It  was  over  eighteen  years  ago — and  it  is  far  longer  in  devel-
opment than  in  years — that  after  soaking  a  tongue  swollen  forth
as  large  as  my  wrist,  and  dry  and  rough  as  rawhide,  in
the  crystal  flow  of  the  Mojave,  I  trudged  up  the  southern  accliv-
ity of  the  Desert  to  the  Cajon  Pass,  and  came  down  into  God's
Country. It  was  not  compulsory  then  to  walk  ;  for  there  was  a
railroad  from  the  East  to  Los  Angeles,  and  had  been  for  ten
years  ;  but  it  was  One  railroad — and  of  One  Sort. It  had  done
practically  nothing,  in  its  decade  of  possession,  to  upbuild  the
country. The  population  was  practically  no  larger  than  at  its
advent,  and  not  nearly  so  rich  ;  for  the  earnings  of  the  railroad
in  those  ten  years  had  been  skinned  off  the  country. The  rate
on  oranges  to  the  Missouri  River,  when  I  came,  was  $600  a  car  ;
and  I  have  friends  who,  after  selling  their  fruit  at  good  figures
in  St. Louis,  had  to  pay  the  railroad  a  few  hundred  dollars  more
to  make  up  the  freight  bill. A  year  later,  down  through  the
same  Pass  where  a  poor  French-Canadian  and  I  hobbled  on
desert-burned  feet,  a  competing  railroad  crept  in ;  and  a  little
later  yet  there  befell  a  railroad  rate-war,  perhaps  not  unparall-
eled in  history  so  far  as  traffic  figures  are  concerned,  but  cer-
tainly unique  if  we  consider  either  the  cost  of  travel  per
mile  at  the  height  of  the  war,  or  the  far-reaching  economic
effects. This  great  duel  of  transportation  began  about  May,
1886. The  population  of  Los  Angeles  was  very  little  larger
then  than  in  1880,  when  the  national  census  gave  it  11,183. As
much  was  true  of  all  Southern  California. Passenger  rates
from  Kansas  City  to  California  had  been  about  $70 ;  from  Chi-
cago, $100  ;  from  New  York,  $120 ;  and  few  there  were  that
came  in  thereat. For  about  three  months  in  the  spring  of  1886,
tickets  either  way  between  Los  Angeles  and  Missouri  River
points — as  Kansas  City,  St. Louis,  Omaha,  and  so  on — were
sold  regularly  at  not  to  exceed  $25 ;  and  of  this  fare  the  pas-
senger got  $20  back  at  the  end  of  his  journey. 