DAVID STARR JORDAN
 
 CALIFORNIA AND THE 
 CALIFORNIANS 
 
 Al^D 
 
 THE ALPS OF 
 KING-KERN DIVIDE 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID STARR JORDAN 
 
 President of Leland Stanford Junior University 
 
 New Edition 
 
 San Francisco 
 
 W^t ?lfllf)itakec=Eap Company 
 
 Incorporated 
 
 1903 
 
 iAN 1905
 
 Copyright, 1898 
 
 by 
 
 Houghton, Mifflin & Company 
 
 Reprinted by permission 
 
 of Mr. Walter H. Page 
 
 Editor of the Atlantic Monthly 
 
 Copyright, 1903 
 
 by 
 
 The Whitaker & Ray Company
 
 5 n(^ 
 
 PRE FA TOR Y NO TE. 
 
 This essay was fit st published in the Atlantic 
 jMotithly for November, 189S. It is here reprinted 
 by the kind pertnission of the publishers of the 
 Atlantic Monthly, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and 
 of the editor, Mr. Walter H. Page.
 
 CALIFORNIJ AND 
 
 THE CALIFORNIANS 
 
 BT DAVID STARR JORDAN 
 
 PRESIDENT OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY 
 
 The Callfornian loves his state because his state 
 loves him, and he returns her love with a fierce affec- 
 tion that men of other regions are slow to under- 
 stand. 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 
 r^ 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 things and many 
 more the Californian may admit in discussion, or 
 may say for himself, but he does not find them accept- 
 able from others. They may be more or less true, 
 in certain times and places, but the conditions which
 
 .; C.ll.irOKM.I .IM) THE C.IIJFORMJNS 
 
 have pcTiiiittcil 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 Cali- 
 
 h\ fornia. Her fascination endures, whatever the acci- 
 
 kT dents of population. 
 
 v^ vV The charm of California has, in the main, three 
 
 '^ {f ^ sources — scenery, climate, and freedom of life. 
 
 To know the glory of California scener}, one 
 must live close to it through the changing years. 
 PVom Siskiyou to San Diego, 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 every- 
 where 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
 
 
 "A misty camp of mountains pitched tumultuously
 
 CALIFORNIA AND THE CAIJFORNIANS 9 
 
 ridge and foothill, like some huge, sprawling centi- 
 pede,, 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 noble pines and giant sequoias, the mighti- 
 est of trees, in whose silent aisles one may wander all 
 day long and see no sign of man. Dropped here and 
 there rest purple lakes which mark the craters of dead 
 volcanoes, or which srvvell the polished basins where 
 vanished glaciers did their last work. Through moun- 
 tain 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 canons sing the 
 green and troubled rivers, twisting their way lower 
 and lower to the common plains. Even the hopeless 
 stretches of alkali and sand, sinks of lost streams, in 
 the southeastern counties, are redeemed by the de- 
 lectable mountains that on all sides shut them in. 
 Everywhere the landscape seems to swim in crystal- 
 line ether, while over all broods the warm California 
 sun. Here, if anywhere, life is worth living, full and 
 rich and free. 
 
 v" 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 ha\c called the
 
 10 CALIFORNIA AND '/'///: C.J I./FORNIANS 
 
 climate " monotonous," but bo, no cl(jul)t, is good 
 health. In terms of Eastern experience, the seasons 
 may be defined as " late in the spring and early in 
 the fall"; 
 
 "Haifa year of clouds and flowers, half a year of dust and sky," 
 
 according to Bret Harte. But with the dust and sky 
 comes the unbroken succession of days of sunshine, 
 the dry invigorating air, 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 would not give 
 up what we have for the remembered delights of the 
 season that is past. 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
 
 CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS 13 
 
 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 re- 
 morseless 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 w^s 
 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 would be to lay a false stress on its 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 
 y<fonserved. To children the conditions of life are 
 particularly favorable. California could have no 
 better advertisement at some world's fair than the 
 visible demonstration of this fact. A series of meas- 
 urements 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 moulds or statues for com- 
 parison with similar 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
 
 11 C II.IIOKM.I .l\n rilE C.JL/rORMJ.WS 
 
 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 Cali- 
 fornia: 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 irre- 
 sponsibility of a picnic. The feeling of children 
 released from school remains with grown people. 
 
