Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-04-24
THE KILLING OF CHARLES DE YOUNG.

teleSraphtc coluinHs. 1He HiulueioI hos
refused to make any statement regarding
the motive of his act, but the opinion
prevails that the immediate provoca-
ton was the publication, attributed
to the deceased, of a pamphlet con-
tanning report of the testimony in
scandalous case occurring at the
East several years ago, and in
which Kalloch senior was defendant.
The manner of the killing was deliberate,
and De Young was afforded no better op-
portunity for defense than he himself had
given the father of his slayer on previous
occasion. 1t is of course quite impossible
to regard this case as an ordinary murder
would be regarded. 1t many respects it
has the features of blood feud of the
most barbarous period Charles De
Young had urged his enmity against the
elder Kalloch with the most desperate
ferocity and recklessness He had DELHI
erately attempted to assassinate him, and
failing in that attempt, he had proceeded
to rake up every damaging episode in his
past life, and had, as is now claimed,
caused these circumstances to be
paraded over the city and State,
with an evident determination to destroy
his adversary. Between the Kallochs and
De Young, therefore, no common relations
subsisted, and De Young had dared and in
vited every retaliation the most frenzied
evaporation could suggest or inspire. He
has met the fate which by no means infre
quently closes the careers of men who, like
him, undertake to elevate themselves to
power by making whips and letters of the
foibles of their fellows, and who prostitute
the press into matchmaking agency, the
influence of which is measured by the
power of exposure it possesses.
Charles De Young was no common
man. He possessed abilities of very
high order in many respects. In build
ing up his paper he displayed enterprise,
energy, administrative talent, boldness
and persistence, such as might have suf-
feed to win for him a foremost place
among honorable journalists had his
character been better balanced But
he set out with low ambitions and base
proclivities. He desired power, but he did
not care by what means he obtained it.
He undertook to traffic in the vices and
weaknesses of mankind. His agents
were spies, his levers were crimi-
nal records. To get men under
his thumb he ransacked their pri-
vate history, directing all his ener-
gies to the detection of some past
error or crime which he could hold over
his intended victims. He did not seek to
win his way by benefcence, by cham
pioning reforms, by improving the condi-
ton of society. When he espoused high
cause it was as business matter When
he exposed wrong doing it was because it
paid better than to conceal it. What the
journal he controlled was under his power
full and sinister management the people of
this coast have but too much reason to
remember. No reputation was secure
against his malice and his cold blooded
and systematic detraction. He at times
made even morality almost abhorrent by
the villainous uses to which he turned his
pretended defense of it. The Chronicle has
often been feared while he controlled its
utterances, but it has never been respected
or loved. It was possible to admire
his business sagacity and enterprise, and
the amazing effrontery with which he
withstood the consequences of his own
crimes and infamies, but no man ever be-
lieved inwardly that it was benefcent
instrument, or that it was other than the
agency of his selfish purposes and mean
revenges.
The man who undertakes journalism on
Charles De Young's plane of conduct and
morals necessarily separates himself out
from the community, and as necessarily
takes his life in his hand. This man, how
ever, had invited his fate by the incredible
hardihood with which, after his attempt
upon the life of DR.. Kalloch, he justified
and defended assassination in the columns
OF his journal We pointed out at that
time the nature of the weapon he
was thus putting into the hands of his
enemies and his victims, and the warning
proves to have been prophetic. We cannot
moralize over this death as over that of a
good citizen who in noble career had been
struck down by the hand of the assassin.
Charles De Young was an Ishmael, whose
hand was against every man. He had
sought to make himself terror to the
community, and when his own methods
were retorted upon him he had recourse to
the cowardly retaliation of the assassin.
For such a man, living under such code,