Life and sport on the Pacific slope

Prefatory Note

My Dear Chief, — I dedicate this book to you with profound pleasure, in acknowledgment of an affection and sympathy which have been sealed by a great sorrow. From your hands I received a loyal, loving wife ; but the fact that she was born in California has not shackled my lips in speaking of the West. She, I know, would have entreated me to write with a free hand ; and if at times I seem to criticise somewhat harshly certain women who, consciously or unconsciously, are widening the gulf between their husbands and themselves, let it be remembered by my friends that I have judged these women according to a standard set by a daughter of the West, a standard of tenderness, fidelity, unselfishness, and modesty to which few wives, be their country what it may, can attain.

Many and many a time have you and I talked over the subjects treated in these pages ; but viii Prefatory Note

although our opinions clashed now and again, our intercourse continued absolutely free from friction and discord. That intercourse, which began seventeen years ago, and our friendship, which sunshine could not wither nor shadow obscure, have indirectly inspired this volume. But I ask you to shoulder no responsibility in regard to it; and whether you approve what I have written or not, believe me,

Most affectionately yours,

Horace Annesley Vachell.

HuRSLET, Winchester.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Land of To-morrow 3

II. The Men of the West 23

II II

MUCH was forgiven to Mary Magdalene, quia multum amavit, and much may be forgiven to the sowers of the West because they have laboured so hard and so faithfully. — Nice customs curtsey to great kings, they grovel before conquerors. And the men who apprehended the possibilities of the West, who not only crossed the plains, and the forests, and the mountains, but who recrossed them with shining ribands of steel, were — Caesars, endowed with the strength and the weakness of giants. You must consider them and their actions, in the aggregate, panoramically, as you would survey a Californian landscape.

The English traveller, who merely touches the phylacteries of American life, always lays stress upon the dollar as being the unit of value on the Pacific Slope. According to this authority we are money-grabbers, worshippers of the Golden Calf, sacrificing to the god our own flesh and blood. And yet no people on earth are more truly lavish with their gold than the men of the West; no people care less for gold as gold ; no people greet the loss of it with greater fortitude and good-temper. What gold represents — power and success — is dear to the Native Son, for he knows that he cannot plead as an excuse for failure the burdens of tradition and convention that hamper the strivers in older countries. In the West runners are nude when they start: the race is to the swift, the battle to the strong. Each is given credit for what he does, not for what he is. Indeed, in a country where the only gentlemen of leisure are tramps, it is shameful to be other than a bread-winner. Dives works harder than Lazarus. Only the other day a millionaire, a comparatively young man, was stricken down. He died of — over-work. Why did he not take it easy? Surely, he had enough. I knew this man, and he told me that he laboured more diligently than the meanest clerk in his employ, and for practically the same wage : clothes, board, and lodging. He dared not do less than he did. It is against the spirit of the West to shirk responsibilities.

Mr. Clarence Urmy, a Californian, whose tuneful verses are familiar to readers of American magazines, has written some charming lines upon this theme. According to Mr. Urmy, those only fail who strive not. The sentiment is as pretty as the verses that embalm it. And it is a sentiment essentially of the West. But it would be truer to say that only those who strive can know the bitterness of failure. In a new country the strife is so strenuous, it demands so many sacrifices, that failure becomes almost a synonym for death. God help the man who, in the accounting that comes to all of us sooner or later, finds his balance on the wrong side of the ledger. Surely, in that dark hour the sense of what he has suffered and endured becomes a crown of thorns. Later, perhaps, he may realise that it is better to have striven in vain than not to have striven at all.

The men of the West never take the word "failure" home to their wives. It is locked up, when they leave their office, in that symbol of prosperity, the safe, which often contains nothing more valuable than the record of wasted endeavour. One and all are stoutly self-assured that if the slippery yesterdays have eluded them, if the silvery to-days belong to others, the golden to-morrows are theirs by the unalienable rights of faith and hope. The door-mat kind of man who lies down grovelling, and permits the foot-passengers to wipe their shoes upon him, is not to be found west of the Eocky Mountains. Eobustly conscious of his strength, the Native Son confronts the beasts of the market-place with the same courage and determination that sustained his father in the wilderness. I have stood in the wheat-pit of San Francisco when wheat was jumping like a kangaroo. Around me were men — some of them young — who had large fortunes at stake. I saw one " bear " unmercifully gored by the stampeding "bulls." But he picked himself up with a grin, lit a cigar, ate a capital luncheon, told a good story, and made it plain to my wondering eyes that physically, mentally, and morally, he was none the worse for his misadventure.

