USA > California > A history of the new California, its resources and people; Vol I > Part 22
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CHAPTER XVI.
GROWTH OF THE NEW CALIFORNIA.
One of the most marked features of modern industrial and social life in California is the remarkable immigration movement of the last few years. Though there had been a following of the star of empire toward the west ever since the days of the Argonauts, the movement was not organized by Californians until the beginning of the California Promotion Committee.
Mr. Hamilton Wright has summarized the story of that organization as follows :
The California Promotion Committee is a disinterested society, sup- ported by public subscriptions and kept alive through the work of its mem- bers and officers who give their services gratuitously. The movement for an organization of this character started in April, 1902, but it was not until September of 1902 that it was placed on a good running basis and not until the middle of October that the work began to show effective results. Since September, 1902, the results of the Committee's work have proved cumula- tive. Its influence and reputation have constantly widened. The number of inquiries from all parts of the world have increased and the committee recog- nized as a public institution devoted to the welfare of the state has sent un- biased information to thousands of persons who have now settled and are owning homes and farms as the result of correspondence with the committee. The fund for carrying on the work came through popular subscriptions in amounts varying from one to fifty dollars monthly for the period of one year. The movement was very popular from the first, for there were those who recognized its necessity to such an extent that they were willing to con- tribute funds, although the benefits which accrue to them are those in which they share with the rest of the state and the community at large. Many or- ganizations are established to bring colonists and develop other interests of the state. Comparatively few succeed to such an extent that enthusiasm in the work is manifested in continued financial support. Why, then, has the
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California Promotion Committee been successful and what are the methods under which it has attained success? One answer is sufficient for both queries. The California Promotion Committee has been managed through- out on the principles which apply to a reliable, up-to-date business concern. The work has been impartial, it has been vigorous, and more than all it has been effective. Other states contemplating or already engaged in develop- ment work have sent their representatives to California to study the methods of the Promotion Committee and have expressed themselves as profiting with the knowledge gained. In fact, the secretary of the Merchants' Association of Honolulu, H. T., came to San Francisco, studied the work of the Cali- fornia Promotion Committee, returned to Hawaii, and now in Hawaii there is the Hawaii Promotion Committee. A Texas organization has had its rep- resentative here studying California methods of advertising, while a New Orleans commercial body has adopted the methods of the committee.
The Promotion Committee has brought, in results traceable, thousands of people to California and these people have settled down into the work of the community, purchased property and are a substantial and progressive ele- ment. These families have settled in different portions of the state accord- ing to their needs and according to the ability of each section to give them that for which they seek. It is a tribute to the sagacity of the business men who support the committee that the territory sought to be colonized is of far greater extent than the locality from which the immediate profits of their business are derived. It is generally recognized that, however earnest, no amount of promotion work can ever create an oasis of prosperity amid a desert of financial or agricultural stagnation, and that the general level of prosperity must be raised in order that one section shall prosper. The com- mittee thus takes a broad attitude and discourages invidious comparisons be- tween different sections of the state. The committee has advertised in the best magazines and these advertisements have brought inquiries in answer to which more than 300,000 pieces of literature in regard to California have been sent. The committee has sent lecturers through the east, California farmers have gone through eastern farming districts. Articles on California have been spread abroad through eastern newspapers and magazines. In connection with the California fruit growers the committee has done work
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in the east with the view of assisting in harvesting and caring for the fruit crop.
One feature about the work of the California Promotion Committee is that every letter to an interested easterner is answered personally and not, as is often done, by printed circulars which do not give the thought and indi- vidual attention which is necessary not only to explain to a man why it may be desirable for him to locate in this state, but to give him the specific in- formation which he seeks. The same state or commonwealth will appeal to no two men in precisely the same manner, and thus a circular on general lines will not constitute the direct appeal which a personal letter will when you give a man just the information he desired.
This personal plan of work is a factor in the success of the California Promotion Committee as an agent to develop this splendid state. The com- mittee has had in the field a number of representatives, sometimes as many as six, who have lectured and talked personally to the easterner upon what California has to give him. The committee's representatives have been men who are intimately acquainted with the agricultural and industrial condi- tions in California, who have themselves engaged in building up the state and are therefore able to speak convincingly.
