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University of California • Berkeley

Gift of

PHILA ROGERS & LINDA COSKI
in memory of their father
HAROLD WILLOUGHBY

VARIED TYPES

This Edition, printed by the Town Talk Press, is
limited to Seventy-five Copies, signed by the Author,
of which this is

VARIED TYPES

EDWARD F. O'DAY

TOWN TALK PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO

1 915

FOREWORD

IT HAPPENS sometimes that the notes of a conversation supply the student
of an epoch or condition with certain valuable material for which he might
look in vain among more formal records. What is on the tip of a man's
tongue may not infrequently be more interesting than his carefully considered
utterances. There are times when the interviewer succeeds in interpreting a
man's thoughts more accurately than that man, with pen in hand, could himself
interpret them. All of the following articles were based on personal interviews.
They are selected from a series of sketches which were contributed to the pages
of Town Talk during the past four years and a half. Their preservation was
suggested by the thought that they might possess a more than ephemeral interest.

Page

FOREWORD 7

DR. ALBERT ABRAMS ... 15

GERTRUDE ATHERTON 21

THEODORE BELL 25

JOHN A. BRITTON 30

RICHARD BURKE 35

VINCENT K. BUTLER 40

GIUSEPPE CADENASSO 45

JAMES W. COFFROTH 50

FRANK DAROUX 56

CHARLES DE YOUNG 62

M. H. DE YOUNG 67

FRANK C. DREW 73

DENNIS M. DUFFY 78

MILTON H. ESBERG 83

LA LOIE FULLER 88

A. P. GIANINNI 93

JACOB J. GOTTLOB 98

EDWARD M. GREENWAY ......... 104

JAMES K. HACKETT 110

HENRY HADLEY 115

LEWIS E. HANCHETT 120

CHARLES F. HANLON 123

BISHOP EDWARD J. HANNA 128

RICHARD HOTALING 133

JOHN E. HOYLE 138

JOHN P. IRISH 143

GROVE L. JOHNSON 148

JOHN M. KEITH 153

GEORGE A. KNIGHT 158

ANDREW M. LAWRENCE 163

JESSE W. LILIENTHAL 171

P. H. MCCARTHY 177

GAVIN McNAB 182

CONTENTS

JOHN L. McNAB
JOAQUIN MILLER .
CHARLES C. MOORE
RICHARD E. MULCAHY .
THORNWELL MULLALLY .
THOMAS M. O'CONNOR .
MRS. KATHARINE D. OSBOURNE
CHARLES ROLLO PETERS
WILLIAM A. PINKERTON
GEORGE H. PIPPY .
WILLIS POLK ....
A. M. ROBERTSON .
RENNIE P. SCHWERIN
JOSEPH SCOTT .
DR. GEORGE FRANKLIN SHIELS
FRANK SHORT
SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE
GEORGE STERLING .
MRS. GAILLARD STONEY
AGNES TOBIN ....
RICHARD M. TOBIN
RICHARD WALTON TULLY
JAMES T. TURNER .
RAPHAEL WEILL
GEORGE X. WENDLING .
D. A. WHITE ....
MRS. LOVELL WHITE
JAMES WOODS ....

ILLUSTRATIONS

Facing
Page

DR. ALBERT ABRAMS ... 16

THEODORE BELL 26

JOHN A. BRITTON .... .... 30

RICHARD BURKE .... 36

VINCENT K. BUTLER .... 46

GIUSEPPE CADENASSO 46

JAMES W. COFFROTH 50

FRANK DAROUX 56

CHARLES DE YOUNG 62

M. H. DE YOUNG 68

FRANK C. DREW 74

DENNIS M. DUFFY 78

MILTON H. ESBERG .... 84

LA LOIE FULLER 88

A. P. GIANINNI 94

JACOB J. GOTTLOB 98

EDWARD M. GREENWAY 104

JAMES K. HACKETT 110

HENRY HADLEY 116

CHARLES F. HANLON . 124

BISHOP EDWARD J. HANNA 128

RICHARD HOTALING 134

JOHN E. HOYLE 138

JOHN P. IRISH 144

GROVE L. JOHNSON .... 148

JOHN M. KEITH 154

GEORGE A. KNIGHT 158

ANDREW M. LAWRENCE 164

JESSE W. LILIENTHAL 172

P. H. MCCARTHY 178

GAVIN McNAB 182

JOHN L. McNAB 188

JOAQUIN MILLER 192

ILLUSTRATIONS

Facing
Page

CHARLES C. MOORE 198

RICHARD E. MULCAHY 204

THORNWELL MULLALLY 210

THOMAS M. O'CONNOR 214

MRS. KATHARINE D. OSBOURNE 220

CHARLES ROLLO PETERS 226

WILLIAM A. PINKERTON 230

GEORGE H. PIPPY 236

WILLIS POLK 242

A. M. ROBERTSON 248

RENNIE P. SCHWERIN 254

JOSEPH SCOTT 260

DR. GEORGE FRANKLIN SHIELS 264

FRANK SHORT 270

SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE .......... 274

MRS. GAILLARD STONEY 282

RICHARD M. TOBIN 290

RICHARD WALTON TULLY 296

JAMES T. TURNER 300

RAPHAEL WEILL 306

GEORGE X. WENDLING 310

D. A. WHITE 316

MRS. LOVELL WHITE 320

JAMES WOODS 326

VARIED TYPES

DR. ALBERT ABRAMS

O YOU ever feel the thrill of life?" asked "Reflex" Abrams,
taking the interview into his own hands.

I was properly noncommittal. What right had he to
interview me? Besides, I did not feel altogether comfortable.
There are doctors who give one an uneasy feeling. They
seem to be forever diagnosing your symptoms. Their eyes
look through and through you like X-rays. Their fingers
seem to be itching for your pulse. You feel that if they only
half tried they could convict you of all the ills in the materia medica. You
cease to be a man ; you are merely a case while you stay in their company.

Dr. Albert Abrams, "Reflex" Abrams as his brothers of the profession
call him, affects you like that at first. There is something mephistophelian
about his countenance. You can well imagine him chortling over the
weaknesses of mankind, even as Mephistopheles chortled over the foolish-
ness of Faust. His keen blue eyes are a little glassy, perhaps from too
much peering, but they penetrate like poniards to the vital places.

I had heard so much about Doctor Abrams that I was eager to meet
him. Other physicians had spoken in terms of high admiration of his
medical treatises. Patients had told me of his wonderful treatments, his
almost miraculous cures. It had come to my ears that a visit to Abrams was
as good as a visit to Nauheim for the heart-stricken and the nerve-shattered.
Assuredly, I thought, if this man works the good that Nauheim does to
American hearts and American nerves, the most erratic hearts and nerves
in the world, he is worth knowing. I was high-keyed when I met him.

From the moment that I entered Dr. Abrams' office I realized that I
was under inspection. His minute scrutiny covered me from heel to crown.
When he held a light to my cigar it was as though he was lifting a lantern
to my soul. And so, when Dr. Abrams took the interview into his own hands,
I was careful not to commit myself. Let him discover my symptoms for him-
self; decidedly I should not confess them.

"It is rarely indeed that I feel the joy of living," said Dr. Abrams when
I had sidestepped his question. "The thrill only comes when I have
discovered something. I feel like the philosopher who shouted 'Eureka!'

"Who was it, by the way, that shouted 'Eureka'?" he continued eyeing
me steadily. "Ah yes, Archimedes of Syracuse. Of course. I remember
now that I have seen his statue there, a modern statue of course. There he
is in marble, a noble figure of a man, looking out to sea, with his burning
glass and lever and his books about him. Near that statue, by the way,
there is a morass where papyri grow. It is supposed that in ancient times
paper was made from the papyri in that morass. By Jove, it strikes me that
when I was in Syracuse I bought a papyrus there. Perhaps I can find it."

VARIED TYPES

Rising as tumultuously as he talked, Dr. Ab'rams darted into the adjoin-
ing room in quest of the papyrus. I looked about me. Certainly I had never
seen such a doctor's office before. It looked more like the study of a
dilettante. The furniture fashions of all ages seemed to be represented there
in the desk, the bookcases, the tables, the chairs, the cabinets. Just a detail
to suggest the bizarre treatment : the telephone was dressed in flowered silk,
the push button was mother-of-pearl set in onyx. While I was invoicing the
furniture Dr. Abrams darted back with the papyrus which we admired
together.

The excursion to Syracuse had the effect of setting me more at my ease.
I began not to fear, when suddenly all my trepidation returned, for the doctor
was saying:

"Yes, I am happy only when I am discovering something new in the
human body. Sometimes, in fact, I am almost afraid to examine a patient,
for fear of finding something new."

I wonder if I shuddered? I really felt like a Pandora's box full of
physiological ills that the doctor might unlock at the least provocation. What
did I say? I have forgotten, but probably something about the heart (mine
was beating fast) or about the spine (mine was a skating rink for cold
shivers). At any rate the doctor went off on a tangent. He rushed into a
discourse on spondylotherapy.

Never heard of spondylotherapy? Neither had I. Hadn't the remotest
notion what it was, so I asked. I learned that it was the application of
physical methods to the spinal region in the cure of disease. I found too
that Dr. Abrams had written a book on the subject.

"It has been said," the doctor remarked, "that I have taken the most
radical stand in the treatment of spinal diseases, and perhaps that's true.
What the physiologist does in the laboratory I apply to the living subject. I
was a pioneer in this part of the world with the X-ray, and sixteen years ago
I gave out my heart reflex. I found that it was possible to contract and;
dilate the heart by physical means. That discovery is the basis of the modern
treatment of heart diseases.

"I can make the heart stop beating. Would you like to see it done?"

He offered me his pulse. Much preferring that I should take his than that
he should take mine, I placed my finger on it. Then with his left hand the
doctor applied pressure to the back of his neck, pressing there till his face
was livid. The pulse stopped beating. There could be no doubt about it.
For a moment the doctor's heart had not been pumping. He released the
pressure and smiled. When the pulse resumed its orderly beat I smiled too.

"The simplicity of my method marks its importance," the doctor resumed.
"When you strike the cuticle in certain spots the spinal cord contracts.
That's all there is to it.

"You know what aneurism is. It is a disease in which the patient chokes
to death. It has always been regarded as incurable. But I have studied the
contraction and dilation of the aorta with the result that I have discovered
how to cure aneurism. In the British Medical Journal and La Presse Medicale
I have reported forty cases cured.

DR. ALBERT ABRAMS

"Tell the average physician that you can cure aneurism and he will
laugh at you. Arterial sclerosis is amenable to the same treatment.

"I sent the report of some of my aneurism cases to a German medical
journal, but the editor refused to publish them. He wrote me that tradition
had established the fact that aneurism was incurable, hence he couldn't
stultify himself by reporting my cures."

I thought of what Moliere had written : "The authorities exact an oath
from medical candidates never to alter the practice of physic." Also of
Joseph Skoda's pessimistic dictum : "We can diagnose disease, describe it,
and get a grasp of it, but we dare not by any means expect to cure it."

Spondylotherapy began to assume, in my lay mind, its due importance.

"More than one in every hundred die from aneurism," the doctor
continued. "It is a disease particularly common in California. It is found
among those who are subjected to strains and excesses. One might say that
it comes from excesses at the shrines of Bacchus, Vulcan and Venus."

So the ironworker and the roue are alike in need of spondylotherapy.
Undoubtedly there are many ironworkers and many roues in California
where aneurism is prevalent.

"It is the tendency of modern medicine," the doctor went on, "to do
away as much as possible with the use of drugs. Physiological therapeutics
is advancing. Physicians may laugh at osteopathy, but while the theory of
osteopathy is wrong, the results are frequently good. The osteopathist works
on the theory that disease is due to displaced vertebrae. In his treatment he
unconsciously gets certain reflexes, and cures. Without knowing it he is
practicing spondylotherapy.

"The heart reflex is obtained unconsciously in many ways, for instance
by the irritation of the skin with a towel. The carbonic acid baths of
Nauheim act by producing the heart reflex. Our Vichy baths near Ukiah do
the same. They are in reality better than the baths at Nauheim. But the
patient at Nauheim helps his own cure by mental suggestion. He is away
from his business worries ; he relaxes. Part of the benefit of Nauheim comes
from the big playground of Europe which is in back of it."

The doctor told me other things about spondylotherapy, very interesting
things, but I am afraid to attempt to quote them. He talks fast, and one
who is not at home with medical terms can hardly keep up with him. In the
midst of our conversation the nurse announced Dr. Soandso.

"Would you like to meet Dr. Soandso?" he asked me. "He came from
El Paso to take my treatment for aneurism. He is about cured."

I followed Dr. Abrams into another room, a very different room. The
walls were bare but for heavy pipes that elbowed this way and that. There
was no furniture but surgical apparatus. It looked like a medieval torture
chamber. It was the workshop of a beneficent healer.

The doctor from El Paso was past eighty, a venerable bearded man
with kindly eyes. He told me that he couldn't articulate when he reached
this city ; that he was expected to die any day. He spoke distinctly, almost
vigorously. He told the younger physician that he was cured, that he was
going home. I'll bet he spreads the gospel of spondylotherapy.

VARIED TYPES

"What other books have you written besides that on spondylotherapy?"
I asked Dr. Abrams when we were back in the room with the flowered silk
telephone and the mother-of-pearl push button.

"There are a dozen or so," he answered. "There's one on splanchnic
neurasthenia."

"On what?"

"What you would call the blues," he explained. "That book has been
very popular with the profession. It has gone through four editions.

"But I hope I have finished writing. I am engaged on a third edition of
'Spondylotherapy.' When that is done I shall devote my life to the develop-
ment of my method, but I don't think I shall write any more."

I expressed my doubt about the strength of that resolution. And the
doctor smiled. It was a smile that would have cured my splanchnic
neurasthenia if I had been so afflicted. I found that I was not nearly as
much afraid of the doctor as when I first met him. I could almost have let
him feel my pulse — provided he didn't find something novel the matter with
me and thereby experience his rare thrill of life.

GERTRUDE ATHERTON

« r-r-i *>e.

•>\ </• . _ .. _ »v> '<;

'O TALK with Gertrude Atherton at any time is to receive
a powerful intellectual stimulation, but to talk with her when
she is fresh from communion with her European friends is
to share the newest impressions fixed in a lively brain by
the men and women who are shaping the course of civiliza-
tion. To chat with Mrs. Atherton on such an occasion is to
open one's mind to sparkling streams of literature, art and
politics which are flowing straight from the fountainhead.
It is to share for a time the achievements, the purposes, the thoughts and
the intimate doings of the great. For Mrs. Atherton has a reserved seat in
the grand theatre of European activities. She watches the play with its
mixture of tragedy, comedy and farce at close range. The actors lean across
the footlights to speak to her, some of them to explain obscurities in the
action, others to impart their private opinions of the piece and of its author.
And she is admitted behind the scenes, so that she knows fustian for its
cotton value and can distinguish rouge and powder from the healthy bloom
of nature.

This is particularly the case when Mrs. Atherton goes to London. In
London's microcosm of fashion as in its various circles of art and music
and politics and literature she has an assured position. She is insatiable of
impressions, as every great novelist must be, and more readily than most of
those who belong to the craft she is granted opportunities of studying facts
in the making. Naturally, when she returns to this farthest flung outpost
of civilization she carries with her a thousand items that would never reach
us by post or cable.

It was in the summer of 1911 that Gertrude Atherton granted this
interview. The tremendous suffrage agitation convulsed England and yet
we heard of it only when a suffragette chained herself to a railing or slapped
a police sergeant. We got some little glimmer of its significance when a
Silvia Pankhurst stepped off the Overland Limited for a lecture or two. It
remained for Mrs. Atherton to impress upon us the deadly seriousness of
those English women. She could do this with facility because she was
mightily impressed herself. She believed in them ; more than that, she
believed that they would accomplish their purpose. Later she was alienated
from them by their growing ferocity.

"Their campaign," she said, "is as concentrated, persistent, intense and
fanatical (using the term as it has been applied throughout history to the
initiators of all great reforms), as the most epoch-making of the religious
upheavals which sent their martyrs to the stake.

"These women will shoot and kill, if necessary. They burn with a sort
of holy fire and if they were hanged they would die like martyrs.

VARIED TYPES

"They are a large concentrated body of women, brought up on politics,
oppressed and humiliated by laws made by and for men, and driven to
revolt, not through vanity, nor ennui, not only from a desire to raise the
standard of health, comfort and happiness of their entire sex, but from a
now full grown self-respect — that more poised and noble complement of the
masculine Ego which, not unnaturally, has achieved the proportions of a
malignant tumor.

"For, mark you, these women are the daughters of men, a fact which
men curiously overlook. Ever since the wife ceased to spend her days with
the women of her household, weaving, making tapestry, or whatever may
have been her poor resource between feeding and reproduction, and has
discussed the affairs of the world with her husband at breakfast and dinner,
or even listened to him hold forth, the brains of her offspring, female as well
as male, have become more and more mentalized. And, as in this era of
small families, the days do not grow any shorter, and all women are not
endowed with artistic genius, it would be surprising indeed if the strong-
brained women of England had not turned their thoughts to the awakening
and advancement of their sex. Surprising too if in the process they had not
developed several of the most statesman-like brains in Great Britain today.

"The New York papers quoted me as saying that Mrs. Pankhnrst had
the greatest brain in the world. What I should have said, had I spoken
about her, was that she possessed a statesman's brain. She has gotten rid
of sex, for the time being of course — woman never loses that. She is
impersonal ; her body is toughened and hardened, capable of great resistance.
If she were made prime minister she would fill the position as well as any
man."

Mrs. Atherton has studied at first hand Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Pethick
Lawrence, and their lieutenants, Mrs. Haverfield, Mrs. F. Cavendish-Bentinck,
and Mrs. John Hall. She takes them very seriously indeed. This is the
more impressive because she does not take all the the suffragettes seriously.
There is Lady Cicely Hamilton for instance. Mrs. Atherton went to hear
her debate the great question with Gilbert Chesterton. It was a notable
occasion. Everybody who was anybody was there, including the Bernard
Shaws. Lady Cicely was nervous and her most ardent sympathizers were
mortified by the spectacle she made of herself. She ranted about the necessity
of woman rising superior to feminine charm, and Chesterton with much
urbanity confessed that woman might rise above it but that man could not.

"Chesterton is a great thick man with a fat head covered with curls and
he speaks in a squeaky voice," says Mrs. Atherton. "Cicely is a slab-sided
sunken-in creature who screeches. For all the world they looked like a
eunuch and a sterile nymphomaniac."

The mention of Chesterton carried us to the less troublous field of
literature.

"There are no great writers among the new men," says Mrs. Atherton.

"Literature is going through a phase of splendid cleverness. There is so
little of the old-fashioned quality of genius in England that when men of
highly specialized cleverness come up they are deified. The biggest of these

GERTRUDE ATHERTON

is Arnold Bennett. There is also John Galsworthy. As to H. G. Wells, his
latest book 'The New Machiavelli,' reads like a work of a confused mind.
The hero is forty-two at the beginning of the story and twenty-nine at the
end. When describing his wedding he refers to the 'fifteen years of my
married life,' and in the next chapter gives the details of the election of 1906.
Wells must write in a hurry and probably never corrects. He changes his
mind and forgets that he has changed. Chesterton's cleverness is beginning
to tire people. As for Shaw, people say that his latest plays are inferior to
his earlier work. But what does it matter? Shaw never cared for anything
but Socialism. He is the most humane, the sweetest, the loveliest, the most
kindly of men. Fie is living for humanity and writes as he does to attract
attention and so make his position more powerful for his great work, which
is Socialism.

"And yet Shaw doesn't want too much Socialism. Some time ago his wife
discharged her maid. She was determined to do her own work. But after
a little Shaw made her take the maid back again. He said he was tired of
buttoning her up the back.

"One book which is all the rage in London is the 'Winter Queen' of my
friend Marie Hay, Baroness Hindenberg. It is read everywhere. It is one
of the literary sensations. But then London is big enough to have five or
six literary sensations. In America we can only cultivate one idea at a time.

"The older men like Kipling and George Moore seem to be doing nothing.
Perhaps they have made too much money, eat too much and have become
lazy. Otherwise how can one account for their inactivity? They are still
comparatively young and if you keep yourself well by obeying the laws of
nature why shouldn't you go on writing till you are eighty? But of course
one can't work with a lot of undigested food on the stomach.

"Poetry? What with politics and suffrage, it seems to be a drug on the
market. You never hear of anybody writing poetry except Hardy who is
still working on 'The Dynasts' but I never heard of anybody reading it."

As to her own work? Mrs. Atherton's play "Julia France" was about
to be put in rehearsal by Mrs. Fiske who was delighted with it. It deals with
the woman's movement.

"In a fatal moment," says Mrs. Atherton, "I told my publisher that the
theme was too big for a mere play, that it embraced the whole woman's
movement and could only be treated properly in a novel. 'You must write
it/ he said."

So Mrs. Atherton came here to write the novel. Having written the
play here she felt that she could only do justice to the novel in the same
environment. And she is not to be drawn from novel-writing by the lure
of the theatre.

"The novel," she says, "is the aristocrat of fiction. It is yours alone.
You may write at the North Pole if you please. When you have corrected
your proofs there's an end of it. But with a play, it is different. You must
accept suggestion after suggestion, you must write and rewrite. And yet,
after all the suggested changes, your own idea remains. And with a play as
with a short story there are so many things to think of — with a play, your

VARIED TYPES

manager and his public. And then, so many plays would be utterly worth-
less if they were not well acted. But even a poor novel must stand on its
own feet. You can teach yourself to write a play or a short story. When I
started on my play my publisher said, 'Another novelist lost,' but I shall
always prefer novel writing. It's a bigger thing. I can't imagine my wanting
to write another play."

Certainly there is every reason why Mrs. Atherton should feel that way.
Her novels have brought her international renown. They have been trans-
lated into French, German, Italian and Norwegian. "A Daughter of the
Vine" was just then the feuilleton of Figaro in Paris. "Tower of Ivory" is
still selling steadily on both sides of the Atlantic. Her other books are
being continually republished.

It is a proud eminence which this Californian has achieved. And she has
achieved it despite the obstacles v/hich lay in her path. "The West doesn't
count," said Pierpont Morgan contemptuously and that was the prevalent
feeling when Gertrude Atherton began writing. She had no friends in the
literary cliques. The log-rolling and puffery of the editors and critics were
not for her, but for the heralded women of fashion who turned to novel-
writing and bought favor with dinners and lavish entertainments.

"But I've buried them all," says Mrs. Atherton with a gay and smiling
triumph that would gall certain women who shall be nameless here.

I asked her why she hadn't stayed in London for the coronation of
George V. She threw up her hands in horror of the crowds and the heat.

"And yet, in the abstract, it was worth seeing," she acknowledged. "It
was a great pageant and it will revive loyalty for a time. All England is
disaffected. It has been seething with discontent for years. The coronation
will make people forget for a time. But of course it will be the last."

I looked my amazement.

"I don't suppose there will ever be another coronation," Mrs. Atherton
explained. "You have no idea how strong Socialism is. See, I have brought
the whole Fabian library home with me."

Mrs. Atherton indicated a formidable collection. I hope she will not
take the tracts too seriously. If she does we may have to echo the words
of her publisher, "Another novelist lost."

THEODORE BELL

POLITICIAN without a gift for picturesque expression
would be at a sorry disadvantage. He'd be like a prize
fighter with a broken arm and the lockjaw. He simply
couldn't fight, for in politics fighting is largely talking about
the other fellow.

In California the political art of talking about the other
fellow has been brought to a high state of cultivation in the
Democratic party by Gavin McNab. McNab talks in
epigrams, which is the way every politician would talk if he could. A lot of
McNab's epigrams have been barbed for the pricking of Theodore Bell.
Being a handy fighter himself Bell has always retaliated. Not with epigrams,
however. He is young yet, and hasn't mastered that form of wit. His words,
just the same, have a picturesque quality that makes them worth quoting.

Bell is never long out of a fight. Most of his political career he has
been fighting Gavin McNab within the party and the Republican machine
without. A few years ago he took the control of the State Democratic
organization away from McNab, but that didn't end their fight, of course; it
merely intensified their political bitterness. Fighting right along from one
battlefield to another Bell finally found himself at Baltimore fighting, and
fighting well, for Champ Clark. It became necessary in the course of that
remarkable battle that Bell should repudiate his old leader Bill Bryan, the
Peter Pan of Democracy, and he did it with thoroughness and despatch.

When that fight was over and Woodrow Wilson had been nominated,
Bell came home to find the ranks of his enemies swelled by a number of his
old-time friends. 'Tis the way of politics, and Bell accepted the situation.
Some men in the new alignment of the opposition said they couldn't stand
for a Clark man pretending to run the Wilson campaign in California. Others
wept crocodile tears over Bell's treatment of Bill Bryan. And from outside
the Democratic party appeared a Woodrow Wilson man who asseverated
that Bell was a tool of the wicked special interests.

What animated the Phelans, the Caminettis, the Davises, the Van
Wycks, the Moosers and others in their opposition? I asked Bell about it.

Bell replied without hesitating. He laid it all to the machinations of that
grand machinator, Gavin McNab.

"As soon as Governor Wilson was nominated," he told me, "a few men
who had been prominent in the Wilson primary fight got together and re-
solved to take over the Democracy of California body, boots and breeches.

"This sudden stir among the Wilson men caught the keen eye of the
McNab organization in San Francisco and they believed that it afforded them
a good opportunity to renew their own efforts to obtain control of the party.

"So they very shrewdly encouraged the ambition of the Wilson men

VARIED TYPES

in their project, with the result that we find a coalition between forces that,
on the surface, have seemed irreconcilable. The Wilson men who are so
desperately attacking the State Central Committee are being very ingeniously
used by the McNab faction."

"Will this project go through?"

"I think not. These Wilson men have forgotten how to think, besides
entirely losing sight of Governor Wilson in their mad attempt to oust the
Clark men from party management. Take the figures. In the May primaries
Clark received 43,000 votes. Wilson got 17,000. Personally I received
52,000.

"So it's pretty hard to understand the mathematics of the present
miniature insurrection or just how these insurrectos can eliminate those
who prevailed at the primaries three to one."

"What do you intend to do?"

"To support the officers of the State Central Committee. No one can
betray me into a loss of temper either. We are sustained by the vast
majority of the Democrats of California. Those who are recklessly sowing
the seeds of discord will only discredit themselves in the eyes of all good
Democrats who are looking forward to party success."

"They say you're a reactionary. How about that?"

"It's amusing to listen to that cry. Behind the scenes the forces that
have always opposed progressive Democracy in this State are cunningly
directing the present skirmish.

"The chairman of the State Central Committee, R. H. Dewitt, has very
impartially appointed the committees to conduct the campaign, placing it
absolutely in the hands of zealous Wilson men. And I'm with Dewitt.
Could we do that and be reactionaries?"

"What got your old friend 'Cam' into this fight against you?"

"Caminetti is the innocent victim of the wiles of McNab who wants to
get back at Bell; of Phelan, our dilettante politician, always more ornamental
than useful ; and of J. O. Davis who nurtured the ambition to be chairman
of the State Central Committee."

"Where does McNab stand?"

"McNab has never expressed a preference, but all his henchmen with
few exceptions are Wilson men — mainly for the reason that our crowd was for
Clark."

"Are they sincere in resenting your attack on Bryan?"

"I shouldn't call it an attack. My opposition to Bryan was not the
substantial cause for the attacks on me. It was merely used to injure me
among Bryan's supporters.

"The whole thing is this. Six or seven men got together in a room
and worked one another up by violent talk. When they were surcharged
with mixed emotions of ambition, envy, hatred and other bad feelings, they
rushed out, they shouted from the house tops, they went pell-mell into print
and gave their grievance to the world."

"To whom does that refer?"

"To such men as Phelan, Caminetti, Davis. Van Wyck and Mooser."

THEODORE BELL

"To Rudolph Spreckels too?"

"I don't know why Spreckels attacked me. Perhaps I am merely the
victim of his newly acquired habit of writing telegrams and letters. It was
just one of his vagaries, the child of his peculiar mentality that has only in
the last few years brought him to the place where he would register and vote.
His response to my challenge to produce facts in support of his denunciatory
telegram wouldn't do credit to a six-year-old kid. His plea was simply that
I did it because I did it."

"Spreckels is for Wilson?"

"He has said so."

"Will he contribute to the Democratic campaign?"

"Frank Drew is chairman of the finance committee and will be very glad,
I believe, to receive Rudolph's mite."

A queer game politics! The only game in the world that brings you
more enemies the longer, the more successfully you play it. Bell has a very
respectable assortment, and you will notice that he keeps them in a good
condition of irreconcilability by prodding them. I actually think that Bell
would droop and wither if McNab insisted on becoming his friend. Not that
there's any danger!

JOHN A. BRITTON

AN YOU imagine a corporation man who won't talk about
the merits of his strike? Can you accommodate to your
sense of reality the picture of such a one sitting silent behind
his fumed oak desk in his perfectly appointed inner office,
sitting there with a seal upon the lips of him, the while
leaders of the strikers split the unoffending empyrean with
vaporous verbosity and deluge the newspapers with showers
of statements, criminations, appeals, objurgations and
threats? Can you see him? Do you think he exists? In the whole history
of strikes has there been such a man? In all the annals of sabotage do we
find his name?

I pause for a reply. We don't, you say ? Wrong the first time ! We do,
most assuredly and right in our midst we do ! And his name is John Britton.
Let us leave out the mister without awe, for he's a genial man who
stands on ceremony as little as he stands on conventions. And that John
Britton stands not at all upon conventions having to do with strikes we may
infer from his conduct of the strike which Pacific Gas and Electric had upon
its hands in June, 1913, when this was written.

San Francisco, it may be stated without fear of successful contradiction,
is a connoisseur of strikes. San Francisco knows strikes backwards, forwards
and by heart. Some people even think that San Francisco invented strikes.
That is an exaggerated notion, but it remains true that San Francisco has
listed strikes among its principal municipal products ever since there has
been much of a San Francisco to speak of. Every trade and at least one of the
professions has gone on strike in San Francisco at one time or another. There
isn't a strike angle whose sine, cosine and tangent aren't known to the strike
experts of San Francisco. And these strike experts are to be found not
merely among the leaders of organized labor in San Francisco but also among
corporation heads and other large employers of skilled and unskilled working-
men. These latter men learn by experience. They study strikes as some
of us study box scores or scarabs or menu cards. They tabulate strikes, their
causes, their results, their conduct and their incidental consequences. They
read the literature of strikes and the characters of strikers and strike-breakers.
The obvious corollary is that there is not one of them who doesn't think he
could handle a strike better than any other man.

It is to be presumed that John Britton did a bit of strike studying in the
years of his connection with Pacific Gas and Electric. For twenty-five years
Pacific Gas and Electric got along without a strike. While other corporations
were having it out with their men Pacific Gas and Electric pursued its equable
course, extending its system, selling light and heat and juice and paying
very comfortable dividends to its fortunate stockholders. And then along

JOHN A. BRITTON

came a strike! What had happened to all the others happened in the
appointed time to Pacific Gas and Electric. And John Britton was on the
job to handle the strike the way he thought best, to put into practice the
theories he had been outlining in his own mind during the years of peace.

What was the first rule John Britton put into execution? A very simple
rule, applicable not only to strike situations but to nearly all the acute
situations that arise in public or private business. "Keep your mouth shut,"
said John Britton to himself. And such is the discipline that John Britton
enforces upon his subservient organs that the biddable Britton jaws snapped
shut and nary a word issued from beneath the mustache that thatches the
Britton upper lip. In all the long and bloody annals of San Francisco strikes
I know of no such heroic restraint, such admirable reticence.

Particularly worthy of panegyric is this Britton taciturnity when you
know what a good talker John B'ritton is. Ever hear John Britton at an
Elks memorial service? Ever hearken to the blarney of his tongue what time
the biscuit Tortoni and the demitasse come in and the wine-bearing waiter
tiptoes so as not to disturb the toastmaster? Then you have sampled the
quality of the Britton verbiage; you know that John is eloquent; you don't
have to be told that John has a way of wedding word to word in a bower of
talk till all the landscape is mellowed in the soft rich effulgence of a
deipnosophistic honeymoon. In other words,, you are cognizant that when
it comes to stringing sentences like pearls John Britton is there with all the
vocal chords, a regular Britton-on-the-spot !

Yet when it comes to talking strike the padlock is on the Britton lips.
Not a whisper will he so much as susurrate. Not a monosyllable gets by.
The embargo is completely effective. There isn't a chance for even the
fragment of a sentence to steal past the pearly portals of his teeth, as Homer
used to say, or was it Virgil?

Not on the points at issue, you understand. The scrap is to be scrapped
out without jawbone, if John Britton has his way, and he usually does. He
believes in the Maxim silencer for strike talk; or, what amounts to the same
thing, he positively refuses to shoot off his mouth. Let the leaders of the
strikers have their little say ; John Britton is on a retreat. And how this has
puzzled the leaders of the strikers ! They don't know what to make of it.
All of their previous foes were wonders in the rendition of bazoo solos.
Perhaps that's why organized labor won so many strikes. The strikers will
have to win this strike some other way, if they win at all. No thoughtless
utterance of John Britton will help them win it, because there ain't a-goin'
to be no utterance !

Nevertheless I managed to pry the Britton lips open on matters not
having to do with the merits or conduct of the strike. John Britton turned
the key and unsnapped the padlock to emit a few phrases of laudation.

"On the first day of this strike," said John Britton in a voice that was
soft and smooth, not rusty from disuse as one might expect, "sixteen hundred
men walked out of our stations. They walked out all over our territory, and
that means from the De Sabla Power House in Butte on the north to Fresno
on the south and from Grass Valley and Nevada City on the east to San

VARIED TYPES

Francisco. The electrical workers walked out everywhere. All the machin-
ists walked out with some few exceptions. The firemen and the boilermakers
walked out everywhere. So did the gasmakers with the exception of those
in San Francisco, Vallejo, San Rafael, Napa, Woodland and Grass Valley.

"And yet on that first day of the strike there was no interruption of our
service with the exception of the street car service in Oakland which was
interrupted in certain sections for as much as an hour and a half on that first
morning. No other industry of ours in the entire district suffered interruption
even for a moment.

"This remarkable condition was made possible by the loyalty of our heads
of departments and their immediate subordinates, men who had risen from
the ranks, who had acquired the technical details of the business and so were
able to take the positions vacated by the strikers and to attend to the
operation of the plants of the company as well if not better than they were
operated before.

"It has always been the policy of the company to give encouragement
to subordinates, to give them the hope and promise of a betterment in
position. There is scarcely a man in our employ who hasn't begun at the
bottom rung of the ladder and worked his way up. The wisdom of that
policy was shown when this strike was declared.

"At the beginning of the strike we had to employ very few men from
the outside. Bookkeepers, cashiers, solicitors, the young men in the engineer-
ing department, the district managers and division superintendents all took
the places where they were needed. Gradually we employed other men to
relieve them. But in the meantime some of them worked as long as seventy-
four hours at a stretch before they were given aid.

"This has never happened before. We occupy a unique position in the
world of strikes. I don't believe there is another organization in the world
with such diversified business and such extent of territory which could meet
such an emergency as perfectly as the men in the Pacific Gas and Electric did.
The spirit of Pacific Service saturated every man in the company. A strike
like this would be positively disastrous to a company which was without
splendid and dependable organization."

I also coaxed from John Britton the statement that the company's
preparedness was a great surprise to the strikers who had not anticipated any
such ability to handle the awkward situation; that the damage to property
during the five weeks of the strike had been negligible; that the acts of
violence had caused annoyance and little more ; that the deprivation of street
lighting had been the principal embarrassment ; and that the police protection
given the company was excellent.

When we got that far the padlock was reapplied, the key was turned, the
Britton jaws shut with a click and I was floated out of the Britton presence
on a comber of silence.

RICHARD BURKE

A 2

F ALL comparisons, those instituted between cities are most
likely to be odious. And yet there are many points in
which Dublin and San Francisco may be compared and

contrasted-"

It was Richard Burke who said it, and he ought to
know. For Richard Burke is a man of two cities, the same
being Dublin and San Francisco. It would be difficult to
say which city he knows better. For years he has been
swinging from one side of the world to the other at measured intervals, a
very active sort of human pendulum. Alike in Golden Gate Park and
Stephens Green he is a familiar figure. As many friends hail him in the court
of the Palace as grasp his hand in the Gresham on O'Connell street. In
the very new Pacific-Union and the very old United Service his advent is
not distinguished as that of a traveler but celebrated as that of an old friend.

It would be invidious to inquire which city Richard Burke likes better.
Dublin he loves as only an Irishman can love his country's ancient capital.
For San Francisco he has a deep and abiding affection. And why not? It
was here that the romance of a happy marriage came into his life when he
wooed and won a daughter of the prominent Donohoe family. It was here
too that his son courted and married beautiful Genevieve Walker. And he
has valuable holdings here. He was, until recently, one of the owners of
the lot where the Occidental Hotel used to be. His latest trip to San
Francisco was not unconnected with the plans for a new building on that
site. While rather diffident about discussing the future of the property, he
let it be known that he would like to see a grander Occidental rise where
the famous old hostelry went down to ashes.

"Wherever I travel," he said, "the old Occidental is lovingly remem-
bered. It was a landmark of the city. When I arrived here five weeks after
the fire my judgment was that it should be rebuilt on lines which would
restore its old character but of course with all up-to-date improvements."

The Occidental Hotel site has since passed to other hands. A splendid
office building is to rise there. On sentimental grounds, however, San
Franciscans are a bit sorry that the plans for a hotel were abandoned.

Speaking of hotels, Burke prefers the American to the English and
Irish system.

"When you engage a room in an American hotel," he points out, "you
pay a fixed price which covers everything, but in England and Ireland you
receive a bill which carries itemized amounts for your rooms, for attendance,
for your lights, for fires and so on. The bill is probably smaller than your
bill would be in America, but the aggregation of small items is irritating.
It is much more satisfactory to pay so much a day."

VARIED TYPES

Our restaurants, he admits, cannot be equalled by anything in Dublin.

"If you want a good luncheon or a good dinner in Dublin," he explains,
"you must go to a hotel or a club. There are no places there like the fine
establishments in San Francisco."

To our clubs also he pays high compliment.

"They are second to none in the world. And there are features of club
life such as you find at the Bohemian and Olympic, that are not attempted
in Dublin."

But he does not underrate the attractions of the United Service and the
Stephens Green and other clubs which Irishmen have a right to compare
with some of the best in London.

In the matter of theaters he throws up his hands.

"You are far more of a theatre-going people than we are in Dublin," he
says. "There are only two good theatres in Dublin. The reason of course
is that we are so near London that most people go there to see the big plays.

"London," he continues, "is really the capital of Ireland. That is why
the glories of the Dublin that flourished before the Union may not be
restored under Home Rule. Before the Union Dublin had the best of
society. Everybody had a good time. Art and literature flourished. All
things beautiful were sought. The city had beautiful houses, beautiful
pictures and the finest wines in the world, especially claret which was the
favorite drink. But these things will not revive with Home Rule. London
was far away in those old days and few Dubliners went there. But steam
has made a great difference. London is so easy to reach that it is the
metropolis of Irishmen as well as of Englishmen."

Richard Burke believes, has always believed in Home Rule. His views
on Irish politics are not those of the enthusiast but of the thinker and
observer who has studied events by the light of experience and under the
guidance of a quiet sense of humor. Thirty years ago, when he was a young
barrister in Clonmel, he thought of trying for a seat in Parliament. It was
at the time of Gladstone's great land act and he probably handled more cases
under the rent-fixing provisions of that act than any other man in Ireland.
But he was Master of the Tipperary Hunt, the best hunt in the kingdom, and
on the advice of his friend T. P. O'Connor, he decided not to try to combine
the two positions. He stayed with the sport for twenty-four years and now
his thoughts are turning once more toward an active participation in politics.

"Under a Home Rule Parliament which is imminent," he says, "I shall
probably renew my early ambition."

A Home Rule Parliament! To many expatriated Irishmen it sounds
too good to be true and yet there has been a wonderful renascence in every
department of Irish life.

"Until recently," says Burke, "there were lots of people who had never
heard of Daniel O'Connell and Robert Emmet. Many Irishmen were under
the impression that Ireland had no history to boast of. They were told so
and they believed it. It was the settled policy of England to wipe out the
faith, the literature and the customs of the country. Why, the Duke of
Wellington once expressed regret that he was an Irishman. It he were

RICHARD BURKE

living today he'd wear a green hat. I can remember when people were
prosecuted for playing 'The Wearin' of the Green/ but now it is given by the
military bands all over the country.

"All things Irish are much sought after. In the public market Irish
publications of earlier date fetch a great deal of money. The love of art has
been stimulated by the opening of the Municipal Gallery which has a splendid
collection of modern masters. The literary movement is growing stronger
and stronger all the time. There is a great demand for old Irish silver and
Irish glassware and no wonder, as the specimens extant are very beautiful.
The best period for Irish silver was from the end of the seventeenth to the
middle of the eighteenth century. Glass factories too were numerous, the
most famous being at Waterford. It is now nearly one hundred years since
glass was made there and what remains is exceedingly valuable. No modern
makers have succeeded in imitating it. And we had more than our share of
the best engravers. Just to mention three names, there were Thomas
Burke, John Jones and J. R. Smith, masters of the art whose prints used to
sell in Grafton street, Dublin, or in Bond street, London, for two and six.
Now they fetch several hundred pounds."

In this matter of Irish antiquity of course we cannot hope to rival things
Irish for many generations. But in more modern things? Well, Richard
Burke, good Dubliner that he is, is not prepared to admit that our street cars
are as good as the trams of the older city. He points out too that Dublin
has for a long time possessed a municipal water supply and that the city
has a plant for electric-lighting the public buildings. Certainly we are
behind there. And what have we, he asks, to rival the Dublin Museum, the
Royal Irish Academy and the great library of Trinity College. And as for
railway depots, there are six fine depots in Dublin, while San Francisco —
but that is a sore subject with us.

Not that Burke is aggressive in these comparisons. He made them very
unwillingly. I had to draw them out of him. He is entirely satisfied with
San Francisco and does not come here as a critic but as one of us. And yet,
if he had to make his choice between the two towns as a place of fixed abode,
I think I know which one he would choose. Down deep in his heart, I think,
the situation is formulated thus :

"Not that I love San Francisco less but Dublin more."

Can you blame him? I leave the answer to any Irishman.

VINCENT K. BUTLER

HAT does a Rhodes scholarship do to an American? We all
know what it does for him — it gives him three years' train-
ing at the greatest school in the world. But what does it do
to him? Does it make an anglomaniac of him? Does it
alienate him from his native land? Does it deprive him of
sympathy for his fellow Americans? Does the Rhodes
scholar return to the United States a better or a worse
American than he went away? Is he anglicized? Is the
British accent upon his thoughts and actions as well as upon his tongue?
In a word, is the Rhodes scholar so changed that when he comes back his
friends wish that he had attended Harvard or Yale or Berkeley instead of
Oxford?

When I talked with Vincent K. Butler I had these questions in my mind,
and when he answered my queries of curiosity I searched behind the answers
for a reply to these more important interrogations. I was desirous of finding
out the effect that three years of Oxford had had upon young Butler rather
than of discovering what he had learned there. What matters most in a
university career is the frame of mind in which you leave. The end of the
course is really the beginning of things ; that, I suppose, is the reason we
speak of "commencement" exercises. So I endeavored to make out Butler's
mental attitude on leaving Oxford.

Young Butler has candor, so my task was not one of unusual difficulty.
The first thing of which I satisfied myself was that his head hadn't been turned
or swelled. This St. Ignatius lad went to Oxford with a fine record in
scholarship and athletics. He was nineteen, below the age of most Rhodes
scholars, when he left the Jesuit college in this city to enter Worcester Col-
lege, Oxford. The distinction of winning a Rhodes scholarship in competitive
examination with the best students of our large colleges did not spoil him ;
neither did the distinction he won during his three years at Oxford. He was
modest three years ago; he is modest now.

But that is a comparatively small matter. Much larger is the attitude
of the Rhodes scholar toward Englishmen, for his attitude toward English-
men will affect his attitude toward Americans. Has he formed crass ideas
about the superiority of Englishmen to Americans, or vice versa? Well,
hero worship is one of the easiest cults for an impressionable young man to
fall into. Another is the cult of iconoclasm. Let us test our Rhodes scholar
by means of the heroes whom he met at Oxford.

"Chesterton," says Vincent Butler, "should be read, not heard ; or if
heard, not seen. His voice is too little, his body too big. He is impressive
only in his writings. When he addressed us the effect was like that of
champagne before breakfast.

VINCENT K. BUTLER

"Shaw spoke to us on comedy. 'In ancient times there was Aristophanes,'
he said ; 'later there was Moliere ; today there is of course myself.' One
expects that egoism of Shaw, and he never disappoints an expectation, even
when good taste seems to demand that he should.

"We saw Dr. Robert Bridges fairly frequently in Worcester. Our
provost, Dr. Daniel, had privately published Dr. Bridges' first poems. Before
he was made poet laureate he would read occasionally to one of our literary
societies, the Lovelace Club. (Colonel Richard Lovelace was an old Wor-
cester man.) Bridges delighted in reading his Virgilian translations to us.
At times he would stop to muse ; then he would murmur :

" 'Ah, how Virgil would have loved the hum and buzz of that line !'

"His readings were as scholarly as one would expect, but they did not
provide our most spirited meetings ! When he was made poet laureate, I
wrote to ask if he would honor the club as our guest. He answered with a
five-word rebuff on a halfpenny postcard. He was too busy. Later, when
he was visiting the provost, he summoned me to say that he was quite willing
to come to us if what he had to say would be of any benefit. He gave me
a ten-minute talk on pronunciation, the length of a syllable and the quantity
of a vowel. Then he asked if that sort of thing would interest the club. I
was not quite sure, so we missed the poet laureate's visit. A week later he
published a book on his hobby, 'The Present State of English Pronunciation.'

"Lloyd George's speech at the Union was the most compelling I ever
heard. Indeed, when he spoke shortly afterwards near Oxford there we-e
those who labeled him great. He is splendid, a splendid demagogue.

"I was converted to Home Rule by hearing Sir Edward Carson speak
against it. I cannot think of him as Irish except in the brogue and a certain
trick of the voice. But that may be the South of Ireland in me confessing
a lack of sympathy with the North.

"The Prince of Wales is twenty-two and looks seventeen. He is not
aloof, but his set was picked for him before he came. Hansell, his tutor, is
much in evidence, hence the quip — 'too much Hansel and not enough Gretel.'

"Ambassador Page was pleasing as a speaker, and pleasant to speak to.
Like Sir William Osier he has charm. But in statesmanship he is not a Sir
Edward Grey."

I submit that this Rhodes scholar has not been prejudiced for or against
these great men by the fact of their greatness or the fact of their nationality.
I do not dwell on the soundness of judgment apparent in these estimates,
quite unlike the hit-or-miss appraisements of the enthusiastic undergraduate
in American colleges. I am not seeking to praise Butler, but to use him as
a means of testing the Rhodes scholarship idea. Am I wrong in thinking
that when America is leavened with young men capable of appreciating at
their worth the great men who stand for us as representatives of certain Eng-
lish classes, parties, ideals and so on, we shall be much better off than we are
now?

Butler has seen other British things as clearly as he saw celebrities. He
smiles at Oxford slang, but not superciliously. He laughs at the tea drink-
ing, but not patronizingly.

VARIED TYPES

"There are really four t's," he says; "tea, toast, tobacco and talk. And
they go together surprisingly well."

He neither condemns nor praises British reserve; he accepts it and un-
derstands it.

"When I left Oxford," he says, "some of the notes I received from
fellows who had been like brothers to me were amazingly blunt and casual.
But the feeling was there. These friendships had been slow in the making.
You are let severely alone when you arrive, and you learn to go about quietly
and not intrude. After a while you are accepted and take your place in the
college life. Athletics is a great help in smoothing the way for the stranger.
Rowing, tennis and rugger are open to you. Cricket is more difficult. The
baseball training is little help for cricket. The batting is a matter of wrist
and body movements which must be learned when one is very young. I
think their batting is more scientific than ours. In baseball the good eye and
the swing are nearly everything ; not so in cricket.

"Take it all in all," said Butler, "you are playing the other man's game
and it is his deal. But it is an altogether delightful game to play. It is a
superb opportunity, this of learning the Oxford standards and of meeting on
intimate terms the representatives not only of Great Britain but also of
Germany and of France. And it doesn't hurt one's Americanism."

I think Butler is right. Oxford has developed him as no American col-
lege would in three years, but it has not changed him. He returns the same
American who went away. It is true that he has an English accent, but he
acquired it so unconsciously that he didn't believe he had it when people first
joked him about it. It will go from him just as unconsciously, and that's a
good thing, for it is not well for an American to have an English accent or
any sort of accent. For the rest, Vincent Butler seems to prove that the will
of Cecil Rhodes is not going to spoil promising young Americans.

GIUSEPPE CADENASSO

'UST to catch a glimpse of him, with his thick silver hair
parted in the middle, his fine brown eyes, his strong nose
and his sensitive lips that smile beneath a gray mustache, is
to know him for an artist. He has a strong face, has
Giuseppe Cadenasso of San Francisco, and a vigorous frame
that tells of strength to the ends of his spatulate fingers;
yet is there apparent in him, particularly when one converses
with him, that feminine element which has nothing whatever
to do with effeminacy, but is essential to the makeup of the artist.

Was it reserve or something of this attribute which caused him, for
instance, to evade, very gracefully and with a smile, the question of his year
of birth? He will tell you that he is going down hill, but it is a form of
words ; he knows that he carries a lighter burden of age than many younger
men. But just the same he evaded that question of the exact year.

Genoa was Cadenasso's native place and he came to San Francisco when
he was nine years old, poor but ambitious, ill-educated but aimful, a timid
alien burning with a fire that some call the divine fire of genius but about
which Cadenasso, shrugging his broad shoulders, professes to know naught
except that it must be stoked with hard work.

Hard work was his portion for all those early years; not the hard work
of the studio which is his life work and will only cease when his last picture
is painted and his last tube twisted and dry, but the hard toil that buys bread
and keeps out the cold. He did odd jobs in the city; he did chores in the
country. And always in his leisure moments he was busy with a bit of
chalk or a pencil.

Always full of energy he worked just as hard at his recreation as at his
tasks, and at the proper moment that curious interposition of providence or
destiny or luck — call it what you will, it is to be traced in nearly all our
lives — placed him in the line of his vocation. With his crayons he had
covered the blank walls of a room in his uncle's house with ships and figures
and landscapes when a great artist of those early San Francisco days hap-
pened along to observe his work. It was Jules Tavernier. He recognized
the boy's talent and in that indirect way which is the most potent means of
communication between kindred souls, he encouraged him to persevere.

That the boy had a lot to learn may be inferred from the course he
pursued immediately after making Tavernier's acquaintance. He went to
work for a fresco painter. It was hardly the place to learn art, but there
were brushes to be handled and colors to be dabbled and he liked it. Then
he was fired. Perhaps we might trace here the incongruity of the artistic
temperament and base commercial limitations, but the fine-spun fashionable
theory would not appeal to Cadenasso. He would be the first to say that he

VARIED TYPES

was fired because his work was unsatisfactory, not because it was too good.
For a time he was plunged into the depths of despondency, but the reaction
came when he found work making crayon enlargements of photographs.
There was a vogue of those enlargements in San Francisco, as any curious
person may learn by inspecting old-fashioned parlors which survived the
fire. Some of the enlargements in the heavy gilt frames that surmount the
fireplace may be Cadenasso's work.

With the money thus earned Cadenasso paid for his tuition at the San
Francisco Art Association which had its rooms in Pine street over the Cali-
fornia Market. There he met Arthur Mathews, and the meeting was only
second in importance to his meeting with Jules Tavernier. He admired
Mathews and was afraid of him, for Mathews had the stern front and the
cutting tongue of the teacher.

"When he said your work was rotten, you knew it was rotten," says
Cadenasso with a smile.

It was the proper influence for an eager boy and Cadenasso realizes the
value of that early discipline. When he speaks of Mathews he uses super-
latives.

Painting assiduously Cadenasso was yet afraid to exhibit. He had to
overcome that shyness about his own compositions which is a trait of the
sensitive youth and makes him blush when his composition is read to the
class by his teacher. Finally a mute student named Redmond insisted that
Cadenasso put his work on view, and in great trepidation he submitted his
best pictures to Secretary Martin. Martin showed the pictures to Yelland,
the marine painter, and Yelland thought so much of them that he bade his
pupils admire them which, after the fashion of pupils the world over, they
dutifully did. So Cadenasso exhibited. It was a great impulse to renewed
effort, but it was somewhat dampened on varnishing day when he needed
a ladder of twenty steps to reach his canvases. That was heartbreaking, of
course, but like all men with the stuff of success in their bosoms, Cadenasso
has had his heart broken time and time again without succumbing.

Gradually he began to achieve. His paintings attracted attention. Slowly
but surely, at the exhibitions, they came down from the ceiling until they
reached prominent position on the line. There came the rapture of the first
sale, the dignity of the first small studio all his own. Cadenasso had arrived.
He sold pictures to the wealthy men and women of this and other cities of
America; some of his works even went to Paris. Connoisseurs of great fame
are proud to possess them.

Since he left Genoa a boy of nine years Cadenasso has not been abroad.
For years he could not afford to make the expensive trip and today — who
knows? — artists are rarely rich. There was a time when he was glad of the
onportunity to go as far into the heart of nature as one may travel in Golden
Gate Park. Our hills, our ocean beach, the flats and sloughs within an
hour's journey have given him the inspiration which others have sought in
France, in Italy, in the Netherlands. For there is nothing imitative in
Cadenasso's work. There is no trace of Corot or Diaz, of Constable or Turner
in his canvases. If he had gone abroad the influence of these and their

GIUSEPPE CADENASSO

schools would have been almost unavoidable. He would have ceased to be
Cadenasso of San Francisco.

Originality is the keynote of Cadenasso's landscapes. He has never
unlearned the priceless lesson, never surrendered the invaluable gift of look-
ing at nature with his own eyes. What he sees is not what other painters
see; most decidedly it is not the workaday spectacle which the inartistic see.
It is nature transfigured by the Cadenasso personality, and that is the per-
sonality of a nature lover. He cares nothing for portrait painting. It is
drudgery, he says; the word may be reminiscent of those old days when he
enlarged photographs in crayon.

Of course Cadenasso has a theory of art — theory of work would express
it better. You must study, he says; you must apply yourself; you must
choose your path and keep everlastingly at it till you have followed it to the
end — and you will reach the end of your chosen path only when you can work
no more. Genius means hard work in his vocabulary, and sincerity spells
success. He doesn't believe in Bohemianism or in cliques. There are no
incense dreams, no solemn darknesses, no lazy wooings of inspiration in his
studio days. No music of gongs summons his color vision to the inward eye.
The stimulus of alcohol and nicotine has nothing to do with his art.

"Go to bed early and arise with a clear eye if you would see nature,"
says Giuseppe Cadenasso.

JAMES W. COFFROTH

O YOU remember," asked Jimmy Coffroth, "Lord Macaulay's
description of Viscount Halifax?"

I let him infer from the slight motion of my head that
I knew the passage intimately. As a matter of fact I didn't
remember it at all.

"I see you are familiar with it," continued Coffroth, "so
I need only remind you of the point which Macaulay brings
out."

I blush now for my deceit, but I did not blush then. The truth is, I was
too busy trying to follow the nimble movements of Jimmy Coffroth's mind.
What Viscount Halifax had to do with the general subject of morals and
moralists which we were discussing I could not guess offhand. But that is
part of the charm of Jimmy Coffroth's conversation. He reaches out every
once in a while and plucks a vivid illustration or an apt quotation from an
unexpected hiding place. An omnivorous reader, especially of history,
Coffroth keeps the past at his finger-ends and has a habit of using it in the
interpretation of the present. What Napoleon said at Borodino or what King
James forgot to do at Boyne Water become very important matters to
Coffroth when they shed light on a current happening. The study of the
Duke of Marlborough's picture in the National Portrait Gallery of London
gave Coffroth the key to the character of a man in San Francisco. Such
things happen only to those who have minds of inexhaustible energy. That's
the kind of mind Coffroth has. Your mind has to be quick when it is in
contact with his. And so, as I say, while I told a silent lie about Macaulay
I wondered how he was going to bring Viscount Halifax in.

"You recall of course," Coffroth went on, "that Lord Macaulay in his
history of England classes Halifax with those politicians whom both Whigs
and Tories contemptuously dubbed 'Trimmers.' Macaulay says, as you
doubtless remember, that Halifax was a Trimmer by the constitution both of
his head and of his heart ; that such a man could not long be constant to any
kind of political allies, and that his place was between the hostile divisions
of the community.

"I always think of that little character sketch when I meet a politician.
Every politician I know is a Viscount Halifax, a Trimmer. And this refers
particularly to politicians of the reform variety."

Coffroth ought to know. At the age of seven he was a page in the
legislature. When still a young boy he was made the secretary of the
Superior Court in San Francisco. As a fight promoter he has mingled with
reformers and performers at every session of the legislature for many years.
So Coffroth has the experience. Add to the Coffroth experience the Coffroth
brain, and you have a combination that makes his opinion worth while.

