The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 19, 1897, Page 9

THE SAN FRANCISCO CAEL, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1897 GOVERNO JOMHN FEMORSE MD, FOBERT Y. HAYNE PN Yl 3 ALIFORNTA possesses in their most favorable form the { CALIFORNIA CAN SUPPLY THE W WITH PRODUCTS. @ e as mall A B o e et ot wealth and prosperity coveted by all mankind. For the con- struction of ships, we have iron and timber, and the raw ma- terials necessary to the arts and manufactures. Granite and sandstone abound, and to my knowledge the marble columns for the Stockton library could be procured in but one other State of the Union. We have sufficient copper, asphalt, pe- troleum and borax to supply the country. What California needs is ehergetic development. With less than 2 per cent in population, she produces 80 per cent of the country’s borax, nearly 40 per cent of its gold, all its beet sugar, raisins and quicksilver, in farm productions stands tenth, in fruit grow- ing has no peer. Our commerce, according to the last census, was 5 per cent of the Union. In manufactures, in the working up of raw material we allow our growth to be crippled by the preference given to foreign products, and our infant industries to be killed by the influx of Eastern prison made goods. We have grown, it is true, but we have forgotten while growing to sufficiently advertise that fact to the world and so create mar- kets for our products. How easily this may be done is shown by the increase in the demand for our dried fruit brought about by the Hamburg exhibit this year. It is to be hoped that the next Legislature will provide for the great Paris Exposi- tion, and the maintenance of a State agency. It can not be doubted that the advent of what we are pleased to call a New Era has aroused our citizens to the knowledge of the wonderful resources of the State and to bet- ter directed action. JAMES H. BUDD, Governor of California. CALIFORNIA'S SEABOARD IS HER GREATEST SAFEGUARD. v era dawning upon California brings its well as its rewards. That the wave is coming, the signs of the times it will be but a passing revival or W race for supremacy. Neither location nor climate cre- | ates municipal superiority. To retain her high rank as the queen city of the st, the people of San Francisco must awaken to their HAT San Francisco needs is to be awakened to her potentialities. Too many of her people ad- here to the habits of thought that grew up in the control her. San Francisco is a notorious offender in this respect. The crimping institutions of our port are the climax of all that is degrading to the skill and mor- |, ng depends upon the people of the ndisputed metropolis of California, sht to share foremost in the general State. The development of the es, of the soil and transportation by land t look largely to this city for their capi- San Francisco in turn will look to the d population and settlement of the State to e her commerce and industries, e e natural location of San Francisco has lulled her ens into a false and fearful disregard of e acred duties. Other cities are bidding strongly for the | prize. The united efforts of their inhabitants may win what the disjointed strifes of our people will lose. “In unity there is strength.” * The first duty, therefore, of the citizens of San Francisco is to join hands and march shoulder to shoulder in the common cause of this city’s advancement. Nine hundred and twenty business firms linked together by the liberal ties of the Mer- chants’ Association present a nucleus for invincible ac- tion. Let the citizens of- San Francisco unite with them, cast aside all partisan and class feelings and as a wilderness. In considering San Francisco as a seaport an im- portant correlative is the seaman, What are the needs and future ol our seamen? I am of those who believe that this question has an important bearing upon every phase of maritime discussion. There are few, if any, pursuits in which the quality of the labor involved is so essential a part, yet which has been so uniformiy—I might say systematically—ignored or misdirected. The ship builder is careful to insure the best quality of ‘workmanship in the business of construction, yet when the completed craft is sent forth upon her native ele- ality of our seamen. Our treatment of the seaman is a by-word in the mouths of students and travelers and a remorse in the hearts of our citizens. ‘While the commercial interests are organizing let them not forget this necessary tenet of their creed, that the interests of the seaman as a productive factor de- mand consideration before those of the purely sponging element. It will always be found that maritime su- premacy is co-existent with a maritime spirit in the whole people—in other words, with esteem for the sea- men by the people who live on shore. San Francisco needs to deal their duties and responsibilities. Other cities enjoying no such natural advantages as ours forge ahead in the earnestly and energetically with this question—not from the standpoint of charity, but of na- tional prosperity. WALTER MACARTHUR. unit advance the highest interests of this metropolis. J. RICHARD FREUD. ment, she is frequently, and indeed generally, lacking in the genius of good seamanship that should guide and TR L ;J i 4}- 0 [ i1 OCEAN TRADE WILL YET YIELD CALIFORNIA’S