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 CHAPTER XXXII

THE ROOF-GARDEN OF THE WORLD

After these strenuous adventures I retired to private life to recuperate. I edited "The Cry for Justice," and then, finding that I was still haunted by the Colorado situation, I wrote "King Coal." Meantime I had moved to Southern California, seeking an open-air life. I have been here four years, and alas, I have had a new set of experiences with newspapers. As preliminary to them, there must be given a brief account of this "Roof-garden of the World."

It exists because of climate. There are, of course, ranch-*men who raise fruits and vegetables, and there are servants and chauffeurs and house-builders and plumbers, but the main industry of Southern California is climate. Everybody is consuming climate, and in addition to this, nearly everybody is trying to sell climate to "come-ons" from the East. The country has been settled by retired elderly people, whose health has broken down, and who have come here to live on their incomes. They have no organic connection with one another; each is an individual, desiring to live his own little life, and to be protected in his own little privileges. The community is thus a parasite upon the great industrial centres of other parts of America. It is smug and self-satisfied, making the sacredness of property the first and last article of its creed. It has a vast number of churches of innumerable sects, and takes their aged dogmas with deadly seriousness; its social life is display, its intellectual life is "boosting," and its politics are run by Chambers of Commerce and Real Estate Exchanges.

There are, of course, a great number of ladies in Southern California with nothing to do. They have culture clubs, which pay celebrities to come and entertain them, and next to marrying a millionairess, this is the easiest way to get your living in Southern California. They will pay you as much as a hundred dollars for a lecture, and such an opportunity is naturally not to be sneezed at by a strike-agitator in debt. I had been living quietly for a year or so, working on "King Coal," when I was invited to meet at luncheon one of the officials of the ultra