was, the pauper, if fairly able of body, should be set up in a
public pillory. With a scale of wages the highest in the world, a
corresponding cheapness of every necessity of life, with the bare
exception of coal, needed in excess during one short season of the
twelve-month, sun for eight unbroken months, and a soil so fertile that
in many places it yielded two crops a year, there would have been no
discontent had it not been for the rapacity of labor unions, and the
systematic agitations of men like Tom Colton. In every human heart there
is the germ of discontent, no matter what the conditions, but Gwynne
recognized the possibility of diverting this uneasy parasite from
imaginary personal grievances to the public good, to measures which
would benefit the mass, subtly elevating man's opinion of himself in the
process, and so taking the first long stride in the direction of general
political reform. It was only by making the masses see their own part in
the abominable political corruption that made "graft" universal, and
permitted the rapid concentration of the country's wealth into a few
insolent hands, that the decapitation of the swarms of professional
politicians could be accomplished. In no part of the United States could
such reforms be attempted with anything like the same prospect of
success, as in this State with its traditions of contempt of money for
its own sake, and its almost primeval sense of independence. It was true
that there was no superb indifference to money in the small towns, but
much of the old spirit lingered among those that lived close to the
soil; and Gwynne had never seen such uncalculating lavishness, such a
humorous contempt for economy as in San Francisco. He was himself
generous by instinct and habit, but this gay reckless openhandedness,
whether a man had anything to spend or not, had already stirred some
deeper instinct still, possibly his pioneer, perhaps his Spanish, and he
had never enjoyed anything more in his life than certain nights in San
Francisco, when he had sallied forth with his pockets full of gold and
returned to Russian Hill on foot for want of a five-cent piece to pay
his car-fare. He had himself too well in hand ever to give permanent
rein to any such latent propensities, and he had no intention of
impoverishing himself, but the fact that the genius of the city was in
his blood warmed it to the strange, fascinating, wicked, friendly,
young-old city on the rim of the Paci