I always enjoy Chilton Williamson’s writings. Yet when I hear him referring to incoming Californians (in Polemics & Exchanges, December 1995) as “fleeing the once-lovely state they have managed to ruin in a couple of generations . . . like locusts, they are moving in to find someplace else to consume,” without noting that many are internal political refugees (quite a few prosperous, but no doubt less so in future waves), native Californians fleeing a state being wrecked by their national government’s deranged and Utopian immigration policies, it makes me wish that Mr. Williamson would spend a little less time outside on horseback and a bit more time inside reading his own publication.

        —Tom Andres
Santa Barbara, CA

Chilton Williamson Replies:

California was a mess long before the current invasion of immigrants, legal and illegal, completed the process of destruction. That does not mean, however, that I lack sympathy for Mr. Andres’ point of view. In fact, a book of mine, The Immigration Mystique: America’s False Conscience, will be published in July by Basic Books. It was written entirely from the saddle, on the portable typewriter I carry along with the rest of my gear.