USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume II > Part 5
USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume II > Part 5
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In 1883, when Riverside was incorporated as a city of the sixth class the second matter that came before the city council was a petition pre- sented by Mrs. N. P. Button (wife of Rev. Chas. Button, minister of the First Baptist Church), asking on behalf of the women of the city that the saloon business be compelled to pay a license tax of $100 per month. The petition was granted and thus the fight against the saloon was started. It was hoped that regulation by high license would be effective but although it cut down the number of saloons (at one time there were four in Riverside), it did but little to curb the liquor habit. There were those who advocated a tax of $500 per month, F. A. Miller and L. M. Holt having appeared before the city trustees advocating a measure to that effect. Thus the fight went on until the county was organized in 1893, when an ordinance was passed by the Board of Supervisors of the county prohibiting the sale of liquor within the county limits. The city itself being beyond the jurisdiction of the county went along on high license of $2,000 per year until September 6, 1897, when an ordinance was passed prohibiting the saloon. This ordinance, however, permitted any hotel with forty rooms to supply wine and beer to guests at meals and this was tolerated for years in deference to tourist traffic which was said to demand such a provision. The Glenwood Mission Inn among the number furnishing liquor to their guests, Mr. Miller had to do as others did, in order as it was said to encourage tourist travel, but always under protest saying it was against his own wishes. On the whole this worked very well but there was always more or less drunkenness, more than under prohibition. When National prohibition became a law it was hailed with joy by everyone and liquor selling became a thing of the past. Riverside was always in the lead in the fight against the saloon and was the first city and county to take active action against the sale of liquor and a drunken man is never seen on the street. The "bootlegger" is not known among our own people and the occasional one who is caught is either carrying it through the county from the Mexican border or a foreign born catering to some of his own countrymen.
Should prohibition or the saloon be submitted to the voters of the county prohibition would carry with an overwhelming majority.
Vol. II-3
CHAPTER XXXVI
MILITARY HISTORY
Riverside has always been loyal and maintained a consistent and patriotic position on all national questions. Although settled five years after the Civil war, early in her history many war heroes settled and became useful citizens. It is said that in the early days probably ten per cent of the voters were war veterans. A. J. Twogood, one of the party who looked up the location, was the first, it will not be necessary to give names. The first local G. A. R. Post organized comprised the names of thirty-one members and that was not by any means all of the army men. There was also a sprinkling of Confederate veterans who all made good citizens, and on Decoration day all were remembered alike. Some of them held responsible offices and there never was brought up any of the old issues of the war, but those who had worn the blue or the grey mingled together amicably. The issues were dead long before the heroes, who have sadly diminished, passed away.
In December, 1888, a local company of the National Guard of California was organized in Riverside, known as the Riverside Rifles. Later it was reorganized and made into Company M of the Seventh Regiment. Upon the outbreak of the Spanish war the company enlisted for a two-year term in the United States service, and under command of C. F. Pann arrived at San Francisco with three commissioned officers and one hundred enlisted men, May 7, 1898. The company never got further than San Francisco and after months of weary waiting they finally returned to Riverside.
In the World's war Riverside did her share in that conflict. There were in all 2,348 men drafted, many of whom went overseas. There were many more preparing to enter the lists, but the armistice proclama- tion on November 11, 1918, put a sudden stop to all proceedings. Out of the total number enlisted eighty-seven were killed or died of disease. All classes were represented and a good many languages spoken. Students from the Indian school did their share, some among their number being killed.
All classes in Riverside, men and women, strove to do their full share in preparations where they were not eligible for service, and the Red Cross and Salvation Army did their share with others, both in the field and at home. Especially was there emulation and pride in taking up our full quota of bonds whenever it was necessary. Many, both soldiers and civilians, were disappointed that Berlin was not reached, as the cry "On to Berlin" was the popular refrain. The Riverside Military Band did yeoman service on all public occasions. However as it was, much life was preserved and property saved from destruction (even if the troops did not reach Berlin) by the armistice.
