Bayard Taylor on Darwinian Democracy in Gold Rush San Francisco
Bayard Taylor in 1851
From Eldorado: Adventures in the Path of Empire (1850)
After what has been said, it will appear natural that California should be the most democratic country in the world. The practical equality of all the members of a community, whatever might be the wealth, intelligence or profession of each, was never before thoroughly demonstrated. Dress was no gauge of respectability, and no honest occupation, however menial in its character, affected a man’s standing. Lawyers, physicians and ex-professors dug cellars, drove ox-teams, sawed wood and carried luggage; while men who had been Army privates, sailors, cooks or day laborers were at the least of profitable establishments and not infrequently assisted in some of the minor details of Government. A man who would consider his fellow beneath him, on account of his appearance or occupation, would have had some difficulty in living peaceably in California. The security of the country is owing, in no small degree, to this plain, practical development of what the French reverence as an abstraction, under the name of Fraternité. To sum up all in three words, LABOR IS RESPECTABLE may it never be otherwise, while a grain of gold is left to glitter in Californian soil!
The direct effect of the state of things growing out of the discovery of the placers, was to develop new qualities and traits of character, not in single individuals, but in every individual of the entire community — traits frequently most unlooked for in those who exhibited them in the most marked degree. Society, therefore, was for the time cast into new forms, or, rather, deprived of any fixed form. A man, on coming to California, could no more expect to retain his old nature unchanged than he could retain in his lungs the air he had inhaled on the Atlantic shore.
The most immediate and striking change which came upon the greater portion of the emigrants was an increase of activity, and opportunity, of reckless and daring spirit.
