The Californiacs.

By Inez Haynes Irwin




California, which produces the maximum of scenery and the minimum of
weather; California, which grows the biggest men, trees, vegetables and
fleas in the world, and the most beautiful women, babies, flowers and
fruits; California, which, on the side, delivers a yearly crop of
athletes, boxers, tennis players, swimmers, runners and a yearly crop of
geniuses, painters, sculptors, architects, authors, musicians, actors,
producers and photographers; California, where every business man writes
novels, or plays, or poetry, or all three; California, which has spawned
the Coppa, Carmel and San Quentin schools of literature; California,
where all the ex-pugs become statesmen and all the ex-cons become
literateurs; California, the home of the movie, the Spanish mission, the
golden poppy, the militant labor leader, the turkey-trot, the
grizzly-bear, the bunny-hug, progressive politics and most American
slang; California, which can at a moment's notice produce an earthquake,
a volcano, a geyser; California, where the spring comes in the fall and
the fall comes in the summer and the summer comes in the winter and the
winter never comes at all; California, where everybody is born beautiful
and nobody grows old - that California is populated mainly with
Californiacs.

California, I repeat, is populated mainly with Californiacs; but the
Californiacs are by no means confined to California. They have, indeed,
wandered far afield. New York, for instance, has a colony so large that