John M. Davison, 273 Myers Street, this city, has received his hon- orable discharge from the United States Marine Corps, according to advices received here today which indicate that Lieut. Col. Giles Bishop, in charge of the San Francisco recruiting division, has fixed his signature to the official papers.
Davison was among twenty-four marine reservists in Southern Califor- nia to receive their discharges. He was with the marines in France, and upon his discharge was awarded a good conduct medal "for faithful and meritorious service." It is only by the most careful attention to
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duty, constant application and clear record that this honor, the awarding of a good conduct medal, can be obtained.
To the uninitiated the awarding of this medal might not appear very important, but to those who know, it means much. It means for one thing that ex-Private Davison has left the service to mingle with his fellow men as an exceedingly worthy citizen. It means that at any time he would be welcomed back into the corps, but most of all it means the completion of a meritorious career in Uncle Sam's military branch.
William C. Evans, son of P. T. Evans, born in Riverside, who while at Stanford at the age of nineteen, volunteered for the army, is a boy whose bravery in the World's war won for him a Congressional medal. "Bill," as he familiarly is known by his boy and girl friends, is at present at Stanford.
What "Bill" did to earn a place in the book published by Harry R. Stringler, under the title of "Heroes All," was never told by "Bill" and his act of bravery never would have been known by his Riverside friends had it not been that a copy of this book reached the desk of his father, P. T. Evans.
This is what the book says about the Riverside boy and explains his advance from the rank of private to second lieutenant during the progress of the war with Germany and her allies :
"William C. Evans, Sanitary Detachment, 306th Infantry. For extra- ordinary heroism in action near Bazoches, France, August 27-28, 1918.
"This soldier showed extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty by attending the wounded without rest or relief, under heavy shell fire, until he fell unconscious from exhaustion. He remained at work for two days under circumstances which called for the greatest determination and courage. Home address, Riverside, California." On the conclu- sion of the war Mr. Evans resumed his studies at Stanford and will graduate in June, 1922.
JOHN R. WEBB. Some time ago the press published a story of John R. Webb, son of the late Holton Webb and Mrs. Theodore Crossley. This young man was honored by the government of France and received the famous Croix de Guerre medal for his bravery under fire.
The Riverside boy never told his friends just how he earned this honor paid him by the French government. but in Mr. Stringer's book. "Heroes All." the act that won the medal is told to Riverside people for the first time. This is what it says:
"John R. Webb, second lieutenant, 301st Battalion (tank corps). For extraordinary heroism in action near Bellicourt, France, September 29, 1918. While his crew was engaged in digging out the tank which had become ditched in a shell hole in front of the main Hindenburg line, an enemy machine gun opened fire on them at a distance of 30 yards. Being unable to use his guns on account of his position, Lieutenant Webb crawled forward to the machine gun and killed the enemy gunners with his pistol. His act enabled the men to free the tank, which subsequently aided the advancing infantry."
Besides the Croix de Guerre this Riverside boy was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross given by the United States Government and the Loyal Legion of Honor medal from the Government of France. Besides these three were two other citations.
John R. Webb is a deputy sheriff and with his brother he is conduct- ing the Crossley Garage for his mother at Tenth and Main streets.
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Riverside County sent her share of nurses and Red Cross workers as well as soldiers to the World war. The record of one Red Cross worker would probably be much like any other.
Miss Elizabeth Andrews, of Corona, was sent across with a unit chosen and financed by Stanford University. The unit was chosen for civilian relief, but when it had gone as far as London, the need of American girls in American hospitals was so great that they immediately changed to the army. Miss Andrews was sent to an evacuation hospital on the Meuse River close in back of the Argonne, where the lights of battle could be seen, and where the ground trembled from resounding guns. This was in July, 1918, just after the victory at Chateau Thierry.