Curiously enough, despite this pluck and energy, the men of business are ignorant of much that they ought, in their own interest, to know thoroughly. The average English gentleman, the magistrate and landlord, lacks the intelligence, the cleverness and tact of his American cousin, but, narrow and prejudiced as the Briton is in many ways, he takes the broader view in regard to the conduct of the world's affairs. Not till the war with Spain did these challenge the serious inte'rest of Americans. I have read, even in sober reviews, the grossest blunders, the most absurd misrepresentation of facts within the reach of any journalist who has access to a library. In this particular regard the press is French : to please the public, to tickle the ears of the groundlings, they ignore the truth as perversely as the Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards writing in the "Figaro" and the " Echo de Paris." In an English party paper, say the " Standard," you will mark that an account of a Liberal meeting will be faithfully recorded. The speeches will be printed verbatim ; the cheers, the hisses, the questions, will be honestly reported. I have never read in a Western paper a true description of a political meeting. The facts are embellished or mutilated according to the political views of the editor. Of an enemy, who in private life may be a blameless citizen, nothing too shameful can be said. He is proclaimed a Judas, a Catiline, a Nero, a Verres. Ancient history is ransacked to find his peers in infamy. This is entirely a Gallic characteristic, alien to the Anglo- Saxon spirit and love of fair play. The men who wish to be " posted " buy two daily papers, the Eepublican and Democratic organs, and form their opinions by what is left unsaid in both.

On the other hand, the Western man is keenly conscious of his limitations. He wants to know. England is full of men who are quite convinced that what they don't know is not worth knowing. I can hear the voice of the old colonel, a rasping voice mellowed somewhat by sherry, as he pronounces all subjects without the magic circle of his own intelligence — hosli. Not so the Western man. He is catholic in his sympathies. Everything interests him — and everybody. He devours an essay upon liquid air and its possibilities, and turns from that with gusto to a vol au vent of political gossip, or a cliaudfroid of economics. And this being so, it is a thousand pities that the cooks who cater to this appetite should not supply wholesomer diet. Western people suffer from dyspepsia, but what they eat is as Mellin's food compared to what they read.

Some months ago I was returning from a fishing tour in British Columbia. In the smoking-room of the Pullman car, I encountered a youth of about seventeen, who, taking me for a tenderfoot, proceeded to set forth at great length the resources of California, its sociology, topography, and climate. I listened patiently for a couple of hours. Presently he asked me if this were my first visit to his State. I replied in the negative, saying that I lived in California, that I owned land, that I was engaged in a large business. He looked uncomfortable ; then in quite a different tone he said : " Say — when did you first come to California ? "

It was my turn.

" You are a Native Son ? "

" I am," he answered proudly and promptly.

" About seventeen years old ? "

" That 's right ; seventeen last fall."

"Ah — well, I came to the State of California about the same time you did."

He blushed scarlet; then he laughed heartily. " Great Scott ! Why did n't you tell me to come off my perch ? "

After that, he asked a number of questions and listened civilly to my replies. We parted the best of friends.

An Englishman is never seen to worse advantage than when he is insisting upon what he is pleased to call his — rights. For in the development of character it is expedient that men should sometimes do without privileges to which they conceive themselves entitled. Perhaps if we clamour too persistently for our dues in this world, we may also, in the world to come, be dealt with according to our deserts. At any rate it is a charming characteristic of the men of the West that they are good-humouredly content with less than that to which they are legally and morally entitled. As much, be it noted, cannot be said of the women. In San Francisco, at certain times of the day, the demand for seats in the cable cars invariably exceeds the supply. And the men of course always give up their seats to the ladies, who accept them — without thanks. Once, however, I saw a Briton who refused to budge. Finding the eyes of the fair upon him, he fidgeted and finally burst into speech. " You 're all looking at me," he said angrily ; " and you think I ought to give up my seat. Well, I 'm not going to do it. And if the men of this country had more sense they 'd keep what they 've paid for, and then the cable companies would provide seats enough to go round." He was scarlet in the face before he finished, and everybody laughed.

At the theatre, in church, at race meetings, country fairs, at all times and in all places where a little patience and good-humour temper what is disagreeable, the people of the Pacific are at their best.

