ADDRESS Henry E. Highton ON BEHALF OF THE SOCIETY OF CALIFORNIA PIONEERS. AT THE Opera house, Mission St. * ^Sif-- I Oil the occasion of the Fortieth Anniversary of the Admission of the State of California into the Union, jointly celebrated by the Pioneers and the Native Sons of the Golden West, Sept. g, i8go. SAN FRANCISCO: C. A. MURDOCK & CO. 532 Clay Street, 1890. ADDRESS Henry E. Highton ON BEHALF OF THE SOCIETY OF CALIFORNIA PIONEERS, AT THE Opera house, Mission St. On the occasion of the Fortieth Anniversaiy of the Admission of the State of California into the Union, jointly celebrated by the Pioneers and the Native Sons of the Golden West, Sept. 9, i8go. SAN FRANCISCO: C, A. MURDOCK & CO. 532 Clay Street, 1890. I jay uiinBt'ei OCT 9 19b ADDRESS HENRY E. HIGHTON, On behalf of the Society of California Pioneers, at the Opera House, Mission Street, on the Occasion of the Fortieth Anniversary of the Admission of the State of California into the Union, Jointly Celebrated by the Pioneers and the Native Sons of the Golden West, September 9TH, 1890. Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens : The prediction of Bishop Berkeley, the logical inductions of the first orator of the Society of Cali- fornia Pioneers, are being fulfilled. The Star of Em- pire is rapidly advancing to the extreme West. Its gleams shone upon the columns of the California Pio- neers. Its fuller light irradiates the living Argonauts and the Native Daughters and the Native Sons. It will rest in resplendent majesty over their descendants. The proofs surround us as I speak. The local events which preceded the immigration of 1849, — most significant in themselves, — for my present objects must necessarily be disregarded. But the unbroken line of the Pacific States and Territories is a panoramic exhibition of the achievements of forty-one years. The streets and buildings which have replaced the sand dunes of San Francisco, this day present a series of historical pictures which connect the old with the new and, in the most striking forms, illustrate the story of our progress. The designs of the artist, the sym- bolism of decoration, have been supplemented by our western press in those master pieces of journalism, which have diffused practical knowledge among the masses, which have condensed the materials for the historian, and which have averted from you the possi- bility of oral elaboration. We are carried back to the trials and privations of the thirty-three thousand Pioneers who, forty-one years ago, streamed through the defiles of the Sierras and over the table lands of New Mexico, and of the thirty-eight thousand who broke their way through the billows. We see reproduced the stirring incidents of that early period and the linked events which have brought us to the proportions and to the conspicuous- ness to which we have now attained. The long pro- cession which has moved through our thoroughfares was in itself an epitome of the past, a representation of the present, a prediction of the future. It embla- zoned the record of a Commonwealth which, within the lives of Native Sons, has increased its inhabitants from a few thousand to nearly a million and a half; which is becoming a network of urban and rural com- munities, substantial, educated and polished ; which has propelled agriculture, horticulture, trade, commerce and manufacture, with gigantic strides; which has poured wealth not only into the nation, but into the world ; which has written its name and its character upon all States and upon all nations; and which has witnessed the addition of thirteen stars to our National Constellation. — 5 — It is impossible, even if it were appropriate, in this presence and with these surroundings, to mention individual names or to parade facts about the State. As the Greek painter said of the crown of his genius : ' ' The curtain is the picture " — as Webster apostrophized Massachusetts: "There she stands." The recitals, the impressions, the suggestions, of this day, if we are faithful to our trust, must sink deep into our hearts and permanently affect our lives and our characters. Pioneers : Dear surviving brethren of the crowded past and of the brilliant present — what unutterable thoughts must stir your minds, what unutterable emo- tions thrill your souls, as you contemplate and realize the full meaning of this extraordinary display! The retrospect — beloved companions — is crowded with great events which are indelibly stamped upon the face of history. The youngest of the original Pioneers has passed the middle of life, as life is ordinarily measured, and is approaching the glittering summit of that slope which leads to immortality. The white radiance that encir- cles age is gathering about his head. He has caught the luster of the beckoning stars. His heart rises on the surface of labor and experience to greet the Eter- nal calm. He listens to the harmonies that invite him to the skies. And yet, there, amidst your ranks — O Native Daughters and Native Sons! — he stands erect, stalwart, firm, with no sign of bodily decay, with his mental faculties vigorous and balanced, with his sym- pathies fresh and respondent, and he gazes backward with undimmed eyes along the high-road of memory and of achievement. — 6 — Rugged mountain passes — wide stretches of desert, broiling in the sun and dense with alkahne dust — the long white road, sometimes Hned with new-made graves, — the brief oasis, clad in