JAMES W. COFFROTH

Just a word about the Coffroth brain. Jimmy inherited that from his
father, one of the brainiest lawyers, one of the ablest legislators and one of
the most eloquent orators in the annals of California. The name of the elder
Coffroth is written indelibly in the chronicles of our State. His intellectual
fortune passed to his son. Jimmy could have won a brilliant success in any
profession or any business. He chose fight promoting because he had an
instinctive love of the game. He says that long before he was associated
with boxing and boaters the Coliseum appealed to him more than any other
ruin in Rome. But the Coffroth brain does not confine itself to sporting
matters. It ranges over a wide field of thought. Just now the Coffroth brain
is concerning itself with morals and moral reformers. He was formulating
some of his experiences in general statements on this subject when Viscount
Halifax came into his conversation.

"Not one reformer in twenty is on the level," continued Coffroth. "The
reformer follows the line of least resistance. He espouses the popular cause.
And just now in California the popular cause is the cause which the feminine
politician is interested in. So you find the Californian reformer falling in
line behind the feminine lobbyist.

"Mind you, I don't meant to cast any reflection on our women. There
are fewer women clamoring for so-called reform than men. But the clamor
made by the few women who are eager for publicity is so great that it seems
to come from the entire sex. The reformers are deeply impressed by it.
They are frightened by a woman's lobby. Five women can exert a more
potent influence on a legislature, a board of supervisors or a mayor than
fifty men.

"When I was at the legislature in the interest of the boxing bill, many
senators and assemblymen told me that they were in sympathy with my
efforts, but begged to be excused from supporting me on account of the
women. 'What will the women of my district say?' they asked me time and
time again. And yet the majority of women approve of boxing and every
form of manly exercise and sport. But these men were afraid of the women
in politics. And as a matter of fact the woman in politics inspires fear. If
I said to the Chief of Police what Mrs. Campbell said a policeman would
throw me out of the room. The politician is afraid to turn a woman down.
Besides, the good looks of a woman lobbyist will accomplish more than the
persuasive tongue of a man. Is a man on the level when he surrenders his
better judgment in fear of offending a woman and losing her vote?

"I had an excellent opportunity to study our reformers in their very
sanctuary of reform, namely, the committee on public morals. Lieutenant-
Governor Wallace was not on the level when he selected that committee. He
deliberately packed it. Four members came from south of Tehachapi ; one
came from San Luis Obispo ; two from this city, the city to whose morals the
committee devoted such loving attention. Senator Owens was the author of
the two o'clock closing bill which received the hall mark of that committee.
I don't think he was on the level about that bill because I met him at three
o'clock in the morning in a Sacramento saloon. I could name another
reformer of the same kind, one of the most prominent members of that same

VARIED TYPES

committee, a furious reformer who was for two o'clock closing, redlight
abatement, a dry World's Fair and so on down the list. Yet it was notorious
in Sacramento that this sweet character used every means in his power to
corrupt the virtue of a stenographer.

"One of our misfortunes is that many of our legislators are men who
became fixed in the ways of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, or Burlington, Iowa, before
they came to this State. Instead of learning to accommodate themselves to
our ways they insist that our ways are all wrong and must be made to
conform to the ways back home. Southern Californians and country
legislators passed the two o'clock closing bill which applies only to San
Francisco and Sacramento. They can't forget that the saloons close early in
Oshkosh and Burlington.

"That law will not reduce the consumption of liquor; it will increase it.
After the fire when the local saloons were forbidden to sell liquor after
midnight I know by my own experience that men ordered extra drinks just
before midnight and sat around consuming them till three or four in the
morning when otherwise they would have gone home at one. It is the
influence of suggestion. Even good people want to do what is forbidden,
when the forbidden thing is not evil in itself.

"The man who wants a drink after two will get it. But he will have to
go to a room in some lax hotel for it, or to a blind pig, or to a French
restaurant. And the copper who got five dollars a week from the French
restaurant will soon be getting ten or twenty to make him wink at the
violation of the law.

"Look at the result of early closing in Los Angeles. I believe there
are twenty thousand 'bungalows' maintained in Los Angeles for improper
purposes. The Los Angeles 'bungalow' corresponds to the London flat and
the New York apartment. The rich Los Angeles man of loose morals keeps
a 'bungalow' in addition to his home. At the 'bungalow' he does what the
law forbids him to do elsewhere — he drinks, gambles, rags and entertains
women.

"Isn't it manlier, healthier, better in every way to motor to the Cliff
House for a dance and a drink than to sneak off to a Los Angeles bungalow?
The bungalow is more dangerous to young girls than the Casino. Closed
doors spell danger. What is clandestine is usually vicious. The man who
sneaks behind a screen is an evil influence. In proportion to population there
are more men keeping mistresses in New York, Philadelphia and Los
Angeles than in Chicago and San Francisco. Why? Because the lid is
clamped tight in the three former cities. In Chicago and San Francisco men
are not pointed out, talked about, ostracized for peccadilloes. It is for the
same reason that morality is higher in a big city than in a small town. Dig
out the principle that underlies these facts and you'll be able to explain what
I regard as undeniable— that France, despite the depravity of Paris, is the
most virtuous country in the world.

"The reformer who is most eager to make other people moral is usually
the man who knows least about actual conditions of morality and immorality.
We are to have a referendum on the redlight law. I think the redlight will

JAMES W. COFFROTH

be upheld four to one. Why? Well, for one reason, because the voter in
Imperial Valley or Del Norte read the story of Alice Smith in the Bulletin
and concluded that San Francisco was a loathsome sink of iniquity. He will
vote to reform San Francisco of which he really knows nothing. If I am right
the redlight law will remain on the statute books, for after an overwhelming
expression of public opinion by means of a referendum vote, no legislature
will dare to repeal it.

"A misfortune? I certainly think so. Fifteen years ago when I used to
walk up Powell street to the Olympic Club I was accosted from ten to fifty
times between Market and Post. For ten years I have not once been stopped
by a streetwalker. You know the conditions which exist on the Strand in
London and on the Frederickstrasse in Berlin where there is no segregation.
Do we want prostitutes in the uptown restaurants? It's too bad we can't
segregate the buncomen so they wouldn't meet the unwary. The prostitute
preys like the buncoman.

"It's a curious thing, by the way, but every time I have entertained one
of these legislative reformers from out of San Francisco — and it is sometimes
to my interest to do so — I find them most attracted by one phase of our life.
After a luncheon at Tait's, a motor ride through the Park to the Cliff House,
a visit to the Mission Dolores, a view of the hills and of the bay and a dinner
at the Palace, there is one invariable question. They have seen the ocean and
a more glorious bay than the Bay of Naples, they have enjoyed the loveliness
that is spread about in such profusion. I am thinking of home and bed.
Presumably they are sated with sight-seeing. But then comes the invariable
question: 'How about the Barbary Coast?'

"Politicians? Reformers? Guardians of San Francisco's virtue?
Nonsense! Is it any wonder I say nine out of ten politicians are fakers?
That not one reformer out of twenty is on the level?"

FRANK DAROUX

E DOESN'T look a bit like John Oakhurst. He doesn't
resemble any picture you've ever seen, any description you've
ever read, any stage portrayal you've ever watched, of the
professional gambler. He looks like, and is, a politician. He
looks, and most assuredly he is, prosperous. But a gambler?
If your ideas of gamblers have been formed from fiction, from
lurid illustrations or from the work of the playwrights, Frank
Daroux will disappoint you. Where is that interesting
pallor we are wont to associate with the professional gambler? Where the
delicate, tapering fingers? Where the deliberate flashiness or elaborate
simplicity of costly attire? All missing in Frank Daroux. True, he likes
good diamonds, but he never flaunts them. He never flaunts anything, not
even his opinions.

While he doesn't look the part, Frank Daroux is our premier professional
gambler. His career as a gambler runs back over thirty years. You can't
name a gambling game of any importance that he hasn't run at one time or
another. You can't mention any city or sizable town in California where he
hasn't been interested in gambling at one time or another. You can't pick
out any city or town in Northern California where he hasn't conducted a
game personally some time within three decades. The gambling history of
California couldn't be written without featuring Frank Daroux.

As to his standing with those who worship or have worshiped at the
shrine of the Goodess of Chance — well, just ask them about Frank. They'll
tell you, one and all, that Frank Daroux is and always has been a "square
guy." I never knew any gambler to "knock" Frank Daroux. I never heard
of any gambler complaining that he did not get a "square deal" in a game run
by Frank Daroux. Frank has made a fortune out of gambling, and he's not
ashamed of it.

This praise of Frank Daroux — if it be praise and not a mere statement
of fact — will shock many people. The idea of exalting a professional gambler !
Scandalous ! Intolerable !

But is it scandalous? Is it intolerable? You and I may not fancy the
career of a professional gambler. Perhaps we haven't the brains necessary
for such a career. Perhaps we have the brains and to spare, but are too
moral for such a life. Very well. But do we not gamble in some way or
another? Do we not sometimes take the profits of chance? Do we scorn
the dividends of a good hazard? Then let us not be too censorious in the
case of Frank Daroux. Let us accept his point of view for a moment.
Perhaps he may teach us something.

"Life is more or less of a gamble," says Frank Daroux. "The doctrine
of chance doesn't apply to cards and dice alone. Everybody gambles. The

FRANK DAROUX

only question is, Are you on the level? The only rule of conduct is, Don't
be a welcher. Pay when you lose. Don't play when you can't afford to.
Don't gamble with somebody else's money. And that includes the money
that is only partly yours, the money you are bound in duty to share with
your wife, your children, your folks whoever they may be."

A pretty good rule, is it not? All gamblers with a sense of honor follow
it. Would not life be better if a lot of us who never touch a card, to whom
dice are anathema, who don't know a roulette wheel from a faro bank, who
can't even pronounce 'baccarat' and never heard of chemin de fer — would not
life be better, more livable for ourselves, happier for those dependent upon
us, if we followed that simple program?

"You can't get rid of gambling until you change human nature," con
tinues Frank Daroux; "and I haven't noticed any change in human nature
during the years I have had the pleasure of observing it. From what I
have read it seems to be pretty much the same now as it was when the
Romans used knuckle bones for dice. Gambling is an instinct of human
nature. It is a natural appetite, like the appetite for liquor. Gambling will
be abolished about the time the world accepts prohibition, and not a day
before.

"The authorities ought to regulate gambling just as they regulate saloons.
There is a gambling evil of course, but you cannot reach it by abolishing or
trying to abolish games of chance, any more than you can reach the drink
evil by abolishing the saloons. I say this because I believe it, not because
I expect to convert anybody to my views. Most people will think I'm crazy
for saying it.

"But why don't such people look around them and think of what they
observe? It is an utter impossibility to stop gambling. If men can't gamble
at roulette they'll gamble in stocks. Take a roulette wheel to a church fair
and see how many people flock around it. Do they ever have any trouble
selling the 'paddles' at a church bazaar? People love to take a chance. They
are crazy to get something for nothing or next to nothing. People who
throw up their hands in holy horror at the very thought of a dice game don't
hesitate to play the lotteries. Isn't that gambling? Abolish cards and dice,
and men and women will invent other ways of gambling. Look at the boys
on the streets. If you doubled the police force you couldn't stop them from
shooting craps or playing crusoe.

"Don't think that I am arguing for a wide-open town. I don't believe
in a wide-open town. A wide-open town is a very bad thing. But I don't
believe in clamping the lid down tight. There ought to be in San Francisco
places such as there are in every other large city of the United States and
Canada, where men who want to and can afford to, may indulge in a game
of chance.

"Of course there should be protection for the people who seem unable
to take care of themselves. By all means make it as hard as possible, make
it impossible if you can for the poor man, the workingman, the man with the
tin lunch pail, the clerk with a salary of one hundred and fifty or two hundred
dollars to gamble. Gambling is demoralizing to him because he cannot afford

VARIED TYPES

to lose and when he loses he is tempted to go on gambling with other people's
money.

"But why shouldn't the rich man gamble if he pleases? If gambling
fascinates him, if he likes the excitement of it, if it is a diversion after his hard
work, why shouldn't he play roulette? He doesn't play for gain and he
doesn't care if he loses. He can stand his losses. Why should he be pre-
vented from having his game? Why shouldn't there be gambling places in
San Francisco he can go to? If he wants to play bridge or poker he can go
to his club, for there is this sort of gambling in every club in San Francisco.
If he has a desire for roulette or faro bank or craps, why shouldn't he be
able to gratify it? High class gambling places, places which those who can't
afford to play can't get into, should be tolerated. Let the police keep their
eyes on these places, but let them alone as long as they are conducted
properly. There wouldn't be any graft. It's the small 'piking' places that
are a source of graft to the policeman on the beat.

"Ask the house detective in the Palace, the St. Francis, any big hotel,
and you'll find that travelers inquire every day for a place where they may
gamble. They gamble in New York, in Washington, in Chicago, in St. Louis,
they gamble in Florida; so they don't see why they shouldn't gamble in San
Francisco. If you want to consider that end of the thing, think of the amount
of money they would leave behind them if there were two or three high-class
places where they could play roulette or faro. Men like Schwab would play
every time they came here if they got a chance. I guess I'm through with
gambling, but if I had a place here I'd guarantee not to allow any San
Franciscan to play in it. There are no such places here now, but our million-
aires and rich men gamble every time they go to Florida or Ostende or Monte
Carlo. Yes, and some of them are against gambling in San Francisco too!
Foreigners will be very disappointed if they don't find the opportunity to
gamble here during the Fair. I do not think there is any real sentiment here
against having two or three high-class places of the sort I have described."

Perhaps you think Frank Daroux is making a special plea. And perhaps
he is. But don't forget that the professional gambler loses money. Frank
Daroux ran a gambling outfit one night in connection with a Foresters'
Forty-Nine Mining Camp at Native Sons' Hall. There were two faro banks,
three roulette wheels and three crap games. The police stopped the games
on complaint of a man who had played and lost. If the games had made
money the Foresters' Drill Corps would have profited. But the games lost
and Daroux was out of pocket about $6,000. He had agreed to take the
losses or a small percentage of the winnings for his trouble. The loss doesn't
bother him. He had $6,000 worth of fun, but he says the games were run too
openly, so the police were right in interfering. When the Hotel Mens'
Association had its convention here a couple of years ago Frank ran gambling
games for the visitors, and he says the men who came to the convention
enjoyed the gambling so much that they are still talking about it. Incident-
ally, the wives and sisters of the hotel men from all over the country were
very indignant that they were not allowed to play. So you see women like
to gamble too.

FRANK DAROUX

I was so interested in getting the Frank Daroux viewpoint that I didn't
prod Frank on the reminiscential side. Some day I'll get the story of the
nineteen millionaires who were in one of his roulette games at the Golden
Eagle in Sacramento. And the story of how he and Joe Harvey were
cheated out of $15,000 on The Fiddler, a "ringer," and paid it. Or going
further back, the story of how Locomotive Engineer Frank Daroux gave up
his run on the railroad between Wadsworth and Winnemucca to become
Professional Gambler Frank Daroux. For the present let me conclude with
a sentence which I commend to those who are shocked that a professional
gambler should receive serious consideration.

"Most of the professional gamblers I have known," says Frank Daroux,
"were good men and especially charitable men ; they never refused anybody
who was in want; and they were always good to their own."

fCHARLES DE YOUNG

E IS just about as tall as Napoleon but not nearly as stout,
tj1-s Bonaparte of the newspaper world who wages his
battles with printer's ink and slays ambitions with a blue
pencil. He is a twentieth century Bonaparte of course, not
too fiercely militant, by no means enamored of slaughter and
not so reckless that he forgets at any time to conserve the
resources which it would be wasteful to throw away. In
other words, he is a Chronicle Napoleon, is Charles de Young,
and has learned the Chronicle tradition which teaches that diplomacy is the
better part of war and that peace hath her certain victories while the god
of battle is notoriously fickle.

Behind one of the half-curtained windows of the Chronicle Building,
just off Market street, there is a cosy little office with an oaken roll-top
desk and a brace of telephones. There he sits while the crowd surges
hither and thither outside, stopping occasionally to read the latest bulletin
about our progress in this Panama Exposition fight, the sort of fight he
likes, a gentleman's fight with gentlemanly weapons and the stake so large
that there is no reason why anyone should become personal and lose his
temper about it. He spends a lot of time in that cosy little office, does
Charles de Young, more time than most millionaire sons of millionaire papas
spend in their offices, and he is free to confess that he enjoys every minute
of it. He takes his work very seriously, but after a young man's fashion,
not afraid to lower his dignity by smoking his favorite Turkish cigarette as
he signs a dozen checks, confers with the foreman of his press room or gives
his views on the handling of a big news story.

He is a young man, a very young man ; but how many young men of his
years shoulder his responsibilities? How many Napoleons at twenty-nine
have controlled the fighting machine which he sends into action every day?
At half past eight or nine o'clock every morning except Sunday, he is on
the job and all day thereafter till six in the evening he stays with it, return-
ing after dinner and sometimes not calling it a day till midnight has been
dead for an hour. In five years he has had just two weeks' vacation, but he
doesn't complain ; he doesn't want a vacation. There is too much to do and
he finds it so well worth the doing that he sees no reason to shunt the task
onto somebody else. You see he is a real newspaperman ; he stands the
ultimate test — his Saturday which is a half-day to his millionaire friends is a
day and a half for him.

I suppose Charles de Young is the most educated newspaperman in San
Francisco. The educational process started in just as soon after his birth
in the old family home in Powell street — the interesting occurrence was in
June, 1881 — just as soon after that as careful parents usually deem expedient.

CHARLES DE YOUNG

He was sent to the old Redding Primary and thereafter to the Pacific Heights
Grammar. He was fourteen years old when he left the grammar school and
went with his family to Europe. In Paris he attended the College de Ste.
Croix conducted by the Brothers of the Holy Cross who taught him, among
many other things, how to speak French with the accent of the boulevards.
Then for a year he studied at a day school in Berlin where he absorbed more
knowledge and put the real Unter den Linden guttural twist on his German.
The family returned home after that and he went to Belmont School to take
his preliminary dip in the requirements for entrance to Harvard. There
followed a year at the Exeter prep school in New Hampshire and being
satisfactorily prepped by that time he matriculated at Harvard in 1901. In
1905 he bade farewell to President Eliot, both hands clasped lovingly about
a neatly ribboned bachelor's degree and his brain cells stored with more in-
tellectual honey than you could crowd into a five-foot shelf of India paper
classics.

All through this long scholastic novitiate he had kept his eye on the
horizon where the clock on the top of the tall red Chronicle Building — it had
a clock on it in those days — seemed pointing to the hour when he was to
become a journalistic Napoleon. He studied everything that might come in
handy, specializing in English and history, but absorbing all sorts of useful
knowledge. He even made a dab at geology which may or may not have
something to do with the subsequent discovery of an artesian well under the
Chronicle Building. But he had the good sense not to become a highbrow.
He talks more shop than Shakespeare.

His career as a newspaper Napoleon began very modestly. Instead of
training his guns on the Tuilleries he went behind the Chronicle counter and
trained his attention on classified advertising, subscriptions and "stops" and
complaints. He did a little soliciting, studied display advertising and at night
hied him to the editorial and mechanical departments to watch the wheels
go round. He was studying the newspaper game just as that other Harvard
man, William Randolph Hearst, studied it in the old Examiner office in Sacra-
mento street. The inference is that two men may study in the same way and
learn two very different things.

Then the fire came and M. H. de Young was so busy attending to other
interests that he decided to unload a lot of his journalistic burden on the young
shoulders of his son. Charles was made business manager at the age of
twenty-five which probably establishes a record for business managers of
newspapers. But he is more than a mere business manager. You cannot
limit a Napoleon to one part of the field ; he must sweep it all. It would be
more accurate to say that Charles de Young is the general manager of the
Chronicle. He bosses the business and mechanical departments, but does not
ignore the editorial end by any means. He is consulted by his staff of editors
on all important stories and has a great deal to say about the proper method
of handling them. So close is his touch with news that reporters even consult
with him over the telephone when they are out pursuing it. And he reads all
the papers through every day, rejoicing and commending when the Chronicle

VARIED TYPES

scores a beat, sorrowing and dodgasting when the Chronicle is scooped, as is
the way with all newspapermen in authority.

There is one branch about which he is eloquent and that is advertising.
He has decided ideas about getting personality into it, making it sincere,
convincing. He preaches the doctrine, which may seem strange to the
uninitiate but not to newspapermen, that a merchant can advertise too much
and he can give you very strong reasons for agreeing with him. He would
rather talk about advertising than about George Bernard Shaw, although,
come to think of it, the two subjects have a great deal in common.

Of course, Charles de Young's life is not all work. He likes the theatre
and does not eschew the Greenway dances, but the telephone operator always
knows where to reach him and if a press breaks down or a big story is
uncovered, he considers it no hardship to miss the fourth act or to cut the
supper dance, with proper apologies, of course. So he is not really a society
man. He is too busy and too interested in his business. He belongs to the
San Mateo Polo Club, but has no time for polo; he belongs to the Marin
Golf and Country Club, but can't spare time for the links; he belongs to the
Union League, but is not a politician ; he belongs to the Olympic Club, but
seldom gets there. If he spends an occasional hour at the Bohemian Club or
the Family, at the Press or the University, he considers that he has fulfilled
his clubby obligations. But when the board of directors of the Panama-
Pacific Exposition meets he is pretty sure to be there ; and if we get the Fair,
just watch how active he will be on that important sub-committee in charge
of publicity and exploitation.

Is he a successful man? Not having access to the balance sheets of The
Chronicle I can not give you the figures, but I venture the assertion that
during the last five years the paper has been doing very nicely, thank you.
You see, he bears the name of one of the greatest newspapermen the West
ever knew or ever will know, and he was not christened in vain. I don't think
he is satisfied with The Chronicle — he has bigger plans for its future — but
I know that his father is satisfied with him, proud of him, for M. H. de Young
two years ago gave Charles an interest in the paper, an actual financial in-
terest. Not yet thirty and nevertheless a conqueror of the sort of success
which comes to most men later in life — what is the secret of it all? I think
our young journalistic Napoleon tipped the secret when he told me : "Toil
is no hardship when your heart is in it. You don't count the hours when you
love your work."

M. H. DE YOUNG

N JANUARY, 1915, the San Francisco Chronicle was fifty
years of age. Started in January, 1865, by Charles and M.
H. De Young, it has never passed from its original pro-
prietorship. M. H. De Young, therefore, has owned and
run a metropolitan newspaper for half a century. I do not
know where you will find such another record in the annals
of journalism. To say that M. H. De Young is proud of
this record is certainly not to err by overstatement. The
Chronicle represents his lifework. If one may intrude for a moment on a
poignant private tragedy, it may safely be said that the grief of his recent
bereavement was intensified by the thought that The Chronicle was not to
be also the lifework of his son.

Sitting in his luxurious office in the Chronicle Building M. H. De Young
looked back over the Chronicle's past and described for me some of the
pictures his memory drew.

"My brother Charles and I," he said, "started the Dramatic Chronicle
in January, 1865. He was the editor while I set the type, distributed the
papers and attended to business matters. The paper appeared on the streets
at noon and was distributed free of charge. Many people wanted to sub-
scribe for it so that it would be delivered at their homes, but we had made
the rule of free distribution and we stuck to it inflexibly. It was a spicy
paper, containing blunt criticisms of other papers and a great deal of dramatic
news. It was successful from the start, and our circulation rose to eight
thousand.

"From the profits of the Dramatic Chronicle my brother and I supported
our mother, paying all the household expenses. In addition to this my
brother took $15 a week and I took $10; but this money we put religiously
into the bank. When the profits increased we still adhered to this practice.
It mattered not if we made $800 or $1,000 a month; our weekly stipend went
into the bank. That money was our nest egg and we never touched it.

"I was only seventeen, a year and a half younger than my brother,
when we started, and I worked very hard. I shall never forget the pleasure
it gave me after a hard day's and a hard night's grind to go to the Clipper
Restaurant for a cup of coffee and a plate of doughnuts. That was a great
old place, the Clipper. It extended from Washington to Jackson street above
Sansome, and it was run by the father of Ernest Stock, the veteran member
of the Call staff. Coffee and doughnuts cost ten cents at the Clipper, and
never in my life since have I tasted anything so delicious.

"Men who afterwards became world-famous in literature contributed to
the Dramatic Chronicle. Mark Twain made his headquarters in our office
on Clay street below Sansome. I shall never forget his method of compos-

VARIED TYPES

ing, for as I set type I watched him many a time writing copy for the
Dramatic Chronicle. He was a slow writer and paused for several minutes
between ideas. Having finished a sentence he would slowly and solemnly
straighten up in his chair, at the same time bringing the hand which held his
pencil from the paper into the air until it pointed toward the ceiling, his eyes
following the same direction. He would remain in this position until he had
arranged his idea. Then the body would bend, the arm would descend, just
as deliberately, and as soon as the pencil touched the paper he would resume
writing. It was the funniest exhibition I ever saw.

"Bret Harte was at that time secretary to Superintendent of the Mint
La Grange, but he contributed almost daily to the Dramatic Chronicle at the
time when our office was on Montgomery street. He would appear between
four and five in the afternoon, entering the office in a surreptitious, carpet-
slippered sort of way and bringing articles containing sharp criticisms of
editors and public men. There was a great deal of curiosity about these
articles, but we kept the identity of the author carefully concealed.

"The Dramatic Chronicle continued for three years and a half, or until
September, 1868. During that time many men came to my brother and
myself and offered to advance money to turn it into a morning paper. I
shall never forget the first to make this offer. It was Aleck Badlam. He
entered our office one day and he said he would hand us $50,000 if we would
make a morning paper of the Dramatic Chronicle and give him a half interest.
The offer was declined.

"The next was Loring Pickering, owner of the Bulletin. He thought it
unwise to have all his money in an evening paper, and wanted to invest in
a morning paper. He offered to capitalize us if we made a morning paper of
the Dramatic Chronicle. Again we declined, telling him that if we started
a morning paper we would do it with our own money and would retain the
whole profit of our energy.

"At that time there were six owners of the Morning Call. One of them
was George Barnes, the dramatic critic. Pickering, not being able to get
an interest in our paper, bought Barnes out. And with the money he re-
ceived Barnes came to my brother and myself, offering to invest it if we
would start a morning paper. This offer also we declined.

"In September, 1868, we had saved enough money to proceed alone, so
we turned the noon-day Dramatic Chronicle into the Morning Chronicle. At
that time there were three other morning papers : the American Flag run by
a southern gentleman named McCarthy who hammered everybody in town,
the Alta California and the Call. The evening papers were the Bulletin and
the Democratic Press which was run by Phil Roach and Penn Johnstone
as a 'secesh' organ until a mob wrecked the office when Lincoln was assas-
sinated, whereupon the Democratic Press was changed to the Morning
Examiner.

"The Morning Chronicle was the first paper in the country to publish
a Sunday edition of the sort so familiar nowadays. We made a Sunday
feature of dramatic news, devoting two pages to this, and giving the entire

M. H. DE YOUNG

first page to letters from our special European correspondents. These
features made the Chronicle very popular.

"At that time the papers sold for ten cents on the streets and at the
news stands in the hotels and stationery stores. We decided that it was
ridiculous to deliver the paper at peoples' homes for two cents a day and
at the same time charge ten cents for it on the streets. So we reduced the
price to five cents. It was a hard fight. The newsboys and the stationery
stores opposed us. We billed the town with posters announcing the re-
duction in price, but as fast as we put the posters up the newsboys tore
them down. It took us months to win that fight, but ultimately all the other
papers had to follow our example.

"There were a great many men on the Chronicle in those early days who
afterwards rose to high distinction. Our first editorial writer was Henry
George, the author of 'Progress and Poverty.' Other editorial writers were
Frank Pixley and Sam Seabough, the great anti-railroad fighter who was
fired from the Sacramento Union when the railroad bought that paper and
immediately went on with the fight in the Chronicle.

"We sent Charles Warren Stoddard around the world and published his
letters every Sunday. Our London letter was written by Anna Cora
Mowatt Ritchie, an American woman living in London. Our Paris corre-
spondent was Henry Hayne, and our Berlin correspondent was an attache
of the German court who wrote secretly for us under the name of Octave
Hensel.

"My brother was the editor, and I never interfered with his department
except when he was away and I had full charge. During a trip he made to
Europe I started the 'apprentice reporter' system. The idea was to take
beginners on trial, raising their salaries every three months. At the end of
two years they were either full fledged reporters or they were fired. The first*
two apprentice reporters I put on were Harry Dam and Ned Townsend,
afterwards the author of 'Chimmie Fadden.' They were just out of the
University of California, and they made good. Dam was the Beau Brummel
of the staff, and I had to suspend him once for a month because he neglected
a detail to attend a crack masquerade at the California Theatre.

"The Bohemian Club was organized in the Chronicle office by Tommy
Newcombe, Sutherland, Dan O'Connell, Harry Dam and others who were
members of the staff. The boys wanted a place where they could get
together after work, and they took a room on Sacramento street below
Kearny. That was the start of the Bohemian Club, and it was not an un-
mixed blessing for the Chronicle because the boys would go there sometimes
when they should have reported at the office. Very often when Dan
O'Connell sat down to a good dinner there he would forget that he had a
pocketful of notes for an important story.

"Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane was a reporter on the
Chronicle. We sent him to New York as our representative, but he was too
interested in Single Tax to attend strictly to his duties. There were many
complaints that he wasn't supplying us with news of San Franciscans in

VARIED TYPES

New York, but I didn't know what the trouble was until I went into the
New York office one night and found a stranger in charge. I asked where
Lane was and was told that he was over in Orange making a speech. An-
other man took Lane's place shortly after that.

"William Laffan, afterwards owner and editor of the New York Sun,
was a reporter on the Chronicle. He made his reputation on the Chronicle
by exposing the Davenport Brothers. They were fakers who gave seances,
and one of their favorite tricks was to 'materialize' guitars which were seen
floating in the air in the darkened theatre and filled the credulous with awe,
the Davenport Brothers having first been tied up in their cabinets. When
they appeared in San Francisco Laffan sent a number of men into the
gallery with pie plates, platinum wire and a certain acid. When the guitars
had been 'materialized' Laffan clapped his hands, the men poured the acid
over the platinum in the pie plates and the theatre was brightly illuminated
by the flashlights. The Davenport Brothers had slipped their bonds and
were standing at the edge of the stage waving guitars which had been
rubbed with phosphorus, at arm's length over their heads. It was a great
story for the Chronicle."

At this point in his reminiscences Mr. De Young's telephone rang, and
there was a short but lively conversation.

"I'm sorry," he said as he hung up the receiver, "but we'll have to bring
this interview to an end. My granddaughter Patsy insists that I come home
and have a romp with her, and I've got to go."

FRANK C. DREW

SM+ r I i ,M£

\/ \r

n3 X r5

O KNOW a man in his public relations is to see only one
side of him. It may or may not be the better, the more
important side; it is seldom the more interesting.

Take Frank Drew, for instance. It is very well to
know Frank Drew as a member of a law firm and as a
business m^n with great lumber interests. Those who find
delight in such things may appraise his standing at the bar,
his skill as a financier. But you might know Frank Drew
as a public man for a long time, and still be ignorant of his ardor for
Esperanto. When you learn that fact about his private life you sit up and
take a notice of Frank Drew which you would not accord to his more prosaic
activities. There are many good lawyers and able financiers; there are so
few Esperantists.

In San Francisco, aside from Frank Drew, the only followers of Dr.
Zamenhof whose names I can recall are former Judge Daingerfield and the
late Judge Treadwell. But in the city of Athenian culture across the bay
there is quite a group which includes prominent railroad men and civil
engineers. You never know when you are going to run across somebody
who speaks the ingeniously constructed and thoroughly practical inter-
national language. That must be part of the charm of mastering it. In
this connection Frank Drew told me a story.

"Dr. Yemans, a student of Esperanto who is now with the army in
Manila, was crossing the Atlantic to America at the same time that a
delegation of Esperantists was journeying from this country to the Esperanto
Congress at Antwerp. He sent them a pleasant message in Esperanto by
wireless. Before the delegates on the other steamer had a chance to reply,
the wireless operator who had received the message flashed an answer to
Dr. Yemans in Esperanto, stating that the doctor's and his were the first
wireless messages in Esperanto ever exchanged at sea. Now who would
expect a wireless operator to know Esperanto?

"In this connection," continued Drew, "it may be mentioned among the
advantages of Esperanto that if it were adopted for the international wireless
code there would be no such disastrous mistakes as occurred recently when
the English, the Japanese and the Norwegian operators misunderstood the
messages which they were exchanging.

"Esperanto supplies a common ground of intercourse on which all
people can meet. In traveling it is invaluable. All over the world there are
clubs or groups of Esperantists, and if the traveler wears in his buttonhole
the little green star which is the Esperanto emblem, he will come in contact
everywhere with interesting people whom otherwise he would be unable
to converse with.

VARIED TYPES

"Once in Chalons-sur-Marne I met a French army officer named Dr.
Jenny. He knew no English and at the time I knew no French, and yet
we had a delightful conversation for half an hour in Esperanto. The first
ten minutes of our talk were a bit unsatisfactory, but after that it was smooth
sailing.

"There is absolutely no other common means of communication. During
the past few years I have corresponded with people who spoke twenty-one
different foreign languages, but no English. Using Esperanto I have been
able to exchange letters with men whose native tongues were French,
German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish,
Russian, Polish, Czech, Dalmatian, Magyar, Arabian, Syrian, Chinese,
Slovak, Javanese, Hindustanee and Greek. Without Esperanto that would
be impossible.

"Esperanto has come to stay. This is particularly evident in Europe.
You will find Esperanto books and pamphlets at the railway stations,
especially in Russia, Poland and Bohemia. In Belgium the government has
encouraged the study ever since the Esperanto Congress was held in
Antwerp. In that city the policemen speak it, and so do the conductors
on the street cars. The cars contain signs and notices in Esperanto.

"More than that, Esperanto is the international means of communication
used by the anarchists of Europe. When Francisco Ferrer was arrested
by the Spanish authorities he had on his person a kodak and an Esperanto
grammar. Now if the forces of evil use Esperanto to advance their cause,
it will be necessary for the opposing forces of good to fight them with it.
If anarchy is to be combatted by arguments, pamphlets and so forth,
Esperanto must be used, for there is no other way of appealing at one and
the same time to people of different nationalities. The use which the
anarchists make of Esperanto shows that it has ceased to be a fad ; it is
an eminently practical means of communication.

"The world is alive to the need of a universal auxiliary language. Some
think that the tendency is to use French for this purpose. But there are
serious objections to French. It is impossible for the ordinary adult to
learn to pronounce French correctly, or even to write it correctly, there are
so many idioms. The same thing is true of English. Both are objectionable
too on account of international jealousies. And the same thing applies to
German. For instance, would the Germans be willing to use French? Would
the English be willing to adopt German?

"Esperanto, on the other hand, is easy to learn. I am still studying it,
but I obtained a working knowledge of it by devoting one hour a night to
its study for six weeks. At the end of that time I could read and write it
with a good deal of ease.

"You see, there are no idioms in Esperanto. And there will be none.
There are no exceptions to its grammatical rules. It does away with
irregular verbs which are such a terror to people attempting to learn
French and other European languages. There is no such difficulty as the
student has with the German pronouns either.

"Esperanto has a literature of its own. I recall a novel called 'The

FRANK C. DREW

Pharaoh' in three volumes which describes the Egyptian life of ancient days
with its religious doctrines, ceremonies and so on. Esperanto is capable of
describing such scenes and incidents just as minutely as any of our mother
tongues. It can convey the various shades of meaning; the delicate
distinctions between our own synonyms can all be expressed.

"Esperanto also has a large translated literature. The Bible has been
translated into Esperanto. So have a number of Shakespeare's plays,
notably Hamlet, Julius Caesar and The Tempest. Goldsmith's She Stoops
to Conquer is in Esperanto; so are Schiller's dramas and many Polish
novels. In addition there are many medical journals, mathematical and
other scientific treatises. The advantage of Esperanto for scientific works
is obvious. How many great treatises invaluable to physicians and others
are beyond the reach of students because they are in a foreign tongue!
Sometimes these works are not translated for years; sometimes the great
expense prevents them from being translated at all. If they were written
in Esperanto, as the scholars of old wrote their books in Latin, they would
be immediately available for all nations.

"But one of the greatest goods which would come out of the use of
Esperanto was that which Dr. Zamenhof had in mind when he invented it.
He was a college student at Warsaw, and was painfully aware of the racial,
political and religious misunderstanding which kept the students in a constant
state of warfare. He came to the conclusion that if they had a common
means of communication much of this misunderstanding would cease.
Esperanto was the result. Dr. Zamenhof is a great oculist, but he has lost
thousands of dollars because his heart is in Esperanto and he answers the
call of the cause whenever it comes, forgetting his professional work.

"It is very important to remember that Esperanto is not to be used as
a substitute for any language. It is an auxiliary language. When Esperanto
is universally used, every man will have two languages, his own and
Esperanto."

"Do you think it will be universally used?" I asked.

"I do," answered Drew. "Esperanto has a great future. The most
serious obstacle to its immediate adoption by the intellectual world consists
in the many innovations attempted by cranks, faddists and egotists who
either want to improve on Zamenhof's invention or to substitute one of their
own. Esperanto undoubtedly can be improved in some respects, but this
is not the time to make any changes. Until it is adopted as a universal
auxiliary language there should be no changes. Afterwards a World's
Congress could be called together for the purpose of making needed reforms."

"Are Americans putting it to any practical use?" I asked.

For answer Frank Drew handed me an illustrated pamphlet written in
Esperanto. It was a pamphlet issued by the Chamber of Commerce of Los
Angeles and was devoted to glowing accounts of the many advantages of
life in Southern California.

"That pamphlet will be read by people in every corner of the world,"
said Drew. "That's practical enough, isn't it?"

Why doesn't the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce take the hint?

DENNIS M. DUFFY

HOLD," says Dennis M. Duffy, president of the State Prison
Commission, "I hold that the offender should be saved
rather than reformed. The best time to deal with the law-
breaker is before the gate of the penitentiary closes behind
him."

Colonel Duffy is a working penologist. He is an expert
on prisons and their inmates because he devoted himself
heart and soul to the subject during his career of distinction
on the Prison Board. He is full of his specialty. He thinks about prison
work, talks about it all the time. Meet him in Market street and engage
him in conversation on the topic most remote from prison work — he'll
have the conversation around to his chief interest before you know
it. A good part of every day he devotes to prison affairs. The mothers,
fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, wives and sweethearts of convicts
elbow clients in his law office. And none goes away without a hearing. Such
a man is bound to have valuable ideas about penology which is a science for
practical men, not theorists. All Colonel Duffy's ideas are the fruit of
experience. I don't believe he has ever sat down to formulate a prison theory.
He observes the ways of prisoners, he studies the viewpoint of prisoners, he
extracts their histories, he tries to fathom their thoughts. And because he
is deeply sympathetic with prisoners, he succeeds with them where others
blunder and fail. So when Colonel Duffy says that prison work should begin
outside prison walls he is talking what he knows, not uttering glittering
paradox.

"It is easier," continues Colonel Duffy, "to reform a free man than it is
to reform a prisoner. But it is more important still to reform society. When
we succeed in reforming the attitude of society toward the law-breaker, there
will not be so many men in prison as there are today.

"Society must be taught to give the law-breaker a chance. It must learn
to change its attitude toward him whether he goes to prison or not. What
we need most of all is a wise and liberal administration of the probation law.
In the hands of a judge who knows how to be generous and at the same
time firm in its application, the probation law is a great instrument of good.
"Every wise measure should be used to save a man from prison when
there is a chance to reclaim him without incarceration. There are many men
serving sentences at present who were convicted of crimes that were not
crimes at all a few years ago. In this class of convicts, imprisoned for
offenses which are not crimes at Common Law, the wise mercy of the judge
should be brought to bear. Take for instance the young man who passes a
bad check. Most bad checks are passed in saloons by men under the influence
of liquor, and the money raised on them is almost invariably spent for more

DENNIS M. DUFFY

liquor. Such cases are never prosecuted unless the bad check passer fails
to make good. Now it is not a felony to embezzle a sum under fifty dollars,
but a man may be convicted of felony and sent to State's prison for passing
a bad check for one dollar. In fact the men serving terms for this offense
have usually passed a check for fifteen or twenty dollars — that is the average
amount. Does it not seem too bad that a man should be branded a convict
for this offense? Why could he not be released on probation and be allowed
to earn money to make restitution for his offense and at the same time
contribute to the support of those dependent on him instead of being sent
to prison? It would be better for the offender and better for society. And
in this connection, why should there not be some regulation, say by the
police commission, of this check cashing in saloons? Many saloon keepers
make it a rule not to cash checks. When men they know ask to have a
check cashed the saloon keepers lend them the money instead. If saloon
keepers were prohibited from cashing checks under penalty of a revocation
of their license, many young men would be saved from the penitentiary.

"In this connection one of the greatest judicial wrongs of today should
be mentioned. I refer to the short sentence which so many judges impose
in lieu of probation. The short sentence imposed on men who could be given
probation too often makes those men confirmed convicts. It takes from them
that something, call it nerve, courage, manhood, what you will, which can
never be returned. Too often the short sentence is imposed because the judge
hesitates to grant probation for fear of alienating public opinion. The short
sentence is a compromise between the judge's conscience and expediency.

"Next to saving men from going to prison the most helpful feature of
prison work today consists in restoring the convict to society after his debt
to justice has been paid. The greatest instrument for good in this work is
our parole law. Our parole law is good, but it is not and cannot be properly
administered under present conditions. The Prison Commissioners, serving
without salary, give one day a week to prison work, and in hearing applica-
tions for parole they must depend on the reports of wardens and other prison
officials who are quite likely to make honest mistakes. The men who
administer the parole law should live in the prisons where they can study the
convicts at first hand and talk to them in the yard as man to man. The
prisoner is not at himself, he is embarrassed and nervous when called before
a body of men who judge him by the impression of a single interview.

"But when a man has been paroled the real test begins, not only for the
man but for society. And here there is much to be desired in the attitude of
society. The men who are most eager to make good and to regain the
position they have lost are, unfortunately, the men whom society is least
willing to take back. I refer to the men who have been convicted of murder
and other crimes of violence, men who had led good lives until they were
betrayed into violence by the heat of passion. It is very difficult for such
men to get a real start after they have been paroled.

"They are not helped at all by the professional philanthropist. It is not
the professional philanthropist, the man or woman who engages in prison
work for the money or the glory in it, who helps such ex-convicts, but the

VARIED TYPES

unostentatious, unpretentious citizen who holds out a helping hand without
a brass band accompaniment. The professional philanthropist is insistent
that prison be made more attractive. He overlooks the fact that it is more
important to give men work on their release from prison than to make prison
attractive for them while they are in. The professional philanthropist is
forever insisting that this or that convict be paroled, but when you apply
the acid test by asking, 'What employment will you give him when he goes
out?' you are met with a shrug or a frown or an 'I'm sorry' or a 'How can
you expect me to employ a man like that?' As a matter of fact, despite all
you hear about the slowness of the Prison Board to grant paroles, there are
every month eight or ten or twelve men entitled to parole but detained in
prison because nobody has come forward to promise them suitable employ-
ment. I am putting the number as low as possible. Some months there are
fifteen or twenty. The Prison Board is more generous to parole than society
is to receive the paroled men.

"The parole system has had an excellent effect on prison discipline. It
helps the prison to run itself. It has aroused a spirit of co-operation between
the prisoner and the prison official. It has a greater influence than religion
which, I regret to say, is not the large factor in prison which one would like
it to be. The prisoners show the utmost respect for clergymen who visit the
prison, but they are usually indifferent to religious influence. Religion suffers
in prison from religious pretenders among the prisoners, hypocrites who are
serving terms for horrible offenses and who pretend to be devout — men who
perhaps used religion to aid them in their horrible crimes and continue to
use it in prison in the hope of expediting their release. A large percentage
of those in prison for rape and offenses against children are religious
pretenders. Unfortunately the other prisoners are apt to judge religion by
these hypocritical devotees.

"But the parole system is a real influence for good. It is perhaps due
to this system that so many convicts are well behaved. Ninety-five per cent
of the prisoners are trying all the time to observe the rules of prison discipline.
Most of them do this because they are impelled by their better natures so to
do; the rest are actuated by the hope of parole. Under the parole law a
prisoner starts to work his way out as soon as he lands in prison.

"Has my faith in human nature suffered by my prison work? Certainly
not! It has been increased. It has increased my inclination to give men a
chance. There are failures, there are bitter disappointments, but when you
consider that eighty per cent of the paroled men make good and that only
two and six-tenths per cent of them return to prison for new offenses, you
will see that an abounding faith in human nature is justified.

"When you contrast some prison officials with some prisoners, there is
no reason to lack faith in the prisoners. I have known a minister at the
prison who sold pardons. I have known a superintendent of construction who
robbed the State. I have known a lieutenant of the yard, a man who held
steadfastly to the theory that no convict could be reformed and who took
an unholy joy in the discovery of a recidivist, I have known such a man to rob
prisoners. When keepers are crooked, why not give convicts a chance?"

MILTON H. ESBERG

HE PEOPLE don't elect a man Mayor of San Francisco
that he may play politics. They elect him because they
think he will prove a strong executive. If the man cherishes
hidden political aspirations or develops them after he gets
into office, the people lose confidence in him. Those officials
who are least ardent for political advancement are the most
successful in the end. In other words, glory comes to him
who seeks it least."
Milton H. Esberg, vice-president and general manager of the M. A.
Gunst Cigar Company, was a member of the Municipal Conference which
dominated politics in the last mayoralty campaign. He was on the nominat-
ing and indorsing board which put Rolph into the fight. He was active on
the campaign committee. In a very special sense therefore he is one of the
men responsible for the present municipal administration insofar as it has
been shaped by Mayor Rolph. And yet Milton Esberg speaks of Mayor
Rolph in the language I have just set down in quotation marks.

It is a matter of common knowledge that Mayor Rolph has alienated a
large percentage of the men who were active in his campaign. Out in his
own part of the city a number of these formed a hostile organization known
as "The Missionites." Downtown there is no hostile organization, but feel-
ing is none the less pronounced. Rolph has disappointed his sponsors.

A great many of those sponsors are members of the Chamber of Com-
merce. Rolph was much to the fore in that body before he became Mayor.
He was president of the Merchants Exchange which has been absorbed by
the larger body. His activities were in harmony with the activities of the
Chamber of Commerce. Yet he calls its members "obstructionists" and
threatens, in the vivid language beloved of politicians, to "knock their blocks
off." Obviously, a change has come over the relations between the Mayor
and his former associates. What is the reason? I went to Milton Esberg
and asked him about it. He ought to know if anybody does, for he is chair-
man of the executive committee of the Chamber of Commerce.

"Mayor Rolph," says Esberg, "seems to feel that any criticism of public
work or any suggestion for public improvement, whether made by a civic
organization or by an individual in high repute, is an act of hostility toward
himself. He seems to lose sight of the fact that people may be honestly
interested in the improvement of current methods or in the cure of inef-
ficiency. He seems not to recognize that a citizen or a civic body, knowing
that in the end the taxpayer always pays for incompetence, has a perfect
right to show how money may be saved and serious inconvenience prevented.
"And so it happens that when an organization like the Chamber of Com-
merce, after its student committee has gone into the matter and has pre-
sented absolute facts gathered by unpaid men who have taken time from their

VARIED TYPES

own business, successful men who are disposed to do something for the com-
munity, who have civic pride, who want efficiency and who dream of a model
city — when an organization like the Chamber of Commerce reports that
money is being wasted and points out means to check the waste, our Mayor
declares that they are officious and have a political ax to grind.

"Why cannot our Mayor, why cannot all government officials welcome
suggestions from the outside? Why cannot they realize that they are only
holding office as the managers of a big business while the citizens and tax-
payers are the stockholders of the business? Somehow or other they don't
understand that. From being democratic their viewpoint becomes oligarchic.

"What we want in municipal as in every business is efficiency. Are we
getting it? It is my opinion that the affairs of this municipality are not
thirty-five per cent efficient. Year by year our officials should increase ef-
ficiency and decrease taxation. They are not doing it in San Francisco.

"The present administration is not doing it. Why? Because, although
there are some splendid men serving on the various commissions, they think
that they must respect the personal desires of the Mayor. Mayor Rolph has
an idea that he should be actively at work in every department of the city
government. He takes away from the various departments that indepen-
dence which the Charter by its spirit and letter confers on them. He takes
the stand that criticism of any department is a criticism of himself, a stand
at variance with the notions of the commercial bodies whose leaders seek no
political preferment and are interested solely in promoting efficiency. But
taking that wrong stand, he feels compelled to disregard any suggestion that
would tend in a progressive way toward the development of efficiency. What
is the advantage of having good commissioners if the Mayor discourages
them from exercising independence of thought? To refer specifically to the
controversy between Mayor Rolph and the Chamber of Commerce, let us
suppose that the streets of San Francisco are cleaner than the streets of
any other city in the United States or in the world. Yet if there is an annual
over-expenditure of $100,000 or any other sum, the problem before the Board
of Public Works remains exactly the same. There is inefficiency which ought
to be corrected.

"Mayor Rolph was elected because we wanted as our chief executive a
business man of the best business principles who would do things in a bus-
inesslike way. We wanted a man to be mayor of all the people all the time.
We wanted the interests of the city not merely conserved but developed. We
wanted a man who would not try to lean either toward capital or labor. In the
measure in which we failed to get that sort of man we have failed, and the
man selected has failed too.

"If Mayor Rolph were running today the men who were active in his
campaign would not be active again. He has misinterpreted the desires of
some of the biggest and most disinterested men of San Francisco — or else
he has disregarded their desires. His action in the matter of the Municipal
Opera House was a heavy blow. So was his denunciation of the work of the
Chamber of Commerce. It might have been exoected that the Chamber of
Commerce and other big bodies would be credited with honesty of purpose,
especially as Mayor Rolph was closely identified with them himself and must

MILTON H. ESBERG

have known the sincerity of their aims. Why should the citizenship be thus
misunderstood? Why cannot all have a fair, square break? The govern-
ment should not be run for the enhancement of political ambitions. What
we want is a business concern in which the head and all the department
managers are thinking of the stockholders, not of politics.

"How are we to improve conditions? By sitting down and taking careful
stock of ourselves, by calculating our assets and discovering what improve-
ments we need. The trouble is that there is absolutely no homogeneity
among our people. Other big cities have co-ordination and the co-operative
spirit. They have a definite purpose. They know that their strong point is
manufacturing or retail business or amusement, and they have capitalized
their assets accordingly. San Franciscans have never done that.

"Perhaps one reason for this lack of homogeneity is that we pay so
little attention to those who are trying to do something. We must have a
storehouse to supply facts about what we are and what we are not, what we
may hope to be and what we may not hope to be, and we must get into the
habit of going to that storehouse for material. A lack of understanding in
civic affairs leads to duplication of work. That means inefficiency, waste of
money and in the end a divergence of aim which prevents accomplishment.

"Politically and civically the people of San Francisco are in the habit of
asking what they can get out of a thing. That is the wrong idea. If our
city government and our big institutions are to amount to anything, all must
first contribute to the common gain. Then there will be dividends for all.

"The politicians running municipal affairs are opposed to the introduc-
tion of progressive machinery, the devices invented by good minds for
economic work. They think this is against labor. They try to retard it
because the machines have no votes, because you cannot register these
machines. This comes from a lack of understanding of industrial conditions,
and from the tendency to prevent an understanding between the employer and
the employe. In no place in this country does machinery hurt the employe.
Where you find the best machinery you find the best workmanship.

"I met a certain man lately who has been attorney for labor in many
big cases, and we spoke of the efficiency of labor. He said he didn't think
labor would ever become perfectly efficient, because greater efficiency means
only a few more cents for labor and bigger dividends for capital. To answer
this I pointed out that B. Altman of New York had left his fortune to his
employes. That was not a reward of efficiency, said the champion of labor.
I argued that it was, because the inefficient had been weeded out of Altman's
employ and only the efficient remained to share his fortune, and he finally
agreed with me. Politicians have been busy expounding the doctrine voiced
by this champion of labor. Isn't it time that people realized that employers
try to do the right thing for efficiency, but will not stand for laggards? There
will be no breach between labor and capital if this is understood."

Milton Esberg, you see, is not merely a destructive critic ; he is also
constructive. He knows what is wrong and has a definite idea of what should
be done to right it. He is representative of the disinterested men who have
lost their sympathy for the present municipal administration. Let the reader
decide whether he is an obstructionist.

r I 1

LA LOIE FULLER

HE FINEST group of Rodin masterpieces ever assembled
is to be presented to the city of San Francisco. The col-
lection includes "The Thinker" and "The Age of Brass," re-
garded by authorities on art as the greatest works ever
^5 executed by the world's greatest living sculptor. These two
ja famous masterpieces, together with the master's "Prodigal
JPui^t^i^ll!^ Son," "The Siren" and his bust of Henri Rochefort have
been bought by Mrs. Adolph B. Spreckt's who announces
her intention of giving them to her native city. They are at the World's
Fair and will be exhibited in the Palace of Fine Arts. With them is another
of Rodin's masterpieces, "St. John the Baptist," which Mrs. Spreckels may
buy and add to the collection. The munificence of a San Francisco matron
is to make this city a Rodin shrine to which the art lovers of the whole
world will come on pilgrimage through all future ages.

Aside from Paris the cities of the world which boast more than one
Rodin either publicly or privately owned may be counted on the fingers. San
Francisco's collection will remain unapproachable because it contains both
"The Thinker" and "The Age of Brass." "The Thinker" Rodin did in bronze
twice only. One statue is in front of the Pantheon in Paris; the other which
is to be San Francisco's, was executed for the Swiss Government. "The
Thinker" in the Metropolitan Museum of New York is a plaster exemplar.
"The Age of Brass" is the work of Rodin best known to the man in the
street because there is an interesting story connected with it. When the
young Rodin sent it to the Salon the jury decided that a work so perfect must
have been cast from the living male figure. It was rejected and Rodin was
ostracized. Only his genius and the passing of years vindicated his artistic
integrity and freed him from the worst charge which can be made against
a sculptor. These and the other works belong to the best period of Rodin's
career. All of them are as well known to connoisseurs as the Venus of Milo
or Michelangelo's Moses.

How were they secured for San Francisco? The answer may be stated
simply. San Francisco owes the most splendid gift of art it may ever re-
ceive to the bounty of Mrs. Spreckels, to the irresistible enthusiasm of La
Loie Fuller and to the European situation created by the war. Miss Fuller
told me the story, one of the most absorbing I have ever listened to.

I would that I could tell it as the world-famous dancer poured it out to
me. This friend of Rodin's has the gift of picturesque narrative, and whether
she is rhapsodizing on the genius of "the master" — so she calls the great
sculptor — or denouncing President Wilson's course since the beginning of
the world war, she proves herself mistress of a thrilling eloquence that com-
municates her enthusiasm to her listener.

LA LOIE FULLER

The story of the acquisition of the Rodins begins with Mrs. Adolph
Spreckels' visit in Paris just before the war. There she renewed her friend-
ship with Miss Fuller. La Loie is of the inner circle of Parisian art : Rodin's
home is open to her, Anatole France wrote the preface to her Memoirs. It
was inevitable that Mrs. Spreckels' sincere admiration for Rodin should warm
to passion at the flame of Miss Fuller's adoration.

The World's Fair brought Miss Fuller to San Francisco last August.
She was the house guest of Mrs. Spreckels. Rodin was the theme of many
conversations, and out of these came Mrs. Spreckels' determination to do a
great thing for her city.

The war took Miss Fuller back to Europe. Her own affairs demanded
her attention, but there was a larger purpose weighting the trip with re-
sponsibility. Mrs. Spreckels had given her the money to buy a collection
of Rodins for San Francisco.

Ensued three months of effort, three months of heartbreaking devotion
to what seemed the forlornest of forlorn hopes.

"Three times in my despair," says Miss Fuller, "I went to the bank for
the purpose of returning Mrs. Spreckels' money. I was all but convinced
that further effort was useless. But each time something deterred me, per-
haps the disinclination to acknowledge defeat."

Despite her intimate friendship with Rodin Miss Fuller found the aged
sculptor well nigh unapproachable on the subject of her quest. He was in
Rome, the pet of the King, the lion of the nobility. Time after time Miss
Fuller sought to broach the matter closest to her heart, only to be silenced.

"I was motoring with him one day," she said, "and the motor had stopped
so that the master might inspect a ruin. He studied it alone, for nobody may
go with him on these occasions, and while I waited an American gentleman
approached. I learned that he had ordered a work of Rodin's — or rather, to
use the words customary in such dealings with the master, that Rodin had
consented to execute a work for him — ten years before, but he had never
been able to get it. When Rodin returned from his solitary study of the ruin
the American introduced the subject in a manner which, I thought, was far
from offensive. And in quite a polite way he drew out a check for ten
thousand dollars and offered it to Rodin. Rodin abruptly dismussed him.
'I am not selling a yard of ribbon,' he said to me afterwards. You may be
sure my heart sank at the hopelessness of my own efforts."

By dint of diplomatic obstinacy Miss Fuller discovered that "The
Thinker," ordered by the Swiss Government several years before had not yet
been delivered. She discovered too that the drain of the war on Swiss finances
would make it impossible for the government to complete the purchase until
peace returned to Europe. Then all her feminine resources of influence,
finesse and tact were brought into play. There were trips from Rome to
Paris, interviews with the Minister of Fine Arts and other delicate negoti-
ations. At last the way seemed clear for the acquisition of "The Thinker."