Once at a performance of " La Tosca," some youths in the seats behind me were " guying " the actress who was sustaining the principal role. And this to the annoyance of all of us. A man not far from me silenced them. " That lady on the stage," he said, very politely, "is making so much noise that we cannot hear what you are saying. But I hope we shall have the pleasure of listening to your criticisms later, after the act is over."

At times something more drastic is wanted. A lady had been rudely treated by some minor official of a railroad. As a rule, ticket-sellers give themselves great airs. To women, however, they almost invariably show courtesy and consideration. This man was an exception. The lady, very indignant, at a loss for words, but with a comical sense of humour, turned to a stranger at her elbow. " Pray, sir," said she, " tell this man what I think of him." The stranger proved equal to the task set him. In a melancholy drawl, without betraying the smallest excitement, he said slowly : " Sir, this lady thinks you are an understrapper, clothed with a little brief authority, whose only qualification to the position you occupy is your — impudence."

The English reader will pronounce this to be tall talk. In England, even amongst men of mark, niceties of speech are banned and barred. The phrase-maker is commonly a prig, the precisian in grammar is despised as a pedant. The American on the contrary, has found out that a well-sharpened tongue is more reliable than a six-shooter. But it must be noted that (regarding the tongue as a weapon) conversation in America is necessarily aggressive and competitive. Club talk in England is narcotic in quality, in the West it is stimulant. I have met vampire talkers, who seemed to suck from the brains of others vigour and vitality. Some impress one painfully as struggling against odds too great to be overcome. Up to the neck in a quagmire of words, they finally sink into silence, defeated but not disgraced.

I remember meeting a friend who had been elected a state senator, and asking him how he had fared at Sacramento. " First rate," he replied, taking hold of the lapel of my coat. "Yes, first rate. I was really scared out of my wits, but I didn't wilt. And I rehearsed carefully my own little song and dance. You read my maiden speech ? Yes : good — eh ? My boy, I practised it in front of my mirror. Yes, I did ! And I gave 'em a little of everything : a dash of Mill, a teaspoonful of Spencer, Shakespeare, the Bible, and a line from the Mikado. It was great, great I It hit 'em all. I tell you — don't give me away — that the western orator's vade mecurrhy his staff, his shield, his cruse of oil, is — a Dictionary of Quotations."

Nothing upsets the equanimity of a Califomian crowd. At one of the great football games between Stanford and Berkeley Universities, a huge stand, flimsily constructed of timber, began to shake ominously. Several persons jumped up and a panic was imminent. Just then there arose a well-known man, something of an autocrat in his way. " Sit down ! " he said sternly. " Sit Down ! SIT DOWN ! " He was obeyed, but a clear voice was heard in reply : " That 's all right, Fred. But why don't you sit down yourself ? "

Another anecdote that illustrates well the temper of an American crowd as contrasted with an English assembly is worth repeating: A great singer was enchanting a large audience, when suddenly at her feet a column of flame soared up into the flies. In the front row of the stalls a man sat beside his wife (some wags said she was his mother-in-law). As the flames shot upward this fellow bolted. He was next to the gangway, and was up and out of the theatre before the audience had realised what was impending. The flames vanished ; the cantatrice smiled and assured the house that the danger was over. Then the man came back ! In England he would have been greeted with hisses. In America he was cheered ! For my part, I think that his moral courage in returning was more amazing than his cowardice in running away.

In a thousand ways the men of the West show that they are willing and content to accept less than their due. In lawsuits a compromise is generally possible, whereas in England the same suit would be fought to a finish. And in their daily dealings with others, the Native Sons are humorously sensible that "the other fellow" may get the best of the bargain, and if he does none complains. A question at such a time would provoke a grin and the assurance that the speaker's turn would come — later. I remember a very stout dealer in real estate who once showed me a rocky and sterile piece of land, for which he asked an exorbitant price. I was indignant. "You must," said I, "take me for a fool of fools. How dare you show me such a scarecrow of a ranch as this ! To whom does it belong?"

My stout friend answered sorrowfully : " It 's mine. I was fool enough to buy it in boom times ; I 've been waiting ever since to find a bigger fool than I to take it off my hands. And," he added sotto-voce, " I don't know now that I '11 ever find him."

Another real estate agent was showing some rough hills to a client. The day was hot, the slopes were almost perpendicular, and the client tired and out of temper. After seeing the ranch he demanded the price. It was named. " What ! You have the nerve to name a figure as steep as that for such land ! "

" Well," murmured the other, blandly, "you see the land is steep too."

