nd ripe manhood realize
the promise of infancy. We may cramp her energies and distort her form,
or we may make her a rival even of the Empire State of the Atlantic.
The best wishes of Americans are with us. They expect that the
Herculean youth will grow to a Titan in his manhood."

Nor was even Judge Bennett the pioneer of such ideas. Long before he
spoke, or before the Stars and Stripes had been raised over Yerbabuena,
as far back as in 1835, the English people and the British Government
had been advised by Alexander Forbes that "The situation of California
for intercourse with other countries and its capacity for
commerce--should it ever be possessed by a numerous and industrious
population--are most favorable. The port of San Francisco for size and
safety is hardly surpassed by any in the world; it is so situated as to
be made the center of the commercial relations which may take place
between Asia and the western coast of America.... The vessels of the
Spanish Philippines Company on their passage from Manila to San Blas
and Acapulco generally called at Monterey for refreshments and
orders.... Thus it appears as if California was designed by nature to
be the medium of connecting commercially Asia with America, and as the
depot of the trade between these two vast continents, which possess the
elements of unbounded commercial interchange; the one overflowing with
all the rich and luxurious commodities always characteristic of the
East, the other possessing a superabundance of the precious metals and
other valuable products to give in exchange.... If ever a route across
the Isthmus shall be opened, California will then be one of the most
interesting commercial situations in the world; it would in that case
be the rendezvous for all vessels engaged in the trade between Europe
and Asia by that route. It is nearly mid-voyage between these two
countries, and would furnish provisions and all naval supplies in the
most ample abundance, and most probably would become a mart for the
interchange of the commodities of the three continents."

[Sidenote: Has the State Lost Heart and Shriveled?]

Let no man fancy that these sometimes exuberant expressions of a noble
and far-seeing faith by your own predecessors and by a prescient
foreigner have been revived in derision or even in doubt. Those were
the days when, if some were for a party, at any rate all were for the
State. These were great men, far-seeing, courageous, patriotic, t