The National Magazine, of Boston, Massachusetts, has the following to say of the committee :
"The work of the state development has reached an advanced stage in California, where the leading commercial bodies, boards of trade and cham- bers of commerce have formed themselves into a central organization known as the California Promotion Committee. The Promotion Committee is de- voted exclusively to promoting the settlement and development of the state at large. Its purposes are wholly public and its members are representatives of the local organizations. The success of the committee has been remarkable. During the past year and one-half it has brought thousands of settlers to the state and located them through the farming and fruit-raising districts. The committee has been instrumental in bringing a great amount of capital and inducing industrial establishiments to locate in California. Considering that it is the only organization of its kind in the world, and that it has no ulterior purpose to serve, the innovation has been worthy of its support. If the
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commercial bodies of the other states can combine with like success they will do well to follow California's example."
The success of the work of the California Promotion Committee is a revelation of the enthusiasm which has been displayed in all sections of the state and the co-operation which is the greatest factor in the work for greater California.
One of the foremost results accomplished by the committee since its or- ganization has been the success attending its efforts in dividing up large tracts of agricultural land, so that this land would be open to small settlers. Already the California Promotion Committee has heard from more than fifty of the largest land owners in the state, that they will be willing to sell their lands to intending purchasers in blocks of one, five, ten, fifteen and twenty acres. In all cases the terms are favorable to the settler, and in many instances wage for work is taken in lieu of cash payments. Almost all of the settlers are possessed of some means, and already many have taken ad- vantage of this splitting up of great tracts. Formerly much of the best land in the state was not available to the settler, because it was held in great blocks and managed on a large scale, the workers being merely transient. These large holdings were due partly to the fact that many of the holdings came through large Spanish land grants and this new management on a large scale continued long after the grants had been confirmed and had passed into other hands. Now, however, the settlers are getting more from the land than ever before, because they are farming it in small blocks and are estab- lished permanently. They are not transient laborers, but are permanently settled in the country and are a most valuable addition to the wealth of the state.
The California Promotion Committee has been instrumental in securing several important conventions to the city and in assisting in bringing many others. During the visit of the German Agriculturists to California last May the committee was in charge of the itinerary of the party and had the visit of these important people lengthened from three to eight days. The German Agriculturists visited all portions of the state and upon their return to Ger- many their views of California were printed and widely disseminated. The committee is now co-operating with the California Creamery Operators' As- sociation with a view of securing the convention of the National Butter
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Makers' Association in 1905. The convention will meet in St. Louis in October, 1904, and will then determine on the convention city for the succeed- ing year. Inasmuch as about 8,000 butter makers from all parts of the United States attend this convention, it is very important that it should come to California. Correspondence and personal work has already been done to secure this convention, and the Creamery Operators' Association are prepar- ing for a good exhibit at the World's Fair as a part of the work of getting the Butter Makers' Association convention to come to California.
The committee is conducting an efficient campaign for tourist hotels in many sections of the state, and it is shown from experience that an increase of hotels in desirable localities create an increase in the number of tourists. California has infinitely greater diversity and scenic attractions than Switzer- land. The amount of money raised annually from industries supported by tourists alone in Switzerland exceeds $40,000,000, and there is no reason that a greater amount should not be expended in California. The state is already equipped with some of the finest tourist hotels in the world and those who have visited hostleries state that in both accommodations and rates, California compares favorably with Switzerland. There is room, however, for many more tourists than those who now come here.
From the start the success of the California Promotion Committee has been remarkable. There was a firm determination, which has been strictly observed throughout the work of the committee, to exclude all "boom mat- ter," to present in a comprehensive and accurate manner the actual resources of the state, the opportunities for settlers, the price of land, etc. It is for this reason that the efforts of the committee in advertising the state in the east have brought remarkable results. Although the committee has advertised on a most extensive scale, yet their advertising has not been of a "boom" nature. No exaggerated statements have been disseminated, and only facts have been given, so that the prospective seller has not been disappointed upon coming here. At the start of the committee's work display advertising was taken in prominent eastern magazines, having an aggregate circulation of 12,000,000 copies. The purpose of this advertising was to call the attention of those interested in California to the fact that by writing to the California Promotion Committee they could secure reliable and unbiased information upon all portions of the state. In addition to the display advertising the com-
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mittee then inaugurated a press campaign throughout the United States and illustrated articles averaging 2,000 words in length were printed in publica- tions having an aggregate circulation of more than 15.000,000 copies. Spe- cial California numbers even of prominent eastern magazines have been is- sued at the suggestion of the committee and so great has been the interest of the east in California that these articles and California numbers have been published without cost to the committee.
