Page:The Overland Monthly, Jan-June 1894.djvu/235

1894.] entirely, to unrestricted immigration. The past and present character of that immigration revealed in -the official record and in this latest report, shows too plainly why its influence on intemperance, polygamy, the relations of capital and labor, have been so profound and so pernicious, to say nothing of the more obvious effects upon pauperism, insanity, and crime.

And the injury will continue and increase until the character of immigration has radically changed. The municipal reform of our large cities, in particular, recently advocated so earnestly, cannot make much headway while thousands of criminals, paupers, and contract or unskilled laborers, continue to pour in. As was suggested in the former article referred to, the undertaking of various proposed municipal reforms, without reckoning with the chief cause of the trouble, resembles an attempt to cleanse the stables of Augeus, with the difference, it may be added, that the stables were cleaned by turning on the stream,—the cities, when it is turned off.

Is it practicable to regulate immigration? and if so, why have we thus far failed?

John Chetwood, Jr.

is a town of vicissitude, story, and romance. It lies upon the most remote harbor of the Northwest, discovered by Juan de Fuca in the year 1592, while cruising up the straits now bearing his name in search of a northeast passage to the Atlantic. He encountered a dangerous gale which threatened destruction to his entire fleet, when a kind fate directed him into the sheltered embrace of this ideal harbor, where the waters are always calm. In gratitude to a higher power De Fuca called this harbor "El Puerto de Los Angeles," The Port of the Angels.

Port Angeles enjoys the distinction of having been laid out by the federal government under Lincoln's administration. The exceptional qualities of this Port of the Angels as a naval harbor, and its desirable location in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, opposite the British fortifications at Victoria and Esquimault, attracted government attention to it; and early in 1862 President Lincoln ordered the reservation of the land bordering on the bay of this harbor for "military, naval, or other purposes." Congress further emphasized this by making it a port of entry for the Puget Sound district, with Victor Smith as collector of the port. A portion <of this reserved land was later caused by government to be surveyed into town lots and sold at public auction, bringing $40,000. Thus ill-starred Port Angeles sprang into being, a child of romance with the fate of an unfortunate lover.

The honest pioneer element that has been to the West what the yeomen are to England, was not here, and Victor Smith's ability was taxed to the uttermost to uphold this little community, and give the town the standing his pro-