puts
it with an "if," its report reading: "If the development of commerce
require that the largest ocean shall have the largest city, then it
would follow that as the Atlantic is smaller than the Pacific, so in
the course of years New York will be smaller than San Francisco."

And here, again, was Mr. Delos Lake, maintaining that the "United
States is now on a level with the most favored nations; that its
geographical position, its line of palatial steamers established on the
Pacific Ocean by American enterprise, and soon to be followed by ocean
telegraphs, must before long render this continent the proper avenue of
commerce between Europe and Asia, and raise this metropolis of the
Pacific to the loftiest height of monetary power."

There was a reason, too, widely held by the great men of the day, whose
names have passed into history, for some such faith. Thus an old
Californian of high and happy fame, Major-General Henry W. Halleck,
speaking of San Francisco, said: "Standing here on the extreme Western
verge of the Republic, overlooking the coast of Asia and occupying the
future center of trade and commerce of the two worlds,... if that
civilization which so long has moved westward with the Star of Empire
is now, purified by the principles of true Christianity, to go on
around the world until it reaches the place of its origin and makes the
Orient blossom again with its benign influences, San Francisco must be
made the abutment, and International Law the bridge, by which it will
cross the Pacific Ocean. The enterprise of the merchants of California
has already laid the foundation of the abutments; diplomacy and steam
and telegraph companies are rapidly accumulating material for the
construction of the bridge." Thus far Halleck. But have the
Californians of this generation abandoned the bridge? Are we to believe
those men of to-day who tell us it is not worth crossing?

Here, again, was Eugene Casserly, speaking of right for the California
Democracy of that date. Writing with deliberation more than a quarter
of a century ago, he said: "We expect to stand on equal grounds with
the most favored of nations. We ask no more in the contest for that
Eastern trade which has always heretofore been thought to carry with it
the commercial supremacy of the globe. America asks only a fair field,
even as against her oldest and most formidable rivals. Nature, and our
position as the nearest neighbors to eastern Asia, separated from