Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-08-17
SOME THOUGHTFUL CONSIDERATIONS

ouI eSteeneu contemporary, the Sdn
Francisco Chronicle, has taken up very
commonplace role when it attempts to
break the force of Eastern comment upon
the killing of Judge Terry by .essaying to
defend the reputation of California against
the charge of lawlessness. When defects
of industrial and social condition are
pointed out it is the commonest of common
things to assume the role of champion
or swashbuckler for the locality as
sailed. Provincialism will always ap-
plaud, because to be told of our virtues
and graces fiatters our vanity, soothes our
conscienoes and gratifes our seli-compla-
cency.
We ofCalifornia have INDUCED the vice
of selflaudation until every just claim to
recognition put forth by us is fast coming
to be regarded as unreliable bcastfulness
On the same day with the killing of Terry
the Superior Judge of San Diego county
was shot, and perhaps mortally wounded,
for judicial opinion displeasing to liti-
giant in his Court. These circumstances
will give to California society the color of
lawlessness in the estimation of the world.
There is absolutely no help for it. These
and kindred occurrences are highly iniuri-
GUS to the growth of the State. They
challenge the interest only of the lawless
element They are repellent to the sense
of aw-abiding and order-loving intending
Immigrants.
The Sharon-Hill divorce trial, from the
first line of its complaint to the last tragic
act of its miserable sequences, has wrought
untold mischief to The welfare of Califor-
MIA. The whole case has been one I'M
broken scene of indecencies, unrelieved by
a single ray of sentiment, which would
present human affection or human passion
in any other aspect than that of the yilest
beastliness.
To the shame and disgrace of San Fran
cisco journalism, it must be confessed that
no feature of that judicial saturnalia was
eliminated from the accounts published in
that city The revolving details were
presented with fidelity amounting
almost to diabolism, which even assailed
the sense of smell with offensive eff1uvia.
Between the lechery of sinful old man,
and the bloody corpse of David Terry "
ing upon the floor of one of the most pub
lie eating houses, killed by public peace
officer, there is logical chain of conse-
quences, every link of which was forged
and welded by the carrion-glutting in
stincts of San Francisco journalism. The
legal warfare which has been waged under
the title of Sharon VS.. Sharon, entered the
Courts to the too evident JOY of the Jour
nalists of San Francisco. If that trial,
with all the beastliness of its revelations.
had, out of respect to common decency and
public morals, been held with closed
doors if the responsible conductors of the
Budletin, CALL Chronicle, Ala, Examiner and
Post, had been possessed OF a due respect
for the pure-minded young men and wo-
men of this State; if they had been pos
sessed of decent regard for the morals of
the community, or if, on the other hand, !
the morals Of the community had been !
strong enough to have demanded the sup
preston of these San Francisco journals as !
obscene publications, while they admitted |
the accounts Of the Sharon trial to their |
columns, the moral, commercial and in
dustrial interests of California would have
been largely benefited.
Issues growing out of that vile legal con-
test were carried into every Court of the
land, the Superior Court, the Supreme |
Court of the State and the Circuit Court of |
the United States. Judges were drawn
into this Whirlpool of nastiness 1t went
from the forum of justice to the arena of
politics; it entered into the political con-
tests of the State; it invaded the Legisla-
ture, and bills were passed so modifying
and changing the laws of the State as to
intercept the course of law suit in its
demoralizing career from one Court to
another. 1t is far more Just than severe
to say that the man who thinks these
events have had no injurious effect upon
the growth and settlement of this State is
little less than fool They have inflicted
injuries upon our accession of population,
which whole year of toys in the way of
aCalifornia on Wheels" would not repair,
and for nine-tenths of that injury, the