green and moist with refreshing streams, — the worn and jaded cattle, listless in the sun, reluctlantly dragging their loads, or strew- ing their flesh and bones in the wilderness — the prairie schooners, ricketty in frame and with their canvas rig- ging torn and rotten — the rich blaze of the camp-fire at those unfrequent spots where plenty crowned the feast, where the flesh of the bison or the antelope sweetened the air, and where songs of home arose spontaneously from the heart — the shrunken glow of the sage-brush fire — wearied men prone on the earth, living only on the energy of hope, — the howl of the wolf — the rush of the stampede — the whoop of the Indian — the cool forests, the deep lakes, the bright rivulets, the odors and the music, which wooed the jaded adventurers to the promised land — old hulks, staggering through the waves and dropping dead freight into the fathomless sea — the wide valleys of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, swept by herds of antelope and of elk — the broad rivers bearing to the western ocean the waters of a thousand tributaries, fed by perpetual snow — the wild cattle and the wild horses trampling down the grass in the very ecstasy of license — the rare and scattered haciendas, with their hooded women, dark-skinned and lustrous, and their tawny men, red-sashed and spurred — the white walls of occasional Missions, contrasting with the dark green of the olive-orchards, and picturesque with groups of shaded colors and of fantastic attire, from the Indian to the Castilian, from the torpid laborer to the intel- lectual Franciscan, — the magnificent Bay of San Fran- cisco, bursting into view, with its far-reaching pro- longations and its guard of mountains, over which towered Tamalpais and Mount Diablo — the Golden Gate, now closed only to the Asiatic, but forever open to every worthy brother and sister of the Caucasian race — cities of slender frames, of tents, of sheet-iron and of zinc — villages and towns of logs and of can- vas, — the miner's cabin, with its open fire-place and its bunks — the dance-house, the gambling saloon, the bar-room, where virtue and vice, industry and idleness jostled each other — the crevice-knife, the wooden bowl, the rocker, the long-tom, the flume, the dam, the race, the mill — tillage, rising from coarsest forms to the most elaborate and finished processes — drainage and irriga- tion, luxuriantly fertilizing hundreds of thousands of acres of worthless soil — the peninsular metropolis turning to brick and stone, crammed with mighty edi- fices and a thronging population, while all the State participated in its growth — commerce, trade, manufac- ture, literature, art, science, quickly ranking us with the older communities of the world, — free education under our starry flag, from San Diego to Del Norte, from the Sierras to the Pacific — public instruction supple- mented by private enterprise and munificence — phil- anthropy and beneficence, public and private, attested by huge monuments of architecture, which invite the sick, the insane, the unfortunate, the superannuated, — religion, in every recognized form, manifested and aggressive in churches and temples, wherever two or three are gathered together in the name of God; — these are a few, and a very few, of the memories and the realizations which are now dramatized in our midst. — 8 — But why dwell upon these reminiscences, which are familiar to us all ? Why even attempt to outline the thoughts and the facts, which dilate the mind and the bosom even of the youngest original Pioneer? The whole State is historically eloquent. Its transitions have been made familiar, not only to our own citizens, but throughout the Union and in all lands. The master race, under the master government, has wrought such wonders as cannot be epitomized, — as are scarcely be- lieved except by those who, within the briefest period known to man, have witnessed the evolution of law and order, of industry, of enterprise, of education, ot philanthropy, of religion, — of all the phases and evi- dences of an advanced organized society. As we rise from the gray youth of our organization to^those venerable men who span or over-pass the cen- tury, the reminiscences, the thoughts and the facts, to which I have adverted, thicken and deepen. Through all the gradations, in all the advances of the State, the Pioneers have done their part and they have won for themselves imperishable renown. In no boastful spirit, but in sober truth, I claim that their names and reputations will descend, clear and lustrous, to the latest chronicles of time. Their deeds have not been restricted by locality. Great soldiers, great naval offi- cers, great statesmen, great diplomatists, great judges, are cherished on their rolls. They have been among the foremost in industry and in national and inter- national enterprise. They have contributed to all the arts and to all the sciences, to philosophy, to literature and to religion. They have accumulated vast proper- ties and have lavished money upon philanthropy and patriotism. — 9 — Our national song has been commemorated, the dreams of astronomers reahzed, through the wise munificence of James Lick, a Pioneer, whose conse- crated bones are deposited under the great telescope which points to his home among the stars and draws it nearer to our gaze. But I must not fall Into lengthy eulogy, and I must not omit to notice the melancholy truth that the