And then:

"I shall not think of parting with 'Le Penseur' until the marble base is
placed beneath my statue of 'L'Homme Qui Marche'," said Rodin.

VARIED TYPES

Miss Fuller's heart sank. "The Walking- Man" stood in a court of the
French Embassy in Rome. It stood, not in the court for which the French
Ambassador intended it but in the court preferred by Rodin. And so, to
spite the imperious sculptor, the French Ambassador let it stand on a wooden
box although Rodin had executed a marble pedestal at his own expense.
Every time the Minister of Fine Arts at Paris instructed the French Am-
bassador at Rome to replace that box with the marble pedestal the latter
found some way to evade the demand. Miss Fuller went to Paris. Again
she interviewed the Minister of Fine Arts. Again she manipulated the wires
of influence which she knew how to reach. There came a peremptory order.
"The Walking Man" now rests on the marble pedestal.

The siege was not over by any means. Days, weeks passed in repeated
interviews abruptly terminated, in motor rides to view interminable ruins on
whose inspection no word of business might intrude. There were subtle
flatteries, because the master likes praise; there were appeals based on the
necessity of a cordial entente between France and the United States, because
the master is a patriot; there were hints that if Rodin's works went to San
Francisco a virgin field for the sale of works by other French sculptors
would be opened, because Rodin loves his fellow craftsmen ; and there were
warnings (not addressed to Rodin but to those who would repeat them to
him) that in the unsettled condition of European finance it was the part of a
wise man to replenish his exchequer. And there was Madame Rodin.

"Madame Rodin does not interfere with her husband's affairs," says Miss
Fuller, "but I knew that she could exert a silent influence upon him, so I
was careful to make her my friend. We shopped together, and whenever I
found her admiring some pretty thing, I bought it as a surprise."

At last the day came when Miss Fuller, in fear and trembling, dared the
presence of Rodin with a purse full of crisp bank bills. She emptied them
before him, and they remained uncounted.

"It is all I have," she told him, "and, master, in comparison with your
work it is nothing. Give me what you can." Rodin gave her a king's ransom.

He gave her "The Thinker," "The Age of Brass," "The Prodigal Son,"
"The Siren," the bust of Henri Rochefort and "Old Age and Youth." "St.
'John the Baptist" was not included. This wonderful statue was executed
for the German Government and but for the war would have gone to the
Cologne Museum. It is in San Francisco with the other works and may yet
become the property of Mrs. Spreckels. All these seven pieces are in bronze,
except "The Siren" which is a small marble of entrancing loveliness. Of
the six which are the property of Mrs. Spreckels, only "Old Age and Youth"
will be reserved for the Spreckels private collection.

"When I left the master," says Miss Fuller, "I pinched myself to see if
I was awake. I was afraid I might be dreaming. Even now I cannot fully
realize what has happened."

The appreciative reader does not require that I repeat for him the words
of praise which Miss Fuller gives to Mrs. Spreckels. He will phrase his
own admiration and gratitude. Speaking for myself, it seems to me that
San Francisco has discovered a Lady Bountiful.

A. P. GIANNINI

ran

CO ; CO
r5 JL ?5

COLLEGE professor is one of the delights of American
life. None adds more to our natural gaiety than he. He is
that most irresistible of humorists, the side-splitter who
takes himself seriously. Follow his antics, and you are
never at a loss for merriment. Read what he says, and you
will never have the blues.

Occasionally, however, the college professor says some-
thing which it would be wrong not to take seriously. Thus
it became necessary to take David Starr Jordan seriously when he reflected
on the French nation. Thus again, a certain Professor M. V. O'Shea, head
of the educational department of the University of Wisconsin, must be taken
seriously when he reflects on the Italians. There are liberties which the
funniest of unconscious mirth-provokers cannot be allowed to take.

Professor O'Shea — by the way, he is the man who recently advocated
the teaching of slang in the public schools — addressed the California
Teachers' Association in session at Ye Liberty Theatre, Oakland. In the
course of his address he said this :

"The essential reason for the decay of the Italian race is that it has not
known how to keep the rising generation plastic, docile, simple and teachable.
It is allowed to ripen too soon. This is the type of civilization this country
should deny itself."

Here are some pretty broad statements. In the first place Professor
O'Shea sets it down as an established fact, not open to question, that the
Italian race is decadent. In the second place the professor makes the state-
ment that the United States should deny itself Italian civilization; in other
words, that Italians should be excluded. The reason he gives for the decay
of the Italian race, the "essential reason" as he calls it with true pedagogical
dogmatism, may be disregarded. That or any other reason is idle if the
Italian race is not decadent.

Casting about for an Italian to interview about Professor O'Shea's
curious statements, I thought of A. P. Giannini, the banker. Giannini is a
native of California, born of Italian parents. His position in this community
is such that none can question his right to speak with authority on the
subject. When I showed him Professor O'Shea's statement he laughed.

"For a decadent race," he said, "the Italians seem to have done a good
deal for California. They reclaimed four thousand odd acres of waste land
in San Bernardino County, transforming them into the largest vineyard in
the United States. I refer to the Italian Vineyard Company of which
Secondo Guasti is president and in which over a million dollars is invested.
Three Italians, Sbarboro, Fontana and Rossi, started the Italian-Swiss
Colony, reclaiming waste lands in Sonoma and Madera Counties. One of

VARIED TYPES

the largest estates in California, consisting of grain, bean and orchard lands,
the Schiappapietra Estate of Ventura, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles
Counties, is handled by an Italian, Giovanni Ferro. John Lagomarsino, the
banker, is one of the largest land owners in Santa Barbara and Ventura
Counties. N. Bonfilio, the president of a bank in Los Angeles, is on the
directorate of some of the biggest business enterprises in Southern California.
These are names taken at random. All over the State you will find Italians
prominent in business. In the older towns of the State especially you will
find that the best holdings and the best business property belong to Italians.
Does this look like decadence? Does this indicate the necessity of California
denying herself 'Italian civilization?'

"Look at the situation here in San Francisco. This city has the best
Italian Colony in the United States. The reason is, perhaps, that at the
time this Italian Colony was founded it required initiative, thought, foresight
to come so far. The Italian pioneers, like the pioneers of other races, were
sturdy, strong of will, big of brain, men of capacity and endurance. There
are about forty thousand Italians here. Are they decadent? Are they
undesirable citizens? Are they incapable of keeping the rising generation
'plastic, docile, simple and teachable?' They support four Italian banks with
aggregate resources of thirty millions. They are among our biggest and
most successful merchants. An Italian, M. J. Fontana, founded the canning
business out of which grew the California Fruit Canners Association. The
L. Scatena Company is the largest commission house on the Pacific Coast.
The Agenzia Fugazi conducted by two native sons of California is one of
the oldest and biggest steamship agencies in the country. Another Italian,
J. Di Giorgio, controls the marketing in New York of sixty-three per cent
of our deciduous and citrus fruits. He's a national figure. And so it goes
in many other lines of endeavor.

"Take our bank, the Bank of Italy. It is nine years old. Not so long ago
most of its directors belonged to the 'rising generation' of Italians which
worries Professor O'Shea. There are nine native born Californians among
the Italians on the board of directors. There are the two Fugazis, James
and Samuel ; there is Dr. Bacigalupi ; there is Dr. Caglieri ; there is Charles
Grondona; there is N. A. Pellerano; there are my two brothers and myself.
I sincerely trust that Professor O'Shea will not brand any of us with the
stigma of decadence.

"Go into the schools and inquire how the young Italian or the Italian-
American stands in his studies. Whether it be in the public schools, in the
universities or colleges, he has a way of standing at the head or near the head
of the class, this youngster that Professor O'Shea says is not 'docile' and
'teachable.' I don't have to give you the names of the young Italian doctors,
dentists and lawyers who are rising to the top of their professions here. Are
they decadent? And in the arts, how about our Italian musicians and painters?
Is there any sign of decadence there?

"There is, I believe, a relation between decadence and race suicide. You
don't find race suicide among our Italians. According to Statistician Leslie
of the State Bureau of Vital Statistics, the most rapidly growing nationality

A. P. GIANNINI

in California is the Italian. Between the last two federal censuses the
Italian-born inhabitants increased 179 per cent. How often do you find an
Italian family in which there are less than four or five children? Is that a
sign of decadence?

"But perhaps Professor O'Shea finds decadence in Italy. I am unable
to find it there, however. If California is progressive, it is only following
the example of Italy where they have had workingmen's compensation for
quite a while. And as for unionism, even the farm laborers in Italy have
their unions. They have government ownership of railroads, municipal
ownership of street car lines, and all life insurance is controlled by the
government. In the last ten years Italy has seen a wonderful advance in
education and in the wages of labor. The war in Tripoli did not indicate
national decadence. No greater achievements in sanitation, transport and
commissary were ever recorded than the achievements of Italy during that
war. The American Consul at Tripoli told me when I was there that no
commissariat in the world had ever been handled so well. Automobiles were
used for the distribution of food and the transportation of the wounded.
Aeroplanes were used with success in engagement after engagement. Moving
pictures of the families of the soldiers were taken in all parts of Italy and
shown to the various regiments for a Christmas treat Do these things
point to decadence?

"Do the achievements of Marconi point that way? Or of the great
composers, literary men and poets of the present day? Or of surgeons and
physicians like Durante, Murri, Bacelli, Marchiafava, Mazzoni and Bastianelli,
the late Pierpont Morgan's physician? Is that race decadent which produces
a Leo XIII, a Pius X, a Rampolla?

"Speaking very plainly, I am of the opinion that this Professor O'Shea
doesn't know what he is talking about. He has slandered one of the greatest
races without the slightest basis of fact. He belongs to that dangerous class
of men whose position assures them a ready hearing and who do not hesitate
to speak of things about which they know less than nothing. Such men do a
great deal of harm, and they deserve to be eliminated from public life. Men
like Professor O'Shea are a greater menace to American civilization than the
Italians ever will be. Such men as this professor are not 'plastic/ 'docile'
or 'teachable' because they assume to know it all; but in a certain uncom-
plimentary sense they may be described as 'simple.' "

JACOB J. GOTTLOB

NE OF MY brightest employes was J. J. Gottlob, who was
born in 1860 and entered my employ in 1882, remaining
twelve years. He traveled as treasurer with several of my
road attractions for two seasons, and in 1885 I made him
treasurer of my Bush Street Theatre in San Francisco, of

^Ocro^O^^ which he ultimately became manager During the time

^<J£cj5x!><^ Gottlob managed my California interests I gave him carte
blanche, and to show what I thought of him, I may mention
that he handled my exchequer and I never needed to look at the accounts
he handed me, such was the implicit faith I had in his judgment and loyalty
to my interests. He assuredly is the most popular and respected manager
in California."

These lines, gentle reader, are taken from that storehouse of information,
that mine of theatrical riches, M. B. Leavitt's "Fifty Years in Theatrical
Management." If you are interested in the theatre of America and do not
know the book, lose no time in making its acquaintance. It will tell you
about the past of the playhouses, about the parents and grandparents of the
players you are interested in today ; it will give you theatrical orientation
and so increase your theatrical enjoyment.

With Leavitt's words in my mind I went to Mr. Gottlob — Jake Gottlob
he is called by his familiars — and accused him of being an oldtimer in the
theatrical business. He is a quiet, soft-spoken gentleman, and like many others
who are quiet and soft-spoken, not to be intimidated. My accusation failed
to daunt him. He acknowledged the corn.

"If Leavitt has it in his book," said Gottlob, "I suppose it must be true.
If thirty-two years in the game make one an oldtimer I suppose I must admit
that I am not exactly a debutante. Thirty-two years! Almost a lifetime,
isn't it? But it doesn't seem so awfully long. Perhaps that is because thirty
of those years, come April, were spent in San Francisco.

"How did I get into the business? Just drifted naturally into it. I was
born in Boston, and while I was still at school there I managed a big church
fair. Walking matches were the fad of the moment, and I introduced them
at the church fair. And I got Henry Ward Beecher and other noted men to
lecture. The result was that this church fair which everybody expected to
be a failure, proved quite a success. Emboldened by this I went to New York
and dabbled in walking matches there. We had six-day walking matches at
Madison Square Gardens; the walkers walked all day and all night too.
Theatrical people used to drop into the Gardens to see them walk after the
shows were over. Naturally I met a lot of actors and managers. It was
there I first met Nat Goodwin. And it was there I made the acquaintance of
M. B. Leavitt.

JACOB J. GOTTLOB

"I went to work for Leavitt. He had a number of road companies that
started from New York, and he sent me out with some of them. In 1885 he
sent me out to San Francisco to be the treasurer of the Bush Street Theatre.
At that time Leavitt had companies which played all the territory from the
Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. Charles Frohman was his advance
agent. Al Hayman, afterwards the founder of the Theatrical Syndicate, was
manager of the Bush Street Theatre just before I arrived in San Francisco.
When I arrived Jay Rial was manager. He was succeeded by Charles P.
Hall. I succeeded Hall as manager.

"When I came to the Bush Street Theatre, Kate Castleton and Harry
Phillips were playing there. The city was crazy over Kate Castleton. She
was the toast of all the men about town.

"Dave Warfield was an usher at the Bush Street Theatre, and he was
not an awfully bad usher either. But he was a better mimic. There was
a great character on the gallery door known as 'Big Jim.' When boys that
Charlie Hall knew would come to the theatre without the price of tickets,
Hall would holler upstairs, 'All right, Jim! Two!' and 'Big Jim' would let
them in. Many a time Warfield mimicked Hall's voice to get his friends into
the gallery free of charge, and 'Big Jim' never knew the difference.

"Great old days those were! Hoyt and Thomas were here then, and all
of Hoyt's plays were given at the Bush Street Theatre. What a hit they
made! Then there were Alice Atherton and Billy Edwin, M. B. Curtis in
'Sam'l of Posen,' Harry Dixie in 'Evangeline,' John T. Raymond, Willie
Collier and Charlie Reed in 'The City Directory,' Nat Goodwin, Crane in
'The Senator' and Georgie Drew, Ethel Barrymore's mother.

"The Standard, the home of Billy Emerson's Minstrels, was right across
the street from the Bush Street Theatre. Bush street from Montgomery to
Kearny and Kearny from Bush to Market constituted the Rialto at that time.
That was the beginning of the Cocktail Route which afterwards extended to
Powell and Market when the Baldwin was built. Everybody used to
promenade along the Rialto of a Saturday afternoon, and Dolly Adams and
Kitty Reed and other beautiful women who wore beautiful gowns used to set
the fashions. Chenoweth's Reception and Gobey's were the favorite saloons.
There was also a place in a basement at Sutter and Kearny where the Hotel
Sutter stands, known as Harry Grimm's, which was much frequented by
actors. Gunst's cigar store was across the street, and they used to be around
there a great deal too.

"The favorite hotels for actors were the Occidental and Lick; the
Brooklyn was for those who couldn't afford the best. But remember, there
was no 'room and bath' in those days. Another favorite place for actors was
the original Hammam Bath, and when I say 'original,' I mean exactly what
I say: it was the first Hammam in the United States. That was the place
on Dupont street, and it was built back from the sidewalk line, as if the
owners of the property knew that Dupont was going to be widened and
become Grant avenue. All the sports like Muldoon and the swell actors used
to go to the Hammam, and they were proud to tell you so.

"And all the swell actors used to hire buggies on Sunday and drive out

101

VARIED TYPES

to the Cliff House. The swagger stable was Pagan's on Bush between
Montgomery and Kearny. Lots of world-famous stars must remember that
drive to the Cliff House and the toll gate on Point Lobos Road where they
paid their twenty-five cents.

"I was at the Bush Street Theatre for eight years and then I went to the
California with Al Hayman, George Broadhurst coming out from Dakota to
succeed me as manager at the Bush. That was in '92. I stayed at the
California for three years, and then Friedlander, Mel Marx and myself took
over the Columbia on Powell street. The Columbia was a success from the
first night. We opened on Friday, May 13, 1895, and our first attraction, the
Frawley company, played for thirteen weeks. We had the Frawley company
for five seasons running, and having overturned a theatrical superstition, we
always tried to open their engagement on the thirteenth of the month.

"The Frawleys opened in 'Sweet Lavender.' It was a great company.
In addition to T. Daniel there were Jane Kennark, leading woman, Blanche
Bates, Macklyn Arbuckle, Harry Corson Clarke, Hope Ross, Phosa Mc-
Allister, H. S. Duffield. Harry Blakemore and Fred Perry. A lot of these
have been stars since. For the second Frawley season Blanche Bates became
our leading woman, and we had in addition to the others named Gladys
Wallace for ingenue, Tyrone Power, Frank Worthing, Maxine Elliott and
Madge Carr Cooke.

"The mention of Madge Carr Cooke reminds me of something. After
their first season at the Columbia we had taken the Frawleys to Honolulu
for a very successful engagement. We planned another trip after the end of
their second season. But we had had trouble with Gladys Wallace, our
ingenue, and w« made up our minds it would be inadvisable to take her to
Honolulu. Frawley told us that Madge Cooke had a daughter of sixteen,
a pretty, sweet, bright little girl who was at school in Brooklyn. He thought
she would be a good ingenue. So we wired for her, and she came west, a
nice girl with short dresses, long curls and big goggles. She watched Gladys
Wallace in her various parts and when we got on the steamer for Honolulu
Frank Worthing and Blanche Bates coached her. We opened in Honolulu
in 'Shenandoah' and she made a great hit, an immediate hit. That was the
beginning of Eleanor Robson's stage career.

"It's a strange thing that the three ingenues of the Frawley company
married millionaires. Hope Ross married a millionaire of Boston ; Gladys
Wallace married a tinplate magnate of Chicago; and Eleanor Robson married
August Belmont. All three left the stage for good after marrying.

"When we first ran the Columbia the Baldwin was the leading theatre
here. It was the 'combination house' which got all the big attractions. We
had no set plans when we opened the Columbia, but the Frawley season of
thirteen weeks was a great success, and we followed it with the Bostonians,
another big success. We were really formidable opponents of Hayman at
the Baldwin ; so one day he sent for us, and we all got together. Soon after-
wards we bought out Hayman's interest in the California and Baldwin, and
Al went East, not with a great deal of money. He's many times a millionaire
now. After the Baldwin burned in '98, the Columbia became the city's first

102

JACOB J. GOTTLOB

class theatre. We extended our interests until in time we had the Columbia,
the California, the Macdonough in Oakand, and were interested with
Morosco and Meyerfeld in the Grand Opera House."

All of which brings Gottlob's career within easy hailing distance of the
present time, and forms, I trust, a not uninteresting gloss on the words which
I have quoted from Leavitt's book. The subsequent career of Gottlob and
Marx is pretty familar to all. Even post-fire newcomers need not be
instructed in regard to the Van Ness Theatre and the New Columbia.

Gottlob is a theatrical optimist who has never learned how to be eloquent
on the subject of hard times.

"When you have a good attraction," he says, "nothing can hurt you,
not even in that most sensitive spot, your gallery. There are good seasons
and bad, as in every other business ; but he is a poor merchant who wastes
his time bemoaning hard times — he might be much better employed preparing
to get the full benefit of prosperity. If some shows prove to be bad let us
remember that no manager knowingly sends a failure on the long and
expensive journey across the continent. The railroads, you know, charge
just as much fare for a bad as for a good actor. Let us bear in mind that
the producing managers are doing the best they can, and encourage them as
much as possible, at least to the extent of appreciating the good things they
send us."

Certainly that isn't asking too much of the most blase and exacting
first-nighter, is it?

103

EDWARD M. GREENWAY

ENTLE READER, do you remember Kohler and Frohling's
liquor store? Whether you do or whether you do not, you
will probably see no reason to dispute the statement that it
was once a place of very especial resort. If you had happened
to be in Kohler and Frohling's about four o'clock one sunny
afternoon just twenty-five years ago, you would have noticed
the entrance of a very dapper young man with a round face,
small keen brown eyes and a slight mustache. You would
have noticed that he approached the bartender, nodded a salute, arrayed one
graceful foot upon the rail and said in a quick but pleasing voice :
"John, a little of that port."

If you had happened to maintain an interest in this by no means extra-
ordinary proceeding, you would have noticed that the bartender took down a
bottle and enriched a small wine glass with its ruddy contents, that the
dapper young man held it before the light for the gratification of his eye, swept
it slowly before his face for the titillation of his sense of smell and then tilted
it over his tongue for the propitiation of his palate. Then you would have
watched the young man bring the glass sharply down upon the polished
mahogany and you would have heard him exclaim :
"John, you've switched the bottle on me."

And then in a corner you would have seen a head emerge from behind
a rustling newspaper, the while a voice exclaimed in an accent of surprise :
"What's that? What's that?"

#####*#**##:t:

Let us now turn, gentle reader, from Kohler and Frohling's liquor store
in Montgomery street to the stately old home of the Gwins in South Park,
still imagining ourselves younger by twenty-five years. It is the night of a
grand ball and all the beauty and chivalry of San Francisco are in attendance-
We find the same dapper young man in the brilliant ball room and as it is
his introduction to San Francisco society, he is very carefully dressed. Let
us suppose that he stands for a moment surveying the charming scene before
him and that his thoughts are interrupted by a hand upon his shoulder. He
finds himself confronted by a tall, handsome, soldierly man of middle age
who regards him with a keen but kindly eye.

"Young man," demanded the elderly stranger, "did your grandfather ever
mention to you the names of his three best friends?"

"Yes, sir," answered our dapper youth ; "he mentioned them many times.
They were General Scott, General Albert Sydney Johnstone and General
Keyes."

"I am General Keyes."

104

EDWARD M. GREENWAY

"That first incident," explains Edward M. Greenway — for our dapper
youth was none other — "proved that I had a taste for wine; it was my
introduction to the wine business. The second incident proved that I had
a grandfather; it was the beginning of my social career."

Edward Macdonald Greenway was born in New York in 1851. His
ancestry is interesting and significant. In the dark backward and abysm
of time the Greenways were Vikings and ravaged the coast of Britain and
drained the mead cup to their war god Thor. In much later years the
Macdonalds were Scottish cavaliers who fought for Bonny Prince Charlie by
day and finished their four bottles every night- And at the beginning of
American history the forbears of our hero settled in Virginia and began
to multiply and spread to Maryland and New York and Tennessee. So you
see Ned is not alone in having a grandfather; his grandfather had one too.
At the age of four Greenway was taken to Baltimore and lived there until
1875, just two dozen years. Very interesting years they were, as Ned is very
frank in confessing. For a good part of the time he was tutored by a Scotch
minister who endeavored to ferule some of the joy of living out of his charge,
but failed most dismally. Then he went to St. John's College at Annapolis.
He stayed there for three and a half years, spending three years in the fresh-
man class and half a year as a sophomore. "What did I take?" says Ned.
"I took football and rowing. My chum and I made a vow that we would not
open a book until we rowed our first race with the Naval Academy, so they
fired us." Not a whit discouraged Ned returned to Baltimore and joined a
rowing club. It was a pleasant life, especially in spring; for in that sweet
season he spent every other night at the boat club, arising at four in the
morning to pursue the soft shell crab. It was a life gladdened with Maryland
fried chicken and corn cakes, with broiled oysters — ("You can't broil the
California oysters," says Ned) — and sweetbread croquets and last but not
least, with "pins and pain" as they used to call it, terrapin and champagne.
Ned, you see, was taking his post-collegiate course as a bibeur and a gourmet.
His eyes flash when he speaks of that joyous period and words can scarcely
express his contempt for the Philadelphia recipe for preparing terrapin.

Ned was a Democrat and he cast his first three votes for Horace Greeley.
I said his first three votes, for on his initiation into citizenship he voted three
times — just to get the hang of the thing, no doubt — once for his uncle, once
for his grandfather and once for himself. And being a great admirer of
Horace the time came when he resolved to follow the celebrated Horatian
advice, to turn his back on soft shell crabs and terrapin and head for the
alluring West. He had friends out here, among them Louis McLane and
General Stoneman, and having inherited some money, he resolved in a
curious groping after a destiny that was not yet ripe, to become a grape-
grower. Greenway's family tree may be a grapevine, but there is no pruning-
knife on his coat of arms. So after a short stay at the Stoneman place in
San Gabriel he came to San Francisco in 1875 looking for employment. He
asked his friend McLane to place him in the Nevada Bank, but it was just
after the failure of the Bank of California and the Big Four — Flood, Mackay,
Fair and O'Brien — had berthed all their friends in the Nevada Bank and there

107

VARIED TYPES

was only the job of messenger left. Greenway took it and after a month of
legging was made receiving teller and later collection clerk. He stayed in the
Nevada for five years and was let out with Edward H. Sheldon and seven
others when the Brander-Angus combination was made. Then for five years
he was clearing house clerk for the Anglo, but was fired when the papers
announced that Edward M. Greenway, the popular society amateur, was
receiving instructions from George Osborne and would appear at the
California Theatre as a professional actor in "Hoodman Blind." Perhaps
Ned might be an ornament of the stage today if he had not happened to meet
James C. Flood ("the best friend I ever had in my life," says Greenway).
Flood persuaded Greenway to take a position in the office of the Ophir
Mining Company, a position he held for about seven years.

It was shortly after his arrival that the incident at the Gwin ball opened
to Greenway the most exclusive drawing rooms of the city. He became the
friend of Mrs. Lloyd Tevis and Mrs. J. B. Haggin, of the Mills', the Coltons
and the Crockers and when Edward Sheldon started the Bachelors' Cotillon,
he joined it. After two years Sheldon turned the club over to Ned and he
has been running it ever since. It was not long afterwards that Charles
Kohler discovered through the other incident I have narrated that Ned had
an accurate taste for wines and he used to call him in to decide nice questions
concerning the comparative excellence of different vintages. By the time
the Midwinter Fair came along Ned had the reputation of a connoisseur
and he was made one of the judges of wines. Soon afterwards he met the
New York representative of the Mumm people and was made Pacific Coast
representative.

Times have changed since Ned started to manage the Bachelors' Cotillon
Club. He gave his first german in old B'nai B'rith Hall which, acording to
Ned, had the best dancing floor in the city. It was a very scrumptious
affair. The subscription for the season was ten dollars and the first supper
cost one dollar a cover — and that included champagne, for the first time in
dancing history in the city. It was an elaborate supper too, Mrs. Fair
contributing the shrimp salad. Ned led the german with Miss Tessie Fair,
afterwards Mrs. Herman Oelrichs, who was making her bow to society, and
he confesses that he was so nervous that he forgot the first figure and had to
be coached. Ned says that the most successful period of the club was when
the dances were given in Odd Fellows' Hall. That was when the Hopkins
girls, Miss Caro Crockett, Miss Alice Simpkins, Miss McNutt, Miss Mary
Belle Gwin and Miss Mollie Thomas — all matrons now — were blushing
debutantes with their hearts in their heels. There came a time of opposition,
and for two years the Greenway club suspended while Mrs. Monroe Salisbury
lorded it over society ; but it was revived and continued for years a very lively
institution.

Dancing and wining are very serious matters to Greenway. He has
tipped glasses with three generations of bibeurs and has presided over the
debuts of two generations of buds; so why shouldn't he take them seriously?
He has learned not to be too self-confident in social matters. In the earlier
days he referred all his doubts to a charming lady whose tact and judgment

108

EDWARD M. GREENWAY

were flawless and in following her advice he never erred. When she died
he made it a rule, on the rare occasions when consultation was necessary,
to consult two or three women with daughters growing up.

As to the wining, Ned needs no advice. Years ago one of the Mumms
advised him never to retire without first drinking a glass of beer. He has
been doing that ever since. And he never tries to mix whiskey or cocktails
with champagne.

How much wine can he drink? I don't think he has ever exhausted his
capacity.

"On the day that I received my appointment from the Mumm people,"
he says, "I drank twenty-three pints and remained perfectly sober."

And about that widely heralded book of social reminiscences? I have
asked him about that book.

"I shall not begin it," he says, "until I stop drinking wine."

In the name of chalk-stones, I wonder when that will be !

109

JAMES K. HACKETT

r-i-i

HIS MIGHT have been a real interview had we not run into
Andy McCarthy. Hackett and I were beginning to take the
drama very seriously. We were plunging head first into
principles and tendencies; were immersing ourselves in
methods of interpretation, rules of criticism and all that sort
of thing. We were standing on a high place and regarding
the stage from a pretty toplofty viewpoint. We were in-
clined to be tolerant of nothing but the best, to vent our
scorn on mediocrity, even to be severely appraisive of the mightiest. Had
not Hackett impressed on me that neither Coquelin nor Mansfield played
all of Cyrano? Had there not been words, none too effusive, about a certain
Edwin Booth? Not to put too fine an edge upon it, we were in a most
highbrow mood.

And then, along came Andy McCarthy, he of the music shop. Privileged
by a close acquaintance, he called Hackett "Jim." Even the "Jim" did not
take James K. all the way out of his serious preoccupation. The easy
intimacy of the "Jim" only alleviated, it did not cure the malady of thought
that sicklied o'er the broad brow of the actor-turned-thinker. But as a
mild concession to the "Jim," Hackett descended a bit from the empyrean
where his mind had been doing spiral dips and showed Andy a letter. It
expressed, in the formal language which Professor "Billy" Armes knows how
to use at the proper time, the eagerness of the University people to have
Hackett play Othello in the Greek Theatre.

That letter had been partly responsible for the severely intellectual trend
of our conversation when Andy McCarthy interrupted. Hackett regarded it
reverently, as it were a magical formula to call into being the dream of a
lifetime. To do him justice Andy McCarthy received it in the proper spirit.
He "came through" with the appropriate congratulations. He did all that
a man should do in such circumstances. And Hackett couldn't have been
more tickled if he had been a kid in the nursery with a stranger taking a
lively interest in his latest toy.

But McCarthy did more. He too produced a letter. And the letter he
produced wrecked our bark of thought on a reef of triviality. Triviality, do
I say? I'm not so sure about that.

Is it trivial for a perfect dear to write for an actor's photograph? Is it
trivial for a cute young thing to write that she has just acquired a prize pup
and has named it "Grain of Dust" — "Dusty" for short?

If these things are trivial, the letter was a trifle light as air, for these
things were in the letter which the sweet girl had written to Andy McCarthy.
But in a case like this the party most interested must be allowed to judge
the degree of importance to be assigned. Frankly, Hackett did not regard

110

JAMES K. HACKETT

that letter as a trifle. Or if he did, it was to him a tremendous trifle. His
eyes shone, his face expanded in rident satisfaction ; he was as one for whom
the higher criticism did not exist. Here was appreciation ! Here was manna
dropped from the heaven of a maiden's boudoir upon a fainting soul! Here
was, not the higher but the better criticism !

Hackett has had a cigar named after him. He confessed it to me. That
signal, though hardly unique honor came to him many years ago. It was
properly appreciated, though strict accuracy compels the statement that
appreciation was tempered to the quality of the weed. It was a nickel cigar.
And Hackett says it was a rotten cigar, even for a nickel. However, Hackett's
name and Hackett's phiz were done onto the lid of a cigar box in garish
lithograph. That fact remains. It is chronicled here to show that Art
receives many recompenses outside the theatre. But how many artists have
had prize pups named for them? Did Edwin Booth, of whom we had been
speaking not too effusively? Did Mansfield or Coquelin, neither of whom
rose to the full height of Cyrano? It is not of record.

Intent upon the sweet thing who wanted his picture and who would
think of him whenever she gathered her prize pup "Dusty" into her soft
white arms, Hackett lost the thread of his conversation. Our interview went
all to smash. It was flouted by feminine adoration, routed by a prize pup.
However, there were attempts to resume. The subject of San Francisco
insofar as it interested or failed to interest itself in the Hackett productions
seemed promising.

"San Francisco," said Hackett, sternly banishing the prize pup for the
nonce, "will patronize a second rate company in a tried-out play, but it
fights shy of a first rate company in an untried drama. For years you've been
handed tried-out things, and apparently you will not accommodate yourself
to anything else. When you are given a tried-out play you flock to it on the
first night, and if it doesn't please you flock somewhere else during its
engagement. There can be no quarrel with the people who don't go to a
bad play. But what of the people who won't go to a good play because it's
new? They are very discouraging.

'I came to San Francisco with several new productions and with an
exceptional company. If people had come the first night and stayed away
thereafter, there would be no room for complaint. But they even refused
to come the first night. It is true that the attendance crawled steadily
upward, but it remained a crawl. The pace was too slow.

"Dramatically considered, San Franciscans are not from California;
they're from Missouri. They must be shown. And they're very slow about
giving you the opportunity to show them. I intended to show them some
other new plays, but lacking encouragement in what I did, I couldn't see my
way clear to do more.

"Why, even Oakland seemed to feel badly about the way I was treated.
The night I played there the people applauded me out of all reason. They
were trying to give me a pat on the back.

"The plays I gave were good plays. 'The Grain of Dust' is a good sound
entertainment. 'The Melody of Youth' will be a success. 'A Man on Horse-

113

VARIED TYPES

back' is all there. It is not quite crystallized of course. There are still
things to be done to it. It lacks the punch as yet, but it is interesting in
spite of its defects. Too bad 'Tark' couldn't have been here to attend to its
case. But he'll get around to it later. I suppose the author should be on
the job when a new play is launched. And yet there are two sides to that
Brandon Tynan was on the job — with a megephone! Can you imagine being
rehearsed through a megaphone?

"Take it all in all, the engagement was not what it should have been.
But if it has started discussion of San Francisco as a producing centre it will
have accomplished something. At the same time I'm afraid 1 haven't
received enough encouragement to make me care to try it again. But one
thing my stay in this part of the world has brought me cannot be measured in
any words of mine — the chance to appear in the Greek Theatre in Othello, a
part I have been longing all my life to play."

That brought us round to the "Billy" Armes letter. And it brought us
round to the professor himself who came in under escort of Mrs. James K.
Hackett. One letter led to another, and of course Armes had to hear of the
sweet young thing who demanded Hackett's picture and who had remembered
him when she needed a name for her prize pup. The presiding genius of the
Greek Theatre was impressed. I do believe that in his heart of hearts he'd
like to be an actor and have such things happen to him.

"Did you ever hear of a better name for a dog?" demanded Hackett, all
enthusiasm. "Grain of Dust! Dusty for short! It's superb!"

"It's a great honor for you," said "Billy" Armes.

"I'm inclined to think that the honor belongs to me," said Mrs. Hackett.
"You know, in the play I'm the Grain of Dust."

"By Jove, you're right," said Husband Hackett.

Magnanimously he relinquished the prize pup to his wife. But there
was consolation. He still had the photograph.

114

HENRY HADLEY

if ALL means you must meet Hank," said Mackenzie Gordon.
Now I happen to know a number of Henrys who are

BAI£ called Hank by their familiars, and they are all good fellows.
09 Bluff, rough, slapdash sort of fellows they are, not too
n*J cultivated, anything but esthetic. I also know a lot of
Henrys whom one would never dare call Hank, for fear
of stinging their sensitive hearts. Then there are a few
Henrys who stand between the two classes and who are
called Hank by their more daring intimates, but only jocularly. Thus, I
have heard Henry Miller called Hank, the motive prompting the incongruous
nickname being much the same as that which induced Henry Beyle von
Stendhal to have the slangy "Arrigo" chiseled on his tombstone. Analyzing
my own state of mind I am inclined to think that I like the out and out Hanks
more than the Henrys. And so, when Mackenzie Gordon said to me (in
December, 1911), "By all means you must meet Hanky" my curiosity was
pricked.

"Hank who?" I asked.

"Why, Hank Hadley who is out here to conduct our symphony
orchestra."

And so I met Henry Hadley. Yes, Henry Hadley. I do not dare call
him Hank. The name doesn't fit him at all. It may be all right for Mac-
kenzie Gordon to use it, but then Mackenzie Gordon taught music with him
at St. Paul's School in Garden City, Long Island, and Hadley calls Mackenzie
Gordon "Gordy." Personally I should no more think of calling Henry Hadley
Hank than I should of calling Bishop Nichols Bill.

I met Henry Hadley at the Bellevue Hotel. It was afternoon and Hadley
was in correct afternoon attire. A fine figure of a young man he is and, I
should say, worth a lady's eye when he sets off his slender height in frock
coat and silk hat. He was bowing over a pretty woman's hand when I
reached the rendezvous.

"Let us go in there where we can talk without being disturbed," he said,
greeting me with smiling blue eyes.

We went in there. We sat down at a little table. But almost immedi-
ately we were disturbed, disturbed by a white-coated man who gazed down
upon us with a look of interrogation in his serious eyes. But there is always
a way to banish disturbers. Hadley murmured "Scotch," I echoed the
murmur, and the disturber ceased to disturb.

"I have been very, very busy," said Hadley. "What with rehearsals,
selecting players and attending to a thousand and one other necessary de-
tails, I have had hardly a moment to myself. But now I am going to let
George do it. I am going to run away for a day or two, to the country.

115

VARIED TYPES

"I have prepared a little statement about the San Francisco Orchestra
which contains, I think, what you want of me."

And Hadley handed me two nicely typewritten sheets, thin white sheets
that gave forth a faint odor of perfume.

They were as grateful to the sight as to the sense of smell. Here was
a man who made interviewing easy. I took them and was delighted.

But alas! I discovered later that copies of this statement, just as nicely
typewritten and no doubt just as fragrant with perfume, were handed to the
musical critics of the morning papers. It was pleasant to be classed with
the musical critics of the morning papers, those unerring men, all ear, who
tell us what's what and why in music, but of course one cannot make an
interview out of a statement which has appeared of a Sunday morning in all
the daily papers. Especially as those naughty musical critics took the type-
written and perfumed statement and cleverly shaped it into an interview,
supplying questions and interlarding adjectives and adverbs to describe the
tones of Hadley's soft musical voice. So I suppose we must regretfully
dismiss the statement, and listen to what Hadley said.

"When the new symphony orchestra gives its first symphony," he told
me, "we shall have sixty-live musicians. Most of these are local musicians.
I brought with me from the East only Walter Hornig, the first horn, who
used to be with Victor Herbert; Samuel Neerloo, the first bassoon, who is
from Amsterdam and has played with all the large orchestras; Seifert, the
first trumpet, who was for many years with the New York Philharmonic;
Adolf Bertram, the first oboe, who was in the Metropolitan Opera orchestra ;
Jean Shanis, the first clarinet, from the Pittsburg Symphony orchestra; and
last but not least, Edouard Tak, the concert master, an Amsterdam musician
who was concert master in Pittsburg and also with Theodore Thomas. The
rest are all San Francisco men, and they are all capable, experienced, earnest
musicians.

"I cannot say too much for the men of San Francisco who have made
this enterprise possible by their generous subscriptions. They have placed
no restrictions on me. They have pledged enough money to carry the
orchestra along for five years, and have given me carte blanche to do whatever
I see fit to do. I sincerely hope that at the end of five years the orchestra
will be on a permanent basis.

"During this first season we shall give six symphony concerts and a
number of concerts of a lighter nature, young folks' concerts and so on. We
hope to appeal to all classes, to develop a taste and to cultivate an apprecia-
tion for the best music among the masses.

"Next year we expect to tour the State, giving concerts in all the
principal cities. It is my ambition to make this orchestra a great thing, not
only for San Francisco but for the whole State.

"And of course we are looking forward to the World's Fair. Music
should play a great part in the World's Fair. Why should we not make it
worth the while of the great composers to write something distinctive for
the Panama-Pacific Exposition? Richard Wagner wrote his Centennial
March for the fair in Philadelphia. Chadwick commemorated the fair in

116

HENRY HADLEY

Chicago musically. Can we not interest men like Saint-Saens, Elgar, Debussy,
Chadwick and Horatio Parker in the San Francisco exposition?"

It struck me as a mighty good scheme, and I had the temerity to suggest
another name.

"And Sousa too?" I queried, though not without some misgiving.

Hadley shook his head in gentle, smiling opposition.

"No," he corrected, "not Sousa. He is a great musician in his way. He
has written very good popular music. He is a dear friend of mine. But he is
not the sort of musician to enlist in such an undertaking."

I felt properly crushed. I had brought an outsider to the holy of holies,
but happily he had not been allowed to cross the threshold. So sacrilege
was not committed. But just the same I felt very cheap.

Hadley told me that there were symphony orchestras firmly established
in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, St. Paul,
Minneapolis, Washington, Kansas City, Denver, Seattle and Los Angeles.
He thought that it was high time San Francisco added her name to the list,
and I covered up my blunder about Sousa by agreeing with him most en-
thusiastically.

About his own career he speaks modestly and only when asked for
particulars. He was born outside of Boston and has been making music
since boyhood. He has spent a great deal of time abroad, studying, writing,
conducting. Five years were spent in Germany at the opera houses of
Cologne and Mayence. He has been guest conductor in all the principal
cities of Europe, waving the baton over his own symphonies and symphonic
poems. While in Germany he produced his opera "Safie," the book of which
was written by Edward Oxenfoot and translated by Dr. Neitzel. For two
years he had been conducting the symphony orchestra of Seattle.

That he conducted it successfully Seattle people will tell you ; also they
will tell you with what regret they saw him lured to San Francisco.

He is destined to become a great personage in our musical life. That
goes without saying, for he is already a great personage in the world of
American music. But no matter how well we get to know him, I don't think
anyone except Mackenzie Gordon will ever have the hardihood to call him
Hank.

119

LEWIS E. HANCHETT

'EADING a short time ago in one of the local papers that
^ Lewis E. Hanchett had just acquired a large parcel of land
in Los Angeles and contemplated the removal of a large
manufacturing plant from this city to the southern metrop-
^;S olis, I experienced mixed emotions of surprise and curiosity.
fa Why should a man who has always been so loyal to North-
ern California move a large manufacturing plant across the
Tehachapi? Did Lewis E. Hanchett intend to desert the
city he has always shown such fondness for? What was the nature of the
transaction in Los Angeles land?

I went to Hanchett and put my questions. Most of them he answered
frankly and very fully. He is not the sort of business man who shrouds his
doings in an unnecessary veil of mystery. At the same time I found him to
be that rara avis, a man of large affairs who shrinks from personal advertise-
ment. Lewis E. Hanchett has a genuine dislike for that press exploitation on
which most business men thrive. He is not too busy doing things to stop
and talk about them, but most decidedly he won't talk about himself. To
the interviewer such men are very, very refreshing.

I learned from Lewis E. Hanchett that the Los Angeles real estate deal
was one of very large proportions. He has invested two and one-half million
dollars in land covering several acres in the immediate neighborhood of the
old plaza. His holdings are hard by the Pico House, the adobe church and
the new Post Office. In the faraway times when Los Angeles was a pueblo
this section was the centre of population, and strange as it may seem, it
remains the centre of population not only for the city but also for the county
of Los Angeles. This curious fact which is not instantly apparent to those
who know Los Angeles was discovered and announced by our old friend Bion
Arnold who studied the street railway situation of the southern city in much
the same way that he studied ours. Obviously this was a very good place to
buy land.

Hanchett's intention is to make this an industrial centre. At the present
time the industrial districts of Los Angeles are pretty far out. None of the
factories or warehouses of Los Angeles has quick access to all the railroads,
the result being that a loss of twenty-four hours in switching is quite a
common thing. Hanchett will remedy this with his new industrial centre,
for he is going to bring the tracks of three big railroads, the Southern
Pacific, the Santa Fe and the Salt Lake, right up to the doors of the manu-
facturers. He has spent two and one-half millions already; he is going to
spend a million more in building, some of it San Francisco money. Just what
the manufacturing plant is which he will move from this city he did not feel
at liberty to state.

120

LEWIS E. HANCHETT

Hanchett loves San Francisco. A native of San Jose he is loyal to
Northern California. But business is not founded on sentiment, and he has
excellent reasons for embarking on this big business deal in Los Angeles.
Some of those reasons may contain a lesson for this city, for though there
are many things about Los Angeles which excite our righteous indignation
it must be admitted that we can study certain of its methods with considerable
profit.

There is in Los Angeles a civic enthusiasm not always displayed here.
For instance, when it was made known that Hanchett had acquired a large
parcel of land and meant to improve it, the Los Angeles papers voiced the
satisfaction of the community, devoting pages to the news. There was so
much publicity that three large concerns immediately made application for
space in the new industrial centre.

"If you bought twenty-eight acres in the neighborhood of Lotta's Foun-
tain," says Hanchett with an exaggeration that is pardonable because it drives
his meaning home, "you could hold it till San Francisco bay froze over with-
out receiving one such application."

I learned from Hanchett just why Los Angeles lends itself to an invest-
ment of this sort, and incidentally, why San Francisco does not; why manu-
facturers are going to Los Angeles every day while at the same time they
are not only not coming to this city but are actually leaving it. He pointed
out to me that a manufacturing concern seeking a factory site in the old dis-
trict south of Market street, a district which has remained woefully unim-
proved since 1906, would be met with demands for such fabulous rentals that
paying interest on an investment there would be practically impossible. The
land values are so high that they are prohibitive for the manufacturer seeking
the site for a big factory ; so high that after paying taxes the earning of six
per cent on an investment becomes problematical. Obviously the manu-
facturer will not try to solve the problem. He will simply look elsewhere
for more reasonable valuations.

"In Los Angeles," says Hanchett, "land values are high in certain dis-
tricts, but they are not high when you go just outside those districts. I paid
less for the land I have bought than I'd pay for residence property in San
Francisco."

It is Hanchett's opinion, as it is the opinion of many others, that our
high rentals help to account for the removal of manufacturing concerns from
San Francisco to districts on the outskirts of Oakland, to Fruitvale, to
Pittsburg, to all the region around Martinez and to Richmond whose growth
within the past few years has been quite marvelous. The same thing applies
equally to the establishment in these districts of new manufacturing concerns
which would have entered San Francisco if conditions were favorable here.
If all this business had been saved to San Francisco our manufacturing
district would have expanded down the peninsula. Perhaps it would have
grown in that direction anyway were it not that there is no satisfactory outlet
from San Francisco to that region.

"You see," said Hanchett, "I do not lay San Francisco's failure to grow
in manufactures entirely to labor conditions. At the same time it must be

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admitted that Los Angeles has better labor conditions than we have. No
clique of union leaders and agitators has Los Angeles by the throat. Los
Angeles is not unfair to labor. Wages there are not much lower than in
San Francisco. But the employer of labor can choose his workingmen and
he can demand a full day's work from them. When a man is inefficient he can
discharge him. With no limit placed on a man's output and the wage scale
almost the same as ours, the amount of work done in Los Angeles in a given
time is greater than here. And the conditions of employment are an incentive
to hard work, to honest work, to quickness and efficiency on the part of the
individual workingman."

I asked Hanchett about the commercial future of Los Angeles as com-
pared with the commercial future of San Francisco. He disclaimed the gift
of prophecy. But he pointed out some interesting things. Los Angeles is
of course not a sea port, so it cannot enjoy the terminal rates given to San
Francisco and San Diego. At the same time, Los Angeles has had the
foresight to secure a sea port at San Pedro and while freight consigned to
Los Angeles must pay a terminal rate to San Pedro and a local to Los
Angeles, the additional charge is not large and will be minimized if Los
Angeles builds the proposed railroad along the "shoe string." So Los
Angeles merchants will be able to absorb the difference in freight rates, and
will be serious competitors of the merchants of this city.

"Canal traffic will make a material change in the trade zones," says
Hanchett. "The probable effect will be to interfere seriously with through
transcontinental business. Goods will be brought through the canal to the
sea ports and distributed inland. San Diego, for instance, will supply the
territory east of San Diego until the rate by sea is equalized by the rail rate
from Kansas City or Chicago. So with Los Angeles and San Francisco. In
this connection it must be remembered that Los Angeles and San Diego are
a good deal farther east than San Francisco. A look at the map will indicate
their advantage in this respect. They can get to some big inland markets
quicker than we can. Of course San Pedro harbor is not to be compared to
our harbor. But do we make the best use of our harbor?"

That was a poser. I had no answer, and very discreetly I attempted none.

122

CHARLES F. HANLON

HERE was a time within the memory of all when the stage
Johnnie was one of San Francisco's most cherished institu-
tions. Those were the days when the gay boys of all ages
used to swarm out of the Pacific-Union and the Bohemian
Club to toss their purses and their fickle hearts at the feet of
the footlight favorites. The frowning keeper of the stage
door had no sinecure then, the florists were hard put to it to
supply the demand for American beauties, and the cham-
pagne agents radiated prosperity. But today the race of johnnies within
our gates is nearly extinct. Now and then we run across a battered old
blade whose chalk stones and dyspeptic disposition are the only remains of
his early triumphs, and it may be that after the third glass he will discourse
of the merry nights that are no more. He will probably lament the passing
of his picturesque class and sorrow over the feeble temper of the modern
youth whose homage is no longer given to the celebrities of the calcium
light.

The old boy is pretty nearly correct. The race is practically extinct.
The stage no longer lures as of old. But we may extract a melancholy sort
of pleasure from the knowledge that one of those old-timers is still with
us and that the passage of years has failed to rob him of his enthusiasm
for the queens of the theatre. Charles F. Hanlon is the last of the San
Francisco johnnies.

Charles F. Hanlon's middle name is Fascination. For more years
probably than he is willing to confess Charley has been fascinating the
ladies of the stage. Like some of the charmers on whom he has exercised
his winning ways, he has come down to us from a former generation, but
age cannot wither or custom stale the infinite variety of his conquering
graces. While many of his romantic dreams have been staged in this city,
he is in reality a cosmopolitan and his paste board is honored at the stage
doors of the Rue de 1'Opera, Piccadilly and Forty-second street as well as
on the local Rialto.

Charley can probably remember the time when he was not a Johnnie,
but nobody else can. It is quite likely that he was already infatuating
actresses in those faraway days when he was drinking knowledge at St.
Ignatius College or mastering the quiddities of the law in John Burnett's
office. Strange as it may seem, Charley has actually found time to devote
to such serious avocations as learning and law. Although he has always
been careful not to allow the pedestrian labors of his profession to interfere
with his real career, it must be allowed that his intervals of legal labor have
been richly rewarded. It is quite a commonplace thing for Charley to
saunter into a case when there is nothing more exciting on the carpet, and

123

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to stroll out with a fee of fifty or seventy-five thousand dollars. Something
of that fascination which he exerts over stage stars has its effect on judges
and juries. He wins suits at law as easily as he captures hearts and this is
a fortunate characteristic, for Charley is enabled to spend on the stars what
he earns in the courtroom. Many a beauty has reason to bless the day
when he probated the Donohue will, for Charley drew down something like
sixty thousand dollars when that bit of work was completed. Even if I
knew I shouldn't tell how many diamonds, how many champagne suppers,
how many cabs were paid for out of the eighty thousand dollars or so he
earned in the famous Pratt case. And so it has always gone. The law has
been a smiling and liberal mistress to Charley. He has achieved that con-
clusive distinction, the envy of less fortunate practitioners. Noting the
crowds of litigants that crowd his offices all day long, weighted down with
retainers, they have manufactured the story that Charley hires idlers of
both sexes at a dollar a day to sit in his waiting room and impress his
importance upon his real clients. That of course is a canard. If you don't
think so, ask him and see what he says. But it won't be easy to ask him in
business hours. You must wait your turn and even when your turn comes,
you must run the gauntlet of Charley's "manager," a functionary who
analyzes your business and passes judgment, from which there is no appeal,
as to the propriety of your obtaining an audience.

Once you are admitted to Charley's inner office, you will be properly
impressed. Charley has a taste for art and his sanctum is really a shrine of
estheticism. The prevailing note would be rococo were it not for the photo-
graphs which give the room an atmosphere of art nouveau. The photo-
graphs of course are the pictures of stage beauties and there is a story for
every picture, only casually indicated by the delicious superscription. Whose
picture has the place of honor? Well, up to a short time ago it was the
counterfeit presentment of Anna Held. She is shown not once but many
times and on every photograph is an expression of her profound regard for
Charles Fascination Hanlon. For Anna is a close friend of Charley's. So for
that matter is Anna Held's former husband, Florenz Ziegfeld. In Charley's
opinion there is nothing too good for Anna, just as there is nothing too
good for the rest of his theatrical friends. It was not so very long ago
that Charley made one of his frequent visits to Europe. Charley goes to
Europe so often that the captains of all the big steamers call him by his
first name and Charley, not to be outdone, reciprocates. On the occasion
of his last trip it happened that Anna Held was in Paris. It was the time
of the big annual automobile show in Paris and Anna was naturally eager
to win a prize with her big car. Perhaps she mentioned her ambition to
Charley; perhaps Charley, with that intuitive power which stands him in
good stead in such matters, divined it before any word was spoken. But at
any rate Charley summoned the best florist in Paris to the best hotel in Paris,
where of course Charley had the best apartments in the house, and ordered
him to decorate Miss Held's car for the show. The florist obeyed and of
course Anna won the first prize. For a whole day Paris talked about the

124

CHARLES F. HANLON

beauty of her flower-laden car. Is it any wonder that Charley has so many
pictures of Anna?

But of late Charley has been worshiping at another altar. All the town
knows to whom I refer. Lillian Russell with all her airy fairiness has felt
the charm of Charley's irresistible manner. As soon as she came to the city
Charley placed himself at her disposal. One of the first things he did was
to entertain her at a Press Club supper to which one hundred and fifty
members of the club were invited. The speech which Charley made that
night will live in the annals of the Press Club. For Charley is an amazing
speechmaker. He likes to make speeches, if only for the purpose of finding
excuse to tell his favorite stories. When the Press Club entertained Harry
Lauder Charley was the only member who dared regale Harry with a
story. It was such an unusual story that Lauder said afterwards that he
couldn't forget it, much as he might try. But on the occasion of the Lillian
Russell supper Charley told his most representative stories, weaving them
together in a bouquet of words for the delectation of his beautiful guest.
There was nobody present to take that speech down and probably it is just
as well. Repetition spoils such things. They should find their immortality
only in the memory of those who heard them. That is one of the reasons
why I shall not attempt to summarize Charley's speech or repeat any of his
stories.

That supper was the least of the things Charley did for Lillian. He
placed his automobile at her disposal and then, when he saw how much she
enjoyed honking about town, he presented her with a big motor car. It
cost $5,000 but that is a bagatelle to Charley. "Darn the expense" has
always been his motto in such matters. Is it any wonder that Miss Russell's
picture has been given a prominent position in Charley's sanctum?

I have not by any means exhausted the catalogue of Charley's claims
to fame. I might tell of his wonderful collection of music which includes
every score and every song of any merit that has been published in Europe
for years past. I might tell how he officiates at the auction pools on the
ocean steamers. I might tell of the celebrated drink, consisting of equal
portions of porter and champagne, which he invented. But these are details.
Charles Fascination Hanlon is first of all a Johnnie, the last of the class in
San Francisco, and when some faroff day shall have put an end to his career,
a chorus from fair lips in many lands will fervently exclaim, "We ne'er shall
look upon his like again."

127

BISHOP EDWARD J. HANNA

O LOOK at him, you'd never think it. To see the winning
smile that constantly illuminates his dark, handsome face
and to hear the music of his soft and sympathetic voice, you'd
never dream of such a thing. Never in the world ! Yet it's
true. He told me so himself.

The auxiliary bishop of the Catholic archdiocese of San
Francisco is descended from "Roaring" Hanna.

Who was "Roaring" Hanna? You don't have to ask a
North of Ireland man that question more than once. If he's a Catholic he'll
communicate his private notion as to "Roaring" Hanna's eternal home by
way of answer. If he's an Orangeman he'll tell you that "Roaring" Hanna
was one of the greatest Orangemen Ulster ever produced and that he is
fittingly commemorated by a statue in the heart of Belfast. "Roaring"
Hanna ! Can't you hear him singing "The Battle of the Boyne" on the
Twelfth of July?

Yes, "Roaring" Hanna was one of Bishop Hanna's ancestors. Little he
dreamed as he presided over his Orange Lodge that a distinguished descendant
of his would celebrate Mass on St. Patrick's Day in San Francisco!

"But I came by my Catholicism honestly," said Bishop Hanna, and for
a gloss on that quaint expression he gave me something of his family history.

Bishop Hanna has a piercing look in his dark eyes. It's not the look
you'd expect to find in the eyes of a theologian wrapped in the commerce
of books, but the keen vision of the clergyman of affairs. One concludes that
while a great part of Bishop Hanna's life /has been given to writing and
teaching he has found plenty of time for the more energetic activities of his
spiritual office. And that keen look betokens a keen mind.

I wanted Bishop Hanna's ideas on several questions of local interest.
But I didn't get them. His Lordship is distinguished by an intelligent
cautiousness that is rather more rare in clergymen than it might be.

"Why should I presume to have opinions about conditions in a com-
munity which I have known for only ten weeks?" he asked me. "I am still
getting acquainted. I am in the 'reception' stage of my work here. I am
meeting people at receptions, greeting them and being greeted. Any opinions
I might express on local matters would be superficial."

I could not resist the impulse of telling Bishop Hanna that other
clergymen have made haste less slowly. I instanced the distinguished Doctor
Aked who has a ready-made formula for every contingency.

Bishop Hanna was strangely silent.

Which seemed an adequate appraisal, so I said no more.

Bishop Hanna is impressed by the local organization of the church he
represents. He is enthusiastic about its machinery for doing good.

