California the World's Playground
LEADING business men in San Francisco and elsewhere about the San Francisco Bay, have entered into a very enthusiastic organization to form a string of amusements that will make the west-coast states of Oregon, Washington, and California the playground of the world. Our mild winters and beautiful summers here make it so that out-of-door sports can be carried on under the most favorable weather conditions in some parts of this territory in every season of the year. The promoters of this scheme for pleasure are very enthusiastic, and think, of course, that it will bring numbers of people to this coast, many of whom will become permanent settlers, and thus build up the country. We certainly have climate and other natural advantages here that ought to draw, and are drawing, very large numbers of people. Persons who are living here are often heard to express surprise that people can be induced to stay through the cold winters and the hot summers of the East, when we have pleasant weather here the year round. These sentiments are coming to be spread abroad more and more, and people are being attracted to the territory; and it is the almost invariable rule, when they come here, that they like it and stay. And with the natural advantages of climate, good soil, plenty of timber, water, and minerals of various sorts, why resort to the demoralizing measures of making this a great playground? It is a notorious fact that the great pleasure resorts of this world are also its great resorts for the vices and sins that degenerate and degrade humanity. Proper recreation and pleasure are a very different thing from that which usually is found in the hilarious pleasure resorts where there are a large number of men and women who are doing everything that they can to get money from the resorters. And under the allurements that are presented, reason and sense are thrown to the winds, and people give themselves up to vice and folly. There are other industries and enterprises that would be far better for any locality than pleasure resorts. But one of the leading characteristics of this time is that the great mass of humanity are settling down into habits of luxury and pleasure that are degenerating and debasing, and which have invariably been the forerunners of the downfall of the great nations like Rome, Persia, and Greece, that have gone before. T.