Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-01-01

posed to belong more naturally to long settled
! communities we mean striking social IN
equalities
The adventurous spirit which necessarily ex
listed abnormally in a population selected by
virtue of special energy and enterprise from
all the world, has produced more remarkable
material successes here than are to be met
with usually in such new communities. The
| immense prizes won in the manipulation of
the Comstock mines, the opportunities for
daring combinations afforded by the all
pervading passion for gambling in mining
stocks, the splendid rewards of pluck, skill,
perseverance apdsagacity which have crowned
the exertions of the Pacific Railroad builders,
the frequent heavy gains of those who have
cultivated wheat on colossal scale, have
contributed, far more than the steady re-
suits of continuous application. to build up
| those gigantic fortunes whose outward mani
festations throw such an atmosphere of
lavish opulence over California society. And
| it is impossible for the candid historian to
refrain from pointing out that in many
Instances the acquisition of great wealth on
this coast has been associated, at least in the
popular belief, with the perpetration of acts
of perfdy and immortality calculated to
rankle deeply in the minds of the masses,
and above all of character to create and
| foster those communistic and socialistic
I
and aggressive an expression here.
| The idea that Communism is the last resort
of desperate restitution is complete mis-
take. As has been proved in this State. it
| fourishes most rankly in proletariat
possessing exceptionally good wages, wanting
for no substantial comforts, possessing cheer
full bank accounts, living in their own houses,
and, generally speaking, elevated above the
more sordid exigencies of life. For it has
| Ioa, abo that labor in CaliforpJo hou
only been better paid than anywhere in the
world, but that it has actually saved more of
its wage-fund. 1t is in fact the possessor of
large capital, not less than S75, 600, 600, and
it is an active agent in the loan market Not
withstanding this, or perhaps because of this,
| California labor has been remarkably tainted
with Communistic theories and has, in con-
| junction with the class of small farmers, i'm
posed upon the State an organic law which
contains many invasions of moral principles
in relation to equality of taxation and regard
for the rights of property. The great social
inequalities which have grown up are, as we
have intimated, less tolerated than they
would be IN an old country, precisely because
SO many people are here able to remember
the poverty of those who are millionaires
to-day, and because in such cases the con-
temporary who has failed to get rich always
resents the success of his neighbor as a tacit
rGnGCGlOu On HIS OWN Capacity. luGE0 are
other causes of complication and possible
future difficulty, such as the entangled con-
dition of the whole question of water rights
vital question throughout the southern
counties where irrigation is needed, and ap-
parently demanding radical reconstruction
of the law from the standpoint of interests
and conditions to which the existing statutes
were never intended to apply.
But while the rank and rapid growth of
California society has exposed it to assaults
and agitatiens resembling outwardly those
deadly movements which have so often I'M
dermined European governments, it is evil
dent to the observer that there has been
wanting in all our outbreaks and demonstra-
lions that subtle something which consti-
tutes the essential difference between reality
and imitation IN such matters. The explana-
ton of this is not far to seek. All genuine up
rfsings of a communistic and revolutionary
nature have been the final expression of phys.
ical as well as moral despair. The masses
never throw off the bonds of society until
they have become, not hguratively, but lit
orally, unbearable. It may sometimes hap
pen that the perception of the suffering does
not reach its supreme hight until the suffer
ing itself has somewhat abated, and this was
the case in the first French Revolution.
But there must always be real physical
suffering, real outrage, real breaking up of
homes, real famine and restitution, real
| grief and sorrow and affection of the deepest,
before the people can be moved to attack
the foundations of society. And none of
these Just causes of popular discomfort ex-
listed here. True there have been once or
twice short periods of commercial depression,
during which it was thought necessary to ex-
tend substantial relief to applicants at San
Francisco, but there has never been such
widespread suffering as has often been expert.
enced in many of the Eastern States because
of panics or lock-outs or strikes, and yet we
know that the worst suffering at the East has
never produced any communistic agitation.
The truth is that our demagogues have
aroused only the intellectual faculties of the
masses. They have stimulated the popular
brain, but as the popular stomach was not
empty they have caused none of the seri-
GUS effects which such appeals as they have
made might have produced if urged upon
famine wasted crowds.
| This is the secret of the innocuous outcome
of all our communistic thunderings and light
nings We have in fact been playing at rev.
olution, not capriciously, not altogether IRA
tionally but because our young society has
strongly become affected by the principal
causes Of real revolution-all save one.
There has been the exasperating inequality of
fortune. There has been the exasperatipg
monopoly of land There has been the i'm
preston or the conviction that many great
! fortunes were acquired by infamous means.
| There has been the demoralizing agency of
the stock market, so acoustoming all classes
to extreme fluctuations between wealth and
restitution that the less Intelligent might well
cease to attach much Importance to the sta
blity of the social fabric. But all these in
centives to restlessness and discomfort have
been practically impotent because of the
| oh Of tho crrir IItu 0f and
suffering which precede and cause genuine
revolutions.
The Influences which we have referred to
will, naturally, continue to act in the future
| though it remains to be seen whether they
will become more or less powerful Ii the
| Chinese question is determined in accordance
with the wishes of our working classes, there
is no reason why they should not prosper far
more than their fellows on the Atlantic
Coast. We see no probability of any imme-
diate accession of manufacturing industry,
| for neither the National nor the State laws
| at present favor such investment. The true
| interest of California is Free Trade, but it
may be long before she will be enabled to
secure that interest. The complete col
| lapse of the Comstock would perhaps be
the very best thing that could happen
to her now, for it is doubtful whether
the gambling spirit which pervades all
| ClitSocS VI tno pSoPAC utAi SfCi Jioto W any
| less drastic remedy. A chief evil of this
gambling spirit is that it leads the working
classes to invest their earnings in stocks;
that these investments go to swell the win
nings of conscienceless rogues; that the dis
honestly. acquired wealth of these rogues in
tensifes popular prejudice against all capital
and confirms popular ideas about the natural
disposition of rich men to rob poor ones
and that all this kind of thing is apt not only
| to find its way to the surface in Sand-lot ora
tory, but to seek expression more danger
ously, in Sand-lot legislation.
| Meantime there is great and almost fever
ish activity in all circles of society. The
desire to seek higher civilization is present,
but the choice of means is not always
felicitous. What can be accomplished
through Free Libraries, and multiform Liter
airy and Scientific and Social organizations,
and Societies for Mutual Aid, and Building
and Loan Associations, and Art Reunions
and Societies is done. 1t at least exercises
society somewhat and finds, in many cases.
sufficiently useless employment for hands
which, being otherwise idle, might or not be
be worse occupied. Whether the &C
tivities of California society reach the
length of stimulating the public
morals or elevating the tone of public
thought, is we fear open to doubt. Ger
tainiy there is in this community an indiffer-
ence to the sanctity of human life which
must appear shocking to the foreigner.
Certainly the ierceness of competition and
the magnitude of the prizes commended for,
| have accr,stoDa d r1S 10 uiavv MANY Factions