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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4755-8.txt b/4755-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cc5a758 --- /dev/null +++ b/4755-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,951 @@ +Project Gutenberg's California and the Californians, by David Starr Jordan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: California and the Californians + +Author: David Starr Jordan + +Posting Date: September 4, 2009 [EBook #4755] +Release Date: December, 2003 +First Posted: March 12, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS *** + + + + +Produced by David A. Schwan. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + +California and the Californians + + + +By + +David Starr Jordan + +President Stanford University + + + + +The Californian loves his state because his state loves him. He returns +her love with a fierce affection that to men who do not know California +is always a surprise. Hence he is impatient of outside criticism. Those +who do not love California cannot understand her, and, to his mind, +their shafts, however aimed, fly wide of the mark. Thus, to say that +California is commercially asleep, that her industries are gambling +ventures, that her local politics is in the hands of professional +pickpockets, that her small towns are the shabbiest in Christendom, that +her saloons control more constituents than her churches, that she is the +slave of corporations, that she knows no such thing as public opinion, +that she has not yet learned to distinguish enterprise from highway +robbery, nor reform from blackmail,--all these statements, and others +even more unpleasant, the Californian may admit in discussion, or may +say for himself, but he does not find them acceptable from others. They +may be more or less true, in certain times and places, but the +conditions which have permitted them will likewise mend them. It is said +in the Alps that "not all the vulgar people who come to Chamouny can +ever make Chamouny vulgar." For similar reasons, not all the sordid +people who drift overland can ever vulgarize California. Her fascination +endures, whatever the accidents of population. + +The charm of California has, in the main, three sources--scenery, +climate, and freedom of life. + +To know the glory of California scenery, one must live close to it +through the changing years. From Siskiyou to San Diego, from Alturas to +Tia Juana, from Mendocino to Mariposa, from Tahoe to the Farallones, +lake, crag, or chasm, forest, mountain, valley, or island, river, bay, +or jutting headland, every one bears the stamp of its own peculiar +beauty, a singular blending of richness, wildness and warmth. Coastwise +everywhere sea and mountains meet, and the surf of the cold Japanese +current breaks in turbulent beauty against tall "rincones" and jagged +reefs of rock. Slumbering amid the hills of the Coast Range, + + "A misty camp of mountains pitched tumultuously", + +lie golden valleys dotted with wide-limbed oaks, or smothered under +over-weighted fruit trees. Here, too, crumble to ruins the old +Franciscan missions, each in its own fair valley, passing monuments of +California's first page of written history. + +Inland rises the great Sierra, with spreading ridge and foothill, like +some huge, sprawling centipede, its granite back unbroken for a thousand +miles. Frost-torn peaks, of every height and bearing, pierce the blue +wastes above. Their slopes are dark with forests of sugar pines and +giant sequoias, the mightiest of trees, in whose silent aisles one may +wander all day long and see no sign of man. Dropped here and there rest +turquoise lakes which mark the craters of dead volcanoes, or which swell +the polished basins where vanished glaciers did their last work. Through +mountain meadows run swift brooks, over-peopled with trout, while from +the crags leap full-throated streams, to be half blown away in mist +before they touch the valley floor. Far down the fragrant caņons sing +the green and troubled rivers, twisting their way lower and lower to the +common plains, each larger stream calling to all his brooks to follow +him as down they go headforemost to the sea. Even the hopeless stretches +of alkali and sand, sinks of lost streams, in the southeastern counties, +are redeemed by the delectable mountains that on all sides shut them in. +Everywhere the landscape swims in crystalline ether, while over all +broods the warm California sun. Here, if anywhere, life is worth living, +full and rich and free. + +As there is from end to end of California scarcely one commonplace mile, +so from one end of the year to the other there is hardly a tedious day. +Two seasons only has California, but two are enough if each in its way +be perfect. Some have called the climate "monotonous," but so, equally, +is good health. In terms of Eastern, experience, the seasons may be +defined as "late in the spring and early in the fall"; + + "Half a year of clouds and flowers, half a year of dust and sky," + +according to Bret Harte. But with the dust and sky come the unbroken +succession of days of sunshine, the dry invigorating air, scented by the +resin of the tarweed, and the boundless overflow of vine and orchard. +Each season in its turn brings its fill of satisfaction, and winter or +summer we regret to look forward to change, because we feel never quite +sure that the season which is coming will be half so attractive as the +season which we now enjoy. If one must choose, in all the fragrant +California year the best month is June, for then the air is softest, and +a touch of summer's gold overlies the green of winter. But October, when +the first swift rains + + "dash the whole long slope with color," + +and leave the clean-washed atmosphere so absolutely transparent that +even distance is no longer blue, has a charm not less alluring. + +So far as man is concerned, the one essential fact is that he is never +the climate's slave; he is never beleaguered by the powers of the air. +Winter and summer alike call him out of doors. In summer he is not +languid, for the air is never sultry. In most regions he is seldom hot, +for in the shade or after nightfall the dry air is always cool. When it +rains the air may be chilly, in doors or out, but it is never cold +enough to make the remorseless base-burner a welcome alternative. The +habit of roasting one's self all winter long is unknown in California. +The old Californian seldom built a fire for warmth's sake. When he was +cold in the house he went out of doors to get warm. The house was a +place for storing food and keeping one's belongings from the wet. To +hide in it from the weather is to abuse the normal function. + +The climate of California is especially kind to childhood and old age. +Men live longer there, and, if unwasted by dissipation, strength of body +is better conserved. To children the conditions of life are particularly +favorable. California could have no better advertisement at some world's +fair than a visible demonstration of this fact. A series of measurements +of the children of Oakland has recently been taken, in the interest of +comparative child study; and should the average of these from different +ages be worked into a series of models from Eastern cities, the result +would surprise. The children of California, other things being equal, +are larger, stronger and better formed than their Eastern cousins of the +same age. This advantage of development lasts, unless cigarettes, late +hours, or grosser forms of dissipation come in to destroy it. A +wholesome, sober, out-of-door life in California invariably means a +vigorous maturity. + +A third element of charm in California is that of personal freedom. The +dominant note in the social development of the state is individualism, +with all that it implies of good or evil. Man is man in California: he +exists for his own sake, not as part of a social organism. He is, in a +sense, superior to society. In the first place, it is not his society; +he came from some other region on his own business. Most likely, he did +not intend to stay; but, having summered and wintered in California, he +has become a Californian, and now he is not contented anywhere else. +Life on the coast has, for him, something of the joyous irresponsibility +of a picnic. The feeling of children released from school remains with +the grown people. + +"A Western man," says Dr. Amos Griswold Warner, "is an Eastern man who +has had some additional experiences." The Californian is a man from +anywhere in America or Europe, typically from New England, perhaps, who +has learned a thing or two he did not know in the East, and perhaps, has +forgotten some things it would have been as well to remember. The things +he has learned relate chiefly to elbow room, nature at first hand and +"the unearned increment." The thing that he is most likely to forget is +that the escape from public opinion is not escape from the consequences +of wrong action. + +Of elbow room California offers abundance. In an old civilization men +grow like trees in a close-set forest. Individual growth and symmetry +give way to the necessity of crowding. Every man spends some large part +of his strength in being not himself, but what some dozens of other +people expect him to be. There is no room for spreading branches, and +the characteristic qualities and fruitage develop only at the top. On +the frontier men grow as the California white oak, which, in the open +field, sends its branches far and wide. + +With plenty of elbow-room the Californian works out his own inborn +character. If he is greedy, malicious, intemperate, by nature, his bad +qualities rise to the second degree in California, and sometimes to the +third. The whole responsibility rests on himself. Society has no part of +it, and he does not pretend to be what he is not, out of deference to +society. "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue," but in +California no such homage is demanded or accepted. In like manner, the +virtues become intensified in freedom. Nowhere in the world can one find +men and women more hospitable, more refined, more charming than in the +homes of prosperous California. And these homes, whether in the pine +forests of the Sierras, in the orange groves of the south, in the peach +orchards of the Coast range, or on the great stock ranches, are the +delight of all visitors who enter their open doors. To be sure, the +bewildering hospitality of the great financiers and greater gamblers of +the sixties and seventies is a thing of the past. We shall never again +see such prodigal entertainment as that which Ralston, bankrupt, +cynical, and magnificent, once dispensed in Belmont Caņon. Nor do we +find, nowadays, such lavish outgiving of fruit and wine, or such rushing +of tally-hos, as once preceded the auction sale of town lots in paper +cities. These gorgeous "spreads" were not hospitality, and disappeared +when the traveler had learned his lesson. Their avowed purpose was "the +sale of worthless land to old duffers from the East." But real +hospitality is characteristic of all parts of California where men and +women have an income beyond the needs of the day. + +To a very unusual degree the Californian forms his own opinions on +matters of politics, religion, and human life, and these views he +expresses without reserve. His own head he "carries under his own hat," +and whether this be silk or a sombrero is a matter of his own choosing. +The dictates of church and party have no binding force on him. The +Californian does not confine his views to abstractions. He has his own +opinions of individual men and women. If need be, he will analyze the +character, motives and actions of his neighbor in a way which will +horrify the traveler who has grown up in the shadow of the libel law. +The Californian is peculiarly sensitive as to his own personal freedom +of action. Toward public rights or duties, he is correspondingly +indifferent. In the times of national stress, he paid his debts in gold +and asked the same of his creditors, regardless of the laws or customs +of the rest of the United States. To him gold is still money and a +national promise to pay is not. The general welfare is not a catchword +with him. His affairs are individual. But he is not stingy for all this. +It is rather a form of largeness, of tolerance. He is as generous as the +best, and takes what the Fates send him with cheerful enthusiasm. Flood +and drought, temblor and conflagration, boom and panic--each comes in +"the day's work," and each alike finds him alert, hopeful, resourceful +and unafraid. + +The typical Californian has largely outgrown provincialism. He has seen +much of the world, and he knows the varied worth of varied lands. He +travels more widely than the man of any other state, and he has the +education which travel gives. As a rule, the well-to-do Californian +knows Europe better than the average Eastern man of equal financial +resources, and the chances are that his range of experience includes +Japan, China, New Zealand and Australia as well. A knowledge of his own +country is a matter of course. He has no sympathy with "the essential +provinciality of the mind which knows the Eastern seaboard, and has some +measure of acquaintance with countries and cities, and with men from +Ireland to Italy, but which is densely ignorant of our own vast domain, +and thinks that all which lies beyond Philadelphia belongs to the West." +Not that provincialism is unknown in California, or that its occasional +exhibition is any less absurd or offensive here than elsewhere. For +example, one may note a tendency to set up local standards for literary +work done in California. Another more harmful idea is to insist that +methods outworn in the schools elsewhere are good because they are +Californian. This is the usual provincialism of ignorance, and it is +found the world over. Especially is it characteristic of centers of +population. When men come into contact with men instead of with the +forces of nature, they mistake their own conventionalities for the facts +of existence. It is not what life is, but what "the singular mess we +agree to call life" is, that interests them. In this fashion they lose +their real understanding of affairs, become the toys of their local +environment, and are marked as provincials or tenderfeet when they stray +away from home. + +California is emphatically one of "earth's male lands," to accept +Browning's classification. The first Saxon settlers were men, and in +their rude civilization women had little part. For years women in +California were objects of curiosity or of chivalry, disturbing rather +than cementing influences in society. Even yet California is essentially +a man's state. It is common to say that public opinion does not exist +there; but such a statement is not wholly correct. It does exist, but it +is an out-of-door public opinion--a man's view of men. There is, for +example, a strong public opinion against hypocrisy in California, as +more than one clerical renegade has found, to his discomfiture. The +pretense to virtue is the one vice that is not forgiven. If a man be not +a liar, few questions are asked, least of all the delicate one as to the +"name he went by in the states." What we commonly call public opinion--the +cut and dried decision on social and civic questions--is made up in +the house. It is essentially feminine in its origin, the opinion of the +home circle as to how men should behave. In California there is little +which corresponds to the social atmosphere pervading the snug, +white-painted, green-blinded New England villages, and this little +exists chiefly in the southern counties, in communities of people +transported in block--traditions, conventionalities, prejudices, and +all. There is, in general, no merit attached to conformity, and one may +take a wide range of rope without necessarily arousing distrust. +Speaking broadly, in California the virtues of life spring from within, +and are not prescribed from without. The young man who is decent only +because he thinks that some one is looking, would do well to stay away. +The stern law of individual responsibility turns the fool over to the +fool-killer without a preliminary trial. No finer type of man can be +found in the world than the sober Californian; and yet no coast is +strewn with wrecks more pitiful. + +There are some advantages in the absence of a compelling force of public +opinion. One of them is found in the strong self-reliance of men and +women who have made and enforced their own moral standards. With very +many men, life in California brings a decided strengthening of the moral +fibre. They must reconsider, justify, and fight for their standards of +action; and by so doing they become masters of themselves. With men of +weak nature the result is not so encouraging. The disadvantage is shown +in lax business methods, official carelessness and corruption, the +widespread corrosion of vulgar vices, and the general lack of pride in +their work shown by artisans and craftsmen. + +In short, California is a man's land, with male standards of action--a +land where one must give and take, stand and fall, as a man. With the +growth of woman's realm of homes and houses, this will slowly change. It +is changing now, year by year, for good and ill; and soon California +will have a public opinion. Her sons will learn to fear "the rod behind +the looking-glass," and