128

BISHOP EDWARD J. HANNA

"We hear much nowadays," he said, "about prophylaxis, the preventive
treatment for disease. This sort of treatment is not confined to physical
conditions. We have moral prophylaxis too, the preventive treatment for
moral ills. I do not like the phrase particularly, but it describes the work
which is being done by the numerous Catholic institutions throughout the
city. The Catholic Humane Bureau, the Ladies' Aid Society, the Sisters of
the Holy Family, the Helpers of Souls and many other institutions in the
charge of nuns and lay women are laboring, not by passing resolutions or
advancing theories, but by actual work among the poor, the helpless and the
ignorant of all beliefs to save them from evil and to make them better men
and women and therefore better citizens."

"Do you find the women of San Francisco as much interested in such
work as the women elsewhere?" I asked.

"More so," said Bishop Hanna emphatically.

"Their interest in politics has not taken them away from this sort of
work?"

"So far I have met few women who vote," replied the Bishop.

"What is your opinion of woman's suffrage?"

"That is probably the most difficult problem that has been presented to
us in a thousand years," said Bishop Hanna after a good deal of silent
consideration of the question. "We know what has been said of its practical
working in Australia and New Zealand but that doesn't help us, for ours is
a different people. There are of course certain general principles from which
we may draw conclusions as to the way it may work out, but it is safer to
wait, to observe what actually happens.

"We know from our study of history that there have been epochs when
women were in the ascendancy, when women sought equal political rights
with men, and that such epochs were epochs of deteriorating civilization.

"We know that there is a difference between the sexes, and that despite
what may be said of the equality of the sexes, there is a definite dependence
of woman on man and in the Christian ideal, the one sex supplements the
other — 'verily they are two in one flesh.'

"Then again, have women the talent for administration which men have?
That is important, because in this country women will not be content to
vote; they will want to hold office too.

"For the Catholic women the problem is simpler than for others. The
Catholic woman has the infallible counsel of God to guide her. She knows
that she must obey her husband, be subject to him. Will this equality of
political right interfere with her observance of the counsel of God?

"And will this political equality give an impetus to moral laxity? Will
it increase divorce? Will it take woman away from home and the sacred
duties of home?

The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.' Many
are inclined to laugh at that old saying nowadays. But may it not be true?
In the highest development of domestic life and in the highest development
of women's gifts, would not the mother rule the state without voting, merely
by her influence with her sons?

131

VARIED TYPES

"If woman's suffrage meant merely the dropping of a ballot in an urn the
problem would be simple. But political activity is by no means confined to
that. Casting a vote is one thing; active participation in politics is a great
deal more. Your sister or my sister is certainly better equipped for voting
than the ignorant immigrant who works in the street. If voting will make
the woman a better mother to her sons, it is a good thing.

"But isn't it bad enough to give all men the right to vote, as we do in
this democracy, without also giving all women the same right? Will it change
the result? Will it multiply our evils by two or tend to eradicate them? If
a moral issue were presented squarely to the voters, perhaps the influence of
women would be felt on the right side. But this so rarely happens. On
ordinary occasions I suppose women will vote as men vote, for women always
follow men."

Bishop Hanna is conservative. He looks at both sides of the problem,
finding good and bad, but trusting that the future will minimize the bad. He
doesn't pretend to know all about it in advance. He doesn't pretend to know
all about anything, least of all about human beings. One thing he said will
illustrate this.

"I lived for many years in Italy," he told me. "I was there so long that
I believe I talked Italian better than I did English. I saw the Italians under
all sorts of conditions. But I do not pretend to understand the Italians. The
tourist who spends three weeks doing Italy knows all about the Italians and
their problems. That is, he thinks he does. But after spending years in Italy
I am still a great deal in the dark about that wonderful race."

Apply this to woman suffrage. Apply it to local conditions. Note the
caution with which Bishop Hanna approaches discussion even of the more
general phases of woman suffrage. Note the firmness with which he refuses
to have anything at all to say about local conditions. Then decide whether
this reticence is not more admirable than the loquacity of other clergymen,
newcomers among us, who have a great deal to say about everything under
the sun. Apparently your teacher of theology absorbs some of the prudent
wisdom of medieval doctors.

132

RICHARD HOTALING

HY AM I on the stage?"

Richard Hotaling smiled as he repeated the question.
It was quite apparent that he liked the question. I doubt
whether the interviewer could frame any question which
Hotaling would like quite as much. It gave him a chance
to talk about himself. It is a subject in which he is frankly
and enthusiastically interested. And because he is an ex-
ceptionally good talker who carries you along easily by his
swift volubility of well chosen phrases, it is a subject in which you speedily
become interested too.

"It is a hard question to answer," he went on without any trace of
hesitation, "unless one answers it from the standpoint of what amuses one.
Being on the stage amuses me. Some men, Colonel Roosevelt for instance,
like to hunt. I don't. My repugnance for killing any living thing is almost
as great as Mrs. Fiske's and Mrs. Fiske once said to me, 'Oh, that I had the
courage of Charlotte Corday, so that I might kill that horrible man Roose-
velt !'

"I dislike all kinds of waste. I couldn't bear to sit around here sucking
tobacco into my mouth and blowing out smoke. It would bore me to play
billiards, as those chaps are doing. I'd rather take a walk with crumbs in my
pocket and feed the birds or stand at this window and watch the passing
show."

Ample gesticulation accompanied the hurried sentences. We were
sitting in the card room of the Athenian Club and my eye followed the
direction of Mr. Hotaling's outstretched arm, first to the billiard room across
the hall where Oakland's leisured men were cuing and miscuing, and then
to the window through which Oakland's leisured street activities were on
view. But my eye went quickly back to Mr. Hotaling's eager, smiling face.
Baldness is pushing its way over the top of his head and his hair is graying
perceptibly, as if in terror of its approach. Many wrinkles have cut their
parallels across his forehead and there are vertical lines on either side of his
mouth. But his blue eyes shine and the features are firm. Evidently his face
has been marked not by the fullness of time but by the fullness of life, by
that enthusiasm of existence which shows in all he says. And he kept right
on saying:

"Too many Americans want to cut themselves to the usual stamp and
are inclined to think that all who do not are fools. But I am never afraid to
do the unconventional thing; and as long as I keep within bounds why should
I not do the thing which is the expression of what is in me? I am younger
today than when I was a boy. Acting is my gambol.

"And is it so strange that I should act? Joe Redding tells me that the

133

VARIED TYPES

late Lord Salisbury loved ivory carving and that Mr. Balfour is a fine
violinist. Then too, the president of the Elevated Roads in Chicago is an
art blacksmith. Our own Willis Davis is an excellent wood carver."

Lord Salisbury, Mr. Balfour, the president of the Chicago L, Willis
Davis and Mr. Hotaling — somehow the list lacks cohesion; but when one
remembers the ivory carving, the wood carving, the art blacksmithing, the
violin and the buskin, all superimposed upon inartistic pursuits, it carries
a certain measure of conviction. I do not know how Mr. Balfour, the Chicago
man and Willis Davis regard their business activities, but Mr. Hotaling
enlightened me about his.

"You might ask me," he said (and so I might), "how I keep business
obligations while I am acting in Oakland. I can only account for it by a
wonderful adaptability that gives me a certain measure of success in all I
attempt."

Which, I should hazard, may also apply to Lord Salisbury, Mr. Balfour,
the Chicago man and Mr. Willis Davis. But I did not pursue the subject,
being much more keenly interested in Mr. Hotaling's dramatic diversions.

"It all goes back," he explained, "to the cellar circuses of my boyhood
days. We were four brothers and we gave the usual performances for a
bottle or a sack at our old home in Howard street between Twelfth and
Thirteenth. When I left Andover at nineteen I played Richelieu for a church
in which my mother was interested. I was just a youngster then, trying to
give an imitation of Edwin Booth. Of course my performance of Richelieu
today is far away from that early one. Then I acted in amateur affairs with
Judge Murasky and Blanche Bates and Olive Oliver and Hal Blinn. Hal and
I — Holbrooke Blinn, you know — used to be great friends and for days we
would do nothing but imitate a Portuguese or a Frenchman or a German
talking English."

And Mr. Hotaling fell at once into mimicry, giving me samples from his
dialect repertoire. It suggested a question.

"Why do you play Shylock with an accent?"

"I play Shylock with a strong Yiddish accent," he answered, "because
I can't play him any other way. It's simply the character inside of me
coming out. Acting, you know, is an obsession. The body, the individuality
is set aside and the personality is so tinctured and flavored by the character
the actor is trying to portray that all the physical attributes of the actor are
absolutely under the control of the role. In Shylock I can't give up the
dialect. Besides, I've visited the Jewish quarters in Prague and other
European cities. But to keep right at home, go and talk to Daniel Meyer —
as soon as he drops all his Jewish attributes I'll play Shylock straight."

That sounding quite conclusive I asked him why he didn't go on the
stage as a professional performer receiving compensation for his efforts. At
Ye Liberty, you know, Mr. Hotaling is not on the payroll. No ghost walks
for him.

"If I received any compensation for what I did, it would take me out
of my class. As to becoming a professional actor — ." He considered for
a moment.

134

RICHARD HOTALING

"Well, I suppose as youngsters we have all thought of driving the great
ones into continuous. But I'm old. I'm forty-two. Besides I'm both lazy
and timid. I'm very easily disheartened. Then again, I take so much joy in
other things. No one thing is so very important to me that I want to strive
for it. And I like to get out in the country. I love to be alone in the woods
and commune with the pixies. When I'm fussing with my chickens and
my pigeons I want to do nothing else. The fact that chickens and pigeons
have to be killed for food disturbs me ; but at least we kill them quickly and
don't let them breathe out their poor lives in the pocket of a hunting coat.

"I suppose if some of the fellows at the Bohemian Club heard me talking
like this they'd say I was posing. Which reminds me," he rattled on, "that
after a recent minstrel show at the Bohemian Club in which I was one of the
end-men, I was accused of being vulgar. I admit that sometimes I approach
near the realm of the vulgar, but I can say for myself that I have never
indulged in anything indecent that wasn't disinfected by a certain cleverness
that gave it raison d'etre. One of the Bohemians who objected most to my
end-man jokes is most lascivious in his private life. Personally, I am willing
to admit that all my purity is in my private life."

It all came very suddenly. Evidently it was on his mind and had to
come off. But I switched the conversation back to the stage.

"I love to play Hamlet," he said. "I love to play it despite the fact that
I have seen Forbes Robertson try to play it. Forbes Robertson is a very
tiresome person. When you see his Hamlet you feel that it should have
been announced beforehand that 'the Rev. Doctor Forbes Robertson on next
Sunday night will give a reading of Shakespeare's Hamlet and during the
reading he will walk up and down.' "

I was breathless at his iconoclasm and to convince me he gave an
imitation of Forbes Robertson's Hamlet. At the conclusion he threw up his
hands in disgust.

"Besides all that," he said, "Forbes Robertson's shoes squeaked.

"As for Bernhardt," he continued, "I can't see her. She's a very dear
old soul, of course. But she does everything from the throat."

And he gave me an imitation of Bernhardt.

"I am sensitive to malicious criticism like that of Acton Davies," he went
on, "but I like sincere criticism. An adverse point of view is all right, but
all I ask is that if the critic thinks I'm wrong let him tell me the reason why.

"I like my role in 'The House Next Door.' I love anything that will
cause an audience to drop a sweet tear. I like the part of the bounder in
'Mr. Hopkinson.' After that I'm to play Shylock. Then I'll alternate in
Othello and lago. After that I'd like to alternate in Uncle Tom and Little
Eva; then play Abigail in 'The County Fair' and finish with Lear. I'd be
content then to go back to the country.

"But," and there was a yearning note in his voice as he spoke, "I would
like to play somewhere else than in Oakland."

137

JOHN E. HOYLE

AILING to find Charles Edward Russell, sociologist, though
I looked for him in many places, I took as a substitute John
Hoyle, penologist, and we talked of sociology, penology and
kindred topics. I had just been reading Charles Edward
Russell's letter to Fremont Older wherein the somewhat
maudlin sociologist inveighs against the failure of civiliza-
tion as evidenced by its imperfections and complains that
society punishes criminals instead of devising some means
of punishing itself. According to Mr. Russell, prisons are "frightful places"
filled with "indescribable horrors" and with men who are compelled to
undergo torments "because of the common fault of all of us, because we have
provided conditions under which it is impossible for them to do anything
else but break our laws, because they have been brought up in our slums
and educated in our streets and trained to evil in our schools of crime, and
sent forth with minds darkened and embittered with that poverty that we
insist upon maintaining."

Warden Hoyle had read this letter of Russell's, and when I spoke to him
about it he smiled. Warden Hoyle is a most amiable man, bubbling over
with good nature. It is as natural for Warden Hoyle to smile as it is natural
for Charles Edward Russell to darken his gloomy visage with frowns. All
reformers are given to frowns, they are all so solemn, so sour and so sad.
If they were otherwise they would not be reformers. Getting into the
presence of one of them is like plunging into a well of woe and extinguishing
utterly the lamp of hope. So, after all, when I met Warden Hoyle I was
glad I had missed Charles Edward Russell. Hoyle is so different. A light-
hearted man is the warden, with the average human share of imagination
and sympathy. Something of a philosopher, too, is Hoyle, not at all averse
to ideals, but holding that they are to be striven toward, not mourned over.
When I mentioned the dolorous Russell epistle and asked the warden what
he thought of it, he said it seemed hardly worth while to make reply to such
lugubrious observations.

"It is too bad," he remarked, "that such nonsense is taken seriously. As
absurd as it is it does some harm. It makes for unrest among prisoners
for whom we are trying to do some good."

I found that Warden Hoyle would rather talk about what is being done
toward improving our prison system than about the maunderings of doleful
sociologists. He told me that the new cell-house at San Quentin would soon
be finished, and that there would then be eight hundred more individual cells
in each of which would be running water and other luxuries. When this
building is finished there will be much more yard space, and it will then
be possible to segregate prisoners and grade them, and give the good ones

138

JOHN E. HOYLE

more breathing space, more recreation, more sunshine. It is the purpose
of the prison to establish three grades of prisoners in the first of which men
will have many privileges which it is now impossible to give them. By this
method there will be great inducement to good behaviour.

"How about the strait-jacket?" I asked. "Mr. Russell mentions that
among the 'horrors' of prison life. Is that one of the essential inducements
to good behaviour?"

The warden smiled. "Have you ever seen a man in a strait- jacket?" he
asked.

Yes, I had seen many. When I was a police reporter I made the
acquaintance of the strait-jacket. There were two or three strait-jackets in
the city emergency hospital. They were used not as instruments of torture,
but for the protection of delirious patients against themselves.

"Well," said the warden, "a strait-jacket may be made very uncomfort-
able. It all depends on how tight it is strapped on. To strap it on in a way
to inflict physical pain would be a mighty cruel thing to do. But I am quite
sure there is nothing like barbarism in San Quentin. A strait-jacket isn't
conclusive of torture. As a matter of fact its principal purpose is to inspire
fear, and when you have nineteen hundred men to take care of, the most of
whom are far from gentle, many of whom are inclined to be disagreeable,
you will generally find a few who have to be ruled by fear."

I asked the warden if it was hard to maintain discipline at San Quentin.
He said it was not, that the great majority of prisoners were disposed to obey
the rules. He characterized as nonsense the idea industriously disseminated
by reformers that the average man leaves hope behind when he enters the
prison walls. The prospect of parole, he told me, gladdened the heart of
the average convict. He is very enthusiastic for the parole system, though,
as he says, it causes unrest inasmuch as many of the petitions for parole are
denied owing in some cases to the failure of the petitioners to get the required
signatures. He believes, however, that conditions will go on improving,
and that we are rapidly approaching a solution of one of the most perplexing
of all the problems that civilization has to deal with. John Hoyle is an
optimist of the first order and also a man of tender sensibilities who while
scoffing at the Utopian absurdities of the sentimental sociologists looks
forward to a very satisfactory adjustment of the compromise between the
ideal and the practicable.

"As a matter of fact," said Hoyle, "the whole aim of our prison
authorities is to make genuine reformatories out of our penitentiaries, and
that is what they will eventually be. The State has purchased land near
Napa where there is to be built a reformatory for prisoners between sixteen
and thirty years of age. When we get that great strides will be made toward
the ideals of the reformers. We shall then use San Quentin for prisoners of
the second class and Folsom for incorrigibles. But even now our prison
system is not so bad as sentimental critics would have the people believe.
I see that Mr. Russell says that men become criminals because we have
provided conditions which make it impossible for men to do anything else
but break the laws. If this were so our parole system would be futile. If

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VARIED TYPES

all that he says were true it would be a very fine tribute to our prisons.
Unconsciously he has praised the prisons. He says that criminals are men
who have been brought up in the slums and sent forth with minds darkened
and embittered. If that be so then the penitentiary system must tend to
enlighten their minds and soften their feelings, for when we let them out on
parole very few come back. The parole system is a great success. Not
more than fifteen per cent violate their parole, and the violation is usually
by leaving the State. Only two per cent of paroled criminals are again
arrested for felonies. This being so how can it be said that conditions make
it impossible for men to do anything else but break the laws? If ex-convicts
can get along without breaking the laws, I should think that other men
could get along too." And Warden Hoyle smiled as he made his points.

I asked him if many reformers visited San Quentin. He said that women
came there occasionally who took an interest in prisoners, and that they
were quite sincere and desirous of doing good. While on this subject the
warden told me a story by way of answer to a question regarding the
personality of a feminine reformer of the sloppy sentimental variety and
Charles Edward Russell school of sociology.

"You want to know what she is like?" he asked. I nodded.

"Well, one day she was in a room adjoining my office talking to another
woman. She remarked that it would be dangerous for a woman to go
unprotected through the prison. A convict working in the office heard her,
and he muttered audibly, 'She could go through in her night-shirt without
the slightest danger.' "

From which it is to be inferred that even among the "crushed, tormented
and tortured souls" behind prison walls is occasionally to be found a man
with a very lively wit.

The outbreak that occurred in San Quentin about two months before, I
learned from Warden Hoyle, was still the subject of investigation, and some
important information had been obtained regarding the inspiration of it,
which, in the course of time would become public property. But on this
subject the warden was somewhat reticent. All that he would say was that it
was now known positively that there were twenty-five conspirators who
started the revolt. All of them were pretty tough characters. Thirteen of
them were serving time for robbery, three for grand larceny, eight for bur-
glary and one for murder and all were in the jute mill ; not one — and this the
warden regarded as significant — was employed in any of the factories which
supply the institutions of the State with shoes, clothes and furniture. Im-
mediately after the outbreak an effort was made to stir up sympathy for the
prisoners. It was said they had many grievances, one of which was that their
food was unfit to eat. It is now known that no such grievance existed. The
purpose of the outbreak was to occasion criticism of the prison authorities.

"In time," said Hoyle, "we shall get to the bottom of it."

I came away from my interview with Warden Hoyle with the very
pleasant impression that he was a public official with enthusiasm for his
duties, realizing that though perfection is unattainable we ought to keep an
eye on the compass which tells us where it lies.

142

JOHN P. IRISH

E WORE no necktie. I should have been disappointed if he
did, disappointed and surprised. But in the circumstances
it was far from surprising that he wore none. For the
colonel was in deshabille. He had retired when I called, but
graciously consented to come downstairs. He came, aK
imposing figure. From throat to ankle he was wrapped in
a dressing gown colored like a Navajo blanket. Above this
towered the big head of him, its shock of white hair tousled
by the contact of the pillow, the gray mustache and the gray tuft below the
under lip bristling in anticipation of battle.

'Twas a grouping of cosy domesticity in the living room of the Irish
home over in Adeline street, Oakland. A log crackled in the fireplace. At
a table in the middle of the room Mrs. Irish, a charming old lady of smiles,
her handsome auburn-haired daughter and her very serious-faced son-in-
law, put their heads together over a picture puzzle. The biggest and most
difficult picture puzzle I have ever seen. Alma Tadema's "Spring," the
daughter told me, while upstairs the colonel was swathing himself in the
Navajo robe. And while we talked the piecing of the puzzle went on apace.
Only the daughter lifted her eyes occasionally from the game, leaned her
elbows on the arm of her morris chair, clasped her chin and hung on the
words of wisdom dropping from her father's lips.

Dropping, though, is not the word. Colonel John P. Irish doesn't drop
his words. They flow sonorously, slowly, without a riffle. Every word has
its billet and rolls smoothly to its appointed place. If ever the colonel let a
word go astray he has long since reclaimed the prodigal. The colonel's
words have sowed many things, dissension for instance, but never a wild
oat. They are biddable and they know their place.

"Colonel, what do you think of our recent changes in government?"

I needed say no more. Thenceforward mine the role of listener. The
only interruptions for many minutes came from the table. A purr of
satisfaction when a piece fitted into the picture; a low phsaw! when a piece
proved refractory; an occasional word from the daughter. For the rest, the
group at the table built up their picture of "Spring;" the colonel tore down
the structure erected at the constitutional election of 1911 ; and I listened.

"I suppose I'm an old fogy now," began the colonel crossing one slippered
foot over the other and tightening the cincture of his Navajo robe. A soft
murmur of incredulity from the table; a smile of the same from me. And
the colonel straightway put levity behind him.

"These changes go profoundly to the structure of government," he
continued.

"The Greek democracies were direct government by the people. There

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VARIED TYPES

were no intermediaries. And the Greek democracies were failures. They
terminated in tyranny. All the Greek writers on government concluded from
that experience that direct government becomes finally an ochlocracy (the
colonel spelled it for me) or government by the mob. In this judgment the
Roman writers on civics concurred, as have Mill and all the modern writers
on government. This for the reason that all the people will not go to the
polls and vote or otherwise participate in government when the questions to
be decided are abstractions or questions of principle.

"Our fathers who made the government, founding its institutions in the
federal constitution, were aware of this inherent tendency of human nature.
They were informed by all history that only the fanatical or the misled
minority will express themselves upon abstract questions of government.
Therefore they introduced into our government the principle of human
interest by making it representative in character.

"Now, addressing ourselves to the latest example. The recent election
gives to the people the most important referendum in the history of the
State. The constitutional amendments raised the most important abstract
questions of government. It was entirely revolutionary. It changed our
government from the representative to the direct form. It was a political
atavism, a recurrence to a former and lower type of government.

"Yet, out of the six hundred thousand registered voters of this State
only one-third voted upon these abstract questions which affected an
appalling change in our form of government. Of this one-third an average
of twenty-eight per cent of the entire registered vote of the State effected
this change in our form of government.

"Had that election been for representatives in Congress or the Legis-
lature, ninety per cent of the entire vote would have been cast. This proves
the wisdom of our fathers in recognizing that the people will show a vital
interest in representative institutions while they will not concern themselves
with direct government.

"We have changed the electoral basis of California by adopting Woman
Suffrage and have reversed our institutions by a minority vote of the State.
By this act we have added vastly to the power of Socialism and other forces
of disorder which concern themselves with the destruction of existing
institutions. We have made the rights of person and property less safe than
before. We have disturbed or abolished the certainty of constitutional
guaranties. And we have introduced a system of factious instability which
renders those rights less safe than anywhere else in the world."

The building of "Spring" went steadily on, but there was a murmur of
applause. The colonel who is used to applause gave no heed.

"What the result will be no man can foresee. Some of the authors and
advocates of these menacing changes are endeavoring to reassure those who
value stability and the rights of person and property by saying that the
power to destroy both will probably not be used."

From the picture puzzlers a whisper of mocking thanks to the aforesaid
authors and advocates.

"But the fathers who created our institutions did not leave that de-

144

JOHN P. IRISH

structive power to the fickle will of the minority. Therefore they devised
our system of written constitutions in which those invaluable rights were
placed beyond the reach of the storms and tempests of a public opinion
incited by demagogues and agitators.

"As far as Woman Suffrage is concerned, it was adopted against the
protests of eight-tenths of the women of California."

"Prove it !" came from the table in playful insurgency.

"It was adopted at the behest of an uneasy, chattering and brainless
minority of the women of the State who have neither the natural sense nor
the natural graces to appreciate or enjoy the majestic position of their sex
nor its sphere of influence for every good and high purpose with which
nature has endowed it. Having none of the gifts and graces which make that
natural influence the greatest moral and intellectual influence in the world,
they have been moved to step down and compete with man in the ordinary
political channels.

"As a rule they are women who place no value on the home, who
despise domestic life, who have already shunned their natural responsibilities
and who have nothing to offer for the moral and intellectual advancement
of society. To say that this class of women can bring into politics any
refining influence, into law any betterment, into the world any new or
progressive element, is to talk nonsense of a very poor quality."

The daughter of Colonel Irish had forgotten the picture puzzle, and at
this peroration she clapped her hands softly but with emphasis. The
interruption gave me an opportunity to break my silence with a question.

"I don't think California will be content to remain long as a freak State,"
the colonel answered. "Woman Suffrage was carried by 3,500 — and by
inadvertence. I believe that on a second vote it will be beaten by a majority
of 100,000."

The colonel is prepared at the proper time to aid in the excision of
woman suffrage from the constitution.

"The movement in that direction," he said, "is serious and well
organized."

"Pity it wasn't so before," said the colonel's daughter who was herself
active in the first campaign.

"The true women of California are in this movement," said the colonel.
"They are likely to become the saviors of the State."

Thenceforward the discussion was desultory. We talked of the
memorable debate on Woman Suffrage at the Valencia Theatre, and I was
assured that Dr. Aked led the hissing of the colonel on that occasion. We
talked of Plato and his ideal republic. We discussed the extraordinary
feminist program that had just been outlined by Mrs. Catt and Miss Shaw.

"Woman Suffrage is not promotion but demotion," concluded the colonel.

Alma Tadema's "Spring" was slowly emerging from the helter of
puzzle pieces. The colonel folded his Navajo draperies about him and went
back to bed.

147

GROVE L. JOHNSON

LOOD IS THICKER than water, if we may believe what
aphorists of the bromidic school tell us. Maybe that's why
it has a way of coagulating and becoming bad blood. In
the history of families in these parts we have many
instances of this trouble-breeding coagulation. A notable
one is found in the Johnson family. Everybody in California
knows that Grove L. Johnson is not on friendly terms with
his son the Governor. How the bad blood started is neither
here nor there; the public was made familiar with the situation when old
Grove put his harness on his back and went forth to smite his son Hiram in
the region of his gubernatorial aspirations. A very nifty smiter is old Grove,
but in that instance he smote in vain. Not so Hiram when he began to smite
back. He fought his father's re-election to the Assembly during the campaign
of 1912, the result being that Grove was soon in a position to devote all his
time to a lucrative law practice.

"I was a thorn in my son's side," says Grove. "He wanted me out of
politics and he got me out."

This is about as far as Grove goes in discussing the Governor for
publication. Which is as it should be, of course. But Grove discusses the
State administration quite frankly, and as the State administration is Governor
Johnson and little more, the uncomplimentary things he says about it have
a very personal application to Hiram.

A very young man is Grove L. His seventy-two years of tumultuous
activity in law and politics have left him almost unscarred of time. His hair
is gray but plentiful, and he parts it with the care of a young beau. His
whiskers, perhaps the best known whiskers in California today, are 'snowy
white but they are very far indeed from being the symbol of mental or
physical decrepitude. They jut jauntily over his boiled white shirt and
nestle cosily against his collar with no necktie to distract attention from them.
Grove L. rarely wears a necktie, a distinction which he shared with John
P. Irish until the Democrats returned to power and released our former
Naval Officer from a sixteen-year-old election bet. Only a few wrinkles
have appeared in Grove L.'s smooth white skin, and they radiate from his
keen eyes, the wrinkles of a close, appraising vision rather than of age. There
is always a white flower in the lapel of his carefully brushed black coat ; and
his boots — for, like George Knight and Henry Gage, he wears the boots of a
past age — shine with a fleckless burnish. In fact old Grove looks as Father
Time might look if he dropped his scythe and glass and had himself tailored
for rakish conquest.

Listening to old Grove L. as he sits in his Sacramento law office and
talks in that high-pitched voice of his, you think of his years not as an

148

GROVE L. JOHNSON

encumbrance but merely as the messengers that have brought him experience.
Varied indeed is the experience that has come to him as his seventy-two
twelve-months of mortal coil unwound themselves. No man in California
politics has been more lampooned and attacked; no man has dealt more
swinging blows against political adversaries. His political era has passed, as
he cheerfully admits. After November, 1912, the party he belongs to was
disorganized, its old leaders discredited. But you didn't catch him saying
that the change was for the best.

"We are worse off than ever," he told me. "We have no party left but
the Democratic and that is rent with dissensions. The Republican party is
like the old farmer's horse; it didn't die, it just 'gin out.' The Bull Moosers
in the present Legislature call themselves Republicans, but we don't recognize
them. There is really no Republican party left in California. It has no
State committee and only a few scattering County committees. The outcome
will depend on Congress. If the Democrats in Congress make good the
people will be satisfied to let conditions continue as they are. Of course the
Republican party will be reorganized in time. It has its distinct principles,
and as long as the tariff remains the main issue of politics there will be need
of the Republican party. But it will not be reorganized by letting Roosevelt
and the Bull Moose gang control it. Nor will it be reorganized by the old
leaders. I have confidence in the honesty and loyalty of Cannon and the
rest, but the people don't share rny faith. New leaders like Hadley, Borah,
Cummins and Job Hedges will be necessary.

"The Bull Moose party, like every other party founded on malice and
hate, will disintegrate, die and go to Hell where it belongs. That is bad
language, but I get mad whenever I think of the Bull Moose. It is dying
now. There is no more fight in it. It may make sporadic attacks like the
Mexican rebels, but its only cohesive power is public plunder and as a national
factor it's gone.

"It is strong in California for two reasons: the personality of my son
who worked it up strong, and the unpopularity of the old regime. It came
at a time when the old regime was drunk with power. Now it is drunk with
power in its turn.

"It claims that it has made reforms in California, but its reform claims
are as baseless as the fabric of a drunken man's dream. It has done nothing
except raise taxes, increase the number of officeholders and concentrate power
in the hands of the Governor. I don't consider the initiative, the referendum
and the recall reforms. The eight-hour law for women was a Democratic
measure, though the Bull Moosers claim it. If anybody in the State can
point to anything else they have accomplished I shall be much obliged to
hear it. They boast about freeing the State from S. P. domination. Well,
you have read Aesop and you remember King Log and King Stork. We're
in that condition. The Bull Moosers are animated by the desire to get power,
and they use their power to put their friends in office. Why, in this
Legislature there are bills providing for seven new commissions to be
appointed by the Governor.

"I expect to see the Governor's machine go to pieces next year. No one

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VARIED TYPES

can succeed in politics who builds up his power without recognizing the
power of the other fellow."

Grove L. Johnson served six terms in the Assembly and one in the State
Senate. He says the best session of his time was when Arthur Fisk was
Speaker of the Assembly because "we all pulled together and everybody had
a good time.". But he admits that the men he served with in the Legislature
were not great men; that there was no great wit or humorist; no great
orator, "though a lot of them thought they were great ;" no man whose name
stands out from the rest.

I asked whether, if he had his life to live over, he'd go into politics.

"Yes," he said with decision. "Because I've enjoyed politics. It was a
relaxation. The law is a jealous mistress, and a lawyer needs change. I
found it in the Legislature. When the session began I locked the door of my
law office. When the session ended I came back thoroughly refreshed. And
I'm proud of my record. They used to charge me with being friendly with
the S. P. Why, any man who did politics in Sacramento and wasn't friendly
with the S. P. was an ass."

He's out of politics to stay out, he says. He's going to do a little work
and a lot of playing from now on. When we had this talk he was about to
start with his wife on the European tour, to be gone two years or so. He has
acquired a passion for travel, and is more excited when he talks about Europe
than when he lambastes his son's administration.

"Last time I was abroad I spent five weeks in Rome. This time I'm
going to spend five months. Do you know, there are 407 Catholic churches
in Rome and everyone has something, a picture, a statue, an altar or a
Bambino worth seeing. I'm going to see them all."

He raves about St. Peter's. He can tell you the diameter of the great
pillars that support the dome. He climbed and counted the steps of the
Coliseum. He spent three hours before a tomb designed by Raphael. He
wants to kneel once more and receive the Pope's blessing. He has a great
admiration for the late Pope Pius.

"Why, do you know," he said with excitement, "if that man was drawn
for jury duty I'd take him on his looks alone, and no questions asked !"

The criminal lawyer's supreme tribute to goodness !

"When you were at school, you recited 'Horatius at the Bridge,' " he
continued. "I found the bridge! You recited 'Rienzi.' I found his statue!

"I want to saturate myself with Rome. I'm going to St. Peter's every
day. I'm going to spend a month in Florence too."

And he'll go to Scotland to follow the footsteps of his beloved Scott and
visit the scenes of the Waverley Novels.

"You remember the Porteous riot in 'The Heart of Mid-Lothian'? I went
to the Tolbooth in Edinburgh, and I was surprised. Why, with a dozen
good men I'm sure I could hold it against the mob !"

I give these random remarks on travel, disjointed bits of a long and
interesting conversation, because they show a side of old Grove L. of which
the public knows nothing.

"Travel is better than politics," he said, and he ought to know.

152

fJOHN M. KEITH

'URING the preceding two weeks the late John M. Keith had
1 received two proposals of marriage. I submit that that is a
very good record. A great many of u» have never received a
single proposal of marriage in the course of a lifetime, and
John M. Keith got a brace of them in a fortnight ! John M.
Keith was a millionaire, 'tis true. That sets his case apart.
But while those of us who go through life unproposed to
are not millionaires, we are perhaps of a more marriageable
age than John M. Keith. What we lack in wealth we make up in nubility.
This may be said without any suspicion of discredit to John M. Keith, for he
was in his eighty-second year.

It is unusual, I take it, for gentlemen of octogenarian dignity to be
proposed to, even when they are millionaires. Their venerable years save
them from that trying ordeal. But special occasions come, as in the case
of John M. Keith. It would be wrong to drag romance into the matter. I
am afraid there was very little sentiment attached to the two proposals which
startled John M. Keith out of his ordinary composure. The ladies who sued
for his hand were actuated by passion, but it was the passion of acquisitive-
ness ; they were in love, but their love was for John M. Keith's bank account.
About two weeks before announcement had been made in the news-
papers that John M. Keith had contributed $150,000 for the erection of a
University of California Hospital on Parnassus Heights. This magnificent
hospital is to cost $600,000, so it will be noted that John M. Keith gave just
one-fourth of the total amount. The rest was contributed by the Crockers.

I do not know whether Will Crocker or Templeton Crocker received
any proposals of marriage upon the heels of that announcement. As they
are married already, it is quite likely that the proposing females of the
species refrained from tenders which could only be regarded as polygamous.
But John M. Keith was a widower. In some way or other two single ladies
found that out, and kindly offered to wive him. John M. Keith gave them
absolutely no encouragement. In fact, he did not even answer their coy
epistles. They must have thought him a horrid man.

That newspaper announcement of John M. Keith's gift brought him many
other letters beside the two containing matrimonial offers. He was pestered
with begging letters. People who made it quite clear that they were both
needy and deserving petitioned him for sums ranging from fifty to a thousand
dollars. This writer wanted to start in business; that one wanted to send
a son to college; the other must lift the mortgage from the old home, and
would Mr. Keith oblige with a check by return mail? Truth to say, John
M. Keith had a heavy mail during those two weeks !

"I'd rather give a thousand dollars to a deserving person who didn't ask

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for it than ten cents to a person who begged," said John M. Keith, so it will
be seen that there was no more hope for the writers who wanted money than
for the writers who offered marriage.

One woman, however, was successful. She did not write; she came to
beg in person, and got an audience by stratagem. Giving the name of a
friend of Mr. Keith at the desk of the St. Francis where Mr. Keith lived she
was permitted to go upstairs to his apartments. She had her daughter with
her, a nice looking girl of about eighteen. She explained to Mr. Keith that
her daughter was engaged to be married but had no money for a trousseau.
Would Mr. Keith kindly arrange that little difficulty? That is the substance
of the story she told with a wealth of detail and with loads of pathos.

"I didn't know how to get rid of her," said Mr. Keith ; "but in desperation
I put my hand in my pocket and took out twenty dollars. She took it
greedily."

"Did she thank you ?" I asked.

"She asked me if I couldn't make it thirty."

Although John M. Keith came to this city at a youthful age, he was not
what you would call a well known man here. Bankers and brokers knew
him, oil men knew him, and in the select circle of his social intimates he
was dearly beloved. But many men who pride themselves on their wide
acquaintance with local celebrities would pass him by without recognizing
him. One reason is that John M. Keith lived a very quiet life among his
books and pictures. Another is that the greater part of his career was
passed outside San Francisco.

Born in Gainesville, Georgia, in 1832 John Mi. Keith came to San
Francisco to seek his fortune during the gold excitement. A boy of enter-
prise, eager and ambitious, he headed for the "diggings" of the Bret Harte
country and for four years engaged in placer mining with varying luck.

"I made some money," he told me, "and although I was never very
dissipated I spent it as fast as I made it."

Like many of those pioneer miners John M. Keith finally gave up hope
of wresting a fortune from Mother Earth. He went into the lumber business
in Calaveras county. He took a hand in politics too, not seeking office but
helping his friends. From the way in which he spoke of Governors Weller,
Latham and Downey and Senator Gwin it was evident that these were
among the men for whom he strove in those stormy old days.

Marriage in 1873 brought a keen sense of responsibility to John M. Keith,
and he became a farmer, first in Gilroy and later in Kern county. He worked
hard and was successful. But it is doubtful if farming alone would have
brought John M. Keith to the pleasant position where he could contribute
$150,000 to a hospital fund and never miss the money. It was oil that did
that.

As agent for the Union Oil Company John M. Keith came to know a
great deal about asphalt which was the only thing the Union Oil Company
expected to find in Kern county. But by degrees he also came to know a
good deal about oil.

"Did you ever see mosquitoes popping out of the water?" Mr. Keith

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JOHN M. KEITH

asked me. ''Well, that's the way the oil used to pop out along the banks
of the Kern River. I made up my mind that there was lots of oil there, and
I figured out the best place to drill for it."

With J. J. Mack John M. Keith bought five and one-half sections of
land, paying two dollars and a half an acre for it. Then he drilled the first
oil well in the Kern River country. That was the beginning of the famous
"Thirty Three" which started John M. Keith on the road to millions. Those
original holdings have since been sold to an English syndicate for two and
one-half million dollars.

John M. Ke,ith was a big factor in the oil industry of California ever
afterwards. At the time of his death he had holdings in Coalinga, West
Side, Maricopa, Midway and Lost Hills as well as in the country where he
first watched the oil spurting out of the water along the river banks.

He was a successful man, and he pointed the same moral that so many
other successful men like to insist upon.

"My success," he said, "came from hard work. As far as I have ever
been able to see, that's the only way."

It is easy to understand how such a man regards the begging letter
writer. Of all the short cuts to wealth, the begging letter is the shortest
and most ineffectual as well as the meanest.

The greedy demands of the unworthy make some rich men knot their
purse strings. It was otherwise with John M. Keith. He was a truly
charitable man, and his charities were not marred by ostentation. That gift
to the University Hospital fund was the only instance of his beneficence
proclaimed in the public prints. And the reason justifies the announcement
of the gift.

"I gave that in memory of my wife," said John M. Keith. "If she were
alive she would like me to give it."

As he said this John M. Keith's eyes rested affectionately on the portrait
of his wife which adorned his sitting room. I could imagine him looking
at that picture when the mail brought him a proposal of marriage.

157

GEORGE A. KNIGHT

' I '

AKE two men out of the Progressive party in California, and
there would be no Progressive party."

Thus George Knight, talking politics, his favorite sub-
ject, in the winter of 1913. It is interesting, in view of what
has happened since, to recall his words.

For years George Knight has been immersed in politics,
State and national. Time and again he has stumped Cali-
fornia for Republican governors and the United States for
Republican presidents. He is the only man we have in California who
has made his influence felt in the councils of the G. O. P. and his voice heard
throughout its largest convention halls. He has enjoyed the confidence of
Garfield, McKinley, Mark Hanna and other big men. He has seconded the
nomination of presidents and has spoken side by side with them on memor-
able occasions. And he's a hard-hitting, uncompromising fighter who never
had to rap more than twice to hold an unruly convention in line. He is not
active in politics just now, but he loves to talk politics just the same.
I asked Knight who were the two men he referred to.
"Governor Johnson and Railroad Commissioner Eshleman," he replied.
"The Progressive party is a party of individuals, and in California two in-
dividuals are the party. The rest don't count.

"Frank Heney doesn't figure. If the same proportion of people indorse
him throughout the State as indorsed him in San Francisco after the
triumphal march of his graft prosecution, he'll be an algebraic minus. I don't
believe he can be elected to any office in California. I judge from what
people say and from his attempt on the district attorneyship. Dry rot
attacks all those he gets behind. Fickert beat Ralph Hathorn for district
attorney because Heney sent Hathorn a telegram of indorsement. Heney
has the habit of office-seeking. First he was a Democrat; then a Lincoln-
Roosevelt Republican ; now he's a Progressive. He is a self-appointed can-
didate; he's his own convention and nominating committee. And he's willing
to take what's left. Money won't help Heney much. It only helps the man
who is not handicapped in other ways.

"Rowell doesn't figure either. If you applied the eugenic rule to him in
politics he wouldn't exist. And Rudolph Spreckels is never heard from
except when his self-interest is concerned. He didn't enter public life till
he wanted something and found he couldn't get it.

"Governor Johnson is able and aggressive. Like a surgeon he's not
afraid of blood when he cuts. He will be a strong candidate for Governor
or Senator. From his viewpoint his administration has been a success be-
cause it has done what he promised. But it has not been good for the State,
and I don't think the State will stand very long for some of the measures he

158

GEORGE A. KNIGHT

has given it. Governor Johnson has been extravagant, but from the viewpoint
of mere politics that is to be commended. He has taken care of his political
friends at the expense of the treasury, and hasn't sought to placate his
enemies.

"As for Eshleman, the general repute of the Railroad Commission over
which he presides is that its rulings have been fair, able and equitable. No
corporation has a sound complaint to make against it. It is as strong a
tribunal as the Supreme Court. Whether Eshleman's popularity as a Railroad
Commissioner would be enough to land him in the governorship is a problem.
We don't know yet who his opponent will be. And there may be internal
hemorrhages in his own party.

"The trouble with the Progressive party is that it is a party of negation.
It fights for nothing tangible as the old parties do. The Progressives tell us
that certain things exist which ought not to exist, and we all admit that. You
can't run a party on a policy of negation any more than you can run a bank
that way. And you can't build a party on an individual, whether it be Roose-
velt or Johnson.

"We hear much from these Progressives about friendly contests. There
are no friendly contests in politics. I've seen two hypocrites attempt it, and
all went well till one of them got mad. Hypocrites in the Progressive party?
Well, it is hard to distinguish between sincere conversion to a cause and
hypocrisy. But when one man thinks he's closer to the spring of purity than
his neighbor he is either a hypocrite or an egotist. You know, a man may
become so imbued with egotism that he will do wrong with a good conscience ;
and to the spectator he looks like a hypocrite."

Then Knight talked in a more general way. He doesn't think President
Wilson will be renominated, let alone re-elected. "His early training," he
says, "prevents his success as our Chief Executive." The Republican party
suffers at the hands of "a lot of old women who crept into power when the
party was prosperous." Its salvation depends on men like Senator Borah.
Roosevelt has drifted away, but he will be disciplined and taken back. He
had the biggest responsibility of any President since Lincoln. He gave the
United States the Panama Canal and California the battleship fleet. No
President was fairer to the corporations. Knight thinks he will be the next
nominee of the Republican party and that he will be re-elected.

As for our city government, Knights says we haven't any worthy the
name. Rolph will not be re-elected. "We shall have a union labor admin-
istration next time," he says, "for the city is now in the hands of the few
and comparison between the Rolph and McCarthy administrations is all in
favor of McCarthy's."

Knight is not in sympathy with the professional reformers. "If we try
conscientiously to root the evil out of our own souls we'll have little time for
reforming our neighbors."

Pointing out that of the Twelve Apostles there was one who betrayed
the Master, one who denied Him and one who doubted Him, Knight says
that the same proportion holds good among all men.

"In politics the ratio is, three crooks to nine honest men," he says.

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VARIED TYPES

"Sometimes there are more than three crooks. But that must be in politics.
The politician who tries to beat a cinch bill by silent prayer is off the track.
And it is so in all human nature. An illustration : The Palace Hotel harbors
the finest people in the world. And yet, if Colonel Kirkpatrick would give
me the equivalent of what guests of the Palace steal every year, I'd be in-
dependent for life. If thievery is so prevalent, how can you expect purity in
politics? And yet politicial conditions are getting better. There is no doubt
about that.

"If I had my life to live over again I'd go into politics. I was district
attorney for three terms in Humboldt, but I'm thankful that I never ran for
any important office. I've had the freedom of the private offices of four
governors, Perkins, Markham, Budd and Gage, but I never made use of it.
The lawyer who takes a fee in consideration of his pull with a governor or
any other official is not honorable. No man in the United States has had
more solid satisfaction out of politics than I have had. I've enjoyed the
friendship of the country's big men since the eighties. I've had the honor of
speaking in Madison Square Garden with Roosevelt and Taft to twenty
thousand people, an honor I wouldn't exchange for thousands of dollars. My
party has honored me and my ambitions more than I deserved; that's why
I cling to it.

"But politics has been a hindrance to me in my profession. It has taken
me away for long periods from my law office. And besides, the public has
an idea that the man who can talk never thinks.

"If I were starting life over again and determined to succeed in politics
at any cost, if I made up my mind to go into politics for what there was in it,
I'd act differently. I'd join every fraternal organization in the country. I'd
never express myself affirmatively on anything. You wouldn't be able to pull
a definite statement out of me with a boat hook. I'd be as big a demagogue
as the best of 'em. I'd tell the people that they ought to rule; and that the
government ought to supply them with everything including boots and hats.
I'd keep talking about reform. I'd prate about honesty on the principle that,
the bigger the thief the louder the cry of 'Stop Thief!' I'd play to the dis-
honest part of humanity, but I'd do it carefully and not be found out. I'd
sing 'Onward, Christian Soldier' and I'd say 'Thou shalt not steal.' That is
the recipe for success in politics, the kind of success a certain sort of politician
achieves."

I have a suspicion that Knight was thinking of certain Progressives. I
wonder if I'm right?

162

ANDREW M. LAWRENCE

WHO KNEW your San Francisco in the olden days that
are no more, certainly you need not look for the name of him
whose counterfeit presentment is set forth with this
article. Here we have the same Napoleonic head (albeit
without the Napoleonic forelock, for the hair has been with-
drawing its thinned ranks for a good while now), the same
strong brow across which thought draws its wrinkles, the
same steely eyes that narrow a bit to look you up and down
and through and through, the same militant nose, the same firm but good-
natured mouth and the same determined chin that were once so familiar in
the thick of every political or newspaper scrap in the vanished era of San
Francisco.

Andrew M. Lawrence has put on a little of the flesh of Chicago
prosperity but in all other physical characteristics he is the Andy of yesterday.
Nowadays he is a greater power in journalism than ever; a mighty power in
politics too, and a man of wealth. But these things mean little to his old
friends in San Francisco. They take a generous satisfaction in his success,
but it is Andy Lawrence the man whom they welcome home. And that is as
Lawrence would have it. He has a genius for friendship. To his old friends
he is devoted passionately.

To his old newspaper pals Lawrence is particularly devoted. A lot of
them have died or passed, like himself to bigger fields of activity; but with
those who remain he takes delight in remembering old times and laughing
his hearty laugh at the good old jokes. Let us listen to some of his
reminiscences.

"After the great Comstock days a number of brilliant newspapermen
came down from Virginia City. Among these was dear old Arthur McEwen.
The San Francisco papers were small in those days and employed few
reporters. McEwen couldn't find work here so he went to Oakland and
shared lodgings with Dan O'Connell. Both were very hard up and lived in
a miserable room up three flights in a Broadway lodging house. Meals were
meager and far between, and their rent was months in arrears. And yet,
somehow or other, O'Connell always showed the cheerfulness of a man who
had dined heartily. McEwen couldn't understand it. Things had about
reached a crisis when one day a notice came from the owner of the place not
to pay any rent to the landlord, followed by a notice from the landlord not
to pay any rent to the owner. There was a fight over the lease. 'Well,
Dan,' said McEwen, 'that disposes of one of our worries but a greater
remains. I haven't eaten for forty-eight hours. I'm famished. But you
look like a man who has just dined. Can't you let me in on your secret?'
O'Connell in his most polished style intimated that there was a charming

163

VARIED TYPES

widow who was affording him the hospitality of her board, but pointed out
that it would be impossible to introduce McEwen. He left the room shortly
afterwards, and McEwen stealthily followed him. McEwen saw O'Connell
enter a cosy little restaurant kept by a widow. It was an inviting place and
in the show window, as the piece de resistance of the day, was a fine fat
chicken roasted to a turn and garnished with vegetables that made McEwen's
mouth water. A few minutes later when O'Connell was about to sit down to
dinner he saw the door of the restaurant open slowly and quietly. Then he
saw McEwen peering in. The coast was clear. The widow was not looking.
So McEwen introduced through the open door a stick with a long nail fixed
to the end of it. He speared the chicken, hid it under his coat and tore madly
down the street.

"Poor as he was, O'Connell was always received at the best houses. He
went one evening to call on a wealthy woman who had recently lost her
husband. She knew he was poor and noticed his shabby clothes. So in a
very delicate way she conveyed to him that her husband had left behind him
a large wardrobe, and she added that as she could not bring herself to sell
the clothes, perhaps he might do her the favor of accepting them for his
personal use. O'Connell was indignant and declined her offer in his loftiest
manner. But when he told McEwen and another with whom he was lodging
— I think it was Nesbeth — about the widow's offer, they burned him up.
Was he acting as a true comrade, they demanded. If he was too proud to
accept the clothes for himself, had he no consideration for them ? The result
was that O'Connell returned and told the widow that he had two friends
temporarily embarrassed who would be glad to accept the wardrobe. Shortly
afterwards this widow gave a party and invited O'Connell. Dan obtained
permission to bring McEwen and Nesbeth along. There were about fifteen
guests assembled when the three entered the drawing room. Their hostess
took one look at them and shrieked with laughter. O'Connell was attired
in her lamented husband's full dress suit, McEwen wore his Tuxedo and
Nesbeth sported his Prince Albert.

"We were all poor in those days. Twenty-five dollars a week was
considered a good salary for a newspaperman, but every midnight found us
broke. At twelve o'clock every night there would be the same little group
sitting in the local room of the Examiner in that miserable hole we used to
have on Sacramento street. There would be Joe Ward, the city editor,
'Blinker' Murphy, Zeehandelaar and myself, all without a cent. 'Well,' Joe
Ward would say in a musing voice, 'somebody's got to die tonight.' When a
death notice was brought to the office after the business office was closed, it
was turned over to Jack Bryant, the foreman of the composing room. A
death notice cost a dollar. Sure enough someone would come rushing into
the office. 'Whom would you like to see?' Joe Ward would ask, stroking his
long mustache in his most impressive manner. 'Ah, a death notice. Yes,
yes, I shall attend to it. One dollar, please.' And then Joe would give
Bryant the death notice with a tag for the dollar. . Bryant would be furious,
but we would spend the dollar.

"One night the death notice failed to materialize and we were leaving in

164

ANDREW M. LAWRENCE

very low spirits, when who should come tearing along the street but Bill
Dargie. Bill was a wonder, the greatest Jimmy Fixit I ever knew. He had
the art of making one hand wash the other down fine ; was always borrowing
ten thousand dollars from one banker to pay the ten thousand he owed an-
other and simply carrying the interest along. This night he was very
excited. 'I'm delighted that I didn't miss you, fellows,' he said. 'Now about
that Oakland banker story. I've persuaded the Call and Chronicle to pass it
up and you must do the same for me.' We had no Oakland banker story,
but of course Ward didn't let on. By a few deft remarks he got the whole
thing out of Dargie. 'Well, Bill,' he said finally, 'as a special favor I'll see
what I can do.' He went back to the local room, loitered there a few minutes
and then returned. 'It's all right, Bill/ he announced, 'I've killed it.' Bill
was delighted and took us all over to the California Market, where at his
expense of course, we feasted on oysters and beer for two hours. When he
had paid the bill we told him how we had fooled him and he was furious.

"Did you ever hear the story of old Johnson, the policeman who was
supposed to be crazy? That was the greatest practical joke I ever knew of
and it was played time and time again, usually on a new man. Johnson used
to chew soap so that he would foam at the mouth and then he would pull out
his pistol and pretend to run amuck in a murderous fit. I was on the late watch
at the old Hall of Justice one night. The reporter's room was a little box of
a room with a partition running half way to the ceiling. It was just outside
the room where the policemen changed watch. Ned Townsend who after-
wards wrote 'Chimmie Fadden' was there as a cub reporter. Then there was
rheumatic old John McGrew and Michael Angelo Hevron, veteran reporters
who wore silk hats and dressed like gentlemen of the old school. There
was a youngster named Percy Goldstone on the Examiner who used to hang
around the reporter's room. He was a prying, pestiferous cub and everybody
wanted to get rid of him. I saw Johnson come in with the policemen who
were going off watch and gave him the signal for the performance, determined
to frighten Percy so badly that he would never bother us again. Of course
I thought that McGrew and Hevron had seen the joke played before. 'Hum,'
I said to McGrew, loud enough for Percy and Ned Townsend to hear, T see
old Johnson's back again. Look's pretty well too, doesn't he?' 'Why, has
he been ill?' McGrew asked, apparently helping me out. 'Why, yes,' I
replied; 'you know he had one of his murderous fits a few days ago.' Oh,'
exclaimed McGrew, 'does he get murderous fits?' T thought you knew,'
I said. 'Ever since his son was drowned on the flat at Shell Mound he has
been brooding over the thing. Imagines the boy was murdered and is seized
with a frenzy in which he goes after the murderer. The last time he had a
fit he shot a man three times and nearly got him.' Percy's eyes were getting
bigger and bigger and Ned Townsend was showing signs of nervousness.
Just then old Johnson let a yell out of him and fell over backwards. There
was pandemonium. The policemen scattered in every direction as Johnson,
frothing at the mouth and yelling like a mad man staggered to his feet with
his revolver in his hand. Ned Townsend fainted, old Michael Angelo Hevron
lost his silk hat and fled out of the prison. To carry out the illusion I started

167

VARIED TYPES

to climb over the partition into the reporter's room, but what was my surprise
to have rheumatic old McGrew pull me down, clamber up on my body, sprawl
over the wall and fall in a heap on the floor of the reporter's room. I had
taken it for granted that he and Hevron were on to the joke, but they
weren't. Poor Percy was at the steel door of the prison begging to be let
through and crying like a baby. Just as Johnson was upon him with his
pistol the prison keeper let him through and Percy fled into the receiving
hospital with old Johnson yelling Til get him yet!' at his heels. Percy hid
under a cot but Johnson let him escape, for fear he'd die of fright. We
revived Townsend, helped McGrew to pull himself together, went out on
the street and found Hevron, but Percy was nowhere to be seen. Finally
we found him stretched out in a tin bathtub in the hospital with the wooden
cover drawn over him. When we took off that cover his eyes were glassy,
his face was as white as paper and he thought his end had come. He never
bothered us in the reporter's room after that. I let Townsend in on the
joke, but we never dared to tell the two old boys that they had been the
victims of a practical joke."

"What was the greatest newspaper story you ever handled in San
Francisco?" I asked Lawrence.

"The Benhayon case," he answered instantly. "No other story ever
seized the popular mind like that." And he went on to tell me how he had
"scooped" the other papers on the Benhayon case and how Hearst rewarded
him by making him Washington correspondent of the Examiner.

It was a narrative of absorbing interest. He told me how he went to the
morgue that Sunday afternoon, viewed Benhayon's body and read two
letters which had been found near it in the Geary street lodging house. It
was an uninteresting suicide case, he thought; but he went to interview the
woman who kept the lodging house and she told him that there were three
letters, one addressed to the coroner. He broke the news of the suicide to
Benhayon's father and went back to the coroner's office to find that third
letter. But Coroner Stanton refused to give it up. Lawrence began to
realize that he was on the track of a big sensation. Benhayon, as old San
Franciscans will remember, was the brother of Mrs. Milton Bowers for whose
murder Dr. Bowers was awaiting death. With the assistance of Allan Kelly,
the Examiner reporter who afterwards captured the grizzy bear Monarch,
Lawrence got up the remarkable story of the Bowers case, tracing Benhayon's
connection with it. Then at nightfall, when the reporters of the other papers
were off their guard, he made another attempt to get that third letter from
the coroner. But the coroner was obdurate. Lawrence had been putting two
and two together, however. He had noted the unusual activities of Captain
of Detectives Lees and Detective Bob Hogan. He resolved on a coup.
'Coroner,' he said, 'if I guess the contents of that letter will you tell me
whether I am right or wrong?' 'I will tell you nothing,' said the coroner. 'In
that letter,' said Lawrence, 'Henry Benhayon confessed that he and not Dr.
Bowers, had murdered Mrs. Bowers.' 'How did you get a chance to read
that letter?' demanded the coroner in amazement. Lawrence had his "scoop."
The Examiner printed four pages of the story next day and the police

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ANDREW M. LAWRENCE

reporters on the other papers lost their jobs. Lawrence went on to trace the
subsequent developments of this amazing case; how John Dimmig (who
for years drove a hack in Powell street) was brought into it; how Dimmig
was identified as the man who bought the poison from which Benhayon died ;
how he was also identified as the man who bought the poisons found in Dr.
Bowers' cell ; how he denied knowing Bowers but was forced to admit that
he had married Bowers' housekeeper; and so on through the remarkable
chain of incriminating facts which led to Dimmig's trial for murder. Dimmig,
as we all know, was acquitted and Bowers also went free after his second
trial. The mystery of the Benhayon case was never solved, but Lawrence
thinks that he committed suicide, having been first persuaded by curious
representations to write the letter which would exonerate Bowers. Several
years afterwards when Mrs. Zeissing who had nursed Mrs. Bowers before
her death and was supposed to know the whole story, lay dying outside of
San Francisco, Lawrence as managing editor of the Examiner sent a reporter
to her to get her deathbed story, but she took the secret to her grave.

