sign in sign up
<<
Home , Tejon Pass

The manuscript of this work was complete a nd water supply, railroad and harbor, which in his publisher's hands when the author died at forever changed the face of Southern Cali­ his Tucson home on May 22, 1970. With the fornia. It is Wilson, however, who dominates exception of his nature books, there are selections here from all of Krutch's major publications. this story. Frontiersman, rancher, states­ Coupled with The Best Nature Writing of Joseph man, Wilson was the region's heart and soul. Wood Krutch, it provides a personal and repre· It was Wilson, ' charter mayor, sentative distillation of this remarkable man's who established viticulture and encouraged contributions as critic, naturalist, and philosopher. immigration to Southern - some­ times by sheer force of his personality. In one of many spirited anecdotes, Sher· wood describes Angelenos' horrified reaction to Custer's defeat at the Little Big Horn, news which came during the Centennial Fourth of July celebration: "John Bull in SEPTEMBER 1982 LOS ANGELES CORRAL NUMBER 148 1776", the crowd screamed, "Sitting Bull in 1876!" The chicanery of the Southern Pacific Railroad, the tragedy of John B. Wilson, the real estate "deals" of Lucky Baldwin and the TIBURCIO VASQUEZ IN nOWN THE WSSTSKH end of 's "vintage years" are likewise detailed in deft fashion by an SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DOOK TKAIL ... author obviously entranced with her subject. PARTI: THE BANDIDO'S LAST HURRAH -Jeff Nathan by John W. Robinson Days of Vintage, Years of Vision by Midge Sherwood. Orizaba Publications. Box 8241, San Marino, CA 91108. 1982. 509 pages. Frederic Remington by Peggy and Harold Western outlaws seem to hold a special Tiburcio Vasquez was born to a respected $27.50. Samuels. Doubleday. New York. 1982. 537 fascination in the minds of western history Monterey family on August 11, 1835. (The pages. $24.95. buffs. With the passage of time many of Vasquez home, a handsome white adobe California history comes alive in Midge these badmen have become folk heroes, no structure behind Colton Hall, still stands Sherwood's "Days of Vintage, Years Of Peggy and Harold Samuels have filled a matter how dastardly their crimes may have today.) Young Tiburcio attended school in Vision". This book is ostensibly a biography large void with their in-depth biography. been. Witness the fact that most of us are far Monterey and learned to read and write with of James De Barth Shorb, a vineyardist who Remington has long been recognized as more familiar with the names of Billy The proficiency, an accomplishment of which he founded the San Marino Ranch - "the America's premier Western artist and it is Kid, Jesse James and the Dalton brothers was justly proud all of his life. His criminal showplace ofthe Southland" - which is now reassuring that we now have some back­ than with the true, deserving heroes of the career germinated one night in 1852 when, at the site of the Huntington Library, Art ground to supplement the familiar paintings West. Books by the score chronicle their the age of seventeen, he attended a fandango Gallery and Botanical Gardens. and sculptures. crimes. You need only to peruse Ramon in the company of one Anastacio Garcia, a What Sherwood has actually produced is a The Samuels chart Remington's upbring­ Adams' bibliography of Western outlaws, local brigand. Accounts differ as to just what definitive history of Southern California. ing in New York as a priggish elitist and Six Guns and Saddle Leather, to realize how happened, but the end result was that The scope of this massive, well-documented follows his amazingly swift rise to promi· abundant is the literature of banditry and Constable William Hardmount was slain work covers the period from 1850 to 1880, nence. As the Samuels explore his prejudices how fascinated is the public with this gender and young Vasquez was indirectly involved beginning with Shorb's arrival in California and motivations, readers are treated to a of anti-hero. in the crime. He fled into the hills with from Maryland, proceeding the "oil excite­ panoramic view of the artist's turn-of-the­ California has its share of legenday anti­ Garcia and, through the instruction of the ment", and ending with the death of his century world. The authors are sympathetic, heroes, too. Joaquin Murietta leads the list, elder outlaw, learned the rudiments of suc­ father-in-law, Benjamin D. Wilson. In be­ but Remington is shown, warts and all. His but only a notch below is the name of cessful banditry. His long career as Cali­ tween, the reader is treated to a fascinating bitter and petty arguments with Charles Tiburcio Vasquez. Vasquez is particularly fornia's master bandit was launched. discussion of Los Angeles' development from Schreyvogel and the art establishment, his interesting to southern Californians because What manner of man was Tiburcio pueblo to city and the people who made it gross overindulgence in food and drink, and the climactic two years of his twenty-three Vasquez? Ben Truman, Los Angeles news­ possible. Banning, Pico, Sepulveda, Temple, his jingoistic mentality are quite unflatter­ year criminal career were centered almost paperman who interviewed him after his Workman, Downey and a multitude of other ingly revealed. No matter. We still have the exclusively in Los Angeles County or on the capture, described him thusly: "In personal pioneers cross these pages. art work, and the Samuels have included a stage routes leading from Los Angeles to the appearance this robber chief is anything but As Sherwood tells us, Shorb was instru­ generous sampling in this valuable study of Cerro Gordo Mines and the San Joaquin remarkable. Take away the expression of his mental to the growth of America's newly a massive talent. Valley. His final capture took place in what eyes, furtive, snaky and cunning, and he acquired state, especially in providing a -Jeff Nathan is now West Hollywood. would pass unnoticed in a crowd. Not more Continued on Page Three Page Sixteen . .. it." The reader will be too. first appearances in House Beautiful, House and Garden, and Playboy. Krutch must have certainly (ed.) Thoreau: Walden and Other Writings. New enjoyed being an author for the latter publication, York: Bantam, 1962. The Branding Iron for a more unlikely match cannot be imagined. The introduction contains biographical and THE WESTERNERS critical material on Thoreau, with the following Baja California and the Geography of Hope. Los ANGELES CORRAL works reprinted in addition to Walden: "Civil San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1967. Illustrated with dozens of stunning, full page, Published Quarterly in Disobedience," "Life Without Principle," and color photographs by Eliot Porter, the text for this March . June. September . December selections from A Week on the Concord and Merri­ mack Rivers, Cape Cod, The Main Woods, and sumptuous book is selected from ten different OFFICERS Thoreau's Journal. works by Krutch, who provide the introduction. Interestingly, Porter - long a distinguished pho­ TRAIL BOSSES (ed.) with Paul S. Eriksson. A Treasury of tographer - credits the turning of his camera to Birdlore. New York: Paul S. Eriksson, 1962. WILLIAM W. ESCHERICH ...... Sheriff desert subjects to a reading of The Desert Year and Among the authors in this anthology on the P.O. Box 2890, Terminal Annex, The Voice of the Desert. Los Angeles, CA 90051 world of birds are John James Audubon, Mary (intro.) Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod. New POWELL GREENLAND ...... Deputy Sheriff Corral Chips Austin, John Muir, Donald Culross Peattie, Roger 1583 Wildwood Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90041 Tory Peterson, Rachel Carson, and Edwin Way York: The Limited Editions Club, 1968. Also published in The Heritage Press edition JEROME R. SELMER ...... Registrar of Marks Teale. The concluding article is "The Most Danger­ and Brands ous Predator" from The Forgotten Peninsula. (1968), the introduction observes that this narrati ve of travel (the result offour trips to Cape Cod) finds 55 E. Arthur Avenue, Arcadia, CA 91106 C.M. Robert W. Blew is elected Vice­ (intro.) In Wilderness Is the Preservation of the Thoreau less cantankerous in his temperament, WADE E. KITTELL ...... Keeper of the Chips World. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1962. President, Publicity, of the Southern Cali­ more relaxed and genial, probably because it was 519 Cedar Avenue, Apt. 10, Long Beach, CA 90802 The magnificent color photographs of Eliot fornia Social Science Association ... Past written to please and aimed at magazine publica­ Porter admirably complement the text consisting ERNEST MARQUEZ ...... Roundup Foreman Sheriff the new Noble Grand tion. Thoreau had thought about deleting some of 24213 Hamlin Street, Canoga Park, CA 91307 Hugh Tolfordis of quotations from Thoreau. In his introduction the historical material in this work and, as Krutch Humbug of Platrix Chapter of E Clampus Krutch notes how Porter's pictures capture the DONALD DUKE ...... Past Sheriff Trail Boss explains, "for the benefit of those who prefer to Vitus. His first decree called for a Clamp out spirit and intentions of Thoreau, analyzes the WILLIAM O. HENDRICKS ...... Past Sheriff follow the main current of Thoreau's account, the essence of Thoreau's thinking, and concludes with Trail Boss at Arroyo Grande with most ofthe Clampers questioned passages are printed in small type to the hope that this book will somehow contribute to arriving in grand style via an Amtrack train facilitate skipping." APPOINTED OFFICERS saving some of our rapidly disappearing wilder­ from Glendale to San Luis Obispo. . .. Merely a Humanist. San Francisco: Industrial ORLEY E. LAIRD ...... Asst. Registrar of Marks ness. Indemnity Company, 1968. and Brands Herschel C. Logan is honored at the May If You Don't Mind My Saying So: Essays on Attractively printed by Lawton and Alfred BILL LORENZ ...... Asst. Keeper of the Chips 29th San Diego meeting of the California Man and Nature. New York: William Sloane, 1964. Kennedy, the text is a talk for an Industrial The title of this collection of sixty-one essays is ABRAHAM HOFFMAN ...... Asst. Roundup Cartridge Collectors. He receives a special Indemnity sales conference held in May of1968 at taken from the name of the column Krutch con­ Foreman award for his long interest and support of the the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. tributed for many years to The American Scholar. DWIGHT S. CUSHMAN ...... Representative Noting how the human situation has progressively hobby, and for his standard book, Cartridges, The earliest essay dates back to 1936, when the 800 Lena Avenue, Canoga Park, CA 91304 deteriorated, Krutch questions the wisdom of the first published in 1948.... author wrote regularly for The Nation; the latest DONALD E. TORGUSON ...... Wrangler Boss space effort when such problems as the population Dwight Cushman and Ray Wood are appeared in the April 9, 1964 issue of The Saturday explosion and the consequent damage to the JACK McCASKILL ...... Asst. Wrangler Boss Review. among attendees at the 35th California physical environment are such overwhelming con­ CORNELL NORBY ...... Exhibits Wrangler History Institute at University of the Pacific, Herbal. New York: Putman, 1965. siderations here at home. We should utilize our IRON EYES CODY ..... Daguerreotype Wrangler on April 2-3. Also present are C.M.'s Joe With scholarship and wit, Krutch examines the technology to improve the lot of mankind, not as facts and fancies of herbalists from ancient times FRANK Q. NEWTON ...... Asst. Daguerreotype Doctor and Troy Tuggle. Ray Wood gives an an end in itself. After all, "technological advances Wrangler to the present era as they describe the properties of do not necessarily contribute to the good life." extended report on his commission to track one-hundred plants and six creatures. Each entry THOMAS S. McNEILL ...... Librarian down monuments to Jedediah Smith. He has in this handsome publication is accompanied by a The Best Nature Writing of Joseph WoodKrutch. 207 Avenue G, Redondo Beach, CA 90277 New York: William Morrow, 1969. now located. nearly thirty monuments. Also, full-page illustration taken from the woodcuts in ELWOOD W. HOLLAND ...... Membership Pierandrea Mattioli's huge folio volume, Com­ Published just one year before his death, Krutch Chairman Ray's article, "Anglo Influence on Spanish himself made the thirty-four selections that appear mentaries on the Six Books of Dioscorides, issued RAYMUND F. WOOD ...... Editor, Brand Book Place Names in California," published in the in Prague in 1563 and Venice in 1565. here grouped under the headings New England No. 16 Winter 1981 Southern California Quarterly, and the Desert, Other Lives, Shapes of Earth, (ed.) Eighteenth-Century English Drama. New JOHN D. KEMBLE ...... Historian is commented on extensively by Jack Smith Nature and Human Nature, and The Meaning of York: Bantam, 1967. Conservation. Illustrated by Lydia Rosier. ROBERT SCHERRER ...... Tallyman in his Los Angeles Times column of July 5 In addition to a discerning introduction on the The Most Wonderful Animals That Never Were . Address for Exchanges . . . C.M. Gene Bear is honored for the fourth theater of the period, this paperback includes Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969. and Material Submitted for Publication: time by the California State Assembly for Rowe's The Fair Penitent, Gay's The Beggar's A charming foray into the lore that surrounds T he Roundup Foreman services to the community ... The San Diego Opera, Farquhar's The Beaux' Strategem, plus such imaginary creatures as the unicorn, basilisk, ERNEST MARQUEZ Sheridan's The Rivals and The School for Scandal. Public Library, an Institutional Member of mermaid, phoenix, dragon, and the giant roc. A 24213 Hamlin St., Canoga Park, Ca. 91307 And Even If You Do: Essays on Man, Manners, chapter at the end is devoted to the contemporary the Corral, celebrates its centennial anni­ THE BRANDING IRON solicits aritcles of 1.500 words and Machines. New York: William Morrow, 1967. Loch Ness monster and the Abominable Snowman. or less. dealing with every phase of the Old West. versary this year and issues a special booklet An obvious companion piece to If You Don't Illustrated by Pauline Baynes. Contributions from members and friends welcomed . commemorating the occasion.... Mind My Saying So, this collection of forty-eight A Krutch Omnibus: Forty Years of Social and Copyright' by Ihe Weslerners The first annual Carl S. Dentzel Memorial essays written primarily in the 1960's is drawn Literary Criticism. New York: William Morrow, Los Angeles Corral Concert is presented at San Fernando Mis­ from an even wider source, including such unlikely 1970. Continued on Page Eight Page Two ...... Page Fifteen who was one of America's most talented wood­ The Forgotten Peninsula: A Naturalist in Baja engravers. California. New York: William Sloane, 1961. Grand Canyon: Today and All Its Yesterdays. Krutch made some ten separate visits to Baja New York: William Sloane, 1958. California, prior to writing this book, and though Because he visited the Grand Canyon many there are elements of a personal travel