to shun evil not only because it is vile, but +because it is improper. + +Contact with the facts of nature has taught the Californian something of +importance. To have elbow-room is to touch nature at more angles; and +whenever she is touched she is an insistent teacher. Whatever is to be +done, the typical Californian knows how to do it, and how to do it well. +He is equal to every occasion. He can cinch his own saddle, harness his +own team, bud his own grapevines, cook his own breakfast, paint his own +house; and because he cannot go to the market for every little service, +perforce he serves himself. In dealing with college students in +California, one is impressed by their boundless ingenuity. If anything +needs doing, some student can do it for you. Is it to sketch a +waterfall, to engrave a portrait, to write a sonnet, to mend a saddle, +to sing a song, to build an engine, or to "bust a bronco," there is +someone at hand who can do it, and do it artistically. Varied ingenuity +California demands of her pioneers. Their native originality has been +intensified by circumstances, until it has become a matter of tradition +and habit. The processes of natural selection have favored the survival +of the ingenious, and the quality of adequacy has become hereditary. + +The possibility of the unearned increment is a great factor in the +social evolution of California. Its influence has been widespread, +persistent, and, in most regards, baneful. The Anglo-Saxon first came to +California for gold to be had for the picking up. The hope of securing +something for nothing, money or health without earning it, has been the +motive for a large share of the subsequent immigration. From those who +have grown rich through undeserved prosperity, and from those who have +grown poor in the quest of it, California has suffered sorely. Even now, +far and wide, people think of California as a region where wealth is not +dependent on thrift, where one can somehow "strike it rich" without that +tedious attention to details and expenses which wears out life in effete +regions such as Europe and the Eastern states. In this feeling there is +just enough of truth to keep the notion alive, but never enough to save +from disaster those who make it a working hypothesis. The hope of great +or sudden wealth has been the mainspring of enterprise in California, +but it has also been the excuse for shiftlessness and recklessness, the +cause of social disintegration and moral decay. The "Argonauts of '49" +were a strong, self-reliant, generous body of men. They came for gold, +and gold in abundance. Most of them found it, and some of them retained +it. Following them came a miscellaneous array of parasites and +plunderers; gamblers, dive-keepers and saloon-keepers, who fed fat on +the spoils of the Argonauts. Every Roaring Camp had its Jack Hamlin as +well as its Flynn of Virginia, John Oakhurst came with Yuba Bill, and +the wild, strong, generous, reckless aggregate cared little for thrift, +and wasted more than they earned. + +But it is not gold alone that in California has dazzled men with visions +of sudden wealth. Orange groves, peach orchards, prune orchards, wheat +raising, lumbering, horse-farms; chicken-ranches, bee-ranches, +sheep-breeding, seal-poaching, cod-fishing, salmon-canning--each of +these has held out the same glittering possibility. Even the humblest +ventures have caught the prevailing tone of speculation. Industry and +trade have been followed, not for a living, but for sudden wealth, and +often on a scale of personal expenses out of all proportion to the +probable results. In the sixties, when the gold-fever began to subside, +it was found that the despised "cow counties" would bear marvelous crops +of wheat. At once wheat-raising was undertaken on a grand scale. Farms +of five thousand to fifty thousand acres were established on the old +Spanish grants in the valleys of the Coast Range and in the interior, +and for a time wheat-raising on a grand scale took its place along with +the more conventional forms of gambling, with the disadvantage that +small holders were excluded, and the region occupied was not filled up +by homes. + +The working out of most of the placer mines and the advent of +quartz-crushing with elaborate machinery have changed gold-mining from +speculation to regular business, to the great advantage of the state. In +the same manner the development of irrigation is changing the character +of farming in many parts of California. In the early days fruit-raising +was of the nature of speculation, but the spread of irrigation has +brought it into more wholesome relations. To irrigate a tract of land is +to make its product certain; but at the same time irrigation demands +expenditure of money, and the building of a home necessarily follows. +Irrigation thus tends to break up the vast farms into small holdings +which become permanent homes. + +On land well chosen, carefully planted and thriftily managed, an orchard +of prunes or of oranges, of almonds or apricots, should reward its +possessor with a comfortable living, besides occasionally a generous +profit thrown in. But too often men have not been content with the usual +return, and have planted trees with a view only to the unearned profits. +To make an honest living from the sale of oranges or prunes or figs or +raisins is quite another thing from acquiring sudden wealth. When a man +without experience in fruit-raising or in general economy comes to +California, buys land on borrowed capital, plants it without +discrimination, and spends his profits in advance, there can be but one +result. The laws of economics are inexorable even in California. One of +the curses of the state is the "fool fruit-grower," with neither +knowledge nor conscience in the management of his business. Thousands of +trees have been planted on ground unsuitable for the purpose, and +thousands of trees which ought to have done well have died through his +neglect. Through his agency frozen oranges were once sent to Eastern +markets under his neighbor's brands, and most needlessly his varied +follies for a time injured the reputation of the best of fruit. + +The great body of immigrants to California have been sound and earnest, +fit citizens of the young state, but this is rarely true of seekers of +the unearned increment. No one is more greedy for money than the man who +can never get much and cannot keep the little he has. Rumors of golden +chances have brought in a steady stream of incompetents from all regions +and from all strata of social life. From the common tramp to the +inventor of "perpetual motions" in mechanics or in social science, is a +long step in the moral scale, but both are alike in their eagerness to +escape from the "competitive social order" of the East, in which their +abilities found no recognition. Whoever has deservedly failed in the +older states is sure at least once in his life to think of redeeming his +fortunes in California. Once on the Pacific slope the difficulties in +the way of his return seem insurmountable. The dread of the winter's +cold is in most cases a sufficient reason for never going back. Thus San +Francisco, by force of circumstances, has become the hopper into which +fall incompetents from all the world, and from which few escape. The +city contains more than four hundred thousand people. Of these, a vast +number, thirty thousand to fifty thousand, it may be, have no real +business in San Francisco. They live from hand to mouth, by odd jobs +that might be better done by better people; and whatever their success +in making a living, they swell the army of discontent, and confound all +attempts to solve industrial problems. In this rough estimate I do not +count San Francisco's own poor, of which there are some but not many, +but only those who have drifted in from the outside. I would include, +however, not only those who are economically impotent, but also those +who follow the weak for predatory ends. In this last category I place a +large number of saloon-keepers, and keepers of establishments far worse, +toward which the saloon is only the first step downward; a class of +so-called lawyers, politicians and agents of bribery and blackmail; a +long line of soothsayers, clairvoyants, lottery agents and joint +keepers, besides gamblers, sweaters, promoters of "medical institutes," +magnetic, psychical and magic "healers" and other types of unhanged, but +more or less pendable, scoundrels that feed upon the life-blood of the +weak and foolish. The other cities of California have had a similar +experience. Each has its reputation for hospitality, and each has a +considerable population which has come in from other regions because +incapable of making its own way. It is not the poor and helpless alone +who are the victims of imposition. There are fools in all walks of life. +Many a well-dressed man or woman can be found in the rooms of the +clairvoyant or the Chinese "doctor." In matters of health, especially, +men grasp at the most unpromising straws. In certain cities of +California there is scarcely a business block that did not contain at +least one human leech under the trade name of "healer," metaphysical, +electrical, astral, divine or what not. And these will thrive so long as +men seek health or fortune with closed eyes and open hands. + +In no way has the unearned increment been more mischievous than in the +booming of towns. With the growth of towns comes increase in the value +of the holdings of those who hold and wait. If the city grows rapidly +enough, these gains may be inordinately great. The marvelous beauty of +Southern California and the charm of its climate have impressed +thousands of people. Two or three times this impression has been +epidemic. At one time almost every bluff along the coast, from Los +Angeles to San Diego and beyond, was staked out in town lots. The +wonderful climate was everywhere, and everywhere men had it for sale, +not only along the coast, but throughout the orange-bearing region of +the interior. Every resident bought lots, all the lots he could hold. +The tourist took his hand in speculation. Corner lots in San Diego, Del +Mar, Azusa, Redlands, Riverside, Pasadena, anywhere brought fabulous +prices. A village was laid out in the uninhabited bed of a mountain +torrent, and men stood in the streets in Los Angeles, ranged in line, +all night long, to wait their turn in buying lots. Land, worthless and +inaccessible, barren cliffs' river-wash, sand hills, cactus deserts' +sinks of alkali, everything met with ready sale. The belief that +Southern California would be one great city was universal. The desire to +buy became a mania. "Millionaires of a day," even the shrewdest lost +their heads, and the boom ended, as such booms always end, in utter +collapse. + +Mr. T. S. Van Dyke, of San Diego, has written of this episode: "The +money market tightened almost on the instant. From every quarter of the +land the drain of money outward had been enormous, and had been balanced +only by the immense amount constantly coming in. Almost from the day +this inflow ceased money seemed scarce everywhere, for the outgo still +continued. Not only were vast sums going out every day for water-pipe, +railroad iron, cement, lumber, and other material for the great +improvements going on in every direction, most of which material had +already been ordered, but thousands more were still going out for +diamonds and a host of other things already bought--things that only +increase the general indebtedness of community by making those who +cannot afford them imitate those who can. And tens of thousands more +were going out for butter, eggs, pork, and even potatoes and other +vegetables, which the luxurious boomers thought it beneath the dignity +of millionaires to raise." + +But the normal growth of Los Angeles and her sister towns has gone on, +in spite of these spasms of fever and their consequent chills. Their +real advantages could not be obscured by the bursting of financial +bubbles. By reason of situation and climate they have continued to +attract men of wealth and enterprise, as well as those in search of +homes and health. + +The search for the unearned increment in bodily health brings many to +California who might better have remained at home. The invalid finds +health in California only if he is strong enough to grasp it. To one who +can spend his life out of doors it is indeed true that "our pines are +trees of healing," but to one confined to the house, there is little +gain in the new conditions. To those accustomed to the close heat of +Eastern rooms the California house in the winter seems depressingly +chilly. + +I know of few things more pitiful than the annual migration of hopeless +consumptives which formerly took place to Los Angeles, Pasadena, and San +Diego. The Pullman cars in the winter used to be full of sick people, +banished from the East by physicians who do not know what else to do +with their incurable patients. They went to the large hotels of Los +Angeles or Pasadena, to pay a rate they cannot afford. They shivered in +half-warmed rooms; took cold after cold; their symptoms grew alarming; +their money wasted away; and finally, in utter despair, they were +hurried back homeward, perhaps to die on board the train. Or it may be +that they choose cheap lodging-houses, at prices more nearly within +their reach. Here, again, they suffer for want of home food, home +comforts, and home warmth, and the end is just the same. People +hopelessly ill should remain with their friends; even California has no +health to give to those who cannot earn it, in part at least, by their +own exertions. + +It is true that the "one-lunged people" form a considerable part of the +population of Southern California. It is also true that no part of our +Union has a more enlightened or more enterprising population, and that +many of these men and women are now as robust and vigorous as one could +desire. But this happy change is possible only to those in the first +stages of the disease. Out-of-door life and physical activity enable the +system to suppress the germs of disease, but climate without activity +does not cure. So far as climate is concerned, many parts of the arid +regions in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, as well as portions of Old +Mexico (Cuernavaca or Morelia, for example) are more favorable than +California, because they are protected from the chill of the sea. +Another class of health-seekers receives less sympathy in California, +and perhaps deserves less. Jaundiced hypochondriacs and neurotic wrecks +shiver in California winter boarding-houses, torment themselves with +ennui at the country ranches, poison themselves with "nerve foods," and +perhaps finally survive to write the sad and squalid "truth about +California." Doubtless it is all inexpressibly tedious to them; +subjective woe is always hard to bear--but it is not California. + +There are others, too, who are disaffected, but I need not stop to +discuss them or their points of view. It is true, in general, that few +to whom anything else is anywhere possible find disappointment in +California. + +With all this, the social life is, in its essentials, that of the rest +of the United States, for the same blood flows in the veins of those +whose influence dominates it. Under all its deviations and variations +lies the old Puritan conscience, which is still the backbone of the +civilization of the republic. Life in California is a little fresher, a +little freer, a good deal richer, in its physical aspects, and for these +reasons, more intensely and characteristically American. With perhaps +ninety per cent of identity there is ten per cent of divergence, and +this ten per cent I have emphasized even to exaggeration. We know our +friends by their slight differences in feature or expression, not by +their common humanity. Much of this divergence is already fading away. +Scenery and climate remain, but there is less elbow-room, and the +unearned increment is disappearing. That which is solid will endure; the +rest will vanish. The forces that ally us to the East are growing +stronger every year with the immigration of men with new ideas. The +vigorous growth of the two universities in California insures the +elevation as well as the retention of these ideas. Through their +influence California will contribute a generous share to the social +development of the East, and be a giver as well as a receiver. + +Today the pressure of higher education is greater to the square mile, if +we pay use such an expression, than anywhere else in our country. In no +other state is the path from the farmhouse to the college so well +trodden as here. It requires no prophet to forecast the educational +pre-eminence of California, for the basis of intellectual development is +already assured. But however close the alliance with Eastern culture, to +the last, certain traits will persist. California is the most +cosmopolitan of all the states of the Union, and such she will remain. +Whatever the fates may bring, her people will be tolerant, hopeful, and +adequate, sure of themselves, masters of the present, fearless of the +future. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of California and the Californians, by +David Starr Jordan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS *** + +***** This file should be named 4755-8.txt or 4755-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/5/4755/ + +Produced by David A. Schwan. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: California and the Californians + +Author: David Starr Jordan + +Posting Date: September 4, 2009 [EBook #4755] +Release Date: December, 2003 +First Posted: March 12, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS *** + + + + +Produced by David A. Schwan. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +California and the Californians +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +By +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +David Starr Jordan +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +President Stanford University +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P> +The Californian loves his state because his state loves him. He returns +her love with a fierce affection that to men who do not know California +is always a surprise. Hence he is impatient of outside criticism. Those +who do not love California cannot understand her, and, to his mind, +their shafts, however aimed, fly wide of the mark. Thus, to say that +California is commercially asleep, that her industries are gambling +ventures, that her local politics is in the hands of professional +pickpockets, that her small towns are the shabbiest in Christendom, that +her saloons control more constituents than her churches, that she is the +slave of corporations, that she knows no such thing as public opinion, +that she has not yet learned to distinguish enterprise from highway +robbery, nor reform from blackmail,—all these statements, and others +even more unpleasant, the Californian may admit in discussion, or may +say for himself, but he does not find them acceptable from others. They +may be more or less true, in certain times and places, but the +conditions which have permitted them will likewise mend them. It is said +in the Alps that "not all the vulgar people who come to Chamouny can +ever make Chamouny vulgar." For similar reasons, not all the sordid +people who drift overland can ever vulgarize California. Her fascination +endures, whatever the accidents of population. +</P> + +<P> +The charm of California has, in the main, three sources—scenery, +climate, and freedom of life. +</P> + +<P> +To know the glory of California scenery, one must live close to it +through the changing years. From Siskiyou to San Diego, from Alturas to +Tia Juana, from Mendocino to Mariposa, from Tahoe to the Farallones, +lake, crag, or chasm, forest, mountain, valley, or island, river, bay, +or jutting headland, every one bears the stamp of its own peculiar +beauty, a singular blending of richness, wildness and warmth. Coastwise +everywhere sea and mountains meet, and the surf of the cold Japanese +current breaks in turbulent beauty against tall "rincones" and jagged +reefs of rock. Slumbering amid the hills of the Coast Range, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "A misty camp of mountains pitched tumultuously",<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +lie golden valleys dotted with wide-limbed oaks, or smothered under +over-weighted fruit trees. Here, too, crumble to ruins the old +Franciscan missions, each in its own fair valley, passing monuments of +California's first page of written history. +</P> + +<P> +Inland rises the great Sierra, with spreading ridge and foothill, like +some huge, sprawling centipede, its granite back unbroken for a thousand +miles. Frost-torn peaks, of every height and bearing, pierce the blue +wastes above. Their slopes are dark with forests of sugar pines and +giant sequoias, the mightiest of trees, in whose silent aisles one may +wander all day long and see no sign of man. Dropped here and there rest +turquoise lakes which mark the craters of dead volcanoes, or which swell +the polished basins where vanished glaciers did their last work. Through +mountain meadows run swift brooks, over-peopled with trout, while from +the crags leap full-throated streams, to be half blown away in mist +before they touch the valley floor. Far down the fragrant caņons sing +the green and troubled rivers, twisting their way lower and lower to the +common plains, each larger stream calling to all his brooks to follow +him as down they go headforemost to the sea. Even the hopeless stretches +of alkali and sand, sinks of lost streams, in the southeastern counties, +are redeemed by the delectable mountains that on all sides shut them in. +Everywhere the landscape swims in crystalline ether, while over all +broods the warm California sun. Here, if anywhere, life is worth living, +full and rich and free. +</P> + +<P> +As there is from end to end of California scarcely one commonplace mile, +so from one end of the year to the other there is hardly a tedious day. +Two seasons only has California, but two are enough if each in its way +be perfect. Some have called the climate "monotonous," but so, equally, +is good health. In terms of Eastern, experience, the seasons may be +defined as "late in the spring and early in the fall"; +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Half a year of clouds and flowers, half a year of dust and sky,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +according to Bret Harte. But with the dust and sky come the unbroken +succession of days of sunshine, the dry invigorating air, scented by the +resin of the tarweed, and the boundless overflow of vine and orchard. +Each season in its turn brings its fill of satisfaction, and winter or +summer we regret to look forward to change, because we feel never quite +sure that the season which is coming will be half so attractive as the +season which we now enjoy. If one must choose, in all the fragrant +California year the best month is June, for then the air is softest, and +a touch of summer's gold overlies the green of winter. But October, when +the first swift rains +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "dash the whole long slope with color,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and leave the clean-washed atmosphere so absolutely transparent that +even distance is no longer blue, has a charm not less alluring. +</P> + +<P> +So far as man is concerned, the one essential fact is that he is never +the climate's slave; he is never beleaguered by the powers of the air. +Winter and summer alike call him out of doors. In summer he is not +languid, for the air is never sultry. In most regions he is seldom hot, +for in the shade or after nightfall the dry air is always cool. When it +rains the air may be chilly, in doors or out, but it is never cold +enough to make the remorseless base-burner a welcome alternative. The +habit of roasting one's self all winter long is unknown in California. +The old Californian seldom built a fire for warmth's sake. When he was +cold in the house he went out of doors to get warm. The house was a +place for storing food and keeping one's belongings from the wet. To +hide in it from the weather is to abuse the normal function. +</P> + +<P> +The climate of California is especially kind to childhood and old age. +Men live longer there, and, if unwasted by dissipation, strength of body +is better conserved. To children the conditions of life are particularly +favorable. California could have no better advertisement at some world's +fair than a visible demonstration of this fact. A series of measurements +of the children of Oakland has recently been taken, in the interest of +comparative child study; and should the average of these from different +ages be worked into a series of models from Eastern cities, the result +would surprise. The children of California, other things being equal, +are larger, stronger and better formed than their Eastern cousins of the +same age. This advantage of development lasts, unless cigarettes, late +hours, or grosser forms of dissipation come in to destroy it. A +wholesome, sober, out-of-door life in California invariably means a +vigorous maturity. +</P> + +<P> +A third element of charm in California is that of personal freedom. The +dominant note in the social development of the state is individualism, +with all that it implies of good or evil. Man is man in California: he +exists for his own sake, not as part of a social organism. He is, in a +sense, superior to society. In the first place, it is not his society; +he came from some other region on his own business. Most likely, he did +not intend to stay; but, having summered and wintered in California, he +has become a Californian, and now he is not contented anywhere else. +Life on the coast has, for him, something of the joyous irresponsibility +of a picnic. The feeling of children released from school remains with +the grown people. +</P> + +<P> +"A Western man," says Dr. Amos Griswold Warner, "is an Eastern man who +has had some additional experiences." The Californian is a man from +anywhere in America or Europe, typically from New England, perhaps, who +has learned a thing or two he did not know in the East, and perhaps, has +forgotten some things it would have been as well to remember. The things +he has learned relate chiefly to elbow room, nature at first hand and +"the unearned increment." The thing that he is most likely to forget is +that the escape from public opinion is not escape from the consequences +of wrong action. +</P> + +<P> +Of elbow room California offers abundance. In an old civilization men +grow like trees in a close-set forest. Individual growth and symmetry +give way to the necessity of crowding. Every man spends some large part +of his strength in being not himself, but what some dozens of other +people expect him to be. There is no room for spreading branches, and +the characteristic qualities and fruitage develop only at the top. On +the frontier men grow as the California white oak, which, in the open +field, sends its branches far and wide. +</P> + +<P> +With plenty of elbow-room the Californian works out his own inborn +character. If he is greedy, malicious, intemperate, by nature, his bad +qualities rise to the second degree in California, and sometimes to the +third. The whole responsibility rests on himself. Society has no part of +it, and he does not pretend to be what he is not, out of deference to +society. "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue," but in +California no such homage is demanded or accepted. In like manner, the +virtues become intensified in freedom. Nowhere in the world can one find +men and women more hospitable, more refined, more charming than in the +homes of prosperous California. And these homes, whether in the pine +forests of the Sierras, in the orange groves of the south, in the peach +orchards of the Coast range, or on the great stock ranches, are the +delight of all visitors who enter their open doors. To be sure, the +bewildering hospitality of the great financiers and greater gamblers of +the sixties and seventies is a thing of the past. We shall never again +see such prodigal entertainment as that which Ralston, bankrupt, +cynical, and magnificent, once dispensed in Belmont Caņon. Nor do we +find, nowadays, such lavish outgiving of fruit and wine, or such rushing +of tally-hos, as once preceded the auction sale of town lots in paper +cities. These gorgeous "spreads" were not hospitality, and disappeared +when the traveler had learned his lesson. Their avowed purpose was "the +sale of worthless land to old duffers from the East." But real +hospitality is characteristic of all parts of California where men and +women have an income beyond the needs of the day. +</P> + +<P> +To a very unusual degree the Californian forms his own opinions on +matters of politics, religion, and human life, and these views he +expresses without reserve. His own head he "carries under his own hat," +and whether this be silk or a sombrero is a matter of his own choosing. +The dictates of church and party have no binding force on him. The +Californian does not confine his views to abstractions. He has his own +opinions of individual men and women. If need be, he will analyze the +character, motives and actions of his neighbor in a way which will +horrify the traveler who has grown up in the shadow of the libel law. +The Californian is peculiarly sensitive as to his own personal freedom +of action. Toward public rights or duties, he is correspondingly +indifferent. In the times of national stress, he paid his debts in gold +and asked the same of his creditors, regardless of the laws or customs +of the rest of the United States. To him gold is still money and a +national promise to pay is not. The general welfare is not a catchword +with him. His affairs are individual. But he is not stingy for all this. +It is rather a form of largeness, of tolerance. He is as generous as the +best, and takes what the Fates send him with cheerful enthusiasm. Flood +and drought, temblor and conflagration, boom and panic—each comes in +"the day's work," and each alike finds him alert, hopeful, resourceful +and unafraid. +</P> + +<P> +The typical Californian has largely outgrown provincialism. He has seen +much of the world, and he knows the varied worth of varied lands. He +travels more widely than the man of any other state, and he has the +education which travel gives. As a rule, the well-to-do Californian +knows Europe better than the average Eastern man of equal financial +resources, and the chances are that his range of experience includes +Japan, China, New Zealand and Australia as well. A knowledge of his own +country is a matter of course. He has no sympathy with "the essential +provinciality of the mind which knows the Eastern seaboard, and has some +measure of acquaintance with countries and cities, and with men from +Ireland to Italy, but which is densely ignorant of our own vast domain, +and thinks that all which lies beyond Philadelphia belongs to the West." +Not that provincialism is unknown in California, or that its occasional +exhibition is any less absurd or offensive here than elsewhere. For +example, one may note a tendency to set up local standards for literary +work done in California. Another more harmful idea is to insist that +methods outworn in the schools elsewhere are good because they are +Californian. This is the usual provincialism of ignorance, and it is +found the world over. Especially is it characteristic of centers of +population. When men come into contact with men instead of with the +forces of nature, they mistake their own conventionalities for the facts +of existence. It is not what life is, but what "the singular mess we +agree to call life" is, that interests them. In this fashion they lose +their real understanding of affairs, become the toys of their local +environment, and are marked as provincials or tenderfeet when they stray +away from home. +</P> + +<P> +California is emphatically one of "earth's male lands," to accept +Browning's classification. The first Saxon settlers were men, and in +their rude civilization women had little part. For years women in +California were objects of curiosity or of chivalry, disturbing rather +than cementing influences in society. Even yet California is essentially +a man's state. It is common to say that public opinion does not exist +there; but such a statement is not wholly correct. It does exist, but it +is an out-of-door public opinion—a man's view of men. There is, for +example, a strong public opinion against hypocrisy in California, as +more than one clerical renegade has found, to his discomfiture. The +pretense to virtue is the one vice that is not forgiven. If a man be not +a liar, few questions are asked, least of all the delicate one as to the +"name he went by in the states." What we commonly call public opinion—the +cut and dried decision on social and civic questions—is made up in +the house. It is essentially feminine in its origin, the opinion of the +home circle as to how men should behave. In California there is little +which corresponds to the social atmosphere pervading the snug, +white-painted, green-blinded New England villages, and this little +exists chiefly in the southern counties, in communities of people +transported in block—traditions, conventionalities, prejudices, and +all. There is, in general, no merit attached to conformity, and one may +take a wide range of rope without necessarily arousing distrust. +Speaking broadly, in California the virtues of life spring from within, +and are not prescribed from without. The young man who is decent only +because he thinks that some one is looking, would do well to stay away. +The stern law of individual responsibility turns the fool over to the +fool-killer without a preliminary trial. No finer type of man can be +found in the world than the sober Californian; and yet no coast is +strewn with wrecks more pitiful. +</P> + +<P> +There are some advantages in the absence of a compelling force of public +opinion. One of them is found in the strong self-reliance of men and +women who have made and enforced their own moral standards. With very +many men, life in California brings a decided strengthening of the moral +fibre. They must reconsider, justify, and fight for their standards of +action; and by so doing they become masters of themselves. With men of +weak nature the result is not so encouraging. The disadvantage is shown +in lax business methods, official carelessness and corruption, the +widespread corrosion of vulgar vices, and the general lack of pride in +their work shown by artisans and craftsmen. +</P> + +<P> +In short, California is a