Another feature in which the press campaign of the committee in the east has been strengthened is in the wide reviews given its publications. The Cali- fornia Promotion Committee has already issued four publications. "San Francisco and Thereabout." "San Francisco and Its Environs," "California To-day," and "California Addresses by President Roosevelt." These books have been reviewed by eastern publications having an aggregate circulation more than 10,000,000 copies, and as far as the committee knows-so say its members-there is not a single instance of one unfavorable review. The tone of the reviews has been of approbation concerning not only the me- chanical appearance but also the conscientious manner in which these publica- tions have been issued. The circulation of the book "San Francisco and Thereabout" has been close to 20,000 copies, which is remarkable for a book of this nature, and the papers of the east have commented on the enterprising and unique manner in which California does its advertising, as shown by the fact that the books are printed in handsome form and written in a most creditable literary style. Another volume of the California Promotion Com- mittee is "California To-day." by Charles Sedgwick Aiken. This book treats on all portions of the state. It contains 191 pages of matter, 61 of which are full-page illustrations. A year was taken in its compilation, and information such as prospective settlers would desire is accurately given therein. "Cali- fornia To-day" is distributed free of charge at home and on receipt of six cents in postage it is sent to any part of the world. In addition to these four books the Promotion Committee has printed a great many pamphlets, folders. . etc. Another feature of the work of the committee in the east has been the telegraphing of San Francisco temperatures to a very large number of cities throughout the United States. In fact San Francisco ranks third in the num- her of cities in which these daily temperatures are posted. The Promotion Committee arranged for bulletin boards upon which these daily temperatures
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might be displayed. The committee has recently arranged with the United States Department of Agriculture for the distribution of the weather bureau bulletins "Climatology of California," by Prof. Alexander G. McAdie. This bulletin is most valuable to everyone and is of special value to the farmers and agriculturists. A limited edition of 2,500 copies was issued by the gov- ernment at a cost of $4,000. Before the plates were destroyed, however, the government, by arrangement with the committee, has printed a thousand extra copies which will be distributed at the price of 50 cents each, the money being refunded to the government. This is without doubt the most complete book on the climatology of any state.
The work of the committee has been personal as well as through the press. The committee has sent seven experienced lecturers through the east. These gentlemen have been competent to deal with the state. They have dis- tributed thousands of circulars upon California and have held meetings in which stereopticon views of the state were exhibited. They have made cam- paigns from farm to farm in buggies and have personally talked with thou- sands of people. The result of their work has been directly shown by the number of people who have come to California with whom they have had di- rect correspondence. The enthusiasm in this branch has been great and promi- nent people of the state have been glad to offer themselves for this patriotic service.
An interesting department of the California Promotion Committee has been the Employment Bureau, which has sought for reliable help for farmers and orchardists who have not had a sufficient labor supply in marketing their crops. Nine hundred and seventeen persons came to California last spring as a result of the committee's Employment Bureau, and there have been many thousands of whom no record was kept, but who have been satisfactorily em- ployed through the bureau. It is a singular fact that the bureau has been the means of interesting many people of property in California farms in the east and who have been engaged in harvesting the crop while getting the lay of the land and seeing what portions of the state were best suited to their demands. As an instance of this may be mentioned a fruit grower of Texas with the sum of $6,000 who, with his family. engaged in the fruit packing houses and in the orchards and who finally bought a fine place in the northern portion of the Sacramento Valley, and who is now doing well.
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In all more than 84,000 people came to California last year and many of them invested and engaged in various businesses.
After all is said and done, the work of the California Promotion Com- mittee has resulted in much good to California and more will follow.
Mr. Wright's story of the work of the committee shows how the New California is growing. Further details in the form of transportation figures are of interest.
Within four years the Southern Pacific Company has brought into Cali- fornia 139,884 prospective residents, and has expended in improving its rail- way system $86,603,938. These are two big items, among many small ones, which tell what "The Railroad"-familiarly so-called since the days of the building of the first overland line-has done lately for California. Figures like these tell their own story, but the details of what they represent cannot but interest Californians. The lesson of the work behind these figures is that if all the great forces that stand for the promotion of the state's best interests would only co-operate and do proportionately as much as the Southern Pacific Company has done and is doing, the year is not far away when California will reach the twenty million mark in its population, and that doesn't mean any jostling of elbows within California's tremendous area. Statisticians and scientists elsewhere in this New Year "Chronicle" of promise and hope will point out to you that twenty millions of people can live more comfortably and happily here in the valleys of the Sacramento, the San Joaquin, Sonoma, Napa, San Gabriel and hundreds of other fruitful vales than they can in the valley of the Ohio, the Susquehanna, the Housatonic, the Rhine, the Po, or the Danube.
