Perhaps this may be thought merely an exuberant hospitality. Let me quote, then, from the same man, speaking again as the Governor of the State, at the Capitol of the State, in the most careful oration of his life: "What shall be said of the future of California? Lift your eyes and expand your conceptions to take in the magnitude of her destiny. An empire in area, presenting advantages and attractions to the people of the Eastern States and Europe far beyond those presented by any other State or Territory--who shall set limits to her progress, or paint in fitting colors the splendor of her future?... Mismanagement may at times retard her progress, but if the people of California are true to themselves, this State is destined to a high position, not only among her sister States, but among the commonwealths of the world,... when her ships visit every shore, and her merchant princes control the commerce of the great ocean and the populous countries upon its borders." Was Governor Haight alone, or was he in advance of his time? Go yet farther back, to the day when Judge Nathaniel Bennett was assigned by the people of San Francisco to the task of delivering the oration when they celebrated the admission of California into the Union, on October 29, 1850: "Judging from the past, what have we not a right to expect in the future? The world has never witnessed anything equal or similar to our career hitherto.... Our State is a marvel to ourselves, and a miracle to the rest of the world. Nor is the influence of California confined within her own borders.... The islands nestled in the embrace of the Pacific have felt the quickening breath of her enterprise.... She has caused the hum of busy life to be heard in the wilderness where rolls the Oregon, and where until recently was heard no sound save his own dashings. Even the wall of Chinese exclusiveness has been broken down, and the children of the Sun have come forth to view the splendors of her achievements.... It is all but a foretaste of the future.... The world's trade is destined soon to be changed.... The commerce of Asia and the islands of the Pacific, instead of pursuing the ocean track by the way of Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, or even taking the shorter route of the Isthmus of Darien or the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, will enter the Golden Gate of California and deposit its riches in the lap of our city.... New York will then become what London now is--the great central point of exchange, the heart of trade, the force of whose contraction and expansion will be felt throughout every artery of the commercial world; and San Francisco will then stand the second city of America.... The responsibility rests upon us whether this first American State of the Pacific shall in youth and ripe manhood realize the promise of infancy. We may cramp her energies and distort her form, or we may make her a rival even of the Empire State of the Atlantic. The best wishes of Americans are with us.