man's land, with male standards of action—a +land where one must give and take, stand and fall, as a man. With the +growth of woman's realm of homes and houses, this will slowly change. It +is changing now, year by year, for good and ill; and soon California +will have a public opinion. Her sons will learn to fear "the rod behind +the looking-glass," and to shun evil not only because it is vile, but +because it is improper. +</P> + +<P> +Contact with the facts of nature has taught the Californian something of +importance. To have elbow-room is to touch nature at more angles; and +whenever she is touched she is an insistent teacher. Whatever is to be +done, the typical Californian knows how to do it, and how to do it well. +He is equal to every occasion. He can cinch his own saddle, harness his +own team, bud his own grapevines, cook his own breakfast, paint his own +house; and because he cannot go to the market for every little service, +perforce he serves himself. In dealing with college students in +California, one is impressed by their boundless ingenuity. If anything +needs doing, some student can do it for you. Is it to sketch a +waterfall, to engrave a portrait, to write a sonnet, to mend a saddle, +to sing a song, to build an engine, or to "bust a bronco," there is +someone at hand who can do it, and do it artistically. Varied ingenuity +California demands of her pioneers. Their native originality has been +intensified by circumstances, until it has become a matter of tradition +and habit. The processes of natural selection have favored the survival +of the ingenious, and the quality of adequacy has become hereditary. +</P> + +<P> +The possibility of the unearned increment is a great factor in the +social evolution of California. Its influence has been widespread, +persistent, and, in most regards, baneful. The Anglo-Saxon first came to +California for gold to be had for the picking up. The hope of securing +something for nothing, money or health without earning it, has been the +motive for a large share of the subsequent immigration. From those who +have grown rich through undeserved prosperity, and from those who have +grown poor in the quest of it, California has suffered sorely. Even now, +far and wide, people think of California as a region where wealth is not +dependent on thrift, where one can somehow "strike it rich" without that +tedious attention to details and expenses which wears out life in effete +regions such as Europe and the Eastern states. In this feeling there is +just enough of truth to keep the notion alive, but never enough to save +from disaster those who make it a working hypothesis. The hope of great +or sudden wealth has been the mainspring of enterprise in California, +but it has also been the excuse for shiftlessness and recklessness, the +cause of social disintegration and moral decay. The "Argonauts of '49" +were a strong, self-reliant, generous body of men. They came for gold, +and gold in abundance. Most of them found it, and some of them retained +it. Following them came a miscellaneous array of parasites and +plunderers; gamblers, dive-keepers and saloon-keepers, who fed fat on +the spoils of the Argonauts. Every Roaring Camp had its Jack Hamlin as +well as its Flynn of Virginia, John Oakhurst came with Yuba Bill, and +the wild, strong, generous, reckless aggregate cared little for thrift, +and wasted more than they earned. +</P> + +<P> +But it is not gold alone that in California has dazzled men with visions +of sudden wealth. Orange groves, peach orchards, prune orchards, wheat +raising, lumbering, horse-farms; chicken-ranches, bee-ranches, +sheep-breeding, seal-poaching, cod-fishing, salmon-canning—each of +these has held out the same glittering possibility. Even the humblest +ventures have caught the prevailing tone of speculation. Industry and +trade have been followed, not for a living, but for sudden wealth, and +often on a scale of personal expenses out of all proportion to the +probable results. In the sixties, when the gold-fever began to subside, +it was found that the despised "cow counties" would bear marvelous crops +of wheat. At once wheat-raising was undertaken on a grand scale. Farms +of five thousand to fifty thousand acres were established on the old +Spanish grants in the valleys of the Coast Range and in the interior, +and for a time wheat-raising on a grand scale took its place along with +the more conventional forms of gambling, with the disadvantage that +small holders were excluded, and the region occupied was not filled up +by homes. +</P> + +<P> +The working out of most of the placer mines and the advent of +quartz-crushing with elaborate machinery have changed gold-mining from +speculation to regular business, to the great advantage of the state. In +the same manner the development of irrigation is changing the character +of farming in many parts of California. In the early days fruit-raising +was of the nature of speculation, but the spread of irrigation has +brought it into more wholesome relations. To irrigate a tract of land is +to make its product certain; but at the same time irrigation demands +expenditure of money, and the building of a home necessarily follows. +Irrigation thus tends to break up the vast farms into small holdings +which become permanent homes. +</P> + +<P> +On land well chosen, carefully planted and thriftily managed, an orchard +of prunes or of oranges, of almonds or apricots, should reward its +possessor with a comfortable living, besides occasionally a generous +profit thrown in. But too often men have not been content with the usual +return, and have planted trees with a view only to the unearned profits. +To make an honest living from the sale of oranges or prunes or figs or +raisins is quite another thing from acquiring sudden wealth. When a man +without experience in fruit-raising or in general economy comes to +California, buys land on borrowed capital, plants it without +discrimination, and spends his profits in advance, there can be but one +result. The laws of economics are inexorable even in California. One of +the curses of the state is the "fool fruit-grower," with neither +knowledge nor conscience in the management of his business. Thousands of +trees have been planted on ground unsuitable for the purpose, and +thousands of trees which ought to have done well have died through his +neglect. Through his agency frozen oranges were once sent to Eastern +markets under his neighbor's brands, and most needlessly his varied +follies for a time injured the reputation of the best of fruit. +</P> + +<P> +The great body of immigrants to California have been sound and earnest, +fit citizens of the young state, but this is rarely true of seekers of +the unearned increment. No one is more greedy for money than the man who +can never get much and cannot keep the little he has. Rumors of golden +chances have brought in a steady stream of incompetents from all regions +and from all strata of social life. From the common tramp to the +inventor of "perpetual motions" in mechanics or in social science, is a +long step in the moral scale, but both are alike in their eagerness to +escape from the "competitive social order" of the East, in which their +abilities found no recognition. Whoever has deservedly failed in the +older states is sure at least once in his life to think of redeeming his +fortunes in California. Once on the Pacific slope the difficulties in +the way of his return seem insurmountable. The dread of the winter's +cold is in most cases a sufficient reason for never going back. Thus San +Francisco, by force of circumstances, has become the hopper into which +fall incompetents from all the world, and from which few escape. The +city contains more than four hundred thousand people. Of these, a vast +number, thirty thousand to fifty thousand, it may be, have no real +business in San Francisco. They live from hand to mouth, by odd jobs +that might be better done by better people; and whatever their success +in making a living, they swell the army of discontent, and confound all +attempts to solve industrial problems. In this rough estimate I do not +count San Francisco's own poor, of which there are some but not many, +but only those who have drifted in from the outside. I would include, +however, not only those who are economically impotent, but also those +who follow the weak for predatory ends. In this last category I place a +large number of saloon-keepers, and keepers of establishments far worse, +toward which the saloon is only the first step downward; a class of +so-called lawyers, politicians and agents of bribery and blackmail; a +long line of soothsayers, clairvoyants, lottery agents and joint +keepers, besides gamblers, sweaters, promoters of "medical institutes," +magnetic, psychical and magic "healers" and other types of unhanged, but +more or less pendable, scoundrels that feed upon the life-blood of the +weak and foolish. The other cities of California have had a similar +experience. Each has its reputation for hospitality, and each has a +considerable population which has come in from other regions because +incapable of making its own way. It is not the poor and helpless alone +who are the victims of imposition. There are fools in all walks of life. +Many a well-dressed man or woman can be found in the rooms of the +clairvoyant or the Chinese "doctor." In matters of health, especially, +men grasp at the most unpromising straws. In certain cities of +California there is scarcely a business block that did not contain at +least one human leech under the trade name of "healer," metaphysical, +electrical, astral, divine or what not. And these will thrive so long as +men seek health or fortune with closed eyes and open hands. +</P> + +<P> +In no way has the unearned increment been more mischievous than in the +booming of towns. With the growth of towns comes increase in the value +of the holdings of those who hold and wait. If the city grows rapidly +enough, these gains may be inordinately great. The marvelous beauty of +Southern California and the charm of its climate have impressed +thousands of people. Two or three times this impression has been +epidemic. At one time almost every bluff along the coast, from Los +Angeles to San Diego and beyond, was staked out in town lots. The +wonderful climate was everywhere, and everywhere men had it for sale, +not only along the coast, but throughout the orange-bearing region of +the interior. Every resident bought lots, all the lots he could hold. +The tourist took his hand in speculation. Corner lots in San Diego, Del +Mar, Azusa, Redlands, Riverside, Pasadena, anywhere brought fabulous +prices. A village was laid out in the uninhabited bed of a mountain +torrent, and men stood in the streets in Los Angeles, ranged in line, +all night long, to wait their turn in buying lots. Land, worthless and +inaccessible, barren cliffs' river-wash, sand hills, cactus deserts' +sinks of alkali, everything met with ready sale. The belief that +Southern California would be one great city was universal. The desire to +buy became a mania. "Millionaires of a day," even the shrewdest lost +their heads, and the boom ended, as such booms always end, in utter +collapse. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. T. S. Van Dyke, of San Diego, has written of this episode: "The +money market tightened almost on the instant. From every quarter of the +land the drain of money outward had been enormous, and had been balanced +only by the immense amount constantly coming in. Almost from the day +this inflow ceased money seemed scarce everywhere, for the outgo still +continued. Not only were vast sums going out every day for water-pipe, +railroad iron, cement, lumber, and other material for the great +improvements going on in every direction, most of which material had +already been ordered, but thousands more were still going out for +diamonds and a host of other things already bought—things that only +increase the general indebtedness of community by making those who +cannot afford them imitate those who can. And tens of thousands more +were going out for butter, eggs, pork, and even potatoes and other +vegetables, which the luxurious boomers thought it beneath the dignity +of millionaires to raise." +</P> + +<P> +But the normal growth of Los Angeles and her sister towns has gone on, +in spite of these spasms of fever and their consequent chills. Their +real advantages could not be obscured by the bursting of financial +bubbles. By reason of situation and climate they have continued to +attract men of wealth and enterprise, as well as those in search of +homes and health. +</P> + +<P> +The search for the unearned increment in bodily health brings many to +California who might better have remained at home. The invalid finds +health in California only if he is strong enough to grasp it. To one who +can spend his life out of doors it is indeed true that "our pines are +trees of healing," but to one confined to the house, there is little +gain in the new conditions. To those accustomed to the close heat of +Eastern rooms the California house in the winter seems depressingly +chilly. +</P> + +<P> +I know of few things more pitiful than the annual migration of hopeless +consumptives which formerly took place to Los Angeles, Pasadena, and San +Diego. The Pullman cars in the winter used to be full of sick people, +banished from the East by physicians who do not know what else to do +with their incurable patients. They went to the large hotels of Los +Angeles or Pasadena, to pay a rate they cannot afford. They shivered in +half-warmed rooms; took cold after cold; their symptoms grew alarming; +their money wasted away; and finally, in utter despair, they were +hurried back homeward, perhaps to die on board the train. Or it may be +that they choose cheap lodging-houses, at prices more nearly within +their reach. Here, again, they suffer for want of home food, home +comforts, and home warmth, and the end is just the same. People +hopelessly ill should remain with their friends; even California has no +health to give to those who cannot earn it, in part at least, by their +own exertions. +</P> + +<P> +It is true that the "one-lunged people" form a considerable part of the +population of Southern California. It is also true that no part of our +Union has a more enlightened or more enterprising population, and that +many of these men and women are now as robust and vigorous as one could +desire. But this happy change is possible only to those in the first +stages of the disease. Out-of-door life and physical activity enable the +system to suppress the germs of disease, but climate without activity +does not cure. So far as climate is concerned, many parts of the arid +regions in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, as well as portions of Old +Mexico (Cuernavaca or Morelia, for example) are more favorable than +California, because they are protected from the chill of the sea. +Another class of health-seekers receives less sympathy in California, +and perhaps deserves less. Jaundiced hypochondriacs and neurotic wrecks +shiver in California winter boarding-houses, torment themselves with +ennui at the country ranches, poison themselves with "nerve foods," and +perhaps finally survive to write the sad and squalid "truth about +California." Doubtless it is all inexpressibly tedious to them; +subjective woe is always hard to bear—but it is not California. +</P> + +<P> +There are others, too, who are disaffected, but I need not stop to +discuss them or their points of view. It is true, in general, that few +to whom anything else is anywhere possible find disappointment in +California. +</P> + +<P> +With all this, the social life is, in its essentials, that of the rest +of the United States, for the same blood flows in the veins of those +whose influence dominates it. Under all its deviations and variations +lies the old Puritan conscience, which is still the backbone of the +civilization of the republic. Life in California is a little fresher, a +little freer, a good deal richer, in its physical aspects, and for these +reasons, more intensely and characteristically American. With perhaps +ninety per cent of identity there is ten per cent of divergence, and +this ten per cent I have emphasized even to exaggeration. We know our +friends by their slight differences in feature or expression, not by +their common humanity. Much of this divergence is already fading away. +Scenery and climate remain, but there is less elbow-room, and the +unearned increment is disappearing. That which is solid will endure; the +rest will vanish. The forces that ally us to the East are growing +stronger every year with the immigration of men with new ideas. The +vigorous growth of the two universities in California insures the +elevation as well as the retention of these ideas. Through their +influence California will contribute a generous share to the social +development of the East, and be a giver as well as a receiver. +</P> + +<P> +Today the pressure of higher education is greater to the square mile, if +we pay use such an expression, than anywhere else in our country. In no +other state is the path from the farmhouse to the college so well +trodden as here. It requires no prophet to forecast the educational +pre-eminence of California, for the basis of intellectual development is +already assured. But however close the alliance with Eastern culture, to +the last, certain traits will persist. California is the most +cosmopolitan of all the states of the Union, and such she will remain. +Whatever the fates may bring, her people will be tolerant, hopeful, and +adequate, sure of themselves, masters of the present, fearless of the +future. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of California and the Californians, by +David Starr Jordan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS *** + +***** This file should be named 4755-h.htm or 4755-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/5/4755/ + +Produced by David A. Schwan. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: California and the Californians + +Author: David Starr Jordan + +Posting Date: September 4, 2009 [EBook #4755] +Release Date: December, 2003 +First Posted: March 12, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS *** + + + + +Produced by David A. Schwan. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + +California and the Californians + + + +By + +David Starr Jordan + +President Stanford University + + + + +The Californian loves his state because his state loves him. He returns +her love with a fierce affection that to men who do not know California +is always a surprise. Hence he is impatient of outside criticism. Those +who do not love California cannot understand her, and, to his mind, +their shafts, however aimed, fly wide of the mark. Thus, to say that +California is commercially asleep, that her industries are gambling +ventures, that her local politics is in the hands of professional +pickpockets, that her small towns are the shabbiest in Christendom, that +her saloons control more constituents than her churches, that she is the +slave of corporations, that she knows no such thing as public opinion, +that she has not yet learned to distinguish enterprise from highway +robbery, nor reform from blackmail,--all these statements, and others +even more unpleasant, the Californian may admit in discussion, or may +say for himself, but he does not find them acceptable from others. They +may be more or less true, in certain times and places, but the +conditions which have permitted them will likewise mend them. It is said +in the Alps that "not all the vulgar people who come to Chamouny can +ever make Chamouny vulgar." For similar reasons, not all the sordid +people who drift overland can ever vulgarize California. Her fascination +endures, whatever the accidents of population. + +The charm of California has, in the main, three sources--scenery, +climate, and freedom of life. + +To know the glory of California scenery, one must live close to it +through the changing years. From Siskiyou to San Diego, from Alturas to +Tia Juana, from Mendocino to Mariposa, from Tahoe to the Farallones, +lake, crag, or chasm, forest, mountain, valley, or island, river, bay, +or jutting headland, every one bears the stamp of its own peculiar +beauty, a singular blending of richness, wildness and warmth. Coastwise +everywhere sea and mountains meet, and the surf of the cold Japanese +current breaks in turbulent beauty against tall "rincones" and jagged +reefs of rock. Slumbering amid the hills of the Coast Range, + + "A misty camp of mountains pitched tumultuously", + +lie golden valleys dotted with wide-limbed oaks, or smothered under +over-weighted fruit trees. Here, too, crumble to ruins the old +Franciscan missions, each in its own fair valley, passing monuments of +California's first page of written history. + +Inland rises the great Sierra, with spreading ridge and foothill, like +some huge, sprawling centipede, its granite back unbroken for a thousand +miles. Frost-torn peaks, of every height and bearing, pierce the blue +wastes above. Their slopes are dark with forests of sugar pines and +giant sequoias, the mightiest of trees, in whose silent aisles one may +wander all day long and see no sign of man. Dropped here and there rest +turquoise lakes which mark the craters of dead volcanoes, or which swell +the polished basins where vanished glaciers did their last work. Through +mountain meadows run swift brooks, over-peopled with trout, while from +the crags leap full-throated streams, to be half blown away in mist +before they touch the valley floor. Far down the fragrant canyons sing +the green and troubled rivers, twisting their way lower and lower to the +common plains, each larger stream calling to all his brooks to follow +him as down they go headforemost to the sea. Even the hopeless stretches +of alkali and sand, sinks of lost streams, in the southeastern counties, +are redeemed by the delectable mountains that on all sides shut them in. +Everywhere the landscape swims in crystalline ether, while over all +broods the warm California sun. Here, if anywhere, life is worth living, +full and rich and free. + +As there is from end to end of California scarcely one commonplace mile, +so from one end of the year to the other there is hardly a tedious day. +Two seasons only has California, but two are enough if each in its way +be perfect. Some have called the climate "monotonous," but so, equally, +is good health. In terms of Eastern, experience, the seasons may be +defined as "late in the spring and early in the fall"; + + "Half a year of clouds and flowers, half a year of dust and sky," + +according to Bret Harte. But with the dust and sky come the unbroken +succession of days of sunshine, the dry invigorating air, scented by the +resin of the tarweed, and the boundless overflow of vine and orchard. +Each season in its turn brings its fill of satisfaction, and winter or +summer we regret to look forward to change, because we feel never quite +sure that the season which is coming will be half so attractive as the +season which we now enjoy. If one must choose, in all the fragrant +California year the best month is June, for then the air is softest, and +a touch of summer's gold overlies the green of winter. But October, when +the first swift rains + + "dash the whole long slope with color," + +and leave the clean-washed atmosphere so absolutely transparent that +even distance is no longer blue, has a charm not less alluring. + +So far as man is concerned, the one essential fact is that he is never +the climate's slave; he is never beleaguered by the powers of the air. +Winter and summer alike call him out of doors. In summer he is not +languid, for the air is never sultry. In most regions he is seldom hot, +for in the shade or after nightfall the dry air is always cool. When it +rains the air may be chilly, in doors or out, but it is never cold +enough to make the remorseless base-burner a welcome alternative. The +habit of roasting one's self all winter long is unknown in California. +The old Californian seldom built a fire for warmth's sake. When he was +cold in the house he went out of doors to get warm. The house was a +place for storing food and keeping one's belongings from the wet. To +hide in it from the weather is to abuse the normal function. + +The climate of California is especially kind to childhood and old age. +Men live longer there, and, if unwasted by dissipation, strength of body +is better conserved. To children the conditions of life are particularly +favorable. California could have no better advertisement at some world's +fair than a visible demonstration of this fact. A series of measurements +of the children of Oakland has recently been taken, in the interest of +comparative child study; and should the average of these from different +ages be worked into a series of models from Eastern cities, the result +would surprise. The children of California, other things being equal, +are larger, stronger and better formed than their Eastern cousins of the +same age. This advantage of development lasts, unless cigarettes, late +hours, or grosser forms of dissipation come in to destroy it. A +wholesome, sober, out-of-door life in California invariably means a +vigorous maturity. + +A third element of charm in California is that of personal freedom. The +dominant note in the social development of the state is individualism, +with all that it implies of good or evil. Man is man in California: he +exists for his own sake, not as part of a social organism. He is, in a +sense, superior to society. In the first place, it is not his society; +he came from some other region on his own business. Most likely, he did +not intend to stay; but, having summered and wintered in California, he +has become a Californian, and now he is not contented anywhere else. +Life on the coast has, for him, something of the joyous irresponsibility +of a picnic. The feeling of children released from school remains with +the grown people. + +"A Western man," says Dr. Amos Griswold Warner, "is an Eastern man who +has had some additional experiences." The Californian is a man from +anywhere in America or Europe, typically from New England, perhaps, who +has learned a thing or two he did not know in the East, and perhaps, has +forgotten some things it would have been as well to remember. The things +he has learned relate chiefly to elbow room, nature at first hand and +"the unearned increment." The thing that he is most likely to forget is +that the escape from public opinion is not escape from the consequences +of wrong action. + +Of elbow room California offers abundance. In an old civilization men +grow like trees in a close-set forest. Individual growth and symmetry +give way to the necessity of crowding. Every man spends some large part +of his strength in being not himself, but what some dozens of other +people expect him to be. There is no room for spreading branches, and +the characteristic qualities and fruitage develop only at the top. On +the frontier men grow as the California white oak, which, in the open +field, sends its branches far and wide. + +With plenty of elbow-room the Californian works out his own inborn +character. If he is greedy, malicious, intemperate, by nature, his bad +qualities rise to the second degree in California, and sometimes to the +third. The whole responsibility rests on himself. Society has no part of +it, and he does not pretend to be what he is not, out of deference to +society. "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue," but in +California no such homage is demanded or accepted. In like manner, the +virtues become intensified in freedom. Nowhere in the world can one find +men and women more hospitable, more refined, more charming than in the +homes of prosperous California. And these homes, whether in the pine +forests of the Sierras, in the orange groves of the south, in the peach +orchards of the Coast range, or on the great stock ranches, are the +delight of all visitors who enter their open doors. To be sure, the +bewildering hospitality of the great financiers and greater gamblers of +the sixties and seventies is a thing of the past. We shall never again +see such prodigal entertainment as that which Ralston, bankrupt, +cynical, and magnificent, once dispensed in Belmont Canyon. Nor do we +find, nowadays, such lavish outgiving of fruit and wine, or such rushing +of tally-hos, as once preceded the auction sale of town lots in paper +cities. These gorgeous "spreads" were not hospitality, and disappeared +when the traveler had learned his lesson. Their avowed purpose was "the +sale of worthless land to old duffers from the East." But real +hospitality is characteristic of all parts of California where men and +women have an income beyond the needs of the day. + +To a very unusual degree the Californian forms his own opinions on +matters of politics, religion, and human life, and these views he +expresses without reserve. His own head he "carries under his own hat," +and whether this be silk or a sombrero is a matter of his own choosing. +The dictates of church and party have no binding force on him. The +Californian does not confine his views to abstractions. He has his own +opinions of individual men and women. If need be, he will analyze the +character, motives and actions of his neighbor in a way which will +horrify the traveler who has grown up in the shadow of the libel law. +The Californian is peculiarly sensitive as to his own personal freedom +of action. Toward public rights or duties, he is correspondingly +indifferent. In the times of national stress, he paid his debts in gold +and asked the same of his creditors, regardless of the laws or customs +of the rest of the United States. To him gold is still money and a +national promise to pay is not. The general welfare is not a catchword +with him. His affairs are individual. But he is not stingy for all this. +It is rather a form of largeness, of tolerance. He is as generous as the +best, and takes what the Fates send him with cheerful enthusiasm. Flood +and drought, temblor and conflagration, boom and panic--each comes in +"the day's work," and each alike finds him alert, hopeful, resourceful +and unafraid. + +The typical Californian has largely outgrown provincialism. He has seen +much of the world, and he knows the varied worth of varied lands. He +travels more widely than the man of any other state, and he has the +education which travel gives. As a rule, the well-to-do Californian +knows Europe better than the average Eastern man of equal financial +resources, and the chances are that his range of experience includes +Japan, China, New Zealand and Australia as well. A knowledge of his own +country is a matter of course. He has no sympathy with "the essential +provinciality of the mind which knows the Eastern seaboard, and has some +measure of acquaintance with countries and cities, and with men from +Ireland to Italy, but which is densely ignorant of our own vast domain, +and thinks that all which lies beyond Philadelphia belongs to the West." +Not that provincialism is unknown in California, or that its occasional +exhibition is any less absurd or offensive here than elsewhere. For +example, one may note a tendency to set up local standards for literary +work done in California. Another more harmful idea is to insist that +methods outworn in the schools elsewhere are good because they are +Californian. This is the usual provincialism of ignorance, and it is +found the world over. Especially is it characteristic of centers of +population. When men come into contact with men instead of with the +forces of nature, they mistake their own conventionalities for the facts +of existence. It is not what life is, but what "the singular mess we +agree to call life" is, that interests them. In this fashion they lose +their real understanding of affairs, become the toys of their local +environment, and are marked as provincials or tenderfeet when they stray +away from home. + +California is emphatically one of "earth's male lands," to accept +Browning's classification. The first Saxon settlers were men, and in +their rude civilization women had little part. For years women in +California were objects of curiosity or of chivalry, disturbing rather +than cementing influences in society. Even yet California is essentially +a man's state. It is common to say that public opinion does not exist +there; but such a statement is not wholly correct. It does exist, but it +is an out-of-door public opinion--a man's view of men. There is, for +example, a strong public opinion against hypocrisy in California, as +more than one clerical renegade has found, to his discomfiture. The +pretense to virtue is the one vice that is not forgiven. If a man be not +a liar, few questions are asked, least of all the delicate one as to the +"name he went by in the states." What we commonly call public opinion--the +cut and dried decision on social and civic questions--is made up in +the house. It is essentially feminine in its origin, the opinion of the +home circle as to how men should behave. In California there is little +which corresponds to the social atmosphere pervading the snug, +white-painted, green-blinded New England villages, and this little +exists chiefly in the southern counties, in communities of people +transported in block--traditions, conventionalities, prejudices, and +all. There is, in general, no merit attached to conformity, and one may +take a wide range of rope without necessarily arousing distrust. +Speaking broadly, in California the virtues of life spring from within, +and are not prescribed from without. The young man who is decent only +because he thinks that some one is looking, would do well to stay away. +The stern law of individual responsibility turns the fool over to the +fool-killer without a preliminary trial. No finer type of man can be +found in the world than the sober Californian; and yet no coast is +strewn with wrecks more pitiful. + +There are some advantages in the absence of a compelling force of public +opinion. One of them is found in the strong self-reliance of men and +women who have made and enforced their own moral standards. With very +many men, life in California brings a decided strengthening of the moral +fibre. They must reconsider, justify, and fight for their standards of +action; and by so doing they become masters of themselves. With men of +weak nature the result is not so encouraging. The disadvantage is shown +in lax business methods, official carelessness and corruption, the +widespread corrosion of vulgar vices, and the general lack of pride in +their work shown by artisans and craftsmen. + +In short, California is a man's land, with male standards of action--a +land where one must give and take, stand and fall, as a