Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-08-19
sLICKENs FAT.
A CHIP KNOCKED FROM AN I'M.
PUDENT SHOULDER.
Did 1t Cry Aloud for Slickens p
The Bee" and Its Land
Fattening Record.

AT this time no one regards the descent
of sediment from the mountains as bene-
fetal to the valley. In the valley, at least,
unanimity is the rule regarding the dis
astrous consequences of hydraulic
mining sediment and debris that
fill our rivers, cause oyerhows, ruin
the lands adjacent, and convert once
arabic and delightful tracts into hot and
barren wastes, relieved in their monetony
of dreariness only by the growth of will
lows and cottonwood that supervene upon
any considerable stoppage of the slickens
flood. But there was a time, and not SO
very far distant, when our neighbor over
the way held that these mountain mining
deposits would fatten the land Hap
pening to advert to that fact the other day
in side item, our cratic neighbor. who
can creep out of a corner and crawl through
a crack, however well guarded the one or
small the other and possesses the art of
getting into other peoples boats with a
cool effrontery that leads it to claim the
laying of the keel and setting up of the
ribs, exclaimed:
The assertion that the Bee ever cried
for slickens, or that it ever declared slick
ems to be needed to fatten the land of the
valley, is a lie. Our contemporary has
made the assertion before, and was chal-
lenged to prove 1t. Once more we call upon
the reckless and mendacious sheet to give
quotations and dates in support of its dec
larations, or else retract the falsehood 1t
is true the Bee has said levees would be
futile, and had better be abandoned. if hy-
draulic mining should 20 on. And it says
so still"
Now we wish it distinctly understood
that in knocking the chip off of our neigh
boris shoulder, we do not question its pres
ent sincerity as an anti-slickens, anti
hydraulic mining, anti-gravel, sand, Stun
and sediment advocate. In its hot advo-
cacy of valley interests, though often mis-
directed, and indiscreet in its vituperative
weakness, it occupies position maintained
by the REcoRD-UNIoN. Time has not
afforded us opportunity for an exhaustive
search of the files of the Bee But in 1878
there was break in the leves below Sacra-
mento, and back water and slumgulion
and sand and slickens came in upon the
rich and blooming gardens south of the
city. AT that time there was made public
legislative report to the effect that hydraulic
mining debris had raised the bed of the
river at SACRAMENTO from twenty to
twenty-five leet, ana was Sl0allng Its
waters, increasing its food risks, and
threatening great injury to river navigation
and low lands. Everyone knew the cause
of the muddy river water and elevated
river bed and of the bars in the stream, as
well then as now. The Keyes Little York
slickens case was 4 vivid memory then. In
the midst of the excitement of that period.
which extended over some months
the Bee not only cried for
stickens," but howled for slickens.
1t would suck no other pap. But
the time came when it changed wet nurses,
and it has since been a very active. though
indiscreet agency, that has charged about
in the anti-slickens pen until it has come
to think it not only owns, but originated
and built it. Now, it is matter Of very
small Importance what the Bee thought or
said or did in 1878; we have known all these
years precisely what its position has been.
Since, however, the thunder of big g lie"
has been hurled at us. weSacrifice sufficient
space and time to give few extracts from
editorial expressions of the Bee made in
the flood season of 1878, simply to show
whether it cried for aickensn or asserted
that it would ''.Jdtten ire land" OF course
the full editorials are not given, but no ex-
tract is presented that is qualified or modi-
fed or explained in any particular by any
part not omitted. The quotations are in
dependent statements and complete in
themselves