"There's a little bird who sits up aloft and looks after a newspaperman
who is fighting for the right," commented Lawrence. He had been telling
me another remarkable newspaper story ; the story of the legislative investiga-
tion which led to his arrest for contempt of the Senate. The Hale and
Norcross litigation in which Alvinza Hayward and other millionaires were
interested, was before Judge Hebbard and a bill was introduced in the
Legislature to allow a litigant to have a case transferred on an affidavit
alleging prejudice in the judge. Lawrence got a tip that the bill was aimed
at Judge Hebbard and that money was being used to rush it through the
Legislature. The Examiner published this charge without having adequate
proof. Both houses started investigations, and Lawrence was subpoenaed to
testify. He went to Sacramento with an array of counsel including Garret
McEnerney, George Knight and Andrew Clunie. It looked bad for the
Examiner but "the little bird sitting up aloft" came to his assistance. A
stranger told him that he had overheard a conversation on the train in which
a telegraph operator had remarked that if the Examiner could get hold of
the telegrams in the Sacramento office of the Western Union, its charges
would be more than verified. But the investigating committees refused to
demand the telegrams and committed Lawrence for refusing to answer a
question. There ensued a battle of writs with Lawrence straining every
nerve to break into what he was sure was a nest of legislative corruption. Old
San Franciscans will remember Knight's famous "appeal to a Republican
Legislature" and Senator Morehouse's appeal to his own "stainless heart."
Then followed Morehouse's confession that he had changed his vote on the
bill by order of a railroad attorney, and the big sensation which changed the
current of the investigation, the publication of the telegram from a lobbyist
to an interior banker asking for four thousand dollars to grease the passage
of the coyote scalp bill. "These fellows are as hungry as wolves" was part
of that message. The most spectacular incident of all was the discovery,
when the legislative committees finally ordered the production of the
messages by the Western Union Company, that these were being rushed out

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VARIED TYPES

of the State on the Overland Limited. And when a Truckee constable brought
them back enough were published, in relation to the coyote scalp bill alone,
to besmirch forty-four members of the Legislature.

I wish I had room for the story of how Lawrence put Sam Rainey out
of politics ("Take gas and water out of politics and I'll go with them,"
Rainey told Lawrence one day) by nominating James D. Phelan for mayor
when the old boss wanted Colin M. Boyd. I wish I could go over, as he did,
the history of the epochal fight to make Fred Esola chief of police, a fight
which engendered enmities that still exist. Lawrence thinks there was a
strange fatality about that fight. The two men who became chief of police
as a result of it, both owed their deaths to the position, Sullivan and Biggy.
Lawrence still insists that Esola would have made a good chief.

"Maybe I was wrong," he says, "but if I was blinded by anything it was
friendship. I had known Esola from the old days at the Union Grammar
School. When I became an assemblyman I had him appointed sergeant
of the Democratic caucus. Afterwards I had Chief Crowley appoint him to
the police force. On his own merits he became a lieutenant. He was honest
and he was above the average of policemen in intelligence. And he was my
friend, so I went the distance for him."

It would be interesting too to go over the story of Lawrence's political
fights in Chicago; to tell for instance how he was in the center of a battle
which produced a decision regarding the liberty of the press which, in the
opinion of Joseph Choate, will stand forever as American law. Or how he
fought Roger Sullivan to a standstill, rejected Sullivan's shrewd suggestion
that Lawrence himself run for mayor of Chicago, and helped Carter Harrison
win the primary election which broke the backbone of Sullivan's political
strength. These are all absorbing stories. But enough has been told to
engage the interest of old San Franciscans. Lawrence belongs to a San
Francisco past which is only yesterday, yet it seems a long way off. It is
a past which taught him many lessons. As a result of it he is today a bigger,
broader man than the Andy we used to know.

170

JESSE W. LILIENTHAL

I I 1

THE happiest man in the world."

Looking at Jesse W. Lilienthal, the president of the
United Railroads, one sees instantly that he is a very happy
man. Hearing him expound his philosophy of life, one under-
stands easily just why he should be happy. If Jesse W.
Lilienthal were not happy I wonder who in the world would
be.

Jesse W. Lilienthal is one of the leaders of the San
Francisco bar. He is the president of one of the biggest corporations in the
West. He is generously favored with this world's goods. To say that these
are not elements in the composite of his happiness would be to write cant.
Position and wealth may always contribute to happiness. But they do not
make happiness, and in the case of Jesse W. Lilienthal they are not the basis
of happiness. When he said to me that he was the happiest man in the
world he referred to something nobler, as the context of his remark will
indicate.

Jesse W. Lilienthal is so happy because he has the power and the
inclination to confer happiness on others. But let us not call him a
philanthropist, for that is a word of many odious implications. Rather let
us say that Jesse W. Lilienthal is a charitable man.

Jesse W. Lilienthal has the look of a happy man. There is in his face
that appearance of peace and content which is the reflection of a clear
conscience. It is a handsome face in the first place. The lines of this face
and the modeling of the features show the beauty of masculine strength.
The brown eyes are clear and keen; the nose shows character; the mouth is
firm above a firm chin. There is an agreeable contrast between the healthy
brown of the complexion and the silver of the hair thinning over a fine brow.
If Jesse W. Lilienthal were a stern man he would still be handsome; but
not so attractively handsome as he is with kindly gentleness and intelligent
sympathy announcing themselves to all who read a man in the man's
physiognomy. Here is a man, I should say, whom children love at first
sight.

Granting that the public has the right to know something about the
president of a public service corporation, Jesse W. Lilienthal talked quite
freely about himself. He talked about himself frankly and with a charming
lack of self-consciousness. He explained his way of life so that people might
know about him and so that other men might be induced to follow his
example.

"Four years ago," he told me, "I made a formal announcement to my
wife and son. I announced to them that thereafter I intended to spend my
entire annual income by the thirty-first of every December. I told them that

171

VARIED TYPES

I had invested enough money to guard them against want in the event of
my death, the failure of my law practice or any other accident which might
prevent my contributing to their support. I told them that we should
continue to live well, not depriving ourselves of any of the comforts we were
accustomed to; but that no surplus would be carried over from one year to
the next. All that we did not need would be spent for the good of our
neighbors. My wife and son approved of this arrangement, and I have
carried it out ever since. At the end of every year the last cent of my income
has been spent.

"This arrangement has made me the happiest man in the world. It has
so altered my attitude toward life that when a man comes to me for help in
rounding a bad corner I do not feel that I am doing him a favor but that
he is conferring an obligation on me. He is helping me to live my life the
way I want to live it."

At first blush this all seems quite amazing. The idea of a man getting
rid of his money by the end of every year and starting fresh on the first of
January is apt to disturb our set notions of life and the way to live it. But
properly considered the amazing thing is that more prosperous men do not
solve the problem of right living the way Jesse W. Lilienthal has solved it.
It is a truism that the rich render themselves miserable by striving to accum-
ulate more and more every year.

"Why cannot men know when they have enough?" asks Lilienthal. "For
one man enough may be ten thousand ; for another it may mean one hundred
thousand dollars. But let every man fix a term to his desires, and spend
everything over and above the amount that makes him independent. I think
that by so doing he will discover the secret of happiness."

It is reasonable. But how many will find inspiration in Lilienthal's
words? How many will follow the example of this president of a corporation
who finds peace and content in giving? Are there other Lilienthals in this
day of mad scrambling for greater and greater riches? Let us hope so, even
if we hope against hope.

The example set by Jesse W. Lilienthal would be less impressive if he
were a man who had reached the climax of his mental resources and
exhausted his physical capacity for hard work. But he has not. He is fifty-
eight years old, in the flower of a vigorous maturity. His life has been one
of hard work ; and so far from quitting work, he has assumed a responsibility
which doubles the demands upon his time. As he follows the rule laid down
four years ago with scrupulous exactitude this means that he has more to
give away than before.

"One of the papers," said Lilienthal, "in commenting on my new
position as head of the United Railroads said that I was a glutton for work.
I suppose I am. I haven't any inclination for play. I go to the theatres
occasionally, I love music and pictures; but I don't golf — in fact I haven't
had any regular diversion since I left off the baseball and tennis of my boy-
hood days. Frequently when I go home tired after a day's work I find that
a light novel has been left invitingly open where I may see it. I pick it up
and turn over a few pages, but before long I lay it down and reach for a law

172

JESSE W. LILIENTHAL

journal. My happiness is in my work. Since my new duties began I arrive
at my law office at half past seven in the morning; sometimes I don't reach
home till a quarter to seven and then, as likely as not, I take a bundle of
legal papers with me and work till ten in the evening. For I do not intend
to give up my law practice. I still want to talk to a judge once in a while.
But my law business is well organized. I have splendid partners and efficient
clerks, so I can find time for this additional work.

"Why did I take up this additional responsibility? That is difficult to
answer. I must say I was surprised when the offer was made to me. I
locked myself in my office and thought it over. I could come to no decision,
so I went to two friends, men whose names I should like to mention to you
because they are men of the highest standing here. I laid the matter before
them, explaining that I had not yet made my decision. They considered it
and urged me to accept. I went East and talked with the New York people
who had made the offer. I asked them whether they expected me to be a
mere figurehead, saying that I could not accept the offer if that were the case.
They replied that I was not to be anything of the sort; that they had
gathered proxies for every share of United Railroad stock and that these
would be turned over to me so that I might pick out my own board of
directors and my own subordinates. I told them finally that I would accept
if they would postpone my taking charge for sixty days. They agreed and
I took a vacation in Europe, a splendid vacation most of which was spent in
picture galleries.

"The meeting was to take place on the twenty-eighth of August, 1913,
just two days after the bond election. It was necessary for me to explain
the situation to the men I wanted to serve with me on the board. When ten
or so know a secret it is pretty hard to keep it from the papers. Reporters
began making inquiries. That is why the announcement was made at that
particular time. The news could not be kept secret any longer.

"The manner in which the news was received was very gratifying indeed.
My work starts under happy auspices. In three months I may be the most
abused man in the city, but my mistakes will not be of the heart. That I
shall make mistakes of judgment I do not doubt, for I have made plenty in
the past. One is apt to err in solving problems, and I have been attempting
to solve them all my life. This which I am attempting now is an interesting
one. There are animosities to remove and I shall try to remove them. I
shall try to meet the public half way. Of course we shall not be able to give
everything that is asked, but shall do our best."

I hazard the guess that Jesse W. Lilienthal would not have accepted the
presidency of the United Railroads if the acceptance had involved the
discontinuance of his charitable activities. He is a member of the probation
committee of the Juvenile Court and is one of the most active workers
among the delinquent and dependent children over whom that court has
jurisdiction. This, I think, is his favorite work of charity.

"If there is any of the milk of human kindness in a man," he says, "this
work will bring it out."

Jesse W. Lilienthal is also president of the Recreation League, president

175

VARIED TYPES

of the Tuberculosis Society, president of the Society for the Study of the
Exceptional Child, and a director of the Boys' and Girls' Aid Society and of
the Remedial Loan Association.

Plainly, the man who has a law practice and the business of a public
service corporation to take care of and who can still find time for all these
good works is a remarkable character. But he has assistance.

"Fortunately," says Jesse W. Lilienthal, "my wife is in a position to
spare a great deal of time from her domestic duties, and she is sympathetic
with all my work."

Is it any wonder he says he's the happiest man in the world?

176

$2 ^ S2
V I) V

•*\f* \ f r\c>~

W W SP

r^ff* M /<•

p. H. MCCARTHY

'RGANIZED labor in California," says P. H. McCarthy, "is
getting stronger and more conservative."

McCarthy ought to know, for there are fifty-five
thousand workers in the State Building Trades Council
which he heads.

McCarthy is getting more conservative too. So at

v _^_,, least it seems to one after a chat with him. He talks better

than he used to. He always had the gift of the gab, but he
impresses one as calmer and keener than of yore. There is more breadth to
him. It is not so easy now to get his views of men. He prefers to talk of
measures. But he's the same old hard hitter when you get him started.

I should say offhand that McCarthy's service on the Board of Directors
of the World's Fair has done him a lot of good. It has brought him in con-
tact, as never before, not even when he was Mayor, with the conservative
forces of the community. He started on common ground with these men,
to be sure. All the World's Fair men are striving for the good of San Fran-
cisco. But in the inevitable clash of wills these men have done McCarthy
good.

McCarthy has done them good too, I'll be bound. Ask them about him.
They don't talk of him as an ogre any more. They praise him highly and
sincerely. They confess that they couldn't have gotten along without him.
He promised at the start that there would be no labor difficulties on the Fair
grounds. There haven't been any. Several times they have been narrowly
averted, and McCarthy was the averter in every instance. The general public
doesn't know this. But then, a lot of things have happened inside that Ex-
position fence of which the general public, for its peace of mind, has been
kept in ignorance.

McCarthy won't talk much about his Exposition work. But he said one
thing worth repeating:

"If it hadn't been for the Exposition work, San Francisco would have
had a very hard time. There would have been an enormous number of men
out of work. For mark you, the membership of our unions has not increased
a great deal since the Exposition work began. The Board of Directors had
no design of excluding outsiders, but local men have done the bulk of the
work. And the outsiders have been drawn largely from the transbay regions.
The millions that have been spent for labor have gone to men who have
families in San Francisco and the nearby cities."

Turning from the World's Fair to San Francisco in general, McCarthy
was more communicative. In three years of private life he has had lots of
time for observation and what he has seen has given him, he says, "plenty
of food for thought."

177

VARIED TYPES

"What Barnum said of the American people is true of the people of San
Francisco," he says. "They like to be fooled. Those who laid the wires
against me three years ago seem to be of that opinion too. I have tried at
times to understand some of the things that have been done here during the
past three years. Even by throwing myself into the craziest frame of mind
possible I have not succeeded. They are beyond me.

"The people were told by the gentlemen who opposed my re-election that
my defeat would mean untold millions of dollars and thousands of new
settlers for San Francisco. One speaker, I recall, declared that if Mr. Rolph
were elected in September ninety per cent of the vacant flats would be rented
before the first of the year. There are still quite a number of vacant flats.

"Despite these and other glittering promises they had rather a hard time
beating McCarthy. They spent a million and three-quarters in that cam-
paign. It has been estimated that thirty-six hundred men worked against
me. Hundreds of them received ten dollars a day for traducing me on the
streets, in the cars, in saloons. Between sixteen and eighteen thousand were
registered who had no right to vote. There was a registration booth near the
Ferry for the convenience of commuters. We arrested two of them for
voting, if you remember. But when I asked that the roll be purged the reply
was that there was no money available. The police captains were all switched
twelve days before the election. And the count of votes was peculiar. When
a ballot is handled nineteen times instead of once, as the law commands,
some strange things can happen. My opponents lost a great deal of money
betting that I couldn't poll fourteen thousand votes. But in spite of it all
I got twenty-seven thousand."

Some of these latter statements are undeniably true. Others are not so
acceptable. But there is no doubt that McCarthy believes them all. Despite
his growing conservatism it is still possible for McCarthy's admirers to con-
vince him that the enormous sum of a million and three-quarters was spent
to compass his defeat. Rolph didn't cost his backers anywhere near that sum.

"What has been done? What is the condition of the city formerly held
back by McCarthy, the labor agitator? Well," continued McCarthy, "I
remember that three years ago a number of speeches were made to the good
people of Ingleside who had no water. A day of oratory was devoted to
telling them how quickly they were going to get that water. They haven't
got it yet.

"In the matter of morals San Francisco is worse off than ever. Is the
Barbary Coast closed? I hear they are selling near-beer down there that
contains about fourteen per cent of alcohol.

"The Municipal Clinic is closed, there's no doubt about that. Every
crook in town, every man making a dollar off lewd women, fought it. I was
for the Clinic. I stood with Father Weyman for the regulation of vice. The
man who thinks you can wipe out prostitution as you wipe a slate with a
sponge is wrong in the head.

"There were no streetwalkers in San Francisco when McCarthy was
Mayor. Look at the streets now.

"The scandalizers, the people of evil mind, took my statement about

178

p. H. MCCARTHY

making this city the 'Paris of America' and put their own vile construction
on it. The cultured traveler doesn't go to Paris to find wickedness; he goes
there to enjoy pictures, statues, fine architecture, beautiful boulevards and
parks. I wanted to attract that traveler to San Francisco; but my intention
was misrepresened.

"There was no reason why I should be misunderstood. I always spoke
straight out. And I never sidestepped. I was for women's suffrage, and said
so during my campaign. What did Mr. Rolph do? He sidestepped the
question.

"I have not been a trimmer in politics. I have no use for the trimmer.
The trimmer doesn't succeed very long. The people get on to him. It is
impossible to be everybody's man. If you carry water on both shoulders you
can't go very far. You know what Lincoln said about fooling the people.
The trimmer is always trimmed.

"I am not impressed with the value of the handshake as a political asset.
The glad hand has seen its best days. A tired wrist is no indication of
success. As a political institution the handshake has lost its usefulness.

"Not all our politicians realize this. While they do not manage to fool
the people, they manage to fool themselves. I suppose a phrenologist could
explain why this is so. There is always the chance that the man in power
will be swayed by continual contact with designing persons who have selfish
motives for directing his mind along- certain lines. The strong man is not
going to be swayed. But let us charitably remember that human nature is
weak at best.

"Some people advocate the recall as a cure for municipal ills. I don't
believe in it and would not assist a recall movement. The recall is not an
effective weapon, and it is not a fair test of political strength. It is apt to
be a tool of evil. You can't legislate men honest. There are many other
ways of curbing dishonest or incompetent officials."

"Have you ever joined a woman's auxiliary?" I asked, thinking of Mayor
Rolph's recent initiation in the Degree of Pocahontas, the women's auxiliary
of the Red Men.

"The only woman's society I belong to is Mrs. McCarthy's," said P. H.

He took out his watch and showed me a picture of the other members,
five fine looking youngsters.

181

GAVIN McNAB

VERYBODY remembers what a hectic celebration the town
had that night in November, 1905, when Eugene E. Schmitz
was elected mayor for the third time. With the aid of the
new voting machines the fusion ticket had been completely
routed and Ruef's painteaters rode into office on the crest
of the wave of popular opinion. The tenderloin went wild
with delight, the saloons were jammed with thirsty
politicians, there were parades, bands and firecrackers. To
add to the excitement of the night the Chronicle tower caught fire and
wonderful coppery beacons flamed in the sky while thousands of men and
women stood around and enjoyed the spectacle. Ruef was a busy man that
night. He was master of the revels and his remarkable brain devised all
sorts of insults to the fallen foe. Among other things he gave orders for a
funeral procession and to the strains of the Dead March from Saul a drunken
mob of his wardheelers marched through the downtown streets, finally
depositing a coffin on the threshold of the Occidental Hotel. Gavin McNab
lived at the Occidental and the coffin was meant for him. Next day McNab
met Ruef.

"I see you left an empty coffin on my doorstep last night," said McNab.
Ruef grinned.

"Well," continued the Democratic boss, "the events of the next two years
will determine who is to fill it, you or I."

This story is not told for the purpose of jibing at a broken man. Far
be it from me to strike at Ruef, now that he is down. I simply repeat the
incident for its bearing on Gavin McNab's career. Many bosses have come
and gone during his years of political leadership. Not a few have regarded
him as Ruef regarded him. But like Ruef they have gone to their political
coffins, while Gavin McNab has yet to catch the personal note in the strains
of the dead march. Some day, perhaps at no distant date, he will retire from
politics, but he will retire because he has exhausted politics, not because
politics has exhausted him. When the time comes to encoffin his political
career, Gavin McNab will perform the obsequies himself.

If mere defeat could destroy the power of a political leader Gavin.
McNab would have been destroyed years ago. No political dominance of
equal duration was ever crushed as frequently as McNab's. He has
probably lost as many elections as he has won. But like the demigod, every
time he has been felled he has risen with renewed vigor; and many of the
victories have been Pyrrhic victories. Looking back over his career it is
not too much to say that his defeats have done him as much honor as his
triumphs ; sometimes more, for a triumph involves difficult responsibilities
from which a defeat is happily free.

182

GAVIN McNAB

What is the secret of his continued leadership through lean years and
«,fat? It is no secret. Anybody who knows Tammany in New York or the
Democratic organization in San Francisco can explain it.

"I introduced absolute local autonomy in the party," said McNab.
"District leadership was district leadership in fact, not in theory. The men
elected to office were the sole judges of patronage and they divided the
patronage among the districts in accordance with the best judgment of the
district leaders. If a district could not supply a good man for a job, the
job did not go to a bad man in that district; it went to a good man in some
other district. Sometimes when the time came to distribute patronage I
did not have the disposal of a single place. I was the leader, it is true, but
my leadership was an abstract thing. That's why my political enemies
couldn't destroy it. You can't destroy an abstraction."

Being a Scotchman with the Scotch leaning toward metaphysics McNab
probably lays a little too much emphasis on the "abstract idea." Even the
Tammany system of district autonomy demands something more than
"abstract" leadership in the boss and the Tammany system, owing to the
exceedingly healthy opposition of the Republican and Union Labor
organizations, has never been perfected in San Francisco. Hence it has
frequently happened that McNab's "abstract" leadership has been trans-
formed to bossing of the concrete description — and reinforced concrete at
that. And when his bossing displeased the district bosslets, district leader-
ship became a figment of fancy and McNab landed on the recalcitrants like
a load of bricks.

That is why he has so many enemies within and without the party.

"I am the only Democrat who could bring out the entire vote," he used
to say. "If I ran for office my friends would vote for me and my enemies
would go to the polls in full force just to show what they thought of me."

McNab likes to talk about his friends.

"I wouldn't exchange the friendships I have made in politics for anything
in the world," he says. "That is the best thing about politics. It is the
greatest panorama of human nature we have. Men are men in politics; the
shams don't count — they strike your sense of the ridiculous at once. But
with the real men you form real friendships. You come to believe profoundly
in human nature. You find that it is a splendid thing, especially among the
poor, the working people. After the associations of politics the associations
of so-called 'social life' have no attraction for you. And if your interest in
politics is impersonal, as mine has been ; if you seek no office, you learn to
laugh at the foibles and weaknesses. You become an optimist. I am a
profound optimist."

Perhaps more than most men Gavin McNab has been the master of his
own fate, and yet he simply drifted into politics. On his father's sheep
ranch at Largo in Mendocino county — an old Spanish grant which the
McNab brothers have preserved intact through all these years — the boy
devoured Stuart Mill and Adam Smith, Gevons and Cairnes and Bastiat. He
had a district school "education" and a passion for political economy. When
he came to this city at the age of twenty-one he brought little else with

185

VARIED TYPES

him, except abstemious habits — he never drinks or smokes — and a manful
determination to get ahead. The tariff was the great political issue of the
time and in the intervals of his work as a clerk at the Occidental Hotel he
wrote articles for the old Alta. The articles attracted attention and he was
gradually drawn into Democratic politics. He made the acquaintance of
E. B. Pond and when Pond became a candidate for the Democratic
nomination for governor McNab went to the convention at San Jose as a
Pond man. Pond was nominated over the opposition of Chris Buckley
who, however, sold out his strength in the general election and insured the
victory of Stanford. Naturally the Pond men were sore and with McNab
as one of their leaders they broke Buckley's strength in the next campaign.

"When I slapped the idol in the face," says McNab, "everybody waited
to see me drop dead. I didn't drop dead, so the press took up the fight."

The Wallace Grand Jury also took it up and although Buckley and Sam
Rainey won two elections after that, the shepherd and his "lambs" never
regained dominance. The victorious insurgents quarreled, as victorious
insurgents always do, but McNab maintained his leadership campaign after
campaign and the Democratic organization controlled most of the patronage
offices in San Francisco until Schmitz was elected for the third time and
swept the painteaters with him. To review the history of that control and
McNab's part in it would take a book. McNab summarizes it fairly enough.

"Sometimes we elected pharisees to office, but never a crook. And
speaking of pharisees, when Taylor was elected he told some of my friends
that he was thinking of appointing me poundmaster. I sent him word that
he wouldn't dare do it because he knew that I would shut up his doggerel."

McNab had studied law as well as tariff schedules at the Occidental
and during his years of political activity he gradually built up a fine practice.

"But while I was active in politics," he says, "I never took a case for a
public service corporation."

Even now he doesn't take such cases within this city, for he thinks it
would be ethically incompatible with his political prominence. But he has
one of the biggest practices in the State. He is attorney for six banks. He
represented the two hundred million United Properties Company. His share
in the winning of the Baldwin will case is fresh in the public memory.

He is a hard worker. Some people think he never plays. About once
a year he strolls into the Pacific-Union Club and usually leaves an epigram
or two behind when he departs. About once in six months he goes to the
theatre. For physical exercise he walks — in the woods a good deal, for he
loves nature and is an expert ornithologist. Sometimes he unbends his wit
in postprandial oratory and he ranks high in this accomplishment.

"Nature, human nature and books," is the way he sums up his favorite
recreations. Undoubtedly books play a great part in his life. A larger part
perhaps than politics, for he reads everything and is getting more and more
aloof from active political endeavor. When will he retire?

"You never retire from politics," he says. "You may think you have
retired, but let a friend ask for assistance and your coat comes off and you
are back again in the thick of it."

186

JOHN L. McNAB

WENTY-THREE years ago, when he had turned eighteen,
John L. McNab wrote a letter from the family sheep ranch
in Mendocino county to Brother Gavin in San Francisco.
It was an important letter because it carried the news that
John had made up his mind to study law. In due course of
time came the answering letter from Gavin.

"I remember the wording of that letter as well as if I
had only received it this morning," says John L. McNab in
telling the story.

And this was the pith of what the experienced Gavin wrote to his younger
brother :

"If you sit down at home with an unabridged dictionary at your elbow
and read through Blackstone's Commentaries twelve times, you'll know more
law than any lawyer in San Francisco."

As a comment on our legal giants it was a pretty little hit; as a bit of
fraternal advice it was probably not intended to be taken too literally. But
John L. McNab has more of the family's Scotch matter-of-fact than of the
family's Scotch sense of humor. He took Gavin's advice literally.

"The first time I went through Blackstone," he says, "I was utterly
discouraged and overwhelmed by the mass of obsolete phraseology. I came
very near throwing the book down the well. Perhaps an innate reverence
for all books prevented me. I tackled it the second time. When I had once
more reached 'finis' at the end of the second volume I began to see a faint
glimmer of light. I went at it again. On the third reading the full significance
of the book began to dawn on me. But understanding was born in pain and
weariness. However, I gritted my teeth and sailed into it once more. At
the end of a year and a half I had read Blackstone an even dozen times."

In that anecdote you may find the key to John L. McNab's success.
Twenty-three years ago he was already cultivating the priceless habit of
"keeping everlastingly at it." He was indefatigably studious. Weariness
could not wear him down ; no overtraining could stale his intellectual ardor.
He leaped at obstacles with the enthusiasm of a hurdler; the difficulty gave
zest to the contest. And in that respect John L. McNab is the same today
as he was twenty-three years ago.

The elder McNabs came from Glasgow. The mother had the culture of
splendid education. The father had the culture that comes to men of no
schooling from a passionate delight in the best literature. And that, by the
way, is a culture to be found among Scotch and Irish poor people as it is
found nowhere else in the world. The Nile street photograph gallery where
the elder McNab made the pictures of Glasgow folk and where William
Black, the novelist, William Caird, the great pulpit orator, and other promi-

187

VARIED TYPES

nent men liked to while away an hour in chat, is still to be seen! Ill health
came to McNab and he resolved to cross the sea and find new life in
California. He bought a sheep ranch near Ukiah, a ranch of seven thousand
acres which is still in the possession of the family. That was in 1871. Two
years later John L. McNab was born.

"My father," says John L. McNab, "brought his fine library across the
Isthmus of Panama. It covered the whole field of English literature, but
when I look back to my boyhood days and recall the long winter nights that
we boys spent before the fire absorbed in reading, the books I think of first
are the Waverley Novels, the Tales from Blackwood, Chamber's Journal,
Alison's History of Europe, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, the first
edition of Burns, Macaulay and Carlyle.

"We were locked away in the loneliness of the hills, far removed from
schools. It was a wild country in those days, and there was plenty of
ribaldry, drinking, gambling and lawless dissipation. My mother was the
strongest and most beautiful character I ever knew and I cannot think of
her now without tears in my eyes. It was clue to her influence that we
escaped the dangers that surrounded us in that primitive society, and her
influence sent us to good books and filled us with a passion for knowledge.

"My brother Gavin too was a strong influence in my early life. He
taught me at home before a district school was built near enough for me to
attend. It was at Largo four miles away, and I rode the eight miles on!
horseback during the summer term. In winter there was no school, but our
father was a prosperous farmer and could afford a governess who was also a
music teacher and who stayed at the ranch directing our education. So
winter and summer our education went on under regular discipline.

"In that first flush of boyhood I turned with an unappeasable appetite to
history. I read Green's Longer History of England while flat on my back
with pneumonia. It made me hungry for more, so I followed with Macaulay's
History of England and Carlyle's French Revolution and Past and Present.
After that I was launched beyond all hope of recall. Literature formed the
staple of our talk. One of my brothers was a great admirer of Hume ; Gavin
preferred Gibbon to all other historians; Macaulay was my favorite. And
many an hour we spent analyzing their work and comparing their styles of
composition. It was a life to which I look back with the liveliest satisfaction."

When he finished at the district school John L. McNab followed the
example of the other country boys around him by going to business college.
He attended the Pacific Business College in this city, returning to the sheep
ranch in the Mendocino hills when he was eighteen. It was then he received
that letter from Gavin which started him on the conquest of the law. He
had no instructor in law, but despite this handicap he was ready for his
examinations before he had reached his majority. Immediately after his
twenty-first birthday he was admitted to practice. The next two years he
spent at home studying history and political economy. Then he went down
to Ukiah and nailed up his shingle.

"The first year I spent like Peter Sterling looking through a knot hole.
I earned not more than fifty dollars. But I took every case that came along,

188

JOHN L. McNAB

fee or no fee, and several times I was appointed by the court in cases which
afterwards developed local importance.

"One day at the end of the first year there was a rap at my door, and
J. E. Cooper, more recently presiding- justice of the Appellate Court, walked
in. He told me he was about to leave Ukiah, that he had received many
offers for his practice, but that he preferred to keep it intact. So would I
consider forming a partnership with his confidential clerk Maurice Hirsch?
I nearly fell off my chair into the fireplace. Hirsch and I continued as
partners until May, 1911, when I made a new start in San Francisco."

Meanwhile John L. McNab had entered politics. When he was twenty-
one he ran for the Assembly against John Sanford and was badly beaten.

"I credit whatever success I have achieved to that defeat," he says. "Had
I won I should have become a politician. I lost and tried to become a man."

McNab was never again a candidate for office, but he didn't keep out of
politics. He was a delegate to the State convention which witnessed the
three-cornered fight between Pardee, Gage and Flint. But he was a humble
delegate who never got the eye of the chairman. At the next State con-
vention, the never-to-be-forgotten convention at Santa Cruz, he burst forth
as a Republican spellbinder. Abe Ruef had a candidate for Clerk of the
Supreme Court, one Cory, and tried to stampede the convention for him.
McNab nominated Frank L. Caughey. It was Pardee, I think, who spoke
of the Santa Cruz convention tent "with the Southern Pacific on one side
and the broad Pacific on the other." At any rate trains were thundering
and the surf was beating outside the canvas, and it was hard to hear the
ordinary speaker. But when John L. McNab let out that stentorian voice of
his every delegate sat up and took notice. His speech is still remembered.
It won for Caughey and gave John L. McNab a standing in the councils of
his party, a standing which he has not only maintained but improved.

His appointment to the office of United States District Attorney for San
Francisco was a fitting reward for his unremitting labors in the cause of
Republicanism. How vigorously he administered that office is well known to
all his townsmen. And his disagreement with Attorney General McReynolds
over the handling of the Western Fuel prosecutions is vividly remembered.
His resignation rocked the Democratic Cabinet. Immediately his admirers
began pointing out what an admirable candidate for Governor he would be.
It was very complimentary, but John L. McNab shook his head. Perhaps
we shall hear more of that later.

Of his manner of quitting the office of United States District Attorney he
had little to say. "Any human being with iron in his blood would do as I
did," he remarks. "I am not entitled to credit. I trust that I have not an
exaggerated idea of my own ego. It may have required spunk, but there
was no call for moral courage."

He is beloved of his office force. He went into the federal building at
liberty to choose his own deputies, but preferred to accept the men Devlin had
left behind, asking only that they show efficiency. His record speaks for
itself. And on the day he resigned a court bailiff leaned against the door of
his office and cried.

191

JOAQUIN MILLER

SAY, CHARLIE!

Say, Charlie, our Charlie, say —

What of the night? Aloha! Hail!
What roomful sea? What restful sail?

Where tent you, Bedouin, today?

Oh, generous green leaves of our tree,
What fruitful first young buoyant year!
But bleak winds blow, the leaves are sere,

And listless rustle — two or three.

Say, Charlie, where is Bret? and Twain?
Shy Prentice, and the former fezvf
You spoke, and spake as one who knew —

Now, Charlie, speak us once again.

The night-wolf prowls; we guess, we grope,
But day is night, and night despair,
And doubt seems some unuttered prayer,

And hope seems hoping against hope.

But Charlie, you had faith, and you —
Gentlest of all God's gentlemen —
You said you knew, and surely knew —

Now speak, and speak as spake you then.

HAD ventured to tell the Poet of the Sierras that this gem,
written when he was face to face with death in 1911 and
published for the first time in the Sunset of April, 1912,
through the kindly offices of Miss Ina Coolbrith, appealed
to me more strongly than any other of his poems with the
possible exception of "Columbus." He was pleased but
deprecatory.

" 'Columbus' is too much of a chorus," he said. "And

'Say, Charlie !' is not a poem particularly. They are dear little bits of things

from the heart.

"Charlie Stoddard had the sweet faith of a child. We were much

together, and we discussed religion a great deal. We lived in Rome together,

192

JOAQUIN MILLER

studying art and literature and religion, but he never debated it, he was so
certain. He was very dogmatic. And what a lovable man! He was with
Twain at the end. Mark wouldn't let him go.

"I have Charlie's faith, but not his certainty. I have thought at times
of embracing a religious creed, but I am certain now that I shall never do
so. There is too much wrangling among them.

"I believe that I shall begin the next life exactly where I leave off in
this. If I'm a good man in this life I shall be good to begin with in the
next. If I'm bad, treacherous, deceitful in this, I shall have all that to
overcome in the next.

"I don't believe that there is any returning here. What are all the
stars built for? I believe the soul can go as the mind does, on and on. In
the universe there is infinite space. It seems unoccupied. What is it for?
Nature wastes nothing, not a moment of time, not a spot of ground as small
as your hand. What is nature to do with all this space? It can't be wasted.
That would not be business."

The poet who was lying in bed turned on his elbow and spoke to his
daughter.

"Baby," he said, "get me that poem on immortality I have just written.
It will help this young man to understand what I mean."

"Yes, papa," said Juanita Miller, and brought me this:

TO TEACH IMMORTALITY

What if we all lay dead below;

Lay as the grass lies, cold and dead
In God's own holy shroud of snow,

With snow-white stones at foot and head,
With all earth dead and shrouded white
As clouds that cross the moon at night?

What if that infidel some night

Could then rise up and see how dead,
How wholly dead and out of sight

All things with snow sown foot and head
And lost winds wailing up and down
The emptied fields and emptied town?

I think that grand old infidel

Would rub his hands with fiendish glee,
And say: "I knew it, knew it well!

I knew that death was destiny;
I ate, I drank, I mocked at God,
Then as the grass was and the sod."

Ah me, the grasses and the sod,
They are my preachers. Hear them preach

When they forget the shroud, and God
Lifts up these blades of grass to teach

The resurrection! Who shall say

What infidel can speak as they?

195

JOAQUIN MILLER

"I have no doubt at all about immortality," Joaquin Miller continued;
"not the slightest. But lots of us are not worth saving. We are so loaded
with sin that we won't rise at all, but will sink utterly. Rewards and punish-
ments, though, I don't believe in, no further, at least, than we do harm to
our own souls. If we're bad, we wake up bad; if good, we wake up good.
But there is no judgment. We judge ourselves and seek our places by a
law of gravitation, going just where we belong."

Mrs. Miller was sitting near by, turning over the leaves of a volume of
her husband's poems.

"Father's poems are full of his religious belief," she said. "Take this
from his 'Song of the South.' "

And she read :

What is this rest of death, sweet friend,
What is the rising up, and where?
I say, death is a lengthened prayer,
A longer night, a larger end.

"Stop it!" the poet commanded. "Don't do it! This young man did not
come here to be inflicted with my poetry."

"Such a belief as Charlie Stoddard's," the poet went on, "is an advan-
tage to the man who has it. He never wastes any time doubting. He is
certainly happier than the man who doubts, and being happier he is naturally
better. Stoddard thought he was melancholy. He thought he had what
Byron calls the glance of melancholy. But he was the happiest man I ever
saw, and he was fortunate in his friends.

"Prentice Mulford who is mentioned in 'Say, Charlie !' was one of the
gentlest of men. He was more like Charlie than any other man I knew, but
more helpless. I didn't know Harte or Twain intimately. Twain I knew
of course, but he was always Twain. Harte too I knew better than most
men did. But they believed in themselves more than anything else. They
didn't see beyond themselves particularly.

"I have never read books of religion. Glance about you. Do you see
any book here? There is only a dictionary and it has been here only a short
time. No, I don't read religion. I live it in the woods, among the trees.

"There is a deep interest in religion among the men of today. That's
the only sign of the times I see that is good. People don't want funny things
in poetry; they want to know about the future. Nearly everything I write
upon the subject finds an echo. People write to thank me. They say this or
that poem of mine has given them faith."

"You know those lines in 'Adios,' " said Mrs. Miller. And again she read :

196

JOAQUIN MILLER

Could I but teach men to believe —
Could I but make small men to grow,
To break frail spider-webs that weave
About their thews and bind them low;
Could I but sing one song and slay
Grim Doubt; I then could go my way
In tranquil silence, glad, serene,
And satisfied, from off the scene.
But ah, this disbelief, this doubt,
This doubt of God, this doubt of good, —
The damned spot will not out!

"Stop it!" again entreated the poet. "I don't like it."

"People are tired of the quarreling priests and preachers," he continued.
"They avoid going to church because the preachers dictate to them. They
talk, they dogmatize, and people don't want it. They want the preachers to
go to work, but the preachers are fat and lazy. They won't work. Why don't
they plant trees like I do?"

Mrs. Miller wanted to illustrate again from the volume of poems, but
Joaquin wouldn't have it.

"I don't care to talk about my poems," he said. "As a matter of fact,
I haven't written my great poem yet. I'm getting ready for it all the time.
I feel like old Jacob ; few and evil have been my days."

But the poet was quite willing to talk of other poets.

"Like Greece, California is to be a great place for poets," he said,
"although I shall not live to see it. The great poets will hover about our
snow peaks and sea and sunshine.

"There is that new man Alexander. There is a quality about his poetry.
He's prime, but not young. Christian Binckley wrote the only sonnets I ever
liked. Sterling is a star, the starriest of all stars. Scheffauer is industrious,
honest. But great? I don't know. Sterling says he's great, and Sterling
knows him better than I do.

"Robeson Taylor I don't like. He has had time enough to do something,
and hasn't done it. He's a handsome manly fellow, but in love with himself
rather than with the Muse. A great poet must be greater than himself; he
must forget himself.

"Stoddard should have written more poetry, but he told me he thought
the period of poetry was gone. A great poet? Well, we judge the tree by
its fruit. He didn't bear great fruit ; it was sweet, delicious. He was a true,
not a great poet.

"Ina Coolbrith I regard daintily. She is thoroughly genuine. She wrote
her poem on her feet, in her garden, on the street. When it was done she
went and wrote it down. She is quite different from most people who sit
down and write. I lie and think my poems out. I never had a writing desk."

Mrs. Miller accompanied me when I had shaken the old poet's hand and
said good-bye. "Father's poems are full of religion," she said.

Standing on The Hights amid the trees which Joaquin had planted she
recited to me, fearing no interruption, the beautiful poem of "Charity." And
that ended what Joaquin had smilingly called our "Sunday sermon."

197

CHARLES C. MOORE

Ah "T TT T A£

r U'^ — — .. M '«

HEN TWO MEN ride on one horse," says Charles C. Moore,
"one of them must sit in front and hold the reins."

Which, being interpreted, explains satisfactorily to the
mind of Charles C. Moore the action of our World's Fair
directors in selecting him as their president.

Moore is a modest man. Among the men of eminent
and acclaimed ability whom it has been my good fortune to
meet I doubt whether I have ever known one so sincerely
modest. Perhaps 'modest' may seem a peculiar adjective to apply to a man
in public life, but that is because in the push of public life too many men lose
their heads and forget their sensible ideas of comparative values. But as
Moore has been drawn rather unwillingly into the hurly-burly he has been
able to avoid this loss and remain modest. Not that Moore is a humble
man. There is always a point where modesty degenerates into humility.
(I say 'degenerates' advisedly, for there is only one sort of humility, the
religious sort with which we are not concerned, which can be regarded as a
virtue.) Certainly Moore's modesty has never reached and never will reach
that point. He is not oppressed, as weak men sometimes are, with the sense
of their own unworthiness. But he is strong in the modesty which places
a just, a conservative valuation on personal worth the while it expends its
energies in hearty appreciation of the good qualities belonging to the other
fellow.

And so it is that while Moore, to use his own figure, has been chosen
to hold the reins, he does not therefore conclude that he is a better horseman
than the rest. He sincerely thinks that a man may be chosen to hold the
reins because others are better equipped for more important though less
showy services. And he is prepared with equal sincerity to admit that the
man who is allowed to hold the reins may learn many valuable points of
horsemanship from the men who help him into the saddle. And if that isn't
modesty, what is it?

When you talk to Moore about the World's Fair you are not allowed to
overlook the capabilities of the men with whom he is associated. He thinks
that no body of World's Fair directors was ever superior to the San Francisco
body. He doubts whether as representative a body could be gathered
together in New York. He is quite certain that the average of ability is
higher in San Francisco than it was in Chicago in 1892. He finds inspiration
in his association with these men. And he is so eloquent when discussing
their various fitnesses for the tremendous task they have in hand that he
has no difficulty in communicating his enthusiasm. To talk with Moore
about the World's Fair directors is to realize that our plans for entertaining
the world are being shaped by master hands; is to be settled in the conviction

198

CHARLES C. MOORE

that San Francisco has a body of men who are devoting themselves
unselfishly, untiringly and at no small personal sacrifice, to the service of
California; is to get on the trail, perhaps after many years of hoping and
trying, of that elusive, that too often illusory thing called public spirit.

Moore told me of a characteristic incident which bears this out. One
of the World's Fair committees was to meet and it happened that two of
the members were separated by the bitterness of that internecine strife which
has for so long been the ordinary condition of San Francisco life. One of
these men swore by all that was forcible that he would not sit down in
committee meeting with the other. Moore did the best he could to prepare
the way for a reconciliation, but he hadn't a great deal of confidence in his
diplomacy, for the case was an extreme one. And yet when that committee
met, the two men shook hands; when the committee sat down the two men
sat down side by side.

"That's the spirit in which everybody is working," Moore explains.

There is one point, naturally, on which it is useless to seek enlightenment
from Moore. How much of this esprit de corps is due to Moore's personality?
The directors of the World's Fair do not constitute a mutual admiration
society. Far from it. They are nearly all hard-headed business men who
have no time to decorate one another with posies. Yet those with whom
I have held conversation are free in their praise of Charles C. Moore. They
were not conferring an empty honor when they chose him president. They
had been studying him ever since the fire.

Previous to the fire Moore had devoted himself almost exclusively to
his private affairs. His affairs had prospered. His was one of the great
engineering concerns of the West. Equipped with the knowledge of
engineering imparted in the curriculum of St. Augustine's at Benicia where
he was educated, he had come to this city as a youth and obtained a position
with the San Francisco Tool Works. In time he bought out that concern
and thenceforward his rise was rapid. He extended the field of his operations
till he had offices in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake and Los
Angeles. He built some of the biggest power plants of the Coast. All the
world of engineering knows how he put up the great power plant at Redondo
under the terms of a guaranty from which most engineers would have
shrunk and earned a bonus of $365,000, the largest bonus ever paid. When
the fire came Moore was not as hard hit as many other men of big business.
So he had time to think for others. Our business relations with Nevada were
not what they should have been, so he induced Henry T. Scott, R. P.
Schwerin and Mark Gerstle to accompany him on a missionary trip to that
State. The mission was successful and a new era, an era of what might
be called organized good feeling, dawned for San Francisco business. Moore
was elected president of the moribund Chamber of Commerce and started
that series of junkets through the State which has been of inestimable
benefit in drawing the business men of the interior close to the business
men of San Francisco. The Chamber of Commerce was revivified and has
been a potent factor for good ever since.

The men who went on one of those excursions will tell you a typical

201

VARIED TYPES

instance of Moore's modesty. In appreciation of his hard work to make the
excursion a success the members of the Chamber made up a purse of $500,
intending to buy him a token of their regard. But when Moore heard of
this he put his foot down. Perhaps he saw dangerous possibilities in their
kindly intent. Perhaps he felt that there might be jealousy. Or that his
subsequent activities might be set down to the lively expectation of similar
rewards. Or it may have been his modesty. (One of the most charming
things about modesty is that it endows a man with a superior kind of
diplomacy.) At any rate, Moore refused to accept a gift. He suggested
that he be allowed to add his subscription to the fund and that the sum be
expended for the Chamber of Commerce in a lasting memorial of the pleasant
excursion. So the Chamber acquired a splendid relief map of the Panama
Canal. And if any of the men who didn't know Moore well had suspected
him of a desire for personal aggrandizement, they changed their minds.

When the good fellows of the town got together to plan the first Portola
celebration, they selected Moore for the most audacious work of the whole
affair — to enlist the co-operation of foreign governments. Our government
refused to recommend the project to European powers. But the Portola
committee wanted to have the flags of all nations flying from battleships
in the bay and Moore went abroad to do what he could. He was told that
the project was without precedent; that such requests were continually
coming from all sorts of local celebration committees and were automatically
refused. In London Ambassador Reid confessed that the case was hopeless.
Three times the ambassador made formal request on behalf of Moore for a
conference with Reginald McKenna, the First Lord of the Admiralty, but
without success. Finally, when the case looked desperate, the hearing was
obtained through the influence of Balfour, Guthrie and Company. The
result was that three British battleships honored the Portola celebration.
If the Clemenceau ministry hadn't fallen in France he would have been
equally successful in Paris. But we know that Italy, Holland and other
powers were represented and that this international recognition made the
Portola a glorious success beyond our wildest dreams.

"It was sentiment that did it," says Moore; "sentiment for a city that
could so quickly rehabilitate itself. And it is the same sentiment which is
going to play an important part in making our World's Fair a success."

As I have said, the public-spirited men of this city had been studying
Moore ever since the fire. They knew he was disinterested. They knew
that his capacity for service was unburdened by political ambition. So they
drafted him for service as president of the World's Fair corporation.
Drafted is the word. He didn't want to serve in that position. He was
eager to continue in the work in a subordinate place. At first he refused
to accept. But the directors knew what they wanted. The very fact that
he was averse from stepping into the limelight proved him the man about
whom all could rally. They needed his tact, his good humor, his abounding
enthusiasm, his personal magnetism, his inexhaustible capacity for apprecia-
tion. In the end they got him. And so far there hasn't been a murmur of
disappointment.

202

CHARLES C. MOORE

Moore isn't any too strong physically, but he is working hard. He
knows how to conserve his energy. Every Friday night he escapes to his
beautiful place at Santa Cruz. He sails his yacht and plays golf and forgets
all kinds of business — except farming.

"I want to be a farmer," he says. "I am prouder of the little I make
out of my orchard than of all the money I make from my business. The
greatest ambition of my life is to raise the best artichokes in the State."

And when Charles C. Moore says that his brows lower whimsically and
that winning smile of his beams from his clear blue eyes and plays about
his lips. One can fancy Diocletian smiling just like that when they tried
to lure him from his Illyrian cabbages.

203

RICHARD E. MULCAHY

ERE is a man who has his finger on the pulse of finance, a
specialist trained to take the temperature of money. And he
says we are on the eve of prosperity. It is a cheering message.
It is an optimistic message from one not constitutionally
enthusiastic, all the ways of whose business life make for a
cold-blooded conservatism. It is therefore an important
message, a message we may hearken to without feeling, as
we too often feel when such a pronouncement is made, that
it comes from the herald of a fool's paradise.

Richard E. Mulcahy of the House of Hutton knows. It is his bread and
butter to know. Ask his clients if he be not a safe guide through the mazes
of the stock market, and by their reply judge the value of what follows.

All his business life Richard E. Mulcahy has sensed responsibility, has
known the danger of idle words. He began at the age of twelve as a tele-
graph operator in a railway office. That was in Michigan, on a road since
absorbed by the Big Four. At twenty he was train despatcher; at twenty-
one, superintendent of telegraph. Then he rose to be master of transporta-
tion. A little later as superintendent of construction he built many hundreds
of miles of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul. For a time after that he
was on on the Chicago Board of Trade. He returned to railroading as gen-
eral superintendent of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul. Twenty-eight
years ago he went into the brokerage business. Today he is a partner in the
big firm of E. F. Hutton and Co. with membership in the New York Stock,
Cotton and Coffee Exchanges and the Chicago Board of Trade.

Mulcahy looks back with affection to those old days at the telegraph
key. He was an expert. He made the record for fast sending out of De-
troit on the occasion of President Hayes' first message to Congress, clicking
off forty-six words a minute, and they weren't code words either. That
record held for a good many years.

"Telegraphing was an art in those days," he says. "You had to be a
good sender, a good receiver and a good writer of long hand. It was before
the day of the typewriter."

If you know the typical long hand of the old telegrapher with its swing-
ing script and its words hooked together, you will recognize it today in
Mulcahy's handwriting.

But it is in Mulcahy as the announcer of imminent prosperity that we
are interested just now. Study his tabulation as he talks it off with the
rapidity of a stock ticker :

"There is for instance the mining boom. Rich ore has been discovered
of late in some of the Goldfield mines. Thi? is a great thing for this section
of the country. The money made in Nevada is spent in California. And the

204

RICHARD E. MULCAHY

boom brings new investments from the East. Eighty per cent of the mining
investors today are from the East. New York, Philadelphia and Boston are
as familiar now with mining interests as this country used to be in the old
days.

"The general condition of the country west of the Rockies couldn't be
better. We have grown the largest crops ever harvested in our history. Take
barley. The new money for barley coming to California this year from
Europe and the East is about twelve millions. We produce from the soil of
California about six hundred million dollars worth of products every year.
This year they will total six hundred and fifty millions. There are abundant
crops of all kinds. This means for us about four hundred millions of new
money from other States and from Europe.

"There is a better feeling generally. People who have been in the dumps
are now seeing daylight.

"Our gas and electric securities have all had a big advance in the last
thirty days. Corporations which have been undergoing readjustment are now
in a more favorable condition than they have been for some time. This re-
adjustment was a condition San Francisco had to meet. Order is now being
brought out of disturbance.

"One thing San Francisco is much in need of is better docking facilities.
At the present time there are 18,000 bales of cotton around the bay awaiting
shipment to Japan and China. Twice as much in transit between Texas and
California is being sidetracked and stored till vessel room and dockage can
be secured.

"I have never seen fundamental conditions better on this coast than at
the present time.

"The Panama Canal has caused very little excitement, owing largely to
war conditions, but when one realizes the difference in profit to producers on
the Pacific Coast made by canal rates as opposed to rates around the Horn,
one appreciates what the canal means for us. On grain of all kinds the
Pacific Coast producer is receiving from three to five dollars a ton more than
before the canal opened.

"Banking conditions throughout the entire Pacific Coast are probably
the best in our history. As soon as confidence becomes a little stronger
conditions are sure to improve by leaps and bounds. The immense prices
received for farm products this past crop year mean that the farmers will be
enabled to lighten their obligations with the banks and put in circulation for
commercial purposes the many millions they will spend for farm improve-
ments.

"The railroads are not in as good a position as they were before the
Panama Canal was opened. It will take time and a great deal of readjustment
of traffic and conditions before the railroads are able to compare their earn-
ings with their earnings in the past. It is to be hoped that public sentiment
will lean more favorably toward the railroad interests than heretofore. It is
a well established fact that when the railroads and other big interests make
money, the laboring man and everyone who depends on his earnings for a
livelihood enjoys prosperity and good spirits. You can't kill off the big in-

207

VARIED TYPES

terests without starving the laboring man. The big interests do not go into
new enterprises because they need money, but simply because they want to
continue in active life and are willing to place their funds where they are able
to earn a fair rate of interest. These men of industry never carry their money
with them when they leave the world. It is distributed and helps all walks
of life.

"It is quite noticeable that public sentiment is growing more humane.
Take the exchanges of the country. Before an object lesson was given the
public it demanded all kinds of restrictions on securities and farm products
exchanges. When the war came along these exchanges were the safety valve
that saved us from what would have been" the greatest panic the world has
ever known. Few people realize the true benefit the exchanges have been to
all commercial interests. The Stock Exchange, the Cotton Exchange, the
Grain Exchange are arteries of commerce as essential as the arteries of the
body. I believe that the object lesson given during the past four months has
changed many people, induced them to advocate the continuance of these
different exchanges.

"I look for a general improvement of business starting soon after the
first of the year 1915. I believe we will see the greatest prosperity during
the next few years to come that these United States have ever seen.

"We receive from foreign nations two and one-half to three billion dollars
annually for foodstuffs, manufactured goods and other products. Conditions
have now changed materially. Our exports have increased largely while our
imports show an immense decline.

"The keeping in this country of two hundred million dollars heretofore
spent annually abroad by tourists is another factor of great importance. The
tourist will now have an opportunity to see his own country. I never met
one who didn't want to do this, but when the time came he always found it
convenient to go abroad. Now he must stay at home or travel in the United
States. He must travel somewhere, so he'll see his own country. Take this
item of two hundred millions and multiply it by eighty — our circulating
standard — it means an immense amount of money circulated in this country
that never had an opportunity to circulate heretofore. The railroads, hotels
and all commercial avenues will be benefited through this condition.

"While California may miss many foreign visitors at the Exposition, she
will certainly receive more than the same number of Americans who generally
travel in Europe.

"I am satisfied that within the next six months our prosperity will have
shown itself to such a marked degree that we will all forget the depression we
are now passing through. Everything has reached bedrock and cannot be
depressed further. That being so we have an improvement ahead without any
possible doubt."

208

THORNWELL MULLALLY

WORKED all day," said Thornwell Mullally speaking of
the crowded weeks before the Auditorium Ball, "and at night
£ I read Rose's 'Personality of Napoleon.' The connection
y may not be immediately apparent."

Confessing that it was not I begged him to elucidate.
"My favorite reading," he explained, "is all along this
line," and he picked up from his desk von Bernhardi's book
on Cavalry. "Military strategy is to me the most fascinating
study in the world. I read the text books on the subject, I devour historical
treatises that deal with it, and and I search the biographies of soldiers for
information concerning their ways of handling great masses of troops. I
love the science of strategy. I have a profound admiration for the great
strategists — for Caesar, for Washington, for Grant and Lee and Stonewall
Jackson, but particularly for Napoleon."

Mullally, by the way, is thought to bear a remarkable resemblance to
certain portraits of the young Bonaparte, and I do not think it displeases
him to have the likeness noticed.

"My interest in military strategy," he continued, "is not a mere dilet-
tante interest. It began in the most natural way, for I was five years a
member of Squadron A of the New York Cavalry. I have continued the
study ever since for very practical reasons. I apply the rules of strategy to
my work. The methods by which battles are won may be used to advantage
in running a street railroad. They make for success in any big public under-
taking even if it happens to be a ball."

"Happens?" I repeated inquiringly. "Why do you say 'happens'?"

"Well, I'll tell you," replied Mullally, showing by a smile that he was
glad I had put the question. "I have now had considerable experience in the
organization of these affairs."

This. I need not interject, is a conservative statement of fact. Thorn-
well Mullally was responsible for the monster Ball of All Nations which
signalized the completion of Machinery Hall on the World's Fair grounds,
the largest frame building in the world. He was responsible also for the
success of the ball which celebrated the opening of our Municipal Auditorium.
His was the controlling hand in every department of preparation and con-
duct, his the tireless activity which made both of these public festivities
record-breaking successes. But I am interrupting Mullally's explanation.

