Los Angeles herald., 1890-10-06
A BADLY HANDICAPPED PARTY.

political contests. To these conflicts
applies the rule that all is fair in love
and in war. In all constitutional gov
ernments politics is war, and OF very
unrelenting kind, at that.
A compassionate man might find it in
his heart to pity the Republican party
of Los Angeles, and here are some of the
reasons why.
In the first place, that party for some
years past has been in absolute control
of the city and county government. Its
advent to the control of the county gov
ernment was marked by several circum-
stances of gruesome import to the tax
payers. One of the incidents of its sue
cess was the evolution of one Mason,
who was elected as assessor on the Re-
publican ticket. That ingenious gentle
man was not born with a caul but with
a conscience-an alliterative alternative
of disastrous significance to the Los An
geles taxpayer. Seeing as through a
glass darkly, he thought that the we'll
being of the state of California called for
the Taxpayers of the leading county of
the southern part OF the coulrnoiiw eaiitthh I'll
paying at least three times the ratio of
taxation paid by those of San Francisco.
Consequently, he showed UP our coun-
ty valuation to $100,0O0,0O0
We owe this delightful innovation to
the Republican party. San Francisco,
the treasure house of the Pacific slope,
scaled on the same plan, would be rated
at at least one Thousand millions of dol
lars.
But the assessors of San Francisco are
born with caul instead OF conscience.
A caul: the emblem of good luck, and
while the assessors of that fortunate
burg make some pretty high private as
sessments, or they are much belied, they
manage to overlook a terrible lot of
property which might contribute of its
usufruct to paying the expenses of the
state government. 1t is said that the
assessments of Market and Kearney
streets and Van Ness avenue in that
city ought to count up as much as the
whole realty of San Francisco as re-
turned by her assessors, born with a
caul instead of conscience.
The Republican party will be obliged,
in the forthcoming campaign, to shoul-
der Mr.. Mason's conscience. AsCaptain
Gray, of Alhambra, was one of Mason's
deputies, and has been nominated by
the Republican party to succeed that
gentleman of ''holy, pious and immortal
memory" the worthy Captain Gray will
probably have occasion to remember
this campaign. AS to the officials Of
the Republican party at large, many of
them are borne down by such weight
of forgery, peculation, malversation and
all conceivable offenses against good
morals and good government that the
average citizen stands fairly aghast.
Downright thievery would be a redeem
ing feature in many of them. Felonies
lie within felonies, as to many of them,
like the folds in the concentrc rings of
an onion. That kind of thing, when
accompanied by an unprecedented as
sessment and high rate OF taxation--a
sort Of "cross-saw" operation-is not
pleasing to taxpayer who is also
voter.
Then the government of the city has
been altogether lovely in horn. Prof
ligate expenditures and unstnted barter
ing away of the rights of the taxpayers
has been the rule. Jobbery on gigantic
scale, and the principle that chickens
need yellow corn" to lay municipal eggs,
have been the distinctive characteristics
of the sway of a council unanimously
Republican. Even pious men stop on
the street tcorners and g cuss" when they
think of the way taxes have been piled
up, and perhaps consistory of minis
ters would absolve the culprits if they
themselves were property-owners in Los
Angeles. George Washington was known
to swear at the battle of the Brandy
wine.
With such an imposing record of fra I'D
and extravaganza, in both city and
county, the gentlemen who have ac-
cepted nominations at the hands of the
late Republican convention must quake
in their boots. 1t really requires
Nemean lions nerve to 60 before the
people with such an endorsement. 1t
will be the by no means pleasing task
OF the HERALD during the month which
intervenes before the election, to give in
extenso the facts which will abundantly
support the ground plan which has been
laid in the foregoing resume. The Re
publican who can support the Repub-
lican ticket after the details of his
spoliation have been laid bare is indeed
an iron-clad partisan. That there are a
few VINO can do so we will charitably
admit, because we do not propose to
scare the unfortunate candidates of that
party into conniption fits.
That Col. Markham will be proud to be
the Corinthian capital OF this peculiar
Republican edifce of fraud seems to be
indisputable from evidence that is ma
turing, and will shortly be produced in
the columns of the HERALD.
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That Mascare1 Fraud.
1t is now known that man who de-