Remember, last of all, as naturally as from infancy the Native Son has breathed the tonic and toxic air of California, he has breathed the spirit of democracy. That spirit of democracy is so strong, indeed, that the enfranchised women of California give intelligent guidance to the feminists of a whole nation; public opinion is so enlightened that it sets a pace for the rest of the country and labor is so progressive that it is a revelation to the visiting sociologist. Indeed, nowhere in the whole world, I fancy, is labor so healthy, so happy, so prosperous. California brings to the workers' problems the free enlightened attitude characteristic of her. As between on the one hand hordes of unemployed; huge slums; poverty spots; and on the other a well-paid laboring class with fair hours, she chooses the latter, thereby storing up for herself eugenic capital. I have always wished that California would strike off a series of medals symbolic of some of the Utopian conditions which prevail there. I would like to suggest a model for one. I was walking once in the vicinity of the Ferry with a woman who knows the labor movement of California as well as an outsider may. Suddenly she whispered in my ear, "Oh look! Isn't he a typical California labor man?" It was his noon hour and, in his shirt sleeves, he was leaning against the wall, a pipe in his mouth. He was tall and lean; not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his splendid frame, but a great deal of muscle that lay in long, faintly swelling contours against it. He was black haired and black-mustached; both hair and mustache were lightly touched with grey. His thicklashed blue eyes sparkled as clear and happy as a child's. In their expression and, indeed, in the whole relaxed attitude of his fine, long figure, was an entertained, contented interest, an amused tolerance of the passing crowd. You will see this type, among others equally fine, again and again, in the unions of California. Yes, that spirit of democracy is not only strong but militant. Militant! I never could make up my mind which made the fightingest reading in the San Francisco papers, the account of Friday's boxing contest or of Monday's meeting of the Board of Supervisors. They do say that a visiting Easterner was taken to the Board of Supervisors one afternoon. In the evening he was regaled with a battle royal. And, and--they do say--he fell asleep at the battle royal because it seemed so tame in comparison with the Board of Supervisors. The athletic instinct in the Native Son accounts for the star athletes, boxers, tennis players, ball players; that art instinct for the painters, illustrators, sculptors, playwrights, fiction writers, poets, actors, photographers, producers; that spirit of democracy for the labor leaders and politicians with whom California has inundated the rest of the country.