That is all settled; scientists backed by experience have demonstrated these facts of social and climatic economy. Most Californians, as they la- ment the state's lack of desirable population, recognize such truths and they write letters and mail newspapers and send illuminated post cards as far afield as individual inclination and pocketbook will permit. This all helps. But more helpful, because greater and more widespread, are the efforts of a big corporation like the Southern Pacific, not only to tell the world about Cali- fornia. but to bring a good slice of the earth's population out this westward way. There is not a quarter of the space here to tell the story. The work is too great, the letters are too long, the world is too wide, people are too many, and life is too short to subdivide and paragraph and interline the narrative
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of the company's unceasing labors that all lead to one result-FOR CALI- FORNIA. Advertising in a thousand ways, attractive, alluring, wide-awake and insistent; constructing new lines and rebuilding old ones : new depots, new cars, new locomotives ; the marshaling of an army of indefatigable agents in all the corners of the earth; the equipment of independent, free-lance lec- turers with lantern slides; reproductions of attractive California photographs, and in many cases with ready-made lectures, too-all these are only the black-letter headings of the story that will tell you of what "The Railroad" to-day is doing in a very systematic and successful manner. The figures above speak as only figures can. They tell of the year and the four years past; the figures for the three years to come, according to present plans, should make these look as insignificant by comparison as the White Moun- tains of New England are insignificant when compared to California's Sierra Nevada. How is it all done? How? When? Where? These are questions interesting to the average reader which can be answered only briefly here.
The colonist movement, as it is known to railway men, the selling of a low-rate ticket to a householder to permit him to come into a new country to spy out the land with view to removing his residence here, has been thus far most successful in attracting travel Californiaward, and will continue. It was this movement which was largely responsible for building up Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and other middle western states. Seeing is believing, in cases where the country is worth seeing. The visit to California of one ob- serving man influential in his neighborhood is worth more than a ton of pamphlets. When John Jones of West Cornwall, Connecticut, returns home after spending two or three months in California, he is able to tell some con- vincing story concerning the possibilities and opportunities of this section of the nation, and can hold his audience more effectively than many printed pages. He knows because he has seen, and his arguments are unanswerable. The far-reaching effect of 139,884 human documents like John Jones-that is the grand total of colonist tickets sold by the Southern Pacific agents 1900-1903- cannot be stated adequately. The records show that the issuance of colonist rates for California met a popular demand in the spring of 1900, when these tickets were first issued, though only 6,439 were sold, while 39.616 were sold in the spring of 1903. The year's total, 1903. reached the surpassing figure of 76,068. The issuance of these low one-way rates each spring and each
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fall is a settled movement which is widely advertised. Small pamphlets, tell- ing of these rates and California's attractions, twenty, thirty or fifty thousand of them, according to demand, are distributed broadcast in all the centers of population of this country and Europe. Agents everywhere, not only of this company, but of connecting railway and steamship lines, are kept in- formed ; advertisements are inserted in all the principal newspapers and maga- zines, and in this way the colonist round-up is effected.
MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE.
Helpful to the colonist movement, as well as stimulating ordinary travel, is the miscellaneous literature printed and sent out. This published matter includes not only Abroad, a European monthly publication, and Sunset Maga- sine-but books, pictures, folders, maps and pamphlets of all descriptions. This list includes books describing the Sacramento and San Joaqin valleys, the Big Trees, Yosemite, and a primer telling of California prunes and the way to cook them, besides California For Everybody, a pamphlet containing short signed articles by residents of California, speaking from experience. This printed matter is distributed by agents all over this country and in Europe and in the Orient, as well as by agents of connecting lines. The daily mail brings often between one and two hundred inquiries about California, and these letters are all promptly answered with the necessary supply of literature.
Within the past three years the Sunset Magasine, published by this com- pany, has grown from a small pamphlet of thirty-two pages to a publication of 208 pages, with a monthly circulation of over 40,000. In excellence of typography, artistic illustrations, and entertaining value of text, it is the equal of any magazine of its general literary character. Its avowed object is to picture by words and text the wonders of the west, and each number contains a hundred or more half-tone engravings made from the best pho- tographs obtainable, drawings by California and western artists, and stories, descriptive matter, and poems, by the best of western writers. The maga- zine is in no sense an advertising publication-that is, advertising its pub- lishers. Its matter is to advertise simply California, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and all the far western states, to tell and to show non-residents faithfully and entertainingly just what there is to be found here. It tells of the products of the brain, of the works of painters and of
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