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862
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"2n 1 HE NATIVE SON
BY
INEZ HAYNES IRWIN
A
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
THE NATIVE SON
9
SUNSET GLOW
Looking toward the Golden Gate from the
University of California
THE NATIVE SON
BY
INEZ HAYNES IRWIN
AUTHOR OF
"THE CALIFORNIACS"
"ANGEL ISLAND"
"THE LADY OF KINGDOMS"
"PHOEBE AND ERNEST"
SAN FRANCISCO
A.M.ROBERTSON
MCMXIX
COPYRIGHT. 1919
BY
A. M. ROBERTSON
I
TO THOSE
PROUD NATIVE SONS
JAMES W. COFFROTH
MEYER COHN PORTER GARNETT
JOHN CROWLEY WILLIE RITCHIE
J. CAL EWING JAMES WILSON
ANDREW J. GALLAGHER
AND TO THOSE
APOLOGETIC ADOPTED SONS
ALBERT M. BENDER
SAM BERGER
GELETT BURGESS
MICHAEL CASEY
PATRICK FLYNN
WILL IRWIN
ANTON JOHANSEN
AUSTIN LEWIS
XAVIER MARTINEZ
PERRY NEWBERRY
PATRICK o'bRIEN
FREMONT OLDER
LEMUEL PARTON
PAUL SCHARRENBERG
WALDEMAR YOUNG
ALL OF WHOM HAVE PLAYED
SOME GRACEFUL PART IN TRANSLATING
CALIFORNIA TO ME
THIS APPRECIATION IS DEDICATED
'*'"'^»937
7Si
a:
THE NATIVE SON
^HE only drawback to writ-
ing about California is that
scenery and climate — and
weather even — will creep
in. Inevitably anything you
produce sounds like a cross between
a railroad folder and a circus program.
You can't discuss the people without
describing their background ; for they
reflect it perfectly; or their climate,
because it has helped to make them
the superb beings they are. A ten-
dency manifests itself in you to revel
in superlatives and to wallow in italics.
You find yourself comparing adjectives
that cannot be compared — unique for
instance. Unique is a persistent temp-
tation. For, the rules of grammar not-
withstanding, California is really the
2 THE NATIVE SON
most unique spot on the earth's sur-
face. As for adjectives like enormous ^
colossal, surpassing, overpowering and
nouns like marvel, wonder, grandeur,
vastness, they are as common in your
copy as commas.
Another difficulty is that nobody out-
side California ever believes you. I
don't blame them. Once I didn't
believe it myself. If there was anything
that formerly bored me to the marrow
of my soul, it was talk about California
by a regular dyed-in-the-wool Califor-
niac. But I got mine ultimately. Even
as I was irritated, I now irritate. Even
as I was bored, I now bore. Ever since
I first saw California, and became,
inevitably, a Californiac, I have been
talking about it, irritating and boring
uncounted thousands. I begin placat-
ingly enough, **Yes, I know you aren't
going to believe this," I say. **Once I
didn't believe it myself. I realize that
it all sounds impossible. But after
TEE NATIVE SON 3
youVe once been there '* Then
I'm off. When I 've finished, there isn't
an hysterical superlative adjective or a
complimentary abstract noun unused
in my vocabulary. I've told all the
East about California. I've told many
of the countries of Europe about Cali-
fornia. I even tell Californians about
California. I w^ill say to the credit of
Californians though that t/iey listen.
Listen! did I say /is fen F They drink
it down like a child absorbing its first
fairy tale.
In another little volume devoted to
the praise of California, Willie Britt is
on record as saying that he'd rather be
a busted lamp-post on Battery Street
than the Waldorf-Astoria. I said once
that I'd rather be sick in California
than well anywhere else. I'm prepared
to go further. I'd rather be in prison
in California than free anywhere else.
San Quentin is without doubt the most
delightfully situated prison in the whole
4 THE NATIVE SON
world. Besides I have a lot of friends
— but I won't go into that now. Any-
way if I ever do get that severe jail-
sentence which a long-suffering family
has always prophesied for me, I'm
going to petition for San Quentin.
Moreover, I would rather talk about
California than any other spot on earth.
I 'd rather write about California than
any other spot on earth. Is it possible
that any Californian Chamber of Com-
merce has to pay a press agent? In-
credible ! Inexplicable ! I wonder that
local millionaires don't bid their entire
fortune for the privilege. Now what
has Willie Britt to say?
Yes, my idea of a pleasant occupation
would be listing, cataloguing, invent-
orying, describing and — oh joy! —
visiting the wonders of California. But
that would be impossible for any one
enthusiast to accomplish in the mere
three-score-and-ten of Scriptural allot-
ment. Methusalah might have at-
THE NATIVE SON 5
tempted it. But in these short-lived
days, ridiculous to make a start. And
so, perforce, I must share this joy-
ous task with other and more able
chroniclers. I am willing to leave the
beauty of the scenery to Mary Austin,
the wonder of the weather to Jesse
Williams, the frenzy of its politics to
Sam Blythe, the beauty of its women
to Julian Street, the glory of the old
San Francisco to Will Irwin, the splen-
dor of the new San Francisco to Rufus
Steele, its care-free atmosphere to Allan
Dunn, if I may place my laurel wreath
at the foot of the Native Son. Indeed,
when it comes to the Native Son, I
yield the privilege of praise to no one.
For the Native Son is an unique pro-
duct, as distinctively and characteristi-
cally Californian as the gigantic red-
wood, the flower festival, the ferocious
flea, the moving-picture film, the
annual boxing and tennis champion,
the golden poppy or the purple prune.
6 THE NATIVE SON
There is only one other Californian
product that can compare with him
and that's the Native Daughter.
And as for the Native Daughter — — •
But if I start up that squirrel track
I '11 never get back to the trail. Never-
theless some day I 'm going to pick out
a diamond-pointed pen, dip it in wine
and on paper made from orange-tawny
poppy petals, try to do justice to the
Native Daughter. For this inflexible
moment, however, my subject is the
Native Son. But if scenery and climate
— and weather even — do creep in, don't
blame me. Remember I warned you.
Besides sooner or later I shall be sure
to get back to the main theme.
In the January of 1917 I made my
annual pilgrimage to California. On
the train was a Native Son who was
the hero of the following astonishing
tale. He was one of a large family, of
which the only girl had married a
German, a professor in an American
THE NATIVE SON 7
university. Shortly before the Great
War, the German brother-in-law went
back to the Fatherland to spend his
sabbatical year in study at a German
university. Letters came regularly
for a while after the war began ; then
they stopped. His wife was very much
worried. Our hero decided in his
simple western fashion to go to Ger-
many and find his brother-in-law. He
travelled across the country, caj oiled
the authorities in Washington into giv-
ing him a passport, crossed the ocean,
ran the British blockade and entered
the forbidden land. Straight as an ar-
row he went to the last address in his
brother-in-law's letters. That gentle-
man, coming home to his lunch, tired,
worried and almost penniless, found his
Californian kinsman smoking calmly
in his room. The Native Son left
money enough to pay for the rest of
the year of study and the journey home.
