Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-04-09
UEINTELLIGENF OPPOSITION TO THE
DEBRIS BILL.

A portion of the San Francisco press,
having stolidly ignored the discussion of
the debris question throughout the present
session of the Legislature, has just now
reused itself enough to make out that
something is going on in this connection,
and possessing no understanding whatever
of the merits of the subject, has, with
characteristic provincalism and narrow
ness, set itself to oppose the pending bill.
The ground taken by the journals referred
to shows how incapable they are of COM
pretending or protecting the interests of
great State. The only thing that has
stirred their sluggish consciousness is the
apprehension of additional taxation, and
the mere mention of this excites them to
offer blind and irrational opposition to
the proposed measure, regardless of the
| circumstances which have necessitated it,
and without thought of the unity of in
terests and obligations which exists be-
tween all the members of common body
polite. The tax which appears to these
journals so menacing and terrible, and
which causes them to groan and shrek
as though they were being fayed
alive, is neither more nor less
than tax of one-twentieth of
one per cent. Five cents on the
hundred dollars is the amount os the sin
fanny" proposed. The contemplated
courage" extends no farther, as regards
the people of San Francisco. And there
are reasons which sober minded and intel
ligent men can appreciate, why not only
! this but much heavier tax would be JUS
tifable under the circumstances. 1t might
be thought, from the present attitude of
some of these papers, that they favored
the closing of the hydraulic mines. If
there was any ground for supposing that
they knew what they were doing, this
would be the only rational deduction from
their course. But they do not favor closing
the hydraulic mines. They merely want
! to repudiate all responsibility on the part
of San Francisco, and leave the farmers
and the people of the Sacramento valley
generally to shift for themselves If they
had followed the exhaustive investigation
of the debris question which has been pro-
ceeding all the winter, they would have
Senate is compromise measure, which
has been reached through the sharp
est conflict of interests and opinions, and
which has received the support OF
the majority thus far because it is
evidently the best solution of the problem
the case admits of. What that problem
is the San Francisco papers evidently do
not at all understand 1t is particularly
discreditable to them that this is so, but
that it is SO their own fippant and foolish
remarks about it conclusively demon
strates. The Chronicle yesterday talked of
Imposing an onerous tax upon the entire
"people of the State for the benefit of a
"single interest confined within narrow
"local limits. A New York paper could
not have displayed denser Ignorance of the
situation than these words manifest. The
Call is quite as bad. 1t says the bill
proposes to tax San Francisco and Los
Angeles, and other remote counties,
because a few hundred acres of land
"laying at the outlet of mining streams
&c are exposed to the debris from hydraulic
"mines." This is disgraceful. No jour
nalist is excusable for such gross lack of
knowledge regarding one of the greatest
| State issues of the day.