by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Continuing with our look at the life and career of Lemuel Thomas Fisher (1831-1909), the publisher of the Wilmington Enterprise newspaper in the port town south of Los Angeles, we take in some of county news in the paper’s edition of 5 August 1875, which the Museum has in its collection.
One tidbit was that the grape crop was to be bit on the late side for the fall harvesting season. This is generally due to cooler than normal temperatures during the spring and summer, as well as heavy rainfall, while, conversely, meaning that grapes would mature more slowly and gradually than in another year when picking was done more or less “on time.” This didn’t necessarily mean a lower quality of grape; in fact, more rain could certainly be a great boon. The Los Angeles Herald, meanwhile, was cited as stating that the orange crop, harvested after the first of the next year, “will be light, only a few orchards yielding largely.
A reflection of how bee-keeping for raising honey was taking hold in Los Angeles County and would grow in succeeding years is reflected in the brief note that a dozen cases of the product were sent from El Monte to San Francisco. A brief post here in 2017 highlighted a late 1870s photo from the Museum’s holdings of an apiary in the foothills of the Sierra Madre (now San Gabriel) Mountains that was in the Sierra Madre Villa area between Pasadena and Sierra Madre.
With the county elections under a month away (Temple and Workman bank president F.P.F. Temple was a Republican candidate for county treasurer), there was mention that the Los Angeles Express estimated there were between 5,500 and 6,000 registered voters in the county, reflecting a rapidly rising population as the region’s first boom peaked. There were also brief notices of the Democratic County Convention being held the prior day and speechifying by Democrats and Republicans ahead of the vote.
The Los Angeles and Independence Railroad project, of which Temple was the founding president before moving to the treasurer position when United States Senator from Nevada and mining magnate John P. Jones became the company’s majority investor and assumed the chief executive role, devoted most of its work in 1875 to constructing a branch line to Jones’ new seaside town, Santa Monica. Surveys and grading and tunnel work at Cajon Pass were conducted, as well, and the Enterprise observed that,
Four miles of grading toward the Merced ranch [a 2,363-acre tract near El Monte and Montebello which Temple co-owned with Juan Matias Sánchez ] have been completed on the other [east] side of [the] Los Angeles river by the L.A. & I. R.R. Co.
The route was to go through the Rancho La Puente, co-owned by Temple’s father-in-law and banking partner, William Workman, on its way to the pass, but nothing other than grading for part of the route was ever completed. Another tidbit cited the Herald for the information that the company’s Los Angeles depot “will be located at a point situated between Washington, Sixth, Figueroa and Alameda street,” quite a large area, “provided a block of ground and the right way are donated” by the city.
Another interesting little item concerned a “Miss Wheeler, the champion lady operator of this coast,” who was to be responsible for “the lighting in the Western Union Telegraph office at Los Angeles.” More indications of the area’s growth came in comments that the assessed property value for the county jumped by a little more than 20% from the prior year, reaching about $14.5 million, while the Express boasted that its circulation doubled since March.
Speaking of readership and subscriptions, this post began with the observation that running a newspaper, especially in smaller towns and rural areas, was a significant challenge, which explained why so many proprietors moved frequently as they tried to make a decent living in the highly competitive and often rough-and-tumble world of journalism.
Apropos of this, Fisher tried a little bit of self-deprecating humor to exhort subscribers by reminding then that,
We hope those of our patrons who know themselves to be indebted to us will call and settle. They may think we publish a “windy’ [that is, wordy and expressive] sheet, but it doesn’t follow that we can live on air.
In fact, seeing a reference to Santa Monica and what appeared to be a new trend in which it was said by the Express that taking “a dip in old Neptune is in order at almost any time,” it turned out that Fisher took a different kind of plunge in the new coastal community. The 13 October 1875 edition of the Kentuckian Citizen, which Fisher co-owned before decamping to California, reported that the Enterprise was suspended because “Wilmington was so small, with no surrounding community to offer material aid.”
Moreover, Fisher continued, “during the past six months, by doing the greater part of our own work, and practicing the most rigid economy, we have been able to keep our expenses within our income,” but that hardly would help achieve the fortune, much less the spouse, the Citizen wished for him when he left the Bluegrass State. Within a week, the publisher was expected to produce the first issue of the Santa Monica Outlook, the fledgling burg’s first paper and his old sheet concluded its account with “Mr. Fisher is a gentleman of talent and culture . . . and will make a good paper in his new location, if the proper encouragement is given him.”
