The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 18, 1897, Page 26

o 6 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 18, 1897. Thirty years ago, in an adobe hutin Mexico was born a brown baby destined to bring a reyolution to the great city of San Francisco. Little Diego Borica slept, ate and cried asany Mexican baby does, and later wandered about with the same dearth of clothing. In nothing was he different from his comrades, except that his features grew | year by year more strongly marked, and his dark eyes deeper and clearer. This. | the people , he took from his grand- father, who was a man above his fellows —a thonghtful, gloomy, taciturn wan, who came from nobody knew where, and by his dignity and wisdom gained the lo- cal title of Don Diego. Don Diego had married a girl from the pueblo—the handsomest, happiest senorita | No one imagined him in love with | there. Inez. His grave brows never unbentat sight of ber d beauty, nor could her for she loved him—banish the gloom om his eye. In his grave way he was kind to her, and when she died and left him with 8 new Diego, an hour old, the deep eves sank seemingly deeper and the stern mouth grew sterner. The child was his constant care, though | it brought him no happiness. Thissecond | Diego was the image of his mother— | hills climbing up from the quivering bay. Of stretches of sand-dunes and fertile plains which shouid some day be his. The child listened and grew to love the pic- ture, but that the reality should be his he never dregmed of crediting. He would al- ways Live in the village, or, by the grace | of the sainix, he might some day go to school. Eagerly hewlrenk in all tue oid man could tell him of the world, and long he pored over th- few yeliow volumes that were the old man’s treasu res. Josepha’s face grew thinner ana her smile sadder as the day she dreaded drew nearer. She must lose her boy now, for old Diezo had shown her why he must be | sent away among the people of California to learn the speech and the wisdom of his fellows there. He went, a quiet, dreaming boy, and | raturned in ten years, a quiet, dreawing | youth, to see his granafather die and to receive as a heritage the stone caskat. For ten years more he must study and grow stronger and wiser, and then Jo- sepha should tell him, and the casket should be opened. In study and quiet his life glided on till the time when Josepha must tell him. A strange tale it was, of Spanish Cali fornia a hundred vears ago; of a Gover- | The lawyers, paid from the proceeds of the coffee crop, went quietiy on bringing suits for posses:ion, filing and indexing. The courts began to rouse themselves. Learned minds began to search for flaws in this strange deed that was not mereiy a grant, but an unconditional deed from a king. One skilled in the Spanish law and the Spanish tongue was sent to Spain to search the archives for trace of this deed made more than a hundred years ago. Those who owned the contested ground began to bana together and employ law- yers; and the lawyers—even the Judges— Were eager to enter the fray, for they, too, owned pieces of the land which might be given to Diego Borica. S CEESCREW happy, careless, a picture to delight the eve, but shallow as the silver stream Out the depths of his own learming Don go tried to teach his little son, but the time wal thrown away, producing only added dislike to constraint in the boy and a deerer shadow on the face of the man. So little Diego grew up not one whit w.ser than the mother before him and just as handsome, In grave silence Don Diego watched | bim pass into early manhood and choose | for his bride Josepha, a big-eyed girl, | vl of face and figure, but loving and thoughtful. Tue first smile of years passed like a strong beam of light across the face of the | od Don when he held the hand and | looked into the steady eyes of hisson’s young bride. The second Diego, the father of the boy, was fond of him in his way, but the | gravity of the chila repelled him and when, in the fifth year of s life, little Diego saw his father brougkt home dead, with an ugly gash in his side where a knife had been, he was only shocked, not saddened. Nor was Josepha’s life decply disturbed. | The light-hearted, light-headed husband had found his pleasures too much away from home to leave a void there when he went away forever. Now the old Diego, whose step was still firm and whose eye was still keen, though his hair was white, began to tell many a tale to the listening boy at his knee, to draw vivid word-pictures ot a country of | which made music before the door. o | land in the great city, should take it and | vailed. | The people laughed. That had peen tried UP. AS OTHER MEXICAN BOYS.” nor who served his King so well that in return the sovereizn was willing to give him what be wished ; and of a parchment deed to land near the Precidio of San Francisco and the Mission Dolores. The deed was there in the stone casket, with all its signs and seals, and, most wonder- ful of all, the royal signature. All formah- tize seemed to have been comp.ied th, all recora made; yei Diego knew it was unknown to the world. Tue story Don Diego had told Josepha was one of bribery, wrong and banish- ment for the son of the Governor, and his hope that the great-grandson might re- venge his wrongs. Diego should claim the bring back again the green hills and val- leys of old. It was his and 1t shou:d again support flocks and herds instead of busy people. Long Diego brooded and considered. | The training of his grandiather pre- He would claim his land The deed, the proof of its validily and the maps were taken to San Fraucisco and | produced in the great City Hall. { The news spreaa like 2 fire at night on | alevel prairie. A maniac from Mexico | had claimed a large part of their city. ‘ before, but they still lived in their own houses and planted flowers in their own dooryards. The poor would care little if the land | land could in justice neither be given |in the valley. did change hands. 