ust be men of broad minds, for this is no ordinary problem to be
worked out. It is certain that in the near or distant future there will
be here a very large and very wealthy city, probably the largest and
wealthiest in the world. The whole of the peninsula will be covered, and
as much more space beyond it, and around the bay shores to and beyond
Carquinez strait. Viewed in the light of history and progressional
phenomena, this is the only rational conclusion.

Always the march of intellectual development has been from east to west,
the old East dying as the new West bursts into being, until now west is
east, and the final issue must here be met. In the advent and progress
of civilization there was first the Mediterranean, then the Atlantic,
and then the Pacific, the last the greatest of all. What else is
possible? Where else on this planet is man to go for his ultimate
achievement?

Conviction comes slowly in such cases, and properly so. Yet in
forecasting the future from the light of the past cavilers can scarcely
go farther afield than our worshipful forbears, who less than a century
ago, on the floor of the United States congress, decried as absurd
settlement beyond the Missouri, ridiculed buying half a continent of
worthless Northwest wilderness, thanked God for the Rocky mountain
barrier to man's presumption, scouted at a possible wagon road, not to
say railway, across the continent, lamented the unprofitable theft of
California, and cursed the Alaska purchase as money worse than thrown
away. In view of what has been and is, can anyone call it a Utopian
dream to picture the Pacific bordered by an advanced civilization with
cities more brilliant than any of the ancient East, more opulent than
any of the cultured West?

Rio de Janeiro! what have the Brazilians been doing these last
decades? Decapitating politically dear Dom Pedro, true patriot, though
emperor--he came to me once in my library, pouring out his soul for
his beloved Brazil--they abolished slavery, formed a republic, and
modernized the city. They made boulevards and water drives, the finest
in the world. They cut through the heart of the old town a new Avenida
Central, over a mile in length and one hundred and ten feet wide, lining
it on either side with palatial business houses and costly residences,
paving the thoroughfare with asphalt and adorning it with artistic
fixtures for illumination, the street work being completed in eighteen
months. Stran