Excerpt from The Resources of California Comprising the Society, Climate, Salubrity, Scenery, Commerce and Industry, of the State

Nor will it be said of them that the passion which drove them to incur the dangers, the privations, and the toils of adventure in an nu settled and almost unknown country, was sordid. They risked their lives and exerted all their energies for gold, but with no miserly feeling. They spent their money as fast as they made it, too many even faster. Not parsimony, but extravagance, distinguishes the State. Yet it is not a base extravagance. Our community is highly intelligent; our pleas ures are intellectual and refined. Our numerous charities, our munifi cent contributions to the Sanitary Fund, our free schools, our public libraries, our frequent concerts, the liberal patronage of the theaters, this elegant temple of the drama [the California Theater] in which we have to-day assembled, suggest the dominant feelings and tastes of San Francisco. Great men have made their preferred home among us, and found here their most appreciative friends. It was among us that Baker and Starr King reached their highest flights of oratory. They were with us in life, they remain with us in death. Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan spent many of their best years in our State, and were here prepared for the responsible service to be performed after leaving us. Halleck and Yale have contributed works of permanent value to our legal literature Dwinelle, Randolph, and Tuthill have shown eminent ability in their historical labors. Our poetry, our humorous writings, our pictures, have done credit to us at home and abroad, though but beginnings.

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