Los Angeles herald., 1890-07-01
pIxLKY. THE POPE AND STEVE WHITE

PIxLEY. THE POPE AND STEVE WHITE.
For some time past it has been sup
posed, in inconsiderate quarters, that
Mr.. Pixley's sleepless vigilance against
papal aggression and general ecumenical
<'cussedness' had known something OF
surcease. This was base SANDER. AS
a matter of fact, Pixley is as reliably
full of anti-papal venom as cat is OF
caterwaul, and he has nobly demon
strated this in the last issue of his jour-
nal, which arrived in Los Angeles the
other day. He devotes the opening
pages OF his energetic hebdomadal to
scathing review of the mercenary
tendencies of poor old Pope Leo, who is
generally conceded to be one OF the most
elegant old gentlemen that ever lived.
The fact is that, whatever may be
crowded into the biographies OF the
popes two or three centuries
ago, when the adumbra of ages
makes scandal prolific and frequently
ingenious, the popes, during the present
nineteenth century, have been specially
amiable and interesting characters. Be-
ginning with Plus VII and ending with
Pope Leo, the present incumbent of the
chair of Peter, they have been notably
illustrious men. Although Napoleon
instructed one of his marshals to make
Pins VII a prisoner and to carry him
into France, that warrior is on record as
expressing the opinion to the Count de
las Casas, at st Helena, that that pontiff
was the most august man he had ever
encountered.
The popes since, to everybody but Pix
ley, have been remarkably interesting
personages. There has not been a
record of one of them who murdered
his grandmother, and the man who was
Youngest and handsomest of them all,
Plus TX, entered the priesthood from
having been captain in the papal
guards, as the result of hopeless love
affair. That was the pontif whose toe
Pixley kissed. 1t is said to be matter
that can be authenticated that the
/ pope's foot had never known whatit was
to have a bunion until that i'll
timed OSCILLATION, just as Santa Monica
was never known to have stingaree
until certain well-known Los Angeles
LAWYER took a bath there. AS Bill Nye
said of his show, there was "simul-
taneousness'' about these things,
about Pixley's osculation and the
pope's bunion, and about the Los Ange-
les lawyers bath and the stingaree, that
called for the notice even of the way
farer.
There is one thing which Pixley omits
when he dwells upon the mercenary
that is that there has been large
sum accumulating in the Italian
treasury for the popes ever since Carl
baldi, of holy, pious and immortal
memory, chased Pope Plus TX. from
the Quirinal to the Vatican. This sum
amounts now to over twenty-five million
dollars, and all Pope Leo has to do is to
say, in the language Of noted Shakes
pearean character, "Come, let me clutch
thee" and even more quickly than the
dagger would have reached the hand OF
Macbeth would this large sum have
gone into the possession of Pope Leo, as
it would have gone, in lesser measure,
into that of Pope Plus, his predecessor.
But Pixley is not content with being
splenetic with the pope. He is i'm
patient with the Jesuits. These gentle
men, in the classic shades of Santa
Clara, have been presumptuous enough
to educate Steve White. We are afraid,
also, that that obstinate popular favor
ite, Barney Murphy, also draws his
deep guile from that reservoir of politi-
cal intrigue, contiguous to San Jose,
which, under Pixley's calcium light,
will probably be shown up under a
worse light than Rabelais threw upon
the Doctors OF the Sorbonne.
Through the operation OF those recon
dite, intellectual faculties, of which Pix
ley only is capable, Huntington the
illustrious Coils P. OF that ilk-is woven
into o papcl and Jesuitical intrigue,
of which our townsman, Steve White
is the objective point. 1t is
PROBABLY ~ ludtIcT VI CAJTCut
doubt as to whether Mr.. White evel
saw Mr.. Huntington. We would 60 q
double-eagle upon the proposition that
he never has, and that he will descend
to his grave with great equanimity If hi
never should. But White is Roman
Catholic, he was educated at Sants
Clara, he has the presumption to cas-
his eyes towards the United States sen
ate; and, presto, Pope Leo, Huntington
and "our own Steve" are plunged into
the meshes of conspiracy SO deep ant
dark that Drummond light, playinl
with magnifed force, could only dis
close few fringes of the great duple'
elliptic game of Machiavellian politics
And Of such is Pixley and his Argc
maui. And yet there is, here and there
& iackass 80 welded to his asininity a
not to know that such ''rot" and fustia
pretension would disgrace the intellee