narrative times on foot, muleback, and airplane, Krutch present, the central focus is nonetheless on the leads the reader on an intensely personal tour of human history and, of course, the natural history the history, geology, zoology, and botany of "the of this remote area: the boojum tree, the gray most revealing single page of earth's history whales of Scammon's Lagoon, the giant cardon anywhere on the face of the globe." The volume cactus, the palo blanco, the evening primrose, and ends with a plea to preserve the natural wonders, other characteristic features of this extension of not only of the Grand Canyon, but also of all other the Sonoran Desert. On nine of Krutch's ten trips, National Parks and wilderness areas. incidentally, he was a guest in the company of botanists, zoologists, herpetologists, malocologists, Joseph Wood Krutch. San Francisco: Industrial and other scientists conducting research for the Indemnity Company, 1958. Belvedere Scientific Fund, established by Krutch's Privately printed and distributed, this softcover friend and patron Kenneth Bechtel for the In­ publication contains "Welfare, Democracy, and dustrial Indemnity Company. Education," a talk presented to the employees of (ed.) The World of Animals: A Treasury of Lore, Industrial Indemnity and their guests; the three Legend, and Literature by Great Writers from 5th Raymond Fred West Memorial Lectures for 1958 Century B.C. to the Present. New York: Simon and delivered at Stanford University; and a transcript Schuster, 1961. of an informal interview aired on KQED, the Believing that the animal world is something to educational television station in San Francisco. be loved and learned from, Krutch has made over The West Memorial Lectures - "The Average and one-hundred selections by the world's great natu­ the Normal," "Tabula Rasa; or How Blank Is the ralists and writers, each with a brief introduction. Slate," and "The Glimm'ring Light" - were ulti­ Pliny the Elder writes of the dolphin's endearing mately to form the basis for several chapters of personality; Darwin describes the special attributes Human Nature and the Human Condition, issued of the Galapagos tortoise, which led him to his the following year. theory of evolution; Colette recounts the life, (ed.) The Gardener's World. New York: Putman, including "the wild season of roaming and prowl­ 1959. ing," of a Tomcat; and a host of other writers, from An anthology consisting of 128 selections by 103 Homer to W.H. Hudson and the Book of Job to authors on plants, gardens, gardening, and related John Burroughs, are represented. Krutch's essay themes. The selections range from Homer, Pliny "Conservation is Not Enough" from The Voice of the Elder, Samuel Johnson, and Alexander Pope the Desert is included, along with abundant illus­ to John Muir and John Burroughs. Each entry is trations drawn from ancient and modern woodcuts, prefaced with a brief comment from the editor. prints, and paintings. Modern Literature and the Image of Man. San Human Nature and the Human Condition. New Francisco: Industrial Indemnity Company, 1962. York: Random House, 1959. In this talk presented on April 16, 1962, to the This volume focuses on such contemporary prob­ employees and guests of Industrial Indemnity, Tiburico Vasquez a few weeks before his execution March 19, 1875. lems as over-population, the cult of the "high Krutch notes the progressive degradation of the standard ofliving," the peculiar nature of Ameri­ image of man that has resulted from the writings can materialism, the loss of our belief in the of Marx, Darwin, and Freud, plus the impact of than five feet seven inches in height, perhaps As most lawbreakers do, Vasquez had an dignity of man, and the meaning of the welfare two world wars. Playwrights like Sartre, Beckett, 130 pounds in weight, of very spare build, he excuse for his crimes. He felt he must punish state. Ionesco, and Genet all mirror a similar dismal looks little like a man who could create a the Norte Americano - the white, Anglo­ view of a meaningless universe and ofthe absurdity Biology and Humanism. San Francisco: In­ reign of terror." Regardless of Vasquez's Saxon American - for discrimination of human existence. The way out ofthis abyss, the dustrial Indemnity Company, 1960. unassuming physical appearance, the bandit against Californians of Spanish and Mexican author urges, is for literature not just to reflect the The subject of this lecture given on April 28, spirit ofthe age but to actually help create it. Also had a certain charisma that attracted the descent. He hated the Gringo for leveling 1960, is man's intellectual and emotional attitudes printed is the transcript of a question and answer loyalty of subordinates and the romantic slights and insults at his family origin. He towards other living things. Krutch calls for an period that followed the talk. awareness that animals and plants are our only interest of females. If he had an Achilles entertained the thought that somehow he companions "in an infinite and unsympathetic More Lives Than One. New York: William heel, it was his propensity for amorous could help Mexico regain California and waste of electrons, planets, nebulae and stars," Sloane, 1962. escapades. Twice his aldulturous romancing used this rationale as justification for his and we need to feel the joy and consolation that Krutch's autobiography, the title alluding to the with the wives of gang members came close thievery. the awareness of this can provide. Conservation many careers the author enjoyed in his lifetime as to ending his career prematurely (even his By 1856 Vasquez had his own gang and needs to mean more than the efficient exploitation drama critic, book reviewer, editor, professor, erstwhile friends had no desire to play was well on the road to becoming California's of natural resources. With a feeling for, or love of biographer, naturalist, and social critic. An en­ the natural world, we can live with nature, not gaging and unpretentious tour of an interesting cuckold to his carnal desires). It was an master outlaw. He found stealing horses merely upon it. Also printed is the question and life, interesting the author says "in the special amorous lapse that indirectly led to his profitable and led his band on a series of answer period which concluded the lecture. sense that I myself have usually been interested in demise. raids from Monterey County to Los Angeles,

Page Fourteen ...... Page Three rustling, rebranding and selling hundreds of bandit chief returned to the ranch numerous his hand at nature writing with an essay on Pirandello, and Synge. Krutch traces modern animals. In the spring of 1857 he made his times during his sojourns in southern spring. The other eleven essays followed in the attitudes as they are apparent in modern drama, first mistake. After rustling a herd of horses California.) astonishingly short span of only nine months. particularly man's "sense of alienation in a world from a ranch near Newhall in Los Angeles From Heffner's, Vasquez and his small Each chapter chronicles the pleasure and meaning that has defeated humanistic values." derived from considering the commonplace natural County, he tried to sell them too soon. He and party rode southeast along the northern The Best of Two Worlds. New York: William phenomena that occur in the cycles of nature. a companion were apprehended by a sheriffs foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains to Sloane, 1953. (ed.) Great American Nature Writing. New York: With homes in both New York City and Redding, posse. Vasquez's compadre turned state's Little Rock Creek. Here they decided to hide William Sloane, 1950. Connecticut, Krutch was able to appreciate two evidence and went free, while Tiburcio was out, believing this isolated mountain canyon An anthology from Thoreau to the present, different environments - the intellectual and sentenced to five years in San Quentin. was secure from the law. including such writers as John Burroughs, Mary cultural stimulus of the man-made world of the For the next decade and a half, Vasquez Unknown to the bandit, Sheriff Adams of Austin, Edwin Way Teale, Ernest Thompson Seton, city, as well as the pleasure and understanding the Donald Culross Peattie, and Krutch himself. The natural world provides to the country dweller. The went through a checkered career as a holdup Monterey County was hot on his trail. The prologue to the book is an excellent and lengthy focus in this gathering of twelve essays, predict­ man, stage robber and horsethief, punctuated determined lawman, through diligent detec­ seventy-eight page essay on the different ways ably, is on the latter. by several half-hearted attempts at an honest tive work, was able to trace Vasquez south that man has chosen to view nature over the The Measure of Man: On Freedom, Human life. Almost all of his escapades took place in across the Tehachapis to Elizabeth Lake. centuries. Values, Survival, and the Modern Temper. New central California, from Sonoma County Here he learned that the outlaw and part of The Last Boswell Paper. Woodstock, Vermont: York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1954. south into the . He his gang were hiding out in the nearby Elm Tree Press, 1951. Winner of the National Book Award for Non­ Written in the form of a play - with Dr. Samuel Fiction in 1954, this work should be read as a allegedly committed som of his crimes in the mountains. Adams summoned Sheriff Johnson, Henry David Thoreau, and James companion piece to The Modern Temperinasmuch company of two other infamous California William Rowland of Los Angeles County for Boswell as characters - this work originally as the author seeks to refute his own earlier ban didos - Tomas Redondo, alias Procopio help. Two days later Rowland arrived with appeared in The Saturday Review of Literature pessimism. Darwin, Marx, and Freud all con­ or Red-Handed Dick, and the blood-thirsty six deputies and an Indian guide. Together, and was printed in this format for Philip C. tributed to our loss of confidence in man as more villain Juan Soto. He was in and out of San the lawmen searched the hills south of Duschnes of N ew York in an edition of 660 copies. than the helpless victim of circumstance. We are Johnson and Thoreau exchanged their differing therefore lost unless we can believe in a "minimal Quentin three times during this period. Elizabeth Lake. viewpoints on such themes as the merits of the man" that can reason not just rationalize, that Until 1873 Tiburcio Vasquez was just one While Adam and Rowland were scouring metropolis versus the country, society versus soli­ can exercise some sort of will and choice, and that of several California bandidos sought after the hills a few miles away, Vasquez's tude, etc. On the whole a surprisingly dull piece, can make value judgments. by lawmen. His fame was nowhere near that amorous impulses almost brought his demise notable for its stilted dialogue in the form of (intro.) Ann Woodin, Home Is the Desert. New ofthe legendary Joaquin Murietta. Then, in then and there. For some time he had been numerous actual quotations from the two men. York: Macmillan, 1954. August of that year, Vasquez and his gang unusually attentive to Rosaria Leiva, The Desert Year. New York: William Sloane, A delightful book about the Woodin family's veritable home menagerie, which included a commi tted a dastardly crime in Tres Pinos, a Abdon's 25-year-old wife, described by con­ 1952. The record of a sixteen month sabbatical leave German shepherd, numerous bobcats, an occa­ small town six miles south of Hollister in temporaries as "plump, healthy and passably in 1950-51 spentin Tucson, to which Krutch would sional wolf or coyote, peccary or raven, an owl or San Benito County. In a raid on the com­ good-looking." Her husband suspected but return two years later and settle down for the two, many snakes, lizards, tarantulas, ground munity, three citizens were murdered and had not been able to prove an adulterous remainder of his life. This volume of sixteen squirrels, and even an alligator. The author's $200 in gold was stolen. News of the Tres relationship between his wife and the bandit essays delineates his love affair with the desert, husband was Director of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson and, in part because of Krutch's Pinos raid spread throughout northern and chief. While in camp on Little Rock Creek, whose flora and fauna contrasted so markedly and delightfully with that of his familiar New involvement with the museum, the Woodins and central California and made Vasquez's name Vasquez sent Abdon to Elizabeth Lake for England. As in all of Krutch's nature books, the the Krutches became good friends. a household word. Governor Newton Booth provisions. Suspicious of Vasquez's motives, reader is rewarded two-fold: by an exact, sensitive, The Voice of the Desert: A Naturalist's Interpre­ offered a thousand dollar reward for the Abdon obtained the supplies at a nearby and appreciative observation of the natural world, tation. New York: William Sloane, 1955. bandit's apprehension, a sum that would ranch and hurried back to camp. His fears coupled with the profound insights into the nature Written five years after moving to Tucson, this of man and society which it inspires. is Krutch's paean of praise to the desert by one of its shortly increase manyfold, and a number of were confirmed; he found the romantic couple partisans. Around the kangaroo rat, roadrunner, sheriffs posses were sent out. in what Vasquez later admitted was a (ed. and intro.) The Selected Letters of Thomas Gray. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc., spadefoot toad, saguaro, yucca, and the other Northern California was too hot for "fragrante delicto," or sexual embrace. The 1952. unique features of the southwestern desert is Vasquez now. He fled soth with two trusted enraged husband drew his pistol and thea­ The introduction, in addition to providing a woven a philosophy full of joy, wonder, and henchmen, Clodovio Chavez and Abdon tened to shoot Vasquez, but was dissuaded biography of Gray, examines him as a Romantic wisdom. Thoreau would have been proud. Leiva. Through the hot San Joaquin Valley from doing so by Clodovio Chavez. Instead, poet and in terms of his peculiar and neurotic The Great Chain of Life. Boston: Houghton they rode, travelling all day and much ofthe Leiva departed camp with his wife, vowing temperament. The letters "are deservedly among Mifflin, 1956. the most famous which have come down to us in Drawing equally upon his knowledge of the night. Near Buena Vista Lake they were vengeance at some future time. After leaving English, and they have their special character­ biological sciences and his skill as a disciplined joined by Rosaria Leiva, Abdon's comely his unfaithful wife at Heffner's, the dis­ istics as well as certain characteristics common to observer, Krutch surveys the natural world from wife. They hurried over Tejon Pass (several gruntled outlaw rode to Lyon's Station in the letters of their century." the lowly amoeba to the lordly desert bighorn. miles east of the route now followed by Solidad Canyon where he surrendered to Los "Modernism" in Modern Drama: A Definition What he discovers is that many living creatures ) and across to Angeles authorities and readily agreed to and an Estimate. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, are remarkably and joyously "human," joined to 1953. us by "the great chain of life." Probably the best Elizabeth Lake. Here they rested for a day at turn state's evidence against his former Contained in this volume are six lectures origi­ synthesis ofthe author's views on nature and life. Jim Heffner's ranch, nestled in the pines master. nally delivered at Cornell University in 1952: The chapter titled "Reverence for Life" is an alongside the little lake. (Heffner evidently Upon learning of Leiva's surrender, sher­ "How Modern is the Modern American Drama" especially eloquent and powerful statement of the displayed friendship toward Vasquez; the iffs Adams and Rowland hurried to Lyon's and individual studies ofIbsen, Strindberg, Shaw, conservation ethic. Illustrations by Paul Landacre, Page Four ...... Page Thirteen transportation to penal exile in New South Wales. the political and economic systems of Europe h ave Station and questioned the prisoner at length. their heads. Vasquez and Chavez were firing There he was subject to the brutal and sadistic been, European civilization has been a success in From him, the lawmen learned of Vasquez's at them from behind clumps of boulders. overseers of a prison work gang, escaped from the terms of its achievements in science, philosophy, hiding place on Little Rock Creek and laid Adams urged an immediate charge to dis­ Bushrangers who had kidnapped him from his and art. The proposed Communist remedies for lodge the outlaws, but Rowland and the rest Australian master, and lived among the aboriginal the defects of the 1930' s, on the other hand, would plans to snare him. tribesmen, at whose hands he was ultimately deprive Western Civilization of the liberties and The two sheriffs and their posse made of the posse showed more desire to shield killed after having received a conditional pardon the values that have led to its cultural accom­ haste to the mouth of Little Rock Creek, themselves from the flying lead. Furious at for his crimes. Never a dull moment in this well­ plishments. where they discovered fresh tracks leading the "procastination" of his cohorts, the written tale, but certainly an oddity in a Krutch (intro.) Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things up canyon. A short distance farther they Monterey County sheriff opted to go it alone. bibliography. Past. New York: Random House, 1934. came across ashes from a recent campfire During a lull in the action he dashed up the Five Masters: A Study in the Mutations of the This translation by C.K. Scott Moncrieff of hill, reaching the crest just in time to see the Novel. New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Proust's seven novels, brough t together under one and a ~ache offood supplies. Convinced now Smith, 1930. title, has long been the standard edition in English. that they were closing in on their prey, the two bandits disappearing in the distant The five "masters" are Giovanni Boccaccio, The introduction provides a biographical sketch lawmen prodded their horses to move faster. chaparral. Rowland and the others soon Miguel de Cervantes, Samuel Richardson, Sten­ of Proust's life, an assessment of his rank as a They had proceeded about three miles up the joined Adams and they made a vain attempt dhal, and Marcel Proust, each chosen according to novelist, and describes his narrative method, par­ narrowing canyon when one of the posse to track the two desperados, but the dense the Foreword for their importance in understand­ ticularly the incredible structure of the novels brush and broken terrain soon frustrated ing the history of the novel and also because these where "the themes play about one another like the caught sight of Chavez riding along the crest were the authors who interested Krutch and who motifs of a fugue." of a low hill just ahead. An instant later their efforts. V asq uez and Chavez had promised him "the most pleasure in reading and The American Drama Since 1918: An Informal Chavez sighted the posse and spurred his escaped into the wild and unknown interior in writing about." History. 1939; rev. and expanded ed., New York: horse up and over the ridge, but not before of the San Gabriels. Experience and Art: Some Aspects of the George Braziller, 1957. being nicked in the cheek by a bullet from The disappointed lawmen withdrew down A rather detailed but informal history of the Esthetics of Literature. New York: Harrison Smith Sheriff Adams' rifle. The posse raced up the canyon, their spirits heightened somewhat and Robert Haas, 1932. theater and the playwrights that seemed impor­ Written in Cap d' Antibes while Krutch was on a tant, in Krutch's judgment, from the end of World hillside in hot pursuit but skidded to an when they came across Vasquez's camp, grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, Ex­ War I to 1939 (1956 in the revised edition). Among abrupt halt as bullets began whizzing around obviously abandoned in haste. Here they perience and Art provides a non-technical dis­ the familiar names are Eugene O'Neill, Clifford cussion of the nature of art that the author hoped Odets, S.N. Behrman, and Maxwell Anderson, would be comprehensible to the general reader. plus some not-so-familiar playwrights like Susan According to Krutch, literature not only allows Glaspell, John Wexley, and Edwin Justus Mayer. man to enlarge the scope and quantity of life's Samuel Johnson. New York: Henry Hold, 1944. experiences, but even more importantly to enhance In his autobiography Krutch confesses his long­ the quality of life itself. The writer accomplishes time fascination with the personality, opinions, this by selecting a nd classifying "what nature and genius of Samuel Johnson, and endeavored mingles in hideous confusion," bringing some here to write a full biography that would take order and meaning out of chaos and thereby advantage of the significant knowledge since satisfying "one ofthe mostfundamental of human Boswell's time and put Boswell's contribution in desires - the desire for oneness and harmony." perspective by indicating "it was Johnson who The seven chapters in the book comment addition­ made Boswell's reputation, not Boswell who made ally on the styles of various artists, current tenden­ his." This view, incidentally, is now generally cies in painting and literature, comedy and tragedy, accepted by literary scholars. how art influences behavior, and the function of Henry David Thoreau. New York: William literary criticism. Sloane, 1948. (intro.) Eugene O'Neill, Nine Plays. New York: The first volume in the American Men of Letters Liveright Inc., 1932. Series, this is perhaps the most thoroughly read­ Acknowledging O'Neill to be the most distin­ able and insightful biographical study of Thoreau. guished of the authors who created the serious Joseph Wood Krutch first read Walden in 1930 on American drama, the introduction probes O'Neill's a train trip from Los Angeles to New York, and the life in his formative years, the literary influences experience left "a tremendous impression." Indeed, at work on him, and also analyzes the plays, this was a germinal moment in Krutch's life, and which are "cynically modern in their acceptance the profound influence of Thoreau's philosophy­ of the rationalistic view of man and the universe." and the kinship between these two men - is The nine plays, chosen by O'Neill himself, are evident in much of Krutch's subsequent writing. Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape, All God's Chillun The Twelve Seasons: A Perpetual Calendar for Got Wings, Desire Under the Elms, Marco Millions, the Country. New York: William Sloane, 1949. The Great God Brown, Lazarus Laughed, Strange The first ofthe "nature" books, prompted by the Interlude, and Mourning Becomes Electra. author's observations of nature at his country Was Europe a Success? New York: Farrar and home in Redding, Connecticut. There are twelve Rinehart, 1934. chapters - one for each month - written in the Not a very felicitous or illuminating title for this form of the familiar essay, relaxed, informal, and collection of articles written originally for The rambling delightfully from topic to topic. The Nation. Krutch's thesis is that however defective genesis of this book was Krutch's decision to try Chilao backcountry in the early days, Vasquez's main hideout in the San Gabriel Mountains .

Page Twelve ...... Page Five recovered the eight horses stolen at Tres in the mountains, helpless and alone. (This his position on The Nation, and moved to Pinos, along with a large cache of food and heartless act should dispell any lingering Tucson, Arizona. clothing. The sheriffs then went their sepa· notion that Vasquez was a gallant, Robin From his desert home, Krutch continued rate ways, Rowland trotting back to Los Hood-type folk hero.) Fortunately, Rosaria writing what many feel to be his most power­ Angeles and Adams returning to Monterey. was able to make her way out of the wilder­ ful and enduring work, much of it celebrating During the following month Sheriff Adams, ness and eventually reached her home in the diversity, beauty, and wonder of the acting on information supplied by Abdon San Jose. natural world, and also the joy and meaning Leiva, was able to track down and capture Vasquez and his trusty lieutenant Chavez it can yield to man. After fifty enormously several Vasquez gang members who had rode north to their old hideout in La Cantua productive years and an heroic battle with remained in hiding in San Benito and Canyon, an isolated, rocky gorge in the cancer - at the end refusing to take medica­ Monterey counties. Diablo Range of San Benito County. Here a tion because he typically wanted to keep his A few days after the sheriffs' departure, new gang was recruited, and Vasquez was mind lucid - he died in Tucson on May 22, Vasquez came out of the mountains and soon again front page news. On December 1970. abducted Rosaria at Heffner's ranch. Un­ 26, 1873 he sacked the town of Kingston in doubtedly Rosaria was a willing captive, Fresno County. The tactics ofthe Tres Pinos To the best of my knowledge, the following despite the fact that she later claimed she robbery were repeated; victims were bound bibliography contains those books whose was taken at gunpoint. The romantic couple, on the floor and relieved of their valuables contents Joseph Wood Krutch personally along with trusty Clodovio Chavez, rode and two stores were looted. Over $2,500 in authored, as well as most of the significant back into the San Gabriels to resume their cash and jewelry were seized. works which he provided with an introduction adulterous liaison. Here they remained, in The electrifying news ofthe Kingston raid or edited. The many periodical appearances contented hiding, for more than a month. shocked the state. The sheriffs of Fresno, - among them The Saturday Review, The And it was here that Rosaria became preg­ Tulare, San Joaquin, Santa Clara and Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Joseph Wood Krutch nant. Monterey counties all organized posses to Scholar, Audubon Magazine, Life, even Play· Just where was this mountain hideout hunt the Vasquez gang. The California boy - and the sizable number of volumes to favored by Vasquez and Rosaria? The San legislature empowered Governor Newton which he contributed a chapter or two, are notoriously sensitive a nd sentimental group" Gabriels are dotted with isolated little flats Booth to spend $15,000 to bring the bandit to not included. Although outside the scope of according to Krutch's autobiography. and canyons that, in the 1870's, were un­ justice. In January 1874 the governor offered this bibliography, mention should be made (ed.) The Comedies of William Congreve. New known to the outside world. Will Thrall, late a reward of $3,000 for Vasquez alive and of the fine biographical! critical study by York: Macmillan, 1927. historial of the range, believed the bandit $2,000 for him dead. A month later the John D. Margolis titled Joseph Wood Krutch: The introduction refers to Congreve as the last holed up in the Chilao-Horse Flats region, figures were raised to $8,000 alive or $6,000 A Writer's Life (University of Tennessee, and perhaps the greatest of the Restoration writers of comedy, traces his career, and provides a history deep in the heart of the mountains. Thrall dead. The state's most famous lawman, 1980) and Gerald Green's An American of the plays that are here reprinted: The Old tells why: "East Chilao, now the site of Sheriff Harry Morse of Alameda County, Prophet (Doubleday, 1977) in which Krutch Bachelor, The Double·Dealer, Love for Love, a nd Newcombs Ranch Inn, but then deep in the capturer of Juan Soto and a host of other is the prototype for the central character in The Way of the World. wilderness and little known, made an ideal desperados, was assigned the task of tracking this work of fiction by one of his former The Modern Temper: A Study and a Confession. hideout; the long, narrow valley of West down Vasquez and given $5,000 and a free students at Columbia University. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929. Chilao and Horse Flat with its secret trail hand to do it. Sheriff Morse promptly hand­ The Modern Temper takes for its bleak thesis Comedy and Conscience after the Restoration. the position that the sciences of biology and were both excellent pasture for stolen horses; picked a posse and set out after the bandit. psychology have rendered the universe a place "in and the great boulders of Mount Hillyer Meantime, Vasquez and his cohorts were New York: Columbia University Press, 1924. Krutch's doctoral thesis at Columbia University which the human spirit cnnnot find a comfortable above Horse Flat furnished an impregnable ever on the move. They fled south to Tulare Graduate School is a study of the controversy home." All of our old values - the sense that right fortress if hard-pressed by the law." Lake, spent a few days drinking and carous­ which arose over Jeremy Collier's attack upon the a nd wrong are real entities, the feeling that love is Whether or not they were at Chilao or ing in Panama, a one-horse community near English theater in 1698. By analyzing the general more tha n a biological function, the notion that social and literary history of the times, it traces man is capable of reason, and the belief in free will Horse Flat, or in some other isolated recess of Bakersfield, then rode east toward the Owens - are mere delusions. Despair, not hope, is man's the San Gabriels, Vasquez, Chavez and Valley country. Crossing the mountains, the various influences that contributed to the decline of Restoration Comedy and the rise of lot in this mechanistic, deterministic, materialistic, a nd therefore alien world. As Krutch notes in More Rosaria stayed out of sight for more than a probably via Walker Pass although their Sentimental Comedy. Lives Than One, much of his subsequent writing month. Their whereabouts were totally un­ exact route has never been ascertained, they Edgar Allan Po e: A Study in Genius. New York: known to frustrated lawmen. made a sudden appearance at the Coyote represents "an attempt to climb out ofthe pit into Knopf, 1926. which I had led myself.... " As weeks of inactivity slipped by, Vasquez Holes state station on the well-traveled In this biographical a nd critica l study Krutch grew impatient. A sedentary life was not his wagon route between the Owens Valley mines chose the psychoa nalytical approach - in its (ed.) with The Earl of Birkenhead. Adventures of an Outlaw: The Memoirs of Ralph Rashleigh, a forte; he yearned for action. Early in October and Los Angeles. infancy among critics at the time - because he felt it would be appropriate "on so obviously abnormal Penal Exile in Australia, 1825-1844. New York: 1873, the bandit chief decided to leave his Legend says that the outlaws first surveyed a writer as Poe." Poe, the author states, is a good Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1929. haunt and organize a new band. The presence the busy desert station atop a conspicuous example ofthe essentially neurotic origin of genius. Written under a pseudonym, this is an un­ of the pregnant Rosaria was now an impedi­ rhyolite rock formation a mile or so southwest Rather sympathetic in its treatment, the volume varnished, action·filled narrative of Rashleigh's ment; accordingly Vasquez abandoned her of the settlement. Ever since this rock nonetheless offended many Poe aficionados, "a life of crime in London, his arrest and trial, and his Page Six ...... Page Eleven promontory has been known as Robbers of some $300, stealing a wagon and six Roost. Today it is readily visible to thousands horses from Harper's Stable near present­ J oseph Wood Krutch oftravelers on Highway 14, just southwest of day Acton, and robbing several travelers of the Walker Pass junction. pocket money and watches. During this crime by Anthony L. Lehman From Robbers Roost, the bandits quickly spree, the bandits allegedly hid in the descended to Coyote Holes, planning to seize bouldery badlands just west oflower Soledad and hold the station until the arrival of the Canyon, ever since known as Vasquez Rocks. stage from Owens Lake and the Cerro Gordo Then, for nearly two months, the bandits At first glance, it may seem odd for The Institute. His professional writing career, silver mines. Screeching to a halt just outside disappeared from view. Frantic lawmen and Branding Iron to devote space to a man of which really began when he received his the main building, Vasquez and his men vigilante posses could find no trace of them. letters such as the late Joseph Wood Krutch, first check for an essay he had diffidently fired several shots into the roof and ordered Vasquez later told Ben Truman only that he for not once did he address himself specif­ sent to George Jean Nathan and H.L. the occupants out. A dozen or so meekly "wandered around in the mountains" during ically to subjects dear to the hearts of Mencken at The Smart Set, started in earnest obeyed. The victims were lined up, robbed of this period. It seems likely that he and his Westerners - cowboys, Indians, badmen, at this time, for he was soon submitting their valuables, marched behind a nearby gang retreated into the nearby San Gabriel railroads, overland migration, and the pleth­ articles to Henry Seidel Canby's Saturday hill and tied up. Returning to the station, Mountains, possibly to Chilao. ora of other related topics. Nonetheless, and Literary Supplement of the N ew York Vasquez methodically searched the other Chilao - then in the wild heart of the San despite the decidedly "literary" nature of his Evening Post (later to become The Saturday buildings. In the stable he came across one Gabriels, today easily reached via the earliest writing, the wealth of books he pro­ Review of Literature) as well as contributing W.P. Shore, otherwise known as "Old Texas." Angeles Crest Highway - is steeped in the duced later in his life on Baja California, the book reviews to The Nation. When he replaced Old Texas was roaring drunk, the story goes, legend of Vasquez. Its very name supposedly Grand Canyon, and the deserts of the Ameri­ Ludwig Lewisohn as drama critic for The and objected to the bandit's order to lie down. originated while Vasquez was camped there. can Southwest represent a lasting contribu­ Nation in 1924, he left the academic world, Vasquez shot him in the leg for his trouble. The story goes that one Jose Gonzales, a tion to our understanding and appreciation except for part-time instruction at Vassar Just before sundown the Owens Valley herder in the Vasquez gang, armed only with of this part of our country. Lawrence Clark and the Columbia Journalism School. How­ stage rumbled to a halt outside the station, a knife, killed a huge grizzly bear single­ Powell conveyed the importance of this ever, he returned to teaching when he joined some three hours late on its daily run to Los handedly, thereby gaining the nickname author in words drawn from the memorable the English Department of Columbia Univer­ Angeles. Vasquez and Chavez promptly "Chilleyo," roughly translated "Hot Stuff." essay on Krutch in Southwest Classics: "As sity in 1937, and a few years later he was trained their Henry rifles on the surprised The present name Chilao is said to come Dobie is to Texas so was Krutch to Arizona, a appointed to The Brander Matthews Chair driver and three passengers, one of whom from this exploit. Whether or not this story is not entirely unhonored prophet, although of Dramatic Literature. was Mortimer Belshaw, proprietor of the true, it has become a cherished back country both were ahead of their time." To be com­ In the meantime Krutch had met and rich Cerro Gordo silver mines east of Owens legend. The late Will Thrall, mountain pared to such a Western luminary as J. married Marcelle Leguia, who was to remain Lake. The four were relieved of their valu­ historian extraordinary, wrote in his Frank Dobie surely merits an examination his lifelong companion. He was also busy ables and tied up and the strongbox was "Haunts and Hideouts ofTiburcio Vasquez" of this notable man's writing. attending the theater in New York, writing pried open. Vasquez's expectation offinding that Chilao was the bandit's major hideout Joseph Wood Krutch's autobiography is countless reviews, working on his biography a fortune turned to disgust, however, when in southern California. But strangely, there quite appropriately titled More Lives Than of Edgar Allan Poe and the other publications the box produced very little cash and $10,000 is no mention of Chilao in any of the One, for in his remarkably varied career he that followed, plus taking time out to cover in mining stock certificates, which the dis­ published accounts of Vasquez's career, nor achieved distinction as drama critic, book the Scopes "monkey trial" at Dayton, appointed bandit promptly scattered to the in any contemporary news accounts. Perhaps reviewer, editor, professor, biographer, Tennessee, only about fifty miles from his wind. we will never know the truth. All we can naturalist, and social critic. birthplace. With the publication of The The horses were unhitched and turned document is that the bandit hid somewhere Born in Knoxville in 1893, he graduated Modern Temper in 1929, probably his most loose; Vasquez was taking no chances that in the local mountains for lengthy periods of from the University of Tennessee and entered widely noticed and applauded book, his status he might be followed. Then the bandits time during his last years. the Columbia Graduate School, where he as a prominent writer and thinker was firmly headed south with their meager loot - about While Vasquez was in hiding, on March became a close and lifelong friend with established. $250 in coin, some gold watches and jewelry. 12, 1874, Sheriff Harry Morse took to the fellow student Mark Van Doren. After earn­ Since 1932 Krutch had been spending his Behind them lay twenty bound victims and a field with his hand-picked posse and headed ing a Master's Degree in English and Com­ summers and frequent weekends in an old legacy of fear and apprehension not soon south in search of the outlaw. Over the next parative Literature in 1916, his education house in Redding, Connecticut, enjoying the dispelled. Not for many years would the two months, California's most renowned was temporarily interrupted by a stint in the resustication and the surcease it provided Owens Valley stage travel its lonely desert lawman traveled some 2,720 miles, by his United States Army, but he returned to from the hectic world ofN ew York City. This route without someone riding shotgun along­ own estimation, throughout the southern Columbia where he was awarded his Ph.D. time in the country was also a turning point side the driver. halfofthe state in a fruitless effort to quarry in 1919 for a dissertation on Restoration in his career, for it ultimately led - after a Vasquez and his men rode south to their Vasquez. But Sheriff Morse must be credited Comedy. biography of fellow New Englander Henry familiar haunt of Elizabeth Lake, then on to with supplying a clue that later led to the A wanderjahr in Europe followed, and David Thoreau - to his first nature book, , fifty miles from Los bandit's demise, as we shall soon see. upon Krutch's return to America he took a The Twelve Seasons, published in 1949. Three Angeles. Here they conducted a briefreign of Part II - The Capture of Tiburico Vasquez will teaching position at Brooklyn Polytechnic years later he retired from teaching, gave up terror, relieving a Los Angeles-bound stage continue in the December issue. ... Page Seven Page Ten . . . Corral Chips continued ... Currie, Everett Hager and Walt Wheelock, with Associates Bill Lorenz, Victor Plukas JULY AUGUST sion on April 24, with performances by the and John Swingle. C.M.'s present were: Elisabeth Waldo Ensemble.. .. A dozen Katherine Ainsworth, Anna Marie Hager U.S.C. geography professor Ronald F. Ernest Allen Lewis, author of The Fremont Westerners attended the Conference of Cali­ and Joseph Northrop. Missing were Active Lockmann, author of Guarding the Forests Cannon: High Up and Far Back, recently fornia Historical Societies at Paradise, Cali­ members: Bob Scherrer and Henry Welcome. of Southern California, recently published published by the Arthur H. Clark Company, fornia, June 24-26, including six members of by the Arthur H. Clark Company, addressed addressed the Corral on the fascinating the Los Angeles Corral: Bill Burkhart, Henry the Corral on the topic "Were Southern question of what happened to, and where is, Welcome, Dwight Cushman, A.M. Don California's Forests Worth Preserving?" the brass cannon abandoned by the Fremont Pflueger, and C.M.'s Joe Doctor and Joe Since only about 25% of the San Gabriel expedition on January 29,1844. This famous l Northrop ... Mountains is true forest, the fact that the mystery stands second only to the contro­ J San Gabriel Forest Reserve (now the Angeles versial Drake's plate of brass in the pantheon .. National Forest) was the second such reserve of missing artifacts in Western history . created in the United States merits attention. Utilizing an excellent series of slides, Lewis 20th California Symposium Lockmann answered this question through demonstrated the difficulties involved in commentary on a series of slides illustrating exploring the region around Mount 8422, The 20th Baja California Symposium was obstacles ranging from biting ants to biting held in the little border town of Tecate, noted cold. The cannon at the Nevada Museum at for its excellent spring waters and the huge Photograph - Frank Newton Carson City, argues Lewis, has been mis­ brewery that supplies another type of identified as the lost cannon; erroneous moistener for the palate - Cervaza. THE MDNTHLY nDUN~UP accounts of the whereabouts of the true Two former Sheriffs, Glen Dawson and cannon have stained the historical literature. William Hendricks conceived a plan for Lewis indicated the many questions that sharing historical information with Baja JUNE underlie the mystery of the missing cannon California friends and to hold meetings or - why did Fremont drag the cannon across sessions on either side of the International The Annual Fandango, the only Corral the country; what use had he planned for it; Border. The first such meeting was held in EI event where members may bring people of why has it remained lost. Fremont's cannon Alisal, in Highland Park, with Drs. Martinez the opposite sex, was held at Heritage Square is still lost, 138 years after its abandonment and Valenzuela along with some other Baja at the Arroyo Seco on June 12. In many in one of the most inaccessible places in the friends attending. Other former Sheriffs who ways the event proved memorable; the late West. attended that early formative venture in­ arrival of the catering truck was balanced cluded Everett Hager, John Kemble and Don with good cheer by Sheriff Bill Escherich's Meadows. announcement of free drinks. Tours of the From that small beginning of a group historic building made visitors a ware of the Deputy Sheriff Powell Greenland, speaker Ronald F. Lockmann, a nd Sheriff Bill Escherich. probably not more than 22 the Symposium, quality of restoration being done while at the Brand Book 1 7 this year (May 24-25), saw about 130 to 135 same time called attention to the continuing in attendance. challenges and the potential value of restor­ Konnie Schreier, Editor of our Corral's Brand Other interesting places where the Sym­ ing additional structures. Book 17, is looking for contributors. No. 17 posium has met would include: La Paz, will be a "theme" Brand Book on transporta­

Mexicali, Guaymas, Tijuana and Ensenada, Photograph ~ Frank Newton the mountains of Southern California - the tion and communication in the Far West. to mention a few and in the United States, . Early surveys claimed Articles are needed which relate to the theme Los Angeles, Riverside, Irvine and San the forests were abundant, a claim disputed in about any way to anything from the sea, Bernardino. The programs are in Spanish by surveys made at the turn of the century. roads and trails, rivers or rails, freight, and in English with translations of each These showed the true forests to be quite express, mail, telephone, telegraph, and more. lecture or slide presentation, printed before limited. People have found the mountain Long, short and in between length contribu­ the official meeting begins. It is a most regions lacking in color and have often tions are needed. If you have something worthwhile person-to-person effort and the thought in terms of how a forest ought to which could fit, Konnie would like to hear sharing of historical knowledge and publi­ look out here rather than accept the way about it. Send him a brief idea sketch, an cations brings about a better source of direct nature created it. But, notes Lockmann, the ou tline, or even a draft if you have one. If you information for interested individuals on forests and chaparral of Southern California want to ask him more about what he is after both sides of the Border. may be appreciated for their own values, a call him at (213) 476-1430 or drop him a line This year other Active members ofthe Los unique attraction accessible to the residents at 1639 Mandeville Canyon Road, Los Angeles Corral attending included: James Fandango at Heritage Square. of Southern California. Angeles, California 90049 ...

