Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-11-02
rag OFFICIAL DEATH OF TIE v. P. c

rHs OFFICIAL DEATH oF TIE ". P. c.
A curt local paragraph in a San Fran
cisco paper yesterday recorded the final
adjournment of tbs State Central Commit
tee Of the Workingmen's Party of Cali
fornia. by no means well er fayorably
known as the W. P. C. The committee
decided that sit was useless to continue
q the head OF an organization that had nei-
g ther body nor tail, and so the remnant
of the funds of the party was divided
among the members of the State Central
Committee = the fund was just eighty
dollars-2nd an adjournment sine die was
unanimously agreed to. No doubt the
party once called the VI. P. C. really
ceased to exist some time ago, but it is
only now that it has reiinquished its for
NAL hold upon life. and has recognized the
fact OF its disintegration. It was a sim
gular phenomenon while it lasted, and it
may be worth while to recall attention to
it moment before it passes into utter
oblivion. Let US remember that the W.
P. C. was ostensibly movement en- the
part of the working classes to regenerate
! California, which tEeir leaders as.
sumed TO be mcst wofully OPP
pressed and plundered by the
old political parties, and by every corpora
ton considerable enough to invite the
attacks of demagogues. We do rot intend
to recapitulate ths history of the W. P.
c., for i. has been told even to weari-
ness. 1t is, however, always in order to
point to the fact that every prornise of this
sham reform party was broken /; that all
its yociferous propositions ended in noise;
that it never did anything bat to give of
fees to handful of slippery impostors
who were base enough to traffic upon the
measureless folly and gullibility OF the
ignorant creatures who composed the rank
and file of the organization that all its
drillings and msrchings, and ssnd.lot
spoutinga and frothings, died away in
sheer vacuisy that It's whilom leader,
Denis Kearney, was almost the only man
connected with it who really made it serve
an Ineligible purpose, for he did succeed
in feathering his nest quite comfortably.
The movement from beginning to end
was an exotic. It Inflicted great and
widespread injury upon this State, and
especially upon San Francisco. It wac re-
garied elsewhere as a serious revolutionary
assault upon society, and so it appeared to
be. It was outside the limits Of American
politics, and was characterized by just the
same lawless and wild and extravagant
proceedings and propositions as have
marked the Land League doiugs in Ire
land. In fact it was a thoroughly Irish
movement, and its end is OF the same
kind The popularity of this kind of
agitation is the intense and passionate hos
Utility exhibited, not merely towards bad
laws, but towards all laws. From the W.
P. C. standpoint, as from the Land League
standpoint, everything that ran counter
to the widest and most outrageous projects
of the organization was looked upon as
"iyrannical" aud oppressive" The
right to trample upon all laws, to insult al
classes, to import the mostwanton brutality
of speech into discussion, TO make the
most truculent threats, to advocate arson
and murder and pillage and general divi-
sion Of pToperty-was assumed to be
among the inalienab!e privileges of the
freeman under all circumstances. The
theory upon which the whole movement
proceeded was m fact so entirely foreign
and strange that the American part of the
community did not know what to make of
it, and never could be sure whether it was 8
barlesque or serious business.
There is no doubt that though it
proved ultimately to be burlesque, it
had very serious consequences for time.
For not being understood, it was regarded
as evidencing the general barbarisn OF Cali
fornia society, and the world for con.
siderable period clagsed us with the South
American sham republics, as a people in
capable of self-government, fuctuatipg
between demagogue tyrants of different
but equally disreputablo parties. This was
unfortunate, aad it has had very mis-
chievous results, economically and fnan-
eislly. For nothing of this, however, did
the w. P. c. care. It's distinguishing fest
ure was its defiant responsibility. It.waa
apparently quite willing to wreck the State
for the sake CT having its divarshun. :"
It looked upon the whole proceedings
much as upon faction fight" and
cared more for hitting all the heads it saw
than for inquiring to whom they belonged.
It has been alleged sometimes that the
W. P. C. had something to- do with the
passage of the new Constitution. That,
however, is q mistake. The adoption of
the new Constitution was unhappily the
work of American voters. The w. P. G.
had not enough stamina to engage in so
grave matter as that, though it was pre-.
pared to indorse anything that overthrow
all the existing arrangements.
It has passed like a comet over the
face of State politics, and is gone. It
accomplished nothing beyond an ex-
posure of the utter humbug of all its
own propositions and pretenses. 1t made
thinking men uneasy because it was an
ugly proof Of the extent Of popular