Fisher fought the good fight for a little over three years, but, just about two and a half weeks after this edition of the Enterprise was published, the state economy took a nosedive (after being seemingly immune from the national depression of 1873) when a Virginia City, Nevada silver mine stock bubble burst. After the Bank of California, the state’s largest financial institution, cratered, the panic followed telegraph wires to Los Angeles and, in the fallout, the Temple and Workman bank failed.
After trying to make the Outlook a success through most of the remainder of the decade, Fisher made another change as the Express reported, in its 4 January 1879 edition, that he “has concluded to fold his tent and quietly steal away from the city by the sea.” Specified as a major cause was “the abandonment of the wharf at Santa Monica,” this being the one built by the Los Angeles and Independence, which floundered in the economic malaise and was purchased by its rival, the Southern Pacific in 1877.
Fisher “proposes to locate in Downey,” also a relative new town, “where he will establish his office and commence the publication of a new paper.” It was said that folks in the burg established by former California governor John G. Downey would welcome Fisher and his paper “with open arms,” and the Express lauded the publisher for his work with the Outlook being “the spiciest, newsiest, most readable weekly paper on our county exchange list.” Moving the sheet to Downey, adjudged as “a live, flourishing agricultural center” would be a boon for both the town and Fisher.
Alas, the honeymoon at Downey was short and, in 1880, Fisher decamped, as many greater Los Angeles folk did, to Tucson, Arizona and worked in journalist there for about a year. He came back to the Angel City in early June 1881 and then took a job with the San Diego Union, and, while his stay was just 10 month, the Union was effusive in its praise when he left in April 1882. It noted that he preferred an evening paper because of daytime working hours, whereas a morning daily involved the burning of the midnight oil, but it called him “a thoroughly honorable gentleman, and an able and conscientious journalist,” while wishing him success in his new position with the Express.
In late March, he purchased an interest in that paper and became its editor, but that tenure also proved to be short and he left the Express the following year. Fisher settled on a fruit ranch in Pasadena, which he soon sold to a theological seminary and, in July 1884, launched another short-lived paper, called The Democrat. As befitting a native of the South, Fisher was a dedicated member of that party. Moving to South Pasadena, where, as the economy improved significantly and real estate values rose accordingly, he made a tidy profit in selling his first place and bought a second, Fisher looked to return to the newspaper game.
In November 1886, he decided to revive the Santa Monica Outlook and it made its return early the following year. This time, the great Boom of the Eighties was at hand and far larger than a decade or so before when he’d first moved to the seaside town from Wilmington. This second tenure was the longest of his journalistic career, even as the boom inevitably went bust as the decade crawled to a close.
He twice served as treasurer of the Southern California Editorial Association, but, in March 1892 parted with the Outlook. After a dalliance with a Santa Monica semi-weekly paper, he bought back the Outlook in October. Thanks to political patronage, the loyal Democrat was, in spring 1893, appointed an inspector at Port Los Angeles, a new wharf on a long curved pier built north of Santa Monica by the Southern Pacific. In his early sixties, Fisher no doubt found the work far easier than running a paper and sold his interest in the Outlook in October 1894, ending a journalistic career that lasted for most of a half-century.
In 1896, he was appointed to be an assistant federal customs inspector, but, by the time the 20th century dawned, a remarkable change took place. Part of this was his view of religion, with Fisher writing in a 1906 autobiographical sketch that “I once believed all [orthodox preachers] said; then I believed only part,” though “now I know very little as to what they are saying and care less.” Identifying as “a heathen—a sort of pantheistic-agnostic,” he concluded “I believe in the all-good as far as I can see; after that I don’t know” and told readers, “neither do you.”
As a journalist, Fisher continued, “I saw so much that was mere sham” and turned into a pessimist, concluding that “the world had gotten into a cul-de-sac and there was no way out.” He then transformed from “a mild cynic” to an optimist who put his faith “in the final triumph of the good,” and wrote,
I reached this change of mind and heart through socialism. This change has been a new birth—a new life to me. I have quit tobacco and whisky; do less dreaming. I have no soul-longing for the infinite; but I keep up a lively faith in the true, the beautiful and the good, which I insist all shall embody in their active lives. So I have a problem. It is this—to aid in bringing about conditions that will insure a fair deal for every human being [even people of color, one wonders, given his past?]. I ask nothing more for myself.
