fund of $5,000. A citizen looking for an opportunity to do something
worth while could find few worthier objects. The fruit of such an
endowment may not be as enduring as a noble campanile, or an
incomparable Greek theater, yet, in a sense, it will be more lasting
than either, for facts become history, and history survives, when
campaniles fall and Greek theaters are ground to powder.

It may be that we have not realized that, as it took conscious effort to
create the history of the Pacific Coast, it will take conscious effort
to see that it is recorded and given its proper place in the history of
the country at large. If we have not understood this fact, the recital
of the activities of historical societies and other agencies in the East
should admonish us that it is time, it has long been time, for us to be
up and doing. The record of the history that is now in the making will
take care of itself, and the machinery is at hand for its preservation.
If we shall become the center of a new culture, be assured that it will
be its own press-agent. If we shall see grow into fruition a new music
among the redwoods of our Bohemian Grove, there are signs that the world
will not be kept ignorant of its origin. Literature reflecting local
color will survive as the historic basis for it is known and made
secure. The debt we owe to Bret Harte for "The Outcasts of Poker Flat,"
"The Luck of Roaring Camp," and all the individual types his genius made
live again, to Helen Hunt Jackson for her immortal "Ramona," to Charles
Fletcher Lummis for his faithful chronicles of splendid pioneering and
research, will only be more appreciated as our knowledge of the historic
past becomes more accurate and sure.

But it is the record of that very past, the record of our brief,
eventful and enthralling past, that concerns us now. Monuments and
reminders of it exist on every side. The record also exists, but