'A Western Man," Says Dr. Amos Griswold Warner, "Is An Eastern Man Who
Has Had Some Additional Experiences." The Californian
Is a man from
anywhere in America or Europe, typically from New England, perhaps, who
has learned a thing or
Two he did not know in the East, and perhaps, has
forgotten some things it would have been as well to remember. The things
he has learned relate chiefly to elbow room, nature at first hand and
"the unearned increment." The thing that he is most likely to forget is
that the escape from public opinion is not escape from the consequences
of wrong action.
Of elbow room California offers abundance. In an old civilization men
grow like trees in a close-set forest. Individual growth and symmetry
give way to the necessity of crowding. Every man spends some large part
of his strength in being not himself, but what some dozens of other
people expect him to be. There is no room for spreading branches, and
the characteristic qualities and fruitage develop only at the top. On
the frontier men grow as the California white oak, which, in the open
field, sends its branches far and wide.
With plenty of elbow-room the Californian works out his own inborn
character. If he is greedy, malicious, intemperate, by nature, his bad
qualities rise to the second degree in California, and sometimes to the
third. The whole responsibility rests on himself. Society has no part of
it, and he does not pretend to be what he is not, out of deference to
society.
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