CALIFORNIA THI AMERICAN r I £< 'I -/ "-/• /* /- i> <toO <coO <asO < < O — cs<Nc«4<Nromrofn^in«o-o-o»or^ooooo>o- From the collection of the y n d -r^ z- m 0 Prejinger — ibrary elin JU v ifi'i.. a t San Francisco, California 2007 CALIFORNIA A Guide to the Golden State CALIFORNIA A GUIDE TO THE GOLDEN STATE Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of California AMERICAN GUIDE SERIES Sponsored by Mabel R. Gillis, California State Librarian HASTINGS HOUSE • Publishers • NEW YORK MCMXXXIX FIRST PUBLISHED IN MAY 1939 WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION F. C. HARRINGTON, Administrator FLORENCE S. KERR, Assistant Administrator HENRY G. ALSBERG, Director of the Federal Writers' Project COPYRIGHT 1939 BY MABEL R. GILLIS, CALIFORNIA STATE LIBRARIAN PRINTED IN U. S. A. All rights are reserved, including the rights to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form. XXX&KZ&Z&XZ^ Preface California has so great a diversity of places and people and things that the problem of getting it between the covers of a single book seemed almost unsolvable. The final preparation of this guide has involved the difficult task of choosing between what to put in and what to leave out. The staff of the Federal Writers' Project in Cali- fornia knows that its own trials in gathering, checking and rechecking, assembling, and selecting the thousands of items that go into the making of a guide book have been shared by the editors of the forty-seven other State books in the American Guide Series. But in the course of elimi- nating more words than there are in these pages, the California staff has sometimes wished that its State were just a little smaller, so that it might be described in more detail. And yet there is more in this book than the editors thought it could possibly include; for, although the distance between the borders of Oregon and Mexico is more miles than they like to think about, they have covered every mile. The book, moreover, has been written to be read, not only by those to whom California is still an unseen and fabulous land of sunshine and oranges, but also by those who will look in these pages for something new and little-known about the everyday California in which they live and work. For readers of both kinds, visitors and residents, the editors have tried to make this book a true mirror of the State and its people. Romance has been kept in its place — Joaquin Murrieta does not jump out from behind every tree or boulder in California to hold up travelers, and yet he does pop up often enough that the observant reader will have little trouble finding him. The editors wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to the work of others who have preceded them in describing California, and especially to California, an Intimate Guide by Aubrey Drury, Rider's California; A Guidebook for Travelers by Fremont Rider, and Historic Spots in California by H. E. and E. G. Rensch and Mildred Brooke Hoover. The California staff gratefully acknowledges the aid of Federal, State, and local governmental agencies, and of commercial and civic associations and automobile clubs. Particular appreciation is due the staffs of the Bancroft and State Libraries, for their cooperation. VI PREFACE Among the many individuals to whom the editors wish to express their gratitude for generous aid in special fields are : Herbert E. Bolton, Will G. Corlett, Richard Down, Alfred Frankenstein, Louis J. Gill, Florence Hagee, Norman E. A. Hinds, Paul Robinson Hunter, Rupert Hughes, Olaf Jenkins, William Templeton Johnson, Idwal Jones, William Knowles, R. B. Koeber, A. L. Kroeber, Grace L. McCann Morely, Richard S. Requa, C. J. Ryland, Carl Sauer, Windsor Soule, W. L. Stephenson, George R. Stewart, Jr., Hilmuth Ulmer, T. K. Whipple, Lloyd Yoder, and finally the sponsor, Mabel R. Gillis, State Librarian, for her interest and gracious advice. Field supervision from the Washington office of the Federal Writers* Project was done by Clair Laning, Assistant National Director. JAMES HOPPER, State Director for Northern California LEON DORAIS, State Director for Southern California Editorial Staff FOR NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: PAUL C. JOHNSON, Assistant State Director WALTER MC£LROY, State Editorial Supervisor MARGARET WILKINS, State Editorial Supervisor MIRIAM ALLEN DfiFoRD NAHUM SABSAY S. S. GREENLEAF AMY SCHECHTER ROBIN KINKEAD DOROTHY DONN WAGNER CORA VERNON LEE CARL WILHELMSON KENNETH REXROTH THEODORE BARON (photographs) FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: KENNETH BOLLEY, Editorial Supervisor ROBERT C. BROWNELL, Editorial Supervisor HARRY PARTCH FRANCIS WOODWORTH FOR THE FEDERAL ART PROJECT, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: SONYA SlTOMER CHARLES SuRENDORF Acknowledgments are also due to the many other persons on the Federal Writers' Project who faithfully aided in the gathering and preparation of material for this book. vii KK&G&Z^^ Contents PREFACE v EDITORIAL STAFF vii GENERAL INFORMATION xix CALENDAR OF EVENTS xxiii A GUIDE TO RECREATION xxv Part I. California: From Past to Present EL DORADO UP TO DATE 3 NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 8 THE FIRST CALIFORNIANS 33 CALIFORNIA'S LAST FOUR CENTURIES 41 RICHES FROM THE SOIL 66 INDUSTRY AND FINANCE 79 FROM CLIPPER SHIP TO CLIPPER PLANE 87 WORKING MEN 95 PRESS AND RADIO 109 THE MOVIES 120 EDUCATION 131 THE ARTS 139 ARCHITECTURE 167 Part II. Signposts to City Scenes BERKELEY 179 FRESNO 188 HOLLYWOOD 192 LONG BEACH 201 Los ANGELES 206 MONTEREY 230 OAKLAND 237 ix X CONTENTS PASADENA 245 SACRAMENTO 250 SAN DIEGO 258 SAN FRANCISCO 265 SAN JOSE 298 SANTA BARBARA 304 STOCKTON 311 Part III. Up and Down the State TOUR 1 Westport — San Francisco — Monterey — Las Cruces [State i] 317 Section a. Westport to San Francisco 318 Section b. San Francisco to Monterey ..... 328 Section c. Monterey to Las Cruces 340 TOUR 2 (Brookings, Ore.) — San Francisco — Los Angeles — (Tijuana, Mexico) [US 101] 348 Section a. Oregon Line to San Francisco .... 348 Section b. San Francisco to San Luis Obispo . . . 368 Section c. San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles. . . . 391 Section d. Los Angeles to Mexican Border .... 398 TOUR 2A Junction with US 101— Lakeport — St. Helena— Napa—Val- lejo — Junction with US 40 [State 20-29] .... 409 TOUR 2B Junction with US 101 — Long Beach — Doheny Park [US 101 Alt.] 415 TOUR 2C Wilmington— Santa Catalina Island (By Boat) . . . 423 TOUR 3 (Ashland, Ore.) — Sacramento — Los Angeles — (Mexicali, Mexico) [US 99 and 99W] 4^7 Section a. Oregon Line to Sacramento 4^7 Section b. Sacramento to Bakersfield ..... 44° Section c. Bakersfield to Los Angeles 45^ Section d. Pomona to Beaumont 455 Section e. Indio to Mexican Border 457 TOUR 3A (Klamath Falls, Ore.)— Weed [US 97] 463 TOUR 3B Red Bluff— Marysville— Roseville [US 99E] .... 464 TOUR 3C Greenfield— Maricopa— Ventura [US 399] 4^9 TOUR 4 Chilcoot— El Dorado— Sonora— Mariposa [State 49] . . 472 Section a. Chilcoot to El Dorado 475 Section b. El Dorado to Mariposa CONTENTS XI TOUR 5 Junction with US 99 — Lassen Volcanic National Park — Quincy — Truckee [State 89] ....... Section a. Junction with US 99 to Morgan Springs . . 5OI Section b. Junction with State 36 to Truckee . . . 506 TOUR 6 (Lakeview, Ore.)— Alturas— (Reno, Nev.)— Bishop— San Bernardino— San Diego [US 395] ...... 507 Section a. Oregon Line to Nevada Line ..... $08 Section b. Nevada Line to Bishop ...... S1^ Section c. Bishop to Brown ........ 5J7 Section d. Brown to Junction with US 66 . . . . 521 Section e. San Bernardino to San Diego .... $22 TOUR 6A Junction with US 395 — Susanville — Chester — Red Bluff [State 36] ............ 528 TOUR 6B Junction with US 395 — Portola — Quincy — Oroville — Marys- ville — Knights Landing — Woodland — Sacramento [State 24] ............. 533 TOUR 6C Junction with US 395 — Warner Hot Springs — Julian — Junc- tion with US 80 [State 79] ....... 539 TOUR 7 (Tonopah, Nev.) — Bishop — Brown — Mojave — Palmdale — Los Angeles — Long Beach [US 6] ...... 542 Section a. Nevada Line to Bishop ..'.... 543 Section b. Brown to Long Beach ...... 544 TOUR 8 Alturas— Redding— Junction with US 101 [US 299] . . 54$ Section a. Alturas to Redding ....... 54$ Section b. Redding to Junction with US 101 552 TOUR 8A Canby — Lava Beds National Monument — Bartle . . . 558 TOUR 9 (Reno, Nev.)— Sacramento— San Francisco [US 40] . . 5^2 Section a. Nevada Line to Sacramento ..... 5^2 Section b. Sacramento to San Francisco ..... 57O TOUR 9A Sacramento — Rio Vista — Antioch — Concord — Oakland [State 24] ............. 580 TOUR 10 (Carson City, Nev.)— Sacramento — San Francisco [US 50] 587 Section a. Nevada Line to Sacramento ..... 587 Section b. Stockton to San Francisco ..... 595 TOUR 11 (Las Vegas, Nev.)— Baker— Barstow— Bakersfield— Morro Bay [US 91-466] .......... 602 Section a. Nevada Line to Barstow ...... 602 Section b. Barstow to Morro Bay ...... 605 Xll CONTENTS TOUR 12 (Kingman, Ariz.) — Needles — San Bernardino — Santa Monica [US 66] 608 Section a. Arizona Line to Barstow 609 Section b. Barstow to San Bernardino . . . . . 6l2 Section c. San Bernardino to Santa Monica. . . . 6l8 TOUR 13 (Quartzite, Ariz.) — Blythe — Indio — Beaumont — Riverside — Los Angeles [US 60-70] 624 Section a. Arizona Line to Indio 625 Section b. Indio to Los Angeles 627 TOUR 14 (Yuma, Ariz.)— El Centro— San Diego [US 80] ... 635 Section a. Arizona Line to El Centro 636 Section b. El Centro to San Diego 640 DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL MONUMENT 645 Park Tour i Western Entrance at Towne's Pass to Eastern Entrance in Furnace Creek Wash. [State 190] 649 Park Tour 2 Furnace Creek Junction — Badwater — Saratoga Springs Junction. [East Highway] . . . 653 SEQUOIA AND GENERAL GRANT NATIONAL PARKS .... 655 Sequoia Park Tour 66l General Grant Park Tour ........ 665 YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 667 Tour i Arch Rock Entrance Station to Old Village [All- Year Highway, El Capitan Rd.] 671 Tour 2 South Entrance Gate — Mariposa Big Tree Grove — Junction with Pohono Bridge Rd. 674 Tour 3 Junction with Big Oak Flat Rd. — Aspen Valley Entrance Station — Tuolumne Meadows — Tioga Pass — Junction with US 395 [State 120] 675 Yosemite Park Trails 678 GOLDEN GATE INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION . 680 Part IV. Appendices CHRONOLOGY 687 A SELECT READING LIST OF CALIFORNIA BOOKS . . . . . 694 INDEX 699 WKG&Q^WK^ Illustrations AGRICULTURE Vineyard, Livermore Valley Orange Grove, Los Angeles County Date Palms, near Indio Orchard Scene in Napa County Figs in the Dry Yard Horace Bristol Harvesting Tomatoes in Sacra- mento Valley Migratory Workers Weighing Peas EDUCATION University of California, Berkeley Class in Gardening, Los Angeles Public School High School Students, Los Angeles Doheny Library, University of Southern California, Los An- geles Aviation Students, Los Angeles Lick Observatory, near San Jose CITIES I. Airview, San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco Skyline In the Harbor, San Francisco Devastated Area — San Francisco Fire and Earthquake (1906) Southern Pacific Historical Col- lection California Street from Nob Hill (1900) San Francisco Southern Pacific Historical Col- lection CITIES II. City Hall, Los Angeles Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles Airview, Long Beach Watson Airfotos Between 62 and 63 Young Cotton Picker Mural in Post Office, Whitter Wine Stored for Aging, Napa County Bed of Ail-American Canal Construction Work on Imperial Dam Early Spanish Water Wheel, near Lone Pine Drought Refugees from Texas encamped near Exeter Between 124 and 125 Mt. Wilson Observatory Henry E. Huntington Library, Pasadena Arcades, Stanford University, Palo Alto Easter Sunrise Service, Hollywood Bowl Race Track, Santa Anita Along the Beach, Santa Catalina Between 186 and 187 Golden Gate International Ex- position Dr. Sun Yat Sen Memorial, San Francisco Sculpture by Beniamino Bufano Photograph by Theodore Baron Chinese Quarter, San Francisco Airview, the Capitol, Sacramento Sutler's Fort, Sacramento Residential Section, Fresno Old Whaling Station, Monterey Between 280 and 281 Old Spanish Lighthouse, San Diego "Frashers" Court House, Santa Barbara xiii XIV ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS CITIES II.— continued Cabrillo Beach, San Pedro Rose Bowl, Pasadena Los Angeles Tennis Club Tournament of Roses, Pasadena Real Estate Office, Los Angeles Horace Bristol Los Angeles Restaurant Horace Bristol HISTORY Map of California, Drawn in 1666 Bancroft Library A View of Sutler's Mill and Cul- loma Valley Behrman Collection Working at Sutter's Mill (1850), twenty-five feet from where gold was discovered Behrman Collection Russian Church, Fort Ross (1812) Hornitos San Francisco in 1849 Bancroft Library U. of C. INDUSTRY, COMMERCE AND Mineral Soda Works, Indepen- dence Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank China Clipper Passing San Fran- cisco Clyde Sunderland Planes on Assembly Line, Santa Monica Douglas Aircraft Company, Inc. Unloading Steel for Bay Bridges, San Francisco ARCHITECTURE Public Library, Los Angeles Bristol Palace of Fine Arts, San Fran- cisco Theodore Baron Carson House, Eureka Court Hollyhock, Barnsdall Park, Los Angeles Healthhouse, Los Angeles Luckhaus Interior, Mission San Miguel Arcangel Angelus Temple, Los Angeles Yacht Race in Alamitos Bay, Long Beach Grauman's Chinese Theater, Hollywood Tortilla Maker, Olvera Street, Los Angeles Between 374 and 375 Prairie Schooner, brought to Yolo County by John Bemmerly from Ohio in 1849 Mary E. and Agnes H. Bem- merly, and the Woodland C. of C. On to the Gold Fields Hodson Lynch Law (1856) Stage Coach and Train, Cisco (1869) Southern Pacific Railroad Pony Express; Highwaymen in Pursuit Behrman Collection TRANSPORTATION Between 468 and 469 Modern Studio Set during Film- ing Caterpillar Truck with Wheeler Grapes into Wine Inspecting Peaches at Cannery Bristol Oil Wells Along Huntington Beach Bristol Oil Tanks Bristol Between 562 and 563 Mission San Carlos Borromeo, near Carmel Mission Santa Barbara Los Angeles County Hospital Bristol Tower of California Building, Balboa Park, San Diego C. M. Johnson 450 Sutter, San Francisco ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS XV THE NATURAL SETTING Yosemite Falls, Yosemite Na- tional Park Mt. Shasta Owens Lake from Cerro Gordo Sand Dunes Bret Weston Sierras from Owens Valley Pedro Point, Gulf of Farralon Standard Oil Company of Cali- fornia Mt. Whitney from Whitney Portal Between 624 and 625 Donner Lake, from Donner Pass Dante's View, Death Valley Indian Pictograph in California Desert U. S. Army Air Corps Along the Merced River in the Yosemite Valley Deer, Sequoia National Park Lumbering — A Redwood i8-feet in Diameter ««ttttc«CKtt««c3Ktt«<«3&s«ttc^^^ Map. STATE MAP back pocket TRANSPORTATION MAP insert on State map TOUR MAP front end paper Los ANGELES reverse of State map DOWNTOWN Los ANGELES reverse of State map SAN FRANCISCO reverse of State map PAGE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA (BERKELEY) 185 OAKLAND 241 SACRAMENTO 255 SAN DIEGO 262 DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO : 277 DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL MONUMENT 647 SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK 658-659 YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 669 XVll zmxissiw^^ General Information Railroads: Southern Pacific Lines (SP), Western Pacific R.R. (Feather River Route), Northwestern Pacific R.R., Great Northern Ry., Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. (Santa Fe), Sacramento North- ern Ry., Union Pacific R.R. (overland Route). Highways: Network of State highways and good country roads cover the State. Highway patrol to safeguard traffic and enforce regulations. Inspection at State Lines. Bus Lines: Burlington Lines, Greyhound Lines, Santa Fe Trailways, Union Pacific Stages, Inland Stages, and Feather River Stages. Air Lines: American Airlines, Inc., Pan American Airways Co., Transcontinental & Western Air Inc. (TWA), United Air Lines, Western Air Express. Los Angeles and San Francisco are terminals for transcontinental lines, San Francisco (Alameda Field) for the Pan American Airways service to Hawaii and the Philippines. Waterways: Scheduled services to Alaska and Mexico, from San Francisco to Oregon and Washington, and from San Francisco to Sacramento. Trails: The Pacific Crest Trail traverses the main divides of the highest mountain ranges in the three Pacific states. There are five sections of this trail in California: Lava Crest Trail, 330 miles; Tahoe Yosemite Trail, 260 miles; John Muir Trail, 185 miles; Sierra Trail, 1 60 miles; and Desert Crest Trail, 475 miles. All trails are open in July and Aug.; the southern trails from May through November. For information address Clinton C. Clark, President of the Pacific Crest Trail System Conference, 125 S. Grand Ave., Pasadena, Calif. Traffic Regulations: Speed: 15 miles per hour at grade crossings, road intersections, and curves where the driver's view is obstructed; 15 miles per hour in passing schools where persons are entering or XX GENERAL INFORMATION leaving; 20 miles per hour in business districts; 25 miles per hour in residential districts; 45 miles per hour under all other conditions. Lights: Spotlights allowed. Headlights to be deflected or dimmed when passing other cars on the open road. Licenses: Nonresidents must have operator's license from their home States and must obtain visitors' permits for their vehicles within 5 days. Licenses issued to adults, no fee; to minors 16 to 21 yrs. of age, with parental liability. Required: Hand signals must be used. All accidents must be re- ported to some civic authority (police department in cities and towns). On narrow mountain roads the upgrade vehicle has the right-of-way. Prohibited: Coasting in neutral, parking on highways, passing street- cars on left (in cities and towns), passing on curves or at crests of hills. Trailers: All highways in State suitable for house and camp trailers, except steep and unimproved mountain roads. State and National parks, and trailer parks in some towns, have special facilities for trailers. Trailers are licensed according to weight. (For city ordinance govern- ing trailers see Cities.) Border Rules (digest) : All persons returning to the United States from Mexico must make a declaration to the customs officers covering all goods and merchandise purchased in Mexico. Articles for personal or household use, up to the value of $100, are exempt from import duty. Exemption is allowed each person not more often than every 30 days. Cigars, cigarettes, tobacco, and foodstuffs may be included in the exemption, but the quantities are limited. American citizens wishing to visit any place farther south than Ensenada, or in the interior of Mexico, must obtain a tourist card (cost $1.01 in U. S. currency) from the nearest Mexican consul, or from the Mexican Immigration Office at the port of entry. Accommodations: State is well provided with hotels, lodges, motor courts, housekeeping cabins, and campgrounds, both public and private. Recreation areas have large resort hotels, swimming pools, golf courses, tennis courts, and well-equipped campgrounds. State and National park campgrounds are equipped with necessary conveniences. Regulations in Parks and Monuments: U. S. Forest Service offices in the parks or in cities and towns furnish maps and special information. GENERAL INFORMATION XXI Campfires, including fires in wood or oil stoves, are illegal without a permit, which will be issued free by the nearest forest officer. All camping parties in national forests must be equipped with a shovel (over-all length at least 26 in., head weight not less than 2 Ibs.). During fire season (indicated by signposts) smoking is prohibited except in camps, at places of habitation, in special posted areas, and above 7,000 ft. elevation. Be careful to extinguish lighted matches, cigars, cigarettes, and pipe heels. Observe carefully all posted signs, particu- larly the "No Smoking" and the "Closed Area" signs. Build small fires. Clear an area of not less than 10 feet in diameter down to mineral soil, extinguish all fires with plenty of water. If garbage pits or incinerators are not provided, burn or bury all refuse. Do not pollute springs, streams, or lakes by unsanitary acts. Observe the fish and game laws. Drive carefully on mountain roads. Wild Flower Regulations: No wild flowers may be picked at any time. Hunting and Fishing: Because of the complexity of the State laws, it is advisable to write for the Abstract of California Sporting Fish and Game Laws. Detailed information may be secured by writing the State Division of Fish and Game. Climate and Equipment: State has a mild climate with no snow in winter except at high altitudes. Visitors should be prepared for warm weather in summer, but carry sweaters or light coats for cool evenings and sudden changes in temperature. In general there is no rain during the three summer months. Special equipment for winter sports and mountain climbing may be rented in resort areas. Hikers and riders in high mountain regions should have hats with brims at least three inches wide, stout leakproof shoes or boots, woolen hose, denim jeans, warm sweater or jacket, and raincoat or poncho (preferably on U. S. Army pattern). Poisonous Plants and Reptiles: Poison-oak grows throughout State except in higher altitudes. It has crinkly edged, shiny leaves; is found at the edge of highways, in wooded areas, and in fields. Rattlesnakes exist, but are not numerous, being found in rocky regions below the 3,000 ft. level; will not strike unless disturbed. Black widow spiders are rare. &S«S!SS!SX^^ Calendar of Events Note: "nfd" means no fixed dale Jan. ist wk 4th wk nfd Feb. ist wk 3rd wk nfd Pasadena Pasadena San Francisco San Diego Yosemite San Francisco Big Pines San Bernardino San Francisco and Los Angeles Tournament of Roses Rose Bowl Football Game East- West Football Classic New Year Regatta Invitational Figure-Skating Championships California Dog Show Annual Snow Pageant National Orange Show Chinese New Year Mar. ist wk ist wk nfd nfd Apr. ist wk 3rd wk 4th wk nfd May ist wk 2nd wk 3rd Sunday nfd nfd June ist wk 3rd wk nfd Pasadena Pasadena place chosen each year place chosen each year Oakland Hemet San Francisco Santa Clara Mendocino Coast Sonora Mt. Tamalpais Angels Camp Los Angeles Auburn San Juan Bautista Long Beach Kennel Club Show Spring Flower Show California Ski Championship Meet Pacific Coast Championship Polo Games Spring Garden Show Ramona Pageant Rowing Regatta Mission Play Rhododendron Festival Mother Lode Rodeo Mountain Theater Play Jumping Frog Jubilee Festival of Allied Arts Auburn Fair and Gold Rush Festival Mission Pageant Water Sports Carnival XXIV CALENDAR OF EVENTS July 4 ist wk July 4th wk nfd nfd nfd nfd Aug. ist wk 2nd wk 3rd wk 4th wk nfd Sept. ist wk 2nd wk nfd nfd Oct. ist wk 4th wk Nov. nfd Dec. 3rd wk 4th wk Oakland Santa Barbara Santa Barbara Carmel Hollywood Hollywood Salinas Carmel Santa Barbara Sutter Creek Newport Beach place chosen each year Sacramento San Gabriel Los Angeles Berkeley Bakersfield Mare Island, Vallejo, San Diego, San Pedro, San Francisco Berkeley of Palo Alto Los Angeles Los Angeles Motorboat Regatta Semana Nautica (marine events) National Horse Show Bach Festival Hollywood Bowl Symphony Season Pilgrimage Play California Rodeo Serra Pageant Old Spanish Days Gold Rush Fete Race Week and Yachting Championships California Amateur Golf Tournament State Fair Mission Festival Pacific and Southwest Tennis Tournament Pacific Coast Tennis Cham- pionship Frontier Days Navy Day University of California — Stanford University "Big Game" Great Western Livestock and Poultry Show Book Fair &XK&&&<XK^^^^ A Guide to Recreation PLACES TO GO Aquariums, Marine Museums, and Submarine Gardens: Submarine gardens, marine museum and aquarium at Avalon, Santa Catalina Island. Aquarium and marine museum, Scripps Institute of Oceanog- raphy at La Jolla. Submarine gardens, Municipal Museum, Hopkins Marine Biological Laboratory at Pacific Grove. Stillwater Cove sub- marine gardens at Pebble Beach. Steinhart Aquarium in Golden Gate Park at San Francisco, Cabrillo Beach Marine Museum at San Pedro. Aquarium at Venice. Art Collections: Carmel Art Association at Carmel. The Artists' Barn at Fillmore. Laguna Beach Art Association at Laguna Beach. Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science and Art, Southwest Museum, and Los Angeles Art Association at Los Angeles. Keith Memorial Gallery in St. Mary's College at Moraga. Oakland Art Gallery and Mills College Art Gallery at Oakland. Museum of Fine Arts and Thomas Welton Stanford Art Gallery in Stanford University at Palo Alto. Pasadena Art Institute at Pasadena. Mis- sion Inn at Riverside. E. B. Crocker Art Gallery at Sacramento. Fine Arts Gallery in Balboa Park at San Diego. San Francisco Mu- seum of Art, San Francisco Art Association, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, and M. H. de Young Memorial Museum at San Francisco. Huntington Library and Art Gallery at San Marino. Faulkner Memorial Art Gallery at Santa Barbara. Museo (museum) in Mission Santa Ynez at Solvang. Louis Terah Haggin Memorial Galleries in Victory Park at Stockton. Aviaries: Santa Catalina Island Aviaries at Avalon. Roeding Park at Fresno. Griffith Park Bird Sanctuary and Cawston Ostrich Farm at Los Angeles. Bird Shelter at Lake Merritt in Oakland. Balboa Park at San Diego. Golden Gate Park and Fleishhacker Playfield and Zoo at San Francisco. Museums: Pony Express Museum at Arcadia. Herbarium and Mu- seums of Anthropology, Geology, Paleontology, and Vertebrate Zool- XXVI A GUIDE TO RECREATION ogy, University of California at Berkeley. Naval Museum at Mare Island. Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art, and Southwest Museum at Los Angeles. Municipal Museum and Snow Museum at Oakland. Municipal Museum at Pacific Grove. Leland Stanford Jr. Memorial Museum and Jordan Hall natural history collections, Stanford University, at Palo Alto. Palace of Science, Museum of Anthropology, and Natural History Museum in Balboa Park and Junipero Serra Museum at San Diego. M. H. de Young Memorial Museum and California Academy of Sciences Museum in Golden Gate Park at San Francisco. Museum of Natural History at Santa Barbara. Museum in Victory Park at Stockton. Collec- tions of pioneer relics at Columbia ; Downieville ; Fort Humboldt, Eureka; Independence; Customs House, and First Theater, Mon- terey; William B. Ide Memorial Museum, Red Bluff; Mission Inn, Riverside; State Capitol and Sutter's Fort, Sacramento; Estudillo House, San Diego; Shasta; Mission San Francisco Solano and Vallejo Home, Sonoma; and Ventura. Small natural history collections at Mae Loomis Memorial Museum, Lassen Volcanic National Park; Government Center and Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park. Mineralogical collection at State Division of Mines museum, Ferry Building, San Francisco. National Parks and Monuments: Death Valley National Monu- ment, Devil Postfile National Monument, General Grant National Park, Joshua Tree National Monument, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Lava Beds National Monument, Muir Woods National Mon- ument, Palm Canyon National Monument, Pinnacles National Monu- ment, Sequoia National Park, Yosemite National Park. Observatories: Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton near San Jose, Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, Chabot Observatory at Oakland, California Institute of Technology Observatory on Palomar Mountain (under construction). Planetarium at Griffith Park, Los Angeles. Zoological Gardens: Gay's Lion Farm at El Monte. Deer en- closure, aviary, and duck ponds in Roeding Park at Fresno. Cali- fornia Zoological Society Gardens, Cawston Ostrich Farm, and alli- gator farm near Lincoln Park, and Bird Sanctuary and Zoo in Griffith Park at Los Angeles. Oakland Zoo in Sequoia Park at Oakland. William Land Park Zoo at Sacramento. Zoological Society of San Diego Gardens in Balboa Park at San Diego. Aviary, deer park, and bison and elk paddocks in Golden Gate Park and Fleishhacker Play- field and Zoo at San Francisco. A GUIDE TO RECREATION XXV11 SPORTS Athletic Stadiums: California Memorial Stadium, University of California at Berkeley. Marine Stadium at Long Beach. Coliseum in Exposition Park at Los Angeles. Stanford University Stadium at Palo Alto. Rose Bowl at Pasadena. Balboa Park stadium at San Diego. Kezar Stadium in Golden Gate Park at San Francisco. Baseball: Played year round throughout the State. Leading pro- fessional circuit, Pacific Coast League, has ball parks in Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Francisco. Football: Played during fall and winter months throughout State by teams from universities, colleges, high schools, and independent clubs. Chief intercollegiate games are New Year's Day East-West games at Rose Bowl in Pasadena and Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. Golf: Played year round throughout State at more than 200 country club courses and many municipal links, including those in Griffith Park at Los Angeles, Lincoln and Harding Memorial Parks at San Francisco, and Balboa Park at San Diego. Horse Racing: Continuous from fall until spring, with season di- vided among various tracks. Pari-mutuel betting at Bay Meadows and Tanforan, south of San Francisco ; Santa Anita, near Arcadia ; Holly- wood Racetrack, Inglewood ; and Del Mar, north of San Diego. Other tracks at Los Angeles County Fair Grounds in Pomona, State Fair Grounds in Sacramento, and various county fair grounds, operating during fairs. Polo: Played chiefly during first four months of year at Coro- nado, Burlingame, Del Monte, Santa Barbara, San Mateo, and Santa Monica. OUTDOOR RECREATION Boating: Favorite yachting centers include San Francisco Bay, with yacht harbors at Black Point and San Francisco and clubhouses at Alameda, Alviso, Belvedere, Richmond, and Sausalito; Monterey Bay; Stillwater Cove yacht harbor at Pebble Beach; Santa Barbara yacht harbor in Santa Barbara; Terminal Island in Los Angeles Harbor; Alamitos Bay at Long Beach; Newport Bay; Coronado and San Diego. Accommodations for pleasure craft of other kinds at these and other seaside cities. Sailing in launches and sloops on lower Sacramento and San Joaquin and other rivers; canoeing, motor-boating, rowing on Rus- XXV111 A GUIDE TO RECREATION sian River and other streams and lagoons. Boating of all kinds on Big Bear Lake, Clear Lake, Lake Arrowhead, and Lake Tahoe. Motorboat races on Lake Elsinore, Lake Merritt in Oakland, Alamitos Bay, Newport Bay, and Salton Sea. Camping: Campgrounds, trailer camps, cabins, auto courts, "motels," and "tent cities" at mountain, forest, desert, lake, river, and seaside resorts' throughout State. Summer homesites in National forests for rent from U. S. Forest Service at $5 per year up. Camping 50^ per car per night in State parks. Fishing: Trout fishing throughout the Sierra Nevada in Lake Tahoe, glacial lakes and their tributaries, and headwaters of Kern and Kings Rivers; in the north, upper Sacramento River and its tributaries, Klamath River, and streams of the Coast Range ; in southern Cali- fornia, streams of the Sierra Madre and San Bernardino Mountains. Native varieties include rainbow (known as steelhead after going to sea), cutthroat, Dolly Varden, golden, and Tahoe; imported varieties, Loch Leven, Eastern brook, European brown. Lake shallows and riffles stocked with millions of trout fry from fish-hatcheries yearly. Other game fish imported from East include: black bass, found in Clear Lake, northern rivers, and lagoons south of Los Angeles ; striped bass, in Suisun and San Pablo Bays ; sunfish ; and yellow perch. Giant king salmon caught in Monterey Bay in June, July, and August and in San Francisco Bay in August; quinnat and dog salmon caught off northern coast and during spawning season, in Klamath River and rivers of Coast Range. Best ocean fishing in Monterey Bay, where species from both northern and southern waters are found, and off southern California coast. South of Point Concepcion, most common ocean fish are albacore, barracuda, black sea bass, bonito, leaping tuna, sheepshead, swordfish, yellow-fin tuna; peculiar to southern California waters are corbina, croaker, flatfish, roncador and yellowfin. Piers for surf fishing at Long Beach, Ocean Park, Redondo, and Santa Mon- ica. Best deep-sea fishing off Portuguese Bend, Redondo, and Coro- nado, Santa Catalina, San Clemente, and Santa Barbara Islands. Santa Catalina Island waters especially noted for sport with albacore, broad- bill swordfish, dolphin, giant bass, leaping tuna, marlin swordfish, white sea bass, and yellowtail. Shellfish, especially abalone, clams, and mussels, are dug at many points along coast. Hiking: Well-marked trails lead through national parks and for- ests and radiate from resorts in Sierra Nevada, Coast Range, and southern California ranges. Horses, pack animals, and guides avail- able at mountain resorts throughout State. Camps and lodges make A GUIDE TO RECREATION XXIX wilder mountainous regions accessible to skilled mountaineers. All trails open in July and August ; southern trails from May to Novem- ber. Easy trails lead into Sierra Madre Mountains from Big Pines, Camp Baldy, Crystal Lake, and Mount Wilson; into San Bernardino Mountains from Big Bear Lake and Lake Arrowhead; San Jacinto Mountains from Idyllwild and Kenn Camp; Santa Ynez Mountains from Santa Barbara; Mount Hamilton Range from Alum Rock Park near San Jose ; Santa Cruz Mountains from California Redwoods State Park ; Berkeley Hills from Berkeley ; Mount Diablo Range from Dan- ville or Walnut Creek; Mount Tamalpais region from Mill Valley; Bear Valley forest and Tomales Ridge from Inverness, Olema, or Point Reyes; Castle Crags State Park from Castella; and into red- wood groves from resorts along Redwood Highway. Short trails to points of interest in General Grant, Lassen Volcanic, Sequoia, and Yosemite National Parks are well marked. Among peaks easily climbed by amateur hikers are Mount San Antonio, Mount Wilson, Mount Lowe, Mount Diablo, Mount Tamalpais, and Lassen Peak. Mount Shasta is climbed from late June until early October. Trails into Trinity-Salmon Alps lead from Cecilville and Trinity Center, into Marble Mountain primitive area from camps along State 96. For skilled mountaineers, trails radiate into High Sierra from Lake Tahoe, Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite Valley, General Grant and Sequoia National Parks, Kings River Camp in Kings River Canyon, Hunting- ton Lake, and Bishop, Lone Pine, and Independence in Owens Valley. Pacific Crest Trail, traversing main divides of highest ranges in Pacific Coast States, has five sections in California: Lava Crest Trail, 330 miles; Tahoe Yosemite Trail, 260 miles; John Muir Trail, 185 miles; Sierra Trail, 160 miles; and Desert Crest Trail, 475 miles. For information address Clinton C. Clark, President Pacific Crest Trail System Conference, 125 S. Grand Ave., Pasadena, California. Hunting: Deer, most common large game animal, are of three varie- ties: blacktail, mule, and white-tail. Found in Sierra Nevada north of Lake Tahoe, in northeast above Alturas, and in coast Range from Oregon to Mexican border. Open season varies according to region, beginning August I in Coast Range and ending October 15 in Sierra Nevada. Bears hunted with aid of guides and trained dogs in Sierra Nevada, parts of Coast Range, and San Bernardino Mountains. Cougars, fair game at any season (bounty on scalps), hunted with dogs in regions where deer are found. Foxes common, especially in Coast Range; gray wolf and wildcat (red lynx) sometimes hunted. Smaller game animals include badgers, cottontails and jackrabbits, gray and Douglas squirrels, porcupines, raccoons, and woodchucks. Most hunted game fowl are wild ducks, including bluebill, canvasback, gad- XXX A GUIDE TO RECREATION wall, mallard, ruddy, spoonbill, sprig (pintail), teal, and widgeon. Open season usually October 15 to January 31. Chief duck hunting grounds are Suisun marshes to north and Alviso marshes to south of San Francisco Bay; "tule lands" along Sacramento, San Joaquin, and other rivers of Central Valley; marshlands back of beaches at Alamitos Bay, Newport Bay, and lagoons in southern California; and scattered regions in Imperial Valley, around Monterey Bay, and in Klamath River country. Characteristic method is shooting in marshes from "tule splitter" boats, but bay blinds and baited ponds are also em- ployed. Wild geese and brant are fair game in duck season. Also hunted in autumn and winter are mountain quail, chiefly in higher Sierra and counties north of San Francisco Bay, and valley quail, in lowlands and foothills. Blue grouse, sage-fowl, and Wilson snipe are hunted frequently; also avocet, band-tailed pigeon, golden and upland plover, ruffed grouse, sandhill crane, and wild dove. Motoringr: Among favorite scenic drives for automobilists are Red- wood Highway through redwood groves of Humboldt County (see Tour la), Victory Highway over Donner Pass and down Yuba Bottoms (see Tour 9a), Feather River Highway through gorge of Feather River (see Tour 6B), Skyline Boulevard along crest of the Sierra Moreno south of San Francisco (see Tour Ib), Seventeen- Mile Drive around Monterey Peninsula (see Tour Ic), Carmel- San Simeon Highway along coast (see Tour Ic), and Rim-of-the- World Drive through San Bernardino Mountains (see Tour 12b). Good highways scale Sierra Nevada, Coast Range, and southern Cali- fornia Mountains. Among peaks climbed to summit by highways are Mount Wilson, from Pasadena; Mount Hamilton, from San Jose; Mount Diablo, from Danville ; Mount Tamalpais, from Mill Valley. Ocean Bathing: Sheltered bathing beaches along coast from Trinidad to San Diego and at Avalon, Santa Catalina Island. Among favored beaches in north are Neptune Beach at Alameda, Ocean Beach at San Francisco, and the beach at Santa Cruz; in south, beaches at Malibu, Santa Monica, Ocean Park, Venice, Redondo Beach, San Pedro, Long Beach, Seal Beach, Newport, and San Diego. Favorite season for bathing extends from June to September, but hardy swimmers take dips the year around. Amusement zones at Neptune Beach, Ocean Beach, Santa Cruz, Ocean Park, Venice, Redondo, Long Beach, and Seal Beach. Riding: Scenic equestrian trails in foothill, mountain, and desert regions throughout State, especially in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, and Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; Del Monte Forest; and foothills A GUIDE TO RECREATION XXXI back of Santa Barbara, Beverly Hills, and Pasadena. Horses trained for mountain trails available at most resorts in Sierra Nevada. Winter Sports: Favorite spots for tobogganing, snowshoeing, ski- running, sleighing, and ice-skating include national parks; Mount Shasta; Quincy and Portola in Feather River Country; Downieville, Grass Valley and Nevada City, Placerville, and Longbarn above Sonora in Mother Lode country; Alta, Cisco, Emigrant Gap, Norden, Tahoe City, and Truckee in central Sierra; Huntington Lake and Shaver Lake Heights in southern Sierra; Big Pines, Camp Baldy, Mount Wilson, and Wrightwood in Sierra Madre Mountains; Big Bear Lake and Lake Arrowhead in San Bernardino Mountains; and resorts in San Jacinto Mountains. ««cc«««c««<cc««c<«««««c«««<«««^^ PART I California: From Past to Present t&&^^^^ El Dorado Up to Date THE FIRST to come were explorers by sea, venturing uneasily northward along the shores in pygmy galleons on the lookout for fabled El Dorado, a vaguely imagined treasure trove of gold and spices somewhere near the Indies. Finding no riches, they returned disappointed. But the legend of El Dorado lingered, even when men driving their cattle in the dusty march from the south searched in vain for hidden wealth. At least the new country was a land of rich soil and gentle climate, and the newcomers stayed to grow rich from the herds they pastured, the fields and orchards they planted. Who could foresee that the legend would prove to be true almost as soon as the province had passed into the hands of the next comers from the East? Once more the old fable illumined California, more reful- gent than before, as gold-seekers thronged westward by land and sea, risking hardship in the hope of ease. After a few years it faded. And yet people still came, tempted by the picture of rich acres, unbelievably fertile. California became that legendary land of perpetual summer, of orange groves in sight of snowy peaks, of oil wells spouting wealth, of real estate promising fortunes, of cinema stars and bathing beauties. It seemed to promise a new start, a kinder providence, a rebirth of soul and body. The aura faded again, slowly. And yet people came — in rickety automobiles piled high with all their belongings, people asking nothing but a chance to work in a country where the weather might be gentle enough to let them live. "All the passengers . . . thronged with shining eyes upon the plat- form," exulted Robert Louis Stevenson as the train that had carried 4 CALIFORNIA him across the continent headed down the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. "At every turn we could look further into the land of our happy future. At every turn the cocks were tossing their clear notes into the golden air and crowing for the new day and the new country. For this indeed was our destination — this was 'the good country' we have been going to so long." It required little literary artifice to spin legends of an earthly Utopia so real that men would risk toil, hunger, and even death to seek it in the West. The diarists of the early expeditions, the newly settled immigrants who wrote back home, the enthusiastic globe- trotters who recorded their travels — all extolled the virtues of El Dorado, and after them a growing throng of professional boosters — newspaper lyricists, real-estate promoters, chamber-of-commerce press agents — swelled the chorus. "I love you, California, you're the greatest State of all," begins the semiofficial State song; it closes with the solemn declaration: "And I know when I die I shall breathe my last sigh For my sunny California." When the first white men came by foot into California in 1769, they failed to recognize the Bay of Monterey, so overenthusiastically described by the chronicler of Sebastian Vizcaino's expedition, and passed by. Since their time, similar panegyrics have misled others, for California is both more and less than its eulogists have claimed it to be. There is something more to it than sunshine and vineyards and orange orchards, bathing beaches and redwood trees and movie studios — more than the hurried visitor to a few chosen showplaces may glimpse. For California, in more than one sense, is all things to all men. The ballyhooers have called it a sun-kissed garden spot cooled by gentle zephyrs from the sea. The description is appropriate enough for the sloping valley plains along the coast. They might also call it a sun- scorched waste of boulder-scarred mountains and desert plains, or a rain-drenched highland of timbered gorges and snow-capped granite peaks. Or they might describe the vast spreading plains of its Central Valley, or the smooth-worn brown slopes of its undulating oak-dotted foothills, or the lava crags and juniper forests of its volcanic plateaus. Its seashore has stretches of smoothly curving sandy beach and of saw- toothed, rock-strewn coast; its plains are checkered with fertile fields and pastures, and desolate with crags and alkali; its rivers brim with water between fringes of greenery and lose their flow underground in sandy washes. California's contrasts are extreme. It has fierce heat and bitter cold, some of the country's wettest regions and some of its driest, the continent's lowest point and the country's second highest. Its landscape is so variegated that when the Californian goes traveling, EL DORADO UP TO DATE 5 he is apt to say to himself as he looks at parts of the rest of the coun- try: "I have seen all this before." The people are as diverse as their environment. The tide of new- comers who arrived on foot, in prairie schooners, on clipper ships when California became American territory were from every corner of the land: New England farm boys, Irish-Americans from the streets of New York, younger sons of southern slave-owning families, and mid- westerners imitating their fathers' trek from still farther east. Before this onrush of men with the "California fever," the leisure-loving pas- toral civilization of the Spanish-Californians was swept into oblivion. It disappeared as fast as the way of life of the short, dark aborigines had disappeared three-quarters of a century before. The Yankee con- querors, all citizens of the same Nation, were still "of every possible variety," as traveler Bayard Taylor wrote in 1849. They differed individually from each other almost as much as they differed collectively from their predecessors. People from nearly every nation of the earth still mingle in a poly- glot conglomeration. In the dark and grotesque alleyways of China- towns in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and smaller cities live the Chinese, descendants of pioneers who came in the Gold Rush. The Japanese are found in Los Angeles' "Little Tokyo," and in small towns and farms in southern California. In Imperial Valley, in Los Angeles and its suburbs thousands of Mexican field workers live in rude shacks. The short brown men of the Philippine Islands gather in employment agencies and shabby roominghouses of the big cities. The vineyards around Santa Rosa and Napa, the fishing fleets of the seaports, the shops of San Francisco's North Beach give employment to the Italians. On the dairy farms of Alameda County live the Portuguese; in the lumber towns of the northern coast, the Scandinavians. In the big cities are colonies of Russians, Germans, French, and people of every other nation in Europe. Negroes live in the Central Avenue District of Los Angeles and the West End of Oakland — railroad porters and waiters, domestics and bootblacks, entertainers, and businessmen. The people differ in more than their place of origin. Their lives have been shaped by the parts of the State in which they have settled. The sawmill workers of the bleak mountain shack towns of Weed and Westwood are a world removed from the orange growers of garden- surrounded Whittier and Pomona. It is a far cry from the tough- skinned, wizened old-timers of the Mother Lode ghost towns to the comfortable, retired midwestern farmers and storekeepers of Long Beach and San Diego, and a farther cry from the cowboys and sheep- herders of Susanville and Alturas to the cameramen and movie extras of Hollywood. The vineyardgrowers of the sun-warmed Napa and Sonoma valleys, the grease-stained oil workers of the torrid Kettleman O CALIFORNIA Hills, the wandering pea-and-cotton-pickers of the San Joaquin Valley's river-bottom camps — all are strangers to each other. The Union's second largest State in area might well have been christened by its discoverers Las California*, for there are several Californias. Of all the many rivalries that make the life of the State an exciting clash of opposites, the chief has always been the rivalry between San Francisco and its neighbor cities and Los Angeles and its neighbor cities. Northern California was peopled with Americans during the Gold Rush, four decades before real estate booms brought settlers to southern California. Los Angeles remained a lazy village long after San Francisco had grown into a thriving city. San Fran- cisco, with its more deeply rooted population, has the charm and con- servatism of an older town, holding still to some of the traditions of gold rush days. In the interior towns of the north, more character- istically rural than those of the south, are the old-fashioned houses and quiet, tree-lined streets of a country village "back East" — especially in the towns of the mining country, where descendants of forty-niners live in almost clannish isolation from the State's more up-and-coming sections. In rural southern California, on the other hand, the inhabit- ants are more likely to be recent immigrants from the Middle West, and their towns have the neon lights, the stucco "Spanish" bungalows, and the chromium-trimmed cocktail bars of their big-city neighbors. The southlanders, for the most part, have had only a short time to get used to what is still a strange wondrous land — which accounts, per- haps, for their famed susceptibility to unorthodox religions, architec- tures, and political movements frowned upon by northerners. The inter-sectional rivalry has often prompted demands for the division of the State; yet despite the geographical, temperamental and commercial differences, the sentiment for divorce has never grown very strong. No matter how fervent his local patriotism, the Californian will stop arguing the claims of rival regions when faced with the challenge of an out-of-State visitor. At once he becomes a citizen of "the greatest State of all," just as the caballeros of pre-American days haughtily set themselves up as California*, a race apart. Whether northerner or southerner, native son or transplanted lowan, the true Californian de- velops a proprietary interest that prompts him to tell the world about his State. So fond is he of bragging about it that he is always ready to "sell" California to whoever will lend an ear. Few joys in life so please him as an opportunity to declare with pride — and perhaps even on occasion with justification — that it has the tallest trees, the highest mountains, the biggest bridges, the fastest-growing population — in fact, the best, the most, or the greatest of whatever is being dis- cussed at the moment. The Californian may possibly be pardoned his pride in the exten- EL DORADO UP TO DATE 7 sion, by three or four generations of human effort, of the bounties of nature. The aggressive energy of the Yankees, against which the leisure-loving ways of the easy-going Calif omios could not prevail (with some few exceptions in the south) still moves a people who have built aqueducts from faraway mountains to reclaim whole deserts, strung power lines from mighty dams across inaccessible wilderness to distant cities, dredged one of the Nation's great harbors from mud flats and flung the world's biggest bridges across a bay. The wild wastes of a century ago are dotted now with lumber mills, mine shafts and smelters, power plants and factories. The valleys are squared off in grain field and pasture, vegetable patch, vineyard and fruit orchard, watered with a labyrinth of irrigation ditches and criss-crossed with highways and railroads. Mountain streams have been dammed for electric power; plains and slopes drilled for oil. Under the earth extends a network of pipelines for oil and natural gas and above it, a network of high- tension wires for electric current. The canneries and packing houses, oil refineries, aircraft factories and movie studios ship their products to every corner of the Nation and beyond. The Californian of