II 



THE MEN OF THE WEST 



MUCH was forgiven to Mary Magdalene, quia 

 multum amavit, and much may be for- 

 given to the sowers of the West because they have 

 laboured so hard and so faithfully. — Nice customs 

 curtsey to great kings, they grovel before con- 

 querors. And the men who apprehended the pos- 

 sibilities of the West, who not only crossed the 

 plains, and the forests, and the mountains, but who 

 recrossed them with shining ribands of steel, were 

 — Caesars, endowed with the strength and the weak- 

 ness of giants. You must consider them and their 

 actions, in the aggregate, panoramically, as you 

 would survey a Californian landscape. 



The English traveller, who merely touches the 

 phylacteries of American life, always lays stress 

 upon the dollar as being the unit of value on the 

 Pacific Slope. According to this authority we are 

 money-grabbers, worshippers of the Golden Calf, 

 sacrificing to the god our own flesh and blood. 

 And yet no people on earth are more truly lavish 

 with their gold than the men of the West; no 

 people care less for gold as gold ; no people greet 

 the loss of it with greater fortitude and good-temper. 

 What gold represents — power and success — is 

 dear to the Native Son, for he knows that he can- 

 not plead as an excuse for failure the burdens of 