1t meant to them only | away nor bought; that it was pubiic prop- | of machinery be heard or the ceaseless a new land.ord, who might have ideas of | plumbing and paint. So life went on | without & break. | ner “SPECIAL MEETINGS WEREVHELD AT "THE he time went on, and a cable from the nish emissary came telling of a record of land given to one Diego Borica, Gov- ernor of the province of California, and a rude map, the counterpart of the one held by the lawyers. The law was read by the masses, only to find that the United States haa sworn to protect the rights of ‘‘those who right- fully owned the land at the time Califor- nia was acquirea.’” Consternz prevai'ed, and opinion reli ftselt in the usual man- by mass-meetings in Temple. If our Diego had raveal se'f in S8an Krancisco he would firs been interviewed by a lady reporter to T | tell how it feels to own a city, and then he would have been lynched. But no one suspected that the dark, professor-like lodger on the hill was he. A certain class of people began to bold- ly advance opinions long held that this man had po rizht to the land because erty. They were soon frowned on by the men fighting the Spanish deed, for, ac- cording to that doctrine, if Diego could public | Metropolitan | not own the land neither could they. The rich shut grasping hands and cried: “The land is mine! It represents my money!” The poor said, ‘My lot is mine, hard earned, and a resting-place for my jamily.” The suit came on. The whole city listened. The validity of the deed was proven and the straizht descent of our Diego irom the Goversor. The story of | the tampering with the records and the banishment of Don Diego in his youth, all was told and borne out. On the other side old deeds, claims and grants were produced, som& of which went back to the time of the Spanish fathers. Long and bitterly the battle ruged, and |at last the victory was declared for those | who now occupied the land. There were procedsions and jubiiees and speeches, in the midst of which Diego's lawyers were | taking their case to the Supreme Court. | Here there was none of the local pressure, and after many days the decision revers- ing that of -the lower court was riven. Diego Borica owned San Francisco! | What woula he do with it? He would be very rich beyvond compare. Those who owned raged, threatened— even went insane. Those who rented waited curiously for the new landlord who surely could afford to “fix up a lit tle.”? | Yes, what would Diego do? | And bis plans. They were simple. He | would change the landscape to that his | grandfather’s eves had resied upon. He | | would tear away all the unsightly struc- tures that spoiled the picture, let loose cat:le and sheep on the stately slopes and build a cottage for Josepha and himself No m re shoula the whir | | | tread of footsteps over the stones. The engine’s shriex shou!d be stilled ] and all human sounds of joy or woe. The | sell a single acre, and not a single build- land was his, conceded by the highest court in the land, and why should he not do with it as he cnose? And he chose to have the people go away. He chose to have solitude and nature around him. He chose to have the reality of his grand- father’s tale. Wealth he had in plenty to provide him books, clothes and food. More he desired not, and from the cares of property he shrank. Those great piles of stone and brick were nothing to him and he wanted none of them. Those hovels where misery and vice bred miserable vice were not his. Let the people go and take their property with them. CIEY: - HALL:?? So Diego prepared a proclamation. The lawyers thought success had turned their client’s brain. This notice to the waiting people of the city owned by one man was short and direct. It said that Diego Borica desired only bis land with no people on it. He would neither rent nor The jormer citizens of the San Francisco that was no more must move away. Their buildings they mignt tear down and take and for one year they mi ht carry away. After that nhe should raze and bdrn and allow nature o cover the blots made by art. Any who wers 100 poor to move should be conveyed at his expense. The condition of the City after this no- tice was beyond description. What was to be done? Should they endure 1t? Where were they to go? What was the in- terior to do without a port or shipping center? They would combine and keep the invader out. Never should he set foot 1n the city he would destroy. They would appeal to the Nation. A man may do what he likes with his own.” ing would he have. swered by men who all their lives haa been using it for their own justifica:ion. The whole world looked on whiie San Francisco fought and struck at a stone wall. Deep in their bearts the poor who had paid reut to grasping landlords felt a thrill of triumph in the midst of their anger. Princely offers were mude for lots, but what mockery 1o offer gold to the strange mortal who was to burn a hun- dred fortunes to make a cattle range! The very poor began to move helped by his generous bounty, but when the great exodus began wbere could the hundred thousands of people find