BEST HARVEST. THE DEMAND OF THE HOUR— fiu;‘:fl NEW MARKETS IN OUR STATE. |}, OMPARED with the California of a decade ago, the California of to-day is a decidedly new California. Despite her wonderful growth, her progress, however, is yet in its merest infancy. As for her present needs, her chief material want is the further broadening of her markets, California is prepared to furnish the civilized world with dried and canned fruit products. Her or- chards and vineyard lands are well nigh inexhaustible. Let but the way be made clear for the in- creased disposal of our orchard products, and our State will further astonish the world as to its possi ties in that one direction. - “Few people realize the progress that is constantly being made T is by way of the beautiful Pacific, with its free waters forever washing her shores, that California must find her future greatness. We must learn the lesson that it is wiser and more profitable to carry our own products to market and bring our purchasers back in our own conveyances than to pay out large sums of our golden earnings to peoples of foreign countries for this service. The money that leaves our country is removed from circulation among us, and we thus lose the use of it. The statistics go to show that during the months of July, September, Oc- our grain fleet consisted of 116 British, 2 Russian, 2 German, 1 Norwegian, in California fruit culture,” said a young and en- terprising fruit grower, a university graduate, who was in attendance at the late convention, to me. “Methods which a year ago we thought practically perfect, we have since abandoned for still more pro- gressive methods. The world never before saw,” he continued, “such rapid changes in the fruit industry as are daily being made by our wide awake and up to date fruit growers, in the direction of higher, bet- ter and more economic modes of production,” It should not be forgotten that however much a country y produce, unless it can place that pro- duce outside, it will ultimately suffer from over- production. The demand for new markets cannot, therefore, be repeated too often. It may be said that in them lies our State’s salvation. California has not only the soil and the climate, such as few other spots on the globe can boast of, but she has what is fully as valuable; people with brains, intelligence and enterprise, who know how to make the most of the bountiful resources with which a kind Providence has so generously blessed her. We should keenly realize, however, that one of California’s great needs at this time is the broad- ening and developing of her markets. The world as a market is yet before us. Careful inquiry and in- vestigation has developed the fact that there are untold multitudes of consumers in the dersely pop- ulated countries of Europe ready and willing; aye! eager to eat our fruits, to pay a fair price for them, and to thus confer a blessing upon us and them- selves. Let us, then, call upon the brains, the energy and the enterprise of the State to devote a share of their thought, their effort and their means to the exploiting of the great world markets for the sale of the products of our vast orchards and vineyards, so that we will hasten the day when our magnificent State will be a still greater blessing to the nations of the earth, and may richly support within her own borders added millions of happy, industrious peo- ple. H. WEINSTOCK. HE great need of the city is good government. The government of most American cities is bad. Their charters have been framed upon State and Federal models, and their leading principle is separa- tion into independent departments. The justification for this in the State and Federal governments is the danger of tyranny. This danger does not exist in mu- nicipal governments because they are of limited pow- ers. But in their case the principle has been not only applied, but carried to extremes. Officials are elected for fixed terms and are not accountable to anybody. The accountability to the good-natured, forgetful public, is at best remote and contingent; but even this has no ap- plication where the officer does not seek a re-election. Our present system is bad owing to an utter lack of unity of operation among the different officers. - The best alternative presenting itself is to place the power in the hands of a large Council, whose members would be the only officers elected by the people and which would act through a Mayor and committees selected from the Councilmen to ex- ercise their functions as long as they had the confi- dence of the Council. As this Council would have through its representatives supreme control, unity of operation Would result and the accountability of every official to it, or its representatives, would insure effi- ciency of operation of ®ach part. In that respect it would be at least equal to the single officer plan. In other .respects it would be better, because there would not be the same temptation to self-aggran- dizement. The size of the Council would prevent this. There would not be enough governorships, sen- atorships and other plums to go round. Moreover, the Council would not be so subject to outside influ- ences. It Is more difficult and expensive to handle a large body of men than a single man. If Congress had consisted of only one member Mr. Huntington would