During the black days of the Argonne and St. Mihiel, Miss Andrews was the only Red Cross worker in a hospital with a capacity of 2.500 and most of the time the beds were filled with boys who needed her help. Bandaging, interpreting for prisoners, hunting news about men missing in action, writing letters for the helpless, and distributing supplies and cheer, was the Red Cross workers job, until after the Armistice, often working with nurses and doctors forty-eight hours in wind and rain and horrors and dangers of war with few moments of rest at a time.
After November 11, Miss Andrews received an appointment to Coblenz, Germany, with the Army of Occupation, but decided to go with her unit to the embarkation port of St. Nazairre, so after a few weeks in Nice and Southern France, she joined her unit in February, 1919, and began hunting information about the men missing in action, from men going home. This work was less interesting, but valuable to the govern- ment and consoling to the ones who had lost their sons and brothers in the war.
In July, 1919, the camp broke up and Miss Andrews with another member of the unit went to Belgium and then down the Rhine, visiting the English soldiers at Cologne, the American soldiers at Coblenz and the French at Wiesbaden. After a short stay in Paris, they were sent to Italy and later in August sailed for the United States from Genoa. by way of Gibralter.
Miss Ada L. Corkhill, of 611 East Sixth Street, Corona, California. was enrolled in the Red Cross Nursing Service in 1917. She was assigned to Camp Cody in Deming, New Mexico, where she began active service in the Base Hospital, January 15, 1918. After seven months' service she received orders to proceed to New York. Arrived in New York August 5th where she was assigned to duty with Base Hospital No. 51. After three weeks preparation sailed for France, August 24th, on the LaFrance. Arrived in Brest, September 3rd, where four days were spent at the Pontenzen Barracks. On September 7th boarded a French train with her unit and after four days and nights arrived at Toul. where were situated the evacuation hospitals and were in time to care for the wounded from the St. Mihiel drive. February 13, 1919, left Toul for Brest, where a number of days were spent at the Pontenzen Barracks. Sailed for the United States on the Great Northern, arriving in New York, March 3d; arrived in Corona March 16, 1919, and relieved from active service, April 24, 1919.
CHAPTER XXXVII
OTHER SUBJECTS
THE LABOR QUESTION. The question of labor has always been a great one and is probably as settled as any problematical question possibly can be for Riverside. Naturally, in a settlement where all were workers, there could not arise the prejudice against labor that otherwise would where there were classes. There has never been in Riverside anything like what might be termed aristocracy as in a community where there were slaves and masters, or as under Spanish rule, where there was the grandees and more or less of peonage and where were granted large tracts of land to which required a large following to look after the interests of the owner. Apart from the South where slavery prevailed the nearest approach that has been in the United States to any of these systems were the large cattle ranges, but they, however, were on a different system and the cowboys from a different class and possessed of more or less education. The very existence of either peonage or slavery depends on ignorance. The peon had no opportunity and the slave was not given any and it was a crime under the law to educate the slave.
Under a system of small holdings like Riverside, in the very nature of things, education is one of the essentials and when it is known that in Riverside 44 cents out of every dollar paid in for taxes goes for education and that Corona, one of the leading cities outside of the county seat pays $6,000 per annum for conveyance of pupils to her central schools, it will be seen just how much the matter of education occupies the attention of our people. Not only that-Spanish, Mexican, Indian and foreigner, who are unable to speak English, are all received in our public schools on the same footing and educated side by side with the native born American it will be seen how the matter of equality before the law prevails where everyone does their own labor. It is, however, found in practice that reasons of utility and convenience point to a better system by a separation of those who do not understand or speak English fluently for a time at least.
Under the system of equality of education it would be almost an impossibility to make any very invidious distinction in the matter of labor and there is nothing to prevent anyone from getting the highest education they are capable of. The law again proclaims the equality of all, but it cannot create equality of individuality it gives equal oppor- tunity. But although opportunities are open to all in spite of educa- tional and other opportunities when it comes to actual life there arise inequalities and some are capable of one thing and some of another and so there need be no fear that all will be likely to select the most genteel or more remunerative occupations.