Page Eight ...... Page Nine Corral Chips continued ... Currie, Everett Hager and Walt Wheelock, with Associates Bill Lorenz, Victor Plukas JULY AUGUST sion on April 24, with performances by the and John Swingle. C.M.'s present were: Elisabeth Waldo Ensemble.. .. A dozen Katherine Ainsworth, Anna Marie Hager U.S.C. geography professor Ronald F. Ernest Allen Lewis, author of The Fremont Westerners attended the Conference of Cali­ and Joseph Northrop. Missing were Active Lockmann, author of Guarding the Forests Cannon: High Up and Far Back, recently fornia Historical Societies at Paradise, Cali­ members: Bob Scherrer and Henry Welcome. of Southern California, recently published published by the Arthur H. Clark Company, fornia, June 24-26, including six members of by the Arthur H. Clark Company, addressed addressed the Corral on the fascinating the Los Angeles Corral: Bill Burkhart, Henry the Corral on the topic "Were Southern question of what happened to, and where is, Welcome, Dwight Cushman, A.M. Don California's Forests Worth Preserving?" the brass cannon abandoned by the Fremont Pflueger, and C.M.'s Joe Doctor and Joe Since only about 25% of the San Gabriel expedition on January 29,1844. This famous l Northrop ... Mountains is true forest, the fact that the mystery stands second only to the contro­ J San Gabriel Forest Reserve (now the Angeles versial Drake's plate of brass in the pantheon .. National Forest) was the second such reserve of missing artifacts in Western history . created in the United States merits attention. Utilizing an excellent series of slides, Lewis 20th California Symposium Lockmann answered this question through demonstrated the difficulties involved in commentary on a series of slides illustrating exploring the region around Mount 8422, The 20th Baja California Symposium was obstacles ranging from biting ants to biting held in the little border town of Tecate, noted cold. The cannon at the Nevada Museum at for its excellent spring waters and the huge Photograph - Frank Newton Carson City, argues Lewis, has been mis­ brewery that supplies another type of identified as the lost cannon; erroneous moistener for the palate - Cervaza. THE MDNTHLY nDUN~UP accounts of the whereabouts of the true Two former Sheriffs, Glen Dawson and cannon have stained the historical literature. William Hendricks conceived a plan for Lewis indicated the many questions that sharing historical information with Baja JUNE underlie the mystery of the missing cannon California friends and to hold meetings or - why did Fremont drag the cannon across sessions on either side of the International The Annual Fandango, the only Corral the country; what use had he planned for it; Border. The first such meeting was held in EI event where members may bring people of why has it remained lost. Fremont's cannon Alisal, in Highland Park, with Drs. Martinez the opposite sex, was held at Heritage Square is still lost, 138 years after its abandonment and Valenzuela along with some other Baja at the Arroyo Seco on June 12. In many in one of the most inaccessible places in the friends attending. Other former Sheriffs who ways the event proved memorable; the late West. attended that early formative venture in­ arrival of the catering truck was balanced cluded Everett Hager, John Kemble and Don with good cheer by Sheriff Bill Escherich's Meadows. announcement of free drinks. Tours of the From that small beginning of a group historic building made visitors a ware of the Deputy Sheriff Powell Greenland, speaker Ronald F. Lockmann, a nd Sheriff Bill Escherich. probably not more than 22 the Symposium, quality of restoration being done while at the Brand Book 1 7 this year (May 24-25), saw about 130 to 135 same time called attention to the continuing in attendance. challenges and the potential value of restor­ Konnie Schreier, Editor of our Corral's Brand Other interesting places where the Sym­ ing additional structures. Book 17, is looking for contributors. No. 17 posium has met would include: La Paz, will be a "theme" Brand Book on transporta­

Mexicali, Guaymas, Tijuana and Ensenada, Photograph ~ Frank Newton the mountains of Southern California - the tion and communication in the Far West. to mention a few and in the United States, transverse ranges. Early surveys claimed Articles are needed which relate to the theme Los Angeles, Riverside, Irvine and San the forests were abundant, a claim disputed in about any way to anything from the sea, Bernardino. The programs are in Spanish by surveys made at the turn of the century. roads and trails, rivers or rails, freight, and in English with translations of each These showed the true forests to be quite express, mail, telephone, telegraph, and more. lecture or slide presentation, printed before limited. People have found the mountain Long, short and in between length contribu­ the official meeting begins. It is a most regions lacking in color and have often tions are needed. If you have something worthwhile person-to-person effort and the thought in terms of how a forest ought to which could fit, Konnie would like to hear sharing of historical knowledge and publi­ look out here rather than accept the way about it. Send him a brief idea sketch, an cations brings about a better source of direct nature created it. But, notes Lockmann, the ou tline, or even a draft if you have one. If you information for interested individuals on forests and chaparral of Southern California want to ask him more about what he is after both sides of the Border. may be appreciated for their own values, a call him at (213) 476-1430 or drop him a line This year other Active members ofthe Los unique attraction accessible to the residents at 1639 Mandeville Canyon Road, Los Angeles Corral attending included: James Fandango at Heritage Square. of Southern California. Angeles, California 90049 ...

Page Eight ...... Page Nine promontory has been known as Robbers of some $300, stealing a wagon and six Roost. Today it is readily visible to thousands horses from Harper's Stable near present­ J oseph Wood Krutch oftravelers on Highway 14, just southwest of day Acton, and robbing several travelers of the Walker Pass junction. pocket money and watches. During this crime by Anthony L. Lehman From Robbers Roost, the bandits quickly spree, the bandits allegedly hid in the descended to Coyote Holes, planning to seize bouldery badlands just west oflower Soledad and hold the station until the arrival of the Canyon, ever since known as Vasquez Rocks. stage from Owens Lake and the Cerro Gordo Then, for nearly two months, the bandits At first glance, it may seem odd for The Institute. His professional writing career, silver mines. Screeching to a halt just outside disappeared from view. Frantic lawmen and Branding Iron to devote space to a man of which really began when he received his the main building, Vasquez and his men vigilante posses could find no trace of them. letters such as the late Joseph Wood Krutch, first check for an essay he had diffidently fired several shots into the roof and ordered Vasquez later told Ben Truman only that he for not once did he address himself specif­ sent to George Jean Nathan and H.L. the occupants out. A dozen or so meekly "wandered around in the mountains" during ically to subjects dear to the hearts of Mencken at The Smart Set, started in earnest obeyed. The victims were lined up, robbed of this period. It seems likely that he and his Westerners - cowboys, Indians, badmen, at this time, for he was soon submitting their valuables, marched behind a nearby gang retreated into the nearby San Gabriel railroads, overland migration, and the pleth­ articles to Henry Seidel Canby's Saturday hill and tied up. Returning to the station, Mountains, possibly to Chilao. ora of other related topics. Nonetheless, and Literary Supplement of the N ew York Vasquez methodically searched the other Chilao - then in the wild heart of the San despite the decidedly "literary" nature of his Evening Post (later to become The Saturday buildings. In the stable he came across one Gabriels, today easily reached via the earliest writing, the wealth of books he pro­ Review of Literature) as well as contributing W.P. Shore, otherwise known as "Old Texas." Angeles Crest Highway - is steeped in the duced later in his life on Baja California, the book reviews to The Nation. When he replaced Old Texas was roaring drunk, the story goes, legend of Vasquez. Its very name supposedly Grand Canyon, and the deserts of the Ameri­ Ludwig Lewisohn as drama critic for The and objected to the bandit's order to lie down. originated while Vasquez was camped there. can Southwest represent a lasting contribu­ Nation in 1924, he left the academic world, Vasquez shot him in the leg for his trouble. The story goes that one Jose Gonzales, a tion to our understanding and appreciation except for part-time instruction at Vassar Just before sundown the Owens Valley herder in the Vasquez gang, armed only with of this part of our country. Lawrence Clark and the Columbia Journalism School. How­ stage rumbled to a halt outside the station, a knife, killed a huge grizzly bear single­ Powell conveyed the importance of this ever, he returned to teaching when he joined some three hours late on its daily run to Los handedly, thereby gaining the nickname author in words drawn from the memorable the English Department of Columbia Univer­ Angeles. Vasquez and Chavez promptly "Chilleyo," roughly translated "Hot Stuff." essay on Krutch in Southwest Classics: "As sity in 1937, and a few years later he was trained their Henry rifles on the surprised The present name Chilao is said to come Dobie is to Texas so was Krutch to Arizona, a appointed to The Brander Matthews Chair driver and three passengers, one of whom from this exploit. Whether or not this story is not entirely unhonored prophet, although of Dramatic Literature. was Mortimer Belshaw, proprietor of the true, it has become a cherished back country both were ahead of their time." To be com­ In the meantime Krutch had met and rich Cerro Gordo silver mines east of Owens legend. The late Will Thrall, mountain pared to such a Western luminary as J. married Marcelle Leguia, who was to remain Lake. The four were relieved of their valu­ historian extraordinary, wrote in his Frank Dobie surely merits an examination his lifelong companion. He was also busy ables and tied up and the strongbox was "Haunts and Hideouts ofTiburcio Vasquez" of this notable man's writing. attending the theater in New York, writing pried open. Vasquez's expectation offinding that Chilao was the bandit's major hideout Joseph Wood Krutch's autobiography is countless reviews, working on his biography a fortune turned to disgust, however, when in southern California. But strangely, there quite appropriately titled More Lives Than of Edgar Allan Poe and the other publications the box produced very little cash and $10,000 is no mention of Chilao in any of the One, for in his remarkably varied career he that followed, plus taking time out to cover in mining stock certificates, which the dis­ published accounts of Vasquez's career, nor achieved distinction as drama critic, book the Scopes "monkey trial" at Dayton, appointed bandit promptly scattered to the in any contemporary news accounts. Perhaps reviewer, editor, professor, biographer, Tennessee, only about fifty miles from his wind. we will never know the truth. All we can naturalist, and social critic. birthplace. With the publication of The The horses were unhitched and turned document is that the bandit hid somewhere Born in Knoxville in 1893, he graduated Modern Temper in 1929, probably his most loose; Vasquez was taking no chances that in the local mountains for lengthy periods of from the University of Tennessee and entered widely noticed and applauded book, his status he might be followed. Then the bandits time during his last years. the Columbia Graduate School, where he as a prominent writer and thinker was firmly headed south with their meager loot - about While Vasquez was in hiding, on March became a close and lifelong friend with established. $250 in coin, some gold watches and jewelry. 12, 1874, Sheriff Harry Morse took to the fellow student Mark Van Doren. After earn­ Since 1932 Krutch had been spending his Behind them lay twenty bound victims and a field with his hand-picked posse and headed ing a Master's Degree in English and Com­ summers and frequent weekends in an old legacy of fear and apprehension not soon south in search of the outlaw. Over the next parative Literature in 1916, his education house in Redding, Connecticut, enjoying the dispelled. Not for many years would the two months, California's most renowned was temporarily interrupted by a stint in the resustication and the surcease it provided Owens Valley stage travel its lonely desert lawman traveled some 2,720 miles, by his United States Army, but he returned to from the hectic world ofN ew York City. This route without someone riding shotgun along­ own estimation, throughout the southern Columbia where he was awarded his Ph.D. time in the country was also a turning point side the driver. halfofthe state in a fruitless effort to quarry in 1919 for a dissertation on Restoration in his career, for it ultimately led - after a Vasquez and his men rode south to their Vasquez. But Sheriff Morse must be credited Comedy. biography of fellow New Englander Henry familiar haunt of Elizabeth Lake, then on to with supplying a clue that later led to the A wanderjahr in Europe followed, and David Thoreau - to his first nature book, Soledad Canyon, fifty miles from Los bandit's demise, as we shall soon see. upon Krutch's return to America he took a The Twelve Seasons, published in 1949. Three Angeles. Here they conducted a briefreign of Part II - The Capture of Tiburico Vasquez will teaching position at Brooklyn Polytechnic years later he retired from teaching, gave up terror, relieving a Los Angeles-bound stage continue in the December issue. ... Page Seven Page Ten . . . recovered the eight horses stolen at Tres in the mountains, helpless and alone. (This his position on The Nation, and moved to Pinos, along with a large cache of food and heartless act should dispell any lingering Tucson, Arizona. clothing. The sheriffs then went their sepa· notion that Vasquez was a gallant, Robin From his desert home, Krutch continued rate ways, Rowland trotting back to Los Hood-type folk hero.) Fortunately, Rosaria writing what many feel to be his most power­ Angeles and Adams returning to Monterey. was able to make her way out of the wilder­ ful and enduring work, much of it celebrating During the following month Sheriff Adams, ness and eventually reached her home in the diversity, beauty, and wonder of the acting on information supplied by Abdon San Jose. natural world, and also the joy and meaning Leiva, was