Fed up with Californians' love affair with their state emblem, the "clumsy, uncleanly, monkey-brained" grizzly bear," magazine editor Charles F. Lummis chose a different animal for his preferred symbol.
Charles Fletcher Lummis was an eccentric with energy. He walked from Ohio to California where he became city editor of the Los Angeles Times, worked tirelessly to preserve California's missions, and edited the magazine Land of Sunshine. In 1895 he recorded there his prejudice for the puma—also known then as the cougar, the mountain-lion, or the Califoria lion.
I know the puma not only in the cage but in his habitat; and every student with that acquaintance respects not only his armature but his character. Barring the jaguar (which does not range north of Mexico) he is the most beautiful creature in the New World; the most graceful, the most dignified, the most superbly competent. He is the highest type of sinewy strength, of agility, of dexterity, of balanced power. Stalking his prey, he is more graceful than a perfect woman, and inevitable as the End. In repose, he is the last word of contained force. Noblest of all is he when he promenades—"walking with himself," as my paisano friends have it; paseandose, not for prey, but just for the joy of his legs. I have studied all the large animals of the New World in their native haunts; and there is none other so lordly.
Charles F. Lummis edited Land of Sunshine from 1894-1909, turning a promotional magazine into an influential cultural publication.
"Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859 - 1928), an American journalist and Indian activist," photographer unknown, 1897. Larger.
The second publisher of the Los Angeles Times, Harrison Gray Otis wielded significant power in southern California—power which he was not afraid to use.
In 1885, Charles F. Lummis came to California, where he accepted an offer from Otis to become editor of the Los Angeles Times. There, Lummis had plenty of opportunity to observe closely the character of one of Los Angeles' most powerful men.
Col. Otis was brusque, rough, suspicious, vindictive, a strange combination of childlikeness, of great practicality in many things—in printing and newspapering he was a past master—very far from worldly-wise in many others. He made innumerable enemies quite needlessly, as well as a large number that were greatly to his credit. It was good that every scoundrel, every criminal, every low politician hated him. It was a pity that so many thoroughly good disliked him. He could have done a great deal more good if he had not antagonized so many good citizens. However as he did more for the community than all the other newspapermen put together, I presume we may forgive him this loss of further achievement.
Charles F. Lummis' portrait of Otis is included in "As I Remember," an unpublished manuscript recalling Lummis'early days in Los Angeles.
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