today feels a personal pride in the State's gargantuan public works: high- ways, bridges, dams, and aqueducts. And most of all, of course, he exults in the region's "happy future." The days when the American people finally reached land's end on the Pacific are almost within the memory of living men. If Californi- ans seem to display the brash boastfulness of adolescents, perhaps they deserve charitable forgiveness; for after all, they are citizens of a young State. And boastfulness is not the only telltale sign of its youth. The restlessness of the men who made the westward trek persists in the unquenchable wanderlust with which their descendants have taken to the automobile, thronging the highways with never-ending streams of traffic bound for seashore, deserts, forests and mountains. And the sturdy instinct for independence that inspired the rough-and-ready de- mocracy of the mining camps and towns has lasted too; quiescent at intervals, it has always revived in time to save Californians from unpro- testing resignation to hardship. They hope, perhaps, that the stubborn search for a better land that brought their grandfathers here to the shores of the Pacific has not spent itself. They hope, in fact, that they can yet make of El Dorado the promised land that has fired men's imaginations for four hundred years. Natural Setting and Conservation IF CALIFORNIA lies beyond those mountains we shall never be able to reach it," wrote John Bidwell, leader of the first overland emigrant train, in his journal on October 29, 1841. But on the next day he set down: "We had gone about three miles this morning, when lo! to our great delight we beheld a wide valley. . . . Rivers evidently meandered through it, for timber was seen in long extended lines as far as the eye could reach." The day after he continued: "Joyful sight to us poor, famished wretches! Hundreds of antelope in view ! Elk tracks, thousands ! The valley of the river was very fertile, and the young, tender grass covered it like a field of wheat in May." Thousands of later emigrants who struggled to the crest of the Sierra Nevada, towering like a massive wall along the State's eastern border, were equally overjoyed at their first glimpse of El Dorado. As they stood at the summit, the dry wilderness of the Great Basin lay behind them. To north and south rose the rock-ribbed flanks of the huge Sierra Nevada, about 385 miles long and with an average width of about 80 miles. Westward they looked toward the Great Valley of California, a vast elliptical bowl averaging 50 miles in width and more than 400 miles long, larger in area than Vermont and New Hampshire combined. Beyond the valley stood the dim blue peaks of the Coast Range, skirting the ocean and parallel to the Sierra in chains from 20 to 40 miles wide and 500 miles long. Far to the north, beyond their vision, the rugged Cascade Range and Klamath Mountains closed in on the valley's northern rim; and far to the south, NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 9 the Tehachapi Mountains thrust their barrier from east to west across its southern end. California, with a total area of 158,297 square miles, is the Union's second largest State. In the language of the geographer, its latitude extends from 32° 30' to 42° N., and its longitude from 114° to 124° 29' W. Its medial line, from Oregon to the Mexican border, is 780 miles long. Its width varies from 150 to 350 miles. Its coast- line is approximately 1,200 miles — somewhat less than one-tenth of the total coastline of the United States. So pronounced is the eastward curve of the State's southern coast that San Diego lies farther east than Reno in Nevada, although Eureka, a northern port, is the most westward city in the United States. On the east the State is bordered by Nevada and by the Colorado River, which separates its southeastern corner from Arizona. Beyond each end of the mountain-walled Great Valley, which is California's most distinctive topographic feature, the terrain is broken and rugged. Northward lie the Siskiyou Mountains, a natural barrier between California and Oregon. In the northwest, wild timbered slopes reach to the Pacific; in the northeast, mountain spurs hem in barren lava-bed plateaus. South of the Tehachapis' dividing line lies southern California comprising one-third of the State's area. Here the complex network of the Sierra Madre, the San Bernardino, and other ranges separates the so-called Valley of Southern California, a broad strip of broken country near the coast, from the arid wastes of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts in the hinterland. From Point Concepcion, where the Coast Range breaks into numerous ridges and the coast swings in sharply to the east, the Valley of Southern Cali- fornia, which includes the V-shaped coastal plain of the Los Angeles Basin, stretches southward to the Mexican border. These chief geographical districts — the Sierra and Coast Range regions and the Central (Sacramento-San Joaquin) Valley in the north, the coastal lowlands, the mountains, and the desert country in the south — present startling physiographic contrasts and extremes, from active volcano to glacier, from arctic flora on mountain tops to cotton plantations below sea level. From the peak of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the United States, it is but 60 miles to Death Valley, the continent's lowest area. Human activities range from fur-trapping in the snows of the Klamath region to prospecting for minerals in the furnace-like heat of the southeastern deserts. California's contour is marked by lofty mountain peaks towering above precipitous gorges and canyons. Of the 41 peaks that exceed 10,000 feet in height, the tallest is Mount Whitney (14,496 alt.) in the southern Sierra. The Sierra's abrupt eastern slope has one of the steepest general gradients on the North American continent. Over a IO CALIFORNIA i6omile stretch the lowest pass is at an altitude of 9,000 feet, while Kearsage, the most frequently used pack horse pass on this stretch, is 12,050 feet; in this area the peaks range from 13,000 to 14,000 feet in height. Although there is a gradual decline in altitude to the north, other isolated peaks of the Sierra rise above 14,000 feet. Northward the western slopes are gashed by river canyons sometimes half a mile deep. The Sierra's sculptured splendor is in part the work of glaciers which carved deep valleys, expanses of polished rock, and towering granite walls over which roar great waterfalls, glacial lakes and meadows. Most beautiful of the valleys is Yosemite, in the midsection of the Sierra; loveliest of the lakes is Tahoe (6,225 alt.), cupped be- tween the main Sierra and the basin ranges at the angle of the Nevada- California boundary. A few glaciers even now survive on the highest summits, the finest of them being a group of five supported by Mount Shasta (14,161 alt.). Dominating the northern end of the Sacramento Valley is Mount Shasta, the most striking of the many extinct or dormant volcanoes in the northern California mountains. Lassen Peak (10,435 alt.), 85 miles southeast of Mount Shasta, is a mildly active volcano — the only one in the United States that has had a generally observed eruption. Although traces of volcanic action are most abundant in the State's northeastern sector, where lava beds spread over vast tracts, there are also extinct or dormant volcanoes in Owens Valley and the Mojave Desert, and numerous hot springs in the Coast Range. The Coast Range, more complex than the Sierra, includes numer- ous indistinct chains from 2,000 to 7,000 feet high. Each chain is broken down into forested spurs and ridges enclosing small pleasant valleys and plains drained by rapid streams. The Santa Ynez, San Barnardino, and San Gabriel Mountains bound the lowland of southern California on the north and northeast, and subdivide it into more or less distinct valleys or basins. Farther south the coastal lowland is bounded by the Santa Ana and San Jacinto Ranges, an elevation that extends into Mexico. The southern Cali- fornia ranges are marked by the lofty peaks (more than 10,000 feet high) of San Bernardino, San Jacinto, and San Antonio and by the well-defined passes of Soledad, Cajon, and San Gorgonio. Among the mountain-walled valleys between the southern end of the Sierra and the border of Nevada is the long and narrow Owens Valley, bordered by granite walls. About 40 miles east of dry Owens Lake, along the California-Nevada border, lies Death Valley, its lowest point 276 feet below sea level. It stretches between the sheer rocky walls of the Panamint Range on the east and the Amargosa Range on the west — 130 miles long and from 6 to 14 miles wide — a region of stark simplicity, majestic silence, and spectacular desolation. South NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION II of Death Valley spread the Mojave and Colorado Deserts. The Mo- jave is an expanse of ancient dried lake bottoms, short rugged ranges, and immense sandy valleys. Parts of the Colorado Desert lie below sea level — 250 feet below at its lowest point. In its southern end is the fertile Imperial Valley, largely reclaimed from the desert for agricultural use by irrigation, where the Salton Sea, formed when the Colorado River broke its banks in 1905, floods an ancient lake bottom. In addition to the Great Valley in the north and the coastal dis- trict (including the rich Los Angeles Basin and Santa Clara and San Fernando Valleys) in the south, cultivated lowlands occur elsewhere in the State. Below San Francisco Bay stretches another Santa Clara Valley; and southeast of Monterey Bay, between the Santa Lucia and Gabilan Ranges, lies the long Salinas Valley. North of San Fran- cisco in Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt Counties are similar areas. The northeast corner of the State, hemmed in by steep ranges, is suitable for cattle raising and restricted agriculture despite its lava beds and sagebrush. In the whole 4OO-mile length of the Great Valley there is only one break in the mountain walls through which the waters of the interior can escape to the sea. Behind the Golden Gate at San Fran- cisco, cutting across the full width of the Coast Range, is a great gap through which passes almost the entire drainage of the Great Valley. Into Suisun Bay pour the waters of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers; they empty through Carquinez Strait into San Pablo and San Francisco Bays, and through the Golden Gate into the Pacific Ocean. The scantily forested eastern flanks of the Coast Range contribute no stream lasting enough to reach either the Sacramento or the San Joaquin in the dry season; but down the western slopes of the Sierra, tributaries pour through precipitous canyons to the great rivers at each end of the valley. Fed by Mount Shasta's melting snows, the Sacra- mento, California's largest river, is joined by the Pit, McCloud, Feather, Indian, Yuba, and American Rivers as it flows southward 350 miles to its confluence with the San Joaquin in the Delta region. The Sacramento's lower course is through a marshy plain partly inun- dated yearly. The San Joaquin, whose valley comprises more than three-fifths of the central basin, flows northward from its headwaters in the mountains of Fresno County. Into it drain the waters of the Fresno, Merced, Tuolumne, Stanislaus, Calaveras, Mokelumne, and Consumnes Rivers, together with many smaller streams. The seaward slopes of the Coast Range are drained by the Klamath (joined by the Scott and Trinity), Mad, Eel, and Russian Rivers north of San Francisco, and south of it by the Salinas, Santa Maria, Santa Ynez, Santa Clara and other secondary rivers, many of them inter- mittently dry. Southern California's so-called rivers — the Ventura, Los 12 CALIFORNIA Angeles, San Gabriel, Santa Ana, San Luis Rey, Santa Margarita, and San Diego — are for the most part dry creek beds except during spring floods. A peculiarity of the State's drainage system is its many river "sinks" where the waters either dry up from evaporation or, like the Amargosa River in Death Valley, disappear beneath the surface. Through Modoc and Lassen Counties, in the far northeast, stretches a chain of alkaline "lakes" — Goose, Upper and Middle, and Honey Lakes. They are all without drainage to the sea, and the spring run-off rapidly evaporates. In the Central Valley, south of the area drained by the San Joaquin, the Kings, Kaweah, and Kern Rivers, fed by the melting snows of the high Sierra, formerly emptied into shallow marsh-girt lakes. But with the impounding of water for irrigation these lakes have dried up, and the old lake beds have become farm lands. The Mojave Desert, in whose sandy wastes the Mojave River is swallowed up, is dotted with glistening alkaline-incrusted dry lake beds. In Riverside, San Diego, and Imperial Counties, many creeks (so-called rivers whose beds are normally dry) run toward the desert sink of the Salton Sea region. California has two magnificent natural harbors, San Francisco and San Diego Bays, both landlocked; and one great artificially built har- bor, the port of Los Angeles. San Francisco Bay, entered through the Golden Gate, is among the world's finest; here, besides the port of San Francisco itself, are those of Oakland, Alameda, and Richmond. San Diego Bay, safe at all seasons, is sheltered from ocean winds by Point Loma, a promontory seven miles in length. The Los Angeles harbor, fronting on open San Pedro Bay, 20 miles from the city, is protected by a breakwater. California's best minor harbors are those of Monterey and Santa Cruz, on Monterey Bay, and Eureka, on Hum- boldt Bay, some 280 miles north of San Francisco. There are two groups of islands off the California coast. The Santa Barbara Islands, nine in number, lie between Point Concepcion and San Diego, 20 to 60 miles from the mainland. From San Miguel Island in the north to San Clemente Island in the south they are scat- tered over a distance of 155 miles. The best known island of the group is rugged Santa Catalina, 25 miles long with an average width of four miles, which stands 20 miles south of San Pedro. The Faral- lones, a group of six small rocky islands, lie about 28 miles west of the entrance to San Francisco Bay. CLIMATE The first American writer to describe California's natural features refrained from the rhapsody which has characterized most of the sub- sequent discussion of the State's far-famed weather. "The climate of NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 13 California," wrote Captain William Shaler, "generally is dry and tem- perate, and remarkably healthy ; on the western coast the sky is generally obscured by fogs and haze, but on the opposite side it is constantly clear; not a cloud is to be seen, night or day. The northwest winds blow very strong eight months in the year, on the western coast, with very little interruption; the land breezes at that time are hardly per- ceptible; but in the winter months they are stronger and regular. In the months of January, February, and March there are at times very high gales from the southeast, which render most of the bays and harbours on the coast unsafe at that season." California's climate is characterized by certain peculiar features: the temperature of the entire Pacific Coast is milder and more uni- form than that of regions in corresponding latitudes east of the moun- tains; the year divides, in general, into two seasons — wet and dry — instead of into the usual four seasons; and where extreme summer heat occurs, its discomfort is lessened by the dryness of the air. Despite these general characteristics the State is a place of many climates, due to distance from the ocean, situation in reference to mountains, and, above all, altitude. Thus there are sharp climatic contrasts within a single limited area. One may go sleighing within sight of blossoming orchards, or view snow-clad peaks while bathing in the sea. A winter traveler in the high Sierra will be reminded of the Alps, while anyone venturing into the scorching inland valleys in midsummer will conclude that whoever labeled California "semitropi- cal" was a master of understatement. The term, however, is applied with good reason to the strip of land between the coastal mountains and the ocean. For those who have never visited this area the most restrained account of its climate is likely to seem hyperbole. The year-round weather is more equable than that of any other part of the United States; and from San Fran- cisco southward to Monterey, the difference between the average sum- mer and winter temperatures is seldom more than 10 degrees. In this coastal region frost heavy enough to halt the greening of the hills under winter rains is as rare as thunder and lightning; and always some flowers are in bloom. Sea breezes and fogs tend to stabilize the tem- perature without extremes of heat or cold. The annual mean temperature of San Francisco is 56° ; the summer mean is less than 60°, the winter 51°, and the lowest recorded tem- perature 27°. In San Diego the winter mean temperature is 54°, the summer 68°. In Monterey the difference between January and August mean temperatures is from 10° to 14°; in Los Angeles 14° to 16°. Because of the California current and the marine air from the Pacific anticyclone, summer in San Francisco is actually cooler than fall. These same factors induce fogs, night and morning, in that region and all 14 CALIFORNIA along the California coast during the greater part ^of the summer. So dense and persistent are these coastal fogs that great areas south of San Francisco devoted to truck gardening require no other moisture during the summer months. The Coast redwood, as well as the plants which grow beneath it, is watered by the fog that condenses on its foliage. In the southern part of the Central Valley, temperatures are often very high. Although the annual mean temperature of the inland is 64°, in Fresno and Bakersfield the mercury occasionally soars above 110°. The desert temperatures are still higher, the summer mean in Fort Yuma being 92°. In Death Valley, the average daily minimum for July, the hottest month, is 87.6°. But on July 10, 1913, it reached 134°, only slightly less than the highest natural air temperature hitherto accurately measured. In the mountain regions, on the other hand, sum- mer temperatures are much lower and the winters are very severe. At the top of Mount Lassen, in the winter of 1932-33, the mercury reg- istered 56° below zero. Annual rainfall in the State varies from about 80 inches at Crescent City in the extreme north to about 10 inches at San Diego in the extreme south. At San Francisco the annual average is about 22 inches ; at Los Angeles, 16 inches. The northern half of the Sierra and the northwest counties are covered by a heavy rain belt. In the high mountains precipitation, almost entirely in the form of snow, provides most of the run-off which supplies water for the cities and for irri- gation. In the high Sierra the average annual snowfall is from 300 to 400 inches. At Tamarack in Alpine County the snowfall during the winter of 1906-7 was 844 inches, the greatest ever recorded for a single season anywhere in the United States. The belt of heavy rain shades off to a region of lighter rainfall which covers all the rest of the State except Inyo, Kern, San Bernardino, and Imperial Counties, and the eastern portion of Riverside County. The limits of this third region may, in dry years, include all of the State below Fresno and the entire Central Valley. In general, rains occur in California only in the months from Octo- ber to May. Even during this rainy season, the valley districts usually have no more than from 25 to 35 rainy days. Throughout the rest of the year excursions may be planned everywhere, except in some parts of the mountains, with considerable confidence that no rain will dampen the occasion. GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY Every major division of geologic time is represented in California by marine sediments, and many of them by continental deposits as well. NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 15 As the Pacific Ocean on the west and the ancient Great Basin Sea on the east alternately encroached on the California region, each supplied that part of the record which the other omitted. In formations of the last two periods, the Tertiary and the Quaternary, California is par- ticularly rich. Structurally the Sierra Nevada is a single colossal block of earth's crust lifted along its eastern edge to a height of more than 1 1 ,000 feet above the adjoining blocks, and gently tilted westward. The oldest known rocks making up these mountains are intrusions of molten rock (magma) and limestones, cherts, shales, and sandstones, all sedimentary, and nearly all changed into their metamorphic equivalents in the proc- ess of mountain building. These older sedimentary rocks were de- posited in ancient seas of shifting extent and depth, which during the second half of the Paleozoic and the first two periods of the Mesozoic era, covered now one part, now another, of the Pacific Coast. Toward the close of the Jurassic period, the lands that were eventually to be- come the ancestral Sierra Nevada, the Cascades, and the Klamath Mountains began to emerge from the sea. During the Cretaceous period the Sierra's whole block tilted west- ward. This process of tilting and folding wrenched open leaves of slates, once shales; heated mineral-bearing solutions escaped from the magma that was cooling and solidifying below and filled the slate openings with gold-bearing quartz. The Eocene epoch of the Tertiary period was comparatively quiet. The Sierra slowly underwent addi- tional elevations and subsidences accompanied by active erosion of the surface rocks. Meanwhile the rivers were cutting their channels down the western slope and carrying the products of erosion to the inland sea. There was further release of gold from the bedrock, and the formation of rich placers. In the Oligocene epoch following, there was volcanic activity, and the Sierra gold-bearing stream channels were dammed and filled with rhyolite ash. Volcanic activity continued during the Miocene age, and in addi- tion to lava there were extensive mud flows and tuffs. In the Pliocene epoch the volcanoes were far less active, and in the Pleistocene the volcanic cover was removed in part by erosion. The veins and buried stream channels were cut into, and gold-bearing gravels were washed from their ancient channels and redistributed along new streams. This is the origin of so-called free gold. The Sierra had been greatly worn down in late Tertiary times, but the Pleistocene epoch of the Quat- ernary period was an era of re-elevation. There was much faulting, and a new period of volcanic activity began which is not quite ended today. In the early Tertiary period the Sierra slopes were luxuriant with vegetation, but toward the end of that period the climate became much l6 CALIFORNIA cooler. The slopes and summits were encased in thick ice and snow, which kept them captive. The glacial periods of the Pleistocene were relieved by intervals during which the ice fields retreated toward the crests, yielding to climates even milder than that of California today. But when the ice of the last glacial age had finally retreated (traces of this epoch still linger in various glaciers such as those on Shasta), the Sierra crest stood stripped of vegetation and soil, exposing those bare expanses of whitish granites and schists that now give it its daz- zling beauty. Yosemite and other extraordinary Sierra valleys and canyons are also glacial legacies, as are the numerous lakes in the high Sierra. Tahoe, lovely lake and the deepest in the United States, was made partially by glaciation and partly by faulting, erosion, and vol- canic damming. The volcanic activity of Miocene times was especially great in the Cascade Range, where a number of volcanic peaks rose in a compara- tively short time. Mount Shasta was one ; the still active Mount Las- sen was another, and the volcanic range extends north into Oregon and Washington. Eastward from the range extends one of the largest lava fields in the world, covering 200,000 square miles to depths of from 200 to 2,ooo feet. This lava plateau, generally decomposed on the surface, which stretches beyond California into Oregon and across into Idaho and Wyoming, did not for the most part erupt through typical volcanic vents, but flooded up through great cracks or fissures. The Pit River, flowing through the Cascades, has cut deep into the series of volcanic rocks (andesites) some 7,500 feet in thickness, and the thin but widespread basalts. Because of the depth of this cover- ing, the pre-Miocene history of the region is uncertain. The oldest of the accessible formations of the Klamath Mountains are pre-Cambrian metamorphic rocks including schists, quartzites, and crystalline limestones — the last named consisting partly of sedimentary, partly of igneous rocks, both metamorphosed. The first two periods of the Mesozoic are represented by smaller proportions of sedimentary rocks which are covered by remnants of once extensive beds of sand- stones, shales, and conglomerates of the Cretaceous period. There were also periods when volcanoes were active, especially the early Devonian period and the greater part of the Mesozoic era. The mass had been uplifted during the Jurassic period, but erosion and subsidence brought the ancestral Klamath mountains to below sea level in the Cretaceous period. This oscillation continued more or less quietly, except for an outburst of great volcanic activity in the middle of the Miocene. The most recent re-elevation, like that of the Sierra, was at the beginning of the Quaternary period. At approximately the same time, gold- bearing gravels were carried down along the sides of many canyons by erosion. NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 1 7 There are no Paleozoic (old life) rocks in the northern Coast Range, but crystalline limestone and schist, probably of this age, are found in the Santa Cruz, Gabilan, and Santa Lucia Ranges. Of the next era, the Mesozoic, Triassic period remains are lacking, but from the Jurassic come most of that complex series of Coast Range rocks known as the Franciscan. These are sedimentary rocks of several types: conglomerate, sandstone, shale, variegated chert, and (rarely) limestone. With them is embedded a great series of volcanic and plu- tonic rocks of the same age. Cretaceous rocks in the Coast Range are abundant. They make up considerable parts of the Santa Lucia, the Temblor, and Diablo Ranges, and they become even more widespread north of San Fran- cisco. The rocks consist chiefly of shale, siltstone and sandstone, with some small streaks of coal, and — near Coalinga — shale, which is the source of the oil in overlying Tertiary beds. The Cretaceous sea cov- ered considerable parts of what is now the north Coast Range, but the region that now comprises the Santa Lucia Range and the Salinas Valley was relatively higher than at present, and formed Salinia, a long narrow peninsula running out to the northwest. The Eocene strata are relatively uncommon except in the eastern foothills near Coalinga and in the Mount Diablo region. The rocks are similar to those of the Cretaceous. There are considerable beds of coal, but the latter is of poor quality. Salinia had become an island, and there was a similar island whose axis ran along what are now the Gabilan and Mount Hamilton Ranges northwest to Marin County. The Oligocene formations in the Coast Range are chiefly of red sandstone; there are also certain organic shales, which seem to be the source rocks for the oil of Kettleman Hills. The seas had become less widespread. Salinia extended farther north and west, but the San Joaquin Valley still formed an arm of the sea into which drained the rivers of Mohavia — a name given to the region now covered by the Mojave Desert, Death Valley, and the Owens River Valley. In the early Miocene there was much volcanic activity in the Coast Range, and this ultimately cut off the sedimentary deposits from Mohavia and prevented their reaching the sea. There followed in the late Miocene another period of widespread shallow seas and many coastal islands. Much organic siliceous shale was laid down, and this is the source )f the oil in the Santa Barbara and Ventura coast region as well as elsewhere. Of Pliocene origin are calcareous and feldspathic sand- tones and thick beds of brown and blue sandy clay. As elsewhere in California, the climate became cooler. There was still a series of slands and peninsulas along the entire coast. In the Pleistocene epoch most of the old interior seas and bays dis- ippeared. This was a period of violent deformation of structure, with l8 CALIFORNIA foldings and bendings of the strata and a series of faults. Of these latter, the San Andreas fault, which was responsible for the earth- quake of 1906, extends from Tomales Bay, 40 miles north of San Francisco, to the Mojave Desert, 600 miles southeast. In contrast to the more common type of vertical movement, it has a horizontal drift. The extent of its movement during Tertiary times was at least 700 feet, and according to some estimates as much as 10 or 20 miles. The Hayward fault, which runs sub-parallel to the San Andreas across San Francisco Bay and through Berkeley, is also important; and the Coast Range is cut by several smaller faults. The Great Valley is an immense trough formed late in the Jurassic period when the mountain ranges inclosing it began to rise from the water. Unlike most valleys in the United States, which were cut by streams, it came into being through the sinking of the earth's crust. From that time on it remained an inland basin. For long periods it was flooded with salt water, as the sea flowed in through gaps in its intermittently rising barriers. The upward thrust of the Coast Range in the middle of the Tertiary period made it a nearly landlocked and shallow inland sea. Finally, in early Pleistocene times, the streams of the Sierra and the Coast Range, steadily carrying down their loads of sediment, caused a recession of the sea and laid down the flat valley floor. Although the valley is probably still sinking, it has filled with alluvium as fast as it has sunk. In some places drillings to depths of more than 3,000 feet fail to reveal bedrock. The Transverse Ranges, comprising the San Bernardino, San Ga- briel, Santa Monica, Santa Inez, and Santa Susana Mountains, have a general east-west trend, but differ only slightly in their geology from the chains of the Coast Range. Some of their Tertiary sedimentary rocks are more than 30,000 feet thick, exceeding in thickness any other such rocks in North America. They are remarkably rich in fossils. Extending southeast of the Los Angeles Basin to a point beyond the Mexican border, the Peninsular Ranges include the San Jacinto, Santa Ana, Santa Rosa, and Coyote Mountains, with plateaus and valleys in between. Their geology has been but little studied, but they seem to belong to the fault-block type of mountains. While the faults are branches of the San Andreas, their general geology is rather like that of the Sierra, the dominating rocks being granitic. The Great Basin comprises all that part of California lying south- east of the Sierra and east of the Peninsular Ranges, including the Colorado Desert, the Mojave Desert, and the Basin Ranges. Except for the Imperial Valley and some smaller areas under irrigation, the section is today a complete desert. The Colorado Desert, in part 245 feet below sea level, is a depressed block between active branches of the alluvium covered San Andreas fault in the Peninsular Ranges NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 1Q and the Mojave Desert to the north and east. The Mojave Desert region has isolated mountain ranges rising abruptly from desert plains. Farther north the Basin Ranges, of typical fault-block structure, run roughly parallel from north to south and are separated by deep basins or troughs. Death Valley, the most famous of the basins, is the bed of a lake of Pleistocene times and shows distinct sets of shore lines. The Great Basin had a number of such lakes in recent geologic time, although the region as a whole has been a land area since Cretaceous times. In the Panamint and Amargosa Ranges, which fence in Death Valley on the east and west, are formations from as far back as the Paleozoic era, but- the valley, as such, is recent. The Mojave Desert's many short mountain ranges of various trends are largely of ancient volcanic and metamorphosed Tertiary rocks. The rest of the Mojave is an expanse of great sandy valleys and of dry lakes holding deposits of dead seas — salt, gypsum, soda, and borax. The last named was formed when the red-hot lava streams flowed into the saline lakes. The Colorado Desert is underlaid with Tertiary volcanic flows and coarse conglomerates, above which lie Quaternary fresh-water silts and sandstones. With the rise of the mountains to the north and west in the early Miocene epoch, the sea that covered them was cut off and inland drainage systems were created. Rainfall decreased and the region slowly dried up. However, lakes of considerable extent have existed in the basin of the Colorado River within the period of the occupation of the country by the Indians, whose old camps may still be found on the margins of what are now salt flats. A number of regions in California, particularly in the Coast Range and the Los Angeles Basin, are rich in fossils. Numerous fossil radio- laria found in the Franciscan cherts show their marine origin, and the north Coast Ranges have yielded fossil ferns, cyads, and conifers, as well as several kinds of mollusks and smaller marine organisms of the Cretaceous period. The types of marine organism found in the Eocene rocks indicate a much warmer surface water than exists on the California coast at present, and consequently a warmer climate. From the Sespe beds between Los Angeles and Ventura have come bones of a variety of mammals of Oligocene times : the rhinoceros, the oreodont, the miohippus, the camelid, primitive carnivores, rodents, and insectivores. At a number of places the remains of primitive horses, peccaries, and camels have been found in Miocene formations. In the Pliocene strata there are primitive horses close in form to the modern horse. The best-known paleontological area in California, and one of the richest in the world, is La Brea Pits in Los Angeles County. Since Tertiary times the quaking and sticky area of the La Brea asphalt 2O CALIFORNIA beds has been a death trap for unwary animals. Beneath it have been preserved the skeletons of a prehistoric menagerie, including the im- perial elephants, largest of all land mammals, whose domain extended from eastern Nebraska to Mexico City, hideous great ground sloths and little ground sloths, sabre-tooth tigers, giant wolves, camels and horses, llamas, wide-front bison, and numerous smaller species such as turtles, snakes, beetles, and birds. Well-preserved forms of vege- tation, which show the evolution of plant life, have also been un- earthed here. Noteworthy among these is a complete eight-foot cypress of the McNab species, which was discovered standing upright, but- tressed by bones. This species is now found only rarely on the dry hills and flats of the Coast Range in northern California. The Mojave and Death Valley Deserts of southern California have yielded fossils of the Oligocene and Miocene epochs, deposited as long as 25,000,000 years ago. In a narrow canyon near Barstow, where layers of breccia in dazzling colors were thrust up by an ancient vol- canic upheaval, scientists have discovered during the past twenty years the remains of three-toed horses, several varieties of camels, antelope, and smaller animals, and an animal almost identical with the desert coyote of today. The complete skeleton of an Ice Age elephant (ter- rabeladon), similar to fossils discovered in the Gobi Desert, was found in 1938 near Saltdale, Kern County, in the northern part of the Mojave Desert. Death Valley's Tertiary beds have yielded the re- mains— including a skull three feet long — of a titanotherium, a large mammal that somewhat resembled the rhinoceros, found in red sand- stone formations of the Oligocene epoch near Leadfield. The fossils of Inyo County's "oldest muds in the world" are so abundant that, in geologist G. D. Bailey's words, they "are hauled away by carloads to fill the museums of the East." In Fresno County, less rich paleontologically, submammalian fossils have been found near Coalinga, a Pliocene mastodon skull at the north end of the Kettleman Hills, and fossil mastodon bones near Fresno. A rare find, uncovered in the Coast Range west of Fresno in 1937, was a fossil of eight vertebrae of a mesasaurus, huge sea lizard of the upper Cretaceous epoch. Kern County has yielded fossil animal bones of Tertiary and earlier ages and exceptionally rich marine fossils of the mollusca phylum, among them some highly ornamented forms showing a considerable degree of advancement in racial development. The first dinosaur remains ever uncovered on the west coast of America were found in 1936 in the hills west of Patterson, Stanislaus County, by a high school student. The remains consisted of the tail and one hind foot. In other mountain counties of northern California, ancient caves — including Hawver's Cave on the North Fork of the American River in Eldorado County, and Potter and Samwell Caves NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 21 on the McCloud River in Shasta County — have proved to be veritable storehouses of the bones of mammals swept in by river floods in the remote past. Remains of the giant ground sloth (megalonyx) have turned up in the earth fan at the entrance to Mercer's, or Murphy's Cave in Calaveras County. The State's most unexpected paleontological discovery was dredged from the mud of San Francisco Bay during construction of the island site of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. From sand- stone strata 45 feet below the bay level, a tooth and a section of the ivory tusk of a Columbian mammoth (elephas Columbia) of the middle Pleistocene epoch were scooped up and pumped through 17,000 feet of pipe line. On the Peninsula, near Menlo Park Station, San Mateo County, remains of a mastodon skeleton were found in June 1927, buried in the plain formed by the coalescent fans that fringe the Bay. The discovery included a molar tooth, preserved without even discoloration of the enamel, three sections of a tusk, and frag- ments of ribs and other bones. The most complete quarry in California for specimens of the Ter- tiary period was discovered in 1926 near Moraga, Contra Costa County, on the site "of an ancient fresh-water lake. The fossils so far re- covered are not so well preserved as those of the La Brea Pits, but they are believed to be more complete and to predate the La Brea remains by about 9,000,000 years. A three-toed giant horse and a three-footed antelope, a camel much larger than any known today, and the most primitive dog of its type yet found are among the species. Other discoveries include fossils of mastodons, hyenalike dogs, sabre- tooth cats, oreodons, peccaries, and a host of smaller creatures. At Irvington, in Alameda County, remnants of a prehistoric horse, an antelope, a mammoth, and a horned toad — all more than 500,000 years old — were found in 1936 and turned over to the University of Cali- fornia department of paleontology, which discovered the beds. PLANT AND ANIMAL LIFE California's plant and animal life is as diverse as its environment. Since its climate ranges from subtropical to Arctic, its terrain from arid, below sea level deserts in the south to moist, forested mountains in the north and from icy Sierra ridges on the east to foggy coastal slopes on the west, the State embraces a wide variety of flora and fauna. All the life zones of North America, except the tropical, are represented, their distribution depending not so much on latitude, as in most regions, as on altitude. California's plant and animal life, virtually isolated from the rest of the continent, is frequently distinc- tive and sometimes unique. While some species have migrated into 22 CALIFORNIA the mountain slopes and coastal fog belt of the north from Oregon, and into the semiarid deserts, plains, and mountains of the south from Mexico, only a few eastern species have had the hardihood to cross the inhospitable deserts of the Great Basin and scale the barrier of the Sierra. These have undergone striking transformation in their migra- tion. Botanically, California is notable in particular for the unusual num- ber of its annuals, both species and individuals, and for its numerous rare species of the lily family. More evergreens, especially the conifers, and fewer deciduous trees are found here than in most other States. Notable also are the many species of trees surviving only in limited localities from past ages, of which the best known are the Monterey pine and Monterey cypress and the two Sequoias (the coast redwood and the "big tree"), representing a family extinct elsewhere since the Ice Age. Still another distinctive feature is the chaparral — extensive pigmy forests of shrubs, stunted trees, and associated herbaceous plants — which covers the hillsides of the Upper Sonoran zone in dense thickets. It remains dormant throughout the hot dry summer, but becomes active with the rains of late winter and early spring. The eucalyptus and acacia of Australia, the pepper tree of Peru, and the palm tree of the tropics flourish in both rural and urban areas; the eucalyptus (eucalyptus globulus) especially has been so widely planted in groves and roadside lanes both along the coast and in the Great Valley as to seem like a native. The wild yellow mustard, that covers orchard lands and hillsides in season with a yellow-green tide, was planted by the earliest Spanish settlers, as was the wild radish. The geranium and fuchsia both grow to extraordinary size in all the coast counties, where there are no extremes of heat and cold. In a number of places in the Sierra foothills, Scotch broom (cystisus sco- parius) more than holds its own as an "escape" in the chaparral; and a species of filarese (erodium macrophyllum) , a valuable forage crop, has become widely distributed. The animals of the State are also distinctive, though less conspicu- ously so than the vegetation. The birds as a whole tend to be grayer, paler, and of slighter build than their eastern relatives. There are fewer species of snakes and more of lizards. Except for several species of trout, few fresh-water fish are native to the State, although some interesting indigenous species are found among the fauna of the 'tidal strip. The streams were once abundantly supplied with sturgeon, but this magnificent fish has practically disappeared save in the least acces- sible rivers of the State's northwest coast. The icy lakes and streams of the Sierra favor many species of native and introduced trout. The former include the rainbow trout, or steel head, the Tahoe trout, the NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 23 golden, the cutthroat, and Dolly Varden. Salmon, migrating from the ocean to their upstream spawning beds, are found in the northern coastal rivers in the spring. Dog salmon and quinnat salmon fre- quent coastal waters and the great king salmon enters the Bay of Monterey during the summer months. Other deep-sea fishes are the black and white sea bass, the yellowtail, the sheepshead, the "tonno," the albacore, the leaping and the yellowfin tuna, the bonito (the Sardo chilensis of the Pacific), the voracious barracuda (Sphyraena barra- cuda}, and the battling swordfish. Marine life of every kind is prolific and variegated. The Cali- fornia lobster, though large, lacks the huge pinchers of his eastern cousin. The pilchard or sardine (Sardinia caerulea) is found in such numbers during its run as to comprise 2O percent of the annual value of the State's fisheries. Herds of sea lions roar from the rocks off San Francisco, and elsewhere the leopard seal is occasionally seen. The abalone, most noted of California's shellfish, is a table delicacy and its shell is of use in manufacture. Oysters are plentiful but smaller than eastern varieties. California is divided by biologists into six life zones, in each of which the altitude and climatic conditions are roughly uniform through- out the zone (see accompanying map). These are designated the Lower Sonoran, Upper Sonoran, Transition, Canadian, Hudsonian, and Arctic zones. The first is the lowest in altitude, and the warmest; the last is the highest and coldest. The Lower Sonoran zone includes the larger part of the Great Valley from Red Bluff to Bakersfield, all of the great arid and desert regions southeast of the Sierra to the Nevada and Arizona lines, and several long narrow strips extending from the Salinas Valley south. The Upper Sonoran takes in all the foothill country of the Sierra Nevada, the lava plateaus of Modoc and Lassen Counties, the western slopes of the Sacramento Valley, the inner chains of the Coast Range and Valleys from Mendocino County to San Francisco Bay, and all of the coastal region south of San Fran- cisco except the Santa Cruz Mountains and the higher elevations of the Santa Lucias. These latter belong to the Transition zone, which also includes all of the coast country north of San Francisco, the heavily watered northeastern counties and a long belt, between 2500 and 5000 feet high in the Sierra. The Canadian, Hudsonian, and Arctic zones lie in the higher elevations of the Siskiyous, the Trinity Mountains, the Sierra, .the San Bernardino and San Jacinto ranges. It is possible to mention here only a few of the commoner or more characteristic inhabitants of these biologic zones, as a brief indication of the extraordinary range and variety of California's plant and ani- mal life. 24 CALIFORNIA In the Colorado Desert section of the Lower Sonoran zone are found the California fan palm; the cylindrical cacti, echinocactus, and bigelovia; the mesquite, screwbean, and palo verde; and in the rainy season, among other flowers, the dwarf desert poppy and several dimin- utive asters. The most famous of plants peculiar to the Mojave Desert is the Joshua tree (Yucca arborescens) . Along the river bot- toms of the Great Valley grow Fremont cottonwoods and valley oaks. The mammalian life, mostly nocturnal in its habits, includes jack rab- bits, kit foxes, kangaroo rats, pocket mice, and white-footed mice. Few animals besides the various species of chipmunks and ground squirrels appear in the daytime. In recent years the San Joaquin and Tulare basins have been overrun by Texas opossum, all originating from imported animals which either escaped or were liberated. The birds of the Lower Sonoran include Texas nighthawks, mocking-birds, blue grosbeaks, road runners, phainopeplas, cactus wrens, hooded orioles, verdins, and LeConte thrashers. Because of the large number of rodents, hawks and owls are unusually common. The tule elk once roamed over the marshes and sloughs of the Tulare Basin and San Joaquin River; today the last herd can be seen at the State park west of Bakersfield. The reptiles include the sidewinder (a small rattle- snake), the desert tortoise, and the horned toad. The Upper Sonoran zone includes the State's great chaparral belt. This was the home of the now extinct California grizzly; it is still the haunt of the rapidly disappearing California condor, largest flying bird of the northern hemisphere. Here are found Digger pines, blue and scrub oaks, California buckeyes, many species of manzanita and ceanothus, certain kinds of yucca, and a host of other shrubs. Some of its distinctive species of birds are the California jay, stellar jay, California thrasher, bush tit, Anna hummingbird, bell sparrow, house finch, dusky poorwill, valley quail, mourning dove, and yellow-billed magpie. Among the animals are the brown-footed woodrat, brush rabbit, antelope, and ring-tailed cat (a relative of the raccoon). This is a region rich in flowers. Early travelers in the State were eloquent in their descriptions of the continuous garden that once blanketed the plains and lower slopes. At a later time John Muir wrote, "For a distance of four hundred miles, your foot crushed a hundred flowers at every step." Most of this land is under cultiva- tion now, and much of the rest is heavily grazed ; but on fallow lands, in spite of the ravages of careless tourists in well-traveled regions, wild flowers still flourish in surprising abundance and soon recapture aban- doned fields and ranges. Among the most common genera are gilia, nemophila, mint, mimulus, godetia, phacelia, lupine, orthocarpus, cas- tilleia, dodecathon, viola, and calochortus. The State flower, the Cali- fornia poppy, or eschscholtzia, is most abundant in this zone. In the NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 25 spring it colors hills and fields and roadsides with great masses of brilliant orange. It acquired its generic name from Adelbert von Chamisso, a German poet and naturalist, who saw it in bloom at San Francisco in 1816 and named it for a college friend who accompanied him — the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz. Though the eschscholtzia is widely distributed, it is not found in the densely wooded regions or at high elevations. A plant that is common to all parts of California and that occurs in a greater number of species here than anywhere else in the world is the lupine. As herb or shrub it varies from dwarf kinds in the high Sierra to the arborescent varieties growing close to the ocean. The pea-shaped flowers are of many colors, ranging from white through pale yellow, pink, and lavender to deep blue and purple. In the Transition zone, which includes most of the State's great forests and therefore supplies most of its commercially valuable timber, are the redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forests of the Coast Range, extending from the Oregon border on the north to the coastal canyons below Monterey on the south and as far as the inner limit of the summer fogs on the east. The redwood is one of the tallest trees in the world, commonly growing more than 2OO feet high, and sometimes more than 300 feet. Trunks are often 15 to 20 feet in diameter, and occasionally from 20 to 25 feet. One of the peculiarities of the red- wood is its shallow root system, though the trunks are strongly but- tressed at the base. Because of the spongy, fire-resistant bark, these trees survived the annual fires set by the Indians of the region to clear out the underbrush and make hunting easier. The gently tapering shafts are almost bare of branches for a hundred feet or more above the ground. The bark is a deep purplish red, massively fluted ; the foliage is delicate and feathery. A virgin redwood forest, with the light filtering through the treetops and falling in diagonal beams be- tween the great columns, is one of the most beautiful sights in the world. Beneath the trees, watered by the fog which