"My experience in these affairs," he continued, "has enlightened me
concerning the psychology of the San Franciscan. I doubt whether there
is a city anywhere else in the world whose people conduct their public
merrymaking as admirably as San Franciscans do. When San Franciscans
play they play with all their hearts and souls, giving themselves entirely to

209

VARIED TYPES

the spirit of the joyous occasion. But they have such a remarkable sense
of order, their devotion to the proprieties is so instinctive that an immense
public gathering such as the Auditorium Ball takes the form of a real civic
achievement.

"Viewed in this light the merrymaking possesses only incidental import-
ance. The spirit which animates the throng is so fine that one wishes it had
been evoked by something of more consequence than a ball. One feels a
sense of inadequacy in reflecting that such splendid qualities were called
forth by a frivolous pretext. I do not think that it is 'considering too curiously
to consider so.' At any rate it is the dominant thought with me. I am not
deprecating, far from it. I am not suggesting by any manner of means that
every great public gathering should be a solemnity. There is a time for
solemnity as there is a time for festivity. I am not taking my pleasure sadly,
but perhaps I cannot help taking it thoughtfully. Will you believe me when
I say that as I looked round the Auditorium when the ball was at its height,
my principal feeling was one of awe?"

Certainly the statement surprised me.

"To see that vast assemblage responding so perfectly to the civic appeal
made a tremendous impression on me," Mullally explained. "I could not
help thinking that San Franciscans would be animated by the same wonder-
ful spirit in any emergency they might be called upon to deal with. We saw
that identical spirit displayed after the fire of 1906. The burning of San
Francisco was the saddest sight I ever saw. The Auditorium Ball was one
of the merriest. Yet the underlying spirit of the people was exactly the same.
Thinking of that and speculating as we cannot help speculating in this time
of bloodshed as to the demands which the future may make upon our courage,
is it any wonder that I was awed? Was I alone in being thrilled by the
thought that there is no demand to which this city is not equal, no test which
it cannot meet?

"But let us get back from psychology to strategy," exclaimed Mullally
with a laugh. "I mapped the arrangements for the Auditorium Ball as a
general would map a campaign. After we had cleared the floor for the grand
march Signor de Pasquali came to me and said with surprise that it had
been done in forty-five seconds. Now a man can walk quite a distance in
forty-five seconds, and that floor was cleared just as fast as four men starting
from the centre of the floor could walk to the four corners, stretching ropes
as they walked. It is so simple that it can be illustrated with four matches
on a table. In the same way a diagram of a few lines will show how I cleared
a special space for the exhibition dancers, and how I simplified the judging of
costumes. The secret lies in making plans beforehand, leaving nothing to
chance, and obtaining intelligent co-operation from those who execute orders.
And the waging and winning of battles is nothing more than that, is it?"

The connection between Mullally's preliminary work by day and his
study of Napoleon by night was no longer obscure.

"It is only another way of paying tribute to the San Francisco spirit,"
Mullally continued, "to say that while the Auditorium was well policed, there
was not a policeman in uniform in the whole building. They were in dress

210

THORNWELL MULLALLY

suits, and there was no need for them to display the insignia of their office.
Not a single instance of disorder was reported.

"The ball," Mullally concluded, "came at the proper moment. It came
just in time to give our people a foretaste of the Fair. It came to upset
the calculations of the statisticians too, for as a result of it they are revising
their figures of Fair attendance. It is now believed that the attendance of
people from the bay region will exceed that of people similarly situated at
any other World's Fair."

For all of which let us take off our hats to Thornwell Mullally, the man
who never dances but who gave us the two greatest dances in our history !
Let us acclaim him our master of the revels, our chamberlain of mirth, our
director of masques, our steward of merriment, our monarch of merry dis-
ports, our keeper of the seals of jollity! In the Saturnalia of the earliest
Roman days the king of the revels who impersonated god Saturn suffered
martyrdom at the end of the celebration. Let us not treat Thornwell Mul-
lally in that ungracious fashion, even figuratively. He suffered the martyr-
dom of hard work while the revel was on. Now that it has passed, let us not
forget the man who made it possible, the strategist who marshalled our forces
of fun, the psychologist who found a new meaning in the holiday behavior
of San Franciscans.

Henry Miller, a great actor and a stage director in ten thousand, was
at the Auditorium Ball. "I'd like to have Mullally for my manager," was
his comment.

Morris Meyerfeld, president of the Orpheum and an executive of proved
ability, was there. "Mullally is the greatest manager I ever met," he said
to a friend.

Dr. Skiff of the World's Fair is the most experienced exposition man in
the world. "Mullally is to be congratulated on a great achievement," he
declared.

General Wisser was not at the Auditorium Ball, but he attended the Ball
of All Nations. After that affair he wrote to an intimate : "Mullally would
make a great chief of staff."

Mullally is in charge of Special Events at the World's Fair. He heads,
or it might be more correct to say he is the committee which supervises
not only Special Events, but also Athletics and Military Affairs. His
success with the Ball of All Nations and the Auditorium Ball — he netted
the Fair $55,000 out of these two events — indicated that he could be of greater
service to our city and our Fair in more closely specialized work. Why
diffuse Mullally 's activities? Why not concentrate them in the field where
he has the magic power to raise huge sums through fun? where his strate-
gical and psychological powers can be turned to the very best account?
Those were the questions our Fair Directors asked after studying Mullally's
outstanding achievements. In consequence Mullally was drafted for addi-
tional work.

213

THOMAS M. O'CONNOR

IS CLOSING argument in the Leah Alexander case made
newspapermen weep. It may sound incredible, but the truth
^ T T AJ£ of it cannot be impugned. The salty drops found channel in
^^ I I v^ call°us cheeks, and the yellow copy paper, like the book of

L L Cn the Recording Angel, was blotted with tears. They wept
without shame, in the presence of a court room throng too
busy with its own wet eyes to wonder at the sight. When
cynic scribes dissolve lachrymally who shall repeat that
sillyism about blood and a turnip?

His closing argument won other unusual testimonials. I have the word
of a Justice of the Supreme Court that it was one of the most masterly
ever made in California. I have it from a Judge of our Appellate Court that
that plea placed the young pleader at the head of our jury lawyers. His
colleagues of the bar are exalting his horn in every conversation. They have
been trying to recall any other occasion when a murder case was carried
through four brief days to a verdict of Not Guilty. They are saying that the
psychology of the jury box is his to command in all its amazing ramifications.

All the town couldn't get into the court room, though most of it seemed
to try. And the newspaper accounts were necessarily curtailed. So when
I read excerpts from that closing argument my curiosity was filliped. There
were lines which I did not fully understand. Among them were these:

"The Goddess of Justice is depicted as a blind goddess. 'Tis well that
Justice is blind. It would not be well for Justice to see some of the things
that have been done in this case, in the name of Justice and in her Temple.
It was well that Justice could not see the poor old mother of Leah Alexander
denied the privilege, the cold consolation of sitting by her daughter's side
in the hour of her greatest need. It was well that Justice could not see
the Court admit the dying statement of Van Baalen against this defendant
and exclude from the record his other dying statement in this defendant's
favor. It was well that Justice could not see that the ministers of her Temple
had one entrance for Mrs. Van Baalen and another for the little old woman
who is Leah Alexander's mother."

I went to Tom O'Connor and asked him what all this meant. Was not
Mrs. Alexander allowed to sit with Leah?

"On the first day of the trial," he told me, "while mother and daughter
were sitting together with hands clasped, Judge Dunne sent his bailiff to
tell the mother that she would not be permitted to sit with her daughter in
the sight of the jury. So Mrs. Alexander was removed to a seat looking out
of the window on Portsmouth Square where, if her vision had been clearer,
she might have read the inscription on the Stevenson Monument, 'To be
honest, to be kind.' I have never heard of this being done before. To sit

214

THOMAS M. O'CONNOR

beside the person whose life or liberty is in the balance is a privilege accorded
to the close relatives of defendants in all our courts, and I do not recall any
other case in which the discretion of the court was exercised against it."

"What about the favorable and unfavorable dying statements?"

"When Van Baalen was lying in the corridor of the Chronicle Building,"
Tom O'Connor explained, "Officer Levy asked Leah Alexander why she shot
him, and she replied : 'Because he promised to marry me.' Then Levy asked
Van Baalen if he had promised to marry her, and Van Baalen said : 'How
could I promise, when she and everybody knows I'm already a married man.'
That was admitted in evidence. Later in the day word came from the
Emergency Hospital to the police department that Van Baalen was dying,
and Assistant District Attorney James Brennan and Detectives Collier and
Callahan hurried to the hospital. Van Baalen stated that he didn't know
whether he was going to die or not and told them to ask the doctor. Then
turning to Brennan he said : 'Take her away, Jim. Treat her kindly. She
was crazy when she did it.' This was not a formal dying statement, as Van
Baalen did not acknowledge that he was going to die. I claimed, however,
that it was admissible in evidence, having been made in the presence and
hearing of Leah Alexander and she having replied to it. It was part of the
res gestae. But the objection of the District Attorney to its admission was
sustained. The objection may have been properly sustained but the question
was so close that the defendant might have been given the benefit of the
doubt."

"And what about the discrimination as between Mrs. Van Baalen and
Mrs. Alexander?" I continued.

"Nine witnesses had testified as to the actual killing and the circum-
stances surrounding it," O'Connor explained. "One witness would have been
sufficient to establish the prosecution's case, but the agony was piled on for
the purpose of impressing the jury with the killing end of the story. Then
Leah Alexander told her story on the stand, and it was evident that she had
created a profound impression. District Attorney Berry had anticipated this,
so he held Mrs. Van Baalen, the widow, for rebuttal, doubtless believing that
by closing his case with her testimony the effect of Leah Alexander's story
would be to a great extent neutralized. She was brought in through the
Judge's chambers, leaning on the arms of attendants, a beautiful woman in
widow's weeds of the finest texture. I felt that the jury must have noted
this departure from the court's attitude toward other witnesses, because day
after day during the trial the defendant and her mother were compelled
literally to fight their way through the dense crowd that thronged the court
room and the corridor. No suggestion was made that they be permitted to
make their entrance, dramatic or otherwise, through the Judge's chambers."

"What was the incident, referred to in the Daily News, of Judge Dunne
ruling out a telegram which he had not read?" I continued.

"That," explained O'Connor, "was simply a little lapse on the part of
Judge Dunne. He had sustained every objection made by the District
Attorney, and I suppose he wanted to keep his record straight on that score.
I showed Mrs. Van Baalen the copy of a telegram in Van Baalen's hand-

217

VARIED TYPES

writing, and she admitted that she had received the wire. It was a telegram
arranging the details of their divorce. I went through the formality of
showing the telegram to Mr. Berry who objected to its admission on the
ground that it had nothing to do with the case. This objection Judge Dunne
promptly sustained. When I called his attention to the fact that it was
impossible for him to decide that question, since he had not seen the telegram
and was ignorant of its contents, he reddened but adhered to his ruling.

"As another indication of Judge Dunne's attitude toward the defense I
may mention that while I was making my opening statement, he interrupted
me with the remark that nothing I had said so far had any bearing on the
case.

"But my hat is off to Assistant District Attorney Fred Berry. While he
fought his case for everything that was in it and, I often felt, for a little more,
he did one thing in that trial which showed that his partisanship never allied
itself with unfair tactics. It seems that Miss Alexander, shortly after her
arrest, had antagonized a very estimable lady on one of the papers. On the
last day of the trial this lady gave expression to her dislike of Miss Alexander
by manifestations of ill will. I noticed the lady's attitude, but concluded it
would be unwise to do or say anything, as I inferred that she was uncon-
sciously reflecting her mental attitude. But Mr. Berry had been noticing
this little byplay in the court room. He took occasion then and there to
remonstrate with the lady for her actions and told her not to repeat them.
She immediately left the court room. I understand that on Saturday morning
a delegation of clubwomen which called on District Attorney Fickert
protested against this action of Mr. Berry. This attitude on the part of the
lady in question was surprising in view of the fact that every other woman
in the court room throughout the trial evidenced the liveliest sympathy for
Miss Alexander."

This lively sympathy of the women was one of the outstanding features
of the trial. Another was the weeping at the press table and in the jury box.

"But don't let anybody tell you," O'Connor remarked, "that a weeping
juror doesn't convict. One of the three men who held out for conviction had
Niobe looking like Marie Dressier."

I thought that another unusual circumstance was the sweeping aside of
the expert testimony of Doctor Lustig who pronounced Leah Alexander sane.
Tom O'Connor didn't agree with me.

"Alienists!" he exclaimed. "Why, a jury cares very little for the expert
testimony of alienists. Every juror knows that an alienist with a retainer
would testify that St. Vitus didn't know how to dance !"

It was a notable case and a clean-cut, complete victory for forensic
ability. The town is talking about it and about as no other case has been
discussed for many a long day. The polloi are acclaiming a new legal
luminary. But those who know the man who acquitted Leah Alexander are
not surprised. They put it simply :

"Tom O'Connor has come into his own."

218

MRS. KATHARINE D. OSBOURNE

NOT I

Some like drink
In a pint pot.
Some like to think;
Some not.

Strong Dutch cheese,
Old Kentucky rye,
Some like these;
NotL

Some like Poe

And others like Scott.

Some like Miss Stowe;

Some not.

Some like to fight,

Some like to cry,

Some like to write;

NotL

Now, there's enough,

Clean without a blot,

Some may like the stuff;

Some not.

Some will say "Encore!"

And some "0 fie!"

Some would do some more;

NotL

ENTLE READER, do I hear you say: "Quaint but trifling;

almost nonsense verse?" Well, you may be right, but this
little poem is precious withal. It was written by Robert
Louis Stevenson and I esteem it a privilege to be able to
present it to you, because it has never been published before.
Through the kindness of Mrs. Katharine D. Osbourne I
was allowed to copy it from the original in the handwriting
of R. L. S. which is preserved by Mrs. Osbourne in a little
scrap book filled with mementoes of Lloyd Osbourne's childhood. "Little
Sam," as Stevenson called the boy Lloyd, had a printing press and his step-
father used to write him just such quaint effusions which were duly set up
and printed from the press. A number of these little poems have been
published, but "Not I" is now given to the world for the first time.

In her beautiful home at Lombard and Hyde where for years she was
next-door neighbor to the Carmelite nuns, Mrs. Osbourne preserved many
memorials of the great man whom it was her misfortune never to see. She
showed me the set of dishes, many of them broken, with which he played as a
baby in Edinburgh. She showed me the "baby's record" in which his mother
preserved a minute account of his childish achievements from the day of
his birth. She showed me a lock of his hair. And she showed me many

219

VARIED TYPES

letters written by him, with the answers from men who have become famous
merely because they enjoyed the honor of his correspondence.

These and many other memorials, Mrs. Osbourne explained, belonged
to Jane White Balfour, Stevenson's "Aunty" of the Child's Garden of Verses.
Before her death Miss Balfour gave them to Mrs. Osbourne.

"Among other things," says Mrs. Osbourne, "were the letters of Mrs.
Stevenson, the mother of R. L. S., which I had published about five years
ago, although my name did not appear as the editor of the collection. Among
the memorials in my possession were many which I gave to Graham Balfour
for his life of Stevenson. That life, as you will remember, was severely
criticized. Even before his death Stevenson had become a tradition and
Balfour gave people that traditional Stevenson who was far from being the
real Stevenson. Stevenson was not the 'seraph in chocolate' of Balfour's
book, to use Henley's expression. There was a great deal of truth in Henley's
strictures, but Henley who was full of malice toward the end, used facts to
give the wrong impression of Stevenson."

"A subject never dies till the truth is written about it," says Mrs.
Osbourne, and part of that truth she has given to the world. Mrs. Osbourne
is the author of a book entitled "Robert Louis Stevenson in California."
The plenteous illustrations alone make this a book of absorbing interest.
The frontispiece is a picture of Stevenson never before published. And there
is a picture of the old house at 608 Bush street where Stevenson lived ; not
a photograph, for none is in existence, but a drawing made by Miss Withrow,
the artist, from a minute description. The two upper stories of that house
were brought round the Horn. When Stevenson returned to San Francisco
from the South Seas he went to find it, but it had been pulled down.

But the woman who took lodgers there was still living and when she
went to see Stevenson at his hotel the great writer excluded all other visitors
and had a long talk with her. How many know that that woman is still
living? She is Mrs. Mary A. Carson, a delightful old Irish woman and she
lives way out in Geary street. She gave Mrs. Osbourne a great deal of
information for the book.

"She is a dear old soul," says Mrs. Osbourne, "and her memory is
splendid. She says that when Stevenson first came to live in her house he
was 'a poor shabby shack of a fellow' and that 'his appearance wasn't what
his acquaintance afterwards bore out.' She says too, 'He was that quick' and
all who know the real Stevenson who swore like a Billinsgate fishwife when
he was aroused by injustice and went after a waiter with a bottle when he
was cheated of his due amount of wine, will agree with her."

California harbors another woman who knew Stevenson intimately, says
Mrs. Osbourne. When Stevenson was "ordered South" by his physician he
went to Hyeres in the south of France and there employed a young woman
named Valentine Roche to nurse him. Valentine Roche remained with
Stevenson for eight years, leaving him finally in Honolulu. She came to
San Francisco, intending to return to her home in France ; but instead she
met and married Thomas Brown, a farmer of Sonoma and has been living in
the nearby county ever since.

220

MRS. KATHARINE D. OSBOURNE

"She is a very remarkable woman," says Mrs. Osbourne; "keen, intelli-
gent and with an ordinary French education. She was with Stevenson when
he conferred with his publishers and received his friends. He talked to her
about all his secrets and his quarrels. When he suffered from hemorrhages
she would spend the night on a rug before the fireplace in his bedchamber.
She was alone with him for weeks at a time. Valentine says that when all
the rest have had their say about Stevenson she will write her book and that
it will be unlike anybody else's. And she is right.

"For there is a great deal to be written about Stevenson. The world
has changed since he died and it must change a good deal more before the
truth about him will be thoroughly understood. Some day, I believe, we
shall realize that Stevenson was the greatest man of his age; that he was
the great prophet, the great teacher. The breaking away of the world from
religious dogma, the abandonment of the old beliefs bring us nearer to
Stevenson's teachings. The real message of Stevenson's life is a religious
message. The Catholics like to quote him as standing up for Father Damien,
though they forget sometimes that he didn't stand up for Catholicism. He
saw in Father Damien a man who gave up his life for his work. He loved
Damien as he loved Dr. Chalmers, that wonderful man who went as a
missionary to the New Hebrides and was finally eaten by cannibals. Steven-
son used to say that he hoped Chalmers would die before him as he wanted
to write the missionary's life. But Chalmers survived him. Chalmers had
a strange power over the cannibals and went among them without fear. But
through sickness his power was at a low ebb when they knocked him on the
head and ate him."

"Somebody asked me the other day," and Mrs. Osbourne laughed,
"whether Stevenson wasn't like Jesus Christ. I said, 'Not a bit.' And yet
I can see him being like Christ in driving the money-lenders out of the
Temple. He did not believe in the divinity of Christ, but he studied His
life as that of the perfect man."

I asked Mrs. Osbourne who were the closest friends of Stevenson in this
city.

"Of course there is Mrs. Carson," she answered. "Then there is Mrs.
Virgil Williams. Stevenson was very intimate with Virgil Williams before
his death and wrote to him a great deal. He corresponded with Mrs.
Williams too. After Stevenson's death in Samoa Mrs. Stevenson and her
son Mr. Lloyd Osbourne came to this city and visited Mrs. Williams on
Russian Hill. It was at that time that I married Mr. Osbourne. I returned
with them to Samoa; later I went to England and Scotland and met all
the living members of his family. That was how I came to get various
memorials including the letters of Stevenson's mother who died shortly after
he died.

"Another San Francisco friend of Stevenson was Hiram H. Bloomer,
the artist, who died recently in Sausalito. He knew Stevenson in the early
days in France and it was through him that Stevenson met Mrs. Osbourne
who became Mrs. Stevenson. Mr. Bloomer was studying art in Paris while
Mrs. Osbourne was there with her three children. The oldest was a girl who

223

VARIED TYPES

was just about Stevenson's age. The youngest was a boy of five who died
in Paris. Airs. Osbourne was told that Lloyd would die too if he stayed in
Paris and Mr. Bloomer advised Mrs. Osbourne to take her children to Gretz
near Fontainebleau. It was there that she met Stevenson. You may re-
member that he wrote of Mr. Bloomer in his essay on Fontainebleau.

"Those early days in Paris were described in 'The Wreckers.' It is
not generally known that the Speedys who figure in that story were Mr.
and Mrs. Carson who spent all their money buying wildcat mining stocks.
Pinkerton, the American promoter in the same story, was Colonel S. S.
McClure. I don't think McClure really liked being put in. But he had a
great affection for Stevenson and would have made him a very rich man
if Stevenson had fallen in with his plans."

Mrs. Osbourne told me that she and her husband did most of the work
of editing the letters of Stevenson. "Sidney Colvin had a way of putting
off things," she said ; "he wrote the introduction to the letters but we edited
them." She said too that some of the letters in her book are very important
to the student of Stevenson's life. One written from Bush street to his
family shows that the secret of his sorrow and ill health here was the
opposition of his family to his marriage. But when they found that he was
determined to marry they sent him money.

"There was money waiting for him at the general postoffice in New
York," she told me, "while he was living on forty-five cents a day in San
Francisco."

And she said that one of the most interesting books ever written about
Stevenson was "With Stevenson in Samoa," by H. J. Moors, a work which
has not attracted the attention it deserves.

"He was not literary," she explained; "so he could only tell the truth.
You know how truthful the unliterary person is."

Mrs. Osbourne looked at me questioningly.

And I nodded a reluctant head.

224

CHARLES ROLLO PETERS

M A LITTLE hollow of the Marin hills near Greenbrae
stands a gnarled, old, sturdy oak tree. It spreads its lichened
branches like venerable arms extended in benediction, and
there is a sylvan silence all about it. From the quiet glade
the hills rise on one side in curving progress till they make
the majesty of Tamalpais; on the other they drop grace-
fully downward to the waters of the bay. It is a spot for
contemplation, where one may hold one's soul aloof from the
noisy world and let nature whisper to it. Just such a nook would a poet
hunt out when the urge of inspiration sent him from mankind to the breast
of Mother Earth. Just such a spot would Daniel O'Connell have loved. So
there is a happy appropriateness in the choice of this charming place for a
memorial to the dead poet of Bohemia.

The new memorial to Daniel O'Connell we owe to Charles Rollo Peters.
Between the dead poet and the painter whose brush is dipped in the witchery
of moonlight there was a strong affection. It lasted through many years of
glorious ups and dismal downs, and it was consecrated by death. Peters was
among the last at the poet's deathbed; he wept as he followed the mortal
remains to the tomb. When it was proposed to erect a memorial at Sausalito,
and funds were not forthcoming, Peters put up one of his best pictures at
auction and made the accomplishment of the project possible.

Perhaps Rollo Peters is jealous of the indiscriminate throng which shares
that Sausalito memorial with him. Perhaps he feels that Dan O'Connell
should be commemorated in the woods he so passionately loved as well as
in the town where he lived. Whatever the motive or mixture of motives,
Peters resolved on a memorial in the Marin hills. He has painted there a
great deal, and knows their many charming, secret places. He picked the
quiet glade with its noble oak as fittest to receive the honor.

So a bronze tablet designed by Peters' and O'Connell's friend, Willis
Polk, has been affixed to the oak tree. It bears only these words : "In loving
memory of Daniel O'Connell, poet, philosopher, friend." There was a fitting
celebration. Porter Ashe, Ned Hamilton and others recalled the good old
days when "The Roseleaves" fluttered about in madcap merriment. And
then the tablet was left to Mother Nature and to the silence which is only
broken by the soughing of the breeze through the branches and the music
of the bee and the katydid. Only the wanderer in the hills or the devout
pilgrim seeking out shrines of song will find the tablet on the oak.

"Dan O'Connell loved God's out-of-doors," said Peters when I asked
him about the memorial. "He delighted in life in the open. He was an
excellent shot, a skilled fly fisher and an expert yachtsman. So it seemed
right to commemorate him in the hills and among the trees."

225

VARIED TYPES

This reminded me of what Delmas wrote of the poet : "A lover of nature,
his genius expanded and poured forth its garnered treasures the closer it
nestled upon the breast of the great parent of the universe."

"Did you know that Dan O'Connell was a grand-nephew of the great
Irish Liberator?" Peters asked me. I admitted my ignorance.

"He came of fine stock," the painter continued. "He was a cousin of
Herbert of Muckross, the owner of the Killarney estate before Billy Bourn
bought it for his daughter. His father was the original of the hero of Charles
Lever's novel 'The Knight of Gwyn.' He had an estate at Darrynane in
Clare, but ruined himself by excess of hospitality, like so many other Irish
gentlemen.

"Dan was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and then went into the
British navy. But he fought a duel with a Frenchman in China, wounded
him and had to skip to avoid being courtmartialed. He came to San Fran-
cisco, and from here made his way to Santa Clara College on foot. Why he
went there I never learned — perhaps he knew some priest at the college —
but at any rate they made him a professor and he stayed for some time.
Later he came to San Francisco and supported himself by writing for the
papers. He was generally desperately poor, but his friends assisted him
from time to time and he managed to get along somehow or other.

"His poetry was written at odd times and brought him little money. He
knew it was good poetry, but was not conceited. At the same time, he had
an Irishman's sentimentality and often wondered whether he would be re-
membered after death.

"His death was very sudden and was due to pneumonia. He died at
Sausalito in a house belonging to James V. Coleman. Two weeks before
he had written his most beautiful poem, 'The Chamber of Sleep.' It reads
like a prophecy but when he wrote it he did not expect to die. A few hours
before his death I went to his bedside with Coleman and Billy Berg. He
was breathing heavily. He drew me down close to him and whispered:

" 'Charley, me boy, they've struck the old ship below the water line and
she's sinking.'

"Then in a louder voice, and so as to deceive his wife who was standing
close by, he added :

"Yes, bring me all the magazines you can. I'll read them while I'm
getting well.'

"He was buried from the Bohemian Club ; the only man, I suppose, who
ever was or ever will be buried from there.

"He was a jovial fellow, and used to write a lot of nonsense verse for
his friends to sing. There are some foolish lines of his running through my
head now. The Roseleaves used to roar them out when they went for a
barbecue behind Angel Island in Commodore Harrison's 'Frolic.' They were
written about a chap named McCarthy who owned a yacht that his father
didn't know about. They went something like this:

226

CHARLES ROLLO PETERS

'Now old McCarthy drew the prize,

And it was a glorious day
When to the bank the old man went

To salt the coin away.
But young Dick, he was a blood, you bet,

IFrom his head down to his heel,
And every day he'd stale away

To take the schooner's wheel.
Miss Daisy Green is very ill,

Miss Aggie Riordan's worse,
Tim Fagan lays aside his pipe

Anne Finnerty to nurse;
And though they are as limp as rags,

They are too game to squeal,
And say, 'The Lord is with us while

McCarthy's at the wheel.'

"O'Connell had a charming personality. He was very magnetic, a great
story teller and quick at repartee. But there was no evil in his mind, no
malice in his wit. I never heard him say anything calculated to inflict pain.
Time and time again when someone baited him in after dinner talk he would
lean over to me and say :

" 'Charlie, me boy, I could say so and so in answer to that, but what's the
use?'

"These suppressed replies were always gems of repartee.

"He always presented a smiling face to the world. I remember once on
one of the expeditions of the Roseleaves he was wanted to make the chowder
and I went looking for him. I found him sitting some distance up the beach.
He refused to return with me.

" 'I've got a riproaring headache,' he told me, 'and I might say something
ill-natured that I'd regret.'

"He had many sincere friends. Stevenson was one of them. I think the
one sincere spot in Delmas' life was his fondness for Dan O'Connell.

"Clay Greene says that when he was at Santa Clara he was a handsome
young man but in later years he was red-faced, fat and of great bulk.

"I remember years ago reading in an English magazine a story by Somer-
est Maugham called 'An Irish Gentleman.' I thought at the time that
Maugham had Dan O'Connell in mind, and meeting him years afterwards,
asked him about it. He said I was right. He had known Dan well. And
he described him correctly. Yes, Dan O'Connell was an Irish gentleman."

229

WILLIAM A. PINKERTON

HO STOLE the Mona Lisa?"

That may seem a foolish question to ask a detective.
If he knew who stole the da Vinci masterpiece wouldn't he
arrest the thief and restore the picture to the Louvre? Of
course he would if he could, but thief-hunting isn't as simple
as all that. A detective might know who stole the Mona
Lisa, and still be unable to make out a case. He might
be unable to find where the picture was hidden. Detectives
in San Francisco have told me they know the thief who stole the De Sabla
jewels at the Mardi Gras. Supposing they are correct, what would be the
use of arresting the thief if they couldn't put their hands on the loot?

I thought perhaps some of our thief-takers knew who cut the Mona
Lisa out of its frame in the Louvre. Long before the picture was recovered
I asked William J. Burns who turned that trick. He told me he didn't know.
A little later I asked the same question of "The Eye" and got the same
answer. "The Eye" is Bill Pinkerton. It's what the crooks call him out of
compliment to his eternal vigilance. But "The Eye" didn't know who stole
the Mona Lisa any more than Burns knew.

"But I do know," said Pinkerton, "that the two men whose names have
been most prominently connected with the Louvre robbery had nothing to
do with it. I mean Eddie Guerin and Adam Worth. At different times
the papers have had sensational stories connecting these men with the job.

"Eddie Guerin, the noted American crook, was sentenced to Devil's Island
by the French government. It was reported that he escaped from the island.
He didn't. Only one man ever escaped from Devil's Island, and he was
caught later in an open boat, crazy and starving. Guerin escaped from the
mainland of New Guinea. He made his way to London where he was
arrested. The French government tried to extradite him but failed. He is
safe in England, but the moment he set foot in France or the United States
he'd be locked up. The story was that he took a chance, went to Paris and
stole the Mona Lisa to get revenge on the French authorities. But that's
ridiculous; a pure American newspaper fake. I saw Guerin in London last
summer. He's keeping a small tobacco shop and living very quietly. He has
to because Scotland Yard knows every move he makes. He realizes perfectly
that if he ever goes to France he'll be sent to Devil's Island in a hurry, and
he'll never leave Devil's Island alive.

"The Adam Worth story is another fake. I'm a firm believer that a
man can come back, but it depends on where he comes from. To come back
and steal the Mona Lisa as he stole the Gainsborough Duchess of Devonshire,
Adam Worth would have to come from the Great Divide. Adam Worth died
in England on January 8, 1902."

230

WILLIAM A. PINKERTON

"Are there any crooks you know of who could have done the job?"

"Lots of them. There are plenty of crooks today cleverer than Eddie
Guerin or Adam Worth. The only difference is that these men haven't been
featured by the papers. The last time I was in Paris a man of the world,
not a crook himself but acquainted with lots of crooks, told me that a
member of an Anglo-American gang came to him one day, just about the time
of the Mona Lisa robbery, and offered to get him any picture in the Louvre
for one thousand dollars.

"As a matter of fact that was an easy trick to turn. Worth told me
once that he could steal the crown jewels out of the Tower of London. I
told him the thing was impossible, but when the British authorities heard
of his boast I noticed that they put a closer guard over the crown jewels.
They've kept up the guard ever since. And you remember that the regalia
was stolen from Dublin Castle.

"I suppose the man who took the Mona Lisa had a confederate in the
gallery. But what did he get? The Mona Lisa is a white elephant. It ain't
worth thirty cents."

'If that's the case, why did Worth steal the Duchess of Devonshire?"

"Worth didn't steal the Gainsborough for what it would bring. He
stole it to get a pal out of a London jail. Worth swore he would get his
friend out before trial. This was no easy matter because in England a
bondsman must be a freeholder and of good reputation. One day at this
time Worth and an English crook called 'Junka' were walking along Bond
street and noticed a great many people entering the art gallery of Agnew
and Company. They were curious and went in. They found that the Gains-
borough Duchess of Devonshire which the Agnews had bought a few days
before for £10,500 was on exhibition. When they left Worth told 'Junka'
that he had discovered a way of releasing his friend. He said he would
steal the painting and then send word to the Agnews that the man in jail
would recover it for them if they got him out.

"On a foggy night in May, 1876, Worth broke into the gallery and cut
the picture from the frame. Next day London was in an uproar. But mean-
while the attorney for the man in jail had discovered another way to get
him out. The man had been extradited from France, but there was a flaw
in the extradition papers and he was released on habeas corpus. That
left Worth with a white elephant on his hands.

"In the following year one of Worth's accomplices was sent to prison
from New York for forgery. While he was in prison he sent for my brother
Bob and told him the story of the robbery. The facts were communicated to
Scotland Yard. They already suspected Worth, but there was no way of
finding where the picture was.

"Worth, as he himself told me later, brought the picture to America, had
a special trunk built for it and kept it in storage, first in Brooklyn, then in
New York and later in Boston. Meanwhile Worth continued his career of
crime, and was finally sent to prison in Belgium. He came out a wreck.
Shortly afterwards he ran across his old friend Pat Sheedy, the well known
sporting man. Years before I had told Sheedy, if he ever ran across Worth,

233

VARIED TYPES

to persuade him to return the picture through me. Sheedy remembered,
and made the suggestion. The result was that Worth walked into my
Chicago office one day. He had come from London about the picture. I
hadn't seen him for seventeen or eighteen years. He told me the whole story
of the theft. The matter hung fire for a long time, but finally on March 28,
1901, Worth brought the picture to my office where one of the Agnews was
waiting to receive it. It was ' twenty-five years since Agnew had seen the
picture, and he cried when he looked at it. It's now in the Pierpont Morgan
collection."

"A crook like Worth," continued Pinkerton, "leaves his mark on every
job he does. The work of the great American crook always stands out.
Compared to the great American crook all others are duffers, with the
possible exception of the Australian crook."

"Big Mac for instance," I suggested.

"Yes," said Pinkerton, "I knew that bank job in British Columbia was
Big Mac's as soon as I looked it over. I know McNamara well, and must
say I like him. When I was in San Francisco I never passed The Turtle or
Tom's Cabin without dropping in to spend a few dollars and have a chat
with Mac. I was never so sorry for turning up any man in my life. But
I didn't take any unfair advantage of him. He's a fellow with a big heart,
always willing to share his last dollar with a friend. He's one of the coolest
men I ever knew. You know when we arrested him he asked what we
wanted him for. We told him, for cracking a bank vault near Vancouver
and getting away with $271,000. 'Oh, is that all?' he said: 'I thought it
might be something serious.' I suppose you know he has been ordered
extradited from New York?"

Bill Pinkerton smiled in an amused way.

"That was a great alibi Mac fixed up for himself. At the time of the
robbery he was living quietly at Fort Lee, New Jersey. He brought witnesses
to swear that he had been in New York and Fort Lee that day. There was
a restaurant tab to prove that he had eaten in a Fort Lee restaurant. There
was an automobile man to swear that Mac had had an auto ride of several
hours in Fort Lee. He gave the name of the garage and the number of the
car. Finally there was a gatekeeper at the Erie ferry who swore that Mac
had started through the wrong gate and the gatekeeper had called him back.
I had a man eat at the restaurant and found by the number of his check
that Mac's was only a few days old instead of four months old. The auto-
mobile number was the number of a hearse which had been at a funeral
when Mac was supposed to have been joy riding. And the books of the
Erie company showed the watchman hadn't been working that day. That
was a very carelessly constructed alibi."

"What do you think of the dictagraph?"

"I've never given it a fair trial, so I can't say whether it is worth while
or not. At the same time, you know it fell down awfully in the Lorimer
case. It was supposed to have been used on Hines. The senatorial committee
summoned the operator and tried out the dictagraph under exactly the same
conditions. An expert stenographer got barely one-third of the conversation

234

WILLIAM A. PINKERTON

which was supposed to have been obtained. That discredited the dictagraph
with the committee."

"Will you ever write a book about your experiences?"

"Never. I don't believe in that sort of thing. Magazines have been
after me time and time again for stories, but with one or two exceptions I
have always turned them down. I don't believe in traveling with a brass
band. I don't go in for cheap notoriety. Besides, detective stories do more
harm than good. They are not the right kind of reading for boys. Detective
stories and the moving picture shows before they were censored were the
greatest of all incentives to crime among the young."

When Pinkerton speaks of the evil effect of detective stories he does not
refer to Conan Doyle or Hornung or such writers. He's strong for them.
He's particularly enthusiastic about Raffles and Bunny. But he doesn't
care much about Gaboriau. "Too Frenchy," he says. As for Poe, he says
he hasn't read much of him.

Bill Pinkerton has been a detective for fifty years, ever since he was
fifteen years old. There was a time when he knew every important crook
in the world.

"But I've been doing office work so long now," he says, 'that I've lost
track of a lot of them. They keep growing up all the time. The supply
never fails."

But the crooks all know Bill Pinkerton, know him and fear him.

"There goes 'The Eye,' " one of the gentry said to me on Powell street
the other day.

Perhaps he's not your idea of a detective at all. An elderly gentleman,
portly, gray, a bit stiff in his walk, with narrow sleepy eyes. He dresses
carefully with a generous sprinkling of diamonds, emeralds and pearls. But
the tap of his cane on the sidewalk has a sinister sound for crooks. They
don't care to exchange glances with "The Eye."

235

GEORGE H. PIPPY

F ALL our noble army of colonels in mufti only two are
barbigerous. I refer to Colonel Marye and Colonel Pippy.
The barbal facade of Colonel Marye is calculated to excite
the envy of poor depilated mortals; but it lacks the delicate
distinction which goes with rarity. The hirtellous ornamen-
tation of the Marye front is not unlike that of many less
distinguished men. Colonel Pippy, on the other hand, shares
his barbate honors with just two men in the United States,
John D. Crimmins of New York and Senator Ham Lewis of Illinois.

The hairy arabesques that scroll the lower portion of Colonel Pippy's
countenance descend in graceful undulations from either cheek, eager to
mingle their traceries on his chin. But they are not allowed to intertwine
in careless tanglement. Advancing in ordered array, it is their evident
purpose to overrun the mentum and countermarch on the other side of the
facial territory. But only their outposts find contact at the frontier. The
main forces are turned back upon themselves, leaving a line of demarcation
fringed with little curls. The secret of this method of disposing whiskers is
known only to Pippy, to Lewis and to Crimmins. Therefore, hispidulously
speaking, Colonel Pippy is, in the life of San Francisco, a man apart.

Colonel Pippy, however, has more than capillary attraction. His renown
is not solely hirsute. No mere Don Whiskerandos is Colonel Pippy. The
glory of him does not originate in a barber shop. Nay, his trellised con-
volvuli are physically symbolical of higher qualities. The Colonel is, in the
best sense of the term, a two-fisted gentleman. He expounds the law with
one hand and impounds the cream with the other. He is equally at ease, be
the topic certiorari or certified milk. He has both a license from the Board
of Health and a diploma from the Supreme Court. Colonel Pippy is a lawyer
and a milkman.

A San Franciscan by birth, Colonel Pippy began life as a blacksmith's
helper in a carriage factory earning three dollars a week. His first employer
is today his oldest friend. In due course he married the boss' daughter and
embarked in business for himself. His equipment was a horse, a wagon and
divers milk cans procured on credit. That was thirty-three years ago. Today
he has a dairy in San Francisco and another in Oakland; he supplies three
thousand retail customers as well as most of the big hotels, hospitals and
restaurants. No other individual in the milk trade of the West has so large
a business as Colonel Pippy.

It is more or less popular to "roast" or "kid" the milkman. In the comic
papers the milkman is always on intimate terms with the village pump. But
the cream has been skimmed from that milky jest. So I am not going to
milk-pan or milk-toast Colonel Pippy. He is no milk-sop, no milk-and-water

236

GEORGE H. PIPPY

dairyman. He is indeed a fine fellow, overflowing with the pasteurized milk
of human kindness, and he goes smilingly his milky way ruminating good
deeds and lactating happiness for all sorts of people. There are no curds in
Colonel Pippy's disposition. Speaking in dairy terms, the casein of him has
never coagulated. He has not soured on the world. In the turmoil of business
he has never forfeited the right to fly the milk-white flag of honorable dealing.
In the ups and downs of life he has never lost his lactose smile, never abated
the butter-fat unction of his geniality. The lactometer test has no terrors
for him.

Neither has Nathan Strauss. Strauss is the sworn foe of diseased cows
and dirty dairies. This ardent milk crusader brought the gospel of pas-
teurization to San Francisco some time ago. Strauss expected to find blame-
worthy conditions here. He found nothing of the sort. But after the fashion
of ardent reformers he condemned our cows and dairies first, and investigated
them afterwards.

"Strauss was genuinely surprised," says Colonel Pippy, "to find how
downtodate our big dairies were. He came to talk pasteurization, prepared
to acquaint us with it as a novelty. He found pasteurization of milk carried
on in all the big San Francisco dairies. He found dairy conditions in San
Francisco better than in New York or Chicago. We owe that to the splendid
work done by the last few Boards of Health and by the excellent Milk Com-
mission headed by Dr. Adelaide Brown."

Going into the matter a bit with Colonel Pippy, I found that the San
Francisco dairies are really in advance of San Francisco milk consumers.
The ordinary consumer of milk thinks that certified milk is the last word in
pure milk. Certified milk is an excellent thing, there is no gainsaying that. But
pasteurized milk is better. The cows that give the milk which is certified by
the Milk Commission are examined twice a year. The milk is handled by
machinery which eliminates every possibility of contamination. The dairies
from which the certified milk comes are models of sanitation ; the working-
men must be spotlessly clean. Still, there is the chance that a cow may
develop disease in the interval between the two semi-annual examinations.
There is no danger of this sort with pasteurized milk, for the pasteurization
destroys all germs; and so far from hurting, really improves the flavor of the
milk. Pasteurization is the more scientific method of insuring the consumer
that he is buying pure milk. Yet pasteurized milk is cheaper than certified
milk. Nathan Strauss rashly took it for granted that pasteurization had not
reached this extremity of the world. As a matter of fact, it has been prac-
ticed here by all the big dairies for several years. So Strauss preached his
gospel superfluously and denounced unjustly.

Colonel Pippy is very proud of his milk business. When he comes up
from San Mateo in the morning he motors out to his dairy in Franklin street
before going to his law office downtown. But he exercises only a general
supervision. The dairy is run by a scientific milkman graduated from the
Colleee of Agriculture of the University.

"I thought I knew a lot about milk," remarked Colonel Pippy, "but I
changed my mind when Armstrong took hold. He's a wonder."

239

VARIED TYPES

Colonel Pippy wasn't afraid to let Armstrong hear this encomium. He
seems to be on excellent terms with his men. For the matter of that he's on
excellent terms with the whole world.

"One great thing in life," he says, "is to be able to look the other fellow
in the eye. But there's a greater thing than that — to be able to go to the
mirror and look yourself straight in the eye."

When the Colonel does this latter thing (and I'm quite sure he's not
afraid to), he inspects a pair of clear blue eyes full of kindliness and good
humor. There can't be anything very wrong with the man who regards the
world through those eyes. They are in fact the windows of a charitable soul.
What Colonel Pippy does from day to day to relieve distress, to help the weak
who cannot help themselves, to bring a little cheer to the cheerless is none
of your business or mine. I happen to know that he does a good deal in this
way, having stumbled on the information by accident some time ago.

Like all happy men Colonel Pippy is on the go all the time. When he's
not in his law office or his dairy or performing a deed of kindness or attending
a banquet (the Colonel is one of our most assiduous prandialists), he is
thinking up some new scheme to advance the cause for which the Home
Industry League stands. Colonel Pippy organized the Home Industry
League and is proud of it. He doesn't agree with those who think that it
will build a wall around California and isolate us from the rest of the world.
But he sees no reason why money which can be spent to advantage in Cali-
fornia should be sent out of the State. The Home Industry League, he tells
me, has saved millions of dollars from going East. One instance is typical.
He obtained from the United States Government an order for two hundred
thousand pairs of shoes for soldiers at three dollars a pair. Considering that
the leather is produced here, why shouldn't the shoes be made here? That
was his argument, and he succeeded in convincing the War Department that
it was a good argument.

I spent the better part of a morning with Colonel Pippy, studying his
dairy, his whiskers and his personality at close range. For his dairy I have
a great admiration ; for his personality a great deal of esteem ; and as for his
whiskers, there is really nothing to be said against them. Having reached
this conclusion as I was leaving Colonel Pippy, I absent-mindedly said out
loud:

"They're all right, Colonel."

"What's that?" he said.

"You're all right, Colonel," I covered up.

"Thanks," he smiled, giving my hand a hearty milk-shake.

240

WILLIS POLK

'IFE has its compensations after all. It is not all a dusty
^V^ highway with no roadhouse in sight. If you keep pushing on
£j£ through the brambly brake you are sure to reach the grassy
glade. After the very worst of roads your sixty-horse-power
car is apt to strike a stretch of macadam. The most irre-
sponsible of borrowers sometimes pays you back. But hold
— we are not here to listen to a sermon of apothegmatic
bromides. Our business is with Willis Polk, so let us not
be betrayed by our penchant for moralizing into forgetfulness of our first
proposition which may be restated thus : Willis Polk, if he chose, could pen
a very interesting sequel to Emerson's justly celebrated essay on Com-
pensations.

For on this current Saturday night (February 25th, 1911, the date of the
opening of the new Pacific-Union Club), Willis Polk will be wreathed with
the jonquils of glory. He will be crowned, metaphorically of course, with
the oak leaves that symoblize victory in one of the prettiest architectural
Marathons ever run. After having been roasted to a turn year after year
he will be toasted in vintage wines. After having been boiled in oil, again
metaphorically, the hinges of his self-esteem will be lubricated with the salve
of laudation. After having been knocked he will be slapped on the back;
after having been consigned to the pit of Tophet he will be raised on the
wings of oratory propelled by the breath of postprandial hot-air to the
brilliant heights of Paradise where he may look down on the roof of his
tallest skyscraper. Not to keep you guessing, Willis Polk is to be a guest
of honor at the Pacific-Union Club banquet.

Just picture that pretty scene. Visualize Willis Polk, his starched
bosom swelling with pride and undigested compliments, his eye flashing with
exaltation and champagne, rising to address the assemblage of gout, chalk-
stones, corpulence and filthy lucre known as the Pacific-Union Club. Before
him and about him in that beautiful hall of paneled English walnut Dives
is spooning up his bisque Tortoni and Midas is draining his Cordon Rouge.
He sees here a malefactor of great wealth who used to call him a "bum
architect;" he glimpses there, through the fragrant haze of fat regalias, a
captain of industry who prophesied that he "couldn't come back." And as
the applause that greeted his rising dies away he flourishes his serviette in
a gesture of modest depreciation and launches into an exposition of how it
all happened.

You will admit that it is not every architect who is commissioned to
build a million-dollar club for effete and blase millionaires. You will concede
that not every architect so commissioned would go to the trouble of knocking
a couple of piffling hundred thousands off the original cost. And you will

241

VARIED TYPES

not gainsay the observation that when the architect who does this is one
who never went to school, who first learned how to build and afterwards
found out why it was done thus and not otherwise, who was stigmatized as
a dreamer without practical ideas and an idealist without business sagacity —
that such an architect, filling the foreground of such a picture as that which
I have endeavored to sketch, has every right in the world to feel as though
he has not lived in vain. And that just about represents the sentiment that
is permeating Willis Polk at the present writing.

Architects are not unlike other professional men. Jealousy is not
absolutely unknown among them. For the man who rises from the ranks
they are apt to entertain a less kindly feeling than for the man who is
accredited from a college. They bow their heads reverently if you come
from the Beaux Arts and wag them derisively if you come from the
carpenter's bench. Academic training is their badge of caste and Willis
Polk never had any academic training worth boasting about. Yet he
sympathizes with the peculiar ply of his architectural brethren to the extent
of admitting that five years of collegiate instruction would have saved him
ten of mighty hard sledding.

Polk came into the world in strict accordance with specifications in
Kentucky in 1865. About his only equipment for the subsequent struggle
was a class A reinforced determination, first of all to help his family and in
the second place, to make a name for himself. His father had been an
architect but at the outbreak of the Rebellion he rolled up his blueprints,
tossed them on the shelf and donned a gray uniform. He came out of the
struggle with inflammatory rheumatism and an empty exchequer and when
Willis was seven years old the family moved to St. Louis. To help support
the family he sold newspapers, ran errands, was a cash boy, did anything in
fact that would bring in a little money. He says he was a good newsboy
and sold a hundred papers every Sunday morning. At the age of eleven his
father went to Hot Springs for the alleviation of his rheumatism and took
Willis along. There father and son collaborated on a building and as you
stroll down Central avenue in Hot Springs you may still see the "Iron
Block," the first fruit of young Folk's architectural exertion. Two years
later, at the mature age of thirteen, Willis saw an advertisement for bids for
a new school house at Hope, Arkansas. He took a chance and got the
contract. He not only drew the plans but also worked as a carpenter and
stonemason in the erection of that modest temple of learning. From that
time on he was a sure-enough "architect and builder" and did a good deal of
work in Arkansas and Texas. In 1885 he went to Boston where he had the
good fortune to meet Henry Van Brunt, one of the country's great architects,
and in Van Brunt's office he began to learn something of the principles of
architecture. Through Van Brunt he made the acquaintance of Professor
William R. Ware who occupied the chair of architecture at Columbia. So
he drifted to New York and cultivated Professor Ware, sitting with him night
after night to absorb architectural lore and occasionally attending his lectures.
He used to occupy a little hall bedroom on a Box and Cox arrangement.
One day his fellow-lodger came into the room and insisted that he get up

242

WILLIS POLK

so that he, the fellow-lodger, might go to bed. That was his introduction to
Oliver Herford, wit and writer, and their subsequent intimacy developed
in Polk a facility for saying sharp truths that has helped to make him many
enemies — and many friends. Stanford White and Augustus St. Gaudens
were not famous in those days and young Polk used to pal with them. To
the end of their lives this intimate association continued. In 1889 he came
to San Francisco, just about the time that Architecture struck the town.
Previous to that the "architecture" of our buildings, barring a few homes on
Nob Hill and Pacific Heights, was of the jigsaw variety. We built first and
then ordered, our "architecture" from a planing mill. Conditions were
changing when Willis Polk arrived here, but the change did not do him a
great deal of good. He had plenty of time to cultivate his artistic sense, but
few opportunities to practice his profession. When he did get a job a lot
of the other architects stood around and explained how little they thought of
him. Their explanations did not worry Polk and he gave as good as he
received. With artists of all sorts he was popular and in '93 he helped
organize the famous "Roseleaves," a coterie of Bohemian clubmen which
included Dan O'Connell, Denis O'Sullivan, Ned Townsend, Charles Rollo
Peters, Pete Bigelow, Joe Redding and other choice spirits. There was lots
of gray matter in that crowd but no money, a fact which was attested by
the celebrated suit of Commodore Harrison versus the Roseleaves for the
rent of the yacht Frolic, a suit in which most of the millionaires in town
were made co-defendants with the poverty-stricken Bohemians. About the
same time Polk became something of a newspaperman, contributing to the
Sunday and weekly papers and distinguishing himself by scooping the State
on the first hold-up of Evans and Sontag.

The year '97 was a particularly hard year for Polk and he spent most of
it in seclusion from bill collectors drawing a plan for a wonderful peristyle
and arch approach to the Ferry Building from Market street. Polk has
that drawing yet. He says a great artist once declared that it was the
biggest pen and ink drawing in the world — a dubious sort of compliment when
you come to think it over. However, that work got Polk interested in
schemes for municipal adornment and when he went to Chicago in 1900 to
join D. H. Burnham's architectural force, he carried a lot of ideas which
found a sympathetic lodgment in Burnham's mind, for Burnham has always
made a hobby of just that sort of thing.

When Polk left San Francisco all the architects said he would never
come back and when he came here with Burnham in 1906 they added that
he couldn't come back. When Burnham made him the business manager of
his local office, they chortled at the joke of the thing; when Burnham made
him a partner, they simply held their sides; when Burnham turned over his
local business to him, they began to sit up and take notice.

In the past four years Polk has erected buildings of a total value of
more than eight million dollars, so the architects are beginning to revise
their early ideas about him. Of course not all the architects joined in the
symphony of dispraise, so not all the architects find it necessary to recant.

But when Polk sits at that banquet board in the club which he built,

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maybe there won't be a few of his fellow craftsmen who will squirm in their
seats — if they are fortunate enough to attend — when the toastmaster,
consulting his notes or his pencilled cuff, introduces "a man who is fit to be
compared with the great Vitruvius, a man who continues the glorious
traditions of the brilliant school of Brunelleschi and Sansovino, a man whose
name will go ringing down the ages with the names of Bramante and
Vignola and Palladio, aye, with the immortal name of Michel-Angelo.
Gentlemen, our architect, Willis Polk." Prolonged applause followed by
"He's a Jolly Good Fellow."

246

A. M. ROBERTSON

N THE mind of the ordinary man a publisher and book-
seller is apt to be classed as a highbrow. He is thought
of as one detached from the common activities, out of
sympathy with the general interests of life. He is pictured
as a myopic old soul whose horizon is bounded by learned
volumes, whose nostrils perpetually snuff the musty odor
of antique morocco, whose brow bulges with the lore of
first editions and other loads of learned lumber. He is
supposed to live only in the classic past, or if at all in the present, only in
the present of literature. There is no doubt that lots of publishers and
booksellers justify this notion. Lots of them are highbrows and nothing
more. We have some such in San Francisco. But Aleck Robertson is not
one of them.

It may surprise many people who never meet Aleck Robertson outside
his bookshop on Union Square to learn that he is much more interested in
politics than in book publishing or bookselling. It may startle them to be
told that he would rather talk elections than first editions. But that's the
fact. If Aleck Robertson gets started talking politics, I defy anybody to
switch the conversation to books. Broach the subject of William Jennings
Bryan to him and then try to branch off to George Sterling. You can't do
it. Poetry is all right in its place, but when it comes to discussing poetry
to the exclusion of politics, Robertson is not with you.

In the old days of conventions and bosses Robertson was deep in
politics. But nobody ever accused him of being any man's man. Fighting
bosses was his favorite sport. It would be a safe wager that when Robert-
son was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the fifth
district he got more fun out of his defeat than he derived from the com-
panionship of all the poets whose books he has published. Highbrowing is
all right in its place, thinks Robertson, but man was not made for books
alone. ; v *!

But of course one doesn't go to Robertson to hear his panegyrics on
the Peerless One or his opinion of the local campaign. The very difficulty
of getting Robertson to talk books heightens the desire of drawing him out.
The well nigh insuperable objection he has to dilating on his own publica-
tions makes it worth while to wring from him a few opinions about the
men and women whose lucubrations carry his imprint.

Glancing over a catalogue of Robertson's publications — and he has
probably published more original works than any other man west of the
Rockies — one is struck by the unity of his output. With two or three
trifling exceptions everything he has published relates closely to California.
I asked him what rule governed his selections.

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"I don't allow myself to be governed by the moneymaking considera-
tion," he explained, "but it is my endeavor to put in permanent form, as
far as 1 am able, the works of our men of ability. 1 try to publish nothing
that is just for the day. 1 confine myself to bringing out books that might
possibly appeal to people fifty or one hundred years from now. 1 try to
avoid what is trivial and ephemeral. The books I've published, with three
or four exceptions, have been written here in California, i strive in my way
to benefit the State and to provide an avenue to the public for the authors
who live in our midst."

What Robertson says about subordinating the moneymaking consider-
ation is strictly true. Mrs. Katharine Osbourne told me of a characteristic
instance. When she had prepared for the press her book about Stevenson's
life in California, she took the manuscript to Robertson and asked him to
publish it. When he had read it he told her, "This is a bigger thing than
you realize. It is a work which ought to be published by one of the eastern
houses with good English connections, so that it may receive the publicity
to which it is entitled." And he forthwith made arrangements for Mrs.
Osbourne to have the book published by McClurg. Needless to say it
would have been a moneymaker for Robertson.

Running through a list of Robertson's publications, many of them now
out of print, one realizes what a representative gathering he has sponsored.

Among the poets are George Sterling, Daniel O'Connell, Louis Robert-
son, Joaquin Miller, Lionel Josaphare, Edwin Markham and Clark Ashton
Smith.

"We are too close to Sterling to know how big he is," said Robertson
when I had induced him to forget that he was a publisher and to turn
reluctant critic. "Men who ought to know say he is the greatest poet of
today. He is certainly attracting more and more attention all the time. I
think 'The Testimony of the Suns' is his greatest poem.

"Of all the poets whose works I have published it seems to me that the
two who appeal most to the heart of the average man are Daniel O'Connell
and Louis Robertson. O'Connell will always rank high in California liter-
ature. What could be more beautiful than his 'Chamber of Sleep' or 'Sweet-
hearts and Wives'? Robertson was a master in the depiction of passion.
He knew life from the topmost pinnacle down. Think of 'Ataxia' and 'The
Dead Calypso.' Swinburne was a child compared to him.

"In the imaginative quality Josaphare is the greatest of our poets. Some
of his best poems are in 'Turquoise and Iron,' such as the 'Sonnet to My
Inkwell,' 'The Winged Heart' and 'The Splendid Earth.' The book is out
of print.

