CALIFORNIA A PERSONAL APPRAISAL OF THE GOLDEN STATE

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31724, 6 July 1968, Page 12

CALIFORNIA A PERSONAL APPRAISAL OF THE GOLDEN STATE

(By the California correspondent of the “Financial Times”. London) . . The truth is, lam getting too old for California; or, more correctly, it is getting too young for me. For, in our generation, nations have been growing younger, as a result of the global explosion in the birth rate since the end of the Second World War, and nowhere is this process, and its consequences, more apparent than in California, especially in the southern part of the State, from which I now depart.

As I leave, youth Is taking over, demanding, domineering, determined to have its way. If one has reservations on the subject, two possible courses tare open. The first Is to retire to one of those so-called senior citizen communities, known by such titles as Leisure World and Sun City, for which the basic qualification is at least half a century in this world, and where solid walls and vigilant watchmen exclude the uninvited young. Thousands of oldsters are doing just that. But most will tome out again only in a coffin. There must still be some societies where the urge of youth for uninhibited self-expression is sub-

The California correspondent of the “Financial Times,” London, is returning to Europe after many years in the United States. In this article he gives hi* farewell Impression* of the most remarkable American State.

ject to certain curbs. To search in hope seems a preferable alternatve. Triumph Of Youth In California there no longer seems to be any. Moreover, the triumph of youth has been swift and staggering. Surely, no society has undergone such a complete revolution as this one in the last 10 years. Arriving a decade ago, one did spot a spate of pre-teens disgorging from the übiquitous yellow school buses. But the adults still were firmly in control, even if increasingly on the defensive. And at the glamorous sea-shore and desert resorts with world-renowned names, such as Santa Monica and Palm Springs, substantial retired couples still owned the choice real estate.

The population explosion has changed all that In the last 10 years, enough new Californians have arrived, both by birth and immigration, for the State to generate its own prosperity instead of having to rely on pension remittances and dividend cheques from all over the country. It is fortunate, or unfortunate, according to one’s viewpoint, that the important aircraft and electronics industries which have been concentrated here from their beginnings have been on a war economy. But even without that, or with a scaling down of their operations through de-escalation of the Vietnam war, the local economy would oe viable. One-tenth Of U.S.

With a population heading for 20m, or one-tenth of all Americans, an expanding array of construction companies, car assembly plants, food processing facilities, and factories turning out textiles, clothing, furniture, drugs, housewares, you name it, have sprung up all over the place. Service trades are booming, commercial banks, savings and loans (building societies), mortgage banks, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, motels, resorts, recreational facilities. There is a host of doctors, dentists, psychologists, psychiatrists and many of them are making a lot of money. However you want to make a living, whether you want to

work hard or soft, California probably has a place for you. You will probably get paid more for your labour or talent than almost anywhere In the world, and you will not have to make any more effort than anywhere else; probably, the opposite. Most paid help in California is relaxed, and so are its customers. Maybe, the climate helps each to be more indulgent towards the other. If you want to go to “school” (in the U.S., college), somebody will make room for you somewhere. If you do not like what you are studying, you can change. If you want to “drop out” now, you can come back later, or go somewhere else. If you “fail,” the

authorities will feel badly about it, and decide it is the fault of your parents, society, or even themselves. At school proper, you will probably be able to take things easy, provided you hang the principal in effigy only, not in fact. If you don’t absorb much book learning, at least you will have fun. If you “graduate” from high school without being able to read, spell, write or think properly take heart. You’re in a lot of company. If you earn a degree, no one will snicker at it—so long as you stay in California Self-congratulatory In fact, you will have a sense of belonging to an elite as you move around in self-congratulatory Californian society. Are not Californians just about the luckiest people alive, what with all that sunshine, all those beaches, all the elegant houses with swimming pools in the backyard, those ritzy cars, those highpowered boats, and all that fun, fun, fun? You may come to feel, along with a lot of your neighbours, that everything is so swell, it is a shame it can not be just perfect, and join the agitating students, the militant minority groups, the rampaging liberals, the spluttering John Birchers, or the Minutemen, ready to declare war on anybody and everybody who opposes establishing their particular Millennium tomorrow. The Idealists If, as it’s claimed, much of the trouble in this world is caused by idealists, California is right in the groove. By rights, the Millennium should already have arrived, but it hasn’t, so what are we waiting for? Let us get cracking, and stir up all those lazy stupes to join the crusade California society is in constant turmoil, not because life is too hard for the fe,w, but because it is too easy for the many. Leisure, not exhaustion, is the great breeder of energy.

Energy has other by-pro-ducts. You can feel so full of it that you start to convert your neighbour’s wife, and so join the stampede to the divorce court; one divorce to each marriage is the tally in super-affluent Orange County. Or you can be so busy showing off your new yacht or your new plane, your new ranch house or your new mink, that you don’t know (or care) what the kids are doing —smoking marijuana, cavorting with the hippies, wandering with the vagrant teenieboppers down Sunset Strip. Wave Of The Future It is very likely you are concentrating so feverishly on having a whale of a time that you have little thought to spare for your neighbour.

Also, that you and your neighbour will find it hard to get together on projects that benefit the community—that really benefit the community. It is great at the beach, but the water is getting more and more polluted. The smog is terrible, but y r u need a third car for that college-age son. Fighting the freeway traffic is murder, but who is going to pay taxes for a rapid transit system? Scrap the trains, and let us all go by air; that is, if you can find a parking space at the airport. When the history of this age, all over, comes to be written, it may be notable for the emphasis on private consumption, and the comfort and pleasure it affords, to the neglect of the so-called infrastructure. In this respect, California outstandingly has shown the way. It could also lead in paying the penalty. No such considerations burden the State’s youth. They are on the march, they are the wave of the future. Good luck to them.