Then he started on the long trip back.
8 TEE NATIVE SON
In the English port at which his ship
touched, he was mistaken for a disloyal
newspaper man for whom the British
Secret Service had long been seeking.
He was arrested, searched and submit-
ted to a very disquieting third degree.
When they asked him in violent
explosive tones what he went into
Germany for, he replied in his mild,
unexcited Western voice — to give his
brother-in-law some money. All Eu-
rope is accustomed to crazy Americans
of course, but this strained credulity to
the breaking point; for nobody who
has not tried to travel in the war coun- .
tries can realize the sheer unbelieva-
bility of such guilelessness. The British
laughed loud and long. His papers
were taken away and sent to London
but in a few days everything was re-
turned. A mistake had been made, the
authorities admitted, and proper apolo-
gies were tendered. But they released
him with looks and gestures in which
THE NATIVE SON 9
an abashed bewilderment struggled
with a growing irritation.
That is a typical Native Son story.
If you are an Eastener and meet the
Native Son first in New York (and the
only criticism to be brought against
him is that he sometimes chooses —
think of that — chooses to live outside
his native State ! ) you wonder at the
clear-eyed composure, the calm-vis-
ioned unexcitability with which he
views the metropolis. There is a story
of a San Francisco newspaper man who
landed for the first time in New York
early in the morning. Before night he
had explored the city, written a scathing
philippic on it and sold it to a leading
newspaper. New York had not daunted
him. It had only annoyed him. He was
quite impervious to its hydra-headed
appeal. But you don't get the answer
to that imperviousness until you visit
the California which has produced the
Native Son. Then you understand.
10 THE NATIVE SON
For the Native Son
Yes, Reader, your j^as come from a State
worst fears are jus- , . , , .
tified; I'm going to whosc back yard is
talk about scenery, two hundred thousand
?"*/?"'* ^^y *^^; square miles (more or
I did n t warn you ' . /
However, as it's got less) of American con-
to be done some- tiueut and whose front
time, why not now? j • r L ^ j
I'll be perfectly fair, Y^^^ IS llVC hundred
though; so— thousand square miles
(less or more) or Pa-
cific Ocean, whose back fence is ten
thousand miles (or thereabouts) of
bristling snow-capped mountains and
whose front hedge is ten thousand
miles (or approximately) of golden
foam-topped combers; a State that
looks up one clear and unimpeded
waterway to the evasive North Pole,
and down another clear and unimpeded
waterway to the elusive South Pole and
across a third clear and unimpeded water
way straight to the magical, mystical,
mysterious Orient. This sense of ampli-
tude gives the Native Son an air of su-
TEE NATIVE SON: 11
periority . . . Yes, you're quite
right, it /las a touch of superciUousness
— very difficult to understand and much
more difficult to endure when you
haven't seen California; but completely
understandable and endurable when
you have.
Man helped nature — Callfomiacs read
to place Italy, Spain, ^^"'^ T^'^k-^"'*"
I ^ ^ 7 r- 7 erners skip this pa-
Japan among the won- ragraph—
der regions of the
world; but nature placed California
there without assistance from anybody.
I do not refer alone to the scenery of
California which is duplicated in no
other spot of the sidereal system ; nor
to the climate which matches it; nor
to its super-mundane fertility, nor to
its super-solar fecundity. The railroad
folder with its voluble vocabulary has
already beaten me to it. I do not refer
solely to that rich yellow-and-violet,
springtime bourgeoning which turns
California into one huge Botticelli
12 THE NATIVE SON
background of flower colors and sheens.
I do not refer to that heavy purple-and-
gold, autumn fruitage, which changes
it to a theme for Titian and Veronese.
I am thinking particularly of those
surprising phenomena left over from
pre-historic eras; the *'big'* trees —
the sequoia giganteUy which really be-
long to the early fairy-tales of H. G.
Wells, and to those other trees, not
so big but still giants — the sequoia sent-
pivirens or redwoods, which make of
California forests black-and-silver com-
positions of filmy fluttering light and
solid bedded shade. I am thinking
also of that patch of pre-historic cypres-
ses in Monterey. These differ from
the straight, symmetrical classic red-
woods as Rodin's ** Thinker** differs
from the Apollo. Monstrous, con-
torted shapes — those Monterey cypres-
ses look like creatures born under-
ground, who, at the price of almost
unbearable torture, have torn through
THE NATIVE SON 13
the earth's crust, thrusting and twisting
themselves airward. I refer even to
that astonishing detail in the general
Calif ornian 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.
California, because —and this—
of rich gold deposits,
and a richer golden sunshine, its
golden spring poppy and its golden
summer verdure, seems both Hterally
and figuratively, a golden land gold-
en 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. I challenge this grey old
earth to produce a strip of country more
beautiful, also more poignant and catas-
trophic in natural connotation, than the
one which includes these cypresses of
Monterey. Yet this same mordant area
holds Point Lobos, a headland which
14 THE NATIVE 80N
displays in moss and lichens all the
minute delicacy of a gleeful, elfin
world. I challenge the earth to pro-
duce a region more beautiful, yet also
more gay and debonair in natural con-
notation, than the one which enfolds
San Francisco. For here the water
presents gorgeous, plastic color, alter-
nating blue and gold. Here Mount Ta-
malpais lifts its long straight slopes out
of the sea and thrusts them high in the
sky. Here Marin County offers contours
of dimpled velvet bursting with a gay ir-
ridescence of wild flowers. Yet that same
gracious area frames the grim cliff-cup
which holds San Francisco bay — a spot
of Dantesque sheerness and bareness.
This is what nature
—and this. has done. But man has
added his deepening
touch in one direction and his enliven-
ing touch in another. The early fathers
— Spanish — erected Missions from one
end of the State to the other. These
THE NATIVE SON 15
are time-mellowed, mediaeval struc-
tures with bell-towers, cloisters and
gardens, sun-baked, 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. Framed in hills that
are garlanded with vineyards, these inns
are often mere rose-hidden bowers.
They make California seem as gay as
France. I can best put it by saying
that I know of no place so *' haunted**
in every poetic and plaintive sense as
California; yet I know of no place so
perfectly suited to carnival and festival.
All of this is part of the reason why
you can't surprise a Calif ornian.
16 THE NATIVE SON
This looks like a \rES, California is
respite, but there's X u. 'r i
no real relief in sight DeaUtllUl.