 "A Western man," says Dr. Amos Grisrwold 
 Warner, " is an Eastern man who has had some 
 additional experiences." The Californian is a man 
 from somewhere or 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 he is most 
 likely to forget is that escape from public opinion
 
 CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS is 
 
 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. There is no room for 
 spreading branches, and the characteristic qualities 
 and fruitage develop only at the top. On the fron- 
 tier men grow as the California live 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 him- 
 self. Society has no part of it, and he does not pre- 
 tend 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 intensi- 
 fied in freedom. Nowhere in the world can one find 
 men and women more hospitable, more refined, more 
 charming, than in the homes of prosperous Califor- 
 nia. 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 \isitors 
 who enter their open doors. To be sure, the bcwilil- 
 ering hospitality of the great financiers and greater
 
 1., C. 11. NORM. I JM) lllh C.n.llOKM.lSS 
 
 gamblers of the sixties and seventies is a thing of the 
 past. We shall never again see such prodigal enter- 
 tainment as that which Ralston, bankrupt, cynical, 
 and magnificent, once dispensed in Belmont Canon. 
 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 hospital- 
 ity is characteristic of all parts of California where 
 men and women have an income beyond the needs of 
 the day. 
 
 To a v^ery unusual degree the Californian forms 
 his own opinions on matters of politics, religion, and 
 human life, and these views he expresses without re- 
 serve. 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 trav- 
 eler who has grown up in the shade of a libel law. 
 
 The typical Californian has largelv outgrown 
 provincialism. He has seen much of the world, and
 
 .-'.'ilU 
 
 '4 

 
 CALIFORMA AXD THE CAIJFORMASS i9 
 
 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 re- 
 sources, and the chances are that his range of experi- 
 ence includes a part of Asia 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 Cali- 
 fornia, or that its occasional exhibition is any less 
 absurd or offensive here than elsewhere. For exam- 
 ple, one may note a tendency to set up local standards 
 for literary work done in California. Another, more 
 harmful idea would insist that methods outworn in 
 the schools elsewhere are good because they are Cali- 
 fornian. This is the usual provincialism of ignor- 
 ance, 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 torces 
 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
 
 2(. C.II.IIOKM.I .IM) rili. C./I.I/OR.M.JXS 
 
 interests thcni. 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 no part. P'or 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 opin- 
 ion 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 opin- 
 ion — 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 atmos- 
 phere pervading the snug white-painted, green- 
 blinded New England villages, and this little exists
 
 CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS 21 
 
 chiefly 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 Cali- 
 fornian ; 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 stand- 
 ards. 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 cor- 
 ruption, the widespread corrosion of vulgar vices, 
 and the general lack of pride in their work shown 
 by artisans and craftsmen.
 
 2-j ( 11.11 OKM.I .IM) rilh C.II.IIORM.ISS 
 
 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 can- 
 not 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 en- 
 grave a portrait, to write a sonnet, to mend a saddle, 
 to sing a song, to build an engine, or to "bust a 
 broncho," there is some one at hand who can do it, 
 and do it artistically. Varied ingenuity California 
 demands of her pioneers. Their native originality has
 
 CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS 25 
 
 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 pros- 
 perity, 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 hypothe- 
 sis. 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.
 
 •jG C.ll.ll'ORM.I J.M) rili: CJIJFORM./XS 
 
 The "Argonauts of '49" were a strong, selt-reliant, 
 generous body of men. They came for gold, and 
 gold in abundance. Most of them found it, and some 
 of thei7i retained it. Following them came a miscel- 
 laneous 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, 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 rais- 
 ing, lumbering, horse-farms, chicken-ranches, bee- 
 ranches, seal-poaching, cod-fishing, salmon-canning, 
 — each of these has held out the same glittering possi- 
 bility. 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 six- 
 ties, 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.
 
 CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS 27 
 
 The working out of most of the phicer mines and 
 the advent of quartz-crushing with elaborate machin- 
 ery 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 irri- 
 gate 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 thrift- 
 ily managed, an orchard of pnmes or of oranges 
 should reward Its possessor with a comfortable living, 
 besides occasionally an unexpected 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 is quite another 
 thing from acquiring sudden wealth. When a man 
 without experience In fruit-raising or in general econ- 
 omy comes to California, buys land on b()rr()\\C(.l 
 capital, plants it without discrimination, aiul spends 
 his profits in advance, there can be but one result.
 