origi- nal Pioneers are swiftly vanishing. Of the overlooked and unrecorded dead, I cannot speak. On the mortu- ary records of the Society, however, there are already seven thousand three hundred and thirty-two names. Of the original Pioneers, known to the organization, but thirteen hundred and thirteen remain. They will be perpetuated directly through their descendants, of whom three hundred and sixty-two are now upon their roll, while hundreds more are or hereafter will be found among the Native Sons of the Golden West. Still, within another generation, at the furthest, the original Pioneers will be extinct. Those yet left, with few exceptions, possess greater vitality, energy, and capacity for endurance and for labor, than many thou- sands of younger men. They were among the strong- est representatives of the strongest race; they were inured to hardship and forced to moderation in their youth; they acquired and have retained the faculty of work ; and, taken as a whole, they are among the best living specimens of men from the meridian of life to old age. They prove their vigor and intellectual acuteness by the spirited controversies in which they frequently engage among themselves, but they are an lO — impenetrable band, clad in complete steel, against all attacks from without, and they are brothers, — side by side and heart to heart, — stretchinQ^ out firm hands to their successors in the mighty task in which they have spent their days. Their distinctive labor is nearly ended. To you — O Native Sons of the Golden West! — they are soon to transfer the responsibility of maintaining and improv- ing this Commonwealth, of aiding in the growth and preserving the integrity of the Nation, of promoting the internal and the external development of man. They do not ignore, but they appreciate and respect, the general body of our citizens, but their special func- tions they must delegate to their children and to you. Your twelve thousand ought to expand to hundreds of thousands. Your sisters — the Native Daughters of the Golden West — should increase their numbers to an equality with yourselves, — for it is evident that there ought to be one Native Daughter for each Na- tive vSon. To what more capable hands could such a transfer be effected. Where could be produced Native Daugh- ters and Native Sons, combining beauty, intelligence, education and power, in greater perfection ? Where is there a population equal to our own ? They are bet- ter born, better nurtured, better fed, better clad, bet- ter educated, and better-mannered, than any equal number of men, women and children on the inhabited globe. This is solid and incontrovertible fact. But in proportion to your advantages and your opportunities — O people of the Golden West! — are your responsibili- ties. God has invested in vou an unusual amount of capital. He will exact from you a corresponding re- turn. The talents which have been entrusted to your keeping must not be idle, but productive. We have finished the stage of internal preparation. We are now confronted by the two difficulties of iso- lation — comparative isolation — and provincialism. We must reach out and grapple the thriving and over- crowded centers of our continent and throughout the earth. We must adopt new business methods, larger and broader in conception, bolder and more systematic in execution. We must raise society to the cosmopol- itan level and submerge social revolutionists in the American ocean. We must arrest the unnatural and anti-American influence of individuals, of cliques and of combinations. We must maintain perfect order and discipline and hold Capital and Labor within those just limits which will secure the rights and the prosperity of each. Education must be improved so that it may not produce drones, parasites, worthless consumers of the earnings and the accumulations of industry, but American men and American women, true to the broad idea of God and the moral law, not ashamed to live by the sweat of their brows, possessed of that general information which links them to mankind and of the special knowledge essential to success in their several pursuits, — clean in body, heart, mind and soul, and imbued with that substantial Americanism which assimilates and concentrates all that is most productive and most lasting. We must live not only for ourselves and for our fam- ilies, but for our neighbors, and not only for our imme- diate neighbors but for the County, the Municipality, the State, the Nation, the masses of mankind. We must fully enter into the great American brotherhood and, even beyond that, into the greater brotherhood of progressive humanity. The Nineteenth Century, with its astounding record, will soon be closed. There are individual Pioneers who, in some aspects, have witnessed an advance during their lives, more than equal to that of all pre- ceding ages. The world moves by periods of apparent action and reaction, but it is never quiescent, and the Divine Will never ceases to operate through all existing forces. The era of invention — merely to increase wants, necessities, comforts and luxuries, — has apparently reached its maximum in this century, and I observe that true thinkers are exploring moral questions and applying moral conclusions to politics, to society, to government, to all the important interests of the race. The realistic novel or drama — itself an absurd intru- sion of selected and exceptional facts as the basis of wide generalizations — the countless systems which ten- tative!