et shaken down into those tightly stratified layers, typical of the
East. There is a real spirit of democracy in the air.

The first time I visited San Francisco I was impressed with the remarks
of a Native son of moderate salary who had traveled much in the East.

"This here and now San Francisco is a real man's town", he said. "I
don't know so much about the women, but the men certainly can have a
better time here than in any other city in the country. And then again,
a poor man can live in a way and do things in a style that would be
impossible in New York. At my club I meet all kinds of men. Many of them
are prominent citizens and many of them have large fortunes. I mix with
them all. I don't mean to say I run constantly with the prom. cits. and
the millionaires. I don't. I cant afford that. But they occasionally
entertain me. And I as often entertain them. So many restaurants here
are both inexpensive and good that I can return their hospitality
self-respectingly and without undue expense. In New York I would not
only never meet that type of man, but I could not afford to entertain
him if I did."

Allied to this, perhaps, is a quality, typical of San Francisco, which I
can describe only as promiscuity. That promiscuity is in its best phase
a frankness; a fearlessness; a gorgeous candor which made possible the
epigram that San Francisco has every vice but hypocrisy. Civically,
two cross currents cut through the city's life; one of, a high visioned
enlightenment which astounds the visiting stranger by its force, its
white-fire enthusiasm; the other a black sordidness and soddenness which
displays but one redeeming quality--the characteristic San Franciscan
candor. That openness is physical as well as spiritual. The city,
dropped over its many hills like a great loose cobweb weighted thickly
with the pearl cubes of buildings, with its wide streets; its frequent
parks; its broad-spaced residential areas; its gardened houses in which
high windows crystallize every view and sun parlors or sleeping porches
catch both the first and last hint of daylight--the city itself has
the effect of living in the open. Everybody is frankly interested in
everybody else and in what is going on. Of all the cities the country,
San Francisco is by weather and temperament, most adapted to the
pleasant French habit of open-air eating. The clients in the barber
shops, lathered like clowns and trussed up in what is perhaps the least
heroic p