they have trapped and precipitated, is an extraordinarily luxuriant growth. Swordferns, woodwardia ferns, alumroot, fringecups, barrenwort, fetid adders- tongue, erythronium and violas, trillium and fritillaria carpet the floor. In almost impenetrable thickets grow the huckleberry, Oregon grape, rhododendron, azalea, California buckthorn, salmonberry, elder, and wild currant. The trees most commonly found in association with the redwood are the broad-leaved maple, madrona, tanbark oak, California laurel, and (usually in separate stands) the somber Douglas fir. Of these Coast Range trees the most picturesque is the madrona, a species of arbutus, which moved Bret Harte to write: I 26 CALIFORNIA Captain of the western wood Thou that apest Robin Hood! Green above thy scarlet hose, How thy velvet mantle shows! Never tree like thee arrayed, O thou gallant of the glade! The Transition zone is particularly rich in animal life. It is the home of the Columbian black-tailed deer, black bear, Pacific coon, marten, mink weasel, skunk, fox, packrat, and mountain beaver. The California ring-tailed cat, common in both the Upper Sonoran and the Transition zones, is one of the handsomest animals peculiar to the West; it is often tamed and kept as a pet. Cougars and bobcats are fairly common. A few small herds of Roosevelt elk survive in the ex- treme northwest. Of the few reptiles, gopher snakes, garter snakes, and the rattlers are commonest. Amphibia are numerous, as is to be expected in so moist a region. The streams abound in water-puppies, and the woods in big mottled redwood salamanders which thrive on the abundant yellow groundslugs. In the depths of the Transition zone forests the birds are neither very numerous nor very conspicuous. Kingfishers, chickadees, various warblers, towhees, varied and hermit thrushes, robins, juncos, mountain quail, and hummingbirds are the most common. East of the redwood belt, on the slopes of the Klamaths, the Cas- cades, and the northern Sierra, is a mixed forest of coniferous and deciduous trees, with the former predominating. Yellow pine, Douglas fir, sugar pine, white fir, incense cedar, western yew, mountain birch, and white oak are the important trees of this region. The herbaceous flora resembles that of the southern Sierra and the drier portions of the redwood belt. This is the home of the white Washington lily, the orange Lilium pardalinum, the erythronium, western azaleas of white or pink, several lupines, and the curious darlingtonia, which traps un- wary insects in its hoodlike leaves. The Klamath Mountains, mark- ing the border line between the Oregonian and Californian floras, are of great interest to botanists. With the exception of the antelope of the Modoc lava beds, the mule deer, the eastern kingbird, and an occasional eastern bobolink, the fauna of this area is much like that of the coastal region. South of Lake Tahoe lies the characteristic Sierran forest. Here at an average elevation of about 3,500 feet is found the "big tree" (Sequoia gigantea). Unlike the redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) , it does not form great belts of continuous forest but stands in about 35 isolated groves, scattered from the American River to the Tule. These trees are probably the oldest living things in the world — some of them have been shown by ring counts to be not less than 4,000 years old. In diameter they average from 15 to 20 feet; their average height is NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 27 about 250 feet. The "big tree" is bulkier than the redwood, with cinnamon-colored bark and foliage similar to that of its coast cousin. The two Sequoias, with the ginkgo tree and the marestail, are sur- vivals from a flora that was nearly destroyed in the glacial period. In Miocene times, Sequoias of various species were common over much of the northern hemisphere. In spite of their great age, both indi- vidually and as a species, the "big trees" are not dying out, but rather are increasing with the aid of the reforestation work of the United States Forest Service and office of National Parks. The "big tree" is found on the edge of the Transition and Canadian zones, usually close to stands of fir. Below it, in the Transition zone, stretch extensive forests of yellow and sugar pine, incense cedar, golden and black oak, California laurel, and broadleaved maple. In this Sierran forest, the most common wild flowers are pentstemons, gilias, mariposa tulips, pussypaws, mimulus, lappulas (wild forget-me-nots), collinsias, tiger and leopard lilies, buttercups, and the omnipresent lupines. As one enters the Canadian zone, a change is immediately notice- able. The yellow pine gives way to the related Jeffrey pine. As one ascends, mountain pines and red firs and (higher still) lodgepole pines dominate the forest. Brushy areas are covered with dwarf manzanita and ceanothus. Under the firs grows some herbaceous vegetation, mostly living on the decayed wood common in fir forests. Notable in this vegetation are the brilliant snowplant, several species of corallor- rhiza, and the cancerroot. This is also the home of the unique Sierra puffball. Some of the more conspicuous birds are the blue-fronted jay, Sierra junco, western chipping sparrow, Sierra hermit thrush, water ouzel, evening grosbeak, Sierra grouse, and Townsend solitaire. Among the animals are the mountain weasel, yellow-haired porcupine, snowshoe rabbit, golden-mantled ground squirrel, Sierra chickaree, and certain species of chipmunks. The Hudsonian zone is the belt of forest immediately below timber line. With the Canadian zone it shares the lodgepole pine, which is here the dominant cover. Usually associated with, or above the level of, the lodgepole are the white bark, foxtail, and silver pines. These latter trees, with the mountain hemlock, form the stunted and twisted growth of the timber line. Birds become scarcer in this zone, though mammals remain plentiful; some of the species extend up from the zones below. The California pine grosbeak, mountain bluebird, white- crowned sparrow, alpine chipmunk, Sierra marmot, Sierra cony, pine marten, Sierra least weasel, and wolverine are typical of the region. The Arctic-Alpine zone, the highest of all, is a treeless area stretch- ing from an elevation of about 10,500 feet to the summits of the loftiest peaks. Here are found the Sierra primrose, the blue and fragrant polemonium, the yellow columbine, the alpine buttercup, the steershead, 28 CALIFORNIA and the alpine shootingstar. Only one species of bird is native to the zone, the Sierra rosy finch; but many others visit it, notably flocks of migrating hummingbirds and, in the summer, gray and white Clark nutcrackers. The principal mammals are visitants from lower eleva- tions; however, the Sierra cony is often found in these heights and the Sierra white-tailed jackrabbit makes its home here. The Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep are seen occasionally in the White Mountains east of Owens Valley and in some of the southeastern ranges. A small band remains in the Mount Whitney region, survivors of those described by John Muir, which in his day ranged along the Sierran crest to the vicinity of Sonora Pass. Certain animals range through several zones, particularly the mule deer, the coyote, and the cougar or mountain lion ; as do a number of birds notably the blue-fronted jay, the Sierra junco, the redshafted flicker, certain hawks, and some of the sparrows. The flowers and trees are generally confined within the limits of their native zones, although various similar forms, distinguishable only by botanists, occur at several elevations. Thus, the Jeffrey and western yellow pines can be differentiated with certainty only by a chemical analysis of their sap; while the Compositae generally, and particularly the asters, are the despair of all but highly trained specialists. Gone now from most sections of the country is Nature's intricately organized population of bear, marten, beaver, otter, elk, deer, and badger. Tilled fields have replaced the natural haunts of fox, lynx, bobcat, and fisher. But in California these animals still possess the sunny chaparral and the green shade of forests. The United States Forest Service estimates that in the 18 national forests of California, covering nearly one-fifth of the State's area, there are 1 1 1 ,000 bkcktail deer, 148,000 mule deer, 7,000 bear, 2,800 antelope, 24,000 foxes, and 1,230 mountain lions. Man's encroachments have not yet driven out all the mountain sheep, weasels, badgers, raccoons, muskrat, beaver, and otter. Over vast areas of the California wilderness, human footprints seldom obliterate the tracks of paw and hoof. NATURAL RESOURCES AND THEIR CONSERVATION Gold was the first natural resource — scarcely noticed by the Indians and Spanish-Calif ornians — to be discovered in the land fronting the Pacific. Its discovery spelled the destruction of the simple economy of pre- Yankee California, attracted tens of thousands of fortune seek- ers, and radically affected the history of the State. California's minerals, forests, soils, and water power, its scenery and climate, and its two great natural harbors, place it among the regions most richly endowed by nature. But its natural resources, NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 29 originally so great as to seem inexhaustible, were thrown open to private exploitation without restriction. Gold miners, taking little thought of the future, despoiled forests, denuded land of its surface soil, and clogged rivers with debris. Cattlemen deliberately set fire to forests to increase their acreage of grazing lands ; ranchers exhausted the soil by growing wheat year after year on the same areas. The inevitable consequences were floods, erosion, and soil depletion. The land surface of the State comprises about 100,000,000 acres, of which approximately 30,000,000 acres are tillable. Since cultiva- tion in many areas is dependent on irrigation, it is impossible to esti- mate the amount of tillable land with accuracy. About 500 variations in soil types have been listed by the U. S. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils; taken as a whole, they are uncommonly productive. Ever since pioneer days, the State's forest lands have yielded vast quantities of lumber. Some 7,700,000 acres have been logged over, and 500,000 have been reclaimed for agricultural use. The commercial forests, mainly in the mountain sections, consist chiefly of coniferous trees : Ponderosa pine, sugar pine, and white and red fir in the Sierra ; Douglas fir and the towering redwood in the northern coast counties of Del Norte, Humboldt, and Mendocino. Many stands in both regions are very heavy, capable of yielding as much as 100,000 board feet to the acre. The total bulk of old-growth timber in California is estimated at 213,500,000,000 board feet. The forest lands are divided almost equally between public and private ownership, but the heavier and more accessible stands are privately owned. Legislative attempts early in the present century to conserve forest resources were mostly unsuccessful because of the opposition of cor- porate interests. In recent years the division of forestry of the State department of natural resources has done useful work, especially in fire and insect control. Since 1892 the Federal Government has set apart as national forests 1 8 tracts along the headwaters of California streams, with a combined area of 19,216,332 acres — about one-fifth of the State's total acreage. These tracts have been "set aside to protect and maintain in a per- manently productive and useful condition lands unsuited to agriculture but capable of yielding timber and other forest benefits, such as forage for livestock and water for irrigation, domestic use, and power." They are controlled and supervised by the Forest Service of the U. S. De- partment of Agriculture. Extensive forest tracts are also reserved as State parks. Artificial reforestation is done mostly in the redwood region, where the climate fosters the growth of seedlings. In the pine region, with its hot dry summers and cold winters, natural reforestation is usually more successful. Artificial reforestation is carried on by 3O CALIFORNIA the U. S. Forest Service and a few county organizations, some 4,000 acres being planted annually. Of the 58 counties, each has some of the State's mineral substances. The six most important products of 1936 (latest available figures), listed in order of financial value, are petroleum, gold, natural gas, stone, soda, and cement. California is rich in petroleum, which has replaced gold as its most important mineral. Its oil, which is in general dis- tinguished by an asphaltum base, is found, along with great quantities of natural gas, on the coastal plain of southern California, in the San Joaquin Valley, and in scattered smaller areas elsewhere. California continues to outrank the rest of the United States, including Alaska, in the production of gold; its 1936 production topped any previous year in the history of the State. Quicksilver, copper, silver, lead, and zinc are found in substantial amounts, as are cement, clay products, stone, sand, and gravel. Most of the world's supply of borax comes from California. Platinum, tungsten, magnesite, chromite, pyrites, sil- ica, diatomaceous earth, potash, sodium salts, and talc are also mined. In the early iSyo's, Sacramento Valley farmers organized anti- debris associations as a defense against the strongly intrenched mining interests, and in 1893 an act was passed by the State legislature to control hydraulic mining. Shortly after 1900, steps were taken for co-operative work between owners of land and the State and Federal governments to reclaim valuable swamp and overflow lands along the rivers. Not until 1911, however, did the State legislature create a conservation commission. Since petroleum and natural gas are classed as minerals, their pro- duction is controlled by Federal laws; but under the California laws of 1911 and 1915 the State may regulate oil-drilling methods and prevent the waste of natural gas. Under the act of 1915, "to protect the natural resources of water, petroleum, and gas from damage, waste, and destruction," oil operators must use every effort to prevent con- tamination of fresh water suitable for irrigation or domestic use, to avoid the waste of natural gas, and to make regular reports of produc- tion to the State gas and oil supervisor. In 1919 several previously existing agricultural commissions were combined in a State department of agriculture, under the charge of a director of agriculture. The department is organized in several divisions, such as plant industry, animal industry, and agricultural chemistry. Its work is supplemented by that of the College of Agriculture of the University of California, with its central establishments at Berkeley and Davis. State conserva- tion activities include restoration of soil fertility, control and exclusion of pests, and study of plant diseases. The task of protecting wild life is divided between State and Fed- eral agencies. The State maintains an effective patrol organization to NATURAL SETTING AND CONSERVATION 31 enforce its regulations in this field. U. S. Forest Service officers help the State to enforce the fish and game laws, and aid in the restocking of streams and lakes with trout. Throughout the national forests, many areas have been set aside as State game refuges. California's lakes and streams are stocked annually writh millions of fingerlings, under State and Federal conservation programs. The work of breeding the numer- ous game fishes is carried on at twenty State and two U. S. fish hatch- eries, and distribution to the lakes and streams at higher elevations is effected through co-operation with the anglers' associations and the Sierra Club. The future of California is closely linked with the future of its water supply. From the earliest days of the State, a popular movement for public ownership and distribution of irrigation water has struggled for domination over private ownership and sale. Californians have undertaken many comprehensive investigations of the problems of water control, pollution abatement, watershed protection, and beach erosion. In 1931 a complete water utilization plan, reported by the State division of water resources, outlined specific projects for the great agricultural districts. The reports of the California Basin Committees, drafted for the National Resources Committee (1937), recommended projects in flood control, irrigation, soil and wildlife conservation in the northern California-Klamath, Central Valley, central California coast, and south- ern California coastal drainage basins. The project of making the desert blossom as a rose, or (more pro- saically) of turning desert areas into productive farmland, has held the imagination of western settlers for more than half a century. The possibility of irrigating the Imperial Valley area through the diversion of the waters of the Colorado River was first considered in 1876. The Colorado Irrigation Company was formed in 1892 and constructed a canal in the vicinity of the Mexican border. The plan almost ended in disaster when the powerful Colorado River changed its course during I a flood in 1905-6 and hurled its waters through Imperial Valley into the big inland sink since known as Salton Sea, threatening to make a clean sweep of the valley ranches and settlements. After the damage had finally been repaired at great cost, the problem of effectively regu- lating the Colorado River was repeatedly brought before Congress. The completion in 1936 of Boulder Dam, second in size only to Grand Coulee in the Northwest, finally solved the problem, assuring the future of Imperial Valley as one of the most important agricultural regions in the country. Boulder Dam will control the waterflow of the All- American Canal, opened in 1938, which will distribute irrigation water throughout the reclaimed desert region in the southeastern corner of the State. Despite the extremely high productivity of Central Valley's alluvial 32 CALIFORNIA soils, large parts of the valley have been threatened for years with reversion to desert through drought and salinity, largely caused by prodigal and unplanned use of water resources over a long period. In order to conserve and regulate the water resources of the valley, and to prevent the acute water shortage threatening over a million acres in the Sacramento and San Joaquin basins, the Bureau of Reclama- tion of the U. S. Department of the Interior has now under construc- tion another great irrigation, flood control, and power project, known as the Central Valley Water Project. Its key unit, the Shasta Dam, above Redding, which will be the second largest concrete dam in the world, will back up the Sacramento, Pit, and McCloud Rivers for a distance of 35 miles, to create a storage reservoir with a capacity of nearly a billion gallons. The Central Valley project also includes the construction of the Friant Dam on the upper San Joaquin River east of Fresno, with a reservoir capacity of 147,00x5,000 gallons. Developed water power in the State is more than 2,000,000 horse-power, with large potential reserves still undeveloped. The California Conservation Council, representing a number of national and State organizations, stresses the necessity for local initiative in conservation work and urges not only wise utilization of natural wealth but also cooperation with Federal, State, and county agencies, enforcement of protective laws, and nonpolitical administration of natural resources. Since 1935, the Council has annually sponsored a "Conservation Week." One of the most forward-looking phases of Califorina's conservation program is that which has preserved and developed the beaches all along the coast as State parks. Numerous historic sites are protected as State monuments. The national conservation program in the State embraces three national parks — Lassen, Yosemite, and Sequoia — and the two great national monuments, Death Valley National Monument and Joshua Tree National Monument. The First Californians WHEN on June 17, 1579 "it pleased God" to send Francis Drake's Golden Hind into the "faire and good bay" north of the Golden Gate, he encountered "the people of the coun- try, having their houses close by the water's edge." Overawed, they supposed the bearded, white-skinned sailors who bestowed on them "necessary things to cover their nakedness" to be gods and "would not be persuaded to the contrarj^." The men, their faces painted in all colors, left their bows behind on a hill and came down to the shore bearing presents of feathers and tobacco. The women remained on the hill, "tormenting themselves" in some sacrificial frenzy and "tearing the flesh from their cheeks." Their king, "clad with conie skins and other skins," arrived with a retinue of "tall and warlike men," bearing a sceptre. After much singing, dancing, and speech making, they begged Drake to "take their province and kingdom into his hand and become their king." In the interior Drake's men found other villages. Up and down California, if they had traveled farther, they would have discovered others, for the Indians of California were widely but unevenly scattered over the State's fertile regions. The estimated native population of almost one inhabitant to each square mile was comparatively large; the Central Valley was probably more densely populated than any other part of North America at that time. For an unknown age before the white man first stumbled upon them in the sixteenth century, the Indians of California had dwelt in their scattered bands, walled off from the rest of the aboriginal world 33 34 CALIFORNIA by mountains and deserts. On the shores of San Francisco Bay, along the southern California and Humboldt Bay seacoasts and in the San Joaquin Valley, evidence has been unearthed from their shell mounds — huge kitchen middens of shell, ash, and earth, piled up layer by layer from, the refuse of daily living over the centuries — indicating a culture which remained almost unchanged over a period of perhaps three or four thousand years. It was probably the simplest culture in all abo- riginal North America. The scattered bands dwelt in isolation one from another, each fishing in its own creek, catching game in its own preserves, gathering nuts, seeds, and berries in its own forests. The village, composed of groups of kin and relatives by marriage, was the unit of society, its members holding rights in common to a specific tract of land; seldom was it united with other villages by tribal ties. Even among the semi-organ- ized tribes of northern central California, the village was the real social unit. The Maidu of central California, although united in language and customs, distinguished their local groups into Hill Maidu, Valley Maidu, and Mountain Maidu. The only exceptions were the Mojave and Yuma in the far southeast, who displayed aggressive tribal unity against outsiders. In customs and in culture the isolated villages varied widely, but in nothing so widely as in language. Over most of the State a villager needed to travel little more than 50 miles to encounter other Indians whose language he could not speak ; in a 5O-mile journey through many regions he might pass the boundaries of three or four distinct language groups. More than 100 dialects of 21 distinct language stocks were spoken. Of all the many language groups, only three larger language families from outside the State were represented in California: the Hupa and their neighbors in the far northwest belonged to the Atha- bascan; many groups in the south to the Shoshonean, and the Mojave and Yuma along the Colorado to the Yuman linguistic stock. Drake's men discovered tribes living in conical, dome-shaped, or round huts. In the northwest part of the State they were covered with light planks or poles ; towards the south with bark, brush, or thatch ; in the Sacramento Valley, with sod. The ceremonial center for most villages was the temescal (sweat house), round and earth-covered, almost airtight. Confinement in its steam-vapored interior, followed by a plunge into icy water, was considered an effective remedy for illness and a pleasant cleanly habit. California's great stands of oak provided the Indians with their staple food in most parts of the State. Acorns were dried, ground with pestles in stone or wooden mortars, and leached with repeated soakings in hot water to remove their tannic acid. This acorn meal, seasoned with salt or wood ashes, was eaten as it was, baked in unleavened cakes, THE FIRST CALIFORNIANS 35 or boiled in a gruel. In the southwestern desert country the Indians gathered mesquite beans and on the eastern Sierra slopes, pinon nuts; only near the Colorado River did they cultivate plants for food. Often they ground or roasted grass seeds, berries, roots, and nuts, and stored them in baskets. Lacking pottery, which only the Indians in the extreme southeast near the Colorado River knew how to make, most of the California natives boiled their food in close-woven baskets, into which they dropped hot stones. They hunted small game with snares, sticks and nets, or bows and arrows; larger game with the aid of pits and traps, and, in the north, dogs. Deer-hunters often donned deer- skins and stuffed deer's heads to approach their game. Grasshoppers and caterpillars were also eaten. Everywhere fish were caught with hook, net, or spear; by the seashore clams and mussels were gathered, and along the rivers of the north, salmon were speared during the spawning season. The California Indians perfected basketry and thus supplied them- selves with utensils for gathering and winnowing grain, cooking and storing water. Into their weaving went sedge, bulrush, redbud, wil- low, diggerpine, juniper, bracken, grape, or tule. With strands stained with vegetable dyes in clear blues, deep reds, warm yellows, and luminous pinks, the weavers worked fine geometric patterns. The Pomo families of Lake, Sonoma, and Mendocino Counties sometimes wove into their baskets the downy, many-colored feathers of birds. The California Indian's other possessions were few and crude. Out of bone, shell, or stone he carved his arrowheads, awls, pestles and mortars, pots, charm stones, beads, and pendants. For money he used dentalium or clamshell disk beads, ground, bored, and strung, and valued according to size, thickness, and polish. His musical instruments were varied; most widespread was the rattle, made of split clap-sticks, gravel-filled cocoon bunches, bundles of deer hoofs, or turtle shells and gourds; in addition there were bone whistles, flutes, musical bows, and drums. He built two kinds of vessels for navigation: the balsa, a raft or float made of tule rushes for use in quiet waters, sometimes replaced by huge woven baskets in which goods or human beings were ferried across streams; and the wooden canoe, hollowed out of a log, for use on the ocean. The Canalino Indians living along the Santa Barbara Channel made boats of lashed planks, craft found nowhere else in North America. Most village groups were headed by a chief, who held the office more often by virtue of wealth than heredity; he was privileged only to advise, not to command. Within the village group, scarcely any dis- tinctions, either of social status or vocation, were drawn, except in the northwest, where social classes based on the possession of wealth tended 36 CALIFORNIA to form. In the absence of any coherent tribal organization warfare as practised in eastern North America was unknown, although sporadic feuds broke out between kin or local groups. The only other tribal functionaries besides the chief were the shamans. The shaman might be either a man or a woman, who acquired supposedly supernatural powers through consultation with spirits in a dream. Sometimes he cured illness by "sucking the pain object" from the patient's body, sometimes by bringing back his wander- ing soul, sometimes by blowing tobacco smoke on the affected part, by chanting incantations, or by inducing a trance. Supposedly he could kill, as well as cure. Among these shamans were specialists, the rain, rattlesnake, and grizzly bear doctors. Most feared of all in northern California were the grizzly bear shamans, who either dressed in bear- skin robes, or were credited with the power of turning themselves into ferocious grizzlies in order to destroy their enemies. Birth, puberty, marriage, and death called for religious observances. In most localities the husband kept to his house for several days (usu- ally four) after the birth of a child, abstaining with his wife from meat and salt. Among the Achomawi and Shasta in the northeast, boys at the age of puberty were initiated into the life of the group with simple ceremonies by fasting, whipping with a bowstring, and the piercing of their ears. The initiation of girls was more elaborate : hidden away, sometimes in a separate hut, they were instructed in womanly duties, meanwhile eating no meat, bathing frequently, and scratching themselves with special carved sticks (since scratching with the hands was taboo). Marriage was a somewhat loosely defined institution ex- cept in the northwest, where the bridegroom presented gifts in propor- tion to the social standing of his bride's family. In most parts of the State the dead were forgotten as soon as their bodies had been buried or cremated; to speak their names was commonly taboo. Among the southern California group, however, the chief public demonstrations were mourning ceremonies, celebrated at annual or semi-annual me- morials by burning the piled-up effigies of all the recent deceased, to the accompaniment of sad wailing. The only organized religious cults which gained a foothold in California were the kuksu (big-head) and toloache (Jimsonweed) cults. The kuksu rites, practised in the southern Sacramento Valley, were celebrated, almost always in winter, by dancers representing gods. Their faces painted and disguised by curtains of feathers, grass, or shredded rushes, they danced in earth-covered, dome-roofed dance houses to the accompaniment of stamping on a hollow-slab foot drum. The cult trained the adolescent boys and girls (initiating the boys with puberty rites), organized the male members of the community, and focused the activities of the shaman. The toloache cult, practised in THE FIRST CALIFORNIANS 37 the San Joaquin Valley and in southern California, centered about the taking of the narcotic Jimsonweed plant to induce hallucinations. Its practitioners used sand paintings to picture the cosmos. The toloache, like the kuksu cult, conducted puberty rites, some groups extending them to girls as well as boys, with the intention of making the initiate strong, fortunate, and successful. Some groups celebrated with ceremonial rites such events as the first fire-making or acorn-gathering of the new year or the first catch of salmon in the spawning season. In the north- west, the exhibition of prized possessions like prepared deerskins was celebrated by dancers decked out in all their valuable goods. The groups of the southeast and desert performed ritual dances to accompany song cycles in celebration of mythical events. In 1769, nearly two centuries after Drake's brief visit, Franciscan friars trudged into the country to convert the "heathen." Cross or sword, the Indians had to choose. On several occasions bloody struggles broke out, in which the Indians were usually defeated. Only the groups in the mountains escaped missionary efforts: those who submitted were baptized. Almost all the natives in the coastal regions were brought to live in and around the 21 Franciscan missions, established from San Diego to Sonoma between 1769 and 1823. From 4,000 in 1783, the Mission Indian population was increased to 7,500 by 1790, to 13,500 by 1800, and to 20,355 by 1805. The monotonous round of work and prayer, the rigid moral regulations, the cramped and prisonlike housing made life unbearable for many. They ran away, although they faced whipping if caught, or they died. The resentment against the missions flared several times into open rebellion. On November 4, 1775, some 800 rebels swept down from the hills and set fire to San Diego Mission. The year after, San Luis Obispo was burned. The Yumas in 1781 destroyed their mission and freed themselves, arousing the spirit of revolt among the Indians of San Diego and San Juan Capistrano. During the last two decades of the century there were conflicts at Santa Barbara, at most of the south- ern missions, and at San Juan Bautista. In February 1824 the neo- phytes at Purisima Concepcion, Santa Ines, and Santa Barbara revolted simultaneously, killing several people and burning the buildings at Santa Ines. In 1829 secular authorities waged a campaign against the forces of Chief Estanislao (for whom Stanislaus River and County are named). A fugitive from Mision San Jose, Estanislao led a band of other escaped neophytes and wild Indians of the San Joaquin Valley in an uprising that was crushed only by a force of 100 Spaniards with muskets and cannon. When the Mexican Government broke the mission system's land monopoly with its secularization decrees of 1833-34, tne Indians were suddenly freed. Well-meaning in their despotism as the mission fathers 38 CALIFORNIA may have been, they had degraded their converts into dependent slaves, unable to shift for themselves. In theory, secularization was to grant rights of citizenship to the Indians and restore to them one-half of all mission land, livestock, and farm tools. In practice, the neophytes re- lapsed into helpless vagrancy, too demoralized to work their own lands, if indeed they had not been dispossessed of them by crooked adminis- trators. The mission population fell off rapidly, decreasing from 24,634 in 1830 to 6,000 in 1840. The Indians took up their old life in the wilds, if luck was with them; if not, they fell into wretched peonage on the vast private ranches. On the ranchos the Indians were never paid, and in the small industrial establishments of the later Mexican period they were paid only with glass beads, parched corn, or homemade brandy. The raw, poisonous liquor, drunk with greediness, killed many of them; scarlet fever, smallpox, tuberculosis, and syphilis killed many more. From an estimated total of 133,000 in 1770 the Indian population had already fallen by 1852 to 85,000, and continued to decline at an accelerated rate under the American regime. The drop in Indian popu- lation between 1849 and 1856 has been estimated at 50,000. One of John C. Fremont's men reported in 1847: "We killed plenty of game and an occasional Indian. We made it a rule to spare none of the bucks." As Americans acquired the Mexican grants, they drove the ranch Indians off; the squatters who staked off so-called Government lands pushed the aboriginal inhabitants back into the mountains and deserts. Their salmon waters muddied by mining operations, acorn groves cut down for firewood, hunting lands confiscated, the Indians were left to starve. In the towns and cities, where they were paid only half the wages of whites, they were cut down by disease and drink. When the less submissive of the Indians resisted starvation by depre- dations on American property or livestock or retaliated for outrages by killing white men, they were massacred without mercy. For nearly three decades after American occupation of California, "Indian wars" continued — the Klamath War of 1851-52, Kern River War of 1856, Pit River massacres of 1867, and the Modoc War of 1873. During the campaign of 1855-59 m the north, soldiers killed more than 100 Indians, while settlers of the Mad and Eel River regions put at least 200 to death in a series of massacres. Up to December 1854 the State had spent $1,030,530 on Indian campaigns; during the next six years it spent twice that amount. The cattle raids and attacks on emigrant trains of the Yumas and Mojaves were answered in the Owens Lake incident of 1865, when the settlers drove 100 Indians to a terrible death in the corroding waters of an alkaline lake. The Pit River Valley massacre of 10 or 15 white men in 1867 was followed by the destruc- tion of a whole village. During the troubles in the far north which THE FIRST CALIF ORNIANS 39 eventually culminated in the last and bloodiest of the Indian "wars," the Modoc War of 1873, a company under Captain Ben Wright fell upon the Indians when they laid down their arms to make a treaty and murdered so many that Wright could boast of making a "permanent" treaty with at least 1,000 Indians. The Indian, his affairs entrusted to special agents who seldom inter- fered in his behalf, had no spokesman before the Government of a people who wanted only to steal his land. The white man found it easy to sup- port almost any charges against him. According to Helen Hunt Jack- son, early champion of the Indian, " 'Papers from Washington' seemed to give the white man the right to deprive any Indian of the land of his forefathers — so the Indian gradually disappeared, 'hunted down, driven out.' The United States Government took over all the Indian holdings, and grants to white people could be obtained on application without any consideration for the right of occupancy by the Indian. To betray sympathy with the Indian was more than any man's 'political' head was worth." As early as 1849 the Federal Government had commissioned agents to collect data on Indian rights and land titles. In the following year it appointed a commission of three which eventually succeeded in signing 1 8 treaties with chiefs of more than 100 groups, representing most of the State's Indian population. In return for their promise to recognize United States sovereignty, keep the peace, settle on reservations — 18 in number, aggregating 7,500,000 acres — and cede their land rights to the Government; they were to receive farm implements and goods, in- structors in blacksmithing, woodwork, and farming, and maintenance of permanent reservations. The treaties were transmitted to the Senate but never ratified ; for over half a century they remained hidden in Senate archives. Meanwhile the Indians of California, having ful- filled their part of the bargain, remained uncompensated for their losses, seeing their promised 7,500,000 acres dwindle to 500,000. Beginning in 1853, the Indians were gradually gathered together on reservations. The first one was established at Tejon; others were established later on the Klamath River south of Crescent City, at the mouth of the Noyo River on the Mendocino coast, and at Nome Lake in the Sacramento foothills. The results at first were far from happy, since bands of diverse origin and speech were lumped together indis- criminately. Under a system of education which forced the white man's ways upon the Indian, aboriginal culture disintegrated rapidly. As the natives ran away faster than they died, one reservation after another was abandoned. Little by little the reservations were robbed of their more valuable lands. The 32 which exist today, as well as the land allotments made to individuals, are located chiefly in unpro- ductive hill country. Here the Indians, housed and clothed much like 4O CALIFORNIA their white neighbors, practice farming, stockraising, and handicrafts, on some reservations under the guidance of Indian Bureau agents. The children attend either Indian schools, such as the Sherman Institute near Arlington, Riverside County, or public schools to which the Indian Bureau makes tuition payments. For every seven or eight Indians living in California before the white man came to stay, only one remained 14 decades later. The Indian population, including half and mixed bloods (nearly 30 percent of the total), had fallen by 1910 to 16,371 — a decline of about 90 per- cent. Since then the Indian population has increased to an estimated 24,000 in 1938. There are Indians in every county in the State, but in only four — Humboldt, Mendocino, Riverside, and San Diego — are there more than 1,000. About three-fifths of the Indian population live on reserva- tions; many of the remainder live on land allotments or homesteads. Indian ranch hands work at hop-picking, fruit gathering, sheep-shearing, and general ranching. In the larger urban centers, where they have doubled in number during the last three decades and total about 1,100 today, the women find employment as domestics, the men as mechanics, factory hands, or railroad wrorkers. Under the Indian Bureau's influence, native arts are now fostered, particularly at the Sherman Institute. The Luiseno and other groups are encouraged to stage their picturesque ceremonies at summer fiestas, ceremonies whose primitive origin is plainly apparent despite Christian transformations. Unfortunately, this policy of encouragement has suc- ceeded that of persecution too late to save more than a tiny remnant of Indian culture. Calif ornicfs Last Four Centuries WITHIN the half century after Christopher Columbus discov- ered the new world, Europeans discovered and named Cali- fornia. In 1513 Vasco Nunez de Balboa reached the Pacific coast at Panama; twenty-two years later another Spaniard, Hernando Cortes, discovered a land he named California; and in 1542 Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator, rode at anchor in San Diego Bay, the first white man to see any part of the region now known as California. The chain of events that led to California started with the search by Columbus in the Caribbean in 1493 for the island Mantinino, which he had been told "was peopled merely by women." Columbus thought this might be Marco Polo's Amazonian island "near the coast of Asia." He failed in his search, but the fabulous isle fascinated other navigators during the next decade. After Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo published his romance Las Sergas de Esplandidn in 1510, Spanish navigators were familiar with both the legend and with the name California. A passage reads: "Know that, on the right hand of the Indies, there is an island called California, very near to the Terrestrial Paradise, which was peopled with black women. . . . Their arms were all of gold." Spain's dominion in the new world was extended to the western coast of Mexico by Cortes' conquest of the empire of Montezuma. In an attempt to push it farther west and north Cortes sent two ships com- manded by his kinsman Diego Hurtado de Mendoza on a "voyage of discovery" in 1532. Mendoza got as far north into the Gulf of Cali- 41 42 CALIFORNIA fornia as 27° N. before a mutinous crew compelled him to send back one of the ships; of his own vessel, nothing but vague rumor was ever heard again. Fortune Ximenes, pilot of an expedition sent to search for Mendoza, anchored in a small bay "near the 23rd degree of lati- tude," landed, and was killed by natives, along with 20 of his men. The survivors reported the discovery of an island, said to "abound in the finest pearls." On May 5, 1535, Cortes entered the little bay Ximenes had found (possibly the present La Paz) called it Santa Cruz, landed and named the supposed island California. He was convinced that it lay "on the right side of the Indies," if not "near to the Terres- trial Paradise." For more than a year Cortes stayed in the new land, a desolate sandy waste, while the mutinous soldiers cursed him, "his island, bay, and his discovery." Clinging tenaciously to his search for the "seven cities of Cibola" in the north, he sent three ships, under command of Fran- cisco de Ulloa, to begin a thorough survey of the coast line in 1539. Ulloa examined both shores of what he called "The Sea of Cortes," now known as the Gulf of California, discovered that Cortes' island was really a peninsula. Later in the same year, it is said, he sailed around Cape San Lucas and surveyed the Pacific coast line of the penin- sula, getting as far as the 28th degree — some say as far as "Cape Engano, near the 3Oth degree." By this time, however, Cortes had gone back to Spain, never to return. The new viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza sent Cabrillo, in com- mand of the ships San Salvador and La Victoria "to examine the west- ern side of California as far northward as possible, seeking particularly for rich countries and for passages leading towards the Atlantic." Cabrillo sailed from Navidad, a small port in Xalisco, on June 27, 1542. Slowed by adverse winds, he finally entered "a very good closed port" on September 28, which he named San Miguel — the bay of San Diego. He discovered Santa Monica Bay and the three large islands of the Santa Barbara group, rounded Cabo Galera (Point Concepcion) and Cabo de los Reyes (Point Reyes). The ships passed the Golden Gate without seeing it. On the way back they found the harbor in the island of the Santa Barbara group which they named La Posesion. There Cabrillo, who had been suffering from a broken arm, died on January 3, 1543, and the command passed to his pilot, Bartolome Ferrelo. Sailing north again, the ships reached a promontory on February 26, probably Cape Mendocino, which Ferrelo named Cabo de Fortunas (Cape of Perils or Stormy Cape). Turning back, they eventually came into their home port, Navidad. Disappointed by the reports of the expedition, Spanish officials be- came more and more convinced that north of Mexico the New World contained "neither wealthy nations, nor navigable passage . . . between CALIFORNIA S LAST FOUR CENTURIES 43 the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans." Later, when the treasures of the Orient began to come into the port of Acapulco from the Philippines and from China, Spain found in the long continental mainland the best protection of its inland sea — the Pacific. England's sea rovers had no way into the Pacific except by rounding Cape Horn. This Francis Drake did in his looton schooner, the Golden Hinde; he anchored on June 17, 1579, in what became Drake's Bay and named the region New Albion. Drake's visit seems to have aroused Spain's dormant interest in California. In 1584 Francisco Gali made a much more thorough exam- ination of the California coast than Cabrillo had done 42 years before, and 1 1 years later Sebastian Cermeno was directed, while returning from Manila to Acapulco, to examine the California coast, "in search of harbors in which galleons might take refuge." Losing his own ship, somewhere "near San Francisco Bay south of Cape Mendocino," he sailed southward along the coast in a small boat and sighted the Bay of Monterey, which he named "San Pedro Bay." With three ships "well officered," Sebastian Vizcaino made a second attempt in 1602 to explore the coast, sailing as far as Cape Mendocino, naming the first harbor he reached, "the best in all the South Sea," San Diego. On November 12, Carmelite friars of his party celebrated Holy Mass ashore — the first time in Upper California. Vizcaino spent almost a year in the survey, but like Cabrillo he missed the Golden Gate. He renamed many places named in 1542 by Cabrillo, among them San Diego, Santa Catalina, Santa Barbara, Point Concepcion, the Carmel River, Point Reges, and Monterey Bay — in honor of the vice- roy, Gasper de Zunigay Acebedo, who was the Count of Monterey. After Vizcaino's visit Spain's efforts were largely spent in attempts to colonize New Mexico rather than Upper California, though recur- rent attempts were made to keep alive the pearl-fishing industry on the eastern coast of the Gulf of California. The most pretentious of these was in 1683, when Don Isidro de Atondo, placing settlers, soldiers and Jesuits at different points, planned a steady penetration of California. But the project lagged, and not until 1697 did Jesuits receive royal warrants to enter upon the reduction of California at their own expense. In that year the first permanent colony was planted in Baja California — at Loreto by Father Juan Maria Salvatierra. Father Kino, in 1701, crossed the Colorado near Yuma and entered Alta California, working among the Indians of "Pimeria Alta." By 1734 Vitus Bering was pushing his exploration of Alaska, and Spain began to fear the colonizing activities of Russia along the Pacific coast. Twenty years later a new peril arose, when France was swept from sovereignty in America by Britain. Spain could put off no longer the settlement of Alta California. 