Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-03-11
KALLocEs PEocL MATCH, AID KEAR-
NEYs DEFIANCE.

NEY'S DEFIANCE.
The proclamation issued by Mayor Kali
loeh of San Francisco is a most impudent
and insolent piece of demagogism. 1t is
deliberate and fragrant insult to the law
abiding element of that city, and. a shame
less and brazen eulogy of the blatant vag
abonds whose lawIess buster has almost
ruined the community. It is an audacious
and an infamous thing to say that these
ruffans are the only peaceable and law
abiding people in San Francisco, and that
they have endured great provocation gin
a meek and laudabic manner It certainly
demands the exercise of a very Christian
temper on the part of the decent classes
of San Francisco to submit to this wanton
insult with due patience, when they remenl-
Der what they have already tolerated at the
hands Of the Sandlotters and their leaders.
For three years not only the city and
the State, but the continent, has been
scandalized by the atrocious threats and
incendiary propositions of these men.
Business has languished under the inflic-
ton. Capital has fed. Industry has
stagnated Real estate values have gone
down. The prospects of the city have
been blasted. Its credit has been under
mined. Improvement has ceased. And
still through all this evil work the cries of
the Sandlotters have risen higher and
higher, and their buster and menace have
tended more and more strongly towards
overt acts OF violence. They have organ
lied armed companies. They have terri
fed the timid by nightly drills and
parades. They have talked of arson
and massacre. They have discussed
approvingly the methods of the Paris
Commune. They have threatened to
murder scores of prominent citizens.
And after all this, when the marvellous
patience of the law-abiding classes is at
length well nigh exhausted; when, having
tried every reasonable method of relief,
they resolve to organize for self-defense,
and for the viDdication and preservation
OF republican institutions, threatened by
the alien mob their chief magistrate
issues a proclamation stigmatizing them as
the lawless party, bestowing sickening
adulation upon the howling Communists,
and sending abroad monstrous and no.
torious lie in regard to the actual con-
dition of things in the metropolis Be-
yond question Mayor Kalloch must have
an abiding faith in the deep reverence
for law entertained by the people of San
Francisco.
At the same time Denis Kearney pipes
his note of defiance in his usual way, and
counsels further arming and preparations
for fighting. He declares that nothing
but death shall stop him in his mischievous
career. That he viii continue to feed the
flames of incendiary agitation. That he
will continue to incite to breaches OF the
peace. That he will, in fact, continue to
do all the harm he can to the community
whose chief fault, it has been to tolerate
him SO long. And thus Kalloch on the
one hand and Kearney on the other, are,
whether Willingly or not. doing all in their
power to precipitate convulsion. They
are doing this By making it more and more
difficult for the Citizens Protective Union
to refrain from aggressive action.
They are forcing a situation the
most prominent feature of which will be
the necessity of positive and remedial
policy on the part Of the city's defenders.
Insuch iunctures it is impossible to prevent
things from drifting, even when neither
party has determined upon crossing the
Rubicon Kalloch and Kearney have done
much to accelerate this drift, for they have
made it plain that if the Citizens Protec-
tive Union has no other function than the
issuing of a manifesto, it would have done
better to have remained silent. In short,
it is already clear that manifestos will not
solve the problem. So long as it is merely
q QutSLlui VI III CdIo, Nilt lStttltIS VI TIC
sand lots viii not be behind hand,
for that is their peculiar forte. But
a dead lock of this kind cannot last.
It must end in one of two ways. Either
the Citizens Union win abandon the
field to their antagonists, in which
event the situation viii be infinitely worse
than it was before; or they will be COM
PEELED to make the policy of the future for
themselves, without depending upon the
Sandlotters for the initiative. Circum-
stances must determine which of these
courses viii be followed, but the fact that
the existing state of things is intolerable
must exercise a marked influence in pre-
venting acquiescence in programme which
could only aggravate its worst evils. The
crisis is unquestionably very grave, but it
is for those whose outrageous conduct has
brought San Francisco to this pass, to bear
the blame of whatever it may issue in.