a place to lay their heads? What did the stone and plaster they could take away avail them when they had no place to put them? Ob, the misery, the ruin! Diegn was deluged with letters asking his plans. He answered them all in a | newspaper. Tne replies only caused deeper | desolation. He would burn, blast and dump into the bay. Ships might come, but why should they when there were none to buy or sell? And the street roads also would die “with the City. The City Hall should house the cattle from the bills, and the wingless anczel should watch | the flocks so much happier than the flocks et g Il M&.;“”( 1 2 Iy, B | Al m | ¢ f "W, ‘“ SAN she watches now. The dead, too, might stay snd no cattle should tramp across the graves, but the tombs and stones must go. Itis easy to see with one wide sweep of | the imagination all the changes that, must come—all the tearing down of life work that must come, because this man would do as he liked with his own. There were pathetic scenes. The statues of the cigar-stands wey * at the prospect of a life with nothing to lean ageinst; clerks | in the employ of the Ciiy wondered how | long they were to kill t'me with no office | to lounge in and no salary to draw; bi- | cyclists mourned to lose their smooth (?) spins down Ma:ket sircet, and women said, “I to d you so.” The c.vilized nations stood aghast that such things should be, but they had al- wavs agreed that a man might do as he pleased with his own land, and their | bands were tied. In this extremity three men formed themselves into a commitiee to convince this strange being, to whom gold was dross, that he had no right to land others needed more. It was 2 crazy idea. and one of the men had long been considered harmlessly mad. Diego had gone to Mexico to report his progress to his gentle mother, whose eyes had filled with tears as she thought of the sorrow of her sisters at leaving their homes. Softly she spoke to Diego of the better life among the people who had | | | FRANCISCO STRANGE STORY OF THE MAN WHO OWNED SAN FRANCISCO him to say to the people of the far city “Btay in your homes, as [ shall stay in mine.” But Diego had hardened his heart and held to his resolve. This queer committee of three found Diego 1n the adobe hut and asked leave 10 speak of their belief. This courteously given, they spoke in turn in English and Spanish and made their argument that no man must take what he cannot use, and that a man can own only what hecan make with nature’s help. Long they spoke, taking no notice of the slim woman in Diego’s shadow, unless to remark the fathomless eyes in the thin face. Josepha rose, and, facing the speakers, with one hand on Diego’s shoulder, she spoke in the pure Spanish learned from her husband’s father: “You have spoken well, and from my heart I thank you. My son will thank you, too, for keeping him from a great wrong. I will never stand on the hills by your bay. The cry of thosesent from their homes would burn my soul. God—the good God—gave the land for all, not for a iew. Go, sirs, tell your people what Josepha, the mother of Diego, says to them in the name of her son, who never yet filled her heart with shame.” IS ALL MINE.” The committee went away but hall pleased. The noble mother had given all back to the peovole, but it would be, as af old, in the hands of a few. The mass ol the people would be no gainers. This idea took possession of the poor, bali-turped brain of one of the men. and in the early dawn he stole back to the plantation and hid himself in the shadow of a cactus. Ab, if only he had not we might have <een a new era of peace and plenty by the Pacitic shore. Diego’s better self had risen. and with Josepha’s counsel he had passed the long night making plans for a great commonwealth, where land should be his who could use it best; and just as the sun rose they stood in the door, and Josepha saw in her son’s dark eyes the loving look we meet in pictures of Him who loved us all. From the cactus came a flash, a report; and those eyes were closed to earth, as a bullet sped through two bodies, and Jo- sepha and Diego entered the other land together. There they found them and the suicide behind the cactus. None of Diego’s race were left, and the great city settled into its otd ways and nothing but story was left of the man who owned San Francisco, Orive HEyYpEN. The Victoria lily of Guiana has a circu- lar leaf from six to twelve feet in diame- ter. It is turned up at the edge like a tray and can support, according to its size, kuown them solong and tried to persuade That was a hard argument to be an- from 100 to 150 pounds. IS T ) Not long ago, at a largely attended me- merial ‘meeting of one of our popular women’s literary clubs, a presumably weil-informed lady, who most certainly thought that she was speaking by the card, made a statement which was not only interesting in itself, but was of spe- cial interest to all newspaper women. In reading a eulogy of a quiie recently deceased and widely known feminine philanthropist of this City the speaker in question took occasion to say that it was solely through the personal efforts of this broadly charitable woman, together with these of a young friend of hers—the founder of the club—that their sisters had beexn admitted to the ranks of the coast paper workers, “Every newspaver woman in this part of the country owes a debt of gratitude to these two far-seeing and noble benefaciors of their sex,” was the solemnly earnest declaration, ‘“'since it was due to their unite | and most pressing personal solici- tation that women