44 CALIFORNIA A high officer of the Spanish "Council of the Indies," Jose de Galvez, was sent to Mexico as visitador-general and arrived in Mexico City in 1766. Early in the following year Carlos III of Spain issued a decree banishing all Jesuits from Spanish territories. Franciscans were to take over the mission at Loreto, which was to be the base of the operations, both military and pastoral. Captain Caspar de Portola was appointed Governor of Baja Cali- fornia and ordered to proceed to Loreto to superintend the transfer of mission property. He reached Loreto with an escort of fifty soldiers, accompanied by fifteen Franciscan monks, and was joined by Father Junipero Serra, who was made president of the missions in California, and Galvez. The king had ordered Galvez "to send an expedition by sea to rediscover and people the bays of San Diego and Monterey." Galvez thought it would be well to send a land expedition also and Father Serra concurred with this plan. Three missions in Alta Cali- fornia— at San Diego, Monterey and at an intermediate point — were to be established, also two presidios or military posts. On January 9, 1769, one of the ships, the San Carlos, left La Paz; two days later the San Antonio sailed from San Lucas, and the Senor San Jose, from Loreto soon after. The vessels were loaded with orna- ments, sacred vases, church vestments, household utensils, field imple- ments, seeds, and other settlement needs. The San Antonio, under Captain Juan Perez, reached its destination, San Diego Bay, on April 1 1 ; the San Carlos on April 29. Scurvy had swept both vessels, but its ravages on the San Carlos had so prostrated the crew that not even a boat could be lowered. The San Antonio's boats carried the sick ashore, where they convalesced behind a temporary stockade. The march by land was no less long and painful. The forces divided into two columns, one under an army captain, Fernando de Rivera, and the other under Portola. With the latter went Father Serra. The columns took different routes, each driving a herd of cattle. Rivera's party reached San Diego on May 1 5 ; Portola's route was more difficult and his party did not arrive until July I. The expedition lost no time in putting its plans into action. Mision San Diego de Alcala was dedicated on July 16, two days after Portola had led sixty-four members of the expedition away to the north to find the Bay of Monterey. Through country described by Portola as "rocks, brushwood and rugged mountains" wound these newcomers — Spanish officers in brilliant uniforms, monks in gray-brown cowls, leather-clad soldiers, Indians on foot. On October 2 they reached Monterey, failed to recognize it, and pushed on. In Father Crespi's words: "The expe- dition strove to reach the Punta de los Reyes, but some immense arms of the sea which penetrate into the mainland in an extraordinary fashion would have made it necessary to take a long, circuitous detour." Those CALIFORNIAS LAST FOUR CENTURIES 45 arms of the sea, first seen by Sergeant Ortega and his band of scouts, were the reaches of San Francisco Bay. Curiously inept at foraging for food, the company would have starved except for their pack animals. They ate twelve in as many days. At last, on January 24, 1770, they returned to San Diego, "smelling frightfully of mules." At San Diego there was so much suffering from illness and hunger that Portola decided to abandon the expedition and return to Baja California if help did not come from Galvez by March 20. But at dusk on March 19 they sighted a sail on the horizon — and less than a month later were on their way back to Monterey. This time they recognized the Bay, and on June 3, 1770, dedicated the sites of the mission and the presidio. Serra felt that they were dedicating themselves to the task of civilizing the natives and winning them for God. To Portola, the planting of royal standards and crosses in the name of King Carlos III of Spain, signified the assertion of Spain's rights in California. During the next half century nineteen more missions were established, and near some of them presidios and pueblos. The last mission — San Francisco Solano — was founded north of San Francisco Bay on July 4, 1823. The missions formed a chain of civilized outposts along the coast, spaced a day's journey apart. Each had its herd of cattle, its fields and vegetable gardens, tended by the Indian neophytes. The Indians were taught by the padres to build irrigation systems and they became weavers, masons, carpenters, and blacksmiths. Thus the missions could be nearly self-sustaining, though they did receive clothing, furniture, implements, and tools from New Spain, in exchange for their surplus of meal, wine, oil, hemp, hides, and tallow. The work of the padres, measured by the number of Indians re- claimed from their free life in the wilderness and put to tilling fields, was for a time successful. But even in 1786 — at a time when the future of the missions was most promising — a discerning French sci- entist, Jean Frangois Galaup de la Perouse, visited California and wrote that he was not impressed with what the padres were accomplishing. He doubted whether the mission system would ever develop self- reliance in the aborigines. The presidios, with their small military staffs, were established to protect the missions from hostile natives and possible invaders. Their military equipment was meager and antiquated, but fortunately the sol- diers had little use for it. They occupied themselves with explorations, bear hunts, capture of run-away neophytes, carrying of the mails, and providing their own food supply. Like the padres, the soldiers were supposed to receive regular wages from New Spain, but more often than not the money failed to come, and they were forced to become more self-reliant than most subjects of the paternal Spanish Government. 46 CALIFORNIA Gradually small towns began to grow. Some of them, like San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Monterey, spread around the edges of the presidios, and were at first under military rule. Others sprang up near the missions; among these were Sonoma, San Juan Bautista, San Juan Capistrano, and San Luis Obispo. Los Angeles and San Jose began as independent towns, with civic governments, and San Francisco, although an adjunct to the Presidio, was definitely planned by the Spanish authorities as a civic enterprise. Its first settlers were 240 immigrants brought from Sonoma, and Tubac, Mexico, by Juan Bautista de Anza. Leaving Tubac in October 1775, he led them over the present Arizona desert and the snows of the high Sierra, and arrived with his company, almost intact ; only one person, a woman, died on the way, and eight children were born. (The Spanish Government had supplied every anticipated need.) On March 28, 1776, Anza located a presidio along the Golden Gate. The settlers, who had stopped in Monterey, arrived on June 27. Although Portola had hoped to establish the authority of Spain in California, his successors could not even repel the small company of Russian fur traders who landed in 1812 and boldly built a stockade, Fort Ross, in the Spanish province. The Spaniards made polite pro- tests but the intruders stayed as long as was convenient to them. Because of their military weakness, the presidio commanders were also forced to receive respectfully the visits of British, French, South Amer- ican, and Yanqui ships — all of which were technically forbidden to enter the California harbors. The captains of these vessels carried home eloquent reports of life in California . . . and it was inevitable that one or another covetous nation would snap the weakening Spanish rule. After Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821 and Cali- fornia settlers had their first taste of self-government, their dissatisfac- tion with the patriarchal mission authority crystallized. The Indians were virtual slaves — who could not be sold, but could be pursued if they left the mission grounds, brought back, whipped, and locked up, and when penitent allowed to go to work again. Though unhappy enough to plan two or three revolts — the worst occurring in 1824 — the Indians were not very articulate about their plight, but the "y°ung Californians" — a party of progressive Castilians — took up the Indians' cause. Their efforts, added to the republican sentiment in Mexico, resulted in a decree issued by the Mexican Congress in 1833 removing the missions from Franciscan management. California's Mexican Gov- ernor, Jose Figueroa, had made a careful plan for the secularization of the missions, but he died before it could be carried out and the im- patient Calif ornios made the change unwisely and with too much haste. One-half of the mission land and livestock was to have been given to the Indian neophytes who had developed it and to whom it had be- CALIFORNIA S LAST FOUR CENTURIES 47 longed before the coming of the Spaniards. Since they had never been taught self-discipline, they were to be forbidden to sell or mortgage their holdings. But when the missions were finally dismembered colon- ists helped themselves to mission lands and the cattle. The Indians received little cash for what they were able to sell, and that little they quickly squandered. The Good Life: A few years after Portola's earnest little company struggled up from Baja California, there rode into the new province a new kind of Spanish immigrants. Travelers returning to New Spain had told how the mission herds were thriving on the virgin pastures of Alta California. Castilian colonists, attempting to raise their cattle on the stonier soil of Mexican ranches, were tempted to move on up the coast. The viceroy encouraged them with generous land grants. Although mission authorities opposed such colonizing by individuals, in 1786 Lieutenant Colonel Pages, Governor of Alta California, was empowered to make private grants and to outfit each ranchero with a storehouse and at least 2,000 head of cattle. By 1824 the colonist was also guaranteed security of person and property and freedom from taxes for five years. The ranch houses, built of sun-dried adobe brick were plain but comfortable. Fields, worked by Indian labor, surrounded the house and beyond these were the vast pasture lands for the family's herds. The rancheros and their wives worked from dawn to sunset as indus- triously as the people who labored for them. The individual ranches had to be self-sustaining, for the arrival of the supply ship was uncer- tain. All visitors praised their hospitality. "If I must be cast in sick- ness or destitution on the care of the stranger," wrote Walter Colton, "let it be in California; but let it be before American avarice has hardened the heart and made a God of gold." It was the younger sons of these families who led the progressive factions when the Californios were forced into politics. As long as Spain's American colonies remained loyal, even California, the remotest of them, looked to Madrid for guidance and assistance. The Californios took no part in the struggle to sever Spanish dominance in the New World but, when they learned early in 1822 that an independent gov- ernment had been set up in Mexico City, they suddenly became con- scious of their republican rights. On April 9, 1822, Governor Pablo Vicente de Sola and ten delegates — eight presidio comandantes and military officers and two priests — met at Monterey, recognized Cali- fornia "from this time ... as a dependent alone of ... the Empire of Mexico and independent of the dominion of Spain." On November 9, 1822, California set up her own legislative body, the Diputadon, composed of six vocales, or representatives, one from each presidio and pueblo district. During this first brief period of independence, the 48 CALIFORNIA province acted decisively. It declared the Indians free citizens, opened the ports to trade, levied import and export duties, and taxes on crops and cattle, and established a military force and militia, and a judiciary. California in March 1825 formally became a Territory of the Re- public of Mexico. Under the Republic, California government con- sisted of : a governor, appointed by the national government ; a secretary ; a territorial legislature ; a superior court ; a prefect and sub-prefect (sheriffs); district judges; alcaldes (minor judges); justices of the peace; and ayuntamientos, or town councils. The Territory of Cali- fornia could send one diputado to represent it in the Mexican Congress but had no vote. In November 1825 Luis Antonio Arguello's provisional governor- ship (1822-25) was ended by the arrival of a Mexican governor, Jose Maria de Echeandia. Echeandia's troubles began at once. The soldiers struck and marched against some of his Mexican troops, when he was not immediately able to pay their wages. But as generally happened in the local rebellions of this period, no blood was spilled. Although Echeandia rescinded some of the measures put into effect during Ar- guello's term, on the whole he was liberal and just. But in March 1830 he was replaced by a dictatorial governor, Manuel Victoria, who did not, however, take office until February 1831. Victoria opposed secularization of the missions, ordered the death penalty for small mis- demeanors, and refused to convoke the Diputadon or to give the Cali- fornios more voice in their affairs, although urged to do so by prominent diputados. The Calif or nios, led by Pio Pico, Juan Bandini, and Jose Carrillo, seized the presidio at San Diego and advanced towards Los Angeles. On December 5, 1831, they clashed with Government troops near Cahuenga Pass. The fight was not severe, for there was only one fatality, but Victoria was convinced that he probably could never sub- due the independent spirit of these provincials, and he returned to Mexico. Into the rancheros' lives of gentlemanly leisure had come a new sense of political responsibility. Although they had no heritage of democratic ideals, as a class the caballeros acquired quite suddenly a natural desire to take their own government into their own hands. This they did in 1836, revolting against Mexico to proclaim the "Free and Sovereign State of Alta California." But the Republic of Mexico made con- cessions which brought California back into the Union. During this transitional period, 1830 to 1846, a number of "battles" were fought which usually settled the current controversy. But the Calif ornios had such an aversion to shedding blood that the opposing forces generally were careful not to shoot if the enemy was within range of their guns. Most of the decisions were won by oratory and pronunciamentos. Some of the California*' controversies were with the LAST FOUR CENTURIES 49 Mexicans, some with each other. When they had an unpopular Mexi- can governor to oust, they united fervently, but between times they indulged in just as violent local disputes. Jealous from the beginning were Los Angeles and Monterey, each wanting to be the capital. The balance of power between customhouse and legislature was never settled. One of the most bitter of the many individual rivalries involved two of California's respected citizens — Juan Bautista Alvarado, a spell- binding young leader who became civil governor at 27, and his uncle, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Alvarado's co-ruler as military chief. Their disagreement brought down upon them Mexican authority, in the person of General Manuel Micheltorena who arrived with an army of convict soldiers in August 1842. Micheltorena, the last of the Mexi- can governors, stayed in the province for three years. He was driven out by the Calif ornios under Castro and Alvarado in March 1845, 15 months before the Americans took command at Monterey. Yankee Bargain : The tide of American pioneer families that flooded California in the i84o's was preceded a generation earlier by a smaller migration of skippers, traders, and trappers who came on brief com- mercial missions. True to their reputation for driving a good bargain, they secured wives, estates, and finally control of the province and its gracious people. The visitors were welcomed by the Calif ornios, but not by their rulers in Mexico City or Madrid. Even before 1800 the Spanish Court had instructed the colonists that no foreigners were to land at California's ports or cross its borders. Since the Court had neglected, however, to send regular supply ships to the colonists, the Californios seldom turned away the Yanqui skippers when they arrived with shiploads of such essentials as skillets, needles, cotton cloth, and plows. The captain of an American vessel wrote in 1817: "We served to clothe the naked soldiers of the king, when for lack of raiment they could not attend mass, and when the most reverend fathers had neither vestments nor vessels fit for the church, nor implements wherewith to till the soil." The first United States ship, the Otter of Boston, docked at Monterey in 1796. In 1799 the Eliza stopped at San Francisco, and in 1800 the Betsy at San Diego. In addition to the regular traders, storm-battered whalers bound home from the North Pacific stopped at California harbors for repairs and supplies, paying for them with household goods brought from New England. Gradually, in spite of Spain's embargo, Cali- fornia hides and tallow began to find their way to Atlantic coast markets. While Yankee skippers were breaking into the California ports, Yankee trappers climbed the barrier of the Sierra and descended the canyons into the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. They explored many parts of California the Spaniards had never reached and took 5O CALIFORNIA away a fortune in furs. On the whole, since they offered the Spaniards little and threatened much, they were not received as well as were the sea-faring traders. But one trapper, James Ohio Pattie, assured him- self a welcome by bringing smallpox vaccine. Before foreigners settled among the Calif or nios there had been little commercial enterprise in the province, but the newcomers immediately started to organize its business life. One ambitious firm, McCullough & Hartnell — called "Macala and Arnell" by the soft-spoken Spaniards —contracted to dispose of the entire mission output of hides for a yearly shipload of supplies. While the foreigners aided California financially in this period, they held it back politically; in most cases they supported the despotic Mexican governors against the rebellious California* be- cause they feared that revolution would endanger their commercial interests. The influence of the Americans after the arrival of the first United States immigrant train, the Bidwell-Bartleson company, in 1841 rose steadily. They had not yet declared any intention of raising the United States flag over the presidios, pueblos, and ranches, but that purpose was stirring in their minds, as the Calif ornios must have realized after October 19, 1842. On that day two American vessels sailed into Monterey Bay and their commander, Commodore Thomas Ap Catesby Jones, ordered the port to surrender to the United States. Stationed at Peru, the Commodore had heard a rumor that the United States and Mexico were at war and had hurried north to annex California. When he learned that no war had been declared, he retired from Monterey on October 20 with elaborate apologies . . . leaving the Calif ornios something to think about. Quieter but more significant was the arrival of Captain John C. Fremont, the U. S. topographical engineer later honored as "The Pathfinder," who came to California in 1844 on a scientific expedition. The next year he came again, this time visiting Monterey for several weeks as the guest of the United States Consul, Thomas O. Larkin. Jose Castro, the prefect, met Fremont and entertained him — but in January 1846 Castro learned that Fremont, en route to Monterey, had left two detachments of soldiers behind him in the back country. Upon Fremont's assurance that his party were interested only in scientific data, Castro gave them permission to spend the winter in California, with the express provision that they remain away from the coast settlements. Fremont left Monterey to rejoin his soldiers. Six weeks later the prefect learned that Fremont's band were camped at his back door, in the Salinas Valley, and demanded that they leave Cali- fornia at once. Then Fremont, acting perhaps under secret orders from Washington (the whole question of Fremont's official instructions re- mains a controversy), fortified a little hill, Gabilan (Hawk's Peak), LAST FOUR CENTURIES 51 and raised the American flag. His force was so small that it seems fantastic to regard this gesture as the first maneuver in the annexation of a great territory — but so it was. It came to nothing. When Gen- eral Jose Castro made some not very effective military advances, Fre- mont withdrew up the Sacramento Valley, and after spending a week at the fort of Johann August Sutter, the Swiss immigrant who wel- comed overland caravans at his colony of New Helvetia on the Sacra- mento River, retreated northward toward Oregon. The retreat was made without haste, however. On the shores of Klamath Lake, Fremont was overtaken by two men from Sutter's Fort with the message that Lieut. A. N. Gillespie was following his trail with dispatches for him from the United States Government. Fremont and his company broke camp and retraced their steps. When he had read Gillespie's dispatches, he knew, as he wrote later, "that at last the time had come when England must not get a foothold; that we must be first. I was to act, discreetly but positively." Soon after- wards all the American ranchers north of San Francisco Bay were informed by an anonymous paper that a band of Californians were on their way north to destroy the crops, cattle, and houses of the Americans. What followed remains largely conjecture, since Fremont withheld most of the story. Probably the Americans, when they re- ported to Fremont for aid, were advised to provoke the Californians into an act of overt hostility. At any rate, they struck first when a small band headed by Ezekiel Merritt captured 250 horses which a group of vaqueros were driving southward to Castro's camp in the Santa Clara Valley. As dawn was breaking on June 14, 1846, in the pueblo of Sonoma, the northern frontier, a little band of Yankees who had surrounded the house of the comandante of the presidio, General Mariano G. Vallejo, seized him and the other officers. The presidio, ungarrisoned, was taken without a shot. The rebels, led by farmer William B. Ide, hauled down the Mexican flag and raised a new one of their own, fashioned of homespun with a strip of red flannel and decorated in brown paint with a star, the figure of a grizzly bear, and the words "California Republic." Although war had begun between the United States and Mexico on May 13, neither the rebels nor Fremont knew it. Despite the provocation of the Americans, the California* remained strangely reluctant to make reprisals, even when the force at Sonoma grew to 130 and Fremont marched to join them at the head of 72 mounted riflemen. Although the intentions of the Americans must have been thoroughly revealed to the Calif ornios, by July I, their two ranking officials, Gov- ernor Pio Pico in Los Angeles and General Jose Castro in Monterey, were so absorbed in a private dispute that they made no preparations 52 CALIFORNIA to defend the province. While they were arguing with each other in Los Angeles, Commodore John D. Sloat sailed into Monterey Bay and on July 7, raised the American flag on the custom-house, and claimed California for the United States. Two days later the flag was flying^ over San Francisco and Sonoma. In alarm, Castro and Pico combined at last to resist the invasion. Mustering a hundred men, they were ready when the American forces — 350 strong — landed in San Pedro under Commodore Robert F. Stockton, who had arrived in Monterey on July 15 to succeed Com- modore Sloat. But before a shot was fired, both Castro and Pico had fled to Mexico, and on August 13 Stockton entered Los Angeles. Leav- ing Capt. Archibald Gillespie in charge, he returned northward. On September 23 the California* attacked the small garrison. John Brown (California's Paul Revere) carried an appeal for help to San Francisco on horseback, covering more than 500 miles in less than five days. But, by the time Captain Mervine had reached Los Angeles with reinforce- ments on the Savannah, Los Angeles had been recaptured. On October 6 the California* met and defeated Mervine and his sailors in a battle at the Domingues Rancho and drove them back to their ship in San Pedro Bay. At Santa Barbara and at San Diego the American flags so recently raised were hauled down again. Meanwhile the California*, skirmishing with the Americans led by Fremont and Thomas O. Larkin in the Salinas Valley, seemed to be getting the better of it, until late in the fall assistance arrived for the Americans. An expeditionary force sent overland from Santa Fe by the War Department, under command of Colonel Stephen W. Kearny, arrived on December 5 and engaged with General Pico's forces the day following in an indecisive skirmish. Kearny's men, when combined with Stockton's and the resident Americans, now made an army of 600, equal to the California*' forces. The two "armies" met in the battle of San Gabriel and of La Mesa on January 8 and 9, 1847. So decisive were the American victories, that the California* surrendered. On January 10 General Kearny and Commander Stockton once more raised the American flag over Los Angeles, and on the I3th hostilities finally ended with the signing of articles of capitulation by General Andres Pico and Fremont at a ranch house near Cahuenga Pass. The incident was like the patching up of a quarrel by old friends, for the Americans required of the Californios only that they give up their artillery and pledge to obey the laws of the United States. On Feb- ruary 2, 1848, when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, California was formally relinquished by Mexico. California's adopted sons had one more job to do. Although the United States now owned California, Congress made no satisfactory provision for its civil government because the Congressional slavery and CALIFORNIA S LAST FOUR CENTURIES 53 anti-slavery factions could not come to an agreement on these questions. After a confused period in which military law, Spanish law, and American law were simultaneously administered in California, Briga- dier-General Bennet Riley, U.S.A., military Governor, took official action on June 3, 1849, when he issued a proclamation "recommending the formation of a State constitution, or a plan for a Territorial gov- ernment." When the convention met in Colton Hall, Monterey, on September I, 48 delegates were admitted to seats. On October 10 they adopted a constitution, which was ratified by people on November 13, 1849. It remained in force until 1879. On the day of ratification (as provided by the constitution) the people elected a Governor, Lieutenant Governor, 16 State senators, and 36 assemblymen. On December 15, 1849, the State legislature convened and on the 2Oth inaugurated Peter H. Burnett as Governor, and John McDougal as Lieutenant Governor. On the same day the legislature elected two United States Senators, John C. Fremont and William M. Gwin, and on December 22 most of the State officials and the supreme court judges. On December 20, 1849, the military Governor, General Riley, issued a remarkable proclamation: "A new executive having been elected and installed into office in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the State, the undersigned hereby resigns his powers as Governor of California." The proclamation constituted a recog- nition by the highest United States agent in California that California had declared itself to be a State, although legally, of course, it had no right to do so without Federal permission. Its action precipitated an eight months' argument in Congress, prolonged by pro-slavery Con- gressmen who fought to prevent the admission of a new non-slavery State. Finally on September 9, 1850, California was admitted to the Union as a free State. Flood Tide: Hundreds of reports describing California as "a per- fect paradise, a perpetual spring" had started eastern families building prairie schooners several years before California became American terri- tory. The first pioneer train, organized largely by John Bidwell, left Independence, Missouri, May 19, 1841 and reached the San Joaquin Valley on November 4. The first to travel in wagons, the Chiles- Walker Party, came in 1843. By 1846 thousands, including the tragic Donner party, almost half of whom died of exposure and starvation en route, were on the westward trails. It was in that year that immi- grants also started to come around the Horn, one group of 2OO Mormons arriving at San Francisco on the ship Brooklyn on July 31. A member of one of the overland trains in 1845 was a young New Jersey wagon builder, James Wilson Marshall, who went to work for Sutter, building a saw mill on the south fork of the American River 54 CALIFORNIA near the site of Coloma. While inspecting the tail race there, one morning late in January 1848, Marshall picked out of the water a piece of shining metal half the size of a pea. At first he thought it was iron pyrites, but when he pounded it between stones and found it soft, he knew that what he held in his hand was gold. Alone in the upland forest Marshall "sat down and began to think right hard," as he wrote in his diary. It is doubtful whether he guessed that his discovery would start the greatest mass movement of people since the Crusades. Less than six months later Walter Colton, alcalde of Monterey, wrote: "The blacksmith dropped his hammer, the carpenter his plane, the mason his trowel, the farmer his sickle, the baker his loaf, and the tapster his bottle. All were off for the mines, some on horses, some on carts, and some on crutches, and one went in a litter." By June 1848 scarcely a male remained in Monterey, San Francisco, San Jose, or Santa Cruz. Soldiers deserted, and so did the detachments sent to capture them. Hundreds of ships lay at anchor in San Fran- cisco Bay, their crews gone to the foothills. Fields of wheat went unharvested, homes and shops were abandoned, newspapers suspended publication, and city officials closed their desks. The gold fever spread almost as quickly throughout the Nation and the world. At one time westbound wagon trains passed between Missouri and Fort Laramie in an unbroken stream for two months. By March 1849, 17,000 had embarked for California from eastern ports. Within its first 10 years as one of the United States, California became generously populated — not only with Americans, but with the adventurous of all nations. Between 1847 and 1850 the population of California increased from 15,000 to 92,497 and a decade later the Federal Census enumerated 379,994 persons in the State. Substantial pioneer families were among the Argonauts who danced and played games on the crowded little ships, while gales, scurvy, and starvation threatened them. Others trudged courageously over trails so bordered with the wreckage of previous parties that one immigrant, James Abbey, counted in 15 miles 362 abandoned wagons and the bleaching bones of 350 horses, 280 oxen, and 120 mules. Oh! Californy! That's the land for me! I'm bound for Sacramento With the washbowl on my knee. In the boisterous shanty-towns of gold rush days — Git-up-and-git, Bogus Thunder, Angel's Camp, You Bet, Shinbone Creek, Red Dog, Lazy Man's Canyon — the average return was up to $50 a day, though many made much more. From one panful of dirt $1,500 was washed, and a trench 100 feet long yielded its two owners $17,000 in 7 days. CALIFORNIA'S LAST FOUR CENTURIES 55 Sometimes gold was picked out of the rock "as fast as one can pick kernels out of a lot of well-cracked shell barks." Fully as much was made by those who served the miners. Many a tent-store took in $1,000 a day. Owners of river steamers and stage coaches, conveyors of water, innkeepers, entertainers gathered in copious wealth. They supplied the elementary needs; amenities were nonexistent. One of the "best hotels," described by Hinton R. Helper, was a canvas struc- ture, floored with dirt. It consisted of an undivided room were guests ate, drank, and slept in tiered bunks. "When we creep into one of these nests it is optional with us whether we unboot or uncoat our- selves; but it would be looked upon as an act of ill-breeding to go to bed with one's hat on." The colorful ruffians of the times have been so immortalized as to create the impression that the camps were lawless. As a matter of fact, the mining camps, in distinction to the cities, stand as one of the world's best examples of men's spontaneous ability to govern them- selves. With no formal legal setup, the miners, extremely diverse in background and nationality, established a society with a high degree of justice and democracy — particularly in the early years. Later, when "loose fish" and "bad whites" came to California in increasing num- bers, crime became more difficult to control, both in the camps and in the feeder-town, San Francisco. Gold seekers, disembarked after a nine-month trip around the Horn or down from the camps with bags of gold, wanted the lustiest enter- tainment imagination could provide. They got it. Visitors gambled around the roulette tables — residents gambled in real estate, nails, cork, calico, rice, whatever commodities could be cornered — all gambled with their lives, for it is said that during the years from 1849 to 1856 more than a thousand murders were committed in San Francisco, with but a single execution. Of city government there was practically none. An alarmed official addressed his fellow citizens in 1849: "We are without a dollar in the public treasury. . . . You have neither an office for your magistrate, nor any other public edifice. You are without a single police officer or watchman, and have not the means of confining a prisoner for an hour." To remedy the situation the citizens formed the vigilance committees of 1851 and 1856. The former drove out the "Hounds," a gang that attacked various racial minorities, and the latter dispersed more "reputable" crooks in league with bankers and politicians. Both groups sprang from a widespread desire for demo- cratic control, representing the community as a whole. Less clearly characterized by a sense of responsibility for its actions was the similar sort of spontaneous government that arose in Los Angeles, where volun- tary citizens' committees broke up the bandit organizations of Salomon Pico, Juan Flores, and Pancho Daniel. 56 CALIFORNIA In 1854 the Great Bonanza suddenly slackened. Fortunes large and small collapsed. Disillusioned miners drifted up and down the State. Added to their numbers were the wagon trains and boatloads of immigrants arriving, now, to homestead on Uncle Sam's new fertile acres. They came not realizing that most of this vast land had been apportioned long before to the Calif or nios, who had been guaranteed their property rights at the end of the Mexican war. The Americans simply moved onto the ranches and dared the owners to put them off. What to do with these squatters became the question of the hour. Unfortunately the boundaries of the ranches had never been fixed exactly. "Professional squatters" were hired by land-grabbing corpora- tions. Unscrupulous legislators defended the squatters in order to court their votes. When at last riots and bloodshed forced the Federal Government to take action, a survey of the State was ordered and a land commission formed to adjust disputes. In the end many of the Spanish families were reduced to comparative poverty. They were re- markably patient. General Vallejo, one of them, wrote, "The inhabi- tants of California have no reason to complain of the change of govern- ment, for if the rich have lost thousands of horses and cattle, the poor have been bettered in condition." The admission of California into the Union had not satisfied all Californians. In 1850 Walter Colton had predicted that an inde- pendent nation would spring up on the Pacific unless Congress built a railroad to the Coast, for without it, California would easily have become self-sufficient. The cry for independence was soon taken up by southern sympathizers, the followers of pro-slavery Senator William S. Gwin, who overran southern California, especially San Bernardino County. The Democratic Party, which controlled the State legislature in every session but one from 1851 to 1860, was torn by the struggle between the Gwin faction and the anti-slavery faction headed by David C. Broderick, who was elected to the Senate in 1857. When Brod- erick was slain in a duel by Gwin's henchman, David S. Terry, in September 1859, his successor in the Senate, Milton S. Latham, joined Gwin in the demand for a republic on the Pacific. He declared in 1860 that if civil war should break out, California would declare its independence. In 1860 the pro-slavery Democrats had gained over- whelming strength in both houses of the legislature, but in the year following they split, and Abraham Lincoln carried the State — by less than a thousand votes. In the nick of time a plot to seize Federal strongholds in California and raise Confederate forces was frustrated. When news of the fall of Fort Sumter came on May 17, California pledged its loyalty to the Union, and in the next session of the legis- lature Republicans controlled the assembly. Gold from California's mines began traveling eastward to help win the war for the North. CALIFORNIA'S LAST FOUR CENTURIES 57 Steel Rails to Sunny Shores: When the first transcontinental rail- road was completed in May 1869, new multitudes of pioneers traveled westward. Although two decades had passed since the first Argonauts set out across the plains, California had still not absorbed its surplus population. The new pioneers found their promised land in a state of poverty and strife — wages low and unemployment widespread, capital scarce and interest rates prohibitive, land titles uncertain, freight rates exorbitant, and water rights held by monopolies. They found the labor movement restless, anti-Chinese agitation rampant, and the whole people in an uproar against a government corrupted by railroad control. Following collapse of a wild frenzy of speculation in wildcat mining and oil company stocks in the i86o's had come an even wilder boom in Nevada silver mining stocks, set off by exploitation of the Comstock Lode's Bonanza mines in 1872. The California Stock Exchange Board, organized in that year, became the scene of such violent excitement that the flush days of forty-nine paled in comparison. Throughout the State people invested in stocks every cent they could borrow, beg, or steal. A few made millions; most lost all they had. For on August 27> J875, the Bank of California crashed — and California was shaken to its foundations. The hard times that followed the bank panic bore down on people in town and country alike. The farmers of the interior valleys, already oppressed by inequable mortgage and taxation laws, the railroad's high freight rates, monopoly of land and water rights by the railroad and land companies, and finally by the ravages of a severe drought in 1876, took with ill grace the added burdens of an economic depression. In the cities wages fell and breadlines grew as thousands were thrown out of work — and hungry men walking the streets began to resent the Bonanza kings' ostentatious display of their newly found wealth. Meanwhile the long-smouldering hostility against the Chinese, who had been thronging in since 1848 as miners, truck gardeners, laundry- men, fishermen, and workers on the railroad, had begun to break out in flames. It was incited by politicians, among them Governor Henry Haight, who had said in December 1869: "The Chinese are a stream of filth and prostitution pouring in from Asia, whose servile competition tends to cheapen and degrade labor." As workingmen, under artful urging, began to blame the Chinese for all their wrongs, the anti- Chinese feeling spread throughout the State. In 1871 a lawless gang looted and pillaged Los Angeles' Chinatown and lynched nineteen Chinese. The labor movement took up the cry: "The Chinese must go!" On July 23-24, 1877, several thousand rioters burned and sacked Chinese laundries in San Francisco and fired the Pacific Mail Steam- ship docks where Chinese immigrants landed. Elsewhere there were sporadic outbreaks of violence. 58 CALIFORNIA Despairing of redress for their difficulties from the railroad con- trolled State government, city and farm workers, and even some small businessmen and small landholders organized the Workingmen's Party of California, promptly nicknamed the Sand-Lot Party for its Sunday afternoon meetings on San Francisco's vacant sand lots harangued by the Irish spellbinder, Dennis Kearney. The party vowed "to wrest the government from the hands of the rich and place it in those of the people, where it properly belongs; to rid the country of cheap Chinese labor as soon as possible ; to destroy the great money power of the rich ... to destroy land monopoly in our state by a system of taxation that will make great wealth impossible in the future." For a solution to their problems, the people looked to the legislature. The authors of California's first constitution, framed in the idealistic days of the Gold Rush, had given the legislators sweeping powers — to levy taxes, make appropriations, grant franchises, and give away public lands — of which the legislators of the seventies took full advantage. By 1878 the Workingmen's Party had grown so strong that it forced the legislature to adopt an act calling a constitutional convention. Of the 152 members of the convention who came together on September 28, 1878, 51 were members of the Workingmen's Party and 78 were nonpartisan ; they included mechanics, miners, farmers, and even a cook, as well as lawyers, doctors, journalists, and teachers. The constitution which they adopted was ratified by the voters May 7, 1879. It was termed reactionary by some, radical by others. It remodeled the judiciary department, improved prison regulations and prohibited convict labor, and passed a law instituting the eight-hour working day. In general, it differed little from the organic law com- mon in most States of the Union, but when compared with the consti- tution of 1849, it marked a distinct advance toward popular control. The power of the legislature was everywhere curtailed. "Lobbying" was made a felony. Provisions to tax and control common carriers and corporations, and to regulate public utilities and services were inserted. A two-thirds vote in both houses and ratification by the people were required to pass a constitutional amendment. Suffrage was extended to "every male citizen," 21 years or more old who had lived in Cali- fornia for a year, "provided no native of China'1 and no idiot, lunatic, convicted criminal, or illiterate "shall ever exercise the privileges of an elector." The legislature was to consist of 40 senators and 80 assem- blymen, meeting biennially. The Governor, Lieutenant Governor, secretary of state, controller, treasurer, attorney general and surveyor general were to be elected by the people for four-year terms. A two-thirds vote of each house could overcome the Governor's veto. Judicial powers were confined to a supreme court (a chief justice and CALIFORNIA'S LAST FOUR CENTURIES 59 six associate justices), three district courts of appeal, a superior court for each county, and also minor courts (as amended Nov. 8, 1904). The Workingmen's Party was driven out of existence in 1880 by a fusion of Democrats and Republicans — but not before its anti-Chinese agitation had led to a vote by the people of the State (154,638 to 883) against further immigration from China. On March 20, 1879, the national Congress passed an exclusion bill, killed by the veto of Presi- dent Rutherford B. Hayes. Two years later a treaty with China giving the United States the power to "regulate, limit, or suspend" Chinese immigration was ratified by the Senate. Although the State's population had increased 54 percent during the iSyo's, its professional boosters — fast becoming a familiar type — discovered soon after 1880 that promotion would bring still more new settlers. For the first time California went afield to bid for immigrants with advertisements, books, magazine and newspaper articles telling about the extraordinary climate and resources of "the Coast.'' Typical was this from B. F. Taylor's Between the Gates: "Whoever asks where Los Angeles is, to him I shall say: across a desert without wearying, beyond a mountain without climbing . . . where the flowers catch fire with beauty . . . where the pomegranates wear calyx crowns . . . where the bananas of Honolulu are blossoming; where the chest- nuts of Italy are dropping; where Sicilian lemons are ripening; where the almond trees are shining ... in the midst of a garden of thirty- six square miles — there is Los Angeles." The inducements were so convincing that by 1884 the Southern Pacific was doing a rushing passenger business at fajes of $125 from the Midwest to Los Angeles. When the Santa Fe was completed the following year, the two roads entered on a rate war that reduced fares to $5 and even, at one time, to $i. Multitudes climbed on the trains and started West, savings in their pockets, bound as they thought for a sort of South Sea paradise. A real estate boom began, legitimate enough in that it originated in a sudden influx of buyers. But the shrewd encouragement of swindlers led most of the citizens to believe that the 1885 boom was only the prelude to another that was to "outclass the present activity as thunder to the crack of a hickory-nut." Prices of Los Angeles lots rose from $500 to $5,000 within a year. Truck gardens and out- lying vineyards worth $350 an acre were squared off into lots and sold for $10,000 an acre. Networks of sidewalks ran mile after mile out into the sagebrush. Elaborate hotels were built on desert tracts — and never occupied except on the opening day. The newcomers, many of them unsophisticated farmers and small tradespeople from the Middle West, grew hysterical when the boom got really under way. The wealthier among them paid $20,000 to $50,000 for waterfront lots on a lonely stretch of shore, "Redondo- 60 CALIFORNIA by-the-Sea," because "engineers" had declared that a submarine oil well off Redondo kept the water smooth and made an ideal harbor. Smaller savings were invested in Widneyville-by-the-Desert, a wasteland covered with Joshua trees, spiny and tortuous. Since the grotesque trees failed to give the site a homelike atmosphere, the promoters stuck oranges on the spines — and sold a citrus grove! To Widneyville, as to the other boom towns, prospective buyers were carried in tallyhoes and stages, accompanied with bands, to be greeted on the grounds by the smoothest of high-pressure salesmen and plied with free chicken dinners and all the liquor they could drink. "Millionaires of a day," to quote Theodore C. Van Dyke, "went about sunning their teeth with checkbooks in their outside pockets." In 1887 many of those millionaires were suicides, as syndicates collapsed, banks closed, individuals and business firms went bankrupt, and the bands, the tallyhoes, and the oratory disappeared from the sunny scene. Once more the bubble had burst. The hard times of the early iSgo's lay ahead, breadlines once more lengthened, unemployed men mustered to join Coxey's Army in a hunger march on Washington, and the cities put their jobless thousands to work on public works projects. The influx of new settlers dwindled. Twentieth Century: But the tide of immigration once more rose and new multitudes flocked in, swelling the population by 60 percent in the decade from 1900 to 1910. "A new century — a new order" became the slogan. The new century began with prosperity, marked by rising wages and industrial expansion, the development of the petro- leum and hydroelectric industries, and of intensive fruit growing on a big scale. But the newcomers, mostly people from the Midwest who brought with them a long tradition of active participation in community affairs, found much in California to challenge — corruption in municipal politics, machine control of government by corporations, industrial strife, and anti-Oriental agitation. For once more the outcry against the "yellow peril" had broken out. The Japanese, imported in increasing numbers by large agricul- turists to take the place of the Chinese as farm workers, had begun to settle as farmers and tradesmen, managing their small holdings so thriftily that soon they were displacing white workers and farmers. Although they numbered but 14,243 in 1906 — and for many years had been excluded along with other Orientals from the privilege of natural- ization— military and patriotic groups, merchants' associations, and labor organizations combined to raise the cry: "California shall not become the Caucasian graveyard." In 1906 the San Francisco Board of Education passed an order segregating the 93 Japanese pupils in the city schools in an Oriental public school. When Japan protested that the action was a violation of her treaty with the United States, the CALIFORNIA'S LAST FOUR CENTURIES 61 Federal Government persuaded the board to rescind its order. The result of the diplomatic controversy was the "Gentlemen's Agreement" of 1907, by which the United States agreed to admit Japanese chil- dren below the age of 16 to the regular public schools, while Japan contracted to prevent the emigration of laborers to the United States. But anti- Japanese feeling persisted and grew in California. One of the first evils that challenged the attention of California's civic-minded newcomers in the early years of the century was corrup- tion in city politics. The prosecution of San Francisco's "City Hall graft ring" led the way in a series of exposures of municipal scandals that introduced the muckraking era in California. From 1906 to 1908 the whole State followed with eager interest the prosecutions of political boss Abraham Ruef, Mayor Eugene Schmitz, and Patrick Calhoun, United Railroads head, pushed by Fremont Older, Rudolph Spreckels, and James D. Phelan; attorneys Francis J. Heney and Hiram Johnson ; and detective William Burns. In Los Angeles the reform movement was taken up in 1909 when the editor of the Herald, T. R. Gibbon, accused Mayor A. C. Harper and his associates of enriching themselves through forcing owners of vice dens to buy stock in fictitious sugar companies by promising police protection. The municipal clean-up campaign, soon joined by the editors of the Evening Express and various citizens' committees, succeeded in defeating Harper in the next election. In State politics the battle against control by corporation lobbyists, fought so ardently in the 1870*3, was still to be won. As early as 1905-06, resolutions demanding Government ownership of railroads were passed at Bakersfield and Fresno, aimed against the Southern Pacific. The demand for public ownership was linked with demands for other reforms. The Independence League, a group of liberal Demo- crats meeting in Oakland in September 1906, came out for equal suffrage, the eight-hour working day, and State arbitration of indus- trial disputes, as well as for public ownership. At the same time a demand for direct primary legislation to reform the election laws was arising out of charges of fraud at the State party conventions. When a new economic depression shook the whole financial and business structure of the State in 1907, the reform movement gathered sudden strength. The outcome was a political revolt which took form in a coalition of liberal Republicans, organized in Oakland in August 1907 as the Lincoln-Roosevelt League. It proposed to give the people of the State a direct voice in government by freeing the Republican Party from domination by "Vested Interests." Its platform included such planks as the direct primary, popular election of Senators, and institution of the initiative, referendum, and recall. It promised to elect "a free, 62 CALIFORNIA honest, and capable legislature, truly representative of the common interests of the people of California." As leading newspapers through- out the State swung to the support of the Lincoln-Roosevelt League, it rallied enough votes in 1908 to elect a legislature which passed a direct primary law, soon ratified by the people. When it gained control of the Republican Party in 1910 by electing its candidates to nearly every State and Congressional office, the State was shaken by a political upheaval. The Lincoln-Roosevelt League's candidate for Governor, Hiram Johnson, took office in 1911. The new legislature which convened at the same time fulfilled its platform promises by approving a long series of legislative reforms. The 22 amendments to the Constitution of 1879, which it adopted and the people ratified, included provisions for woman suffrage, a new railroad commission, the initiative, referendum, and recall, and workingmen's compensation for industrial accidents. Theodore Roosevelt called its enactments "the most comprehensive programme of constructive legislation ever passed at a single session of an American legislature." When the Roosevelt Republicans bolted the Republican National Convention of 1912, they nominated Hiram Johnson as Theodore Roosevelt's running mate on the progressive "Bull Moose" ticket, which carried the State in the national elections. A concession to anti-Japanese agitation was the 1911 legislature's alien land law. It was supplemented in 1913 by the Webb Act, for- bidding aliens ineligible to citizenship to own agricultural land in the State, which the legislature passed over President Woodrow Wilson's protests. The Japanese evaded its operation by forming land corpora- tions or by transferring ownership to their American-born children, but the hue and cry forced enactment in 