"I published the first edition of 'The Man with the Hoe' which was
written at the psychological moment and made Edwin Markham. I also
published Joaquin Miller's 'As It Was in the Beginning' which is a remark-
able work. Then there is Charles Keeler. I think his best poem is 'The
Dreamer and the Doer' in 'Idylls of El Dorado.' Christian Binckley's
'Sonnets from a House of Days' was poetry of the purest sort. It didn't
receive the attention it deserved. I published Herman Scheffauer's first

248

A. M. ROBERTSON

poems. Then there was Grace Hibbard who wrote pretty verses, and
Lorenzo Sosso who has gone into insurance. Stanley Coghill's 'Hathor'
gave great promise and 1 published it at the request of froiessor Kurtz.
Coghill is now dead. Then there is Arthur W. Ryder's 'Women's Eyes/
translated from the Sanskrit. Benjamin Ide Wheeler who is himself a poet
and a Sanskrit scholar told me when that appeared that I had published
the finest verse translation from the Sanskrit that America could boast of.
I published the poems of Samuel J. Alexander and of that remarkable boy
Clark Ashton Smith. Then there are the poems of Dr. Taylor and 'The
Soul's Rubaiyat' of Mrs. Truesdell."

This is a list of which Robertson may well be proud. But of course he
hasn't confined himself to the poets.

"For genuine humor 'The Hoot of the Owl' by Behr of the Academy of
Sciences stands first among my publications," he says. "For literature pure
and simple there is Delmas' Speeches. The first novel of college life in
California ever written was Joy Lichtenstein's 'For the Blue and the Gold.'
The Boston Transcript reveiwer said that nowhere had he ever read a better
account of a football game. Then there is Peter Robertson's 'The Seedy
Gentleman,' all that remains in permanent form of a lifetime devoted to
dramatic criticism. I published two of Charles Warren Stoddard's books,
'In the Footprints of the Padres,' one of the best selling books I have ever
had, and the novel 'For the Pleasure of His Company' which is simply part
of Stoddard's biography. Every character in it was taken from real life.
Stevenson is there and Ina Coolbrith and some of the old 'Golden Era'
people. Then there is a volume of Bierce and the work on our earthquake
edited by David Starr Jordan which critics say is the standard book on
the disaster. The contributors were all specialists on the subject. The
Bibliography of the Chinese Question by Cowan and Dunlap is said to be
one of the best bibliographies produced in America. It has gone into all
the libraries. There is also John McLaren's 'Gardening in California/ the
standard work on its subject. Mrs. Sanchez' 'Spanish and Indian Place
Names of California' covered ground which had scarcely been touched."

Robertson mentioned many others works of more recent date, for once
he is persuaded to talk about his publications he doesn't like to slight any
of them, but I have referred to enough to prove that California owes him a
great deal. Take away the books which I have mentioned and you leave
a great emptiness in our literature.

Nearly all his working life Robertson has been in the book business,
but his love for more active pursuits which finds its outlet in politics was
inherited from his father. His father William D. Robertson, a Highland
Scot, crossed the plains to California in 1849 at the age of twenty-one. He
was one of our pioneer inventors and mining men. He was superintendent
of the famous Sheba and De Soto mines at Star, Nevada, when Mark Twain
visited that camp and described it in "Roughing It." He invented the first
track-laying machine ever used and demonstrated its practicability by laying
track for the California Pacific between Suisun and Vallejo.

Aleck was born in Ontario, but came here in 1863. He went to school

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on Telegraph Hill and afterwards attended the old Washington and Lincoln
Grammar schools, both of which number many well known San Franciscans
among their students. In later years, with Thomas Burns of the United
States Sub-Treasury he organized the Lincoln Grammar School Association
whose banquet on Lincoln's Birthday is one of the memorable yearly
gatherings in this city.

When young Robertson found it necessary to go to work, he was
given a place in the bookshop of I. N. Choynski, the father of the pugilist,
whom old timers remember as a remarkable man. There and in the book
stores of C. Beach and Billings, Harbourne and Co. with whom he was
associated, he met the most distinguished men who lived or sojourned in
San Francisco. In his hours of leisure he founded with Tom Geary and
others the well remembered California Boat Club. Then there was an
interval when he went adventuring into Arizona and New Mexico. On his
return to San Francisco he opened a bookshop of his own and has been at
it ever since.

Always he has taken a keen interest in politics. When Bryan became
nationally famous by his "cross of gold" speech Robertson was one of the
first Democrats in this city to hail him as a leader. He gathered together
a congenial crowd of Democrats at the Bohemian Club and every day they
made Bryan the piece de resistance at luncheon. Some of those enthusiasts,
Robertson emphatically included, look upon the Nebraskan as the leader
of the party.

Although a Democrat he organized with Will C. Doble the remarkable
Wilson Republican Club which was undoubtedly the largest political club
the State ever had. Its influence may be read in the vote Woodrow Wilson
received in California.

"I have always been opposed to bossism," says Robertson, intensely
serious, tapping an accompaniment to his words with a lead pencil. "But
I believe in political leaders. A political leader is one who uses his power
for the good of the community. The greatest leader we have in the party
is Bryan. Now there's a man who —

And Aleck Robertson forgets books while he lays down the law of
simon-pure Democracy as he has laid it down any time these last twenty
years.

252

RENNIE P. SCHWERIN

E ARE all aware that the superlatively sapient statesmen
who sit and legislate in Washington enacted a law prohibit-
ing steamers owned or controlled by railroad companies from
passing through the Panama Canal. We shouldn't be very
well posted San Franciscans if we didn't also know that the
Pacific Mail Steamship Company is controlled by the
Southern Pacific, the railroad owning a majority of the
steamship stock. And we shouldn't be very gifted in the
matter of logic if we didn't immediately infer that the Pacific Mail is debarred
by the law aforesaid from engaging in passenger or freight business through
the Panama Canal.

Of course we know all this; it's a matter of recent history. The
remarkable point is that we are in nowise disturbed about it. We lavish on
the situation no particle of regret. We don't appear to give a hang. More
than that, we didn't give a hang when the situation was in the making. In
cold fact, certain cits of ours who are never spoken of as anything except
"representative" and "prominent" cits created the situation. It's their work,
and they're proud of it.

But what does it mean to San Francisco? Is it a good or a bad thing?
I went up to the beautiful office in the Flood Building whence Rennie P.
Schwerin directs the ships that lace our port to the Orient and Latin America,
and I asked him as president of the Pacific Mail :
"How about it?"

Schwerin is a prominent citizen or a very bad man, according to the
slant of light in which you view him. To certain gentlemen of the Chamber
of Commerce he is an exceedingly wicked person. I must confess that I
do not share that opinion with the perspicacious chamberites. I have seen
Schwerin in action when he hit hard from the witness stand at inquisitors
who were pounding savagely at his own armor. He's used to that kind of
battle, and I rather suspect he likes it. But in his office he is a soft-voiced,
dispassionate expositor of what's what with the trained thinker's penchant
for reinforcing his statements with official records. And when I asked him :
"How about it?" he said:

"It's history now. It's done and can never be undone. The water has
passed over the dam and can't be brought back."

Nevertheless Schwerin was willing to annotate this chapter of history,
and I found his annotations exceedingly interesting. I should call them
valuable were it not that their value depends on the moral to be drawn from
them by our business men, and I'm afraid Schwerin inoculated me with some
of his pessimistic despair of our business men ever learning anything.

"The hatchet is always out in San Francisco," said Schwerin. "The

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VARIED TYPES

condition in that respect is getting worse instead of better. The more the
people get together and yell, 'Show the San Francisco spirit/ the worse
things seem to become. There are more hatchets today than there ever
were. Everybody is slashing right and left."

In a prominent position among these hatchetmen of San Francisco
Schwerin places the members of the Chamber of Commerce who were
responsible for shutting the Pacific Mail out of the Panama Canal. And the
Abou Ben Adhem of these Chamber of Commerce hatchetmen, he whose
name leads all the rest, in the opinion of Schwerin, is William R. Wheeler.

"The great cry has been, Build up the mercantile marine," said Schwerin ;
"and I raised twelve million dollars for the purpose of building it up. The
Chamber of Commerce and Mr. Wheeler used every effort to prevent me.
The Pacific Mail intended to increase its fleet by the construction of four
thirty-seven thousand ton steamers. The Chamber of Commerce and Mr.
Wheeler made it impossible for us to build them. These ships would have
engaged in traffic between the Atlantic seaboard and the Orient by way of
San Francisco. That traffic was necessary if the Pacific Mail was to continue
to exist. As it is I see no outlook for the Pacific Mail."
"I see no outlook for the Pacific Mail."

There is an ominous sentence for the hatchetmen of the Chamber of
Commerce to ponder. After they have pondered it a bit, let them review
their work and settle with themselves whether it was good or bad.

"Why was this fight made by the Chamber of Commerce and Mr.
Wheeler, its traffic manager, to debar steamers controlled by railroads from
the canal? In order that Mr. Wheeler by a grand stand play might show
people what an influence he could wield. The Chamber of Commerce and
Mr. Wheeler are responsible for that law. They directed the public opinion
of San Francisco in favor of that law and against the Pacific Mail. Mr.
Wheeler said so in Washington.

"Mr. Wheeler said in Washington that the Chamber of Commerce was
unequivocally and unanimously in favor of the prohibition which has debarred
the Pacific Mail from the canal. The fight was initiated here. And despite
the fact that President Taft was very anxious that those four ships should
be built in order that direct communication twice a month might be estab-
lished between New York, San Francisco and the Philippines, the bill was
passed.

"What will be the result? San Francisco will lose between four and
five million dollars a year which we would have expended here if the bill had
not passed. That money would have gone into all our business channels.
Besides that the Pacific Mail would have handled two hundred thousand
passengers a year who would spend at least twenty-five or fifty dollars apiece
in San Francisco. As it is, the only local company which will use the canal
will be the American-Hawaiian. Captain Matson of the Matson Navigation
Company said he had arangements all made to put on a fleet of ships, but I
haven't heard of any contracts being made.

"Of course our four steamers will not be built. It would be contrary to
the law to use them. Even if we could use them it would be impossible to

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RENNIE P. SCHWERIN

raise that twelve million over again. You can't raise twelve millions on
a proposition requiring the strongest arguments, and then have the community
act as it did and still expect financiers to risk their money. But I suppose
Mr. Wheeler and the rest wanted to show their power. But it's pitiful, isn't
it?

"Mr. Wheeler knows as much about the steamship business as you do.
Take the case of Bates and Chesebrough. The inability of the California-
Atlantic to continue in business was due to the so-called sea level rates forced
on them by Mr. Wheeler through his representations at Washington. Sea
level rates are not based on any one man's ideas as to what they should be
or on theoretical ideas as to what they should be. They are based on the
true business principle that the servant is worthy of his hire. Freight cannot
be sold for less than it costs any more than the goods of a commercial house
can if the house is to continue paying its obligations.

"Mr. Wheeler told the congressional committee at Washington that
the Chamber of Commerce was unequivocally and unanimously in favor of
the bill that debarred the Pacific Mail from the canal. That was not true.
A protest against that attitude of the Chamber of Commerce was forwarded
to Washington by some of the leading members of the Chamber of Commerce.

"In connection with that protest let me show you a remarkable telegram
which was sent to Mr. Wheeler by Mr. James K. Lynch. Mr. Lynch is
president of the First National Bank and chairman of the traffic bureau of
the Chamber of Commerce. The telegram was read in the Senate by Senator
Works who made a very bitter speech in which he voiced the sentiments of
Mr. Wheeler. Here it is in the Congressional Record."

So I read the following telegram :

San Francisco, Cal., July 5, 1912.
William R. Wheeler,

New Willard Hotel, Washington, D. C.

Robbins Mclntosh and other members of executive committee think best
have Congressman Knowland appear as guest and address meeting of board
of directors of the Chamber on the 9th. We all feel that our present position
is a good one, and a general meeting of the Chamber at this time, when so
many are out of town, might be controlled by Pacific Mail henchmen, who
are extraordinarily active. Have seen your letter to Mann ; congratulate you
again on the work you have accomplished. The lineup of signatures to protest
is amusing. Leaders are firms under business obligations to Pacific Mail
and the others fall for bull about American flag. Would just as easily sign
petition on the other side if asked. Under circumstances don't consider it
necessary for Teal to appear.

JAMES K. LYNCH,
Chairman Traffic Bureau, Chamber of Commerce.

"That I think is a most remarkable telegram," continued Mr. Schwerin.
"And who were the protestants that Mr. Lynch found so amusing? Who

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were the henchmen of the Pacific Mail? The firms under obligations to the
Pacific Mail? The men who fell for the bull about the American flag? Here
are the men and firms which signed that protest:

"Dunham, Carrigan and Hayden, by Andrew Carrigan; James K. Arms-
by; Captain Barneson; H. M. McAllister of Otis, McAllister; Louis Getz of
Getz Brothers; L. Blum of Roth, Blum; W. B. Webster, vice-president of
the Home Industry League; John Rosenfeld's Sons, by Louis Rosenfeld;
the Western Fuel Company, by James B. Smith ; the Union Iron Works, by
J. J. Tynan, general manager; Edward L. Eyre; H. R. Williar; O. Rich,
manager of the Palace Hotel; the St. Francis Hotel, by James Woods; A. C.
Rulofson Company; the Columbia Steel Company, by Charles M. Gunn,
president; George E. Dow Pumping Engine Company; Charles Nelson
Company, by James Tyson ; Northern Redwood Lumber Company, by H.
W. Jackson, president; Consolidated Lumber Company, by James Tyson,
president; Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, by Henry T. Scott;
Mercantile Trust Company, by Henry T. Scott; Charles Templeton Crocker;
N. C. Bradley ; Alaska Packers Association, by Henry T. Fortmann ; McNab
and Smith; Charles R. Allen.

"Those were the men whom Mr. Lynch in his very remarkable telegram
described as henchmen of the Pacific Mail and men who would fall for bull
about the American flag."

Taking all this into consideration, remembering that Schwerin stated in
a letter to Mr. Robbins, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, that
"it will be absolutely impossible to continue the service (of the Pacific Mail)
solely between San Francisco and the Oriental ports;" that he also said in
the same letter that "the only way we can continue to exist is by operating
from the Atlantic seaboard to the Orient;" and that he told me, "I see no
outlook for the Pacific Mail" — considering all these things, would it not
be well for the hatchetmen of San Francisco to ask themselves whether they
have done well or ill?

Not that it will do the Pacific Mail any good now. At this writing
(January, 1913) the damage has been done and it is irreparable. But the
hatchetmen might come to realize in time that the weapon of the highbinder
is out of place in the business world. They might even come to think that
Rennie P. Schwerin is not such a wicked man after all. They might,
improbable as it may seem, reach the conclusion that the steamship company
which has kept the American flag flying in the Pacific against the heavily
subsidized British and Japanese lines was not indulging in "bull," as Mr.
Lynch so elegantly put it, about that American flag.

But let us drop these subjunctive clauses before we float off in millennial
dreams. The hatchets are still sharp ; the hatchetmen are still on the job.
Rennie P. Schwerin says so, and he ought to know.

258

JOSEPH SCOTT

OE SCOTT breezed up from Los Angeles one day with an
amazing story of the religious bigotry which was displayed
during the municipal election of 1913 in the pueblo of
chemical purity. Some of the things he told would be un-
believable if they came from a less reliable man than Joe
Scott. But nobody who knows Joe Scott, and that includes
a great many people in this city, would think of doubting his
veracity. Joe Scott is as truthful as he is handsome, which
is saying a great deal. With his silver gray hair, his clear blue eyes
twinkling under heavy black brows, his swarthy face and his mobile lips
that part in an easy smile to show gleaming white teeth, Joe Scott is one
of the best looking men in Los Angeles. And in certain circles, one of the
best liked. You can't help liking Joe Scott when you observe his free and
easy manner and hear his soft brogue.

Joe Scott had served for eight years on the Los Angeles Board of
Education and had been president of the board for five years. He stood
for re-election in 1913, and was successful after a most remarkable campaign.
The same element which made Rose Mayor returned Joe Scott to the Board
of Education. Both Rose and Scott encountered the opposition of the same
people.

They have a body in Los Angeles called the Ministerial Union. This
consists of two hundred Protestant ministers who claim a following of one
hundred thousand. They are militant denominationalists, the same sort of
clergymen as are so offensively active in San Francisco at the present time.
But while with us the sensational pulpit-pounders make a nuisance of them-
selves by their advocacy of such things as the redlight abatement law and
the suppression of the municipal clinic, in Los Angeles they manifest a
religious intolerance which most of us thought had disappeared from
Californian politics with the collapse of the A. P. A.

This religious intolerance was shown before the Los Angeles primary
election when the Ministerial Union empowered one of their leaders to
choose for their indorsement a ticket of candidates for the Board of
Education. The clergyman so empowered was the Rev. James A. Geissinger,
pastor of the University Methodist Church.

Among the members of the Board of Education who were candidates
for renomination were H. W. Frank, a Jew; Mrs. R. L. Craig, a Christian
Scientist; the Rev. R. E. Blight, pastor of the Good Fellowship, a sort of
free-thinking congregation ; and Joe Scott, a Roman Catholic.

There were seven candidates to be nominated, but Dr. Geissinger
submitted the names of five for the indorsement of the Ministerial Union.
All five were members of one or other of the Protestant sects represented

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in the Union. Advertisements were inserted in the papers asking the voters
to favor these five candidates. In addition the advertisements contained the
injunction : "Don't vote for Scott or Blight."

"The Ministerial Union would not indorse Frank because he was a Jew,"
says Scott; "it would not indorse Mrs. Craig because she was a Christian
Scientist; it would not indorse Blight because he was a free-thinker; and it
would not indorse me because I was a Catholic.

"The fight on me started from a peculiar incident. It has been the
custom in Los Angeles to have Protestant ministers officiate at the commence-
ment exercises in the public schools. At one commencement the Rev. Dr.
Livingston, a Methodist minister, commended the graduates to the protection
of Christ. I protested against this on behalf of those children who were not
Christians, taking the stand that the Constitution protected the Jews,
agnostics and others against sectarian prayer in the public schools. Dr.
Livingston charged me with sneering at religion and insulting Christianity,
and declared that he would 'put me out of business.' I offered to pay $500
to the Associated Charities if he could prove his charge. He retorted that
he didn't suppose I possessed $500, but he made an affidavit to his charges
and on behalf of the Ministerial Union declared that what he had said was
justified.

"I protested that they hadn't given me the chance of a chicken thief
who is at least allowed to defend himself in court, and offered to give $1,000
to the Associated Charities if I were not acquitted of Dr. Livingston's charge
by a board of three ministers, a Methodist, a Baptist and a Congregationalist.
But at this stage Dr. Geissinger declared that the incident was closed.
Whereupon I said that Dr. Geissinger was a coward and a hypocrite and that
I considered the whole thing a thrust at my religion.

"This was the situation just before the primary election. The Sunday
before the election Dr. Geissinger declared from the pulpit that the Ministerial
Union would show this noisy fellow (meaning me) and all his noisy
following that the religion of America was the Protestant religion. He also
said that my bump of religion was a depression. Another member of the
Union, the Rev. J. Whitcomb Brougher, a clergyman who treats his con-
gregation to sermons on such subjects as 'The bed is too narrow and the
sheets are too long,' declared that I lacked culture. To which I replied that
I was getting tired of the mental peregrinations of peripatetic preachers."

Here I may interject that Joe Scott is a graduate of the famous Ushaw
College in England, the college which produced Cardinal Wiseman, Cardinal
Bourne, John Lingard the historian, Francis Thompson the poet, and
Wilfred Ward, the biographer of Cardinal Newman. At Ushaw Cardinal
Merry Del Val, former Papal Secretary of State, was Joe Scott's French
teacher; and there is probably no man in America so close to the late Pope
Pius' Secretary of State as Joe Scott. So it seems unlikely that Joe Scott
should be totally deficient in culture.

"Another preacher," continued Scott, "the Rev. Charles Edward Locke,
declared that if the Catholics were looking for a fight they would get all
they wanted. Still another stated that the Ministerial Union was not after

260

JOSEPH SCOTT

the president of the Board of Education but after the Catholic heirarchy.
One of the charges they made was that an assistant superintendent of schools
smoked cigarettes and patronized saloons."

At the primary election Scott was nominated by a plurality of three
thousand votes over the candidates of the Ministerial Union. Mrs. Craig,
the Christian Scientist, and Frank, the Jew, were also nominated.

"On the night of the primary," said Scott, "a curious incident occurred.
One of the men in my fight rang up the Rev. Dr. Locke, and pretending to
be a member of a Baptist congregation, sympathized with him on my
nomination. 'God pity the children if Scott gets back on the board/ said
Locke. Commenting further on the result Locke said it was strange that
while so many Los Angeles voters had been reared religiously in Nebraska,
Iowa and Kansas, when they came to Los Angeles they refused for some
reason to mix religion with politics. He also said that they must get rid of
me, and added the remarkable statement that the only way to fight the
Catholics was in the dark.

"For the general election the Ministerial Union indorsed a ticket of seven
consisting of three Socialists, Mr. Frank, the Jew, the president of the W.
C. T. U. and two Methodists. They felt that they had made a tactical
blunder in antagonizing the Jewish voters. But they continued their
opposition to Mrs. Craig, the Christian Scientist, and to me.

"I was elected by a plurality of ten thousand over their candidates. I did
not owe my election to my co-religionists. They make only a small
percentage of the voters. I owe my election to that element in Los Angeles
which resents the idea of any such body as the Ministerial Union controlling
the politics of the city. The average American is too fair-minded not to
rebuke the intolerance of the bigot.

"While I had the indorsement of the Municipal Conference which also
indorsed Shenk, the votes I received were principally Rose votes. Thus in
one precinct I received 212 out of 250 Rose votes and only 16 out of 231
Shenk votes.

"It should interest San Francisco to learn that the Sunday before the
election a spokesman of the Ministerial Union declared that the Ministerial
Union wanted to keep Los Angeles on the high moral plane to which it had
been elevated and to prevent it from sinking to the low moral plane of San
Francisco where only five per cent of the population attends the Protestant
churches."

Joe Scott tells me that his protest against Christian prayers in commence-
ment exercises will be followed by other attempts to eradicate certain
sectarian customs in the public schools. He says that there are Bible readings
at the Los Angeles Normal School, and that all pupils must attend though
they are not compelled to participate further than by their presence. He
says that in South Pasadena and Alhambra those who apply for positions as
teachers must fill out a blank on which is the question : What church do you
attend? In one school district, he says, there is this question also: If given
a position will you also teach Sunday School?

263

DR. GEORGE FRANKLIN SHIELS

'HERE had been talk of a local member of a learned profession
^| who had turned a shabby trick on a member of another
profession. Dr. George Franklin Shiels was shocked, shocked
and unfeignedly grieved.

"It couldn't have happened in the old days of San Fran-
cisco," he said, slowly shaking his head. "Why, such a man
would have been hooted out of town !"

That settled it. The conversation became a matter of
comparisons. The old versus the new. Are we better off now than we were
before Dame Nature drew a smudge of charcoal across the annals of San
Francisco? Or have we degenerated? Tis a common topic of conversation
nowadays. We have become so self-conscious. We are forever analyzing
ourselves like a Henry James heroine or an Arnold Bennett hero; and like
the hopeless victims of the James and Bennett method, we usually get
nowhere. It is only when a keen observer who knew his San Francisco of
old returns after many years to take up the psychological study where he
left it off that we get substantial results from such comparisons. That is
why it is worth while listening to Dr. George Franklin Shiels.

Not to know Dr. George Franklin Shiels argues oneself unknown in San
Francisco. (I believe they are beginning to say something of the same
sort in New York.) He grew up and made his way and prospered with
our big men. He knew his city as a gardener knows his flower beds. In
1901 he went away. For a dozen years New York was his home.

So his notion of our changed condition is charged with some importance.
Especially as he has the analytical mind and is wont to dissect the body
politic as carefully as in his student days he dissected the body physical. His
knife responds to a trained, a steady hand. True surgeon that he is, he cuts
to heal. So I persuaded him, with difficulty, it must be said, to lay his knife
to San Francisco, knowing that the patient would be the better for his surgery.

"The frame is the same but the picture has been changed," he said. "The
breezy, friendly attitude of the old days is passing away. In place of the
old condition of general friendliness you have class distinctions which have
brought a sort of metropolitan snobbism."

Metropolitan snobbism ! A stimulating phrase ! A kindling term ! The
mind takes fire from it. True? In your heart of hearts, loyal San Franciscan,
say if it be not true !

"The dollar mark has arrived," continued Dr. Shiels. "It was a long
time coming but it has arrived at last. There is a tendency to estimate
character by the number of dollars. The more dollars he has the better a
man is known.

"Yet, paradoxical as it may seem, this has worked good to the individual.

264

DR. GEORGE FRANKLIN SHIELS

This condition has caused a demand for more work from the individual who
would achieve. Nowadays in San Francisco the individual who would be
distinguished must get nearer to the top than was necessary before.

"But the city has lost its old delightful individuality. It has become
an American business town. Before the disaster the appreciation of the finer
things was greater than now. You have advanced in material things, but
you have lost in sentiment.

"Why? Before the fire San Francisco occupied the position of a dreamer.
She was shaken out of her dreams. The old things have been shaken away.
It has been a financial and material awakening. The laissez faire of the old
San Francisco has given way to metropolitan materialism. The new condi-
tion has brought with it all the curses of materialism as well as the benefits.

"Here I must say something about which I feel very strongly. Every
now and then I sent people out to San Francisco with letters of introduction.
On their return to New York I asked them their impressions of San Fran-
cisco. What did they immediately talk about? The Barbary Coast! On
that subject they grew enthusiastic. They told me that they had seen Paris,
Berlin, Port Said, but that nowhere had they seen anything like the Barbary
Coast.

Mind you, I am not making a captious criticism. I speak as one who
loves San Francisco. I deem this a matter of the greatest importance.
Outside financial assistance is not coming to a city which depends for its
fame on the gyrations of the turkey trot, is it? And yet the Barbary Coast
seems to be the basis for the traveler's memory of San Francisco. The
traveler who stays here, let us say, two days, goes away apparently without
having paid attention to the marvelous work of rebuilding. He seems to
know only the Barbary Coast. This condition seems to me a grave danger
to the financial welfare of San Francisco.

"It was the old tradition in San Francisco never to exploit anything.
'Honi soit qui mal y pense' might have been the city's motto. The only
time San Francisco failed in that tradition was when it began to exploit
the Barbary Coast. Even the building of the beautiful Civic Center won't
counteract the vicious effect of this exploitation. The ordinary tripper comes
here as he goes to Paris. Do we want to be a showplace of immorality?

"I feel very vindictive on this subject. I feel as though I should like to
shut up the whole confounded Barbary Coast. Not that I believe in trying
to abolish or even to corral immorality. But let the line between the good
and the bad be sharply drawn. Let us have no exploitation of the bad. Let
us, as in the old San Francisco, recognize and provide for the bad as some-
thing distinct from the good.

"San Francisco wicked? I am glad you asked that question. San
Francisco is not wicked. San Francisco never was wicked. The difference
in this respect between San Francisco and New York may be illustrated
by the difference between two apples. Let us take two apples. One of
them has been bruised in transportation. There are brown spots on it.
Superficially it looks bad. But peel it. You find it wholesome and edible.
That's San Francisco. The other apple may be a beautiful Newton pippin,

267

VARIED TYPES

round, smooth, not a mark on it, its beauty guarded by a wrapping of tissue
paper. Cut it. You find it absolutely rotten to the core. That's New York.

"The comparison is a true, an honest one. With a specious veneer of
respectability New York is the most immoral city in the world. It is worse
than Paris which is a mere showplace of immorality. If you want to you
can avoid immorality in San Francisco. But you can't in New York. In
the hotels, cafes, theatres of New York your wife rubs shoulders with
immorality. She sees prostitution in the streets. The Raines law and other
lying expedients have produced civic immorality. There is none of that
here. No, San Francisco is not a wicked city."

"And the club life of San Francisco !" exclaimed Dr. Shiels with a smile
that dissipated the clouds lowering about our somber discussion. "Club life
in San Francisco is truer than anywhere else in the world. San Francisco
believes that a club is the home of bachelors with married men as guests.
The club here does not set itself up as the social arbiter of the community.
It is a delight to go into one. In London the clubs are impossible. It is
easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a stranger to
get into touch with a member of a London club. But here the stranger is
welcomed as to a home, made a member of the family. That is one of the
holdovers from the old San Francisco that I hope will stay forever."

268

FRANK SHORT

do you think of the National Administration?"
That's not a question one asks indiscriminately unless
£ one has an infinite capacity for being bored. But there are
a few people one likes to hear on a large topic like that.
Frank Short of Fresno, for instance. Frank Short is that
rarity, a man who thinks. His intellectuals are always in
good working order. One of our most distinguished attor-
neys, he is also a keen observer of politics, and the habit of
analysis which his profession presupposes makes him a delightful talker when
he is induced to unbosom himself.

Frank Short's eyes twinkle on slight provocation. My question was
sufficient to make them flash the signal which proclaims a sense of humor.

"As a Republican forced to vote for Wilson," answered Short, "I natural-
ly wish the Administration well. I think it is generally actuated by high
motives. But in the main it labors under the disadvantage of being highly
theoretical without much practical experience."

"How about the tariff?"

"The revision of the tariff is a surgical operation- We may feel better
some years hence, but as in the case of any other surgical operation, we may
expect to stay in the hospital, in an industrial sense, for a while. I think
the Administration proceeded too literally. All important legislation is ex-
perimental, and a radical revision of the tariff and of the financial system
should not be undertaken at the same time. The theorist always assumes
that all new legislation will result in an improvement, but usually it doesn't
turn out that way. One important experiment at a time is sufficient."

"How does tariff revision affect California?"

"The tariff bill is more injurious to California than to most of the States.
Many of our manufacturing industries are on a basis where reduced tariff
would be sufficient protection. But in handling our fruit products we are
at a great disadvantage as to wages and freight rates. Some of our industries
are going to be seriously crippled by the tariff."

"What about the Mexican situation?"

"Perhaps the attitude of the Administration in avoiding any positive
action is the best one. The international policing business has been a good
deal overworked. We have problems and troubles enough of our own with-
out absorbing any chronic revolutions."

"What of conservation?"

"Conservation in the extreme sense advocated by Pinchot and Roose-
velt no longer exists. That is to say, political conservation and the taking
over of local government by Washington bureaus. No doubt the good
features of conservation will remain to prevent the unnecessary destruction

269

VARIED TYPES

of forests and other valuable resources. But the conservation that professed
to prevent the exhaustion of our timber supply, our coal, oil and other re-
sources by putting prohibitive restrictions on the development of electric
power and limiting the appropriation and beneficial use of water, is rapidly
disappearing. We are hearing about the last of it."

"What about our State Administration ?"

"Our State Administration is bound to become reactionary before long."

"Why so?"

"Because there cannot be much more in the way of progressive legisla-
tion. Pretty near everything and everybody has been regulated and made
good by some statute or other. It will take us several years to read up before
we can appreciate how many good laws and other laws have been passed in
the last couple of years. Even the district attorneys of the State probably
haven't read one-fourth of the new criminal statutes. On the moral end of
it the prevailing idea seems to be that the fathers and mothers and schools
and even the churches haven't much to do with it. It is now apparently up
to the local purity committee and the constables and the police to look after
the rising generation. Mostly we may look complacently on the passage of
laws fool or otherwise. If they are fool laws they usually don't do much
harm. But legislation upon some of the subjects recently undertaken, and
their free discussion in the press, are very serious matters and tend, I firmly
believe, to moral degradation and to great injury to society and individuals.
While there is a good deal of tendency to treat this class of legislation as a
joke, except among those who take it seriously, I think a good deal of it
represents the last stages of political decay. While undoubtedly the State
legislatures of recent years have done some wholesome things and a good
many popular things, I think the extreme and absurd legislation will do
infinite harm and has greatly weakened the party in control in the estimation
of the public. There was a demand for the public control of public utilities
and public service, but that there is any demand for the recent extreme inter-
ference with private matters and the conduct of purely private business and
the ultra blue law legislation I think is a serious mistake. There is plenty
of evidence of a tendency in the other direction which I trust will go far
enough to leave in force some very efficient and good legislation but which
will sweep away about three-fourths of the meddlesome and foolish boards,
commissions and officials that, if allowed to continue, will eat up a lot of
substance and do nobody any good now or hereafter."

"Can the Republicans 'come back5 next time?"

"Well, the Progressive party as a national organization is obviously dis-
integrating. The voters are going to return either to the Republican or the
Democratic party, and as California is naturally benefited by Republican
policies and is very clearly a Republican State in national sentiment, it will
undoubtedly return to the Republican party at the next election if properly
organized and united."

270

FRANK SHORT

SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE

N ORATOR to the tip of thine index finger! An advocate
whose tongue drops manna on the aridities of the law, and
not unskilled at times to make the worse appear the better
reason ! Whether discoursing philosophy in thy Tusculan
villa at Menlo, exalting genius in the rostrum or pleading
causes in the forum, to whom can I so fittingly compare thee
as to the friend of Atticus, the champion of Archias, the
scourge of Catiline and the savior of Milo? Samuel, thou
art the Cicero of California ! the Marcus Tullius of a later republic !

Gentle reader, do not regard this as too haphazard a comparison. In
many respects Shortridge has formed his life on the life of the Roman
orator. The Ciceronian disertitude is the model of his eloquence; the
Ciceronian suavity mellows his manner and softens the rudeness of our
speech as it falls from his lips; the Ciceronian polish is in his gestures and
his diction ; a not unciceronian cultivation fashions the matter of his thoughts
and directs the course of his reading. And, as if to accentuate the com-
parison, a bust of Cicero in purest Carrara marble stands by his desk, the
presiding genius of his law office, the eidolon of his intellectual worship.

Cicero, as Macaulay's schoolboy knows, loved the theatre and was the
warm friend of Roscius, the greatest actor of his day. Herein too did Cicero
prefigure our Samuel. Shortridge has been so familiar with the plays of
Shakespeare all his life that the hardest tug at his memory will not suffice
to bring back the occasion of his first reading them. They are as much a
part of his mental equipment as the alphabet. In fact, if there should arise,
some time or other, a legend telling that the infant Shortridge came into the
world holding a volume of the bard in one hand and pointing out a passage
in "Hamlet" with the index finger of the other, I rather think it would find
ready belief among those who know him.

"But I do recall very vividly," he told me, "the first time I saw a play
of Shakespeare on the stage. I saw Lawrence Barrett in 'Hamlet,' and the
effect was tremendous. I was in a trance, a state of ecstacy for days. I went
about oblivious of all external things, my mind concentrated on that
wonderful experience."

It is the classic drama which Shortridge loves.

"I don't care for the modern school of playwriting," he says. "The
theatre should idealize life. If I want to see a crowd of men in a bar room
I can walk down Market street. Why should I go to the playhouse for such
a sight? The drama which talks hogwash may turn men's mftids from
sorrow, may make them forget their troubles. In that sense it may be a
wholesome antidote. But it doesn't improve mind or morals. The great
classical plays are educational and altogether good. In them virtue

273

VARIED TYPES

triumphs and the wicked things of life bear their bitter fruit. They preach
a sermon."

The phrase brought our Cicero back from the realm of Roscuis to the
subject of oratory.

"Yes," he repeated, "they preach a sermon, and it is well that they do.
For the pulpit is empty. Where today is there a Henry Drummond? a
Beecher? a Spurgeon? a Phillips Brooks? This great field of oratory lies
untilled. Great indeed! for it includes all earthly and immortal things.
The lawyer deals with hearts ; the preacher with souls."

Shortridge knows whereof he speaks. His father was a clergyman and
a master of oratory. Indeed oratory runs in the family. Eli Shortridge was
one of the great lawyer-orators of Kentucky. There is something in
heredity. The young Shortridge proved it, not by turning to the church but
by shaping his course toward law and learning to conjure the spoken word.

"It was always understood in our family that I was to be a lawyer."

Was there the hint of a sigh as he spoke? I almost thought so. I
probed a bit. The conversation of Cicero veered back to Roscius.

"My city of San Jose," he explained, "produced John T. Malone and
Sam Piercey. For a time I dreamed that it might produce a third. We had
an amateur dramatic club, and I played the leading parts in 'The Marble
Heart,' 'Coralie,' 'Diplomacy' and other plays. I shall never forget the praise
I received for my acting in that beautiful old play of 'Coralie.' It was
bestowed by Eugene T. Sawyer, then a writer on the Mercury but afterwards
exalted to a proud eminence as the author of the Nick Carter stories of
blood and thunder. Sawyer suggested that I should follow in the footsteps
of Malone and Piercey.

"I thought so too for a time. But you remember that Goethe cherished
the belief that he knew more about the theory of light than any other man
in Germany. I have thought at times that I could play the great parts.
After all, you may count on your fingers the actors of today who are also
students. How few grasp the subtle meanings of Shakespeare ! How many
glide over sentences pregnant with philosophy! And so, having been a
passionate student of the plays I have sometimes dreamed that I could
interpret them not unworthily.

"And yet I remember what Cicero said in his essay 'De Oratore.' The
great advocate must be an actor and something more ; he must, says Tully,
combine all knowledge with the art of Roscius. The actor from Roscius to
Burbage and from Burbage to my dear friend Sothern does not create the
noble thoughts, the grand situations to which he gives his powers of
interpretation. After all, the dramatic is a poor art as compared with the
ideals represented yonder."

Whereupon Shortridge turned with a smile to that magnificent bust
of the Roman Shortridge.

So it happened that our Cicero resisted the blandishments of Eugene
T. Sawyer, gave up the dramatic club and joined the Lecticonians, an
earnest group of students who gathered for frequent debate on the burning
issues of government, politics and literature.

274

SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE

Curiously enough Shortridge's first speech before the Lecticonians was
made in opposition to the Baconian theory. From the time that Mrs. Bacon
started that curious controversy he has been a consistent, a passionate
champion of Shakespeare. Cicero defended Roscius and Archias with just
such flaming enthusiasm.

That speech against the Baconians won the hearts of the Lecticonians;
thenceforth he was their leader. From his lectica of eloquence he looked
down, though not unkindly, upon the lesser orators.

That was his first triumph of golden speech. There have been many
others more conspicuous, though perhaps not quite so sweet. Later on in
life when Shortridge was invited to a dinner given at the Bohemian Club
to Frederick Warde, he was asked to respond to the toast, "Shakespeare,"
and unprepared acquitted himself so well that he was immediately elected
to membership.

Come to think of it, there should be a bust of Shakespeare in Shortridge's
office as well as a bust of Cicero. Why not the prince of poets on one side
and the prince of orators on the other?

Perhaps, though, he would prefer to carry the image of the bard in his
heart. Cicero is not merely an affection but also an inspiration. An
advocate and orator was Cicero. So too is Shortridge. But Cicero was
more than that. A. senator, you recall Who knows of what Short-
ridge is thinking when he studies that marble effigy?

277

GEORGE STERLING

E TOLD me many arresting things about Carmel-by-the-Sea,
heightening its natural charms by the vividness of his de-
scriptions and glamoring its commonplaces with the magic
of his poetic phrases. He deprecated the growing Carmel
Myth which makes the little seaside settlement the abode of
"weird and wonderful creatures of crankishness" who go
about with their hair hanging down their backs, gushing out
their souls and demanding admiration. He thinks that
Carmel's "writers have been overrated and its scenery underrated," yet he
points out that most of Carmel's writers are veteran writers "who are making
good money and who seldom talk shop." He mentioned Michael Williams,
John Fleming Wilson, Grace MacGowan Cook, Alice MacGowan, Mary
Austin, Harry Leon Wilson and Jimmy Hopper as Carmelites who find a
ready market for all they write.

"Outside of these there are not more than three in Carmel who try to
write," he told me, "and Carmel is a town of a thousand or so."

Characteristically enough, George Sterling did not mention himself in
this list of Carmel writers and yet I inferred that he was the pioneer of the
place, or almost so. I believe that Mary Austin was already there when
Charles Rollo Peters pointed out the beauty of the place to Sterling and
inspired him with the idea of making it his permanent abode.

There could be no doubt about his desire to discourage the popular
notion of Carmel as a high-brow community.

"There is no reading of manuscripts," he said; "our sense of humor is
too strong for that. I think the only thing of the sort was when Jimmy
Hopper read us his '9009.' Perhaps it would be better if we got together
oftener, provided of course that we had the courage for destructive criticism
as well as for the other kind."

I wish I could reproduce the poetry of his references to the natural beauty
of the place, but I am not a poet. One expression, however, sticks in my
mind.

"You get so used to this pea soup bay," he said with a glance toward
the window, "that you forget what blue water is like."

But I would much rather hear George Sterling talk about his poetry
and himself. The two themes are not interchangeable and they are by no
means the readiest to his tongue. He can be induced, for instance, to tell
the story of how he nailed the Irish flag to the steeple of the Presbyterian
Church in Sag Harbor.

At the age of fifteen Sterling became a Catholic and developed a
prejudice against Presbyterianism. To give this prejudice visible form he and
another boy who is today a prominent citizen of San Francisco, climbed at

278

midnight to the top of the steeple of the Presbyterian Church, one hundred
and fifteen feet in the air, and fastened an Irish flag to the lightning rod
above the weather vane. In the morning, however, the flag had blown away.

Nothing daunted the lads tried again, this time with a pirate flag. It
was a piece of bunting nine feet by twelve with the skull and cross bones
on one side and the cross on the other.

"When we were two blocks away from the church," said Sterling, "we
could still hear that flag flapping in the wind."

Next morning Sag Harbor was in an uproar.

"There wasn't a member of the church who would dare to go up to
the top of that steeple and take the flag down. It stayed there for three
days and then they had to bring a steeple jack from Brooklyn who charged
them two hundred dollars for taking it down. The New York papers were
full of the affair and I was a hero. But the Presbyterians got ahead of me.
They made a crazy quilt out of the flag and raffled it for five hundred
dollars. I saw I couldn't beat Presbyterian commercialism, so I left Sag
Harbor."

About his poetry Sterling is simply, unaffectedly modest.

"There was a time when I had the big head," he confesses; "the time
that Ambrose Bierce praised my 'Wine of Wizardry'; but I got over it."

And then, in answer to a direct question :

" 'The Testimony of the Suns' is incomparably the best thing I've written.
Compared to it all the rest is nowhere. In it I laid down a cosmic philosophy
which I don't think can be refuted. If any of my poetry should have the
good fortune to live it will be that. The poem says something and the
world seems to demand poems which say something."

But Sterling is not over-enthusiastic about the world's demand for
poetry.

"I do very well with the magazines, but I have never tried to make a
cent out of my books. However, I have an income and don't expect to live
by my poetry. Perhaps the reason why poetry is not profitable is because
the publishers don't have to pay much for it. There is competition for short
stories, but not for poetry."

Then he told of the recently organized Poetry Society of America of
which he is a charter member, one of fifty.

"Every poet of importance in America belongs," he said. "Its object is
to awaken a more general interest in poetry."

But quite frankly he admitted that he didn't know how this was to be
done.

I asked him how he ranked the living poets of America and he named
the four whom he considers at the top : Edwin Markham, Anna Hempstead
Branch, Bliss Carman and Cale Young Rice.

"I am speaking now of poets' poetry," he explained. "I measure a poet
by his greatest height, not by his average. I put Markham first for his
'Wharf of Dreams' and his 'Semiramis,' not for his 'Man With the Hoe' which
is great in individual lines but not as a whole."

He talked of these poets in a detached way, as though neither himself

279

VARIED TYPES

nor anyone else would think of naming George Sterling among them. Perhaps
poetry does not entirely satisfy his ambition.

"Now that I have got what has been called 'the poison of art' out of
my system," he confessed, "I shall try some prose, some short stories. I have
tried the drama, but while I can do poetry without its being excessively
rotten, I don't think I can write a play. I finished one act of a medieval
drama called 'Lilith,' but I don't think I'll go on with it. All my characters
talk alike; they talk like me."

It was not said out of compliment to the characters; but it must be
recorded that George Sterling talks uncommonly well, alternating flashes of
poetry with colloquialisms and never getting too far from the saving presence
of humor.

And let me not forget his enthusiasm. It flamed out suddenly when he
thought of an eighteen-year-old boy in Auburn who had sent him some verses
for criticism. Poets, it has always seemed to me, are not often enamored of
another's muse; they are more anxious to carp than to appreciate. I must
either revise that judgment or count Sterling an exception, for he displayed
an interest in Clark Ashton Smith of Auburn which he had not shown when
his own verses, his own ambitions were under discussion. And when it was
suggested that I give readers an opportunity to savor this youngster's poetry,
he was sincerely delighted.

"I owe a great deal to one man," he said; "to Ambrose Bierce; and I
would be glad to do something for a youngster who is worth while. This
boy has a wonderful gift, if I know anything about such things."

And as George Sterling handed me these verses by eighteen-year-old
Clark Ashton Smith of Auburn, I realized that there was at least one
member of the Poetry Society of America who was trying unselfishly to do
something for the future of poetry in America :

THE LAST NIGHT

I dreamed a dream: I stood upon a height,

A mountain's utmost eminence of snow,

Whence I beheld the plain outstretched below
To a far sea-horizon, dim and white.
Beneath the sun's expiring, ghastly light

The dead world lay, phantasmally aglow;

Its last fear-stricken voice, a wind, came low;
The distant sea lay hushed, as with affright.

I watched, and lo! the pale and flickering sun,

In agony and fierce despair, flamed high,

And shadow-slain, went out upon the gloom.
Then Night, that grim, gigantic struggle won,

Impended for a breath on wings of doom

And through the air fell like a falling sky.

280

MRS. GAILLARD STONEY

PRIDE myself," says Mrs. Gaillard Stoney, "on my Common
Sense."

'Tis no small boast, that. Common Sense has come to
be one of the most uncommon things in the world. Diogenes
his lantern, were it flashing up and down the darkness of
this our time, would light up more honesty than Common
Sense. Common Sense is always old-fashioned, and this is
the triumphant day of modes. That person who is not
abreast of the very latest style whether of Parisian gowns or social uplift, is
regarded as utterly negligible. The febrile world is joyriding through all
the speed ordinances, and the chauffeur is not Common Sense. Nay, Common
Sense is a pedestrian and must take the muddy spatter from the wheels. So
Common Sense has come to be a solitary, scorned, sneered at and berated
for a laggard.

And still there are men and women who take a pride in Common Sense.
Mrs. Gaillard Stoney is one of them. Mrs. Stoney is therefore a phenomenon
worth studying.

"I have no sympathy," says Mrs. Stoney, "with those who are trying
to make people moral by legislation."

Clearly Mrs. Stoney is not "in the movement." Mrs. Stoney is in-
transigeant. Mrs. Stoney does not write herself down to date. She is not
progressive. She's a reactionary, a standpatter. Mrs. Stoney begins to be
interesting.

"What we want," says Mrs. Stoney, "is more mothers, mothers of large
families. I am sorry to say that I am the mother of one child only, for I
believe in large families. And the sort of mothers we want are those who go
down on their knees, who teach their children to go down on their knees and
pray to their God."

Why, Mrs. Stoney is more old-fashioned than many of our clergymen !
How many of the clergymen who kindly supply us with ready-made solutions
for all our problems, political, economic, social and moral, ever dream of
telling us to go down on our knees in prayer? There is no prayer at
Armageddon; shame on him who is beaten to his knees!

"I am a clubwoman, of a sort," says Mrs. Stoney. "I have a good
husband to provide for me and my daughter is grown, so I can spare time
from my domestic duties. I belong to the Town and Country because it is
a convenient placs to lunch when I am shopping. I don't approve of lunch-
ing in hotels. And I belong to the Century. But the Century is not like
the California where they settle all sorts of questions."

Mrs. Stoney is therefore a conservative clubwoman. She is not one to
make speeches about the immorality of lingerie displays in shop windows.

281

VARIED TYPES

"How ridiculous that was!" exclaimed Mrs. Stoney. "Such displays are
apt to be vulgar, but immoral, never! What sort of person is it that would
be harmed by such things?"

Mrs. Stoney has advocated woman suffrage for seventeen years. Seven-
teen years ago she lived in Boston, and at that time the women of
Massachusetts were allowed to express their views on woman suffrage at
the polls. Mrs. Stoney voted with the small minority which favored the
franchise for women.

"But while I think women should have the right to vote, I do not think
that women are fit to hold office," said Mrs. Stoney. "Women, except in
very rare cases, are not fit for office-holding. I can only name one or two
women of my acquaintance who might succeed in public office. Perhaps
it may be different in two or three generations.

"I have never known a woman who sat down and studied a public
question. Women are not constituted that way. They rely on intuition.
They jump at conclusions. And so they are often wrong.

"What do women know about vice, for instance? They have so little
opportunity for studying vice. Their lives are lived apart from it. And
yet some of our women set themselves up as authorities. They made
themselves the champions of the 'red light abatement' measure. I have read
what Chief of Police White had to say about this law. Now Chief White
is an authority. He knows what he is talking about. So when he says
that this law is a step backwards I am prepared to accept his opinion. He
says that this law means the end of the Municipal Clinic. That is a great
misfortune. With Doctor Clampett and others I think the Municipal Clinic
is a good thing. I think that the 'red light' law should be repealed.

"It is because I am old-fashioned, I suppose, that I differ on this and
other questions with many of my friends. There is Doctor Lathrop for
instance. Somehow or other he and I always take opposite sides."

She differs from Doctor Lathrop ! Irrefragable proof, incontestable
evidence that Mrs. Stoney is mistress of Common Sense!

Mrs. Stoney mentioned other names. It was inevitable that the name of
Doctor Aked should be included. Mrs. Stoney's opinion of Doctor Aked is
perhaps an old-fashioned opinion, and I should like to repeat it. But she
asked me not to. From this it may be inferred that her opinion was not
complimentary. And it was not. It increased my admiration for her.

One of the questions on which Mrs. Stoney found it impossible to agree
with Doctor Lathrop and others was the Graft Prosecution. Another is the
Weller Recall. Mrs. Stoney does not think that Judge Weller should have
been recalled. She does not think that it was an honest movement.

"The women were given the vote and the recall. They were eager to try
their wings. Without investigating they started the movement to recall Judge
Weller. Later they found they were wrong about Judge Weller, but they
decided to recall him anyway.

"And who were the women who started this movement? Two new-
comers in this city : Helen Todd from Chicago, a professional agitator, and
Miss Ballou of Kentucky. Does it seem fair that they should speak for us?"

282

MRS. GAILLARD STONEY

Mrs. Stoney felt so strongly on this subject that she wrote a letter about
it to the Examiner.

"The Examiner would not publish it," she said. "It seems strange, but
I have noticed that the papers publish only one side of such a matter. When
anything was said for Judge Weller it did not appear in print. I suppose the
papers were afraid of the women directing the Weller recall. They realize
that it is the women, not the men who subscribe for the papers."

After some difficulty friends of Mrs. Stoney procured the publication of
her letter in the Bulletin. It was a harmless letter, apparently not calculated
to affright an editor. The letter concluded thus:

"I have always been an advocate of woman suffrage, but I regret that
the initial movement here among women, in the exercise of this right, should
be based upon such a frivolous and unjust pretext."

"Frivolous and unjust" says Mrs. Stoney. They are hard words for a
woman to apply to her sisters, but Mrs. Stoney is old-fashioned enough not
to be afraid of words when she thinks her sex needs criticism.

And in this matter of their advocacy of short cuts to morality by
legislation and recall she is a severe critic. She is old-fashioned enough to
think that men are not solely to blame when girls go wrong.

"If a girl goes joy-riding with strange men she should be prepared to
accept the consequences," she says. "Where are the mothers of such girls?
How have they trained them? Do they think that laws can do for their
daughters what they have failed to do? Evil cannot be subdued by law-
making. The two great weapons against it are home training and religion."

Mrs. Stoney was equally severe about the feminine uplifters who haunted
the court room during the two Joslen trials. It horrifies her to see a wayward
girl given a halo by hysterical women. She thinks that such misplaced zeal
is harmful instead of beneficial.

So you see, Mrs. Stoney's common sense cuts her off from sympathy
with many of the women who are attracting attention in our midst. For the
professional uplifter she has no regard; for the cut-and-dried formulas of
social and moral regeneration she has a great deal of contempt.

And yet Mrs. Stoney has always been a woman of activity in worthy
causes. She was for a long time a member of the Women's Auxiliary of the
Prison Commission. She was a member of the San Francisco Maternity.
She is on the Pure Milk Commission. She has been chairman of the Social
Service Workers of the Episcopal House of Churchwomen. And she is a
member of the Women's Board of the World's Fair.

So although Mrs. Stoney confesses old-fashioned views she cannot be
regarded with contempt by the women she fails to approve of. Should they
enter the lists against her they will find her position bulwarked by charming
manners, shrewd humor and high mental cultivation as well as by Common
Sense. There are very many women in San Francisco like her, but unfor-
tunately their shriller sisters make so much noise that their modulated pro-
tests are not heard. In consenting to speak Mrs. Stoney has placed them
under an obligation of gratitude.

285

AGNES TOBIN

"^ffii^T WAS Agnes Tobin (if I may appropriate the words of a
rJ^I critic) who made "Petrarch's great name credible" to Eng-
lish readers. Agnes Tobin transplanted Petrarch's lyric
blossoms from Vaucluse to London, and thence their frag-
^5 ranee has been borne to every English-speaking land.
t% Strange as it may seem, there was no adequate English
version of the immortal sonnets and canzoni until Agnes
Tobin essayed the congenial task. For more than five
hundred years a wondrous treasure was locked from English readers. It
remained for Agnes Tobin to provide the key. The artistic success of her
achievement is a glory which her native California is proud to share.

It would be interesting indeed to hear Agnes Tobin discourse of
Petrarch and his Lady Laura, But she has the poet's elusive shyness; one
does not come close to her personality in conversation. Indeed, it may be
said that she erects a barrier of speech that effectively protects her most
cherished thoughts, her dearest opinions from the casual interviewer.

Here and there through Miss Tobin's fluent talk there flashes the other-
wise secret fire of her predilections; and then one realizes how warming
and illuminating that inward flame must be for those to whom it is un-
covered.

There is in Agnes Tobin, I should say, the artist's consuming passion
for perfect form. One catches the flash when she lingers admiringly on the
names of such supersubtle artists as Whistler, Poe, Hawthorne, Francis
Thompson, Butler Yeats and Mrs. Meynell ; when she laments the Mary
Austin that has turned aside from the exquisite artistry of "The Land of
Little Rain." And the artist's detachment is strikingly apparent when one
seeks to engage her in talk on the politics of her beloved London. The
only politician in whom she showed an interest was one who in his social
hours "pours forth cascades of Wordsworth and Keats." There is almost
a shudder when you mention the Pankhursts and the Drummonds. A sort
of poet's instinct for self-preservation guards her from any enthusiasm for
politics.

Agnes Tobin lives the inner life. I should apply the word "mystic" were
it not so fashionably abused. She mentions Alphonsus of Liguori as though
his name and work were perfectly familiar to all. Of Chesterton whose
religious belief is just now quite a subject for speculation in London and
elsewhere she explains briefly that his creedal predilections constitute an
intellectual passion, and so dismisses the subject; for all the world as
though the churchman's subtle distinction between the human gift of under-
standing and the divine gift of faith were a truistic commonplace.

Her absorption in the inner life led her to Petrarch. The way was

286

AGNES TOBIN

inevitable. We know that by the result. No chance interest could flower in
such a translation of Petrarch as Agnes Tobin has given us. If there is a
fate or a guidance for poets, it was ordained that Petrarch should speak to
thousands through Agnes Tobin.

English interest in Petrarch lagged curiously behind interest in the
other Italian poets. There were versions of Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, Pulci,
Boiardo at a time when Petrarch was little more than a name. Even
Michelangelo was probably less neglected than the great lord of the trecento,
the earliest of the humanists, the first of modern men. The love story of
Madonna Laura was current, but the perfect poetical expression of its
pure beauty was scarcely known.

By dint of much search you may find the names of those who translated
Petrarch into English before Agnes Tobin. The greatest was Edmund
Spenser, but how many have read his fugitive renderings? Out of curiosity
I have noted the names of some who from time to time gave a few of the
sonnets and canzoni to English. Major Macgregor, Moleworth, Dr. Nott.
Miss Wollaston, Anne Bannerman, Mrs. Wrottesley, Dr. Morehead, Lord
Charlemont and Lord Woodhouselee — these are not exactly household words.
When the brilliant Ugo Foscolo fled Napoleon and was lionized in London
Lady Dacre made some graceful translations to accompany his Petrarchan
essays, and interest in Petrarch became fashionable in London's drawing
rooms.

But Petrarch is not a fad. He must be a cult or nothing. His poetry
must be approached with reverence, with sympathy, with deep understand-
ing. That is the way Agnes Tobin approached her master. That helps
explain why she has given us a sonnet sequence worthy to be named with
the great sonnet sequences in the English language.

Miss Tobin tells me that she is preparing more of her Petrarchan
translations for the press. The book we know contains the sonnets written
after Laura's death. Those composed during Laura's life, says Miss Tobin,
are less poignant but still marvellously beautiful. She has translated many
of these, and her London publisher is eager to make a book of them, but
Miss Tobin is not yet ready. I can imagine Miss Tobin her own severest
critic. When the manuscript finally goes to the publisher there will ensue
a literary event.