able to track down and capture Vasquez and his trusty lieutenant Chavez it can yield to man. After fifty enormously several Vasquez gang members who had rode north to their old hideout in La Cantua productive years and an heroic battle with remained in hiding in San Benito and Canyon, an isolated, rocky gorge in the cancer - at the end refusing to take medica­ Monterey counties. Diablo Range of San Benito County. Here a tion because he typically wanted to keep his A few days after the sheriffs' departure, new gang was recruited, and Vasquez was mind lucid - he died in Tucson on May 22, Vasquez came out of the mountains and soon again front page news. On December 1970. abducted Rosaria at Heffner's ranch. Un­ 26, 1873 he sacked the town of Kingston in doubtedly Rosaria was a willing captive, Fresno County. The tactics ofthe Tres Pinos To the best of my knowledge, the following despite the fact that she later claimed she robbery were repeated; victims were bound bibliography contains those books whose was taken at gunpoint. The romantic couple, on the floor and relieved of their valuables contents Joseph Wood Krutch personally along with trusty Clodovio Chavez, rode and two stores were looted. Over $2,500 in authored, as well as most of the significant back into the San Gabriels to resume their cash and jewelry were seized. works which he provided with an introduction adulterous liaison. Here they remained, in The electrifying news ofthe Kingston raid or edited. The many periodical appearances contented hiding, for more than a month. shocked the state. The sheriffs of Fresno, - among them The Saturday Review, The And it was here that Rosaria became preg­ Tulare, San Joaquin, Santa Clara and Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Joseph Wood Krutch nant. Monterey counties all organized posses to Scholar, Audubon Magazine, Life, even Play· Just where was this mountain hideout hunt the Vasquez gang. The California boy - and the sizable number of volumes to favored by Vasquez and Rosaria? The San legislature empowered Governor Newton which he contributed a chapter or two, are notoriously sensitive a nd sentimental group" Gabriels are dotted with isolated little flats Booth to spend $15,000 to bring the bandit to not included. Although outside the scope of according to Krutch's autobiography. and canyons that, in the 1870's, were un­ justice. In January 1874 the governor offered this bibliography, mention should be made (ed.) The Comedies of William Congreve. New known to the outside world. Will Thrall, late a reward of $3,000 for Vasquez alive and of the fine biographical! critical study by York: Macmillan, 1927. historial of the range, believed the bandit $2,000 for him dead. A month later the John D. Margolis titled Joseph Wood Krutch: The introduction refers to Congreve as the last holed up in the Chilao-Horse Flats region, figures were raised to $8,000 alive or $6,000 A Writer's Life (University of Tennessee, and perhaps the greatest of the Restoration writers of comedy, traces his career, and provides a history deep in the heart of the mountains. Thrall dead. The state's most famous lawman, 1980) and Gerald Green's An American of the plays that are here reprinted: The Old tells why: "East Chilao, now the site of Sheriff Harry Morse of Alameda County, Prophet (Doubleday, 1977) in which Krutch Bachelor, The Double·Dealer, Love for Love, a nd Newcombs Ranch Inn, but then deep in the capturer of Juan Soto and a host of other is the prototype for the central character in The Way of the World. wilderness and little known, made an ideal desperados, was assigned the task of tracking this work of fiction by one of his former The Modern Temper: A Study and a Confession. hideout; the long, narrow valley of West down Vasquez and given $5,000 and a free students at Columbia University. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929. Chilao and Horse Flat with its secret trail hand to do it. Sheriff Morse promptly hand­ The Modern Temper takes for its bleak thesis Comedy and Conscience after the Restoration. the position that the sciences of biology and were both excellent pasture for stolen horses; picked a posse and set out after the bandit. psychology have rendered the universe a place "in and the great boulders of Mount Hillyer Meantime, Vasquez and his cohorts were New York: Columbia University Press, 1924. Krutch's doctoral thesis at Columbia University which the human spirit cnnnot find a comfortable above Horse Flat furnished an impregnable ever on the move. They fled south to Tulare Graduate School is a study of the controversy home." All of our old values - the sense that right fortress if hard-pressed by the law." Lake, spent a few days drinking and carous­ which arose over Jeremy Collier's attack upon the a nd wrong are real entities, the feeling that love is Whether or not they were at Chilao or ing in Panama, a one-horse community near English theater in 1698. By analyzing the general more tha n a biological function, the notion that social and literary history of the times, it traces man is capable of reason, and the belief in free will Horse Flat, or in some other isolated recess of Bakersfield, then rode east toward the Owens - are mere delusions. Despair, not hope, is man's the San Gabriels, Vasquez, Chavez and Valley country. Crossing the mountains, the various influences that contributed to the decline of Restoration Comedy and the rise of lot in this mechanistic, deterministic, materialistic, a nd therefore alien world. As Krutch notes in More Rosaria stayed out of sight for more than a probably via Walker Pass although their Sentimental Comedy. Lives Than One, much of his subsequent writing month. Their whereabouts were totally un­ exact route has never been ascertained, they Edgar Allan Po e: A Study in Genius. New York: known to frustrated lawmen. made a sudden appearance at the Coyote represents "an attempt to climb out ofthe pit into Knopf, 1926. which I had led myself.... " As weeks of inactivity slipped by, Vasquez Holes state station on the well-traveled In this biographical a nd critica l study Krutch grew impatient. A sedentary life was not his wagon route between the Owens Valley mines chose the psychoa nalytical approach - in its (ed.) with The Earl of Birkenhead. Adventures of an Outlaw: The Memoirs of Ralph Rashleigh, a forte; he yearned for action. Early in October and Los Angeles. infancy among critics at the time - because he felt it would be appropriate "on so obviously abnormal Penal Exile in Australia, 1825-1844. New York: 1873, the bandit chief decided to leave his Legend says that the outlaws first surveyed a writer as Poe." Poe, the author states, is a good Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1929. haunt and organize a new band. The presence the busy desert station atop a conspicuous example ofthe essentially neurotic origin of genius. Written under a pseudonym, this is an un­ of the pregnant Rosaria was now an impedi­ rhyolite rock formation a mile or so southwest Rather sympathetic in its treatment, the volume varnished, action·filled narrative of Rashleigh's ment; accordingly Vasquez abandoned her of the settlement. Ever since this rock nonetheless offended many Poe aficionados, "a life of crime in London, his arrest and trial, and his Page Six ...... Page Eleven transportation to penal exile in New South Wales. the political and economic systems of Europe h ave Station and questioned the prisoner at length. their heads. Vasquez and Chavez were firing There he was subject to the brutal and sadistic been, European civilization has been a success in From him, the lawmen learned of Vasquez's at them from behind clumps of boulders. overseers of a prison work gang, escaped from the terms of its achievements in science, philosophy, hiding place on Little Rock Creek and laid Adams urged an immediate charge to dis­ Bushrangers who had kidnapped him from his and art. The proposed Communist remedies for lodge the outlaws, but Rowland and the rest Australian master, and lived among the aboriginal the defects of the 1930' s, on the other hand, would plans to snare him. tribesmen, at whose hands he was ultimately deprive Western Civilization of the liberties and The two sheriffs and their posse made of the posse showed more desire to shield killed after having received a conditional pardon the values that have led to its cultural accom­ haste to the mouth of Little Rock Creek, themselves from the flying lead. Furious at for his crimes. Never a dull moment in this well­ plishments. where they discovered fresh tracks leading the "procastination" of his cohorts, the written tale, but certainly an oddity in a Krutch (intro.) Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things up canyon. A short distance farther they Monterey County sheriff opted to go it alone. bibliography. Past. New York: Random House, 1934. came across ashes from a recent campfire During a lull in the action he dashed up the Five Masters: A Study in the Mutations of the This translation by C.K. Scott Moncrieff of hill, reaching the crest just in time to see the Novel. New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Proust's seven novels, brough t together under one and a ~ache offood supplies. Convinced now Smith, 1930. title, has long been the standard edition in English. that they were closing in on their prey, the two bandits disappearing in the distant The five "masters" are Giovanni Boccaccio, The introduction provides a biographical sketch lawmen prodded their horses to move faster. chaparral. Rowland and the others soon Miguel de Cervantes, Samuel Richardson, Sten­ of Proust's life, an assessment of his rank as a They had proceeded about three miles up the joined Adams and they made a vain attempt dhal, and Marcel Proust, each chosen according to novelist, and describes his narrative method, par­ narrowing canyon when one of the posse to track the two desperados, but the dense the Foreword for their importance in understand­ ticularly the incredible structure of the novels brush and broken terrain soon frustrated ing the history of the novel and also because these where "the themes play about one another like the caught sight of Chavez riding along the crest were the authors who interested Krutch and who motifs of a fugue." of a low hill just ahead. An instant later their efforts. V asq uez and Chavez had promised him "the most pleasure in reading and The American Drama Since 1918: An Informal Chavez sighted the posse and spurred his escaped into the wild and unknown interior in writing about." History. 1939; rev. and expanded ed., New York: horse up and over the ridge, but not before of the San Gabriels. Experience and Art: Some Aspects of the George Braziller, 1957. being nicked in the cheek by a bullet from The disappointed lawmen withdrew down A rather detailed but informal history of the Esthetics of Literature. New York: Harrison Smith Sheriff Adams' rifle. The posse raced up the canyon, their spirits heightened somewhat and Robert Haas, 1932. theater and the playwrights that seemed impor­ Written in Cap d' Antibes while Krutch was on a tant, in Krutch's judgment, from the end of World hillside in hot pursuit but skidded to an when they came across Vasquez's camp, grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, Ex­ War I to 1939 (1956 in the revised edition). Among abrupt halt as bullets began whizzing around obviously abandoned in haste. Here they perience and Art provides a non-technical dis­ the familiar names are Eugene O'Neill, Clifford cussion of the nature of art that the author hoped Odets, S.N. Behrman, and Maxwell Anderson, would be comprehensible to the general reader. plus some not-so-familiar playwrights like Susan According to Krutch, literature not only allows Glaspell, John Wexley, and Edwin Justus Mayer. man to enlarge the scope and quantity of life's Samuel Johnson. New York: Henry Hold, 1944. experiences, but even more importantly to enhance In his autobiography Krutch confesses his long­ the quality of life itself. The writer accomplishes time fascination with the personality, opinions, this by selecting a nd classifying "what nature and genius of Samuel Johnson, and endeavored mingles in hideous confusion," bringing some here to write a full biography that would take order and meaning out of chaos and thereby advantage of the significant knowledge since satisfying "one ofthe mostfundamental of human Boswell's time and put Boswell's contribution in desires - the desire for oneness and harmony." perspective by indicating "it was Johnson who The seven chapters in the book comment addition­ made Boswell's reputation, not Boswell who made ally on the styles of various artists, current tenden­ his." This view, incidentally, is now generally cies in painting and literature, comedy and tragedy, accepted by literary scholars. how art influences behavior, and the function of Henry David Thoreau. New York: William literary criticism. Sloane, 1948. (intro.) Eugene O'Neill, Nine Plays. New York: The first volume in the American Men of Letters Liveright Inc., 1932. Series, this is perhaps the most thoroughly read­ Acknowledging O'Neill to be the most distin­ able and insightful biographical study of Thoreau. guished of the authors who created the serious Joseph Wood Krutch first read Walden in 1930 on American drama, the introduction probes O'Neill's a train trip from Los Angeles to New York, and the life in his formative years, the literary influences experience left "a tremendous impression." Indeed, at work on him, and also analyzes the plays, this was a germinal moment in Krutch's life, and which are "cynically modern in their acceptance the profound influence of Thoreau's philosophy­ of the rationalistic view of man and the universe." and the kinship between these two men - is The nine plays, chosen by O'Neill himself, are evident in much of Krutch's subsequent writing. Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape, All God's Chillun The Twelve Seasons: A Perpetual Calendar for Got Wings, Desire Under the Elms, Marco Millions, the Country. New York: William Sloane, 1949. The Great God Brown, Lazarus Laughed, Strange The first ofthe "nature" books, prompted by the Interlude, and Mourning Becomes Electra. author's observations of nature at his country Was Europe a Success? New York: Farrar and home in Redding, Connecticut. There are twelve Rinehart, 1934. chapters - one for each month - written in the Not a very felicitous or illuminating title for this form of the familiar essay, relaxed, informal, and collection of articles written originally for The rambling delightfully from topic to topic. The Nation. Krutch's thesis is that however defective genesis of this book was Krutch's decision to try Chilao backcountry in the early days, Vasquez's main hideout in the San Gabriel Mountains .

