May 13, 2013

FINEST HOUR 142, SPRING 2009

BY WINSTON S. CHURCHILL 

This text comprises the sixth and seventh in a series of twelve essays entitled “What I Saw and Heard in America,” first published in The Daily Telegraph, 23 and 30 December 1929; later in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill (London: Library of Imperial History, 1975). Reprinted by kind permission of Winston S. Churchill.

ABSTRACT
AS WE GATHER IN CALIFORNIA FOR OUR TWENTY-SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN SEPTEMBER, IT IS AGREEABLE TO RECALL WINSTON CHURCHILL’S BEAMING IMPRESSIONS OF THE STATE EIGHTY YEARS AGO THIS YEAR—AND HIS REFLECTIONS ON PROHIBITION, WITH WHICH, HAPPILY, WE NEED NOT CONTEND.

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The State of California has a coastline nearly 1000 miles long, and I was assured that its whole population—man, woman, and child—could get into the motor cars they own and drive from one end of it to the other at any time they had the inclination. They would certainly be well advised to try the experiment, for a more beautiful region I have hardly ever seen.

The long strip of hilly or undulating country, rising often into mountain ranges, presents, through fifteen degrees of latitude, a smiling and varied fertility. Forests, vineyards, orange groves, olives, and every other form of cultivation that the natives desire, crowns or clothes the sunbathed peaks and valleys.

The Pacific laps the long-drawn shores, and assures at all seasons of the year an equable and temperate climate. The cool ocean and the warm land create in their contact a misty curtain which veils and mitigates the vigour of the sun. By a strange inversion you ascend the mountain to get warm, and descend to the sea level to get cool. Take it for all in all, the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains offer a spacious, delectable land, where we may work or play on every day in the year.

The prosperity arising from the calm fruitfulness of agriculture has been stimulated and multiplied by the flashing apparition of gold and oil, and is adorned by the gay tinsel of the Hollywood filmland. The people who have established themselves and are dominant in these thriving scenes represent what is perhaps the finest Anglo-Saxon stock to be found in the American Union. Blest with abundant food and pleasing dwellings, spread as widely as they may wish in garden cities, along the motor roads, or in their farms, the Californians have at their disposal all the natural and economic conditions necessary for health, happiness and culture.

Their easily gathered foods afford a diet in which milk, fruit, vegetables, and chicken predominate; while endless vineyards offer grape juice in unfermented, or even sometimes accidentally fermented, forms. A buoyancy of temperament, a geniality of manner, an unbounded hospitality, and a marked friendliness and respect towards Old England, her institutions and Empire, are the characteristics most easily discerned among them. Poverty as we know it in Europe, slums, congestion, and the gloomy abodes of concentrated industrialism, are nowhere to be seen.

It was my good fortune to spend nearly a month in these agreeable surroundings and conditions, motoring through the country from end to end; and certainly it would be easy to write whole chapters upon the closely packed procession of scenes and sensations which saluted the journey. Here I can only give a few thumbnail sketches on which, however, the reader may care to cast an eye.

HEART OF THE REDWOODS

Entering California from the north, we travel along the celebrated Redwood Highway. The road undulates and serpentines ceaselessly. On either side from time to time are groves and forests of what one would call large fir trees. As we go on they get taller. The sense that each hour finds one amid larger trees only grows gradually. At length we stop to take stock of the scene, and one is surprised to see how small a car approaching round a bend 100 yards away appears in relation to the trunks which rise, close together, in vast numbers on either side. Still full realization does not come. Another hour of swift progression! Now we are in the heart of the Redwoods. There is no mistake about it this time.

The road is an aisle in a cathedral of trees. Enormous pillars of timber tower up 200 feet without leaf or twig to a tapering vault of sombre green and purple. So close are they together that the eye is arrested at a hundred yards’ distance by solid walls of timber. It is astonishing that so many vast growing organisms find in so small a space of air and soil the nourishment on which to dwell and thrive together. If a battle were fought in such a forest every bullet would be stopped within 200 yards, embedded in impenetrable stems. At the bases of these monsters men look like ants and motor cars look like beetles. Far above, the daylight twinkles through triangular and star-shaped openings. On the ground is vivid green or yellow bloom and leafage. These scenes repeat themselves at intervals for perhaps 80 or 100 miles.

Suddenly we reach a notice with a finger-point: “The Big Tree.” We turn off the well-oiled turnpike and jolt and bump eight miles through sandy tracks, surrounded by enormous trunks and ceilinged by brooding foliage. We walk gingerly across a river bed on a bridge formed by one fallen monster, and here at last is “The Big Tree.” They tell us it is more than 400 feet high. At its base some hospitable Californians are entertaining the petty officers from a British cruiser. We all join hands around the tree. It takes fifteen of us stretched to the full to compass it!

