Inez Haynes Gillmore

“ Riding a series of hills as lightly as a ship the waves, she makes real exercise of any walking within her limits. Moreover the streets are tied so intimately and inextricably to seashore and country that San Francisco's life is, in one sense, less like city life than that of any other city in the United States. Yet by the curious paradox of her climate, which compels much indoor night entertainment, reinforced by that cosmopolitanism of atmosphere, life there is city life raised to the highest limit. ”

“ But there is a joyous quality to the San Francisco blague which sets it apart, even in the West. You find its counterpart only in Paris. Perhaps it is that, being reenforced by wit, it explodes more quickly than the humor of the rest of the country. The Californian with his bulk, his beauty, his boast and his blague descending on New York is very like the native of the Midi who with similar qualities, is always taking Paris by storm. ”

“ Remember, last of all, as naturally as from infancy the Native Son has breathed the tonic and toxic air of California, he has breathed the spirit of democracy. That spirit of democracy is so strong, indeed, that the enfranchised women of California give intelligent guidance to the feminists of a whole nation; public opinion is so enlightened that it sets a pace for the rest of the country and labor is so progressive that it is a revelation to the visiting sociologist. ”

“ I refer even to that astonishing detail in the general Californian sulphitism, the seals which frequent beach rocks close to the shore, a short car ride from the heart of a city as big as San Francisco.
—and this—
California, because of rich gold deposits, and a richer golden, sunshine, its golden spring poppy and its golden summer verdure, seems both literally and figuratively, a golden land golden and gay. It is a land full of contradictions however. For those amazing memorials from a prehistoric past give it in places a strange air of tragedy. ”

“ And, perhaps floating over the City, a sheer high fog mutes the crescent's gold to a daffodil yellow; winds moist gauzes over the thrilling evening star. At the top of the high hill-streets, the lamps run in straight strings or pendant necklaces. Down their astonishing slopes slide cars like glass boxes filled with liquid light; motors whose front lamps flood the asphalt with bubbling gold. ”

“ That initiative and enterprise spring part from his inalienable pep, his vivid interest in life; and part from that constructive looseness of the social structure, which gives them both full play. If the Native Son sees anything he wants to do, he instantly does it. If he sees anything that he wants to get, he promptly takes it. If he sees anything that he wants to be, he immediately is it. He saunters into New York in a degage way and takes the whole city by storm. He strolls through Europe with an insouciant air and finds it almost as good as California. ”

“ Some day medical journals will give the same space to the victims of California hospitality that they now allot to victims of Oriental famines. For with Californians, hospitality is first an instinct, then an art, then a religion and finally a mania. It is utterly impossible to resist it, but it takes a strong constitution to survive. Californians will go to any length or trouble in this matter; their hospitality is all mixed up with their art instinct and their sense of humor. ”

“ The first time I visited San Francisco I was impressed with the remarks of a Native son of moderate salary who had traveled much in the East.
"This here and now San Francisco is a real man's town", he said. "I don't know so much about the women, but the men certainly can have a better time here than in any other city in the country. And then again, a poor man can live in a way and do things in a style that would be impossible in New York. At my club I meet all kinds of men. Many of them are prominent citizens and many of them have large fortunes. ”

“ This is what nature has done. But man has added his deepening touch in one direction and his enlivening touch in another. The early fathers—Spanish—erected Missions from one end of the State to the other. These are time-mellowed, mediaeval structures with bell-towers, cloisters and gardens, sunbaked, shadow-colored; and in spots they make California as old and sad as Spain. Later emigrants—French—have built in the vicinity of San Francisco many tiny roadside inns where one can drink the soft wines of the country. ”

“ Getting out of the scenery zone only to fall into the climate zone. Reader, it's just the same with the climate as the scenery. It's got to be done some time, so why not now?
That's what California produces in the way of scenery and fodder. So now, let's consider the climate, even if I am invading Jesse Williams's territory. For it has magical properties—that climate of California. It makes people grow big and beautiful and strenuous; it makes flowers grow big and beautiful; it makes fleas grow big and—strenuous. ”

“ Everybody is frankly interested in everybody else and in what is going on. Of all the cities the country, San Francisco is by weather and temperament, most adapted to the pleasant French habit of open-air eating. The clients in the barber shops, lathered like clowns and trussed up in what is perhaps the least heroic posture and costume possible for man, are seated at the windows, where they may enjoy the outside procession during the boresome processes of the shave and the hair-cut. ”