Easterners. Keep OxiCC Upon a time,
SHfor^Lr"*'"^' ^ ^^^^^^ ^°^ ^^y ^y^^s-
He did not know that
he was going to die. His physician
had to break the news to him. He
told the Californian that the process
would not be long or painful. He
would go to sleep presently and when
he woke up, the great journey would
have been accomplished. His words
fulfilled themselves. Soon the Native
Son fell into a coma. When he opened
his eyes he was in Paradise. He raised
himself up, gave one look about and
exclaimed, **What a boob that doctor
was! Whad'da he mean — Paradise!
Here I am still in California."
Man has of course, here as elsewhere,
chained nature; set her to toil for him.
She is a willing worker everywhere,
but in California she puts no stay nor
THE NATIVE SON 17
Stint on her productive efforts. Cali-
fornia produces — Now up to this
moment I have held myself in. Look-
ing back on my copy I see only such
meager words as **beauty'*, ''glory**,
"splendor**, such pale, inadequate
phrases as **super-rnundane fertility**
and ''super-solar fecundity**. What
use are words and phrases when one
speaks of California. It is time for us
to abandon them both and resort to
some bright, snappy sparkling statistics.
So here goes!
California produces forty per cent of
the gold, fifty per cent of the wheat,
sixty per cent of the oranges, seventy
per cent of the prunes, eighty per cent
of the asparagus and
(including the Native Reader, I had to
Daughters) ninety- f'"'''^^^ ^;'^' ^^
i=> f . "^ I gave you the cor-
nine and ninety- nine rect statistics, you
one-hundredths per wouldn't believe me.
cent of the peaches of
the world. I pause to say here that none
18 TEE NATIVE SON
of these figures is true. They are all
made up for the occasion. But don't
despair! I am sure that they don't do
California justice by half. Any other
Calif orniac — with the mathematical
memory which I unfortunately lack —
will provide the correct data. Some-
body told me once, I seem to recall,
that the Santa Clara valley produces
sixty per cent of the world's prunes.
But I may be mistaken. What I prefer
to remember is one day's trip in that
springtide of prune bloom. For hours
and hours of motor speed, we glided
through a snowy world that showed
no speck of black bark or fleck of green
leaf; a world in which the sole relief
from a silent white blizzard of blossom
was the blue of the sky arch, the purple
of distant lupines alternating with the
gold of blood-centered poppies, pour-
ing like avalanches down hills of emer-
ald green.
'That's what California produces in
.THE NATIVE SON 19
the way of scenery and Getting out of the
- , , o , , scenery zone only to
fodder. So now, lets fan into the climate
consider the climate, zone. Reader, it's
even if I am invading j"^* *!!" ^f""^ ""l^
TTT-Mf • ^ climate as the
Jesse Williams's tern- scenery, it's got to
tory. For it has magi- be done some time,
■i . ^1 ^ 1 • so why not now ?
cal properties — that cli-
mate of California. It makes people
grow big and beautiful and strenuous;
it makes flowers grow big and beauti-
ful ; it makes fleas grow big and stren-
uous. It offers, except in the most
southern or the most mountainous re-
gions, no such extremes of heat or cold
as are found elsewhere in the country.
Its marvel is of course the season which
corresponds to our winter. The visitor
coming, let us say in February, from
the ice-bound and frost-locked East
through the flat, dreary Middle West,
and stalled possibly on the way, remains
glued in stupefaction to the car window.
In a very few hours he slides from the
white, glittering snow-covered heights
20 THE NATIVE SON
of the evergreen-packed Sierras through
their purple, hazy, snow-filled depths
into the sudden warmth of California.
It is Hke waking suddenly from a
nightmare of winter to a poet's or a
painter's vision of spring.
At one side, perhaps
Who having seen ^j^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^
this picture in Janu- i i-
ary, could resist de- hllls, on whlch the hve
scribing it? East- oaks Spread big, ebon-
cmers, I appeal to ■, ■, in
yoursenseofjustice. emerald Umbrellas, Ser-
pentine endlessly into
the distance. On the other side, far
hills, bathed in an amethystine mist,
invade the horizon. Between stretches
the flat green field of the valley, gashed
with tawny streaks that are roads and
dotted with soft, silvery bunches that
are frisking new-born lambs. Little
white houses, with a coquettish air of
perpetual summer, flaunt long windows
and wooden-lace balconies, Early roses
flask pink flames here and there. The
green-black meshes of the eucalyptus
TEE NATIVE SON 21
hedges film the distance. The madrone,
richly leaved Hke the laurel, reflects the
sunlight from a bole glistening as though
freshly carved from wet gold.
The race — a blend
of many rich bloods— Cheer up I We 're
/-> T • r • 1 getting out of scen-
that California has ery and climate into
evolved with the help
of this scenery and climate is a rare
brew. The physical background is
Anglo-Saxon of course; and it still
breaks through in the prevailing Anglo-
Saxon type. To this, the Celt has
brought his poetry and mysticism. To
it, the Latin has contributed his art
instinct; and not art instinct alone but
in an infinity of combinations, the dig-
nity of the Spaniard, the spirit of the
French, the passion of the Italian.
All the foregoing is
—Into— put in, not to make it
harder, but because —
as a Calif orniac — I couldn't help it,
and to show you what, in the way of
22 THE NATIVE SON
a State, the Native Son is accustomed
to. You will have to admit that it is
some State. The emblemi on the Cali-
fornia flag is singularly apposite — it's
a bear.
And if, in addition
oh boy I - jQ ^^' ^ Cahf ornian,
San Francisco! i • -vt • n ...
this Native Son visiting
the East for the first time, is also a San
Franciscan, he has come from a city
which is, with the exception of peace-
time Paris, the gayest and with the
exception of none, the happiest city in
the world; a city of extraordinary pic-
turesqueness of situation and an equally
notable cosmopoHtanism of atmos-
phere ; a city which is, above all cities,
a paradise for men.
San Francisco, which invents much
American slang, must have provided
that phrase — *'this man's town." For
that is what San Francisco is — a man's
town.
San Francisco, or "the city", as
THE NATIVE SON 23
Californians so proudly * ^^^^ "»* ^pp^^^
, , . , ■, to Easterners; but
and lovingly term her, caiiforniacs, i ask
is peculiarly f ortuate in you how could i for-
her situation and her ^'V\'^\'?'T
. thing about " the
weather. Riding a city"?
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 sea-
shore and country that San Francisco's
life is, in one sense, less like city life
than that of any other tity in the United
States. Yet by the curious paradox of
her cHmate, which compels much in-
door night entertainment, reinforced
by that cosmopolitanism of atmosphere,
life there is city life raised to the highest
limit. Last of all, its size — and per-
sonally I think there should be a federal
law forbidding cities to grow any bigger
than San Francisco — makes it an en-
gaging combination of provincialism
and cosmopolitanism.