To meet the difficulty of getting labor in the necessary demand the great resort at first was to Chinese. There was in the late '70s and the early '80s a surplus of Chinamen who were brought into the country in great numbers to help build the Central and Union Pacific railroads and when the railroads were built, that labor was cheap and plenty and filled the emergency fairly well. But it was soon found that although they were all right on railroad work when they came into our settle- ments it was not a desirable element in our newer settlements nor in house- holds where they filled the places of domestics and when the Chinese exclusion act was passed by Congress they gradually disappeared. Then
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came the Japanese in our fruit business to fill out the demand for a more skilled class of labor which demand they, on the whole, satisfied better than the Chinese, but in practice they were not so dependable, for they would take advantage of employers when more advantageous oppor- tunities arose and were ambitious of entering business for themselves. Now they in a large measure control the vegetable and small fruit market, not only here, but in the Imperial Valley. What may be the result of the present agitation against the Japanese on the Pacific can hardly be fore- seen in view of the fact that eastern people and politicians are not alive to the facts in the case or the future consequences. We here can only trust to the good sense of the American people to do in the end what is right and what ought to be the rights of nations as of individuals to say who may or may not be welcome to our homes or residents of our nation.
On public works or as section men on our railways, the Mexican appears to be filling the demand for labor in which physical force is the main requisite, and the Mexican is fairly satisfactory in these depart- ments of labor. In more particular callings, such as orange and deciduous fruit picking and handling native born Mexicans who have been educated in our public schools, are coming to be used very largely and the women in cutting fuit in the canneries or in orange packing are taking their places largely alongside of American women and the large sums of money paid out in this way being kept at home is adding very much to the comfort of families and to building up Southern California. Recent state legislation in favor of women workers has made a great improve- ment in the situation causing much more contentment and enabling many to make comfortable homes. To all appearances now the labor situation is settled and there is not the strife and discord that appears to prevail where large bodies are unionized and determined to rule or ruin the country. Co-operation between employer and employee is more the rule in Southern California than it is anywhere else and is one of the factors that is making Southern California the land of promise for the weary ones of the nation.
Ex-peons and the lower classes from Mexico have been brought over the border to help in the cotton fields and in other ways, but it is not so valuable as native born, educated in the public schools. Under present conditions no anxiety is felt on the labor situation.
ROADS. Riverside has always been noted for its good roads. The soil being a fine loam mixed with more or less clay on the bench lands, always packs well and remains so during the dry season. In the rainy season, however, in continued rains travel makes them very muddy.
The old Mexican roads were usually followed, as they in general chose the locations of easiest travel and grades. Not much could be done at first on account of lack of means and appliances. Riverside was founded before the great discoveries in oil gave California the advantages she lacked in regard to fuel and lighting. This was, too, before Wizard Edison did so much with electricity, the telephone and the phonograph, and it was impossible to conceive of the changes that were going to be made on account of these discoveries and their application. Not only have they contributed to the people's necessities, but to their pleasures, and destroyed forever the inconveniences of isolation and distance from civilized centers. First came the oiled roads, and almost simultaneously the automobile. For a short time it looked as if the bicycle was going to supersede the horse in many ways as a convenience in getting around the neighborhood, but man-power was too expensive, when gasoline
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came into use. The bicycle, however, had its brief day and influence towards better roads. The railroad was supposed to be the last and final thing in long-distance travel as well as urban and interurban travel in Southern California, where little cities are so close together, but just when the railroad was being the accepted climax of everything in locomo- tion and lines of travel by vehicles were being neglected, along comes the automobile, demanding better roads, and owners of automobiles were having influence in civic and political centers and good roads became one of the necessities of the situation. Oil for surfacing and laying the dust came into general use and was admirable in its way and the street sprinkler went into oblivion and an expensive relic of the past. Oil with a coating of sand to give body to it was cheaper than water and much cleaner. No longer had the family carriage and later the automobile to be washed almost daily to remove the mud arising from street sprinkling or from rain, the oiled road was clean, rain or shine.
