ETC.
The Overland Monthly, as we have often said editorially, is not strictly speaking a Californian magazine. When its name was first given, one that should restrict it to such a function was avoided, and the name that was chosen by its founders was meant to make it the representative of all the new West that was at that time just coming into connection with the rest of the world through the first overland railway. It has been, in fact, the only literary magazine that has for any considerable number of years existed in the whole tract west of the Alleghanies: neither the Middle West, the South, nor the Rocky Mountain region has ever maintained one.. It has been inevitable that California has borne the chief part in this literary achievement: not because Californian writers and topics have been given preference by the editors over those of the other States in the far Western region; but because there has been from the first in California a bent toward literary production such as none of the other Western States has shown. There is but now rising in the Northwest, especially in Washington, a young literature of much promise. It may be of interest to our readers to know what is the comparative literary disposition in the far Western States, as measured by the manuscripts offered to the Overland. We have taken at random one recent record-book, in which 2,000 manuscripts were registered, and tabulated these according to the addresses of the authors. There is no reason to doubt that the whole number of manuscripts received will show about the same ratios.
Of the 2,000 manuscripts tabulated, 1,314, or about 66 per cent, were from the Pacific States, Alaska, and the Rocky Mountain States. Next come the northeastern States, New England and the old "Middle States," from which 298 manuscripts were offered, about 15 per cent of the whole; and of this number more than two thirds, 207, came from New York and Massachusetts. About 10 per cent of all the manuscripts offered to this far Western magazine, it will be seen, are from these two literary centers. 218 of the 2,000 manuscripts, about 1 1 per cent of the whole, came from the old Middle West, from ten different States of the Mississippi valley; nearly one fourth of the number from Illinois. 126 manuscripts, over 6 per cent of the whole, came from fifteen southern States and the District of Columbia; nearly half of these from Washington, Baltimore, and St. Louis. Forty-one manuscripts, scarcely more than 2 per cent, came from foreign countries, chiefly Canada and England, then France, Chile, Hawaii, Mexico, Australia, Italy, and Greece. With three manuscripts no addresses were given.
Of the 1,314 manuscripts from the Pacific and the Rocky Mountain region, 1,084 manuscripts came from California, 54 per cent of the whole 2,000; 94 were offered by Washington writers, less than 5 per cent, less than the number that were sent out here from New York State, viz, 125 From Oregon 53 manuscripts were offered, less than 3 per cent of the whole number, and considerably less than the number 82 offered here from Massachusetts. From eleven States and Territories lying next east of these three Pacific ones, just the sftme number of manuscripts is recorded as from Massachusetts, 4 per cent of the 2,000; nearly half of these come from Colorado. Of the California offerings, again, 64 per cent come from San Francisco, and the Bay region; nearly 23 percent from Southern California, especially Los Angeles; while central and northern California and the mountain counties send the rest. In Washington, it is worth noting manuscripts are sent from many places, though Tacoma leads distinctly; while in Oregon two thirds come from Portland.
Judge Cooley says wisely that in no respect does the Hawaiian affair show more clearly the mischief of allowing our representatives to intermeddle in the affairs even of the smallest countries to which they are accredited, than in this: that at a time when matters of the most critical importance to the whole of this great nation are pending, and the coolest judgment of everyone is needed, we are distracted from their prompt and proper consideration by excitement over the affairs of a small, remote island, which ought not to be of the least practical concern to us. English ministries have more than once been upset, and the most important domestic affairs thrown into confusion for years, by foreign entanglements of trivial importance. If the experience of England, and now of our own country, might lead to more wisdom in future, the present unpleasant experience, and the rivers of printers' ink it has caused to flow in vain, might,not be wasted. Unfortunately, unless time brings more wisdom, the effect of the incident is going to be that our ministers will feel that over-sympathy in the affairs of other countries may not be wise, but is likely to be popular; and we have many and many a man in public life who is more concerned to be popular than to be wise. Our position toward Hawaii has been, in fact, from the time of the revolution, one from which there was no creditable escape: to go forward was dishonor, to go backward