Page Twelve ...... Page Five rustling, rebranding and selling hundreds of bandit chief returned to the ranch numerous his hand at nature writing with an essay on Pirandello, and Synge. Krutch traces modern animals. In the spring of 1857 he made his times during his sojourns in southern spring. The other eleven essays followed in the attitudes as they are apparent in modern drama, first mistake. After rustling a herd of horses California.) astonishingly short span of only nine months. particularly man's "sense of alienation in a world from a ranch near Newhall in Los Angeles From Heffner's, Vasquez and his small Each chapter chronicles the pleasure and meaning that has defeated humanistic values." derived from considering the commonplace natural County, he tried to sell them too soon. He and party rode southeast along the northern The Best of Two Worlds. New York: William phenomena that occur in the cycles of nature. a companion were apprehended by a sheriffs foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains to Sloane, 1953. (ed.) Great American Nature Writing. New York: With homes in both New York City and Redding, posse. Vasquez's compadre turned state's Little Rock Creek. Here they decided to hide William Sloane, 1950. Connecticut, Krutch was able to appreciate two evidence and went free, while Tiburcio was out, believing this isolated mountain canyon An anthology from Thoreau to the present, different environments - the intellectual and sentenced to five years in San Quentin. was secure from the law. including such writers as John Burroughs, Mary cultural stimulus of the man-made world of the For the next decade and a half, Vasquez Unknown to the bandit, Sheriff Adams of Austin, Edwin Way Teale, Ernest Thompson Seton, city, as well as the pleasure and understanding the Donald Culross Peattie, and Krutch himself. The natural world provides to the country dweller. The went through a checkered career as a holdup Monterey County was hot on his trail. The prologue to the book is an excellent and lengthy focus in this gathering of twelve essays, predict­ man, stage robber and horsethief, punctuated determined lawman, through diligent detec­ seventy-eight page essay on the different ways ably, is on the latter. by several half-hearted attempts at an honest tive work, was able to trace Vasquez south that man has chosen to view nature over the The Measure of Man: On Freedom, Human life. Almost all of his escapades took place in across the Tehachapis to Elizabeth Lake. centuries. Values, Survival, and the Modern Temper. New central California, from Sonoma County Here he learned that the outlaw and part of The Last Boswell Paper. Woodstock, Vermont: York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1954. south into the San Joaquin Valley. He his gang were hiding out in the nearby Elm Tree Press, 1951. Winner of the National Book Award for Non­ Written in the form of a play - with Dr. Samuel Fiction in 1954, this work should be read as a allegedly committed som of his crimes in the mountains. Adams summoned Sheriff Johnson, Henry David Thoreau, and James companion piece to The Modern Temperinasmuch company of two other infamous California William Rowland of Los Angeles County for Boswell as characters - this work originally as the author seeks to refute his own earlier ban didos - Tomas Redondo, alias Procopio help. Two days later Rowland arrived with appeared in The Saturday Review of Literature pessimism. Darwin, Marx, and Freud all con­ or Red-Handed Dick, and the blood-thirsty six deputies and an Indian guide. Together, and was printed in this format for Philip C. tributed to our loss of confidence in man as more villain Juan Soto. He was in and out of San the lawmen searched the hills south of Duschnes of N ew York in an edition of 660 copies. than the helpless victim of circumstance. We are Johnson and Thoreau exchanged their differing therefore lost unless we can believe in a "minimal Quentin three times during this period. Elizabeth Lake. viewpoints on such themes as the merits of the man" that can reason not just rationalize, that Until 1873 Tiburcio Vasquez was just one While Adam and Rowland were scouring metropolis versus the country, society versus soli­ can exercise some sort of will and choice, and that of several California bandidos sought after the hills a few miles away, Vasquez's tude, etc. On the whole a surprisingly dull piece, can make value judgments. by lawmen. His fame was nowhere near that amorous impulses almost brought his demise notable for its stilted dialogue in the form of (intro.) Ann Woodin, Home Is the Desert. New ofthe legendary Joaquin Murietta. Then, in then and there. For some time he had been numerous actual quotations from the two men. York: Macmillan, 1954. August of that year, Vasquez and his gang unusually attentive to Rosaria Leiva, The Desert Year. New York: William Sloane, A delightful book about the Woodin family's veritable home menagerie, which included a commi tted a dastardly crime in Tres Pinos, a Abdon's 25-year-old wife, described by con­ 1952. The record of a sixteen month sabbatical leave German shepherd, numerous bobcats, an occa­ small town six miles south of Hollister in temporaries as "plump, healthy and passably in 1950-51 spentin Tucson, to which Krutch would sional wolf or coyote, peccary or raven, an owl or San Benito County. In a raid on the com­ good-looking." Her husband suspected but return two years later and settle down for the two, many snakes, lizards, tarantulas, ground munity, three citizens were murdered and had not been able to prove an adulterous remainder of his life. This volume of sixteen squirrels, and even an alligator. The author's $200 in gold was stolen. News of the Tres relationship between his wife and the bandit essays delineates his love affair with the desert, husband was Director of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson and, in part because of Krutch's Pinos raid spread throughout northern and chief. While in camp on Little Rock Creek, whose flora and fauna contrasted so markedly and delightfully with that of his familiar New involvement with the museum, the Woodins and central California and made Vasquez's name Vasquez sent Abdon to Elizabeth Lake for England. As in all of Krutch's nature books, the the Krutches became good friends. a household word. Governor Newton Booth provisions. Suspicious of Vasquez's motives, reader is rewarded two-fold: by an exact, sensitive, The Voice of the Desert: A Naturalist's Interpre­ offered a thousand dollar reward for the Abdon obtained the supplies at a nearby and appreciative observation of the natural world, tation. New York: William Sloane, 1955. bandit's apprehension, a sum that would ranch and hurried back to camp. His fears coupled with the profound insights into the nature Written five years after moving to Tucson, this of man and society which it inspires. is Krutch's paean of praise to the desert by one of its shortly increase manyfold, and a number of were confirmed; he found the romantic couple partisans. Around the kangaroo rat, roadrunner, sheriffs posses were sent out. in what Vasquez later admitted was a (ed. and intro.) The Selected Letters of Thomas Gray. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc., spadefoot toad, saguaro, yucca, and the other Northern California was too hot for "fragrante delicto," or sexual embrace. The 1952. unique features of the southwestern desert is Vasquez now. He fled soth with two trusted enraged husband drew his pistol and thea­ The introduction, in addition to providing a woven a philosophy full of joy, wonder, and henchmen, Clodovio Chavez and Abdon tened to shoot Vasquez, but was dissuaded biography of Gray, examines him as a Romantic wisdom. Thoreau would have been proud. Leiva. Through the hot San Joaquin Valley from doing so by Clodovio Chavez. Instead, poet and in terms of his peculiar and neurotic The Great Chain of Life. Boston: Houghton they rode, travelling all day and much ofthe Leiva departed camp with his wife, vowing temperament. The letters "are deservedly among Mifflin, 1956. the most famous which have come down to us in Drawing equally upon his knowledge of the night. Near Buena Vista Lake they were vengeance at some future time. After leaving English, and they have their special character­ biological sciences and his skill as a disciplined joined by Rosaria Leiva, Abdon's comely his unfaithful wife at Heffner's, the dis­ istics as well as certain characteristics common to observer, Krutch surveys the natural world from wife. They hurried over Tejon Pass (several gruntled outlaw rode to Lyon's Station in the letters of their century." the lowly amoeba to the lordly desert bighorn. miles east of the route now followed by Solidad Canyon where he surrendered to Los "Modernism" in Modern Drama: A Definition What he discovers is that many living creatures Interstate 5) and across Antelope Valley to Angeles authorities and readily agreed to and an Estimate. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, are remarkably and joyously "human," joined to 1953. us by "the great chain of life." Probably the best Elizabeth Lake. Here they rested for a day at turn state's evidence against his former Contained in this volume are six lectures origi­ synthesis ofthe author's views on nature and life. Jim Heffner's ranch, nestled in the pines master. nally delivered at Cornell University in 1952: The chapter titled "Reverence for Life" is an alongside the little lake. (Heffner evidently Upon learning of Leiva's surrender, sher­ "How Modern is the Modern American Drama" especially eloquent and powerful statement of the displayed friendship toward Vasquez; the iffs Adams and Rowland hurried to Lyon's and individual studies ofIbsen, Strindberg, Shaw, conservation ethic. Illustrations by Paul Landacre, Page Four ...... Page Thirteen who was one of America's most talented wood­ The Forgotten Peninsula: A Naturalist in Baja engravers. California. New York: William Sloane, 1961. Grand Canyon: Today and All Its Yesterdays. Krutch made some ten separate visits to Baja New York: William Sloane, 1958. California, prior to writing this book, and though Because he visited the Grand Canyon many there are elements of a personal travel narrative times on foot, muleback, and airplane, Krutch present, the central focus is nonetheless on the leads the reader on an intensely personal tour of human history and, of course, the natural history the history, geology, zoology, and botany of "the of this remote area: the boojum tree, the gray most revealing single page of earth's history whales of Scammon's Lagoon, the giant cardon anywhere on the face of the globe." The volume cactus, the palo blanco, the evening primrose, and ends with a plea to preserve the natural wonders, other characteristic features of this extension of not only of the Grand Canyon, but also of all other the Sonoran Desert. On nine of Krutch's ten trips, National Parks and wilderness areas. incidentally, he was a guest in the company of botanists, zoologists, herpetologists, malocologists, Joseph Wood Krutch. San Francisco: Industrial and other scientists conducting research for the Indemnity Company, 1958. Belvedere Scientific Fund, established by Krutch's Privately printed and distributed, this softcover friend and patron Kenneth Bechtel for the In­ publication contains "Welfare, Democracy, and dustrial Indemnity Company. Education," a talk presented to the employees of (ed.) The World of Animals: A Treasury of Lore, Industrial Indemnity and their guests; the three Legend, and Literature by Great Writers from 5th Raymond Fred West Memorial Lectures for 1958 Century B.C. to the Present. New York: Simon and delivered at Stanford University; and a transcript Schuster, 1961. of an informal interview aired on KQED, the Believing that the animal world is something to educational television station in San Francisco. be loved and learned from, Krutch has made over The West Memorial Lectures - "The Average and one-hundred selections by the world's great natu­ the Normal," "Tabula Rasa; or How Blank Is the ralists and writers, each with a brief introduction. Slate," and "The Glimm'ring Light" - were ulti­ Pliny the Elder writes of the dolphin's endearing mately to form the basis for several chapters of personality; Darwin describes the special attributes Human Nature and the Human Condition, issued of the Galapagos tortoise, which led him to his the following year. theory of evolution; Colette recounts the life, (ed.) The Gardener's World. New York: Putman, including "the wild season of roaming and prowl­ 1959. ing," of a Tomcat; and a host of other writers, from An anthology consisting of 128 selections by 103 Homer to W.H. Hudson and the Book of Job to authors on plants, gardens, gardening, and related John Burroughs, are represented. Krutch's essay themes. The selections range from Homer, Pliny "Conservation is Not Enough" from The Voice of the Elder, Samuel Johnson, and Alexander Pope the Desert is included, along with abundant illus­ to John Muir and John Burroughs. Each entry is trations drawn from ancient and modern woodcuts, prefaced with a brief comment from the editor. prints, and paintings. Modern Literature and the Image of Man. San Human Nature and the Human Condition. New Francisco: Industrial Indemnity Company, 1962. York: Random House, 1959. In this talk presented on April 16, 1962, to the This volume focuses on such contemporary prob­ employees and guests of Industrial Indemnity, Tiburico Vasquez a few weeks before his execution March 19, 1875. lems as over-population, the cult of the "high Krutch notes the progressive degradation of the standard ofliving," the peculiar nature of Ameri­ image of man that has resulted from the writings can materialism, the loss of our belief in the of Marx, Darwin, and Freud, plus the impact of than five feet seven inches in height, perhaps As most lawbreakers do, Vasquez had an dignity of man, and the meaning of the welfare two world wars. Playwrights like Sartre, Beckett, 130 pounds in weight, of very spare build, he excuse for his crimes. He felt he must punish state. Ionesco, and Genet all mirror a similar dismal looks little like a man who could create a the Norte Americano - the white, Anglo­ view of a meaningless universe and ofthe absurdity Biology and Humanism. San Francisco: In­ reign of terror." Regardless of Vasquez's Saxon American - for discrimination of human existence. The way out ofthis abyss, the dustrial Indemnity Company, 1960. unassuming physical appearance, the bandit against Californians of Spanish and Mexican author urges, is for literature not just to reflect the The subject of this lecture given on April 28, spirit ofthe age but to actually help create it. Also had a certain charisma that attracted the descent. He hated the Gringo for leveling 1960, is man's intellectual and emotional attitudes printed is the transcript of a question and answer loyalty of subordinates and the romantic slights and insults at his family origin. He towards other living things. Krutch calls for an period that followed the talk. awareness that animals and plants are our only interest of females. If he had an Achilles entertained the thought that somehow he companions "in an infinite and unsympathetic More Lives Than One. New York: William heel, it was his propensity for amorous could help Mexico regain California and waste of electrons, planets, nebulae and stars," Sloane, 1962. escapades. Twice his aldulturous romancing used this rationale as justification for his and we need to feel the joy and consolation that Krutch's autobiography, the title alluding to the with the wives of gang members came close thievery. the awareness of this can provide. Conservation many careers the author enjoyed in his lifetime as to ending his career prematurely (even his By 1856 Vasquez had his own gang and needs to mean more than the efficient exploitation drama critic, book reviewer, editor, professor, erstwhile friends had no desire to play was well on the road to becoming California's of natural resources. With a feeling for, or love of biographer, naturalist, and social critic. An en­ the natural world, we can live with nature, not gaging and unpretentious tour of an interesting cuckold to his carnal desires). It was an master outlaw. He found stealing horses merely upon it. Also printed is the question and life, interesting the author says "in the special amorous lapse that indirectly led to his profitable and led his band on a series of answer period which concluded the lecture. sense that I myself have usually been interested in demise. raids from Monterey County to Los Angeles,

