ut Massachusetts? Not once. And so I
have one criticism to bring against the Californiac. He is a person to
whom you cannot talk about home. He grows restive the instant you get
off the subject of California. Praise of any other place to his mind
implies a criticism of California.

On the other hand, that frenzied patriotism has its wonderful and
its beautiful side. It is a result partly of the startling beauty and
fecundity of California and partly of a geographical remoteness and
sequestration which turned the Californians in on themselves for
everything. To it is due much of the extraordinary development of
California. For to the average Californian, the best is not only none
too good for California, but she can have nothing else. Californians
even those not suffering from an offensive case of Californoia--speak of
their State in reverential terms. To hear Maud Younger--known everywhere
as the "millionaire waitress" and the most devoted labor-fan in the
country--pronounce the word California, should be a lesson to any actor
in emotional sound values. The thing that struck me most on my first
visit to California was that boosting instinct. In store windows
everywhere, I saw signs begging the passer-by to root for this
development project or that. Several years ago, passing down Market
street, I ran into a huge crowd gathered at the Lotta Fountain. I
stopped to investigate. Moving steadily from a top to a lower window of
one of the newspaper offices, as though unwound from a reel, ran a long
strip of paper covered with a list of figures. To this list, new figures
were constantly added. They were the sums of money being subscribed at
that very moment for the Exposition. Applause and cheers greeted
each additional sum. That was the financial germ from which grew
the wonderful Arabian Nights city by the bay. It was typically
Californian--that scene--and typically Californian the spirit back of
it. And four years later, when the outbreak of the war brought temporary
panic, there was no diminution in that spirit. Whether it was a
"Buying-Day," a "Beach Day," an "Automobile Parade," a "Prosperity
Dinner," San Francisco was always ready to insist that everything was
going well. It was the same spirit which inspired a whole city, the
day the Exposition opened, to rise early to walk to the grounds, and to
stand, an avalanche of humanity, waiting for the gates to part. It was
the same spirit which inspired the whole city, the ni