 2e CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS 
 
 Ihc laws of economics arc inexorable even in Cali- 
 fornia. One of the curses of the state is the "fool 
 fruit-grower," with neither knowledge nor con- 
 science 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 are sent to East- 
 ern markets under his neighbor's brands, and most 
 needlessly his varied follies have spoiled the reputa- 
 tion 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 any. Rumors of golden 
 chances have brought in a steady stream of incompe- 
 tents from all places and all strata of social life. From 
 the common tramp to the inventor of "perpetual 
 motions" in mechanics or in Sociology, 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 insur- 
 mountable. The dread of the winter's cold alone is
 
 " while trom the crags leap full thioa'eii streams
 
 CALIFORMA AM) THE CAIJFOR.MAXS :n 
 
 in most cases a deterrent factor. Thus San Fran- 
 cisco, by force of circumstances, has become the hop- 
 per into which fall incompetents from all the world, 
 and from which few escape. The city contains about 
 three 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 discon- 
 tent, and confound all attempts to solve industrial 
 problems. In this rough estimate I do not count 
 San Francisco's own poor, of which there is a moder- 
 ate proportion, 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 certain number of saloon- 
 keepers; a class of so-called lawyers; 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. Fhe other cities 
 of California have had a similar experience. F.ach 
 has its reputation for hospitality, and each has a con- 
 siderable population which has come in from other
 
 :\-> CIIIIORMI IM) rill. C.II.II'OKM.LWS 
 
 regions because incapable of making its own way. It 
 is not the poor and helpless alone who are the victims 
 of imposition. 1 here 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 one city lately visited, 
 I found scarcely a business block that did not con- 
 tain 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 cities. 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 thous- 
 ands 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
 
 CALIFORNIA AND THE CAIJFORMAXS n 
 
 took his hand in speculation. Corner lots in San 
 Diego, Del Mar, Azusa, Redlands, Riverside, Pasa- 
 dena, 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. Worthless land 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. " Mil- 
 lionaires 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 collapse: "The money market tightened al- 
 most 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 con- 
 tinued. Not only were vast sums going out ever)' 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 al- 
 ready been ordered, but thousands more were still 
 going out for diamonds and a host of other things
 
 ;;i C.II.IIOKM.I .IM) I' I li. C.I 1 .1 lORM .1 \S 
 
 already bought — things that only increase the general 
 indebtedness of a community by making those who 
 cannot atiord 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 advan- 
 tages could not be obscured by the bursting of finan- 
 cial bubbles. By reason of situation and climate they 
 have continued to attract men of wealth and enter- 
 prise, 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 heal- 
 ing," 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 to Los Angeles, 
 Pasadena, and San Diego. The Pullman cars in the 
 winter are full of sick people, banished from the
 
 CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIANS in 
 
 East by physicians who do not know what else to do 
 with their incurable patients. They go to the large 
 hotels of Los Angeles or Pasadena, and pay a rate 
 they cannot afford. They shiver in half-warmed 
 rooms; take cold after cold; their symptoms grow 
 alarming; their money wastes away; and finally, in 
 utter despair, they are hurried back homeward, per- 
 haps 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 hope- 
 lessly ill should remain with their friends; even Cali- 
 fornia 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 Cali- 
 fornia. It is also true that no part of our Union has 
 a better 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 (Cuerna- 
 vaca or Morelia for example) arc more favorable
 
 ■AH C./IJ/'OR.M.I ./\I) rill': CJIJI'ORM.IXS 
 
 than California, because they are protected from the 
 chill of the sea. Another class of health-seekers re- 
 ceives less sympathy in California, and perhaps de- 
 serves 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 Cali- 
 fornia. 
 
 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 dom- 
 inates 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 in- 
 tensely and characteristically American. With per- 
 haps ninety-five per cent of identity there is five per 
 cent of divergence, and this five per cent I have em- 
 phasized even to exaggeration. We know our friends
 
 Uf^': 
 
 ^V 
 
 V 
 
 '■., V
 
 CALIFORXIA AND THE CALIFORXIAXS 4i 
 
 by their slight difierences in feature or expression, 
 not by their common humanity. Much of this diver- 
 gence 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 wmII 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. 
 
 To-day the pressure of higher education is greater 
 to the square mile, if we may 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.
 