After compliments, jokes, and photographs, the guide remarks that this tree is certainly 4000 years old. It has been growing all this time and is still full of life and vigour. Devastating fires have swept through the forest scores of times during its existence, and have licked up the undergrowth and all ordinary trees and vegetation, but they could not harm the giants. Sometimes a large ring of burnt wood from flames extinguished a thousand years ago is found when Redwood trees are cut down. They can survive everything and heal every wound they receive.

These trees were already old “when the smoke of sacrifice arose from the Pantheon and camelopards bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre,”* and, but for the timber companies, they may “still continue in undiminished vigour” when Macaulay’s traveller from New Zealand “takes his stand upon a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St Paul’s.” They will grow as long as the Californians allow them to grow.

LICK OBSERVATORY

Let me turn another page of my scrap book. I am at the top of the tallest building in San Francisco. Dizzy depths yawn beneath the window-sills. The Chairman of the Telephone Company has invited me to have ten minutes’ talk with my wife in England. I take up the instrument. My wife speaks to me across one ocean and one continent—one of each. We hear each other as easily as if we were in the same room, or, not to exaggerate, say about half as well again as on an ordinary London telephone. I picture a well-known scene far off in Kent, 7000 miles away. The children come to the telephone. I talk to them through New York and Rugby. They reply through Scotland and Canada. Why say the age of miracles is past? It is just beginning.

Turn over. We are in the Lick Observatory. A broad, squat cupola has been built by the munificence of a private citizen at the summit of a conical mountain 4000 feet high. All is dark within the Observatory. The telescope, its girth not unworthy of the giant trees, peers through a slit of pale but darkening sky. The dome rotates, the floor sinks, then rises slightly.

I sit upon a ladder. The planet Saturn is about to set; but there is just time to observe him. Of course I know about the rings around Saturn. Pictures of them were shown in all the schools where I was educated. But I was sceptical. We all know how astronomers have mapped the heavens out in the shape of animals. We can most of us—by a stretch of the imagination—recognize the Great Bear, but still one quite sympathizes with those who call it The Plough. Bear or Plough—one is as like it as the other. So I expected to see, when I looked at Saturn, a bright star with some smudges round it, which astronomers had dignified by the name of rings.

In this mood I applied myself to the eye-piece. I received the impression that some powerful electric light had been switched on by
mistake in the observatory and was in some way reflected in the telescope. I was about to turn and ask that it might be extinguished, when I realized that what I saw was indeed Saturn him-self. A perfectly modelled globe, instinct with rotundity, with a clear-cut life buoy around its middle, all glowing with serene radiance. I gazed with awe and delight upon this sublime spectacle of a world 800 million miles away.

Again the dome rotates, and the floor rises or falls. I am told to look at the heavens with the naked eye. Can I see a very faint star amid several bright ones? It is very far off and quite an achievement to discern it. I see the faintest speck or rather blur of light. Now look through the telescope. Two pairs of lovely diamonds, dazzling in their limpid beauty, gleam on either side of the field of vision. “You are looking,” says the astronomer, “at one of our best multiple stars. That faint speck you saw with the eye consists of these double twins, the stars in each pair revolving around the other pair!”

Celestial jewellery! I forget how long they take to revolve, if indeed, it is yet known to man, or how far they are apart. Perhaps the light would pass from one to the other in four or five years. But it is all in the books.

Then we return swifter than light across the gulfs of space, and come to the moon, where dawn has just risen on the mountains, tipping them with flame, and casting their silhouettes in violet shadows upon the lunar craters. Thereafter for some time we talk about the heavens and my kindly teachers explain all—or perhaps not all—about nebulae and spiral nebulae.

It appears that outside our own universe, with its thousands of million suns, there are at least two million other universes, all gyrating and coursing through the heavens like dancers upon a stage. I had not heard of this before, and was inspired to many thoughts sufficiently commonplace to be omitted here. I was disturbed to think of all these universes which had not previously been brought to my attention. I hoped that nothing had gone wrong with them.

It is sixty miles from the Lick Observatory to Burlingame, the garden suburb of the San Francisco notables, where we were sheltered for the night. It was a relief, after thinking about two million universes and countless millions of suns, many complete with planets, moons, comets, meteoric streams, etc. and the incomprehensible distances which separate them, to take up the morning paper (which, according to American custom, is always published the evening before), and to read that the stock markets were still booming, that Mr J.H. Thomas** had a new idea (which he was keeping secret) about the unemployed, and that Mr. Snowden,*** by his firm stand for Britain, had surrendered only half a million more of the taxpayers’ money. And so to bed!