probably have got his funding bill through. But it will be objected that the plan would re- sult in a combination between the Mayor and a ring in the Council. But there are remedies for this, The greatest temptations to such a combi- nation are the patronage and disposal of public franchises and privileges. The former could be removed by a rigid system of civil service rules, the latter by a requirement of sale to the highest bidder after proper notice. And the re- moval of the chief temptations could be supplemented by the im- position of certain legal pains and GOOD GOVERNMENT. tober and November, . . penalties. The principle of legal responsibility for official acts is a valuable one,and I wonder that it has not been more resorted to. It has been the fashion recently to sneer at ‘“reformers” who resort to’ legal remedles for ills of this nature, and one hears many pronouncements as to the impossibility of improving anything by law. It is indeed impossible to accom- plish anything by ignorant or corrupt legislation, as too much of ours is. But there are numerous and striking instances of the effectiveness of well-direct- ‘ed legal action. A few lines in the constitution practically destroved the business of gambling in mining stocks. The English corrupt practices acts reduced to a minimum bribery in elections, which pre- viously prevailed to a scandalous extent. The Aus- tralian ballot law rendered the ballot effective in the hands of the employes of large concerns. Legal remedies of the right kind are effective enough, and it would not be difficult to draft a law which would prevent combinations between the Mayor and the Councilmen. Theoretical considerations, therefore, are in favor of government by a large Council. Practical experi- ence confirms this. With the exception of the size of the body the form of government is essentially the same as that upon which private corporations suc- cessfully conduct business of vast magnitude. The difference in the size of the Council is the result of the difference between private and public corpora- tions. The best regulated European cities are gov- erned in this way, and the real Government of the British empire is upon much the same lines. But even this form of municipal government would require the following safeguards, viz.: First, an effective limitation upon the power of taxation; second, an effective limitation upon the power to con- tract indebtedness in excess of the revenue provided, except upon a vote of two-thirds of the electors; third, a rigid system of civil service rules; fourth, summary legal process for the removal of officials at the suit of any taxpayer for plain violation of official duty; fifth, want of power to pass any unreasonable ordinance—the question of reasonableness being for the courts; sixth, disposal of all public franchises and privileges and the letting of all contracts to tne high- est responsible bidder under proper conditions, the re- cipient to be responsible not only to the city but to ‘any private person injured by his actfon; seventh, referendum (rnot initiative) as to any particular measure under proper conditions. ROBERT Y. HAYNE. 4 Italian, 3 French and 3 American vessels (do not overlook these “3 Americans”), and that they carried away grain products alone valued at $12,191,000, upon ‘which the freight money paid to support British ship yards was at least $2,700,000, and this upon only one class of our products exported and for only five months of the year. These figures will be very largely increased (at least doubled) when we add the freights paid to foreign vessels for the year, and on other exports. And on the imports the same story applies, with the single exception of such as come g from the Hawailan Islands, these being carried principally in California owned vessels. This proportion applies generally to the entire United States as well as to California, but when we consider that the ocean traffic must be largely fos- tered and managed by the States bordering the oceans by way of the great ports of.the Atlantic and Pacific, and that the responsibility for the Pacific trade rests at present almost exclusively on San Francisco, it seems germain to emphasize the fact that California will be chiefly accountable for a con- tinuance of the foreign supremacy over our home- made and home-owned Pacific Coast merchant ma-< rine engaged in the foreign carrying business. True, in the coasting or domestic merchant marine, we have a factor of which we may be proud, but this is mainly engaged in carrying our productions to each other, between the ports of the States. It is valua- ble and important as exerting a good influence upon the otherwise all-powerful railroad monopolies, whose motto is and ever has been, “All the traffia will bear.” But we need give ourselves no especial anxiety regarding the coasting marine, for our ser- vants at Washington have cared for that in a gen- eral way by protecting it from the consuming compe- tition of cheap foreign labor by laws requiring that all vessels engaged in this business must be Amer- ican built and owned. But as a State we can encourage both domestic ¥ and foreign going American shipping by removing the unwise burdens now levied by law. posterity should be a strong incentive in making California a leading maritime State. CHAS. E. NAYLOR.