24 THE NATIVE SON
Not scenery this The ''citv'* does its
time, Reader, nor cli- , , p,
mate, but weather. DCSt tO put the San
Lilte scenery and Franciscanin goodcon-
climate. it must be ^^^^^ Andtheweath-
done. Hurdle this . i • /v
paragraph. Eastern- er reinforces this efiFort
ers! Keep on read- by keeping him OUt of
ing, Californiacs ! , rt r
doors. rJecause or a
happy collaboration of land with sea,
the region about San Francisco, the
"bay*' region — individual in this as in
everything else — has a climate of its
own. It is, notwithstanding its brief
rainy season, a singularly pleasant cli-
mate. It cannot be described as * 'tem-
perate ' ' in the sense, for instance, that
New England's climate is temperate.
That is too harsh. Neither can it be
described as ** semi-tropical" in the way
that Hawaii, for example, is semi-
tropical. That is too soft. It combines
the advantages of both with the disa-
bilities of neither.
That sparkling briskness — the tang
— which is the best the temperate cli-
THE NATIVE SON 25
mate has to offer, gives ^ u -• ^
1 • 1 . 1 Youmaybegmto
the JN ative bon his high- read again, Eastem-
powered strenuosity . ^^^ > ^^'^ ^* '^^^ ' ''^^
n-,1 11' r returned to the Na-
That developing soft- tiveSon
ness — lush — (every
Native Son will admit the lush) —
which is the best the semi-tropical ele-
ment 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. To take care
of this flight into the open are seashore
and mountain, city parks and country
roads. That same weather drives him
indoors during the evenings. And to
meet this demand are hotels, restaur-
ants, theatres, moving-picture houses,
in numbers out of all proportion to the
population. Again, the weather per-
mits him to play baseball and football
for unusual periods with ease, to play
tennis and golf three-quarters of the
year with comfort, to walk and swim
26 THE NATIVE SON
all the year with joy. Notwithstanding
the combination of heavy rains with
startling hill heights, he never ceases to
motor day or night, winter or summer.
The weather not only allows this, but
the climate drives him to it.
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; from long,
cold Arctic cruises, or long, hot Pacific
ones. Moreover the Native Son's club
encourages all this athletic instinct by
offering spacious and beautiful gym-
nasium quarters in which to develop
THE NATIVE SON 27
it. Lacking a club, he can turn to the
pubUc baths, surely the biggest and
most beautiful in the world.
Just as there is a different physical
aspect to the Native Son, there is, com-
pared to the rest of the country, a dif-
ferent 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 de-
mocracy in the air.
The first time I visited San Francisco
I was impressed with the remarks of a
Native Son of moderate salary who had
travelled 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
28 THE NATIVE SON
New York. At my club I meet all
kinds of men. Many of them are
prominent citizens and many of them
have large fortunes. I mix with them
all. I don't mean to say I run con-
stantly with the prom. cits, and the
millionaires. I don't. I can't afford
that. But they occasionally entertain
me. And I as often entertain them.
So many restaurants here are both in-
expensive and good that I can return
their hospitality self-respectingly and
without undue expense. In New York
I would not only never meet that type
of man, but I could not afford to enter-
tain him if I did."
Allied to this, perhaps, is a quality,
typical of San Francisco, which I can
describe only as promiscuity. That
promiscuity is in its best pnase a frank-
ness; a fearlessness; a gorgeous candor
which made possible the epigram that
San Francisco has every vice but hypo-
crisy. Civically, two cross currents cut
TEE NATIVE SON 29
through the city's Hfe; one of a high-
visioned enhghtenment which astounds
the visiting stranger by its force, its
white-fire enthusiasm ; the other a black
sordidness and soddenness which dis-
plays but one redeeming quality — the
characteristic San Franciscan candor.
That openness is physical as well as
spiritual. The city, dropped over its
many hills like a great loose cobweb
weighted thickly with the pearl cubes
of buildings, with its wide streets; its
frequent parks; its broad-spaced resi-
dential areas; its gardened houses in
which high windows crystallize every
view and sun parlors or sleeping porches
catch both the first and last hint of
daylight — the city itself has the effect
of living in the open. Everybody is
frankly interested in everybody else and
in what is going on. Of all the cities
in the country, San Francisco is by
weather and temperament, most adapt-
ed to the pleasant French habit of open-
30 THE NATIVE SON
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 dur-
ing the boresome processes of the shave
and the hair-cut. 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. It*s all a part of that civic
candor somehow. 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
TEE NATIVE SON 31
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. If he is
a little — mind you, I say only a /////(? —
inclined to use that strength on more
entertaining dissipation, he is as likely
to restore the balance by much physical
exercise.
Remember that all There i go again!
1 . , . r 1 1 1 Enormous ! Superb !
his hfe he has gazed on splendid! Spacious!
beauty — beauty tragic You see how impos-
and haunting, beauty '^^^ '* ^' *^ ,^^^p
° ■' your vocabulary
gorgeous and gay. Re- down when Caiifor-
member he is accus- "'^ >s your subject.
I ■, Another moment
tomed to enormous and I shall be saying
sizes; superb heights; more unique.
splendid distances ; spa-
cious vistas. That California does not
produce an annual crop of megalo-
maniacs is the best argument I know
32 THE NATIVE SON
for the superiority of heredity over en-
vironment.
Remember, too, that all his Hfe the
Native Son has soaked in an art atmos-
phere potentially as strong and individ-
ual as ancient Greece or renaisance Italy.
The dazzling country side, the sulphitic
brew of races, the cosmopolitan **city"
have taken care of that. That art-spirit
accounts for such minor California
phenomena as photography raised to
unequalled art levels and shops whose
simple beautiful interiors resemble the
private galleries of art collectors; it ac-
counts for such major phenomena as the
Stevenson monument, the ' * Lark ' ' , the
annual Grove Play of the Bohemian
Club, and the Exposition of 1915.
The tiny monument to Stevenson,
tucked away in a corner soaked with ro-
mantic memories — Portsmouth Square
— compares favorably with the charm-
ing memorials to the French dead. It
is a thing of beautiful proportions. A
THE NATIVE SON 33
little stone column supports a bronze
ship, its sails bellying robustly to the
whip of the Pacific winds. The inscrip-
tion — a well known quotation from
the author — is topped simply by "To
remember Robert Louis Stevenson."
