California Romantic and Resourceful A plea for the collection, preservation and diffusion of information relating to Pacific coast history   By: John Francis Davis (1859-1930)

Romantic and Resourceful

A plea for the Collection Preservation and Diffusion of Information Relating to Pacific Coast History

By

John F. Davis

The Californian loves his state because his state loves him. He returns her love with a fierce affection that to men who do not know California is always a surprise. David Starr Jordan in "California and the Californians."

As we transmit our institutions, so we shall transmit our blood and our names to future ages and populations. What altitudes shall throng these shores, what cities shall gem the borders of the sea! Here all peoples and all tongues shall meet. Here shall be a more perfect civilization, a more thorough intellectual development, a firmer faith, a more reverent worship. Perhaps, as we look back to the struggle of an earlier age, and mark the steps of our ancestors in the career we have traced, some thoughtful man of letters in ages yet to come may bring light the history of this shore or of this day. I am sure, Ludlow citizens, that whoever shall hereafter read it will perceive that our pride and joy are dimmed by no stain of selfishness. Our pride is for humanity; our joy is for the world; and amid all the wonders of past achievement and all the splendors of present success, we turn with swelling hearts to gaze into the boundless future, with the earnest conviction that will develop a universal brotherhood of man.

E. D. Baker, Atlantic Cable Address.

To

Charles Stetson Wheeler

An Able Advocate A Good Citizen, A Devoted Husband and Father A Loyal Friend This Little Book is Affectionately Dedicated

Preface

This plea is an arrow shot into the air. It is the result of an address which I made at Colton Hall, in Monterey, upon the celebration of Admission Day, 1908, and another which I made at a luncheon meeting of the Commonwealth Club, at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, on April 12, 1913. These addresses have been amplified and revised, and certain statistics contained in them have been brought down to the end of 1913. In this form they go forth to a larger audience, in the earnest hope that they may meet a kind reception, and somewhere find a generous friend.

The subject of Pacific Coast history is one of surpassing interest to Californians. Some fine additions to our store of knowledge have been made of late years, notably the treatise of Zoeth S. Eldredge on "The Beginnings of San Francisco," published by the author, in San Francisco, in 1912; the treatise of Irving Berdine Richman on "California under Spain and Mexico, 1535 1847," published by the Houghton Mifflin Company, of Boston and New York, in 1911; the warm appreciation of E. D. Baker, by Elijah R. Kennedy, entitled "The Contest for California in 1861," published by the Houghton Mifflin Company, in Boston and New York, in 1912; the monumental work on "Missions and Missionaries of California," by Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, published by the James H. Barry Company, of San Francisco, 1908 1913, and the "Guide to Materials for the History of the United States in the Principal Archives of Mexico," by Herbert E. Bolton, Ph. D., Professor of American History in the University of California, the publication of which by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, at Washington, D. C., in 1913, is an event of epochal historical importance. All of these works and the recent activities in Spain of Charles E. Chapman, the Traveling Fellow of the University of California, the publications of the Academy of Pacific Coast History, at Berkeley, edited by F. J. Teggart, and the forthcoming publication at San Francisco of "A Bibliography of California and the Pacific West," by Robert Ernest Cowan, only emphasize the importance of original research work in Pacific Coast history, and the necessity for prompt action to preserve the remaining sources of its romantic and inspiring story.

John F. Davis.