Page Fourteen ...... Page Three it." The reader will be too. first appearances in House Beautiful, House and Garden, and Playboy. Krutch must have certainly (ed.) Thoreau: Walden and Other Writings. New enjoyed being an author for the latter publication, York: Bantam, 1962. The Branding Iron for a more unlikely match cannot be imagined. The introduction contains biographical and THE WESTERNERS critical material on Thoreau, with the following Baja California and the Geography of Hope. Los ANGELES CORRAL works reprinted in addition to Walden: "Civil San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1967. Illustrated with dozens of stunning, full page, Published Quarterly in Disobedience," "Life Without Principle," and color photographs by Eliot Porter, the text for this March . June. September . December selections from A Week on the Concord and Merri­ mack Rivers, Cape Cod, The Main Woods, and sumptuous book is selected from ten different OFFICERS Thoreau's Journal. works by Krutch, who provide the introduction. Interestingly, Porter - long a distinguished pho­ TRAIL BOSSES (ed.) with Paul S. Eriksson. A Treasury of tographer - credits the turning of his camera to Birdlore. New York: Paul S. Eriksson, 1962. WILLIAM W. ESCHERICH ...... Sheriff desert subjects to a reading of The Desert Year and Among the authors in this anthology on the P.O. Box 2890, Terminal Annex, The Voice of the Desert. Los Angeles, CA 90051 world of birds are John James Audubon, Mary (intro.) Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod. New POWELL GREENLAND ...... Deputy Sheriff Corral Chips Austin, John Muir, Donald Culross Peattie, Roger 1583 Wildwood Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90041 Tory Peterson, Rachel Carson, and Edwin Way York: The Limited Editions Club, 1968. Also published in The Heritage Press edition JEROME R. SELMER ...... Registrar of Marks Teale. The concluding article is "The Most Danger­ and Brands ous Predator" from The Forgotten Peninsula. (1968), the introduction observes that this narrati ve of travel (the result offour trips to Cape Cod) finds 55 E. Arthur Avenue, Arcadia, CA 91106 C.M. Robert W. Blew is elected Vice­ (intro.) In Wilderness Is the Preservation of the Thoreau less cantankerous in his temperament, WADE E. KITTELL ...... Keeper of the Chips World. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1962. President, Publicity, of the Southern Cali­ more relaxed and genial, probably because it was 519 Cedar Avenue, Apt. 10, Long Beach, CA 90802 The magnificent color photographs of Eliot fornia Social Science Association ... Past written to please and aimed at magazine publica­ Porter admirably complement the text consisting ERNEST MARQUEZ ...... Roundup Foreman Sheriff the new Noble Grand tion. Thoreau had thought about deleting some of 24213 Hamlin Street, Canoga Park, CA 91307 Hugh Tolfordis of quotations from Thoreau. In his introduction the historical material in this work and, as Krutch Humbug of Platrix Chapter of E Clampus Krutch notes how Porter's pictures capture the DONALD DUKE ...... Past Sheriff Trail Boss explains, "for the benefit of those who prefer to Vitus. His first decree called for a Clamp out spirit and intentions of Thoreau, analyzes the WILLIAM O. HENDRICKS ...... Past Sheriff follow the main current of Thoreau's account, the essence of Thoreau's thinking, and concludes with Trail Boss at Arroyo Grande with most ofthe Clampers questioned passages are printed in small type to the hope that this book will somehow contribute to arriving in grand style via an Amtrack train facilitate skipping." APPOINTED OFFICERS saving some of our rapidly disappearing wilder­ from Glendale to San Luis Obispo. . .. Merely a Humanist. San Francisco: Industrial ORLEY E. LAIRD ...... Asst. Registrar of Marks ness. Indemnity Company, 1968. and Brands Herschel C. Logan is honored at the May If You Don't Mind My Saying So: Essays on Attractively printed by Lawton and Alfred BILL LORENZ ...... Asst. Keeper of the Chips 29th San Diego meeting of the California Man and Nature. New York: William Sloane, 1964. Kennedy, the text is a talk for an Industrial The title of this collection of sixty-one essays is ABRAHAM HOFFMAN ...... Asst. Roundup Cartridge Collectors. He receives a special Indemnity sales conference held in May of1968 at taken from the name of the column Krutch con­ Foreman award for his long interest and support of the the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. tributed for many years to The American Scholar. DWIGHT S. CUSHMAN ...... Representative Noting how the human situation has progressively hobby, and for his standard book, Cartridges, The earliest essay dates back to 1936, when the 800 Lena Avenue, Canoga Park, CA 91304 deteriorated, Krutch questions the wisdom of the first published in 1948.... author wrote regularly for The Nation; the latest DONALD E. TORGUSON ...... Wrangler Boss space effort when such problems as the population Dwight Cushman and Ray Wood are appeared in the April 9, 1964 issue of The Saturday explosion and the consequent damage to the JACK McCASKILL ...... Asst. Wrangler Boss Review. among attendees at the 35th California physical environment are such overwhelming con­ CORNELL NORBY ...... Exhibits Wrangler History Institute at University of the Pacific, Herbal. New York: Putman, 1965. siderations here at home. We should utilize our IRON EYES CODY ..... Daguerreotype Wrangler on April 2-3. Also present are C.M.'s Joe With scholarship and wit, Krutch examines the technology to improve the lot of mankind, not as facts and fancies of herbalists from ancient times FRANK Q. NEWTON ...... Asst. Daguerreotype Doctor and Troy Tuggle. Ray Wood gives an an end in itself. After all, "technological advances Wrangler to the present era as they describe the properties of do not necessarily contribute to the good life." extended report on his commission to track one-hundred plants and six creatures. Each entry THOMAS S. McNEILL ...... Librarian down monuments to Jedediah Smith. He has in this handsome publication is accompanied by a The Best Nature Writing of Joseph WoodKrutch. 207 Avenue G, Redondo Beach, CA 90277 New York: William Morrow, 1969. now located. nearly thirty monuments. Also, full-page illustration taken from the woodcuts in ELWOOD W. HOLLAND ...... Membership Pierandrea Mattioli's huge folio volume, Com­ Published just one year before his death, Krutch Chairman Ray's article, "Anglo Influence on Spanish himself made the thirty-four selections that appear mentaries on the Six Books of Dioscorides, issued RAYMUND F. WOOD ...... Editor, Brand Book Place Names in California," published in the in Prague in 1563 and Venice in 1565. here grouped under the headings New England No. 16 Winter 1981 Southern California Quarterly, and the Desert, Other Lives, Shapes of Earth, (ed.) Eighteenth-Century English Drama. New JOHN D. KEMBLE ...... Historian is commented on extensively by Jack Smith Nature and Human Nature, and The Meaning of York: Bantam, 1967. Conservation. Illustrated by Lydia Rosier. ROBERT SCHERRER ...... Tallyman in his Los Angeles Times column of July 5 In addition to a discerning introduction on the The Most Wonderful Animals That Never Were . Address for Exchanges . . . C.M. Gene Bear is honored for the fourth theater of the period, this paperback includes Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969. and Material Submitted for Publication: time by the California State Assembly for Rowe's The Fair Penitent, Gay's The Beggar's A charming foray into the lore that surrounds T he Roundup Foreman services to the community ... The San Diego Opera, Farquhar's The Beaux' Strategem, plus such imaginary creatures as the unicorn, basilisk, ERNEST MARQUEZ Sheridan's The Rivals and The School for Scandal. Public Library, an Institutional Member of mermaid, phoenix, dragon, and the giant roc. A 24213 Hamlin St., Canoga Park, Ca. 91307 And Even If You Do: Essays on Man, Manners, chapter at the end is devoted to the contemporary the Corral, celebrates its centennial anni­ THE BRANDING IRON solicits aritcles of 1.500 words and Machines. New York: William Morrow, 1967. Loch Ness monster and the Abominable Snowman. or less. dealing with every phase of the Old West. versary this year and issues a special booklet An obvious companion piece to If You Don't Illustrated by Pauline Baynes. Contributions from members and friends welcomed . commemorating the occasion.... Mind My Saying So, this collection of forty-eight A Krutch Omnibus: Forty Years of Social and Copyright' by Ihe Weslerners The first annual Carl S. Dentzel Memorial essays written primarily in the 1960's is drawn Literary Criticism. New York: William Morrow, Los Angeles Corral Concert is presented at San Fernando Mis­ from an even wider source, including such unlikely 1970. Continued on Page Eight Page Two ...... Page Fifteen The manuscript of this work was complete a nd water supply, railroad and harbor, which in his publisher's hands when the author died at forever changed the face of Southern Cali­ his Tucson home on May 22, 1970. With the fornia. It is Wilson, however, who dominates exception of his nature books, there are selections here from all of Krutch's major publications. this story. Frontiersman, rancher, states­ Coupled with The Best Nature Writing of Joseph man, Wilson was the region's heart and soul. Wood Krutch, it provides a personal and repre· It was Wilson, Los Angeles' charter mayor, sentative distillation of this remarkable man's who established viticulture and encouraged contributions as critic, naturalist, and philosopher. immigration to Southern California - some­ times by sheer force of his personality. In one of many spirited anecdotes, Sher· wood describes Angelenos' horrified reaction to Custer's defeat at the Little Big Horn, news which came during the Centennial Fourth of July celebration: "John Bull in SEPTEMBER 1982 LOS ANGELES CORRAL NUMBER 148 1776", the crowd screamed, "Sitting Bull in 1876!" The chicanery of the Southern Pacific Railroad, the tragedy of John B. Wilson, the real estate "deals" of Lucky Baldwin and the TIBURCIO VASQUEZ IN nOWN THE WSSTSKH end of Southern California's "vintage years" are likewise detailed in deft fashion by an SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DOOK TKAIL ... author obviously entranced with her subject. PARTI: THE BANDIDO'S LAST HURRAH -Jeff Nathan by John W. Robinson Days of Vintage, Years of Vision by Midge Sherwood. Orizaba Publications. Box 8241, San Marino, CA 91108. 1982. 509 pages. Frederic Remington by Peggy and Harold Western outlaws seem to hold a special Tiburcio Vasquez was born to a respected $27.50. Samuels. Doubleday. New York. 1982. 537 fascination in the minds of western history Monterey family on August 11, 1835. (The pages. $24.95. buffs. With the passage of time many of Vasquez home, a handsome white adobe California history comes alive in Midge these badmen have become folk heroes, no structure behind Colton Hall, still stands Sherwood's "Days of Vintage, Years Of Peggy and Harold Samuels have filled a matter how dastardly their crimes may have today.) Young Tiburcio attended school in Vision". This book is ostensibly a biography large void with their in-depth biography. been. Witness the fact that most of us are far Monterey and learned to read and write with of James De Barth Shorb, a vineyardist who Remington has long been recognized as more familiar with the names of Billy The proficiency, an accomplishment of which he founded the San Marino Ranch - "the America's premier Western artist and it is Kid, Jesse James and the Dalton brothers was justly proud all of his life. His criminal showplace ofthe Southland" - which is now reassuring that we now have some back­ than with the true, deserving heroes of the career germinated one night in 1852 when, at the site of the Huntington Library, Art ground to supplement the familiar paintings West. Books by the score chronicle their the age of seventeen, he attended a fandango Gallery and Botanical Gardens. and sculptures. crimes. You need only to peruse Ramon in the company of one Anastacio Garcia, a What Sherwood has actually produced is a The Samuels chart Remington's upbring­ Adams' bibliography of Western outlaws, local brigand. Accounts differ as to just what definitive history of Southern California. ing in New York as a priggish elitist and Six Guns and Saddle Leather, to realize how happened, but the end result was that The scope of this massive, well-documented follows his amazingly swift rise to promi· abundant is the literature of banditry and Constable William Hardmount was slain work covers the period from 1850 to 1880, nence. As the Samuels explore his prejudices how fascinated is the public with this gender and young Vasquez was indirectly involved beginning with Shorb's arrival in California and motivations, readers are treated to a of anti-hero. in the crime. He fled into the hills with from Maryland, proceeding the "oil excite­ panoramic view of the artist's turn-of-the­ California has its share of legenday anti­ Garcia and, through the instruction of the ment", and ending with the death of his century world. The authors are sympathetic, heroes, too. Joaquin Murietta leads the list, elder outlaw, learned the rudiments of suc­ father-in-law, Benjamin D. Wilson. In be­ but Remington is shown, warts and all. His but only a notch below is the name of cessful banditry. His long career as Cali­ tween, the reader is treated to a fascinating bitter and petty arguments with Charles Tiburcio Vasquez. Vasquez is particularly fornia's master bandit was launched. discussion of Los Angeles' development from Schreyvogel and the art establishment, his interesting to southern Californians because What manner of man was Tiburcio pueblo to city and the people who made it gross overindulgence in food and drink, and the climactic two years of his twenty-three Vasquez? Ben Truman, Los Angeles news­ possible. Banning, Pico, Sepulveda, Temple, his jingoistic mentality are quite unflatter­ year criminal career were centered almost paperman who interviewed him after his Workman, Downey and a multitude of other ingly revealed. No matter. We still have the exclusively in Los Angeles County or on the capture, described him thusly: "In personal pioneers cross these pages. art work, and the Samuels have included a stage routes leading from Los Angeles to the appearance this robber chief is anything but As Sherwood tells us, Shorb was instru­ generous sampling in this valuable study of Cerro Gordo Mines and the San Joaquin remarkable. Take away the expression of his mental to the growth of America's newly a massive talent. Valley. His final capture took place in what eyes, furtive, snaky and cunning, and he acquired state, especially in providing a -Jeff Nathan is now West Hollywood. would pass unnoticed in a crowd. Not more Continued on Page Three Page Sixteen . ..