CHAPTER I 



THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA 



CALIFORNIA is widely celebrated, but little known. Its 

 unique climate and productions, and the dramatic inci- 

 dents of its early history, have been deeply impressed 

 upon the popular imagination wherever the name of the 

 Eepublic is spoken. These circumstances have given it 

 rank among the most famous of American States ; yet its 

 problems and its future are inscrutable enigmas to all 

 who have not studied the subject at close range, and to 

 many who have. The anomaly that one of the States 

 most talked of should be one of the least understood is 

 not difficult to explain. 



In the first place, California is known not by what 

 millions of people have seen, but by what millions have 

 read. Europe is better known by contact to Americans 

 than California. A prominent American orator recently 

 " discovered " California, and filled the newspapers with 

 the interesting and suggestive impressions it had made 

 upon his mind. He had been to Europe twenty times, and 

 to the Pacific coast once, which is once of tener than many 

 other distinguished travellers of the eastern seaboard. 



Still further, the Anglo-Saxon race is dealing with new 

 conditions in California. Coming from dense forests, 

 from a land of heavy rainfall, and from a temperate 



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