man. With the +growth of woman's realm of homes and houses, this will slowly change. It +is changing now, year by year, for good and ill; and soon California +will have a public opinion. Her sons will learn to fear "the rod behind +the looking-glass," and to shun evil not only because it is vile, but +because it is improper. + +Contact with the facts of nature has taught the Californian something of +importance. To have elbow-room is to touch nature at more angles; and +whenever she is touched she is an insistent teacher. Whatever is to be +done, the typical Californian knows how to do it, and how to do it well. +He is equal to every occasion. He can cinch his own saddle, harness his +own team, bud his own grapevines, cook his own breakfast, paint his own +house; and because he cannot go to the market for every little service, +perforce he serves himself. In dealing with college students in +California, one is impressed by their boundless ingenuity. If anything +needs doing, some student can do it for you. Is it to sketch a +waterfall, to engrave a portrait, to write a sonnet, to mend a saddle, +to sing a song, to build an engine, or to "bust a bronco," there is +someone at hand who can do it, and do it artistically. Varied ingenuity +California demands of her pioneers. Their native originality has been +intensified by circumstances, until it has become a matter of tradition +and habit. The processes of natural selection have favored the survival +of the ingenious, and the quality of adequacy has become hereditary. + +The possibility of the unearned increment is a great factor in the +social evolution of California. Its influence has been widespread, +persistent, and, in most regards, baneful. The Anglo-Saxon first came to +California for gold to be had for the picking up. The hope of securing +something for nothing, money or health without earning it, has been the +motive for a large share of the subsequent immigration. From those who +have grown rich through undeserved prosperity, and from those who have +grown poor in the quest of it, California has suffered sorely. Even now, +far and wide, people think of California as a region where wealth is not +dependent on thrift, where one can somehow "strike it rich" without that +tedious attention to details and expenses which wears out life in effete +regions such as Europe and the Eastern states. In this feeling there is +just enough of truth to keep the notion alive, but never enough to save +from disaster those who make it a working hypothesis. The hope of great +or sudden wealth has been the mainspring of enterprise in California, +but it has also been the excuse for shiftlessness and recklessness, the +cause of social disintegration and moral decay. The "Argonauts of '49" +were a strong, self-reliant, generous body of men. They came for gold, +and gold in abundance. Most of them found it, and some of them retained +it. Following them came a miscellaneous array of parasites and +plunderers; gamblers, dive-keepers and saloon-keepers, who fed fat on +the spoils of the Argonauts. Every Roaring Camp had its Jack Hamlin as +well as its Flynn of Virginia, John Oakhurst came with Yuba Bill, and +the wild, strong, generous, reckless aggregate cared little for thrift, +and wasted more than they earned. + +But it is not gold alone that in California has dazzled men with visions +of sudden wealth. Orange groves, peach orchards, prune orchards, wheat +raising, lumbering, horse-farms; chicken-ranches, bee-ranches, +sheep-breeding, seal-poaching, cod-fishing, salmon-canning--each of +these has held out the same glittering possibility. Even the humblest +ventures have caught the prevailing tone of speculation. Industry and +trade have been followed, not for a living, but for sudden wealth, and +often on a scale of personal expenses out of all proportion to the +probable results. In the sixties, when the gold-fever began to subside, +it was found that the despised "cow counties" would bear marvelous crops +of wheat. At once wheat-raising was undertaken on a grand scale. Farms +of five thousand to fifty thousand acres were established on the old +Spanish grants in the valleys of the Coast Range and in the interior, +and for a time wheat-raising on a grand scale took its place along with +the more conventional forms of gambling, with the disadvantage that +small holders were excluded, and the region occupied was not filled up +by homes. + +The working out of most of the placer mines and the advent of +quartz-crushing with elaborate machinery have changed gold-mining from +speculation to regular business, to the great advantage of the state. In +the same manner the development of irrigation is changing the character +of farming in many parts of California. In the early days fruit-raising +was of the nature of speculation, but the spread of irrigation has +brought it into more wholesome relations. To irrigate a tract of land is +to make its product certain; but at the same time irrigation demands +expenditure of money, and the building of a home necessarily follows. +Irrigation thus tends to break up the vast farms into small holdings +which become permanent homes. + +On land well chosen, carefully planted and thriftily managed, an orchard +of prunes or of oranges, of almonds or apricots, should reward its +possessor with a comfortable living, besides occasionally a generous +profit thrown in. But too often men have not been content with the usual +return, and have planted trees with a view only to the unearned profits. +To make an honest living from the sale of oranges or prunes or figs or +raisins is quite another thing from acquiring sudden wealth. When a man +without experience in fruit-raising or in general economy comes to +California, buys land on borrowed capital, plants it without +discrimination, and spends his profits in advance, there can be but one +result. The laws of economics are inexorable even in California. One of +the curses of the state is the "fool fruit-grower," with neither +knowledge nor conscience in the management of his business. Thousands of +trees have been planted on ground unsuitable for the purpose, and +thousands of trees which ought to have done well have died through his +neglect. Through his agency frozen oranges were once sent to Eastern +markets under his neighbor's brands, and most needlessly his varied +follies for a time injured the reputation of the best of fruit. + +The great body of immigrants to California have been sound and earnest, +fit citizens of the young state, but this is rarely true of seekers of +the unearned increment. No one is more greedy for money than the man who +can never get much and cannot keep the little he has. Rumors of golden +chances have brought in a steady stream of incompetents from all regions +and from all strata of social life. From the common tramp to the +inventor of "perpetual motions" in mechanics or in social science, is a +long step in the moral scale, but both are alike in their eagerness to +escape from the "competitive social order" of the East, in which their +abilities found no recognition. Whoever has deservedly failed in the +older states is sure at least once in his life to think of redeeming his +fortunes in California. Once on the Pacific slope the difficulties in +the way of his return seem insurmountable. The dread of the winter's +cold is in most cases a sufficient reason for never going back. Thus San +Francisco, by force of circumstances, has become the hopper into which +fall incompetents from all the world, and from which few escape. The +city contains more than four hundred thousand people. Of these, a vast +number, thirty thousand to fifty thousand, it may be, have no real +business in San Francisco. They live from hand to mouth, by odd jobs +that might be better done by better people; and whatever their success +in making a living, they swell the army of discontent, and confound all +attempts to solve industrial problems. In this rough estimate I do not +count San Francisco's own poor, of which there are some but not many, +but only those who have drifted in from the outside. I would include, +however, not only those who are economically impotent, but also those +who follow the weak for predatory ends. In this last category I place a +large number of saloon-keepers, and keepers of establishments far worse, +toward which the saloon is only the first step downward; a class of +so-called lawyers, politicians and agents of bribery and blackmail; a +long line of soothsayers, clairvoyants, lottery agents and joint +keepers, besides gamblers, sweaters, promoters of "medical institutes," +magnetic, psychical and magic "healers" and other types of unhanged, but +more or less pendable, scoundrels that feed upon the life-blood of the +weak and foolish. The other cities of California have had a similar +experience. Each has its reputation for hospitality, and each has a +considerable population which has come in from other regions because +incapable of making its own way. It is not the poor and helpless alone +who are the victims of imposition. There are fools in all walks of life. +Many a well-dressed man or woman can be found in the rooms of the +clairvoyant or the Chinese "doctor." In matters of health, especially, +men grasp at the most unpromising straws. In certain cities of +California there is scarcely a business block that did not contain at +least one human leech under the trade name of "healer," metaphysical, +electrical, astral, divine or what not. And these will thrive so long as +men seek health or fortune with closed eyes and open hands. + +In no way has the unearned increment been more mischievous than in the +booming of towns. With the growth of towns comes increase in the value +of the holdings of those who hold and wait. If the city grows rapidly +enough, these gains may be inordinately great. The marvelous beauty of +Southern California and the charm of its climate have impressed +thousands of people. Two or three times this impression has been +epidemic. At one time almost every bluff along the coast, from Los +Angeles to San Diego and beyond, was staked out in town lots. The +wonderful climate was everywhere, and everywhere men had it for sale, +not only along the coast, but throughout the orange-bearing region of +the interior. Every resident bought lots, all the lots he could hold. +The tourist took his hand in speculation. Corner lots in San Diego, Del +Mar, Azusa, Redlands, Riverside, Pasadena, anywhere brought fabulous +prices. A village was laid out in the uninhabited bed of a mountain +torrent, and men stood in the streets in Los Angeles, ranged in line, +all night long, to wait their turn in buying lots. Land, worthless and +inaccessible, barren cliffs' river-wash, sand hills, cactus deserts' +sinks of alkali, everything met with ready sale. The belief that +Southern California would be one great city was universal. The desire to +buy became a mania. "Millionaires of a day," even the shrewdest lost +their heads, and the boom ended, as such booms always end, in utter +collapse. + +Mr. T. S. Van Dyke, of San Diego, has written of this episode: "The +money market tightened almost on the instant. From every quarter of the +land the drain of money outward had been enormous, and had been balanced +only by the immense amount constantly coming in. Almost from the day +this inflow ceased money seemed scarce everywhere, for the outgo still +continued. Not only were vast sums going out every day for water-pipe, +railroad iron, cement, lumber, and other material for the great +improvements going on in every direction, most of which material had +already been ordered, but thousands more were still going out for +diamonds and a host of other things already bought--things that only +increase the general indebtedness of community by making those who +cannot afford them imitate those who can. And tens of thousands more +were going out for butter, eggs, pork, and even potatoes and other +vegetables, which the luxurious boomers thought it beneath the dignity +of millionaires to raise." + +But the normal growth of Los Angeles and her sister towns has gone on, +in spite of these spasms of fever and their consequent chills. Their +real advantages could not be obscured by the bursting of financial +bubbles. By reason of situation and climate they have continued to +attract men of wealth and enterprise, as well as those in search of +homes and health. + +The search for the unearned increment in bodily health brings many to +California who might better have remained at home. The invalid finds +health in California only if he is strong enough to grasp it. To one who +can spend his life out of doors it is indeed true that "our pines are +trees of healing," but to one confined to the house, there is little +gain in the new conditions. To those accustomed to the close heat of +Eastern rooms the California house in the winter seems depressingly +chilly. + +I know of few things more pitiful than the annual migration of hopeless +consumptives which formerly took place to Los Angeles, Pasadena, and San +Diego. The Pullman cars in the winter used to be full of sick people, +banished from the East by physicians who do not know what else to do +with their incurable patients. They went to the large hotels of Los +Angeles or Pasadena, to pay a rate they cannot afford. They shivered in +half-warmed rooms; took cold after cold; their symptoms grew alarming; +their money wasted away; and finally, in utter despair, they were +hurried back homeward, perhaps to die on board the train. Or it may be +that they choose cheap lodging-houses, at prices more nearly within +their reach. Here, again, they suffer for want of home food, home +comforts, and home warmth, and the end is just the same. People +hopelessly ill should remain with their friends; even California has no +health to give to those who cannot earn it, in part at least, by their +own exertions. + +It is true that the "one-lunged people" form a considerable part of the +population of Southern California. It is also true that no part of our +Union has a more enlightened or more enterprising population, and that +many of these men and women are now as robust and vigorous as one could +desire. But this happy change is possible only to those in the first +stages of the disease. Out-of-door life and physical activity enable the +system to suppress the germs of disease, but climate without activity +does not cure. So far as climate is concerned, many parts of the arid +regions in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, as well as portions of Old +Mexico (Cuernavaca or Morelia, for example) are more favorable than +California, because they are protected from the chill of the sea. +Another class of health-seekers receives less sympathy in California, +and perhaps deserves less. Jaundiced hypochondriacs and neurotic wrecks +shiver in California winter boarding-houses, torment themselves with +ennui at the country ranches, poison themselves with "nerve foods," and +perhaps finally survive to write the sad and squalid "truth about +California." Doubtless it is all inexpressibly tedious to them; +subjective woe is always hard to bear--but it is not California. + +There are others, too, who are disaffected, but I need not stop to +discuss them or their points of view. It is true, in general, that few +to whom anything else is anywhere possible find disappointment in +California. + +With all this, the social life is, in its essentials, that of the rest +of the United States, for the same blood flows in the veins of those +whose influence dominates it. Under all its deviations and variations +lies the old Puritan conscience, which is still the backbone of the +civilization of the republic. Life in California is a little fresher, a +little freer, a good deal richer, in its physical aspects, and for these +reasons, more intensely and characteristically American. With perhaps +ninety per cent of identity there is ten per cent of divergence, and +this ten per cent I have emphasized even to exaggeration. We know our +friends by their slight differences in feature or expression, not by +their common humanity. Much of this divergence is already fading away. +Scenery and climate remain, but there is less elbow-room, and the +unearned increment is disappearing. That which is solid will endure; the +rest will vanish. The forces that ally us to the East are growing +stronger every year with the immigration of men with new ideas. The +vigorous growth of the two universities in California insures the +elevation as well as the retention of these ideas. Through their +influence California will contribute a generous share to the social +development of the East, and be a giver as well as a receiver. + +Today the pressure of higher education is greater to the square mile, if +we pay use such an expression, than anywhere else in our country. In no +other state is the path from the farmhouse to the college so well +trodden as here. It requires no prophet to forecast the educational +pre-eminence of California, for the basis of intellectual development is +already assured. But however close the alliance with Eastern culture, to +the last, certain traits will persist. California is the most +cosmopolitan of all the states of the Union, and such she will remain. +Whatever the fates may bring, her people will be tolerant, hopeful, and +adequate, sure of themselves, masters of the present, fearless of the +future. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of California and the Californians, by +David Starr Jordan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS *** + +***** This file should be named 4755.txt or 4755.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/5/4755/ + +Produced by David A. Schwan. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: California and the Californians + +Author: David Starr Jordan + +Release Date: December, 2003 [EBook #4755] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 12, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS *** + + + + +This etext was produced by David A. Schwan, davidsch@earthlink.net. + + + +California and the Californians + + + +By +David Starr Jordan +President Stanford University + + + + +The Californian loves his state because his state loves him. He returns +her love with a fierce affection that to men who do not know California +is always a surprise. Hence he is impatient of outside criticism. Those +who do not love California cannot understand her, and, to his mind, +their shafts, however aimed, fly wide of the mark. Thus, to say that +California is commercially asleep, that her industries are gambling +ventures, that her local politics is in the hands of professional +pickpockets, that her small towns are the shabbiest in Christendom, that +her saloons control more constituents than her churches, that she is the +slave of corporations, that she knows no such thing as public opinion, +that she has not yet learned to distinguish enterprise from highway +robbery, nor reform from blackmail, - all these statements, and others +even more unpleasant, the Californian may admit in discussion, or may +say for himself, but he does not find them acceptable from others. They +may be more or less true, in certain times and places, but the +conditions which have permitted them will likewise mend them. It is said +in the Alps that "not all the vulgar people who come to Chamouny can +ever make Chamouny vulgar." For similar reasons, not all the sordid +people who drift overland can ever vulgarize California. Her fascination +endures, whatever the accidents of population. + +The charm of California has, in the main, three sources - scenery, +climate, and freedom of life. + +To know the glory of California scenery, one must live close to it +through the changing years. From Siskiyou to San Diego, from Alturas to +Tia Juana, from Mendocino to Mariposa, from Tahoe to the Farallones, +lake, crag, or chasm, forest, mountain, valley, or island, river, bay, +or jutting headland, every one bears the stamp of its own peculiar +beauty, a singular blending of richness, wildness and warmth. Coastwise +everywhere sea and mountains meet, and the surf of the cold Japanese +current breaks in turbulent beauty against tall "rincones" and jagged +reefs of rock. Slumbering amid the hills of the Coast Range, + +"A misty camp of mountains pitched tumultuously", + +lie golden valleys dotted with wide-limbed oaks, or smothered under +over-weighted fruit trees. Here, too, crumble to ruins the old +Franciscan missions, each in its own fair valley, passing monuments of +California's first page of written history. + +Inland rises the great Sierra, with spreading ridge and foothill, like +some huge, sprawling centipede, its granite back unbroken for a thousand +miles. Frost-torn peaks, of every height and bearing, pierce the blue +wastes above. Their slopes are dark with forests of sugar pines and +giant sequoias, the mightiest of trees, in whose silent aisles one may +wander all day long and see no sign of man. Dropped here and there rest +turquoise lakes which mark the craters of dead volcanoes, or which swell +the polished basins where vanished glaciers did their last work. Through +mountain meadows run swift brooks, over-peopled with trout, while from +the crags leap full-throated streams, to be half blown away in mist +before they touch the valley floor. Far down the fragrant caņons sing +the green and troubled rivers, twisting their way lower and lower to the +common plains, each larger stream calling to all his brooks to follow +him as down they go headforemost to the sea. Even the hopeless stretches +of alkali and sand, sinks of lost streams, in the southeastern counties, +are redeemed by the delectable mountains that on all sides shut them in. +Everywhere the landscape swims in crystalline ether, while over all +broods the warm California sun. Here, if anywhere, life is worth living, +full and rich and free. + +As there is from end to end of California scarcely one commonplace mile, +so from one end of the year to the other there is hardly a tedious day. +Two seasons only has California, but two are enough if each in its way +be perfect. Some have called the climate "monotonous," but so, equally, +is good health. In terms of Eastern, experience, the seasons may be +defined as "late in the spring and early in the fall"; + +"Half a year of clouds and flowers, half a year of dust and sky," + +according to Bret Harte. But with the dust and sky come the unbroken +succession of days of sunshine, the dry invigorating air, scented by the +resin of the tarweed, and the boundless overflow of vine and orchard. +Each season in its turn brings its fill of satisfaction, and winter or +summer we regret to look forward to change, because we feel never quite +sure that the season which is coming will be half so attractive as the +season which we now enjoy. If one must choose, in all the fragrant +California year the best month is June, for then the air is softest, and +a touch of summer's gold overlies the green of winter. But October, when +the first swift rains + +"dash the whole long slope with color," + +and leave the clean-washed atmosphere so absolutely transparent that +even distance is no longer blue, has a charm not less alluring. + +So far as man is concerned, the one essential fact is that he is never +the climate's slave; he is never beleaguered by the powers of the air. +Winter and summer alike call him out of doors. In summer he is not +languid, for the air is never sultry. In most regions he is seldom hot, +for in the shade or after nightfall the dry air is always cool. When it +rains the air may be chilly, in doors or out, but it is never cold +enough to make the remorseless base-burner a welcome alternative. The +habit of roasting one's self all winter long is unknown in California. +The old Californian seldom built a fire for warmth's sake. When he was +cold in the house he went out of doors to get warm. The house was a +place for storing food and keeping one's belongings from the wet. To +hide in it from the weather is to abuse the normal function. + +The climate of California is especially kind to childhood and old age. +Men live longer there, and, if unwasted by dissipation, strength of body +is better conserved. To children the conditions of life are particularly +favorable. California could have no better advertisement at some world's +fair than a visible demonstration of this fact. A series of measurements +of the children of Oakland has recently been taken, in the interest of +comparative child study; and should the average of these from different +ages be worked into a series of models from Eastern cities, the result +would surprise. The children of California, other things being equal, +are larger, stronger and better formed than their Eastern cousins of the +same age. This advantage of development lasts, unless cigarettes, late +hours, or grosser forms of dissipation come in to destroy it. A +wholesome, sober, out-of-door life in California invariably means a +vigorous maturity. + +A third element of charm in California is that of personal freedom. The +dominant note in the social development of the state is individualism, +with all that it implies of good or evil. Man is man in California: he +exists for his own sake, not as part of a social organism. He is, in a +sense, superior to society. In the first place, it is not his society; +he came from some other region on his own business. Most likely, he did +not intend to stay; but, having summered and wintered in California, he +has become a Californian, and now he is not contented anywhere else. +Life on the coast has, for him, something of the joyous irresponsibility +of a picnic. The feeling of children released from school remains with +the grown people. + +'A Western man," says Dr. Amos Griswold Warner, "is an Eastern man who +has had some additional experiences." The Californian is a man from +anywhere in America or Europe, typically from New England, perhaps, who +has learned a thing or two he did not know in the East, and perhaps, has +forgotten some things it would have been as well to remember. The things +he has learned relate chiefly to elbow room, nature at first hand and +"the unearned increment." The thing that he is most likely to forget is +that the escape from public opinion is not escape from the consequences +of wrong action. + +Of elbow room California offers abundance. In an old civilization men +grow like trees in a close-set forest. Individual growth and symmetry +give way to the necessity of crowding. Every man spends some large part +of his strength in being not himself, but what some dozens of other +people expect him to be. There is no room for spreading branches, and +the characteristic qualities and fruitage develop only at the top. On +the frontier men grow as the California white oak, which, in the open +field, sends its branches far and wide. + +With plenty of elbow-room the Californian works out his own inborn +character. If he is greedy, malicious, intemperate, by nature, his bad +qualities rise to the second degree in California, and sometimes to the +third. The whole responsibility rests on himself. Society has no part of +it, and he does not pretend to be what he is not, out of deference to +society. "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue," but in +California no such homage is demanded or accepted. In like manner, the +virtues become intensified in freedom. Nowhere in the world can one find +men and women more hospitable, more refined, more charming than in the +homes of prosperous California. And these homes, whether in the pine +forests of the Sierras, in the orange groves of the south, in the peach +orchards of the Coast range, or on the great stock ranches, are the +delight of all visitors who enter their open doors. To be sure, the +bewildering hospitality of the great financiers and greater gamblers of +the sixties and seventies is a thing of the past. We shall never again +see such prodigal entertainment as that which Ralston, bankrupt, +cynical, and magnificent, once dispensed in Belmont Caņon. Nor do we +find, nowadays, such lavish outgiving of fruit and wine, or such rushing +of tally-hos, as once preceded the auction sale of town lots in paper +cities. These gorgeous "spreads" were not hospitality, and disappeared +when the traveler had learned his lesson. Their avowed purpose was "the +sale of worthless land to old duffers from the East." But real +hospitality is characteristic of all parts of California where men and +women have an income beyond the needs of the day. + +To a very unusual degree the Californian forms his own opinions on +matters of politics, religion, and human life, and these views he +expresses without reserve. His own head he "carries under his own hat," +and whether this be silk or a sombrero is a matter of his own choosing. +The dictates of church and party have no binding force on him. The +Californian does not confine his views to abstractions. He has his own +opinions of individual men and women. If need be, he will analyze the +character, motives and actions of his neighbor in a way which will +horrify the traveler who has grown up in the shadow of the libel law. +The Californian is peculiarly sensitive as to his own personal freedom +of action. Toward public rights or duties, he is correspondingly +indifferent. In the times of national stress, he paid his debts in gold +and asked the same of his creditors, regardless of the laws or customs +of the rest of the United States. To him gold is still money and a +national promise to pay is not. The general welfare is not a catchword +with him. His affairs are individual. But he is not stingy for all this. +It is rather a form of largeness, of tolerance. He is as generous as the +best, and takes what the Fates send him with cheerful enthusiasm. Flood +and drought, temblor and conflagration, boom and panic - each comes in +"the day's work," and each alike finds him alert, hopeful, resourceful +and unafraid. + +The typical Californian has largely outgrown provincialism. He has seen +much of the world, and he knows the varied worth of varied lands. He +travels more widely than the man of any other state, and he has the +education which travel gives. As a rule, the well-to-do Californian +knows Europe better than the average Eastern man of equal financial +resources, and the chances are that his range of experience includes +Japan, China, New Zealand and Australia as well. A knowledge of his own +country is a matter of course. He has no sympathy with "the essential +provinciality of the mind which knows the Eastern seaboard, and has some +measure of acquaintance with countries and cities, and with men from +Ireland to Italy, but which is densely ignorant of our own vast domain, +and thinks that all which lies beyond Philadelphia belongs to the West." +Not that provincialism is unknown in California, or that its occasional +exhibition is any less absurd or offensive here than elsewhere. For +example, one may note a tendency to set up local standards for literary +work done in California. Another more harmful idea is to insist that +methods outworn in the schools elsewhere are good because they are +Californian. This is the usual provincialism of ignorance, and it is +found the world over. Especially is it characteristic of centers of +population. When men come into contact with men instead of with the +forces of nature, they mistake their own conventionalities for the facts +of existence. It is not what life is, but what "the singular mess we +agree to call life" is, that interests them. In this fashion they lose +their real understanding of affairs, become the toys of their local +environment, and are marked as provincials or tenderfeet when they stray +away from home. + +California is emphatically one of "earth's male lands," to accept +Browning's classification. The first Saxon settlers were men, and in +their rude civilization women had little part. For years women in +California were objects of curiosity or of chivalry, disturbing rather +than cementing influences in society. Even yet California is essentially +a man's state. It is common to say that public opinion does not exist +there; but such a statement is not wholly correct. It does exist, but it +is an out-of-door public opinion - a man's view of men. There is, for +example, a strong public opinion against hypocrisy in California, as +more than one clerical renegade has found, to his discomfiture. The +pretense to virtue is the one vice that is not forgiven. If a man be not +a liar, few questions are asked, least of all the delicate one as to the +"name he went by in the states." What we commonly call public opinion - +the cut and dried decision on social and civic questions - is made up in +the house. It is essentially feminine in its origin, the opinion of the +home circle as to how men should behave. In California there is little +which corresponds to the social atmosphere pervading the snug, +white-painted, green-blinded New England villages, and this little +exists chiefly in the southern counties, in communities of people +transported in block - traditions, conventionalities, prejudices, and +all. There is, in general, no merit attached to conformity, and one may +take a wide range of rope without necessarily arousing distrust. +Speaking broadly, in California the virtues of life spring from within, +and are not prescribed from without. The young man who is decent only +because he thinks that some one is looking, would do well to stay away. +The stern law of individual responsibility turns the fool over to the +fool-killer without a preliminary trial. No finer type of man can be +found in the world than the sober Californian; and yet no coast is +strewn with wrecks more pitiful. + +There are some advantages in the absence of a compelling force of public +opinion. One of them is found in the strong self-reliance of men and +women who have made and enforced their own moral standards. With very +many men, life in California brings a decided strengthening of the moral +fibre. They must reconsider, justify, and fight for their standards of +action; and by so doing they become masters of themselves. With men of +weak nature the result is not so encouraging. The disadvantage is shown +in lax business methods, official carelessness and corruption, the +widespread corrosion of vulgar vices, and the general lack of pride in +their work shown by artisans and craftsmen. + +In short, California is a man's land, with male standards of action - a +land where one must give and take, stand and fall, as a man. With the +growth of woman's realm of homes and houses, this will slowly change. It +is changing now, year by year, for good and ill; and soon California +will have a public opinion. Her sons will learn to fear "the rod behind +the looking-glass," and to shun evil not only because it is vile, but +because it