Page:Dawn and the Dons.pdf/191



RACIAL antagonism has ever been a source of human ills, and California was not without this trouble breeding factor. The Anglo-Saxon seeking gold, and the Latin on pleasure bent found it difficult to harmonize their views of life. The native Californians, accustomed to pastoral plenty, and the care-free pleasures of peaceful days, felt and somewhat resented the spirit of restless hurry and commercial greed introduced by the swarming invaders of their land of sweet content. On the other hand, the gold seekers had little patience with the seeming indolence and industrial backwardness of the Californian. Thus developed a race antagonism that in the years immediately following Marshall’s discovery of gold and the mad rush to California, made the epithets “gringo” and “greaser”’ antithetically opprobrious terms.