Generally, most people become more conservative as they age, but Fisher became more radical, calling himself a Social Democrat, what likely would be today’s Democratic Socialist. How much of this was also influenced by the ever-widening wealth gap of the Gilded Age (to which we have basically returned) and the proliferation of masses living in poverty included in slums and barrios is not explained.
What is known is that, in the final decade of his life, Fisher, who joined a Socialist labor club in 1900 (he polled few votes when running for the City Council that year) and then the Social Democrats the following year, spoke frequently on such topics as “Collectivism vs. Individualism,” “The New Woman,” and “All for Socialism,” among others. At the same time, he joined the Pioneers of Los Angeles County, lecturing on “Growing Old Gracefully” after following former mayor and soon-to-be city treasurer William H. Workman’s remarks on “Holiday Festivities in Early Times” as 1900 dawned and then on “Old Los Angeles” five years later.
The 11 July 1908 featured a late-life jeremiad from Fisher, who asserted that “there are two ways of viewing the principle of human rights,” citing a comment from William H. Seward, Secretary of State under President Lincoln and who, as a United States Senator, commented on slavery by thundering, “there is a higher law!” in addition to the laws of the state. Continuing, Fisher claimed that,
Comparing small things with great, the Los Angeles [city] council are evidently of the same opinion, for they regard their enactments as being HIGHER than the constitution—both federal and state. Only there is this difference: One stands for a great moral principle and civil right, the other is a fawning subservience to capitalistic dictation.
Under a year later, Fisher, described in the Los Angeles Herald in November 1874 after taking over the Enterprise as someone who “looks like Faust and Ben[jamin] Franklin rolled into one,” died on 12 May 1909 after a long illness at the Clara Barton Hospital. His death record listed the cause as “senility.”
The Express of that day provided a brief biography, with some errors, such as that he went to Wilmington in 1882 and established the Outlook, while not mentioning his marriage in 1887 to the widow of a Santa Monica lawyer, but from whom he was apparently estranged. The account did add that Fisher was part of a legal publishing firm for a year-and-a-half at the start of the decade before retiring because of poor health. Notably, the funeral service was conducted by a Mormon priest, so his heathenism appears to have evolved into a new religious adherence.
The life and career of Lemuel T. Fisher is an interesting and notable one in terms of his work in greater Los Angeles journalism during the last quarter of the 19th century as well as his many shifts in residence, newspapers, and political and religious views. The Homestead has five other issues of the Wilmington Enterprise in its holdings, so we’ll look to share more them in the “Read All About It” series.
The journalistic career of Lemuel Fisher was not particularly distinguished, nor were his various business investments and ventures. However, every newspaper he published in the 19th century is now considered a treasure of inestimable historical value.
Are we now returning to the Gilded Age? This question, posed in the post, is intriguing and prompts significant reflection. I would argue that the ever-increasing income inequality and wealth disparity are perhaps the most striking phenomena today that resemble the late 19th century, albeit on a greater scale.
Today’s technological innovations, centered around the internet and artificial intelligence, mirror the technological advancements that followed the Civil War, when railroads were extensively built across the nation, and industrialization rapidly expanded in many sectors. Just as the demand for skilled labor, driven by industrial growth and better pay, attracted millions of European immigrants to the U.S. 150 years ago, today’s demand for talent, with higher wages, primarily draws from Asian countries, while laborers are sourced from Latin America.
Another parallel aspect is political corruption, which today manifests in areas such as poverty assistance,, pharmaceuticals, military defense, military aid to foreign countries, and green energy. The practice of securing political power by exchanging votes for immigrant support through open borders resembles the political machines and bossism that were prevalent between the Reconstruction and Progressive eras.
However, the labor issues of today differ drastically from those of the Gilded Age. While workers in the late 19th century needed protection, today’s U.S. labor force has long been overprotected to the point of diminishing productivity and competitiveness in the global market. Moreover, with the rapid rise of intelligent automation and intelligent autonomy, not only laborers but also many white-collar workers are at risk of unemployment. This might lead to a new labor protection debate, focusing on limiting the use of automation.
Another significant difference is the social safety net, or what we now call social welfare. In the 1870s-1890s, the poor were in dire need of social programs to protect them from poverty and inequality. After decades of evolution, today’s social services have, in some cases, become channels for wasting taxpayers’ money, encouraging dependency, and fostering unemployment, homelessness, and disability. Additionally, these services have become attractive to foreign “fake refugees” who hide their wealth overseas while seeking a free haven in the U.S.