 THE ALPS OF THE 
 KING - KERN DIVIDE
 
 The East Vidette 
 
 I a |ih.ito by I-e C.inte
 
 THE ALPS OF THE 
 KING- KERN DIVIDE 
 
 The high Sierras, the huge crests at the head of 
 
 the King's, Kern, Kaweah, and San Joaquin rivers, 
 
 are Alps indeed, not lower than the grandest of those 
 
 in Europe, and scarcely inferior in magnificence. The 
 
 number of peaks in this region which pass the limit 
 
 of 13,000 feet is not less than in all Switzerland. The 
 
 highest of these peaks. Mount Whitney, is given by 
 
 Prof. J. N. Le Conte as 14,522 feet in height. It is 
 
 thus a little lower than the Matterhorn (14,705), 
 
 while Mt. Blanc (15,731), Monte Rosa (15,366), 
 
 the Mischabelhorn (14,941), and the Weisshorn 
 
 (14,803), outrank it a little more. But virtually all 
 
 reach much the same level, and between these peaks, 
 
 and the next in rank in Switzerland, the Finster 
 
 Aarhorn (14,026), California claims a good many, 
 
 notably Mount Williamson (14,448), Tyndall 
 
 (14,360), Jordan (14,212), Junction (about 
 
 14,200), two of the Kaweahs (14,139 and 14, 141 ), 
 
 and Barnard, Keith, Agassiz's Needles, Dusy, Sheep 
 
 Mountain, Milestone, and the South Palisade, each 
 
 something over 14,000 feet, and a host of high 
 
 points as University of California Peak (13,900), 
 
 Gould Peak (13,391), Rixford, Brewer (13,886), 
 
 Stanford (14,100), Ericson (13,900), Lycll, and a
 
 4(i rill: .11. rs or i iir Ki\(;-KrR.\ Dirinr 
 
 host of others named and unnamed which fall but 
 little below. In this we need not mention Shasta 
 (14,400), tall, lone and tremendous, but which is 
 put up independently on a different plan in another 
 part of the State. 
 
 If for a moment we compare the high Sierra 
 Nevada with the Alps, we find in the mountains of 
 Switzerland greater variety of form, and of rock 
 formation, and with greater picturesqueness in color, 
 the white of the snow being sharply contrasted with 
 the green of the flower-carpeted pastures. The rain- 
 fall and the snowfall of the Alps is far more exces- 
 sive, hence all the deep valleys are filled with snow, 
 the canons are glaciers, the vast slow-melting snow 
 masses become compacted into ice before they disap- 
 pear. 
 
 The Sierras are richer in color, and they throb 
 with life. The dry air that flows over them is stimu- 
 lating, balsam-laden, and always transparent to the 
 vision. The Alps are almost always bathed or 
 swathed in clouds. Their air is clear only when it 
 has been newly washed by some wild storm. When a 
 storm is over, the sky soonis needs washing again, 
 and in its blue reaches is full of a streamy suggestion 
 as though it had not been properly dried. 
 
 The glacial basins of the high Sierras, huge tracts 
 of polished granite, furrowed by streams and fringed 
 with mountain vegetation, are far more impressive
 
 THE ALPS OF THE KING-KERN DIVIDE 49 
 
 than similar regions in the Alps. In the Alps the 
 glaciers are still alive and at work. In the Sierras, 
 a few little ones are left here and there, high on the 
 flanks of precipices, but the valleys below them, once 
 filled with ice, are now bare, slicken and sharp-backed 
 or clogged with moraines, just as the glaciers left 
 them. The wreck of the vanished glacier, as in 
 Ouzel Basin of Mt. Brewer, and Desolation Valley 
 of Pyramid Peak, may tell us more of what a glacier 
 does than a living glacier itself. 
 
 The forests of the Sierras are beyond comparison 
 nobler than those of the Alps. The pine, fir, and 
 larch woods of Switzerland are only second growth, 
 mere brush, by the side of the huge pines (Sugar 
 Pine, Yellow Pine, and High Mountain Pine) of the 
 flanks of the Sierras. Giant firs and spruces, too, 
 rival the largest trees on earth, while above all, 
 supremely pre-eminent over all other vegetation, 
 towers the giant Sequoia, mightiest of trees. On a 
 small tree, ten feet through, cut at Sequoia Mills, I 
 counted 1902 rings of annual growth. This tree 
 was a sapling, four feet through, at the time of the 
 fall of Rome. The greatest Sequoias, happily yet 
 uncut, have doubtless four times this age, and it is 
 safe to say many of them have stood on earth at 
 least 8000 years. Converse, the discoverer of the 
 Converse Basin, in Tulare County, claims to have 
 counted 11,000 rings.
 