“ The Grove-Play is an annual incident of which I fancy only California could be capable. Of course the calculable quality of the weather helps in this possibility. But the art-spirit, born and bred in the Californian, is the driving force. Every year the Bohemian Club produces in its summer annex—a beautiful grove of redwoods beside the Russian river—a play in praise of the forest. The stage is a natural one, a cleared hill slope with redwoods for wings. The play is written, staged, produced and acted by members of the club. ”

“ If it be Christmas—and nowhere is Christmas so Christmasy as in California—the clubs and hotels show facades covered with jewel-designs in red and green lights; mistletoe, holly, stack high the sidewalks on each side of the flower stands. The beautiful Native Daughter, eyes dancing, lips smiling, dressed with much color and more chic, is everywhere. And everywhere too, crowding the streets, thronging the cafes, jamming the theatres, flooding the parks, filling the endless files of motor-car, until before your very eyes, "the city" seems to spawn men, is—
Generous, genial, gay ”

“ Moreover the Native Son's club encourages all this athletic instinct by offering spacious and beautiful gymnasium quarters in which to develop it. Lacking a club, he can turn to the public baths, surely the biggest and most beautiful in the world.
Just as there is a different physical aspect to the Native Son, there is, compared to the rest of the country, a different social aspect to him. California is still young, still pioneer in outlook. Society has not yet shaken down into those tightly stratified layers, typical of the East. There is a real spirit of democracy in the air. ”

“ Monstrous, contorted shapes—those Monterey cypresses look like creatures born underground, who, at the price of almost unbearable torture, have torn through the earth's crust, thrusting and twisting themselves airward. ”

“ That sparkling briskness—the tang—which is the best the temperate climate has to offer, gives the Native Son his high powered strenuosity. That developing softness—lush— (every Native Son will admit the lush) which is the best the semi-tropical element has to contribute, gives him his size and comeliness. The weather of San Francisco keeps the Native Son out of doors whenever it is possible through the day time. ”

“ I know that the Native Son works and works hard. The proof of that is California itself. San Francisco twice rebuilt, the progressive city of Los Angeles, all the merry enterprising smaller California cities and towns. But, somehow, he plays so hard at his work and works so hard at his play that you are always wondering whether it's all the time he works or all the time he plays. At any rate, out of his work comes gaiety and out of his play seriousness. ”

“ By day, the joyous, whimsical fantasy of the colossal Tower of Jewels, which caught the light in millions of rainbow sparkles, must, for children at least, have made of its entrance the door to fairyland. ”

“ In the windows of the downtown shops, with no pretence whatever of the curtains customary in the East, men clerks disrobe and re-robe life-sized female models of an appalling nude flesh-likeness. They dress these helpless ladies in all the fripperies of femininity from the wax out, oblivious to the flippant comments of gathering crowds. ”

“ Nowhere I think are eyes so clear, glances so direct and expressions so frank as in California. Nowhere is conversation and discussion more straightforward and courageous.
All that I have written thus far is only by way of preliminary to showing you what the background of the Native Son has been and to explaining why Europe does not dazzle him much and the East not at all. Remember that he is instinctively an athlete and that he has never dissipated his magnificent strength in fighting weather. ”

“ For the Native Son is an unique product, as distinctively and characteristically Californian as the gigantic redwood, the flower festival, the ferocious flea, the moving-picture film, the annual boxing and tennis champion, the golden poppy or the purple prune. There is only one other Californian product that can compare with him and that's the Native Daughter. ”

“ These are the reasons why there is nothing hectic about the hordes of Native Sons who nightly motor about San Francisco, who fill its theatres and restaurants. An after-theatre group in San Francisco is as different from the tallowy, gas-bred, after-theatre groups on Broadway as it is possible to imagine. In San Francisco, many of them look as though they had just come from State-long motor trips; from camping expeditions on the beach, among the redwoods, or in the desert ”

“ For no matter what graceful tribute they pay to famous visiting aliens, its formality is always leavened by their delicious wit. And no matter how much fun they poke at departing or returning friends, it is always accompanied by some social tribute of great charm and originality. ”

“ Indeed, nowhere in the whole world, I fancy, is labor so healthy, so happy, so prosperous. California brings to the workers' problems the free enlightened attitude characteristic of her. As between on the one hand hordes of unemployed ”

“ That agglomeration of the Anglo-Saxon, the Celt and the Latin, has endowed the Native Son with the pulchritude of all three races. In eugenic combination with Ireland, California is peculiarly happy. The climate has made him tall and big. His athletic habits has made him shapely and strong. ”