A Village Was Laid Out In The Uninhabited Bed Of A Mountain
Torrent, And Men Stood In The Streets In Los Angeles, Ranged In Line,
All Night Long, To Wait Their Turn In Buying Lots.
Land, worthless and
inaccessible, barren cliffs' river-wash, sand hills, cactus deserts'
sinks of alkali, everything met with ready sale.
The belief that
Southern California would be one great city was universal. The desire to
buy became a mania. "Millionaires of a day," even the shrewdest lost
their heads, and the boom ended, as such booms always end, in utter
collapse.
Mr. T. S. Van Dyke, of San Diego, has written of this episode: "The
money market tightened almost on the instant. From every quarter of the
land the drain of money outward had been enormous, and had been balanced
only by the immense amount constantly coming in. Almost from the day
this inflow ceased money seemed scarce everywhere, for the outgo still
continued. Not only were vast sums going out every day for water-pipe,
railroad iron, cement, lumber, and other material for the great
improvements going on in every direction, most of which material had
already been ordered, but thousands more were still going out for
diamonds and a host of other things already bought - things that only
increase the general indebtedness of community by making those who
cannot afford them imitate those who can. And tens of thousands more
were going out for butter, eggs, pork, and even potatoes and other
vegetables, which the luxurious boomers thought it beneath the dignity
of millionaires to raise."
But the normal growth of Los Angeles and her sister towns has gone on,
in spite of these spasms of fever and their consequent chills. Their
real advantages could not be obscured by the bursting of financial
bubbles. By reason of situation and climate they have continued to
attract men of wealth and enterprise, as well as those in search of
homes and health.
The search for the unearned increment in bodily health brings many to
California who might better have remained at home. The invalid finds
health in California only if he is strong enough to grasp it. To one who
can spend his life out of doors it is indeed true that "our pines are
trees of healing," but to one confined to the house, there is little
gain in the new conditions. To those accustomed to the close heat of
Eastern rooms the California house in the winter seems depressingly
chilly.
I know of few things more pitiful than the annual migration of hopeless
consumptives which formerly took place to Los Angeles, Pasadena, and San
Diego. The Pullman cars in the winter used to be full of sick people,
banished from the East by physicians who do not know what else to do
with their incurable patients. They went to the large hotels of Los
Angeles or Pasadena, to pay a rate they cannot afford. They shivered in
half-warmed rooms; took cold after cold; their symptoms grew alarming;
their money wasted away; and finally, in utter despair, they were
hurried back homeward, perhaps to die on board the train.
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