The San Francisco call., 1898-12-18

z" HE Californian loves his state De-
 cause his State loves him, and
 he returns her love with a fierce
 < affection that men of other re-
 gions are slow to understand Hence he is impatient of outside criti- cism. Those who do not love California cannot understand her, and, to his mind, their shafts. however aimed, fly wide of the mark. Thus, to say that California is commercially asleep, that her industries are gambling ventures, that her local politics is in the hands of professional pickpockets, that her small towns are the shabbiest in Chris tendon, that her saloons control more constituents than her churches, that she is the slave of corporations, that she knows no such thing as public opinion, that she has not yet learned te distinguish enterprise from highway robbery nor reform from blackmail- all these things and many more the Californian may admit in discussion or may say himself, but he does not find them acceptable from others. They may be more or less~true, in certain times and places, but the conditions which have permitted them will like wise mend them. It is said in the Alps that mot all the vulgar people who come to Chamouni can ever make Chamouni vulgar" For similar rea- sons, not all the Sordid people who drift overland can ever vulgariZe California. Her fascination endures, whatever the accidents of population.
 The charm of California has, in the main, three sources-scenery, climate and freedom of life.
 To know the glory of California scenery one must live close to it through the changing years. From Sis kiyou to San Diego, from Mendocino to Mariposa, from Tahoe to the Far alloneS, lake, crag, or chaSm, forest, mountain, valley, or island, river, bay, or jutting headland, every one bears the stamp of it's own peculiar beauty, singular blending of richness, wildness and warmth. Coastwise everywhere sea and mountains meet, and the surf of the cold Japanese current breaks in turbulent beauty against tall ''rin- cones" and jagged reefs of rock. Slum- bering amid the hills of the Coast Range,
 "A misty camp of mountains pitched
 unanimously,
 Lie golden valleys dotted with wide limbed oaks, or smothered under over weighted fruit trees. Here, too, crum- ble to ruins the old Franciscan mis- sions, passing monuments of Califor- nia's first page of written history
 
 To a very unusual degree the Cali fornian forms his own opinion on mat ters of politics, religion and human life, and these views he expresses without reserve. His own head he carries un- der his own hat and whether this be silk or sombrero is matter of his own choosing. The dictates of church and party have no binding force on him. The Californian does not confine his views to distractions. He has his own opinions of individual men and women. If need be, he will analyZeCth charae- ter, motives, and actions of his neigh Dor in a way which will horrify the traveller who has grown up in the shade of a libel law.
 The typical Californian has largely outgrown provincialism. He has seen much of the world, and he knows the varied worth of varied lands. He tra- vels more widely than the man of any other State, and he has the eeduca ton which travel gives. AS rule, the we'll to-do Californian knows Europe better than the average Eastern man of equal financial resources, and the chances are that his range of experience includes part of Asia as we'll A knowledge of his own country is 6 matter of course. lie has no sympathy with the essen tial provinciality of the mind which knows the Eastern seaboard, and has some measure of acquaintance with countries and cities, and with men from Ireland to Italy, but which is densely ignorant of our own vast domain, and thinks that all that lies beyond Phila- deiphia belongs to the Vest Not that provincialism is unknown in California. or that its occasional exhibition is any less absurd or offensive here than else where. For example, one may note a tendency to set up local standards for literary work done in California. An- other, more harmful idea would insist that methods outworn in the schools elsewhere are good because they are Californian. This is the usual proyin- cialism of ignorance, and it is found the world over. Especially is it character istic of centers of population. When men come into contact with men in- stead of with the forces of nature they mistake their own conventionalities for the facts of existence. It is not what life is, but what the singular mess we agree to call life' Is, that interests them. In this fashion they lose their real understanding of affairs, become the toys of tn local environment and are marked as proyincials or tenderfeet when they stray away from home.
 California Is emphatically one of earth's male lands,'' to accent Rro1vn-