The "Lark" is perhaps the most
delicious bit of literary fooling that this
country has ever produced. It raised its
blythe song at the Golden Gate, but it
was heard across a whole continent. For
two years, Gelett Bur-
gess, Bruce Porter, Por- Perhaps you will
/^ TT7-11- T-4 11 object that some of
ter Garnett, Wllhs Polk, these are not Native
Ernest PeixottO, and Sons. But hush!
Florence Lundborg Californians consid-
=" er anybody who has
performed in it all the stayed five minutes
artistic antics that their '" t^e state-a real
1 i . . . ,. Californian. And
youth, their ongmallty, Relieve us. Reader,
their high spirits SUg- by that time most
gested. Professor Nor- ^^ ^^'"^^ ^,^]^, ^^:
° come not Cahtomi-
ton, Speakmg to a class ans but Califomiacs.
at Harvard University,
said that the two literary events of the
34 THE NATIVE SON
decade between 1890 and 1900 were
the fiction of the young Kipling and
the verse that appeared in the ** Lark."
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 driv-
ing 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. The incidental music is also
written by them. Scarcely has one
year's play been produced before the
rehearsals for the next begin. The
result is a performance of a finished
beauty which not only astounds East-
erners, but surprises Europeans, A]-
THE NATIVE SON 35
though undoubtedly it is the best, it is
only one of numberless out-of-door
masques, plays and pageants produced
all over California.
As for the Exposition of 1915, when
I say that for many Californians, it will
take the edge off some of the beauty of
Europe, I am quite serious. For it was
colored in the gorgeous gamut of the
Orient, clamant yellows, oranges, golds,
combined with mysterious blues, muted
scarlets. And it was illuminated as no
Exposition has ever before been illum-
inated; with lights that dripped down
from the cornices of the buildings; or
shot up from their foundations; or
gleamed through transparent pillars;
or glistened behind tumbling waters;
or sparkled within leaping fountains.
Some of this light even floated from
enormous braziers, thereby filling the
night with clouds of mist-flame; or
flooded across the bay from reservoirs
of tinted glass, thereby sluicing the
36 THE NATIVE SON
whole dream-world with fluid color.
All this was reflected in still lakes and
quiet pools. The procession of one
year's seasons gradually subdued its gor-
geousness to an effect of antiquity, toned
but still colorful. The quick-growing
California vines covered it with an age-
old luxuriance of green. As for the
architecture — I repeat that the Calif or-
nian, seeing for the first time the square
of St. Peter's in Rome and of St. Mark's
in Venice, is likely to suffer a transitory
but definite sense of disappointment.
For the big central court of the Expo-
sition held suggestions of both these
squares. It seemed quite as old and
permanent. And it was much more
striking in situation, with the bay offer-
ing an immense, flat blue extension at
one side and the city hills, pricked with
lights, slanting up and away from the
other. By day, the joyous, whimsical
fantasy of the colossal Tower of Jewels,
which caught the light in millions of
THE NATIVE SON 37
rainbow sparkles, must, for children at
least, have made of its entrance the
door to fairyland. At night, there was
the tragedy of old history about those
faintly fiery facades . . . those enor-
mous shadow-haunted hulks . . .
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 demo-
cracy 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 pro-
gressive that it is a revelation to the
visiting sociologist.
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 be-
38 THE NATIVE SON
tween on the one hand hordes of unem-
ployed; huge slums; poverty spots; and
on the other a well-paid laboring class
with fair hours, she chooses the latter,
thereby storing up for herself eugenic
capital.
I have always wished that California
would strike off a series of medals sym-
bolic of some of the Utopian conditions
which prevail there. I , would like to
suggest a model for one. I was walking
once in the vicinity of the Ferry with
a woman who knows the labor move-
ment of California as well as an out-
sider may. Suddenly she whispered in
my ear, "Oh look! Isn't he a typical
California labor man?"
It was his noon hour and, in his shirt
sleeves, he was leaning against the wall,
a pipe in his mouth. He was tall and
lean; not an ounce of superfluous flesh
on his splendid frame, but a great deal
of muscle that lay in long, faintly swell-
ing contours against it. He was black-
THE NATIVE SON 39
haired and black-mustached; both hair
and mustache were lightly touched
with grey. His thick-lashed blue eyes
sparkled as clear and happy as a child's.
In their expression and, indeed, in the
whole relaxed attitude of his fine, long
figure, was an entertained, contented
interest, an amused tolerance of the
passing crowd. You will see this type,
among others equally fine, again and
again, in the unions of California.
Yes, that spirit of democracy is not
only strong but militant.
Militant! I never could make up
my mind which made the fightingest
reading in the San Francisco papers,
the account of Friday's boxing contest
or of Monday's meeting of the Board
of Supervisors. They i^o say that a visit-
ing Easterner was taken to the Board
of Supervisors one afternoon. In the
evening he was regaled with a battle
royal. And, and — t/iey do say — he fell
asleep at the battle royal because it
40 TEE NATIVE SON
seemed so tame in comparison with the
Board of Supervisors.
The athletic instinct in the Native
Son accounts for the star athletes, box-
ers, tennis players, ball players; that art
instinct for the painters, illustrators,
sculptors, playwrights, fiction writers,
poets, actors, photographers, producers;
that spirit of democracy for the labor
leaders and politicians with whom Cali-
fornia has inundated the rest of the
country.
I started to make a list of the famous
Californians in all these classes. But,
when I had filled one sheet with names,
realizing that no matter how hard I
cudgelled my memory, I would inevi-
tably forget somebody of importance,
I tore it up. Take a copy of "Who's
Who" and cut out the lives of all those
who don't come from California and
see what a respectable-sized volume you
have left.
If any woman tourist should ask me
TEE NATIVE SON 41
what was the greatest menace to the
peace of mind of a woman travelling
alone in California, I should answer in-
stantly — the Native Son. I wish I could
draw a picture of him. Perhaps he's
too good looking. Myself, I think
the enfranchised women of California
should bring injunctions — or whatever
is the proper legal weapon — against so
dangerous a degree of male pulchritude.
Of course the Native Son could reply
that, in this respect, he has nothing on
the Native Daughter, she being with-
out doubt the most beautiful woman in
the world. To, this, however, she
could retort that t/iat is as it should be,
but it's no fair for mere men to be
stealing her stuff.
That agglomeration of the Anglo-
Saxon, the Celt and the Latin, has en-
dowed the Native Son with the pul-
chritude of all three races. In eugenic
combination with Ireland, California
is peculiarly happy. The climate has
42 THE NATIVE SON
made him tall and big. His athletic
habits has made him shapely and strong.
Both have given him clear eyes, a
Smooth skin, swift grace of motion.