 50 yv/A .iLPs ()/'' I III: KJ.\(;-Ki'j<.\ niriDE 
 
 So far as man is concerned, there are great differ- 
 ences between the Sierras and the Alps. The Alps 
 have good roads, trails, hotels everywhere. They are 
 thoroughly civilized, provided with guides, guide- 
 posts, ropes and railings, and the traveler, whatever 
 else he may do, cannot go astray. If he gets lost he 
 has plenty of company. The Sierras are uninhabited. 
 In their high reaches there is no hotel, and not often 
 a shed or a roof of any kind. The trails are rough, 
 and when one climbs out from the caiions he has 
 only to go as he pleases. But wherever he goes he 
 cannot fail to be pleased. The Sierras are far more 
 hospitable than the Alps, and the danger of accident 
 is far less. Every day in the Alps may be a day of 
 storm, and no one can safely sleep in the open air. 
 In the Sierras there are but two or three rainy days 
 in the summer, and these are thunder-showers in 
 August afternoons. The weather is scarcely a factor 
 to be considered; every day is a good day, one or two 
 perhaps a little better. 
 
 The traveler is sure of dry, clear air, a little 
 brisk and frosty in the morning, making a blanket 
 welcome, but all he needs is a blanket. For luxury 
 he will make a bonfire of dry branches — pine, cedar, 
 Cottonwood, all burn alike — and there is always a 
 dead tree ready to his hand. He will build his fire 
 near the brook that he may put out its smoldering 
 embers in the morning. No matter how high his
 
 THE ALPS OF THE KING-KERN DUIDE o.i 
 
 flame may rise in the evening, with morning only 
 embers are left. And surely no mountain lover will 
 leave his fire uncovered to burn and murder its way 
 through the forest. The United States government 
 now has its rangers out to protect the forests from 
 fire, and to punish the careless camper, be he angler, 
 mountaineer, or prospector. This is most wise, and 
 it should have been done long ago. More than this 
 the State or government should never let another 
 acre of land on the Sierras be denuded of its timber. 
 On the preservation of our forests depends the fer- 
 tility of our plains. To California this matter is 
 vital above all others. Commerce will come in due 
 time whatever we do; but a forest once uprooted, 
 we can never restore. The great Calaveras grove 
 of Sequoias is now for sale, the first known, and, 
 perhaps, the most picturesque of all, going to the 
 lumber man who will make the highest bid. To 
 destroy this noblest of groves for the lumber that is in 
 it would be barbarous. There should be but one 
 bidder for the Calaveras grove — the people of the 
 United States. We cannot call ourselves civilized if 
 we stand by, consenting to its destruction, as we have 
 done to the slaughter of the great Sequoias of the 
 Converse Basin, with brush, sawdust and soil, all, 
 save the primeval granite, all vanishing in the final 
 conflagration of the abandoned lumber camps. 
 1/ In the high Sierras, the form of the mountains
 
 M /7//' .ll.l'S OF THE KI\G-KhR\ DiriDE 
 
 I'axors the climber. J',ach peak is part of a great 
 anticlinal fold, broken and precipitous on the east 
 side, retaining the original slope on the west. Most 
 of the mountains about Mt. Whitney share the form 
 of that mountain. A gentle slope on the west side, 
 covered by broken, frost-bitten rocks; on the east 
 side a perpendicular descent to an abyss. On the 
 east and north almost every peak is vertical and inac- 
 cessible, while the west side offers no difficulty. Only 
 time and patience are demanded to creep upward 
 over the broken stones and climb the highest of them. 
 All of them require endurance, for they are very high, 
 but few of them demand any special skill or any ner- 
 vous strain, and the views the summits yield are most 
 repaying. "^ 
 
 To reach the best of them one should leave the 
 Southern Pacific railroad at Sanger. Here he meets 
 the stages which run to the Converse Basin. In a 
 ride, preferably taken at night, all night, he crosses 
 the hot plains of the foothills. Turning in at mid- 
 night, he sleeps till morning, then taking the stage 
 again, he rides up hill all day, past Millwood, the 
 General Grant National Park, with its giant Se- 
 quoias, and through the pine forests to Huckleberry 
 Camp. Here he is met by a troop of saddle horses, 
 and a charming day's ride obliquely down the slopes 
 of King's River Caiion, brings him at night to a 
 camp in the river bottom. There may be a house
 