FERMENTED! DO NOT BE ALARMED…

We follow from north to south the great road which runs the entire length of California. Our stages are sometimes as long as 250 miles. Night in the Redwoods is impressive. Every dozen miles or so rest camps—”motels,” as they are called—have been built for the motorist population. Here simple and cheap accommodation is provided in clusters of detached cabins, and the carefree wanderers upon wheels gather round great fires singing or listening to the ubiquitous wireless music.

Great numbers motor for amusement, travelling very light, usually in couples, and thinking nothing of a thousand miles in their little cars. Continuous streams of vehicles flow up and down at speeds which rarely fall below forty miles an hour. The road by day recalls the Corniche roads in character and beauty of scenery, but is often more crowded. Its ribbon surface follows in the main the mountainous coastline, now rising to a thousand feet or more, with awful gulfs and hairpin turns, now spinning along almost in the ocean spray. What with the traffic, the precipices, the turns, the ups and downs, and the high speeds, the journey is not dull, and the scenery is splendid.

As we progress the vegetation changes. The giant Redwoods die away; oak and other English-looking trees succeed them; and we flash across trout streams and rivers, much attenuated by the summer, and some even reduced to chains of pools. From the town of Eureka onwards I noticed the palm, and a hundred miles further south the vegetation and aspect of the landscape became Italian. We now come into the land of grapes and pause for luncheon at an immense wine factory. I forget how many millions of gallons of Californian wines are stored in the mighty vats of its warehouses.

Fermented! Certainly! Do not be alarmed, dear Miss Anna, it is “for sacramental purposes only.” The Constitution an august combination—protect, with the triple sanctions of Washington, Jerusalem and Rome, this inspiring scene. Nevertheless, there is a fragrance in the air which even the Eighteenth Amendment cannot deprive us.

Not to be tantalized, we hasten on, and fifty miles to the southward alight for refreshment before the verandahs and porticos of a pretty inn, whose advertisement proclaims, “Good Eats and Soft Drinks.” Yielding to these allurements,I am supplied with a glass of “near beer.” This excellent and innocent beverage is prepared in the following way:

Old-world beer is brewed, and thereafter all the alcohol in excess of one-half of one percent is eliminated, and cast to the dogs. The residue, when iced, affords a pleasant drink indistinguishable in appearance from the naughty article, and very similar in flavour. But, as the less regenerate inform us, “it lacks Authority.” I was told that sometimes distressing accidents occur in the manufacture. Sometimes mistakes are made about the exact percentage, and on one melancholy occasion an entire brew was inadvertently released at the penultimate stage of manufacture, to spread its maddening poison through countless happy
homes. But, needless to say, every precaution is taken.

I have not concealed my own views upon Prohibition, but candour compels me to say that, having been for two months for the first time in my life exposed to its full rigours, I have found the effects upon my constitution very much less disturbing than I had expected.

The shades of evening were already falling as we approached San Francisco. I had been dozing and awoke with a start to find myself in the midst of the ocean. As far as the eye could reach on all sides in the gathering dark nothing but water could be seen. The marvellous road was traversing an inlet of the sea, or perhaps an estuary, by a newly constructed bridge seven miles long, and only a few feet above the waves.

On either side the water reaches depths of eighty feet, and in the centre we climbed by easy gradients to a sort of Tower Bridge with bascules to allow the passage of shipping. This remarkable piece of engineering, brilliantly illuminated throughout its entire length, has been constructed to avoid the delays or inconvenience of detour or ferry. That the motor traffic—mainly pleasure traffic—should warrant the formidable outlay involved is a fair measure of the wealth and enterprise of California.

The City of San Francisco was, as everyone knows, destroyed by fire, not earthquake (this is important), at the beginning of the century. It has risen again from its ashes (not ruins) in quadrupled magnificence. Its forty-storey buildings tower above the lofty hog-backed promontory on which it is built. The sea mists which roll in and shroud it at frequent intervals rob it of sunshine, but ensure a cool temperate climate at most seasons of the year. I was eager to see the sea lions for which the bay is renowned, and made a special journey to view the rocks on which they are accustomed to bask. In this I was disappointed. The rocks were occupied only by large and dreary birds; and when I asked a bystander when the sea lions would appear, he replied gaily in Italian, “Damfino,” meaning no doubt “in due course.”

PETER PAN TOWNSHIP

South of San Francisco we entered the latitude and vegetation of North Africa. The houses became increasingly Mauresque, the soil more sandy, and water—except, of course, for drinking purposes—scarce. Resting for a while at the seaside resorts of Pebble Beach and Santa Barbara, we draw by easy stages nearer to the latest city of the Pacific Coast, Los Angeles. Ignoring St. Augustine’s famous pun, the inhabitants pronounce the “g” hard, as in “angle.” A keen rivalry exists between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Each population exceeds a million, but by how much depends on which suburbs are included; and on this point there are disputes.

