Hilton Rowan Helper, photographer, date unknown. Larger.
California has long enjoyed a reputation as the land of El Dorado, the golden land where dreams come true. But that's not what everyone finds who comes here.
After a three-year sojourn in California, North CarolinianHinton R. Helper published The Land of Gold; Reality versus Fiction in order to counter all those stories about California in which "truth and facts have been set aside." Hinton's opinion—drawn, he said, from close observation of the facts at hand—-was that California was the poorest state in the union--and also one of the most disreputable.
The annual consumption of beer, wines and liquors in this State exceeds five millions of gallons, a vast deal of which is retailed at extraordinarily remunerative rates. All of the first class establishments, I mean those that deal in good qualities, charge twenty-five cents for every drink or dram they sell; but an adulterated article, of which there is always an abundant supply in market, can be procured at about one half that price. In some of the most popular and respectable saloons, genuine articles are always kept on hand for the benefit and accommodation of those who are willing to pay for a delicious draught. I may not be a competent judge, but this much I will say, that I have seen purer liquors, better segars, finer tobacco, truer guns and pistols, larger dirks and bowie knives, and prettier courtezans here, than in any other place I have ever visited; and it is my unbiased opinion that California can and does furnish the best bad things that are obtainable in America.
In many ways, Hinton Helper's assessment of California's potential was dead wrong. But his willingness to contradict many of his contemporaries' opinions of California still makes for surprising and refreshing reading.
"The Legislature of a Thousand Drinks," in San Jose, 1853. Larger.
It's a rare Californian who at one time or another is not disappointed in some elected leader. When you're ready to scorn the whole lot of them, though, you'll have to stand in line.
The scoundrels are in power, and they have wrecked the country. Today the State is lawless, penniless and powerless. Such is the effect of the union of two bad things—a bad people and a bad country. It was necessary in the first place, to give even a passable character to the State, that the administration of affairs should have been committed to men of pre-eminent sagacity; but instead of pursuing this policy, the common interests have been confided to political charlatans, whose actions in every instance have been detrimental to the interests of the country. As a poor client suffers in the hands of a pettifogger, or as a patient laboring under an obscure and dangerous disease, sinks under the treatment of a quack, so has this poor, sick California suffered and sunk through the agency of her knavish managers.
After three years in California, Hinton R. Helper returned east. He later wrote an attack on slavery, The Impending Crisis of the South.
Recent statistics show that California is in the middle of the pack when it comes to the divorce rate, which might surprise one Gold Rush writer who was sure the rate would plunge to zero.
North Carolina writer Hinton R. Helper found little to admire in California, and he said so in an 1855 book that was especially blunt about the backward morals of Californians.
The women are persecuted by the insulting attentions of the men, and too often fall victims to the arts of their seducers. Nowhere is the sanctity of the domestic hearth so ruthlessly violated as in California. For proof of this we need look no further than the records of the courts of San Francisco. They show that in the course of a single week no less than ten divorces had been granted, while during the same time only two marriages had been solemnized! (It will be seen that, at this rate of divorce and marriage, there will soon be left no married people to obtain divorces, which would probably cause a lot of confusion.)
Some of our best writers have given us glorious portraits of growing up in California. Too bad these must have been the products of memories too selective to be believed.
The truth is, there is no attention paid to the moral, mental or physical discipline of youth in this country. They are left to their own will and inclination, to grow up, like the plants and weeds in a neglected garden, without culture or training. Surrounded as they are with so many examples of depravity, what sort of men and women are they likely to be? It is probable that the world has never reared such a horde of accomplished scamps and vagabonds, male and female, as will soon emerge from the adolescent population of the Eureka State. The signs of the times warrant this conclusion. How can it be otherwise when they are familiar with every vice, and strangers to every virtue? It matters not how strict or careful the parents themselves may be, it is impossible for them to shield their children from the baneful influences of the neighborhood; and a man might as well think of raising a healthy and stalwart family in the midst of a malarious swamp, as to think of rearing decent sons and daughters in California.
After three years, Hinton R. Helper was eager to leave "this psuedo Eldorado," as he called California, as rapidly as he could.
Title page, 1855. Larger.
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