2o6 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



with the Dollar vei^sus the Man with the Hoe. Mr. 

 Eugene Debs, who posed for a brief season as the 

 Napoleon of Labour, and his staff issued the most 

 stirring manifestoes, and more than one thoughtful 

 man believed that a certain prediction made by Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer at a farewell dinner was about to 

 come to pass. I cannot quote Mr. Spencer, but 

 he foresaw the vast opportunities which a dem- 

 ocracy offers to the man who can play popular tunes 

 upon public opinion. Mr. Debs twanged his harp, 

 and America listened — and was profoundly affected. 

 In my county, it was hardly safe to criticise the 

 music or the musician. Later, writing of another 

 man, Mr. Ambrose Bierce remarked : 



" He fiddled his fiddle-did-dee 

 Till the bows and the strings 

 Were invisible things ; 

 And a vibrant blur was he." 



To the people with whom 1 came in contact, people 

 lacking even an elementary knowledge of the prin- 

 ciples of political economy, Mr. Debs was a vibrant 

 blur upon the landscape. What had heretofore 

 been clear to them — their own property rights, for 

 instance — became suddenly obscured. And this 

 obscurity reflected by the Press became a pea-soup 

 fog, a Cimmerian darkness. Fogs, however, even 

 London fogs, eventually lift. A brisk breeze from 

 the lungs of the people cleared our skies. And 

 why ? Because some ill-advised wretches derailed 

 a train. No matter how thick a fog may be, if 

 you chance to stumble over a dead body you will 

 know it. The people of California stumbled blindly 