No two cities could present a greater contrast. San Francisco stretches up to the heavens; Los Angeles spreads more widely over the level shores than any city of equal numbers in the world. It is a gay and happy city, where everyone has room to live, where no one lacks a small, but sufficient dwelling, and every house stands separate in its garden. Poverty and squalor have never entered its broad avenues of palms. The distances are enormous. You motor ten miles to luncheon in one direction and ten miles to dinner in another. The streets by night are ablaze with electric lights and moving signs of every colour. A carnival in fairyland!

All this opulence and well-being is prominently supported by two 20th-century industries. The first is oil. Everywhere scattered about in the city, all around it, on the beach, even in the sea itself, stand the pylon structures or derricks used for the finding and extraction of oil. At Calgary in Canada, where the oil lies a mile below the surface, these derricks are very tall; but in California they seem to average fifty or sixty feet. The hills to the south of the city are covered with them. They are packed so densely together as to look at a few miles’ distance exactly like forests of fir-trees.

Democratic principles have shaped the laws governing this newcomer industry. Oilfields, like goldfields, are parcelled out in small holdings, almost in allotments. A multitude of small proprietors are pumping away in mad haste, lest their neighbours a few yards off should forestall them. There is an immense production of oil at cheap prices. For the present everyone is content, especially the consumers. Whether this system is the last word in the scientific utilization of oil resources is doubtful; that it will not last for ever is certain. It may well be that the natural oil age will synchronize with the twentieth century.

The second staple industry is found in the films associated with Hollywood. Here we enter a strange and an amusing world, the like of which has certainly never been seen before. Dozens of studios, covering together thousands of acres, and employing scores of thousands of very highly paid performers and technicians, minister to the gaiety of the world. It is like going behind the scenes of a theatre magnified a thousand-fold. Battalions of skilled workmen construct with magical quickness streets of London, of China, of India, jungles, mountains, and every conceivable form of scenery in solid and comparatively durable style. In a neighbouring creek pirate ships, Spanish galleons and Roman galleys ride at anchor.

This Peter Pan township is thronged with the most odd and varied of crowds that can be imagined. Here is a stream of South Sea Islanders, with sweet little nut-brown children, hurrying to keep their studio appointments. There is a corps-de-ballet which would rival the Moulin Rouge. Ferocious brigands, bristling with property pistols, cowboys, train robbers, heroines in distress of all descriptions, aged cronies stalk or stroll or totter to and fro. Twenty films are in the making at once. A gang of wild Circassian horsemen filters past a long string of camels from a desert caravan. Keen young men regulate the most elaborate processes of photography, and the most perfect installations for bridling light and sound. Competition is intense; the hours of toil are hard, and so are the hours of waiting. Youthful beauty claims her indisputable rights; but the aristocracy of the filmland found themselves on personality. It is a factory in appearance the queerest in the world, whose principal characteristics are hard work, frugality and discipline.

The apparition of the “talkies” created a revolution among the “movies.” Hollywood was shaken to its foundations. No one could challenge the popularity of these upstarts. Their technique might be defective; their voices in reproduction rough and unmusical; their dialect weak; but talking films were what the public wanted; and what the public wants it has to get. So all is turned upside down, and new experts arrive with more delicate apparatus, and a far more complicated organization must be set up. Everywhere throughout filmland the characters must be made to talk as well as act. New values are established, and old favourites have to look to their laurels. Now that everyone is making talking pictures, not only darkness but perfect silence must be procurable whenever required, and balloons float above the studios to scare away the buzzings of wandering aeroplanes.

Alone among producers Charlie Chaplin remains unconverted, claiming that pantomime is the genius of drama, and that the imagination of the audience supplies better words than machinery can render, and prepared to vindicate the silent film by the glittering weapons of wit and pathos.

On the whole, I share his opinion.

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*Churchill is quoting Thomas Babington Macaulay, most likely his Lays of Ancient Rome, which WSC absorbed and partly memorized as a youth. “Camelopard” is Middle English term for a giraffe.

**J.H. Thomas (1874-1949), Labour MP (1910-36), Minister of Employment and Lord Privy Seal at the time of Churchill’s article. He
was elected to the Other Club in 1925, but resigned in 1930. His last office was Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1935-36.

***Philip Snowden, later Viscount Snowden (1864-1937), Labour MP (1906-18, 1922-31), Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of Churchill’s article. His last office was Lord Privy Seal, 1931-32.