}'' seek to arrest acknowledged evils — the strug- gles of modern theology — the color and the tone of the higher literature of the day — all point to this conclu- sion. But believe me, fellow-citizens, you may accumulate facts until they are as numerous as the sands on the seashore — you may theorize and speculate until your minds, — perhaps unconscious of the limits within which they are providentially circumscribed, — are dis- solved in doubt, uncertainty and indefiniteness — and, after all, you will find that the principles, which come from above, and are the underlying power of man, are simple, fixed and unchangable. You will never escape from the Personal God. You will never overturn or alter the Moral Law. You will never fundamentally change or mend American Institutions as constructed by your ancestors or predecessors. You may pare, you may prune, you may even graft, and perhaps you may improve the outward appearance of the structure in which you were born or into which you were adopted, but you will never widen or strengthen its foundations. And if it were conceivable that a whole generation should become debauched and that Pan- demonium should temporarily pollute its consecrated walls, the structure would yet stand, ready to be occu- pied, swept and garnished, by less degenerate children of the American Republic. Apart from the excellent materials and inducements we already possess, in the unequaled possibilities which lie before California, there is every incentive to good citizenship. If you will study the map of the world and abstract yourselves from the fixed ideas which have descended from former times, you will attain almost, if not quite, to a surprising revelation. Observe closely the relative situations of oceans, con- tinents and populations; trace the currents of trade and commerce, with constant reference to the changes of the present century ; consider the historical facts of the century, including the multiplication of the means of rapid transit and communication through railroads, telegraphs, ocean canals, and the many recent appli- cations of electricity ; and you will easily perceive that the scepter must ultimately be transferred from Europe to America. And, within the United States, the cen- ters of population, of political and commercial influ- ence, are steadily moving towards the West. Obser- — 14 — vation and experience demonstrate that, in many- respects, five modern years are more fruitful than a former century. I am earnestly convinced that Cali- fornia is to become the most densely populated State in the Union. With her internal resources she can support at least twenty millions of men and women. With competing systems of railroads, with ship canals across the Isthmus of Nicaragua and the Isthmus of Darien, and with ocean cables beneath the Pacific, she would occupy the most central position in the North- ern Hemisphere — towards Central and South America, towards Asia, towards Polynesia, towards Australasia, and perhaps even, for commercial purposes, towards Europe. The character of her productions will ren- der her an enormous exporter, for she produces what the world requires and her resources are scarcely opened, and are practically inexhaustible. San Francisco, virtually the geographical center of the Union, occupies a commanding place in the world of traffic and consumption, and, however lightly the prediction may be regarded, she is destined to become a center of commerce and of exchange. All we lack to-day is competition from without and cosmopolitan- ism within. W^e must comprehend our destiny and grow to a higher standard of energy, of duty and of obligation. We must improve ourselves and, through ourselves, improve our State. We must protect Capital, and, to do this, we must protect and encourage Labor. Cap- ital is but the product of Labor, directed to specific ends. The value of property, the conservation of organized society, depends upon Labor. Without Labor production would cease, and if all men should 1 — 15 — become enervated, diseased, incapable of mental con- centration and of muscular effort, the human race would perish. Our American system of government recognizes this truth and ultimately rests upon Labor in all its forms. Those who are not producers — who add noth- ing to that which is produced — who are mere con- sumers with money they have inherited or not earned — are not only useless, but they are parasites, feeding on the State and sapping its vitality. The great mass of our Native Sons and Native Daughters, — the bulk of our citizens, — are sound, healthy, broad-minded, instructed, thoughtful, pure in their motives and in their lives, intelligently industri- ous, and capable of working under a system which is at once symmetrical and expansive. But the parasites are here, insubordinate and head- strong children, who are not ashamed to eat the bread their parents have earned or to plunder the commu- nity. In Europe and at the East they have what is called esthetic vice, which is one of the most insidious and dangerous forms of vice. In our own metropolis we have the caricature of esthetic vice, which is the worst form in which vice can be expressed. In every city and town in the State there are a select few of the young men, sometimes kept up by parental wealth o^ vanity, whose highest aim is to live dissolute and lazy lives and who