The consideration shown to employees by the great corporations and business houses is a manifestation of that genial, kindly spirit which is indeed as mortar binding one human soul to another. The master seldom forgets that once he was the man, and the man never forgets that he in his turn may be the master. I cannot recall, during seventeen years, one single instance of a cruel and cutting rebuke from one in authority to a clerk or servant. A friend of mine had a clerk who was always forgetting important duties: letters would be left unmailed; important entries on the books would be omitted; messages, even, were sometimes not delivered. Said my friend to me one morning: "Keally, I must speak to John." So John was summoned, and I wondered what manner of rebuke would fall upon his head. " John," said my friend, "it is most astonishing what a very bad memory you have. But I believe that in time it will improve, because I notice that you have never once forgotten to draw your salary on the first of the month." John took the hint, and after that my friend was truly and faithfully served.

It has been said that corporations have no consciences. I can personally testify that this is, generally speaking, untrue of the banks in the West. The kindness and forbearance shown by them to their debtors have tided many and many across the quicksands of ruin. It is often, I admit, the policy of the strong not to seize the spoil, but I know of cases where bankers have preferred the interests of customers to their own, and during recent years of drought and panic, notably during the time when the Australian banks were breaking by the score, the policy pursued by the capitalists of California averted a general panic. Had they, in their hour of sore need, pressed claims upon an impoverished community, half the farmers and storekeepers in Southern California would have become bankrupt. More than one bank suspended payment, but the confidence of the people in those who held their fortunes in the palm of the hand was sustained and justified.

I was in California when war was declared between the United States and Spain. Of that war so much has been written by so many and such able men that little remains to be said — now. Later, when the history of it is set forth calmly and dispassionately, when time has adjusted the scales by which the great events of the world are measured, it will be found that the Declaration of Independence has not been fraught with more vital interest and significance to the people of the New World than this declaration — so to speak — of Dependence: the dependence, not of the weak upon the strong, but of the strong in relation to the ignorance and folly and vice of the weak: a confession that no nation, however great, can stand alone. The particular causes that constrained Mr. McKinley to let loose the dogs of war have not yet been determined. The ugly word "revenge" was in many mouths. Political expediency, increase of territory, were phrases heard at the street corners and in the clubs. And, doubtless, these and half a dozen others were factors in' a sum that must have sorely puzzled the President and his Cabinet. But, personally, I believe that from Maine to California the Puritan spirit, using the adjective in its best sense, was stirring the hearts of the people.

There is a feeling all over America, but more especially in the West, a feeling essentially Gallic, that leads men to pose as being worse than they are. I remember a charming American woman saying to me, a propos of her husband : " He is the most domestic man I know, but he would like to be thought a little wild." Now, the London " Spectator " predicted war some weeks before it was declared, and it pointed out the good motives that would surely animate our cousins over-seas. The article was able, but a note of condescension lurked between the lines of it, that condescension in regard to foreigners of which James Lowell wrote so delightfully. American readers might infer from the " Spectator " that they were expected by England to do their duty, not as free-born Americans, but as the kinsmen of Englishmen. I do not say that the writer of the article in question deliberately meant this. But I assert that by Americans such interpretation was placed upon it, and upon other similar articles in the London papers. At any rate, the San Francisco " Argonaut," the best weekly upon the Pacific Slope, and one of the best in the world, burst into coloured sparks of rhetoric. After reading carefully an impassioned leader, I was quite satisfied (temporarily) that Duty, as an entity in American affairs, was dead, that Evil always triumphed over Good, that Might was Right, and that the finger of Destiny was the finger of Death. The article was widely read in the West, and its phrases snapped up by many an Autolycus. Men who had talked glibly enough only the week before of philanthropy, and the obligations of a model republic, went about the streets dancing a sort of Carmagnole. It was high time — some of them said — to grab all they could get.

Why not be bold and bad, like the buccaneering Briton ? Let the United States annex Cuba, and Spain, and Europe, and the Aurora Borealis, if necessary. The reaction had set in. Then I remembered one of Max O'Eell's best stories. Mons. Edmond About had written of a hero that he was " virtuous as a pupil of the Polytechnique." The pupils of the Poly technique at once held an indignation meeting that simmered into the form of a round robin to the distinguished author. "Monsieur," it ran, "pray mind your own business. We are no more virtuous than you are ! " Max O'Kell always added that he knew this story was true, because he signed the round robin himself !