1920 of the Asiatic Land Law, forbidding such evasions. Despite Japan's protests, the United States Supreme Court upheld in 1923 the constitutionality of the Webb Act. And in 1924 Congress revised the immigration law to exclude Japanese. The reform wave continued into the early years of the World War. In December 1913 the Republican State Central Committee, announc- ing that it foresaw no hope of progress within the Republican Party, recommended the formation of the Progressive Party. The new party, formally launched on December 6 of that year, attracted a mass of former Republican voters. In the elections of November 1914, when Hiram Johnson was returned to office, the Progressives won more decisively than in any previous election. But in 1916, the year in which Johnson was elected to the Senate, the bitter feud between Republicans and Progressives gave California to Woodrow Wilson by the narrow — and history-making — margin of 3,773 votes. Already California had embarked on the feverish expansionist period of the World War boom years, as wages, industrial output, and z^ Agriculture VINEYARD, LIVERMORE VALLEY , ~v •••" 8& Z*%, ORANGE GROVE LOS ANGELES COUNTY DATE PALMS, NEAR INDIO * " ORCHARD SCENE IN NAPA COUNTY FIGS IN THE DRY YARD HARVESTING TOMATOES IN SACRAMENTO VALLEY MIGRATORY WORKERS WEIGHING PEAS w. - 7 \ J YOUNG COTTON PICKER 1URAL IN POST OFFICE, WHITTIEF WINE STORED FOR AGING, NAPA COUNTY BED OF THE ALL-AMERICAN CANAL CONSTRUCTION WORK ON IMPERIAL DAM *y .,»• ,.r/::r EARLY SPANISH WATER WHEEL, NEAR LONE PINE DROUGHT REFUGEES FROM TEXAS ENCAMPED NEAR EXETER ^^ X L CALIFORNIA'S LAST FOUR CENTURIES 63 the number of wage earners and industrial plants soared dizzily. Between 1910 and 1920 the assessed value of real and personal prop- erty doubled. The opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, celebrated the following year by the Panama-California Exposition at San Diego and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco, seemed to promise unlimited growth of California's maritime trade. The reform movement was soon forgotten. In southern California the unexpected plea of guilty by J. B. and J. J. McNamara, on trial in 1911 for the dynamiting of the Times building, had crushed the labor movement and turned the tide of a municipal election against the socialist candidate. When the bombing of San Francisco's Pre- paredness Day parade July 22, 1916, was followed by the swift arrest of labor organizers Thomas Mooney and Warren K. Billings, the voices raised in protest were drowned out by the clamor of war-era patriots. The period of repression continued into early post-war years, when the newly passed criminal syndicalism law was invoked against members of the I. W. W. and other nonconformists. The westward moving hordes of forty-nine were as nothing to the new influx of settlers whom California welcomed in the 1920*5, as prosperity, unrestrained, reached giddy heights. The high-pressure efforts of boosters and promoters were devoted to making prosperity and California synonymous in the public mind. Its harbors, its oil wells and factories, its movie studios, its orange groves and irrigation projects, its booming real estate subdivisions all helped to renew its association in people's thoughts with the El Dorado of the Argonauts. The cities around San Francisco Bay advanced as maritime and manufacturing centers and the new metropolis of the south, Los Angeles, surrounded by fast expanding suburbs, as a manufacturing, oil-refining, fruit- shipping, and movie-making center. By 1930 the population of Cali- fornia had grown to 5,677,251 — an increase of 65 per cent in 10 years, greater than in any other State in the Union during the same period. The increase gave it sixth place among the States in population. And again the bubble burst. The newcomers who had thronged in by the hundreds of thousands — the wage earners and farmers, the small investors and businessmen, the elderly retired people — found themselves in the same situation as those who had come before them : jobless, their savings exhausted, their businesses bankrupt, their farms foreclosed, or their investments wiped out. As they had done in the 1900*5 and earlier still in the 1870*5, the people turned to politics. Of the State-wide political movements that began to follow close on one another throughout the I93o's, the first was the EPIC movement, which rallied around the "End Poverty in California" (EPIC) plan presented by Upton Sinclair when he con- sented in August 1933 to run for the gubernatorial nomination on the 64 CALIFORNIA Democratic ticket. Sinclair's plan called for the establishment of self- sustaining State land colonies and the opening of idle factories, both to be operated on "production for use" principles for the benefit of the unemployed and to be financed by State-issued scrip. The plan called also for repeal of the State sales tax, exemption of small homes and ranches from taxation, and for levying of graduated taxes on incomes, inheritances, corporations, and unused lands and buildings. Another plank in the EPIC platform was pensions for the aged, the physically incapacitated, and widows with dependent children. After the hottest election campaign hitherto waged in the State, Sinclair was defeated for the governorship by a narrow margin, although EPIC candidates were elected to city and Congressional offices. The people turned to other movements which seemed to promise a way out, some of which, like the EPIC movement, spread into other States. A short-lived one that swept southern California was the Utopian Society, which employed semi-dramatic rites to educate its members in social and economic affairs. The Townsend Plan, devised by an elderly Long Beach physician, Dr. Francis E. Townsend, enlisted the support of large numbers of the State's more elderly citizens with its proposal to promote business recovery by paying $200 per month to each person over 60 years of age. In 1938 another project for economic recovery, the so-called "Thirty Dollars Every Thursday" or "Ham- and-Eggs" plan, rose to prominence, promising to pay aged persons $30 weekly in State warrants, financed by a 2^ tax on all sales. California Bound — IQ3Q: On the highways leading into California there appeared in the late I93o's, among the long lines of streamlined automobiles, more antiquated vehicles. Like the covered wagons of earlier days they carried all their owners' worldly goods: those elemental necessities that change but little in 80 years — pots, pans, bed- ding, basins, washtubs. These latter-day prairie schooners, like their predecessors, stopped for the night at wayside camps, where the in- formality of hardships loosened tongues. Once again campfires burned along western trails — but the stories told around them resembled not at all the stories of the earlier pioneers. "The dust was drifted high as the window sills." "The cattle died a-lookin' at you." "Wouldn't a blade of grass grow anywhere in the valley." Over the spirits of the starving migrants the desolation they had seen lay heavy — until they remembered that they were going to Cali- fornia. That horizon was a bright one, for they were sure that in a State which supplies nearly half the Nation's fresh fruit and a third of its truck crops there would be a place for them among the pickers. What few of them had learned was that earlier immigrants — Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos — had swarmed so thickly over the fertile acres that wages never rose above the standard accepted by coolie and peon CALIFORNIA'S LAST FOUR CENTURIES 65 labor. Or that they would have to make their homes in districts like the one where in 1934 the National Labor Relations Board found "filth, squalor, an entire absence of sanitation, and a crowding of human beings into totally inadequate tents or crude structures built of boards, weeds, and anything that was found at hand to give a pitiful semblance of a home at its worst." For these workers the workmen's compensation law failed to operate, the State's minimum wage law for women and minors was ignored, medical aid was denied unless death was imminent, and labor contractors took an exorbitant percentage of wages — wages which averaged, in 1935, but $289 per family, in- cluding the income of all its members. Such were the conditions that awaited 97,642 Dust Bowl migrants in 1936 and 104,976 in the following year. In 1938 they were arriving at the rate of 10,000 a month. Their coming served to bring to people's consciousness the long unsolved problem of how to feed, clothe, and shelter the hundreds of thousands of homeless farm workers who follow the crops over the State. When the people of California went to the polls in November 1938, the surge of protest and demands for reform that had swept the State throughout the I93o's came to a climax. They elected a new Governor, Culbert L. Olson — the first Democrat to hold the office since the Republican Party had captured it 43 years before. During those four decades, California's period of expansion had run its course. At the end of the 1930'$, Calif ornians could look forward neither to the opening up of new lands nor, probably, to the discovery of new resources. The dramatic influx of fortune seekers, following in suc- cessive waves as boom succeeded boom, has subsided. What lies ahead is an intensive struggle to solve the social and economic problems which are the inevitable heritage of California's four centuries of development. Riches From the Soil WITHIN the rock wall formed by California's two great moun- tain ranges lies the long level stretch of the Sacramento-San Joaquin or Central Valley — the "Long Valley," as John Steinbeck has named it — called the world's most fertile growing region, which contains about two-thirds of the State's 30,000,000 acres of agricultural lands. Other major growing areas are the coastal valleys, the intensely developed farm area south of the Tehachapis, center of the citrus industry, and the arid but potentially highly productive desert region in the southeastern corner of the State, which includes Imperial Valley. The wide range of topography, soil, and climate makes it possible to produce every species of temperate zone and subtropical fruit, vege- table, and field crop within the limits of the State. Pears grow on the cool mountain slopes to the north ; asparagus, celery, beans, onions, and rice in the black soil of the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta area; lettuce in Salinas Valley, called "the Valley of Green Gold" ; grapes for dry wines on the sunny foothills of Napa and Sonoma Counties ; prunes — most of America's supply — in the sheltered orchards of Santa Clara Valley; table, wine and raisin grapes, peaches, apricots, plums, olives, and a fabulous yield of cotton in the brown silted loam of San Joaquin Valley; oranges, lemons, limes, pomegranates, figs, avocados, loquats, guavas, almonds, and walnuts to the south ; dates far out in the desert to the southeast beyond Indio. The State is ideally adapted to the modern, industrialized, mass- production type of specialized intensive farming. The dominant unit 66 RICHES FROM THE SOIL 67 in the agricultural pattern is the large-scale, mechanized, irrigated "ranch," operated with the precision of a Ford factory, employing hun- dreds of workers and turning out specialized crops for eastern and foreign markets or for California's $174,000,000 fruit and vegetable canning and preserving industry. A typical large-scale fruit ranch in the extreme southern end of San Joaquin Valley — 6,000 acres devoted exclusively to the production of "green" or fresh fruit — ships more than two dozen carloads of peaches, plums, and grapes daily at the peak season and employs 2,500 men and women in orchards, vineyards, and packing sheds. Hidden by the gentle, scarcely perceptible swell of the plain is the heart of the ranch : the cluster of administrative buildings, the white staff bungalows on a miniature Main Street with gay little gardens and tennis courts, the packing-sheds and refrigeration plant and railroad siding, the school- house and store. Beyond lie the separate labor camps for American, Mexican, Filipino and Japanese workers. The elaborate irrigation system is equipped with 18 pumps, run by 125- to 25O-horsepower deepwell turbines. They draw the ranch's water supply from subterranean springs, fed by melting snow in the mountains. Farm machinery includes 15 caterpillar tractors, 43 trucks and trailers, over 50 company-owned automobiles, and 22 mules — appar- ently still indispensable to farming even in this ultra-modern form. The carpenter shop puts together a reserve supply of 300,000 crates before the season opens ; 60,000 crates can be stored in the refrigerating plant when they are packed with fruit. Ranch personnel includes the ranch manager, his assistants and office stafr, a physician, an electrician, a blacksmith and five assistants, a cook and 1 1 assistants for the single men's cook houses. The labor force of men and women engaged in irrigating, tractor driving, and picking, packing, and shipping fruit ranges from 700 at the lowest point in December to 2,500 at the highest in the summer, averaging 2,200 from April through December. At peak season, in the packing sheds alone, 450 workers pack plums and about 325 pack grapes. The con- veyor system is used from the time the crated fruit is brought in on trucks for sorting and packing until the finished, boxed, scientifically pre-cooled product glides out on the belt to the refrigerator cars, wait- ing on the siding of the ranch's special branch line. Agriculture is the basic industry of the State, occupying a key posi- tion in its economic structure. Its income far outstrips the combined income of oil and mining, and its production cost more than triples that of the motion picture industry. In addition, more than a fourth of the total value of products from manufacturing industries is in industries directly allied to agriculture, such as milling, canning, packing, and preserving. In 1937, California was second only to Texas in gross 68 CALIFORNIA farm income. It produces nearly one-half of the country's fresh fruit output, about 95 percent of its dried fruit, a third of its truck crops, and nearly a third of its canned fruits and vegetables. California holds first place in many of the country's most important fruit and truck crops and some field crops. In many crops, such as lemons, dates, figs, and olives, the State has a monopoly of commercial production. Farm production in California rose over 120 percent in the period 1909 to 1936. This expansion has been accomplished, with practically no accompanying expansion in acreage for the last 50 years, by intensive cultivation. Since about 1885, the tendency has been to concentrate on increasing output, with an accompanying expenditure of money and labor per acre which today has reached a point probably unequalled anywhere else in the world. The huge outlays for power, irrigation, water rights, fertilizer, machinery, labor, and transportation have neces- sarily developed California's intensive agriculture into an extremely complex industrial and commercial enterprise, far removed from the simplicities of farming in the familiar sense of the word. The old family-size farm, run by the farmer and his family and a few hired hands, is steadily declining in importance and in number. Those that remain are increasingly operated, not as self-sufficing family units, but as commercial enterprises, imitating on a miniature scale the big "outdoor factories." Many are direct adjuncts of fruit and vege- table packing corporations, for which they produce selected crops according to company specifications under supervision of the company's fieldmen and, in many cases, with funds advanced by the company. Among the small submarginal farm units are the tens of thousands of little farms, often worked on a part-time basis, which are as charac- teristic a feature of the California scene as the great thousand-acre ranches, especially in the south around Los Angeles. Many of these are run by retired business and professional men, or midwestern farmers attracted to California from more austere territory. Two percent of California farms control one-fourth of the acreage, nearly one-third of the crop value, and pay more than one-third of the bill for hired labor. "Of all farms in the United States whose product is valued at $30,000 or above," according to Paul Taylor, University of California authority, "nearly 37 percent are found in our own state. California has within its borders 30 percent of the large-scale cotton farms of the country, 41 percent of the large-scale dairy farms, 44 percent of the large-scale general farms, 53 percent of the large-scale poultry farms, 60 percent of the large-scale fruit farms of the United States." The growth of the two extremes, very large and very small farms, progressively eliminating the middle farmer, has been promoted by the high and steadily rising value of land to over twice the United States RICHES FROM THE SOIL 69 average. Other major factors are the high costs of land development and labor in intensive cultivation of fruit and truck crops. The bulk of farm work in California today is performed, not by the independent farmer, but by a vast army of some 200,000 wage earners,, most of them migrant laborers. According to a recent study, three- fifths of those engaged in agriculture in 1936 were wage-earners, as against less than half in 1920. The big landowners, following the railroads in scouring the world for sources of cheap labor, imported in succession Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Mexicans, and Filipinos to do field work. Today the ranks of migratory workers also include refugees from Dust Bowl areas. This great mass of landless field and shed workers constitutes a major social problem in the State. Under the system of intense crop specialization steady employment for most of the year is an impossibility ; labor requirements fall from an estimated peak of 198,349 in September to 46,448 in January. Since huge areas are devoted to a single crop, employment begins and ceases simultaneously throughout the whole region. Migrants stream Up and down the valleys, covering hundreds of miles from Imperial Valley to the coast valleys, to San Joaquin Valley and the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta, and back to Imperial Valley — homeless, cut off from stable rural communities, existing continuously near the hunger line. An effective approach to the migrant problem is now being made, for the first time in California history, by the Federal Government. Its Farm Security Administration is aiding the Dust Bowl exiles through the series of camps extending from Brawley, in the Imperial Valley, to Marysville, in the Sacramento Valley, through food grants made to workers in danger of starvation between crops ; and through the recently organized Agricultural Workers Health and Medical Association, which utilizes existing medical apparatus in agricultural counties. Friars as Farmers: The large-scale pattern for agriculture was set in the opening days of California agriculture by the Spanish-Mexican mission and rancho. The mission padres used their Indian neophytes to cultivate large tracts of desert land, and experimented boldly with a variety of vegetables and fruits. Today mission olives and grapes, planted 150 years ago by the Spanish padres, are still among the most favored varieties of these fruits. From the end of the eighteenth cen- tury until the secularization of the missions (1834-37), mission agri- culture developed with amazing rapidity. A maximum Indian labor force of 20,000 to 30,000 was said to have been reached in 1804. In 1834, according to the historian, Duflot de Mofras, the 21 missions existing in California territory had under cultivation a total of 70,000 hectares (a hectare equals 2.471 acres) of wheat, corn, barley, and beans and possessed 242,000 cattle, 65,000 horses, and 321,500 sheep. 7O CALIFORNIA When the Spanish monarchy under King Carlos III occupied Alta California in 1769, only usufructuary title of various grades was granted to individuals, since absolute title in all lands was vested in the king. Theoretically the Indians were recognized as natural owners of lands sufficient for their subsistence, and the missions, therefore, held the vast grants ceded them in trust for their Indian wards. Few large grants were made under the Spanish regime except to missions, for the padres strenuously opposed secular grants. When Mexico proclaimed her independence from Spain in 1823, only 20 secular grants existed in California. Ten years later the number increased to about 50 and by 1845, to 700 or 800. The padres' bitter opposition to Mexican secession from Spain rose to a climax when the Mexican Congress issued its decree of August 17, 1833, ordering the division of mission properties in Alta California. With the Indians deprived of most of the land that was theirs, the rancheros assumed prominence in the State's agricultural development. Cattle on the Range: The era of the Spanish-Mexican land grant was a purely pastoral period. The cattle ranch with its tens of thou- sands of acres of wild range land was the dominant form, farming being conducted only to raise sufficient produce for the immediate needs of the individual ranch. Cattle were raised largely for their hides and tallow, the principal export articles, which the rancheros exchanged with the Yankee traders for flour and various luxury and other manu- factured articles. For half a century California was considered a major source of tallow and hides. The bigger rancheros lived like feudal lords with scores of retainers and servants. Their vast herds, roaming the valleys and foothills, were rounded up yearly at rodeo season and driven into home pastures. Don Manuel Nieto, recipient in 1784 of the second grant given in California, sixteen square leagues (71,016 acres) including the site of Long Beach, ran 100,000 head of cattle on his tract. Don Jose Domingo Peralta, owner of the Rancho Canada del Corte de Madera, in Santa Clara Valley, had his private embarcadero, chapel, bull ring, and fleet of boats to transport his hides and tallow. On a rancho in the San Luis Obispo district, there was said to be a room filled with baskets of silver and gold and huge chests brought by galleon from China stuffed with rare silken shawls, satins, laces, embroideries, and jewels. The American conquest opened a new market for agricultural products even before the discovery of gold. The period is graphically described in the diary of John Sutter, the great adventurer-agriculturist and first white man to settle the interior, who combined a longing to live in the grand style with an intensely practical passion for farming. In California Sutter achieved all his dreams, raising fine crops and cattle on the immense grant he received from Governor Alvarado — 22 RICHES FROM THE SOIL 71 square leagues (97,648 acres) including the present site of Sacramento. He ruled his domain, called New Helvetia for his native Switzerland, in the manner of an independent fortified kingdom "with 24 pieces of ordnance available," until the discovery of gold on his land ruined instead of enriched him. "I found a good market for my products among the new-comers and the people in the Bay district" Sutter wrote of the period immedi- ately following the American occupation. "Agriculture increased until I had several hundred men working in the harvest fields, and to feed them I had to kill four or sometimes five oxen daily. I could raise 40,000 bushels of wheat without trouble, reap the crops with sickles, thrash it with bones, and winnow it in the wind. There were thirty plows running with fresh oxen every morning. The Russians were the chief customers for my agricultural products. I had at the time twelve thousand head of cattle, two thousand horses and mules, between ten and fifteen thousand sheep, and a thousand hogs. My best days were just before the discovery of gold." The wave of wild speculation, rising in the wake of discovery of gold in 1849, affected agriculture along with every other phase of Cali- fornia life. A huge new population had to be fed — 93,000 in 1850 as against 15,000 in 1848. Gold was plentiful, meat and vegetables scarce. Prices reached astronomical heights. The return from 150 acres planted to onions, tomatoes, and potatoes near San Jose is said to have been $200,000 in one season. Near Sacramento four men made $40,000 from 1 6 acres of potatoes. The price of cattle rose from $6 a head in 1846 to $300 a head by the close of 1849, with sales as high as $500 a head recorded in Sacramento. Stock raising, like every other phase of activity in California, went through an artificial forced growth. When the gold rush passed its crest, agriculture began to take over the dominant role in the economic life of the State as thousands of ex- miners settled on the land or wrent to work on the big cattle or wheat ranches. The number of miners in the State rose from 57,797 to 82,573 in the fifties; the number of farmers rose from 1,486 to 20,836. The stock raising industry advanced rapidly as measures were taken to improve the breed of cattle, previously bred for hide and tallow, in order to suit them for eating and dairy purposes. Spanish cattle were interbred with American stock which settlers drove hundreds of miles across the plains. Stock raising had reached its highest point when the great drought of 1862 hit the "cow country" that stretched from the Monterey area to San Diego, burning up thousands of acres of range land, killing over a million cattle and horses, ruining and driving off the land thousands of ranchers. The drought delivered the death blow to the Mexican cattlemen, whose California grants, already insecure, 72 CALIFORNIA now passed almost entirely into the hands of Americans, largely land speculators. The forced sales of those years, when land prices fell to from 25 to 50 cents an acre, precipitated the first genuine California land boom. A syndicate of San Francisco financiers, incorporated as the Los Angeles and San Bernardino Land Company, bought up Don Abel Steam's rancho of 200,000 acres south of the Tehachapis, placed it on the market in 1868 in tracts of 40 acres and up, and put on a high-pressure advertising campaign that brought in a flood of buyers from the East and the North. As land values rose, the syndicate cleaned up a $2,000,000 profit. In the late sixties and the seventies the railroads received immense land grants from the Government — the Central Pacific alone received 1,349,000 acres — and brought in settlers by the thousand with similar boom methods. The public domain in California was rapidly disappearing. The Pacific Rural Press showed in 1875 that 45 men held 4,000,000 acres of land. The struggle against absentee ownership and the evils of landlordism became a major political concern, and the Constitutional Convention of 1879 stressed the need for legislation curbing the great land companies and railroads. The California State Grange, today an important organization of the family-farm type of farmer, was formed as a protective organization against the big interests that were becoming the decisive influence in agriculture. In the seventies, at the peak of its early growth, the Grange demanded a Government curb on grain speculation; taxation of uncultivated land held for speculation at the same rate as cultivated land; Government control of irrigation, then in its beginnings; and railroad freight rates. The Epoch of Wheat: In the 1870'$ California became the second wheat State in the Union. In addition to the sudden decline in stock raising, after the great drought, there were other basic causes for the rapid rise of wheat. Rates for shipment by water were low. Wheat was a staple commodity in international trade, and it could be shipped long distances without deterioration. The huge bonanza wheat farms, celebrated by Frank Norris in The Octopus, became the outstanding feature of the eighties. The Central Valley became a world granary. On these wheat ranches the process of mechanization, which has played such an important role in California's trend towards large-scale farm- ing, was first developed. This era was short-lived, however. Although wheat, barley, and other extensive crops continued increasing in value up to 1919, fruit, vegetables, and other intensive crops had begun to supplant them in importance by the turn of the century. The exorbitant railroad freight rates which raised land prices and cut wheat profits, the competition of new grain fields in the Mississippi Valley and Russia, and the rapid RICHES FROM THE SOIL 73 growth of population were factors in forcing all farmers to raise crops promising higher returns from a given area. The development of irrigation projects, begun in 1872 along the San Joaquin and Kings Rivers and rapidly pushed after 1885, spurred the change from ex- tensive farming. Meanwhile the construction of new railroad lines and introduction of the refrigerator car facilitated transportation of fruit and vegetables. Mass Production in the Orchard: Although the accomplishments of mission agriculture had pointed the way, the real development of present-day California farming began with the conscious efforts of the "fruit pioneers" of the early American period. Many of the early settlers who sailed around the Horn or toiled across the plains showed their deep faith in the brave new land by bringing along seeds and slips and even trees from their former homes. In more recent years the United States Department of Agriculture has sent its men to scour four continents in search of valuable fruits and plants adapted to growing conditions in the State. The work of Luther Burbank contributed materially to the agri- cultural pre-eminence of intensive fruit growing in the State. When as a young man Burbank arrived in 1875 from Worcester, Massachu- setts, to carry on his experimental work in California, he wrote of the Sonoma Valley: "I firmly believe from what I have seen that it is the chosen spot of all this earth as far as nature is concerned. ... I cannot describe it! I almost have to cry for joy when I look upon the lovely valley from the hillsides." Among the new plant varieties which he originated were 60 varieties of plums and prunes, the result of 40 years of experimentation. He also introduced important varieties of peaches, nectarines, quinces, and apples, and his experimentation with berries resulted in the origination and introduction of 10 new varieties. In addition to the famous Burbank potato, he introduced varieties of asparagus, tomato, squash, and corn. The establishment of orange growing on a commercial basis drew the attention of farmers all over the country to the financial possibilities of irrigated intensive fruit growing in California. The exotic picture of orange groves set in hot valleys surrounded by snow-capped moun- tains, of trees with their glossy green foliage hung heavily with golden globes, fitted into the California legend, caught men's imaginations almost as strongly as the gold of '49, and brought California before the Nation as an agricultural Eldorado. The first orange grove was set out at the San Gabriel Mission near Los Angeles in 1804, although the orange had been introduced into California about 1770 and was reported as flourishing at Mission Buena Ventura in 1792. The first commercial grove was planted in 1841 by the Kentucky trapper, William Wolf skill, with trees from the 74 CALIFORNIA San Gabriel Mission; his success stimulated a number of other farmers to experiment with the friut. The present great citrus industry was mainly developed from two seedless orange trees, sent to the pioneer Eliza C. Tibbetts at the newly established Riverside farming colony, by the U. S. Department of Agriculture in 1873. The trees belonged to the "Washington Navel" variety, originally imported from Bahia in Brazil. The introduction of the navel orange by the U. S. Department of Agriculture initiated an industry which today has about 250,000 acres planted with 20,000,000 bearing trees, netting the greatest income of any one crop in the State (see TOUR 2d). Lemon growing, too, was gradually developed to a point where it could meet European competition ; today the lemon crop is fifth among all crops in farm value. As completion of railroad connections opened eastern markets, feverish agriculturists pulled up flourishing and highly profitable orchards and vineyards and planted expensive orange trees in their stead. Speculators preyed on inexperienced and unorganized growers with disastrous results, which soon pointed to the urgent necessity of some type of regulative action. The first significant step towards the organization of packing, shipping, and marketing cooperatives was made in Los Angeles in 1893; tw° years later it was succeeded by the South- ern California Fruit Exchange. This organization, broadened in 1905 to include the whole State, was the forerunner of the widespread network of marketing cooperatives today covering most major branches of agriculture. Californians not only drink a lot of wine — almost seven times as much per capita as other people in the United States — they also produce 58 percent of the wine consumed in the country and 93 percent of the Nation's grapes — $43,108,000 worth, covering a half-million acres. Viticulture is second only to orange growing in the State's agricul- tural economy. The wine industry of the State, including the grape- growing and wine-making divisions, has an investment of some $420,000,000 in vineyards, plant, building, and wine inventories and is estimated to employ, directly and indirectly, 125,000 persons. The Franciscans set out the first California vineyard at Mision San Diego de Alcala about 1770. Each of the missions had its vineyard and its winery. The industry in its later developments was pioneered by vineyardists and wine producers from France, Italy, Hungary, and Germany. The noted Hungarian viticulturist, Agoston Haraszthy, brought cuttings of the Muscat Alexandria grape in 1851, founded California's huge raisin-growing industry, introduced the Zinfandel red wine grape, and later imported 200,000 vine cuttings including all the most important European varieties. The finest dry wines come from the coast area, especially Sonoma, Napa, and Alameda Counties: the Pinot of Burgundy, Cabernet of Gironde, Riesling and Traminer of RICHES FROM THE SOIL 75 the Rhine and Moselle. Sweet fortified wines come from great vine- yards of the Lodi area, from the Fresno area, and from San Bernardino County, where the 5OO-acre Guasti vineyard, largest in the western world, is planted on land reclaimed from the desert. The Fresno grape-growing region has a combined area of almost 250,000 acres planted in raisin, table, and wine grapes; about 160,000 acres are in raisins alone. Peaches had grown in California from early mission days, but it was the trees, seeds, and seedlings brought in by settlers from the East that laid the basis for the present great industry which today supplies 98 percent of the country's canned peach crop, all of its dried peaches, and a fresh fruit crop exceeded only by Georgia. Although peaches are produced on uplands and plains in most parts of the State, the most concentrated production is in the "peach bowl" of San Joaquin Valley, which accounts for 36 percent of the entire crop. Santa Clara County is the largest dried fruit packing and fruit can- ning center of the world. The Santa Clara Valley grows 70,000 acres of prunes, producing over 40 percent of California's total crop, and 20,000 acres of apricots. Fifty percent of California's fancy canned fruit is packed in the valley, and 30 percent of its general canned fruit, amounting to over 72,000,000 quart cans. Among California's more exotic products are olives, dates, and avocados — all, except avocados, monopoly crops. The gray-green olive groves are scattered over the State from the Mexican border almost up to Mount Shasta in the north. Among leading varieties are the Mission from Mexico, the large Manzillo and Sevillano from Spain, the Asca- lano from Italy. The production of dates, practically all grown within a 25-mile radius from Indio, where the California Date Growers Asso- ciation processes most of the crop, was 3,580 short tons in 1937 valued at $430,000. In order to find the best varieties of avocado for com- mercial cultivation in California and Florida, the Office for Foreign Plant Introduction of the U. S. Department of Agriculture spent nine years exploring the avocado districts of Mexico and South and Central America. In 1927 California had 690 bearing acres; in 1935, 8,564 acres. Walnuts, leading nut crop, occupied 134,638 acres in 1937 and produced a crop valued at $9,975,OOO. Two-thirds of the State acreage is in southern California. The California Walnut Growers Associa- tion, to which 90 percent of the growers belong, has central warehouses where the nuts are scientifically treated, handled, and marketed. Field, Farm, and Vegetable Garden: California typically combines age-old methods of cultivating its "stoop" crops — as fieldhands classify truck and field crops that need intensive hand cultivation — with the most modern machine farming technique. The airplane seeding of rice 76 CALIFORNIA fields was first tried in the Sacramento area, where over 90 percent of the California crop is raised. Pilots flying within 25 feet of the ground, plant in 5 minutes eight loo-pound sacks of rice. From 30 to 40 acres can be planted in an hour. Before seeding in early spring, tractor- drawn fleets of giant gang plows and scrapers construct the levees around the rice fields. For five months after seeding, levees are used to maintain water on the field at a level of 6 inches in depth. Nine gallons of water per minute must be pumped to each acre. In October big threshers harvest the crop. The development of California's extensive dairy industry has been largely dependent on the State's high production of tame hay. The value of the tame hay crop in 1937 was $53,112,000, topped only by the value of the orange crop. This figure includes $39,351,000 for alfalfa, which flourishes even in semi-arid districts. In the areas where alfalfa is grown as an irrigated crop, it yields up to seven and eight cuttings a year; sometimes there is a new crop every 30 days. In the old days, settlers coming around the Horn found the dark green alfalfa fields of Chile so attractive that they took along cargoes of hay and seed. Henry Miller, landowner and cattle rancher, who is said to have boasted that he could drive his herds from Oregon to Mexico on his own land, initiated California's commercial production of alfalfa in the San Joaquin Valley, sending to Chile in the seventies for ship- ments of the seed. His alfalfa holdings became the largest in the United States. Cotton in this State, largely a speculative crop, has been subject to booms like those that formerly plagued the citrus industry. The 1937 crop was the largest in California history — 738,000 bales valued at almost $32,000,000. The average yield was 570 pounds per acre, as against the United States average for the same year of 266.9 pounds per acre. Cotton became an important crop in 1917, when representa- tives of the Department of Agriculture were sent to California to experiment in production of the tough-fibred type of cotton urgently needed for tire fabric and airplane wing coverings. The State's cotton production is only about two percent of the national total, but the crop is significant for its concentration on a single quality variety, Alcala, rare and in great demand in this country. The development of the "lettuce bowls" in the Imperial Valley and Salinas- Watsonville areas has come almost entirely since the World War. Effective advertising, new health and diet concepts stimulated the demand, and the rise of lettuce from a small truck crop to a mass- produced commodity within the past few years has been spectacular. A large part of the lettuce crop is produced by "migratory" farming. In J937, 102,500 acres produced lettuce valued at $23,230,000, highest RICHES FROM THE SOIL 77 of any truck crop. It is exceeded in acreage among truck crops only by tomatoes. Big capital investment also has gone into asparagus growing, center- ing in the delta area, which has always been cultivated largely by Oriental contract labor. While the fertile peat soil produces rich crops, the cost of reclaiming the land and maintaining levees and drainage systems is too large for the average farmer to bear. A number of the great holdings, sometimes including whole islands, have remained undi- vided from early days. Asparagus in 1937 was third among truck crops in size of acreage (67,260 acres) and farm value ($9,146,000). The harvesting of peas, done entirely by hand, employs big labor forces — 20,000 pickers at peak season. California has over a half of the country's pea acreage and has led in carload shipments since 1927. California is exceeded only by Colorado in sugar beet production and exceeds it in production per acre. The 1936 acreage — 140,000 acres — almost tripled the 1929 acreage. Beet farming, an adjunct of the sugar factories, is usualy carried on near the plants, because the bulkiness of the beets involves high costs in transportation. It requires an excep- tionally large amount of hand labor, most of which is done by Mexi- cans and Filipinos, at Government-fixed wage standards under the sugar beet program. Artichokes, introduced into the United States by the Italians of California and the French of Louisiana, are grown today in the fog-moistened coastal strip extending from Marina on the north to San Luis Obispo on the south. Although the days when stock raising was the heart of California's life have long since passed, great flocks and herds still roam the foot- hills of the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevada, high mountain valleys in the north, and the range land in the far south. The value of the annual cattle, sheep, and hog production runs into impressive figures — about $135,000,000, or roughly $45,000,000 more than the total truck crop. In 1937 California had 2,298,000 cattle, 820,000 hogs, and 3,600,000 sheep and lambs. It was third among the States in wool production with 28,901,000 pounds shorn. In poultry it ranked sixth (June 1938) in total numbers and seventh in value of products; in egg production it ranked second. Growers' Organizations: Farm organizations formed by California growers, stockraisers, and dairymen fall into three main categories, overlapping in function and membership. The first includes organiza- tions such as the Grange, the Farm Bureau Federation, the Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union, and Associated Farmers, Inc., embracing growers engaged in all branches of agriculture in one organi- zation ; the second, the marketing cooperatives such as the Citrus Grow- ers Exchange, and the Prune and Apricot Growers Association, and the California Walnut Growers Association; and the third, organiza- 78 CALIFORNIA tions such as the Wool Growers and Cattlemen's Association, organized on the basis of a single industry. The California Farm Bureau, organized in 1913, has done effective work in advising growers on technical questions involved in farming — fertilizers, soil, irrigation, and stockbreeding ; it collaborates with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and other governmental agen- cies. The Farm Bureau also concerns itself with labor relations in agriculture and carries on legislative activities on a State and national scale. Membership in the State is about 25,000 in 43 counties. The Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union, powerful in the middle west, is comparatively small in this State, centering around Santa Clara County. The Grange — or, to give its full title, The Patrons of Husbandry — tends to represent family rather than com- mercial farming in this State. A fraternal and social organization with ties to the consumers' cooperative movement, it admits farmers' wives and children to membership. It has played an important his- torical role in California in pushing through measures of benefit to the rural population. The marketing cooperatives, of which California has about 450 with a membership of some 80,000, are primarily business organiza- tions seeking efficient control of produce, closely allied in their func- tioning to the State agricultural prorate commissions. With main emphasis on price, shipping and marketing problems, they also operate processing plants for their members, maintain purchasing services, and carry on scientific research to improve quality of production. The California Fruit Growers Exchange, oldest of the cooperatives and typical of them all, has about 13,500 members, comprising about 210 local packing associations grouped in 26 district exchanges. It handles over 75 percent of the State's citrus crop, selling 75,000 to 100,000 cars of fruit in a normal crop year for about $125,000,000. In addi- tion, it manufactures by-products such as citric acid and pectin, pur- chases supplies in volume for its membership, supplies lumber for crates from its own lumber properties, provides growers with the latest tech- nical information on citrus culture, enforces grade regulations in ship- ping fruit, using X-ray machines to inspect the crated product. It is responsible for the Nation-wide advertising campaigns which have attempted to make the California orange — more than gold, or oil, or movies — register unmistakably as the State's own peculiar symbol. Industry and Finance FOR HALF a century the first outposts of Spanish rule, the mis- sions, were the centers of economic life in California's shut-in feudal world. They grew into industrial institutions, each with its weaving room, blacksmith shop, tannery, wine press, and ware- houses. The Indian neophytes, held in subjection by the energetic, prac- tical Franciscan friars, learned to tan leather, weave coarse cloth, bake bricks and pottery, make soap and candles, and grind corn. When the missions were secularized (1834-37), however, their industrial activities disappeared rapidly as the skilled neophytes, now free but most of them robbed of their land rights, either worked on the ranches or took to the wilds. Hardly had secularization been accomplished when the 1840*5 her- alded an economic revolution. Canny, ambitious foreigners, most of them Americans, pushed into the sleepy province. They harnessed the streams to run the wheels of gristmills and sawmills that soon sup- planted the household metates (mortars) and the crude mule- and ox- power mills of the Calif ornians. In 1843 an American trapper, Stephen Smith, set up California's first steam gristmill and sawmill at Bodega. John Augustus Sutter, a Swiss emigrant, built a flour mill, set up a distillery, and began the weaving of coarse woolen blankets at his colony of New Helvetia (now Sacramento). On the eve of the American conquest, according to Thomas O. Larkin, United States Consul, California was exporting enormous amounts of lumber, soap and brandy. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, recognizing the American con- 79 8O CALIFORNIA quest, had not yet been signed when gold was discovered in the tail- race of Sutter's sawmill at Coloma. Although a small scale gold rush had sprung up in the San Fernando Hills back of Los Angeles six years earlier, the enormous riches of the California Hills had remained unsuspected. Virtually every enterprise but mining now stopped. Larkin later wrote: "Every blacksmith, carpenter, and lawyer is leav- ing; brick-yards, saw-mills, and ranches are left perfectly alone." An- other writer reported: "Every bowl, warming pan, and piggin has gone to the mines. Everything in short that has a scoop in it that will hold sand and water. All the iron has been worked up into crowbars, pick axes and spades." During the first three years of the rush, placer miners took out the surface "pay dirt" from the "diggin's" with pick, shovel, crowbar, and tin pan. Other contrivances replaced the pan : the washing rocker or "cradle," a criblike wooden box mounted on rockers, with a "riddle" or sieve; the "Long Tom," a wooden trough with a riddle at one end over a riffle box; and the "board-sluice," a long open flume with riffle-bars across the bottom. Even with such primitive tools as these, fabulous amounts of gold were mined — in 1849, approximately $10,- 000,000 worth; in 1850, more than $41,000,000; and in 1852, the year of largest production, more than $81,000,000. The demand for money far outstripped the supply. Californians scorned paper money. Gold dust, a "pinch" to the dollar, substituted for currency. Silver coins of many nations crept into circulation: Mexican dollars, German marks, French 5-franc pieces. Private assay- ers coined gold pieces of widely varying denominations for profit. Not until April 1854, when the new San Francisco mint began operations, did Government minted coins circulate in needed quantities. Merchants received gold dust and specie for safe-keeping in their vaults; soon they were buying and selling gold, loaning funds, dealing in exchange. Stephen A. Wright opened his "Miners' Bank" in San Francisco late in 1848, Naglee and Sinton their "Exchange and De- posit Office," and the Rothschilds of London their San Francisco branch early in 1849. The Wells Fargo Bank and Union Trust Company of today, founded as an express company, entered banking in 1852. By the close of 1853, San Francisco had nineteen banks, carrying on business in cramped offices and shacks. Few of these, however, sur- vived the depression following the bank panic of Black Friday, Febru- ary 23, 1855. For nearly a decade afterwards, banking continued to be marked by instability. As the "flush days" of mining drew to a close, machines began to replace men. In 1851 the first mill for crushing quartz was erected in Grass Valley, Yuba County; by 1857, more than 150 quartz mills had been built for working the lode. In 1852 placer mining was revolu- INDUSTRY AND FINANCE 8l tionized when hydraulic methods were introduced at American Hill in Nevada County. By the seventies, millions of tons of gold bearing sand had been washed down under powerful jets of water and flushed into the Yuba and Feather Rivers. The destruction of valley farm lands by the debris precipitated a struggle between farmers and miners which finally led to prohibition of hydraulic mining by injunction in 1880. Mining remained the chief industry throughout the first decade of the American regime, absorbing almost 60 percent of the inhabitants. After 1859, however, the annual output of gold began to decrease, falling to $18,000,000 by 1870. Meanwhile, a population increase from 92,597 in 1850 to 379,994 a decade later, gave manufacturing its first great impetus. By the winter of 1849-50 San Francisco had grown into a lively manufacturing center of shipbuilding yards, foundries, flour mills, and workshops. To supply tools and machinery for the mines, Donahue Brothers established their foundry (later the Union Iron Works) in 1849; other foundries were soon opened. The wool of California's sheep was utilized in the weaving of cloth; the hides of its cattle in the tanning of leather. A sugar refinery, using raw sugar from the Hawaiian Islands, was established on the Bay in 1860. In that year there were close to a hundred gristmills throughout the State, while about three times as many sawmills were making lumber of its ponderosa pine, its redwood, and Douglas fir. The gold mines still held first place in 1860, with a $45,000,000 production, but man- ufactures assumed growing importance, with an output valued at $24,000,000. During the middle i86o's a prospecting mania swept the State, recalling the feverish "flush "days." Prospectors wandered into Cali- fornia's most isolated regions, hunting for gold, copper, silver, quick- silver. So many amazing discoveries were reported that a thousand new companies began to peddle mining stock. Frenzied financiers ex- tended their efforts to a new field, oil wells. From Humboldt County to San Diego, wildcat wells were drilled as more than 60 companies entered the field. The San Francisco Bulletin reported that from 40,000 to 50,000 gallons of oil had been produced in 1865. But the bubble soon burst. The wildcat mining companies began to collapse and by the end of the decade the oil companies, too, wound up in prac- tical failure when their product was pronounced of no value. None the less, the growth of industry continued. When the Civil War interrupted normal communications, goods once imported from the Atlantic Seaboard, shoes and clothing, chemicals and drugs, fur- niture, iron and steel, distilled liquors, soaps and candles, and tobacco were produced within the State. As cities grew, gas plants, planing 82 CALIFORNIA mills, foundries, brick and pottery works were built, and banking insti- tutions sprang up. Four years after the legislature had provided for incorporation of Savings and Loan Societies in 1862, there were five savings banks with total deposits of $8,650,000. In southern Cali- fornia, remote from the gold fields of the populous north, I. W. Hell- man in 1865 hung up his sign, "I. W. Hellman, Banker"; three years later Alvinza Hayward and Company opened, with a capitalization of $100,000. Even after two decades of industrial development, California was not yet a manufacturing State in 1870. Industry still labored under some of its original handicaps: lack of fuel for power, of facilities for transporting goods to markets, of an adequate banking and credit system. A further setback was the financial panic of 1875, which followed the eastern panic of two years before, and was itself aggra- vated by the collapse of wild speculation in mining stocks. It broke with startling suddenness when the Bank of California, a financial power since 1864, closed its doors because of the speculations of its president, William C. Ralston. Banks collapsed throughout the State; in Los Angeles all closed, two permanently. A widespread demand for Government regulation of banking forced the legislature in 1878 to pass the Banking Act, under which "a board of three bank commissioners was appointed with power to call for statements from the banks, make examinations of their affairs, regulate the conduct of their business, and to close insolvent concerns." Of the 84 banks then in existence, five were forced into liquidation. In spite of this temporary slump, bank deposits by 1890 had grown to $230,- 000,000, representing an 88 percent increase in 10 years, while the number of banks increased from 120 to 232. Industrial expansion kept pace with banking. The growth of agri- culture called for farm implement and wagon factories and for mills and factories to process its goods for market. The influx of inhabi- tants during the Great Boom of 1887-88 widened the local market, furnished needed capital, and increased the labor supply. By 1890 the number of manufacturing establishments was nearly twice that of 1870, the value of manufactured products more than three times as great, and the capital invested nearly four times as great. The Nation-wide panic of 1893 rocked industry and banking to their foundations once more. On June 14, the Riverside Banking Company crashed. Two banks closed in San Francisco, four in Los Angeles, and several others throughout the State. After 1898, as the business trend turned upward again, banking resources were more than doubled. But again in 1907, as another national depression hit Cali- fornia, bank failures shook the State. One consequence was the Bank INDUSTRY AND FINANCE 83 Act of 1909, imposing more stringent regulations, which brought greater stability to California banking. Industrial production, meanwhile, had risen. By 1899 California had 4,997 manufacturing establishments, representing an estimated cap- ital investment of $175,000,000, which produced goods valued at $257,000,000. The chief industries were, in the order of their im- portance, sugar and molasses refineries, meat-packing plants, lumber mills and brickyards, flour and gristmills, fruit and vegetable can- neries, foundries and machine shops. Manufacturing had far outgrown mining, which produced $29,313,460 of mineral products in 1899. Handicapped by lack of fuel, it was still little more than an adjunct to agriculture. But by this time manufacturing had begun to draw upon new resources of power — petroleum and hydroelectric energy. In 1893 E. L. Doheny and C. A. Canfield sank a shaft with pick, shovel and windlass on a plot of ground at the corner of Patton and West State Streets in Los Angeles. A little oil oozed up, the first trickle from a vast reservoir which numberless derricks in the Los Angeles field would soon begin to drain. Years before, the early Span- ish settlers, whose cattle sometimes got mired in surface oil pools, had plastered the sticky brea (Sp., tar) on the roofs of their adobe houses. As early as 1855 or 1856, Andres Pico had distilled small quantities of oil for use at Mission San Fernando. Wildcat companies were drilling wells throughout the State in the i86o's. In 1874 the Cali- fornia Star Oil Company established the first refinery neai Newhall. During the next decade fields were being worked in the Puente Hills, Whittier, Summerland, Newhall, Ventura, and Los Gatos districts. By 1888 annual production had risen to 690,000 barrels. The Coalinga, McKittrick, and Midway-Sunset fields in the San Joaquin Basin were producing by 1890 or 1891, the Los Angeles-Salt Lake field by 1893. Production had risen in 1900 to 4,319,950 barrels and this was but a fraction of the yearly output to follow. In 1882 George Chaffey began to operate a small power plant near Etiwanda. When the San Antonio Light and Power Company was formed, just a decade later, to transmit electricity from its power station in San Antonio Canyon near Pomona, only two other commer- cial plants, one in Oregon and the other in Colorado, were producing hydroelectric power. A year later the Redlands Electric and Power Company was operating its plant on Mill Creek in the San Bernardino Mountains. By 1900 the hydroelectric industry, grown to a producing capacity of 30,500 kilowatt hours, was developing speedily to meet the demands for electricity of railroad, mine, factory, home, and farm. The new century saw a marked increase in the industrial develop- ment of the State. The value of manufactured products increased nearly tenfold in the first quarter of the century, from the $257,000,000 4 CALIFORNIA of 1899 to $2,443,000,000 in 1925. During the World War period of forced expansion, industrial output rose 170 percent in value and after the abrupt decline of post-war deflation, industrial growth continued rapidly. From 1919 to 1925 the increase in value of manufactured products was 1.5 percent for the country as a whole but 28 percent for California. Industry, as it expanded, became more evenly distributed. Los Angeles, like San Francisco, became a foremost manufacturing center ; Oakland, Richmond, San Jose, Berkeley, and Fresno outstripped Sacramento, their former leader. The State's industrial output soared to a total value of more than three billion dollars in 1929. After an abrupt drop to less than two billion in the following two-year period, it has risen somewhat, though not to its 1929 level. If the cost of motion picture production (prior to 1933 included in computations of the total value of industrial output) is added to the value of other manufactured products for 1935, the total is very close to that of a decade earlier. It should be noted, however, that because films are rented, not sold, production costs are not a measure of the value of output. With a production of $265,- 385,925 in 1935, petroleum refining stood at the top of eighteen manufacturing industries whose products were valued at more than $25,000,000. Fruit and vegetable processing totaled $174,011,865 for that year and both meat packing and the automotive industry, more than $120,000,000. Oil production has been first among the State's industries since 1919. The era of greatest productivity began in 1920, with the open- ing of such fields as Huntington Beach, Santa Fe Springs, and Signal Hill. From 1920 to 1926 California produced 1,300,000,000 barrels, more oil than in all its previous history. During this boom period the industry had more than its share of unscrupulous promoters and in 1927, the year of the startling Julian Petroleum Corporation scandal in Los Angeles, the department of natural resources took over State regulation of oil production. Today in the oil fields that dot Los Angeles, Ventura, Kern, Fresno, Orange, and Santa Barbara Counties, the passerby may see enormous forests of oil derricks sucking black gold from the earth night and day. In 1937 production was 238,521,000 barrels. In the same year production of natural gas, in daily consump- tion of which the State leads the nation, was 357,420,000,000 cubic feet. Second in value of production among California's industries are its fruit and vegetable canneries, which in 1937 produced a fruit and vegetable pack of almost 60,000,000 cases, thirty percent of the Na- tion's total output. To supply its demands, the manufacture of tin cans and tinware has itself risen to seventh place among the State's industries. An important branch of fruit and vegetable processing is INDUSTRY AND FINANCE 85 the dried fruit business, largely conducted by co-operative organiza- tions whose advertising efforts have made California brands familiar throughout the world. The sea food canning industry, centered chiefly in Monterey, San Diego, and Los Angeles, leads the world in com- mercial production of tuna fish. Another industry, wine making, rep- resenting an estimated investment of $350,000,000, shipped nearly 60,000,000 gallons in 1937. The meat-packing industry utilizes ship- ments from other States as well as California's supply of livestock. California's importance as an automobile market (in 1937 there were 2,484,653 automobiles registered) has influenced eastern manu- facturers in opening branch factories within the State. A flourishing allied industry, motor vehicle bodies and parts, was responsible for an output valued at $19, 155,337 in 1935, while manufacture of rubber tires and inner tubes took tenth place among all industries. In air- craft manufacture the output for 1935 was valued at $15,883,918; by the end of 1937 a single manufacturer reported net sales in excess of $20,000,000. Metal products and machine production have become increasingly important in the industrial life of the State. Pig iron from Utah has largely supplanted scrap and pig iron from England or Belgium as raw material. Southern California's iron deposits, smelted with coke from Utah and Colorado, promise to furnish another source of supply. Except for redwood, production of lumber is far less than that needed. Much of the material imported (in 1937 a billion feet) is timber which California mills convert into lumber. The total output of the lumber products industries, including saw- and planing-mills, box factories and furniture plants, was valued at $97,386,559 in 1935- Before the turn of the century mining had fallen behind manu- factures in value of output, though it continued to be an important factor in the State's economic life. The value of mineral output for 1936 (excluding petroleum) was $227,539,942. In gold output the State still leads the Nation. A total of 1,174,578 ounces of gold were mined in 1937, the greatest amount since 1861. Between 1900 and 1915 dredging displaced other methods in placer mining. Huge chain- bucket dredgers worked their way down the shallow rivers, creating their own channels as they went. The gravel was scooped from the river bed to the deck of the dredger, washed in revolving screens, and the gold particles captured on gold saving tables supplied with rifHes, or in short sluices. Since the World War machine worked quartz mines have been a chief source of supply; the gold is reclaimed by amalgamation or by cyaniding. Forty counties produce gold, 60 percent from lode mines, 40 percent from placers, but the Grass Valley and Nevada City district is by far the outstanding center of production. Of the State's 58 commercial minerals, silver is next in importance 86 CALIFORNIA to gold; 2,103,799 fine ounces, valued at $1,629,392 were produced in 1936. Copper production, centering in Trinity County, was 10,- 502,000 pounds, valued at $1,270,742; lead production, centering in Inyo County, was 2,372,000 pounds, valued at $139,948. Most of the borax mined in the United States comes from Inyo, Kern, and San Bernardino Counties, and the greatest United States production of sodium bicarbonate is from Searles Lake in San Bernardino County. The State's producing quicksilver mines, numbering 54 in 1937, pro- vide a large portion of the world supply. Tungsten is produced at Atolia in San Bernardino County; magnesite, in Stanislaus and Santa Clara Counties. Building materials account for approximately $50,- 000,000 of the total value of mineral output. California today ranks third among the States in the production of electricity. The hydroelectric industry generated 30,500 kilowatt hours in 1900 and 8,365,205,000 in 1937. Steam heat and internal combustion added 1,266,974,000 kilowatt hours to the total produc- tion within the State for that year. California also consumes electricity generated at Boulder Dam, carried by high-power transmission lines •operating at 287,500 volts over a distance of 266 miles. From 1900 to 1917 the State's banking resources accumulated stead- ily, advancing from $384,785,000 to $1,682,000,000, while the number of banks increased from 269 to 718. The post-war era witnessed the emergence of powerful financial institutions through bank mergers, the establishment of branch banking on a wide scale, and the impor- tation of capital from the East. In 1927 banking resources were $3,833,957,000, an increase of 128 percent for the decade following 1917. In 1928 the Bank of Italy (now the bank of America) had become the fifth largest in the country, with 279 branches throughout the State. The growth of the banking system was paralleled by the growth of banking and loan companies, whose assets increased 100 percent from 1895 to 1920 and 400 percent from 1920 to 1927. California shared with other States the debacle of bank failures that came with the depression. The banks recovered gradually from this setback until in 1937 their resources were greater than they had been a decade earlier. Following 1929, California's industrial graph, here as elsewhere in the Nation, fell in a dizzy curve. After an upturn from 1935 to I937> during which period the losses of 1930-1935 were partially offset, the trend headed downward during the latter part of 1937. Agricul- ture remains (1939) the dominant factor in the economy of the State, but manufacturing runs a close second, and far outdistances mining; it contributes one-third to the State's yearly income. Despite all re- verses, California still holds its position of eighth manufacturing State in the Union. From Clipper Skip to Clipper Plane •f | V OO SWIFT arrives as tardy as too slow" might have been the motto in Spanish California. The pack mules of the padres ambled from one mission to another. The horses of the rancheros might gallop fast enough in a round-up, but not in going from ranch to town. There was no reason for speed nor was speed possible in a carreta (cart), squeaking with its ponderous wheels of solid oak over roads little more than trails. Soldier-couriers carried the mail along the Camino Real (king's highway) from San Francisco to San Diego and continued along their slow, hot, dry way to Loreto in Lower California, whence letters went across the gulf of San Bias and on to Mexico City. Trade was no less leisurely. Although the Spanish government prohibited trade with other than Spanish ships, American and British ships successfully smuggled their goods into California long before the Mexican government removed this restriction. Californians needed too many products to resist the temptation of dealing with smugglers, while the profits which awaited the Yankee sea captains from trading their manufactured wares for seal and sea otter pelts, hides, tallow, and lum- ber were enough to induce them to risk capture of their ships and confis- cation of their cargoes. Their illicit trade grew to the point where a hide came to be called a "California bank note," substituting for money as the common medium of exchange. When gold was discovered in 1848 the sudden mass movement taxed intercoastal transportation facilities to the utmost. By March 1849, 17,000 persons had sailed from Atlantic and Gulf coast cities for 87 88 CALIFORNIA California; in the same year fully 35,000 traveled the tortuous overland routes. With such mushroom growth came an extraordinary demand for goods, so that freight rates rose to $50 and even $60 a ton. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company, established when the gold rush began, speeded construction of its three i,ooo-ton steamers for the New York-to-San Francisco run. The first of these, the California, arrived at San Francisco February 28, 1849, laden to the water's edge with 400 Argonauts taken aboard at Panama. The company rapidly built up a combined Atlantic and Pacific fleet of 29 steamships. Aided by the Panama Railroad and a government subsidy for carrying mail, it did an enormous business, bringing some 175,000 passengers to Cali- fornia and taking back $200,000,000 in gold within ten years. The New England shipbuilders, too, rose to the emergency. Soon that most beautiful of sailing ships, "the knife-edged clipper with her ruffled spar," was cutting the sailing time around the Horn to little more than three months. The Flying Cloud and the Andrew Jackson made the trip in 89 days. All this record-breaking bustle meant enor- mous profits to the owners. In one passage the Samuel Russell, carry- ing a i2OO-ton cargo, earned a gross revenue of $72,000, or more than the cost of building the ship. From San Francisco, travelers continued by horseback or steamer to the mines. The first river steamer to make regular runs from San Francisco to Sacramento was a little launch named the Pioneer, im- ported in sections on the deck of a sailing ship, which began puffing and blowing up the river in the summer of 1849. A number of other vessels of not too great draft were pressed into service on the Sacra- mento and San Joaquin, where rivalry for speed led sometimes to forc- ing of the boilers and terrific explosions. Since there were not enough steamers of light draft to handle the traffic, the high fares — 2 ounces of gold or its cash equivalent — and the freight rates of $50 per ton from San Francisco to Sacramento led the owners of medium-sized sailing vessels to attempt the trip. Once the master had got his craft out of the tangle of shipping in the harbor of San Francisco, the bay breezes made the passage up through San Pablo and Suisun Bays easy enough. If his destination was Stockton, he could still count on a little breeze, his chief trouble being to keep to the main channel through a circuitous course in the San Joaquin delta. But if he began to sail up the Sacramento, his troubles were manifold, as Captain Coffin of the Sophronia complained in his account of "fifteen days' labour, boiling and roasting" en route to Sacramento. The river banks were "so over- grown with oaks and sycamores that we lay becalmed. . . . The only way to advance was to warp and tie." Before a year was out, however, several steamers suitable for the river run had made the trip around the Horn or through the Straits of Magellan. The most famous of FROM CLIPPER SHIP TO CLIPPER PLANE 89 these was the Senator, of which it was later said that she carried enough gold to sink her had it been carried all in one load. From Stockton, Sacramento and Marysville, focal points on the river routes, carreta, calash, and spring wagon carried men and sup- plies to an ever growing number of new mining camps. Driven by Mexican arrieros (mule drivers), each animal with a load of 300 pounds, mule teams set out not only with bacon and beans and shovels, but with plows, barrels of whisky, pianos, and printing presses. Later, as roads took the place of trails, the stage coach and the heavy freighter were pressed into service. The first Concord Coach reached California in 1850. With its steer-hide springs, its stout ash spokes, its landscaped panels, and damask-lined curtains, it was, by comparison with the carreta, a model of beauty and comfort. In June 1851 there were but 34 post offices in all California. With gold or high wages beckoning, no one would carry the mail at Gov- ernment pay; hence the rise of the expressman who carried mail independently from San Francisco, Sacramento, or Stockton, charging at first the fantastic price of $4 a letter. If the post rider was shrewd, he presently became a treasure carrier, or even a banker — if he could get hold of a safe. Within another year the business of carrying gold from the mines had attracted a number of far-sighted Easterners. The Adams Express Company established itself, and in May 1852, Wells, Fargo and Company announced, "We are now prepared to forward gold dust, bullion, specie, packages, parcels, and freight to and from New York and San Francisco, thence to Sacramento, Marysville, Ne- vada, Shasta, Stockton, Sonora, and all the principal towns of Cali- fornia and Oregon." In 1858 Congress gave the Butterfield Overland Mail an annual subsidy of $600,000. Their stages went across the old Santa Fe Trail from San Francisco to St. Joseph in 23 days. When the Civil War interrupted service on the Butterfield line, the stages used the middle or California trail route via Colfax and Truckee, across the Nevada desert to Salt Lake City. Stages also ran north to the mines in Trinity and Shasta Counties and across the Siskiyous into Oregon. In 1862 the discovery of the rich Comstock silver mines in Nevada brought about a kind of reversal of the emigrant trail. As a rival to the California Route, a toll road was built from Placerville over the summit of the Sierra Nevada down the steep drop to Tahoe Val- ley and thence into Nevada. Over it ran the stages of the Pioneer Line. Far swifter than the best stages were the riders of the Pony Ex- press, who for a brief period carried a fast mail service from Missouri to California each week. Riding a horse bred for the race track, car- rying no arms, even wearing clothes and boots as light as possible, the 90 CALIFORNIA rider sped across some 1,900 miles in eight days. With the opening of telegraph service across the continent in 1861, the Pony Express was discontinued, but it had already blazed the way for the first trans- continental railroad. In striking contrast was another brief experiment. In 1852 Jeffer- son Davis urged, in Congress, the use of the camel on the Great Ameri- can Desert. The California press became naively eloquent. Why not "a dromedary express to carry the fast mail" ? Congress made a small appropriation and two caravans of camels were shipped to Texas. Some of these or their offspring eventually reached California and the Army used them between Fort Tejon and Los Angeles. Unfortunately the camels frightened horses and mules. The teamsters and mule skinners and vaqueros swore in two languages that they would have no trek with these strange beasts. The Army drivers could not pack or man- age the camels properly and were unwilling to learn. In the end the camels were auctioned off: some to end their days in circuses, others to carry salt to the Comstock mines, still others to be set adrift on the desert. California's first railroad was the modest little Sacramento Valley line which in 1856 began running east 22 miles from the capital to Folsom, reducing considerably the time to the mines. It had a wood- burning locomotive, as did the line which joined San Francisco and San Jose in 1864. In Southern California, over a line from Los Angeles to Wilmington, ran a vainglorious black and gold locomo- tive called the San Gabriel, alongside of which the vaqueros used to race, shouting at it derisively and profanely in Spanish. As early as 1836 there had been talk of a transcontinental railroad, but partisan rivalry over the slavery question between North and South held up action by Congress until 1862. In that year Theodore Judah, who had been chief engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad and agent of the Pacific Railroad Convention in Washington, returned to California to announce that he had found a practicable railway route across the Sierra Nevada. His enthusiasm and vision were such that he was able to fire the imaginations of four wealthy, hard-headed Sacramento merchants: Leland Stanford, a grocer, Charles Crocker, a dry-goods man, and Collis Huntington and Mark Hopkins, partners in a hardware establishment. These became the "Big Four." In 1863 the Union Pacific began to build west from Omaha, the Central Pacific east from Sacramento. Men were scarce; money was short ; labor troubles halted construction until Crocker imported Chinese coolies. There were no power tools in the i86o's and no explosives but black powder. With pick and shovel, steel and jack, the crews dug and blasted through the granite of the Sierras. It became a race with the Union Pacific which ended in May 1869 at Promontory, in FROM CLIPPER SHIP TO CLIPPER PLANE QI Utah, where Stanford drove in the golden spike. The Southern Pacific completed its line to Los Angeles in 1876 and a year later to Texas tidewater, connecting southern California directly with the South and East. The first coach trains to cross the continent, for all their red plush and polished brass, were none too comfortable. In winter a stove at one end of the coach gave very uneven heat, and in summer there was no ventilation without dust and cinders. However, the coaches were palaces on wheels compared to the emigrant trains that brought to the west the hopeful tide of Europe's poor. The discomfort and squalor of these trains was described in detail by Robert Louis Steven- son in The Amateur Emigrant. Provisions for sanitation were quite inadequate; the journey long. "Haste," we learn from this account, "is not a foible of the emigrant train. It gets through on suffrance, running the gauntlet among its more considerable brethren." The enthusiasm which had greeted the Southern Pacific in 1869 fell to a low ebb in the eighties, when this railroad and the Santa Fe entered into an agreement with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and formed the Transcontinental Association with the purpose of keeping up freight rates. The farmers and businessmen in the in- terior of the State complained bitterly at paying rates which were not only high but also fluctuating. The board of railroad commis- sioners, controlled by the railways, refused relief; it permitted tariffs which were grossly discriminative. The struggle between the Southern Pacific and the farmers was long and bitter, leading even to bloodshed in Tulare County. Also chafing under the burden of the freight rates charged by the Transcontinental Association, San Francisco merchants in 1891 or- ganized the Atlantic and Pacific Steamship Line with six steamers de- signed to compete with the Pacific Mail. In the same period business- men of the interior towns and cities joined San Franciscans in form- ing the Merchants' Traffic Association. The new organization, besides sponsoring the new Atlantic and Pacific Steamship Line, enabled the Panama Railway Company to establish a competitive line between New York and San Francisco via the Isthmus of Panama. It was chiefly responsible for the building in 1895-6 of the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad from Stockton to Bakersfield. On the coast line from San Francisco to Los Angeles, the Southern Pacific did not complete the section between Lompoc and Santa Bar- bara until 1901, and the Northwestern Pacific road to Eureka was not completed until 1914. Even with these lines constructed there were (and still are) a number of fair sized towns which have never been served by any railroad. In addition to these, many places pop- 92 CALIFORNIA ular for vacations — the Geysers, Tassajara Springs, even Yosemite until 1907 — could be reached only by coach and six. The coast country, inaccessible by both sea and land, has remained largely cut off from the rest of the State. Santa Monica, Santa Bar- bara, Port San Luis, Monterey, Drake's Bay, Fort Bragg — none of these has deep water facilities or even very safe anchorage in stormy weather. Indeed, apart from the superb bay of San Francisco, only San Diego and Eureka have good natural harbors. To overcome the lack of safe anchorages along the rocky coast, shippers have resorted to the ingenious device of the "high line," lowering their goods with block and tackle over hawsers strung from the cliffs to waiting ves- sels offshore. Up and down the northern coast are lumber towns where lumber has been shipped in this fashion since the 1870*8. For years Los Angeles was handicapped by the lack of an ade- quate harbor. The final selection of San Pedro ended the long "Free Harbor Fight" between the people of Los Angeles and the Southern Pacific, which had greatly favored the plan for a harbor at Santa Monica. The choice also greatly benefited the new San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, which followed the old Mormon trail across southern Nevada to its western terminus at San Pedro. San Pedro's open bay, protected only on the west by a headland, seemed not too promising until the completion in 1910 of an 11,000- foot breakwater protecting the outer harbor and the excavation of a spacious inner harbor from shallow tidal areas. In 1937 it was the terminal for 165 steamship lines and three transcontinental rail- roads reaching coastwise, intercoastal, and foreign markets. Since the opening of the Panama Canal, intercoastal vessels, tramp steamers, naval craft, luxury liners in round-the-world service — all have made California harbors regular ports of call. Today the flags of every maritime nation flutter in the winds. During the first quarter of the century San Francisco's foreign commerce increased fourfold, while traffic in cargo destined to the region west of the Rockies, for which both San Francisco and Oakland harbors are particularly de- signed, swelled the volume of trade. During the 1920*8, growing fleets of lumber freighters and oil tankers passed in and out of Los Angeles harbor until it became one of the greatest lumber-importing and oil- exporting harbors. In 1937 the Los Angeles- Long Beach tonnage was 21,208,681, valued at $925,451,543; the San Francisco tonnage 28,812,967, valued at $1,209,641,226. The Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers were almost ruined for navigation by silting up with the debris from hydraulic mining along their tributaries until legislation halted the destruction. Only by per- sistent dredging were they kept open for small steamboats. Though floods still fill these rivers with silt, much of the fruit and vegetables FROM CLIPPER SHIP TO CLIPPER PLANE 93 shipped from the interior goes by water from Sacramento and Stockton. The Stockton harbor has been deepened sufficiently to accommodate the largest ocean-going freighters. Today California's river-borne com- merce reaches an annual total of over 2,000,000 tons of freight, ex- ceeded in value only by the trade on the Mississippi, Columbia, and Hudson River systems. The Shasta Dam, now (1939) under con- struction near Kennet in Shasta County, will keep the flow of the Sacramento relatively uniform throughout the year, once more permit- ting navigation to Red Bluff as in the steamboating days of the iSso's. The ferryboats which for so many years have been as much a feature of San Francisco Bay as the islands of Yerba Buena, Angel, and Alcatraz, had as their forerunner a whale boat named by some flight of the imagination the Pirouette. In 1851 she began running as a ferry to San Antonio (now East Oakland) with a tariff of $i per person, $3 per horse, $3 per wagon, $5 per two-horse wagon, $3 per head of meat cattle, $i per sheep, and $i per hog. The appear- ance of competitors cut these rates in half within a few years. The ferries, which eventually achieved the luxurious air of great floating palaces, continued to serve the Bay until completion of the San Fran- cisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in November 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge in May 1937. As traffic poured across the two bridges, the ferry lines, one by one, began gradually to suspend service. A few are still running. The development of urban and interurban street railways began in 1 86 1, when San Francisco acquired its first street cars, drawn by horses whose hoofs clattered loudly over the basalt paving blocks of the streets. In one street they continued their anachronistic clatter until 1913. When people began to build homes on the steep hills, up which the streets of San Francisco climb without compromise, a trans- portation problem arose. It was ingeniously solved by Andrew Halla- die, who in 1873 produced the first cable-drawn street cars in the world. The cable car has continued to accommodate the people of San Francisco, arousing mingled delight and distrust in the hearts of visitors. In 1863 trains ran from the ferry wharf into the center of Oak- land. Now an electric interurban system, utilizing the San Francisco- Oakland Bay Bridge, connects San Francisco with Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley. An extensive network of urban and interurban lines dispatches 3,700 trains daily in and out of Los Angeles over 1,200 miles of track, serving 45 cities and towns. In California, as elsewhere, the automobile led to improvement in roads. The counties had for many years kept up a few good mac- adamized roads but the general condition of roads was lamentable until the legislature created, in 1909, the California Highway Com- 94 CALIFORNIA mission with full authority over the construction of a great system of highways. In adopting both the motor bus and the motor truck Cali- fornia was a pioneer State, since many communities had either not been reached at all or had been inadequately served by the railroads. By 1915 trucking had become one of the important means of transpor- tation, particularly of farm and dairy produce. Its growth created a further demand for better roads which the State met. At present (I939) trucks carry 70 percent of the total intrastate business. In November 1937 California had some 40,000 freight trucks in opera- tion. They ranged from old Fords carrying supplies into the Sierra Nevada camps to lO-ton tractors and trailers costing over $10,000. The considerable distance from San Francisco and Los Angeles to other centers of population has made California an important State in the short but dramatic history of the airplane. In 1883 John J. Montgomery, professor of physics at the University of Santa Clara, built a glider which soared some 600 feet, but this was only one of many abortive attempts to fly in heavier-than-air craft. Among the memorable pioneer flights with which California has been associated were Silas Christofrerson's first non-stop flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 1914; Lindbergh's preliminary flight from San Diego to New York in 1927; the first non-stop flight over the Pacific to Hawaii by Lts. Maitland and Hegenberger in 1927; and the 7,800- mile flight from Oakland to Australia by way of Hawaii and the Pacific Islands of Kingsford-Smith, Ulm, and Lyon in 1928. From the California shore the Pacific was first bridged commercially by air. Climaxing six years of intensive preparation by the Pan-American Airway system, the world's first trans-Pacific commercial service opened in October 1936, when the "China Clipper" made a round-trip pas- senger flight between San Francisco and Manila. In July 1937 tne "Philippine Clipper," arriving at Cavite Bay, Manila, completed the first 1,000,000 miles of commercial flight over the big water. At the end of 1937 California had 72 airports and 133 landing fields. The airplane has come to be taken as much for granted as were the pack mule, the ox-cart, the stage coach, and the wood-burning locomotive in their day. JVorkingmen " ' • ^HERE is no state in the Union, no place on earth, where labor is so honored and so well rewarded," David C. Broderick -•- told the United States Senate in his maiden speech in 1858, "no time and place since the Almighty doomed the sons of Adam to toil, where the curse, if it be a curse, rests so lightly as now upon the people of California." The vigorous independence of the pioneer has persisted until present times as a characteristic of the State's labor movement. Of the men who had the hardihood to make the long westward trek in Gold Rush days, many were skilled workingmen from trades in which unions were being organized. Among the European-born immigrants were English Chartists, Irish nationalists, French and German political exiles of 1848 — men schooled in the labor movement, in struggles for na- tional independence, or for democratic liberties. In the new-born camps and towns of California, they found no feudal tradition to influence social relationships. To people who saw men in overalls win or lose fortunes overnight, there was no place for concepts of the superiority or special privileges of the wealthy. The State's labor movement began in its first big city, San Fran- cisco, since early days the trade-union center of California and, until later years, of the whole region west of the Rocky Mountains. The second great metropolitan center, Los Angeles, remained an open-shop stronghold for half a century, the lower labor standards of its compet- ing industries threatening the gains won by labor in the north. But, as Los Angeles outstripped San Francisco in population, the disparity 95 96 CALIFORNIA between labor conditions in the two cities began to diminish, for San Francisco trade unionists came to realize that labor in the north could hold its gains only with the aid of labor in the south. During the 1930*8 the organized labor movements of both cities began to pool their strength in an effort to overcome the sharp contrast between urban and rural working conditions and attempted to organize the vast numbers of underprivileged migratory workers in the State's domi- nant industry, agriculture. The swift tempo of San Francisco's growth from village to metrop- olis characterized the development of its labor movement. The printers organized in 1850; teamsters, draymen, lightermen, riggers and steve- dores in 1851; bakers and bricklayers in 1852; calkers, carpenters, plasterers, brickmasons, blacksmiths, and shipwrights in 1853; and musicians in 1856. Although most of these organizations had to make several starts before they achieved stability, they gained better work- ing conditions for their members, kept wages balanced with the wildly rocketing cost of living, and launched the movement for progressive labor legislation. Of the labor laws pushed through in two decades, 1850-70, by these infant labor unions, the most important were pro- visions for payment of wages, a mechanics' lien, and an eight-hour day. In no other city in the country, it is said, did so many workers enjoy the eight-hour day as in San Francisco during these years. The outstanding labor struggle of the i86o's, the molders' and boilermakers' strike of 1864, was conducted along lines typical of those spacious days. The strikers were opposed by a newly formed iron- works employers' association, which threatened to levy a fine of $1,000 on the first employer to grant the strikers' demands. The association wired Portland, New York, Boston, and Providence for strikebreakers and paid their fare West. When the strikebreakers arrived at Panama, however, they were greeted by a delegation of representatives from the striking unions and the San Francisco Trades Union, the city's first central labor body. All arrived at San Francisco on friendly terms as fellow union members. The organization of the first effective State federated labor body, the Mechanics' State Council, was the labor movement's defense against employers' opposition to the eight-hour day. Forming the "Ten Hour League" (1867) to counter labor's "Eight Hour League," the employ- ers, following the shipowners' action in discharging all who worked on the eight-hour basis on the chief steamship lines, pledged themselves to hire no one for less than a ten-hour day. "By so doing," they stated, "we believe that we are working for the best interest of the journeymen mechanics as well as for the best interests of the city and state at large." The Mechanics' State Council, organized in the Los Angeles as well as the San Francisco area, responded by affiliating WORKINGMEN 97 with the National Labor Union, America's first great national labor federation. An era of comparative protection for labor came abruptly to its end with completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869. Labor, hard hit by the falling wages and the rising unemployment of the depression-ridden decade that followed, began to lay the blame for its misfortunes on the thousands of Chinese coolie railroad workers suddenly turned loose on the labor market. For the next two decades the campaign against the use of Chinese labor, pushed to the limit by politicians and demagogues, diverted the energies of the trade union movement. But labor's fear of being reduced to servitude was well founded. Still fresh in men's minds was the struggle against the efforts of pro-slavery officials and landowners to introduce slavery to Cali- fornia; this had first been brought to the fore in 1852 when railroad and landowning interests were prevented, by protest meetings of miners' and city workers, from forcing a law permitting importation of con- tract labor through the legislature. The anti-Chinese movement, al- though accompanied by racial discrimination which gave rise to out- breaks of brutal violence, was primarily based on economic interest. In ever greater numbers the Chinese were taking over work in the fields, in the service trades, in the light manufacturing industries~~until by 1872 they comprised half of all the factory workers in San Francisco. The wages paid them were far below wages of American workers. And when Americans refused to have their wages lowered to the pay levels of the Chinese, employers threatened to hire Chinese workers instead. On the other hand, the builders of the Central Pacific had threatened to hire American workers when Chinese construction hands struck against $30 monthly for a 1 2-hour day (1867). "The Chinese Must Go!" was the slogan that carried Dennis Kearney, one of the most widely known figures in the early California labor movement, to prominence. Until he appeared on the scene in 1877 as a saviour of the masses, he had been vociferously anti-labor. Joining the "law and order" group formed by nervous businessmen in July 1877 when rioters roamed the city denouncing Chinese and capitalists, he suddenly left it to lead the rioters. Refused admission to the Workingmen's Party of the United States, he set up in October 1877 a rival organization, the Workingmen's Party of California. At Sunday afternoon meetings of workers and unemployed on vacant sand lots, where he delivered incendiary speeches, his favorite pose was with a noosed rope in his hand. This he declared was his platform. He was jailed for advising every man "to own a musket and a hundred rounds of ammunition" but was soon released. Eventually, as oppo- sition arose within the Workingmen's Party, an investigating committee charged him with being a "dictator . . . more than suspected of selling 98 CALIFORNIA out to the enemy" — the enemy in this case being railroad and banking interests. Discredited, Kearney went back to the draying business he had left and devoted himself to getting rich. The man who headed the opposition to Kearney, Frank Roney, remained an outstanding figure in the State's labor movement long after Kearney's retirement. Active as a young man in the movement for Irish independence, he had emigrated to the United States to be- come a national figure in the iron molder's union. He arrived in San Francisco in 1875, wrote the constitution and platform of the Work- ingmen's Party, and soon took his place as a leader in the labor organi- zation drive of the i88o's. Following the disappearance of the Workingmen's Party from the political scene, he was elected president of the Federated Trades and Labor Unions of the Pacific Coast, later the San Francisco Central Labor Council. To Roney was entrusted the job of organizing the seamen of the port of San Prancisco, twice previously attempted with no more than short-lived success. In what was known as the world's worst shanghaiing port, the Seamen's Protective Association, headed by Roney as president, took up the fight against wages so low and shipboard conditions so brutal that crews could be filled only by kidnapping. The association faced the opposition of shipowners, crimps, and underworld elements who preyed on sailors. During one meeting held in 1880, according to the union's minute book, "there were constant interruptions by the boarding-house sharks and their whiskey-brought bummers, going even so far as to throw valuable eggs, that did not have time to get the proper age and odor, at the agitators; but they made a bad failure, for the superior intelligence and calmness of the speakers entirely dis- comforted their enemies." The union fought for seamen's civil rights by preferring charges against brutal ships' officers in Federal courts. It won the backing of progressive San Franciscans, chief among them Henry George, single-tax proponent, editor of the San Francisco Post, and a consistent supporter of the labor movement. The fight to im- prove seamen's working conditions was extended into the legislative field when Roney drew up and presented to Congress two laws, one embodying the union's demand for punishment of brutal officers and the other specifying that two-thirds of the crew of every American vessel should be American citizens. The legislative struggle was later taken up and carried on for some thirty years by Andrew Furuseth, as secretary of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific and (from 1908) of the International Seamen's Union of America. As a result of the struggle against a sharp wage cut in 1885 a stable organization, the Coast Seamen's Union, was at last set up with the aid of officers of the Knights of Labor, then at the peak of its growth in California, and Socialists from the International Working- WORKINGMEN 99 men's Association, of whom five served on the union's original advisory committee. The union halted the drive for wage cuts, organized branches at leading ports up and down the Pacific Coast, and launched (1887) the Coast Seamen s Journal, for years the Coast's most impor- tant labor paper. In 1891 the Coast Seamen's Union and the deep-sea steamship sailors' union dropped their jurisdictional differences and merged as the present Sailors' Union of the Pacific. Following organization of the seamen, the waterfront unions be- came an important factor in San Francisco's labor movement, for longshoremen, ship calkers, pile drivers, and other waterfront workers had already been organized for a period of years. Feeling a bond of common interest, the maritime unions made repeated efforts to achieve joint organization. The Wharf and Wave Federation (1888), the City Front Labor Council (1891), and the Waterfront Federation (1914-1923) were predecessors of the present Maritime Federation of the Pacific. The City Front Federation of 1901, reputed to have been the strongest trade federation in the country at the time, grew out of the intense organizational drive in all crafts that accompanied the great industrial boom at the turn of the century. During the two decades that followed its organization, the trade union movement grew at such a pace that San Francisco took first place among the unionized cities of the United States. But labor's gains were not achieved without opposition. To meet what they considered the threat of union domi- nation, employers organized on a broader and more effective basis than in the past. A complicated and tense situation developed, which culmi- nated in the building trades strike of 1900 and the City Front Federation strike of 1901. The successful conclusion of the building trades strike was followed by organization of the Building Trades Council, which became the most powerful factor in the labor move- ment. The City Front Federation strike, in which the waterfront unions went out in support of locked-out teamsters, was bitterly fought because both labor and employers knew that the question of establish- ing the open shop in San Francisco was at stake. Although the unions partially lost the strike, they checked the open-shop drive and survived. Out of the City Front Federation strike grew the Union Labor Party, supported by the San Francisco Central Labor Council because of its resentment over Mayor James D. Phelan's use of police to protect strikebreakers brought into the city. The Union Labor Party's candidate for mayor, Eugene Schmitz, was elected in 1902 to succeed Phelan. The story of how an alleged alliance of politicians, utilities, and vice interests won control of the party has been told by Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, who helped lead the reform movement that culminated in the graft prosecutions initiated IOO CALIFORNIA against Schmitz, Abraham Ruef, and a long list of municipal office- holders in 1906. Older's story deals, too, with the activities of Patrick Calhoun, political boss and United Railroads head, who, it is said, pre- cipitated the 1907 traction strike in an effort to halt the prosecution, by diverting public attention. Having aroused public indignation against labor, on the ground that the strike was holding up reconstruction of the earthquake-wrecked city, Calhoun