Meanwhile we have her "Madonna Laura." It is the lovelorn's vade
mecum. Harking "the cry and all the tidal sameness" of it the mind goes
winging back to Vaucluse and Avignon. Laura has but lately captured
"the white glory of Death" and we are of a favored company weeping by her
tomb. The old poignancy strikes along the brain. The immortal music
sets our hearts a-weeping. We are out of conceit with living; only in love
with love.

That old medieval wonderland Agnes Tobin takes us to! Is it France?
Is it Italy? No, but a poet's paradise, a fancy's field where only lovers may
stray in reverie and pluck the supernal flowers that blossom, blow and die
between the rising and the setting of a dream.

The song is of "Death, that Lord of High Disdain," of "self-abnegation,

287

VARIED TYPES

ardours heavenly;" yet its burden changes suddenly to "longing like a fire"
when "Chastity gives Cupid a long kiss" and the soul cries out, "Snatch
back my stolen sweet." It is in truth lost love transfigured to music, desire
distilled to ecstacy in the alembic of deprivation. It is a sad sweet song
sung by the fountain of Vaucluse, and what is Vaucluse but the garden
close of the world where "all things die but Pain?"
Go there with Agnes Tobin and thrill

To think how the sun rose in Avignon
One morning of a spring of long ago.

If "great Grief" has taken your "body for his hall," let Agnes Tobin's "re-
current rimes becalm the trouble of the heart." Let her make you one with
"all the white-stoled lovers of the world," for her words, thrice-refined gold
poured into the mould of Petrarch, are of a "sweetness that stops the sun."
All you who have lost a love, buried an ideal, entombed a dream, yet
fain would glorify your grief and make your desolation live a mortal span ;
you who live in some Vaucluse of the soul and chant dirge to delights you
may never encompass, weep for sweets you may never enjoy — let Agnes
Tobin sing Petrarch to you. It shall be for your heart's mortal comfort and
your soul's eternal good.

288

RICHARD M. TOBIN

ICK" TOBIN is our preux chevalier of polo. As Kipling put
it about the captain of the Lushkar team, he plays across
a polo field like a lambent flame. A golfer too is "Dick"
Tobin; in fact, a lover of all healthy outdoor activities.

But unlike many others of his set "Dick" Tobin is not
exclusively an open air man. Can you picture Walter
Hobart at a chamber concert? Or burning the midnight
mazda over a volume of Chesterton? There is no such
difficulty in the case of "Dick" Tobin. Unroll the scroll of his busy and
interesting life, examine what he has accomplished, study his position — and
you will find that his has been, from every angle, an eminently satisfactory
career. He stands at the forefront of a banking institution known all over
the world ; he has cultivated the rare art of conversation ; he has the instinct
of graceful hospitality ; he is prominent among our connoisseurs of literature,
painting and music.

His love of music had brought his name into the public prints a good
deal of late. Noticing that, I paid him a visit at the Hibernia Bank. I went
to talk with Richard M. Tobin because he was active in the affairs of the
Musical Association of San Francisco. That body had given us our symphony
orchestra and was busily engaged in preparing plans for a magnificent opera
house. Richard M. Tobin is one of the board of governors of the association.
More than that, he is on the music committee. So he is having much to do,
and will in the future have a great deal more to do, with directing and
improving the musical taste of this by no means musically benighted com-
munity. The views of such a man on the artistic outlook in San Francisco,
particularly in so far as music is concerned, should prove very interesting.

"Residence in California is accompanied by many delights and many
benefits," he began. "Nowhere is there a more lovely climate and nowhere
are the beauties of nature so entrancing. Californians have nothing to regret
so far as the natural advantages of their State and its climate are concerned.
We do lack, however, artistic resources and interests. The thing that makes
one feel most our remoteness from the centers of civilization is the very rare
opportunities we have of listening to the opera, of hearing good music in
other forms, of seeing the best plays and the drama in its classic form, and
of looking at beautiful pictures. This absence of artistic interest and
aesthetic resources, it must be frankly confessed, is a drawback to life in
California. I believe that it is this disadvantage that has led so many men
who have become rich here to take their families to live in other parts of
the world. The absence of intellectual and artistic pleasures is particularly
hard upon women who are so much more developed upon that side than men
are, and who moreover have not the material resources of business affairs.

289

VARIED TYPES

"The attractions that Europe has for Americans are the great art
galleries, the opera, the splendid music festivals. The need of this country
is to develop artistically. This is what Colonel Roosevelt meant when he
pointed out in one of his speeches at Berkeley that men of the type of St.
Gaudens were the really great contemporary Americans.

"Consider the matter of painting, for instance. A writer in the Nation
points out that a collection made of all the great paintings owned by Amer-
icans would not bear comparison with the collection of any one of the prin-
cipal European cities. He affirms that American art collections are consider-
able only in the Dutch school. There is in the whole of America only one
Botticelli of note.

"I think it is plain that a realization of this deficiency has become
general within the last ten or fifteen years. Up to that time no very great
enthusiasm for art had been exhibited in this country, either by the nation
or by its citizens. We all know how severely those who brought great
masterpieces of art into this country were penalized by the fatuous practice
of imposing a huge duty on works of art. It is said that the beautiful
collection of Mrs. Gardener almost ruined her in custom duties, though it
must be plain that her superb possessions will one day become the property
of the nation.

"Boston and New York, as cities, have set us a very good example. The
occasion of my first visit to Boston was to hear the Boston Symphony
Orchestra play, and to see the frescoes in the public library. I should have
felt well rewarded if the journey had been as far as Pekin. These two ac-
complishments in art are sufficient to give Boston a very high place among
the cities of America.

"New York is manifesting a similar enthusiasm. The collection of the
Metropolitan Museum becomes year by year more interesting and precious.
The Metropolitan Opera House, thanks to the generosity of the rich public-
spirited citizens in New York, has now a season which in many ways is
unequalled in Europe. Two fine orchestras are supported by similar means.
Mr. Pulitzer in his will left a bequest of $400,000 to the New York Philhar-
monic. The history of the New Theatre is a striking example of what
sacrifices New Yorkers are ready to make to increase the charm and the
artistic interest of their city. Through the personal influence of Mr. Morgan
the sum of over $2,000,000 was collected in the hope of founding an American
Comedie Francaise. And now San Francisco seems to have become animated
by the same inspiration.

"Two years ago a symphony orchestra was organized here, and through
the munificence of some three hundred of our citizens has been placed upon
what we may hope is a permanent basis. It has given a great deal of the
best kind of pleasure to those who love classic music. We have a great many
musicians here who deserve the name of artist in its highest sense. These
have been assembled in the San Francisco Orchestra and under the leadership
of Mr. Hadley have after a short existence of less than two years begun to
play in a manner that may be compared to the best orchestras of our country.

290

RICHARD M. TOBIN

The performance that was given of Richard Strauss' tone poem, 'Death and
Transfiguration' may well have been a source of pride and satisfaction to
everybody who has hopes for the artistic development of this city. The
manner in which the public has supported the enterprise shows how anxious
the people here are for good music and how appreciative when it is given.

"The success of the Symphony Society has, I believe, been the inspiration
for the creation of an opera house. San Francisco is fortunate to possess
among its citizens one who combines public spirit with ability and constancy
of purpose, and who enjoys moreover to a high degree the confidence of his
fellow citizens. Mr. Crocker modestly depreciates the difficulties of his
undertaking; but the fact remains that in a very short space of time he has
secured contributions to the extent of over $600,000 towards the purpose of
the opera house. The contributors of this vast sum will receive no material
advantage, except the privilege of being permitted to purchase their own
boxes for such performances as may be given.

"The erection of this opera house is the one thing that could have made
possible the performance of opera in San Francisco. In order to induce the
management of the great opera organizations in the East to bring their
artists here, and to face the great initial loss involved by the journey, it was
absolutely necessary to have a house large enough to hold an audience
sufficient in size to insure an adequate return. None of our theatres could
possibly have held such an audience. In an opera house such as is planned
I believe we may expect a yearly visit from the Metropolitan Opera Company,
which means of course performances given by the greatest of living artists.

"Moreover a home will be provided for organizations like the symphony
society, where they can give their performances and conduct their studies
and rehearsals amidst sympathetic and encouraging surroundings.

"I hope and believe that the enterprise of a municipal art gallery is not
very far off. It is much to be regretted that we have not a collection of
pictures for the entertainment and improvement of our fellow citizens of the
character possessed by the cities of Chicago, New York and Pittsburg. When
this shall have been accomplished those who live and die in California will
not have so much to regret as they have now. With the masterpieces of art
within reach the desire of Californians ever to leave their lovely State must
surely be diminished. San Francisco needs only this artistic charm to become
a true metropolis of the West. I believe that many who now journey to the
East and to Europe would be happy, if we had fine music and fine. pictures
to show them, to come to stay in San Francisco.

"It is highly important for the encouragement of music that the sur-
roundings should be of a harmonious and sympathetic nature, and that one
should be protected from all distractions. In my mind the correct idea of an
opera house is the Prinz Regenten in Munich. There one is given a
comfortable seat, and an unrestricted view of the stage is secured by the fact
that the head of the person next in front is almost at one's feet. Performances
are carried on in religious silence and in complete darkness. In the entr' acte
one can walk about in a delightful garden where there is nothing to shock

293

VARIED TYPES

the imagination or to dispel the charm that the music has cast. I think we
may fairly hope to have something like this in San Francisco. Mr. Redding
who has gone abroad in the interest of the project, will return with models
of the very best opera houses in Europe. I think that the citizens of San
Francisco may confidently look forward to the possession of an opera house
which for beauty and comfort and sympathetic surroundings will compare
with any.

"One of the most delightful features of the whole affair is the harmonious
and spirited manner in which our prominent citizens have combined in this
project. We have often been taunted with a lack of harmony in San Fran-
cisco. This incident would seem to show that disunion, if it ever existed,
has gone, and I believe that in no city in the country of the size and wealth
of San Francisco could so important an enterprise have found such ready and
enthusiastic support."

These words were spoken by Mr. Tobin more than two years ago.
Nobody dreamed then of the amazing manner in which the glorious project
of a Municipal Opera House was to be done to death. The circumstances
in which the labor of our most devoted citizens was brought to naught make
one of the most humiliating chapters in local history. There is no need of
repeating the story here. The bare remembrance brings a pang to every
lover of music. To the men who bear responsibility for the crime against
art the recollection must bring a flood of shame.

294

RICHARD WALTON TULLY

'UPPOSE you were a young person who had written the
great American drama, and suppose you took it to Dick
£ Tully to find out what he thought about it. Then suppose
he made no move to take the manuscript (nicely rolled and
Acutely tied with a bit of ribbon), but instead fixed you with
s cold spectacled eye and transfixed you with these :

"What salary do you work for?"
"How many hour-pounds did you put into your play?"

What would you think of Richard Walton Tully, playwright? Would
you be indignant? Would you tell him he was an impertinent thing? Or
just what would you do? I ask to know. I haven't had the experience
myself, but many must have had it. For Tully is beset with young writers
of the great American drama. And he says himself that he always begins
the interview with those questions.

"A young fellow comes to me," explained Tully, using the dramatic
present tense. "He has a play. Will I please look it over and say what I
think of it? Instead of looking it over I ask him: 'What salary do you
earn?' Ten to one he thinks I'm too inquisitive. But he tells me, let us
say, twenty-five dollars a week. So. 'And how much time did you put in
on this play?' Perhaps he has put in six weeks, two months. So. 'I suppose
you know a good play is worth at least $25,000? And here you've given
two hundred dollars' worth of your time to earn $25,000.' It begins to dawn
on him that a successful play isn't written in two months."

"How long does it take you to write a play?" I asked.

"From one to three years," answered Tully, sitting on his hands and
rocking one leg over the other.

"There is a dynamics of art," he continued. "I've worked it out. In
my theory success combines hour-pounds of energy with the proper direction
of the artist's mental vision."

The man who shares the success of "The Rose of the Rancho" with
David Belasco, whose "Bird of Paradise" and "Omar the Tentmaker" have
been given on Broadway and who calls that august individual Mr. Frohman
by the familiar "Charley" of intimacy, ought to know something about
success. So I begged that he elucidate.

"You know," he enlightened, "that when you lift a pound a foot that's
a foot-pound. Well, when an artist exerts his artistic energy for an hour
I call that an hour-pound. Let us suppose that John Smith works for a
year on a play. He accumulates, say, one thousand hour-pounds. Then
he engages a company of twenty and they rehearse for six weeks. Twenty
multiplied by six weeks will give their hour-pounds. The orchestra supplies
more hour-pounds. When the first night comes John Smith has probably

295

VARIED TYPES

accumulated ten thousand hour-pounds and their force is all ready to rush
out when the curtain rises. Tom Jones sits in the audience for two hours
and a half. Those ten thousand hour-pounds hit him in two hours and a
half. If the artistic form of the play is correct, if the direction of the artist's
energy is right, Tom Jones gets an absolute uplift of feeling, of emotion.
The play is a success.

"I explain this theory of mine to the people who bring me their
manuscripts. I'm afraid they find me unsatisfactory. It is so hard to explain
to them sometimes why their plays are not suited for the stage. After all,
what is a play? Take an operating room. You have a stage, you have the
actors, you have the properties, you have an audience. But an autopsy isn't
a play. So many people write psychic autopsies, and get mad because they
are not produced. The manager tells them that the public doesn't want
autopsies. The manager is the man who knows what the great public at
this time considers a play. Nothing that the public won't come and pay to
see will ever live as a play. But the beginners find it hard to believe this.
And some of them won't change their plays. The man with the immortal
manuscript which he won't change had better stay away from the stage.

"The first thing for the beginner to do is to find out what a play is. He
must become actively associated with the actual theatre, preferably from
the stage side. He must establish that intimacy with the audience which
the actor knows. He must learn that the shade between drama and narrative
is very slight, that it may merely consist of two words, but that it's all the
difference in the world. He must get to know the unbreakable bond between
the audience and the play so that while writing he will have the ever-present
movement of the play in front of him and the audience in front of the play.
"Some say that the draamtist is born, not made. I don't believe it.
People can't write successful plays until they have learned the use of their
tools. They must learn to write plays as the physician learns to operate or
the sculptor to make a statue. And for the complete playwright the stage
requires the widest knowledge. First of all the playwright must establish
that sympathetic bond between his play and the audience. Then he must
know how to twist a story, as Pinero says, to weave it in and out, to be in
the literal meaning of the word, a play-fashioner, a play-twister. Thirdly,
and this is the least important, he must be a playwriter as well as a play-
wright; he must put his play in proper language. Fourthly, he must be
a landscape painter, seeing his scene in a frame and making it beautiful ; an
architect, building his houses as modern houses are built; a sculptor, not
molding his players by hand, it is true, but selecting them for their looks
to suit his characters; and a musician, so that if there is to be incidental
music, he will know what is fitting and what discordant.

"Of course the beginner must have experience of life. He must have
come into direct association with life, for he can only write what he knows.
The public has been educated to catch the false note at once.

"It's only hard work that brings success to the playwright. That was
the greatest thing Belasco taught me. Of course there is the inspirational
flash which comes under auspicious conditions. But that flash must come

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RICHARD WALTON TULLY

again and again before you can twist it into a play. Meanwhile you must
keep at work between flashes. The harder you work the oftener the flashes
will come. When your play is finished you'll probably be so tired of the
work that you'll distrust all the inspirational flashes and think that your
play is rotten. But if the hour-pounds are there and the energy was properly
directed, the play will succeed.

"Personally I've been at this work for twelve years. I was twenty-
three when I wrote 'James Wobberts, Freshman' for the University of
California. It has been played in about one hundred high schools and is
still being used. I worked for two years on 'Juanita of San Juan.' Then I
put in another year on it with Belasco before it became 'The Rose of the
Rancho.' Next I wrote 'Cupid the Cow-punch' from Mrs. Tully's novel. It
was tried out at Ye Liberty. I'm still working on it. Then came 'The Bird
of Paradise.' I spent a year preparing for it by reading more than one
hundred books on the Hawaiian Islands. I spent two years writing it. It
was bought by the New Theatre and I was sent to Hawaii to buy properties,
get the music, verify my local color and so on. Meanwhile the New Theatre
closed. I decided to produce it myself. I tried it out in Los Angeles and
it ran there for five weeks. Then it went to New York.

"Why did I try it out in Los Angeles instead of San Francisco? For
several reasons. In the first place there is no manager in San Francisco at
present who takes an interest in new plays as Bishop used to do and as his
brother Oliver Morosco does now in Los Angeles. The Alcazar only
occasionally puts on a new play. Besides that, San Francisco has the most
critical attitude toward dramatic art of any city in the country. You are
used to plays that have been through the polishing mill. So the new play-
wright is at a disadvantage here. He brings a play that must be polished
by production, and not being used to untried plays, you line his work up
alongside a play that has been given seven hundred times.

"In Los Angeles it is different. For fifteen years Oliver Morosco has
been producing native plays, new plays. Los Angeles is trained on the
standard of new productions. It is a 'dog town,' to use the slang of the
craft. Besides it has many easterners who have lived in other 'dog towns.'
It never criticises a new venture as it does an old one."

So there you are. The aspiring young man with the great American
play in process of writing is welcome to these instructions from a successful
playwright. And when he gets his play wrought as well as written, let him
take it to Los Angeles and 'try it on the dog.'

299

JAMES T. TURNER

EADER, do you know the Fresno Beer Hall in Fresno?
Right next to Uncle Ike's? Down by the Southern Pacific
depot? Well, if you don't know it, the loss is yours as well
as the proprietors', for the beer they draw there is sharp and
cool and Fresno's is at times a thirsty climate. If you know it,
you may know also the gentlemanly proprietors, serious-
looking Fred Dahnken with the spectacles and Jim Turner
with the keen blue eyes and the luxuriant hair. Let me tell
you that there never were two more popular saloon keepers in the metropolis
of the raisin belt.

You haven't seen Fred Dahnken and Jim Turner in the Fresno Beer
Hall for some time? Right you are! They own it still, and it's doing very
well, thank you ! but its gentlemanly proprietors haven't been giving it much
personal attention for some time. If Fresno went dry (as it has threatened
to do off and on), and the Fresno Beer Hall went out of business, Fred and
Jim wouldn't turn a hair. They'd mourn it for old times' sake and because
it provided the foundation of their fortunes, but in a pecuniary sense they'd
never miss it.

For Fred and Jim have been making fortunes during the last few years
in the moving picture business. A little over two years ago a financial
transaction connected with moving picture interests took Jim Turner to New
York. He was offered a sum of money, a sum that staggered him, for certain
interests he and Fred controlled, and he wired Fred to find out what to do.
Fred was right back at him with this:

"Accept. More money than you and I can spend."

Perhaps it was, but Turner and Dahnken have kept on coining money
ever since.

Some time ago we were all shocked to learn that "Doc" Leahy had leased
the magnificent new Tivoli to moving picture people. When we got over
the shock we were curious to know who were the people that figured on
filling the Tivoli's two thousand seats all day and night long with moving
picture audiences. The answer was, Turner and Dahnken. But who are
they? I went and asked Turner about himself and Fred.

Fred Dahnken and Jim Turner were born in the little town of Antioch.
They played together as kids ; they were chums at school ; they were sworn
pals as young men ; they are partners now. From youth to manhood they
shared every enterprise. Fred has had fifty cents of every dollar Jim ever
made, and vice versa.

"And we've never had a row," says Jim.

"No," laughs Fred, "we have never quarreled."

Fred Dahnken is a little older than Jim Turner. He was out of school

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JAMES T. TURNER

first, and when Jim got his diploma, Fred was running the Arlington Hotel
at Antioch. Fred took Jim in as clerk. But pretty soon it was evident that
there wasn't work enough for both of them.

"Jim," said Fred, "why not look around for a business of some sort?"
"All right, Fred," said Jim, "and when I get started I'll take you in."
Jim found the chance he was looking for in Fresno. He got the Fresno
Beer Hall, right next to Uncle Ike's down by the Southern Pacific depot.
And he took Fred in. They did very nicely, for as I said before, the beer
they drew was sharp and cool and there is thirst in the very air of Fresno.
But they were not satisfied to plod. They knew Peter Bacigalupi and were
aware that he had made a fortune out of the penny arcade business. So they
opened a penny arcade in Fresno. They did a fine business for three months,
but after that not so many pennies tinkled into the slots, so they packed up
their machines and went to Portland for the Fair. Their experience may
have provided a valuable hint for 1915 purveyors.

"The penny arcades on the Fair grounds lost money," says Jim Turner,
"but we got a place down town and made a lot of money." They had been
in Portland a year when our big fire took place.

"Before the fire was out," says Jim Turner, "we had a penny arcade
started on Fillmore street between Eddy and Ellis."

They stayed at that for a year and a half, doing well at first and not so
well later on. They cast about for the reason. They found it in the moving
picture shows that were just beginning to attract people. So they turned
their penny arcade into a moving picture show.

"We stored $17,000 worth of penny arcade machines," says Jim Turner,
"and they're in storage still. I was offered $200 for them the other day, and
I guess that's all they're worth. The penny arcade is a thing of the past. The
moving picture killed it."

That first moving picture house did so well that pretty soon Turner
and Dahnken opened another in the Arcade Building a block down Fillmore
street. Then they started a film exchange. There were three film exchanges
already, Miles Brothers, the Novelty and the Clapham, but Turner and
Dahnken thought there was room for one more. There was.

"We were more successful than the others," says Turner, "because we
kept on opening moving picture houses of our own. We built up a fine
business."

They opened the Globe in the Mission, and two movie houses in Market
street, the leases of which they afterwards sold to Alexander Pantages when
he wanted to build a vaudeville theatre in San Francisco.

A little over two years ago the nine big film manufacturing concerns
of the country, the Pathe, the Essanay, the Biograph, the Lubin, the Kalem,
the Vitagraph, the Edison, the Melie and George Kleine, got together and
formed the General Film Company, popularly known as "the film trust."
That meant the doom of all the little film exchanges throughout the country.
Turner and Dahnken realized that a bit more quickly than most others
engaged in the business. Turner went to New York and sold out. That was
the time he got the staggering offer of a sum which Fred Dahnken said was

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VARIED TYPES

''more money than you and I can spend." I asked Turner how much it was.
"A fortune," he replied. I have heard that the General Film Company paid
them $250,000.

At the present time Turner and Dahnken have ten moving picture
theatres : two in Berkeley, one in Richmond, one in Oakland, one in Alameda,
one in Fresno, one in Sacramento, one in San Jose, the Globe in the Mission
and — their particular pride — the Tivoli. Their San Jose investment for lot
and building is $110,000; and they are preparing to build their own theatres
in Sacramento and Richmond. They entertain about 25,000 people a day.

"The moving picture business is in its infancy," says Turner. "It is just
entering the big production stage. The day of the short film has passed.
People want to see big productions like 'Quo Vadis' or 'The Third Degree'
in a big roomy comfortable theatre where there is plenty of air. What chance
has the legitimate theatre against us? We give a better production for less
money. There is only so much money to be spent on amusement, and more
and more of it is being spent in the moving picture theatres. The best proof
is that they are prosperous while the houses of legitimate drama are com-
plaining of bad business. No wonder we turned people away from the big
Tivoli at every production of 'The Third Degree.' The film play costs
twenty cents, while you had to pay a dollar and a half to see the play.
Another thing : Supper in a cafe has come to be part of theatregoing. If you
take a lady to the theatre she expects supper afterwards. But you don't think
of going to supper from a moving picture show. And mind you, people come
to the Tivoli films in their limousines."

Finally Jim Turner gave me his recipe for success in the moving picture
business :

"We give as much as we can for the money; we supply good music and
first class entertainment; and we try to have the best equipment possible."

I take it that recipe also accounts for the success of the Fresno Beer Hall
down in the thirsty metropolis of the raisin belt.

304

RAPHAEL WEILL

ALL RAPHAEL WEILL a clubman; call him a boule-
vardier; regard him as a patron of the arts and belles
lettres; dub him dilettante or connoisseur in your own
particular acceptation of those widely different words ; praise
him for his philanthropy ; extol him as a gourmet and a chef ;
look upon him as the oldest and most eligible bachelor in
society. His familiars will admit the justice of all you say,
but still they will shake their heads and tell you that you
have missed the most important characteristic of the man. What can that
be? you ask. And you are informed that it is Raphael Weill's genius for
friendship.

It was wise old Sam Johnson who said, "If a man does not make new
friendships as he passes through life, he will soon find himself let alone. A
man should keep his friendships in constant repair." That is what Raphael
Weill has done all through life, not consciously, I imagine, but through
the prompting of an instinct which is part of his genius for friendship. For
more than half a century the men and women of San Francisco who were
worth while have been grappled to his soul with hooks of steel. In years
Raphael Weill is an old man ; consequently many of those who were dear
to him have passed away. To those old friends who remain he is every year
knitted closer and closer, for he believes with his own La Fontaine that
"friendship is the shadow of the evening, which strengthens with the setting
sun of life." And in the place of those who have passed he enshrines others,
picking them with a sureness that is seldom or never mistaken.

Go into the beautiful office from which he directs the great business
establishment with which his name is instantly associated by all San
Franciscans, and you will find on his desk a score of photographs. They
are the photographs of children.

"My children," he will tell you ; "the children of my friends, but never-
theless my children because I have none of my own."

Most of those children represent the third generation of unbroken
friendships. Raphael Weill knew and loved their fathers and mothers before
those children were brought into the world ; he knew and loved their grand-
fathers and grandmothers when those fathers and mothers were themselves
children. That sort of friendship, continuing from generation to generation,
is very rare; one might almost say unique. Only a man who has a genius
for friendship could boast it.

We all know something about Raphael Weill's charities and philan-
thropies. We know that in memory of his dear friend Fire Chief Sullivan
he founded a gold medal for heroism in the department, a medal which bears,
not his name, but the name of his friend the dead chief. We know that after

305

the earthquake and fire he distributed two thousand dresses among the
needy women of the city. We know that the champions of a charitable
cause have never appealed to him in vain. And we realize with pleasure
that his goodness of heart thus publicly manifested has been publicly
proclaimed and rewarded. When he went to Paris after the calamity of
1906 the republic gave him the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor in
recognition of what he had done for his fellow-citizens. And he told them :

"You are unable to decorate all the men and women of San Francisco
for what they have done, and so you decorate them through me. On behalf
of them all I thank you."

He wears the narrow red ribbon in his coat, but it is not nearly as
dear to him as is the loving cup which the Women of San Francisco presented
to him on the same occasion. With the cup was a parchment volume
containing the names of the most representative women of this city, the
women who had given him the loving cup. His eyes glisten as he turns
the beautiful pages of that volume.

These and other testimonials like them are public expressions of
appreciation for Raphael Weill's benefactions. But of his larger charities
there is no record. You must go among his friends to learn of his secret
welldoing. All of Raphael Weill's friends are not blessed with worldly
prosperity. Many of them find the struggle for decent existence very
difficult. How many of them would find it well nigh impossible if it were
not for Raphael Weill? There is no way of telling. Many of his oldtime
friends died and left their families in straits. Raphael Weill has always
regarded it as one of the sacred obligations of friendship to assist such
families. I have been told of many instances, but not by Raphael Weill. He
is of course silent in these matters.

Perhaps it is this genius for friendship which keeps Raphael Weill in
San Francisco. This city has been his home and the home of his friends
for more than fifty years. But his heart is a great deal in Paris. There too
he has many friends, friends among the great of the earth. When he goes
to Paris, as he does every year, picking up his bags and starting off for the
capital of the world with much the same unconcern that you or I would go
avisiting to Oakland or San Jose, when he goes to Paris he goes from one
circle of friends to another. He knows all the interesting men and women
of Paris. He is as intimate with Bernhardt and Anatole France as he is with
Mrs. Eleanor Martin and Frank Unger. Years ago he formed the habit
of dropping in at a little library on the boulevards where all the great
authors and journalists might be found after the theatre and where the
brilliant conversation lasted into the wee sma' hours. He met there Hugo
(whom, according to many, he much resembles in appearance), Daudet, the
Goncourts and all the rest of the men who helped make French literary
history during the last three or four decades of the nineteenth century.

It was inevitable that such associations should sharpen his appetite for
good books. Hear him discourse about a novel by Anatole France or about
a first edition of "Pickwick" and you will be as charmed as when you listen
to his reminiscences of friendship. His judgment of books is sound. So

306

RAPHAEL WEILL

too his judgment of pictures and statues. But he is not merely a connoisseur;
he is a Maecenas too. Struggling- authors have been enabled to publish
through his kindness. In the closing days of 1911 he took it upon himself
to publish the poems of the late Lucius Harwood Foote, simply because
Foote was an old friend and an old man who would die happier for seeing
his life work in book form. Joe Strong, the painter, and Robert Aitken, the
sculptor, were among those whom he sent to Paris for study. If he kept
his pictures and statues, he would have a wonderful collection. But he
doesn't. Most of them have gone to the Bohemian Club or to the museum
in Golden Gate Park.

Raphael Weill's portrait has been painted many times. But perhaps
the portrait of which he is fondest was that in which his dear friend Joe
Strong showed him in a cook's cap and apron preparing a ragout. It is an
excellent likeness and it commemorates one side of Raphael Weill's varied
life. For Weill loves to cook for his friends. He is perhaps our greatest
gourmet.

"The way he orders a luncheon is a demonstration of genius," a friend
of his told me the other day. "No two of his luncheons are ever the same.
He has an inexhaustible talent for new combinations of dishes."

In Paris he discovered a restaurant which has since become famous
among Parisians and Americans alike. In San Francisco he calls the best
chefs friend and brother. He has cooked breakfasts at the Bohemian Club
which have become part of the club tradition and are spoken of in tones
of admiring awe. Those who have partaken of frogs' legs a la Raphael
Weill or of the ham or the mackerel which he prepares in champagne have
been known to declare that life was richer for the experience. There is a
story, too, that Raphael Weill fainted when a guest put ice in a claret which
had been brought by cunning manipulation to just the proper temperature.
The story may not be true. Such stories don't have to be true. They need
merely be symbolical of the truth. And this story is all that.

There can be no doubt that Raphael Weill gets a great deal of pleasure
out of life. He is in reality a very young man, with a young man's very
simple tastes. But in addition he enjoys the pleasures which belong to age.
To do good is the happiness of the mature. It makes him happy to extend
happiness to those about him. Whether he does this by a secret charity,
by helping a struggling author or an improvident artist, by cooking a
delicious breakfast or ordering an inimitable dinner, is all one to Raphael
Weill. He does these things because by doing them he is satisfying the
demands of friendship. He is expressing himself in the terms of his
personality. He cannot help doing them, for he has a genius for friendship
and there is no kind of genius which can be denied expression.

309

GEORGE X. WENDLING

'T IS commonly believed that the typical lumberman can
talk nothing- and think nothing but lumber. If that be so
George X. Wendling is not a typical lumberman.

Wendling can look at a forest and see more than mere
lumber. He can go a-cruising and find many things besides
lumber. He can talk and think about a lot of subjects that
have nothing to do with lumber. But this doesn't prevent
him from being one of the most expert and most successful
lumbermen in the State. He's been in the business for thirty-six years.

When he talks lumber — and of course even a lumberman who is not
typical has to talk lumber once in a while — he does not scant the more
picturesque features of his business. He sees poetry in lumber where the
typical lumberman sees only profit.

"Lumber is one of the most interesting pursuits in the world," says
George X. Wendling. "The lumber business has the spice of infinite variety.
No two trees are alike. No two boards sawed out of any log are exactly
alike. There is such a tremendous lot to be learned about lumber that much
of it has never been set down in books. A big lumber library wouldn't begin
to exhaust the subject. You never know all about lumber any more than
the chemist knows all about chemistry. And you must learn lumber as the
chemist learns chemistry, by working at it with your hands. The only way
to be a lumberman is to put on overalls and get out into the timber. The
fascination of it is beyond all words. It is a matter of continuous education.
It is unfolding new things to you all the time.

"Romance? Well, perhaps lumber is romantic when it's in the forest,
but when it becomes timber to be bought and sold, it is not romantic. It is
a cold, cold business, like shaving ice. The competition is so keen. There
has been no fun in the lumber business since the panic of 1907. But I love
the business for its vicissitudes. It calls for all a man has of energy to keep
up with the other fellow, yes to shove the other fellow out of the way. It's
a scrap all the time. It's like life, just one damned thing after another.

San Francisco gets its lumber cheap, the reason being that the city's
location makes it a dumping ground for cheap lumber. This has been a
great boon to San Francisco. Why, San Francisco has been built with the
cheapest lumber I know of. But with the Panama Canal open lumber prices
here will not rule so ridiculously low. The 'random common' that is
accumulating here all the time will go to the better market on the Atlantic
Coast, and we'll have to bid higher to get our supply."

About this point Wendling's conversation threatened to become technical,
and I knew I should never be able to follow him through the mazes, so I
switched the talk to conservation.

310

GEORGE X. WENDLING

George X. Wendling showed no surprise at my knowing that conserva-
tion was one of his pet subjects. I suppose everybody who knows anything
about Wendling knows that. Has he not talked conservation for years? Has
he not lectured on the subject? Has he not made addresses on it at the
National Conservation Congress? He plunged into it gladly, fluently, with
a firm grasp upon his ideas.

"My views on a certain kind of conservation," he said, "are admirably
summed up in an apologue which Judge Frank Short of Fresno (whom I
consider one of the greatest men in the United States today) used in an
address delivered at the National Conservation Congress in St. Paul, 1910.
Judge Short said that Uncle Sam was the father of four sons, East, North,
South and West. Being liberal to a fault and mindful of a trust, Uncle Sam
has transferred to his three elder sons, East, North and South, all their share
in his estate. These older sons begin to look with covetous eyes upon the
younger brother's inheritance, especially after he has begun to show by his
industry the real value of his portion. They tell Uncle Sam that he has been
wasteful in the management of his estate. They say to him : 'You have
turned over to us and to our children without needful restriction the whole
of what we can rightfully claim. In doing this you have shown great
incompetency and have practiced many frauds. We can see no way of
atoning for this sin except that you shall take and hold that portion of the
estate that should descend to our younger brother West, for the benefit of all
your children. In consideration of your doing this we shall appoint you the
landlord and guardian, without bonds and forever, of his portion. But we
require you to see to it that we, your elder sons, shall receive from the rents,
leases and profits of this portion our equal shares with our beloved younger
brother.' Judge Short went on to say that Uncle Sam seemed weak enough
to succumb to the influence of the three elder brothers as against the rightful
claim of the younger brother West.

"In other words, the East, North and South have had their share of the
family pie and now they want to tell us what we should do with our share.
They will not admit that the States west of the Missouri River are entitled to
their own natural resources and the results thereof. In California, for
instance, one-third of our area is set aside for forest reserves. The rest of
the country thinks that the value of these resources should find its way to
the national treasury and put no water of consequence on the California
wheel. Is that just? I say that it is not. I take no stock in this proposition
to deprive the present of its natural resources and save them all for the
future.

"In my opinion there is no greater or sounder conservation than that
which conserves the splendid fortunes which the American people are building
for their children. Am I not a true conservationist when I conserve the
fortune which I have spent thirty-six years in building up so that it may
descend to my only daughter?"

Wendling swung his swivel chair toward the window of his office on the
top story of the Flood Building. He waved an arm that took in blocks and
blocks of tall stone and brick structures.

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VARIED TYPES

"Look at that," he said; "all built since the fire of 1906, all built for the
children of the future. Is it not a wonderful heritage? Is it not true con-
servation?

"Civilization springs up in the path of the woodman's ax. A city rises
where a forest goes down. We need not worry about our natural resources
provided we use them judiciously, sensibly. The pioneer, it is true, is
wasteful. That cannot be helped, and his wastefulness is more than offset
by the benefits he confers. The pioneer uses only part of the tree that falls
to his ax. But as civilization pushes its way into the forest, transportation
facilities allow the use of the whole tree. Out of the original seeming
wastefulness comes the real economy that uses everything and promotes
prosperity.

"Consider for a moment the devastation of the forests of Michigan,
Wisconsin and Minnesota. If these forests were standing in their primeval
naturalness as they had stood for ages before they were cut away, inhabited
by the redman, the bear, wolf and other animals, that entire region, in my
opinion, would not be worth one-eighth of one per cent of the value of the
wonderful civilization that sprang up in the wake of the forest that was cut
away. As these forests were cut away they made light, easily transportable
and cheap building materials that were used for the building of another
civilization in the prairie country of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, the
Dakotas, western Minnesota and later Oklahoma, and a portion of this
product found its way further east for the uses of the growing civilization
in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York and other eastern States.

•'Does it seem right that one-third of the area of California should bear
signs of 'Keep off. Federal Property?' Are not we of California better able
to administer our estate than the national government? I'd rather deal with
officials in Sacramento who have interests in common with mine than the
arbitrary power of Washington. A government which is always changing its
administrative officers cannot deal with us as we ought to be dealt with. If
we had waited for the government to build the Union and Southern Pacific
we'd still be dependent on the Pony Express. Look at our city. In seven
years it has been rebuilt, but we have as yet no City Hall. And when the
City Hall is finally built it will have cost us from two to five times as much
as a similar structure built by private capital. That's politics. If our banks
had to change their officers every four years they would save themselves
trouble by going into voluntary liquidation.

"I'm the champion of the individual. I think he should have every
opportunity to utilize the resources which nature has placed at his disposal.
Let us conserve the American man and the American woman. Let us try to
prevent that frightful influx of people representing the feculent sewage of the
decaying nations of the old world. Mixing these with Americans will produce
mongrels, not race character.

"That to my mind would be true conservation. Truer conservation indeed
than the political buncombe of so-called conservation that we get from federal
bureaucrats located at Washington who want to manage the affairs of the
States through the medium of political machines."

314

D. A. WHITE

JOHNSON had just signed the "red light abate-
ment bill."

This measure, one of the most vicious ever put upon the
statute books of any State, had been passed, as is pretty well
known, by legislators who disapproved of it but were afraid
to brook the wrath of "the short-haired women and the long-
haired men" who threatned them with political ruin if they
voted against it.

The Governor had hesitated before signing it, hesitated just for a
moment. He had invited its opponents to appear in his office at Sacramento
and state their objections. None appeared, so in the presence of a large
number of champions of the measure, he affixed his signature.

I happen to know why one opponent of the "red light abatement bill"
did not go to Sacramento to tell the Governor of his stand. The opponent
I refer to is Chief of Police Gus White.

"If I went up to Sacramento," he explained to me, "and told the Gov-
ernor how I stood on that bill, a lot of our very charitable clergymen in San
Francisco, men of the delectable Aked stripe, would mount their pulpits and
declare that I had been paid to oppose it. So what was the use?"

What was the use indeed? We are informed by the Bulletin which is
supposed to know the Governor's mind in many matters, that the Governor
intended to sign it from the first. So what was the use of the Chief of Police
in the city which the law will most affect going out of his way to have his
objections overruled and getting himself denounced into the bargain?

Probably other opponents of the bill figured the matter out in much the
same way. At any rate, they were not on hand when the Governor dipped
his trusty pen in ink and made the bill law. Those present were eager to
see the Iowa measure part of our code. They were headed by the Reverend
Charles N. Lathrop of this city. Among them was the head of the W. C. T.
U., an organization which is accumulating a record for the advocacy of de-
structive legislation. Witness their success in abolishing the canteen. The
W. C. T. U. president received the pen with which the measure was signed,
and doubtless the priceless relic will be adequately venerated among her
followers.

The ink was scarcely dry on the engrossed copy of the new law when I
went to Chief of Police White and asked him about it.

Chief of Police White has been a policeman for a comparatively short
time, but nature endowed him with the typical policeman's outspokenness. He
didn't mince words about the "red light abatement" law.

"I'm against it," he told me. "Of course I shall have to enforce it, but
I'm not in sympathy with it because I believe that it's a move backwards.

315

VARIED TYPES

"If the segregation of prostitutes is the best method of regulating the
social evil, and I believe it is, then San Francisco at the present time has the
proper system, and this system will be destroyed by this new law.

"Let us look at this thing from the police standpoint. The social evil is
with us in spite of the preachers who have thundered against it for nearly
two thousand years. I don't see any signs of its passing away. So the only
thing for the police to do is to regulate it, to minimize it and to get rid of
as many of the evils that accompany it as is humanly possible.

"The 'red light abatement' law will put an end to segregation. By means
of it the segregated district of this city can be wiped out in a day. What
will be the result? Here are the things that will follow, as I see them:

"We shall have streetwalkers.

"Prostitutes will be scattered through the residence districts.

"There will be an increase of white slaving.

"There will be a serious increase in venereal diseases.

"The way will be opened for police graft.

"There will be increased corruption of boys and girls who will be brought
into contact with prostitutes in the residence sections.

"Let us look these results over and see whether I have exaggerated.

"At the present time there is practically no street walking in San Fran-
cisco. That phase of the social evil was gotten rid of several years ago. At
present the police do not arrest two street walkers a month, and it is usually
found that those few who are taken in for soliciting in the street are muddled
by too much drink. In other words they get drunk and forget that it is
dangerous for them to ply their trade in the streets. But when the segregated
district is abolished we shall have street walkers. That is always the result.
Police will tell you so everywhere. A lieutenant of the New York force told
me that the closing of the houses of ill fame in New York put ten thousand
prostitutes into the streets.

"We don't have to go far to know that when segregation ceases the
prostitutes invade the residence sections. Look at the experience of Los
Angeles. We're sure to have the same thing here.

"Then there is the matter of white slaving. There is an awful lot of
exaggeration about white slaving in this city at the present time. There
can't be much white slaving when the police control the social evil as they do
in San Francisco at present. We know where every prostitute in the city
plies her trade and where she sleeps. What chance has the cadet when he
knows that the white slave detail has the unfortunate women under surveil-
lance every hour of the day and night? But under the new law the police will
lose all control of the women. We won't be able to keep our eyes on them
when they are scattered all over town. So the white slaver is bound to
flourish.

"Then there is the very serious matter of disease. This new law will
put the Municipal Clinic out of business along with the segregated district.
Without segregation there can be no Municipal Clinic. The Municipal Clinic
is a good thing. I have always been in favor of it. It is doing a splendid
work in the prevention of disease. But with the women walking the streets

316

D. A. WHITE

or plying their trade in the residence districts, there is bound to be an increase
in disease. When supervision ends the red plague will thrive.

"The way will be opened for police graft, and this is a very important
matter. When there is a tolerated district why should the women pay for
protection? They can deal directly with the Chief of Police as long as they
submit to proper regulation. But abolish the segregated district, scatter the
women all over town, turn them into street walkers, and they will be at the
mercy of graft. That is what always happens. The women pay somebody
for immunity.

"Finally we must expect to find girls and boys corrupted when bad women
go into the residence districts. Innocent youngsters are bound to be thrown
into contact with them sooner or later.

"Let us see how this law will operate. It provides that when anybody
has reason to believe that a lewd or immoral act has been committed or is
about to be committed in any building or place, he may file an information
concerning his 'reason to believe' and bring the owner into court to show
cause why his property should not be closed up for one year. No bond is
required of the person filing the information. Upon the issuance of the in-
junction the property is sealed up for one year, and the furniture may be sold.

"Plainly that law can be invoked against a first-class hotel just as well
as against a house of prostitution. It is a handy weapon for the man with a
grudge, and the possibilities of blackmail are too apparent to need explaining.

"Whether or no this new law conflicts with the Charter remains to be
seen. I shall insist on a test case in order to see whether its provisions must
be carried out. If it is operative the police must enforce it.

"But it looks as though we'll have to have a larger police force. With
the new conditions the present force will be inadequate.

"At the present time there are 916 prostitutes in this city. Of these 844
are white women, while the rest are colored, Chinese and Japanese. They
are distributed in 115 houses, most of which are in the segregated district
while a few are in the uptown tenderloin and south of Market. All are under
police supervision. When the evil is spread all over town we shall not be able
to supervise them, and just to 'vag' them will be- a task."

These figures are very interesting. They are very different from the
figures which some of our uplifters give to shocked audiences. Compare
them with the figures in any city approximating the size of San Francisco,
and the evil of our commercialized vice won't appear so awful as it has been
represented. I said so to the Chief of Police, and he agreed with me.

"But men like Doctor Aked don't want to know the truth," he said.
"They have made up their minds to be prejudiced in advance. Doctor Aked
has never come to me to learn conditions. I never met the man. But if I
gave him those figures he'd insist that I was concealing part of the truth from
him. I'm surprised that men like Aked find people to support them."
"What will you do when the law goes into effect?"

"I think the first thing to do will be to ask the Park Commissioners to
cut down every tree and shrub in Golden Gate Park and all the other parks
in the city. Why? To prevent immoral acts in public places."

319

MRS. LOVELL WHITE

RS. LOVELL WHITE is an advanced woman, but not a
radical. Her public actions are regulated by principles that
give no comfort to the shrieking sisterhood. Her conduct is
too nicely balanced to excite the admiration of professed
uplifters. She would have womanly grace and calm inform
all feminine activities. She is not the foe of man ; neither is
she unreasonably the champion of woman. For many years
an ardent suffragist, she is more in love with beauty than
with the ballot. For her sex she asks justice, not special privilege. Mrs.
Lovell White is a woman who feels deeply, and thinks dispassionately about
her feelings.

Over those with whom she is associated in various praiseworthy causes
Mrs. Lovell White is said to exercise a most unusual influence. They defer
to her opinion ; they seek her guidance ; they adopt her advice. She is a
leader with a following not blind but full of trust. Mrs. White's years are
venerable, but she receives much more than veneration from those who take
her counsels. They respect her mature judgment when serious questions are
to be answered; in matters of sentiment they kindle readily at the flame of
her enthusiasm.

Some women ripen in beauty but never in intelligence. When their
loveliness fades they are shells inclosing nothing but frivolity. This is a
tragedy of womankind about which the less said the better. Other more
fortunate women wax gracefully alike in years and mentality. Decade after
decade they remain as sweet in mind as in face. Youth and passion make
way for gray hair and wisdom. The eternal feminine, in such women, takes
on new charms with age, while never quite relinquishing the earlier fascina-
tions and vivacities. If Mrs. Lovell White had not been a girl of sweetness
she would not be the Mrs. Lovell White of today. And if that sweet girl
had not cultivated more than her beauty, Mrs. Lovell White would not be
the influential leader she is.

"I have not altogether lost my vanity," says Mrs. Lovell White. "And
that is as it should be with women, is it not? A little vanity helps to keep a
woman sweet and clean.

"I am infatuated with this world. I am always busy looking for the
beauty that is about me. Unhappiness requires leisure, and I have no time
to be idle or miserable."

Mrs. Lovell White is indeed a busy woman. Most of her business is
with projects of beauty. She finds expression for her dearest longings in
the Outdoor Art League and in the Sempervirens Club.

"The great problems of the world are so bewildering," she says. "The
theories of great men are so puzzling. After all, who knows anything about

320

MRS. LOVELL WHITE

anything? I'd much rather confine myself to making the world more
beautiful. The creation of a park or playground does as much good to the
world as the study of a difficult problem."

Yet Mrs. Lovell White does not ignore utility in her absorbing cultiva-
tion of beauty. Hers is too well balanced a mind to tip one way. She is
State president of the Women's National Rivers and Harbors Congress. And
in her clubs she touches hands with women whose swing of action is more
circumscribed. She founded the California Club. She is a member of the
Century and of the Pacific Coast Women's Press Association.

"I wrote a little once," says Mrs. White. "But that is an art in which
one can accomplish so little without complete and exclusive devotion. What
an artist Oscar Wilde was in the selection and use of beautiful words ! I love
beautiful words as I love flowers."

There is no passivity about Mrs. Lovell White's cult of beauty. She is
too active by nature to succumb to the temptation of the lotus eaters. The
beautiful world is very much with her always; she would not shut out any
of its manifestations.

"I believe in the spirit of the times," she says. "It is right. It spells
progress. I live in the present and its movements, but still I try to look at
those movements from the outside.

"This is the era of woman. She has moved out of chaos into the light,
and the franchise has been her guide. For two thousand years it has been
a man's world. Man made the laws regulating the relations between the
sexes. Man told woman that they were the laws of God, but they were not;
they were man's. It was man who said to woman: 'This is a sin for you,
but not for me.' Woman will no longer allow man to frame one law of
morality for her and another for himself.

"It was that old subjection which made woman so mysterious to man.
She was not allowed to think straight, so her mind became oblique. She
sent her thoughts winding in and out; she used devious ways to accomplish
her purpose. Today she goes straight to the point.

"It is no longer thought necessary for woman to remain always within
her home. That old domesticity made her small and mean. Man went abroad.
He saw the world. He knew all phases of life. That is why man is superior.
For man is superior to woman. He is a larger creature in every way. But
that condition is changing.

"Woman is being emancipated. Fifty years ago the breath of scandal
killed a woman. Even suspicion was fatal to her. It is not so today. Think
of our changed attitude on divorce. Divorce is no handicap to a woman now.
It may be a positive advantage. And scandal does not wither as it did. The
woman of mentality rises superior to scandal. Granted brains, and much is
forgiven. The woman on whom scandal has rested may stand on an equal
footing in San Francisco with her untarnished sisters.

"Of course all new things are carried to extremes. Even Nature overdoes.
She overdid it when she gave all the power to man. Now she is striving to
strike an average, and in swinging back she will overdo it once more.

"If woman has the opportunity she will deprive man of his liberty. For

323

VARIED TYPES

woman is no better than man. I have never thought that woman would
purify politics, for instance. She will not purify politics. In time she will
be influenced by the same processes as man. It was not for the purpose of
bringing to bear her elevating influence that we have demanded the ballot
for woman. We demanded it as a right.

"It is woman's era, and she is centering discussion on questions that are
of vital interest to her. The sex question among others. Such discussion is
not immodest. Christianity has crucified the body, has tended to make its
passions the symptoms of guilt and shame. It subdued the body with hair
shirts. The very mystery of sex whetted the appetite of the young. We are
getting back to the Greek mode of thought. The Greeks deified the body.
We are creating a purer atmosphere. Sex hygiene is one of the signs of the
times. So is the discussion of the social evil. Shall it be scattered or
segregated? I am one of those who think that evil should be concentrated,
restricted.

"These are some of the problems women are trying to solve. Much
will be accomplished by their efforts. The changes during the past fifty years
have been so great that one cannot imagine what the next fifty years will
bring. Fifty years ago woman walked with a mince. Today she walks with
a free, swinging gait. Fifty years more and the changes will be tremendous.

"But I am not wrapped up in these matters. I do not believe in trying
to do too much for people. I have found that the more you do for some
people the more they slump. What we want is sterner stuff in humanity. It
is dangerous to coddle the inferior being. If we are to have a finer race
virility is the great thing.

"And woman cannot accomplish all she aims to accomplish without the
aid of man. In the past man did not make woman his companion because
she did not know as much as he did. We must get accustomed to our power.
Let us not rush in and do rash things. If we are to take up men's affairs, let
us take them up in collaboration with men. Let us work together. By that
means progress will be made."

Will some of Mrs. Lovell White's sisters charge her with being a shirker?
They cannot do so with justice. Who has undertaken more difficult tasks?
Just now she has two battles, and is waging them gallantly. She would save
the historic monuments of Laurel Hill Cemetery. And she would save the
old Hall of Records. No easy tasks these, and Mrs. Lovell White
knows it. But she has a passion for landmarks. She would preserve the
continuity of history. Living and glorying in the present, she yet respects,
nay reverences the past. This partly explains that secret of her leadership.
An intense humanity animates her. In her bosom warm sentiment takes the
chill off cold reason. That is why she is not a passionless uplifter; why she
stops this side of radicalism. Dowered with a superior brain, she remains a
womanly woman.

324

JAMES WOODS

'O CLOSED town. A lid of course, but a lid like the lid of
Pandora's box, letting out some of the joys as well as some
of the glooms; not a lid tightly hammered down as the
smug-faced Puritans would have it. No open town, and yet
no closed town. That was the policy James Woods an-
nounced when Mayor Rolph appointed him to the Police
Commission in January, 1912.

To introduce into the conduct of the police department
the methods which had been so successful in the conduct of his private
business, to eliminate all special privileges, to give open way to the liberality
and buoyancy which are characteristic of San Francisco life, to encourage
business and to welcome and protect the visitor — these are some of the aims
which James Woods cherished in taking his seat on the Police Commission.
James Woods modestly calls himself "a comparative newcomer" in San
Francisco. He may be that, but there can be no question that during the
years he has been with us he has become one of our most popular, our best
esteemed citizens. Many men in many walks of life are constantly coming in
contact with him, business contact or social contact; yet how many will
you find who do not like him? Very few, I fancy. Personally I have found
none. He took his place on the Police Commission fortified with widespread
good will. H

As a manager of big hotels in New York, New Orleans and San Fran-
cisco James Woods has been brought into close relations with the police.
A big hotel is almost constantly in need of special police protection. When
a President, a high official of the army or navy or a foreign diplomat stops
at a hotel, the police are invariably called upon to assist in safeguarding his
visit. So it is natural that the manager of a big hotel should know more
than most other private citizens about the efficiency or lack of efficiency
of the police department. Undoubtedly Mayor Rolph had that fact in mind
when he asked James Woods to become a Police Commissioner. But he had
something else in mind too. In the letter announcing Woods' appointment
Mayor Rolph said : "His capacity for organization and his tact, which is one
of his marked characteristics, will enable him to do excellent work for San
Francisco in the development of our police department. With the approach
of the exposition the importance of the police department steadily increases —
not only for the maintenance of law and order and the detection of crime,
but in the matter of courtesy to our own citizens and to the visitors within
our gates."

"I feel that it is a great honor to serve as a commissioner under Mayor
Rolph," said Woods when I asked him about his plans of public ministration,
"and I think that I know what Mayor Rolph expected of me when he made

325

VARIED TYPES

the appointment. I think that he wants to avoid extremes in the administra-
tion of the Police Department, and that will be my aim too. I think that he
wants neither an open town nor a closed town; that he wants liberality with
decency, with honesty and absolutely without discrimination. That last is,
I think, a strong point. We must extend no privilege — and by privilege I
do not of course mean anything that is illegal — we must extend no privilege
to one which is not extended to all others.

"I think that Mayor Rolph wants me to do for the city what I have
done for the St. Francis Hotel. In my management of this hotel I have
insisted on respectability. I have encouraged life, liberality, buoyancy, but
all must be respectable. For my work here I have received both praise and
condemnation. I have no doubt that the condemnation has been sincere, but
invariably when I have investigated I have found that the adverse criticism
has come from people who have never been in the hotel. When anything has
happened which called for punishment, it has been my rule to act promptly
and to make the punishment commensurate with the offense. That it seems
to me is a good rule for the administration of the police department.

"We must encourage life in San Francisco. We must encourage
business. Above all things we must make the stranger welcome and protect
him. Especially must we protect women who are traveling alone.

"I am absolutely opposed to an open town. And I am absolutely opposed
to a closed town. I don't know which is the worse. But I love the Bohemian
spirit of San Francisco. Bohemian is a word which appeals to me when it is
used in the right sense. We have a spirit of broadness, of liberality here
which is good. It has helped to make this one of the most attractive cities
of the world. I can say this because I am a comparative newcomer here. I
have seen most of the big cities of the world, and I am constantly coming in
contact with world travelers who say the same thing.

"We have had a great deal of agitation about the evils and the immoral-
ities of San Francisco in the newspapers, in the clubs and in the various civic
associations. I think that is a mistake. There is no more evil here than
elsewhere. Even if there were it would be a mistake to agitate about it.
But as a matter of fact there is a great deal less apparent evil in San Fran-
cisco than there is in New York, Chicago, London, Paris and Berlin. In
those cities evil is flaunted on the streets. The painted streetwalker is
greatly in evidence. You never see anything of the sort here. Life, Bohem-
ianism, the things which people love to see, yes ; but the other things never."

Getting down to particulars, I asked Woods about this and that detail of
police administration, but he was cautious about committing himself.

"It is all new to me," he explained; "I must go to school."

As to the tenderloin?

"Eventually," he said, "that will all land in one section of the city.
That is the proper way to handle that problem. That is the way it is handled
in New Orleans." This was before the enactment of the Redlight Law.

I mentioned as one of the anomalies of our police administration the
toleration of the white lotteries. I pointed out that while they are absolutely
illegal they haven't been molested by the police for years.

326

JAMES WOODS

"That will be work for the future," said Woods.

Interesting work, I should say, and to be watched with interest by the
curious. Administrations have come and administrations have gone, but the
lotteries have continued on, serene and undisturbed, collecting the silver of
the easy-marks and paying their tribute of advertising to the newspapers.
Have at them, Commissioner Woods, have at them !

As to the condition of the police department, the new commissioner
spoke cheerfully.

"I have come into contact with a great many members of the force from
chiefs and captains down to patrolmen," he said. "There is a great deal of
good material in the San Francisco police department. It compares favor-
ably with the police department of New York as I knew it. I think the force
should be larger, and that will come in time. The traffic squad on Market
street is an excellent thing. It should be enlarged to take in other streets as
well, and surely will be in time. I think too that it might be well if we had
inspectors of police here. In New York under the police system that I knew
there were four inspectors. Each had one-fourth of the city for his territory.
That might be a good thing here. Each inspector would have two or more
captains under him.

"But above all it is essential that we should have a harmonious board;
a board whose members are harmonious and which is in harmony as a whole
with the chief of police and with the Mayor. And it is essential that the chief
of police should be in harmony with the Mayor. I think that we are going to
have that. I sincerely hope so."

A hope, it is needless to add, in which every good San Franciscan joins
Police Commissioner Woods.

329

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