The Idaho world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1864-1918, 1866-10-06
THE MOB SPIRIT.


alence of deeds Of violence ard crimes in,
that community, and wants the organization
of Vigilance Committee to remedy the
evils endured Why, certainly, Chico is in
the county of Butte and State of California
land is not Butte under loyal, Radical rule
as county, just as California is as State2
To cry for Vigilance Committee, then, on
the part of the Courant, Ia loyal Radical
sheet is to very plainly intimate that the
administration of justice, in that county and
State, is either loose or corrupt. The county
authorities and State Judges are all Radical !;
therefore the Courant virtually impeaches
either the ability or integrity of its own par
tvs officers and magistrates. But were
Democratic paper to insinuate or charge as
much, we may be very sure the Courant, and
the whole Radical press to back it, would cry
out against the offender for so trailing at
the Lords annointed.p Radical officials may
commit any wrong or crime, but none but
Radical organs must chronicle or censure
them for doing so; for Democratic paper
to do the same thing is "disloyalty' and an
outrage.
But we wish, in mentioning this matter, to
call attention to this morbid, bad, actually
criminal desire for the organization of Wig
lance Committees, and disposition to mob
law, which is peculiar to the Radical party,
on this coast, as well as at the East. 1t is
founded in spirit which would set at def
ance all laws not exactly in accordance with
the wishes, greed, or bad passions of the in
dividuals concerned it is but the low and
brutal and rufianly phase of the "higher.
law" proclaimed by the Radicals in former
years With what conscience can men who
organize for the express purpose of openly
defying and violating certain laws of the
land eensure or punish others who, in diff
ferent manner, defy or violate certain other
laws, or the same laws with themselves. No
man, be be magistrate, or the foremost of
private citizens, has any more warrant or
privilege to violate one law than the worst
among men have to violate another law, or
all the laws. It is just as criminal before
the law, and really more fragrant in point OF
public veal, for an organized band or mob,
digni6ed by the title of Vigilance Committee,
to commit violence upon a supposed or real
culprit, or to take human life, as it is for the
individual or the gang who commit similar
offences or henious crimes. For instance,
the men who hung and robbed Updyke in
this Territory, some months ago, are as guilty
murderers and highwaymen as any that ever
swung at Tyburn. To take human life by
violence, without the authority of law, and
not in self-defenee, is murder, and the per-
petrators of such acts are murderers, whether
Vigilante members or "road agents" To
unlawfuly take and appropriate the property
and effects of their victims, is robbery in
Vigilantes, exactly as the same act is rob-
berry inthe thief or highwayman who de6es
the law, and the perpetrators of the respec-
tive crimes are robbers equally before the
law-with this distinction in the enormity
Of the crime in the two parties; the Vigil
lance transgressor is more culpable, because
he not only commits the crime, but would by
his example teach others that bodies of men
may, whenever occasion serves them, club
together and defy the legally constituted
authorities and infract the laws of the land
without responsibility to any earthly triOu-
nal; while the confirmed thief simply vio-
lates the law, but all the time acknowledges
its force, and by his punishment when caught,
becomes an example to warn others from
transgressions Of the law.
We have seen the practical operations of
Vigilance Committees in California since
I849, and have yet to learn that anything Of
ultimate good has flowed from fheDa and we
do know that, besides the ontrages upon
some innocent men, and the sacrifices of in
nocent lives, by and through such organiza-
tons, they have been productive of lasting,
irreparable injury, in the disregard Of Law
which they have instilled into the minds of
many otherwise good citizens, and in the OPP
portunities they have afforded the worst of
scoundrels, robbers and assassns, who were
admitted as members, TO obtain shelter pro-
lection and security from just punishment at
the hands of the lawful authorities.
How Now ?-The rogne- fool Governor OF