The Native Son

ff. When I've finished, there isn't an hysterical superlative adjective or a complimentary abstract noun unused in my vocabulary. I've told all the East about California. I've told many of the countries of Europe about California. I even tell Californians about California. I will say to the credit of Californians though that they listen. Listen! did I say listen? They drink it down like a child absorbing its first fairy tale.

In another little volume devoted to the praise of California, Willie Britt is on record as saying that he'd rather be a busted lamp-post on Battery Street than the Waldorf-Astoria. I said once that I'd rather be sick in California than well anywhere else. I'm prepared to go further. I'd rather be in prison in California than free anywhere else. San Quentin is without doubt the most delightfully situated prison in the whole world. Besides I have a lot of friends - but I won't go into that now. Anyway if I ever do get that severe jail-sentence which a long-suffering family has always pr