seek to carry their idleness and their dissipation into society itself. It is from these sources that corruption derives its agents, who in turn become its victims. It is your duty and your opportunity — noble Daughters and Sons of the Golden West — to rescue the State from such contamination. In social — i6 — life, open villain}^ is better than varnished or concealed viciousness. The lines which surround society, where our homes and our families are, where marriage is honorable and not a failure, where the deep and true affections are predominant, should be closely drawn and rigidly maintained. Politics is a noble pursuit, in which every American should take an intelligent interest, and which becomes degraded only through vice, neglect and indifference. But partisanship, by tortuous methods, in order to avoid labor and gorge the appetites at the public ex- pense, is everywhere, particularly in our own country, the most ignoble occupation that tends towards the extermination of manhood. Arrogant paupers are too numerous in our midst and should be suppressed. They are the supple tools, also, of abler and more designing men, who use them for the building up of fortunes or the gratification of insatiable ambition. They are lower than slaves, because they are the will- ing authors of their own degradation. Misdirected or undirected education turns out many of the parasites to which I have alluded. Education should always end in a definite channel, through which the trained power of the scholar should flow. It is necessary in a constitutional republic which rests upon popular intelligence and virtue — it is valuable in the exact proportion that it trains citizens to assume fixed relations in the industrial structure and to perform their duties and fulfill their obligations with honesty and w^ith precision. — 17 — But education which leads to no practical results may be a curse and not a blessing. It may induce an antipathy to labor. It may lead to destructive agores- siveness, to that petty ambition which " o'er leaps itself And falls on the other side." It may uproot that modesty, which is a marked characteristic of real ability, and lead young men to jostle their elders aside and to grasp honors and sta- tions for which they are unfitted and unqualified. It may tend to demoralize the primaries, the conventions, the ballot box, legislatures, the judiciary, executive offices, the most important elements in a government which subordinates the sovereignty of man only to the sovereignty of God. Modesty is an essential part of capacity, and expe- rience cannot be generated from genius. Strength flows from honest labor, intelligently applied, and accumu- lates with years. He who aspires to command must first learn to obey. Insurbordination contravenes the first law of earth as well as of heaven and, when asso- ciated with plenty, tends to produce drones, toadies and sycophants, destitute of independence and virility, and only fit to convert a State into a mere dependency upon wealth, unequally distributed and, through cor- rupt means, exerting a controlling influence over the people. In all the conditions to which I have referred, the surviving Pioneers, whom I have the honor to repre- sent, rely upon you, fair Daughters, and upon you, brave Sons of the Golden West. Within your organ- izations, are included every element requisite for the — i8 — suppression of e.vil and for the harmonious develep- ment of good. Beauty, grace, refinement, delicacy, purity, knowledge, power, experience, distinction, are all represented in your ranks, and they will give you prominence and success in those contests, struggles and efforts, in which true citizens must engage. You will tread the paths your fathers trod, and this mighty State will be committed, not to tax-eaters but to tax- payers, not to the emasculated imitators of foreign vice, but to vigorous, clear-sighted and faithful Americans, robust in body and in mind, and with an hearty con- tempt for sloth and for excess. And now, Pioneers, my last words must be addressed to you. This celebration, in its striking local features, is distinctive, and it has harmoniously united the or- ganization of which you are so justly proud and the Native Sons of the Golden West. It is also broadly American in its character, and it includes all our citi- zens, while it commands general sympathy and respect, not only throughout the Union, but wherever the con- trolling ideas of modern civilization prevail. To you, however, it has a peculiar significance, which we should recognize as we part. It brings home to you personal recollections. It revives treasured memories. It re- animates your hopes and your aspirations. It vindi- cates the principle of association. *' Two are better than one ; because they have a good reward for their labor. " For, if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow ; but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up." — 19 ~ To-day you stand — remnant of a noble army — among these Sons and Daughters, as stand the senti- nel peaks of the Sierras, snow-clad and lofty, while strength and loveliness ;ire spread before their feet. When the last Pioneer falleth, may he clasp the hand of a Native Son and transmit to him, unimpaired and in sacred trust, the fraternal inheritance which, for us, will then have ceased to exist upon the earth. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Hlilli 017 137 678 6 'St >.f