It was but a step from the oiled surface to the macadam and con- crete. The oiled road was so much better for light travel, and soon the freighter found it out and the increased loads broke through the oiled surface and the macadam and concrete took the travel and the better road took again the heavier load to an almost unbelievable extent and again the roads would not stand the strain and the strife between the solid roads became almost a game as to which would prevail. The better the road the heavier the truck load, until nothing could be devised to meet it unless we got heavy steel or some such substitute, but the powers that be and that are ordained of men came to the rescue and made rules that the load must be restricted to a reasonable extent, and it looks now as if the new roads will stand the strain. At least that is the last word in travel.
Incidentally the railroads have profited by the new application of oil, and with oil-burning locomotives and oiled roads travelers by rail can enjoy the best features of our Southern California and ride in com- fort with open doors and windows without the discomforts of smoke, cinders or dust. Verily we do not know what riches we have until we begin to count them up.
One of the greatest arguments in favor of city incorporation and later on for county division was the crying need of better roads and streets, bridges included. The newer and more progressive settlers that were com- ing in were not satisfied with the way in which streets and roads were built and kept up, for nothing stamps the character of a settlement more than its roads unless it may be its schools. At any rate, Riverside has always been in the lead in those two things. For street purposes we have always had granite and other materials for road building. In earlier times a good coating of rotten granite made a substantial and good covering for common use. When oil came into use its application was a further improvement, until concrete and oil are the ultimate in city and country roads and streets. The first experiment that Riverside County undertook on a large scale was the Box Springs Road up a canyon four or five miles long leading to the Perris Valley and the eastern end of the county.
The Perris Valley is some 400 feet higher than the Riverside Valley, with a rocky and in places steep canyon to climb. Five miles of a uniform grade was built not in any place to exceed five per cent rise. One deep but narrow wash had to be crossed by a fill with a concrete culvert of ample capacity for storm water underneath, all done without bonds at a cost of $12,000. This was such an improvement and possibly the best road and grade at the time in Southern California that it showed that
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good roads were not so unattainable as was at first thought. It has been improved since by concreting and planting of shade trees on the sides of the road so that it will in time be an attractive drive at all times of the year.
Since that road has been built many more miles have been built on all the main roads, so that the traveler can hardly go anywhere without a good road to travel on and the good work still goes on and the roads are a great aid to the school, for the small country school is being done away with and the scholar is being carried by auto bus to educational centers, where the advantages are much better. No longer does the barefooted boy going to or coming from school loiter and play by the way, causing anxiety to the mother and throwing responsibility on the teacher, for the auto bus calls for him in the morning and delivers him fresh and sound at the schoolhouse, and when the studies are over he is whisked home again fresh to help with the chores or to pursue his studies further-and so the good road is contributing to the better education of the school children.
The automobile and the auto truck are conquering the desert. No longer does the horse team crawl over the sandy desert, say of ninety miles from Mecca to Blythe, at the rate of two miles per hour (resting in the heat of the day, traveling early and late and in the night), with the sun at 140 degrees, carrying water for four days. Already there is a half-way well. The automobile truck flies over the road now in four or five hours, traveling in the night time to escape the overpowering sun's rays in the summer months. Macadam and oil will still further reduce the time to two or three hours and the desert will be finally overcome. It may be that the flying machine will supplant all other means of travel for passengers, and the great and almost impassable deserts where the early pioneers toiled and in many cases left their bones bleaching on the desert, will be held up for the heroes they were, for if they had not striven and conquered later comers could not have reaped the reward.
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