Those clear eyes invest
This is misleading ! him with alook of inno-
cence and unsophistica-
tion. He is as rich in dimples as though
they had been shaken onto him from a
salt-cellar. One in each cheek, one in his
chin — count them — three! The Na-
tive Daughter would have a license to
complain of this if she herself didn't
look as thou she'd been sprinkled with
dimples from a pepper-caster. In ad-
dition — oh, but what's the use? Who
ever managed to paint the lily with
complimentary words or gild refined
gold with fancy phrases? The region
bounded by Post, Bush, Mason and
Taylor Streets contains San Francisco's
most famous clubs. Any Congress of
Eugenists wishing to establish a stand-
ard of male beauty for the human race
THE NATIVE SON 43
has only to place a moving-picture ma-
chine at the entrance of any one of
these — let us say the Athletic Club.
The results will at the same time en-
rapture and discourage a dazzled world.
I will prophesy that some time those
same enfranchised women of California
are going to realize the danger of such
a sight bursting unexpectedly on the
unprepared woman tenderfoot. Then
they'll rope off that dangerous area,
establish guards at the corners and put
up *'Stop! Look! Listen!" signs
where they'll do the most good. And
as proof of all these statements, I refer
you to that array of young gods, filing
endlessly over the sporting pages of the
California newspapers.
A Native Son told me once that he
had been given the star-assignment of
newspaper history. Somebody offered
a prize to the most beautiful daughter
of California. And his job was to travel
all over the State to inspect the candi-
44
THE NATIVE SON
dates. He said it was a shame to take
his pay and I agreed that it was sheer
burglary. All I've got to say is that if
anybody wants to offer a prize for the
handsomest Native Son in California,
I'll give my services as
judge. I will add that
after nearly two years
of war-time Europe, in
which I have had an
opportunity to study
some of the best mili-
tary material of Eng-
land, France, Italy,
Portugal, Spain and
Switzerland — the Na-
tive Son leads them all.
I am inclined to think he is the best
physical specimen in the world.
But there is a great deal more to the
Native Son than mere comeliness. That
long list of nationally-famous Califor-
nians proves this in one way, the high
average of his citizenship in another.
And I'll pay for
the privilege. What
the Chamber of
Commerce ought to
do, though, is to
advertise that this
concession will be
put up at auction.
Indeed, if this sale
were made an an-
nual event, women
bidders would flock
to California from
all over the world.
THE NATIVE SON 45
Physically he is a big, strong, high-
geared, high-powered racing machine;
and he has an inexhaustible supply of
energy for motive fluid and an extra-
ordinary degree of initiative and enter-
prise for driving forces. That initiative
and enterprise spring part from his in-
alienable pep, his vivid interest in life;
and part from that constructive loose-
ness of the social structure, which gives
them both full play. If the Native Son
sees anything he wants to do, he in-
stantly 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.
All this, supplemented by his abiding
conviction that California must have
the most and best and biggest of every-
thing, accounts for what California has
46 TEE NATIVE SON
done in the sixty-odd years of her
existence, accounts for what San Fran-
cisco has done in the decade since her
great disaster, accounts for that war-
time Exposition; perhaps the most
elaborate, certainly the most beautiful
the world has ever seen.
The Native Son has a strong sense
of humor and he invents his own slang.
He expresses himself with the pictures-
queness of diction inevitable to the
West and with much of its sly, dry
humor. 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 Cali-
fornian 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. Marseilles, the
THE NATIVE SON 47
chief metropolis of the Midi, has a
famous promenade — less than half a
dozen blocks, packed tight with the
peoples and colors and odors of two
continents — called the Cannebiere. The
Marseillais, returning from his first
visit to Paris, remarks with condescend-
ing scorn that Paris has no Cannebiere.
Of course Paris has her network of
Grand Boulevards but — So the Cali-
forniac patronizingly discovers that
New York has no Market Street, no
Golden Gate Park, no Twin Peaks, no
Mt. Tamalpais, no seals. Above all —
and this is the final thrust — New York
isjiat.
Some day medical journals will give
the same space to the victims of Cali-
fornia hospitality that they now allot to
victims of Oriental famines. For with
Californians, hospitality is first an in-
stinct, then an art, then a religion and
finally a mania. It is utterly impossible
to resist it, but it takes a strong consti-
48 TEE NATIVE SON
tution to survive. Californians will go
o uj u^ to any length or trouble
Somebody ought . .
to invent a serum in this matter ; their
that renders the Vic- hospitality is all mixed
tim immune. . ■. ^ .
up With their art in-
stinct and their sense of humor. For
no matter what graceful tribute they
pay to famous visiting aliens, its for-
mality is always leavened by their deli-
cious wdt. 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.
A loyal Adopted Son of California, a
novelist and muckraker, returned a few
years ago to the beloved land of his
adoption. His arrival was made the
occasion of a dinner by his Club. He
had come back specifically on a muck-
raking tour. But it happened that dur-
ing his absence he had written a series
of fiction stories, all revolving about the
figure of a middle-aged woman me-
THE NATIVE SON 49
dium. In the midst of the dinner, a
fellow clubman disguised as a middle-
aged woman medium began to read
the future of the guests. She discoursed
long and accurately on the personal
New York affairs of the returned muck-
raker. To get such information, the
wires between the committee who got
up the dinner and his friends in New
York must have been kept hot for
hours. Moreover, just after midnight,
a newsboy arrived with editions of a
morning paper of which the whole first
page was devoted to him. There were
many, highly-colored accounts of all-
night revelries; expense accounts, of
which every second item was cham-
pagne and every fifth bromo-selzer,
etc., etc.
Of course but a limited number of
papers with this extraneous sheet were
printed and those distributed only at
the dinner. One, however, was sent
to the Eastern magazine which had
50 THE NATIVE SON
dispatched our muckraking hero to the
Golden Gate. They repHed instantly
and heatedly by wire to go on with his
work, that in spite of the outrageous
slander of the opposition, they abso-
lutely trusted him.
This was only one of an endless suc-
cession of dinners which dot the social
year with their originality.
During the course of the Exposition,
the governing officials presented so
many engraved placques to California
citizens and to visiting notabilities that
after a while, the Californians began to
josh the system. A certain San Fran-
ciscan is famous for much generous
and unobtrusive philanthropy. Also
his self-evolved translation of the duties
of friendship is the last word on that
subject. He was visited unexpectedly
at his office one day by a group of
friends. With much ceremony, they
presented him with a placque — an
amusing plaster burlesque of the real
TEE NATIVE SON 51
article. He had the CaHfornian sense
of humor and he thoroughly enjoyed
the situation. Admitting that the joke
was on him, he celebrated according
to time-honored rites. After his friends
had left, he found on his desk a small
uninscribed package which had appar-
ently been left by accident. He opened
it. Inside was a beautiful leather box
showing his initials in gold. And with-
in the box was a small bronze placque
exquisitely engraved by a master-artist
. . . bearing a message of appreciation
exquisitely phrased . . . the names of
all his friends. I know of no incident
more typical of the taste and the humor
with which the Native Son performs
every social function. That sense of
humor does not lessen but it lightens
the gallantry and chivalry which is the
earmark of Westerners. It makes for
that natural perfection of manners
which is also typical of the Native
Son.