were first given a chance on the daily papers.” It is not considered good form to act the part of Mr. Dick and “set right” those who occupy the rostrum at public meet- ings. Moreover, it is doubtful if any present on this occasion were sufficiently well informed themselves to controvert the assertion made thus openly and in all zood faith, even had they possessed the moral courage necessary to enable them ta take issue with a speaker at such a time and place. A little after inquiry, however, among those who are in a position to know whereof they speak made it plain that our newspaper women owe their present posi- tions not to the pleadings of kind-hearted philanthropists anxious to enlarze woman's sphere, but to the fact that they are werthily following in the footsteps of one who, without triends or influence save what her own ability gave her, was the first, and for some years the only, news- paper woman on the coast. Various conflicting statements have been M made as to who really was the pioneer woman reporter and special writer here— the feminine Arnold von Winkelreia who, burying the spears of unfricndly opposi- tion and insidious criticism in During the World’s Fair at a meeting of | the Woman’s Press League, held in honor of our Californian poet, Ina Coolbirth, the brilliant Miss Krout, in speaking of woman 1eporters, gave Annie Laurie the credit of being the first to have an ac- knowledged position among the far- | Western journalists. Mrs. Ella Sterling | Cummings cjaimed that honor for Flora | Haines Apponyi, now Mrs. Loughead, but Miss Coolbirth, from data in her posses- siou, wus enabied to definitely settle the question. Without doubt Mrs. Caroline M. Parker is entitled to all the credit that belongs to the woman who ‘‘blazed the way’’ for us who have come aiter her. Mrs. Parker is a native of Boston and a descendant of warlike ancestors, since her maternal grandfather was a revolutionary soldier and her father was in the war of 1812. Comiog to California in 1858 this brave little woman endured all the hard- ships which fall to the lot of her sex in newly settied regions, and in 1867 came to San Francisco from her home in Hum- boldt County, broken in health and almost entirely dependent on her own exertions for a livelihood for herse'f and her littie daughter, Her initial newspaper work was done on the Pioneer, the first woman’s suffrage paper published in San Francisco. The remuneration was very small, but the practice prepared her for better things, | her own since the space allowed her was very liw- { comed the newspaper woman of tc-day | ited, and she was obliged to thoroughly | with a sisterl: master tne invaluable art of condensa- | tion. Early in 1872 Mre. Parker began profes- sional reporting and special work for TnE Cary, Bulletin, Chronicle and Post, but after a few months’ experience asa free lance was given a regular position on the Post, ' of which Henry George was then editor, and remained with that paper steadily for four years. An account from her own lips of her ex- periences in the days when a woman re- porter was a lusus naturz in our City is interesting in the extreme. Fate has been unkind to Mrs. Parker, hard foriune has®been her lot, and for the last ten years the bright. active, ambitions and hard-working little Woman, who was a quarter of a century ago one of the ‘‘sights” of San KFrancisco, because of the oddity of her avocation, has been a prisoner in a wheeled chair, a victim of rheumatism in its most painful form. Nothing of repining or unhappiness is seen in the face which greets t e specially favored visitor who is admitted to her presence. Patience under affliction, a child-like faith in the All-Good, and a m'nd which refuses to dwell on the dark side of life anda delights in every hint of beauty and blessing that comes into her ‘‘shut in” world, makes that face as sweetly plscid as that of a saint. y cordiality. “Do you know,’* she says to me, “‘that it was one of the editors of Tue CaLy who first suggested to me the possibility breast, made way for us to come zfter her. | sional work on the City dailies,doing occa. | of making my living by jourualism. I met him at a small sccial gathering, and he, knowing of my having written for the woman’s paper, said that there was room for & woman reporter in San Francisco, and thata woman who would work for a while on the diiferent papers without remuneration would undoubtedly secure 4 foothold. I took the hint, but. with a gleam of triumph in the luminous gray eyes, I served no apprenticeship; I was f;rtu’nlto enough to be paid from the very rst.”” One of Mrs. Parker’s dearest treasures is a letter from Mr. George, in which he says that she had been ‘‘one of the most valuable members of his staff,’”’ possess- ing ‘“perfect reliability, a clear, concise, vigorous style ana great power of original observation.” “There were few things in the daily work of a newspaper that you could not do,” the letter states, “and some things that vou could do better than any one else.” Surely such a letter is well worth cher- ishing, and it should be a matter of pride to us present dey workers that our first Tepresentative was a woman who, by her own unaided efforts, won the right to be spoken of in such a way. The newspaper woman of the past wel- FLORENCE PERCY MATHESON, ey 2o o Z forneer Z= o e o7 , e~ m—7/n~,4~—7 “— A2 e Z ‘ : - w,«z/“,,,.a//,a—«;»ym‘/fflw % Q&.«. %va L ERES z_.__7,4_‘/,_‘m4/‘/¢-;41/»—= s s bl des P b 7, i ISR 5 WS, ree /,,. & 7L %a, ¢A¢¢/¢M4, Z ool el o 2> 4—»~7$7'«W7~ ol ole Lta FIE e s T gyl AT