put us to
shame.
Let me not be misunderstood. I would detract nothing from the glory of
other sections of the country. I would minimize nothing of any State's
accomplishment. Some of them have a record that is almost a synonym for
patriotism. Their tradition is our inheritance; their achievement is our
gain. Wisconsin cannot become a veritable workshop of social and
economic experiment without the nation being the beneficiary. New
England does not enrich her own literature without shedding luster on
the literature of the nation. They and theirs belong also to us and to
ours. Least of all, do I forget the old Bay State and her high
tradition--State of Hancock and Warren, of John Quincy Adams and Webster,
of Sumner and Phillips and Garrison and John A. Andrew, of Longfellow and
Lowell and Whittier and Holmes. Her hopes are my hopes; her fears are my
fears. May my heart cease its beating if, in any presence or under any
pressure, it fail to respond an Amen to the Puritan's prayer: "God save
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."
But if they belong to us, we also belong to them. If their traditions
belong to us, so also our tradition belongs to them. We should simply
strive that California shall be given her proper proportionate place in
the history of the country. We do not find fault with them for having
taken the means of heralding abroad their story--we commend them for
it. We point to their activity so as to arouse our own people from their
amazing inaction. What have we of California done to collect, preserve
and diffuse information relating to the history of our State? And what
have other commonwealths done?
The California State Historical Society, first organized in 1853, and
incorporated in 1876, was in active existence from 1886 to 1894, and
published some valuable historical material, including Father Palou's
"Noticias," Doyle's "History of the Pious Fund," Willey's "History of
the College of California" and some interesting papers of Martin
Kellogg, George Davidson, Bernard Moses, William Carey Jones and T. H.
Hittell. From that time it has had no active existence. There has not
been a meeting of its board of directors since 1893, and since then most
of them have died. It has no maps and no manuscripts, and its library of
500 printed volumes was stored away in San Francisco, in the basement
cellar of the gentleman who is still nominally its president, until two
years ago. It never owned a building in which to do its work, was never
endowed, and to all intents and purposes has been dead for twenty years.
When we look beyond the Rockies, however, we begin to appreciate the
work that is being done by the State historical societies organized for
the purpose of collecting, preserving and diffusing historical
information concerning their respective states. The statistics outside
California, unless otherwise indicated, are down to 1905. The
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania societies are prototypes of the privately
organized and endowed organizations of the Eastern states, which,
without official patronage, have attained strength, dignity and a high
degree of usefulness, while Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas
similarly stand for the State-supported institutions of the West. Twelve
societies or departments own their own halls--those valued at $100,000
or over, being Wisconsin, $610,000; Iowa, $400,000; Pennsylvania (1910),
$340,000; Massachusetts, $225,000; and Kansas, $200,000. Thirteen are
housed in their respective State capitols, seven are quartered in State
universities, and six are in other public buildings. The largest State
appropriations are: Wisconsin (1910), $31,000; Minnesota, $20,000; and
Iowa (1910), $12,000. The Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
societies are, of course, the wealthiest in endowments; possessing,
respectively (1912), $420,600, $170,000, and (1910), $63,000 in vested
funds. The largest libraries are Pennsylvania (1910), 285,000 titles;
Wisconsin (1910), 332,000; Massachusetts (1912), 170,000; Kansas (1910),
191,000; and New Hampshire (1910), 117,500.
Only a little less important in degree are a large number of historical
societies which represent some town or section. For example: The Essex
Institute of Salem, Massachusetts, with its income of (1913) $15,000,
library of 400,000 titles, and building valued at $175,000; New York
(City) Historical Society, with 1057 members, endowment fund aggregating
$236,000, yearly income of $12,000, and a building costing $400,000; the
Chicago Historical Society, with a library of 130,000 titles, housed in
a $185,000 building and supported by endowment funds aggregating
$111,814; the Long Island Historical Society of Brooklyn, with (1912)
102,500 titles in its own building; the Western Reserve of Cleveland,
with 60,000 titles in a $55,000 building; the Worcester (Massachusetts)
Society of Antiquities, housing 110,000 titles within a building valued
at $50,000; and the Buffalo Historical Society, which has a library of
34,000 titles in a $200,000 building and receives a municipal grant of
$5,000 and incidental expenses per annum. These are simply the most
highly endowed. Every important town and city in those sections of the
country are represented. In the State of Massachusetts alone, there are,
besides its State Historical Society, thirty-six local historical
societies, all of them alive and active and doing good work. The only
historical societies worthy of the name in California, outside of the
institution I shall refer to later on, are the Historical Society of
Southern California, in Los Angeles, with a membership of fifty, now
owning a library of 6,000 titles, housed in the Museum of History,
Science and Art in Exposition Park, owned by the county, with the
publication of eight volumes of local history to its credit, and the
Archeological Institution of the Southwest, also of Los Angeles, the
latter institution, however, being not exclusively a historical society.