melodramatically broke the strike. Those in control of the Union Labor Party had by this time been denounced by the San Francisco Central Labor Council in an emphatic statement published May 30, 1906, which said, in part: "We declare every corruptionist, briber and bribed, should be prosecuted and punished according to law and hereby pledge our cooperation to that end." In the end Calhoun was brought to trial, but acquitted. Despite the rapid growth of the labor movement in San Francisco, Los Angeles remained largely a non-union town. The employers of San Francisco had stated flatly that unless the unions acted to level competition with the south by organizing Los Angeles they would begin a new drive for open-shop conditions in the Bay area. Taking up the challenge, labor sent a corps of organizers south in June 1910. In Los Angeles the Founders and Employers Association was refusing to meet with union representatives of some 1,200 workers idle in a metal-trades lockout covering all plants in the city. The International Molders Union sent its national organizer, George Gunray, to aid the Los Angeles drive. As the organizing drive got underway, the pub- lic began to develop a sympathetic attitude toward unionism. And then occurred the disaster that for many years was to delay labor organization in Los Angeles. At one o'clock in the morning of October I, 1910, an explosion shattered the plant of the Los Angeles Times, owned by General Gray Otis, leader of the city's anti-union forces. Twenty-one of the workers in the building were killed and many injured. Intense excitement followed and while the Labor Council, investi- gating, announced that the explosion had been a gas explosion, the police, the grand jury, the Mayor's committee, civic bodies, the City Council, also investigating, declared that the explosion had been caused by dynamite. Otis offered a reward of $300,000 for the finding of those responsible. Three groups of detectives began the search. On April 14, 1911, James B. McNamara and Ortie McManigal were arrested in Detroit by the detective William J. Burns. Ortie McManigal in a confession implicated, among others, James Mc- Namara's brother John J. McNamara, Secretary of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers' Union. J. J. McNamara was arrested on April 22 in Indianapolis. The Me- WORKINGMEN IOI Namaras were taken to the Los Angeles jail and held; McManigal was taken along as prosecution witness. Labor, convinced of the innocence of the McNamaras, rose to their defense. According to Perlman and Taft (History of Labor in the United States 1896-1932, Volume IV) "Los Angeles was at the time the battlefield of several simultaneous labor wars. . . . The explosion in the morning of October i, 1910 . . . came as a climax in these hard fought battles." The American Federation of Labor raised a quarter of a million dollar fund, and the famous advocate, Clarence Darrow, was retained to defend the men. The trial dragged on slowly with labor — still certain of the men's innocence — engaged in a veritable crusade. But Clarence Darrow apparently became convinced of the great strength of the State's case. Through the journalist Lincoln Stefrens, he began to negotiate with the authorities. In retrospect, Steffens wrote in his autobiography that his newspaper report of the case "began by saying that both capital and labor had pleaded guilty, and showed that the McNamaras had made no confession which involved other persons but had entered into an agreement by which, without force, the labor problem was to be re- considered in the most anti-labor city in America." The details of the agreement made with the prosecution have re- mained a source of argument. According to Perlman and Taft, "The agreement with the prosecution stipulated that both brothers would plead guilty, and that J. B. McNamara would receive life imprison- ment but John J. McNamara a less severe sentence, and that all other prosecutions would be dropped." Influential people of Los Angeles and the court officers were won over, and so finally were the Mc- Namaras. On December i, 1911, Attorney Darrow rose in court and stated that his clients wished to change their plea from "not guilty" to "guilty as charged." Four days later James B. McNamara was sentenced to life imprisonment and John J. McNamara to a term of 15 years. In passing sentence the judge verbally castigated the men: which action, it is alleged, was against the agreement. Later that part of the stipulation concerned with the prosecution of others was also disregarded. The decade that followed saw a rapid growth in the influence on California's labor movement of the Industrial Workers of the World, central organizing agency in Northwest logging camps and Midwest wheat fields, as it began extending its work to the mines, lumber camps, ports, and agricultural areas of the State. It came into prominence in California at the time of the Wheatland hop field riots of 1913, which brought before the Nation for the first time the intolerable conditions of field labor in the State and prompted an investigation leading to the first Government action in cleaning up these conditions. The 102 CALIFORNIA situation that prompted the riots at the Wheatland hop ranch, said to belong to the State's largest single employer of field labor at the time, was later described by Carleton W. Parker, executive secretary of the State Commission of Immigration and Housing: "Twenty-eight hundred pickers were camped on a .treeless hill . . . Some were in tents, some in topless squares of sacking . . . there was no provision for sanitation, no garbage disposal. The temperature during the week of the riot remained near 105 degrees, and though the wells were a mile from where the men, women and children were picking ... no water was sent into the fields ... It developed in the state investiga- tion that the owner of the ranch received half of the net profit earned by an alleged independent grocery store, which had been given the grocery concession and was located in the center of the camp grounds." The overcrowding of the camp was found to have been aggravated by the fact that the ranch owner had followed the common practice of advertising for twrice the necessary number of pickers in order to keep down wage levels. In the rioting that began when a sheriff's posse broke up a protest meeting, four were killed. A week after the riot, the first act regulating California labor camps went into effect. The I. W. W. continued to play an important part in the labor movement until the early post-war period. Among the causes con- tributing to its decline were the anti-union drive and the prosecution of many of its members under the State's newly passed criminal syn- dicalism laws. Its last important appearance in the State was in the 1923 seamen's strike at San Pedro, when Upton Sinclair was arrested for publicly reading the Declaration of Independence. A prominent defender of the two I. W. W. leaders, Richard Ford and Herman Suhr, who were arrested in the Wheatland disturbance and convicted after a long-fought trial, was a young Irish member of the molders' union, Thomas Mooney. The leading part that he played in the electrical workers' strike of 1913 and in the attempted organi- zation of United Railroads workers in 1916 also brought him to the fore in northern California as an aggressive trade unionist. He was a leading member of the group that began preparing a new organiza- tional drive in southern California to counter a new open-shop campaign in the north organized by employers. As such he came particularly to the attention of the ''law and order" committee formed by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce to promote adoption of an anti- picketing ordinance. The newspaper files of the period reveal the combination of anti- union and wartime preparedness propaganda in an attempt to label as disloyal labor's determination to maintain its organizational lines. In the tense atmosphere of the growing struggle a bomb exploded, killing ten persons, on the route of the Preparedness Day parade staged in San WORKINGMEN IO3 Francisco July 22, 1916. Among those arrested were Mooney, his wife Rena, and his friend, Warren K. Billings. Found guilty, Mooney was sentenced to be hanged and Billings to life imprisonment. After world-wide protests, Governor William D. Stephens, at the behest of President Woodrow Wilson, commuted Mooney's sentence to life im- prisonment in November 1918. The case soon became one of the most celebrated labor controversies of modern times. In the course of repeated State hearings and Federal inquiries, a picture of corruption was revealed that strengthened the conviction held by many people that the case had been a frame-up. On the basis of new evidence soon uncovered, and of confessions and other evidence exposing the perjury of key prosecution witnesses, the jurors who found Mooney guilty and the judge who sentenced him publicly reversed their positions. As the years went by, more and more evidence indicating Mooney's innocence came to light. In August 1928 every living person connected with the prosecution, except Dis- trict Attorney Charles Fickert and an assistant, recommended Mooney's pardon. The trial judge, Judge Griffin, declared in a public address in February 1929: "The Mooney case is one of the dirtiest jobs ever put over and I resent the fact that my court was used for such a con- temptible piece of work." But for 22 years, Mooney remained in San Quentin penitentiary while successive Governors resisted appeals for a pardon. Throughout these years the case was carried through State and Federal Courts as Mooney's defense attorneys asked for a review of new evidence and opening of a new trial. Finally in Octo- ber 1938, after lengthy hearings in San Francisco before a referee, the United States Supreme Court, passing on the case a second time, found itself compelled on legal grounds to deny a requested review of the case. A month later Culbert L. Olson, who had expressed his firm belief in Mooney's innocence while still a State senator, was elected Governor of California. One of his first steps on taking office in January 1939 was to issue an unconditional pardon. In the meantime the wartime anti-union campaign had driven ahead to success, initiating a period of open-shop domination that lasted throughout the 1920*8. It reached its climax in 1921, when the newly formed Industrial Association of San Francisco raised a war chest of $1,250,000 to break the building trades strike of that year. With the collapse of the building trades unions, too weakened to resist when the Industrial Association's wage board cut wages twice within a year, the strongest single force in the labor movement of that period was rendered helpless. At about the same time, the Metal Trades Council was defeated, losing agreements it had held with the employers since 1907. The seamen's unions, too, went down to defeat in 1921. The loss of the dock strike of 1919, called in protest against alleged en- IO4 CALIFORNIA dangerment of life and limb by speed-up and excessive loads, had already caused the collapse of the riggers' and stevedores' union. In the succeeding decade, the "American Plan," substituting individual for collective bargaining, prevailed throughout the State. The resurgence of the labor movement following enactment of the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933 was marked especially by the outburst of latent protest against long-standing grievances on San Francisco's waterfront. The conditions that prompted the 1919 strike had continued under the agreement signed in December 1919 between the Waterfront Employers' Association and the Longshoremen's Asso- ciation of the Pacific, organized by longshore gang bosses, which long- shoremen designated a "company" union, calling it the Blue Book Union (for the color of the membership book) ; the agreement made every dock worker who refused to join ineligible for employment. An- other basic grievance was the "shape-up" system of hiring from the docks, which longshoremen claimed forced them to wait without com- pensation for hours at a time, fostered corrupt control of employment by hiring agents from whom men had to buy their jobs, and resulted in some men working 24 and 36 hours and longer without sleep, while others starved for lack of work. As a leader in protests against abuses, the lanky young Australian, Harry Bridges, who had been working on the docks ever since he had come ashore as a sailor 12 years before, was coming to the fore; among longshoremen he was known as "Limo Harry," a first-class winch driver and a man who stood up for his rights. Within a few weeks after a charter had been secured from the International Longshoremen's Association in September 1933, about 90 per cent of the men on the front had joined the new union. At a coastwise convention held in the spring of 1934, the longshoremen for- mulated demands to correct the abuses on the docks. When hear- ings led to no definite result, they took a strike vote on March 7. The seamen's unions, likewise showing a new vitality, had also been refused when they presented demands to the shipowners. On May 15, 1934, tney voted to join the strike; and the ship clerks and licensed officers' organizations followed suit. The killing of two waterfront picketers and the clubbing and gas- sing of a hundred others by police on Thursday, July 5, 1934 — after- wards known as "Bloody Thursday" — was the incident that swept nearly every union in the Bay area into the second important general strike up to that time in the Nation's history. From July 17 to July 19 stores closed, shops and factories shut down, and trucks and street cars stopped running in San Francisco as 127,000 workers left their jobs. The strike aroused the emphatically expressed opposition of many news- papers, individuals, and organizations throughout the Nation. The NRA Administrator, General Hugh S. Johnson, appeared on the scene WORKINGMEN IO5 to denounce it in a public address. On July 20 the strikers began returning to their jobs. The waterfront unions, however, after media- tion of the dispute, won agreements with the shipowners which still serve as the basis of labor relations in the maritime industry. They were enabled to organize in 1935 the Maritime Federation of the Pacific, first attempt to apply the principle of joint organization on a coastwise basis. It now has 28,000 members, drawn from A. F. of L. and C. I. O. unions, and from unions in Canada and the Hawaiian Islands. The strong public feeling aroused by the general strike soon subsided, but not the opposition to one of its leaders, Bridges, long- shoremen's president and later C. I .O. Pacific Coast director. It was still being expressed four years later in a controversy involving the United States Secretary of Labor over his right (since he had not yet been naturalized) to remain in the country. As the labor movement began to advance again after its long period of decline, the unions weakened in 1919-21 gained renewed strength, while new unions staged intensive drives in industries never before organized. San Francisco and Oakland recovered more than their old union strength; organization extended into Los Angeles from its port at San Pedro; it reached even into the inland valleys where the labor movement had never before made headway. Throughout the I93o's the labor movement has continued to make steady gains. In union-minded San Francisco, more than 120,000 of whose in- habitants belong to labor unions, the principle of collective bargaining has come to be accepted as a matter of fact. In the neighborhood of the port, where the outward signs of the labor movement's flourishing condition are most apparent, longshoremen swing along the streets with union buttons conspicuously displayed on their white (union-made) caps. Big Irish teamsters driving their trucks down to the docks wear union buttons; so do the Italian fishermen, the taxi drivers, streetcar conductors and motormen, newsboys and bootblacks. Almost every restaurant, bar, barber shop, drug store, and laundry displays a union sign. The A. F. of L. unions are strong among teamsters, streetcar employees, and workers in the building trades and service industries, including retail store clerks, hotel employees, and others; the C. I. O. unions, among longshoremen, warehousemen, newspapermen, and smelter and tunnel workers. In recognition of labor's strength, em- ployers have organized in distributors', waterfront employers', hotel owners', and other associations covering all the major industries. A San Francisco Employer's Council, organized in 1938, announced a desire for more cooperative relations with labor. A development of the same year, tried out with much success during a warehousemen's lockout, was the town meeting, at which employers and union leaders presented their respective sides of the dispute before a public audience. 106 CALIFORNIA As against 30,000 trade union members in 1933-34, Los Angeles today has 200,000. The trade union movement had advanced despite the continued open-shop stand of employers, who in 1938 pushed through a drastic anti-picketing ordinance. Although a number of industries remain largely unorganized, the disparity between labor con- ditions in the State's two larger cities no longer exists. A basic factor in bringing about this change was the rapid growth of unionization in such mass production industries as aircraft, auto, rubber, and oil. In- tensive organizational drives have been staged among musicians, team- sters, workers in the building trades, and in the motion-picture and other industries. The almost complete organization of all trades in the harbor district, San Pedro, has given the city's growing labor move- ment solid backing. A force to be reckoned with has been the rise of unions in the motion-picture industry, which number (1939) some 12,000 members. To the surprise of many who believed that movie people would never step out of their make-believe world, screen actors, writers, and directors have come forward as topnotch trade union members. The most important downward pull on California's labor standards is exerted today by the rural areas, where some 200,000 almost com- pletely unorganized agricultural workers, mostly homeless migrants, live and work under conditions generally recognized as sub-standard. Of these nomadic workers, the majority are refugees from the Dust Bowl area, although Mexicans work in the citrus groves of the south and the sugar-beet fields of the north and Filipinos and Japanese in the asparagus and celery fields of the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta region. Just as labor's weakness in the south once threatened its gains in the north, so now its weakness in the rural areas threatens its gains in the cities. The sharp divergence between urban and rural labor standards has begun to worry city unionists especially because of the dominant position in the State's economy of its highly mechanized agriculture, which provides most of the freight handled by both rail and water and a large proportion of the raw material processed by manufacturing plants. The sharpest conflicts since the revival of the West Coast labor movement in 1933-34 have developed out of what employers have termed the "inland march" of city trade unions. To meet it, the forces opposing unionism have systematized and extended their organi- zation. Led by the Associated Farmers, Inc., representing the corpora- tive farm interests of the State, they have induced a number of the valley towns to adopt anti-picketing ordinances. The Farmers' Trans- portation Association of Southern California, organized in 1938 in nine southern counties under the auspices of the Associated Farmers, has announced its intention to maintain "the right of every man to WORKINGMEN IO7 work without being coerced into joining or not joining a union" ; it issues licenses to truck drivers, after questioning them on union affilia- tion, only when they have pledged to pick up and deliver cargoes un- der all circumstances except when prevented by "acts of God." Labor's "inland march" has been blocked increasingly often during the last decade, in rural and company towns where trade unions lack the support of public opinion which they have won in the cities, by the activities of vigilante organizations that have helped themselves to the name of groups organized for different purposes in the pioneer period. In the 1933-34 wave of agricultural strikes, vigilante methods were invoked to break the Imperial Valley lettuce strike and the San Joaquin Valley cotton strike, largest strike of field workers in Cali- fornia history. In the 1936 Salinas lettuce strike, vigilantism attained proportions that shocked public opinion in the State and Nation. Again in the spring of 1937 vigilante methods were used to break the Stock- ton cannery strike. In April 1938 about 300 men, women, and chil- dren (members of the International Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers Union) were driven by vigilante raids from their homes in Grass Val- ley and Nevada City, site of the country's second largest gold mine. Under police escort they returned to their homes, reopened their union hall, and carried on. When anti-union forces undertook an intensive campaign to secure adoption of a State-wide anti-picketing law at the polls in 1938, labor unions — both A. F. of L. and C. I. O. — saw their common danger, recognizing the campaign as the prelude to a general open-shop drive, and united to defeat it. The proposed law, known as Proposition No. One, was considered by many groups to be more stringent than any similar act since the anti-conspiracy laws of Colonial days. Com- mented the official publication of the California State Grange: "Said by its proponents to be needed legislation for industrial peace, this initiative proposition would really take away the constitutional rights of labor; it is dangerous because the layman does not recognize the fascistic provisions hidden within the proposal." Proposition No. One became the central issue in the campaign preceding the November elec- tions. A. F. of L. and C. I. O. unions, central labor bodies, maritime workers, teamsters, steelworkers, newspapermen, carpenters, tunnel miners, movie stars, railwaymen, and clergymen joined in a successful counter-campaign which defeated the measure. Out of the cooperation of A. F. of L. and C. I. O. unions in this campaign, strengthened by the victory in the elections of candidates for public office endorsed by both, grew a movement for unity of the labor movement's two wings. In Stockton and in Sacramento, joint labor committees formed by A. F. of L. and C. I. O. locals continued to function. 108 CALIFORNIA Another influence promoting the unification of the labor movement has been the gradual disappearance of the racial discrimination that once characterized it. The anti-Chinese and anti-Japanese agitation that kept American and Oriental workers apart has largely vanished. Today the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the retail clerks', culinary, and other A. F. of L. unions, and all the C. I. O. unions admit Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino workers to membership with full rights, including eligibility to hold office. The hostility once directed against Chinese, Japanese, or Mexican workers is more apt to be directed now against native-born Dust Bowl refugees when attempts are made to use their labor at wage rates that endanger general California standards. Organized labor in California shows a growing tendency to welcome the help of technical experts in dealing with the complex problems of negotiation with employers, arbitration cases, and presenting the union point of view to the public. Notable in this field is the work of the Pacific Coast Labor Bureau, a non-profit service organization specializ- ing in economic counsel to labor unions. It has headquarters in San Francisco and branches in other West Coast cities. The bureau repre- sents A. F. of L., C. I. O., Railroad Brotherhood, and bona fide inde- pendent unions. The extension of labor's activities to the political field has enabled it to report many legislative gains. California has an old-age assistance law, an unemployment compensation act, a 48-hour maximum work week law for women workers, and an apprentice law (recently passed). The State protects workmen suffering from occupational diseases. In order to protect and supplement such legislation, unions have begun to participate in politics to an increasing extent. Press and Radio '"""ir^RUE with his rifle, ready with his pen, and quick at the type case" — thus Walter Colton, American alcalde at Monterey, J»- described California's pioneer journalist, Dr. Robert Semple, a buckskin-clad Kentucky emigrant, who stood 6 feet 8 inches in his stockings. On August 15, 1846, only a month after the American flag was raised at Monterey, Semple and Colton printed news of the United States' declaration of war on Mexico in the Calif ornian, the first news- paper published within the State. "A crowd was waiting when the first sheet was thrown from the press," wrote Colton. "Never was a bank run upon harder; not, however, by people with paper to get specie, but exactly the reverse." For twelve and a half cents the cus- tomers got a single sheet a little larger than foolscap, printed half in English and half in Spanish. A wooden, hand-operated Ramage press ran off this first issue. It had been manufactured in New York about 1800, shipped to Mexico City for use in the Mexican government printing office, and packed on mule-back to Monterey about 1834. Colton described the equipment as "old enough to be preserved as a curiosity; the mice had burrowed in the balls, there were no rules, no leads, and the types were rusty and all in pie." When he and Semple had cleaned the type, cut rules and leads out of a sheet of tin with a jack-knife, and hunted up part of a keg of ink, they were still faced by their worst problem — lack of paper. All that could be found was a small supply of the coarse stuff used to wrap cigarettes on board a coastwise sailing ship. It had to serve. 109 IIO CALIFORNIA The Californian, after appearing intermittently for nearly a year, was moved, old press and all, to San Francisco. There, on May 22, 1847, the paper reappeared in competition with San Francisco's first journal, the weekly California Star, which the Mormon pioneer, Samuel Brannan, had established on January 9 of the same year. Neither paper displayed any interest in what was perhaps the biggest news story in California history — James Marshall's discovery of gold at Coloma. "Great chances here for scientific capitalists," wrote Dr. Robert Semple in the Calif ornian of March 15, 1848, seven weeks after the event, in a 67-word paragraph which chilled any possible excitement. Although the rival Star occasionally devoted its columns to unenthusiastic and somewhat technical discussions of gold during the next few weeks, it was word-of-mouth rumors of prospectors having "struck it rich" that convinced San Francisco's unscientific non-capital- ists that Marshall's discovery might concern them too. "All sham — a superb (sic) take-in, as was ever got up to guzzle the gullible," wrote the Star's acting editor, E. C. Kemble, on his return from a trip to the mines in April. Unluckily for Kemble, his boss, Sam Brannon, who had also gone out to investigate, appeared one day on Portsmouth Square flourishing a whisky flask full of gold dust and shouting, "Gold! Gold from the American Fork!" Even the most apathetic citizens were so fired by Brannan's dramatic proclama- tion that hundreds followed him back to the mine. Before the stampede of readers — and even printers — San Francisco's two infant newspapers were helpless. The Calif ornian suspended pub- lication May 29. Two days earlier the Star had urged its readers: "Pay up before you go — everybody knows where. Papers can be for- warded to Sutter's Fort with all regularity. But pay the printer, if you please, all you in arrears." On June 4 it, too, ceased publication, and again California was without a single newspaper. The gold rush, however, far from stifling journalism, fostered its growth. By August 1848 the Calif ornian had resumed its career. It was bought the following month, together with the Star, by Kemble, who merged the two papers into one which he introduced November 1 8, 1848, as the Star and Calif ornian, soon to be renamed the Alia Calif ornian. So rapid was its growth that two years later it became a daily, and soon its publishers were printing it on a steam press. Enlist- ing the services of Mark Twain as a contributor and Bret Harte as an editor, it became — and for more than a generation continued to be — one of California's leading papers. Meanwhile the creaking old Ramage press which had printed the original Californian had continued on its travels. Together with an assortment of old type and a lot of Spanish foolscap, it was shipped by Kemble up the Sacramento River to the settlement of New Helvetia PRESS AND RADIO III (now Sacramento). It was set up in a makeshift office of adobe, wood, and cotton cloth, and on April 28, 1849 ran off the first weekly issue of the Placer Times, the Sacramento Valley's pioneer paper. Kemble soon lost his monopoly of the Sacramento news market, for on April I, 1850 the Sacramento Transcript appeared and on August 3 of the same year the Settler's and Miner s Tribune. After a two- months championship of the Squatter's Association, however, the Tribune was buried in Sacramento's newspaper graveyard, the first of some 70 or 80 short-lived papers which started and discontinued publication during a period of 30 years. Still farther into the interior, the pioneer Ramage press was packed to continue its newspaper-founding exploits. On July 4, 1850 it printed the Mother Lode's first paper, the Sonora Herald. It went on running off news of fights and gold until the fall of 1851, when it was moved to Columbia to print the Columbia Star. In most of the larger mining towns, newspapers were soon flourishing. Within ten years after the discovery of gold, Jackson and Marysville each had seven papers; Columbia, five; and Sonora, Mariposa, and San Andreas, three. Nor did all these die with the gold rush. Auburn's Placer Herald has been issued ever since 1852, and Downieville's Mountain Messenger since 1853. Even in the sun-baked adobe village of Los Angeles, newspapers were making a place for themselves. The first paper was run off May 17, 1851 on a hand press brought around the Horn in a windjammer. This was the Los Angeles Star or La Estrella de Los Angeles, a four- page weekly, printed half in Spanish and half in English. So isolated was the sleepy pueblo that the Star's news, which often appeared as late as six weeks after the event, was news to nobody when it finally saw print. The uncertainties of waiting for the mail — once delivered as late as 52 days after leaving San Francisco — so disgusted the editor that eventually he gave up his job. The publishers of the Southern Calif ornian, founded July 20, 1854, inherited an old font of Spanish type. They struggled along with it, substituting two "V's" for the missing letter "W" until a sailor who had heard of their hardships strolled in one day with news of a fine font of English type which he had seen in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands). Overjoyed, they solved their difficulties by sending for it. An all-Spanish paper, El Clamor Publico, began competing for the Spanish-speaking readers in June 1855. San Diego, too, was by this time reading its pioneer paper, the Herald, established in May 1851. Many a chuckle must have escaped its subscribers when they read the writings of "John Phoenix," as the irrepressible wag and practical joker, Lieut. George H. Derby, called himself. This young Army officer, assigned to the job of diverting 112 CALIFORNIA the San Diego River, which was silting up the bay, found San Diego such a dreary hamlet that he began writing for the Herald to relieve his boredom. Derby perpetrated his most famous exploit when the paper's editor, confident of the victory of the Democratic ticket he had been supporting, entrusted Derby with the management of the paper while he spent a fortnight in San Francisco. "John Phoenix" promptly reversed the Herald's politics. Not content with attacking all the candidates his editor had been boosting, he eloquently sang the virtues of the rival Whigs. His counter-campaign was so effective that the Whigs carried the election in San Diego County by a four-to-three majority — although the Democrats managed to carry the State. Within eight years of the Calif ornians first appearance, 57 news- papers and periodicals within the State were serving an average total of 290,000 readers. The dreams of sudden riches, with which the gold rush had fired men's minds everywhere had transformed Cali- fornia into one of the most important news markets of the world. Now, as the scramble to lay hands on her wealth bred graft and political skulduggery, many of California's newly-born papers became the mouth- pieces of the law-and-order citizenry and took the lead in crusades against corruption. Their editors needed courage, for in those turbulent days the Colt revolver was deemed mightier than the pen. Into the turmoil of San Francisco's early political strife stepped the most influential of the fighting editors, James King of William, who used that signature to distinguish himself from another James King. On October 8, 1855, he published the first number of his Daily Evening Bulletin. He found much to attack, for San Francisco, after the spas- modic outburst of indignation which brought into being the Viligance Committee of 1851, had slipped back into lawlessness. King's editorials slashed mercilessly at the unholy coalition of grafting officials, financial magnates, and gang leaders who were swindling the people through political power. These were the forces, as King soon pointed out in his stinging attacks, that maintained a reign of terror, encouraging robbery and murder, in order to continue stuffing ballot boxes, fixing the courts, and plundering the treasury. Not hesitating to print names, King boldly exposed a rogue's gallery of public enemies in high places. Within a year the Bulletin had out-stripped all other papers in the city, winning recognition as the foremost champion of the people's right. The Bulletin charged, on May 14, 1856, that political boss James P. Casey was an ex-inmate of Sing Sing prison who "had stuffed himself through the ballot box ... to the board of supervisors." On the after- noon of the same day, Casey shot and mortally wounded King. With- out hesitation Casey gave himself up at the police station, confident that his friends would protect him. As King lingered between life and death, a second Vigilance Committee, led by some of the active members PRESS AND RADIO 113 of the original committee of 1851, was formed. When King died on May 20, the vigilantes brought both Cora, a notorious character, and Casey before them for trial, found them guilty, and hanged them both at "Fort Gunnybags," the vigilantes' headquarters. Two days later King's funeral procession marched by the spot where the bodies were hanging. San Francisco's other papers were forced to take their stand on the most burning issue of the day. The Alia Calif ornians owners tossed a half-dollar to decide whether or not to support the Vigilance Committee of 1856. The committee won. When the Herald decided to oppose the vigilantes, the merchants boycotted it and switched their advertisements to the Alia Calif ornian. As a result, the Herald dwin- dled and died. A new paper which stood for the people's rights took over some of its readers — the Morning Call, first published December I, 1856, by the Associated Practical Printers, a craftsmen's co-operative. Of all the San Francisco papers then published, the Call-Bulletin, a merger of the Call and James King of William's Bulletin, is the only one still appearing. As vigilante activity in the north steadily drove gangsters and political crooks southward, Los Angeles editors soon found themselves confronted with problems long familiar to their San Francisco col- leagues. In the face of the most gruesome local disorders, the Los Angeles newspapermen displayed an astonishing air of sang-froid. The Los Angeles Star in 1855 even published an account of a lynching before the lynching happened. Because he wanted to put the paper aboard the San Francisco steamer at 10 a.m., hours before the affair was scheduled, a young printer-reporter proceeded to write up a first-class lynching — even including the condemned man's "confession" on the gallows. Since there were 40 "legal" hangings and 37 impromptu ones in Los Angeles between 1850 and 1870, newspapers became adept at handling crime news. The following is typical of their reporting style: "With the exception of a little legitimate shooting affair last Saturday night, by which some fellow had well-nigh the top of his head knocked off, and one or two knock-downs and drag-outs, we have had a very peaceful week indeed. Nothing has occurred to disturb the even tenor of our way, and our good people seem to be given up to the quiet enjoyment of delicious fruits and our unequalled climate, — each one literally under his own vine and fig tree, reveling in fancy's flights, or luxuriating among the good things he finds temptingly at hand." While metropolitan editors were dealing with lawlessness and cor- ruption in the cities, one of California's best known papers was leading the struggles of the Sacramento Valley farmers. The Sacramento Bee, 114 CALIFORNIA founded February 3, 1857, took up the cudgels against land monopoly under the editorship of James McClatchy. When the cattle interests were still powerful, the Bee began agitating for legislation to protect farms against injury from cattle — and it won the fight. Though it seemed hopeless to oppose the rich and influential mining interests, the Bee began educating the people of the Sacramento Valley to fight for defense of the farming lands against threatened ruin by hydraulic mining debris, a struggle that ended with victory for the farmers in the courts. Of the important metropolitan dailies published in California today, most were founded in the two decades beginning with the Civil War era. The pro-Confederate Democratic Press of San Francisco, estab- lished in 1863, was so violently "secesh" in its sentiments that indignant Unionists wrecked its plant and threw its type out the window follow- ing the assassination of President Lincoln. In order to resume pub- lication with safety on June 12, 1865, it had to change its name to the Daily Examiner. The first paper in San Francisco to publish the news of the assassination had made its debut only three months earlier as a small sheet called the Dramatic Chronicle, "A Daily Record of Affairs Local, Critical and Theatrical," written, printed, and dis- tributed by two youths of 19 and 17, Charles and M. H. de Young. Soon shedding the word "Dramatic," the Chronicle appeared as a daily after 1868. Los Angeles' oldest newspaper in point of continuous publication made its first appearance in 1871, when a group of five printers founded the Evening Express. Four years later it passed into the hands of the pioneer publisher, Colonel James M. Ayers, one of the founders of the Calaveras Chronicle. The rival Daily and Weekly Herald, now combined wifh the Express as the Herald-Express, appeared in 1872; and this was followed in 1873 by the four-page Weekly Mirror, which was distributed free. The Daily Times made its first appearance in 1 88 1, and within a month was taken over by the Mirror's publishers, who printed it on a ramshackle press run by water power from the city zanja (ditch). Whenever the pipes became clogged by fish, as occasionally happened, the press had to be stopped. In August 1882 a newcomer to Los Angeles, Colonel (later General) Harrison Gray Otis, ex-editor of the Grand Army Journal, took over the management of both the Mirror and the Times, put his wife to work as a reporter and his daughters as clerks in the business office, and soon afterward merged the two papers to found the Los Angeles Times. The day after his arrival in Los Angeles in 1884, Charles F. Lummis, who had made a 3,507-mile walking trip from Cincinnati in 143 days, con- tributing breezy letters to the Times en route, was appointed city editor. The era of modern journalism in California was inaugurated in PRESS AND RADIO 115 1887 when young William Randolph Hearst took over his father's chaste and ultra-conservative San Francisco Daily Examiner, installed some of his college classmates on the staff, and began to publish Cali- fornia's first eight-page daily. Introducing to the Pacific Coast the "human interest" style popularized by Joseph Pulitzer's World, the Examiner provided its readers with sensational news of strikes, legis- lative scandal, hospital abuses, jury briberies. Its reporters were as- signed to such spectacular stunts as testing the ferryboats' life-saving devices; one of them "fell" overboard, while others stood by with stop watches to time the rescue. Circulation boomed, and the Examiner became the nucleus of a Nation-wide chain, which today includes in California the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, the Los Angeles Examiner and Herald-Express, and the Oakland Post-Enquirer. The fighting traditions of James King of William seemed to be reviving when Fremont Older, whom Oswald Garrison Villard called "one of the two first-rate journalists of the Pacific Slope," became editor of the San Francisco Bulletin in 1895. Entering vigorously into the struggle to oust the all-powerful Southern Pacific Railroad Co. from political control of the State, Older became one of the star figures — along with his famous fellow-Californian, Lincoln Steffens — of the muckraking era. In 1906 he joined the campaign to expose the graft ring headed by Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz and political boss Abraham Ruef which ruled from the City Hall. At the height of the campaign, when most of the other newspapers were attacking the graft prosecution with bitter invective, Older waged his fight so aggressively in the Bulletin that his enemies kidnaped him and carried him to Santa Barbara. A decade later, when he became convinced that District At- torney Fickert had used perjured evidence to convict Thomas J. Mooney and Warren K. Billings of the Preparedness Day bombing in 1916, Older published an extra edition of the Bulletin with the head- line: "FICKERT FRAMED THE MOONEY CASE." This was the first time that the charge had been made by any disinterested person. In 1909 the Los Angeles Herald began a reform crusade with a series of red-bordered articles entitled "Is Vice Protected in Los Angeles?" The movement thus initiated, which was soon joined by the Los Angeles Evening Express, the Fresno Republican, the Sacra- mento Bee, and the Oakland Tribune, strengthened a political re- volt leading to formation of the anti-monopolist Lincoln-Roosevelt League. But in Los Angeles the crusade was suddenly swept into the background by the dynamiting of the Times building, on October I, 1910. J. B. McNamara, secretary of the Structural Bridge and Iron Workers, and his brother were arrested and tried in a long-drawn-out court case which ended in the McNamaras' sudden and unexpected plea of guilty. Il6 CALIFORNIA Although labor disavowed violence, Governor James N. Gillett said, "Whether guilty or not, labor unionists will have to be blamed for the crime until it is shown they are not guilty." The San Fran- cisco Daily News vehemently sprang to the defense of the unions. This little four-page penny paper was started in 1903 in a shabby wooden house "south of the slot." The equipment was of the humblest — a few old chairs and tables, a decrepit linotype machine, and a press purchased from a Chinese newspaper. From the start it was a working- man's paper, costing but 25 cents a month. The guiding principle of the editor, William Wasson, to "cut every item to the bone but increase the number of items," made the writing admirably succinct. Greatly expanded, it became in 1921 a part of the Scripps-Howard national chain, and is now called the News. The Scripps-Howard group in California also includes the San Diego Sun. Since the appearance of the News, most California papers have tended towards increasing conservatism in editorial policy. The People's World, youngest of California's 141 English-language dailies, alone carries on the militant traditions in editorial policy once followed by such papers as the San Francisco Bulletin and News and the Sacramento Bee. It was founded in San Francisco on January i, 1938, and at the end of its first year it was reaching some 15,000 subscribers. The first left-wing daily newspaper to be published in the West, it bears on its masthead the slogan: "For Security, Democracy, Peace." Since the earliest days of statehood, many of California's racial minorities have published their own papers. The oldest Negro news- paper still published in the State, the California Eagle, has been ap- pearing in Los Angeles since 1879: there are at present eight other Negro papers. The first French journals, the Calif ornien (1850) and the Gazette Republicaine (1850), were followed by the Courrier du Pacifique (1852), which is still published today. Both the first German and the first Italian paper, the California Demokrat (1852) and the Voce del Popolo (1859), were founded in San Francisco and are still appearing. San Francisco's Chinese published the first of many news- papers, the Gold Hills News, in 1854; today (i939) they are publish- ing five. California's foreign-language journals of today, of which 15 are dailies, include publications in Spanish, Japanese, Swedish, Russian, Greek, and other languages. PRESS AND RADIO RADIO The first California radio station to broadcast the human voice, KQW of San Jose, was pioneering for the world, as well as for Cali- fornia, when it initiated in 1912 regular broadcasts of speech and music. KQW, operated by the Herrold Wireless Laboratories, had begun its experiments in 1909, broadcasting from a "carpet" antenna — 11,000 feet of wire strung between two seven-story office build- ings— connected with a crude arc transmitter. Three years later it again took the lead in the use of radio as an entertainment medium, when it began sending out the songs and ukelele tunes of two high school boys, Al and Clarence Pearce. The Government license granted KQW in 1912 was reputedly the first to be issued for actual radio telephony. More than a quarter of a century later, in 1938, the station was still on the air — as was one of its first "stars," Al Pearce. KQW was also a pioneer in developing the mechanics of radio. Dr. Charles D. Herrold's arc transmitter, the first improvement made on Marconi's equipment, was too high-powered for any microphone then in use ; so Herrold constructed a microphone by hooking six tele- phone transmitter units to a single diaphragm. Using the antenna at Mare Island near San Francisco, Herrold's transmitter established in 1913 what was at the time a world's record for long-distance radio transmission, when its broadcast was tuned in by the army transport Sherman, 950 miles at sea. In the same year two-way communication over a distance of 250 miles was established between Mare Island and Point Arguello. Visitors to the Panama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco in 1915 were thrilled at listening through ear phones to music broadcast by KQW from San Jose. Soon afterward, this station estab- lished two-way communication with KDN in San Francisco and opened a studio for the reception of daily concerts broadcast from the Fairmont Hotel — the first such receiving studio in the world. Californians have been contributing their share of radio inventions ever since the days when crystal detectors and loose-coupler tuners com- prised radio receiving equipment. The so-called "Father of Radio," Dr. Lee de Forest, began experimenting in 1912, at his laboratory in Palo Alto, with Audion tube "cascade" amplifiers. His success in amplifying signal strength led to perfection of the amplifying systems used in present-day transmission and reception. Ten years later the Magnavox loudspeaker, developed in Oakland, introduced for the first Il8 CALIFORNIA time the dynamic principle (moving coil in a magnetic field) which loudspeakers on modern receiving sets still use. By the early I92o's these inventions and others, freeing radio from the crudeness that drew ridicule from early critics, had won for program producers an untold number of ardent listeners. New stations began competing with KQW and KDN— KUO (1922), KPO (1923), and KJBS (1925) in San Francisco; KLX (1922) and KGO (1924), said to be the "world's largest radio transmitter" at the time, in Oak- land; KFI (1922), KHJ (1922), KMTR (1924), and KNX (1924) in Los Angeles. During these first years a typical broadcast schedule for the day began with a weather report, followed by recorded music alternating with more weather reports, and ended with a final announce- ment about the weather. Since 1922 many of radio's most popular forms of entertainment have been developed in California. The earliest "audience show" was KFRC's Blue Monday Jamboree, presented as an experiment to deter- mine how the song-and-patter show could be given appeal for an air audience; its variety technique is still considered to have a more pre- dictable popularity than any other type of radio entertainment. One Mans Family, inaugurated on KGO in 1932 and still broadcast, was the first program to adapt radio's particularly intimate facilities to drama by using casual dialogue, unhurriedly delivered, to lend veri- similitude to the characters. One of the earliest of the hillbilly folk programs, Mac's Haywire Qrchestry, was put together by a California cowboy, "Mac" McClintick, who assembled a quartet of guitar, har- monica, fiddle, and banjo ukelele. The latter was played by San Francisco's now famous critic, Joseph Henry Jackson, whose program of book reviews, began in 1922, is the oldest sustaining program heard transcontinental^. The first broadcast from an airplane was made in a Martin bomber, loaned by the U. S. Army, over Crissey Field, San Francisco. In July 1925, KJBS pioneered mobile short-wave radio- phone transmission by relaying the band music of California's Diamond Jubilee celebration. Broadcasts from the Malolo in 1931 were the first regularly scheduled programs from a ship at sea. Since 1933 radio has leaned more and more heavily on motion pic- ture personalities, a change that has emphasized the star system in radio entertainment and caused a westward shift in production. The shift began in 1933, when Rudy Vallee broadcast from an improvised studio on the RKO lot between scenes in his first motion picture. Commer- cial shows, though often financed, planned, and written in the East, are staged more and more frequently in California — to the discomfort of directors needing authorization for changes in the last few frenzied moments of rehearsals. The cost of talent and production in Holly- PRESS AND RADIO IIQ wood is high, but many sponsors have found that the extra expense is justified by the prestige of a Hollywood "date-line." The ultra-modern studios of Columbia and NBC in Hollywood, where these shows are staged, are among the few places where tourists may see motion picture stars in person. Radio has been used more and more as a medium by religious groups in California, several organizations having their own broadcasting sta- tions. Of importance to the State's agriculture is the broadcasting of frost warnings and the agricultural programs sponsored by govern- mental agencies. Possibly the most important practical application of the radio in California is as an aid to air navigation. A coast visited by frequent dense fogs, and mountains subject to violent storms consti- tute hazards to air travel that the radio has helped to lessen. In 1938 broadcasts were transmitted from 54 California stations, 10 of which are affiliated with NBC networks, 4 with CBS, n with Mutual-Don Lee, and 2 with Hearst. Also within the State are the short-wave stations that handle all the Nation's transpacific broad- casts to and from Hawaii and the Far East; the 75O-acre Bolinas sta- tion, with its 46 transmitting antennas; and the i5OO-acre Point Reyes station, with its 21 directive receiving antenna units. The Movies IT all began so suddenly — decorous suburban Hollywood must have felt that a strange new race had descended from the sky. One actress did alight from on high, unintentionally. She was Pearl White, heroine of thriller serials, who had been performing in a "prop" balloon before the cameras when it broke its moorings. She was rapidly drifting seaward until she pulled the rope that deflated it, landing herself — and so demonstrating the resourcefulness demanded of movie actresses in 1912. Hazardous though life might be for performers in the "flickers," the trek to Hollywood had started. Any girl could get a job if she would ride along in the cab of a runaway locomotive — any man if he could shoot a rabbit from the back of a galloping horse. The next best thing, in 1912, was to be very tall or short or weigh 300 pounds or 30 or, at the very least, to resemble a tramp or a colonel or a duchess. The thrillers of those hectic days told their stories in the main titles: The Outlaw and the Child, True Love Never Dies, Mary's Stratagem, A Good Turn, Her First False Step. Most of them were advertised as having "a strong moral tone." They were expected to have, as well, plenty of excitement. As a director of the time expressed it: "Never mind the acting — we want action!" The producers, working at the same speed as the characters in their dramas, never stopped to build a stage if they could rent a barn, or a dressing room if they could buy a tent. Behind the flimsy walls of the mushroom studios, Tom Mix and his director were vying with each other to invent stunts dangerous enough for their thrill-fed fans. 120 THE MOVIES 121 Custard pies were flying between Mack Sennett and Ford Sterling. Mae Marsh, in a voluminous grass skirt, was tempting Bobby Herron. Hollywood in 1912 — a small town carnival! A decade and a half before, the cinema industry had got under way on the other side of the continent in New York, where Thomas Alva Edison's kinetoscope made its first appearance on April 14, 1894. The spectators dropped a nickel in the slot and peeped into a cabinet. Two years later the first modern screen projector, Thomas Armat's vitascope, liberating the moving images from Edison's peepshow, began its commercial career at Koster & Bial's music hall in New York. To curious spectators the vitascope showed picture sequences of simple incidents: a snowstorm raging through a city, a policeman chasing a hapless tramp, a fire engine racing to a midnight alarm. Its audiences were amused, but as soon as the novelty wore off, they dropped away. An Edison cameraman, Edwin S. Porter, had an idea: the motion picture should tell a story. The overwhelming success of his first film, The Life of an American Fireman, encouraged him to make others, of which The Great Train Robbery, released in 1903, was the classic. At first the films were exhibited by itinerant showmen on portable pro- jectors, but on Thanksgiving Day, 1905, the first theater devoted ex- clusively to the showing of motion pictures opened in a Pittsburgh storeroom. The price of admission for the 15-minute program was a nickel, which gave rise to the name "nickelodeon." Soon scores of Bijoux, White Ways, Fairylands, and Lyrics appeared in eastern cities. As the "flickers" grew in popularity the chief producers found it necessary to safeguard their claims to the promised profits. Since 1897 Edison had been suing them for pirating his patents. In defense they formed, in January 1909, the Motion Picture Patents Company, soon widely known as the "movie trust." Their airtight monopoly was threatened, however, by the small producers, exhibitors, and exchanges excluded from the trust, who began importing bootleg equipment and filming their pictures in obscure hide-outs. Against them the trust launched a battle of suits and injunctions, raids and riots. They fled — from one loft to another, to Florida, to Cuba, and finally, to California. California had been claimed for the movies when William Selig, one of the "patent pirates" fought by Edison, skipped to Los Angeles in 1908 to complete a film began in his Chicago studio. His picture, The Count of Monte Cristo, was the first commercial film produced in the State. Two years passed before another picture was made in the West. By that time, the patents group were hounding the independent New York Motion Picture Company. The flight of this company to Los Angeles began a westward movement of independents and, eventually, of the trust companies themselves. They opened their studios in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Glendale, and, finally, in Hollywood — where 122 CALIFORNIA David Horseley's Nestor Film Company of New Jersey settled in the autumn of 1911 to make Hollywood's first movie in a studio at Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street. The arrival of the trust companies on the Coast brought the war with the independents to a new battleground — where the independents found two weapons which won them victory. The first was the "feature" picture; the second was the "star" system. The "feature" picture — a film of more than one or two reels — was revolutionary in 1912. While France, Italy, and Germany were experi- menting with the long film, the monopolistic Motion Picture Patents Company, controlled by financiers, had limited American pictures to two-reel elementary treatments of elementary concepts. There was no room in this production scheme for artistic experimentation. The independents, on the other hand — many of whom had been old-clothing, jewelry, and junk dealers — proved to be better showmen. Adolph Zukor imported the first multi-reel picture, Queen Elizabeth made in France in 1911 by Louis Mercanton with Sarah Bernhard and Lou Tellegen. The enthusiasm of American audiences proved tha they were ready for picture drama in the grand style. While othe European features were being imported, American producers began getting their own long films ready for the market. The first gallan attempts included James Young's Cardinal Wolsey with Clara Kimbal Young, and D. W. Griffith's Judith of Bethulia with Blanche Sweet Within six years appeared other films that critics still remember wit! respect: Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, Broken Blossoms, and Intol erance; Sennett's Tillies Punctured Romance; Lubitsch's Carmen starring Pola Negri; The Squawman; and Chaplin's A Dog's Life. In The Birth of a Nation — America's first super-feature — Griffith revolu tionized production technique, creating a picture which attracted th attention of the intelligentsia to the cinema for the first time in thi country. The picture rolled up an astounding box-office record ; thougl the validity of its characterization has since been questioned, it still play occasionally in the world's out-of-the-way places. During this perioc the trust, persisting on the whole with mass-produced short films languished. As Zukor, onetime furrier, introduced the full length picture, so Carl Laemmle, onetime clothing dealer, introduced the star system The patents trust, pursuing a mass production policy, had paid the screen player very low wages, assuming that the public would let him remain as anonymous as a bookkeeper. But Carl Laemmle, one o the trust's shrewdest foes, noted that patrons were asking at the box office when "the cute little girl with the curls" would appear again and so he hired the cute little girl from Biograph at double her former salary. She was Gladys Smith — better known by the name of the THE MOVIES 123 character she had played in Biograph pictures, "Little Mary." As Mary Pickford, she was presently receiving $10,000 a week in salary and half the profits on her pictures. At about the time the little girl with the curls was attracting notice, a young player deserted an English music hall company to work in Mack Sennett's Keystone Comedies at $150 a week. His shoes and small moustache, his talent for getting into pathetically funny situa- tions, and his genius for expressing himself through simple gestures soon made Charlie Chaplin a universally beloved character. Producers scrambled for him, the successful bidder paying him $150,000 for sign- ing a contract which guaranteed him $10,000 a week. Now picture patrons were demanding not only feature pictures, but "stars." The names of Marguerite Clarke, Blanche Sweet, Pauline Frederick, Theda Bara, William Farnum, Tom Mix, Anita Stewart, Alice Joyce, Earle Williams, William S. Hart, Norma and Constance Talmadge, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Mae Marsh, Harold Lockwood, and May Allison went up in marquee lights. Many of these players came to the films from the shipping rooms and offices of large cities, others from small town beauty contests and midwestern farms. Many had no previous dramatic training of any sort, and some never found it necessary to acquire any. Some built hillside mansions with swim- ming pools, and Japanese gardens ; hired armies of servants, agents, and secretaries; gave parties which lasted for days, stirring the talk of the Nation. Some saved their money, helped their relatives, and retired wealthy and happy; others died early of drink and drugs; others faded back into obscurity. All of them in their hour of glory were sent fan mail by the carload and mobbed by hysterical crowds at docks and railroad stations. The introduction of movie cycles accompanied the rise of movie stars. Traffic in Souls inspired a series of "daring" exposes; The Miracle Man was responsible for a cycle of heavily moralistic pictures; The Spoilers, for two-fisted Northwesterns ; Passion, for costume films. Over the Hill started a race for the profits to be made on mother love. While critics pleaded for originality — and continued pleading for two decades — successive themes were milked : desert love, crime, war, aero- nautics, exploration, the private lives of royalty and geniuses, the gaiety of the nineties. The 1930*8 brought in cycles of adaptations of Vic- torian novels, Shakespearean dramas, musical farces, and comedies. The years from 1912 to 1920 passed without radical improvements in mechanical methods — although cameramen perfected the dissolve, the fade, double exposure, and the close-up — but not without an important change in the industry's financial structure. The World War had ended the competition of European film companies, leaving the huge and growing market to the American producers. The conservative 124 CALIFORNIA patents trust let this opportunity escape, and the independents through superior showmanship won by 1930 control of the industry— an industry of world-wide proportions which had grown in a single decade into one of the United States' ten largest. The independent producers began at once to exhibit imagination" and initiative — as well as partiality for the grandiloquent. They en- larged the studios and gave them ornate facades. Dozens of new stages were constructed, many vast enough to house skating rinks in one end and ballrooms in the other. Outgrowing the informality of the early years — when householders were generally glad to lend their fishponds for the swimming party in Mabel Normand's latest farce — they built their own sets. One producer erected a range of lath-and-plaster moun- tains, and another, a canvas desert diorama half-a-mile in length, while Paramount built a full-size steamship to lie forever at anchor on the lot. Million-dollar "prop" and wardrobe departments were organized. Every studio amassed its library. One acquired a zoo. And each opened a laboratory for developing a new art — that of illusion. Here ingenious craftsmen built miniature models of clippers and cathedrals, painted foregrounds on glass, engineered filming of underwater scenes on dry land through a thin tank of moving water, and discovered an effective imitation fog in sprayed mineral oil. Studio staffs were augmented by architects, decorators, gag men, publicity writers, script girls, couturiers, research directors, and technical experts. As expansion of the industry attracted new thousands to Hollywood, until the crowds outside the casting offices overflowed the streets and "still pictures" overflowed the files inside, the studios formed the Cen- tral Casting Bureau. Within a short time 10,000 would-be stars had applied. A clearing house for extras, "Central Casting" began filling the studios' daily talent needs. For each registered applicant was assembled a record of physical characteristics — height, weight, color and type of hair, color of eyes, and health; abilities — driving a car, swim- ming, diving, dancing, riding; history — former residence, marital status, court record (if any), income from other sources. A complete inven- tory of the applicant's wardrobe with the interviewer's critical com- ments went into the file, and finally the answer to the question : Can the applicant act ? Only a few dozen were able to make an adequate living. In 1928 and 1929, with production at its height, but 194 registered extras worked two days or more a week. Fifty-four of these were women, whose incomes averaged $14.25 weekly. The men earned $14.52 weekly. Meanwhile the industry's expenditures, if not the wages paid the extras, were mounting dizzily. Salaries kept pace with expansion as studio executives paid themselves up to $500,000 a year and their top flight stars even more. If Hollywood in 1912 was a carnival, by 1925. &&&8&^&^^^ Education *&<x&&^^^ 5HIB ,.^_: - UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY CLASS IN GARDENING, LOS ANGELES PUBLIC SCHOOL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS, LOS ANGELES DOHENY LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES AVIATION STUDENTS, LOS ANGELES MT. WILSON OBSERVATORY LICK OBSERVATORY, NEAR SAN JOS1 4r .A HENRY E. HUNTINGTON LIBRARY, PADADENA ARCADES, STANFORD UNIVERSITY, PALO ALTO EASTER SUNRISE SERVICE, HOLLYWOOD BOW1 RACE TRACK, SANTA ANITA ALONG THE BEACH, SANTA CATALINA - *> THE MOVIES 125 it resembled an extravaganza, mad and merry. In one picture the star wore a $30,000 chinchilla coat; since it could never be used again, of course, the fur was cut up and sewed on bathing suits. Greta Garbo was reported to be getting 90,000 fan letters every month. Lavish too were the pictures of this decade in conception, plot, and background. In 1920 audiences were impressed by Way Down East and in 1921 by The Three Musketeers. In the five years following they were successively staggered by Robin Hood, The Covered Wagon, Scaramouche, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Iron Horse, The Ten Commandments, The Merry Widow, Beau Geste, and by Ben Hur, which took three years to film and cost more than $4,000,000. Producers hoped the public would be staggered. Actually, there were dawning signs of boredom. The public was giving unanimous approval to an unpretentious little film called Nanook of the North, to the slow- paced, realistic A Woman of Paris, and — strangest of all — to the German film The Last Laugh, a simple story about the heartbreak of a doorman. During these years the producers were expanding in still another direction, the ownership of theaters. Chains were organized and battles fought for the control of first-run houses. In an effort to eliminate all competition, the producers bought hundreds of legitimate theaters and either dismantled them or remodeled them for screen showings. A public that had been devoted to its stock, its big and small time vaudeville, and its weekly visits from touring companies began making its choice in theatrical entertainment among the productions of Uni- versal, Paramount, Fox, Warner Brothers, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The general extravagance required money, money required bankers, bankers demanded boards of hard-headed directors. And so it hap- pened that the one-time independents, grown powerful (Adolph Zukor, Carl Laemmle, William Fox, Sam Goldwyn, and others), now found themselves taking orders from Wall Street. Under banker control began an effort to wed efficiency and showmanship. Stage producers had always recognized it as the very essence of harlequinade to be spontaneous, unpredictable — but now Pierrot was regimented. Sharp eyes in New York grew very sharp indeed when they read that Erich von Stroheim kept 5,000 extras waiting all day in a square while he rehearsed an actress in the grand manner of royalty descending from a coach. Over the stages hung the smoke of the battle between showmen and efficiency experts. In this decade it was a mechanical invention that caused the in- evitable upheaval. Agents of the Bell laboratories were knocking on producers' doors in 1925 with a device for synchronizing the images of the projector with the sounds of a talking machine, but with box office returns bad and getting worse, the picture executives shook their heads. 126 CALIFORNIA Finally the salesmen took their device to Warner Brothers, a second- string studio which had fallen behind in the theater-building race. The Warners were desperately interested and, after a demonstration, hope- ful. In April 1926 they formed the Vitaphone Corporation for sound experimentation and production. Don Juan, their first full-length picture with recorded musical accompaniment, caused a stir. Soon after the release in 1927 of The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, the public began to demand sound films. By autumn of 1929 the talkie trend had become a stampede. In the scramble to revamp production methods, First National was ab- sorbed by Warner Brothers, and William Fox — himself a pioneer in the talkie field — was forced into retirement. Other major producers survived, but not all their studio personnel. Writers and directors of "silent days" were scrapped along with equipment and techniques, while strange new faces — song writers and musicians hustled out from New York's Tin Pan Alley — began appearing on the lots. Old acting favorites who lacked the pleasing voice which talkies demanded quietly disappeared, and new stars rose in their places. From the talkie revolution the movie industry went into the depres- sion of the 1930*8, a crisis that affected mechanical techniques, produc- tion methods, financial structures, and even the type of entertainment. In the effort to attract depression audiences, perfection of the color process was speeded. The Toll of the Sea, one of the early experiments in color, was filmed in 1921, though not very satisfactorily, since the blues failed to register. Later Jack Warner had experimented with color somewhat more successfully in The Desert Song and On With the Show. Becky Sharp, produced by an affiliate of the Technicolor Corporation, demonstrated the possibilities in color movies but was itself a failure. Use of color is still limited because of its extremely high cost. The Technicolor Corporation, which has a virtual monopoly on patents, controls use of the color process by leasing the $15,000 color cameras and selling, developing, and printing color film. Production of color films is complicated by the necessity of shooting them on three negatives. Besides the color cameras, a staff of experts is required to harmonize settings and costumes and plan lighting. Actors must be found who are handsome even without hair dye, grease paint, eye shadow, and mascara, because the increased intensity of light used reveals any camouflage in make-up. Walt Disney, the most outstanding figure in the development of the animated cartoon, contracted with the corporation in 1934 to make his Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies cartoon films in color. He began work the same year on the first feature-length animated cartoon, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. A new type $75,000 camera was em- ployed to lend a three-dimensional illusion to the 250,000 separate THE MOVIES 127 paintings which went into the making of the film. Three years later, when Snow White was released, audiences delighted in the large sur- faces of rich, clear color. In no previous cartoon film had there been such successful treatment of running water, clouds, dust, steam, and the glint of sunlight on a steel blade. The success of Snow White and such feature films as A Star Is Born indicates the tremendous strides made in the color medium during recent years. The end of the fourth decade finds the industry's use of illusion developed to extraordinary lengths. Window glass is generally made of rock candy; stones of tar paper, balsa wood, and cork; snow of gypsum and bleached corn flakes; icicles of fibre hair dipped in plaster of Paris. Strawberry gelatine is the usual substitute for blood. Since about 80 percent of all pictures are shot indoors on the studio stages, the prop shop must stock many sorts of artificial flowers and trees. (One studio has enough daisies to cover a ranch meadow and apple blossoms for 28 trees.) Each studio has a library of at least 10,000 sound effects and the equipment for producing them. An important member of the sound staff is the scream expert. During the IQSO'S, bankers have tended more and more to leave production details in the hands of professional showmen. Neverthe- less financial control has left its mark on Hollywood. Even the pro- ducers of "Poverty Row" have junked the helter-skelter production in which carpenters doubled as gladiators, leading ladies made their own costumes, and one man might finance, write, direct, cut, and sell a motion picture film. The movies that reach the first-run houses today are produced by a streamlined system in which all efforts are organized and specialized. Before a film is shipped away in its round tin cans, it passes through approximately 25 studio departments. First a staff writer takes the story — usually a purchased magazine story, novel, or play — and tailors it to fit the stars assigned to the leading roles. After one or many "adaptations" have been made, a continuity writer breaks down the story into scenes, a gag man may insert funny business, and a dialogue expert snaps up the actors' lines. Working closely with the writers are the director and a corps of research workers who answer such ques- tions as : what kind of calling cards did women use at the period of the story, what sort of buttons did men wear on their coats, what did the streetcar transfer of the time look like ? Talent scouts now assist the casting office in the search for actors. Location scouts select settings for the outdoor scenes, which may be found 50 miles away or 5,000. The music director prepares his score, costume designers make sketches for the dressmakers, set designers fabri- cate miniature sets for the draftsmen and carpenters. The prop depart- ment, too, has its scouts, whose task is to produce such unlikely mer- 128 CALIFORNIA chandise as nineteenth-century velocipedes, authentic duplicates of the Lichtenstein crown jewels, Cleopatra's tablewear, or a live boa con- strictor. The make-up department is studying the proposed lighting effects, the production department is making innumerable charts: cos- tume charts, weather charts, charts to indicate set and shooting sched- ules from the first day to the last. Meanwhile the director, besides consulting with all these assisting departments, is studying the hundreds of scenes in the final script and creating in his mind each bit of action. The average picture is "shot" in about six weeks. During this time a new crew of workers joins the staff — cameramen, electricians, sound men, "grips," script girl, cutter, and technicians who produce mechanical effects. The picture is photographed not in its proper sequence but in whatever order is best adapted to the actors and sets involved. Each day's "takes" are developed in the laboratory and run through the pro- jection machine at the close of the day for supervisor, director, cutter, and assistants who pick the most effective. As shooting progresses, the cutter patches together the chosen "takes," gradually fitting in the missing scenes. Upon his work, seemingly mechanical but actually creative, largely depends the picture's "pace." When the cutter's work is finished and approved, a print of the picture is taken into a suburban theater for a "sneak preview." Mem- bers of the production staff clock laughs, yawns, fidgeting, and other audience reactions, from which the director decides whether to add or delete. Finally, from the miles of exposed negative, two master nega- tives are put together — one for domestic and one for foreign showings. The prints shipped to the theaters are made from these. The studio lots of today combine the efficiency of the factory with the irrationality of the theater. A small town in itself, each studio has its network of paved streets, lined with stucco buildings that house the various departments— the huge stages, the prop warehouses, the car- penter and machine shops. In the shadow of a planing mill may stand a star's "quaint" dressing room, and behind the barnlike structure that houses the wardrobe, a piece of Venice, complete with canal, gondolas, and flower-strewn balconies. Perfection of mechanical technique and streamlining of picture pro- duction are two of the industry's answers to depression problems. Anothe-r answer has been the general improvement in the quality of entertainment. Some producers, believing that audiences wanted to forget their troubles, gave them farces ; others became aware of a plea, grown more insistent, for realism. "Authentic," "natural," "unexaggerated" — dur- ing the thirties these adjectives were heard, almost for the first time, at studio conferences. As a result, fans have had the pleasure of giving box-office laurels to such lifelike films as / Am a Fugitive from a Chain THE MOVIES 129 Gang, Of Human Bondage, The Informer, Dead End, and It Hap- pened One Night. And even the romantic films have achieved greater fidelity to essential truth and significance of theme. Important in raising the standards of motion picture writing, direct- ing, and acting have been the annual awards of the Academy of Moving Picture Arts and Sciences, first bestowed in 1927-1928. Actors and actresses so honored include Emil Jannings, Janet Gaynor, Warner Baxter, Mary Pickford, George Arliss, Norma Shearer, Lionel Barry- more, Marie Dressier, Frederic March, Helen Hayes, Charles Laugh- ton, Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Victor McLaglen, Bette Davis, Paul Muni, Louise Rainer (twice), and Spencer Tracy. Among directors and writers to receive two awards have been directors Franz Borzage, Frank Lloyd, Frank Capra, and writers Ben Hecht and Frances Marion. The list of films selected by the Academy for distinction includes All Quiet on the Western Front, Cavalcade, Grand Hotel, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Life of Louis Pasteur, and The Life of Emil Zola. The social and artistic significance of motion pictures has increas- ingly concerned educators, church groups, women's clubs, and critics of American life. Because the average weekly attendance of 75,000,000 gives the movies an influence equalled only by newspapers and radio, the Payne Fund, in 1929, financed several surveys to estimate what that influence might be. The 115 films examined were found to portray a world where 33 percent of the heroines, 34 percent of the villains, and 63 percent of the sirens and villainesses were either wealthy or mil- lionaires— only 5 percent of the characters were poor. If the population of the United States were arranged as indicated in these films, "there would be no farming, no manufacturing, almost no industry, no vital statistics (except murders), no economic problems and no economics," wrote Mr. Henry James Forman, analyzing the survey. It was pointed out that pictures of the type studied portray a world unreal in funda- mentals, yet so like the world outside the theater in superficial details that movie-goers fail to distinguish clearly between the two and carry home a sense of grievance at their similar but much more dreary lot. The artists — directors, writers, actors — whose creative efforts go into picture making have long felt hampered by the fact that, as Walter Wanger said, "any minority group, any individual, any rag, any nation could dictate to us." In July 1938, a distributors' boycott of Blockade crystallized their discontent. At a meeting of 300 delegates, represent- ing 150,000 members of motion picture unions, guilds, and other organ- izations, these artists demanded that "gag rule" be removed from the industry, so that motion pictures may become, as they rightfully should be, "a very important pillar in the democratic structure." The newest "independents" are the group of scenarists and camera- I3O CALIFORNIA men who recently organized the non-profit Frontier Films. Other groups whose aim is to revitalize the content of the motion picture in- clude Triple-A (One-Third of a Nation) in the East and in Hollywood the George Randol Productions, the latter a unit interested solely in producing Negro films. Since there are more than 600 theaters in the country that cater largely to Negro audiences, the significance of pioneering attempts in the field, such as Spirit of Youth featuring Joe Louis, may be readily appreciated. In dodging realism American film producers have also avoided censorship to some extent. A clamor for laws to regulate the subject matter of films arose, following the white slave pictures and the sex and crime films of the igao's. Formation of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc., headed by Will Hays, was the industry's effort to police itself. Ten years later, under the pressure of various groups, the Hays organization imposed further taboos. The distributors' export departments added their prohibitions: there must be no American flag-waving, no propaganda for peace which might offend warrior nations, and no villains of foreign nationality except Russian. (Soviet Russia imports few American films.) Many an endeavor is indebted to the motion picture art, or craft. Schools use motion pictures in visual education, sports for the record- ing of finishes, science in a multitude of ways. Movies are taken of the heavens and of babies learning to walk. X-ray movies are made of ailing human beings, microscopic and color movies of almost every sort of living organism. Metallurgists, experts in acoustics, and spe- cialists in other applied sciences have benefited — as well as the thou- sands of amateur photographers who have acquired a hobby. Education FRANCISCAN friars, the first white settlers who plodded north- ward into California, came with books in their hands, for the purpose of their pilgrimage was to educate the heathen Indians. Their pioneer successors — fur trappers and gold miners — were often men of action rather than learning, but they had an extraordinary respect for the wealth bound between the covers of books. With first-hand knowledge of the many miles from California to the older institutions of learning in New England and Europe, they voted gen- erous expenditures for schools. For California's native Indians, five decades of rigorous training — planned to make them civilized tax-paying subjects of the Spanish king — were in store when the Franciscan missionaries arrived in the spring of 1769. Beyond manual and religious training they did not aspire, however. Mission authorities feared the growth of learning among the Spanish, as well as the Indian population, claiming that education had no purpose but to breed discontent in the common people. They excommunicated two of the province's most illustrious citizens, Juan Bautista Alvarado and Mariano G. Vallejo, for reading Jean Jacques Rousseau. The first efforts to found secular schools were made by the Spanish Governor, Diego de Borica (1794-1800). During his administration, schoolmasters — mostly retired soldiers who could wield the disciplines (cat-o'-nine-tails) began teaching reading, writing, and figuring in one-room schools at San Jose, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, San Diego, and Monterey. No sooner had Borica left the territory, however, than 132 CALIFORNIA his educational system collapsed. The schools established during the next thirty years were also short-lived. Governor Jose Figueroa (1833-1835) reported, soon after his arrival, that only three schools were in existence, taught by incompetent and ill-paid teachers ; he established six more schools and ordered higher salaries for the teachers. Juan Bautista Alvarado (1836-1842) im- ported teachers from Mexico to give instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, and the catechism; girls were also taught needlework and boys typesetting and printing. Attendance was compulsory for children between the ages of six and eleven. The schools were handicapped by their lack of funds and equipment. Despite the meager opportunities and the opposition of most of the clergy, some of the more ambitious sons of the land-owning families acquired a fair classical education, but only with the private tutoring of educated military officers, foreign- ers, or priests. The American immigrants of the 1 840*3 followed eastern and mid- western rather than Californian precedents in education. In December 1864 California's first American school was founded — in a dilapidated structure, once a stable, on the grounds of Mission Santa Clara. Here an overland immigrant, Mrs. Olive Mann Isbell, taught two dozen pupils, sitting on boxes around a fire in the center of the earthen floor. In the following year a schoolroom was equipped with desks and benches in the Monterey customhouse, and Mrs. Isbell tried to teach 56 scholars, although she could speak no Spanish and they no English. San Francisco's first American school was opened April 3, 1848 in a redwood schoolhouse on Portsmouth Square. The building was also used for town hall, court house, church and jail. The schoolmaster, Thomas Douglass, a Yale graduate, began with a class of six pupils which soon increased to 38, but six weeks later the gold rush excite- ment swept him off to the mines. On April 8, 1850 the first free public schools were established by an ordinance of the city council in San Francisco. This was California's first public school ordinance. The educational needs of children in mining towns, lumber camps, ports, and rural villages were recognized by the State when California's first constitution provided, that a school "be kept up in every school district at least three months in every year." Fabulous revenues were expected from the sale of Federal Government land grants, "inviolably appropriated to the support of the common schools" ; but since the total proceeds from grants of 500,000 acres were only about $250,000, that early ambition had to be curtailed. Gradually State school legislation was extended until by 1860 it provided for levying of city and school district taxes, appointment or election of county and city school super- intendents and city boards of education, and authorization of boards of examination to grant teachers' certificates. Finally, in 1866, Call- EDUCATION 133 fornia's legislators adopted the Revised School Law, drafted by the far- seeing superintendent of public instruction, John Swett, which fixed State and county school taxes at adequate levels and established district school libraries, county teachers' institutes, and city boards of exam- ination. For the first time in the State's history, public schools — in rural as well as urban areas — were free for every child. The State's first colleges were established almost as early as its first public schools. Santa Clara College (now the University of Santa Clara), founded by Jesuit Fathers Giovanni Noboli and Michele Accolti, and California Wesleyan College (now the College of the Pacific at Stockton), founded by the Reverend Isaac Owen of the Methodist Episcopal Church, were both opened at Santa Clara in 1851. A year later the town of Benicia welcomed girls, who came to attend opening classes of the Young Ladies' Seminary. Southern California's first institution of higher learning, St. Vincent's College (now Loyola University), was opened in Don Vincente Lugo's adobe home on the Los Angeles Plaza in 1865 by Fathers of the St. Vincent de Paul Mission. The first State constitution called for establishment of a State university to promote "literature, the arts, and sciences." But the nucleus of the University of California was a private institution, known at first as Contra Costa Academy and later as the College of California. Opened by the Reverend Henry Durant at Oakland in 1853, it began collegiate instruction in 1860. On March 23, 1868, Governor Henry H. Haight signed the legislative act creating the University of Cali- fornia. The institution was formally opened September 23 of the next year on the College of California's campus. In 1873, the year in which the first 12 graduates ("the twelve disciples") received their diplomas, the university moved to its present site on the slopes of the Berkeley hills. Although the first public high school was opened in San Francisco in 1856, the legislature declined to support secondary institutions for more than half a century. The more thickly settled communities were obliged to conduct high schools at their own expense. In 1884 tne University of California inaugurated the "accrediting system," which admits pupils with excellent high school records to the university without examination. The result of university supervision under this system was to raise secondary school standards to a uniformly high level. Finally, in 1903, the legislature amended the school law by passage of an act providing for State support of high schools. The legislature in 1907 authorized high school boards to prescribe postgraduate courses of study. First to take advantage of the new regulation was Fresno, followed soon by Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. By 1910 the number of these "upward extensions of high 134 CALIFORNIA schools" had grown to ten. A law enacted in 1917 recognized junior colleges as an integral part of the State's secondary school system. Today California has 42 such institutions. Colleges as well as high schools multiplied in the late nineteenth century. The University of Southern California, founded under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1880, has grown into an institution with a faculty of 1,000. Other colleges established in Southern California were Pomona College (now a unit of Claremont Colleges, Inc.), Occidental College, Whittier College, the University of Redlands, and the California Institute of Technology. Leland Stan- ford Junior University, wealthiest privately endowed university in the West, and now the State's second largest institution of higher learning, was opened at Palo Alto in 1891. Public normal schools were established — the first at San Francisco in 1862 (moved in 1870 to San Jose), and others at San Francisco, San Diego, Chico, Fresno, Santa Barbara, and Arcata. By legislative enactment these became in 1921 State teachers' colleges. Today citizens of all ages find in California's educational system every sort of practical and theoretical training. In the 6,500 public schools, with their more than 1,000,000 pupils, $135,000,000 is spent yearly. The University of California registered 25,806 full-time resi- dent students in 1938. This institution includes universities in Berkeley and Los Angeles, the agricultural colleges at Davis and Riverside, colleges of oceanography at La Jolla and of astronomy at Mount Ham- ilton, and affiliated colleges of law, medicine, pharmacy, and art. By the expansion of its facilities to include study centers, lecture courses, traveling libraries, correspondence study, and scientific and technical instruction at various points throughout the State, the university is extending the advantages of higher education to many who have hitherto been denied college training. In addition to the State university, 7 State colleges, and 42 junior colleges, California today has 7 schools rated as junior colleges, and 23 publicly or privately endowed universities and colleges — including three noted women's colleges: Mills College in Oakland, Scripps Col- lege in Claremont, and Dominican College in San Rafael. California's educators have faced the problem, common to educators everywhere, of adapting traditional schoolroom methods to a swiftly changing social structure. A State curriculum study, made in 1925, led two years later to formation of a permanent curriculum commission to evaluate school study courses and recommend minimum standards. In a detailed Teachers' Guide to Child Development, the commission expounded the philosophy and methods of the new education used in California's more progressive schools. The publication of the guide gave a strong impetus to the modernizing of California's entire school EDUCATION 135 system. Progressive communities began to eliminate the old, formal, coercive teaching of subjects, and to substitute activity programs. Under the new methods the class is no longer treated as a group of artificially isolated units, but rather as a world in miniature, where enterprises are undertaken by children and teacher, all working to- gether. The requirement that a child shall behave co-operatively is accented in order to check the tendency toward ''self-expression of all types, at all times, in all places," favored by some of the earlier pro- gressive educators. The Sequoia Union High School at Redwood City and the Alexandria Demonstration School at Los Angeles are progres- sive schools in which standards formulated in the Teachers' Guide are being realized. As soon as California's schools were conspicuously committed to a changed procedure, the public, as well as teachers and administrators, began to question and appraise. In 1930 the California Commission for the Study of Education Problems, composed of nine lay citizens, reported on a year's study and a post-card survey of public opinion. The activity type of program was criticized as failing to train pupils in the use of the "tools" of learning — spelling, arithmetic, punctuation, sentence and paragraph structure, and penmanship — and in habits of precision and promptness. On the other hand, young people educated under the newer methods were found to excel former generations in intelligence, initiative, and physical fitness. In accepting and applying the newer conceptions of education, Cali- fornia has kept pace with the rest of the country and in some respects stepped ahead. Even in early days, the California high school teacher of mathematics was likely to stress the value of original demonstrations, while California high schools led from the beginning in adoption of laboratory methods in teaching natural sciences. Today California's public schools teach scientific subjects integrated into the social studies unit in the elementary grades. Los Angeles high school students have built and are operating a seismological station, school weather stations, astronomical observatories, amateur radio stations, and sound-recording studios. The general tendency to emphasize functional knowledge has been marked in the State. The department of education's commission for vocational education directs an extensive vocational training program in agriculture, business, homemaking, trade and industry, and vocational rehabilitation. Its bureau of agricultural education, in 1935-36, was supervising 137 vocational agricultural departments in the schools and a teacher-training course. The bureau of business education oversees courses of training adjusted to the needs of merchants and businessmen, in which specially selected students are taught. All except 13 of the State's 519 high schools conduct classes in homemaking, a third for 136 CALIFORNIA boys as well as girls, under supervision of the bureau of homemaking education. The bureau of trade and industrial education supervises apprentice training programs, organizes trade advisory committees of employer, employee, and public school representatives in many com- munities, and conducts State-wide conferences of foremen, personnel managers, salesmanagers, and other executives. In the California Polytechnical Institute at San Luis Obispo, estab- lished in 1901, agriculture students conduct their own farm enterprises and aeronautics students operate a Government-approved commercial airplane repair station. The California Nautical School, conducted on board the U.S.S. California State with Tiburon as its home port, trains personnel for the coast's merchant marine. Three months nautical courses are given on three-masted, square-rigged ships, the Tusitala and the Joseph Conrad, sailing from Government Island off Alameda. In carrying out the new curriculum, California schools have taken advantage of the State's many opportunities for outdoor play to stress their physical training and recreation programs. During the four depression years, 1932-1936, more gymnasiums, tennis courts, play- grounds, and swimming pools were constructed than in any previous four-year period. The recreation program is supplemented in many schools by health supervision. Both the construction and the recreation programs were conducted largely with the aid of the Works Progress Administration. The Co-ordinating Council has been operating in California cities for more than 15 years. Originating with Virgil E. Dickson, now superintendent of schools in Berkeley, the plan sets up a voluntary board of members from school, police, health, and recreation depart- ments, welfare societies, and research and guidance bureaus, to pool ideas, information, and mutual support in all matters pertaining to the welfare of youth. Not only are problem children given under- standing aid, but also the gifted are sought out and provided with special opportunities. The work of California's co-ordinating councils, particularly those in Berkeley, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, has so materially decreased juvenile "delinquency that scores of communities in other States have organized similar bodies. In 1933 tne National Committee on Crime Prevention reported: "Your Committee believes that there is no other single step that could be put into operation that would be as far-reaching and as quickly beneficial as the widespread use of the co-ordinating council." The handicapped child in California, if completely disabled, is taught at home or in a hospital or preventorium ; if crippled, he is transported to special classes; if handicapped by vision, hearing, or speech defects he receives remedial instruction. California is the only State that carries on a program of speech correction with adequate EDUCATION 137 State aid. Classes have been established in 54 cities, with more than 14,000 students and 150 speech-correction teachers. The State's method of training mentally subnormal children may be seen applied in San Francisco's Ungraded School. When the handicapped child is 16 years of age, responsibility for his further instruction is transferred to the bureau of vocational rehabilitation. Rural school children in California enjoy special attention, thanks to general recognition of the concept that "a child in the rural district is worth as much to the future of a state as one in the city." Con- stitutional amendment No. 16 (passed in 1920) provides for collection of school money where the wealth is and expenditure of it where the pupils are. The task of instructional supervisors, working from the county superintendent's office, is to weld the isolated rural schools into one closely co-ordinated county school system. Their "supervision," as the department of education likes to call it, does as much for the rural school as the automobile and radio do for the rural home. They are aided by the periodicals issued by the department of education's division of textbooks and publications: the Science Guide, the monthly California Schools, the quarterly California Journal of Elementary Education, and the bi-monthly children's magazine, The California Nugget. Another aid to rural pupil and teacher alike is the county library system, established in 1911, under which county libraries in 46 of the State's 58 counties bring to the children of 2,313 rural districts collections of the best modern books and classics, as well as phonograph records, motion picture films, prints, globes, maps, and exhibits. Acting as advisor to the libraries of the entire State is the State Library at Sacramento, with its nearly 500,000 volumes. Rural children are also given the benefits of health education. Most counties employ traveling health nurses to examine children, remedy defects, advise in nutritional problems, and conduct health clinics. The chil- dren travel to and from school by means of tax-supported school trans- portation systems in most rural districts. California was one of the first States to set up a division of adult education and to finance adult classes from its public education fund. In 1938 enrollment in adult classes equalled more than a tenth of the State's total population. So complete is the curriculum that entrants may study even the chemistry of lubrication or the Cantonese language. Among the most popular of many vocational training courses are the San Francisco classes in aeronautics, which are attended by about half as many women as men; these classes own two planes and study navi- gation, theory of flight, meteorology, air law, and solo flying. Courses in homemaking and consumer education are always in demand. But most popular of all are the classes in sociology, economics, and public affairs, conducted in accord with the department of education's belief 138 CALIFORNIA that "if this civilization survives it will do so because of the wisdom expressed in adult