52 THE NATIVE SON
Touching the matter of their man-
ners ... A woman writer I know
very well once went to a boxing-match
in San Francisco. Women are for-
bidden to attend such events, so that a
special permission had to be obtained
for her. She was warned beforehand
that the audience might manifest its
disapproval in terms both audible and
uncomplimentary. She entered the
arena in considerable trepidation of
spirit. It was an important match —
for the lightweight championship of
the world. She occupied a ring-side
box where, it is likely, everybody saw
her. There were ten thousand men
in the arena and she was the only wo-
man. But in all the two hours she sat
there, she was not once made conscious,
by a word or glance in her direction,
that anybody had noticed her presence.
That I think is a perfect example of
perfect mob-manners.
Perhaps that instinct, not only for
THE NATIVE SON 53
fair but for chivalrous play, which also
characterizes the Native Son, comes
from pioneer days. Certainly it is
deepened by a very active interest in
all kinds of sports. I draw my two
examples of this from the boxing
world. This is a story that Sam Ber-
ger tells about Andrew Gallagher.
It happened in that period when
both men were amateur lightweights
and Mr. Gallagher was champion of
the Pacific Coast. Mr. Berger chal-
lenged Mr. Gallagher and defeated
him. The margin of victory was so
narrow, however, that Mr. Gallagher
felt justified in asking for another
match, and got it.
This time Mr. Berger' s victory was
complete. In a letter, Mr. Berger said,
"A woman cannot possibly understand
what being a champion means to a
man. It isn't so much the champion-
ship itself but it's the slap on the shoul-
der and the whispered comment as you
54 THE NATIVE SON
pass, * There goes our champion!' that
counts. Looking back at it from the
thirties, it isn't so important; but in
the twenties it means a lot. My dress-
ing room was near Gallagher's, so that,
although he didn't know this, I could
not help overhearing much that was
said there. After we got back to our
rooms, I heard some friend of Galla-
gher's refer to me as *a damn Jew'.
What was my delight at Gallagher's
magnanimity to hear him answer,
'Why do you call him a damn Jew?
He is a very fine fellow and a better
boxer than me, the best day I ever
saw.'"
That incident seems to me typical of
the Native Son ; and the long unbroken
friendship that grew out of it, equally
so.
A few years ago an interview with
Willie Ritchie appeared in a New York
paper. He had just boxed Johnny
Dundee, defeating him. In passing I
TEE NATIVE SON 55
may state that Mr. Ritchie was, dur-
ing that winter, taking an agricultural
course at Columbia College, and that
this is quite typical of the kind of pro-
fessional athlete California turns out.
You would have expected that in a long
two-column interview, Mr. Ritchie
would have devoted much of the space
to himself, his record, his future plans.
Not at all. It was all about Johnnie
Dundee, for whom personally he seems
to have an affectionate friendship and
for whose work a rueful and decidedly
humorous appreciation. He analyzed
with great sapience the psychological
effect on the audience of Mr. Dundee's
ring-system of perpetual motion. He
described with great delight a punch
that Mr. Dundee had landed on the
very top of his head. In fact Mr. Dun-
dee's publicity manager could do no
better than to use parts of this interview
for advertising purposes.
I began that last paragraph with the
56 TEE NATIVE SON
phrase, *' A few years ago". But since
that time a whole era seems to have
passed — that heart-breaking era of the
Great War. And now the Native Son
has entered into and emerged from a
new and terrible game. He has needed
— and I doubt not displayed — all that
he has of strength, natural and devel-
oped; of keenness and coolness ; of
bravery and fortitude; of capacity to
endure and yet josh on.
Perhaps after all, though, the best
example of the Native Son's fairness
was his enfranchisement of the Native
Daughter and the way in which he did
it. Sometime, when the stories of all
the suffrage fights are told, we shall get
the personal experiences of the women
who worked in that whirlwind cam-
paign. It will make interesting read-
ing; for it is both dramatic and pictur-
esque. And it will redound forever
and ever and ever to the glory of the
Native Son.
THE NATIVE SON 57
The Native Son — in the truest sense
of the romantic — is a romantic figure.
He could scarcely avoid being that, for
he comes from the most romantic State
in the Union and, if from San Fran-
cisco, the most romantic city in our
modern world. It is, I believe, mainly
his sense of romance that drives him
into the organization which he himself
has called the Native Sons of the Gold-
en West; an adventurous instinct that
has come down to us from mediaeval
times, urging men to form into con-
genial company for offence and defence,
and to offer personality the opportunity
for picturesque masquerade.
That romantic background not only
explains the Native Son but the long
line of extraordinary fiction, with Cali-
fornia for a background, which Cali-
fornia has produced. California though
is the despair of fiction writers. It offers
so many epochs; such a mixture of
nationalities; so many and such viol-
58 THE NATIVE SON
ently contrasted atmospheres, that it is
difficult to make it credible. The gold
rush . . . the pioneers . . . the Vigi-
lantes . . . the Sand Lot days . . .
San Francisco before the fire . . . the
period of reconstruction. As for the
drama lying submerged everywhere in
the labor movement . . . the novelists
have not even begun to mine below
the surface. To the fiction-writer, the
real, everyday life is so dramatic that
the temptation is to substitute for inven-
tion the literal records of some literary
moving-picture machine.
The San Franciscans will inundate
you with stories of that old San Fran-
cisco. And what stories they are ! The
water-front, Chinatown, the Barbary
Coast and particularly that picturesque
neighborhood, south of Market Street
— here were four of the great drama-
breeding areas of the world. The
San Franciscans of the past gener-
ation will tell you that the new San
THE NATIVE SON 59
Francisco is tamed and ordered. That
may be all true. But to one at least
who never saw the old city, romance
shows her bewildering , , , „,, ^.
, =» In fact, all the time
face everywhere m the you stay in Caiifor-
new one. Almost any- ">» you're living in
thing can happen there ^^'
and almost everything does. Life ex-
plodes. It's as though there were a
romantic dynamite in solution in the
air. You make a step in any direction
and — bang! — you bump into adven-
ture. There is something about the
sparkle and bustle and gaiety of the
streets . . . There is something about
the friendliness and the vivacity of the
people . . . There is something about
the intimacy and color and gaiety of
the restaurants. . . .
Let me tell some stories to prove my
point. Anybody who has lived in San
Francisco has heard them by scores.
I pick one or two at random.