But be the causes of the war what they please, the spirit in which the youth of America responded to the call of arms must awaken the liveliest admiration in all of us. If Mr. McKinley had asked for a million men, he would have had them within twenty-four hours. Friends of mine, men with many interests at stake, volunteered to serve in the ranks. A private's musket might have been a marshal's baton, judging by the eagerness with which it was sought. One patriot — to cite a single instance out of a thousand — no longer young, very rich, occupying a high position in society, a man of fashion and culture, wired to Washington entreating his friends there to procure him any position, however humble, in either the army or navy. It is said that his wife wired also : " Pay no attention to Jimmy." No attention was paid to Jimmy, except perhaps by the Eecording

Angel ; but his fervent wish to serve his country, abandoning thereby all that most of us count as making life worth living, has curious significance to a foreigner. There are about a million Jimmies in the United States.

In the West the war was taken very soberly. In the clubs, in the restaurants and caf^s, at the theatres and music halls, there was none of that cheap and vicious excitement that in its worst phases is delirium. The regiments marched into San Francisco, they sailed through the Golden Gates, and always the streets and docks were black with friends to wish them " God speed you." An observer could not fail to be profoundly impressed by these comings and goings. Between them and the mimic parades of the National Guards upon high days and holidays, was the difference between the real thing and the sham. The faces of the fathers were grim as they watched their sons file past (they were thinking of Gettysburg and Vicksburg), and the women's cheeks were wet.

The word " Chauvinism " has been used more than once of late in connection with the people of the West, — a word to which a deserved stigma is attached. But, for my part, the militarism of the people was a pleasant thing to witness. Eich and poor alike joined hands in singing the national anthem, and the fact that it is set to the music of " God Save the Queen " did not detract from its power and purport so far as I was concerned. Columbia called her sons to arms, —

" And all the bugle breezes blew Reveille to the breaking morn."

The Stars and Stripes floated from the top of every house. Upon hundreds of thousands of windows were pasted paper flags. The girls encircled their hats and waists with ribbons of red, white, and blue. The boys bought badges and buttons. The men wore tiny enamelled scarf-pins. Some Englishmen took exception to this perfervid patriotism. They said that love of country was cheapened when a man wore it in his cravat instead of in his heart. In England, continued these critics, the flag was held too sacred to be defamed to calico uses.^ I can quite sympathise with this point of view, but I can also sympathise with and apprehend the spirit of a new country which exacts, and exults in, a demonstration. And a demonstration is necessary, — the confession of faith of a heterogeneous people. Englishmen can well take the patriotism of their fellow-countrymen for granted ; they are and have been Englishmen for nearly a thousand years. But in the West is it not common prudence to demand from the Kelt, the Teuton, the Latin, the Slav, an answer to the question, " Are you truly of us, or merely with us ? " Fifty years hence the Stars and Stripes will be still the beloved flag, but it will not be seen twisted around the hats of the maidens, or pasted in paper upon the windows.

The men of the West may be divided into three classes : those who live by the seaboard, those who live on the plains, and the stockmen and miners who dwell in the mountains.

1 Since these lines were written the author has witnessed the scenes in London after Ladysmith and Mafeking were relieved.

It has been my unhappy experience that most of those who live by the seaboard are — tricky, as were, doubtless, the traders of Tyre and Sidon. And there is small excuse for their trickiness inasmuch as to them, the citizens of a great republic, have been given advantages denied to the strivers in less favoured countries. All these knaves know the right, yet they choose the wrong. In tlie old world you find the seller putting the biggest strawberries on the top of the pottle, his smallest potatoes in the bottom of the sack, water into the milk, sand into the sugar, and so forth. In the West, where neither poverty, nor vice, nor disease, nor ignorance can be pleaded in excuse, these tricks assume a darker complexion.

It is true that the worst offenders come from the East and from Europe, for the West is a sanctuary to the pariahs of the nations. Here, mind-healers, clairvoyants, astrologers, card-sharpers and the like, flourish as the bay tree. These are the dregs of the older civilisations, the scum of the new, and therefore the more readily seen. Perhaps, if choice must be made of two evils, it is better that sewage should be spread upon the fields than lie festering in cellars. The bad that has come to and is in the West lies upon the surface of all things, in full view of a too hypercritical world. If this scum be not soon skimmed and cast to the void it will filter through every stratum of society, as it has done elsewhere, and then the last state of the West, outwardly immaculate, will prove worse than the first. I believe, personally, that the period of purification has begun.