The people of California forgive any heresy or unbelief except a doubt, however faint, about its climate and resources. From the shadow of Mount Shasta to the deepest depth of the Imperial Valley, whether we were so cold in summer as to need furs, or were hot enough to melt, or were choking from dust when we travelled through miles of unredeemed desert, we found this faith in the climate and resources of California unshaken.
The Herr Director asked why there were so many cemeteries in the midst of the most crowded streets, and only a nearer look convinced him that they were “for sale” signs of rival real estate agents, who flourish equally with the sage-brush and cactus.
The second idea upon which there is a common agreement is, that while California in particular is perfect as to climate and resources, the world in general is a dire place, and its wrongs need to be righted.
In spite of the fact that the climate invites to leisure, it has not as yet tamed the fighting spirit of this fine, manly race, which is never so happy as when it has something to do and dare. This state has admitted women to the duties of citizenship, that all may have an equal share in the fight. The issues at stake are worth battling for, and nowhere else is the struggle more intense and dramatic. Organized labor and capital have crippled each other in the desperate conflict, fierce always, and often brutal. Protestantism, unorganized and frequently inefficient, faces the Roman Catholic hierarchy, defending, as it believes, the public schools and democratic government itself: awakening, purified democracy is in deadly conflict with the demagogue entrenched by special privilege while the prohibitionists are engaged in most desperate conflict with the vinous industry of the state.
The third doctrine of the California Confession of Faith is, that here on the Pacific Coast the white race has been providentially placed to defend this country against the encroachment of the “Yellow Peril.” It was illuminating though painful to find that race prejudice is as intense here as in the South, and as unreasoning, and that one is as helpless against it as against a flood or fire. All one seems to be able to do is to accept it as a fact, and treat it like a contagious disease.
If there is any danger to the white race at the Pacific Coast, it is not the presence of the Japanese or Chinese in limited numbers; it is the attitude of mind which has been created among Americans there, and that may bring its own vengeance.
It was a great joy to introduce my guests to California, its orange groves and vineyards, its marvellous cities and palatial homes. It is a state to glory in; but strange to say I was somewhat depressed when I left it. The Herr Director said he missed my “brag and bluster.”
Everything was beautiful and bountiful, even as the real estate agents have advertised; yet there were some things I found and some things I missed which took the “brag and bluster” out of me.
Its pioneer spirit is weakened by the accession of a large, leisure class, and how or where the next generation will find a grappling place for vigor of body, mind and spirit, is still a great question. To eat one’s bread by the sweat of some ancestor’s brow, to be challenged daily by the luxury of a limousine rather than by the hardships of the prairie schooner, to have as the end and aim of one’s day the winning of a Polo match, or the making of a golf score, must ultimately bring about a decadence of spirit, even though one retains for a while litheness of body and activity of mind.
The boasted democracy of California is threatened, not only by the presence of a large leisure class and the necessary serving if not servant class, but also by a lack of faith in humanity, without which no democracy is safe and enduring. To California has been transferred all that unfaith gendered by the advent of the negro, and if there were ever a chance to revive the institution of slavery, that state might offer some hope for its revival.