California
UNIVERSITY OF.
Charities. State institutions on Nov. 30, 1919, held 15,169 inmates, distrib- 734; hospitals for the insane, 10,124; Industrial Home for Adult Blind, 139; Home for Feeble-minded, 1,301. There were 2,871 in the State prisons.
Railroads. There are 12,145 miles of railway and 3,032 miles of electric railways in the State. California has 19 lines of ocean steamers plying to China, the Philippines, Chile, Panama, Mexico, and Alaska. There are also 13 coastwise lines.
On Finances. The revenues for the fiscal year 1918-1919 were $50,132,906.37, and the expenditures $50,681,433.48.
July 1, 1919, the net bonded debt was $44,138,500. The assessed valuation of taxable property was $4,023,009,588.
State Government. - The Governor is elected for a term of four years and receives a salary of $10,000 per annum. The legislature has 40 members in the Senate and 80 in the House. There are eleven Representatives in Congress. The State government in 1920 was Republican.
History. The name California was applied to an island in the Pacific in 1521, and, sometime between 1535 and 1549, was also applied to that part of North America now known as California and Lower California. Several Spanish and English explorers visited this section during the 16th and 17th centuries, and in 1769 the Franciscan monks founded San Diego and soon afterward many other missions, including Dolores at San Francisco, 1776. In 1826 the first American emigrant train entered the present limits of the State, and in 1840 Monterey was made the capital.
The United States tried to form an alliance with California in 1846; but the Americans already settled there seized Sonoma and proclaimed a republic. At the outbreak of the Mexican Mexican War, San Francisco was seized by the Americans, and, on Aug. 15, 1846, California was declared United States territory. 1848 gold was discovered, and this led to a great immigration. In less than four years there were 250,000 people in the State. Many of these were lawless and capable of any crime, and several times vigilance committees were organized by the better class for active measures in the suppression of crime. California was admitted to the Union as a Free State, Sept. 9, 1850. In 1869 the Central Pacific Railroad was completed, and the employment of Chinese in this work led to serious riots, and resulted in the passage by Congress of the Chinese Exclusion Act. During the Spanish- American War and the American operations against the Filipino insurgents, nearly all the expeditions to the Philip- In CALIFORNIA pine Islands started from San Fran- cisco. Agitation against the immigration of Japanese laborers, which became tion of Japanese laborers, which became acute in 1912 and the year following, between the American and Japanese Governments, again became a source of irritation in 1920. The action of the United States Government in practically debarring Japanese immigrants ants from California was bitterly resented by the Japanese people.