is improper. + +Contact with the facts of nature has taught the Californian something of +importance. To have elbow-room is to touch nature at more angles; and +whenever she is touched she is an insistent teacher. Whatever is to be +done, the typical Californian knows how to do it, and how to do it well. +He is equal to every occasion. He can cinch his own saddle, harness his +own team, bud his own grapevines, cook his own breakfast, paint his own +house; and because he cannot go to the market for every little service, +perforce he serves himself. In dealing with college students in +California, one is impressed by their boundless ingenuity. If anything +needs doing, some student can do it for you. Is it to sketch a +waterfall, to engrave a portrait, to write a sonnet, to mend a saddle, +to sing a song, to build an engine, or to "bust a bronco," there is +someone at hand who can do it, and do it artistically. Varied ingenuity +California demands of her pioneers. Their native originality has been +intensified by circumstances, until it has become a matter of tradition +and habit. The processes of natural selection have favored the survival +of the ingenious, and the quality of adequacy has become hereditary. + +The possibility of the unearned increment is a great factor in the +social evolution of California. Its influence has been widespread, +persistent, and, in most regards, baneful. The Anglo-Saxon first came to +California for gold to be had for the picking up. The hope of securing +something for nothing, money or health without earning it, has been the +motive for a large share of the subsequent immigration. From those who +have grown rich through undeserved prosperity, and from those who have +grown poor in the quest of it, California has suffered sorely. Even now, +far and wide, people think of California as a region where wealth is not +dependent on thrift, where one can somehow "strike it rich" without that +tedious attention to details and expenses which wears out life in effete +regions such as Europe and the Eastern states. In this feeling there is +just enough of truth to keep the notion alive, but never enough to save +from disaster those who make it a working hypothesis. The hope of great +or sudden wealth has been the mainspring of enterprise in California, +but it has also been the excuse for shiftlessness and recklessness, the +cause of social disintegration and moral decay. The "Argonauts of '49" +were a strong, self-reliant, generous body of men. They came for gold, +and gold in abundance. Most of them found it, and some of them retained +it. Following them came a miscellaneous array of parasites and +plunderers; gamblers, dive-keepers and saloon-keepers, who fed fat on +the spoils of the Argonauts. Every Roaring Camp had its Jack Hamlin as +well as its Flynn of Virginia, John Oakhurst came with Yuba Bill, and +the wild, strong, generous, reckless aggregate cared little for thrift, +and wasted more than they earned. + +But it is not gold alone that in California has dazzled men with visions +of sudden wealth. Orange groves, peach orchards, prune orchards, wheat +raising, lumbering, horse-farms; chicken-ranches, bee-ranches, +sheep-breeding, seal-poaching, cod-fishing, salmon-canning - each of +these has held out the same glittering possibility. Even the humblest +ventures have caught the prevailing tone of speculation. Industry and +trade have been followed, not for a living, but for sudden wealth, and +often on a scale of personal expenses out of all proportion to the +probable results. In the sixties, when the gold-fever began to subside, +it was found that the despised "cow counties" would bear marvelous crops +of wheat. At once wheat-raising was undertaken on a grand scale. Farms +of five thousand to fifty thousand acres were established on the old +Spanish grants in the valleys of the Coast Range and in the interior, +and for a time wheat-raising on a grand scale took its place along with +the more conventional forms of gambling, with the disadvantage that +small holders were excluded, and the region occupied was not filled up +by homes. + +The working out of most of the placer mines and the advent of +quartz-crushing with elaborate machinery have changed gold-mining from +speculation to regular business, to the great advantage of the state. In +the same manner the development of irrigation is changing the character +of farming in many parts of California. In the early days fruit-raising +was of the nature of speculation, but the spread of irrigation has +brought it into more wholesome relations. To irrigate a tract of land is +to make its product certain; but at the same time irrigation demands +expenditure of money, and the building of a home necessarily follows. +Irrigation thus tends to break up the vast farms into small holdings +which become permanent homes. + +On land well chosen, carefully planted and thriftily managed, an orchard +of prunes or of oranges, of almonds or apricots, should reward its +possessor with a comfortable living, besides occasionally a generous +profit thrown in. But too often men have not been content with the usual +return, and have planted trees with a view only to the unearned profits. +To make an honest living from the sale of oranges or prunes or figs or +raisins is quite another thing from acquiring sudden wealth. When a man +without experience in fruit-raising or in general economy comes to +California, buys land on borrowed capital, plants it without +discrimination, and spends his profits in advance, there can be but one +result. The laws of economics are inexorable even in California. One of +the curses of the state is the "fool fruit-grower," with neither +knowledge nor conscience in the management of his business. Thousands of +trees have been planted on ground unsuitable for the purpose, and +thousands of trees which ought to have done well have died through his +neglect. Through his agency frozen oranges were once sent to Eastern +markets under his neighbor's brands, and most needlessly his varied +follies for a time injured the reputation of the best of fruit. + +The great body of immigrants to California have been sound and earnest, +fit citizens of the young state, but this is rarely true of seekers of +the unearned increment. No one is more greedy for money than the man who +can never get much and cannot keep the little he has. Rumors of golden +chances have brought in a steady stream of incompetents from all regions +and from all strata of social life. From the common tramp to the +inventor of "perpetual motions" in mechanics or in social science, is a +long step in the moral scale, but both are alike in their eagerness to +escape from the "competitive social order" of the East, in which their +abilities found no recognition. Whoever has deservedly failed in the +older states is sure at least once in his life to think of redeeming his +fortunes in California. Once on the Pacific slope the difficulties in +the way of his return seem insurmountable. The dread of the winter's +cold is in most cases a sufficient reason for never going back. Thus San +Francisco, by force of circumstances, has become the hopper into which +fall incompetents from all the world, and from which few escape. The +city contains more than four hundred thousand people. Of these, a vast +number, thirty thousand to fifty thousand, it may be, have no real +business in San Francisco. They live from hand to mouth, by odd jobs +that might be better done by better people; and whatever their success +in making a living, they swell the army of discontent, and confound all +attempts to solve industrial problems. In this rough estimate I do not +count San Francisco's own poor, of which there are some but not many, +but only those who have drifted in from the outside. I would include, +however, not only those who are economically impotent, but also those +who follow the weak for predatory ends. In this last category I place a +large number of saloon-keepers, and keepers of establishments far worse, +toward which the saloon is only the first step downward; a class of +so-called lawyers, politicians and agents of bribery and blackmail; a +long line of soothsayers, clairvoyants, lottery agents and joint +keepers, besides gamblers, sweaters, promoters of "medical institutes," +magnetic, psychical and magic "healers" and other types of unhanged, but +more or less pendable, scoundrels that feed upon the life-blood of the +weak and foolish. The other cities of California have had a similar +experience. Each has its reputation for hospitality, and each has a +considerable population which has come in from other regions because +incapable of making its own way. It is not the poor and helpless alone +who are the victims of imposition. There are fools in all walks of life. +Many a well-dressed man or woman can be found in the rooms of the +clairvoyant or the Chinese "doctor." In matters of health, especially, +men grasp at the most unpromising straws. In certain cities of +California there is scarcely a business block that did not contain at +least one human leech under the trade name of "healer," metaphysical, +electrical, astral, divine or what not. And these will thrive so long as +men seek health or fortune with closed eyes and open hands. + +In no way has the unearned increment been more mischievous than in the +booming of towns. With the growth of towns comes increase in the value +of the holdings of those who hold and wait. If the city grows rapidly +enough, these gains may be inordinately great. The marvelous beauty of +Southern California and the charm of its climate have impressed +thousands of people. Two or three times this impression has been +epidemic. At one time almost every bluff along the coast, from Los +Angeles to San Diego and beyond, was staked out in town lots. The +wonderful climate was everywhere, and everywhere men had it for sale, +not only along the coast, but throughout the orange-bearing region of +the interior. Every resident bought lots, all the lots he could hold. +The tourist took his hand in speculation. Corner lots in San Diego, Del +Mar, Azusa, Redlands, Riverside, Pasadena, anywhere brought fabulous +prices. A village was laid out in the uninhabited bed of a mountain +torrent, and men stood in the streets in Los Angeles, ranged in line, +all night long, to wait their turn in buying lots. Land, worthless and +inaccessible, barren cliffs' river-wash, sand hills, cactus deserts' +sinks of alkali, everything met with ready sale. The belief that +Southern California would be one great city was universal. The desire to +buy became a mania. "Millionaires of a day," even the shrewdest lost +their heads, and the boom ended, as such booms always end, in utter +collapse. + +Mr. T. S. Van Dyke, of San Diego, has written of this episode: "The +money market tightened almost on the instant. From every quarter of the +land the drain of money outward had been enormous, and had been balanced +only by the immense amount constantly coming in. Almost from the day +this inflow ceased money seemed scarce everywhere, for the outgo still +continued. Not only were vast sums going out every day for water-pipe, +railroad iron, cement, lumber, and other material for the great +improvements going on in every direction, most of which material had +already been ordered, but thousands more were still going out for +diamonds and a host of other things already bought - things that only +increase the general indebtedness of community by making those who +cannot afford them imitate those who can. And tens of thousands more +were going out for butter, eggs, pork, and even potatoes and other +vegetables, which the luxurious boomers thought it beneath the dignity +of millionaires to raise." + +But the normal growth of Los Angeles and her sister towns has gone on, +in spite of these spasms of fever and their consequent chills. Their +real advantages could not be obscured by the bursting of financial +bubbles. By reason of situation and climate they have continued to +attract men of wealth and enterprise, as well as those in search of +homes and health. + +The search for the unearned increment in bodily health brings many to +California who might better have remained at home. The invalid finds +health in California only if he is strong enough to grasp it. To one who +can spend his life out of doors it is indeed true that "our pines are +trees of healing," but to one confined to the house, there is little +gain in the new conditions. To those accustomed to the close heat of +Eastern rooms the California house in the winter seems depressingly +chilly. + +I know of few things more pitiful than the annual migration of hopeless +consumptives which formerly took place to Los Angeles, Pasadena, and San +Diego. The Pullman cars in the winter used to be full of sick people, +banished from the East by physicians who do not know what else to do +with their incurable patients. They went to the large hotels of Los +Angeles or Pasadena, to pay a rate they cannot afford. They shivered in +half-warmed rooms; took cold after cold; their symptoms grew alarming; +their money wasted away; and finally, in utter despair, they were +hurried back homeward, perhaps to die on board the train. Or it may be +that they choose cheap lodging-houses, at prices more nearly within +their reach. Here, again, they suffer for want of home food, home +comforts, and home warmth, and the end is just the same. People +hopelessly ill should remain with their friends; even California has no +health to give to those who cannot earn it, in part at least, by their +own exertions. + +It is true that the "one-lunged people" form a considerable part of the +population of Southern California. It is also true that no part of our +Union has a more enlightened or more enterprising population, and that +many of these men and women are now as robust and vigorous as one could +desire. But this happy change is possible only to those in the first +stages of the disease. Out-of-door life and physical activity enable the +system to suppress the germs of disease, but climate without activity +does not cure. So far as climate is concerned, many parts of the arid +regions in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, as well as portions of Old +Mexico (Cuernavaca or Morelia, for example) are more favorable than +California, because they are protected from the chill of the sea. +Another class of health-seekers receives less sympathy in California, +and perhaps deserves less. Jaundiced hypochondriacs and neurotic wrecks +shiver in California winter boarding-houses, torment themselves with +ennui at the country ranches, poison themselves with "nerve foods," and +perhaps finally survive to write the sad and squalid "truth about +California." Doubtless it is all inexpressibly tedious to them; +subjective woe is always hard to bear - but it is not California. + +There are others, too, who are disaffected, but I need not stop to +discuss them or their points of view. It is true, in general, that few +to whom anything else is anywhere possible find disappointment in +California. + +With all this, the social life is, in its essentials, that of the rest +of the United States, for the same blood flows in the veins of those +whose influence dominates it. Under all its deviations and variations +lies the old Puritan conscience, which is still the backbone of the +civilization of the republic. Life in California is a little fresher, a +little freer, a good deal richer, in its physical aspects, and for these +reasons, more intensely and characteristically American. With perhaps +ninety per cent of identity there is ten per cent of divergence, and +this ten per cent I have emphasized even to exaggeration. We know our +friends by their slight differences in feature or expression, not by +their common humanity. Much of this divergence is already fading away. +Scenery and climate remain, but there is less elbow-room, and the +unearned increment is disappearing. That which is solid will endure; the +rest will vanish. The forces that ally us to the East are growing +stronger every year with the immigration of men with new ideas. The +vigorous growth of the two universities in California insures the +elevation as well as the retention of these ideas. Through their +influence California will contribute a generous share to the social +development of the East, and be a giver as well as a receiver. + +Today the pressure of higher education is greater to the square mile, if +we pay use such an expression, than anywhere else in our country. In no +other state is the path from the farmhouse to the college so well +trodden as here. It requires no prophet to forecast the educational +pre-eminence of California, for the basis of intellectual development is +already assured. But however close the alliance with Eastern culture, to +the last, certain traits will persist. California is the most +cosmopolitan of all the states of the Union, and such she will remain. +Whatever the fates may bring, her people will be tolerant, hopeful, and +adequate, sure of themselves, masters of the present, fearless of the +future. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS *** + +This file should be named clfrn10.txt or clfrn10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, clfrn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, clfrn10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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