 A. wf^iir^^
 
 THE ALPS OF THE KIXG-KERN DIVIDE 57 
 
 there or a tent, but he needs neither, for night is full 
 of stars — and the stars keep off the rain. Taking 
 his horse again in the morning, by noon he reaches the 
 Sentinel Camp, which is the best center for excur- 
 sions. Hence are usually horses, mules, tents, and 
 blankets for rent, and provisions for sale, so that 
 henceforth all the traveler needs to take with him will 
 be strong clothing, stout nailed shoes, and good 
 temper. 
 
 The King's River Canon he will contrast with the 
 Yosemite. The Yosemite has finer single rocks, 
 higher single cliffs, far more majestic waterfalls, and 
 a general air of perfection as scenery. The King's 
 River Canon is on a larger scale, with higher walls, 
 which slope backward out of sight, and the moun- 
 tains into which it rises are far wilder and more 
 stupendous. 
 
 The traveler will not be long in the Cation before 
 he will want to climb up to take a look at some of 
 these. He may wind up the dusty trail to Goat 
 Mountain and see them all at once in glorious waves 
 of distances. He may, perhaps, crawl to the top of 
 the grand Sentinel and see some of them at another 
 angle. I He may wander to Kearsarge Pass, on the ■ 
 Main Divide, at the head of the Caiion, and see the 
 world from one of the three great peaks, Rixford, 
 Gould, or the highest of all, the huge mass of crumb- 
 ling granite called University of California Peak.
 
 r.s rill: .11. rS Ol' I III: KI\(,-KIJ<\ 1)11 I Dli 
 
 Or he may turn toward the heart of the mountains 
 themselves and hiy his camp at T'ast Lake in the 
 C)u/cl Basin, the wonderful glaciated north slope of 
 Mt. Brewer. Here John Muir studied the water- 
 ouzel in its home, and wrote of it the best biography 
 yet given of any bird; and here, too, you may watch 
 the ouzel and the winter wren, the marmot and the 
 mountain chipmunks. 
 
 Here you may climb Mt. Brewer ( 13,886 feet), 
 the culminating outpost of the cross-divide between 
 the King's and the Kern. Or you may go farther, 
 turning eastward into the very center of the frost- 
 king's domains, climbing the gorge of turbulent 
 Stanford brook, past stately Crag Ericsson, over 
 Harrison's Pass, an old sheep trail, steep, dusty, and 
 hopeless, to the frost-bitten crag named Stanford. 
 This peak lies in the King's-Kern divide, in the very 
 center of the high Sierras. It is a double-topped 
 ridge, the highest summit 14,100 feet, the southern- 
 most, known as Gregory's Monument, about 20 feet 
 lower. 
 
 From this peak one may see nearly all the high 
 Sierras, from the San Joaquin Alps on the north to 
 the Kern Alps on the south; and whoso once climbs 
 this crag or the peak of its sister university, or any 
 other of their craggy brethren, has earned a place in 
 the roll of honor of those "whose feet are beautiful 
 on the mountains." He will join the Sierra Club.
 
 THE ALPS OF THE KE\G-KER\ DlllDE hs 
 
 He will fight in every way he knows against the 
 wanton destruction of our forests and the desecration 
 of our mountains, and whenever the fates permit, he 
 will wander back to the " heart of the Sierras," the 
 Ouzel Basin, and the Mountains of the Great 
 Divide !
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LlltK AKV 
 
 Los AngclcM 
 
 This b(N>k is DUE on the last date stamped Ik-Iow. 
 
 
 <i. 
 
 
 Uhvni 
 
 
 JUN f^ 
 
 ^. L/ t 
 
 
 " WAR f^ IS7: 
 
 Form L9-Series 444 
 
 REC'D 
 
 ,.D/C/^.it 
 
 Al 
 
 ^^^IfJ^ 
 
 OL OCT OR 1986 
 
 * REC'D LDURt 
 
 ftEC'D LD'UM 
 
 I UN 1 3 1986 
 JUN 1 3 1986
 
 F 
 
 866 
 
 J76 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY EArillTY 
 
 AA 001 161 489 8 
 
 '#k 
 
 ft?