A group of Native Sons were once
60 THE NATIVE SON
dining in one of the little Bohemian
restaurants of San Francisco. Two of
them made a bet with the others that
they could kiss every woman in the
room. They went from table to table
and in mellifluous accents, plus a strain
of hyperbole, explained their predica-
ment to each lady, concluding with a
respectful demand for a kiss. Every
woman in the room (with the gallant
indulgence of her swain) acceded to
this amazing request. In fifteen min-
utes all the kisses were collected and
the wager won. I don't know on
which this story reflects the greater
credit — the Native Daughter or the
Native Son. But I do know that it
couldn't have happened anywhere but
in California.
The first time I visited San Francisco
shortly after the fire, I was walking one
day in rather a lonely part of the city.
There were many burnt areas about:
only a few pedestrians. Presently, I
THE NATIVE SON 61
saw a man and woman leaning against
a fence, absorbed in conversation.
Apparently they did not hear my ap-
proach; they were too deep in talk.
They did not look out of the ordinary
and, indeed, I should not have given
them a second glance if, as I passed, I
had not heard the woman say, "And
did you kill anyone else?"
A man told me that once early in the
morning he was walking through
Chinatown. There was nobody else
on the street except, a little distance
ahead, a child carrying a small bundle.
Suddenly just as she passed, a panel in
one of the houses slid open ... a
hand came out . . . the child slipped
the bundle into the hand . . . the
hand disappeared . . . the wall panel
closed up. The child trotted on as
though nothing had happened . . .
disappeared around the corner. When
my friend reached the house, it was
impossible to locate the panel.
62 TEE NATIVE SON
A reporter I know was leaving his
home one morning when there came
a ring at his telephone' ** There is
something wrong in apartment number
blank, house number blank, on your
street, ' ' said Central. ' ' Will you please
go over there at once?" He went.
Somehow he got into the house. No-
body answered his ring at the apart-
ment; he had to break the door open.
Inside a very beautiful girl in a gay
negligee was lying dead on a couch, a
bottle of poison on the floor beside her.
He investigated the case. The dead
girl had been in the habit of calling a
certain number, and she always used a
curious identifying code-phrase. The
reporter investigated that number. The
rest of the story is long and thrilling,
but finally he ran down a group of law-
breakers who had been selling the dead
girl drugs, were indirectly responsible
or her suicide. Do you suppose such
ripe story could have dropped straight
THE NATIVE SON 63
from the Tree of Life into the hand of
a reporter anywhere except in CaU-
fornia ?
A woman I know was once waiting
on the corner for a car. Near, she
happened casually to notice, was a
Chinaman of a noticeable, dried anti-
quity, shuffling along under the weight
of a bunch of bananas. She was at that
moment considering a curious mental
problem and, in her preoccupation, she
drew her hand down the length of her
face in a gesture that her friends recog-
nize as characteristic. Did she, by
accident, stumble on one of the secret
signals of a great secret traffic? That
is her only explanation of what fol-
lowed. For suddenly the old China-
man shuffled to her side, unobtrusively
turned his back towards her. One of
the bananas on top the bunch, easy to
the reach of her hand, was opened,
displaying itself to be emptied of fruit.
But in its place was something — some-
64 THE NATIVE SON
thing little, wrapped in tissue paper.
Her complete astonishment apparently
warned the vendor of drugs of his mis-
take. He scuttled across the street; in
a flash had vanished in a back alley.
One could go on forever. I cannot
forbear another. A woman was pass-
ing through the theatrical district of
San Francisco one night, just before
the theatres let out. The street was
fairly deserted. Suddenly she was ac-
costed by a strange gentleman of suave
address. Obviously he had dallied with
the demon and was spectacularly the
worse for it. He was carrying an enor-
mous, a very beautiful — and a very
expensive — bouquet. In a short speech
of an impassioned eloquence and quite
as flowery as his tribute, he presented
her with the bouquet. She tried to
avoid accepting it. But this was not,
without undue publicity, to be done.
Finally to put an end to the scene, she
bore off her booty. She has often won-
THE NATIVE SON 65
dered what actress was deprived of her
over-the-foot-Hghts trophy by the sud-
den freak of an exhilarated messenger.
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 alwaj^s 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. His activities are so many
that when I try to make my imagined
program of his average day, I should
provide one not of twenty-four hours,
but of seventy-two.
I imagine him going down to his
office at about nine in the morning,
working until noon as though driven
by steam and electricity; then lunching
66 THE NATIVE SON
with a party of Native Sons, all filled
with jocund japeful joshing Native
Son humor which brims over in show-
ers of Native Son wit. I imagine him
returning to an afternoon of brief but
concentrated strenuous labor, then
going for a run in the Park, or tennis,
or golf, ending with a swim; present-
ing himself fine and fit at his club at
first-cocktail time. I imagine him din-
ing at his club or at a restaurant or at
a stag-dinner, always in the company
of other joyous Native Sons; going to
the Orpheum, motoring through the
Park afterwards; and finally indulging
in another bite before he gets to bed.
Sometime during the process, he has
assisted in playing a graceful practical
joke on a trusting friend. He has at-
tended a meeting to boost a big, new
developing project for California. He
has made a speech. He has contributed
to some pressing charity. He has
swung into at least two political fights.
THE NATIVE SON 67
He has attended a pageant or a fiesta
or a carnival. And he has managed to
conduct his wooing of that beautiful
(and fortunate) Native Daughter who
will some day become Mrs. Native
Son.
Every hour in San
-r> . . 1 Really my favorite
Francisco is a charm- ^our is every hour.
ing hour. Perhaps my
favorite comes anywhere between six
and eight. Then "The City" is bril-
liant with lights; street lamps, shop
windows, roof advertising signs. The
hotels are a-dance and a-dazzle with
life. Flowers and greens make mats
and cushions of gorgeous color at the
downtown corners. At one end of
Market Street, the Ferry building is
outlined in electricity, sometimes in
color; at the other end the delicate
outlines of Twin Peaks are merging
with night. Perhaps swinging towards
the horizon there is a crescent moon —
that gay strong young bow which
68 THE NATIVE SON
should be the emblem of California's
perpetual youth and of her augmenting
power. Perhaps close to the crescent
flickers the evening star — that jewel
on the brow of night which should be
a symbol of San Francisco's eternal
sparkle. 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. 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 Daugh-
THE NATIVE SON 69
ter, eyes dancing, lips smiling, dressed
with much color and more c/iic, 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; handsome;
frank and fine; careless and care-free;
vital, virile, vigorous; engaging and
debonair; witty and winning and wise;
humorous and human; kindly and
courteous; high-minded, high-hearted,
high-spirited; here's to him! Ladies,
this toast must be drunk standing —
the Native Son.
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